1.
Petronas Towers
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The Petronas Towers, also known as the Petronas Twin Towers, are twin skyscrapers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The buildings are a landmark of Kuala Lumpur, along with nearby Kuala Lumpur Tower, the towers were designed by Argentine architect Cesar Pelli. They chose a distinctive style to create a 21st-century icon for Kuala Lumpur. Planning on the Petronas Towers started on 1 January 1992 and included rigorous tests and simulations of wind, the construction of the superstructure commenced on 1 April 1994. The building was opened by the Prime Minister of Malaysias Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad on 1 August 1999. The twin towers were built on the site of Kuala Lumpurs race track, test boreholes found that the original construction site effectively sat on the edge of a cliff. One half of the site was decayed limestone while the half was soft rock. The entire site was moved 61 metres to allow the buildings to sit entirely on the soft rock, because of the depth of the bedrock, the buildings were built on the worlds deepest foundations. 104 concrete piles, ranging from 60 to 114 metres deep, were bored into the ground, the concrete raft foundation, comprising 13,200 cubic metres of concrete was continuously poured through a period of 54 hours for each tower. The raft is 4.6 metres thick, weighs 32,500 tonnes, the foundations were completed within 12 months by Bachy Soletanche and required massive amounts of concrete. The Petronas Towers structural system is a tube in tube design, applying a tube-structure for extreme tall buildings is a common phenomenon. The 88-floor towers are constructed largely of reinforced concrete, with a steel and glass facade designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art, a reflection of Malaysias Muslim religion. Another Islamic influence on the design is that the section of the towers is based on a Rub el Hizb. As a result of the Malaysian government specifying that the buildings be completed in six years, two construction consortiums were hired to meet the deadline, one for each tower. Tower 1, the west tower was built by a Japanese consortium led by the Hazama Corporation while Tower 2, the east tower was built by a South Korean consortium led by the Samsung C&T Corporation. Ekovest Berhad, with Tan Sri Datuk Lim Kang Hoo at its helm also played a role in the construction as well as final fit outs of the towers. Early into construction a batch of concrete failed a routine strength test causing construction to come to a complete halt, All the completed floors were tested but it was found that only one had used a bad batch and it was demolished. As a result of the failure, each new batch was tested before being poured
2.
Burj Khalifa
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The Burj Khalifa, known as the Burj Dubai before its inauguration, is a megatall skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It has a height of 828 m, and with its antenna included, it stands a total height of 829.8 m, making it the tallest building. Construction of the Burj Khalifa began in 2004, with the exterior completed 5 years later in 2009, the primary structure is reinforced concrete. The building was opened in 2010 as part of a new development called Downtown Dubai and it is designed to be the centrepiece of large-scale, mixed-use development. The decision to build the building is based on the governments decision to diversify from an oil-based economy. The building was named in honour of the ruler of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi, the building broke numerous height records, including its designation as the tallest tower in the world. Burj Khalifa was designed by Adrian Smith, then of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, whose firm designed the Willis Tower, Hyder Consulting was chosen to be the supervising engineer with NORR Group Consultants International Limited chosen to supervise the architecture of the project. The design is derived from the Islamic architecture of the region, the Y-shaped tripartite floor geometry is designed to optimize residential and hotel space. A buttressed central core and wings are used to support the height of the building, although this design was derived from Tower Palace III, the Burj Khalifa’s central core houses all vertical transportation with the exception of egress stairs within each of the wings. The structure also features a system which is designed to withstand Dubais hot summer temperatures. It contains a total of 57 elevators and 8 escalators, critical reception to Burj Khalifa has been generally positive, and the building has received many awards. However, the issues during construction were controversial, since the building was built primarily by migrant workers from South Asia with several allegations of mistreatment. Poor working conditions are common, as the result of the lack of minimum wage laws in the United Arab Emirates, several instances of suicides have been reported, which is not uncommon for migrant construction workers in Dubai despite safety precautions in place. Construction began on 6 January 2004, with the exterior of the completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010, and is part of the new 2 km2 development called Downtown Dubai at the First Interchange along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubais main business district. The towers architecture and engineering were performed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of Chicago, with Adrian Smith as chief architect, the primary contractor was Samsung C&T of South Korea. The towers construction was done by the division of Al Ghurair Investment group. The decision to build Burj Khalifa is reportedly based on the decision to diversify from an oil-based economy to one that is service
3.
Postmodern architecture
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The movement was given a doctrine by the architect and architectural theorist Robert Venturi in his 1966 book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. The style flourished from the 1980s through the 1990s, particularly in the work of Venturi, Philip Johnson, Charles Moore, in the late 1990s it divided into a multitude of new tendencies, including high-tech architecture, neo-classicism and deconstructivism. The architect and architectural historian Robert Venturi led the attack in 1966 in his book, Complexity, … I welcome the problems and exploit the uncertainties. … I like elements which are rather than pure, compromising rather than clean. … I am for messy vitality over obvious unity, … I prefer both-and to either-or, black and white, and sometimes gray, to black or white. … An architecture of complexity and contradiction must embody the difficult unity of inclusion rather than the easy unity of exclusion, Venturis second book, Learning from Las Vegas, co-authored with his wife, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, further developed his argument against modernism. He urged architects take into consideration and to celebrate the architecture in a place. He argued that ornamental and decorative elements accommodate existing needs for variety, Rossi insisted that cities be rebuilt in ways that preserved their historical fabric and local traditions. Similar ideas were and projects were put forward at the Venice Biennale in 1980, the call for a post-modern style was joined by Christian de Portzamparc in France and Ricardo Bofill in Spain, and in Japan by Arata Isozaki. Robert Venturi was both a prominent theorist of postmodernism and an architect who buildings illustrated his ideas, after studying at the American Academy in Rome, he worked in the offices of the modernists Eero Saarinen Louis Kahn until 1958, and then became a professor architecture at Yale University. One of his first buildings was the Guild House in Philadelphia and these two houses became symbols of the postmodern movement. He went on to design, in the 1960s and 1970s, Michael Graves designed two of the most prominent buildings in the postmodern style, the Portland Building and the Denver Public Library. The building has since added to the National Register of Historic Places. The most famous work of architect Charles Moore is the Piazza dItalia in New Orleans, drawing upon the Spanish Revival architecture of the city hall, Moore designed the Beverly Hills Civic Center in a mixture of Spanish Revival, Art Deco and Post-Modern styles. It includes courtyards, colonnades, promenades, and buildings, with open and semi-enclosed spaces, stairways and balconies. Philip Johnson began his career as a pure modernist, in 1935 he co-authored the famous catalog of the Museum of Modern Art exposition on the International Style, and studied with Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer at Harvard. His Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, inspired b a similar house by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became an icon of the modernist movement and he worked with Mies on another iconic modernist project, the Seagrams Building in New York City. However, his buildings in the 1970, such as IDS Center in Minneapolis and Pennzoil Place in Houston were massive, sober
4.
Xinyi District, Taipei
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Xinyi District is the seat of the Taipei City Government and Taipei City Council. Xinyi District is also considered the district of Taipei. The district is a shopping area in Taipei, anchored by a number of department stores. In addition, numerous restaurants are located in the area. During Japanese rule, Matsuyama Village covered modern day Xinyi and Songshan districts, the village was named after Matsuyama City in Japan and formed part of Shichisei District, Taihoku Prefecture. Matsuyama Village was incorporated into Taihoku City in 1938 and it was renamed Songshan District in 1945. In 1990, Songshan District was split in two as part of a city-wide reorganization, the southern half became Xinyi District while the northern half retained its name. The present border of Xinyi runs along Civic Boulevard, visitors can visit the 89th floor observatory by means of the worlds second fastest elevator. In addition, there is the Taipei 101 Mall, which features name brands like Shiatzy Chen, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Coach, Louis Vuitton, and Roots. The mall also has a Page One Bookstore on the 4th floor terrace, along with Häagen-Dazs, Barista Coffee, Dante Coffee, also, there is a large food court with McDonalds, KFC, and many more. Taipei City Hall Taipei City Hall is located on City Hall Rd, the plaza outside city hall, Citizens Square, is often used as a concert venue including the annual New Years celebrations. Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, a high-end Japanese department store, each building has a number of restaurants, featuring cuisines from around the world. Eslite Bookstore Eslite Bookstore, Taiwans premier bookstore, opened their store in the district in early 2006. Spanning over 7 floors, this bookstore is the largest in Taiwan, the bookstore has an expansive magazine collection, a floor dedicated to childrens books, a Japanese bookstore, art bookstore, Simplified Chinese book collection, and more. There are event halls where authors address their articles or topics related to their books, in addition to books, the bookstore also offers clothing and accessories, stationery, CDs, a Starbucks, an Apple retailer, and a food court. Neo19 Neo19, located on Songshou Rd. houses a number of restaurants, a health club, the restaurants at Neo 19 include Chilis, Romanos Macaroni Grill, Azabusabo, Mo-Mo-Paradise, Gloucester, and Watami. The nightclub is Room18, renowned for hosting international DJs and local celebrities, the lounge bar is BarCode, located on the 5th floor which features an open-air patio, and an exclusive VIP area, named The Den. Vieshow Cinemas With 17 screens, this megaplex is a place in Taipei to see films from all over the world
5.
Taipei
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Taipei, officially known as Taipei City, is the capital city and a special municipality of the Republic of China. Sitting at the tip of the island, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City. It is about 25 km southwest of the port city Keelung. Since 1949, Taipei has been the capital of the ROC after losing the mainland to the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, the name Taipei can refer either to the whole metropolitan area or the city proper. Taipei is the political, economic, educational, and cultural center of Taiwan, considered to be a global city, Taipei is part of a major high-tech industrial area. Railways, high-speed rail, highways, airports, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island, the city is served by two airports – Taipei Songshan and Taiwan Taoyuan. Its natural features such as Maokong, Yangmingshan, and hot springs are also known to international visitors. As the capital city, Taipei is sometimes used as a synecdoche for Taiwan, prior to the significant influx of Han Chinese immigrants, the region of Taipei Basin was mainly inhabited by the Ketagalan plains aborigines. The number of Han immigrants gradually increased in the early 18th century under Qing Dynasty rule after the government began permitting development in the area, in 1875, the northern part of the island was incorporated into the new Taipeh Prefecture. The Qing dynasty of China made Taipeh the temporary capital of Fujian-Taiwan Province in 1886 when Taiwan was separated from Fujian Province, Taipeh was formally made the provincial capital in 1894. Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895 under the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan became a colony of Imperial Japan with Taihoku as its capital, in which the city was administered under Taihoku Prefecture. Taiwans Japanese rulers embarked on a program of advanced urban planning that featured extensive railroad links. A number of Taipei landmarks and cultural institutions date from this period, following the Japanese surrender of 1945, control of Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China. In 1990 Taipei provided the backdrop for the Wild Lily student rallies that moved Taiwanese society from one-party rule to multi-party democracy, the city is today home to Taiwans democratically elected national government. The region known as the Taipei Basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century, Han Chinese mainly from Fujian Province of Qing dynasty China began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709. In 1875, the part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture. From 1875 until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Tamsui County of Taipeh Prefecture, in 1885, work commenced to create an independent Taiwan Province, and Taipei City was temporarily made the provincial capital. Taipei officially became the capital of Taiwan in 1894, all that remains from the Qing era is the north gate
6.
Taiwan
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Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbours include China to the west, Japan to the northeast, Taiwan is the most populous state that is not a member of the United Nations, and the one with the largest economy. The island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, was inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before the 17th century. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed by the Qing dynasty, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War. While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty, following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan. However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROCs loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, in the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialization, creating a stable industrial economy. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship dominated by the Kuomintang to a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage, Taiwan is the 22nd-largest economy in the world, and its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. It is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, the PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence. Under its One-China Policy the PRC refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC, the PRC has threatened the use of military force in response to any formal declaration of independence by Taiwan or if PRC leaders decide that peaceful unification is no longer possible. There are various names for the island of Taiwan in use today, the former name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means beautiful island. The name Formosa eventually replaced all others in European literature and was in use in English in the early 20th century. This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar. The modern word Taiwan is derived from this usage, which is seen in forms in Chinese historical records. Use of the current Chinese name was formalized as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture, through its rapid development, the entire Formosan mainland eventually became known as Taiwan. The official name of the state is the Republic of China and it was a member of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as Taiwan. In some contexts, especially ones from the ROC government
7.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
8.
New Taiwan dollar
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The New Taiwan dollar has been the currency of Taiwan since 1949, when it replaced the Old Taiwan dollar. Originally issued by the Bank of Taiwan, it has been issued by the Central Bank of the Republic of China since 2000, the currency code is TWD, and its common abbreviation is NT$. The Chinese term equivalent to New Taiwan dollar, 新臺幣 or 新台幣, is used only in contexts where it is necessary to avoid any ambiguity, such as banking, contracts, in common usage, the unit is typically referred to as yuán. In Taiwan, the character for yuan can be written in either of two forms, an informal 元 or a formal 圓, which are interchangeable, colloquial alternatives for the currency unit include the Mandarin kuài, meaning piece, and the Taiwanese Hokkien kho͘. In English usage the new Taiwan dollar is often abbreviated as NT, NT$, NT Dollar or NTD, subdivisions of a new Taiwan dollar are rarely used, since practically all products on the consumer market are sold in whole dollars. The New Taiwan dollar was first issued by the Bank of Taiwan on June 15,1949, the first goal of the New Taiwan dollar was to end the hyperinflation that had plagued Nationalist China due to the Chinese Civil War. After the communists captured Beijing in January 1949, the Nationalists began to retreat to Taiwan, chinas gold reserve was moved to Taiwan in February. The government then declared in the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion that dollars issued by the Bank of Taiwan would become the new currency in circulation. Even though the New Taiwan dollar was the de facto currency of Taiwan, the value of the silver yuan was decoupled from the value of silver during World War II. Many older statutes have fines and fees given in this currency, according to statute, one silver yuan is worth three New Taiwan dollars. Despite decades of inflation, this ratio has not been adjusted and this made the silver yuan a purely notational currency long ago, nearly impossible to buy, sell, or use. In July 2000, the New Taiwan dollar became Taiwans legal currency and it is no longer secondary to the silver yuan. At this time, the bank began issuing New Taiwan dollar banknotes. The exchange rate compared to the United States dollar has varied from less than ten to one in the mid-1950s, more than forty to one in the 1960s, the exchange rate as of March 2017 is 30.2 to one. The denominations of the Taiwan dollar in circulation are, Coins are minted by the Central Mint of China, both are run by the Central Bank. The NT$ 1⁄2 coin is rare because of its low value, while the NT$20 coin is rare because of the lack of willingness to promote it. As of 2010, the cost of the raw materials in a NT$ 1⁄2 coin was more than the value of the coin. 中華民國XX年 = Minguo XX. 中華民國 is also the state title Republic of China, 莫那魯道 = Mona Rudao, anti-Japanese leader at the Wushe Incident
9.
Toshiba
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Toshiba Corporation, commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Toshiba was founded in 1938 as Tokyo Shibaura Electric K. K. through the merger of Shibaura Seisaku-sho, the company name was officially changed to Toshiba Corporation in 1978. Toshiba is organized into four groupings, the Digital Products Group, the Electronic Devices Group, the Home Appliances Group and the Social Infrastructure Group. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where it is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX indices, the Osaka Securities Exchange, Toshiba is the seventh largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world. Toshiba was founded in 1939 by the merger of Shibaura Seisakusho, Shibaura Seisakusho had been founded as Tanaka Seisakusho by Tanaka Hisashige in July 1875 as Japans first manufacturer of telegraph equipment. In 1904, it was renamed Shibaura Seisakusho, Tokyo Denki was founded as Hakunetsusha in 1890 and had been Japans first producer of incandescent electric lamps. It later diversified into the manufacture of consumer products and in 1899 had been renamed Tokyo Denki. The merger of Shibaura and Tokyo Denki created a new company called Tokyo Shibaura Denki and it was soon nicknamed Toshiba, but it was not until 1978 that the company was officially renamed Toshiba Corporation. The group expanded rapidly, driven by a combination of growth and by acquisitions, buying heavy engineering. In 1977, Toshiba acquired the Brazilian company Semp, subsequently forming Semp Toshiba through the combination of the two companies South American operations, the Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania said What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million, the contract ended in 2008, ending seven years of OEM production with Orion. In December 2004, Toshiba quietly announced it would discontinue manufacturing traditional in-house cathode ray tube televisions, in 2006, Toshiba terminated production of in-house plasma TVs. To ensure its competitiveness in the flat-panel digital television and display market. Before World War II, Toshiba was a member of the Mitsui Group zaibatsu, today Toshiba is a member of the Mitsui keiretsu, and still has preferential arrangements with Mitsui Bank and the other members of the keiretsu. Membership in a keiretsu has traditionally meant loyalty, both corporate and private, to members of the keiretsu or allied keiretsu. This loyalty can extend as far as the beer the employees consume, in July 2005, BNFL confirmed it planned to sell Westinghouse Electric Company, then estimated to be worth $1.8 billion. In late 2007, Toshiba took over from Discover Card as the sponsor of the top-most screen of One Times Square in New York City and it displays the iconic 60-second New Years countdown on its screen, as well as messages, greetings, and advertisements for the company. In January 2009, Toshiba acquired the HDD business of Fujitsu, Toshiba announced on 16 May 2011, that it had agreed to acquire all of the shares of the Swiss-based advanced-power-meter maker Landis+Gyr for $2.3 billion
10.
Kone
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KONE Oyj, founded in 1910 and headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, is an international engineering and service company employing some 49,000 personnel worldwide. The firm is the 4th largest manufacturers of elevators and escalators worldwide, in addition, KONE builds and services automatic doors and gates. The company provides service for builders, developers, building owners, designers. Since 1924, KONE has been owned by one of Finlands wealthiest families, after Harald Herlin purchased the company in 1924, he served as its Chairman until 1941. Afterwards, his son, Heikki H. Herlin, took over his fathers post from 1941–1987, control of the company was then handed down to his son, Pekka Herlin, which he retained from 1987–2003. The current Chairman of KONEs Board of Directors from 2003 onwards is Antti Herlin, in the Finnish language Kone means machine or device. KONE was founded in 1910 as a subsidiary of Gottfr, strömbergs license to import Graham Brothers elevators was transferred to the new company. KONE sold just a few units before terminating the agreement in 1917. KONE, then a company with only 50 employees, started to make, six years later, in 1924, entrepreneur Harald Herlin bought KONE from Strömberg and became the new chairman of the companys Board of Directors. His son, Heikki H. Herlin, joined the company and was appointed director in 1928. His office was located in a margarine factory on Haapaniemi Street in Helsinki that KONE had bought. Heikki H. Herlin took over as KONEs president in 1932, KONEs first foreign subsidiary - AB Kone Hissar of Sweden - was established in 1957. After World War II, KONE was called upon by the Finnish government to contribute elevators, electric hoists and this program forced KONE to expand its capacity, rationalize production processes and learn to meet demanding manufacturing schedules. In the 1950s KONE introduced its first group controls, automatic doors, Heikki H. Herlin turned over the presidents duties in 1964 to his son, Pekka, who had served as administrative director since 1958. KONE opened a purpose-built elevator factory in 1966 in Hyvinkää, Finland, the following year KONE was listed on the Helsinki Exchanges and started its international expansion through the acquisition of Swedens Asea-Graham and its Norwegian and Danish affiliates. Numerous acquisitions followed during the 1970s and 1980s with only the most significant being listed here, the acquisitions of companies larger and older than KONE itself has been seen to have brought KONE respectability and lifted the company to a position of market prominence. Eventually KONE further expanded its business scope, the company became one of the worlds largest hoist and crane manufacturers as well as a producer of high-tech electronic hospital and laboratory equipment. In 1981 KONE entered the American elevator market with the acquisition of New York City based Armor Elevator Company, the company acquired Navire Cargo Gear in 1982 and International MacGregor, makers of shipboard cargo access equipment
11.
C. Y. Lee
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C. Y. Lee is a Chinese architect based in Taiwan. Born in December 30,1938 in Guangdong, Republic of China, he received his bachelors degree from National Cheng Kung University and he directed the design of Taipei 101, the worlds tallest skyscraper at the time of completion, in 2004. Taiwan Hung Kuo Building, Taipei,1989, grand 50 Tower, Kaohsiung, Taiwans tallest building from 1992 to 1993. Far Eastern Plaza I & II, Taipei,1994, tuntex Sky Tower, Kaohsiung, Taiwans tallest building from 1997 to 2004. Taipei 101, Taipei, Taiwans tallest building since 2004, W Taipei China Post & Telecommunications Center, Tianjin,1998. Yuda International Trade Center, Zhengzhou,1999, pangu 7 Star Hotel, Beijing,2008 Taipei 101 C. P. Wang – C. Y. Lees architect partner. C. Y. Lee Architects Office Official Website Emporis – List of major designs of C. Y
12.
Samsung C&T
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Samsung C&T Corporation, was founded in 1938 as a parent company of Samsung Group to engage in overseas sales operations. Since 1995, it has largely focused on global engineering and construction projects, trade and investment, fashion. Samsung C&T employs just under 13,000 people, in 1975, Samsung C&T was designated by the Korean government as the first general trading company to lead overseas sales operations. After the company merged with Samsung Construction in December 1995, Samsung C&T began engaging in business with offices in more than 50 countries. In September 2015, Samsung C&T merged with Cheil Industries, a Korean textile firm prominent in the industry that was originally acquired by Samsung Everland in December 2013. The resulting Samsung C&T focuses on fashion, food, housing, leisure, the merger has established a third pillar for the Samsung Group, adding to its electronics and financial services. Samsung C&T Engineering & Construction Group specializes in engineering, procurement, Engineering & Construction Group of Samsung C&T is best known for its role in notable skyscraper projects, including the 828-meter Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. The group is known for building the Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi. Giheung Semiconductor Complex, and Raemian Apartment Complexes, Civil projects by Samsung C&T’s Civil Infrastructure Business Unit include construction of roads, bridges, tunnels, ports, subways, and dams. Some of its most notable include the Mersey Gateway in the United Kingdom, the Riyadh Metro in Saudi Arabia. Samsung C&T’s Plant Business Unit has been involved in the construction of modern power plants—both conventional and its past projects include the UAE Nuclear Power Complex and Emal Power Plant, as well as the LNG Terminal in Singapore. In the early years, Fashion Group, formerly Cheil Industries, mainly focused on menswear and casual wear with its key clothing brands such as Galaxy, now, Fashion Group has diversified Beanpole into different lines of children’s clothing, outdoor clothing, and accessories. It has also launched new brands in womenswear and in fast fashion, Fashion Group also participates in the development of Korean fashion industry through R&D investment, sponsorship, and fund-raising events. It operates Samsung Fashion Institute and Samsung Design Net, Which is a channel to the latest industry news, trend insights, market reports, moreover, in order to support aspiring designers, Fashion Group runs Samsung Fashion Design Fund which selects award-winning designers annually. Founded in 1963, the Resort & Construction Group has expanded its business scope from land development to resort, golf, food and beverage, energy and landscaping, after fifty years, the Resort Group’s value chain extends from construction and energy to landscaping projects
13.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
14.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
15.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
16.
Bopomofo
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Zhuyin fuhao, Zhuyin or Bopomofo is a system of phonetic notation for the transcription of spoken Chinese, particularly the Mandarin dialect. The first two are traditional terms, whereas Bopomofo is the term, also used by the ISO. Consisting of 37 characters and four marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin. Zhuyin was introduced in China by the Republican Government in the 1910s and used alongside the Wade-Giles system, the Wade system was replaced by Hanyu Pinyin in 1958 by the Government of the Peoples Republic of China, and at the International Organization for Standardization in 1982. The informal name Bopomofo is derived from the first four syllables in the ordering of available syllables in Mandarin Chinese. The four Bopomofo characters that correspond to these syllables are placed first in a list of these characters. The same sequence is used by other speakers of Chinese to refer to other phonetic systems. The original formal name of the system was Guóyīn Zìmǔ and Zhùyīn Zìmǔ and it was later renamed Zhùyīn Fúhào, meaning phonetic symbols. In official documents, Zhuyin is occasionally called Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I, in English translations, the system is often also called either Chu-yin or the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols. A romanized phonetic system was released in 1984 as Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II, the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, led by Wu Zhihui from 1912 to 1913, created a system called Zhuyin Zimu, which was based on Zhang Binglins shorthand. A draft was released on July 11,1913, by the Republic of China National Ministry of Education and it was later renamed first Guoyin Zimu and then, in April 1930, Zhuyin Fuhao. The last renaming addressed fears that the system might independently replace Chinese characters. Zhuyin remains the predominant phonetic system in teaching reading and writing in school in Taiwan. It is also one of the most popular ways to enter Chinese characters into computers and smartphones, in elementary school, particularly in the lower years, Chinese characters in textbooks are often annotated with Zhuyin as ruby characters as an aid to learning. Additionally, one newspaper in Taiwan, the Mandarin Daily News. In teaching Mandarin, Taiwan institutions and some communities use Zhuyin as a learning tool. The Zhuyin characters were created by Zhang Binglin, and taken mainly from regularised forms of ancient Chinese characters, the modern readings of which contain the sound that each letter represents. It is to be noted that the first consonants are articulated from the front of the mouth to the back, /b/, /p/, /m/, /f/, /d/, /t/, /n/, Zhuyin is written in the same stroke order rule as Chinese characters
17.
Wu Chinese
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Wu is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province and bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Wu speakers, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei, occupied positions of great importance in modern Chinese culture and politics. Wu can also be found being used in Shaoxing opera, which is only in national popularity to Peking opera, as well as in the performances of the popular entertainer. Wu is also spoken in a number of diaspora communities, with significant centers of immigration originating from Shanghai, Qingtian. Suzhou has traditionally been the center of Wu and was likely the first place the distinct variety of Sinitic known as Wu developed. Suzhou dialect is considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. Due to the influence of Shanghainese, Wu as a whole is incorrectly labelled in English as simply, Shanghainese, among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech, Ngu nung nioe ngiu, Wu varieties have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghais Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities, Wu Chinese, along with Min, is also of great significance to historical linguists due to their retention of many ancient features. These two languages have proven pivotal in determining the history of the Chinese languages. More pressing concerns of the present are those of language preservation, however, many analysts believe that a stable state of diglossia will endure for at least several generations if not indefinitely. Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Romance language and it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch. They do this by affixing 話 Wo to their locations endonym, for example, 溫州話 Wēnzhōuhuà is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 xiánhuà is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, Wu, the formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature. Northern Wu, Wu typically spoken in the north of Zhejiang and it by default includes the Xuanzhou division in Anhui as well, however this division is often neglected in Northern Wu discussions. Southern Wu, Wu spoken in southern Zhejiang and periphery, comprising the Oujiang, Wuzhou, Western Wu, A term gaining in usage as a synonym for the Xuanzhou division and modeled after the previous two terms since the Xuanzhou division is less representative of Northern Wu. Shanghainese, is also a common name, used because Shanghai is the most well-known city in the Wu-speaking region. The term Shanghainese is never used by linguists to refer to anything
18.
Hakka Chinese
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Hakka is not mutually intelligible with Yue, Wu, Southern Min, Mandarin or other branches of Chinese, and itself contains a few mutually unintellegible varieties. It is most closely related to Gan and is classified as a variety of Gan. There is also a possibility that the similarities are just a result of shared areal features, Taiwan, where Hakka is the native language of a significant minority of the islands residents, is a center for the study and preservation of the language. Pronunciation differences exist between the Taiwanese Hakka dialects and Mainland Chinas Hakka dialects, even in Taiwan, two local varieties of Hakka exist. The Meixian dialect of northeast Guangdong in China has been taken as the dialect by the Peoples Republic of China. The Guangdong Provincial Education Department created a romanization of Moiyen in 1960. The name of the Hakka people who are the predominant original native speakers of the variety literally means guest families or guest people, Hak 客 means guest, and ka 家 means family. Among themselves, Hakka people variously called their language Hak-ka-fa 客家話, Hak-fa, 客話, Tu-gong-dung-fa 土廣東話, literally Native Guangdong language, and Ngai-fa 我話, My/our language. The forebears of the Hakka came from present-day Central Plains provinces of Henan and Shaanxi, the presence of many archaic features occur in modern Hakka, including final consonants -p -t -k, as are found in other modern southern Chinese varieties, but which have been lost in Mandarin. Due to the migration of its speakers, Hakka may have influenced by other language areas through which the Hakka-speaking forebears migrated. For instance, common vocabulary is found in Hakka, Min, in recent times, many She people have become Hakka speakers. A regular pattern of change can generally be detected in Hakka, as in most Chinese varieties. Some examples, Characters such as 武 or 屋, are pronounced roughly mwio and uk in Early Middle Chinese, have an initial v phoneme in Hakka, being vu and vuk in Hakka respectively. Like in Mandarin, labiodentalisation process also changed mj- to a sound in Hakka before grave vowels. Middle Chinese initial phonemes /ɲ/ of the characters 人 and 日, among others, for comparison, in Mandarin, /ɲ/ became r-, while in Cantonese, it merged with initial /j/. The initial consonant phoneme exhibited by the character 話 is pronounced f or v in Hakka, the initial consonant of 學 hɔk usually corresponds with an h approximant in Hakka and a voiceless alveo-palatal fricative in Mandarin. Hakka has as many regional dialects as there are counties with Hakka speakers as the majority, some of these Hakka dialects are not mutually intelligible with each other. Surrounding Meixian are the counties of Pingyuan, Dabu, Jiaoling, Xingning, Wuhua, each is said to have its own special phonological points of interest
19.
Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
20.
Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
21.
Southern Min
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Southern Min, or Minnan, is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in certain parts of China including southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang, and in Taiwan. The Min Nan dialects are spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien, including Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien, the Southern Min dialect group also includes Teochew, though Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Hainanese is not mutually intellgible with other Southern Min and is considered a separate branch of Min. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Pu-Xian Min, any other Min branch, Hakka, Cantonese, Shanghainese or Mandarin. Southern Min dialects are spoken in the part of Fujian. The variant spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong as well as Hainan is Hainanese and is not mutually intelligible with other Southern Min or Teochew, Hainanese is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate. Puxian Min was originally based on the Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min, eventually losing intellegility with Minnan. A forms of Southern Min spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, Southern Min is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently, there are many Southern Min speakers also among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese immigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present-day Malaysia and Singapore. In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and speak Teochew language, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Southern Min-speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with the largest group being Hokkien, despite the similarities the two groups are rarely seen as part of the same Minnan Chinese subgroups. The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou, the variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Those Southern Min variants that are known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra. The Philippines variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area, the Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou
22.
Hokkien
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Hokkien /hɒˈkiɛn/ is a group of Southern Min dialects spoken throughout Southeastern China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and by other overseas Chinese. Hokkien originated in southern Fujian, the Min-speaking province and it is closely related to Teochew, though there is limited mutual intelligibility, and is somewhat more distantly related to Hainanese and Leizhou dialect. Besides Hokkien, there are also other Min and Hakka dialects in Fujian province, the term Hokkien is etymologically derived from the Southern Min pronunciation for Fujian, the province from which the language hails. The variety is known by other terms such as the more general Min Nan or Southern Min. Fujianese and Fukienese are also used, although they are somewhat imprecise, the term Hokkien is not usually used in Mainland China or Taiwan. Conversely Hokkien is the name in Southeast Asia in both English, Chinese or other languages. Speakers of Hokkien, particularly those in Southeast Asia, typically refer to Hokkien as a dialect, people in Taiwan most often refer to Hokkien as the Taiwanese language, with Minnan and Holo also being used and 福建話 is not as common. Hokkien originated in the area of Fujian province, an important center for trade and migration. The major pole of Hokkien varieties outside of Fujian is Taiwan, the Taiwanese version mostly have origins with the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou variants, but since then, the Amoy dialect is becoming the modern prestige standard for the language. There are many Hokkien speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as in the United States, many ethnic Han Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present day Malaysia and Singapore. Many of the Hokkien dialects of this region are similar to Taiwanese and Amoynese. Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 80% of the Chinese people in the Philippines, Hokkien speakers form the largest group of overseas Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. Southern and part of western Fujian is home to four principal Hokkien dialects, Chinchew, Amoy, Chiangchew and Longyan, originating from the cities of Quanzhou, Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Longyan. As Xiamen is the city of southern Fujian, Amoy is considered the most important, or even the prestige dialect. It is a hybrid of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, same as Amoy dialect, the varieties of Hokkien spoken in Taiwan are hybrids of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, and are collectively known as Taiwanese Hokkien or just Taiwanese. Used by a majority of the population, it bears much importance from a socio-political perspective, the varieties of Hokkien in Southeast Asia originate from these dialects. The Singaporeans, Southern Malaysians and people in Indonesias Riau and surrounding islands variant is from the Quanzhou area and they speak a distinct form of Quanzhou Hokkien called Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien. Among ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Penang, and other states in Northern Malaysia and Medan, with areas in North Sumatra, Indonesia
23.
Taiwanese Romanization System
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The Taiwanese Romanization System is a transcription system for Taiwanese Hokkien. It is derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī and since 2006 has been promoted by Taiwans Ministry of Education. It is nearly identical to Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet Romanization for Hakka apart from using ts tsh j instead of c ch j for the fricatives /ts tsʰ dz/, Taiwanese Romanization System uses 16 basic Latin letters,7 digraphs and a trigraph. In addition, it uses 6 diacritics to represent tones, nn is only used after a vowel to express nasalization, so it has no capital letter. Palatalization occurs when J, S, Ts, Tsh followed by i, so Ji, Si, Tsi, of the 10 unused basic Latin letters, R is sometimes used to express dialectal vowels, while the others are only used in loanwords. O pronounced ㄜ in general dialect in Kaohsiung and Tainan, ㄛ in Taipei, -nn forms the nasal vowels There is also syllabic m and ng. ing pronounced, ik pronounced. A hyphen links elements of a compound word, a double hyphen indicates that the following syllable has a neutral tone and therefore that the preceding syllable does not undergo tone sandhi. 臺灣閩南語羅馬拼音及其發音學習網, Taiwanese Romanization System learning site by Ministry of Education, Taiwan
24.
Eastern Min
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Eastern Min, or Min Dong, is a branch of the Min group of varieties of Chinese. The prestige form and most-cited representative form is the Fuzhou dialect, Eastern Min varieties are mainly spoken in the eastern part of Fujian Province in Peoples Republic of China, in and near the cities of Fuzhou and Ningde. They are also encountered as the mother tongue on the Matsu Islands. Additionally, the inhabitants of Taishun and Cangnan to the north of Fujian in Zhejiang also speak Eastern Min varieties, Eastern Min generally coexists with the official standard Chinese in all these areas. Cities with high concentrations of immigrants include New York City, especially Little Fuzhou, Manhattan, Sunset Park, Brooklyn. They are also found in various Chinatown communities in Europe, including London, Paris, Chinese communities within Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Japan as well as Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia have significant populations of Eastern Min speakers. Fuzhou communities can also be found in Sitiawan, Perak and Yong Peng, the Eastern Min group is conventionally divided into three branches, Houguan dialect subgroup, including the Fuzhou dialect, Fuqing dialect, Lianjiang dialect and the dialect of the Matsu Islands. Funing dialect subgroup, including the Ningde dialect and the Fuan dialect, manjiang dialect, spoken in parts of Taishun and Cangnan, Wenzhou, Zhejiang. Besides these three branches, some islands in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong were classified as Eastern Min. Zhongshan Min is a group of Min varieties spoken in the Zhongshan county of Guangdong, according to Nicholas Bodman, only the Longdu dialect and Nanlang dialect belong to the Eastern Min group, while the Sanxiang dialect belongs to Southern Min. A preliminary report on the dialects of Mintung, the Gutian dialect of Min Dong District
25.
Fuzhou dialect
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The Fuzhou dialect, also Fuzhounese, Foochow or Hok-chiu, is the prestige variety of the Eastern Min branch of Min Chinese spoken mainly in eastern Fujian province. Like many other varieties of Chinese, the Fuzhou dialect is dominated by monosyllabic morphemes which carry lexical tones, while the Eastern Min branch that it belongs to is closer to Southern Min than to other Sinitic branches such as Mandarin or Hakka, they are still not mutually intelligible. Centered in Fuzhou City, the Fuzhou dialect covers eleven cities and counties, Fuzhou City Proper, Pingnan, Gutian, Luoyuan, Minqing, Lianjiang, Minhou, Changle, Yongtai, Fuqing and Pingtan. It is also the local language in many northern and middle Fujian cities and counties such as Nanping, Shaowu, Shunchang, Sanming. Fuzhou dialect is widely spoken in some regions abroad, especially in Southeastern Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. The city of Sibu in Malaysia is called New Fuzhou due to the influx of immigrants there in the late 19th century and early 1900s. Similarly, quite a significant number of Fuzhounese have emigrated to Singapore, Taiwan, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, in older works, the variety is called Foochow dialect, based on the Chinese postal romanization of Fuzhou. In Chinese, it is sometimes called 福州語, native speakers also refer to it as Bàng-uâ, meaning the everyday language. After the Qin Dynasty conquered the Minyue kingdom of southeast China in 110 BC and it once served to standardize the language and is still widely quoted as an authoritative reference book in modern academic research in Min Chinese phonology. In 1842, Fuzhou was open to Westerners as a treaty port after the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, but due to the language barrier, however, the first Christian missionary base in this city did not take place without difficulties. In order to convert Fuzhou people, those missionaries found it necessary to make a careful study of the Fuzhou dialect. Their most notable works are listed below,1856, M. C, White, The Chinese language spoken at Fuh Chau 1870, R. S. Maclay & C. C. Baldwin, An alphabetic dictionary of the Chinese language in the Foochow dialect 1871, baldwin, Manual of the Foochow dialect 1891, T. B. Adam, An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect 1893, Charles Hartwell, Three Character Classic of Gospel in the Foochow Colloquial 1898, baldwin, An Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language of the Foochow Dialect, 2nd edition 1905, T. B. Adam, An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, 2nd edition]1906, The Foochow translation of the complete Bible 1923, T. B. Adam & L. P. Peet, An English-Chinese dictionary of the Foochow dialect, 2nd edition 1929, one of their most famous works was the Japanese-Chinese Translation, Fuzhou Dialect published in 1940 in Taipei, in which katakana was used to represent Fuzhou pronunciation. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Fuzhou society had been largely monolingual, but for decades the Chinese government has discouraged the use of the vernacular in school education and in media, so the number of Mandarin speakers has been greatly boosted. Recent reports indicate that less than 50% of young people in Fuzhou are able to speak Fuzhou dialect, in Mainland China, the Fuzhou dialect has been officially listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage and promotion work is being systematically carried out to preserve its use
26.
Foochow Romanized
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Foochow Romanized, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê or Hók-ciŭ-uâ Lò̤-mā-cê, is a Latin alphabet for the Fuzhou dialect of Eastern Min adopted in the middle of 19th century by Western missionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized in the 1890s, Foochow Romanized was mainly used inside of Church circles, and was taught in some Mission Schools in Fuzhou. But unlike its counterpart Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Hokkien, even in its prime days Foochow Romanized was by no means universally understood by Christians. After Fuzhou became one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing at the end of First Opium War, faced with widespread illiteracy, they developed Latin alphabets for Fuzhou dialect. The first attempt in romanizing Fuzhou dialect was made by the American Methodist M. C, white, who borrowed a system of orthography known as the System of Sir William Jones. In this system,14 initials were designed according to their voicing. ⟨p⟩, ⟨t⟩, ⟨k⟩ and ⟨ch⟩ stand for, and, besides the default five vowels of Latin alphabet, four diacritic-marked letters ⟨è⟩, ⟨ë⟩, ⟨ò⟩ and ⟨ü⟩ were also introduced, representing, and, respectively. This system is described at length in Whites linguistic work The Chinese Language Spoken at Fuh Chau, the most significant change was made for the plosive consonants, where the spiritus lenis ⟨᾿⟩ of the aspirated initials was removed and the letters ⟨b⟩, ⟨d⟩ and ⟨g⟩ substituted for and. In the aspect of vowels, ⟨è⟩, ⟨ë⟩, ⟨ò⟩ and ⟨ü⟩ were replaced by ⟨a̤⟩, ⟨e̤⟩, ⟨o̤⟩, since the diacritical marks were all shifted to underneath the vowels, this left room above the vowels which was occupied by the newly introduced tonal marks. Thus Foochow Romanized avoids the potentially awkward diacritic stacking seen for instance in the Vietnamese script, the sample characters are taken from the Qi Lin Bayin, a renowned phonology book about the Fuzhou dialect written in the Qing Dynasty. The pronunciations are recorded in standard IPA symbols, note that Foochow Romanized uses the breve, not the caron, to indicate Yīnpíng and Yángrù tones of Fuzhou dialect. Everything You Want To Know About Foochow Romanized Gô Iók Cŭ, The Old Testament, sĭng Iók Cŭ, The New Testament, in Foochow Romanized. An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, by T. B, adam,1905 Learning material of Foochow Romanized at the Wayback Machine
27.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
28.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
29.
Landmark
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A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern use, the term can also be applied to structures or features. In old English the word landmearc was used to describe a set up to mark the boundaries of a kingdom, estate. 1560, this understanding of landmark was replaced by a general one. A landmark became an object in a landscape. A landmark literally meant a geographic feature used by explorers and others to find their way back or through an area. For example, the Table Mountain near Cape Town, South Africa is used as the landmark to sailors to navigate around southern tip of Africa during the Age of Exploration. Artificial structures are sometimes built to assist sailors in naval navigation. The Lighthouse of Alexandria and Colossus of Rhodes are ancient structures built to lead ships to the port, in modern usage, a landmark includes anything that is easily recognizable, such as a monument, building, or other structure. In American English it is the term used to designate places that might be of interest to tourists due to notable physical features or historical significance. Landmarks in the British English sense are often used for casual navigation and this is done in American English as well. In urban studies as well as in geography, a landmark is furthermore defined as a point of reference that helps orienting in a familiar or unfamiliar environment. Landmarks are often used in verbal route instructions and as such an object of study by linguists as well as in fields of study. Landmarks are usually classified as either natural landmarks or man-made landmarks, a variant is a seamark or daymark, a structure usually built intentionally to aid sailors navigating featureless coasts. Natural landmarks can be characteristic features, such as mountains or plateaus, examples of natural landmarks are Table Mountain in South Africa, Mount Ararat in Turkey, Uluru in Australia, Mount Fuji in Japan and Grand Canyon in the United States. Trees might also serve as landmarks, such as jubilee oaks or conifers. Some landmark trees may be nicknamed, examples being Queens Oak, church spires and mosques minarets are often very tall and visible from many miles around, thus often serve as built landmarks. Also town hall towers and belfries often have a landmark character, cultural heritage management National landmark National symbol Media related to Landmarks at Wikimedia Commons
30.
Skyscraper
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A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building having multiple floors. When the term was used in the 1880s it described a building of 10 to 20 floors. Mostly designed for office, commercial and residential uses, a skyscraper can also be called a high-rise, for buildings above a height of 300 m, the term supertall can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m are classified as megatall. One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls and these curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete. Modern skyscrapers walls are not load-bearing, and most skyscrapers are characterized by surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a structure, and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure, and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, a relatively big building may be considered a skyscraper if it protrudes well above its built environment and changes the overall skyline. The maximum height of structures has progressed historically with building methods and technologies, the Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building in the world. High-rise buildings are considered shorter than skyscrapers, the first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois in 1885. Even the scholars making the argument find it to be purely academic and this definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicagos Monadnock Building. What is the characteristic of the tall office building. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and it must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. Some structural engineers define a highrise as any vertical construction for which wind is a significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, the word skyscraper often carries a connotation of pride and achievement. A loose convention of some in the United States and Europe draws the limit of a skyscraper at 150 m or 490 ft. The tallest building in ancient times was the 146 m Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt and it was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 14th century AD Lincoln Cathedral being conjectured by many to have exceeded it
31.
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
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The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. Its stated mission is to study and report on all aspects of the planning, design, the Council was founded at Lehigh University in 1969 by Lynn S. Beedle, where its office remained until October 2003 when it moved to the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. The CTBUH ranks the height of buildings using three different methods, Height to architectural top, This is the criterion under which the CTBUH ranks the height of buildings. Heights are measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the top of the building, inclusive of spires but excluding items such as flagpoles and antennae. Highest occupied floor, Height to the level of the highest floor that is occupied by residents. Height to tip, Height to the highest point of the building, including antennae, flagpoles, a category measuring to the top of the roof was removed from the ranking criteria in November 2009. This became the CTBUH official definition of a building’s completion, the CTBUH maintains an extensive database of the tallest buildings in the world, organized by various categories. Buildings under construction are included, although not ranked until completion. The CTBUH also produces an annual list of the ten tallest buildings completed in that particular year. Second on the 2008 list was the 363-metre Almas Tower in Dubai, third was the Minsheng Bank Building in Wuhan which stands at 331 metres, whilst fourth was The Address Downtown Burj Dubai. All in all, six of the ten tallest buildings completed in 2008 are located in Asia, the CTBUH also hosts annual conferences and a World Congress every three to five years. The most recent World Congress was held in Shanghai between 19 and 21 September 2012, the next World Congress will be held in Shanghai between 16 and 19 September 2014. The CTBUH also bestows Tall Building Awards each year, with four awards to the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Among these four regional awards, one is given the Best Tall Building Award Overall, there are also two lifetime achievement awards. Starting in 2010, these awards are presented at a symposium, in 2012 the CTBUH added two new awards for Innovation and Performance. In addition to the newsletter and daily updated global news archive. The Journal includes peer-reviewed technical papers, in-depth project case studies, book reviews, interviews with prominent persons in the building industry. The CTBUH also publishes guidebooks, reference manuals, and monographs related to the building industry
32.
Dubai
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Dubai is the largest and most populous city in the United Arab Emirates. It is located on the southeast coast of the Persian Gulf and is the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are the only two emirates to have veto power over critical matters of national importance in the countrys legislature. The city of Dubai is located on the northern coastline. Dubai will host World Expo 2020, Dubai has emerged as a global city and business hub of the Middle East. It is also a transport hub for passengers and cargo. By the 1960s, Dubais economy was based on revenues from trade and, to an extent, oil exploration concessions. Oil revenue first started to flow in 1969, Dubais oil revenue helped accelerate the early development of the city, but its reserves are limited and production levels are low, today, less than 5% of the emirates revenue comes from oil. The emirates Western-style model of business drives its economy with the main revenues now coming from tourism, aviation, real estate, Dubai was recently named the best destination for Muslim travellers by Salam Standard. Dubai has recently attracted attention through many innovative large construction projects and sports events. The city has become iconic for its skyscrapers and high-rise buildings, in particular the worlds tallest building, Dubai has been criticised for human rights violations concerning the citys largely South Asian and Filipino workforce. As of 2012, Dubai was the 22nd most expensive city in the world, in 2014, Dubais hotel rooms were rated as the second most expensive in the world, after Geneva. Dubai was rated as one of the best places to live in the Middle East by U. S. global consulting firm Mercer, Many theories have been proposed as to the origin of the word Dubai. One theory suggests the word was used to describe the souq, another theory states that the name came from a word meaning money, as people from Dubai were commonly believed to be rich due to the thriving trading centre of the location. An Arabic proverb says Daba Dubai, meaning They came with a lot of money, according to Fedel Handhal, a scholar on the UAEs history and culture, the word Dubai may have come from the word daba, referring to the slow flow of Dubai Creek inland. The poet and scholar Ahmad Mohammad Obaid traces it to the same word, an inhabitant or native of the city is a Dubaian. Although stone tools have been found at archaeological sites, little is known about the UAEs early inhabitants as only a few settlements have been found. Many ancient towns in the area were trading centres between the Eastern and Western worlds, the remnants of an ancient mangrove swamp, dated at 7000 BC, were discovered during the construction of sewer lines near Dubai Internet City. The area was covered with sand about 5,000 years ago as the coast retreated inland, pre-Islamic ceramics have been found from the 3rd and 4th centuries
33.
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
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Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is one of the most popular green building certification programs used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U. S. LEED also has grown from six volunteers on one committee to 119,924 staff, volunteers, LEED standards have been applied to approximately 83,452 registered and certified LEED projects worldwide, covering around 13.8 billion square feet. Many U. S. federal agencies and states and local governments require or reward LEED certification, however, four states have effectively banned the use of LEED in new public buildings, preferring other industry standards that the USGBC considers too lax. Proposals to modify the LEED standards are offered and publicly reviewed by USGBCs member organizations, GBCI also certifies projects pursuing LEED. LEED has evolved since 1998 to more accurately represent and incorporate emerging green building technologies, the pilot version, LEED New Construction v1.0, led to LEED NCv2.0, LEED NCv2.2 in 2005, and LEED2009 in 2009. LEED v4 was introduced in November,2013, until October 31,2016, new projects may choose between LEED2009 and LEED v4. New projects registering after October 31,2016 must use LEED v4, LEED2009 encompasses ten rating systems for the design, construction and operation of buildings, homes and neighborhoods. Five overarching categories correspond to the available under the LEED professional program. Up to 10 additional points may be earned, four points may be received for Regional Priority Credits. Its owner must share data on the energy and water use for five years after occupancy or date of certification. Each of the categories also have mandatory measures in each category. The weighting process has three steps, A collection of buildings are used to estimate the environmental impacts of any building seeking LEED certification in a designated rating scheme. NIST weightings are used to judge the importance of these impacts in each category. Data regarding actual impacts on environmental and human health are used to assign points to individual categories and measures and this system results in a weighted average for each rating scheme based upon actual impacts and the relative importance of those impacts to human health and environmental quality. The LEED council also appears to have assigned credit and measure weighting based upon the market implications of point allocation, in 2003, the Canada Green Building Council received permission to create LEED Canada-NC v1.0, which was based upon LEED-NC2.0. Many buildings in Canada are LEED certified in part due to their Rainwater harvesting practices, LEED certification is granted by the Green Building Certification Institute, which handles the third-party verification of a projects compliance with the LEED requirements. The certification process for design teams is made up of two applications, one including design credits, and one including construction credits. All of the LEED credits in each rating system are assigned to either the design application or the construction application, the design credits include those that are the purview of the architect and the engineer, and are documented in the official construction drawings
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Green building
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In other words, green building design involves finding the balance between homebuilding and the sustainable environment. This requires close cooperation of the team, the architects, the engineers. The Green Building practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, other certificates system that confirms the sustainability of buildings is the British BREEAM for buildings and large scale developments. Other related topics include sustainable design and green architecture, Sustainability may be defined as meeting the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Although some green building programs dont address the issue of the existing homes, others do. Green construction principles can easily be applied to work as well as new construction. A2009 report by the U. S, general Services Administration found 12 sustainably-designed buildings that cost less to operate and have excellent energy performance. In addition, occupants were overall more satisfied with the building than those in commercial buildings. These are eco-friendly buildings. Globally buildings are responsible for a share of energy, electricity, water. The building sector has the greatest potential to deliver significant cuts in emissions at little or no cost, buildings account for 18% of global emissions today, or the equivalent of 9 billion tonnes of CO2 annually. Since construction almost always degrades a building site, not building at all is preferable to green building, the second rule is that every building should be as small as possible. The third rule is not to contribute to sprawl, even if the most energy-efficient, environmentally sound methods are used in design, buildings account for a large amount of land. According to the National Resources Inventory, approximately 107 million acres of land in the United States are developed, the concept of sustainable development can be traced to the energy crisis and environmental pollution concerns of the 1960s and 1970s. The Rachel Carson book, “Silent Spring”, published in 1962, is considered to be one of the first initial efforts to describe sustainable development as related to green building. The green building movement in the U. S. originated from the need and desire for energy efficient. There are a number of motives for building green, including environmental, economic, however, modern sustainability initiatives call for an integrated and synergistic design to both new construction and in the retrofitting of existing structures. Also known as design, this approach integrates the building life-cycle with each green practice employed with a design-purpose to create a synergy among the practices used. Green building brings together a vast array of practices, techniques, the essence of green building is an optimization of one or more of these principles
35.
Shanghai Tower
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The Shanghai Tower is a 632-metre, 128-story megatall skyscraper in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai. As of 2015, it is the worlds tallest building, by height to highest usable floor and it also has the worlds highest observation deck within a building or structure, and the worlds fastest elevators at a top speed of 20.5 m/s. It is the worlds second-tallest building by height to architectural top and its tiered construction, designed for high energy efficiency, provides nine separate zones divided between office, retail and leisure use. Construction work on the began in November 2008 and topped out on 3 August 2013. The exterior was completed in summer 2015, and work was considered complete in September 2015, although the building was originally scheduled to open to the public in November 2014, the actual public-use date slipped considerably. The observation deck was opened to visitors in July 2016, the period from July through September 2016 was termed a test run or commissioning period, planning models for the Lujiazui financial district dating back to 1993 show plans for a close group of three supertall skyscrapers. The first of these, the Jin Mao Tower, was completed in 1999, the Shanghai Tower is owned by Yeti Construction and Development, a consortium of state-owned development companies which includes Shanghai Chengtou Corp. Shanghai Lujiazui Finance & Trade Zone Development Co. and Shanghai Construction Group, funding for the towers construction was obtained from shareholders, bank loans and Shanghais municipal government. The tower had a construction cost of US$2.4 billion. The Shanghai Tower was designed by the American architectural firm Gensler, the tower takes the form of nine cylindrical buildings stacked atop each other, totalling 127 floors, all enclosed by the inner layer of the glass façade. Between that and the layer, which twists as it rises. Each of these nine areas has its own atrium, featuring gardens, cafés, restaurants and retail space, both layers of the façade are transparent, and retail and event spaces are provided at the towers base. The tower is able to accommodate as many as 16,000 people on a daily basis, the Shanghai Tower joins the Jin Mao Tower and SWFC to form the worlds first adjacent grouping of three supertall buildings. The tower will also incorporate a museum, the towers sub-levels provide parking spaces for 1,800 vehicles. The vertical transportation system for Shanghai Tower was designed by an American consultant, access to the hotel is through a fifth sky lobby at levels 101/102. Each two-level sky lobby serves as a community center for that zone of the building, with such amenities as food and beverage and these three shuttle elevators are supplemented by three fireman’s elevators which will significantly increase the visitor throughput to the observation deck at peak usage periods. In September 2011, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. announced that it had won a bid to construct the Shanghai Towers elevator system, Mitsubishi supplied all of the towers 149 elevators, including three high-speed models capable of travelling at 1,080 metres per minute. When they were installed, they were the worlds fastest single-deck elevators, the building also broke the record for the worlds furthest-travelling single elevator, at 578.5 metres, surpassing the record held by the Burj Khalifa
36.
Architecture
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Architecture is both the process and the product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings and other physical structures. Architectural works, in the form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements, Architecture can mean, A general term to describe buildings and other physical structures. The art and science of designing buildings and nonbuilding structures, the style of design and method of construction of buildings and other physical structures. A unifying or coherent form or structure Knowledge of art, science, technology, the design activity of the architect, from the macro-level to the micro-level. The practice of the architect, where architecture means offering or rendering services in connection with the design and construction of buildings. The earliest surviving work on the subject of architecture is De architectura. According to Vitruvius, a building should satisfy the three principles of firmitas, utilitas, venustas, commonly known by the original translation – firmness, commodity. An equivalent in modern English would be, Durability – a building should stand up robustly, utility – it should be suitable for the purposes for which it is used. Beauty – it should be aesthetically pleasing, according to Vitruvius, the architect should strive to fulfill each of these three attributes as well as possible. Leon Battista Alberti, who elaborates on the ideas of Vitruvius in his treatise, De Re Aedificatoria, saw beauty primarily as a matter of proportion, for Alberti, the rules of proportion were those that governed the idealised human figure, the Golden mean. The most important aspect of beauty was, therefore, an inherent part of an object, rather than something applied superficially, Gothic architecture, Pugin believed, was the only true Christian form of architecture. The 19th-century English art critic, John Ruskin, in his Seven Lamps of Architecture, Architecture was the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by men. That the sight of them contributes to his health, power. For Ruskin, the aesthetic was of overriding significance and his work goes on to state that a building is not truly a work of architecture unless it is in some way adorned. For Ruskin, a well-constructed, well-proportioned, functional building needed string courses or rustication, but suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say, This is beautiful, le Corbusiers contemporary Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. The notable 19th-century architect of skyscrapers, Louis Sullivan, promoted an overriding precept to architectural design, function came to be seen as encompassing all criteria of the use, perception and enjoyment of a building, not only practical but also aesthetic, psychological and cultural
37.
Postmodernism
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Postmodernism describes a broad movement that developed in the mid to late 20th century across philosophy, the arts, architecture and criticism which marked a departure from modernism. Accordingly, postmodern thought is characterized by tendencies to epistemological and moral relativism, pluralism, irreverence. The term postmodernism has been applied both to the era following modernity, and to a host of movements within that era that reacted against tendencies in modernism. Postmodernism includes skeptical critical interpretations of culture, literature, art, philosophy, history, linguistics, economics, architecture, fiction, feminist theory, and literary criticism. Postmodernism is often associated with schools of such as deconstruction and post-structuralism, as well as philosophers such as Jean-François Lyotard. The term postmodern was first used around the 1880s, John Watkins Chapman suggested a Postmodern style of painting as a way to depart from French Impressionism. In 1921 and 1925, postmodernism had been used to new forms of art. In 1942 H. R. Hays described it as a new literary form, however, as a general theory for a historical movement it was first used in 1939 by Arnold J. Toynbee, Our own Post-Modern Age has been inaugurated by the general war of 1914–1918. Peter Drucker suggested the transformation into a post modern world happened between 1937 and 1957, post-structuralism resulted similarly to postmodernism by following a time of structuralism. It is characterized by new ways of thinking through structuralism, contrary to the original form, postmodernist describes part of a movement, Postmodern places it in the period of time since the 1950s, making it a part of contemporary history. Martin Heidegger rejected the philosophical basis of the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity, instead of resisting the admission of this paradox in the search for understanding, Heidegger requires that we embrace it through an active process of elucidation he called the hermeneutic circle. He stressed the historicity and cultural construction of concepts while simultaneously advocating the necessity of an atemporal, in this latter premise, Heidegger shares an affinity with the late Romantic philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, another principal forerunner of post-structuralist and postmodernist thought. Instead, Foucault focused on the ways in which such constructs can foster cultural hegemony, violence and his writings have had a major influence on the larger body of postmodern academic literature. These metanarratives still remain in Western society but are now being undermined by rapid Informatization, Richard Rorty argues in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature that contemporary analytic philosophy mistakenly imitates scientific methods. For Baudrillard, “simulation is no longer that of a territory and it is the generation by models of a real without origin or a reality, a hyperreal. In Analysis of the Journey, a journal birthed from postmodernism, Douglas Kellner insists that the assumptions and his terms defined in the depth of postmodernism are based on advancement, innovation, and adaptation. Extensively, Kellner analyzes the terms of theory in real-life experiences and examples. Kellner used science and technology studies as a part of his analysis
38.
Typhoon
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A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops in the western part of the North Pacific Ocean between 180° and 100°E. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, for organizational purposes, the northern Pacific Ocean is divided into three regions, the eastern, central, and western. While the RSMC names each system, the name list itself is coordinated among 18 countries that have territories threatened by typhoons each year. Only the Philippines use their own naming list for systems approaching the country, a typhoon differs from a cyclone or hurricane only on the basis of location. A hurricane is a storm that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, within the northwestern Pacific there are no official typhoon seasons as tropical cyclones form throughout the year. While the majority of storms form between June and November, a few storms do occur between December and May, on average, the northwestern Pacific features the most numerous and intense tropical cyclones globally. Like other basins, they are steered by the ridge towards the west or northwest, with some systems recurving near. The Philippines receive the brunt of the landfalls, with China, some of the deadliest typhoons in history have struck China. Southern China has the longest record of typhoon impacts for the region, Taiwan has received the wettest known typhoon on record for the northwest Pacific tropical cyclone basins. The term typhoon is the name in the northwest Pacific for a severe tropical cyclone, whereas hurricane is the regional term in the northeast Pacific. Elsewhere this is called a cyclone, severe tropical cyclone. The Oxford English Dictionary cites Urdu ṭūfān and Chinese tai fung giving rise to early forms in English. The earliest forms -- touffon, later tufan, tuffon, and others -- derive from Urdu ṭūfān, from 1699 appears tuffoon, later tiffoon, derived from Chinese with spelling influenced by the older Urdu-derived forms. The modern spelling dates to 1820, preceded by tay-fun in 1771 and ty-foong. The Urdu source word توفان ṭūfān comes via Persian from Arabic طوفان, the Chinese source is the word tai fung, cited as a common dialect form of Mandarin dà big and fēng wind. In Mandarin the word for the windstorm is 大风 and in Cantonese 大風, the modern Japanese word is also derived from Chinese, 台風. The first character in Japanese has a modern meaning of pedestal or stand. So the Japanese characters originally had a meaning of typhoon wind, the Ancient Greek Τυφῶν is not unrelated and has secondarily contaminated the word