My Science School

In many democratic countries, such as the United Kingdom, political matters are debated in an elected assembly. The political party with the most elected members forms the government, headed by the Prime Minister. Laws and decisions are passed (or rejected) on the basis of votes cast by the members of parliament (MPs). Many parliamentary systems have two assemblies. The United Kingdom has the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The House of Commons has the most power and makes most of the decisions.

A parliamentary system or parliamentary democracy is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the confidence of the legislature, typically a parliament, and is also held accountable to that parliament. In a parliamentary system, the head of state is usually a person distinct from the head of government. This is in contrast to a presidential system, where the head of state often is also the head of government and, most importantly, the executive does not derive its democratic legitimacy from the legislature.

Countries with parliamentary democracies may be constitutional monarchies, where a monarch is the head of state while the head of government is almost always a member of parliament (such as the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, and Japan), or parliamentary republics, where a mostly ceremonial president is the head of state while the head of government is regularly from the legislature (such as Ireland, Germany, India, and Italy). In a few parliamentary republics, such as Botswana, South Africa, and Suriname, among some others, the head of government is also head of state, but is elected by and is answerable to parliament. In bicameral parliaments, the head of government is generally, though not always, a member of the lower house.

Parliamentarianism is the dominant form of government in Europe, with 32 of its 50 sovereign states being parliamentarian. It is also common in the Caribbean, being the form of government of 10 of its 13 island states, and in Oceania. Elsewhere in the world, parliamentary countries are less common, but they are distributed through all continents, most often in former colonies of the British Empire that subscribe to a particular brand of parliamentarianism known as the Westminster system.

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A society is a community of people. All societies around the world are based on families, but the way societies are organized and governed varies from country to country. Religion, politics, economics and climate all influence the way that a society develops and organizes itself.

“Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." So said legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, and his words can help us understand what a society truly is.

Society is made up of individuals who have agreed to work together for mutual benefit. It can be a very broad term, as we can make generalizations about what the whole of Western society believes, or it can be a very narrow definition, describing only a small group of people within a given community. But no matter the size, and no matter the link that binds a society together, be it religious, geographic, professional or economic, society is shaped by the relationships between individuals.

There has been much debate over what makes a society successful. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes believed that without society, human life would be "nasty, brutish and short." Man's natural state, he argued, would be to preserve only oneself -- a man without society would steal another family's food, seduce other men's wives and kill anyone who got in his way. Of course, the same man would be in constant danger of those things happening to him, his wife and his children. What people needed, therefore, was a society, which would provide protection by subjecting everyone to a set of rules. But the number of governments, tribes and communities today demonstrate that there's no single way to form or govern a society.

Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau dubbed the set of rules that a society lives by "the social contract." In other words, people must play a part in agreeing to certain laws and in choosing a given leader. If people lose that right, then society won't function as well. To return to Coach Lombardi’s area of expertise, a society without an agreed-upon code of conduct would be like football without rules or a referee. People will cooperate and commit to a society only as long as they can choose the person who mediates and voice an opinion on the rules.

It’s interesting, then, to observe the effects of the Internet on society. On the Internet, there’s no referee, and the rules that govern our interpersonal contact don't seem to hold much sway. With the anonymity provided by a screen name, people feel like they can say things they wouldn’t otherwise say, things that may even be hurtful or dangerous. And because you can do everything from order a pizza online to pay your electric bill, some academics worry that the Internet will erode our real societies, as people opt out of participating in real life in favor of participating in cyberspace. On the other hand, some would argue that the Internet has only made our societies larger -- a person in Delaware, after all, can now converse easily with a person in China. It will be interesting to see how technology shapes society in the future.

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The way that families live together can vary hugely from country to country and even within the same country. The term "nuclear family" describes an arrangement where two parents bring up their children in the same home. Extended families are those where several generations live together. In some societies, men and women may live separately most of the time, each with defined social roles.

Family, a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood, or adoption, constituting a single household and interacting with each other in their respective social positions, usually those of spouses, parents, children, and siblings. The family group should be distinguished from a household, which may include boarders and roomers sharing a common residence. It should also be differentiated from a kindred (which also concerns blood lines), because a kindred may be divided into several households. Frequently the family is not differentiated from the marriage pair, but the essence of the family group is the parent-child relationship, which may be absent from many marriage pairs.

At its most basic, then, a family consists of an adult and his or her offspring. Most commonly, it consists of two married adults, usually a man and a woman (almost always from different lineages and not related by blood) along with their offspring, usually living in a private and separate dwelling. This type of unit, more specifically known as a nuclear family, is believed to be the oldest of the various types of families in existence. Sometimes the family includes not only the parents and their unmarried children living at home but also children that have married, their spouses, and their offspring, and possibly elderly dependents as well; such an arrangement is called an extended family.

At its best, the family performs various valuable functions for its members. Perhaps most important of all, it provides for emotional and psychological security, particularly through the warmth, love, and companionship that living together generates between spouses and in turn between them and their children. The family also provides a valuable social and political function by institutionalizing procreation and by providing guidelines for the regulation of sexual conduct. The family additionally provides such other socially beneficial functions as the rearing and socialization of children, along with such humanitarian activities as caring for its members when they are sick or disabled. On the economic side, the family provides food, shelter, clothing, and physical security for its members, some of whom may be too young or too old to provide for the basic necessities of life themselves. Finally, on the social side, the family may serve to promote order and stability within society as a whole.

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Television was undoubtedly the most important communications invention of the 20th century. Its ability to bring visual information directly into millions of homes made people aware of world events in a way that they never were before. It quickly overtook cinema as the main form of entertainment, and modern satellite, cable and digital television now provides people with an incredible choice of programmes, 24 hours a day.

Many people today still going to consider television to be mined numbing, brainwashing drivel. And if you look at some of the reality programming that is on, you might agree. But there are also a lot of wholesome, good quality entertainment and informational programs that can be used to educate, inform and excite individuals and families. With a large assortment of basic cable options available, there is no shortage of good programming to be found at nearly any time of the day or night.

Good quality television also helps to bring Families and communities together. From learning about historical events on the History Channel to new breakthroughs in science on the science channel and being introduced to new types of traditions and family lifestyles on shows on other channels that showcase other types of families and lifestyles across the globe, the ability to learn is more widespread through television than ever before.

Informative news channels also reach millions of viewers, alerting them to events and incidences around the world that might not have otherwise been known. Sporting events have also gained a lot of popularity thanks to the broadcast international events such as the world cup or European bike racing events.

And with the introduction of free Internet TV and live TV channels streamed over your mobile devices, the ability to tune in to any program you desire is more prevalent and easy than ever before.

Whether a program is experienced by a group of people together or by a single individual by his or herself, a good program can stir the emotions. It can make one laugh, it can inspire, it can help you learn about a cause or subject you may be more interested. It can introduce you to new things and make you feel better about yourself, and it can improve your knowledge and expand your mind.

After a long, stressful day, sometimes the best way to wind down is simply through watching some television. Watching a good movie or some shows that you enjoy is often an excellent way to end the day and reboot your mind for the next one.

For every good, informative, or quality entertainment program available on television, there is bound to be one or two that are less than stellar. But everyone has their own tastes and opinions as to what types of shows they wish to watch, which is why watching TV online is the most convenient way for everyone these days to enjoy the television they like most. It also enables you to watch what shows you want, when you want, so that you don’t have to miss anything if you aren’t near a television.

There is a vast amount of cable television options to choose from today, but selecting a lot of different cable TV packages can get expensive. However, an alternative to that is online streaming, which affords people the ability to stream, view and watch their favorite movies and programming on their computers, mobile devices or smart TVs with ease. From watching live TV channels to the wide variety of free Internet TV that is available, there really is no shortage of good programming that can be steamed through the Internet these days, with more and more options being added constantly.

In fact, regular cable companies are a bit worried about the popularity if Internet TV and some have taken advantage of the potential and offered their own streaming packages so as to retain customers. One of the advantages of free Internet TV is that you don’t always have to sit through a lot of commercials, which has been a big deterrent for many, and one of the main reasons people are making the switch.

The internet is a global network of millions of computers that can communicate with one another. Information can he sent and received across the network in the form of text, pictures, video and sound. Home computers often connect to the Internet using a normal phone line and a modem — a device that connects the computer to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Businesses and other large organizations may have their own network, known as a Local Area Network (LAN), which connects to an ISP with a high-speed link.

Everyone’s talking about the internet and whether, or how, it should be regulated. But not enough people know how the internet actually works—or what exactly the internet is.

You probably have your own “local area network” at home, and it’s made up of all the devices connected to your router, which connects to the internet. The word “internet” refers to a worldwide system of “interconnected computer networks”.

That’s all the internet really is—a large number of computer networks all over the world, connected together. Of course, there’s a lot of physical hardware—from the cables under your city streets to the massive cables on the ocean floors to satellites in orbit around the planet—that makes this communication possible. There’s also a lot of software at work in the background, allowing you to type in a website address like “google.com” and have your computer to send information to the physical location where that website is located in the fastest way possible.

Even when you’re just connecting to a single website, there’s a lot more going on under the hood. Your computer can’t directly send a piece of information, or “packet” of data, to the computer hosting the website. Instead, it passes a packet to your home router with information about where it’s going and where the web server should reply. Your router then sends it to the routers at your internet service provider (Comcast, Time Warner, or whoever else you use), where it’s sent to another router at another internet service provider, and so on, until it reaches its destination. Any packets sent back to your system from the remote server make the reverse journey.

To use an imperfect analogy, it’s a bit like sending a letter in the mail. Your local postal employee can’t just grab the letter and take it directly across the country or continent to its destination address. Instead, the letter goes to your local post office, where it’s sent to another post office, and then another one, and so on, until it gets to its destination. It takes longer for a letter to get to the other side of the world than the other side of the country because it has to make more stops, and that’s generally true for the internet as well. It will take a bit longer for packets to go longer distances with more transfers, or “hops”, as they’re called.

Unlike with physical mail, sending data packets is still very fast, though, and it happens many times a second. Each packet is very small, and large numbers of packets are sent back and forth when computers communicate—even if one is just loading a website from another one. A packet’s travel time is measured in milliseconds.

Companies use all forms of media to advertise their products and services. advertising began simply as a way of telling people about a product, but it is now much more sophisticated. It is used to present the image of a company in a certain way and also to target a particular audience that the company feels it can attract. In this way, the company associates itself with a certain lifestyle. Advertising is a huge business, with large companies investing huge sums of money in anything from sports sponsorship to putting their logo on the side of a milk carton.

Companies use advertisements as part of a marketing program to increase sales of their products and services. Advertising plays a different role at different stages of the marketing process -- helping to raise awareness of a product or service, generating leads for a sales force or selling directly. Companies with retail outlets use advertising to make consumers aware of product availability and increase sales through the outlets.

Awareness

Companies use advertising to make customers and prospects aware of the features and benefits of their products. If customers are not aware of your product, they will not consider it when they next make a purchasing decision for the type of product you offer. Advertising puts your product into the consumer’s set of choices.

Brand Preference

Advertising can build a preference for your product over competitors’ offerings. Your advertising messages must reflect the information that customers feel is important when choosing a product. It must also stress the quality of your product. By advertising regularly, you can reinforce the brand messages so that your product becomes first choice when the consumer next makes a purchase.

Direct Sales

Use direct response advertising to sell products directly to customers. The advertisement includes details of the product and its price together with a telephone number or website address where customers can order the product.

Retail Development

Advertising details of retailers or distributors that stock your products builds sales by driving traffic to the outlets. The advertisements can provide information on retail outlets or promote special offers available at those outlets. This type of advertising can also help you promote your products to distributors and retailers.

Lead Generation

If you market products and services through a sales force, you can use advertisements to generate leads for the team to follow up. Include a response mechanism in the advertisement such as a reply coupon, telephone number or email address so that customers can register their details in return for an incentive offer. Examples of incentives include free copies of special reports for business customers or gifts for consumers.

Reputation

When a prospect is selecting a supplier for a major purchase, company reputation is an important factor in the decision. Use advertising to build a positive perception of your company. Reputation or corporate advertising communicates messages about factors such as your company’s achievements, financial stability, market success and innovation record.

Certain forms of media, particularly television and newspapers, are able to communicate to thousands or even millions of people at the same time. These mass media can have a very powerful influence on their audience, and often reflect the particular view-point of the media-owner.

Think about this for a second: whenever you want to hear your favorite song, watch your favorite show, or see the latest current events, where do you go? You more than likely turn on your television, radio, or computer. The source that the majority of the general public uses to get their news and information from is considered mass media.

Mass media means technology that is intended to reach a mass audience. It is the primary means of communication used to reach the vast majority of the general public. The most common platforms for mass media are newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet. The general public typically relies on the mass media to provide information regarding political issues, social issues, entertainment, and news in pop culture.

The mass media has evolved significantly over time. Have you ever wondered how the latest news and information was communicated in the past? Well, before there was the Internet, television, or the radio, there was the newspaper. The newspaper was the original platform for mass media. For a long period of time, the public relied on writers and journalists for the local newspapers to provide them with the latest news in current events.

Centuries later, in the 1890s, came the invention of the radio. The radio would soon supersede the newspaper as the most pertinent source for mass media. Families would gather around the radio and listen to their favorite radio station programs to hear the latest news regarding politics, social issues, and entertainment.

Later on down the line came the invention of the television. The television would soon replace the radio for the most effective platform to reach the general public. Today, the Internet is the most relevant form of mass media and has become a major tool for news outlets. Since the evolution of the Internet, the general public is now able to access those same news outlets in an instant with just a click of a mouse, instead of having to wait for scheduled programs.

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Early people probably communicated through a combination of primitive sounds and basic sign language. Languages may have evolved through a need for survival — warning others of danger, for instance. They developed gradually as people used the spoken word for instruction and entertainment. Oral communication, particularly through story-telling, was and still is an important part of a society's culture.

Making sounds such as grunting or guttural sounds at a low pitch or high pitch would indicate either social communication or be a warning sign. Body language was also used as communication at this time.  Later written communication came about when humans realised the need to record their daily life activities. Further down the line this progressed to meeting the needs of bartering and exchanging of goods. The ancient Egyptians were amongst the first people to use symbols as a form of written communication which later developed into the alphabet system that we know today. 

Cave drawings were murals that people painted onto the walls of caves and canyons to tell the story of their culture.  They would tell stories of battles, hunts and culture. Storytelling was used to tell stories, both fiction and nonfiction, before there were books.  It was a way for families and communities to pass on information about their past.

Drums were one way to send signals to neighbouring tribes and groups.  The sound of the drumming patterns would tell them of concerns and events they needed to know. Smoke signals were another way to send messages to people who were not close enough to use words with.  Can you imagine living without your telephone?  We sure have come a long way!

For many years it was widely believed that the only reliable form of knowledge was the written word. Books, diaries, documents, and newspapers.These commanded respect because their words could be preserved. But the printed word can be misleading. For example, certain history books taught, inaccurately, that Africans arrived in Southern Africa at more or less the same time as European settlers landed in the Cape. Some books emphasised differences amongst people. And while most textbooks acknowledged that the Khoisan had lived in South Africa for a very long time, the writers saw them as 'primitive', and paid very little respect to their history.

When European settlers arrived in South Africa, most of them could read and write. They valued the written word as a precious form of knowledge. But European scholars made the mistake of thinking that writing was the only way that knowledge could be passed on. Where they did not find books in Africa, they simply assumed that Africa had no history.

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In the modem world, we can access information in ways that could only be dreamt about just 50 years ago. Information can travel around the world via television, radio, telephone and computer networks, all of them connected by satellite or cable links. Modern communication systems, or media, allow almost anyone to transmit and receive verbal, visual and written information wherever they are in the world.

Optical communications networks provide the underlying high-capacity, ubiquitous connectivity that underpins the global Internet Characterizes the growth of communication and computing between 1986 and 2007, based on a broad collection of data. Around the year 2000, Internet traffic took over from voice telephone as the single largest communication format for information. Now Internet traffic dominates completely. All of the long-distance communications on the Internet are over optical fiber.

Major advances in transmission techniques and technologies have allowed network providers to provide extremely cost-effective network upgrades that have kept pace with the extraordinary appetite for broadband Internet services. That growth, as exemplified in has driven network bandwidth demands by a factor of 100 over the last 10 years. That increase has been enabled by realizing the full potential of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) that has resulted in fibers carrying as many as 100 separate wavelengths. In addition, the capacity per wavelength in commercially deployed terrestrial networks has increased from a maximum of 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s) per wavelength when the first edition of Harnessing Light was published in 1998, to 100 Gb/s today. As a result, per fiber transmission capacities in terrestrial systems today as high as 5-10 terabits per second (Tb/s) are possible. Transoceanic capacities have lagged somewhat behind terrestrial values because the long amplifier-only distances and the desire to extend the amplifier spacing have made upgrading to per wavelength capacities above 10 Gb/s problematic. Nevertheless, transoceanic per fiber capacities of approximately 1 Tb/s are typical. For the future there are expectations that this growth will continue as more video content calls for bandwidth and that there is a need for another factor-of-100 growth in the coming 10 years as well.

Major advances have also been achieved in both cost-effectively managing the large capacity in today’s WDM optical networks and in leveraging the value proposition of optical amplifiers to provide multi-wavelength amplification over network mesh and ring architectures. Reconfigurable, wavelength-routed networks—in which wavelength-defined units of capacity can be added, dropped, or switched from one fiber route to another fiber route directly in the optical domain without the need for conversion to electronics—are now heavily deployed in long-haul terrestrial networks as well as metropolitan networks. Wavelength-routed networks provide cost-effective solutions because they allow data on wavelengths passing through a node at a multi-route network node to remain in the optical domain and benefit from the cost-effective multi-wavelength amplification enabled by optical amplifiers, rather than needing to be individually electronically regenerated. The large increase in capacity demand has ensured that a prerequisite for the economic viability of such networks—namely, that the capacity demand between any two node pairs on the network be at least as large as that which can be carried by a single wavelength—is met.

WDM optical networks require reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) to, under network electrical control, drop or add wavelength channels at a node and to switch wavelength channels from one fiber route to another. ROADMs are key enablers that have evolved significantly in their functionality, providing increasing levels of flexibility, and in their capacity, or number of fiber ports and wavelengths per fiber, over the last decade. Further progress in these network elements and their enabling technologies will be essential to addressing the growing demand for capacity.

Ultimately, networks are no better than the access capacity that they provide to the end user, whether that customer is a business or a residence. Increasingly that access is through an optical link. The last decade has seen significant increase in the deployment of fiber in the access network, initially to the curb, but increasingly also directly to the business or home.

Tunnels are built for many different reasons, such as carrying water and sewage beneath cities and providing access for people, trains and motor vehicles. "Cut-and-cover" is a common method of building tunnels in urban areas — a deep trench will be dug and then covered over. Long transport tunnels, which may go through mountain-sides or underwater, are usually made with enormous boring machines. As a rotating cutting head cuts out rock at the front of the machine, sections of tunnel-lining are fitted in behind. Two machines will often he used, one starting at each end.

A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through the surrounding soil/earth/rock and enclosed except for entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube construction techniques rather than traditional tunnel boring methods.

A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. The central portions of a rapid transit network are usually in the tunnel. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers. Utility tunnels are used for routing steam, chilled water, electrical power or telecommunication cables, as well as connecting buildings for convenient passage of people and equipment.

Secret tunnels are built for military purposes, or by civilians for smuggling of weapons, contraband, or people. Special tunnels, such as wildlife crossings, are built to allow wildlife to cross human-made barriers safely. Tunnels can be connected together in tunnel networks.

A tunnel is relatively long and narrow; the length is often much greater than twice the diameter, although similar shorter excavations can be constructed, such as cross passages between tunnels.

The definition of what constitutes a tunnel can vary widely from source to source. For example, the definition of a road tunnel in the United Kingdom is defined as "a subsurface highway structure enclosed for a length of 150 metres (490 ft) or more." In the United States, the NEPA definition of a tunnel is "An underground structure with a design length greater than 23 m (75 ft) and a diameter greater than 1,800 millimetres (5.9 ft).”

In the UK, a pedestrian, cycle or animal tunnel beneath a road or railway is called a subway, while an underground railway system is differently named in different cities, the “Underground” or the “Tube” in Londan, the “Subway” in Glasgow, and the “Metro” in Newcastle. The place where a road, railway, canal or watercourse passes under a footpath, cycleway, or another road or railway is most commonly called a bridge or, if passing under a canal, an aqueduct. Where it is important to stress that it is passing underneath, it may be called an underpass, though the official term when passing under a railway is an underbridge. A longer underpass containing a road, canal or railway is normally called a “tunnel”, whether or not it passes under another item of infrastructure. An underpass of any length under a river is also usually called a “tunnel”, whatever mode of transport it is for.

In the US, the term "subway" means an underground rapid transit system, and the term pedestrian underpass is used for a passage beneath a barrier. Rail station platforms may be connected by pedestrian tunnels or footbridges.

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Skyscrapers very tall buildings are a familiar sight in many of the world’s large cities. Ordinary buildings are constructed in such a way that the walls provide support for the whole structure. A skyscraper is so tall, and the weight of the building is so great, that a frame of steel or concrete is needed to support it. The foundations of the skyscraper are also important. Beams (piles), also made of steel or concrete, and are driven into the ground with a powerful machine called a pile-driver.

A skyscraper is a continuously habitable high-rise building that has over 40 floors and is taller than approximately 150 m (492 ft.). Historically, the term first referred to buildings with 10 to 20 floors in the 1880s. The definition shifted with advancing construction technology during the 20th century. Skyscrapers may host offices, residential spaces, and retail spaces. For buildings above a height of 300 m (984 ft), the term supertall skyscrapers can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m (1,969 ft) are classified as megatall skyscrapers.

One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls. These curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete.

Modern skyscrapers' walls are not load-bearing, and most skyscrapers are characterised by large surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames and curtain walls. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a small surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a tubular structure, and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic, and other lateral loads. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, which in some cases is also structurally required.

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There are some parts of the world where people still live in caves. However, they are often far removed from the prehistoric dwellings of our ancestors. Indeed, many of them are in spectacular locations and have all the facilities of any other modern home.

Contrary to what many urbanites in Singapore may think, cavemen and cavewomen don't just exist in films, books and educational documentaries. Though not exactly like the dwellers who lived in the Paleolithic Era, there are many people around the world who live in caves even in today's day and age.

Gather five such places for those of you who are intrigued to find out more about these cave cities. You will see things and people in a different light - guaranteed.

China

First things first, there are about 30 million people living in caves in China. Now that we've gotten that straightened out, most of these Chinese cave dwellers live in Yan'an in the Shaanxi province and they have no intention of leaving. In fact, more and more people are looking to rent a cave there and live humbly.

Coober Pedy, Australia

Did you know that even in Australia, there are approximately 1500 people living in underground caves? Coober Pedy is a tiny Australian town where temperatures can hit about 40 degrees celsius in summer, and these underground caves protect its dwellers from intense heat. Why aren't they looking to move? The answer boils down to the fact that there are plenty of pricey, valuable opals to be extracted in Coober Pedy, and many of the residents there toil away in the lucrative industry.

Camsur, Philippines

Some cave dwellers don't live in caves because they want to, but rather, a cave is their only refuge following natural disasters that snatched their homes away from them. One such example is this cave in the Philippines that two young boys and their father call home after Typhoon Glenda destroyed their homes.

Can you imagine sharing a space with scary bats? That's what these people have to put up with in the name of having a roof over their head. Now, this is reason enough for all of us to count our blessings.

Kandovan, Iran

Have the feels to escape Singapore's concrete jungle to live in a giant termite-like cave? The enigmatic 13th century Kandovan village nestled in Iran's east Azerbaijan province might just be the place you are looking for. This nugget of information might shock you - not only are these house-caves multi-storeyed, some have even crossed the 700-year-old mark! Apparently, these house-caves in Kandovan can keep its inhabitants snuggly and warm in winter while being cooling in summer months.

Gal Oya, Sri Lanka

Hidden away from people deep within the lush forests of Gal Oya in Sri Lanka lives the Vedda community. Although they seek to live traditionally the way they used to and continue hunting wild animals with bows and arrows, more and more younger Veddas live in mud houses just at the fringe of the forest these days. Some of the more senior Veddas still live in their cave homes, though.

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The construction and style of houses vary greatly from country to country. This is due mainly to a combination of the materials available locally and the type of weather that the region experiences.

The majority of the population in developing countries lives in buildings that can be considered as non-engineered, which unfortunately are often susceptible to many natural disasters, especially earthquake. As the construction techniques/practices and skill of masons/carpenters differs from country to country, strength of non-engineered constructions differ as well. A research was conducted jointly in seven selected developing countries, i.e. Egypt, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru, and Turkey, to collect data on their design and construction characteristics and information related to the local context. All of the countries have certain code or, at least, guidelines on building construction, which however do not seem to affect field practices. While construction practices are different from country to country, most of them have some similarities on certain parameters, such as design intervention, availability of materials and workers, supervision by the owner, construction tools, foundation types, wall thickness, type of plaster/mortar/concrete, workers’ training, etc.

The majority of the population in developing countries lives in buildings that can be considered as non-engineered buildings, i.e. buildings and houses built in a traditional way without or with minimum engineering intervention from an architect or structural engineer in the design and construction process. In general, masonry and wooden structures are commonly found in this category of structure (IAEE, 1986) (Kusumastuti et al., 2008). Unfortunately, this type of building is often susceptible to many natural disasters, especially earthquake. Past earthquakes revealed that the damage on non-engineered houses is responsible for the deaths of most of the total casualties in earthquakes (Narafu et al., 2010) (Macabuag, 2008) (Grundy, 2007). As construction techniques/practices and skill of masons differ from country to country, strength of non-engineered construction differ as well. However, there is little knowledge about the comparative strength in various developing countries.

This research was conducted jointly in seven selected developing countries, i.e. Egypt, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru and Turkey, involving survey of construction of non-engineered buildings in various sites in each country to collect data on their design and construction characteristics and information related to the local context.

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