Punk rock or how an an ancient structure was built Essay

Punk rock or how an an ancient structure was built - Essay Example Maneuvering protuberances were put in to function as hitching points. (Holmquist & Philips) The beginning of housing started with the Neolithic people 10000 years ago. Their houses were mainly of mud, stone and wood, but the structure differed for every house. Since then the types of houses being built have evolved and upgraded. The Greeks and the Romans are famous for their structures and architectural techniques. Most of Roman architecture has been inspired by the Greeks and Greece is known as the 'Mother of Rome.' The Greeks used three types of architectural systems: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. The roofs that they built were of low pitch. Windows and doors would be enormous; this would help in wind circulation and keeping the heat out. Greek structures were painted white because it was not known then that the white marble of ancient Greece had been polychrome. These structures were mainly built of local marble or limestone and had stone frames. One trend that was very common among the Roman architecture and structures is that of bases which provided support to the colu mn. (Holmquist & Philips) There have been many trends in the Greek architecture. The first of them was the archaic period, in which the structure was mainly rectangular, consisting of steps, a platform, an anta and a porch.

Employee Safety, Health, and Welfare Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Employee Safety, Health, and Welfare - Essay Example Thirty days before the leave, a notice should be given to the employer, or in case of emergency, as soon as possible. Employers can also ask for a medical certificate of the employee, spouse, and son, relative or of whoever has a serious illness that causes the leave. Upon the return of any employee from a leave, his position, benefits, salary and other conditions should still be the same. ( U.S. Office of Personnel Management) Accidents can never be avoided and it comes very unexpectedly. That is why the worker's compensation law was imposed to ensure the medical support that an employee will receive in case of an accident. The worker's compensation law has several benefits available depending on the different factors such as the graveness of the injury, the ability of the worker in his work, the level of his disability whether it will be permanent or temporarily only, the availability of his job, and the need for health assistance. The compensation is usually calculated as two-thirds of the gross average weekly salary of the employee. (Moorehead) One type of benefit includes the medical treatment for the job injury or disease which is only available while recuperating and have'nt reached the maximum recovery. For a case of an intense injury or disease, medical benefits may last a lifetime. The employer is resposible for all the medical expenses of the injured employee including the health services, supplies, medicines, and other necessary care without deductible pay from the employee. Temporary weekly benefits willl be granted while the worker is unable to work because of his injury or disease and will end when he returned to work or when the doctor certifies that he has recovered. The compensation will not be paid in the first week of the temporary total disability unless it resulted a disability of more than fourteen days, but the compensation will be paid from the date of disability. (Moorehead) When an employee has reached his maximum healing but still unable to work, such as when you injure your eyes, back and other body parts that will not function as good as before, permanent partial disability benefits should be granted with the appropriate percentage loss or malfunctioning of the body parts. Limits on compensation depends on the body part that is not functioning well and to the empployee's weekly compensation rate. This is paid together with the temporary total disability benefits. (Moorehead) In case of a very severe injury that it is no longer enabling the employee to be engaged in any kinds of work, a permanent total benefit is entitled to him wherein he will be given a five hundred weeks of compensation plus a lifetime medical treatment for his injury. If unluckily, the employee died within two years of disability, or while the total disability continues or within six years after the accident, the relatives of the diseased employee should receive 66.67 percent of his weekly wages for a period of 5five hundred weeks. (Moorehead) The Occupational Safety and Health Act

Trade Unions And Disputes Management Essay

Trade Unions And Disputes Management Essay Trade unions can be defined as, Organization whose membership consists of workers and union leaders, and whose principal purposes are to negotiate wages and terms of working condition, regulate relations between employees and the employer, take collective action to enforce the terms of collective bargaining, raise demands on behalf of its members, and help settle their problems (Business Directory, 2009). Trade unions are generally classified as, company union that represents interests of only one firm and may not have any relation with the trade union movement; industrial union represents workers of several firms from the same industry; and craft union represents skilled workers in a particular field such as carpentry or welding (Business Dictionary, 2009). A working definition of Trade Unions was provided by Sydney and Beatrice Webb (History of Trade Unions, 1920) as a continuous association of wage earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment. In the view of the above, it can be stated that Trade unions help the employees by negotiating for better income and better conditions at workplace for them which is known as collective bargaining. The ACAS Code of Practice No2 Disclosure of Information to trade unions, which is based on collective bargaining, provides recommendation on good exercise (Employee Communications and Consultations, ACAS, 2005). They provide information and guidance to its members if they undergo a problem regarding the workplace. A set-up of health and safety representatives is also provided at the workplace by the trade union for both employers and employees. Trade unions are interested in promoting equal opportunities at work and providing consultation and support to their members on the legislation. They run campaigns to protect the rights of the employees and improve their quality of working lives. There are numerous other services which trade unions provides to its member apart from the ones stated a bove are education and training for a better future and security, financial aid and discounts, and welfare benefits (TUC, 2009). It has been witnessed in the past that there is a rise in the ratio of number of employers wanting to work with trade unions. TUC today published a report stating that both employers and employees benefit from partnership. Thus a well-built judgement will be analysed in details further which will highlight the fact that management likes to deal with their employees through unions rather than dealing with them on individual basis. Analysis of the Statement The employment law system at present is rooted with the roles that the trade unions perform with numerous actions. Advice is given in terms of redundancy, where in, employers need to involve the union in decision-making. The union tries to negotiate pay and conditions terms of employees with the employers and if situation goes out of hand they provide full support to its members in industrial action (Employment Law, 2009). Trade unions provide help to people at work undergoing problems like job loss, grievance, legal procedures and action. Trade unions provide consultation services to its members and employees have now begun to recognise trade unions as employers promote unionism. It has been seen from a TUC report that almost 32% of workplaces recruit people who recognise Trade Unions (TUC, 2009). In United Kingdom, a large number of industrial sectors and various types of jobs in different sectors which provides the workers support with multiple skills and job description are represented by the unions. UNITE, UNICENT, UK Steel Union are some examples of such unions. Thus the role played by trade union has become well recognized within the employment law system with the presence of a number of policies that leads into consultation with unions regarding issues faced by the management (Employment Law, 2009). It has also been noticed that places which recognise unions have better workplace environment and conditions then places which are non- unionised. There are health and safety representatives provided by the Union, who help the management to avoid losses from problems like sick leave, lost work and claim for compensation. Unions provide guidance and help to employers to help reduce the level of stress at work. Trade unions, treats its members as equals and protects the rights of people subjected to discrimination. Trade Union provides training sessions for promoting learning to its members. Training helps the workers involved in low- paid and less skilled jobs, as it helps in improving the skills of the labour force. Recently, trade unions have started providing more services to its members. These services attract more members as it satisfies their needs. Services like accident and sickness insurance cover, legal advice on personal issues, financial services and discounts, education a nd training (TUC, 2009). Effective communication and consultation should be provided by an organisation for which it has to be structured in an orderly way. Senior managers should take the initiative to draw up such policies and keep in mind to involve the employees. The places where Trade Unions are recognised, the employers must get their conformity before the policy is introduced. To enable members to participate fully in union affairs the Unions help the shop stewards and other officials get time off to maintain healthy relations with the employees as well as with the employers. The employers should be familiar with their duties and provide proper facilities. Trade unions further the interest of the workers in many ways, for instance by campaigning, lobbying governments (Employee Communications and Consultations, ACAS, 2005). Trade unions have recently started promoting a new concept which is known as learning at workplace. The Union Learning Representatives (ULR) are a group of union advocates who are trained in providing consultation to its members on learning needs and opportunities (GMB @ Work, 2009). The main aim of the ULRs is to encourage its members to improve their skills, improve the standards of training and development at workplace by counselling, identify the needs of its members, unions and the local authorities on issues related to learning and further discuss it with the employers for consideration to implement it. The ULRs have received recognition, as per the Employment Act 2002, according to which they have the legal right to get paid time off to perform their roles in a proper manner (Prospect: Union for Professionals, November 2009 and Union Learn: Functions and Rights. Sec 3). A rise in employer dealing with trade unions and not individual employees directly has been witnessed. There is a strong business case which will be analysed in more details. A TUC today report shows that companies which recognise Trade Unions perform better than other companies. TUC General Secretary, John Monks said This is the most authoritative research so far that shows that unions can be a boon to business. Partnership makes managers take their workforce with them. This is no burden on business but a secret to success. The above report states that the TUC had made an announcement that it would open an institute of Partnership. The trade union focussed on partnership, adding value to the union by union membership (in organisations like Unionlearn) and employment law. Unionlearn provides generic services, which can be used by individual unions for their training and learning (Unionlearn, 2009) The Workplace Employee Relations Survey shows that companies that recognise unions and high commitment personnel practices have a better financial performance and productivity than other companies in the same sector (PR Newswire, April 2000). There are other surveys which also conclude that the employers attitude towards unions have become less hostile (Poole et al., 2005). The goal of any organisation is to reap benefits. Employers work hand in hand with Trade Unions to gain profits, by establishing a working Partnership with them. The Employers benefit in a number of ways, when they establish partnership with Trade Unions. Dealing with the employees through Trade Unions is gainful as they are saved from going to the Tribunals with their claims. When Trade Unions are associated with the workforce, it leads to employee satisfaction. As they help their members by negotiating over Pay and other conditions with the management. Thus, in turn is beneficial for both employers and the employees. Trade Unions convey to the workers the agreed terms. The employers do not get involved which in turn, saves their time and they can concentrate on making more strategic decisions. Here, there would be no employer- employee conflict. The employers do not have to deal with large number of employees directly. Therefore, no individual negotiations would be required. The union health representatives work along with the employers to reduce stress at work. No industrial action would be taken by the union. All the trivial issues can be dealt directly by the union (Gennard and Judge, 2005). In 1998, the TUCs Organizing Academy was opened to train officers in the field of recruitment and organizing techniques and to assign them to priority recruitment campaigns recognized jointly by the TUC and member-unions. If the TUC is to maintain a plausible position as a respected representative of labour force, it is believed, it ought to invalidate the two-decade decline in union membership; and this, in turn, will require a reorientation of union activity towards new categories of worker in new sectors of employment (Heery, 1998). From the above report it can be stated that TUC trained employees and developed skilled workers, which in turn would help the employers to achieve the organizational goal. There are some negative impacts of trade unions as well. The employers cannot give performance related pay and cant remove the low skilled worker, if he is a member of the union as this would lead to strikes and disputes, which in turn would hamper the production. Sometimes the unions demand more than expected, which is again a problem for the employer. This is the ERA of change and globalization, during this period the employers would want to build good relations with the employees as they are their key resource, to achieve the organizational goals. So the employers must deal with the Trade Unions, as the changes can be made without any repercussions. Initiatives that directly involved employees and (significantly) sought to promote higher performance were tending to replace or supplement indirect means of communication like joint consultation. Gradually this process of two-way communication became known as employee voice. It appeals both to that seeking greater business efficiency and to those looking for employee rights (CIPD, 2009). As cited above it can be clearly stated that joint consultation included the managers and employee representatives, which included the trade union representative. Agreeing a constitution earlier helped in avoiding conflicts and misunderstandings and thus paved a way for positive business. I would end the debate by stating that there is a positive business case for employers dealing with their work force through unions. Partnership at work can help bring higher productivity, enhanced performance and flourishing changes to the organization. Whether it is a change in administration or adapting new techniques, dealing with workforce through trade unions has a positive impact in achieving organizational goals. There would be growth in industrial relations as communication and consultation becomes easier. For the employees, more opportunities would be provided for training and development which in turn leads to greater job security and all this leads to sustainability.

The Tragedy Of Edgar Allan Poe Essay -- essays research papers

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the leading figures of American literature. He is known as a poet and a critic, but is most famous as the first master of the short story form, especially tales of the mysterious and gruesome. In Poe’s poems, like his tales, his characters are tortured by nameless fears and longings. Today Poe is acclaimed as one of America’s greatest writers, but in his own unhappy lifetime he knew little but failure. Poe had an unstable family life. The insecure place he held at home interfered with his emotional stability. He was born as the son of actors. â€Å"The two were not notably talented; they played minor roles in third-rate theatrical companies.† (Buranalli 7) Between them they barely managed to make a living. Poe was the second of their three children. About the time the third child was born, the father died, or disappeared, and Mrs. Poe went to Richmond, Virginia with the two youngest children. The oldest child, William Henry, had been left in the care of his grandparents in Baltimore shortly after his birth. Mrs. Poe was overtaken by a fatal illness (tuberculosis). Devastated by the disease and worn out with the struggle to support her children, she died. Edgar, two years old, and the infant, Rosaline, were orphaned. Poe was taken into the home of John Allan, a wealthy merchant. His wife, Frances Allan, had no children and wanted to adopt Poe as her son. Mr. Allan was unwilling to commit himself to a step of such permanence. â€Å"The acting profession was despised at the time and was even considered immoral.† (Meyers 11) Mr. Allan thought the little son of actor parents was a questionable person to inherit his name and the fortune he was busy accumulating. He was however, willing to support the child, to please his wife. Family was of the greatest importance in Richmond, the place where Poe spent most of his boyhood. Poe felt the difference between the children at school and himself. He was not close to his (foster) father, like other boys were. Mr. Allan’s unwillingness to adopt him bothered him greatly. It hurt him that he was not wanted enough by his father to legally be his son. He acted out in fits of temper and rebellion. His family did not understand his reasoning for being so upset. Mr. Allan was a hardheaded businessman with no patience for Poe’s â€Å"reasonless† actions. â€Å"He handled the situation by reminding the boy of his ‘disreput... ...ing the winter of 1846-47, when the couple had little food of fuel, Virginia reached the end of life. After Virginia’s death Poe became even more depressed and temperamental. He slept with many women in a vain attempt to find comfort for the loss of his wife. In 1849 he re-met his high school sweetheart, Elmira. They became engaged. After making wedding plans, he set out for New York City from Richmond, but disappeared in Baltimore. He was found five days after he disappeared very near death. He died without regaining full consciousness, four days later on October 7, 1849, ten days before the date he had set for his wedding.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Poe’s life was indeed marked by misery and tragedy. He was abandon by his father, lived in poverty as a writer, and suffered the loss of many loved ones. On the other hand, maybe it was his dreary life that caused him to escape into the imaginative fantasy world that became his writer’s playground. Looking at it from that perspective, perhaps his unfortunate personal life was the springboard for his success as a writer. Poe did, no matter, have great talent and will forever be remembered for his brilliance in American literature.

Microsoft Powerpoint Presentation Essay

a) Answer online Week 7 Forum Question: (2%) i. Research a few of the proposed changes to SMTP and DNS that are designed to reduce or eliminate SPAM. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is responsible solely for sending e-mail messages. In Linux/UNIX, the send mail program activates in response to a command and sends the requested message.DNS servers, also called name servers, contain the server application that supports name-to-address translation. I was introduced to DNS servers earlier in the.Typically, the system on which the name server resides is called the name server system.DNS is a decentralized system: It does not depend on one source for updates, and one server does not store all the data. Instead, DNS is a distributed database that exists on name servers across the Internet. Microsoft Outlook, a popular email application often used in conjunction with Microsoft Office, comes with many Windows operating systems as a standard feature. Like other email programs, Outlook is vulnerable to â€Å"spam,† or junk emails. Spam emails sometimes carry viruses and can fill your inbox with junk, obscenity and advertisements. But you can stop spam in Outlook by altering the level of spam protection on the program. One of the most dramatic changes of the next 10 years will be the emergence of everyday robots and computer intelligences in our economy and everyday lives. And since the real estate industry is, at its core, a knowledge industry, the emergence of computer intelligences is going to affect all the players in the industry in a variety of ways. Richard Worzel is not only a Chartered Financial Analyst and best-selling author, but is Canada’s leading futurist. In this presentation, he provides an overview of how these developments, plus other tech-related matters, will change the industry and the way things are done, including: Crowd sourcing – The rating of houses, real estate companies, and legal services will move even more quickly in the directions pioneered by tripadvisor in travel, and Amazon in customer-rated books. This will include comments on neigh bourhoods, brokers and agents, and home-builders, as well as alternative service providers and even times of the year when sellers can achieve the greatest success. Artificial intelligence – Computer intelligences will become power aids to those in the real estate industry, as well as potential threats to some. Such intelligences will be able to quickly assess industry, national, regional, and neighbour data to reveal trends not immediately apparent, gauge the strength of economic activity with special emphasis on shifts in sentiment and interest rates, and read body language to assess the seriousness or excitement of specific individuals about either buying or selling. Meanwhile, routine work, such as legal documentation, will increasingly be done by ever-more sophisticated computer software. It’s clear that technology is advancing with unprecedented speed, but what is less clear is what effects these advances will have on business, government, consumers, and society. Yet the downstream effects – the secondary, tertiary, quaternary effects and beyond – of technological developments are almost always more significant than the immediate impact of the technology itself. For instance, refrigeration extended life expectancy; the invention of air travel revolutionized warfare, helped produce McLuhan’s Global Village, spread new diseases with unprecedented speed, and boosted global terrorism; computer games lead to childhood obesity and health problems and may be eroding the socialization skills the allow society to function; and the Internet is redefining the way business is conducted as well as revolutionizing politics. Respond to at least 2 students. b) Complete and submit the class Project Paper and Presentation – see details below (15%) Lessons: View the video for Lesson 7 Project Paper and Presentation: (Post them under Week 7 Assignment area as a Microsoft Word document (10%) and a Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation (5%). You must include at least ten references. Details of the Project: Research and select a current trend in the area of telecommunications. Prepare a 10-15 page paper in Microsoft Word (counts as 10% of the final grade) AMU approved APA format (see writing expectations in the Policies section) (350 words per page). At a minimum include the following: †¢ Detailed description of the area researched †¢ Technology involved in the area. We provide both point and end-to-end solutions that leverage industry best practices and technology to deliver world-class logistics and supply chain performance. Our approach helps companies create competitive advantages by reducing costs while increasing service, visibility, responsiveness and customer satisfaction through enhanced supply chain performance. Technology The technology utilizes robust, innovative technology to optimize transportation assets and shipments, reduce empty miles, and provide our clients with succinct, actionable management information. Our web-enabled transportation management system provides clients with real-time visibility into transportation status and information anywhere in the world. Complementing this technology is our team of dedicated front-line logistics managers and staff. With decades of experience improving the flow of goods through every step in the supply chain, the team is committed to supply chain excellence and to accelerating time to results. The comprehensive supply chain assessments and analyses enable clients to capitalize on opportunities to shorten order-to-cash cycles, and reduce transportation expenses, optimize production processes, and improve customer service, No matter what your logistics challenges, The company’ solutions pave the way to operational efficiency and competitive advantage. †¢ Future trends in the area. The top business trends event providing you with the visionary views and practical applications that make you more valuable as a person and more effective as a professional. Polling from the United States and major countries in Latin America, Asia and Europe, the survey reported that 60 percent of employees use a mobile device for work, with an anticipated increase in number of devices per employee. Whether it’s multiple laptops, smart phones or tablet computers, the number of devices will rise from 2.3 per employee in 2012 to 2.8 in 2014. This is the next in a series that I’ve been writing called â€Å"Future Trends†. In this series I’ve been steadily looking at various states across the country, analyzing where trends are going. The last installment that I wrote was about the FL Panhandle. In this post I focus on the Jacksonville Area. Before I continue, though, here are previous installments: Overall the trend in the area is clear growth. St. John’s seems to be growing the fastest, although Clay isn’t that far behind. Duval seems to have added the largest amounts of people. Baker and Nassau, while growing, don’t seem to have been as significant as those other counties. Although these numbers don’t include 2008, which doesn’t include the drop-off in FL growth that might have happened due to the housing crisis, Jacksonville continues to attract people. It is a growing part of the state. †¢ Example companies involved in the area. Food Technology Service| Medical Service Companies| Information Technology Services Stocks| Funds Holding Matrix Service Company| Information Technology Services Shares| Communications Services Companies| Food Service Companies| Transportation Services Companies| Financial Services Companies| Energy Service Companies| Services Companies| Marketing Services Companies| †¢ Regulatory issues surrounding the area. Regulatory issues are those issues that result due to error on behalf of the accused. For example, when you walk into a business where someone is mopping, you tend to see that there are signs visible that say things like â€Å"caution:wet floor† or â€Å"slippery when wet† during the snow seasons. This is due to the regulations a business must adhere to. If these signs were not posted and a persons slipped, fell, and broke their leg, they would be able to to sue the business. This would create a regulatory issue. | Application Performance Management Solutions * Application Performance Management * Server Performance Management * System Management Server & Application Free Tools * Help Desk Management * Active Directory Solutions * Desktop Management Software * Log Management and IT Compliance * Integrated IT Management * Virtualization Enterprise Management & Security Products * Active Directory Management * Active Directory Auditing * Application Monitoring * Asset Management * Bandwidth Monitoring & Traffic Analysis * Customer Support Software * Desktop Management * Exchange Reporting Tool * Firewall Configuration & Log Management * Help Desk Software * Integrated IT Management (IT360) * IP Address Management (IPAM) Software * Log Management & SIEM * MSP Desktop Management * MSP Help Desk Software * MSP Network Management Platform * Network Configuration Management * Network Monitoring Software * Network Security Scanner with Patch Management * OS Deployment * Password Management * Self-Service Password Management * Storage Management Software * SQL Server Management * Website Monitoring & Server Monitoring (On-Demand) Social IT ManageEngine Free Tools †¢ Global implications for the area: Five Global Problems and How Canada Can Solve Them Maybe it’s that we’re not looking at the big picture. Or maybe it would just be too overwhelming if we did, but some of the solutions currently being applied to national issues have greater, global application and relevance. Most global problems are dealt with on a country-by-country basis. Sure, we have the Hague and Kyoto and Maastricht, but when you begin counting the meaningful international treaties, you almost run out of names before you run out of fingers. It’s too easy to view issues on a regional level and miss the fact that most problems have global implications. So too, we tend to view the solutions on a regional level without considering that a local solution may have global benefit. Canadians have come up with creative solutions to problems that are not unique to Canada, but rather stretch well beyond our borders, and have the potential for worldwide application. Let’s look at the some of the global issues that Canadians have attempted to solve on a regional level: Fisheries Depletion For over twenty percent of the world’s people, fishing is more than a pastime – it’s a means of survival. The international trade in fish and fish products exceeds $50 billion a year. With demand high and resources finite, the resultant shortfall has global implication. According to the World Wildlife Federation, a full 50 percent of marine fisheries are fully exploited, twenty percent are over-exploited, and the rest are being harvested in an unsustainable manner. Among the major marine fish stocks, such as cod and tuna, three out of four are being fished beyond their biological limits. To counter the shortages, many governments, including Canada, have encouraged the rapid growth of aquaculture. As a result, farmed fish now account for one-third of the world’s fish production. While this has countered the sustainability concerns, other problems have developed as a result. In Canada, particularly the West Coast, fish farms generate considerable amounts of pollution and waste. The close proximity of the confined fish increases the propagation of sea lice, and escaped farmed fish spread lice and disease to wild stocks. Just last year, as the British Columbia government lifted a seven-year moratorium on new fish farms, one of Vancouver Island’s most significant pink salmon runs had already collapsed, and more than three million salmon failed to return to spawning rivers. Making the international fishing industry sustainable would require some large-scale initiatives, including massive reductions in fishing fleets, concerted effort in controlling illegal fishing and fishing practices, and strictly enforcing limits on the number of fish harvested in a given area. The fish farm industry would also need careful review to ensure that in attempting to meet demand for fish, wild stocks are not completely wiped out in the process. The solution, some argue, is even simpler: if fishing is banned in a given area for several years, the rebound in stock is significant, the overall catch is increased, and the industry becomes sustainable. Last fall the Economist reported a study which discovered that in some 100 areas where such bans occurred, the number of fish increased 90 percent within a few years, their size increased 30 percent, and the number of species by 20 percent. These effects, the researchers contended, seemed to spill over into adjacent areas where fishing remains permitted. As the Canadian experience can attest, it is not as easy as all that. Quota regulation of the Atlantic cod stocks was introduced in 1973. Labeled as the Total Allowable Catch (TAC), the policy was ineffective, due to the restrictions being set too high too quickly, and partly because enforcement was not effective. In 1992, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans took one step further, imposing a moratorium on cod fishing off the coast of Newfoundland, after scientists determined that mature cod stock had dropped by 99 percent from the numbers recorded in the 1980s. Despite these measures, cod stocks really have not seen much of a rebound. â€Å"It is now time for us to take a different approach. Stopping the commercial cod fishery alone will not work,† argues Fred Woodman, chairman of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, an arms length body that advises the Federal Fisheries Ministry. He recommends that the government make a long-term commitment to rebuilding the stocks, establishing community councils to make recommendations about the local fishery, and amending the moratorium to provide protection for the most vulnerable areas and allow fishing in those areas where there has been some growth. The lessons Canada has learned from the moratorium in Newfoundland, the fish farms in the Pacific, and the Atlantic cod industry quotas are ones that need to be shared with other nations facing similar problems. Water Depletion One of the less-publicized, yet globally significant, side effects of climate change is global water depletion. Many of the world’s inland seas, such as the Black Sea, Aral Sea, and Lake Chad, have shrunk to a fraction of their size forty years ago. It is estimated that 1.5 billion people do not have access to adequate supplies of safe drinking water, and by 2020, up to 3 billion people could face acute water shortages. Water scarcity is caused mainly by increased demand and pollution, and is aggravated by global warming. Water deficits also occur from the demands of irrigation and industry, which account for almost three-quarters of the world’s demand for water. More than half of the water entering irrigation systems never actually make it to the crops, due to faulty irrigation equipment, leaks, or wasteful practice. Excess irrigation, on the other hand, does irreparable damage to rivers and marshes, by changing local ecosystem’s patterns and by carrying chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides back into the water supply. Water deficits have the potential to become a major global challenge. Control of water could become a major cause of international conflict, particularly where one country has the ability to restrict or control the flow of crucial waterways. Desalination of sea water is the most logical alternative to freshwater irrigation and drinking water. The process, however, is still prohibitively expensive. Greater effort, however, should be put toward this initiative. Canada actively supports desalination research and has provided federal subsidies to a number of Canadian companies like Candesal, which develops affordable desalination techniques such as using the excess heat generated by power stations. Water, labeled the new gold by some, has not quite matched its counterpart in price, supply or distribution. â€Å"What we don’t value, we won’t conserve,† contends Ducks Unlimited, an organization committed to preserving Canada’s wetlands. One of the major causes of water scarcity and damage to freshwater ecosystems, the organization contends, is the gross under-valuation of water. By failing to acknowledge its importance to survival, we may unwittingly deplete the earth’s water supply. $75 billion per year is invested in water infrastructure and management in developing countries, almost one third of this coming from Canada alone. As well, Canada has played a significant role in desalination efforts and is a key player in supporting the development of desalination units. These efforts, however, must be sustained over the long term to make any meaningful impact. Canada, a country which possesses the greatest amount of freshwater in the world, can to use this position to raise awareness of worldwide water deficits, and the need to actively deal with the shortage. †¢ References (minimum of 10) i. Prepare a 10-12 slide Microsoft PowerPoint highlighting the content from the paper. Use Camtasia’s world-class screen recording technology to record your PowerPoint slides, onscreen activity, voice, and webcam video. Easily turn your PowerPoint presentations into reusable, HD-quality videos that your viewers can access anytime, anywhere (Counts as 5% of the final grade) ii. Use Camtasia’s world-class screen recording technology to record your PowerPoint slides, onscreen activity, voice, and webcam video. Easily turn your PowerPoint presentations into reusable, HD-quality videos that your viewers can access anytime, anywhere. Open a new document in Microsoft PowerPoint. When you first open the program, the workspace is divided into parts. The main window is the â€Å"Slide† pane, where you add new content to individual slides. On the left side is the â€Å"Slides† tab, which has thumbnails of each slide. You can use this tab to add, delete or rearrange slides, and select which slide you want to work on. i. ii. ii. You are only required to submit a final paper and presentation. However, during the previous six weeks, you will be assembling the research paper and presentation. Feel free to post questions or portions of the paper for review at any time as an email to your professor. iii. You may use esources from the APUS Online Library, any library, government library, or any peer-reviewed reference (Wikipedia and any other publicly-reviewed source is not accepted). The paper must by at least 10 pages double-spaced, 1† margin all around, black12 point fonts (Times New Roman, Arial, or Courier) with correct citations of all utilized references/sources, (pictures, graphics, etc are extra – allowed but extra for the minimum page count). The title page and references are also required but don’t count in the minimum page count. The PowerPoint of 10-12 slides is a summary of this paper. No new topics, ideas or concepts are introduced in the PowerPoint that is not included in the paper. A minimum of 10 references are needed. The paper will be subjected to checking against plagiarism. iv. The required number of pages do not include title or references pages – although these must be included.

Our Individual Identity Is Determined by What Others Think of Us

â€Å"Identity and belonging† – Expository Essay Our individual identity is determined by what others think of us. Our identity is comprised of inner qualities and outer representations of self. It consists of innumerable defining characteristics that make up the whole of who we are in any given moment. These fragments of self include our sexuality, gender, and sense of belonging to a particular culture, nation, religion, family, or some other group. Our identity includes our looks, personality, beliefs and fears.Each individual in society assigns themselves a particular role, whether it be as a mother, brother, retiree, performer, sportsman or as a part of their occupation, a doctor or lawyer. Often one’s entire sense of self is consumed by pursuit of fulfilling such a role in society. Our identities are constantly growing, changing, and adapting to our everyday lives. This emphasizes the overriding link that one’s sense of belonging influences, or often dictates, individual identity. One’s assigned role in society may be as part of a family unit, a daughter.Agheare/Alice in Unpolished Gem emphasizes this, as she often struggles under the burden of the role she has self-assigned. Identity can both be influenced by, and influence, the work we do, our education, financial and class status, the car we drive, the home we live in and the clothes we wear. Identity is also determined by perspective. Our self-image can be entirely different to the way we are seen by a colleague, partner, friend, child or parent who all have their own lens of perception through which they view us.One definition of identity is â€Å"those images and masks† many of us wear, the persona we project out into the world. We don't have as much choice over our identity as we think we do because a lot of the time things we do or say are impacted by what others think of us. For example, we might like a certain type of music but might often find ourselves mentally saying ‘what would so and so like or would so and so listen to this or would so and so like me if I listened to this. ‘ Basically saying we mold ourselves, and are molded by others, in response to whatever is currently popular and accepted in today’s society.Today more than ever we are being increasingly conditioned, influenced and bombarded by a multitude of messages and experiences about who to be and how to be. Current forms of social communication processes, particularly mainstream media, advertising, television and film, along with family, friends, teachers, political agendas, religion, society’s rules, our perceptions, perspectives, interpretations and assumptions, and those of others, all play a part in creating our identity. ?We seek and create our identity through these external influences, we all wear these masks and cloaks, so that we fit in with the world around us.The degree to which we choose our identity, versus having it imposed on us via external influence, is arguably a matter of consciousness and awareness. When we are unaware of the power of external influence we are akin to pieces of clay, being unconsciously molded to fit into the accepted or preferred norms of someone else’s reality. When we are aware we can take responsibility for the creation of our identity. We can make empowered choices that best serve our selves, rather than serve people and systems outside of ourselves.In Unpolished Gem, society plays a daunting role on Alice as she tries to change her way of thinking from a Chinese-Cambodian way of thinking to a very different Australian way of thinking. As Alice starts her new school her beliefs are tested as she tries to determine whether to fit in as an Australian or a Chinese-Cambodian. By trying to decide this she is under massive pressure because of our society’s stereo types. Gender and race are two of the most important factors to take into consideration when looking at an i ndividual's identity, as they are the very first two things you notice about a person when you meet them.Race is a very strong influence on one's identity. This can cause issues with racism; people affiliating themselves, therefore their identity, with groups that feel a certain way about another race or group. Just as with gender, people will make assumption about a person based on their race. If one is white people might assume they listen to country music or rock n roll; or if one is black people might assume they listen to rap or hip hop. These tie in with stereotypes, which sadly, are a part of our community today.There are a higher number of certain races in certain places, with also leads to how culture affects one's identity. Something that relates closely with race is language. A person's language is part of their identity too. It can show where they were raised because of the slang you use. For example, there is the Spanish language, and off of that original Spanish langua ge there is branches of adjusted languages. Some of these include Mexican Spanish or North Mexican Spanish. All of these are based off the standard Spanish language, but depending on where one was raised they may speak one of these ifferent variations of Spanish. This helps us identify people too, based on which one they speak, shows where they are from which is part of your identity. In Unpolished Gem the stereo typical view on people from an Chinese-Cambodian background is to excel at school and this weighs Alice down by putting enormous pressure on her because that is what is considered acceptable in a tight knit community. Culture: Culture is the combination of values, beliefs, and practices of a particular group.The culture each person lives in shows them how to dress, talk, and act, acceptable behavior, and gives a guideline of what is considered acceptable and normal. As a child grows up in a particular culture they absorb the beliefs, and practices, then begin to use them in everyday activities. The culture a person is surrounded by will then play a role in the development of their identity. Identity is essentially a set a characteristics and traits that are attributed to one specific person. One of the main things your culture affects in shaping your identity is your morals.Morals are a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do. These morals shape our identity as they shape how we live our lives as well as how we make an impact of society. In Unpolished Gem, Alice has a strong sense of what can be tolerated in both cultures from an Asian oblique migrant perspective even though throughout the book she starts to lose her ability to think in Chinese. This is an example of how even though a person may be proud of their cultural background this still out weights trying fit in or adapt to a new way of life.For example, Alice and her family migrate to Australia to peruse the â€Å"Australian dream† which indicates that even though they have a different cultural background to Australian they have to adapt to the Australian culture in order to survive. In conclusion our individual identity is determined by many different factors like media, society, culture and race. These factors shape who we are and whom we grow up to be and how other people see us from day to day. Do we really know ourselves because our subconscious is ever changing to try and fit in to society on a daily basis and we only ever see what we want to see?

The Biography of Alessandro de Medici essays

The Biography of Alessandro de Medici essays The Biography of Alessandro de Medici Alessandro de Medici was a part of the Royal Medici family, which was the family of fifteen generations in power in Italy from 1291 to 1743. Alessandro was born in November of 1510 and had a short but interesting life of 27 years. He was assassinated on January 5, 1537 by a fellow Mediciean. Alessandro had dark skin, a low forehead, thick lips, and curly hair, and with these characteristics he looked nothing like any of the other Midiceans. The life and times of Alessandro was interesting and fascinating, his contributions, however were very limited, and the historical significance this man showed was very simple. Alessandros life was good and the times he was living in were not that bad either. The most interesting part of the life of Alessandro is to whom he was born. His father, Lorenzo di Piero de Medici II mated with a black serving woman in the Medici household, who changed her name to Simonetta de Collavechio and the result was Alessandro. Because Alessandro had different characteristics and was not of pure Medici blood, he was criticized many times and often looked at as an outlaw. He was considered a hopelessly vicious monster by many people, and even by some family. He had a much younger sister named Caterina, but he was the only male child of Lorenzo II. Pope Clement VII had been sending direct descendants of Lorenzo de Medici to rule Florence and Alessandro was the only next direct descendent. So for that reason Pope Clement VII suggested and the ambassadors agreed that Alessandro be sent to Florence as a representative of the family along with Cardinal Silvio Passerini who was t o govern the city while Alessandro was young. After this decision Pope Clement himself trained Alessandro rigorously for his future duties and he secured certain attributes to his personality to enable him to perform those duties. Some people thought, because it was in t...

Actor Bill Cosby essays

Actor Bill Cosby essays Bill Cosby was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 12, 1937. He was the oldest of four boys. He had three brothers, and their names were: James, Russell, and Robert. His father ran away near Christmas time when he was very young and he had to get a job to help support the family. In school he was the class clown and was sent to a special school for rowdy boys. In his new school his teacher was Mary Forchic. She saw that he was a great comedian and she put that into her lessons to make them more understandable for Bill. She made the lessons fun for him and made it easier to learn. He said that she made him what he is today. After a couple years he went back to his old school and even though his grades were dropping he still kept it together. Bill was starting to look up to comedians on the radio and the TV. They were comedians like Sam Levenson, Sid Caesar, and Carl Reiner. Even though his grades were poor in junior high, when he took the standardized tests he was accepted to Central High School, which was a school for all the gifted children in Pennsylvania. Now being six feet, he was on the high school football team. But in the first week of football he broke his arm. Since there were few blacks in the school and he was slightly a target of biggotous remarks he went back to getting attention by clowning around in class again. He was later sent to Germantown Highschool where all his neighborhood friends went. He was back with his friends but his grades started to drop. He was left back twice. He was also too old to participate in the city track meets (which he could easily win). Bill dropped out of h igh school. He went to be a shoemaker=s helper, but the shoemaker didn=t like it when he nailed the ladies heels onto the mens shoes! Then Bill decided to join the Navy. There he found discipline and no room to joke around. He spent four long years in the Navy but he says that it made him more mature and able to control himself ...

6 signs your job is ruining your mental health

6 signs your job is ruining your mental health First and foremost, most of us go to work to make money. Ideally, on top of that, you like what you do. On top of that, there may even be social benefits to going to work every day if you also enjoy being around your co-workers. If your job checks all of those boxes, great! If it even checks just one, you might be doing all right. But if you can’t think of  one positive  thing about your current situation, you might need to make changes. Work should not be a place that makes you feel terrible- all the time. Yet this is what happens to many people who must endure toxic work situations that are damaging them mentally. If this is happening to you, it is time to find a new job or make strides toward a new situation. Here are six warning signs that it’s time to make a change. 1. You can’t bring yourself to go to workWhen you wake up in the morning, do you feel as though your limbs weigh 1,000 pounds and you simply cannot pull them out of bed? Does the idea of step ping foot in your office fill you with crushing anxiety, EVERY single day? Do you take days off simply because you can’t bring yourself to go into work? These are all great, big, flashing warning signals that something is terribly wrong at work, and it’s wreaking havoc with your mental health. Sure, for most people it’s not common to bound out of bed with a huge smile on your face ready to take on the day (how lucky if that’s the case!), but if work dread plagues you every morning, that’s not the norm.2. You can never really leave workIf you have no chance to get out of a non-work mindset, you’re not living a balanced life. When you’re home with family or friends, do you still have your phone connected to work email and attached to your palm so you can deal with clients or co-workers? Are you always on call? Do you not even get to take a break when you’re in the office to go for a 15-minute walk to get some lunch or a breath of fresh air? If so, that is not a healthy way to live your life, and you probably need to make some radical changes. Everyone deserves time off, no matter what you do for a living.3. You don’t want to socialize at workFrom Monday through Friday, the average adult spends half of his or her waking life at work, so it is vital to get along with the people you spend time around all week, even just on a cordial level. But if things are bad at work, the idea of talking to or even looking at your co-workers may make you feel sick to your stomach. That is not a good thing, and a very clear indicator that your job is making you deeply unhappy.4. You’re overlooked and ignoredSome people prefer to go under the radar at work, but there is a real downside to always being overlooked or ignored: you don’t get the accolades for a job well done that you deserve, and you might even get passed over when it comes time to receive raises or promotions. Chronically overlooked employees may start to feel like they don’t even exist, which can put them into an extremely unhealthy frame of mind. No one wants to feel as if they don’t matter.5. Your job fills you with guiltSometimes we don’t think about the consequences of a particular job when first accepting it†¦ we just need to work, whatever that may be.  But if you are working for a company that commits the unconscionable- environmental damage; human rights violations; misogynistic, homophobic, or racist practices; selling unsafe products; treating workers like sub-humans; supporting immoral or unethical ideologies; lying to the public- simply going to work may fill you with an awful sense of guilt. If that’s the case, it may be time to find another opportunity. We all need to pay the bills, but you’ll want to remain true to your morals if what your company does is negatively affecting your state of mind. If you can’t look yourself in the mirror, your mental health will suffer.6. Your personal life is sufferingA miserable job may make you feel miserable during work hours. A completely unacceptable one will leak into your personal hours. You might get testy with your spouse or kids at home. You might never be in the mood for intimacy. You might spend all your free time sleeping, crying, sulking, or simply thinking about work. If you feel terrible at all times because of your job, there is no question that your job is ruining your mental health and you need to take some positive action.

Fieldwork observation report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Fieldwork observation report - Essay Example The classroom has four walls with a blackboard. The classroom has mathematics section, writing center and the class schedule. There are also artifacts and that students made displayed in the window. Students also have desks arranged in the middle of the classroom as the teacher’s desk stay next to the blackboard. The teacher does not spend so much time on the board. Instead, the teacher takes most of her time assisting students who seem not to have understood. Both teacher-centered method and learner-centered ones are used in the classroom. For instance, the teacher allows students to work independently as well what the teacher gave them (Bonjour, 2010). The teacher involves at least one student at a time in during class work to attend to students with individual differences. In addition, the teacher uses question and answer method to check mastery. Further, the teacher is female and ensures positive reinforcement of knowledge by praising and rewarding those who perform or behave well in the classroom. The teacher also helps students to develop their motor skills and enhance learner-centered type of instruction when the school exposes learners to experiments. Co-curricular activities are not exception; learners get a five minutes opportunity to play during before resuming class work. There are students with different cultural backgrounds in the school. Some students come from Spanish Americans, others from African American, white Americans while others come from among the American Jews. The school is a private special school located in the Long Island. In the classroom, students mainly depend on working as individuals for class work. The teacher gives them work through PowerPoint presentation of through their computers. The teacher is in charge throughout, provides instructions on what students need to learn. She also commands the learners to possess handouts, workbook, and pencil. The teacher follows up the students

Followership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Followership - Essay Example Being a follower of decisions made by the leader entails following personal attributes of taking appropriate course of action, suiting the leader as well as to the situation unveiling. Crew Resource Management stipulates that an evident good art in following is critical in the event of the time constraint situation of the cockpit (Tony, 72). The five classifications of an aircrew follower are outlined below. These are those followers defined by the followership model, who do not come with much help in the event of a crisis during the flight. More often than not, they will sit at their destined positions offering very little help to the situation (if any), and they watch as their responsibilities go on with very little response from them. However, they may appear to mollify the team as they try to rectify the situation. The followership model awards the yes people with the most adverse characterized follower of the flight crew. These followers usually concur with every decision made by the pilot, regardless of its consequence to the situation. Normally, they are the most distinct followers of the aircrew team as they move all over the vessel trying to accomplish their possibly detrimental duties (Helmreich and Wilhelm, 26). These followers are very creative members of the crew and they possess very critical decisions in the crew membership (Shea and Robert, 290). However, their interests are hidden in their minds, giving no effort to try remedying the situation. They are mostly alienated by the crew as a whole, possibly by the organization as a whole, and they are pessimistic. They rely on the failure of others to justify their possible courses of action which they do not emulate. If not rehabilitated, they should be eliminated from the group. Helmreich and Wilhelm (32) reveal that survivor followers normally hold many of the junior flight crews

Passive Smoking and Children Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Passive Smoking and Children - Dissertation Example Furthermore, the World Health Organization suggests almost half of the children in the world that is 700 million children have exposure to secondhand smoke due to 1.2 billion smoking adults (Blair et al, pp. 372-373, 2010). Alone, in United Kingdom, passive smoking is associated with the deaths of almost 10700 people every year. Furthermore, secondhand smoke has been associated with more than â€Å"2000 Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) deaths every year. More than 17000 children from five years to ten years of age in England and Wales are admitted to hospitals every year due to the various illness caused by the smoking of their parents† (Strauss et al, pp. 267-268, 2010). Even more surprising are the statistics, which claim that almost half of the children between the ages of 4-11 years have exposure to secondhand smoke in their homes (Blair et al, pp. 372-373, 2010). This explains every year almost 40 children die because of passive smoking alone in United Kingdom (Gordon et al, pp. 103-105, 2004). One of the most important reasons behind study this topic is the fact that it is one of most important burning issues all around the world. As mentioned later in the paper as well that, until the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was this widespread belief that smoking only causes harm to the smoker (Yolton et al, pp. 461-465, 2008). In light of the freedom and liberty principles, if the smoker is sane enough to understand the consequences and yet wants to smoke, then the state or law enforcement agencies must not create any barriers in his or her way. However, towards the end of 1980s, experts and researchers had conclusive evidence to prove that smokers were not only causing indirect damage but also direct damage with secondhand smoke to their children, partners, friends, colleagues, and others living in the surroundings (Gordon et al, pp. 103-105, 2004; Strauss et al, pp. 267-268, 2010). Ever since then, the civil society, NGOs, watchdogs and others have been trying to achieve the goal of a smoke free world. This study is another attempt to explore the disastrous impacts of passive smoking, specifically on children belonging from the age group of 5-10 years. Furthermore, the study would also come up with some recommendations to protect these children and solve this problem. Research Aims and Objectives The stu dy revolves around the following research question. â€Å"What are effects of passive smoking on children of ages 5-10?† The research would attempt to achieve the following aims and objectives. To explore, investigate and critically analyze the social, economic, psychological, and physical impacts of passive smoking on children belonging from the age group of 5-10. To explore and analyze the long term and short term implications of these effects on children are their families To come up with a handful of recommendations to protect children from the destructive impacts of passive smoking Outline of the Thesis This heading would conclude the first chapter of

Cost and benefits analysis Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Cost and benefits analysis - Assignment Example Solving this problem, therefore, calls for massive water infrastructural development particularly in the rural areas in order to increase access to safe and clean water that will be fundamental in improving the quality of life among the Afghans. Bases on the above cost-benefit analysis, there is no doubt that the projects would be beneficial as they have multiple social benefits. However, given the limited resources and the fact that these projects are mutually exclusive, hence they these projects cannot be simultaneously undertaken. Therefore, acceptance of one project means forgoing the other two projects. For this reason, the investment project that maximizes on the social and economic benefits is selected, but taking into account the cost incurred in implementing the project. From the cost-benefit table (above), although costly compared to the other two, Building Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation would more beneficial to the society. Unlike the other projects, the construction of Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation in Afghanistan would increase access to quality and safe water, thereby preventing the occurrence of waterborne diseases. This investment project would directly benefit over 90 percent of the popula tion. Besides, the construction of Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation in Afghanistan will reduce the need for medical care and also reduce to a significant decline in child mortality rate. Therefore, implementing this project would reduce the need for the other two proposed

Do Revolutions and Armed Conflicts Come or are They Made Essay

Do Revolutions and Armed Conflicts Come or are They Made - Essay Example Consequently, one group arises against the other with a common aim of redeeming itself. Conflicts are caused by different factors such as the struggle to control and access of natural resources such as water source, control of oil fields or a mining site. Harsh economic conditions lead to intra-state revolutions while oppressive political systems are prone to initiate a revolution. Moreover, ethnic diversity is also seen as a cause of armed conflicts since parties to conflicts may be described by their ethnic identities. Goodwin (2001, p. 8) argues revolution occur due to social and economic inequalities with the majority claiming that equality has been denied against them or the minority claiming superiority. Revolutions occur as a group seeks to profit itself, achieve honor or in an attempt to prevent dishonor. In the 1960s there were revolutions in New York by civil rights activists demanding for equal rights for the African -Americans who were opposed to social and economic exclu sion. This paper presents a discussion of various causes of conflicts to support the argument that armed conflicts and revolution are actually made and do not just come. ... 8), the political organization of any state can be categorized into three dimensions. These dimensions include the type of state organization that is, whether the nation is bureaucratic or patrimonial. Political organization also includes the type of political regime adopted in the state; that is whether the system is inclusive/liberal or exclusive/repressive. Moreover, the third political structure dimension is based on the infrastructural power in the country; is it strong or weak. Goodwin (2001, p. 30) argues that a political system which is repressive and infrastructurally weak works to incubate revolution in both a bureaucratic and patrimonial regime. In addition, he observes that revolutions are more likely to succeed against patrimonial regimes than in bureaucratic systems. Goodwin (2001, p. 30) notes that patrimonial states do not facilitate the implementation of initiatives that can successfully oppose a popular revolution. Goodwin (2001, p. 11-12) describes that in bureaucr atic structure appointments to positions are made based on achievement in a particular specialized training while in a patrimonial system; appointments are based on political loyalty, kinship or ethnicity. He observes that in contrast to bureaucratic regimes, patrimonial systems are inefficient. Furthermore, Goodwin (2001, p.50) asserts that patrimonial regimes strengthen revolutionary movement by weakening other counterrevolutionary elites who are viewed as their chief opponents. This supports the argument that revolutions are actually made by the political system. Goodwin lists various patrimonial regimes including; Diaz in Mexico, Ceausescu in Romania and the Shah in Iran. Goodwin (2001, p.123) supports the argument that political system incubate conflicts by presenting

Improve your life by facing the mirror Research Paper

Improve your life by facing the mirror - Research Paper Example Ideally, these fields aim at informing the targeted audience on various topics including cultural issues, politics, and business, as well as entertaining the intended audience. Apart from performing those functions, these fields intend to provide the forum for public criticism by the public in a bid to address various issues and grievances that the public have. These fields use various media such as film, newspapers, radio, magazine, social media, and television to achieve their goals (Vivian, 2005). One of the fundamental elements of achieving the intended goal by communicators is objectivity and focusing on both the internal and external factors. However, over the years, communicators have been focusing on the victim mentality which has taken hold in their culture (Morin, 2011). This is a reflection of the reality in the society where people have found it easier to blame others for their unhappy situations and existence. This prevailing situation among people and communicators in p articular is uncalled for (Brook, 2001). It is important that the people and specifically the communicators should focus on themselves through an introspective approach because the situation in society happens because of the actions and perceptions of personal individuals (Diamond, 2010). Individual’s life and that of the society at large can be improved by people facing the mirror and having a more self-awareness understanding. Improved self-awareness and subsequent self-improvement can be achieved effectively through a self-awareness training program (Goukens, et al., 2009). It is true that people tend to find it easier to blame others for their unhappy existence, and to generally look at external factors instead of focusing from within when analyzing and communicating difficult situations (Ratliffe et al, 2002). In particular, communicators have the tendency of considering themselves as the victims of certain circumstances. The culture of victim mentality is deeply entrenc hed in them, just like in other people. This mentality makes them to have the tendency of blaming uncontrollable or external factors, rather than focusing on controllable or internal factors for their unhappy existence or for the things that go wrong. Blaming uncontrollable or external factors put one in a mindset that there is nothing that one can do to control their life (McKittrick, 2010). As a result of victim mentality, people tend to lack objectivity because what they see and report is what they have created through their beliefs and thoughts. Consequently, the victim mentality makes people to make the mistake of looking for uncontrollable or external factors to fix their unhappy situations and bad moods (Zahavi, 1999). Instead of focusing within, they gain the tendency of trying to change virtually everything around them so as to feel better. However, focusing on external factors ultimately makes them to realize that they will still feel the same and nothing changes significa ntly. However, a closer look at the relationship between external factors and happiness shows that out of the many external factors that one is blaming only a few are the actual cause of people’s unhappy situation (Goukens et al, 2009). Actually, the other factors that one is blaming for their unhappy situations are innocent as the cause of such situations are internal. If one has

Do Revolutions and Armed Conflicts Come or are They Made Essay

Do Revolutions and Armed Conflicts Come or are They Made - Essay Example Consequently, one group arises against the other with a common aim of redeeming itself. Conflicts are caused by different factors such as the struggle to control and access of natural resources such as water source, control of oil fields or a mining site. Harsh economic conditions lead to intra-state revolutions while oppressive political systems are prone to initiate a revolution. Moreover, ethnic diversity is also seen as a cause of armed conflicts since parties to conflicts may be described by their ethnic identities. Goodwin (2001, p. 8) argues revolution occur due to social and economic inequalities with the majority claiming that equality has been denied against them or the minority claiming superiority. Revolutions occur as a group seeks to profit itself, achieve honor or in an attempt to prevent dishonor. In the 1960s there were revolutions in New York by civil rights activists demanding for equal rights for the African -Americans who were opposed to social and economic exclu sion. This paper presents a discussion of various causes of conflicts to support the argument that armed conflicts and revolution are actually made and do not just come. ... 8), the political organization of any state can be categorized into three dimensions. These dimensions include the type of state organization that is, whether the nation is bureaucratic or patrimonial. Political organization also includes the type of political regime adopted in the state; that is whether the system is inclusive/liberal or exclusive/repressive. Moreover, the third political structure dimension is based on the infrastructural power in the country; is it strong or weak. Goodwin (2001, p. 30) argues that a political system which is repressive and infrastructurally weak works to incubate revolution in both a bureaucratic and patrimonial regime. In addition, he observes that revolutions are more likely to succeed against patrimonial regimes than in bureaucratic systems. Goodwin (2001, p. 30) notes that patrimonial states do not facilitate the implementation of initiatives that can successfully oppose a popular revolution. Goodwin (2001, p. 11-12) describes that in bureaucr atic structure appointments to positions are made based on achievement in a particular specialized training while in a patrimonial system; appointments are based on political loyalty, kinship or ethnicity. He observes that in contrast to bureaucratic regimes, patrimonial systems are inefficient. Furthermore, Goodwin (2001, p.50) asserts that patrimonial regimes strengthen revolutionary movement by weakening other counterrevolutionary elites who are viewed as their chief opponents. This supports the argument that revolutions are actually made by the political system. Goodwin lists various patrimonial regimes including; Diaz in Mexico, Ceausescu in Romania and the Shah in Iran. Goodwin (2001, p.123) supports the argument that political system incubate conflicts by presenting

Bicycle Lanes are Overdue in Dallas Essay Example for Free

Bicycle Lanes are Overdue in Dallas Essay Bicycles have been a major part of our transportation system for over a hundred years. There are more than a billion bicycles in the world and they outnumber the automobile 2:1. Yet in Dallas, we have been very slow to take steps that would make them an integral part of our transportation system. Bike lanes and the lack of them are an excellent example. Texans have always prided themselves on their wide open spaces and have long had a love affair with their cars. This may partially explain why Dallas has not made a priority of alternative means of getting around town. However, with changes in the economy and the environment, the city would be well served to start looking at all options for commuting. Dependence on foreign oil has made gas-guzzling cars both an economic and a foreign policy matter. And the pollution that these cars generate affects not only us, but the world as a whole. Bike lanes are a way to encourage people to be less dependent on their cars. First, where are we starting from? Since 1980, while other cities added hundreds of miles of bike lanes, Dallas chose to sit idly by. According to Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, â€Å"by the 2000s, Dallas had one of the lowest bike-commuting percentages in the nation, and one of the highest accident rates. The publication twice gave Dallas the ignominious title of worst cycling city in the United States, in 2008 and 2012† (Roberts). Opponents of bike lanes point to our current traffic congestion and wonder how taking lanes away from cars can possibly improve the situation. First, a bike lane frequently does not require the removal of an automobile lane. It can be accomplished by narrowing existing auto lanes, using median space, and other techniques. Second, while some auto lanes are inevitably lost, this is offset by the fact that there are fewer automobiles on the roads, because their former occupants are now on bicycles using the bike lanes. A model for urban planning and traffic management that was popular in the 1950’s through the 1980’s was to simply build more freeways and build more parking in the central business district. Dallas was a poster child for this model. This was the thinking behind the construction of the Dallas North Tollway and the Central Expressway expansion. It was thought that if we added enough freeway capacity and parking capacity that traffic problems would be a thing of the past. But what is seen in Dallas today is what has been discovered everywhere else. By building more capacity, more cars simply come in to take up that space and the system is overwhelmed again. But we continue to pursue that same model, as evidenced by the current LBJ/635 expansion and the â€Å"Horseshoe† project slated to begin later this year and go through 2017 to expand the â€Å"canyon† in downtown Dallas. While freeway expansions are inevitable and to some degree necessary, what is needed is a fundamental change in the way we approach getting around town. Bicycles, walking, public transportation, shared rides are all things that citizens should consider when it is available as an option. The city has a responsibility to make alternatives to automobile travel available to us. And they have done a fairly good job with Dart  and Dart  rail, and are aggressively expanding the hike and bike trails. But the first bike lane was not painted until September, 2012. The city is grudgingly making progress. They unveiled CentraLink, a network of bike lanes in the central business district designed to connect the downtown area hike/bike trails with Union Station and the Jefferson Cycle Track. The city has announced plans to add 70 miles of bike lanes by the end of 2014, but after that, according to the Dallas Observer, â€Å"things get murky† (Nicholson). Bicycle commuting is great for a person’s health, the environment, and saves the commuter money. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average US household spent 15. 7 percent of their total income on automotive expenses in 2011 (USDL). Contrary to popular belief, bike lanes are not necessarily expensive to implement. It can usually be accomplished when a street is undergoing its regularly scheduled repairing and restriping. Bike Friendly Oak Cliff indicates that there are a variety of funding methods used when there is a need for build out, including Tax Increment Financing Districts, Federal Grants, and â€Å"Friends of† organizations (Roberts). They go on to point out that the return on investment for streets with bike lanes and businesses surrounding these streets has proven to far offset any cost. It is important to remember that the purpose of building roads is not to move people as quickly as possible (as is the case with highways), it is to promote interaction between individuals and businesses, as well as ransport. Commuting by bicycle is an option that more and more people are choosing every year for a variety of reasons. Bike lanes are a reasonable way that the city can accommodate these citizens and provide a safe way for them to exercise this choice. It is incumbent on the leaders of this city to think beyond the initial cost of the project and allow Dallas to realize the benefits tha t this will bring to the city and its citizens.

Individualistic And Holistic Biases In Environmental Ethics

Individualistic And Holistic Biases In Environmental Ethics Environmental ethics is a hybrid of both ancient and recent insights and is a discipline in the making. In addition, this is a discipline whose time has come and has come urgently. The magnitude and urgency of contemporary environmental problems known as environmental crisis form the mandate for environmental ethics. In other words, environmental ethics is a re-examination of the human attitudes and values that influence individual behaviour and government policies towards nature. The principle approaches to environmental ethics are biocentrism, egocentrism. Other topics which are related are ecofeminism and deep ecology. Moral pluralism in environmental ethics insists that we endorse all of these approaches, and employ any one of them according to circumstances. Another long-standing controversy in the philosophy is the debate between methodological individualists and methodological holists. The former hold that social facts and phenomena are reducible without remainder to facts about individuals. The latter, advocates of methodological holism argue that there are some social facts that are not reducible to facts about individuals, and that social phenomena can sometimes be adequately explained without reference to individuals. One should take into consideration that there is no necessary connection between support for methodological individualism or holism and ones position vis-Ã  -vis the naturalism debate. Nonetheless there is a tendency that naturalist people embrace methodological individualism. Still, the naturalists are also found in the holist camp. There are several philosophers who argue about individualistic environmental ethics. Two of them are Peter Singer and Tom Regan. The work of Singer and Regan generated a significant and critical response among philosophers. Many of these criticisms followed the same idea. Peter Singer is the one leading thinker who raised the profile of ethical reflection in relation to animals in our world. Some philosophers including Regan, challenge the utilitarian basis of Singers programme. Singer does not form any principle against causing animals to suffer. Singer argues that humans are different from animals, so equal consideration does not entail equal or identical treatment. Further interest and suffering are not alike. Not all interests deserve to be treated equally, and not all suffering is created equal (Desjardins 2006, p.115). According to Regan and Singer, we need to be very selective in our decisions regarding our everyday life, and we have to choose properly our type of lifestyle. We need to limit ourselves to eat meat so that we can conserve animals from the ecosystem. Moreover, both of them argue that we need to be vegetarian, and Singer continues that the boundary of considerability should be drawn somewhere between shrimp and oyster (Desjardins 2006, p.116). On the other hand, Regan most often speaks in general terms about animals but he argues that the subject of a life criterion applies to mentally normal mammals of a year or a more (Regan 1983, p.78). In my opinion, this is a very unrealistic view of the world because an ecosystem is made up of both humans and animals. If we all choose to be vegetarian than the ecosystem will be unbalanced, leading to an overpopulation of animals because animals will continue to produce without being reduced by humans. Moreover, I think that other species will ta ke over the habitat of others because of the overpopulation and this may lead to many disasters. I believe that, people are part of an ecosystem in order that the world can be balanced accordingly. However, in certain cases we find several abuses-one of them being illegal hunting which causes many endemic species to become extinct. There should always be a balance. Moreover, Regan argues that his right-based ethics, like most traditional ethical theories is individualistic. This means that ethics is concerned with protecting and promoting the well-being of individuals, not communities or societies or someones common good. This puts him at odds with many environmental and ecological thinking which is holistic where many environmentalists emphasise biotic communities or ecosystems rather than individual members which include humans of those communities. Regan warns us of environmental fascism in which individual rights are willingly sacrificed to the greater good of the whole. Environmental fascism and the rights view are like oil and water: they dont mix (Regan 1983, p.362, cited in Desjardins 2006, p.116). In addition, Regan argues that only individual animals can be said to have moral standing or, more specifically, to have rights. In Regans view, an animal that is of an endangered species has no special moral status. Singers view recognizes that it is conceivable that human interference could improve the conditions of wild animals. Moreover, he recommends a policy of leaving wild animals alone as much as possible. In fact he states that we do enough if we eliminate our own unnecessary killing and cruelty towards other animals (Singer 1990, p.227 as cited in Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, p.159). Singer argues that we have the greater responsibility of reducing suffering than that to increase happiness. In addition, Regan endorsed the similar idea proposed by Singer that is, as long as we protect the rights of animals, other ecological concerns will take care of themselves. In my opinion, it is not a selective choice to let extinct species become endemic because they are part of the eco system for quite a good reason. I think that if those endangered species become endemic than other species cannot benefit from their benefits that contribute to the ecosystem. This is because specie in every community serves to be a prey and also, in itself, it is a predator. If this specie becomes endemic than the prey cannot eat it anymore, and the specie itself cannot kill other animals. The ecosystem is always like a chain in which one factor contributes to the other factor and in which every single step is important for the ecosystem. I believe that, we need first to reverse the long history of destruction and habitat loss before we could preserve biotic communities. In addition, the idea that some untamed wilderness untouched by human activities is a mirage. No place on earth, no animal on earth and no period on earth has escaped human influence for quite some time. The question is not whether we should actively influence the wilderness but how we should do so. For Singer and Regan it seems that the paradigms of holders of moral values are human beings. Thus only animals that are like us can have moral standing. Moral standing seems a benefit that is derived from human nature and that living beings receive only if they are similar to human beings. On the other hand, there are several philosophers who have different ideas about the holistic idea of the environment such as Rolston Holmes and J. Baird Callicott. A holistic idea of the environment deals with environments that must focus their moral concern on the interdependent functioning of the entirely ecological system and not merely on the isolated individuals who make up the system. Holmes as a representative of most environmental ethics encourages us to recognize the inherent worth of nature. According to him, an emphasis on intrinsic value, would preclude the development of a holistic environmental ethic. In fact he argues that the for what it is in itself facet of intrinsic becomes problematic in a holistic web. It is too internal and elementary; it forget relatedness and externality (Holmes 1982, p.146). Holmes has argued that nature should not be treated as a mere resource to be used but rather as a source of what we value. In fact he states One is not so much looking t o resources as sources, seeking relationships is an elemental stream of being with transcending integrities (Holmes 1983, p.183). For Holmes nature as a source of value is then itself intrinsically valuable. Holmes believed that one has to spent time with nature to be an environmentalist. Wilderness is nature which has never been locked and framed is rare. Nature is something that has been through biological processes. We do own gratitude towards biodiversity. Another thing which we value in nature is autopoeisis which means self-making. Many philosophers have argued that this defines life. Life is able to come to a certain extent. Beauty and integrity mean that it has not been whole. Holmes believed that man does not fit in nature. However, in my opinion this is not correct because we came out of wilderness. Many environmental philosophers take up the value and try to see where it comes from. Holmes understands that one has to consider the laws of nature. Holmes argues that it can be good to follow nature but also bad to follow nature. He argues that it is bad when you follow it too much. Humans also damage and modify the environment. Holmes says that this is not natural because we move things around too much. Non-human beings do not modify their environment the way that we do. According to Holmes, anything that completely upsets the balance is not natural and therefore wrong. Like Holmes, Callicott is suspicious of ethical preoccupations with individual nonhuman creatures. Callicott does not deny the fact that individual creatures can have a place as individuals in the sphere of ethical regard. However, he argues that, it is not their well-being as individuals that should be our concern. Rather, it is the well-being of the biotic community of which they are a part and to which they contribute. Callicott insists that environmental ethics locates ultimate value in the biotic community and assigns differential moral value to the constitutive individuals relative to the standards (Callicott 1980, p.337). The systems of individuals ecosystems, species and communities might be a more proper focus than those individuals themselves. One of the motivating concerns, theoretically and practically, is that we should place value on the organization of systems and communities. Following Leopold, J.Baird Callicott argues that there is intrinsic value in the integrity, stability and beauty of ecological systems (Callicott 1989, p.83). Balancing the apparent need to value systems as well as individuals has served to generate a different set of normative principles. Callicott considers this to be an entirely new ethic which will be considered below. Klonoski (1991) in his paper about Callicott holism also presents Callicotts argument about environmental ethic holism. He points out Callicotts idea that in order of the biotic community and to assign value and to prescribe legitimate use of the constituents of the community in a way that contributes to the unity, harmony and balance of the eco-system (Callicott U.d, as cited in Klonoski 1991, p.99). But the problem of shaping a value theory such that it can accommodate both individualistic value and systemic value is daunting. Callicotts holism was criticised due to insufficient room for any intrinsic value apart from the value of the system. Callicott sustains that human activities, such as agriculture and suburban and exurban development, provide some organisms with excellent habitat. But the habitats of many other organisms are severely degraded by the cultural modifications of landscapes that characterize contemporary industrial civilization. These organisms need places that are otherwise suitable for them where modifications of that kind are prohibited (Callicott 2000, p.29). Callicotts system is monistic; there is only one value, instantiated in a principle that has moral weight. Another philosopher who had a clear idea about environmental ethics is Arne Naess who had the idea of self-realization. This means that the ideal of developing ones highest potential skews the notion of value not only towards living entities but also towards those that are analogues of human beings. In my opinion, I do agree with this idea because one has to self-realise him/herself in order to be able to live in a community. In addition, if this does not happen, one does not take care of the environment and of what happens around us. We should take care of the environment because once it is exploited it takes a longer time to revert to its original state. However, this is not an issue that all people agree with because, most often, people do exploit what they have and then this result in different consequences. I believe that, the ecosystem should be made up of both humans and animals. In addition, I think that each specie has an important role to play in the ecosystem, and this is because each specie has its advantages and disadvantages in the ecosystem. If, over a period of time, there is any endemic specie, then there should be another specie which takes its role. However, most often this does not happen and this leads to different disasters. A clear example of what I am stating is when in Malta there was a type of insect the red weevil that was imported with foreign palm trees inferring. This showed that they were not being eaten by other animals, and thus they did a lot of damage to the Maltese palm trees. A specie in an ecosystem is like a link in a whole chain and if one link is broken the chain is broken too! I do disagree with Regans idea that an endemic species should not be protected. In fact I argue that we should spend some time with nature like Rolston suggests in order to admire how precious our environment is. Moreover, I think that there should be more emphasis on mans responsibility. When someone comes in contact with nature he should make sure that it should be kept as it was found because once it is exploited the effects are disastrous. It is difficult to reverse the damage and bring back nature to its original state. In my opinion the holistic view of environmental biases is more practical especially in our everyday world. There are different views of how one can respect the environment around us. The most important thing is that we do our outmost to leave part of the environment in its natural state without construction because it is our contribution to those that come after us. Most often people do not even notice how little things can harm species, not only on the earth but also marine species which are also an important part of the ecosystem. In my opinion, although nowadays there are more environmental organisations there should be more awareness of how our modelling with the eco system can affect nature around us. God created nature in order to be used but also to be protected accordingly.

How does neglect during infancy affect cognitive development in young c

Child maltreatment takes on many forms and child neglect is the most common. Studies have found that child neglect can be more detrimental to development than physical abuse (Colvert, E., Rutter, M., Kreppner, J., Beckett, C., Castle, J., Groothues, C. & Sonuga-Barke, 2008). Despite this fact, neglect is the least commonly reported form of maltreatment, as it does not leave bruises and marks like physical abuse (DiPanfilis, D., 2006). Neglect during infancy has been found to affect all aspects of development: physical, cognitive, and psychosocial (Hawley, T., Gunner, M., 2000). This paper will examine the effects neglect has on specific areas of cognitive functioning. According to Jean Piaget we all go through stages of cognitive development that aid us in constructing our knowledge of the world. During infancy we are in Piaget’s sensorimotor stage where we begin our construction of the world by coordinating what we think, touch, smell and taste with how we move (Santrock, J., 2011). When an infant is not given the opportunity to explore their world they are not able to progress through the sensorimotor phase effectively. Various factors may lead to the insufficient progression through the sensorimotor stage but this paper will focus specifically on neglect. Neglect is difficult to define in terms of a set of behaviors that are synonymous with neglect because what is considered neglect varies based on the age and developmental level of the child. For the purpose of this paper neglect will be defined as the denial of proper physical, educational, emotional and moral attention and care (DiPanfilis, D., 2006). In 2008 Child Protective Services received 3.3 million reports of child maltreatment and seventy-one percent of them we... ...uncil on the Developing Child, & National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs. (2011). Building the Brain’s â€Å"Air Traffic Control† System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/ 8. Eigsti, I., & Cicchetti, D. (2004). The impact of child maltreatment on expressive syntax at 60 months. Developmental Science, 7(1), 88-102. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00325.x 9. Majer, M., Nater, U. M., Lin, J.-M. S., Capuron, L., & Reeves, W. C. (2010). Association of Childhood Trauma with Cognitive Function in Healthy Adults: A Pilot Study. BMC Neurology. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/ pdfviewer?sid=95e34d47-cde9-4f93-b9ba-82931731842d%40sessionmgr14&vid=1&hid=25

Dystopia in Aldous Huxleys Brave New World :: Brave New World

Dystopia in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World It's hard to imagine yet somehow so extremely close to us is the possibility of a world of ideal perfection where there is no room or acceptance of individuality. Yet, as we strive towards the growth of technology and improvement of our daily living we come closer to closing the gap between the freedom of emotions, self understanding, and of speech and the devastation of a dystopia. A utopia, or perfect world, gone awry is displayed in Aldous Huxley's provocative novel Brave New World. Dystopia is drawn on "political and emotional events, anchoring its vision of a nightmarish future in contemporary fears of totalitarian ideology and uncontrolled advances in technology and science" (Baker 22). It is the situation that costs a piece of an unhealthy environment for human beings, is the theme of the novel. The dystopian setting is brought about by technology and by higher authorities. As technology increases, the use for human beings in the work force decreases leaving an overwhelming amount of depression among humans. Therefore, a way to continue the production of technological findings is by bringing up humans from day one to accept their unhappiness as normal. By "breeding" human beings to accept the fact that they are born to do a specific group. Higher authorities know the illimination of humans' emotions is useful to stabilize what they think to be a utopian society. Huxley portrays a "perfect dystopia" where scientists "breed people to order" in a specific class (Baker 2). The purpose of this paper is to shows that Aldous Huxley clearly introduces a river of cases and incidences, which adds to the dystopia in his science fiction novel Brave New World. Aldous Huxley was born on July 26, 1894 in England into a family of novelists and scientists. Leonard Huxley, Aldous's father, was an essayist and an editor who also was a respected, leading biologist in the time of Darwinism. Both his brother and half-brother worked in the science field. Huxley received an extensive training in both medicine and in the arts and sciences. Huxley was described by V.S. Pritchett as "that rare being-the prodigy, the educable young man, the peremial asker of unusual questions" (Introduction to Aldous Huxley 1). Huxley wrote a series of novels and essays as his career progressed. Two of his best known novels are Brave New World and Island. These two novels depict a world of dystopia. In Brave New World it's author "shifts his mildly satiric observations of a limited group of people to a broader and more ironic satire of a utopian society" (Introduction to Aldous Huxley