1.
Barcelona
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Founded as a Roman city, in the Middle Ages Barcelona became the capital of the County of Barcelona. Barcelona has a cultural heritage and is today an important cultural centre. Particularly renowned are the works of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean is located in Barcelona, the city is known for hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics as well as world-class conferences and expositions and also many international sport tournaments. It is a cultural and economic centre in southwestern Europe, 24th in the world. In 2008 it was the fourth most economically powerful city by GDP in the European Union, in 2012 Barcelona had a GDP of $170 billion, it is leading Spain in both employment rate and GDP per capita change. In 2009 the city was ranked Europes third and one of the worlds most successful as a city brand, since 2011 Barcelona has been a leading smart city in Europe. During the Middle Ages, the city was known as Barchinona, Barçalona, Barchelonaa. Internationally, Barcelonas name is abbreviated to Barça. However, this refers only to FC Barcelona, the football club. The common abbreviated form used by locals is Barna, another common abbreviation is BCN, which is also the IATA airport code of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport. The city is referred to as the Ciutat Comtal in Catalan. The origin of the earliest settlement at the site of present-day Barcelona is unclear, the ruins of an early settlement have been excavated in the El Raval neighbourhood, including different tombs and dwellings dating to earlier than 5000 BC. The founding of Barcelona is the subject of two different legends, the first attributes the founding of the city to the mythological Hercules. In about 15 BC, the Romans redrew the town as a castrum centred on the Mons Taber, under the Romans, it was a colony with the surname of Faventia, or, in full, Colonia Faventia Julia Augusta Pia Barcino or Colonia Julia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino. It enjoyed immunity from imperial burdens, the city minted its own coins, some from the era of Galba survive. Some remaining fragments of the Roman walls have incorporated into the cathedral. The cathedral, also known as the Basilica La Seu, is said to have founded in 343
2.
Catalonia
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Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, located on the northeastern extremity of the Iberian Peninsula. It is designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy, Catalonia consists of four provinces, Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. The capital and largest city is Barcelona, the second-most populated municipality in Spain, Catalonia comprises most of the territory of the former Principality of Catalonia. It is bordered by France and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, the official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan. The eastern counties of these marches were united under the rule of the Frankish vassal the Count of Barcelona, in the later Middle Ages Catalan literature flourished. Between 1469 and 1516, the King of Aragon and the Queen of Castile married and ruled their kingdoms together, retaining all their distinct institutions, Courts, and constitutions. During the Franco-Spanish War, Catalonia revolted against a large and burdensome presence of the Royal army in its territory, within a brief period France took full control of Catalonia, at a high economic cost for Catalonia, until it was largely reconquered by the Spanish army. In the nineteenth century, Catalonia was severely affected by the Napoleonic, in the second half of the century Catalonia experienced industrialisation. As wealth from the industrial expansion grew, Catalonia saw a cultural renaissance coupled with incipient nationalism while several workers movements appeared. In 1914, the four Catalan provinces formed a Commonwealth, and with the return of democracy during the Second Spanish Republic, after the Spanish Civil War, the Francoist dictatorship enacted repressive measures, abolishing Catalan institutions and banning the official use of the Catalan language again. Since the Spanish transition to democracy, Catalonia has regained some political and cultural autonomy and is now one of the most economically dynamic communities of Spain, the origin of the name Catalunya is subject to diverse interpretations because of a lack of evidence. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine chroniclers claimed that Catalania derives from the medley of Goths with Alans. Other less plausible theories suggest, Catalunya derives from the land of castles, having evolved from the term castlà or castlan. This theory therefore suggests that the names Catalunya and Castile have a common root, the source is of Celtic origin, meaning chiefs of battle. Although the area is not known to have been occupied by Celts, the Lacetani, an Iberian tribe that lived in the area and whose name, due to the Roman influence, could have evolved by metathesis to Katelans and then Catalans. In English, Catalonia is pronounced /kætəˈloʊniə/, the native name, Catalunya, is pronounced in Central Catalan, the most widely spoken variety whose pronunciation is considered standard. The Spanish name is Cataluña, and the Aranese name is Catalonha, the first known human settlements in what is now Catalonia were at the beginning of the Middle Palaeolithic. From the next era, the Epipaleolithic or Mesolithic, important remains survive
3.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
4.
Engineering
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The term Engineering is derived from the Latin ingenium, meaning cleverness and ingeniare, meaning to contrive, devise. Engineering has existed since ancient times as humans devised fundamental inventions such as the wedge, lever, wheel, each of these inventions is essentially consistent with the modern definition of engineering. The term engineering is derived from the engineer, which itself dates back to 1390 when an engineer originally referred to a constructor of military engines. In this context, now obsolete, a referred to a military machine. Notable examples of the obsolete usage which have survived to the present day are military engineering corps, the word engine itself is of even older origin, ultimately deriving from the Latin ingenium, meaning innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever invention. The earliest civil engineer known by name is Imhotep, as one of the officials of the Pharaoh, Djosèr, he probably designed and supervised the construction of the Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara in Egypt around 2630–2611 BC. Ancient Greece developed machines in both civilian and military domains, the Antikythera mechanism, the first known mechanical computer, and the mechanical inventions of Archimedes are examples of early mechanical engineering. In the Middle Ages, the trebuchet was developed, the first steam engine was built in 1698 by Thomas Savery. The development of this gave rise to the Industrial Revolution in the coming decades. With the rise of engineering as a profession in the 18th century, similarly, in addition to military and civil engineering, the fields then known as the mechanic arts became incorporated into engineering. The inventions of Thomas Newcomen and the Scottish engineer James Watt gave rise to mechanical engineering. The development of specialized machines and machine tools during the revolution led to the rapid growth of mechanical engineering both in its birthplace Britain and abroad. John Smeaton was the first self-proclaimed civil engineer and is regarded as the father of civil engineering. He was an English civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and he was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist. Smeaton designed the third Eddystone Lighthouse where he pioneered the use of hydraulic lime and his lighthouse remained in use until 1877 and was dismantled and partially rebuilt at Plymouth Hoe where it is known as Smeatons Tower. The United States census of 1850 listed the occupation of engineer for the first time with a count of 2,000, there were fewer than 50 engineering graduates in the U. S. before 1865. In 1870 there were a dozen U. S. mechanical engineering graduates, in 1890 there were 6,000 engineers in civil, mining, mechanical and electrical. There was no chair of applied mechanism and applied mechanics established at Cambridge until 1875, the theoretical work of James Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century gave rise to the field of electronics
5.
Terrassa
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Terrassa is a Spanish city in the east central region of Catalonia, in the province of Barcelona, comarca of Vallès Occidental, of which it is the cocapital along with Sabadell. It is the site of Roman Egara, a former bishopric, the city is located in the Catalan Prelitoral depression, at the feet of the Prelitoral mountain range and the average altitude of the city is 277 meters above sea level. It is 20 and 18 kilometres from Barcelona and Montserrat respectively, the remains that have been found indicate that the area where Terrassa stands has been inhabited since prehistory. Other important remains from the Middle Ages are the cathedral, the castle of Vallparadís. Terrassa is a city of the Art nouveau network, a European network of co-operation created in 1999 for the study, preservation. The 25th September 1962, after a dry season, between 212 and 252 litres of rain per square metre fell in three hours. It caused rivers Llobregat and Besòs and their tributaries to overflow, creating a water avenue that caused 700 victims, the Vallès Occidental comarca was the most damaged. In particularly Terrassa, with 327 victims, the reason of these numbers was that building was permitted around two dry streams used to bring rain water to the Llobregat river. They met in a shape and were not properly channelized. When the streams overflowed created what was called the dead triangle, a Provincial Council was held there in 615. It was suppressed in 700, its territory being returned to the Diocese of Barcelona, the cathedral continued to exist until 718, when it was taken over during the Muslim conquest. Today the ancient Visigothic-Romanesque churches of Sant Pere de Terrassa stand on the site, suffragan Bishops of Egara Ireneo Saint Nebridio Tauro Sofronio Ilergio Eugenio Vincenzo Giovanni In 1969 the diocese was nominally restored as Titular bishopric of Egara. This episcopal complex follows the Byzantine model of antiquity, with two churches and a mausoleum, the church of Santa Maria contains outstanding works of art, and there are murals dating from the Romanesque period to the Gothic. There is also an altar dating from the 10th century and medieval. In the transept there are three Gothic altarpieces, the C-58 and C-16 also link the city with, and. The railway reached Terrassa in 1856, and nowadays two lines serve the city, the first, operated by RENFE, connects with Barcelona and Lleida, and the second, operated by FGC, with Barcelona. Recently FGC extended its line to the north of the city and this extension is known as the Terrassa Metro. Several interurban bus lines connect Terrassa with the closest cities and towns such as Sabadell, Castellar del Vallès, Martorell, Rubí, Sant Cugat del Vallès, transport inside the city is provided by 14 bus lines operated by a municipal company
6.
MareNostrum
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MareNostrum is a supercomputer in the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, the most powerful in Spain and one of seven supercomputers in the Spanish Supercomputing Network. It was presented by IBM and María Jesús San Segundo, the Spanish Minister of Education and Science. The supercomputer currently consists of 3,056 IBM DataPlex DX360M4 compute nodes, for a total of 48,896 physical Intel Sandy Bridge cores running at 2.6 Ghz, MareNostrum has 36 racks dedicated to calculations. In total, each rack has 1,344 cores and 2,688 GB of memory, each IBM iDataPlex Compute rack is composed of 84 IBM iDataPlex dx360 M4 compute nodes and 4 Mellanox 36-port Managed FDR10 IB Switches. Dx360 M4 compute nodes are grouped into a 2U Chassis, having two columns of 42 2U Chassis, the computing nodes of MareNostrum communicate primarily through a high bandwidth, low latency InfiniBand FDR10 network. The different nodes are interconnected via fibre optic cables and Mellanox 648-port FDR10 Infiniband Core Switches, in addition, there is a more traditional local area network consisting of Gigabit Ethernet adapters. MareNostrum runs SUSE Linux 11 SP3 and it occupies 120 m² and weighs 40,000 kg. The original installation was constructed in two months in San Fernando de Henares, Madrid and was installed in the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Barcelona. It has since been upgraded twice, first in 2006, the supercomputer is used in human genome research, protein research, astrophysical simulations, weather forecasting, geological or geophysical modeling, and the design of new drugs. It was booted up for the first time on 12 April 2005, mare Nostrum was the Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea. The supercomputer is housed in the deconsecrated Chapel Torre Girona at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Barcelona, LINPACK TOP500 IBMs MareNostrum page Barcelona Supercomputing Center Top 500 supercomputers Slashdot, Building The MareNostrum COTS Supercomputer MoDEL Database MareNostrum III Users guide
7.
University of Pretoria
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The University of Pretoria is a multi-campus public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. The university has grown from the original 32 students in a single late Victorian house to approximately 39,000 in 2010, the University was built on 7 suburban campuses on 1,120 hectares. The University is organised into nine faculties and a business school, established in 1920, the University of Pretoria Faculty of Veterinary Science is the second oldest veterinary school in Africa and the only veterinary school in South Africa. In 2012 the Financial Times ranked the GIBS Executive MBA 1st in Africa, in 2008 the university awarded 15. 8% of all masters and doctorate degrees in South Africa, the highest percentage in the country. The university is referred to as UP, Tuks, or Tukkies and in post-nominals the university is typically abbreviated as Pret or UP. The proposal for a university for the capital, first mooted in the Volksraad in 1889, was interrupted by the outbreak of the Anglo Boer War in 1899, in 1896 the South African School of Mines was founded in Kimberley. Eight years later, in 1904, the school was moved to Johannesburg and was renamed the Transvaal Technical Institute, the schools name changed yet again in 1906 to Transvaal University College. In 1902 after the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging, the Normal College for teacher training was established in Groenkloof, Pretoria. Instruction commenced with 32 students,4 professors and 3 lecturers in the Kya Rosa,270 Skinner Street a late Victorian residence purchased from Leo Weinthal the then owner of The Press, the first four professors were Prof H. Th. Reinink, J. Purves, D. F. du Toit Malherbe, on 17 May 1910 the Johannesburg and Pretoria campuses separated, each becoming an independent institution. The Johannesburg campus being reincorporated as the South African School of Mines and Technology, the South African School of Mines and Technology would later go on to become the University of the Witwatersrand in 1922. In 1910 the TUC acquired its own campus in the East of Pretoria, the building’s striking Cape Dutch and Neo-Romanesque architectural style was recognised in 1968 when it was declared a provincial heritage site. During this time the name for the university, Tukkies or Tuks, was derived from the Afrikaans acronym for the college i. e. Transvaalse Universiteits-Kollege. The late 1910s and early 1920s saw the establishment of faculties as the academic activities were expanded. Courses in agriculture, theology, economics and political science, veterinary science, on 10 October 1930 the University of Pretoria Private Act, No.13 of 1930 changed the name of the TUC to the University of Pretoria. The TUC originally established as an English medium institution had evolved into the only bilingual university in South Africa. The rapid increase of Afrikaans speaking students brought about an imbalance between the demographics of students and the languages of instruction, by 1931, although 65% of students were Afrikaans speaking, 68% of the classes were conducted in English. In 1932 the University Council addressed the imbalance, deciding that Afrikaans would become the medium of instruction
8.
RMIT University
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RMIT University is an Australian public research university located in Melbourne, Victoria. It was made a university by act of the Parliament of Victoria in 1992 after merging with the Phillip Institute of Technology. With an annual revenue of A$1.163 billion in 2015, the foundation campus of RMIT forms part of the Melbourne city centre and is located on the northern edge of its Hoddle Grid. It began as the Working Mens College building, on the corner of Bowen Street and La Trobe Street, in addition to its City campus, it has two radial campuses in the Melbourne metropolitan area which are located in the northern suburbs of Brunswick and Bundoora. Outside of Australia, it has a presence in Asia and Europe, in Asia, it has two branch campuses in Vietnam which are located in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and maintains teaching partnerships in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. In Europe, it has a centre in Spain located in Barcelona. RMIT is rated a five star university by Quacquarelli Symonds and it is ranked as 16th in the world for art and design in the 2016 QS World University Rankings, which makes it the top art and design school in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. It is also ranked as 16th in the top 50 universities under 50 years old by QS, the antecedent of RMIT, the Working Mens College of Melbourne, was founded by the Scottish-born grazier and politician The Hon. Francis Ormond in the 1880s. Ormond donated the sum of £5000 toward the foundation of the college and he was supported in the Victorian Parliament by Charles Pearson and in the Melbourne Trades Hall by William Murphy. The workers unions of Melbourne rallied their members to match Ormonds donation, the site for the college, on the corners of Bowen Street and La Trobe Street, opposite the Melbourne Public Library, was donated by the Victorian Government. The Working Mens College of Melbourne opened on June 4,1887, with a ceremony at the Melbourne Town Hall. It took 320 enrollments on its opening night and it opened as a night school for instruction in art, science and technology—in the words of its founder—especially to working men. Ormond was a believer in the transformative power of education and believed the college would be of great importance. In 1904, it was incorporated under the Companies Act as a private college, between the turn of the 20th century and the 1930s, it expanded over the neighbouring Old Melbourne Gaol and constructed buildings for new art, engineering and radio schools. It also made its first contribution to Australias war effort through training of returned military personnel from World War I, following a petition by students, it officially changed its name to the Melbourne Technical College in 1934. It became the higher education institution in Australia with the right of the prefix Royal along with the use of the monarchy of Englands regalia. Its name was changed to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1960. During the mid-20th century, it was restructured as a provider of higher and vocational education
