1.
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
2.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, often cited as one of the worlds most prestigious universities. Researchers worked on computers, radar, and inertial guidance during World War II, post-war defense research contributed to the rapid expansion of the faculty and campus under James Killian. The current 168-acre campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1 mile along the bank of the Charles River basin. The Institute is traditionally known for its research and education in the sciences and engineering, and more recently in biology, economics, linguistics. Air Force and 6 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT, the school has a strong entrepreneurial culture, and the aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would rank as the eleventh-largest economy in the world. In 1859, a proposal was submitted to the Massachusetts General Court to use newly filled lands in Back Bay, Boston for a Conservatory of Art and Science, but the proposal failed. A charter for the incorporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rogers, a professor from the University of Virginia, wanted to establish an institution to address rapid scientific and technological advances. The Rogers Plan reflected the German research university model, emphasizing an independent faculty engaged in research, as well as instruction oriented around seminars, two days after the charter was issued, the first battle of the Civil War broke out. After a long delay through the war years, MITs first classes were held in the Mercantile Building in Boston in 1865, in 1863 under the same act, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts founded the Massachusetts Agricultural College, which developed as the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1866, the proceeds from sales went toward new buildings in the Back Bay. MIT was informally called Boston Tech, the institute adopted the European polytechnic university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date. Despite chronic financial problems, the institute saw growth in the last two decades of the 19th century under President Francis Amasa Walker. Programs in electrical, chemical, marine, and sanitary engineering were introduced, new buildings were built, the curriculum drifted to a vocational emphasis, with less focus on theoretical science. The fledgling school still suffered from chronic financial shortages which diverted the attention of the MIT leadership, during these Boston Tech years, MIT faculty and alumni rebuffed Harvard University president Charles W. Eliots repeated attempts to merge MIT with Harvard Colleges Lawrence Scientific School. There would be at least six attempts to absorb MIT into Harvard, in its cramped Back Bay location, MIT could not afford to expand its overcrowded facilities, driving a desperate search for a new campus and funding. Eventually the MIT Corporation approved an agreement to merge with Harvard, over the vehement objections of MIT faculty, students. However, a 1917 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court effectively put an end to the merger scheme, the neoclassical New Technology campus was designed by William W. Bosworth and had been funded largely by anonymous donations from a mysterious Mr. Smith, starting in 1912. In January 1920, the donor was revealed to be the industrialist George Eastman of Rochester, New York, who had invented methods of production and processing
3.
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
4.
Efficient energy use
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Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve, installing fluorescent lights, LED lights or natural skylights reduces the amount of energy required to attain the same level of illumination compared with using traditional incandescent light bulbs. Improvements in energy efficiency are generally achieved by adopting an efficient technology or production process or by application of commonly accepted methods to reduce energy losses. There are many motivations to improve energy efficiency, reducing energy use reduces energy costs and may result in a financial cost saving to consumers if the energy savings offset any additional costs of implementing an energy efficient technology. Reducing energy use is seen as a solution to the problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Energy efficiency and renewable energy are said to be the pillars of sustainable energy policy and are high priorities in the sustainable energy hierarchy. Energy efficiency has proved to be a strategy for building economies without necessarily increasing energy consumption. For example, the state of California began implementing energy-efficiency measures in the mid-1970s, including building code, during the following years, Californias energy consumption has remained approximately flat on a per capita basis while national US consumption doubled. In general, up to 75% of the electricity used in the US today could be saved with efficiency measures that cost less than the electricity itself. The same holds true for this is home and there is 78% of electricity uses D in your home-owners, in fact, researchers at the US Department of Energy and their consortium, Residential Energy Efficient Distribution Systems have found that duct efficiency may be as low as 50–70%. The US Department of Energy has stated there is potential for energy saving in the magnitude of 90 Billion kWh by increasing home energy efficiency. Other studies have emphasized this.2 percent average growth anticipated through 2020 in a business-as-usual scenario, international standards ISO17743 and ISO17742 provide a documented methodology for calculating and reporting on energy savings and energy efficiency for countries and cities. Modern appliances, such as, freezers, ovens, stoves, dishwashers, installing a clothesline will significantly reduce ones energy consumption as their dryer will be used less. Current energy efficient refrigerators, for example, use 40 percent less energy than conventional models did in 2001, in the US, the corresponding figures would be 17 billion kWh of electricity and 27,000,000,000 lb CO2. According to a 2009 study from McKinsey & Company the replacement of old appliances is one of the most efficient global measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Modern power management systems also reduce energy usage by idle appliances by turning them off or putting them into a low-energy mode after a certain time, many countries identify energy-efficient appliances using energy input labeling. The impact of energy efficiency on peak demand depends on when the appliance is used, for example, an air conditioner uses more energy during the afternoon when it is hot. Therefore, an efficient air conditioner will have a larger impact on peak demand than off-peak demand
5.
Doctor of Philosophy
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A Doctor of Philosophy is a type of doctoral degree awarded by universities in many countries. Ph. D. s are awarded for a range of programs in the sciences, engineering. The Ph. D. is a degree in many fields. The completion of a Ph. D. is often a requirement for employment as a university professor, researcher, individuals with an earned doctorate can use the title of Doctor with their name and use the post-nominal letters Ph. D. The requirements to earn a Ph. D. degree vary considerably according to the country, institution, a person who attains a doctorate of philosophy is automatically awarded the academic title of doctor. A student attaining this level may be granted a Candidate of Philosophy degree at some institutions. A Ph. D. candidate must submit a project, thesis or dissertation often consisting of a body of academic research. In many countries, a candidate must defend this work before a panel of examiners appointed by the university. Universities award other types of doctorates besides the Ph. D. such as the Doctor of Musical Arts, a degree for music performers and the Doctor of Education, in 2016, ELIA launched The Florence Principles on the Doctorate in the Arts. The Florence Principles have been endorsed are supported also by AEC, CILECT, CUMULUS, the degree is abbreviated PhD, from the Latin Philosophiae Doctor, pronounced as three separate letters. In the universities of Medieval Europe, study was organized in four faculties, the faculty of arts. All of these faculties awarded intermediate degrees and final degrees, the doctorates in the higher faculties were quite different from the current Ph. D. degree in that they were awarded for advanced scholarship, not original research. No dissertation or original work was required, only lengthy residency requirements, besides these degrees, there was the licentiate. According to Keith Allan Noble, the first doctoral degree was awarded in medieval Paris around 1150, the doctorate of philosophy developed in Germany as the terminal Teachers credential in the 17th century. Typically, upon completion, the candidate undergoes an oral examination, always public, starting in 2016, in Ukraine Doctor of Philosophy is the highest education level and the first science degree. PhD is awarded in recognition of a contribution to scientific knowledge. A PhD degree is a prerequisite for heading a university department in Ukraine, upon completion of a PhD, a PhD holder can elect to continue his studies and get a post-doctoral degree called Doctor of Sciences, which is the second and the highest science degree in Ukraine. Scandinavian countries were among the early adopters of a known as a doctorate of philosophy
6.
Systems engineering
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Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core systems engineering utilizes systems thinking principles to organize this body of knowledge, Systems engineering deals with work-processes, optimization methods, and risk management tools in such projects. Systems engineering ensures that all aspects of a project or system are considered. The systems engineering process is a process that is quite unlike a manufacturing process. A manufacturing process is focused on activities that achieve high quality outputs with minimum cost. The term systems engineering can be traced back to Bell Telephone Laboratories in the 1940s. S, the continuing evolution of systems engineering comprises the development and identification of new methods and modeling techniques. These methods aid in the comprehension and the design and development control of engineering systems as they grow more complex. Popular tools that are used in the systems engineering context were developed during these times, including USL, UML, QFD. In 1990, a society for systems engineering, the National Council on Systems Engineering, was founded by representatives from a number of U. S. corporations and organizations. NCOSE was created to address the need for improvements in engineering practices. As a result of growing involvement from systems engineers outside of the U. S. the name of the organization was changed to the International Council on Systems Engineering in 1995. Schools in several countries offer programs in systems engineering. Systems engineering signifies only an approach and, more recently, a discipline in engineering, as an approach, systems engineering is holistic and interdisciplinary in flavour. The traditional scope of engineering embraces the conception, design, development, Systems engineering, as originally conceived, falls within this scope. The Apollo program is an example of a systems engineering project. The use of the systems engineer has evolved over time to embrace a wider, more holistic concept of systems. This evolution of the definition has been a subject of ongoing controversy, traditional systems engineering was seen as a branch of engineering in the classical sense, that is, as applied only to physical system, such as space craft and aircraft. More recently, systems engineering has evolved to a take on a broader meaning especially when humans were seen as a component of a system
7.
Materials science
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The interdisciplinary field of materials science, also commonly termed materials science and engineering, involves the discovery and design of new materials, with an emphasis on solids. Materials science still incorporates elements of physics, chemistry, and engineering, as such, the field was long considered by academic institutions as a sub-field of these related fields. Materials science is a syncretic discipline hybridizing metallurgy, ceramics, solid-state physics and it is the first example of a new academic discipline emerging by fusion rather than fission. Many of the most pressing scientific problems humans currently face are due to the limits of the materials that are available, thus, breakthroughs in materials science are likely to affect the future of technology significantly. Materials scientists emphasize understanding how the history of a material influences its structure, the understanding of processing-structure-properties relationships is called the § materials paradigm. This paradigm is used to advance understanding in a variety of areas, including nanotechnology, biomaterials. Such investigations are key to understanding, for example, the causes of various accidents and incidents. The material of choice of a given era is often a defining point, phrases such as Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Steel Age are great examples. Originally deriving from the manufacture of ceramics and its putative derivative metallurgy, materials science is one of the oldest forms of engineering, modern materials science evolved directly from metallurgy, which itself evolved from mining and ceramics and the use of fire. Materials science has driven, and been driven by, the development of technologies such as rubbers, plastics, semiconductors. Before the 1960s, many materials science departments were named metallurgy departments, reflecting the 19th, a material is defined as a substance that is intended to be used for certain applications. There are a myriad of materials around us—they can be found in anything from buildings to spacecraft, Materials can generally be divided into two classes, crystalline and non-crystalline. The traditional examples of materials are metals, semiconductors, ceramics, New and advanced materials that are being developed include nanomaterials and biomaterials, etc. The basis of science involves studying the structure of materials. Once a materials scientist knows about this structure-property correlation, they can go on to study the relative performance of a material in a given application. The major determinants of the structure of a material and thus of its properties are its constituent chemical elements and these characteristics, taken together and related through the laws of thermodynamics and kinetics, govern a materials microstructure, and thus its properties. As mentioned above, structure is one of the most important components of the field of materials science, Materials science examines the structure of materials from the atomic scale, all the way up to the macro scale. Characterization is the way materials scientists examine the structure of a material, structure is studied at various levels, as detailed below
8.
Mathematics
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Mathematics is the study of topics such as quantity, structure, space, and change. There is a range of views among mathematicians and philosophers as to the exact scope, Mathematicians seek out patterns and use them to formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proof, when mathematical structures are good models of real phenomena, then mathematical reasoning can provide insight or predictions about nature. Through the use of abstraction and logic, mathematics developed from counting, calculation, measurement, practical mathematics has been a human activity from as far back as written records exist. The research required to solve mathematical problems can take years or even centuries of sustained inquiry, rigorous arguments first appeared in Greek mathematics, most notably in Euclids Elements. Galileo Galilei said, The universe cannot be read until we have learned the language and it is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth, carl Friedrich Gauss referred to mathematics as the Queen of the Sciences. Benjamin Peirce called mathematics the science that draws necessary conclusions, David Hilbert said of mathematics, We are not speaking here of arbitrariness in any sense. Mathematics is not like a game whose tasks are determined by arbitrarily stipulated rules, rather, it is a conceptual system possessing internal necessity that can only be so and by no means otherwise. Albert Einstein stated that as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, Mathematics is essential in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, finance and the social sciences. Applied mathematics has led to entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics, Mathematicians also engage in pure mathematics, or mathematics for its own sake, without having any application in mind. There is no clear line separating pure and applied mathematics, the history of mathematics can be seen as an ever-increasing series of abstractions. The earliest uses of mathematics were in trading, land measurement, painting and weaving patterns, in Babylonian mathematics elementary arithmetic first appears in the archaeological record. Numeracy pre-dated writing and numeral systems have many and diverse. Between 600 and 300 BC the Ancient Greeks began a study of mathematics in its own right with Greek mathematics. Mathematics has since been extended, and there has been a fruitful interaction between mathematics and science, to the benefit of both. Mathematical discoveries continue to be made today, the overwhelming majority of works in this ocean contain new mathematical theorems and their proofs. The word máthēma is derived from μανθάνω, while the modern Greek equivalent is μαθαίνω, in Greece, the word for mathematics came to have the narrower and more technical meaning mathematical study even in Classical times
9.
Physics
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Physics is the natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion and behavior through space and time, along with related concepts such as energy and force. One of the most fundamental disciplines, the main goal of physics is to understand how the universe behaves. Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines, perhaps the oldest through its inclusion of astronomy, Physics intersects with many interdisciplinary areas of research, such as biophysics and quantum chemistry, and the boundaries of physics are not rigidly defined. New ideas in physics often explain the mechanisms of other sciences while opening new avenues of research in areas such as mathematics. Physics also makes significant contributions through advances in new technologies that arise from theoretical breakthroughs, the United Nations named 2005 the World Year of Physics. Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, the stars and planets were often a target of worship, believed to represent their gods. While the explanations for these phenomena were often unscientific and lacking in evidence, according to Asger Aaboe, the origins of Western astronomy can be found in Mesopotamia, and all Western efforts in the exact sciences are descended from late Babylonian astronomy. The most notable innovations were in the field of optics and vision, which came from the works of many scientists like Ibn Sahl, Al-Kindi, Ibn al-Haytham, Al-Farisi and Avicenna. The most notable work was The Book of Optics, written by Ibn Al-Haitham, in which he was not only the first to disprove the ancient Greek idea about vision, but also came up with a new theory. In the book, he was also the first to study the phenomenon of the pinhole camera, many later European scholars and fellow polymaths, from Robert Grosseteste and Leonardo da Vinci to René Descartes, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, were in his debt. Indeed, the influence of Ibn al-Haythams Optics ranks alongside that of Newtons work of the same title, the translation of The Book of Optics had a huge impact on Europe. From it, later European scholars were able to build the devices as what Ibn al-Haytham did. From this, such important things as eyeglasses, magnifying glasses, telescopes, Physics became a separate science when early modern Europeans used experimental and quantitative methods to discover what are now considered to be the laws of physics. Newton also developed calculus, the study of change, which provided new mathematical methods for solving physical problems. The discovery of new laws in thermodynamics, chemistry, and electromagnetics resulted from greater research efforts during the Industrial Revolution as energy needs increased, however, inaccuracies in classical mechanics for very small objects and very high velocities led to the development of modern physics in the 20th century. Modern physics began in the early 20th century with the work of Max Planck in quantum theory, both of these theories came about due to inaccuracies in classical mechanics in certain situations. Quantum mechanics would come to be pioneered by Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, from this early work, and work in related fields, the Standard Model of particle physics was derived. Areas of mathematics in general are important to this field, such as the study of probabilities, in many ways, physics stems from ancient Greek philosophy
10.
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
