My Visit to a Jewish Synagogue Essay

When I visited my first Jewish synagogue, I expected it to be very different. My previous experience with religious ceremonies was limited to a few visits to Baptist churches. The most surprising thing for me at this one was, oddly enough, its similarity to Christian services and rituals. I went into the religious visit expecting an enormous difference in the customs and perhaps even in the attitudes of the people attending the service. What I found instead was a religious ceremony very reminiscent of the Christian ones I’ve been to before. To begin, I was nervous about attending a service for a faith to which I did not belong and which was not even part of my heritage. Previously when I had attended Baptist worship, I had gone along or with a member of my family, who belonged to the church. I wasn’t sure how people of a different religion would react to having someone who was not of their faith visiting their place of worship. However, as soon as we walked into the synagogue, the people there were very friendly and not at all unused to having visitors. There was a collection of pamphlets set out for anyone unfamiliar with the Jewish religion and with Sabbath services and there were nametags for us to wear. The people were very friendly, asking us if we would like to know anything more about the synagogue. There were people standing in small groups too talking and catching up with the happenings of the week before. Overall, the interior of the synagogue reminded me very much of a church. The sanctuary was round or possibly octagonal, with the seating also set up in a semicircle. Inside of the sanctuary the atmosphere was different from that in the lobby, more serious I would say. I thought that it was lovely, and smaller than the chapel of any church I’ve ever attended. We were given prayer books as we entered, and when I leafed through mine I found that it was printed from right to left instead of left to right. This threw me off a little, in part because the text inside (the English translations of the Hebrew) were still printed left to right, though the book itself was read from right to left. I sat near the back, a good thing because it was mostly the people participating in the service who sat at the front. I noticed that several of the women had a tallit, or prayer shawl, and only knew the significance of them because of our readings and lessons. Many of the men were wearing a yarmulke as well, though not all of them were. As I looked around the room I noticed the Ark, which holds the Torah scrolls. As I continued to scan the room I also notice the menorah (candelabrum). The rabbi began the service fairly casually, greeting the congregation in English. After the English greeting came a more traditional greeting in Hebrew, and then a song to greet the Sabbath, or Shabbat, which is the word that was used at the synagogue. The Hebrew might have been strange to me, but there were English translations for just about everything in the prayer book, along with the prayers and songs written out in Hebrew. My personal favorite part of the service was the singing. There were two singers, one male and one female. All of the songs were beautiful, and caused me to consider the fact that many religions use songs and music in order to convey their messages. I believe that this is a good practice, because music is a common language, one that everybody can understand regardless of whether they speak Hebrew, or any other tongue. Although I’m not Jewish, I could appreciate the songs at the synagogue for their simple tunes and for the feelings and beliefs that clearly went into their writing and their performing. Also interesting was the way the rabbi tied many everyday events and circumstances into the faith. He discussed baseball in relation to the seder, talking about how his father had loved both things and had given him his own love of baseball and of the traditional supper. Again, though I don’t share the religion, I could understand and relate too much of what he was saying, because our parents shape the way that we all grow and learn and change. After the service, we were invited to share in the refreshments that were provided for congregation members. All of the people present were very willing to answer questions and to discuss the religion and were very open and friendly toward me at all times. My experience at the Jewish synagogue was very fun and enlightening. I gained a lot of firsthand knowledge of a religion I had only studied academically before. I’m not sure that I’ll ever have the chance to attend other types of religious services, but I may attempt to do so in the future. In my opinion, a visit like this one to another religion’s place of worship is the best possible way to learn more about a particular religion, no matter whether it’s for a class or simply to further one’s own personal knowledge.

Modern Drama Essay

Restoration literature Restoration literature is the English literature written during the historical period commonly referred to as the English Restoration (1660–1689), which corresponds to the last years of the direct Stuart reign in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In general, the term is used to denote roughly homogeneous styles of literature that center on a celebration of or reaction to the restored court of Charles II. It is a literature that includes extremes, for it encompasses both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester’s Sodom, the high-spirited sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of The Pilgrim’s Progress. It saw Locke’s Treatises of Government, the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments and holy meditations of Robert Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theaters from Jeremy Collier, and the pioneering of literary criticism from John Dryden and John Dennis. The period witnessed news become a commodity, the essay developed into a periodic al art form, and the beginnings of textual criticism. The dates for Restoration literature are a matter of convention, and they differ markedly from genre to genre. Thus, the â€Å"Restoration† in dramamay last until 1700, while in poetry it may last only until 1666 (see 1666 in poetry) and the annus mirabilis; and in prose it might end in 1688, with the increasing tensions over succession and the corresponding rise in journalism and periodicals, or not until 1700, when those periodicals grew more stabilized. In general, scholars use the term â€Å"Restoration† to denote the literature that began and flourished under Charles II, whether that literature was the laudatory ode that gained a new life with restored aristocracy, the eschatological literature that showed an increasing despair among Puritans, or the literature of rapid communication and trade that followed in the wake of England’s mercantile empire. Theatre The return of the stage-struck Charles II to power in 1660 was a major event in English theatre history. As soon as the previous Puritan regime’s ban on public stage representations was lifted, the drama recreated itself quickly and abundantly. Two theatre companies, the King’s and the Duke’s Company, were established in London, with two luxurious playhouses built to designs by Christopher Wren and fitted with moveable scenery and thunder and lightning machines.[10] Traditionally, Restoration plays have been studied by genre rather than chronology, more or less as if they were all contemporary, but scholars today insist on the rapid evolvement of drama in the period and on the importance of social and political factors affecting it. (Unless otherwise indicated, the account below is based on Hume’s influential Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century, 1976.) The influence of theatre company competition and playhouse economics is also acknowledged, as is the significance of the appearance of the first professional actresses (see Howe). In the 1660s and 1670s, the London scene was vitalised by the competition between the two patent companies. The need to rise to the challenges of the other house made playwrights and managers extremely responsive to public taste, and theatrical fashions fluctuated almost week by week. The mid-1670s were a high point of both quantity and quality, with John Dryden’s Aureng-zebe (1675), William Wycherley’s The Country Wife (1675) and The Plain Dealer(1676), George Etherege’s The Man of Mode (1676), and Aphra Behn’s The Rover (1677), all within a few seasons. From 1682 the production of new plays dropped sharply, affected both by a merger between the two companies and by the political turmoil of the Popish Plot (1678) and the Exclusion crisis (1682). The 1680s were especially lean years for comedy, the only exception being the remarkable career of Aphra Behn, whose achievement as the first professional British woman dramatist has been the subject of much recent study. There was a swing away from comedy to serious political drama, reflecting preoccupations and divisions following on the political crisis. The few comedies produced also tended to be political in focus, the whig dramatist Thomas Shadwell sparring with the tories John Dryden and Aphra Behn. In the calmer times after 1688, Londoners were again ready to be amused by stage performance, but the single â€Å"United Company† was not well prepared to offer it. No longer powered by competition, the company had lost momentum and been taken over by predatory investors (â€Å"Adv enturers†), while management in the form of the autocratic Christopher Rich attempted to finance a tangle of â€Å"farmed† shares and sleeping partners by slashing actors’ salaries. The upshot of this mismanagement was that the disgruntled actors set up their own co-operative company in 1695.[11]A few years of re-invigorated two-company competition followed which allowed a brief second flowering of the drama, especially comedy. Comedies like William Congreve’s Love For Love (1695) and The Way of the World (1700), and John Vanbrugh’s The Relapse (1696) and The Provoked Wife (1697) were â€Å"softer† and more middle class in ethos, very different from the aristocratic extravaganza twenty years earlier, and aimed at a wider audience. If â€Å"Restoration literature† is the literature that reflects and reflects upon the court of Charles II, Restoration drama arguably ends before Charles II’s death, as the playhouse moved rapidly from the domain of courtiers to the domain of the city middle classes. On the other hand, Restoration drama shows altogether more fluidity and rapidity than other types of literature, and so, even more than in other types of literature, its movements should never be viewed as absolute. Each decade has brilliant exceptions to every rule and entirely forgettable confirmations of it. [edit]Drama Main article: Heroic drama See also: She-tragedy Genre in Restoration drama is peculiar. Authors labelled their works according to the old tags, â€Å"comedy† and â€Å"drama† and, especially, â€Å"history†, but these plays defied the old categories. From 1660 onwards, new dramatic genres arose, mutated, and intermixed very rapidly. In tragedy, the leading style in the early Restoration period was the male-dominated heroic drama, exemplified by John Dryden’s The Conquest of Granada (1670) and Aureng-Zebe (1675) which celebrated powerful, aggressively masculine heroes and their pursuit of glory both as rulers and conquerors, and as lovers. These plays were sometimes called by their authors’ histories or tragedies, and contemporary critics will call them after Dryden’s term of â€Å"Heroic drama†. Heroic dramas centred on the actions of men of decisive natures, men whose physical and (sometimes) intellectual qualities made them natural leaders. In one sense, this was a reflection of a n idealised king such as Charles or Charles’s courtiers might have imagined. However, such dashing heroes were also seen by the audiences as occasionally standing in for noble rebels who would redress injustice with the sword. The plays were, however, tragic in the strictest definition, even though they were not necessarily sad. In the 1670s and 1680s, a gradual shift occurred from heroic to pathetic tragedy, where the focus was on love and domestic concerns, even though the main characters might often be public figures. After the phenomenal success of Elizabeth Barry in moving the audience to tears in the role of Monimia in Thomas Otway’s The Orphan (1680), â€Å"she-tragedies† (a term coined by Nicholas Rowe), which focused on the sufferings of an innocent and virtuous woman, became the dominant form of pathetic tragedy. Elizabeth Howe has argued that the most important explanation for the shift in taste was the emergence of tragic actresses whose popularity made it unavoidable for dramatists to create major roles for them. With the conjunction of the playwright â€Å"master of pathos† Thomas Otway and the great tragedienne Elizabeth Barry in The Orphan, the focus shifted from hero to heroine. Prominent she-tragedies include John Banks’s Virtue Betrayed, or, Anna Bullen(1682) (about the execution of Anne Boleyn), Thomas Southerne’s The Fatal Marriage (1694), and Nicholas Rowe’s The Fair Penitent (1703) and Lady Jane Grey, 1715. While she-tragedies were more comfortably tragic, in that they showed women who suffered for no fault of their own and featured tragic flaws that were emotional rather than moral or intellectual, their success did not mean that more overtly political tragedy was not staged. The Exclusion crisis brought with it a number of tragic implications in real politics, and therefore any treatment of, for example, the Earl of Essex (several versions of which were circulated and briefly acted at non-patent theatres) could be read as seditious. Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserv’d of 1682 was a royalist political play that, like Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel, seemed to praise the king for his actions in the meal tub plot. Otway’s play had the floating city of Venice stand in for the river town ofLondon, and it had the dark senatorial plotters of the play stand in for the Earl of Shaftesbury. It even managed to figure in the Duke of Monmouth, Charles’s illegitimate, war-hero son who was favoured by many as Charles’s successor over the Roman Catholic James. Venice Preserv’d is, in a sense, the perfect synthesis of the older politically royalist tragedies and histories of Dryden and the newer she-tragedies of feminine suffering, for, although the plot seems to be a political allegory, the action centres on a woman who cares for a man in conflict, and most of the scenes and dialogue concern her pitiable sufferings at his hands. Comedy Main article: Restoration comedy Restoration comedy is notorious for its sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethos of his court. The best-known plays of the early Restoration period are the unsentimental or â€Å"hard† comedies of John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George Etherege, which reflect the atmosphere at Court, and celebrate an aristocratic macholifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. The Earl of Rochester, real-life Restoration rake, courtier and poet, is flatteringly portrayed in Etherege’s Man of Mode (1676) as a riotous, witty, intellectual, and sexually irresistible aristocrat, a template for posterity.s idea of the glamorous Restoration rake (actually never a very common character in Restoration comedy). Wycherley’s The Plain Dealer (1676), a variation on the theme of Molià ¨re’s Le misanthrope, was highly regarded for its uncompromising satire and earned Wycherley the appellation â€Å"Plain De aler† Wycherley or â€Å"Manly† Wycherley, after the play’s main character Manly. The single writer who most supports the charge of obscenity levelled then and now at Restoration comedy is probably Wycherley. During the second wave of Restoration comedy in the 1690s, the â€Å"softer† comedies of William Congreve and John Vanbrugh reflected mutating cultural perceptions and great social change. The playwrights of the 1690s set out to appeal to more socially mixed audiences with a strong middle-class element, and to female spectators, for instance by moving the war between the sexes from the arena of intrigue into that of marriage. The focus in comedy is less on young lovers outwitting the older generation, more on marital relations after the wedding bells. In Congreve’s plays, the give-and-take set pieces of couples still testing their attraction for each other have mutated into witty prenuptial debates on the eve of marriage, as in the famous â€Å"Proviso† scene in The Way of the World (1700). Restoration drama had a bad reputation for three centuries. The â€Å"incongruous† mixing of comedy and tragedy beloved by Restoration audiences was decried. The Victorians denounced the comedy as too indecent for the stage,[12] and the standard reference work of the early 20th century, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, dismissed the tragedy as being of â€Å"a level of dulness and lubricity never surpassed before or since†.[13] Today, the Restoration total theatre experience is again valued, both by postmodern literary critics and on the stage. The comedies of Aphra Behn in particular, long condemned as especially offensive in coming from a woman’s pen, have become academic and repertory favourites.

Rate Law and Activation Energy Essay

Introduction In this experiment we are analyzing the relationship between reaction rates at different concentrations and temperatures to determine the true rate constant, activation energy, reaction orders, and half-life of a reaction. The reaction of interest is the addition of a hydroxyl group to the nucleus of Crystal Violet. Crystal Violet, or hexamethylparaosaniline chloride for short, is a strongly colored purple dye with the chemical formula C25H30N3Cl and disassociates completely in solution. The relevant structure for this compound can be seen in figure 1 Figure 1 The base that is being used for the reaction is the strong base Sodium Hydroxide, or NaOH. This molecule also completely disassociates in water. Because measuring the concentrations of reactants is difficult in a simple lab setting, the reaction between Crystal Violet and Sodium Hydroxide will be measured through light absorbance. As the reaction between the chemicals takes place and the Crystal Violet receives the hydroxide the overall intensity of the purple color will decrease thus affecting the absorbance. The absorbance of the solution will be measured with a colorimeter as the reaction takes place and will be interpreted as a direct representation of concentration of Crystal Violet. After the reaction has taken place, through analysis of graphs plotting absorption vs. time, the natural log of absorption vs. time, and the inverse of absorption vs. time the reaction will be determined to be either zeroth, first, or second order with respect to crystal violet. From here the a pseudo rate constant can be determined, and using comparisons of different constants at different concentrations of NaOH solution and different temperatures, the reaction order with respect to hydroxide, the true rate constant for the reaction, and the activation energy for the reaction can all be determined with the following equations respectively. equation 1 Where k2’ is the pseudo rate constant of the reaction using twice the initial OH- concentration as is used in the k1’ reaction and n is equal to the reaction order with respect to OH-. equation 2 Where k’ is a pseudo rate constant based off of absorption and n is the reaction order with respect to OH- determined by equation 1. equation 3 Where k1 is the reaction constant at temperature T1, a is a constant that can be ignored due to the way the equation will be utilized, R is that gas constant, and Ea is the activation energy. Procedure The following materials were needed for the experiment: 4 100mL beakers 250mL beaker 2.5Ãâ€"10-5M Crystal Violet Stock solution 0.10M NaOH Stock solution Distilled Water 10 dry plastic cuvettes and caps Stirring rod Vernier Colorimeter 50mL volumetric pipet 100 µL syringe 2 10mL vials Logger Pro software Vernier computer interface Hot plate Vernier temperature probe 1. First, 100mL of 0.10M NaOH solution was obtained using a 50mL volumetric pipet, and 0.05M was prepared using a the pipet, the stock 0.10M NaOH solution, and distilled water. 2. The Logger Pro software was engaged and both the Vernier colorimeter and temperature probe were plugged into the appropriate channels. The temperature of the room was measured and the colorimeter was calibrated by setting the 0% light and 100% light conditions. 3. The colorimeter was set to 565nm and 1mL of 2.5Ãâ€"10-5M Crystal Violet solution was mixed with 1mL of 0.05M NaOH solution and quickly added to the colorimeter. Data correlating time, temperature, transmittance, and absorbance was then recorded for seven minutes as the reaction between the two solutions took place, and this data was saved. 4. This previous step was repeated two additional times with the 0.05M NaOH solution, and then three times with the 0.10M NaOH solution. 5. Last, two 10mL-vials of 0.05M NaOH and 2.5Ãâ€"10-5M Crystal Violet solution were prepared in a warm bath solution on the hot plate. Once the temperature reached 35ËšC and was recorded, steps BLANK through BLANK were repeated again twice with the heated solutions of Crystal Violet and 0.05M NaOH. All of the data that was collected was saved and distributed between the two lab partners and all excess solutions were disposed of properly under the fume hood. Results The following are the graphs obtained from the absorption and time recordings of the third run for the reaction between 1mL of 0.05M NaOH and 1mL of and 2.5Ãâ€"10-5M Crystal Violet carried out at 22.62ËšC. figure 2 figure 3 figure 4 These plots show that the reaction order with respect to crystal violet is clearly 1st order due to the great r2 value of the linear trend line. Since our pseudo rate constant based off of absorption is equal to the negative slope of our linear plot, our k’ in for the reaction of 1mL of 0.05M NaOH and 1mL of and 2.5Ãâ€"10-5M Crystal Violet carried out at 22.62ËšC is 0.1894. These next three plots are the graphs obtained from the absorption and time recordings of the first run for the reaction between 1mL of 0.10M NaOH and 1mL of and 2.5Ãâ€"10-5M Crystal Violet carried out at 22.50ËšC. figure 5 figure 6 figure 7 As expected, these results still indicate a reaction order of 1 with respect to crystal violet as demonstrated by the linear plot on the figure 6. Our k’ in for the reaction of 1mL of 0.10M NaOH and 1mL of and 2.5Ãâ€"10-5M Crystal Violet carried out at 22.50ËšC is 0.2993. Now that we have two pseudo reaction constants in which the OH- concentration differs by a factor of 2, we can use equation 1 to obtain the reaction order with respect to OH-. Since the reaction order must be an integer we can see that the n must be 1. It is now know that for the reaction, the reaction orders with respect to both reactants are 1. At this point, the true rate constant can be determined using equation 2, where n is 1, the initial concentration of OH- is 0.05, and the pseudo rate constant k’ is 0.1894. These next three plots are the graphs obtained from the absorption and time recordings of the first run for the reaction between 1mL of 0.05M NaOH and 1mL of and 2.5Ãâ€"10-5M Crystal Violet carried out at 36.09ËšC. figure 8 figure 9 figure 10 Once again it is apparent from the three plots that the reaction is first order with respect to crystal violet. However, the reason we performed this last kinetic run was to obtain a value for k at a different temperature. This way we have two sets of values for equation 3 with two temperatures, and two rate constants. With this information we can cut out the pre-exponential factor a and solve for the activation energy. But first k must again be calculated for the reaction at the new temperature. Doing this the same way as done in calculation 2, we obtain a reaction constant of 4.964 – a higher value, which is to be expected with the increase in temperature. Now, manipulating equation 4 we obtain that equation 4 While plugging the proper values provides which after some arithmetic leads to a calculated Ea of 15,254.67J, or 15.25467kJ. The calculation for half-lives for the different conditions is simple, and just requires the following equation. equation 5 When using the rate constant found in calculation 1, t1/2 for the kinetic run for the reaction between 1mL of 0.05M NaOH and 1mL of and 2.5Ãâ€"10-5M Crystal Violet carried out at 22.62ËšC is found to be 0.183 seconds. Error Analysis In this experiment there are several things calculated and several sources of error to take into account. Error needs to be calculated for the rate constants k, for the half-lives, and for activation energy. The errors for the pseudo-rate constants are obtained using the LLS method. Once these are obtained the next step is to calculate the error in the true rate constants. When calculating the error in true rate constant once must apply both the error in the pseudo rate constant and the error in the measurement of volume for the 100 µL syringe as it pertains to the concentration of hydroxide. The error in the syringe is 0.02mL, which for 0.05M NaOH solution leads to an error in concentration of approximately 1Ãâ€"10-3M and 2Ãâ€"10-3M for 0.10M NaOH. Equation 2 is manipulated to solve for the true rate constant. The following equation is used to solve for the error in the true rate constant. equation 6 And when the derivatives are solved is equal to equation 7 And when the numbers are plugged in for the first kinetic run looks like calculation =.08 In other words, the rate constant for the first kinetic run came out to be 3.79 ±.08. Now when calculating the error in the half-life the only thing that has to be taken into consideration is the error in the rate constant, which was just calculated above. Using the same method, equation 5 is solved for half-life, and the error is calculated like so. equation 8 Which after the derivatives are solved is equal to equation 9 And of course after the correct values for example the first kinetic run are plugged in provides calculation = .004 And last but nowhere near least, is the error analysis for the activation energy. With this the error for the true rate constant must again be taken into consideration, and the error for the temperature probe. The error for the true rate constant has already been calculated, while the error for the temperature probe is provided in the lab manual as being  ±0.03K. Taking these into consideration, a very complex process follows. The same process as above was used but involving much more complicated and lengthy derivatives. First equation 3 was manipulated to the following form. equation 10 The derivative of this equation with respect to each variable (T1, T2, K1, and K2) was then taken squared, and multiplied by the square of the respective variables uncertainty. These were added up and the square root was taken as in the above methods. The end result was a calculated error of 2 KJ for the calculated activation energy of 15kJ. Figure 11 Overall this lab was very successful in the use of absorption as a method of monitoring change in concentration. The calculated errors all seem to be about what one might expect. This lab was very analytical outside of one glaring hole. You can see in figure 9 a slight curve in the plot that isn’t found on either figure 3 or figure 6. To me this seems to be because the reactants are heated up to a temperature around 35-36ËšC, but once the chemicals are mixed and placed in the cuvette the temperature is no longer controlled as the reaction takes place for the following seven minutes. Thus, as the temperature falls the rate of the reaction slows, and the pseudo rate constant is lower than it should be. This of course leads to a rate constant lower than it should be, and then the activation energy is affected as well. If I were going to change one thing about the lab, I would try and do something to control the temperature as the reaction persisted. Aside from that, there is little room for error outside of obvious blunders. Conclusion A reasonable value for activation energy was calculated from the data collected in this experiment. There were no major mistakes made in the laboratory, and the calculations all went smoothly. This experiment demonstrated that there are creative ways around difficult problems in the laboratory, such as measuring absorption in place of concentration to follow the progress of a reaction. References- Alberty, A. A.; Silbey, R. J. Physical Chemistry, 2nd ed.; Wiley: New York, 1997. Department of Chemistry. (2013, Spring). CHEMISTRY 441G Physical Chemistry Laboratory Manual. Lexington: University of Kentucky

Adolescents are not in turmoil,not deeply disturbed and not resistant Research Proposal

Adolescents are not in turmoil,not deeply disturbed and not resistant to parental values - Research Proposal Example Adolescence is commonly perceived as that stage of physiological, mental, and emotional development between childhood and adulthood. Generally taken as the â€Å"pre-teen† to â€Å"teen† ages, usually at the onset of puberty until about 18 or 19, the period of adolescent development pertains to a rather diverse range of determinant influences including social, environmental, religious, even cultural factors for the concept to be framed in more definitive terms. In this paper, the context adopted by the American Psychological Association (A.P.A.) in its scientific publication titled â€Å"Developing Adolescents: A reference for Professionals† shall be, likewise, adopted: â€Å"There is no standard age range for defining adolescence. Individuals can begin adolescence earlier than age 10, just as some aspects of adolescent development often continue past the age of 18. Although the upper age boundary is sometimes defined as older than 18 (e.g., age 21 or 25), there is widespread agreement that those in the age range of 10 to 18 should be considered adolescents.† (p. 2) The stage of adolescence is definitely the most exciting period of most everyone’s life. The period of discoveries and learning on your own, the time of exciting encounters and relationships, of heightened interests in new and more exciting things than dolls and matchboxes, it is that time in our lives that almost every adult, if not every adult, would look back to with fondness and great relish. It is the period of our lives when we looked at everything in the world with more intense interest and passion. Child psychologist Gregory Ramey at Dayton Children’s in his Dayton Daily News article titled Adolescent Turmoil writes, â€Å"Teens feel the world so passionately. They live life differently from the rest of us. They experience intense sadness at things that appear trivial and escalate to extreme excitement at seemingly insignificant eventsâ€Å". He continues further, â€Å"They enjoy

Capitalism and Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Capitalism and Culture - Essay Example ived out of modern production.5 Separation is the beginning and end of spectacle.6 This is akin to the Marxist concept of alienation. In the Marxist concept of alienation, for example, the worker’s alienation from his product enabled the capitalist to appropriate the product for himself and in so doing was able to use the product to exploit further the proletariat. However, in the Debordian concept of spectacle, spectacle can be interpreted to have originated from the alienation of the proletariat from his produce and, at the same time, the Debordian perspective that spectacle would lead to further alienation suggest that a spectacle serves to alienate the proletariat and whole of society further away from their lives. Spectacle within society reinforces the reproduction of alienation.7 In a figure of speech, Debord said that â€Å"the spectacle is capital to such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image.†8 In particular, Debord pointed out that â€Å"the spec tacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life.†9 The spectacle arises because of tendency of use value to fall and the consumer has to become a consumer of illusion through spectacle.10 The spectacle is associated with the abundance of commodities under modern capitalism.11 In this society of the spectacle, the historical mission is to install truth.12 II. Class Lecture’s on Debord’s â€Å"Society of the Spectacle† Our class lectures on capitalism and culture have pointed out that the idea of a consumer society was popularized sometime after World War II. Consumer societies have been pointed out to have emerged in the mid-1950s when consumer objects and products became more widely available. The â€Å"Situationist† perspective or â€Å"situationism† is a response to the emerging consumer society immediately after World War II. Our class lectures have pointed out that the perspective originally develop ed out of artistic avant-garde. Our class lectures have also pointed out that the movements that opposed have become commodities themselves after World War II as rapid industrialization required skills and a tremendously large labor force. Our class lectures have pointed out that for Guy Debord that life as spectacle has become real throughout capitalist society. Our class lectures have pointed out our ideals for living have been defined by the mass media through the direct and subliminal messages they have injected in our minds through what we read, see on television and movies, and through the messages that we derive from street advertising and billboards. The magazines, the literature, the movies, the newspapers, and the media created representations of what an ideal life in our society consist of. Living has become a spectacle and the spectacle has become more real than our actual life. For example, our class lectures have pointed out that we know more about Bradd Pitt than we k now of our immediate

Excercise and Obesity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Excercise and Obesity - Essay Example That is, too high caloric intake and too low caloric consumption. A lot of researches about obesity have focused on factors that lead to this imbalance. This paper will basically examine the relationship between obesity and exercise (duration of exercise). Some statistical results suggest that exercise has a negative and statistically significant effect on the probability of being obese. However, taking into consideration the potential endogeneity of exercise duration in the BMI regressions, some studies suggests that there is no negative relationship between obesity and exercise (Plowman & Smith, 2008). Studies that have been carried out to determine the relationship between obesity and exercise; and quite a number of the studies have resulted in general results that obesity is negatively related to the duration of exercise. The studies have generalized a sample to a population. Assumptions are vital concept of empirical studies. Just like any other empirical study, this study applies some statistical assumptions in order to achieve the much needed results. These assumptions include: The following statistical tools can be useful in determining the relationship between obesity and exercise. Correlation techniques can be used to determine the relationship between obesity and exercise. The independent variable of the study is exercise while the dependent variable is obesity. The study can mainly duel on correlation and regression for data analysis. The analysis may involve getting the correlation and regression coefficients for both the variables that affect obesity and that influence duration of income. Correlation coefficient is important in showing whether and how strongly age and income status are related. The study is linear in nature hence Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient can be used to determine the strength and direction of the linear relationship between exercise and obesity. The value of Pearson’s correlation coefficient is influenced

Politics is to be done by one or a few, not by many Essay

Politics is to be done by one or a few, not by many - Essay Example According to Aristotle, individuals who are naturally able to come up with a generation of powerful and leading members of a community for political positions are chosen to represent the highest point in government (Aristotle, 80). These members of a community with exceptional attributes and features make leadership associated with only one or a few but not many. On the other hand, citizens who submit to be governed by these special leaders are placed on political command which implies that they are adapted for aristocracy. In addition to this, the leaders end up well-matched for constitutional freedom, existing naturally as a group capable of ruling and creating way for other well to do leaders (Aristotle, 81) Owing to this account, in case an entire family or one person turns out to be so preeminent leading to surpassing everyone else in a nation, then it is evident that they need to be royal families and ultimate to all. This is easily explained when one person stands and becomes a king of an entire country. Aristotle further suggests that giving select individuals an opportunity to lead is not only acceptable to the basis of right, which the initiators of all nations, whether aristocratic or oligarchic or in addition democratic, are familiar with, but works with the already established leadership policies. In fact, it is not justifiable to kill, or ostracize or put to exile this kind of person or suggest that they should take their turn in being ruled (Aristotle, 196).

Should the drinking age be lowered from 21 to a younger age Essay

Should the drinking age be lowered from 21 to a younger age - Essay Example As a highly controversial issue, it has both positive and negative sides if the drinking age is lowered. Researches have documented the fact that alcohol abuse is the one of the major problems among the adults. It has paved the way for various problems such as increasing of alcohol related crime and antisocial activities, traffic violation resulting in accidents, health problems, socio-economic disturbance etc. Lowering of drinking age is acceptable only under strict legal supervisions. The problem mainly relate to adult people who are subjected to crucial physiological and psychological changes. Lowering of minimum drinking age from 21 to younger age will entail severe social and health problems among the youth and it needs effective legal monitoring to ensure its positive results. While in any other issue, in the context of lowering of drinking age also there are two groups of people. One group supports the lowering of drinking age from 21 and the other who does not want to lower this age. Each of these groups has their own opinion to support their stand and to oppose the other view. Even at this stage, when the legal drinking age is 21, teenagers do drink under less restricted surroundings causing them to indulge in life threatening behaviors. The age of 18 bring youngsters the civil rights and entitle them to vote, get wedded, sign bonds, join the armed forces, etc. which show their accountability towards their life and death. So, this age is important for them to make their own decisions regarding drinking habits also. Richard Wilson and Cheryl A. Kolander comment that; â€Å"This movement was also supported by the state of the art in prevention at that time, which suggested that keeping alcohol consumption forbidden to those younger than age 21 created an aura of â€Å"forbidden fruit† that made alcohol even more appealing as a symbol of adulthood and created much more destructive drinking practices on the part of the

Caring in a technological world Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Caring in a technological world - Assignment Example Accurate documentation and integration of medical treatments and confidentiality is a pre requisite for the nursing staff as it endeavors to promote effective communication. Informatics plays a major role in communication in health care today. Use of cell phones and internet as tools for communication between physicians and patients is useful. It makes the patients to make informed decisions and focus on questions that they seek to ask their physicians because they provide written texts. They are also efficient because they provide a mode of communication though both parties may not be present at the same time (Ball, 2000). Research in the last decade showed that nearly 100,000 people die annually in the U.S.A due to medical errors (Ball, 2000). The introduction of medical informatics has led to the steep decline of these numbers. The technology can be used in diagnoses and treatments of patients. The invention of the COSTAR (Computer Stored Ambulatory Record) shows improvement in cases of misdiagnosis as this application software has an electronic patient that reminds clinicians and physicians about the guidelines of medical practice (Ball, 2000). There are also computerized programs that assist the physicians on the line of proper antibiotics to be prescribed. Processing prescriptions through this system ensure that the possibility of errors is reduced by over 45% (Ball, 2000). Managing knowledge involves proper dissemination of intrinsic and valued information after its acquisition. This information can be patient specific or evidence based. Examples of such information include electronic medical records and administrative (Ball, 2000). The ability to put into use the knowledge derived from informatics is the determinant of success of these systems. Health care information should be managed to promote confidentiality and the integrity of such data. These data should only be accessible to the appropriate individuals.

Human impact on the natural enviornment Research Paper

Human impact on the natural enviornment - Research Paper Example People for instance need timber for building and for fuel, but obtaining it means cutting down trees that are an important aspect of the natural environment. In view of this, the purpose of this paper is to explore the actual human impact on the natural environment. Human impact on vegetation Human existence has a significant impact on plant life. Since the pre-historic times, human beings have greatly relied on plant life for food, shelter and clothing among other uses. With rapid urbanization and the growth of populations, green patches have shrunk to alarming levels, thus requiring a re-evaluation of the interactions between humans and the natural vegetation. Human beings impact the vegetation in various ways. Some of the disruptions to the natural vegetation are fire, deforestation for building materials and cultivation of land. Human beings have used fire since pre-historic times. Fire was an important resource for various reasons such as protection from wild animals at night, c ommunication, clearing forests and in war. Similarly, the impact of fire on the natural environment has been immense. Fires may be caused by human beings or they may occur naturally. Natural fires may be as a result of lightening strikes, sliding rocks and land slides. They may also result from spontaneous combustion, which is the accumulation of heat as a result of thick, compacted and rotten plants (Goudie 26). The effects of fire on the environment depend on its scope, duration and intensity. The nature of fire will determine the extent of the destruction it causes. While some only affect ground vegetation, others will burn out whole forests (Goudie 27). The impact of fire on the vegetation is sometimes positive. The existence of some landscapes on earth such as tropical savannas, medium latitude savannas and grasslands is attributed fires. In some instances, fires are believed to help in the germination of dormant seeds, whereby once a fire burns out, seeds that were lying dorma nt in the soil start germinating naturally (Goudie 29). At the same time, some plants have become adapted to fire as it facilitates their germination and decomposition. Some areas which are prone to fires actually show greater diversity in terms of different species thus enhancing the stability of the natural environment (Goudie 30). Human impact on water Water is an important element of the natural environment. One of its key roles in the environment is the recycling of different substances. As a solvent, it carries suspended materials as it flows through and into the earth’s surface. Effects of human beings on water areas include the direct pollution of water resources, through directing noxious wastes into water bodies. The cutting down of trees also impacts water resources, as it leads to increased down stream flow by decreasing evaporation and transpiration. Trees, through their own transpiration process increase evaporation, which then turns into precipitation on encoun tering cold air. As a result, cutting down trees reduces the chances of precipitation, which in turn affects the amount of water available to flowing streams (Haigh and Krecek 2). Human activities such as clearing of forests and plowing of grasslands change the rate at which water and streams flow and the level water infiltration (Meyer 172). Other human activities that affect water include irrigation, which lowers the intensity and volume of

Community Practice Essay Example for Free

Community Practice Essay Facilitating and obstructing factors for development of learning in clinical practice: a student perspective. Issues and innovations in Nursing Education. Journal of Advanced Nursing 34(1), 43–50; Priest, H. , 2004. Phenomenology. Nurse Researcher 11(4), 4–6; Stockhausen, L. , 2005. Learning to become a nurse: student nurses’ reflections on their clinical experiences. Australian Journal of Nursing 22(3), 8–14). The data were analysed using content analysis techniques, exploring their contextual meaning through the development of emergent themes (Neuendorf, K. A. 2002. The Content Analysis Guidebook. Sage Publications, London). The identified themes related to elements of students’ basic skill acquisition, the development of their working relationships with mentors, patients and others, the learning opportunities offered by community practice placements and the effects that such placements had on their confidence to practice. These themes are discussed with regard to the published literature, to arrive at conclusions and implications for future nursing education, practice and research. Author: M. R. Baglin Source: http://www. urseeducationinpractice. com/article/S1471-5953(09)00110-3/abstract Community nursing competencies: a comparison of educator, administrator, and student perspectives. Perceptions of functioning levels of baccalaureate students nearing graduation were assessed, comparing views of 15 educators, 15 health department administrators, and 185 students. A modified list of the 47 essential public health nursing competencies identified through the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services Division of Nursing served as the basis for data collection and analyses. Student competencies in individual skills were ranked higher than group and community competencies by all three groups surveyed. Students ranked competencies at higher levels than educators and educators at higher levels than administrators. Although administrators continue to advise new graduates to work in acute care before entering community health, support for continuation of this practice was not observed based on administrator ratings. Author: Nickel JT,  Pituch MJ,  Holton J,  Didion J,  Perzynski K,  Wise J,  McVey B. Source: http://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/7899221 Enhancing students perspectives of health through non-traditional community experiences. The shift in emphasis to community-based health care necessitates that opportunities be provided for nursing students to acquire an understanding of the complex nature of health. A qualitative study was used to demonstrate the benefits accrued by junior baccalaureate nursing students in non-traditional community settings. Key themes that emerged from data analysis included definitions of health and illness as context specific, and environmental factors influencing health. The study demonstrated that learning experiences with diverse communities can broaden students perspectives and understanding of health behaviours. Students gained an appreciation of the sociocultural variation in meanings of health and illness as well as of the social and political dimensions of health. Author: Sword W,  Noesgaard C,  Majumdar B. Source: http://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/8313070 Student Nurse Attitudes Towards Homeless Clients: a challenge for education and Practice The purpose of this research was to describe attitudes of nursing students (and paramedic officers) towards marginalized clients. Convenience quota sampling in a major health faculty was employed. Students participated on a voluntary basis. A 58-item Likert scale, developed by the authors, assessed the student nurses’ attitudes. In general, attitudes towards homeless clients were neutral; detailed analyses, however, revealed that student nurses would decline to care for homeless clients in various situations. Personal experience with homeless patients and positive attitudes of nurses significantly contributed to increased quality of care and equality of treatment for homeless clients. Certain student nurse behaviors warrant immediate attention to prevent marginalized patients from being exposed to unfair, inaccessible and biased nursing care. Based on our results, we recommend that further research attention be paid to the role of ethics education and faculty behaviors, as faculty members serve as role models for professionalization. Zoltan Balogh Semmelweiss University, Budapest, Hungary,  [emailprotected] hu,[emailprotected] int Source: http://nej. sagepub. com/content/11/4/334. abstract Author: Miklos Zrinyi world Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Student Nurses Learn Lessons in Community Health on Tribal Reservations University of Washington School of Nursing students have the unique opportunity to complete a community health rotation on one of two Native American reservations on Washington’s Kitsap Peninsula—the only rural public health clinical offered by the school of nursing. The experience has not only helped students learn about a unique group of people, but also how to relate to any patient population in future community health work. Recently, teams of student nurses were assigned to the Fort Gamble S’klallam reservation and to the Suquamish reservation, focusing on four different projects. One group of students partnered with family services personnel in an obesity prevention program mirroring TV’s â€Å"The Biggest Loser,† in which the person who lost the most weight won a car. Other students developed a nutrition program for an early childhood development center. A third group was involved in educating the staff of an early childhood development center about the prevention of Hepatitis B infections. The remaining group conducted and transcribed interviews with individuals for a community assessment. The goal of the assessment was to understand the community’s perception of its strengths and problem issues and to discover which issues were most important to the community. Author: Megan M. Krischke, Source: http://insightsinnursing. com/2009/07/student-nurses-learn-from-community-immersion/ Foreign studies Foreign nurses can slip into communication  gap According to (marshall 2009) it’s not politically correct — but it’s a frequent complaint of hospital patients in Las Vegas: â€Å"The nurses don’t speak English! The complaint is inaccurate. Foreign nurses working in Las Vegas do speak English. All have passed English language competency exams to become licensed in Nevada. But the complaint also contains an element of truth. More than 15 percent of the Las Vegas nursing workforce is internationally trained, about five times the national averag e of 3. 5 percent, according to an expert at UNLV. Most of these nurses are from Asian countries — the Philippines, India, Japan and Korea. Their English is often heavily accented and they may not understand the nuances of American culture and lingo — which can create challenges for patients and doctors. Xu’s research has shown that foreign nurses have a difficult transition to the American health care system. A study he conducted on Chinese nurses in the United States found they often felt socially isolated and paralyzed by their communication inadequacies. Foreign nurses are also forced to adjust to differences in the job description in the United States, Xu’s research has shown. Asian nurses are accustomed to family members doing tasks like bathing and feeding the patient, and may feel such jobs are beneath their level of education, one of his studies found. Language and communication problems can have a direct effect on the quality of patient care, and on the perceptions patients have of their care, Xu said. An estimated 100,000 people die every year as the result of medical errors in the United States, and communication problems are believed to be a leading cause. Xu said it’s impossible to know how much internationally trained nurses contribute to medical errors because the area is grossly understudied. Author: Marshall Allen Source: http://www. lasvegassun. com/news/2009/mar/10/foreign-nurses-can-fall-communication-gap/ A Study of the Drivers of Commitment amongst Nurses: The Salience of Training, Development and Career Issues According to (McCabe etal 2) this study is to highlight factors influencing the commitment of nurses, and particularly focuses on the role of training, development and career issues. It provides the basis for a HRD framework, outlining policy choices in developing high commitment amongst nursing staff. Design/methodology/approach: The main themes and sub-themes relating to the drivers of commitment and the role of training, development and career issues were identified and explored employing a grounded theory, constant omparative approach. Findings: The main fault-line between nurses and the organization concerned resource management, and the introduction of general management concepts and practices. HRD practitioners should consider using the language and terms of reference familiar to nurses when devising HRD initiatives. Factors positively influencing the commitment of nurs ing staff included shared values, involving a sense of vocational commitment towards patient care and nursing. Strong leadership, particularly concerning the role of line management, was seen as important in influencing commitment. Teamwork and support, from both line management and colleagues, was also important. Training and development were highly regarded by nurses, and could be a useful way of recognizing and acknowledging their contribution to health care delivery. Career progression and greater involvement were viewed favourably by some nurses and unfavourably by others. The main issue concerned the possible substitution of nurse practitioner responsibilities with administrative and managerial responsibilities. Research limitations/implications: The findings are solely based on interviews with nursing staff from two NHS organizations. In exploring the various drivers of commitment and the role of training, development and career issues the studys focus was towards depth, as opposed to breath, of investigation. Practical implications: Valuable information for HRD practitioners and researchers on the drivers of commitment amongst nursing staff and the role played by training, development and career issues is provided. Originality/value: This paper is a useful study on exploring commitment amongst nursing staff and ways in which HRD practitioners and researchers can facilitate and develop commitment. The DoLE official added that while waiting for a chance to be employed overseas, nurses can venture into and already start income generating projects. However, she admitted that the high demand for nurses abroad is a really attractive career to pursue because of its obvious economic returns. Meanwhile, Pineda disclosed that the continuing demand for Filipino nurses overseas is expected to intensify, as the world’s northern countries experience longer lifespans and the graying of their population in the next five to ten years is sure to see the deployment of local nurses. Countries that will continue to offer employment opportunities include the Gulf States in the Middle East such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman,† she said. Further, European countries including the United Kingdom and Ireland will also continue hiring Filipino nurses, even as new markets are emerging in Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Netherlands. Canada, too, is a new market, while Australia and New Zealand likewise offer

Marine Pollution Essay Example for Free

Marine Pollution Essay From our early years in school, our science teachers have taught us that two thirds or roughly 70% of the surface of the Earth is covered by water. And yet it is probably the most neglected element in the environment. The oceans are home to a diverse number of wildlife and an important source of food for most of the inhabitants of the earth, including humans. From this fact alone, the importance of the ocean can’t be more emphasized. Besides being a source of food, the ocean also provides us with various medicines through the abundance of life that it produces. Around 500 types of sea species have potentially cancer curing chemicals (WWF fact sheet, n. d). Marine Pollution In layman’s terms, marine pollution is simply the destruction of the quality of water through contamination, but in scientific terms, marine pollution is the â€Å"distortion of marine environment health† (Sinha, 1998). Anything that we dump to a body of water that is not supposed to be there is marine pollution. The question whether the act of dumping is intentional or not is irrelevant because the intention does not reduce the damage done to the body of water. It has been once thought that the ocean is so vast that it would be able to dilute all the wastes that are put in it. Of course we know now that this is not true. We have polluted the oceans so much, and in a lot of different ways, that we are now feeling the effects of our neglect. We have to stop marine pollution now if we, and the generations after us are to enjoy our world’s number one resource. Sources of Pollution: Causes, Effects, and Solutions Oil Pollution – according to the National Research Council, the oceans suffer more than it seems in the news. Occasionally, major oil spills reach our television screens but so much more is dumped into the ocean every year and they are not even because of accidents (NRC, 1985). Major oil spills are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to oil polluting the ocean. Oil spills are just more visual, because they are televised most (or some) of the time, but oil spills from ships or platforms are just some of the reasons on how oil can be dumped into the ocean. The following graph shows that major oil spills is second to the least source of the total oil that reaches the oceans. Source: Ocean Planet. Oil Pollution. The part that shows the most contribution to oil pollution is known as the run-off effect. It is the combination of all the oil that is spilled in land that seeps through the soil and find its way to the ocean. Run-off pollution is very harmful to the environment and our health. Not only does it damage the oceans but it also damages the smaller bodies of water that the oil used to reach the ocean. The oil can disrupt marine life, and ultimately destroy it (MarineBio, n. d. ) Lots of marine animals are killed due to oil spills because they come in direct contact with the oil, hindering their movement, and therefore their chances of survival, not to mention that the oil is toxic. Despite the decreasing popularity of oil, it would be always there as long as humans can extract them from the earth, so we can’t stop collecting them. What we can do, is to pass laws that would make present laws on the oil production business stricter, and therefore safer. But as mentioned, direct oil spills on the ocean are the least of our worries. We must properly dispose the oils that we use in land because it contributes the most in mixing that oil with our waters. Toxic Chemicals – oil is just one of the pollutants that contribute to the destruction of marine environmental health. There are a number of toxic chemicals out there that are spilled in to the ocean. These chemicals don’t just contaminate the water, the creatures of the sea are also contaminated and create a domino effect on all those that belong to its food chain. We should be concerned about these toxic chemicals because we are part of that food chain (assuming that most people eat fish). â€Å"†¦many pollutants accumulate in marine organisms, humans are exposed to pollutants when they consume food from polluted areas. † Some studies have shown that humans that eat a lot of seafood are prone to chemicals such as dioxins, furans, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s) and a number of heavy metals (Dewailly et al. 1999). Like oil, toxic chemicals also find their way to the ocean due to the run-off effect, although sometimes accidents at sea can cause direct spillage of toxic chemicals into the ocean. These are chemicals being transported by ships and somehow, by whatever reason, end up where it should not be. These chemicals destroy the environment much like how oil does, the only difference is some toxic chemicals are invisible. Seemingly harmless seafood products can be contaminated by these chemicals and be transmitted to our body if we consume them. One of these toxic chemicals is a marine antifouling paint ingredient called tributylin. Trubutylin is known to have some bad effects on gastropods and molluscs (Matthiessen and Law 2002). Perhaps the best way reduce chemical spills is to minimize our use of these toxic chemicals. They are toxic anyway ,so we might as well not use them. Use of alternative products in place of these chemicals might be possible, safer, and more environment friendly products. Anything that is harmful to the environment should be phased out or at least be used in moderation. The effects of these chemicals to the environment and our health are far too great for us to continue to use them. Other Pollutants – apart from oil and toxic chemicals, there are other toxins that add up to marine pollution. Some of these are sewage, plastic, and dredged materials. Most sewage still find their way to the ocean, sewage contain nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen and phosphorus is what some toxic algae thrives on. These toxic algae consume the oxygen of an affected area making it a dead zone. One incident happened just a few years ago and is mentioned in the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Fact sheet for marine pollution: A few years ago a massive slick of poisonous algae spread through the channels, which separate the coasts of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The slime affected 200km of coastline, killed millions of fish and forced tourist beaches to close (WWF, n. d). Plastic is the most common trash found on the ocean. They are non-biodegradable materials, they take an eternity of years to be broken down by nature. While at their current un-broken state, plastics can be mistaken by marine creatures for food which is most of the time lethal to them. If animals aren’t killed by eating them mistakenly, they are caught by it, strangling them until they drown, or reduce their capacity to move, making them prone to attack from predators. Finally, dredged materials are things that are removed because of construction purposes. Dredged materials may contain harmful chemicals that are dumped into the ocean and cause sediments to form on coral reefs (WWF n. d) Conclusion These are just some of the reasons why we should stop polluting our oceans and our environment in general. Our oceans surround us, any ill effects that it experience would surely be felt by the inhabitants of the earth. The effects that are caused by marine pollution can be so devastating that it can alter our way of life as we know it. Food supplies, possible medicines, and the overall health of the planet is based on the health of the oceans. We must do everything we can in order to preserve it, for our own, and our children’s sake. Reference World Wildlife Foundation. (n. d). Fact Sheet no. 30: Marine Pollution. November 7, 2008. from: http://www. wwf. org. hk/eng/pdf/references/factsheets/factsheet30. PDF Sinha, P. C. (1998). Marine Polution. November 7, 2008. from: http://books. google. com. ph/books? id=XcWGR-w4-HkCpg=PA19lpg=PA19dq=Marine+Pollution+Argumentssource=blots=fnpHZgsWKIsig=WiDQH-ietk7MZPJviDXhjEC6tkchl=tlsa=Xoi=book_resultresnum=2ct=result#PPP1,M1 – National Research Council. 1985. Oil in the sea. National Academy Press, Washington D. C. November 7, 2008. from: http://seawifs. gsfc. nasa.gov/ocean_planet_scripts/footnote. pl? per1+1 Marine Bio. org (n. d). Ocean Dumping Grounds. November 7, 2008. From: http://marinebio. org/Oceans/OceanDumping. asp Dewailly E, Mulvad G, Pedersen HS, Ayotte P. , Demers A, Weber JP, et al. 1999. from Concentration of organochlorines in human brain, liver, and adipose tissue autopsy samples Greenland. Environment Health Perspective 107:823-828. Matthiessen P, Law RJ. 2002. Contaminants and their effects on estuarine and coastal organisms in the United Kingdom in the late twentieth century. Environment Pollution 120:739-747.

Education Systems In Australia, Singapore And The Uae

Education Systems In Australia, Singapore And The Uae The primary goal of this project is not just to study, analyze and assess the currently prevalent systems of education being followed in Australia, Singapore and the UAE but also to be able to draw a comparative analysis citing the advantages and drawbacks of these in comparison to each other. For this purpose, it is important for us to understand what an education system of a country means and how they can vary with respect to each other. Education is defined as an act that is responsible for having a positive developing impact on the person indulging in it, not just on the mind, but the character as well as the physical and mental abilities of the individual. Education is a means through which the society in general is responsible for the transmission of all the collective knowledge set along with certain values and the acquired skill that has been accumulated over the generations. This makes education a sequential continuous process and therefore, different countries and societies and establishments employ different techniques as deemed correct and necessary by them to transmit this knowledge. Education system in Australia In Australia, education is considered by the system as the responsibility of the respective states or the territories as appropriate. The state governments are held responsible for being able to provide the funds for education as well as regulate and monitor public and private schools. The federal government, on the other hand, is engaged in funding the universities, which however set their own curriculum. In Australia, like in a lot of other places around the world, a three-tier based system or model is followed which comprises a compulsory primary education for all in primary schools, which is then followed up by a secondary education in secondary/high schools. The final tier in this system in the tertiary education in federal government managed universities or TAFE colleges across the country. The Australian system of education has been ranked at 6th for their Reading on a worldwide scale, on 8th for their Sciences and on 13th for their Mathematics also on worldwide scales by the Programme for International Studnt Assessment in the year 2006. Also, Australia has been listed as 0.993, being among the leading in that scales, in the Education Index that as published by the UN in 2008. They are tied at the first position for Education Index with other countries like Denmark, Finland and New Zealand. Education in Australia is mandatory till a specified age, which may vary between states which have complete jurisdiction over the education in their respective states. However, this age varies between 15-17 years in general, which means that education up to the secondary level is compulsory for all. Besides monitoring and regulating the activities of a school in a state by the state government, each state also has a Vocational Education and Training(VET) or otherwise a Technical and Further Education system(TAFE). The main objective and function of VET is to be able to prepare people for work in a career that may not necessarily need a university degree to be attained. It is the responsibility of each state in Australia to manage and coordinate their own system for VET and the training and education of individuals and prepare them for their work, and state representatives meet on a national level to synchronize and coordinate their efforts and unify them in a common direction towards the education of these individuals for specified tasks. Also, the national meet ensures that VET continues to be acknowledged between different states and remain applicable and valid even if a personal travels from one state to another. A VET course done in on particular state is applicable in all t he other states within the Australian domain. Typically, the course of VET takes around two years of study. The universities in all the states are funded by the central or the national government. However, each of these universities is entitled to set their own course curriculum and the government has no jurisdiction over this matter. However, for a course to run in a university set by its governance, the course must be endorsed by some professional body. A course in one of the universities in Australia takes a time period of roughly three to four years at the minimum. In the work place and the offices as well as other places of employment, the employers take into account only the courses endorsed by some professional body to employ new staff for the purpose of training or employment. The training received as one of the ongoing work places of a company, if provided in some form of documentation, adds to the advantage of the student and counts into the overall qualification of a student pursuing a course. Education system in Singapore the entire system of education in Singapore is coordinated, and managed by the Ministry of Education, or the MOE, which has the responsibility of controlling the proper governance, development and management of the state schools, which receive funding from the central government. The government also has a role in advising and supervising the activities of private schools. There are set principles to determine the role of the government in the curriculum and the autonomy the schools have, along with the nature and kind of aids that the government provides and the admission policy to the various private and public schools. There are SPEDs or schools with special education for children with disabilities and the funds for these come in parts from Voluntary Welfare Organizations as well as the MOE and the national budget, of which about 20% is contributed to these schools. In Singapore, education is compulsory till the age of primary school level, and it is a criminal offence for parents to not be able to provide their wards with this. English is the primary medium of communication in the education system in Singapore and is even the first language for the children in their preschool age. The education system in Singapore is defined as world-leading and it is one of the very few that were picked out especially for praise by the education minister Michael Gove of the United Kingdom. Singapore also follows a system which is in a manner of speaking a three-tier model but in existence has four fundamental levels. The difference comes in the precollege/pre-university level which is considered an intermediate level between school and college but essentially is an extension of senior school itself. The following tiers are maintained in the learning process of a student right from the beginning: Kindergarten: the first phase in the education cycle is the preschool phase or the kindergarten. This is meant for children from ages groups three to six years, after which they move to the next level of education. Primary school: this is the post kindergarten phase which is further divided into the following: Foundation stage, in which a basic introduction is given to the students about English, their mother tongue or a regional language, Mathematics, History and Civics and sometimes even basic sciences. The next is the orientation stage where more in depth knowledge in English, mathematics and other related courses is given depending on the ability of the student assessed so far in the preschool and the foundation stage. At the end of this, there is a primary school leaving examination (PSLE) conducted on the national level which determines whether a particular student is ready to leave the primary school at this stage. Also, the scores in this examination determine what seat the student gets in the secondary level of education. Secondary education: based on the score achieved in the PSLE, the students get different tracks or streams in the secondary school. The different streams or tracks are: Special, Express, Normal (Academic), or Normal (Technical). At this level, the aim of the education system in Singapore is to make a clear distinction between students belonging to different levels of aptitude. This has its pros as well as cons. The criticism made against this system is that the age of ten to twelve years in a students life is too less to make a comparison of him with his other peers and it may be de-motivational towards the student in not granting him a chance to study and excel with students of higher academic capabilities. Also, the distinction made creates a divide among the students and the general sense of belonging to the same class is lost. The sixth grade, some believe is too early for competitive studies and this kind and degree of competition can often become very difficult for the students to handle. However, the traditionalists believe that it is this system which is in a way helping students of all levels of aptitude cope with the pressure of academics. By putting all the high performers of the exam together and similarly, dividing the class up into separate sections, each having different difficulty levels of academics not only helps the weaker students as they no longer have to compete with the academically brilliant students who are not of the same league, but also the smarter students by putting them in a competitive environment where they get a chance to interact and learn with other students of similar potential. Hence, the Singapore system of education does believe in having students of equal intellect and aptitude studying together, while always emphasizing and encouraging the need for having a competitive environment where every student is aspiring to do well. The grading system followed by most of the schools in Singapore is similar to the one followed at the Singapore-Cambridge GCE examination at the level O. This exam is taken by students after they have completely about four to five years of education at the secondary level, with each student appearing for a minimum of six subjects or courses. The marks obtained in this exam have a corresponding grade attached to them and therefore, and these obtained grades have a meaning attached to them as mentioned below: A1/A2 (Distinction) B3/B4 (Merit) C5/C6 (Credit/Pass) D7 (Sub-Pass/fail, that is, passing at a lower standard in the exam or fail) E8/F9 (Fail) The overall total performance of a student academically is calculated through various different systems of scoring which include the L1R5, the L1R4 and L1B5 systems. For the purpose of evaluation of exams that are of a non-major kind, many schools are known to use the Mean Grade per subject method of evaluation. Schools that have currently been running the Integrated Program have also been known to use the GPA system for the purpose of evaluation, that is, the Grade Point Average method of grading. Extra-curricular and co-curricular activities are mandatory for all students at the secondary level in schools, in which all the students are required to participate in a minimum of one such activity, and this participation and their performance is graded along with other academic achievements through the four years of their education. This system of scoring is known as LEAPS (Leadership, Enrichment, Achievement, Participation, Service). There are however a few criticisms made of the prevalent education system in Singapore, often by parents of students there, that the education system is too rigid, sometimes even elitist and over-specialized in certain cases. A sharp contrast to the education system in the United States, an often faced criticism is that there is little or no support and encouragement in the system for creative thinking and little emphasis on arts and creative vision. The argument put in response to this has always been that the students of Singapore have always outperformed the others from different parts of the world in international competitions of mathematics as well as the sciences. However, what is argued is that the fact that Singaporean students performing better shows only that they are better prepared and more oriented towards preparing for these particular kinds of examinations than developing skills and the ability of free creative and critical thinking. Education System in UAE With the amelioration that United Arab Emirates has been undergoing over the past few years, one can very well predict the development in the system of education. The administration of the country has not only increased academic opportunities in big cities like Abu Dhabi and Dubai abut also in every remote area constituting the country geography. The country now has mature enough to offer education comprehensively to students ranging from kindergarten and going all the way to university levels. In fact the academics department has also made education free to the citizens of the country. This is the reason that the policies like Emiritization are seen to be successful in UAE. The students are being trained from the early days so that once they are grown-ups they have the capability to beat the best in the world. Moving further into the advancements that the countrys education has seen in the recent past, private education is provided to children of both sexes who pursue higher educati on abroad. Several thousand students in the country have done exceptionally well and have also made the country proud by being amongst the best by this system of the country. If one compares the education system existing in the country in the 1970s when the seven Emirates were formed, there has been a drastic change. With consistent policies of privatisation, UAE has been going great guns. This can be seen in the re-evaluation of the Governments role. There is a special organization in the countrys capital that is looking after this privatisation policy helping the country and its citizens mutually. This body is called the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC). Pioneer institutions like United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), Zayed University (ZU) and also Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) are doing a remarkable job in the context. So, now that the country is seeing so many reforms, one can very well see that the motive behind the same is the country wants its youth to be able to mee t the challenges of the new century. Also, the quality of education given to the individuals is good enough so that once they are graduates; they are capable enough to have jobs in the corporate world. (UAE Education Centre General information, 2010) The country has provided the following breakdown to the education system: Kindergarten: 4 -5 years old Primary: length of programme 6 years old with an age level between 6-12 years old Preparatory: length of programme 3 years old with an age level between 12-15 years old Secondary: length of programme 3 years old with an age level between 15-18 years old In this program, secondary school certificate is awarded Technical Secondary School: length of programme 6 years old with an age level between 12-18 years old In this program technical secondary diploma is awarded The education system of the country has become so strict on the past few years that it has made primary education compulsory for all levels of the society without any discrimination of its citizens. The best part of the system is that the ratio of staff to children has been kept as 1:20 which was much beyond reckoning when the Emirates were formed. This ratio is increased to 1:15 at intermediate and secondary levels of education. Another very significant mark in the development of the education system in the country is the formation of Federation. The weekend schedule of the education system was also revised in the year 2006 with Friday and Saturday being considered to constitute the weekend. Levels of Education Primary and Secondary Education As it has been mentioned, education at this level has been made compulsory in the part of the world. It has four-tiers in this sector. This has been mentioned as follows: 4-5 years old: Kindergarten 6-11 years old: primary Schools 12-14: Preparatory Stage 15-17: Secondary School In order to ensure that the children of this age are well-equipped with Islamic principles and the traditional culture of the place, the teaching staff is also chosen in the basis of Emiritization to an extent which would reach 90% by the end of year 2020. At the moment, the number of pupils attending primary school is of the order of 40%. Many of them offer foreign language courses as well but at the same time maintain the integrity of the place. The Government has allowed admissions to expatriates but on the basis of merit which would also levy fees. As far as the citizens of the country are concerned, they are experiencing the highly liberal policies of ADEC where the organization has taken the responsibility to bear all the fees of model school. Integration with Zayed University has also planned to improve English speaking capability of the masses. There are 30 faculty members from the same to look after English speaking courses in the schools at the primary and secondary levels. (Zayed University announces the five year strategic plan , 2009) IT Education The Ministry of Education in UAE is making its best possible efforts so that the plans and strategies related to the development of educational programs are able to meet international standards. As a part of all the educational strategies made by the company, there is special attention given to the introduction of latest IT resources at every level of education. Being at par with the latest IT services would make the country highly competitive on the global front. The education system is working on providing a computer amongst every ten children at the kindergarten level. The stupendous success of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid IT Education Project (ITEP) has advanced the IT system of education in the country. It has not only installed various labs in the region but it has also provided a highly valuable education resource available at www.itep.ae. ITEP serves about 40 schools in the country so far including about 13,000 students. The success rate of the students is of the order of 97%! Higher Education The most remarkable fact about UAE education is that it has been able to diversify itself in very little time. The Government institutions are available free of charge. Even some internationally accredited private institutions are also available free of charge making it highly easy for the citizens to receive impeccable education. Universities like United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) offers leading research facilities in higher education. There are more than 70 undergraduate degrees and also a substantial number of streams at the graduate level. As the country has now collaborated with many international institutions, the quality and diversity of education has gone up tremendously. Talking about Al Ain, there is more than 280,000 square meters of space available for residential as well as educational purposes. The country is also focussing to a large extent on public-private partnership in education. Top organizations of the fame of Mubadala Development Company and also UAEU have undergone the execution of a 30-yrs concession agreement. This will allow BOOT (Build Own Operate and Transfer) basis development. (build, own, operate, transfer, 2010) Zayed University This University was established with a motive to educate the women citizens of UAE. It has a facility of the worth of 370 million Dhms which encompasses an area as large as 711,000 square metres. There are in all six colleges with different departments and laboratories. The academic division of the university has been mentioned as follows: Arts and Sciences Business Sciences Communication and Media Sciences Education Information Systems The main motive of the University is to infuse bilingual knowledge in both English and Arabic with a proficiency in IT and also a considerable capability of quantitative and research skills. The University has been undergoing tremendous innovations in the past few years. Dubai Internet City (DIC) is an example of this. ZU has also partnered with IBM so as to make an enhancement of its e-business and also communication activities. The University also organized, Women as Global Leaders conference in 2006. This is done to ensure that the students of the University are prepared well enough so that they could make an active participation in the society. Higher Colleges of Technology In order to provide technically a more sound system of education, a system of UAE colleges was devised in the year 1988. It started with only 4 colleges but has 12 colleges for men and 12 for women in cities like Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Fujairah. The advancement in the number of students has gone from 239 to 15,000 in only about 2 decades. There are a number of examples in this area. As for example, Dubai Mens College provides a cent percent digital atmosphere. Academic assignments, examination mark sheets, the number of classes missed and also the library can now be accessed online in the college. The commercial arm of Higher Colleges of Technology is Applied Research and Training (CERT) has made a number of alliances with multinational firms and many elite organizations which helps in the professional development in the region. CERT is also planning to make a separate CERT City. The idea behind doing the same is to have a fully integrated facility for research, innovation and also e ntrepreneurship. Conclusion of Comparison If one puts it on the developed and the developing scale, Australia and Singapore would certainly lie on the developed side and United Arab Emirates would lie on the developing scale. The reason for the same is that it has been only about 30 years since the formation of the Emirates. As we have seen, most of the development in the country has come from the making of the federation. Such bodies were significant mush before the UAE system of education even started. But as far as the growth in education system is concerned, one would definitely put UAE right on top. The provision of free and compulsory education for the citizens is one of the traits of a country that is developing its education system. But with the rate of growth that UAE has been witnessing over the past few years, in little time, the country would be able to catch up with the likes of Australia and Singapore which are relatively developed. Very soon the results of organization like ITEP and UAEU would certainly see in ternational levels. It is the collaboration with multi-national concerns that by the end of this decade, the country could be of the likes of Singapore and Australia. As far as the International Maths and Science Study is concerned, Singapore was placed at the first place showing the mark that it has made in the mentioned subjects. This is contrast with UAE where the focus has never been specifically on Maths and Science. As the stage of development has begun in the technological era, the country focuses largely on IT than in any other subject. The education system in Singapore is more specialized and rigid than any other country. It has also been seen that the education system in Singapore involves lesser amounts of creativity. As we have seen, there is also a segregation of the more intelligent ones and the lesser ones in the education system of Singapore. The teachers are also allotted in the same order of quality. This is likely to make the intelligent more intelligent but the lesser intelligent ones would not get a chance. This has been criticised especially in the primary and the secondary levels. (A guide to universities in Singapore, 2010) As far as Australia and UAE are concerned, there is a similarity in the fact that both the countries have implemented compulsory education at the primary level. But as far as Australia is concerned, this at times is not called education at the kindergarten level where play-school is highly prominent. Such availability is not very common in UAE. To be more precise, education is considered to be compulsory in Australia between 5 and 15 only. As far as world raking is concerned, the countrys rank of 6th in Reading, 8th in Science and 13th in Mathematics does place Australia behind Singapore in the latter two subjects. If one compares UAE for that matter, it does not even include Maths in its compulsory system of education. Moreover, there is a huge amount of consideration that is given to Arabic and English in order to make bilingual scholars. The conditions as we have seen are contradictory in both Australia and Singapore. Funding and management of the education system is looked after from territory which is different from that we have seen in the case of UAE. There are certain centralized bodies that have the authority to don the particular job. Moving on to the system of free education, as we have seen, UAE is a pioneer in providing free education. The case is not similar when compared to Australia and Singapore. In fact it is highly expensive to study in the two countries. When the same is compared to UAE, for the citizens it is absolutely free. This service continues for even abroad studies. Also, the existence of expatriate-citizen is more pronounced in UAE than in the other countries. Singapore and Australia do not have policies like Emiritization to educate the natives more liberally. There are many expatriates who have been going to Australia particularly for their education. UAE also allows meritorious expatriates to study with fees levied on them but it is not as much pronounced as in Australia and Singapore. The distribution of education is also more segregated in Australia as compared to UAE and Singapore. This is visible in the chart mentioned in the Australian education sector. As far as flexibility in switching subjects is concerned, Singapore in the most liberal of the three countries. This allows the students of Singapore to be able to choose a subject of their liking. Unlike the other two countries, Singapore allows continuously improved standards to target rather than a single target set of the highest standard and expectations. As we have seen, Singapore is also alleged to have educational streaming not giving equal opportunities to all to study. In UAE this is there with respect to natives and expatriates, but in Singapore it is on the basis of talent and intelligence. This should certainly be resurrected in the future so that Singapore can produce larger masses of qualifies professionals. As far as preparation for examination is concerned, Singapore is not considered to be a favourable place. This is because; the country has always ranked in Maths and Science and not in other subjects. This is an indication of rote learning which cant be considered to be optimal in the education system. But the Singapore Ministry of Education takes pride in the fact that it ranks in the Maths and Science streams as the countrys text books are sold as far as in North America. When it comes to Australia, as the level increases from primary to secondary, the countrys education system gets all the more regularized. This is taken care of from the primary level itself in UAE to a considerable extent. (Singapores Education System, 2010) References UAE Education Centre General information. (2010). Retrieved on July 27, 2010 from http://www.uaeinteract.com/education/ Zayed University announces the five year strategic plan. (2010). Retrieved on July 27, 2010 from http://www.ameinfo.com/198293.html Build, own, operate, transfer (BOOT). (2010). Retrieved on July 27, 2010 http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/build-own-operate-transfer-BOOT.html A guide to universities in Singapore .(2010). Retrieved on July 27, 2010 http://www.uniguru.com/studyabroad/Singapore/top-best-university/education-system-in-Singapore.html Yes Australia official website .(n.d.) retrieved on July 27, 2010 from http://www.yesaustralia.com/cursoestudo-sistemaensinoing.htm SG Box official website .(n.d.). retrieved on July 27 2010 from http://www.sgbox.com/singaporeeducation.html MOE official website. (n.d.). retrieved on July 27, 2010 from http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/

Computer Viruses :: essays research papers fc

IntroductionIn the past decade, computer and networking technology has seen enormous growth. This growth however, has not come without a price. With the advent of the "Information Highway", as it's coined, a new methodology in crime has been created. Electronic crime has been responsible for some of the most financially devastating victimizations in society. In the recent past, society has seen malicious editing of the Justice Department web page (1), unauthorized access into classified government computer files, phone card and credit card fraud, and electronic embezzlement. All these crimes are committed in the name of "free speech." These new breed of criminals claim that information should not be suppressed or protected and that the crimes they commit are really not crimes at all. What they choose to deny is that the nature of their actions are slowly consuming the fabric of our country's moral and ethical trust in the information age.Federal law enforcement agencies, as well as commercial computer companies, have been scrambling around in an attempt to "educate" the public on how to prevent computer crime from happening to them. They inform us whenever there is an attack, provide us with mostly ineffective anti-virus software, and we are left feeling isolated and vulnerable. I do not feel that this defensive posture is effective because it is not pro-active. Society is still being attacked by highly skilled computer criminals of which we know very little about them, their motives, and their tools of the trade. Therefore, to be effective in defense, we must understand how these attacks take place from a technical stand-point. To some degree, we must learn to become a computer criminal. Then we will be in a better position to defend against these victimizations that affect us on both the financial and emotional level. In this paper, we will explore these areas of which we know so little, and will also see that computers are really extensions of people. An attack on a computer's vulnerabilities are really an attack on peoples' vulnerabilities. Today, computer systems are under attack from a multitude of sources. These range from malicious code, such as viruses and worms, to human threats, such as hackers and phone "phreaks." These attacks target different characteristics of a system. This leads to the possibility that a particular system is more susceptible to certain kinds of attacks. Malicious code, such as viruses and worms, attack a system in one of two ways, either internally or externally.

Industrial Agriculture and the Loss of Biodiversity Essay -- Argumenta

Industrial Agriculture and the Loss of Biodiversity Preserving Diversity By Way Of Old Crop Varieties Traditional methods is indeed the most advantageous way to retain sustainable success in farming suggested by Stephen B. Brush in his research of the effect of diversity in agriculture. In "Genetic Diversity And Conservation In Traditional Farming Systems," he explains how analyzing genetic erosion and the loss of genetic resources eventually leads to environmental degradation. Various factors have led to nations turning to improved adoption varieties, primarily the Green Revolution and commercial markets. Brush explores the effects that the Green Revolution has had on resources and agriculture, and explains why nations are turning to markets. The Green Revolution brought an introduction and increase in genetic diversity, to all domains of agriculture, especially too much needed third world countries. Due to alterations in genetic resources, conventional methods were being replaced with modern agriculture that was producing exceptional yielding varieties. This surplus of yield led many small farmers to sell their products and also become principal players in the market. The success from this established the need for movement toward modern techniques and away from traditional cultures. On the contrary, Fowler and Mooney present a different viewpoint in their article "Shattering: food, politics, and the loss of genetic diversity." They assert that the Green Revolution only provided a short-lived solution to hunger, but not to the protection of the ecosystem (Fowler 176). They discussed the history and origin of the introduction of modern varieties, in which they ultimately stated that they might have created temp... ...ect diversity with traditional cultures (Nazarea 4). In my opinion, traditions need to be protected because they are the methods that have been working for so many years. Nevertheless, technology is crucial to helping to stabilize diversity. Improved varieties may not have been the best, enduring solution yet. There are other options out there that can be discovered with more research. I believe that the scientific world can find a precise median that will continuously nurture biodiversity. Until the optimal resolution is found we need to turn our ways back to traditional farming before it is too late. Works Cited Fowler, Cary, Mooney, Pat, "Shattering: food, politics, and the loss of genetic diversity."University of Arizona Press, Tucson. C.1990. Nazarea, Virginia, D., Cultural Memory and Biodiversity. The University Of Arizona Press, Tucson c.1998.