Information technology
Information technology is the use of computers to store, retrieve and manipulate data, or information in the context of a business or other enterprise. IT is considered to be a subset of communications technology. An information technology system is an information system, a communications system or, more speaking, a computer system – including all hardware and peripheral equipment – operated by a limited group of users. Humans have been storing, retrieving and communicating information since the Sumerians in Mesopotamia developed writing in about 3000 BC, but the term information technology in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the Harvard Business Review. We shall call it information technology." Their definition consists of three categories: techniques for processing, the application of statistical and mathematical methods to decision-making, the simulation of higher-order thinking through computer programs. The term is used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but it encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones.
Several products or services within an economy are associated with information technology, including computer hardware, electronics, internet, telecom equipment, e-commerce. Based on the storage and processing technologies employed, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of IT development: pre-mechanical, electromechanical, electronic; this article focuses on the most recent period, which began in about 1940. Devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years initially in the form of a tally stick; the Antikythera mechanism, dating from about the beginning of the first century BC, is considered to be the earliest known mechanical analog computer, the earliest known geared mechanism. Comparable geared devices did not emerge in Europe until the 16th century, it was not until 1645 that the first mechanical calculator capable of performing the four basic arithmetical operations was developed. Electronic computers, using either valves, began to appear in the early 1940s.
The electromechanical Zuse Z3, completed in 1941, was the world's first programmable computer, by modern standards one of the first machines that could be considered a complete computing machine. Colossus, developed during the Second World War to decrypt German messages, was the first electronic digital computer. Although it was programmable, it was not general-purpose, being designed to perform only a single task, it lacked the ability to store its program in memory. The first recognisably modern electronic digital stored-program computer was the Manchester Baby, which ran its first program on 21 June 1948; the development of transistors in the late 1940s at Bell Laboratories allowed a new generation of computers to be designed with reduced power consumption. The first commercially available stored-program computer, the Ferranti Mark I, contained 4050 valves and had a power consumption of 25 kilowatts. By comparison the first transistorised computer, developed at the University of Manchester and operational by November 1953, consumed only 150 watts in its final version.
Early electronic computers such as Colossus made use of punched tape, a long strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes, a technology now obsolete. Electronic data storage, used in modern computers, dates from World War II, when a form of delay line memory was developed to remove the clutter from radar signals, the first practical application of, the mercury delay line; the first random-access digital storage device was the Williams tube, based on a standard cathode ray tube, but the information stored in it and delay line memory was volatile in that it had to be continuously refreshed, thus was lost once power was removed. The earliest form of non-volatile computer storage was the magnetic drum, invented in 1932 and used in the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercially available general-purpose electronic computer. IBM introduced the first hard disk drive as a component of their 305 RAMAC computer system. Most digital data today is still stored magnetically on hard disks, or optically on media such as CD-ROMs.
Until 2002 most information was stored on analog devices, but that year digital storage capacity exceeded analog for the first time. As of 2007 94% of the data stored worldwide was held digitally: 52% on hard disks, 28% on optical devices and 11% on digital magnetic tape, it has been estimated that the worldwide capacity to store information on electronic devices grew from less than 3 exabytes in 1986 to 295 exabytes in 2007, doubling every 3 years. Database management systems emerged in the 1960s to address the problem of storing and retrieving large amounts of data and quickly. One of the earliest such systems was IBM's Information Management System, still deployed more than 50 years later. IMS stores data hierarchically, but in the 1970s Ted Codd proposed an alternative relational storage model based on set theory and predicate logic and the familiar concepts of tables and columns; the first commercially available relational database management system was available from Oracle in 1981. All database management systems consist of a number of components that together allow the data they store to be accessed simultan
Foundation (nonprofit)
A foundation is a legal category of nonprofit organization that will either donate funds to and support other organizations, or provide the source of funding for its own charitable purposes. Foundations incorporate public foundations to pool funds and private foundations who are endowed by an individual or family. One of the characteristics of the legal entities existing under the status of "Foundations", is a wide diversity of structures and purposes. There are some common structural elements that are first observed under legal scrutiny or classification. Legal requirements followed for establishment Purpose of the foundation Economic activity Supervision and management provisions Accountability and Auditing provisions Provisions for the amendment of the statutes or articles of incorporation Provisions for the dissolution of the entity Tax status of corporate and private donors Tax status of the foundationSome of the above must be, in most jurisdictions, expressed in the document of establishment.
Others may be provided by the supervising authority at each particular jurisdiction. There is no accepted legal definition in Europe for a foundation. There is a proposal for a European Foundation, a legal form that would be recognised throughout Europe, see European Foundation Project; the term "foundation," in general, is used to describe a distinct legal entity. Foundations as legal structures and/or legal persons, may have a diversity of forms and may follow diverse regulations depending on the jurisdiction where they are created. Foundations are set up for charitable purposes, family patrimony and collective purposes. In some jurisdictions, a foundation may acquire its legal personality when it is entered in a public registry, while in other countries a foundation may acquire legal personality by the mere action of creation through a required document. Unlike a company, foundations have no shareholders, though they may have a board, an assembly and voting members. A foundation may hold assets in its own name for the purposes set out in its constitutive documents, its administration and operation are carried out in accordance with its statutes or articles of association rather than fiduciary principles.
The foundation has a distinct patrimony independent of its founder. Foundations in Finland must have state approval and register at the National Board of Patents and Registration within six months from its creation. A minimum capital of €25,000 is obligatory. A foundation can be created with any legal purpose and may have economic activity if this is specified in its Bylaws and the business supports the foundation's purpose. There are not many Foundations in comparison to the rest of Europe. In practice public administration requires at least €1 million necessary. States representatives have a mandatory seat in the Board. German regulations allow the creation of any foundation for public or private purposes in keeping with the concept of a gemeinwohlkonforme Allzweckstiftung. A foundation should not have commercial activities as its main purpose, but they are permitted if they serve the main purpose of the foundation. There is no minimum starting capital. A German foundation can either serve a private interest.
Charitable foundations enjoy tax exemptions. If they engage in commercial activities, only the commercially active part of the entity is taxed. A family foundation serving private interests is taxed like any other legal entity. There is no central register for German foundations. Only charitable foundations are subject to supervision by state authorities. Family foundations are not supervised after establishment. All forms of foundations can be dissolved, however. Foundations are supervised by local authorities within each state because each state has exclusive legislative power over the laws governing foundations. In contrast to many other countries, German law allows a tax sheltered charitable foundation to distribute up to one third of its profit to the founder and his next of kin, if they are needy, or to maintain the founder's grave; these benefits are subject to taxation. As of 2008, there are about 15,000 foundations in about 85 % of them charitable foundations. More than 250 charitable German foundations have existed for more than 500 years.
There are large German corporations owned by foundations, including Bertelsmann, Carl Zeiss AG and Lidl. Foundations are the main providers of private scholarships to German students. In Italy, a foundation is a private non profit and autonomous organization, its assets must be dedicated to a purpose established by the founder; the founder can not have reverted the initial assets. The private foundations or civil code foundations are under the section about non commercial entities of the first book of the Civil Code of Law from 1942; the Art. 16 CC establishes that the statutes of the foundation must contain its name, assets, administrative organs and regulations, how the grants will be distributed. The founder must write a declaration of intention including a purpose and endow assets for such purpose; this document can be in the form of a will. To obtain legal personality, the foundation must enroll in the legal register of each Prefettura or some cases the regional authority. There are several nuances in requirements according to each foundation's purpose and area of activity.
See private foundation in the Netherlands
Tampere University
Tampere University is a Finnish university, established on 1 January 2019 as a merger between the University of Tampere and Tampere University of Technology. The new university is the major shareholder of Tampere University of Applied Sciences. Tampere University comprises the following faculties: Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences Faculty of Management and Business Faculty of Education and Culture Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology Faculty of Built Environment Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences Language Centre Library Tampere University of Applied Sciences Teacher Training School Tampere University is a research university, Tampere University of Applied Sciences focuses on development. Pre-merger multidisciplinary collaboration was conducted between the fields of signal processing and medical technology at the Institute of Biosciences and Medical Technology; the University states that it pursues to become a globally recognised research community in the areas of technology and society research.
The university has ten Finnish Centres of Excellence: HEX - History of Experience SPARG - Spaces of Political Agency Gamecult - Game Culture Studies AgeCare - Ageing and Care Research CoETG - Cancer Research FinMIT - Mitochondria and Disease Research CoEBoC - Body-on-Chip Research ProLipids - Biomembrane Research COMP - Computational Nanoscience Research Inverse Problems ResearchThe University comprises a single Nordic Centre of Excellence: NordSTEVA - Security and Safety Research Official website minedu.fi/en - Ministry of Education and Culture oph.fi/english - Finnish National Agency for Education
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research which awards academic degrees in various academic disciplines. Universities provide undergraduate education and postgraduate education; the word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which means "community of teachers and scholars". While antecedents had existed in Asia and Africa, the modern university system has roots in the European medieval university, created in Italy and evolved from cathedral schools for the clergy during the High Middle Ages; the original Latin word universitas refers in general to "a number of persons associated into one body, a society, community, corporation, etc". At the time of the emergence of urban town life and medieval guilds, specialized "associations of students and teachers with collective legal rights guaranteed by charters issued by princes, prelates, or the towns in which they were located" came to be denominated by this general term. Like other guilds, they were self-regulating and determined the qualifications of their members.
In modern usage the word has come to mean "An institution of higher education offering tuition in non-vocational subjects and having the power to confer degrees," with the earlier emphasis on its corporate organization considered as applying to Medieval universities. The original Latin word referred to degree-awarding institutions of learning in Western and Central Europe, where this form of legal organisation was prevalent, from where the institution spread around the world. An important idea in the definition of a university is the notion of academic freedom; the first documentary evidence of this comes from early in the life of the University of Bologna, which adopted an academic charter, the Constitutio Habita, in 1158 or 1155, which guaranteed the right of a traveling scholar to unhindered passage in the interests of education. Today this is claimed as the origin of "academic freedom"; this is now recognised internationally - on 18 September 1988, 430 university rectors signed the Magna Charta Universitatum, marking the 900th anniversary of Bologna's foundation.
The number of universities signing the Magna Charta Universitatum continues to grow, drawing from all parts of the world. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the earliest universities were founded in Asia and Africa, predating the first European medieval universities; the University of Al Quaraouiyine, founded in Morocco by Fatima al-Fihri in 859, is considered by some to be the oldest degree-granting university. Their endowment by a prince or monarch and their role in training government officials made early Mediterranean universities similar to Islamic madrasas, although madrasas were smaller, individual teachers, rather than the madrasa itself, granted the license or degree. Scholars like Arnold H. Green and Hossein Nasr have argued that starting in the 10th century, some medieval Islamic madrasas became universities. However, scholars like George Makdisi, Toby Huff and Norman Daniel argue that the European university has no parallel in the medieval Islamic world. Several other scholars consider the university as uniquely European in origin and characteristics.
Darleen Pryds questions this view, pointing out that madaris and European universities in the Mediterranean region shared similar foundations by princely patrons and were intended to provide loyal administrators to further the rulers' agenda. Some scholars, including Makdisi, have argued that early medieval universities were influenced by the madrasas in Al-Andalus, the Emirate of Sicily, the Middle East during the Crusades. Norman Daniel, views this argument as overstated. Roy Lowe and Yoshihito Yasuhara have drawn on the well-documented influences of scholarship from the Islamic world on the universities of Western Europe to call for a reconsideration of the development of higher education, turning away from a concern with local institutional structures to a broader consideration within a global context; the university is regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian tradition. European higher education took place for hundreds of years in cathedral schools or monastic schools, in which monks and nuns taught classes.
The earliest universities were developed under the aegis of the Latin Church by papal bull as studia generalia and from cathedral schools. It is possible, that the development of cathedral schools into universities was quite rare, with the University of Paris being an exception, they were founded by Kings or municipal administrations. In the early medieval period, most new universities were founded from pre-existing schools when these schools were deemed to have become sites of higher education. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by The residence of a religious community. Pope Gregory VII was critical in promoting and regulating the concept of modern university as his 1079 Papal Decree ordered the regulated establishment of cathedral schools that transformed themselves into the first European universities; the first universities in Europe with a form of corporate/guild structure were the University of Bologna, the University of Paris, the University of Oxford.
The University of Bologna began as a law school teach
Rector (academia)
A rector is a senior official in an educational institution, can refer to an official in either a university or a secondary school. Outside the English-speaking world the rector is the most senior official in a university, whilst in the United States the most senior official is referred to as President and in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations the most senior official is the Chancellor, whose office is ceremonial and titular; the term and office of a rector can be referred to as a rectorate. The title is used in universities in Europe, and is common in Latin American countries. It is used in Brunei, Russia, the Philippines, Indonesia and the Middle East. In the ancient universities of Scotland the office is sometimes referred to as Lord Rector, is the third most senior official, is responsible for chairing the University Court; the head of a university in Germany is called a president, rector magnificus or rectrix magnifica, as in some Belgian universities. In Dutch universities, the rector magnificus is the most publicly prominent member of the board, responsible for the scientific agenda of the university.
In the Netherlands, the rector is, not the chair of the university board. The chair has, in the most influence over the management of the University. In some countries, including Germany, the position of head teacher in secondary schools is designated as rector. In the Netherlands, the terms "rector" and "conrector" are used for high school directors; this is the case in some Maltese secondary schools. In the Scandinavian countries, the head of a university or a gymnasium is called a rektor. In Sweden and Norway, this term is used for the heads of primary schools. In Finland, the head of a primary school or secondary schools is called a rector provided the school is of sufficient size in terms of faculty and students, otherwise the title is headmaster; the head of some Finnish universities is called chancellor. In the Iberian Peninsula, Portugal's and Spain's university heads or presidents have the title; those universities whose foundation has been approved by the Pope, as e.g. the rector of the University of Coimbra, the oldest Portuguese university, is referred to as Magnífico Reitor.
The others are referred to as Excelentíssimo Senhor Reitor. In Spain, all Rectors must be addressed as Señor Rector Magnífico according to the law, but the Rector of the University of Salamanca, the oldest on the Iberian Peninsula, is styled according to academic protocol as Excelentísimo y Ilustrísimo Señor Profesor Doctor Don, Rector Magnífico de la Universidad de Salamanca. In a few "Crown lands" of the Austrian Empire, one seat in the Landtag was reserved for the rector of the capital's university, notably: Graz in Steiermark, Innsbruck in Tirol, Wien in Nieder-Österreich. Today Austrian universities are headed by a Rectorate consisting of one Rector and 3-5 additional Vizerectors; the Rector is the CEO of the university. The heads of Czech universities are called the rektor; the rector acts in the name of the university and decides the university's affairs unless prohibited by law. The rector is nominated by the University Academic Senate and appointed by the President of the Czech Republic.
The nomination must be agreed by a simple majority of all senators, while a dismissal must be agreed by at least three fifths of all senators. The vote to elect or repeal a rector is secret; the term of office is four years and a person may hold it for at most two consecutive terms. The rector appoints vice-rectors. Rectors' salaries are determined directly by the Minister of Education. Among the most important rectors of Czech universities were reformer Jan Hus, physician Jan Jesenius and representative of Enlightenment Josef Vratislav Monse. Jiřina Popelová became the first female Rector in 1950; the rectors are addressed "Your Magnificence Rector". In Danish, rektor is the title used in referring to the heads of universities, schools of commerce and construction, etc. Rektor may be used for the head of any educational institution above the primary school level, where the head is referred to as a'skoleinspektør'. In universities, the second-ranked official of governance is known as prorektor. Most English universities are formally headed by "chancellors".
In a few colleges, the equivalent person is called a "president", "provost", or "warden". At two Oxford colleges, Lincoln College and Exeter College, the head is called "rector". At Oxford and Cambridge, the university's overall head is called "chancellor", but this is chiefly a ceremonial position while the academic head of each university is the "vice-chancellor". At St Chad's College, one of the two so-called "recognised colleges" of the University of Durham, there is a "rector" as titular head while the academic head is the "principal"; the University of London has a chancellor (a
Biological engineering
Biological engineering, or bioengineering/bio-engineering, is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, economically viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number of pure and applied sciences, such as mass and heat transfer, biocatalysts, bioinformatics and purification processes, bioreactor design, surface science, fluid mechanics and polymer science, it is used in the design of medical devices, diagnostic equipment, biocompatible materials, renewable bioenergy, ecological engineering, agricultural engineering, other areas that improve the living standards of societies. Examples of bioengineering research include bacteria engineered to produce chemicals, new medical imaging technology and rapid disease diagnostic devices, biopharmaceuticals, tissue-engineered organs. Bioengineering overlaps with biotechnology and the biomedical sciences in a way analogous to how various other forms of engineering and technology relate to various other sciences.
In general, biological engineers attempt to either mimic biological systems to create products or modify and control biological systems so that they can replace, sustain, or predict chemical and mechanical processes. Bioengineers can apply their expertise to other applications of engineering and biotechnology, including genetic modification of plants and microorganisms, bioprocess engineering, biocatalysis. Working with doctors and researchers, bioengineers use traditional engineering principles and techniques and apply them to real-world biological and medical problems. Biological engineering is a science-based discipline founded upon the biological sciences in the same way that chemical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering can be based upon chemistry and magnetism, classical mechanics, respectively. Before WWII, biological engineering had just begun being recognized as a branch of engineering, was a new concept to people. Post-WWII, it started to grow more partially due to the term "bioengineering" being coined by British scientist and broadcaster Heinz Wolff in 1954 at the National Institute for Medical Research.
Wolff graduated that same year and became the director of the Division of Biological Engineering at the university. This was the first time. Electrical engineering is considered to pioneer this engineering sector due to its work with medical devices and machinery during this time; when engineers and life scientists started working together, they recognized the problem that the engineers didn't know enough about the actual biology behind their work. To resolve this problem, engineers who wanted to get into biological engineering devoted more of their time and studies to the details and processes that go into fields such as biology and medicine; the term biological engineering may be applied to environmental modifications such as surface soil protection, slope stabilization and shoreline protection, vegetation barriers including noise barriers and visual screens, the ecological enhancement of an area. Because other engineering disciplines address living organisms, the term biological engineering can be applied more broadly to include agricultural engineering.
The first biological engineering program was created at University of California, San Diego in 1966, making it the first biological engineering curriculum in the United States. More recent programs have been launched at Utah State University. Many old agricultural engineering departments in universities over the world have re-branded themselves as agricultural and biological engineering or agricultural and biosystems engineering, due to biological engineering as a whole being a developing field with fluid categorization. According to Professor Doug Lauffenburger of MIT, biological engineering has a broad base which applies engineering principles to an enormous range of size and complexities of systems; these systems range from the molecular level to cellular and tissue-based systems, to whole macroscopic organisms, can range up to entire ecosystems. The average length of study is three to five years, the completed degree is signified as a bachelor of engineering. Fundamental courses include thermodynamics, bio-mechanics, genetic engineering and mechanical dynamics, kinetics and materials properties.
Depending on the institution and particular definitional boundaries employed, some major branches of bioengineering may be categorized as: Biomedical Engineering: application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposesTissue Engineering Genetic Engineering Neural engineering Pharmaceutical engineering Clinical engineering Bioinformatics Biomechanics Biochemical Engineering: fermentation engineering, application of engineering principles to microscopic biological systems that are used to create new products by synthesis, including the production of protein from suitable raw materials Biological Systems Engineering: application of engineering principles and design concepts to agriculture, food sciences, ecosystems. Bioprocess Engineering: develops technology to monitor the conditions of the where the process of making pharmaceuticals takes place
Nanophotonics
Nanophotonics or nano-optics is the study of the behavior of light on the nanometer scale, of the interaction of nanometer-scale objects with light. It is a branch of optics, optical engineering, electrical engineering, nanotechnology, it involves metallic components, which can transport and focus light via surface plasmon polaritons. The term "nano-optics", just like the term "optics" refers to situations involving ultraviolet and near-infrared light. Normal optical components, like lenses and microscopes cannot focus light to nanometer scales, because of the diffraction limit, it is possible to squeeze light into a nanometer scale using other techniques like, for example, surface plasmons, localized surface plasmons around nanoscale metal objects, the nanoscale apertures and nanoscale sharp tips used in near-field scanning optical microscopy and photoassisted scanning tunnelling microscopy. Nanophotonics researchers pursue a wide variety of goals, in fields ranging from biochemistry to electrical engineering.
A few of these goals are summarized below. If light can be squeezed into a small volume, it can be detected by a small detector. Small photodetectors tend to have a variety of desirable properties including low noise, high speed, low voltage and power. Small lasers have various desirable properties for optical communication including low threshold current and fast modulation. Small lasers require subwavelength optical cavities. An example is the surface plasmon version of lasers. Integrated circuits are made using i.e. exposure to light. In order to make small transistors, the light needs to be focused into sharp images. Using various techniques such as immersion lithography and phase-shifting photomasks, it has indeed been possible to make images much finer than the wavelength—for example, drawing 30 nm lines using 193 nm light. Plasmonic techniques have been proposed for this application. Heat-assisted magnetic recording is a nanophotonic approach to increasing the amount of data that a magnetic disk drive can store.
It requires a laser to heat a subwavelength area of the magnetic material before writing data. The magnetic write-head would have metal optical components to concentrate light at the right location. Miniaturization in optoelectronics, for example the miniaturization of transistors in integrated circuits, has improved their speed and cost. However, optoelectronic circuits can only be miniaturized if the optical components are shrunk along with the electronic components; this is relevant for on-chip optical communication. Solar cells work best when the light is absorbed close to the surface, both because electrons near the surface have a better chance of being collected, because the device can be made thinner, which reduces cost. Researchers have investigated a variety of nanophotonic techniques to intensify light in the optimal locations within a solar cell. Using nanophotonics to create high peak intensities: If a given amount of light energy is squeezed into a smaller and smaller volume, the intensity in the hot-spot gets larger and larger.
This is helpful in nonlinear optics. It allows sensitive spectroscopy measurements of single molecules located in the hot-spot, unlike traditional spectroscopy methods which take an average over millions or billions of molecules. One goal of nanophotonics is to construct a so-called "superlens", which would use metamaterials or other techniques to create images that are more accurate than the diffraction limit. Near-field scanning optical microscope is a quite different nanophotonic technique that accomplishes the same goal of taking images with resolution far smaller than the wavelength, it involves raster-scanning a sharp tip or small aperture over the surface to be imaged. Near-field microscopy refers more to any technique using the near-field to achieve nanoscale, subwavelength resolution. For example, dual polarization interferometry has picometer resolution in the vertical plane above the waveguide surface. Metals are an effective way to confine light to far below the wavelength; this was used in radio and microwave engineering, where metal antennas and waveguides may be hundreds of times smaller than the free-space wavelength.
For a similar reason, visible light can be confined to the nano-scale via nano-sized metal structures, such as nano-sized structures, gaps, etc. This effect is somewhat analogous to a lightning rod; this effect is fundamentally based on the fact that the permittivity of the metal is large and negative. At high frequencies, the permittivity of a metal is not so large, the metal stops being useful for concentrating fields. Many nano-optics designs look like common microwave or radiowave circuits, but shrunk down by a factor of 100,000 or more. After all, radiowaves and visible light are all electromagnetic radiation. So other things equal, a microwave circuit shrunk down by a factor of 100,000 will behave the same way but at 100,000 times higher frequency. For example, researchers have made nano-optical Yagi-Uda antennas following the same design as used for
