Units.

The international standard way of measuring blood glucose levels is in terms of a molar concentration, measured in mmol/L (millimoles per litre; or millimolar, abbreviated mM). In the United States, Germany and other countries mass concentration is measured in mg/dL (milligrams per decilitre).  Since the molecular weight of glucose CHO is 180, the difference between the two units is a factor of 18, so that 1 mmol/L of glucose is equivalent to 18 mg/dL.

Normal values.

Humans.

Normal value ranges may vary slightly between laboratories. Many factors affect a person's blood sugar level. The body's homeostatic mechanism of blood sugar regulation (known as glucose homeostasis), when operating normally, restores the blood sugar level to a narrow range of about 4.4 to 6.1 mmol/L (79 to 110 mg/dL) (as measured by a fasting blood glucose test).  Normal blood glucose level (tested while fasting) for non-diabetics is between 3.9 and 7.1 mmol/L (70 to 130 mg/dL). The global mean fasting plasma blood glucose level in humans is about 5.5 mmol/L (100 mg/dL); however, this level fluctuates throughout the day. Blood sugar levels for those without diabetes and who are not fasting should be below 6.9 mmol/L (125 mg/dL). The blood glucose target range for diabetics, according to the American Diabetes Association, should be 5.0–7.2 mmol/l (90–130 mg/dL) before meals, and less than 10 mmol/L (180 mg/dL) two hours after meals (as measured by a blood glucose monitor).  Despite widely variable intervals between meals or the occasional consumption of meals with a substantial carbohydrate load, human blood glucose levels tend to remain within the normal range. However, shortly after eating, the blood glucose level may rise, in non-diabetics, temporarily up to 7.8 mmol/L (140 mg/dL) or slightly more. For people with diabetes maintaining 'tight diabetes control', the American Diabetes Association recommends a post-meal glucose level of less than 10 mmol/L (180 mg/dL) and a fasting plasma glucose of 3.9 to 7.2 mmol/L (70–130 mg/dL).  The actual amount of glucose in the blood and body fluids is very small. In a healthy adult male of 75 kg with a blood volume of 5 liters, a blood glucose level of 5.5 mmol/L (100 mg/dL) amounts to 5g, equivalent to about a teaspoonful of sugar. Part of the reason why this amount is so small is that, to maintain an influx of glucose into cells, enzymes modify glucose by adding phosphate or other groups to it.

Other animals.

In general, ranges of blood sugar in common domestic ruminants are lower than in many monogastric mammals. However this generalization does not extend to wild ruminants or camelids. For serum glucose in mg/dL, reference ranges of 42 to 75 for cows, 44 to 81 for sheep, and 48 to 76 for goats, but 61 to 124 for cats; 62 to 108 for dogs, 62 to 114 for horses, 66 to 116 for pigs, 75 to 155 for rabbits, and 90 to 140 for llamas have been reported. A 90 percent reference interval for serum glucose of 26 to 181 mg/dL has been reported for captured mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus), where no effects of the pursuit and capture on measured levels were evident. For beluga whales, the 25–75 percent range for serum glucose has been estimated to be 94 to 115 mg/dL. For the white rhinoceros, one study has indicated that the 95 percent range is 28 to 140 mg/dL. For harp seals, a serum glucose range of 4.9 to 12.1 mmol/L [i.e. 88 to 218 mg/dL] has been reported; for hooded seals, a range of 7.5 to 15.7 mmol/L [i.e. about 135 to 283 mg/dL] has been reported.

Regulation.

The body's homeostatic mechanism keeps blood glucose levels within a narrow range. It is composed of several interacting systems, of which hormone regulation is the most important.  There are two types of mutually antagonistic metabolic hormones affecting blood glucose levels:  These hormones are secreted from pancreatic islets (bundles of endocrine tissues), of which there are four types: alpha (A) cells, beta (B) cells, Delta (D) cells and F cells. Glucagon is secreted from alpha cells, while insulin is secreted by beta cells. Together they regulate the blood-glucose levels through negative feedback, a process where the end product of one reaction stimulates the beginning of another reaction. In blood-glucose levels, insulin lowers the concentration of glucose in the blood. The lower blood-glucose level (a product of the insulin secretion) triggers glucagon to be secreted, and repeats the cycle.  In order for blood glucose to be kept stable, modifications to insulin, glucagon, epinephrine and cortisol are made. Each of these hormones has a different responsibility to keep blood glucose regulated; when blood sugar is too high, insulin tells muscles to take up excess glucose for storage. Glucagon responds to too low of a blood glucose level; it informs the tissue to produce more glucose. Epinephrine prepares the muscles and respiratory system for activity in the case of a "fight and flight" response. Lastly, cortisol supplies the body with fuel in times of heavy stress.

Abnormalities.

High blood sugar.

If blood sugar levels remain too high the body suppresses appetite over the short term. Long-term hyperglycemia causes many health problems including heart disease, cancer, eye, kidney, and nerve damage.  Blood sugar levels above 16.7 mmol/L (300mg/dL) can cause fatal reactions. Ketones will be very high (a magnitude higher than when eating a very low carbohydrate diet) initiating ketoacidosis. The Mayo Clinic recommends emergency room treatment above 16.7 mmol/L (300 mg/dL) blood glucose.  The most common cause of hyperglycemia is diabetes. When diabetes is the cause, physicians typically recommend an anti-diabetic medication as treatment. From the perspective of the majority of patients, treatment with an old, well-understood diabetes drug such as metformin will be the safest, most effective, least expensive, and most comfortable route to managing the condition. Diet changes and exercise implementation may also be part of a treatment plan for diabetes.

Low blood sugar.

If blood sugar levels drop too low, a potentially fatal condition called hypoglycemia develops. Symptoms may include lethargy, impaired mental functioning; irritability; shaking, twitching, weakness in arm and leg muscles; pale complexion; sweating; loss of consciousness.  Mechanisms that restore satisfactory blood glucose levels after extreme hypoglycemia (below 2.2 mmol/L or 40 mg/dL) must be quick and effective to prevent extremely serious consequences of insufficient glucose: confusion or unsteadiness and, in the extreme (below 0.8 mmol/L or 15 mg/dL) loss of consciousness and seizures. Without discounting the potentially quite serious conditions and risks due to or oftentimes accompanying hyperglycemia, especially in the long-term (diabetes or pre-diabetes, obesity or overweight, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, etc.), it is still generally more dangerous to have too little glucose – especially if levels are very low – in the blood than too much, at least temporarily, because glucose is so important for metabolism and nutrition and the proper functioning of the body's organs. This is especially the case for those organs that are metabolically active or that require a constant, regulated supply of blood sugar (the liver and brain are examples). In healthy individuals, blood glucose-regulating mechanisms are generally quite effective, and symptomatic hypoglycemia is generally found only in diabetics using insulin or other pharmacological treatment, and in starvation or severe malnutrition or malabsorption (of various causes), and conditions such as anorexia. Hypoglycemic episodes can vary greatly between persons and from time to time, both in severity and swiftness of onset. For severe cases, prompt medical assistance is essential, as damage to brain and other tissues and even death will result from sufficiently low blood-glucose levels.

Glucose measurement.

Sample source.

Glucose testing in a fasting individual, show comparable levels of glucose in arterial, venous, and capillary blood. But following meals, capillary and arterial blood glucose levels can be significantly higher than venous levels. Although these differences vary widely, one study found that following the consumption of 50 grams of glucose, "the mean capillary blood glucose concentration is higher than the mean venous blood glucose concentration by 35%."

Sample type.

Glucose is measured in whole blood, plasma or serum. Historically, blood glucose values were given in terms of whole blood, but most laboratories now measure and report plasma or serum glucose levels. Because red blood cells (erythrocytes) have a higher concentration of protein (e.g., hemoglobin) than serum, serum has a higher water content and consequently more dissolved glucose than does whole blood. To convert from whole-blood glucose, multiplication by 1.14 has been shown to generally give the serum/plasma level.  To prevent contamination of the sample with intravenous fluids, particular care should be given to drawing blood samples from the arm opposite the one in which an intravenous line is inserted. Alternatively, blood can be drawn from the same arm with an IV line after the IV has been turned off for at least 5 minutes, and the arm has been elevated to drain infused fluids away from the vein. Inattention can lead to large errors, since as little as 10% contamination with a 5% glucose solution (D5W) will elevate glucose in a sample by 500 mg/dL or more. The actual concentration of glucose in blood is very low, even in the hyperglycemic.

Measurement techniques.

Two major methods have been used to measure glucose. The first, still in use in some places, is a chemical method exploiting the nonspecific reducing property of glucose in a reaction with an indicator substance that changes color when reduced. Since other blood compounds also have reducing properties (e.g., urea, which can be abnormally high in uremic patients), this technique can produce erroneous readings in some situations (5–15 mg/dL has been reported). The more recent technique, using enzymes specific to glucose, is less susceptible to this kind of error. The two most common employed enzymes are glucose oxidase and hexokinase. Average blood glucose concentrations can also be measured. This method measures the level of glycated hemoglobin, which is representative of the average blood glucose levels over the last, approximately, 120 days.  In either case, the chemical system is commonly contained on a test strip which is inserted into a meter, and then has a blood sample applied. Test-strip shapes and their exact chemical composition vary between meter systems and cannot be interchanged. Formerly, some test strips were read (after timing and wiping away the blood sample) by visual comparison against a color chart printed on the vial label. Strips of this type are still used for urine glucose readings, but for blood glucose levels they are obsolete. Their error rates were, in any case, much higher. Errors when using test strips were often caused by the age of the strip or exposure to high temperatures or humidity. More precise blood glucose measurements are performed in a medical laboratory, using hexokinase, glucose oxidase, or glucose dehydrogenase enzymes.  Urine glucose readings, however taken, are much less useful. In properly functioning kidneys, glucose does not appear in urine until the renal threshold for glucose has been exceeded. This is substantially above any normal glucose level, and is evidence of an existing severe hyperglycemic condition. However, as urine is stored in the bladder, any glucose in it might have been produced at any time since the last time the bladder was emptied. Since metabolic conditions change rapidly, as a result of any of several factors, this is delayed news and gives no warning of a developing condition. Blood glucose monitoring is far preferable, both clinically and for home monitoring by patients. Healthy urine glucose levels were first standardized and published in 1965 by Hans Renschler.  A noninvasive method of sampling to monitor glucose levels has emerged using an "exhaled breath condensate". However this method does need highly sensitive glucose biosensors.

Clinical correlation.

The fasting blood glucose level, which is measured after a fast of 8 hours, is the most commonly used indication of overall glucose homeostasis, largely because disturbing events such as food intake are avoided. Conditions affecting glucose levels are shown in the table below. Abnormalities in these test results are due to problems in the multiple control mechanism of glucose regulation.  The metabolic response to a carbohydrate challenge is conveniently assessed by a postprandial glucose level drawn 2 hours after a meal or a glucose load. In addition, the glucose tolerance test, consisting of several timed measurements after a standardized amount of oral glucose intake, is used to aid in the diagnosis of diabetes.  Error rates for blood glucose measurements systems vary, depending on laboratories, and on the methods used. Colorimetry techniques can be biased by color changes in test strips (from airborne or finger borne contamination, perhaps) or interference (e.g., tinting contaminants) with light source or the light sensor. Electrical techniques are less susceptible to these errors, though not to others. In home use, the most important issue is not accuracy, but trend. Thus if a meter / test strip system is consistently wrong by 10%, there will be little consequence, as long as changes (e.g., due to exercise or medication adjustments) are properly tracked. In the US, home use blood test meters must be approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration before they can be sold.  Finally, there are several influences on blood glucose level aside from food intake. Infection, for instance, tends to change blood glucose levels, as does stress either physical or psychological. Exercise, especially if prolonged or long after the most recent meal, will have an effect as well. In the typical person, maintenance of blood glucose at near constant levels will nevertheless be quite effective.

The blood sugar level, blood sugar concentration, or blood glucose level is the concentration of glucose present in the blood of humans and other animals. Glucose is a simple sugar and approximately 4 grams of glucose are present in the blood of a human at all times. The body tightly regulates blood glucose levels as a part of metabolic homeostasis. Glucose is stored in skeletal muscle and liver cells in the form of glycogen; in fasted individuals, blood glucose is maintained at a constant level at the expense of glycogen stores in the liver and skeletal muscle.

Glykemie, odborně glukosemie, neboli krevní cukr je termín používaný pro vyjádření koncentrace glukózy v krvi. Referenční hodnoty glykemie na lačno se pohybují mezi 3,3-6,6 mmol/l v kapilární krvi, 3,9-5,5 mmol/l v žilní krvi a 4,2-6,4 mmol/l v krevní plazmě. U diabetiků by hodnota glykemie neměla optimálně přesáhnout 6,0 mmol/l na lačno a 7,5 mmol/l po jídle.


Geography.

Satu Mare is situated in Satu Mare County, in northwest Romania, on the Someș River, from the border with Hungary and from the border with Ukraine. The city is located at an altitude of on the Lower Someș alluvial plain, spreading out from the Administrative Palace at 25 October Square. The boundaries of the municipality contain an area of.  From a geomorphologic point of view, the city is located on the Someș Meadow on both sides of the river, which narrows in the vicinity of the city and widens upstream and downstream from it; flooded during heavy rainfall, the field has various geographical configurations at the edge of the city (sand banks, valleys, micro-depressions).  The formation of the current terrain of the city, dating from the late Pliocene in the Tertiary period, is linked to the clogging of the Pannonian Sea. Layers of soil were created from deposits of sand, loess and gravel, and generally have a thickness of –. Over this base, decaying vegetation gave rise to podsolic soils, which led to favorable conditions for crops (cereals, vegetables, fruit trees).  The water network around Satu Mare is composed of the Someș River, Pârâul Sar in the north and the Homorod River in the south. The formation and evolution of the city was closely related to the Someș River, which, in addition to allowing for the settlement of a human community around it, has offered, since the early Middle Ages, the possibility of international trade with coastal regions, a practice that favored milling, fishing and other economic activities.  Because the land slopes gently around the city, the Someș River has created numerous branches and meanders (before 1777, in the perimeter of the city there were 25 meanders downstream and 14 upstream). After systematisation works in 1777, the number of meanders in the city dropped to 9 downstream and 5 upstream, the total length of the river now being at within the city. Systematisation performed up to the mid-19th century configured the existing Someș riverbed; embankments were built long on the right bank and on the left. In 1970, the embankments were raised by –, protecting 52,000 hectares within the city limits and restoring nearly 800 ha of agricultural land that had previously been flooded.

Flora and fauna.

The flora associated with the town of Satu Mare is characteristic for the meadow area with trees of soft essence like wicker, indigenous poplar, maple and hazelnut. Grassland vegetation is represented by "Agrostis stolonifera", "Poa trivialis", "Alopecurus pratensis" and other types of vegetation.  The city's largest park, the Garden of Rome, features some rare trees that are uncommon to the area, including the pagoda tree, native to East Asia (especially China); "Pterocarya", also native to Asia; and "Paulownia tomentosa", native to central and western China.  Fauna is represented by species of rodents (hamster and european ground squirrel), reptiles, including "Vipera berus" in the Noroieni forest, and as avifauna species of ducks, geese, egrets, during passages and systematic occasional wanderings.

Climate.

Satu Mare has a continental climate, characterised by hot dry summers and cold winters. As the city is in the far north of the country, winter is much colder than the national average, with minimum temperatures reaching, lower than values recorded in other cities in western Romania like Oradea () or Timișoara (). The average annual temperature is, or broken down by seasons: Spring, summer, autumn and winter. Atmospheric humidity is quite high. Prevailing wind currents blow in from the northwest, bringing spring and summer rainfall. Climate in this area has mild differences between highs and lows, and there is adequate rainfall year-round. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "" (Marine West Coast Climate/Oceanic climate).

Name.

The Hungarian name of the town "Szatmár" is believed to come from the personal name "Zotmar", as the 13th-century "Gesta Hungarorum" gives the name of the 10th-century fortified settlement at the site of today's Satu Mare as ("Zotmar's fort"). Until 1925, in Romanian, the name "Sătmar" was used, which is the Hungarian name transcribed to Romanian orthography. Since 1925, the name of the town in Romanian is officially "Satu Mare", which is similar in pronunciation to the original name, and, by popular etymology, conveys meaning in Romanian, namely "great village".

History.

Archaeological evidence from Țara Oașului, Ardud, Medieșu Aurit, Homoroade, etc. clearly shows settlements in the area dating to the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. There is also evidence that the local Dacian population remained there after the Roman conquest in 101/106 AD. Later, these lands may have formed part of Menumorut's holdings; one of the important defensive fortresses –, dating to the 10th century – was at Satu Mare, as mentioned in the "Gesta Hungarorum". After Stephen I of Hungary created the Kingdom of Hungary in the year 1000, German colonists were settled at the periphery of the city ("Villa Zotmar"), brought in by Stephen's wife, the Bavarian princess Gisela of Hungary. Later, they were joined by more German colonists from beyond the Someș River, in Mintiu.  A royal free city since the 13th century, Satu Mare changed hands several times in the 15th century until the Báthory family took possession of the citadel in 1526, proceeding to divert the Someș's waters in order to defend the southern part of the citadel; thus, the fortress remained on an island linked to the main roads by three bridges over the Someș. In 1562 the citadel was besieged by Ottoman armies led by Pargalı İbrahim Pasha of Buda and Maleoci Pasha of Timișoara. Then the Habsburgs besieged it, leading the fleeing Transylvanian armies to set it on fire. The Austrian general Lazar Schwendi ordered the citadel to be rebuilt after the plans of Italian architect Ottavio Baldigara; using an Italian system of fortifications, the new structure would be pentagonal with five towers. After a period when it changed hands, the town came under Ottoman control in 1661. Called "Sokmar" by the new authorities, it was a kaza center within the Şenköy sanjak of Varat Eyalet. This status held until 1691, when the army of the Habsburgs expelled the Ottomans during the Great Turkish War. In the Middle Ages, Satu Mare and Mintiu were two distinct entities. The two settlements, then called "Szatmár" and "Németi", were united in 1715, and the resulting city was named "Szatmár-Németi". On 2 January 1721, Emperor Charles VI recognised the union, at the same time granting Satu Mare the status of royal free city. A decade earlier, the Treaty of Szatmár was signed in the city, ending Rákóczi's War for Independence.  The city's importance was linked to the transportation and commerce of salt from nearby Ocna Dejului (, ), possibly already at a very early date. Due to the economic and commercial benefits it began to receive in the 13th century, Satu Mare became an important centre for craft guilds. In the 18th century, intense urbanisation began; several buildings survive from that period, including the old city hall, the inn, a barracks, the Greek Catholic church and the Reformed church. A Roman Catholic diocese was established there in 1804. In 1823, the city's systematization commission was established in order to direct its local government. In 1844, paving operations begun in 1805 were stepped up. The first industrial concerns also opened, including the steam mill, the brick factory, the Neuschloss Factory for wood products, the lumber factory, the Princz Factory and the Unio Factory. Due to its location at the intersection of commercial roads, Szatmárnémeti became and important rail hub. The Szatmárnémeti–Nagykároly (Carei) line was built in 1871, followed in 1872 by the Szatmárnémeti–Máramarossziget (Sighetu Marmaţiei) line, an 1894 link to Nagybánya (Baia Mare), 1900 to Erdőd (Ardud) and 1906 to Bikszád (Bixad).  Since the second half of the 19th century, it underwent important economic and socio-cultural changes. The city's large companies (the Unio wagon factory, the Princz Factory, the Ardeleana textile enterprise, the Freund petroleum refinery, the brick factory and the furniture factory) prospered in this period, and the city invested heavily in communication lines, schools, hospitals, public works and public parks. The banking and commerce system also developed: in 1929 the chamber of commerce and industry, as well as the commodities stock market were established, with 25 commercial enterprises and 75 industrial and production firms as members. In 1930 there were 33 banks.  After the collapse of Austria-Hungary, Romanian troops captured the town during their offensive launched on April 15, 1919. By the Treaty of Trianon, Satu Mare officially ceased to be part of Hungary becoming part of Romania. In 1940, the Second Vienna Award gave back Northern Transylvania, including Satu Mare, to Hungary. In October 1944, the city was captured by the Soviet Red Army. After 1945, the city became again part of Romania. Soon afterwards, a Communist regime came to power, lasting until the 1989 revolution.

Jewish community.

The presence of Jews in Transylvania is first mentioned in the late 16th century. In the 17th century, prince Gabriel Bethlen permitted Sephardi Jews from Turkey to settle in the Transylvanian capital Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia), in 1623. In the early 18th century, Jews were allowed to settle in Sathmar. Some of them became involved in large-scale agriculture, becoming landlords or lessees, or were active in trade and industry, or distilled brandy and leased taverns on crown estates. In 1715, when Sathmar became a royal town, they were expelled, beginning to resettle in the 1820s. In 1841, several Jews obtained the permission to settle permanently in Sathmar; the first Jewish community was formally established in 1849, and in 1857, a synagogue was built. After a great number of traditional Ashkenazic Jews had settled in the town, the Jewish community split in 1898, when a supporter of the Hasidic movement was elected chief rabbi, into an Orthodox and a Status Quo community, led by a Zionist rabbi, which erected a synagogue in 1904.  In the 1920s, there were several Zionist organizations in Satu Mare, and the yeshiva, one of the largest in the region, was attended by 400 students. In 1930, the city had five large synagogues and about 20 shtiebels. In 1928, a conflict within the Orthodox community broke out over the election of a new chief rabbi, lasting six years and ending in 1934 with the appointment of the Hasidic rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, a traditionalist and anti-Zionist, who later re-founded the Satmar Hasidic dynasty in Williamsburg, New York. Another Hasidic rabbi, Aharon Roth, the founder of the Shomrei Emunim and Toldot Aharon communities in Jerusalem, was also active in Satu Mare. After Satu Mare became part of Hungary again in 1940, the civil rights and economic activities of the Jews were restricted, and in summer 1941, "foreign" Jews were deported to Kamenets-Podolski, where they were murdered by Hungarian and German troops. In 1944, the Jewish population was forced into the Satu Mare ghetto; the majority of men were sent to forced labor battalions, and the others were deported to the extermination camps in Poland, where the majority of them were murdered by the Nazis. Six trains left Satu Mare for Auschwitz-Birkenau, starting on May 19, 1944, each carrying approximately 3300 persons. The trains passed through Kassa (Košice) on May 19, 22, 26, 29, 30, and June 1. In total, 18,863 Jews were deported from Satu Mare, Carei and the surrounding localities. Of these, 14,440 were killed. Only a small number of the survivors returned to Satu Mare after the war, but a number of Jews belonging to linguistically and culturally different groups from all parts of Romania settled in the city. The majority of them later emigrated to Israel. By 1970, the town's Jewish population numbered 500, and in 2011, only 34 Jews remained.  In 2004, a Holocaust memorial was dedicated in the Decebal Street Synagogue's courtyard. Aside from the synagogues, two Jewish cemeteries also remain.  Among the notable members of the local Jewish community have been historian Ignác Acsády, parliamentary deputies Ferenc Chorin and Kelemen Samu, politician Oszkár Jászi, writers Gyula Csehi, Rodion Markovits, Sándor Dénes, and Ernő Szép, painter Pál Erdös, and director György Harag.

Demographics.

The population of Satu Mare is decreasing by an average of 0.78% per year due to migration. According to the census conducted on 20 October 2011, Satu Mare had a population of 102,441, making it the 20th largest city in Romania. , the ethnic makeup was as follows:  No religious group can claim a majority in Satu Mare, but, there was a plurality of Romanian Orthodox believers (48.9%). Other important communities are Roman Catholic (19.8%), Reformed (19.3%), Greek-Catholic (8.0%) and Pentecostal (1.5%).

Politics.

Administration.

The city government is headed by a mayor. Since 2016, the office is held by Gábor Kereskényi. Decisions are approved and discussed by the local council ("consiliu local") made up of 23 elected councillors. The city is divided into 12 districts ("cartiere") laid out radially. One of these, Sătmărel ("Szatmárzsadány"), is a separate village administered by the city. Additionally, as Satu Mare is the capital of Satu Mare County, the city hosts the palace of the prefecture, the headquarters of the county council ("consiliu județean") and the prefect, who is appointed by Romania's central government. Like all other local councils in Romania, the Satu Mare local council, the county council and the city's mayor are elected every four years by the population. The city is at the center of the Satu Mare metropolitan area, a metropolitan area established in 2013, with a population of 243,600, and which includes 26 cities, towns and communes.  The Satu Mare Municipal Council, elected in the 2016 local government elections, is composed of the following parties:  The city day is May 14, which commemorates the devastating floods that affected the city in 1970, although it is also a day of rebirth.

Justice system.

Satu Mare has a complex judicial organisation, as a consequence of its status of county capital. The Satu Mare Court of Justice is the local judicial institution and is under the purview of the Satu Mare County Tribunal, which also exerts its jurisdiction over the courts of Carei, Ardud, Negrești-Oaș, Tășnad and Livada. Appeals from these tribunals' verdicts, and more serious cases, are directed to the Oradea Court of Appeals. Satu Mare also hosts the county's commercial and military tribunals.  Satu Mare has its own municipal police force, "Poliția Municipiului Satu Mare", which is responsible for policing of crime within the whole city, and operates a number of special divisions. The Satu Mare Police are headquartered on Mihai Viteazul Street in the city centre (with a number of precincts throughout the city) and is subordinated to the county's police inspectorate on Alexandru Iioan Cuza Street. City Hall has its own community police force, "Poliția Comunitară" located on Universului Alley, dealing with local community issues. Satu Mare also houses the county's gendarmerie inspectorate.

Transport.

Road.

Satu Mare has a complex system of transportation, providing road, air and rail connections to major cities in Romania and Europe. The city is an important road and rail hub located near the borders with Hungary and Ukraine. The city is connected to other major Romanian cities by road ( European route E81, European route E671 and European route E58) and by rail (CFR Main Line 400). The total number of automobiles registered in Satu Mare was 82,000 in 2008. The city has around 400 streets with a total length of and cover an area of.

Railway.

Satu Mare Rail Station, located about north of the city centre, is situated on the Căile Ferate Române Line 400 (Brașov – Siculeni – Deda – Dej – Baia Mare), on Line 402 (Oradea – Săcueni – Carei – Satu Mare – Halmeu) and on Line 417 (Satu Mare – Bixad). CFR provides direct rail connections to all the major Romanian cities and to Budapest. The city is also served by another secondary rail station, the "Saw Station" ("Gara Ferăstrău").

Public transport.

The main public transportation system in Satu Mare consists of bus lines. There are twenty-three urban and suburban lines with a total length of, the main operator being Transurban S.A. In addition, there are various taxi companies serving the city. It is worth mentioning that Satu Mare had a trolleybus system in the past, created on the 15th of November 1994 but has been closed in 2005.

Airport.

The city is served by the Satu Mare International Airport, located south of the city, with a concrete runway, one of the longest in Romania, with TAROM and Wizz Air operating regular flights to Bucharest, London and Antalya (seasonal only).

Sports.

Football (soccer) is the most popular recreational sport in Satu Mare. There are two major football clubs in Satu Mare: Olimpia and Someșul Oar. There are two football stadiums in Satu Mare: Stadionul Olimpia with 18,000 seats and Someșul Stadium with 3,000 seats.  Other popular recreational activities include fencing, handball, bowling, women's basketball, karate and chess.  The local women's basketball team CSM Satu Mare is one of the best in the Romanian league; it finished third in the 2008/2009 season playoffs. The team plays its home matches in the largest indoor arena in the city, the LPS Arena, which has a capacity of 400 seats.  The Cypriot professional tennis player Marcos Baghdatis was brought to Satu Mare in 1998 for a month and a half by his former coach Jean Dobrescu to train and to participate in local tennis competitions alongside his fellow Davis Cup team member, Rareș Cuzdriorean, who is also a Satu Mare native with Cypriot citizenship.

Fencing.

Satu Mare has a tradition in fencing dating to 1885, and is the city that has supplied the most world and Olympic champions in Europe. Names like Ecaterina Stahl, Marcela Moldovan, Suzana and Ștefan Ardeleanu, Petru Kuki, Rudolf Luczki, Samuilă Melczhner, Geza Tere and in particular Alexandru Csipler figure prominently in the annals of Romanian fencing. The last four also formed the core of the city's fencing school, winning major local and international tournaments. Top results for which there is evidence date to 1935, when the local foil team, Olimpia Satu Mare, lost against CFR Timișoara by a score of 15–10 in the national final, while Rudolf Luczki won the sabre finals held in Cluj-Napoca. In 1973, the first signaling device in Romania was used in Satu Mare; this has been characterised as "a veritable revolution" for Romanian fencing.

Economy.

Satu Mare benefits from its proximity to the borders with Hungary and Ukraine, which makes it a prime location for logistical and industrial parks.  Companies that have established production facilities in Satu Mare are Voestalpine, Dräxlmaier Group, Gotec Group, Anvis Group, Schlemmer, Casco Schützhelme and Zollner Elektronik in the industrial sector; FrieslandCampina in the food sector; Radici Group in the textile sector; and Saint-Gobain and Boissigny in the wood industry.  Currently the largest private employer in Satu Mare is the German automotive company Dräxlmaier Group which owns since 1998 an electric engine components factory in the city and has around 3,600 employees. The factory supplies automotive wiring especially to the German car manufacturer Daimler AG but it also supplied wiring to another car manufacturer Porsche for its Porsche Panamera model. The Swedish company Electrolux owns a kitchen stove factory in the city acquired in 1997, that has a surface area of and 1,800 employees. The facility has an annual production capacity of around 1.2 million units and the majority of the Zanussi brand kitchen stoves in Europe are manufactured there. The Austrian company Voestalpine owns, since 2004, a steel tubes production facility with an annual capacity of 50 million units per year. The German company Arcandor has its main Romanian office established in Satu Mare. The subsidiary, accounting for the region formed by Romania and Hungary, is the most important among the 16 subsidiaries in Europe in terms of the percentage of sales through online orders having in 2008 total orders of €19.3 million. The company also owns a logistic facility and a call center in the city.  Satu Mare's retail sector is fairly well-developed; a number of international companies such as Auchan, Kaufland, Billa, Metro Point, Lidl and Penny Market have supermarkets or hypermarkets in the city. There is also a DIY store, a Praktiker, and several small malls: Grand Mall of, Plaza Europa of and the largest, Someșul Mall, of.  There is also an industrial park called Satu Mare Industrial Park located at the edge of the city on a 70 ha surface.

Education.

Universities.

Satu Mare is home to the Commercial Academy of Satu Mare and several other branches of important Romanian universities:

High schools.

Satu Mare has 16 high schools, of which four are national colleges:

Gymnasiums.

The city has 16 gymnasiums, with the most important being:

Culture.

Satu Mare has a county museum, an art museum, and a theatre, the North Theatre, built in 1889 which has both a Hungarian and a Romanian section. Concerts are given by the “Dinu Lipatti Philharmonic”, formerly the state symphonic orchestra of Satu Mare, in a concert hall in a wing of the Dacia Hotel. The county library had 320.000 books in 1997, including a special bibliophile collections of over 70.000 volumes.

Tourism.

Major tourists attractions are:  There are several hotels in the city: four 4-star hotels – Hotel Poesis, Villa Bodi, Satu-Mare City and Villa Class; eleven 3-star hotels – Astoria, Leon, Villa Lux, Dacia, Aurora, Dana I, Dana II, Select, Rania, Melody and Belvedere; and one 2-star hotel – Sport.

International relations.

Twin towns — Sister cities.

Satu Mare is twinned with:

Satu Mare (; ; ; or ) is a city with a population of 102,400 (2011) and the capital of Satu Mare County, Romania, as well as the center of the Satu Mare metropolitan area. Mentioned in the "Gesta Hungarorum" as ("Zotmar's fort"), the city has a history going back to the Middle Ages. Today, it is an academic, cultural, industrial, and business centre in northwestern Romania.

Satu Mare (, v překladu "Velká Vesnice") je rumunské město na severozápadě země a správní město stejnojmenné župy, 10 km od maďarských a 18 km od ukrajinských hranic na řece Szamos. Kulturní, průmyslové a obchodním centrum severozápadního Rumunska. Žije zde obyvatel a město tak patří mezi 20 největších rumunských měst.


Typology.

Mobility is most often quantitatively measured in terms of change in economic mobility such as changes in income or wealth. Occupation is another measure used in researching mobility, which usually involves both quantitative and qualitative analysis of data, but other studies may concentrate on social class. Mobility may be "intragenerational", within the same generation, or "intergenerational", between different generations. Intragenerational mobility is less frequent, representing "rags to riches" cases in terms of upward mobility. Intergenerational upward mobility is more common, where children or grandchildren are in economic circumstances better than those of their parents or grandparents. In the US, this type of mobility is described as one of the fundamental features of the "American Dream" even though there is less such mobility than almost all other OECD countries.  Mobility can also be defined in terms of relative or absolute mobility. Absolute mobility looks at a society's progress in the areas of education, health, housing, job opportunities and other factors and compares it across generations. As technological advancements and globalization increase so does income levels and the conditions in which people live in. In absolute terms people around the world in average are living better today than yesterday. Relative mobility looks at the mobility of a person in comparison to the mobility of others in the same cohort or their parent. In more advanced economies and OECD countries there is more space for relative mobility than for absolute mobility. This is because developed countries or advance economies have a baseline for the conditions in which people live that is better than it was years ago. However, developing economies have a wider margin for absolute mobility since they are still combating issues as sanitation. Moreover, there can be downward or upward mobility.  There is also an idea of stickiness concerning mobility. This is when an individual is no longer experiencing relative mobility and it occurs mostly at the ends. At the bottom end of the socioeconomic ladder, parents cannot provide their children with the necessary resources or opportunity to enhance their lives. As a result they remain on the same ladder rung as their parents. On the opposite side of the ladder, the high socioeconomic status parents have the necessary resources and opportunities to ensure their children also remain in same ladder rung as them.

Social status and social class.

Social mobility is highly dependent on the overall structure of social statuses and occupations in a given society. The extent of differing social positions and the manner in which they fit together or overlap provides the overall social structure of such positions. Add to this the differing dimensions of status, such as Max Weber's delineation of economic stature, prestige, and power and we see the potential for complexity in a given social stratification system. Such dimensions within a given society can be seen as independent variables that can explain differences in social mobility at different times and places in different stratification systems. In addition, the same variables that contribute as intervening variables to the valuation of income or wealth and that also affect social status, social class, and social inequality do affect social mobility.

Class cultures and social networks.

These differing dimensions of social mobility can be classified in terms of differing types of capital that contribute to changes in mobility. Cultural capital, a term first coined by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu distinguishes between the economic and cultural aspects of class. Bourdieu described three types of capital that place a person in a certain social category: economic capital; social capital; and cultural capital. Economic capital includes economic resources such as cash, credit, and other material assets.  Social capital includes resources one achieves based on group membership, networks of influence, relationships and support from other people. Cultural capital

Markers.

Health.

The term "social gradient" in health refers to the idea that the inequalities in health are connected to the social status a person has. Two ideas concerning the relationship between health and social mobility are the social causation hypothesis and the health selection hypothesis. These hypotheses explore whether health dictates social mobility or whether social mobility dictates quality of health. The social causation hypothesis states that social factors (individual behavior and the environmental circumstances) determine an individual's health. Conversely, the health selection hypothesis states that health determines what social stratum an

Education.

The systems of stratification that govern societies hinder or allow social mobility. Education can be a tool used by individuals to move from one stratum to another in stratified societies. Higher education policies have worked to establish and reinforce stratification. Greater gaps in education quality and investment in students among elite and standard universities account for the

Housing.

Mixed housing is the idea that people of different socioeconomic statuses can live in one area. There is not a lot of research on the effects of mixed housing. However, the general consensus is that mixed housing will allow individuals of low socioeconomic status to acquire the necessary resources and social connections to move up the social ladder. Other possible effects mixed housing can bring are positive behavioral changes and improved sanitation and safer living conditions for the low socioeconomic status residents. This is because higher socioeconomic status individuals are more likely to demand higher quality residencies, schools, and infrastructure. This type of housing is funded by profit, nonprofit and public organizations.  The existing research

Income.

Economic and social mobility are two separate entities. Economic mobility is used primarily by economists to evaluate income mobility. Conversely, social mobility is used by sociologists to evaluate primarily class mobility. How strongly economic and social mobility are related depends on the strength of the intergenerational relationship between class and income of parents and kids, and "the covariance between parents' and children's class position".  Additionally, economic and social mobility can also be thought of

Race.

Race as an influencer on social mobility stems from the colonial times. There has been discussion as to whether race can still hinder an individual's chances at upward mobility or whether class has a greater influence. A study performed on the Brazilian population found that racial inequality was only present for those who did not belong to the high-class

Gender.

Women, in comparison to men, experience less social mobility. One possible reason for this is the poor quality or lack of education that females receive. In countries like India it is common for educated women not use their education to move up the social ladder due to cultural and traditional customs. They are expected to become homemakers and leave the bread winning to the men. Additionally, women around the world are denied an education as their families may find it more economically beneficial

Patterns of mobility.

While it is generally accepted that some level of mobility in society is desirable, there is no consensus agreement upon "how much" social mobility is good for or bad for a society. There is no international benchmark of social mobility, though one can compare measures of mobility across regions or countries or within a given area over time. While cross-cultural studies comparing differing types of economies are possible, comparing economies of similar type usually yields more comparable data. Such comparisons typically look at intergenerational mobility, examining the extent to which children born into different families have different life chances and outcomes.  In a study for which the results were first published in 2009, conduct an exhaustive analysis of social mobility in developed countries. In addition to other correlations with negative social outcomes for societies having high inequality, they found a relationship between high social inequality and low social mobility. Of the eight countries studied—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, the UK and the US, the US had both the highest economic inequality and lowest economic mobility. In this and other studies, in fact, the USA has very low mobility at the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, with mobility increasing slightly as one goes up the ladder. At the top rung of the ladder, however, mobility again decreases.  One study comparing social mobility between developed countries found that the four countries with the lowest "intergenerational income elasticity", i.e. the highest social mobility, were Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Canada with less than 20% of advantages of having a high income parent passed on to their children. Studies have also found "a clear negative relationship" between income inequality and intergenerational mobility. Countries with low levels of inequality such as Denmark, Norway and Finland had some of the greatest mobility, while the two countries with the high level of inequality—Chile and Brazil—had some of the lowest mobility.  In Britain, much debate on social mobility has been generated by comparisons of the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the 1970 Birth Cohort Study BCS70,

Influence of intelligence and education.

Social status attainment and therefore social mobility in adulthood are of interest to psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists, epidemiologists and many more. The reason behind the interest is because it indicates access to material goods, educational opportunities, healthy environments, and nonetheless the economic growth.  Researchers did a study that encompassed a wide range of data of individuals in lifetime (in childhood and during mid-adulthood). Most of the Scottish children which were born in 1921 participated in the Scottish Mental Survey 1932, which was conducted under the auspices of the Scottish Council for Research in Education (SCRE) and obtained the data of psychometric intelligence of Scottish pupils. The number of children who took the mental ability test (based on the Moray House tests) was 87,498. They were between age 10 and 11. The tests covered general, spatial and numerical reasoning.  At mid-life period, a subset of the subjects participated in one of the studies, which were large health studies of adults and were carried out in Scotland in the 1960s and 1970s. The particular study they took part in was the collaborative study of 6022 men and 1006 women, conducted between 1970 and 1973 in Scotland. Participants completed a questionnaire (participant's address, father's occupation, the participant's own first regular occupation, the age of finishing full-time education, number of siblings, and if the participant was a regular car driver) and attended a physical examination (measurement of height). Social class was coded according to the Registrar General's Classification for the participant's occupation at the time of screening, his first occupation and his father's occupation. Researchers separated into six social classes were used.  A correlation and structural equation model analysis was conducted. In the structural equation models, social status in the 1970s was the main outcome variable. The main contributors to education (and first social class) were father's social class and IQ at age 11, which was also found in a Scandinavian study. This effect was direct and also mediated via education and the participant's first job.  Participants at midlife did not necessarily end up in the same social class as their fathers. There was social mobility in the sample: 45% of men were upwardly mobile, 14% were downward mobile and 41% were socially stable. IQ at age 11 had a graded relationship with participant's social class. The same effect was seen for father's occupation. Men at midlife social class I and II (the highest, more professional) also had the highest IQ at age 11. Height at midlife, years of education and childhood IQ were significantly positively related to upward social mobility, while number of siblings had no significant effect. For each standard deviation increase in IQ score at the age 11, the chances of upward social mobility increases by 69% (with a 95% confidence). After controlling the effect of independent variables, only IQ at age 11 was significantly inversely related to downward movement in social mobility. More years of education increase the chance that a father's son will surpass his social class, whereas low IQ makes a father's son prone to falling behind his father's social class. Higher IQ at age 11 was also significantly related to higher social class at midlife, higher likelihood car driving at midlife, higher first social class, higher father's social class, fewer siblings, higher age of education, being taller and living in a less deprived neighbourhood at midlife. IQ was significantly more strongly related to the social class in midlife than the social class of the first job.  Finally, height, education and IQ at age 11 were predictors of upward social mobility and only IQ at age 11 and height were significant predictors of downward social mobility. Number of siblings was not significant in either of the models.  Another research looked into the pivotal role of education in association between ability and social class attainment through three generations (fathers, participants and offspring) using the SMS1932 (Lothian Birth Cohort 1921) educational data, childhood ability and late life intellectual function data. It was proposed that social class of origin acts as a ballast restraining otherwise meritocratic social class movement, and that education is the primary means through which social class movement is both restrained and facilitated—therefore acting in a pivotal role.  It was found that social class of origin predicts educational attainment in both the participant's and offspring generations. Father's social class and participant's social class held the same importance in predicting offspring educational attainment—effect across two generations. Educational attainment mediated the association of social class attainments across generations (father's and participants social class, participant's and offspring's social class). There was no direct link between social classes across generations, but in each generation educational attainment was a predictor of social class, which is consistent with other studies. Also, participant's childhood ability moderately predicted their educational and social class attainment (.31 and.38). Participant's educational attainment was strongly linked with the odds of moving downward or upward on the social class ladder. For each SD increase in education, the odds of moving upward on the social class spectrum were 2.58 times greater (the downward ones were.26 times greater). Offspring's educational attainment was also strongly linked with the odds of moving upward or downward on the social class ladder. For each SD increase in education, the odds of moving upward were 3.54 times greater (the downward ones were.40 times greater). In conclusion, education is very important, because it is the fundamental mechanism functioning both to hold individuals in their social class of origin and to make it possible for their movement upward or downward on the social class ladder.  In the Cohort 1936 it was found that regarding whole generations (not individuals) the social mobility between father's and participant's generation is: 50.7% of the participant generation have moved upward in relation to their fathers, 22.1% had moved downwards, and 27.2% had remained stable in their social class. There was a lack of social mobility in the offspring generation as a whole. However, there was definitely individual offspring movement on the social class ladder: 31.4% had higher social class attainment than their participant parents (grandparents), 33.7% moved downward, and 33.9% stayed stable. Participant's childhood mental ability was linked to social class in all three generations. A very important pattern has also been confirmed: average years of education increased with social class and IQ.  There were some great contributors to social class attainment and social class mobility in the twentieth century: Both social class attainment and social mobility are influenced by pre-existing levels of mental ability, which was in consistence with other studies. So, the role of individual level mental ability in pursuit of educational attainment—professional positions require specific educational credentials. Furthermore, educational attainment contributes to social class attainment through the contribution of mental ability to educational attainment. Even further, mental ability can contribute to social class attainment independent of actual educational attainment, as in when the educational attainment is prevented, individuals with higher mental ability manage to make use of the mental ability to work their way up on the social ladder. This study made clear that intergenerational transmission of educational attainment is one of the key ways in which social class was maintained within family, and there was also evidence that education attainment was increasing over time. Finally, the results suggest that social mobility (moving upward and downward) has increased in recent years in Britain. Which according to one researcher is important because an overall mobility of about 22% is needed to keep the distribution of intelligence relatively constant from one generation to the other within each occupational category.  Researchers looked into the effects elitist and non-elitist education systems have on social mobility. Education policies are often critiqued based on their impact on a single generation, but it is important to look at education policies and the effects they have on social mobility. In the research, elitist schools are defined as schools that focus on providing its best students with the tools to succeed, whereas an egalitarian school is one that predicates itself on giving equal opportunity to all its students to achieve academic success.  When private education supplements were not considered, it was found that the greatest amount of social mobility was derived from a system with the least elitist public education system. It was also discovered that the system with the most elitist policies produced the greatest amount of utilitarian welfare. Logically, social mobility decreases with more elitist education systems and utilitarian welfare decreases with less elitist public education policies.  When private education supplements are introduced, it becomes clear that some elitist policies promote some social mobility and that an egalitarian system is the most successful at creating the maximum amount of welfare. These discoveries were justified from the reasoning that elitist education systems discourage skilled workers from supplementing their children's educations with private expenditures.  The authors of the report showed that they can challenge conventional beliefs that elitist and regressive educational policy is the ideal system. This is explained as the researchers found that education has multiple benefits. It brings more productivity and has a value, which was a new thought for education. This shows that the arguments for the regressive model should not be without qualifications. Furthermore, in the elitist system, the effect of earnings distribution on growth is negatively impacted due to the polarizing social class structure with individuals at the top with all the capital and individuals at the bottom with nothing.  Education is very important in determining the outcome of one's future. It is almost impossible to achieve upward mobility without education. Education is frequently seen as a strong driver of social mobility. The quality of one's education varies depending on the social class that they are in. The higher the family income the better opportunities one is given to get a good education. The inequality in education makes it harder for low-income families to achieve social mobility. Research has indicated that inequality is connected to the deficiency of social mobility. In a period of growing inequality and low social mobility, fixing the quality of and access to education has the possibility to increase equality of opportunity for all Americans.  "One significant consequence of growing income inequality is that, by historical standards, high-income households are spending much more on their children's education than low-income households." With the lack of total income, low-income families can't afford to spend money on their children's education. Research has shown that over the past few years, families with high income has increased their spending on their children's education. High income families were paying $3,500 per year and now it has increased up to nearly $9,000, which is seven times more than what low income families pay for their kids' education. The increase in money spent on education has caused an increase in college graduation rates for the families with high income. The increase in graduation rates is causing an even bigger gap between high income children and low-income children. Given the significance of a college degree in today's labor market, rising differences in college completion signify rising differences in outcomes in the future.  Family income is one of the most important factors in determining the mental ability (intelligence) of their children. With such bad education that urban schools are offering, parents of high income are moving out of these areas to give their children a better opportunity to succeed. As urban school systems worsen, high income families move to rich suburbs because that is where they feel better education is; if they do stay in the city, they put their children to private schools. Low income families do not have a choice but to settle for the bad education because they cannot afford to relocate to rich suburbs. The more money and time parents invest in their child plays a huge role in determining their success in school. Research has shown that higher mobility levels are perceived for locations where there are better schools.

Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households, or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given society. It is movement within between layers or tiers in an open system of social stratification. Open stratification systems are those in which at least some value is given to achieved status characteristics in a society. The movement can be in a "downward" or "upward" direction. " Social mobility is any change in social position." It can be vertical and horizontal in nature. Any change in the physical position of a person or a group is horizontal mobility. If a bank manager is transferred from one branch to another, it is horizontal mobility as the social status of the person is not changing. Markers for social mobility, such as education and class, are used to predict, discuss, and learn more about an individual or a group's mobility in society.

Sociologický pojem sociální mobilita označuje přechod individua, sociálního objektu nebo hodnoty z jedné pozice na druhou. Tento pojem do sociologie uvedl Pitirim Sorokin v roce 1927.


International conventions.

Various international conventions have helped to achieve

Categories.

Traffic signs can be grouped into several types. For example, Annexe 1 of the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals (1968), which on 30 June 2004 had 52 signatory countries, defines eight categories of signs:  In the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand signs are categorized as follows:  In the United States, the categories, placement, and graphic standards for traffic signs and pavement markings are legally defined in the Federal Highway Administration's "Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices" as the standard.  A rather informal distinction among the directional

History.

The earliest road signs were milestones, giving distance or direction; for example, the Romans erected stone columns throughout their empire giving the distance to Rome. In the Middle Ages, multidirectional signs at intersections became common, giving directions to cities and towns.  In 1686, the first known Traffic Regulation Act in Europe is established by King Peter II of Portugal. This act foresees the placement of priority signs in the narrowest streets of Lisbon, stating which traffic should back up to give way. One of these signs still exists at Salvador street, in the neighborhood of Alfama.  The first modern road signs erected on a wide scale were designed for riders of high or "ordinary" bicycles in the late 1870s and early 1880s. These machines were fast, silent and their nature made them difficult to control, moreover their riders travelled considerable distances and often preferred to tour on unfamiliar roads. For such riders, cycling organizations began to erect signs that warned of potential hazards ahead (particularly steep hills), rather than merely giving distance or directions to places, thereby contributing the sign type that defines "modern" traffic signs.  The development of automobiles encouraged more complex signage systems using more than just text-based notices. One of the first modern-day road sign systems was devised by the Italian Touring Club in 1895. By 1900, a Congress of the International League of Touring Organizations in Paris was considering proposals for standardization of road signage. In 1903 the British government introduced four "national" signs based on shape, but the basic patterns of most traffic signs were set at the 1908 International Road Congress in Paris. In 1909, nine European governments agreed on the use of

Africa.

Mauritius.

Road signs in Mauritius are regulated by the Traffic Signs Regulations 1990. They

Sierra Leone.

Road signs in Sierra Leone are standardized road signs closely follow

Asia.

Hong Kong.

Hong Kong's traffic signs follow the British road sign conventions and

India.

Road signs in the Republic of India are similar to those used in some parts of the United Kingdom, except

Iran.

Road signs in Iran mainly follow

Israel.

Road signs in Israel mainly

Japan.

Road signs in Japan are either controlled by local police authorities under or by other road-controlling entities including Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, local municipalities, NEXCO (companies controlling

Macau.

Road signs in Macau are inherited from pre-1998

Philippines.

Road signs in the Philippines are standardized in the "Road Signs and Pavement Markings Manual", published by the Department of Public Works and Highways. Philippine road signage practice closely follow those used in Europe, but with local adaptations and some minor influences from the US MUTCD and Australian road signs. However, some road signs may differ by locale, and mostly diverge from the national standard. For example, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has used pink and light blue in its signage for which it has been heavily criticised.  Road signs in the Philippines are classified as:  Regulatory road signs – other than the stop and give way signs – are generally circular, with (for prohibitions) a black symbol on a white background within a red border, or (for mandatory instructions) a white symbol on a

Saudi Arabia.

Road signs in Saudi Arabia frequently show their text both in Arabic and English.

Singapore.

Singapore's traffic signs closely follow British road

Sri Lanka.

Road signs in Sri Lanka are standardized road signs closely follow those used in Europe with certain distinctions, and a number of changes

Europe.

The standardization of traffic signs in Europe commenced with the signing of the 1931 Geneva Convention concerning the Unification of Road Signals by several countries. The 1931 Convention rules were developed in the 1949 Geneva Protocol on Road Signs and Signals.  In 1968, the European countries signed the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic treaty, with the aim of standardizing traffic regulations in participating countries in order to facilitate international road traffic and to increase road safety. Part of the treaty was the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, which defined the traffic signs and signals. As a result, in Western Europe the traffic signs are well standardized, although there are still some country-specific exceptions, mostly dating from the pre-1968 era.  The principle of the European traffic sign standard is that certain shapes and colours are to be used with consistent meanings:  Directional signs ("guide signs" in American parlance) have not been harmonized under the Convention, at least not on ordinary roads. As a result, there are substantial differences in directional signage throughout Europe. Differences apply to the choice of typeface, arrows and, most notably, colours. The convention does, however, specify that the type of directional signage used should, for each country, distinguish limited-access roads ("motorways") from ordinary, all-purpose roads.  Directional signage on motorways uses:  Differences are greater for non-motorways:  The black-on-white signposting of secondary roads distinguishes them from primary roads in Finland, France, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania, and Sweden black-on-white indicates urban-only roads or urban destinations.  The signposting of road numbers also differs greatly, except that European route numbers, if displayed, are always indicated using white characters on a green rectangle. European route numbers are, however, not signed at all in the United Kingdom.  The Convention recommends that certain signs – such as "STOP", "ZONE", etc. – be in English; however, use of the local language is also permitted. If a language uses non-Latin characters, a Latin-script transliteration of the names of cities and other important places should also be given. Road signs in the Republic of Ireland are bilingual, using Irish and English. Wales similarly uses bilingual Welsh–English signs, while some parts of Scotland have bilingual Scottish Gaelic–English signs. Finland also uses bilingual signs, in Finnish and Swedish. Signs in Belgium are in French, Dutch, or German depending on the region. In the Brussels Capital Region, road signs are in both French and Dutch. Signs in Switzerland are in French, German, Italian, or Romansh depending on the canton.  European countries – with the notable exception of the United Kingdom, where distances and lengths are indicated in miles, yards, feet, and inches, and speed limits are expressed in miles per hour – use the metric system on road signs.  For countries driving on the left, the convention stipulates that the traffic signs should be mirror images of those used in countries driving on the right. This practice, however, is not systematically followed in the four European countries driving on the left, Cyprus, Malta, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom. The convention permits the use of two background colours for danger and prohibition signs: white or yellow. Most countries use white, with a few – such as Finland, Iceland, Poland, and Sweden – opting for yellow as this tends to improve the winter-time visibility of signs in areas where snow is prevalent. In some countries, such as France or Italy, white is the normal background colour for such signs, but yellow is used for temporary signage (as, for example, at road works).  European traffic signs have been designed with the principles of heraldry in mind; i.e., the sign must be clear and able to be resolved at a glance. Most traffic signs conform to heraldic tincture rules, and use symbols rather than written texts for better semiotic clarity.

Northern America and Oceania.

Colour schemes.

The Northern American, Australian, and New Zealand colors normally have these meanings:  The US "Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices" prescribes four other colors:  Regulatory signs are

Highway symbols and markers.

Every state and province has different markers for its own highways, but use standard ones for all federal highways. Many special highways – such as the Queen

Units.

Distances on traffic signs generally follow the measurement system in use locally: that is to say, the metric system in all countries of the world except Burma, Liberia, the United Kingdom, and

Languages.

Where signs use a language, the recognized language/s of the area is normally used. Signs in most of the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are in English. Quebec uses French, while New Brunswick and the Jacques-Cartier and Champlain bridges, in Montreal (as well as some parts in the West

Typefaces.

The typefaces predominantly used on signs in the US and Canada are the FHWA alphabet series (Series B through Series F and Series E Modified). Details of letter shape and spacing for these alphabet series are given in "Standard Alphabets for Traffic Control Devices", first published by the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) in 1945 and subsequently updated by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). It is now part of Standard Highway Signs (SHS), the companion volume to the MUTCD which gives full design details for signfaces.  Initially, all of the alphabet series consisted of uppercase letters and digits only, although lowercase extensions were provided for each alphabet series in a 2002 revision of SHS. Series B through Series F evolved from identically named alphabet series which were introduced in 1927.  Straight-stroke letters in the 1927 series were substantially similar to their modern equivalents, but unrounded glyphs were used for letters such as B, C, D, etc., to permit

Uses of non-FHWA typefaces.

The US National Park Service uses NPS Rawlinson Roadway, a serif typeface, for guide signage; it typically appears on a brown background. Rawlinson has replaced Clarendon as the official NPS typeface, but some states still use Clarendon for recreational signage.  Georgia, in the past, used uppercase Series D with a custom lowercase alphabet on its freeway guide signs; the most distinctive feature of this typeface is the lack of a dot on lowercase "i" and "j". More recent installations appear to include the dots.  The Clearview typeface, developed by US researchers to provide improved legibility, is permitted for light legend on dark backgrounds under FHWA interim approval. Clearview

New Zealand.

New Zealand road signs are generally influenced both by American and European practices.  Warning signs are diamond-shaped with a yellow background for permanent warnings, and an orange background for temporary warnings. They are somewhat more pictorial than their American counterparts. This is also true for Canadian signage.  Regulatory signs also follow European practice, with a white circle with a red border indicating prohibitive actions, and a blue circle indicating mandatory

South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

Road signs in Caribbean, Central America, and South America vary from country to country. For the most part, conventions in signage tend to resemble United States signage conventions more so than European and Asian conventions. For example, warning signs are typically diamond-shaped and yellow rather than triangular and white. Some variations include the "Parking" and "No Parking" signs, which contain either a letter "E" or "P", depending on which word is used locally for "Parking" (Spanish "estacionamiento" or "parqueo", Portuguese "estacionamento"), as well as the Stop sign, which usually reads "Pare" or "Alto". Notable exceptions include speed limit signs, which follow the European conventions, and the "No Entry" sign, often replaced with a crossed upwards arrow.

Colombia.

Traffic signs in Colombia are classified into three categories:  Warning signs are very similar to warning signs in United States. They are yellow diamond-shaped with a black symbol (the yellow colour is changed to an orange colour in areas under construction). In certain cases, the yellow colour is shifted to fluorescent yellow (in the School area

Haiti.

Road signs in Haiti are standardized road signs closely follow

Suriname.

Road signs in Suriname are particularly modelled on the Dutch

Automatic traffic sign recognition.

Cars are beginning to feature cameras with automatic traffic sign recognition, beginning with the Opel Insignia. It mainly recognizes speed limits and no-overtaking areas.

Traffic signs or road signs are signs erected at the side of or above roads to give instructions or provide information to road users. The earliest signs were simple wooden or stone milestones. Later, signs with directional arms were introduced, for example, the fingerposts in the United Kingdom and their wooden counterparts in Saxony.

Dopravní značky jsou jednoduché piktogramy určené pro řízení a regulaci silničního provozu na pozemních komunikacích. Jedná se o zařízení upozorňující účastníky silničního provozu na nebezpečná místa, ukládají jim zákazy, příkazy nebo omezení, poskytují jim informace nebo zpřesňují, doplňují nebo omezují význam jiné dopravní značky. Význam dopravních značek zpravidla stanoví Pravidla silničního provozu. Kromě dopravních značek je provoz na pozemních komunikacích také řízen, zabezpečován a usměrňován ještě dalšími dopravními zařízeními a dále také světelnými a akustickými signály.


Naming.

GNOME Web was originally named "Epiphany", but was rebranded in 2012 as part of GNOME 3.4. The name Epiphany is still used internally for development and in the source code. The package remains "epiphany-browser" in Debian and the distros based on (to avoid a name collision with a video game that is also called "Epiphany") and "epiphany" in Fedora and the distros based on.

Development history.

Galeon.

Marco Pesenti Gritti, the initiator of Galeon, originally developed Epiphany in 2002 as a fork of Galeon. The fork occurred because of the disagreement between Gritti and the rest of Galeon developers about new features. While Gritti regarded Galeon's monolithic design and the number of user-configurable features as factors limiting Galeon's maintainability and usability, the rest of the Galeon developers wanted to add more features.  Around the same time, the GNOME project adopted a set of human interface guidelines, which promoted simplification of user interfaces. As Galeon was oriented towards power users, most developers dissapproved. As a result, Gritti created a new browser based on Galeon, with most of the non-critical features removed. He intended Epiphany to comply with the GNOME HIG. As such, Epiphany used the global GNOME theme and other settings from inception.  Gritti explained his motivations:  Galeon continued after the fork, but lost momentum due to the remaining developers' failure to keep up with changes in the Mozilla platform. Galeon development stalled and the developers decided to work on extensions to bring Galeon's advanced features to Epiphany.  Gritti ended his work on Epiphany and a GNOME team led by Xan Lopez, Christian Persch and Jean-François Rameau now direct the project. Gritti died of cancer on May 23, 2015.

Gecko-based.

The first version of Epiphany was released on December 24, 2002.  Epiphany initially used the Gecko layout engine from the Mozilla project to display web pages. It provided a GNOME graphical user interface for Gecko, instead of Mozilla's cross-platform interface.  The development of Epiphany was mainly focused on usability improvements compared to major browsers at the time. The most notable was the new text entry widget, which was introduced in version 1.8. The new widget supported icons inside the text area and reduced the screen space needed to present information, while improving GNOME integration.  The next major milestone was version 2.14, which was the first to follow GNOME's version numbering. It also featured network awareness using NetworkManager, smart bookmarks improvements, and the option to build with XULRunner.  The latter was critical. Previously, Epiphany could only use an installed Mozilla web browser as a web engine provider. The XULRunner support made it possible to install Epiphany as the only web browser on the system.

WebKit-based.

The development process suffered from major problems related to the Gecko backend. Notably, the release cycles of the two projects did not line up efficiently. Also, Mozilla increasingly disregarded third party software that wished to make use of Gecko, until it became viewed as an integrated Firefox component. To address these issues, in July 2007, the Epiphany team added support for WebKit as an alternative rendering engine. On, the team announced that it would remove the ability to build it using Gecko and proceed using only WebKit.  The size of the team and complexity of porting the browser to Webkit caused version 2.22 to be re-released with bugfixes alongside GNOME 2.24, so the releases stagnated until, when it was announced that 2.26 would be the final Gecko-based version.  In September 2009, the transition to Webkit was completed as part of GNOME 2.28.

Features.

Web Standards Support.

The underlying WebKit browser engine provides support for HTML 4, XHTML, CSS 1 and 2, most of HTML 5 and CSS 3, and a Web Inspector (web development debugging tool).  Encrypted Media Extensions support is not a goal, as the standard does not specify a Content Decryption Module to use, all available modules are proprietary even if licensing is possible, and the system imposes Digital Rights Management that hides what the user's computer is doing to make copying "premium content" difficult. However, Media Source Extensions is supported, as Google broke Youtube in browsers that did not support it in November 2018.  Web once supported NPAPI plug-ins, such as Java and Adobe Flash, but support was removed in GNOME 3.34. In the modern web platform, these have fallen out of favor and support has been removed from all major browsers. Flash has been deprecated by Adobe itself. Flash had gained infamy throughout the years for usability and stability issues, incessant security vulnerabilities, its proprietary nature, its ability to let sites deploy particularly obnoxious web ads, and Adobe's poor and inconsistent Linux support. Many of these issues were raised by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, in his essay Thoughts on Flash.

GNOME Integration.

Web reuses GNOME frameworks and settings, including the user interface theme, network settings, and printing. Settings are stored with GSettings and GNOME default applications are used for internet media types handling. The user configures these, centrally, in GNOME's settings app.  The built-in preference manager for Web presents basic browser-specific settings while advanced settings which could radically alter Web's behavior can be changed with utilities such as dconf (command line) and dconf-editor (graphical).  Web follows the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines and platform-wide design decisions. For example, in Web 3.4, the menu for application actions was moved to the GNOME Shell's top panel application menu and the menu bar was replaced with "super menu" button, which triggers the display of window-specific menu entries.  Since GNOME 3.32, Web can adjust to various form factors with the help of codice_1, a library sponsored by Purism. It supports desktop, tablet and phone form factors. ("Narrow Mode").

Ad Blocking and Do Not Track.

Since GNOME 3.18, Web is configured to block ads and pop-ups by default, and to send Do Not Track headers to websites. Other browsers typically make the user seek out an extension and toggle settings.  In GNOME 3.34, the existing ad blocker was removed. This code was only partially functional and had been the source of many bugs. Web adopted the "Content Blockers" system from the Webkit engine.  One of the developers, Adrián Pérez de Castro, compared the old and new ad blockers. He found that the switch saved approximately 80 MiB of RAM per browser tab.

Google Safe Browsing and Security Sandboxing.

Since GNOME 3.28, Web has support for Google Safe Browsing, to help prevent users from visiting malicious websites.  Since GNOME 3.34, Web explicitly requires a minimum of WebkitGTK 2.26 or later. This provides the "Bubblewrap Sandbox" for tab processes, which is intended to prevent malicious websites from hijacking the browser and using it to spy on other tabs or run malicious code on the user's computer. If such code found another exploit in the operating system allowing it to become root, the result could be a disaster for all users of the system.  Making the sandbox a priority was brought on, according to Michael Catanzaro, because he was particularly concerned with the code quality of OpenJPEG and the numerous security problems that had been discovered in it, including many years of failing security reviews by Ubuntu. He further explained that web compatibility requires that sites believe that Web is a major browser. Sending them the user agent of Apple Safari causes fewer broken websites than others (due to sharing the Webkit engine), but also causes caching servers to deliver JPEG 2000 images, of which Safari is the only major browser to support. There is no other usable open source option for JPEG 2000 support. Fixing OpenJPEG, which is the official reference software, will be a massive undertaking that could take years to sort out. Enabling the Bubblewrap Sandbox would cause many vulnerabilities in this and other components to become "minimally useful" to potential attackers.  In GNOME 3.36, Web gained native support for PDF documents by using PDF.js. Michael Catanzaro explained that having websites open Evince to display PDF files was insecure, as it could be used to escape the browser's security sandbox. Since Evince was the last user of NPAPI, this allowed the remaining support code for the obsolete plug-in model (where additional vulnerabilities could be hiding) to be removed. Since the NPAPI support had a hard dependency on X11, moving to PDF.js also allowed that dependency to be dropped.  Since PDF.js internally converts PDF documents so that they can be displayed by the web browser's engine, it does not add security vulnerabilities to the browser the way that compiled plug-ins such as Adobe Acrobat or Evince could.

Smart Bookmarks.

While most browsers feature a hierarchical folder-based bookmark system, Web uses categorized bookmarks, where a single bookmark (such as "Web") can exist in multiple categories (such as "Web Browsers", "GNOME", and "Computer Software"). A special category includes bookmarks that have not yet been categorized. Another innovative concept supported by Web (though originally from Galeon) is "smart bookmarks". These take a single argument specified from the address bar, or from a textbox in a toolbar. Bookmarks, along with browsing history, are accessed from the address bar in find-as-you-type manner.

Web Application Mode.

Since GNOME 3.2, released in September 2011, Web allows creating application launchers for web applications. The subsequent invocation of a launcher brings up a plain site-specific browser (single instance) of Web limited to one domain, with off-site links opening in a normal browser. The launcher created this way is accessible from the desktop and is not limited to GNOME Shell. For instance it may be used with Unity, used on Ubuntu. This feature facilitates the integration of the desktop and World Wide Web, which is a goal of Web's developers. Similar features can be found in the Windows version of Google Chrome. For the same purpose Mozilla Foundation previously developed a standalone application Mozilla Prism, which was superseded by the project Chromeless.  Web applications are managed within the browser's main instance. The applications can be deleted from the page, accessible with a special URI about:applications. This approach was supposed to be a temporary while a centralized GNOME web application management was to be implemented in GNOME 3.4, but this never happened.

Firefox Sync.

Since GNOME 3.26, Web has support for Firefox Sync, which allows users to sync their bookmarks, history, passwords, and open tabs with Firefox Sync, which can then be shared between any copy of Firefox or Web that the user signs into Firefox Sync with.

Extensions.

Web once supported extensions and a package was maintained containing the official ones. This was later removed due to problems with stability and maintainability.  Some popular extensions, such as ad blocking, were moved to the core application.  The project has expressed an interest in implementing support for the WebExtension add-on format used by Chrome, Firefox, and some other major browsers, if interested contributors can be found.

System requirements.

Despite being a component of GNOME, Web has no requirements on beyond GNOME components, so it can be potentially installed on any system supporting GTK and Webkit. Though the GNOME Project does not list specific system requirements, it states that GNOME 3 should run on any modern computer.

Reception.

In reviewing the WebKit-powered Epiphany 2.28 in September 2009, Ryan Paul of "Ars Technica" said "Epiphany is quite snappy in GNOME 2.28 and scores 100/100 on the Acid3 test. Using WebKit will help differentiate Epiphany from Firefox, which is shipped as the default browser by most of the major Linux distributors."  In reviewing Epiphany 2.30 in July 2010, Jack Wallen described it as "efficient, but different" and noted its problem with crashes. "When I first started working with Epiphany it crashed on most sites I visited. After doing a little research (and then a little debugging) I realized the issue was with JavaScript. Epiphany (in its current release), for some strange reason, doesn't like JavaScript. The only way around this was to disable JavaScript. Yes this means a lot of features won't work on a lot of sites – but this also means those same sites will load faster and won't be so prone to having issues (like crashing my browser)." Wallen concluded positively about the browser, "Although Epiphany hasn't fully replaced Chrome and Firefox as my one-stop-shop browser, I now use it much more than I would have previously. [It has a] small footprint, fast startup, and clean interface."  In March 2011, Veronica Henry reviewed Epiphany 2.32, saying "To be fair, this would be a hard sell as a primary desktop browser for most users. In fact, there isn't even a setting to let you designate it as your default browser. But for those instance where you need to fire up a lighting-fast browser for quick surfing, Epiphany will do the trick." She further noted, "Though I still use Firefox as my primary browser, lately it seems to run at a snail's pace. So, one of the first things I noticed about Epiphany is how quickly it launches. And subsequent page loads on my system are equally as fast." Henry criticized Epiphany for its short list of extensions, singling out the lack of Firebug as a deficiency. Web instead supports Web Inspector offered by the WebKit engine, which has similar functionality.  In April 2012, Ryan Paul of "Ars Technica" used Web as an example to his criticism of GNOME 3.4 design decisions: "Aside from the poor initial discoverability of the panel menu, this model works reasonably well for simple applications. [...] Unfortunately, it doesn't scale well in complex applications. The best example of where this approach can pose difficulties is in GNOME's default Web browser. [...] Having the application's functionality split across two completely separate menus does not constitute a usability improvement." This was addressed in later versions, with a single unified menu.  In an October 2016 review, Bertel King Jr. noted on "MakeUseOf", "Later versions offer the best integration you will find with GNOME Shell. It lacks the add-ons found in mainstream browsers, but some users will like the minimalism, the speed, and the tab isolation that prevents one misbehaving site from crashing the entire browser."  In an April 2019 review, Bertel King Jr. wrote another article on "MakeUseOf", this time reviewing GNOME Web for its Web Applications Mode. He stated, "When you check your email, you’re using a web app. If you open YouTube, Netflix, or Spotify in a browser, again, you’re using a web app. These days, you can replace most of your desktop apps with web apps. [...] GNOME Web provides tools to better integrate web apps with the rest of your desktop, so you can open them via your app launcher and view them in your dock or taskbar. This way they feel more like apps and less like sites." He also praised the security provided by walling off Web Applications from the rest of the browser and each other. Like Mozilla's container feature, this helps prevent sites such as Facebook from seeing what the user is doing in the main browser. It also allows the user to create multiple "apps" for the same site, to easily switch between different accounts.

GNOME Web (called Epiphany until 2012) is a free and open-source web browser based on WebKitGTK, developed by the GNOME Project for Unix-like systems. It is the default and official web browser of GNOME, and part of the GNOME Core Applications.

GNOME Web (v období 2003–2012 pod jménem Epiphany [iˈpifəni]) je webový prohlížeč pro desktopové prostředí GNOME. Jedná se o nástupce internetového prohlížeče Galeon [ˈgæliən]. Aplikace je založena na renderovacím (vykreslovacím) jádře Gecko [ˈgekəu], podobně jako Mozilla Firefox, ale poslední verze přinesla podporu i pro jádro WebKit. Obsahuje též podobné funkce, například prohlížení v panelech, správa cookies, blokování vyskakujících oken a systém na správu rozšíření. Epiphany je svobodný software vyvíjený pod licencní GNU/GPL.


Purpose.

The GLA is responsible for the strategic administration of the 1579 km (610 sq. miles) of Greater London. It shares local government powers with the councils of 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation. It was created to improve the co-ordination between the local authorities in Greater London, and the Mayor of London's role is to give London a single person to represent it. The Mayor proposes policy and the GLA's budget, and makes appointments to the capital's strategic executive such as Transport for London. The primary purpose of the London Assembly is to hold the Mayor of London to account by scrutiny of his or her actions and decisions. The assembly must also accept or amend the mayor's budget on an annual basis. The GLA is based at City Hall, a new building on the south bank of the River Thames, next to Tower Bridge.  The GLA is different from the Corporation of the City of London with its largely ceremonial Lord Mayors, which controls only the Square Mile of the City, London's chief financial centre.

Background.

In 1986, the Greater London Council was abolished by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. Many people have surmised that the decision to abolish the GLC was made because of the existence of a high-spending left-wing Labour administration under Ken Livingstone, although pressure for the abolition of the GLC had arisen before Livingstone took over, and was largely driven by the belief among the outer London Borough councils that they could perform the functions of the GLC just as well.  On abolition, the strategic functions of the GLC were transferred to bodies controlled by central government or joint boards nominated by the London Borough councils. Some of the service delivery functions were transferred down to the councils themselves. For the next 14 years there was no single elected body for the whole of London. The Labour Party never supported the abolition of the GLC and made it a policy to re-establish some form of citywide elected authority.

Creation.

The Labour party adopted a policy of a single, directly elected mayor (a policy first suggested by Tony Banks in 1990), together with an elected assembly watching over the mayor; this model, based on the mayor–council government of many American cities, was partly aimed at making sure the new body resembled the erstwhile GLC as little as possible. After the Labour party won the 1997 general election, the policy was outlined in a White paper entitled "A Mayor and Assembly for London" (March 1998).  Simultaneously with the elections to the London Borough councils, a referendum was held on the establishment of the GLA in May 1998, which was approved with 72% of the vote. The Greater London Authority Act 1999 passed through Parliament, receiving the Royal Assent in October 1999. In a controversial election campaign, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, attempted to block Livingstone's nomination and imposed his own candidate. In reaction, Livingstone stood as an independent candidate, resulting in his expulsion from the Labour Party and in March 2000, was elected as Mayor of London. Following an interim period in which the mayor and assembly had been elected but had no powers, the GLA was formally established on 3 July 2000.

Powers and functions.

Functional bodies.

Areas which the GLA has responsibility for include transport, policing, fire and rescue, development and strategic planning. The GLA does not directly provide any services itself. Instead, its work is carried out by functional bodies which come under the GLA umbrella and work under the policy direction of the mayor and assembly. These functional bodies (defined in section 424 (1) of the Greater London Authority Act 1999)are:  In November 2005, the government published a consultation document reviewing the powers of the GLA, making proposals for additional powers, including waste management, planning, housing, and learning and skills. The result of the consultation and final proposals were published by the Department for Communities and Local Government on 13 July 2006.

Planning.

The GLA is responsible for co-ordinating land use planning in Greater London. The mayor produces a strategic plan, the "London Plan". The individual London Borough councils are legally bound to comply with the plan. The mayor has the power to over-ride planning decisions made by the London Boroughs if they are believed to be against the interests of London as a whole.

Energy policy.

As of 2006, London generates 42 million tonnes of carbon emissions per year, 7% of the UK's total. 44% of this comes from housing, 28% from commercial premises, 21% from transport, and 7% from industry.  The Mayor's energy strategy planned to cut carbon emission levels by 20% by 2010 and 60% by 2050 (although achieving the first of these targets is unlikely). Measures taken to achieve this have included the creation of the London Climate Change Agency, the London Energy Partnership and the founding of the international Large Cities Climate Leadership Group.  The London Sustainable Development Commission has calculated that for housing to meet the 60% target, all new developments would have to be constructed to be carbon-neutral with immediate effect (using zero energy building techniques), in addition to cutting energy used in existing housing by 40%.

Political control.

After the 2016 elections, Labour has the largest representation on the GLA with the mayor as well as twelve assembly members, followed by eight from the Conservatives, two Greens, two UKIP, and one from the Liberal Democrats.

The Greater London Authority (GLA), known colloquially as City Hall, is the devolved regional governance body of London, with jurisdiction over both the City of London and the ceremonial county of Greater London. It consists of two political branches: the executive Mayoralty (currently led by Sadiq Khan) and the 25-member London Assembly, which serves as a means of checks and balances on the former. Since May 2016, both branches have been under the control of the London Labour Party. The authority was established in 2000, following a local referendum, and derives most of its powers from the Greater London Authority Act 1999 and the Greater London Authority Act 2007.

Greater London Authority (GLA) je správní instituce Velkého Londýna, který se skládá z 32 městských obvodů a City. Tato organizace je tvořena přímo voleným starostou ("Mayor of London") a 25 členným Londýnským shromážděním ("London Assembly").