History.

Pre-colonial Uganda.

The residents of Uganda were hunter-gatherers until 1,700–2,300 years ago. Bantu-speaking populations, who were probably from central Africa, migrated to the southern parts of the country.  According to oral tradition, the Empire of Kitara covered an important part of the great lakes area, from the northern lakes Albert and Kyoga to the southern lakes Victoria and Tanganyika. Bunyoro-Kitara is claimed as the antecedent of the Buganda, Toro, Ankole, and Busoga kingdoms.  Some Luo invaded the area of Bunyoro and assimilated with the Bantu there, establishing the Babiito dynasty of the current Omukama (ruler) of Bunyoro-Kitara.  Arab traders moved inland from the

Uganda Protectorate (1894–1962).

In the 1890s, 32,000 labourers from British India were recruited to East Africa under indentured labour contracts to construct the Uganda Railway. Most of the surviving Indians returned home, but 6,724 decided

Independence (1962 to 1965).

Uganda gained independence from the UK on 9 October 1962 with Queen Elizabeth II as head of state and Queen of Uganda. In October 1963, Uganda became a republic but maintained its membership in the Commonwealth

Buganda crisis (1962–1966).

Uganda's immediate post-independence years were dominated by the relationship between the central government and the largest regional kingdom – Buganda.  From the moment the British created the Uganda protectorate, the issue of how to manage the largest monarchy within the framework of a unitary state had always been a problem. Colonial governors had failed to come up with a formula that worked. This was further complicated by Buganda's nonchalant attitude to its relationship with the central government. Buganda never sought independence, but rather appeared to be comfortable with a loose arrangement that guaranteed them privileges above the other subjects within the protectorate or a special status when the British left. This was evidenced in part by hostilities between the British colonial authorities and Buganda prior to independence.  Within Buganda there were divisions – between those who wanted the Kabaka to remain a dominant monarch, and those who wanted to join with the rest of Uganda to create a modern secular state. The split resulted in the creation of two dominant Buganda based parties – the Kabaka Yekka (Kabaka Only) KY, and the Democratic Party (DP) that had roots in the Catholic Church. The bitterness between these two parties was extremely intense especially as the first elections for the post-Colonial parliament approached. The Kabaka particularly disliked the DP leader, Benedicto Kiwanuka.  Outside Buganda, a quiet-spoken politician from Northern Uganda, Milton Obote, had forged an alliance of non-Buganda politicians to form the Uganda People's Congress (UPC). The UPC at its heart was dominated by politicians who wanted to rectify what they saw as the regional inequality that favoured Buganda's special status. This drew in substantial support from outside Buganda. The party however remained a loose alliance of interests but Obote showed great skill at negotiating them into a common ground based on a federal formula.  At Independence, the Buganda question remained unresolved. Uganda was one of the few colonial territories that achieved independence without a dominant political party with a

1966–1971 (before the coup).

In 1966, following a power struggle between the Obote-led government and King Muteesa, Obote suspended the constitution

1971 (after the coup) –1979 (end of Amin regime).

After a military coup on 25 January 1971, Obote was deposed from power and General Idi Amin seized control of the country. Amin ruled Uganda as dictator with the

1979–present.

Yoweri Museveni has been president since his forces toppled the previous regime in January 1986.  Political parties in Uganda were restricted in their activities beginning that year, in a measure ostensibly designed to reduce sectarian violence. In the non-party "Movement" system instituted by Museveni, political parties continued to exist, but they could operate only a headquarters office. They could not open branches, hold rallies, or field candidates directly (although electoral candidates could belong to political parties). A constitutional referendum cancelled this nineteen-year ban on multi-party politics in July 2005.  In the mid-to-late 1990s, Museveni was lauded by western countries as part of a new generation of African leaders.  His presidency has been marred, however, by invading and occupying the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Second Congo War, resulting in an estimated 5.4 million deaths since 1998, and by participating in other conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa. He has struggled for years in the civil war against the Lord's Resistance Army, which has been guilty of numerous crimes against humanity, including child slavery, the Atiak massacre, and other mass murders. Conflict

Geography.

The country is located on the East African Plateau, lying mostly between latitudes 4°N and 2°S (a small area is north of 4°), and longitudes 29° and 35°E. It averages about above sea level, sloping very steadily downwards to the Sudanese Plain to the north. Some international trade organisations categorize Kenya as part of the Greater Horn of Africa

Lakes and rivers.

Much of the south of the country is heavily influenced by one of the world's biggest lakes, Lake Victoria, which contains many islands. Most important cities are located in the south, near this lake, including the capital Kampala and the nearby city of Entebbe.  Lake Kyoga is in the centre of the country and is surrounded by extensive marshy areas.

Environment and conservation.

Uganda has 60 protected areas, including ten national parks: Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Rwenzori Mountains National Park (both UNESCO World Heritage

Government and politics.

The President of Uganda is both head of state and head of government. The president appoints a vice-president and a prime minister to aid him in governing.  The parliament is formed by the National Assembly, which has 449 members. These include; 290 constituency representatives, 116 district woman representatives, 10 representatives of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces, 5 representatives of the youth, 5 representatives of workers, 5 representatives of persons with disabilities and 18 ex-official members.

Corruption.

Transparency International has rated Uganda's public sector as one of the most corrupt in the world. In 2016, Uganda ranked 151st worst out of 176 and had a score of 25 on a scale from 0 (perceived as most corrupt) to 100 (perceived as clean).  The World Bank's 2015 Worldwide Governance Indicators ranked Uganda in the worst 12 percentile of all countries. According to the United States Department of State's 2012 Human Rights Report on Uganda, "The World Bank's most recent

Administrative divisions.

As of 2018, Uganda is divided into 121 districts. Rural areas of districts are subdivided into sub-counties, parishes, and villages. Municipal and town councils are designated in urban areas of districts.  Political subdivisions in Uganda are officially served and united by the Uganda Local Governments Association (ULGA), a voluntary and non-profit body which also serves as a

Foreign relations and military.

In Uganda, the Uganda People's Defence Force serves as the military. The number of military personnel in Uganda is estimated at 45,000 soldiers on active duty. The Uganda army is involved in several peacekeeping and combat missions

Human rights.

There are many areas which continue to attract concern when it comes to human rights in Uganda.  Conflict in the northern parts of the country continues to generate reports of abuses by both the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony, and the Ugandan Army. A UN official accused the LRA in February 2009 of "appalling brutality" in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  The number of internally displaced persons is estimated at 1.4 million. Torture continues to be a widespread practice amongst security organisations. Attacks on political freedom in the country, including the arrest and beating of opposition members of parliament, have led to international criticism, culminating in May 2005 in a decision by the British government to withhold part of its aid to the country. The arrest of the main opposition leader Kizza Besigye and the siege of the High Court during a hearing of Besigye's case by heavily armed security forces – before the February 2006 elections – led to condemnation.  Child labour is common in Uganda. Many child workers are active in agriculture. Children who work on tobacco farms in Uganda are exposed to health hazards. Child domestic servants in Uganda risk sexual abuse. Trafficking of children occurs. Slavery and forced labour are prohibited by the Ugandan constitution.  The US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants reported several violations of refugee rights in 2007, including forcible deportations by the Ugandan government and violence directed against refugees.  Torture and extrajudicial killings have been a pervasive problem in Uganda in recent years. For instance, according to a 2012 US State Department report, "the African Center for Treatment and Rehabilitation for Torture Victims registered 170 allegations of torture against police, 214 against the UPDF, 1 against military police, 23 against the Special Investigations Unit, 361 against unspecified security personnel, and 24 against prison officials" between January and September 2012.  In September 2009 Museveni refused Kabaka Muwenda Mutebi, the Baganda king, permission to visit some areas of Buganda Kingdom, particularly the Kayunga district. Riots occurred and over 40 people were killed while others remain imprisoned to this date. Furthermore, 9 more people were killed during the April 2011 "Walk to Work" demonstrations. According to the Humans Rights Watch 2013 World Report on Uganda, the government has failed to investigate the killings associated with both of these events.

LGBT rights.

In 2007, a Ugandan newspaper, the "Red Pepper", published a list of allegedly gay men, many of whom suffered harassment as a result.  On 9 October 2010, the Ugandan newspaper "Rolling Stone" published a front-page article titled "100 Pictures of Uganda's Top Homos Leak" that listed the names, addresses, and photographs of 100 homosexuals alongside a yellow banner that read "Hang Them". The paper also alleged that homosexuals aimed to recruit Ugandan children. This publication attracted international attention and criticism from human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International, No Peace Without Justice and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. According to gay rights activists, many Ugandans have been attacked since the publication. On 27 January 2011, gay rights activist David Kato was murdered.  In 2009, the Ugandan parliament considered an Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would have broadened the criminalisation of homosexuality by introducing the death penalty for people who have previous convictions, or are HIV-positive, and engage in same-sex sexual acts. The bill also included provisions for Ugandans who

Economy and infrastructure.

The Bank of Uganda is the central bank of Uganda and handles monetary policy along with the printing of the Ugandan shilling.  In 2015, Uganda's economy generated export income from the following merchandise: coffee (US$402.63 million), oil re-exports (US$131.25 million), base metals and products (US$120.00 million), fish (US$117.56 million), maize (US$90.97 million), cement (US$80.13 million), tobacco (US$73.13 million), tea (US$69.94 million), sugar (US$66.43 million), hides and skins (US$62.71 million), cocoa beans (US$55.67 million), beans (US$53.88 million), simsim (US$52.20 million), flowers (US$51.44 million), and other products (US$766.77 million).  The country has been experiencing consistent economic growth. In fiscal year 2015–16, Uganda recorded gross domestic product growth of 4.6 percent in real terms and 11.6 percent in nominal terms. This compares to 5.0 percent real growth in fiscal year 2014–15.  The country has largely untapped reserves of both crude oil and natural gas. While agriculture accounted for 56 percent of the economy in 1986, with coffee as its main export, it has now been surpassed by the services sector, which accounted for 52 percent of GDP in 2007. In the 1950s, the British colonial regime encouraged some 500,000 subsistence farmers to join co-operatives. Since 1986, the government (with the support of foreign countries and international agencies) has acted to rehabilitate an economy devastated during the regime of Idi Amin and the subsequent civil war.  In 2012, the World Bank still listed Uganda on the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries list.  Economic growth has not always led to poverty reduction. Despite an average annual growth of 2.5 percent between 2000 and 2003, poverty levels increased by 3.8 percent during that time. This has highlighted the importance of avoiding jobless growth and is part of the rising awareness in development circles of the need for equitable growth not just in Uganda, but across the developing world.  With the Uganda securities exchanges established in 1996, several equities have been listed. The government has used the stock market as an avenue for privatisation. All government treasury issues are listed on the securities exchange. The Capital Markets Authority has licensed 18 brokers, asset managers, and investment advisors including: African Alliance Investment Bank, Baroda Capital Markets Uganda Limited, Crane Financial Services Uganda Limited, Crested Stocks and Securities Limited, Dyer & Blair Investment Bank, Equity Stock Brokers Uganda Limited, Renaissance Capital Investment Bank and UAP Financial Services Limited. As one of the ways of increasing formal domestic savings, pension sector reform is the centre of attention (2007).  Uganda traditionally depends on Kenya for access to the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. Efforts have intensified to establish a second access route to the sea via the lakeside ports of Bukasa in Uganda and Musoma in Tanzania, connected by railway to Arusha in the Tanzanian interior and to the port of Tanga on the Indian Ocean.  Uganda is a member of the East African Community and a potential member of the planned East African Federation.  Uganda has a large diaspora, residing mainly in the United States and the United Kingdom. This diaspora has contributed enormously to Uganda's economic growth through remittances and other investments (especially property). According to the World Bank, Uganda received in 2016 an estimated US$1.099 billion in remittances from abroad, second only to Kenya (US$1.574 billion) in the East African Community. Uganda also serves as an economic hub for a number of neighbouring countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, and Rwanda.  The Ugandan Bureau of Statistics announced inflation was 4.6 percent in November 2016. On 29 June 2018, Uganda's statistics agency said the country registered a drop in inflation to 3.4 percent in the financial year ending 2017/18 compared to the 5.7 percent recorded in the financial year 2016/17.

Science and technology.

The "National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy" dates from 2009. Its overarching goal is to ‘strengthen national capability to generate, transfer and apply scientific knowledge, skills and technologies that ensure sustainable utilisation of natural resources for the realisation of Uganda's development objectives.’ The policy precedes Uganda Vision 2040, which was launched in April 2013 to transform ‘Ugandan society from a peasant to a modern and prosperous country within 30 years,’ in the words of the Cabinet. Uganda Vision 2040 vows to

Demographics.

Uganda's population grew from 9.5 million people in 1969 to 34.9 million in 2014. With respect to the last inter-censal period (September 2002), the population increased by 10.6 million people in the past 12 years. Uganda's median age of 15 years is the lowest in the world. Uganda has the fifth highest total fertility rate in the world, at 5.97 children born per woman (2014 estimates).  There were about 80,000 Indians in Uganda before Idi Amin required the expulsion of Ugandan-Asians (mostly of Indian origin) in 1972, which reduced the population to as low as 7,000. Many Indians, however, returned to Uganda after Amin's fall ouster in 1979. Around 90 percent of Ugandan Indians reside in Kampala.  According to the UNHCR, Uganda hosts over 1.1 million refugees on its soil as of November 2018. Most come from neighbouring countries in the African Great Lakes region, particularly South Sudan (68.0 percent) and Democratic Republic of the Congo (24.6%).

Languages.

Swahili, a widely used language throughout the African Great Lakes region, was approved as the country's second official national language in 2005. English was the only official language until the constitution was amended in 2005. Although Swahili has not been favoured by the Bantu-speaking populations of the south and

Religion.

The Roman Catholic Church had the largest number of adherents (39.3 percent, down from 41.6 in 2002), followed by the Anglican Church of Uganda (32 percent, down from 35.9 percent). The category of Evangelical/Pentecostal/Born-Again showed the most growth, rising from 4.7% in 2002 to 11.1% in 2018. Adventist

Culture.

Owing to the large number of communities, culture within Uganda is diverse. Many Asians (mostly from India) who were expelled during the regime of Idi Amin have returned to Uganda.

Sport.

Football is the national sport in Uganda. The Uganda national football team, nicknamed "The Cranes" is controlled by the Federation of Uganda Football Associations. They have never qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals. Their best finish in the African Cup of Nations was second in 1978.  In cricket, Uganda was part of the East Africa team that qualified for the Cricket World Cup in 1975.  The country has an increasingly successful national basketball team. It is nicknamed "The Silverbacks," and made its debut at the 2015 FIBA Africa Championship.  In July 2011, Kampala, Uganda qualified for the 2011 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania for the first time, beating Saudi Arabian baseball team Dharan LL, although visa complications prevented them from attending the series. Little League teams from Uganda qualified for and attended the 2012 Little League World Series.

Olympics.

, Uganda has won a total of two gold, three silver, and two bronze medals; four of which were in boxing and three in athletics. The Uganda National Boxing Team is called The Bombers.  The first Olympic Gold medalist from Uganda was the 400 m hurdler Johan Akii-Bua. At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, he won the 400m hurdles race with a world record time of 47.82 seconds.  Stephen Kiprotich won the men's marathon at the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Cinema.

The Ugandan film industry is relatively young. It is developing quickly, but still faces an assortment of challenges. There has been support for the industry as seen in the proliferation of film festivals such as Amakula, Pearl International Film Festival, Maisha African Film Festival and Manya Human Rights Festival. However filmmakers struggle against the competing markets from other countries on the continent such as those in Nigeria and South Africa in addition to the big budget films from Hollywood.  The first publicly recognised film that was produced solely by Ugandans was "Feelings Struggle", which was directed and written by Hajji Ashraf Ssemwogerere in 2005. This marks the year of ascent of film in Uganda, a time where many enthusiasts were proud to classify themselves as

Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda (), is a landlocked country in East-Central Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania. Uganda is in the African Great Lakes region. Uganda also lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied but generally a modified equatorial climate.

乌干达共和国(,英语:Republic of Uganda) 通称乌干达,是位于东非的内陆国家,为伊斯兰会议组织成员。


History.

Early history.

There are traces of a settlement at the nearby Rhine knee from the early La Tène period (5th century BC). In the 2nd century BC, there was a village of the Raurici at the site of "Basel-Gasfabrik"(to the northwest of the Old City, and likely identical with the town of "Arialbinnum" that was mentioned on the "Tabula Peutingeriana"). The unfortified settlement was abandoned in the 1st century BC in favour of an "oppidum" on the site of Basel Minster, probably in reaction to the Roman invasion of Gaul.  In Roman Gaul, Augusta Raurica was established some from Basel as the regional administrative centre, while a "castra" (fortified camp) was built on the site of the Celtic "oppidum". The city of Basel eventually grew around the "castra". In AD 83, Basel was incorporated into the Roman province of Germania Superior. Roman control over the area deteriorated in the 3rd century, and

Prince-Bishopric of Basel.

From the donation by Rudolph III of Burgundy of the Moutier-Grandval Abbey and all its possessions to Bishop Adalbero II of Metz in 999 until the Reformation, Basel was ruled by Prince-Bishops (see Bishop of Basel, whose memory is preserved in the crosier shown on the Basel coat of arms – see above).  In 1019, the construction of the cathedral of Basel (known locally as the "Münster") began under Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor. In 1225–1226, a bridge, now known as the Middle

As a member state in the Swiss Confederacy.

The city had remained neutral through the Swabian War of 1499 despite being plundered by soldiers on both sides. The Treaty of Basel ended the war and granted the Swiss confederates exemptions from the emperor Maximillian's taxes and jurisdictions, separating Switzerland "de facto" from the Holy Roman Empire.  On 9 June 1501, Basel joined the Swiss Confederation as its eleventh canton. It was the only canton that was asked to join, not the other way round. Basel had a strategic location, good relations with Strasbourg and Mulhouse, and control of the corn imports from Alsace, whereas the Swiss lands were becoming overpopulated and had few resources. A provision of the Charter accepting Basel required that in conflicts among the other cantons it was to stay neutral and offer its services for mediation.  In 1503, the new bishop Christoph von Utenheim refused to give Basel a new constitution; whereupon, to show its power, the city began to build a new city hall.  In

Modern history.

In 1792, the Republic of Rauracia, a revolutionary French client republic, was created. It lasted until 1793. After three years of political agitation and a short civil war in 1833 the disadvantaged countryside seceded from the Canton of Basel, forming the half canton of Basel-Landschaft.  On 3 July 1874, Switzerland's first zoo, the Zoo Basel, opened its doors in the south of the city towards Binningen.  In 1897 the first World Zionist Congress was held in Basel. Altogether the World Zionist Congress was held

Basel as a historical, international meeting place.

Basel has often been the site of peace negotiations and other international meetings. The Treaty of Basel (1499) ended the Swabian War. Two years later Basel joined the Swiss Confederation. The Peace of Basel in 1795 between the French Republic and Prussia and Spain ended the First Coalition

Name.

The origin of the name of Basel is uncertain. It may be derived from the Roman-era toponym "Basilia", which originally meant a public building and later a church. Another

Geography and climate.

Location.

Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany., the Swiss Basel agglomeration was the third-largest in Switzerland, with

Topography.

Basel has an area,, of. Of this area, or 4.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 3.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 86.4% is settled (buildings or roads), or 6.1% is either rivers or lakes.  Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 10.2% of

Climate.

Under the Köppen system, Basel features a continental-influenced oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb"), due to its relatively far inland position. The city averages 120.4 days of rain or snow annually and on average receives of

Politics.

The city of Basel functions as the capital of the Swiss half-canton of Basel-Stadt, though several of its suburbs are located in the half-canton of Basel-Landschaft or the canton of Aargau. Others are even located in France and Germany.

Canton.

The canton Basel-Stadt consists of three municipalities: Riehen, Bettingen, and the

City.

Quarters.

The city itself has 19 quarters:

Coat of arms.

The blazon of the municipal coat of arms

Government.

The canton's executive, the Executive Council ("Regierungsrat"), consists of seven members for a mandate period of 4 years. They are elected by any inhabitant valid to vote on the same day as the parliament, but by means of a system of Majorz, and operates as a collegiate authority. The president () is elected as such by a public election, while the heads of the other departments are appointed by the collegiate. The current president is Dr Guy Morin.

Parliament.

The parliament, the Grand Council of Basel-Stadt (Grosser Rat), consists of 100 seats, with members (called in German: "Grossrat/Grossrätin") elected every 4 years. The sessions of the Grand Council are public. Unlike the members of the Executive Council, the members of the Grand Council are not politicians by profession, but they are paid a fee based on their attendance. Any resident of Basel allowed to vote can be elected as a member of the parliament. The delegates are elected by means of a system of Proporz, and political parties must have surpassed an "election quorum" of 4% per

Federal elections.

National Council.

In the 2019 federal election the most popular party was the Social Democratic Party (SP) which received two seats with 34% (−1) of the votes. The next five most popular parties were the Green Party (GPS) (19.4%, +7.3), the LPS (14.5%, +3.6) and the FDP (5.8, −3.5), which are chained together at 20.3%, (+0.1), the SVP (11.3%, ), and the Green Liberal

Council of States.

On 20 October 2019, in the federal election Eva Herzog, member of the Social Democratic Party (SP), was elected for the first time as a State Councillor () in the first round as single representative of the canton of Basel-Town and successor of Anita Fetz in the national Council of States () with an absolute majority of 37'210 votes.  On 18 October 2015, in the federal election State Councillor () Anita Fetz, member of the Social Democratic Party (SP), was re-elected in the first round as single representative of the canton of Basel-Town in the national Council of States () with an absolute majority of 35'842 votes. She has been a member of it since 2003.

International relations.

Twin towns and sister cities.

Basel has two sister cities and a twinning among two states:

Demographics.

Population.

Basel has a population () of., 35.5% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1999–2009 ) the population has changed at a rate of −0.3%. It has changed at a rate of 3.2% due to migration and at a rate of −3% due to births and deaths.  Of the population in the municipality 58,560 or about 35.2% were born in Basel and lived there in 2000. There were 1,396 or 0.8% who were born in the same canton, while 44,874 or 26.9% were born somewhere else in Switzerland, and 53,774 or 32.3% were born outside of Switzerland.  In there were 898 live births to Swiss citizens and 621 births to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 1,732 deaths of Swiss citizens and 175 non-Swiss citizen deaths. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 834 while

Language.

Most of the population () speaks German (129,592 or 77.8%), with Italian being

Religion.

From the, 41,916 or 25.2% were Roman Catholic, while 39,180 or 23.5% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there were 4,567 members of an Orthodox church (or about 2.74% of the population), there were 459 individuals (or about 0.28% of the population) who belonged to the Christian Catholic Church, and there were 3,464 individuals (or about 2.08% of the population) who belonged to

Infrastructure.

Quarters.

Basel is subdivided into 19 quarters ("Quartiere"). The municipalities of Riehen and

Transport.

Basel's airport is set up for airfreight; heavy goods reach the city and the heart of continental Europe from the North Sea by ship along the Rhine. The main European routes for the highway and railway transport of freight cross in Basel. The outstanding location benefits logistics corporations, which operate globally from Basel. Trading firms are traditionally well represented in the Basel Region.

Port.

Basel has Switzerland's only cargo port, through which goods pass along

Air transport.

EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg is operated jointly by two countries, France and Switzerland, although the airport is located completely on French soil. The airport itself is split into two

Railways.

Basel has long held an important place as a rail hub. Three railway stations—those of the German, French and Swiss networks—lie within the city (although the Swiss (Basel SBB) and French (Bâle SNCF) stations are actually in the same complex, separated by Customs and Immigration facilities). Basel Badischer Bahnhof is on

Roads.

Basel is located on the A3 motorway.

Ferries.

A somewhat anachronistic yet still widely used system of reaction ferry boats links the two shores. There are four ferries, each situated approximately midway between two bridges. Each is attached by a cable to a

Public transport.

Basel has an extensive public transportation network serving the city and connecting to surrounding suburbs, including a large tram network. The green-colored local trams and buses are operated by the Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe (BVB). The yellow-colored buses and trams are operated by

Border crossings.

Basel is located at the meeting point of France, Germany and Switzerland; because it is so near other countries and is beyond the Jura Mountains, many within the Swiss military reportedly believe that the city is indefensible during wartime. It has numerous road and rail crossings between Switzerland and the other two countries. With Switzerland joining the Schengen Area on 12 December 2008, immigration checks were no longer carried out at the crossings. However, Switzerland did not join the European Union Customs Union (though it did join the EU Single Market) and customs checks are still conducted at or near the crossings. France-Switzerland (from east to west)  Germany-Switzerland (clockwise, from north to south)  Additionally there are many footpaths and cycle tracks crossing the border between Basel and Germany.

Health.

As the biggest town in the Northwest of Switzerland numerous public and private health centres are located in Basel. Among others the Universitätsspital Basel and the Universitätskinderspital Basel. The

Energy.

Basel is at the forefront of a national vision to more than halve energy use in Switzerland by 2050. To research, develop and commercialise the technologies and techniques required for the country to become a 2000 Watt society, a number of projects have been set up since 2001 in the Basel metropolitan area.

Economy.

The city of Basel, located in the heart of the tri-border region (called "Dreiländereck") is one of the most dynamic economic regions of Switzerland. , Basel had an unemployment rate of 3.7%., there were 18 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 9 businesses involved in this sector. 34,645 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 1,176 businesses in this sector. 120,130 people were employed in the tertiary sector, with 8,908 businesses in this sector. There were 82,449 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 46.2% of the workforce. , there were 121,842 workers who commuted into the municipality and 19,263 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net importer of workers, with about 6.3 workers entering the municipality for every one leaving. About 23.9% of the workforce coming into Basel are coming from outside Switzerland, while 1.0% of the locals commute out of Switzerland for work. Of the working population, 49.2% used public transportation to get to work, and 18.7% used a private car. The Roche Tower, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, is 41 floors and high, upon its opening in 2015 it has become the tallest building in Switzerland. Basel has also Switzerland's third tallest building (Basler Messeturm, ) and Switzerland's tallest tower (St. Chrischona TV tower, ).

Chemical industry.

The Swiss chemical industry operates largely from Basel, and Basel also has a large pharmaceutical industry. Novartis, Syngenta,

Banking.

Banking is

Air.

Swiss International Air Lines, the national airline of Switzerland, is headquartered on the grounds of EuroAirport

Media.

"Basler Zeitung" ("BaZ") and "bz Basel" are the local newspapers. The local TV station is called "Telebasel". The German-speaking Swiss

Trade fairs.

Important trade shows include Art Basel, the world's most important fair for modern and contemporary art, Baselworld (watches and jewelry), Swissbau (construction and real estate) and

Education.

Besides Humanism the city of Basel has also always been very famous for its achievement in the field of mathematics. Among others, the mathematician Leonhard Euler and the Bernoulli family have done research and been teaching at the local institutions for centuries. In 1910 the Swiss Mathematical Society was founded in the city and in the mid-twentieth century the Russian mathematician Alexander Ostrowski taught at the local university. In 2000 about 57,864 or (34.7%) of the population have completed non-mandatory upper secondary education, and 27,603 or (16.6%) have completed additional higher education (either university or a "Fachhochschule"). Of the 27,603 who completed tertiary schooling, 44.4% were Swiss men, 31.1% were Swiss women, 13.9% were non-Swiss men and 10.6% were non-Swiss women.  In 2010 11,912 students attended the University of Basel (55% female). 25% were foreign nationals, 16% were from canton of Basel-Stadt. In 2006, 6162 students studied at one of the nine academies of the FHNW (51% female). , there were 5,820 students in Basel who came from another municipality, while 1,116 residents attended schools outside the municipality.

Universities.

Basel hosts Switzerland's oldest university, the University of Basel, dating from 1460. Erasmus, Paracelsus, Daniel Bernoulli, Leonhard Euler, Jacob Burckhardt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Tadeusz Reichstein, Karl Jaspers, Carl Gustav Jung and Karl Barth worked here. The University of Basel is currently counted among the 90 best educational institutions worldwide.  In 2007, the ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich) established the Department of Biosystems

Volksschule.

In 2005 16,939 pupils and students visited the "Volksschule" (the obligatory school time, including "Kindergarten" (127), primary schools ("Primarschule", 25), and lower secondary schools ("Sekundarschule", 10), of which 94% visited public schools and

Upper secondary school.

In 2010 65% of the youth finished their upper secondary education with a vocational training and education, 18% finished their upper secondary education with a Federal Matura at one of the five gymnasiums, 5% completed a "Fachmaturität" at the "FMS", 5% completed a "Berufsmaturität" synchronously to their vocational training, and 7% other kind of upper secondary maturity. 14.1% of all students at public gymnasiums were foreign nationals. The Maturity quota in 2010 was on a record high at 28.8% (32.8

International schools.

As a city with a percentage of foreigners of more than thirty-five percent and as one of the most important centres in the chemical

Libraries.

Basel is home to at least 65 libraries. Some of the largest include; the Universitätsbibliothek Basel (main university library), the special libraries of the University of Basel, the "Allgemein Bibliotheken der Gesellschaft für Gutes und

Culture.

Main sights.

The red sandstone Münster, one of the foremost late-Romanesque/early Gothic buildings in the Upper Rhine, was badly damaged in the great earthquake of 1356, rebuilt in the 14th and 15th century, extensively reconstructed in the mid-19th century and further restored in the late 20th century. A memorial to Erasmus lies inside the Münster. The City Hall from the 16th century is located on the Market Square and is decorated with fine murals on the outer walls and on the walls of the inner court. Basel is also host to an array of buildings by internationally renowned architects. These include the Beyeler Foundation by Renzo Piano, or the Vitra complex in nearby Weil am Rhein, composed of buildings by architects such as Zaha Hadid (fire station), Frank Gehry (Design Museum), Álvaro Siza Vieira (factory building) and Tadao Ando (conference centre). Basel also features buildings by Mario Botta (Jean Tinguely Museum and Bank of International settlements) and Herzog & de Meuron (whose architectural practice is in Basel, and who are best known as the architects of Tate Modern in London and the Bird's Nest in Beijing, the Olympia stadium, which was designed for use throughout the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics). The city received the Wakker Prize in 1996.

Heritage sites.

Basel features a great number of heritage sites of national significance.  These include the entire Old Town of Basel as well as the following buildings and collections:  "Badischer Bahnhof" (German Baden's railway station) with fountain, Bank for International Settlements, "Blaues Haus (Reichensteinerhof)" at Rheinsprung 16, "Bruderholzschule" (school house) at Fritz-Hauser-Strasse 20, "Brunschwiler Haus" at Hebelstrasse 15, "Bahnhof Basel SBB" (Swiss railway station), "Bürgerspital" (hospital), "Café Spitz (Merianflügel)", "Coop Schweiz" company's central archive, Depot of the "Archäologischen Bodenforschung des Kanton Basel-Stadt", former Gallizian Paper Mill and Swiss Museum of Paper, former "Klingental-Kaserne" (casern) with "Klingentaler Kirche" (church), "Fasnachtsbrunnen" (fountain), "Feuerschützenhaus" (guild house of the riflemen) at Schützenmattstrasse 56, "Fischmarktbrunnen" (fountain), "Geltenzunft" at Marktplatz 13, "Gymnasium am Kohlenberg (St Leonhard)" (school), "Hauptpost" (main post office), "Haus zum Raben" at Aeschenvorstadt 15, "Hohenfirstenhof" at Rittergasse 19, "Holsteinerhof" at Hebelstrasse 30, Markgräflerhof a former palace of the margraves of Baden-Durlach, "Mittlere Rhein Brücke" (Central Rhine Bridge), "Stadtcasino" (music hall) at Steinenberg 14, "Ramsteinerhof" at Rittergasse 7 and

Theatre and music.

Basel is the home of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, founded in 1933, a worldwide centre for research on and performance of music from the Medieval through the Baroque eras. Theater Basel, chosen in 1999 as the best stage for German-language performances and in 2009 and 2010 as "Opera house of the year" by German opera magazine "Opernwelt", presents a busy schedule of plays in addition to being home to the city's opera and ballet companies. Basel is home to the largest orchestra in Switzerland, the Sinfonieorchester Basel. It is also the

Museums.

The Basel museums cover a broad and diverse spectrum of collections with a marked concentration in the fine arts. They house numerous holdings of international significance. The over three dozen institutions yield an extraordinarily high density of museums compared to other cities of similar size and draw over one million visitors annually.  Constituting an

Events.

The city of Basel is a centre for numerous fairs and events all year round. One of the most important fairs for contemporary art worldwide is the Art Basel which was founded in 1970 by Ernst Beyeler and takes place in June each year. Baselworld, the watch and jewellery show ("Uhren- und Schmuckmesse") one of the biggest fairs of its kind in Europe is held every year as well, and attracts a great number of tourists and dealers to the city. Live marketing company and fair organizer MCH Group has its head office in Basel. The carnival of the city of Basel ("Basler Fasnacht") is a

Cuisine.

There are a number of culinary specialties originating in Basel, including "Basler Läckerli" cookies and "Mässmogge" candies. Being located in the

Zoo.

"Zoo Basel" is, with over 1.7 million visitors per year, the most visited tourist attraction in Basel and the second most visited tourist attraction in Switzerland.  Established in 1874, Zoo Basel is the oldest zoo in Switzerland and, by number of animals, the largest. Through its history, Zoo Basel has had several breeding successes, such as the first worldwide

Sport.

Basel has a reputation in Switzerland as a successful sporting city. The football club FC Basel continues to be successful and in recognition of this the city was one of the Swiss venues for the 2008 European Championships, as well as Geneva, Zürich and Bern. The championships were jointly hosted by Switzerland and Austria. BSC Old Boys and Concordia Basel are the other football teams in Basel. Among the most popular sports in Switzerland is ice hockey. Basel is home to the EHC Basel which plays in the MySports League, the third tier of the Swiss ice hockey league system. They play their home games in the 6,700-seat St. Jakob Arena. The team previously played in the National League and the Swiss League, but they had to fill a bankruptcy case after the 2013–14 Swiss League season.  Basel

Basel (, ) or Basle ( ; ; ; ) is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine. Basel is Switzerland's third-most-populous city (after Zürich and Geneva) with about 180,000 inhabitants.

巴塞尔(又称为巴泽尔,,,)是瑞士的第三大城市(仅次于苏黎世和日内瓦),为巴塞尔城市州(,)的首府,坐落于瑞士西北的三国交角,西北邻法国阿尔萨斯,东北与德国南北走向的黑森林山脉接壤;而莱茵河在此东注北涌穿城而去,将巴塞尔一分为二,版图较大者位于西岸称为大巴塞尔区,小巴塞尔区则位于东岸。


Historical significance.

The Stone Age is contemporaneous with the evolution of the genus "Homo", with the possible exception of the early Stone Age, when species prior to "Homo" may have manufactured tools. According to the age and location of the current evidence, the cradle of the genus is the East African Rift System, especially toward the north in Ethiopia, where it is bordered by grasslands. The closest relative among the other living primates, the genus "Pan", represents a branch

Stone Age in archaeology.

Beginning of the Stone Age.

The oldest indirect evidence found of stone tool use is fossilised animal bones with tool marks; these are 3.4 million years old and were found in the Lower Awash Valley in Ethiopia. Archaeological discoveries in Kenya in 2015, identifying what may be the oldest evidence of hominin use of tools known to date, have indicated that "Kenyanthropus platyops" (a 3.2 to 3.5-million-year-old Pliocene hominin fossil discovered in Lake Turkana, Kenya in 1999) may have been the earliest tool-users known.  The oldest stone tools were excavated from the site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, northwestern Kenya, and date to 3.3 million years old. Prior to the discovery

End of the Stone Age.

Innovation of the technique of smelting ore is regarded as ending the Stone Age and beginning the Bronze Age. The first highly significant metal manufactured was bronze, an alloy of copper and tin or arsenic, each of which was smelted separately. The transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age was a period during which modern people could smelt copper, but did not yet manufacture bronze, a time known as the Copper Age (or more technically the Chalcolithic or Eneolithic, both meaning 'copper–stone'). The Chalcolithic by convention is the initial period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age.  The transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 and 2500 BCE for much of humanity living in North Africa and Eurasia. The first evidence of human metallurgy dates to between

Concept of the Stone Age.

The terms "Stone Age", "Bronze Age", and "Iron Age" are not intended to suggest that advancements and time periods in prehistory are only measured by the type of tool material, rather than, for example, social organization, food sources exploited, adaptation to climate, adoption of agriculture, cooking, settlement, and religion. Like pottery, the typology of the stone tools combined with the relative sequence of the types in various regions provide a chronological framework for the evolution of humanity and society. They serve as diagnostics of

Three-stage system.

In the 1920s, South African archaeologists organizing the stone tool collections of that country observed that they did not fit the newly detailed Three-Age System. In the words of J. Desmond Clark,  It was early realized that the threefold division of culture into Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages adopted in the nineteenth century for Europe had no validity in Africa outside the Nile valley.  Consequently, they proposed a new system for Africa, the Three-stage System. Clark regarded the Three-age System as valid for North Africa; in sub-Saharan Africa, the Three-stage System was best. In practice, the failure of African archaeologists either to keep this distinction in mind, or to explain which one they mean, contributes to the considerable equivocation already present in the literature. There are in effect two Stone Ages, one part of the Three-age and the other constituting the Three-stage. They refer to one and the same artifacts and the same technologies, but vary by locality and time.  The three-stage system was proposed in 1929 by Astley John Hilary Goodwin, a professional archaeologist, and Clarence van Riet Lowe, a civil engineer and amateur archaeologist, in an article titled

Problem of the transitions.

The problem of the transitions in archaeology is a branch of the general philosophic continuity problem, which examines how discrete objects of any sort that are contiguous in any way can be presumed to have a relationship of any sort. In archaeology, the relationship is one of causality. If Period B can be presumed to descend from Period A, there must be a boundary between A and B, the A–B boundary. The problem is in the nature of this boundary.

Chronology.

In 1859 Jens Jacob Worsaae first proposed a division of the Stone Age into older and younger parts based on his work with Danish kitchen middens that began in 1851. In the subsequent decades this simple distinction developed into the archaeological periods of today. The major subdivisions of the Three-age Stone Age cross two epoch boundaries on the geologic time scale: The succession of these phases varies enormously from one region (and culture) to another.

Three-age chronology.

The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (from Greek: παλαιός, "palaios", "old"; and λίθος, "lithos", "stone" lit. "old stone", coined by archaeologist John Lubbock and published in 1865) is the earliest division of the Stone Age. It covers the greatest portion of humanity's time (roughly 99% of "human technological history", where "human" and "humanity" are interpreted to mean the genus "Homo"), extending from 2.5 or 2.6 million years ago, with the first documented use of stone tools by hominans such as "Homo habilis", to the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BCE. The Paleolithic era ended with the Mesolithic, or in areas with an early neolithisation, the Epipaleolithic.

Lower Paleolithic.

At sites dating from the Lower Paleolithic Period (about 2,500,000 to 200,000 years ago), simple pebble tools have been found in association with the remains of what may have been the earliest human ancestors. A somewhat more sophisticated Lower Paleolithic tradition, known as the Chopper chopping-tool industry, is widely distributed in the Eastern Hemisphere. This tradition is thought to have been the work of the hominin species named Homo erectus. Although no such fossil tools have yet been found, it is believed that H. erectus probably made tools of wood and bone as well as stone. About 700,000 years

Middle Paleolithic.

This period is best known as the era during which the Neanderthals lived in Europe and the Near East (c. 300,000–28,000 years ago). Their technology is mainly the Mousterian, but Neanderthal physical characteristics have been found also in ambiguous association with the more recent Châtelperronian archeological culture in Western Europe and several local industries like the Szeletian in Eastern Europe/Eurasia.

Upper Paleolithic.

From 50,000 to 10,000 years ago in Europe, the Upper Paleolithic ends with the end of the Pleistocene and onset of the Holocene era (the end of the last ice age). Modern humans spread out further across the Earth during the period known as the Upper Paleolithic.  The Upper Paleolithic is marked by a relatively rapid succession of often complex stone artifact technologies and a large increase in the creation of art and personal ornaments. During period between 35 and 10 kya evolved: from 38 to 30 kya Châtelperronian, 40–28 Aurignacian, 28–22 Gravettian, 22–17 Solutrean, and 18–10

Epipaleolithic/Mesolithic.

The period starting from the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago, to around 6,000 years ago was characterized by rising sea levels and a need to adapt to a changing environment and find new food sources. The development of Mode 5 (microlith) tools began in response to these changes. They were derived from the previous Paleolithic tools, hence the term Epipaleolithic, or were intermediate between the

Neolithic.

The Neolithic, or New Stone Age, was approximately characterized by the adoption of agriculture. The shift from food gathering to food producing, in itself one of the most revolutionary changes in human history, was accompanied by the so-called Neolithic Revolution: the development of pottery, polished stone tools, and construction of more complex, larger settlements such as Göbekli Tepe and Çatal Hüyük. Some of these features began in certain localities even earlier, in the transitional Mesolithic. The first Neolithic cultures started around 7000 BCE in the fertile crescent and spread concentrically to other areas of the world; however, the Near East was probably not the only nucleus of agriculture, the cultivation of maize in Meso-America and of rice in the Far East being others.  Due to the increased need to harvest and process plants, ground stone and polished stone artifacts became much

African chronology.

Early Stone Age (ESA).

The Early Stone Age in Africa is not to be identified with "Old Stone Age", a translation of Paleolithic, or with Paleolithic, or with the "Earlier Stone Age" that originally meant what became the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. In the initial decades of its definition by the Pan-African Congress of Prehistory, it was parallel

Middle Stone Age (MSA).

The Middle Stone Age was a period of African prehistory between Early Stone Age and Late Stone Age. It began around 300,000 years ago and ended around 50,000 years ago.

Later Stone Age (LSA).

The Later Stone Age (LSA, sometimes also called the Late Stone Age) refers to a period in African prehistory. Its beginnings are roughly contemporaneous with the European Upper Paleolithic. It lasts until historical times and this includes cultures corresponding to Mesolithic and Neolithic in other regions.

Material culture.

Tools.

Stone tools were made from a variety of stones. For example, flint and chert were shaped (or "chipped") for use as cutting tools and weapons, while basalt and sandstone were used for ground stone tools, such as quern-stones. Wood, bone, shell, antler (deer) and other materials were widely used, as well. During the most recent part of the period, sediments (such as clay) were used to

Food and drink.

Food sources of the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers were wild plants and animals harvested from the environment. They liked animal organ meats, including the livers, kidneys and brains. Large seeded legumes were part of the human diet long before the agricultural revolution, as is evident from archaeobotanical finds from the Mousterian layers of Kebara Cave, in Israel.<ref name="doi10.1016/j.jas.2004.11.006"></ref> Moreover, recent evidence indicates that humans processed and consumed wild cereal grains as far back as 23,000 years

Shelter and habitat.

Around 2 million years ago, "Homo habilis" is believed to have constructed the first man-made structure in East Africa, consisting of simple arrangements of stones to hold branches of trees in

Art.

Prehistoric art is visible in the artifacts. Prehistoric music is inferred from found instruments, while parietal art can be found on rocks of any kind. The latter are petroglyphs and rock paintings. The art may or may not have had a religious function.

Petroglyphs.

Petroglyphs appeared in the Neolithic. A Petroglyph is an intaglio abstract or symbolic image engraved on natural stone by various methods, usually by prehistoric peoples. They

Rock paintings.

In paleolithic times, mostly animals were painted, in theory ones that were used as food or represented strength, such as the rhinoceros or large cats (as in the Chauvet Cave). Signs such as dots were sometimes drawn. Rare human representations include handprints and half-human/half-animal figures. The Cave of Chauvet in the Ardèche "département", France, contains the most important cave paintings of the paleolithic era, dating from about 36,000 BCE. The Altamira cave paintings in Spain were done 14,000 to 12,000 BCE and show, among others, bisons. The hall of bulls in Lascaux, Dordogne, France, dates from about 15,000 to 10,000 BCE.  The meaning of many of these paintings remains unknown. They may have been used for seasonal rituals. The animals are accompanied

Stone Age rituals and beliefs.

Modern studies and the in-depth analysis of finds dating from the Stone Age indicate certain rituals and beliefs of the people in those prehistoric times. It

Modern popular culture.

The image of the caveman is commonly associated with the Stone Age. For example, a 2003 documentary series showing the evolution of humans through the Stone Age was called "Walking with Cavemen", but only the last programme showed humans living in caves. While the idea that human beings and dinosaurs coexisted is sometimes portrayed in popular culture in cartoons, films and computer games, such as "The Flintstones", "One Million Years B.C." and "Chuck Rock", the notion of hominids and non-avian dinosaurs co-existing is not supported by any scientific evidence.  Other depictions of the Stone Age include the best-selling "Earth's Children" series of books by Jean M. Auel, which are set in the Paleolithic and are loosely based on archaeological and anthropological findings.  The 1981 film "Quest for Fire" by Jean-Jacques Annaud tells the story of a group of early homo sapiens searching for their lost fire. A 21st-century series, "Chronicles of Ancient Darkness" by Michelle Paver tells of two New Stone Age children fighting to fulfil a prophecy and save their clan.

The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE, with the advent of metalworking. Though some simple metalworking of malleable metals, particularly the use of gold and copper for purposes of ornamentation, was known in the Stone Age, it is the melting and smelting of copper that marks the end of the Stone Age. In western Asia this occurred by about 3000 BCE, when bronze became widespread. The term Bronze Age is used to describe the cultures that used it.

石器时代,指人们以石头作为工具使用的时代,当时因为科技不发达,人们只能以石头制造简单的工具。而随着时代的演进,人们对石器的研制也在不断改进。石器时代大致可分为旧石器时代、中石器时代和新石器时代三个时代。


Theory.

In information theory and computer science, a code is usually considered as an algorithm that uniquely represents symbols from some source alphabet, by "encoded" strings, which may be in some other target alphabet. An extension of the code for representing sequences of symbols over the source alphabet is obtained by concatenating the encoded strings.  Before giving a mathematically precise definition, this is a brief example. The mapping is a code, whose source alphabet is the set formula_2 and whose target alphabet is the set formula_3. Using the extension of the code, the encoded string 0011001011 can be grouped into codewords as 0 011 0 01 011, and these in turn can be decoded to the sequence of source symbols "acabc".  Using terms from formal language theory, the precise mathematical definition of this concept is as follows: let S and T be two finite sets, called the source and target alphabets, respectively. A code formula_4 is a total function mapping each symbol from S to a sequence of symbols over T, and the extension of formula_5 to a homomorphism of formula_6 into formula_7, which naturally maps each sequence of source symbols to a sequence of target symbols, is referred to as its extension.

Variable-length codes.

In this section, we consider codes that encode each source (clear text) character by a code word from some dictionary, and concatenation of such code words give us an encoded string. Variable-length codes are especially useful when clear text characters have different probabilities; see also entropy encoding.  A "prefix code" is a code with the "prefix property": there is no valid code word in the system that is a prefix (start) of any other valid code word in the set. Huffman coding is the most known algorithm for deriving prefix codes. Prefix codes are widely referred to as "Huffman codes" even when the code was not produced by a Huffman algorithm. Other examples of prefix codes are country calling codes, the country and publisher parts of ISBNs, and the Secondary Synchronization Codes used in the UMTS WCDMA 3G Wireless Standard.  Kraft's inequality characterizes the sets of codeword lengths that are possible in a prefix code. Virtually any uniquely decodable one-to-many code, not necessary a prefix one, must satisfy Kraft's inequality.

Error-correcting codes.

Codes may also be used to represent data in a way more resistant to errors in transmission or storage. This so-called error-correcting code works by including carefully crafted redundancy with the stored (or transmitted) data. Examples include Hamming codes, Reed–Solomon, Reed–Muller, Walsh–Hadamard, Bose–Chaudhuri–Hochquenghem, Turbo, Golay, Goppa, low-density parity-check codes, and space–time codes. Error detecting codes can be optimised to detect "burst errors", or "random errors".

Examples.

Codes in communication used for brevity.

A cable code replaces words (e.g. "ship" or "invoice") with shorter words, allowing the same information to be sent with fewer characters, more quickly, and less expensively.  Codes can be used for brevity. When telegraph messages were the state of the art in rapid long-distance communication, elaborate systems of commercial codes that encoded complete phrases into single mouths (commonly five-minute groups) were developed, so that telegraphers became conversant with such "words" as "BYOXO" ("Are you trying to weasel out of our deal?"), "LIOUY" ("Why do you not answer my question?"), "BMULD" ("You're a skunk!"), or "AYYLU" ("Not clearly coded, repeat more clearly."). Code words were chosen for various reasons: length, pronounceability, etc. Meanings were chosen to fit perceived needs: commercial negotiations, military terms for military codes, diplomatic terms for diplomatic codes, any and all of the preceding for espionage codes. Codebooks and codebook publishers proliferated, including one run as a front for the American Black Chamber run by Herbert Yardley between the First and Second World Wars. The purpose of most of these codes was to save on cable costs. The use of data coding for data compression predates the computer era; an early example is the telegraph Morse code where more-frequently used characters have shorter representations. Techniques such as Huffman coding are now used by computer-based algorithms to compress large data files into a more compact form for storage or transmission.

Character encodings.

Character encodings are representations of textual data. A given character encoding may be associated with a specific character set (the collection of characters which it can represent), though some character sets have multiple character encodings and vice versa. Character encodings may be broadly grouped according to the number of bytes required to represent a single character: there are single byte encodings, multibyte (also called wide) encodings, and variable-width (also called variable-length) encodings. The earliest character encodings were single-byte, the best known example of which is ASCII. ASCII remains in use today, for example in HTTP headers. However, single-byte encodings cannot model character sets with more than 256 characters. Scripts which require large character sets such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean must be represented with multibyte encodings. Early multibyte encodings were fixed-length, meaning that although each character was represented by more than one byte, all characters used the same number of bytes ("word length"), making them suitable for decoding with a lookup table. The final group, variable-width encodings, is a subset of multibyte encodings. These use more complex encoding and decoding logic to efficiently represent large character sets while keeping the representations of more commonly used characters shorter or maintaining backwards compatibility properties. This group includes UTF-8, an encoding of the Unicode character set; UTF-8 is the most common encoding of text media on the Internet.

Genetic code.

Biological organisms contain genetic material that is used to control their function and development. This is DNA, which contains units named genes from which messenger RNA is derived. This in turn produces proteins through a genetic code in which a series of triplets (codons) of four possible nucleotides can be translated into one of twenty possible amino acids. A sequence of codons results in a corresponding sequence of amino acids that form a protein molecule; a type of codon called a stop codon signals the end of the sequence.

Gödel code.

In mathematics, a Gödel code was the basis for the proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Here, the idea was to map mathematical notation to a natural number (using a Gödel numbering).

Other.

There are codes using colors, like traffic lights, the color code employed to mark the nominal value of the electrical resistors or that of the trashcans devoted to specific types of garbage (paper, glass, organic, etc.).  In marketing, coupon codes can be used for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product from a (usually internet) retailer.  In military environments, specific sounds with the cornet are used for different uses: to mark some moments of the day, to command the infantry on the battlefield, etc.  Communication systems for sensory impairments, such as sign language for deaf people and braille for blind people, are based on movement or tactile codes.  Musical scores are the most common way to encode music.  Specific games have their own code systems to record the matches, e.g. chess notation.

Cryptography.

In the history of cryptography, codes were once common for ensuring the confidentiality of communications, although ciphers are now used instead.  Secret codes intended to obscure the real messages, ranging from serious (mainly espionage in military, diplomacy, business, etc.) to trivial (romance, games) can be any kind of imaginative encoding: flowers, game cards, clothes, fans, hats, melodies, birds, etc., in which the sole requisite is the pre-agreement on the meaning by both the sender and the receiver.

Other examples.

Other examples of encoding include:  Other examples of decoding include:

Codes and acronyms.

Acronyms and abbreviations can be considered codes, and in a sense all languages and writing systems are codes for human thought.  International Air Transport Association airport codes are three-letter codes used to designate airports and used for bag tags. Station codes are similarly used on railways, but are usually national, so the same code can be used for different stations if they are in different countries.  Occasionally, a code word achieves an independent existence (and meaning) while the original equivalent phrase is forgotten or at least no longer has the precise meaning attributed to the code word. For example, '30' was widely used in journalism to mean "end of story", and has been used in other contexts to signify "the end".

In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form or representation, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication channel or storage in a storage medium. An early example is the invention of language, which enabled a person, through speech, to communicate what they saw, heard, felt, or thought to others. But speech limits the range of communication to the distance a voice can carry, and limits the audience to those present when the speech is uttered. The invention of writing, which converted spoken language into visual symbols, extended the range of communication across space and time.

在通信和资讯处理中,代码(code)是指一套转换信息的规则系统,例如将一个字母、单词、声音、图像或手势转换为另一种形式或表达,有时还会缩短或加密以便通过某种信道或存储媒体通信。一个最早的例子是语言的发明,它使人可以通过说话将他看到、听到、感受到或想到的事情表达给其他人。但是,说话的通信范围局限于声音可以有效传播、辨识的范围,并且发言只能传达给现有的听众。将言谈转化为视觉符号的写作扩大了跨越时间、空间的通信表达。代码有时亦称代号等。


Titles.

When used as a noun (e.g., "... a grandparent walked by"), grandfather and grandmother are usually used, although forms such as grandma/grandpa, granny/granddaddy or even nan/pop are sometimes used. When preceded by "my..." (e.g., "... my grandpa walked by"), all forms are common (anywhere from "... my grandfather..." to "... my Gramps..."). All forms can be used in plural, but Gramps (plural Gramps) is rare.  In writing, "Grandfather" and "Grandmother" are most common, but very rare as a form of address. In speech, "Grandpa" and "Grandma" are commonly used in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. In Britain, Ireland, United States, Australia, New Zealand and, particularly prevalent in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, "Nan", "Nana", "Nanna", "Nanny", "Gran" and "Granny" and other variations are often used for grandmother in both writing and speech.  In many parts of India, maternal grandparents are called "Nana" and "Nani". Similarly, paternal grandparents are called "Dada" and "Dadi". One's parents' maternal grandparents are called "Par-nani" and "Par-nana". On similar lines, parents' paternal grandparents are called "Par-dadi" and "Par-dada."  Numerous other variants exist, such as "Gramp", "Gramps", "Grampa", "Grandpap", "Granda", "Grampy", "Granddad", "Grandad", "Granddaddy", "Grandpappy", "Pop(s)", "Pap," "Pappy", and "Pawpaw" for grandfather; "Grandmom", "Grandmama", "Grama", "Granny", "Gran", "Nanny", "Nan", "Mammaw, Meemaw" and "Grammy" for grandmother. "Gogo" can be used for either, etc.  Given that people may have two living sets of grandparents, some confusion arises from calling two people "grandma" or "grandpa", so often two of the other terms listed above are used for one set of grandparents. Another common solution is to call grandparents by their first names ("Grandpa George", "Grandma Anne", etc.) or by their family names ("Grandpa Jones", "Grandma Smith"). In North America, many families call one set of grandparents by their ethnic names (e.g., Hispanic grandparents might be called "abuelo" and "abuela" or "abuelito" and "abuelita", French grandparents might be called "papi" and "mamie", Italian grandparents might be called "nonno" and "nonna", or Dutch and German grandparents might be called "Opa" and "Oma". In Flanders pepee or petje and memee or metje are most used). In Friesland, a common pair is pake and beppe. Mandarin-speaking Chinese Americans refer to maternal grandparents as "wài pó" (外婆) and "wài gōng" (外公) and paternal grandparents as "nǎi nai" (奶奶) and "yé yé" (爷爷). In the Philippines, grandparents are called "lolo" (grandfather) and "lola" (grandmother), respectively.  Languages and cultures with more specific kinship terminology than English may distinguish between paternal grandparents and maternal grandparents. For example, in the Swedish language there is no single word for "grandmother"; the mother's mother is termed "mormor" and the father's mother is termed "farmor". However, the other Scandinavian languages, Danish and Norwegian, use words which specifies the kinship like in Swedish (identically spelled among all three languages), as well as using common terms similar to grandmother (Danish: bedstemor, Norwegian: bestemor).

Great-grandparents and beyond.

The parents of a grandparent, or the grandparents of a parent, are called the same names as grandparents (grandfather/-mother, grandpa/-ma, granddad/-ma, etc.) with the prefix "great-" added, with an additional "great-" added for each additional generation. One's great-grandparent's parents would be "great-great-grandparents".  To avoid a proliferation of "greats" when discussing genealogical trees, one may also use ordinals instead of multiple "greats"; thus a "great-great-grandfather" would be the "second great-grandfather", and a "great-great-great-grandfather" would be a third great-grandfather, and so on. This system is used by some genealogical websites such as Geni. One may also use cardinal numbers for numbering greats, for example, great-great-great-grandmother becomes 3×-great-grandmother.  Individuals who share the same great-grandparents but are not siblings or first cousins are called "second cousins" to each other, as second cousins have grandparents who are siblings. Similarly, "third cousins" would have great-grandparents who are siblings.

History of the term.

The use of the prefix "grand-" dates from the early 13th century, from the Anglo-French "graund". The term was used as a translation of Latin "magnus". The prefix "great-" represents a direct translation of Anglo-French "graund" and Latin "magnus" to English. In Old English, the prefixes "ealde-" (old) and "ieldra-" (elder) were used ("ealdefæder"/"-mōdor" and "ieldrafæder"/"-mōdor"). A great-grandfather was called a "þridda fæder" (third father), a great-great-grandfather a "fēowerða fæder" (fourth father), etc.

Grandparental involvement in childcare.

Grandparents are changing their roles in contemporary world, especially they are becoming increasingly involved in childcare. Since 2007, approximately one-third of children in the U.S. live in a household consisting of both parents and a grandparent. Around 67% of these households are also maintained by either two grandparents, or a grandmother. Likewise, more than 40% of grandparents across 11 European countries care for their grandchildren in the absence of the parents. In Britain, around 63% of grandparents care for their grandchildren who are under 16 years old. Grandparent involvement is also common in Eastern societies. For instance, 48% of grandparents in Hong Kong reported that they are taking care of their grandchildren. In China, around 58% of Chinese grandparents who are aged 45 or older are involved in childcare. In Singapore, 40% of children from birth to three years old are cared by their grandparents and this percentage is still increasing. In South Korea, 53% of children under the age of 6 years old are cared by their grandparents. Therefore, grandparents taking care of their grandchildren has become a prevalent phenomenon around the world.  There are a few reasons why grandparent involvement is becoming more prevalent. First, life expectancy has increased while fertility rates have decreased. This means that more children are growing up while their grandparents are still alive, whom can become involved in childcare. In addition, the reduced fertility rates mean that grandparents can devote more attention and resources to their only grandchildren. Second, more mothers are involved in the workforce, and thus, other caregivers need to be present to care for the child. For instance, in Hong Kong, 55% of grandparents reported that they took care of their grandchild because his or her parents have to work. In South Korea, 53% of working mother reported that they once received child care services from their parents. Third, the increasing number of single-parent families creates a need for grandparental support.  The degree of grandparent involvement also varies depending on the societal context, such as the social welfare policies. For example, in European countries such as Sweden and Denmark, where formal childcare is widely available, grandparents provide less intensive childcare. By contrast, in European countries such as Spain and Italy, where formal childcare is limited, and welfare payment is low, grandparents provide more intensive childcare. In Singapore, the grandparent caregiver tax relief was established in 2004, which enables working parents (Singapore citizens with children age 12 and below) whose children are being cared for by unemployed grandparents to receive income tax relief of 3,000 Singaporean dollars.

Different types of grandparental involvement.

There are different types of grandparental involvement, including nonresident grandparents, co-resident grandparents, grandparent-maintained household, and custodial grandparents.

Impact of grandparental involvement.

On child development.

Grandparents have different functions in child development. Not only do they provide instrumental support such as picking grandchildren from school or feeding them, but they also offer emotional support. Furthermore, grandparents protect children from being impacted by negative circumstances, such as harsh parenting, poor economic status, and single-parent families. In addition to providing support, grandparents can also help grandchildren with their schoolwork or teach them values that are integral to their society.  Grandparents can have a positive or negative impact on child development. On the one hand, previous research suggests that children and adolescents who have a close relationship with their grandparents tend to have better well-being, experience fewer emotional problems, and demonstrate fewer problematic behaviours. They are also more academically engaged and are more likely to help others. On the other hand, there are also research studies indicating that grandparent involvement is associated with more hyperactivity and peer difficulties among young children. In other words, children who are cared for by their grandparents can have more interpersonal relationship problems. Also, children who are under the care of their grandparents have poorer health outcomes such as obesity, and more injuries due to low safety awareness.

On grandparents.

Since taking care of grandchildren could be a highly demanding job that requires constant energy and time devotion, grandparental involvement in child raising could have a negative impact on grandparents’ physical and emotional health. For example, taking care of grandchildren can reduce grandparents’ own time for self-care such as missing their medical appointments. Therefore, they are likely to have a higher chance to suffer from physical health issues. In the US, compared with those who do not take care of their grandchildren, grandparents who are involved in childcare are more likely to have poor physical conditions, such as heart disease, hypertension or body pain. Besides physical health issues, grandparents are also likely to have emotional issues. To be more specific, raising young children again could be a stressful and overwhelming experience and thus results in different kinds of negative emotions such as anxiety or depression. In addition to physical and emotional issues, grandparents who are involved in caring for their grandchildren can also suffer socially. For instance, grandparents will be forced to limit their social activities so as to care for their grandchildren. By doing so, grandparents become more isolated from their social relations. Taking care of grandchildren also means more responsibilities, grandparents would fear for their grandchildren's future well-being because of their disability and death in the future. If grandparents cannot handle the caregiver role of their grandchildren well, this job can eventually become a burden or stressor and bring more severe physical health and emotional issues to grandparents.  However, there are also positive effects of being involved in grandchildren raising. Compared with grandparents who do not provide caregiving to their grandchildren, those who take care of their grandchildren with long hours are more likely to have better cognitive functions. To be more specific, taking care of grandchildren helps elder grandparents maintain their mental capacities in later life, they are also less likely to develop diseases such as dementia. Moreover, frequent interactions with their grandchildren could reduce the cognitive aging process, allowing grandparents a chance to live a more vibrant and active life. Grandparents also get benefits of physically exercising more during this process.  Taking care of grandchildren can also have benefits on grandparents’ emotional health. As an example, many grandparents start to feel a sense of purpose and meaning in life again after their retirement; as another example, their ties with their adult children and grandchildren are also strengthened. Many grandparents also think of the caregiving experience as positive because it provides another chance for them to make up mistakes they made with their own children and give them more opportunities to educate their grandchildren and improve their parenting styles.

Cultural comparisons of grandparent involvement in childcare.

Grandparental involvement differs between Western and Eastern cultures. Grandparents taking care of their grandchildren is a common phenomenon in China due to Chinese traditions which emphasize family harmony, collective well-being, intergenerational exchanges and filial responsibilities. China's unique philosophies, Buddhism and Taoism, play important roles in forming these cultural values. While Chinese Buddhism emphasizes prioritized role of the family in Chinese society and harmonious relations among family members, Taoism emphasizes the importance of harmony in interpersonal relations and relations between nature and the humans. These philosophies underline the important role that families play in Chinese cultures. Besides cultural factors, grandparents taking care of their grandchildren also appears in the context in which their adult children need to work full-time, and the child care services are either too expensive (in big cities) or too scarce (in remote areas). Grandparents serving as their grandchildren's caregiver is particularly common in rural China. Due to the fast development of urbanization in China since the 1980s, up to 220 million migrant workers from rural areas move to urban areas to seek for more job opportunities, which leave around 58 million children behind in rural areas, grandparents, therefore, undertake the role of parents and become caregivers to their grandchildren. A new population named “left-behind grandparents” appears in this context, these grandparents live in rural China, and their main job is to look after their grandchildren, most of these grandparents are facing financial burdens and wish their adult children could come back. The mental and physical health of “left-behind grandparents” needs more attention from the public. Even though in urban areas where child care services are available, nearly all grandparents still prefer to take care of their grandchildren voluntarily. Not only because this can reduce their adult children's financial burdens on child care services but also taking care of their own grandchildren is a more effective way to maintain family harmony.  In the US, taking care of grandchildren is not a necessary responsibility of grandparents. Grandparents taking care of their grandchildren is often caused by involuntary events or crisis, and it is more like a solution to a problem, not an initiative desire, which is a distinct difference from that in China. For example, grandparents in the USA often take care of their grandchildren when their adult children get into troubles such as substance abuse, incarceration or parental death. Differences also exist in different ethnicities in the US, Caucasian individuals generally regard individual independence as more important, so grandparents are less likely to take care of their grandchildren. However, African American and Latino individuals are more likely to regard looking after grandchildren as a family tradition and are more willing to provide help for their adult children. Ethnic differences in grandparents looking after their grandchildren reflect different cultural values that different ethnic groups hold. To be more specific, African American grandparents are more likely to provide guidance and discipline to their grandchildren due to their flexible family system in which relatives, nonblood kin are all willing to help each other. Latino families have a strong preference to live together and keep frequent contact with family members because most of them are immigrants or first-generation born in the US, they are more likely to live and function as a unit. Grandparents in Latino culture also play important roles in stabilizing the family unit as family leaders. Although Caucasian grandparents are less likely to raise their grandchildren, they have more cognitive or physical burdens of taking care of grandchildren compared with other ethnic groups, mainly because their caregiver roles are less normative, and they rely more on remote or companionate parenting styles. On the contrary, African American and Latino grandparents rely more on disciplinary and instructional parenting styles and they are less likely to have cognitive or physical burdens when taking care of their grandchildren.

Grandparents are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually-reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a maximum of four genetic grandparents, eight genetic great-grandparents, sixteen genetic great-great-grandparents, thirty-two genetic great-great-great-grandparents, etc. In the history of modern humanity, around 30,000 years ago, the number of modern humans who lived to be a grandparent increased. It is not known for certain what spurred this increase in longevity but largely results in the improved medical technology and living standard, but it is generally believed that a key consequence of three generations being alive together was the preservation of information which could otherwise have been lost; an example of this important information might have been where to find water in times of drought.

祖父母是指父亲跟母亲的父母亲,又称“爷爷、奶奶”、“爷爷、<unk>”。母亲或入赘父亲的父母称为外祖父母,在中国南方称为外公、外婆,在中国北方则称为姥姥(或姥娘)、姥爷。自己则分别是祖父母和外祖父母的孙儿或孙女、外孙或外孙女。


Definitions.

One of the more widely accepted definitions of native speakers is that they were born in a particular country (and) raised to speak the language of that country during the critical period of their development. The person qualifies as a "native speaker" of a language by being born and immersed in the language during youth, in a family in which the adults shared a similar language experience to the child. Native speakers are considered to be an authority on their given language because of their natural acquisition process regarding the language, as opposed to having learned the language later in life. That is achieved by personal interaction with the language and speakers of the language. Native speakers will not necessarily be knowledgeable about every grammatical rule of the language, but they will have good "intuition" of the rules through their experience with the language.  The designation "native language", in its general usage, is thought to be imprecise and subject to various interpretations that are biased linguistically, especially with respect to bilingual children from ethnic minority groups. Many scholars have given definitions of 'native language' based on common usage, the emotional relation of the speaker towards the language, and even its dominance in relation to the environment. However, all three criteria lack precision. For many children whose home language differs from the language of the environment (the 'official' language), it is debatable which language is their "native language".

Defining "native language".

In some countries, such as Kenya, India, and various East Asian and Central Asian countries, "mother language" or "native language" is used to indicate the language of one's ethnic group in both common and journalistic parlance ("I have no apologies for not learning my mother tongue"), rather than one's first language. Also, in Singapore, "mother tongue" refers to the language of one's ethnic group regardless of actual proficiency, and the "first language" refers to English, which was established on the island under the British Empire, and is the lingua franca for most post-independence Singaporeans because of its use as the language of instruction in government schools and as a working language.  In the context of population censuses conducted on the Canadian population, Statistics Canada defines "mother tongue" as "the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the individual at the time of the census." It is quite possible that the first language learned is no longer a speaker's dominant language. That includes young immigrant children whose families have moved to a new linguistic environment as well as people who learned their mother tongue as a young child at home (rather than the language of the majority of the community), who may have lost, in part or in totality, the language they first acquired (see language attrition). According to Ivan Illich, the term "mother tongue" was first used by Catholic monks to designate a particular language they used, instead of Latin, when they were "speaking from the pulpit". That is, the "holy mother the Church" introduced this term and colonies inherited it from Christianity as a part of colonialism. J. R. R. Tolkien, in his 1955 lecture "English and Welsh", distinguishes the "native tongue" from the "cradle tongue". The latter is the language one learns during early childhood, and one's true "native tongue" may be different, possibly determined by an inherited linguistic taste and may later in life be discovered by a strong emotional affinity to a specific dialect (Tolkien personally confessed to such an affinity to the Middle English of the West Midlands in particular).  Children brought up speaking more than one language can have more than one native language, and be bilingual or multilingual. By contrast, a "second language" is any language that one speaks other than one's first language.

Bilingualism.

A related concept is bilingualism. One definition is that a person is bilingual if they are equally proficient in two languages. Someone who grows up speaking Spanish and then learns English for four years is bilingual only if they speak the two languages with equal fluency. Pearl and Lambert were the first to test only "balanced" bilinguals—that is, a child who is completely fluent in two languages and feels that neither is their "native" language because they grasp both so perfectly. This study found that

Multilingualism.

One can have two or more native languages, thus being a native "bilingual" or indeed "multilingual". The order in which these languages are learned is not necessarily the order of proficiency. For instance, if a French-speaking couple have a child who learned French first but then grew up in an English-speaking country, the child would likely be most proficient in English. Other examples are India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Kenya, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Africa, where most people speak more than one language.

Defining "native speaker".

Defining what constitutes a native speaker is difficult, and there is no test which can identify one. It is not known whether native speakers are a defined group of people, or if the concept should be thought of as a perfect prototype to which actual speakers may or may not conform.  An article titled "The Native Speaker: An Achievable Model?" published by the Asian EFL Journal states that there are six general principles that relate to the definition of "native speaker". The principles, according to the study, are typically accepted by language experts across the scientific field. A native speaker is defined according to the following guidelines:

A first language, native language or mother/father/parent tongue (also known as arterial language or L1), is a language that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term "native language" or "mother tongue" refers to the language of one's ethnic group rather than one's first language.

母语,又称第一语言,为一个人出生以后,最早接触、学习、并掌握的一种或几种语言。母语一般是自幼即开始接触、并持续运用到青少年或之后;并且,一个人所受的家庭或正式教育中,尤其是早期,有相当部分是通过母语传授的。一个人同时可以拥有多种母语,并且可以使用双语或多种语言。相较之下,并非第一语言的称为第二语言。