1.
Buenos Aires
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Buenos Aires is the capital and most populous city of Argentina. The city is located on the shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata. The city of Buenos Aires is neither part of Buenos Aires Province nor the Provinces capital, rather, in 1880, after decades of political infighting, Buenos Aires was federalized and removed from Buenos Aires Province. The city limits were enlarged to include the towns of Belgrano and Flores, the 1994 constitutional amendment granted the city autonomy, hence its formal name, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Its citizens first elected a chief of government in 1996, previously, Buenos Aires is considered an alpha city by the study GaWC5. Buenos Aires quality of life was ranked 81st in the world and one of the best in Latin America in 2012 and it is the most visited city in South America, and the second-most visited city of Latin America. Buenos Aires is a top tourist destination, and is known for its preserved Spanish/European-style architecture, Buenos Aires held the 1st Pan American Games in 1951 as well as hosting two venues in the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Buenos Aires will host the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics and the 2018 G20 summit, Buenos Aires is a multicultural city, being home to multiple ethnic and religious groups. Several languages are spoken in the city in addition to Spanish, contributing to its culture, the hill was known to them as Buen Ayre, as it was free of the foul smell prevalent in the old city, which is adjacent to swampland. During the siege of Cagliari, the Aragonese built a sanctuary to the Virgin Mary on top of the hill, in 1335, King Alfonso the Gentle donated the church to the Mercedarians, who built an abbey that stands to this day. In the years after that, a story circulated, claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary was retrieved from the sea after it miraculously helped to calm a storm in the Mediterranean Sea, the statue was placed in the abbey. Spanish sailors, especially Andalusians, venerated this image and frequently invoked the Fair Winds to aid them in their navigation, a sanctuary to the Virgin of Buen Ayre would be later erected in Seville. Pedro de Mendoza called the city Holy Mary of the Fair Winds, mendoza’s settlement soon came under attack by indigenous people, and was abandoned in 1541. For many years, the name was attributed to a Sancho del Campo, a second settlement was established in 1580 by Juan de Garay, who sailed down the Paraná River from Asunción. Garay preserved the name chosen by Mendoza, calling the city Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa María del Buen Aire. The short form Buenos Aires became the common usage during the 17th century, the usual abbreviation for Buenos Aires in Spanish is Bs. As. It is common as well to refer to it as B. A. or BA /ˌbiːˈeɪ/ bee-AY), while BA is used more by expats residing in the city, the locals more often use the abbreviation Baires, in one word. Seaman Juan Díaz de Solís, navigating in the name of Spain, was the first European to reach the Río de la Plata in 1516 and his expedition was cut short when he was killed during an attack by the native Charrúa tribe in what is now Uruguay
2.
Argentina
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Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a federal republic in the southern half of South America. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2, Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the second largest in Latin America, and the largest Spanish-speaking one. The country is subdivided into provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system, Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The earliest recorded presence in the area of modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The country has its roots in Spanish colonization of the region during the 16th century, Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with waves of European immigration radically reshaping its cultural. The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh wealthiest developed nation in the world by the early 20th century, Argentina retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs, and is a prominent regional power in the Southern Cone and Latin America. Argentina has the second largest economy in South America, the third-largest in Latin America and is a member of the G-15 and it is the country with the second highest Human Development Index in Latin America with a rating of very high. Because of its stability, market size and growing high-tech sector, the description of the country by the word Argentina has to be found on a Venice map in 1536. In English the name Argentina probably comes from the Spanish language, however the naming itself is not Spanish, Argentina means in Italian of silver, silver coloured, probably borrowed from the Old French adjective argentine of silver > silver coloured already mentioned in the 12th century. The French word argentine is the form of argentin and derives of argent silver with the suffix -in. The Italian naming Argentina for the country implies Argentina Terra land of silver or Argentina costa coast of silver, in Italian, the adjective or the proper noun is often used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said lArgentina. The name Argentina was probably first given by the Venitian and Genoese navigators, in Spanish and Portuguese, the words for silver are respectively plata and prata and of silver is said plateado and prateado. Argentina was first associated with the silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the La Plata Basin. The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to La Argentina, a 1602 poem by Martín del Barco Centenera describing the region, the 1826 constitution included the first use of the name Argentine Republic in legal documents. The name Argentine Confederation was also used and was formalized in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the name as Argentine Republic
3.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
4.
Government of Argentina
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The government of Argentina, within the framework of a federal system, is a presidential representative democratic republic. The President of Argentina is both head of state and head of government, Executive power is exercised by the President. Legislative power is vested in both the Executive and the National Congress, the Judiciary is independent from the Executive and from the Legislature. The President is also the Chief of the Argentine Armed Forces, the President and the Vice President are elected through universal suffrage by the nation considered as a whole. In any other case, the two leading tickets get to face a second round whose victor will be decided by a simple majority. This mechanism was not necessary in the 1995 election, when it could have first come into use, nor in the 1999 one, however, it was instrumental in the selection of Néstor Kirchner in 2003. The cabinet of ministers is appointed by the president, but is not technically part of the Executive Power, the vice-president, Gabriela Michetti, belongs to the legislative branch, since she is also the president of the Senate. President Mauricio Macri has held office since December 10,2015, the Congress consists of the Senate, presided by the Vice-President of the Nation, and the Chamber of Deputies, currently presided by Julián Domínguez, deputy for Buenos Aires province. Senators stay in office for six years, and deputies, for four, each of the Provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires elect deputies and senators directly. Deputies are representatives of the people of the Nation, while Senators represent their districts. Each district elects a number of deputies roughly proportional to their population by proportional representation. Members of both chambers are allowed indefinite re-elections, every two years, each of the 24 electoral districts elects one half of their lower chamber representatives. Districts with an odd number of Deputies elect one more or one fewer of them on each election, as for the Senators, the twenty-four districts are divided into three groups consisting of eight districts. Every two years all eight districts of one of those groups elect all their three senators, assigning two of them from the party obtains the majority, and one from the first minority party. Six years later, the group of districts will hold its next senatorial elections. Following the June 28th,2009 mid-term elections, half the Chamber of Deputies seats, among Justicialists representatives, a further 17 seats went to anti-Kirchnerites, gaining just one seat from the previous situation. The conservative Republican Proposal secured 26 seats, gaining 12 from the previous election, a further 24 seats went to smaller parties, mostly provincially oriented, but also from the center-left spectrum. Smaller, provincial parties were left with 4 seats in all and that controversial law cost the FPV16 Congressmen and 4 Senators by way of defections
5.
Inflation
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In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time resulting in a loss of value of currency. When the price rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods. Consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange. A chief measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index, usually the consumer price index. The opposite of inflation is deflation, Inflation affects economies in various positive and negative ways. Economists generally believe that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by a growth of the money supply. However, money supply growth does not necessarily cause inflation, some economists maintain that under the conditions of a liquidity trap, large monetary injections are like pushing on a string. Views on which factors determine low to moderate rates of inflation are more varied, low or moderate inflation may be attributed to fluctuations in real demand for goods and services, or changes in available supplies such as during scarcities. However, the view is that a long sustained period of inflation is caused by money supply growing faster than the rate of economic growth. Today, most economists favor a low and steady rate of inflation, the task of keeping the rate of inflation low and stable is usually given to monetary authorities. Rapid increases in quantity of the money or in the money supply have occurred in many different societies throughout history. By diluting the gold with other metals, the government could issue more coins without also needing to increase the amount of used to make them. When the cost of each coin is lowered in this way and this practice would increase the money supply but at the same time the relative value of each coin would be lowered. As the relative value of the coins becomes lower, consumers would need to give more coins in exchange for the same goods and these goods and services would experience a price increase as the value of each coin is reduced. Song Dynasty China introduced the practice of printing paper money in order to create fiat currency, during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the government spent a great deal of money fighting costly wars, and reacted by printing more money, leading to inflation. Fearing the inflation that plagued the Yuan dynasty, the Ming Dynasty initially rejected the use of paper money, historically, large infusions of gold or silver into an economy also led to inflation. This was largely caused by the influx of gold and silver from the New World into Habsburg Spain. The silver spread throughout a previously cash-starved Europe and caused widespread inflation, demographic factors also contributed to upward pressure on prices, with European population growth after depopulation caused by the Black Death pandemic
6.
Unemployment
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During periods of recession, an economy usually experiences a relatively high unemployment rate. According to International Labour Organization report, more than 200 million people globally or 6% of the workforce were without a job in 2012. There remains considerable debate regarding the causes, consequences and solutions for unemployment. Classical economics, new classical economics, and the Austrian School of economics argue that market mechanisms are reliable means of resolving unemployment, Keynesian economics emphasizes the cyclical nature of unemployment and recommends government interventions in the economy that it claims will reduce unemployment during recessions. This theory focuses on recurrent shocks that suddenly reduce aggregate demand for goods and services, Keynesian models recommend government interventions designed to increase demand for workers, these can include financial stimuli, publicly funded job creation, and expansionist monetary policies. Structural arguments emphasize causes and solutions related to disruptive technologies and globalization, Causes and solutions for frictional unemployment often address job entry threshold and wage rates. Behavioral economists highlight individual biases in decision making, and often involve problems and solutions concerning sticky wages, for centuries, experts have predicted that machines would make workers obsolete and increase unemployment. The state of being without any work both for an educated & uneducated person, for earning ones livelihood is meant by unemployment, some additional types of unemployment that are occasionally mentioned are seasonal unemployment, hardcore unemployment, and hidden unemployment. Though there have been several definitions of voluntary and involuntary unemployment in the economics literature, voluntary unemployment is attributed to the individuals decisions, whereas involuntary unemployment exists because of the socio-economic environment in which individuals operate. In these terms, much or most of frictional unemployment is voluntary, on the other hand, cyclical unemployment, structural unemployment, and classical unemployment are largely involuntary in nature. So, in practice, the distinction between voluntary and involuntary unemployment is hard to draw and this happens with cyclical unemployment, as macroeconomic forces cause microeconomic unemployment which can boomerang back and exacerbate these macroeconomic forces. Classical, or real-wage unemployment, occurs when real wages for a job are set above the market-clearing level causing the number of job-seekers to exceed the number of vacancies. On the other hand, some argue that as wages fall below a livable wage many choose to drop out of the labor market. This is especially true in countries where low-income families are supported through public welfare systems, in such cases, wages would have to be high enough to motivate people to choose employment over what they receive through public welfare. Wages below a livable wage are likely to result in lower labor market participation in above stated scenario, in addition it must be noted that consumption of goods and services is the primary driver of increased need for labor. Higher wages leads to workers having more available to consume goods. Therefore, higher wages increase general consumption and as a result need for labor increases, many economists have argued that unemployment increases with increased governmental regulation. For example, minimum wage laws raise the cost of some low-skill laborers above market equilibrium, laws restricting layoffs may make businesses less likely to hire in the first place, as hiring becomes more risky
7.
Argentine Constitution
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The Constitution of Argentina is the basic governing document of Argentina, and the primary source of existing law in Argentina. Its first version was written in 1853 by a Constitutional Assembly gathered in Santa Fe, and it was then reformed in 1860,1866,1898,1949,1957, and the current version is the reformed text of 1994. The first attempt to divide political power in Argentina was during the government created after the May Revolution, many revolutionary leaders, led by Mariano Moreno, wanted to declare independence immediately and to make a constitution in order to build an independent state. In October 1811, the Junta Grande, which succeeded the Primera Junta, enacted the Regulation for the Division of Power, nevertheless, the freedom of press and the Decree on Individual Security were accepted by November. In 1813, the General Constitutional Assembly was intended to declare a constitution, in 1819 and 1826 were declared two constitutions that eventually failed because of the disagreement between Federals and Centralists. Many other constitutional pacts existed between 1820 and 1853, the most important of them are, the Treaty of Pilar, the Treaty of the Cuadrilátero, the Federal Pact, the Palermo Protocol, and the Treaty of San Nicolás. When Rosas was defeated, in 1852, the Treaty of San Nicolás finally called the Constitutional Congress that, in Santa Fe, on May 1,1853, consequently, the Province of Buenos Aires left the Argentine Confederation until 1859. The first constitutional amendment to the original 1853 text was performed in 1860 after Buenos Aires rejoined the Argentine Confederation and it consisted of several changes to many of the original articles. Another important inclusion was the constitutional recognizing of Buenos Aires exclusive rights guaranteed by the Treaty of San Nicolás. The following reform was done in 1866 and established that exportation and importation taxes would be destined to the National Treasury indefinitely, in 1898, another minor constitutional amendment was approved. It allowed a flexible ratio for proportional apportionment in the Chamber of Deputies. During Juan Domingo Peróns government the Argentine Constitution of 1949 was successfully passed and this also was included into the principles stated on the Preamble. Also, it permitted the indefinite reelection of the president and this reform does not include 1949s, implicitly annulling it so the text was based on the 1898 one. The only changes done were to include a summary of Peróns social articles known as article 14 bis and to establish the necessity to have a Labour, in 1972, a Constitutional Amendment done by the military government led by general Alejandro A. Lanusse reformed the 1957 text. This had to last until 1977 but its application could be extended until 1981 if no Constitutional Convention in 1976 decided either to accept it or reject it definitively. This amendment was not fully applied by the government of Perón in his third term nor by his wife Isabel Perón acting as President after his death. Some changes were related to the size of Senate and one-term reelection of president and vice-president, also reduced presidential, senatorial and deputies terms all to four years. The last version of the Argentine Constitution was done by Carlos Saúl Menem in 1994 and it included many of the modifications from the 1972 amendment as the growth of the Senate size, one-term presidential reelection and reduction of its term to four years
8.
Sampling (statistics)
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Two advantages of sampling are that the cost is lower and data collection is faster than measuring the entire population. Each observation measures one or more properties of observable bodies distinguished as independent objects or individuals, in survey sampling, weights can be applied to the data to adjust for the sample design, particularly stratified sampling. Results from probability theory and statistical theory are employed to guide the practice, in business and medical research, sampling is widely used for gathering information about a population. Acceptance sampling is used to determine if a lot of material meets the governing specifications. In sampling, this includes defining the population from which our sample is drawn, a population can be defined as including all people or items with the characteristic one wishes to understand. Because there is rarely enough time or money to gather information from everyone or everything in a population. Sometimes what defines a population is obvious, in this case, the batch is the population. Although the population of interest often consists of objects, sometimes we need to sample over time, space. For the time dimension, the focus may be on periods or discrete occasions, in other cases, our population may be even less tangible. For example, Joseph Jagger studied the behaviour of roulette wheels at a casino in Monte Carlo, in this case, the population Jagger wanted to investigate was the overall behaviour of the wheel, while his sample was formed from observed results from that wheel. Similar considerations arise when taking repeated measurements of some characteristic such as the electrical conductivity of copper. This situation often arises when we seek knowledge about the system of which the observed population is an outcome. In such cases, sampling theory may treat the population as a sample from a larger superpopulation. Here the superpopulation is everybody in the country, given access to this treatment – a group which does not yet exist, note also that the population from which the sample is drawn may not be the same as the population about which we actually want information. Often there is large but not complete overlap between two groups due to frame issues etc. However, in the general case this is not usually possible or practical. There is no way to identify all rats in the set of all rats, where voting is not compulsory, there is no way to identify which people will actually vote at a forthcoming election. These imprecise populations are not amenable to sampling in any of the ways below, as a remedy, we seek a sampling frame which has the property that we can identify every single element and include any in our sample
9.
Rationalism (architecture)
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In architecture, rationalism is an architectural current which mostly developed from Italy in the 1920s-1930s. Vitruvius had claimed in his work De Architectura that architecture is a science that can be comprehended rationally and this formulation was taken up and further developed in the architectural treatises of the Renaissance. Progressive art theory of the 18th-century opposed the Baroque use of illusionism with the beauty of truth. Twentieth-century rationalism derived less from a special, unified theoretical work than from a belief that the most varied problems posed by the real world could be resolved by reason. In that respect it represented a reaction to historicism and a contrast to Art Nouveau, rational architects, following the philosophy of René Descartes emphasized geometric forms and ideal proportions. The French Louis XVI style emerged in the century with its roots in the waning interest of the Baroque period. Towards the end of the 18th century, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, a teacher at the influential École Polytechnique in Paris at the time, argued that architecture in its entirety was based in science. Other architectural theorists of the period who advanced rationalist ideas include Abbé Jean-Louis de Cordemoy, the architecture of Claude Nicholas Ledoux and Étienne-Louis Boullée typify Enlightenment rationalism, with their use of pure geometric forms, including spheres, squares, and cylinders. The term structural rationalism most often refers to a 19th-century French movement, usually associated with the theorists Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Viollet-le-Duc rejected the concept of an ideal architecture and instead saw architecture as a rational construction approach defined by the materials and purpose of the structure. The architect Eugène Train was one of the most important practitioners of this school, particularly with his educational buildings such as the Collège Chaptal, architects such as Henri Labrouste and Auguste Perret incorporated the virtues of structural rationalism throughout the 19th century in their buildings. By the early 20th century, architects such as Hendrik Petrus Berlage were exploring the idea that structure itself could create space without the need for decoration and this gave rise to modernism, which further explored this concept. More specifically, the Soviet Modernist group ASNOVA were known as the Rationalists, rational Architecture thrived in Italy from the 1920s to the 1940s. One of the first rationalist buildings was the Palazzo Gualino in Turin, built for the financier Riccardo Gualino by the architects Gino Levi-Montalcini and Giuseppe Pagano. Gruppo 7 mounted three exhibitions between 1926 and 1931, and the movement constituted itself as a body, the Movimento Italiano per lArchitettura Razionale. Pagano became editor of Casabella in 1933 together with Edoardo Persico, Pagano and Persico featured the work of the rationalists in the magazine, and its editorials urged the Italian state to adopt rationalism as its official style. The EUR features monumental buildings, many of which evocative of ancient Roman architecture, in the late 1960s, a new rationalist movement emerged in architecture, claiming inspiration from both the Enlightenment and early-20th-century rationalists. Like the earlier rationalists, the movement, known as the Tendenza, was centered in Italy, practitioners include Carlo Aymonino, Aldo Rossi, and Giorgio Grassi. The Italian design magazine Casabella featured the work of architects and theorists
10.
Consumer Price Index
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A consumer price index measures changes in the price level of market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households. The CPI is a statistical estimate constructed using the prices of a sample of items whose prices are collected periodically. It is one of several price indices calculated by most national statistical agencies, the annual percentage change in a CPI is used as a measure of inflation. A CPI can be used to index the real value of wages, salaries, pensions, for regulating prices, in most countries, the CPI is, along with the population census one of the most closely watched national economic statistics. Basic types of data that are needed to construct the CPI, price data, the price data are collected for a sample of goods and services from a sample of sales outlets in a sample of locations for a sample of times. The weighting data are estimates of the shares of the different types of expenditure in the total expenditure covered by the index, therefore, the sampling variance cannot be calculated. In any case, an estimate is required in most of the purposes for which the index is used. These indices compare prices each month with prices in the price-reference month and it takes time to assemble and process the information used for weighting which, in addition to household expenditure surveys, may include trade and tax data. Ideally, the weights would relate to the composition of expenditure during the time between the month and the current month. There is a large technical economics literature on index formulae which would approximate this, such an index would show how consumer expenditure would have to move to compensate for price changes so as to allow consumers to maintain a constant standard of living. Approximations can only be computed retrospectively, whereas the index has to appear monthly and, preferably, the coverage of the index may be limited. Saving and investment are always excluded, though the prices paid for services provided by financial intermediaries may be included along with insurance. The index reference period, usually called the year, often differs both from the weight-reference period and the price reference period. This is just a matter of rescaling the whole time-series to make the value for the index reference-period equal to 100. Current Item Price = Base Year Price × Current CPI Base Year CPI or CPI2 CPI1 = Price 2 Price 1 Where 1 is usually the comparison year, alternatively, the CPI can be performed as CPI = updated cost base period cost ×100. The updated cost is divided by that of the initial year, many but not all price indices are weighted averages using weights that sum to 1 or 100. Example, The prices of 85,000 items from 22,000 stores, and 35,000 rental units are added together and averaged. They are weighted this way, Housing,41. 4%, Food and Beverage,17. 4%, Transport,17. 0%, Medical Care,6. 9%, Other,6. 9%, Apparel,6. 0%, Entertainment,4. 4%
