About one third of earth used to be ice one time. The last known vestiges of the ice age have been traced fame 10,000 yrs ago. By the time the exterior of earth started getting warmer, ice began to melt. The legacy of the last ice age includes the glaciers’ layers of ice covering valleys and rivers. Since ice had been covering most part of the earth, the scientists designate that period as the “ice age”.

Ice went on melting and freezing again and again for millions of years. It was before 10,000 years ago that the earth began to gain some temperature. The melting sheets of ice either ushered into lakes or left behind broad valleys having a mixture of soil and rock. The stocks of ice that remained unchanged were those in the high cliffs. The present day glaciers are indeed remains of the ice age.

Aggasiz was the first scientist who ventured out to study the traces of the ice age. When Aggasiz coined the term ‘erratic’ for boulders and for the first time explained that the boulders are glacier remains — people raised buzz that he was crazy!

Human Habitat during the Ice Age

Over the stretch of ice age, humans used to hunt their food. When an animal, such as mammoth fell prey, men would kill it. It would be subsequently dismembered — cut into pieces comprising of big chunks to be kept in their caves. The whole family would participate in the cooking process from hunting to final cooking. These people are speculated to have existed some 35,000 years before.

European countries like France, Britain, Spain and Germany were experiencing frost round the year during ice age. Sheets of ice at Poles had been much cold than they are today. No one knows how, why or what caused the ice age to start and then why did it stop after 25,000 years.

All we can surmise is the fact that it was there and is waning very slowly. This explains why the people living in that age couldn’t realize the age was becoming colder and colder for them and as such they were turning to be ice-age hunters. Most of them would populate in western, central zones of Europe.

The lands were shaped quite differently because of this overwhelming mass of ice. The land seemed ‘bare’ for it had been too cold to let beech and oak trees to grow. However, sporadic growth of fir trees might be there. No grassy growths, just little shrubs and moss could have been seen in North America, Europe and Asia; Arctic Plain can still be witness there!

Ninteeth Century

The impact of English dressing in America, the industrial boom, and the influence fashion witnessed on English and American civilization has been recorded over the course of century in terms of different literary devices.

Fashion in 19^th century transatlantic literature has broadcasted the significance and development of fashion British author Charles dickens cites references regarding the importance of the female seamstress and the part she contributed in English society, and ideals covering femininity in one of his novels, Little Dorrit (Famine 55).

American Notes of Dickens still exhibit an obsession with both the American and English fashion, as he opined that the attire of American women. In Th Dark City, Leander Richardson holds a comparison between fashion trends in Boston and New York with those prevailed in London. He starizes the trends in American women to copy their British counterparts. All this dynamism of fashion gives shape to fashion in his works as a ‘transatlantic industrial market.

Godey’s Lady’s Book, the American Magazine, editor being Sara Joshua Hale links 19th century fashion as a manifestation of moral based values of the time. Her appreciation of Queen Victoria’s style of dress in 1968 unraveled her approach toward dressing of women exhibiting the English morality.

Early 20th Century

Over the course of early 20th century, all high class fashion practically appeared in Paris and to some extent in London as well. Fashion magazines published in other countries have been sending editors to the Paris fashion shows. Departmental stores had been sending buyers to the Paris shows, where they would buy garments to copy design or would readily plagiarize idea, or some times the whole design scheme.

Both kind of garments ­­­­ — measure-to-measure salons and ready-to-wear departments offered up-to-date trends of Paris — tailored to the expectations of stores pertaining to different lifestyles and target client’s pocket books.

With the advent of the 20th century fashion magazines began to depict photographs and assumed even more momentum than in the past. The metropolitan life all over the world much demanded these fine pieces of brochures as they would profoundly govern popular taste. Demonstrators, such as, Georges Lepape, Paul Iribe, George Barbier and Erte developed exotic fashion plates for such magazines as, La Gazette du bon ton, founded by Vogel in 1912, and published them periodically till 1925, excluding the years of the Great War.

Period between WWI and WWII

The time span between the great wars is believed to be the Golden Age of French fashion by most of the experts of the industry. It was an age of swift transformation, to better put, the reformation. As the age witnessed carriages replacing cars, monarchies dethroned, and ‘haute couture’ got new customers in the guise of movie personae, American  heiresses and women of elite or industrialist class!

The word “Architecture” has been derived from the Latin “atchitectura” transformed from the Greek “arkhitekton” with literal meaning “chief builder”. By definition ‘Architecture’ is the art of designing buildings and other geometrical shapes in a scientific matter.

Exploring origins:

The art of architecture initially originated as a product of dynamics between needs and means. With the development of aggrandizement and vivacity in human cultures, art and knowledge began to be organized initially through oral and later written procedures. Resultantly, architecture progressively transformed into an art.

Construction during Medieval times

The Medieval construction began in the 7^th century, evolving from a homogeneity of architectural forms of ancient Middle East and of Byzantium vis-à-vis developing features to cater for the local and religious needs of the society. Instance can be had all over the Middle East, North Africa and Spain and were casting a considerable stylist impact over European architecture during the medieval times.

Architecture during Renaissance

During Renaissance period, emphasis was being imparted on human as an individual and it had shifted its course from the religion, and this way a new chapter of development and progress opened. Constructions were related to certain architects, Brunelieschi, Alberti, Michelangelo, Palladio, as the era of the “humanism” had taken effect.

Still there was no line of distinction between an artist and an architect or between any two related professions. The titles were mostly according to religious preferences. By this time, it was yet practicable for any artist to form a connection for the scope of dimensional measurements involved was within the range of generalists.

Early phases of Modernism and Industrial Age

Increasing fed-ups with general routine at the onset of the 20^th c. gave a fillip to different new directions and shades of thought that were precursory to some modern arrangements in Architecture. Significant once included Dentscher Werkbund, developed in 1907 to generate best quality machine made products. The emergence of the design industry as a profession is believed to have taken place during this time.

Current Trends in Architecture

A few minds of the profession of architectural designs were able to respond to Modernism and then Postmodernism by hinting at the core where the burning point of the problem lied. They realized that architecture had been a subjective philosophy or aesthetic drive sought by professionals; it should instead consider day-to-day requirements of individuals and employ technology and artifice to create a livable atmosphere.

The history of Printing started, and as such assumed international exposure, to pursue efficient and economic means of printing multiple copies of text, fabrics and graphics. Printing processes enhanced communications, and contributed a great deal to the evolution of commerce, law and culture.

Block Printing

It is a technique to print text or graphic designs that had long been in fashion across East Asia. The art first appeared in China during antiquity as a way of printing textiles and subsequently the paper. As art of cloth printing, the ancient examples that exist so long in China date back to the 4^th century.

Ukiyo-e has been the best quality of all known type of Japanese woodblock art printing. The European uses of the technique on paper can be explained by the then prevailed art terminology, “woodcut”, other than the block-books that were printed in the 15^th century.

In Egypt, India and Europe, however, the cloth-printing definitely was preceded by papyrus printing — a form of medium employed for printing very close to paper. Same prevailed in China. The process typically remains the same throughout the course of history to-date; in Europe specific design impression of printing had often been taken on silk until approached the 17^th century.

Exploring the Art of Printing in the Islamic World

Tarsh, the Arabic name of Block printing was flourishing in Egypt and Arabia during the 9-10^th centuries — predominantly for prayers and amulets. There is a little clue to propose that the printing blocks had been synthesized from a range of different materials other than wood; these included metals, viz. lead, tin and cast iron in addition to stone, glass, clay, etc. nevertheless, the techniques used have been incredible as they seem to have cast a little impact outside the Muslim domains.

No doubt Europe had been emulating the wood-block based techniques of printing from the Muslim world, in the beginning for fabric, the art of metal block printing remained largely absent in Europe. However, later on block printing was abandoned by the Islamic Central Asia subsequent to the movable type of printing had been adopted from China.

Printing in Europe

Block printing was first introduced to Christian Europe as a way of printing over cloth, where it had been a known practice by 1300. Graphic designs printed on cloth for religious ends used to be very large and vivid. However, with the convenient availability of paper about 1400, the medium of printing drastically shifted to miniature woodcut images and playing cards to be printed on hard paper. Such prints were being executed in huge numbers from round about 1425 onwards.

By the middle of the century, woodcut books, clock-books with both text and graphics, were normally etched in the same block, evolved as a cost efficient substitute for books and manuscripts to be printed with movable type. All these were brief but densely ornate works, mostly the best-sellers of their time, that have been appearing and reappearing in a number of different block-book version — the Ars moriendi and the Biblia Pauperum being the conspicuous examples.

The terms “Portugal” emanates from the Roman “Portus Cale”. “Cale” had been an ancient population settled at the delta of the Douro River that fell into the Atlantic in the north of what is now Portugal. About 200 BC, the romans overtoook the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians in the 2^nd Punic War, and during the process captured Cale and gave it the new title “Portus Cale” meaning Port of Cale.

In the Middle Ages, the territory in the vicinity of Portus Cale was famously proclaimed as Portucale by the Suevi and visigoths. The name “Portucale” eventually turned into “Portugale” in the period between 7^th and 8^th centuries, but during the 9^th century, that the term was used frequently to allude to the land between rivers Douro and Minho; the Minho flowed along the northern border between Portugal and Spain. The 11^th and 12^th witnessed “Portugale” transforming into “Portugal”.

The history of Portugal, as an European and an Atlantic nation, traces its known origins from the Early Middle Ages during the 15^th and 16^th centuries, when it rose to the status of the world power while the Age of Discovery was going on. The expansionistic expeditions of Portugese resulted in vast proportion wielding of empire such as territories in South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia.

During next couple of centuries, Portugal progressively lost a lot of its resource and prestige as the English, Dutch and French had taken an ever increasing share in slave and spice trade —the very economic dependency of the empire. The intruders were able to accomplish all this by surrounding and plundering vastly scattered Portugese trading post, and lands ransacking the territory of their economic wealth to ever dream of overseas world power.

Foreshadowing of strategic downfall started as after two fierce battles — the Battle of Alcacer Quibir held in Morocco in 1578 and Spain’s before time attempt to capture English in 1588 — Portugese at that time was in active union with Spain and shared its part of ships in the Spanish invasion fleet. Further weakening followed by the ruination of a greater part of its capital city in a 1755 earthquake, usurpation over its lands during Napoleonic wars and the cessation of the biggest colony — Brazil in 1822.

By mid 19^th century through the late 1950s, about two million Portugese had left to settle in Brazil and the United States. In 1910, there had been a revolution that dethrowned the monarchical rule. Nevertheless, the republic formed subsequently showed inability to sort out national issues. Beside widespread corruption, despotism of church authority, and an approximate bankruptcy of the state, an armed coup, 1926, ushered into a dictatorial regime that was overtaken by yet another coup in 1974.

The newly formed government introduced large scale political reforms and allowed autonomy to all of Portugal’s colonies in Africa around 1975. Portugal is one of the leading member of the NATO, OECD and EFTA. Portugal joined EU in 1986.

The Argentine Republic is the second largest country in South America. Geographically it is as a federation of 23 provinces in addition to an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. Argentina is the eighth largest country in the world by area and also area wise largest among Spanish speaking nations.

The name has descended from the Latin argentum meaning ‘silver’, which comes from the Ancient Greek meaning “white, shining”. Argentinos was an ancient Greek adjective meaning “silvery”. The initial use of the name Argentina dates back to the early 16th century sea faring of the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors through the Río de la Plata, famously Silver River.

The historians have divided the history of Argentina can be divided into following phases:

• Early history or the pre-Columbian time,
• The colonial period (roughly 1516 to 1810),
• The independence wars,
• The early post-colonial period of the nation (1810 to 1880)
• The history of modern Argentina from around 1880.

Early history

The configuration of prehistory in the currently defined territory of Argentina began with the first human appearance on the southern point of Patagonia about 13,000 years ago. The first known presence of humans in Argentina is in Patagonia and dates from around 11,000 BC.

King Pachacutec, the rule of the Inca Empire, is known to have occupied present-day northwestern Argentina in 1480, merging it into a territory known as Collasuyu; the Guaraní created a culture based on sweet potato, yuca, and yerba maté. The central and southern areas were suppressed by nomads, the most densely inhabited among them were the Mapuches.

The recorded history started with the advent of Spanish historians as after the expedition of Juan Díaz de Solís had taken place in 1516 to Río de la Plata river that signifies the inception of Spanish domination in the region.

By 1776 the Spanish Crown had established the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a blanket term mentioning a wielding of territories out of which, with the Revolution of May 1810, started a process of progressive coming into being of a number of independent states, including United Provinces of Río de la Plata. After the declaration of independence on July 9, 1816 and the strategic defeat of the Spanish Empire in 1824, a federal state was established in 1853-1861, known today as the Republic of Argentina.

Modern history

A trend of foreign investment and immigration from Europe after 1870 showed the way to the emergence of modern agriculture and as a new Argentine society was reborn and the economy and the strengthening of a unified state. The rule of law was ensured in a substantial measure by Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield, who’s 1860 Commercial Code and 1869 Civil Code laid the sheet anchor for statutory laws for Argentine.

General Julio Argentino Roca’s military campaign in the 1870s established Argentine’s supremacy over the southern Pampas and Patagonia, subjugated the remaining indigenous peoples and left behind 1300 indigenous dead. Some scholars argue that it was operation of mass killing by the Argentine government.

A social network is characterized by a social structure based on individuals or institutions called “nodes,” operated by some specialized forms of interdependency, for example, kinship, friendship, financial transactions, aversion, sexual relationships, or commonality of beliefs, knowledge or esteem.

Exploring a brief history of social network – an analysis

Pioneers of social networks during the late 1800s are Émile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies. Tönnies held that social groups could exist as ‘personal and direct social ties’ that would either liaise with individuals sharing values and beliefs or formal, uncongenial, and effective social links.

Durkheim espoused a non-individualistic interpretation of social factors maintaining that social phenomena arose when interacting individuals signified a reality that could be no longer considered in terms of the traits of individual performers. He made a distinction between a conventional society, a sort of ‘mechanical cohesion’ that exists as long as individual differences are ignored, and the modern society, as an expression of “organic unification”,  that shapes out of mutual assistance among individuals with distinctive outlook  on life having roles of  their own as unique persons.

After a brief pause in early years of the twentieth century, three major norms in social networking evolved. During the thirties, J.L. Moreno introduced the methodical recording and understanding of social interaction in small groups, particularly groups in class or workplace, whereas a Harvard based group supervised by W. Lloyd Warner and Elton Mayo probed into interpersonal relations in operation.

Social network analysis evolved over the course of the ‘kinship’ studies of Elizabeth Bott in England during the 1950s and the 1950s60s urbanization studies of the University of Manchester group of social scientists, focusing around Max Gluckman, and later J. Clyde Mitchell exploring community networks based in southern Africa, India and the United Kingdom.

Concomitantly, British anthropologist S.F. Nadel codified a theory of social structure that was influential in later network analysis. During 1960s70s, an increasing number of scholars endeavored to link different tracks and traditions. A dominant group was found centered around Harrison White and his students at Harvard University: Bonnie Erickson, Harriet Friedmann, Ivan Chase, Mark Granovetter, Nancy Howell, Joel Levine, Nicholas Mullins, John Padgett, Michael Schwartz and Barry Wellman.

Important in the early groups were Charles Tilly and Stanley Milgram, the former focused on networks in political sociology and social movements, while the latter developed the “six degrees of separation” thesis. Mark Granovetter and Barry Wellman are one of the former students of White who had elicited and publicized social network analysis.

In the 1970s, a ‘substantively-oriented University of Toronto sociology group’ emerged, based on early students of Harrison White: S.D. Berkowitz, Harriet Friedmann, Nancy Leslie Howard, Nancy Howell, Lorne Tepperman and Barry Wellman. The group also included the noted modeler and game theorist Anatol Rapoport. So far as relates the theory, it presented critic, ‘methodological individualism and group-based analyses’, debating that considering the world as a set of social networks could offer increased analytic force.