The Balanced Chemical Equation for Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis is the process in plants and certain other organisms that uses the energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose (a sugar) and oxygen. Equation 6 CO2   6 H2O → C6H12O6   6 O2   Where:CO2   carbon dioxide  H2O waterlight  is requiredC6H12O6   glucoseO2   oxygen Explanation In words, the equation may be stated as:  Six carbon dioxide molecules and six water molecules react to produce one glucose molecule and six oxygen molecules. The reaction requires energy in the form of light to overcome the activation energy needed for the reaction to proceed. Carbon dioxide and water dont spontaneously convert into glucose and oxygen.

Should The Legal Age Be Lowered - 1326 Words

Should the legal age be lowered? There are many arguments on why the legal drinking age should be lowered to eighteen. To some, lowering the drinking age to eighteen makes sense and to others it does not make sense at all. Most people believe that if eighteen year olds are old enough to make big decisions such as enlist in the Army, Navy, or other Military services then eighteen year olds are old enough to drink also. Not only does lowering the legal drinking age put the drinker at harm but also the people around the drinker. There are so many reasons why the legal drinking age should not be lowered, never less, three valid and proven reasons why the legal drinking age should not be lowered is, the effect on the brain, the safety of the drinker and the people around them, and the number of deaths that will increase. On July of 1984, the national drinking age was changed from eighteen to twenty-one. This law was passed thanks to Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MAAD). MAAD was founded b y Candy Lightner, a mother who lost her daughter to a drink driver. â€Å"In 1980, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, or MAAD, was founded by Candy Lightner after her 13-year-old daughter was killed on her way home from a school carnival by a drunk driver. The driver had three previous DUI convictions and was out on bail from a hit-and-run arrest two days earlier. When MAAD was founded in 1980, more than 21,000 people were killed in drunk driving crashes each year. Lightner and MAAD helped to changeShow MoreRelatedThe Legal Drinking Age Should Not Be Lowered973 Words   |  4 Pages The Legal Age for Drinking Alcohol Should Not Be Lowered To 18 In the United States. Every state has the right to set its own legal drinking age. However, according to George Will in an article he wrote in the Washington Post about the legal drinking age, â€Å"drinking age paradox† â€Å"lowering the drinking age will cost the state ten percent of its federal highway funds and cause a significant uproar from contractors and construction unions.† It is therefore in the best interest of every citizenRead MoreThe Legal Drinking Age Should Be Lowered955 Words   |  4 PagesIn the United States of America, the National Government requires the states to enforce a legal drinking age of twenty-one. Where as the world average drinking age is eighteen, and in some Countries it is even lower where it is possible to get a beer at sixteen years of age. Taking that into consideration, there is a great deal of controversy in the United States on what the legal age should be to purchase and consume an alcoholic beverage. The largest issue bein g that you are considered to be anRead MoreThe Legal Drinking Age Should Be Lowered1732 Words   |  7 PagesThe definition of the word adult is: â€Å"a person who has attained the age of maturity as specified by law†(Dictionary.com). If this is so, then why is it that in the United States 18 year olds are legally considered adults in our society, but they can’t legally buy or consume alcohol? Yet at this age they are able to vote in an election, get married, serve on a jury, live on their own, purchase cigarettes, adopt a child, and defend our country. These are not easy tasks for one to take on, yet our governmentRead MoreThe Legal Drinking Age Should Be Lowered1170 Words   |  5 PagesFor a majority of the 20th century, the United States drinking age has been a big issue. After prohibition had concluded in 1933, twenty- one was the new legal drinking age. Meanwhile, during the Vietnam War, eighteen became the new legal drinking age. Finally in 1984, Congress pa ssed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act (MLDA). Since then, twenty-one years old has been the legal age to drink in the United States. There are several ways alcohol has been a reason for death such as, alcohol poisoningRead MoreThe Legal Drinking Age Should Be Lowered1553 Words   |  7 PagesJohn is a 17 year old male who lives in Oregon. To celebrate his 18th birthday, he decided to go out with some friends and have a few drinks. He knows that the legal drinking age is 21, but he thinks what is the harm? I am 18 and in other countries, you are allowed to drink before you turn 21. Later that night as John gets in the car with his friends after a few hours of drinking, everything seems to be going well as they are driving down the freeway on their way over to his friend Dan’s house thatRead MoreThe Legal Drinking Age Should Not Be Lowered1117 Words   |  5 Pagesto the legal age of alcohol consumption have been going on for many years. While some feel that 21 should re main as the legal minimum consumption age, others disagree. By examining different aspects of alcohol consumption such as social motives and health related concerns one is more able to fully grasp the role that alcohol plays in our society. Through research and analyzation one can come to the conclusion that a lowered legal drinking age is not the answer. The legal drinking age should not beRead MoreThe Legal Drinking Age Should Be Lowered Essay1548 Words   |  7 PagesIn the United States, the legal drinking age is twenty-one. In all fifty states, however, there are exceptions for underaged drinking at home, under adult supervision, or for medical purposes (â€Å"Drinking Age†). Overall, the legal opportunities for any person under twenty-one to legally drink alcohol are very scarce. There are many different points, made by people from both sides of the issue about whether or not to lower the drinking age to eighteen, or leave it where it currently stands at twenty-oneRead MoreThe Legal Drinking Age Should Be Lowered1481 Words   |  6 Pagesbecause an unfair law put up by the government. The legal drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18 because, among other things; 18 is the age of adulthood in America and adults should have the right to make their own decisions, also traffic accidents and fatalities are most common among newly-legal drinkers regardless of their drinking age; and, this law has not stopped anyone, teens continue to drink and consume alcohol regardless of the age restriction. There are many pros to modifying thisRead MoreThe Legal Drinking Age Should Not Be Lowered988 Words   |  4 PagesThe Legal Drinking Age Should Not Be Lowered There are copious amounts of people who believe that the legal drinking age should be lowered to eighteen. Others think the drinking age needs to remain the same. A few of those also conclude the legal age of adulthood should be raised to 21. The belief is if the adolescent brain has not matured enough to support alcohol use by age 21, it cannot make the responsible decisions required at 18 years of age. Voters should make the decision toRead MoreLegal Drinking Age Should Be Lowered2099 Words   |  9 Pages friends, and the feeling of being invincible. Although there are a legal alcohol drinking and purchasing age in various countries, it is easily accessible to those who are underage. Alcohol is a monitored and controlled substance that can be purchased legally, yet there are many concerns that surround the substance. There are pros, cons, and different patterns regarding alcohol and the legal alcohol drinking and purchasing age. As a result of alcohol use, there have been many fatalities and injuries

Chattel Slavery free essay sample

Indentureship was supposed to differ from slavery, however, the servants were treated as harshly as the slaves Chattel- African slaves were treated as commodities System of slavery whereby an individual and their offspring are recognised by the law as being the property of another person for life. This system was established by Europeans and formed the basis of transatlantic slavery With due respect to the Is good intentions, from all that I have read and studied it would be a mockery to compare Indian indentureship to African chattel slavery in the Caribbean. Firstly, Indians were allowed to retain: their family (Africans had theirs split up); their language (Africans had the use of theirs forbidden); their religion (Africans had theirs banned); their music (Africans had the drum representing the voice of their gods banned by laws, some of which remain on the statute book in Barbados to this day). This highlights the all-important difference between indentureship and slavery: The heart of slavery was not the horrible labour conditions. We will write a custom essay sample on Chattel Slavery or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page If that were so, slavery and indentureship might be comparable. The heart of slavery was the stealing of the Africans soul his language (the eyes through which one sees the world), his gods, his family, his musical sounds. That is why some 169 years after Emancipation, many Africans in the Caribbean remain enslaved. Some say enslaved mentally (in distinction to physical slavery), but this is misleading. SLAVERY IS MENTAL. Captivity is physical. Why the Africans have taken longer to restore their race as opposed to Indians, Jews and other ethnic groups that suffered at the hands of White Supremacy is because no other people were ever subjected to what the Africans suffered. If you capture a people and reduce them to harsh, brutal conditions of exploitation, once they survive, when that is brought to an end the people will soon rehabilitate themselves. But when you take away a peoples tongue, their connection to the ancestors, their gods; when you smash their family life so that the male loses respect for the female and vice versa; when you teach them to hate their skin, their lips, their hair, so that they hate anyone that looks like them then you will have destroyed the culture and soul of that people and recovery will be almost like a resurrection. That is why it has taken Rastafari, Vodun, Orisha and the other spiritual potencies to awaken and heal the descendants of the African slaves. Secondly, millions of Africans died on the dreadful crossing from Africa. How many Indians perished on their way here? The Trans-Atlantic trade in captive Africans and African chattel slavery lasted roughly from 1473 to the 1880s some four centuries. Indian indentureship lasted from the 1840s until when the end of the 19th century? Thirdly, the trade in African captives depleted the African homeland tremendously. Consequently, up to this day, in contrast to the huge populations of India and China, the African continent is badly underpopulated. In fact, it has been estimated that even if all the Black people returned tomorrow to Africa, it still would not be fully populated. Walter Rodney in   provides some Statistics to give an idea of the devastating effect that the trade in Africans had on Africa for four centuries. Whole towns and villages were wiped out. Ethnic groups disappeared. Others were driven to war on their neighbours or face the prospect of having their own group captured and shipped to the New World. The natural line and trajectory of material and spiritual development for millennia in Africas history up to the time of the Trans-Atlantic Trade in captive African was interrupted, disrupted and corrupted. While it is true that India suffered horribly as a result of the British penetration of India during the period of indentureship, history attests that neither the scale nor the time period of this penetration can match the reality of the impact of the Slave Trade and Slavery on Africans and their Motherland. But while the enslaved Africans unlike the indentured Indians had their ancestral cloak ripped from them, the White man could not take the living nucleus of their culture and its memory from them. So (as they say whoever loses his life shall gain it) they took this breath of their culture and created the living soul of Africa in the Caribbean they recreated their musical forms, they reconceived their ancient gods through new prisms (likje Judedo-Christianity, for example in Haitian Vodun and Rastafari), they revived their sense of an organic connection to the earth, they rediscovered the taste of their traditional cuisine, and so on. And that is why we find that almost all that is distinctive about indigenous Caribbean culture owes its inspiration, its image and likeness, to Africa. It is also probably why there is no enduring large-scale mass Back to India or Back to China movements coming out of the Caribbean. In a sense, Mother India and Mother China were not taken away from their indentured children in the Caribbean since they continued to wear their traditional dress, listen to their traditional music, speak their traditional language and worship ther traditional gods. When the true history of the last 5 centuries of the recently past millennium is finally placed in proper perspective, the incomparable tragedy of the African people during the era of the slave trade and slavery will come fully to light. It is without precedent in human history. I close by suggesting that the Indian people who are essentially of African origin as Rashidi has documented have a secure place in Rastafari, and as the Mansinghs have shown in their research, they have made a valuable contribution to the development of the Rastafari way of life. Indentured servants were working on contract to repay a debt, usually for transportation to America. Chattel means personal property, so chattel slaves were legally considered property, the same as a mule or a goat. An indentured servant worked for his/her master without pay until the debt was paid off. Typically, for repayment of the cost of being taken from England to America, the time of service was seven years, although it ranged from four to ten. At the end of that time, the indentured servant was free to leave and find other, gainful employment. There were cases of abuse by masters in which additional time was added by charging the servant for things like rent, food, lost or broken tools or products, etc. , because indentured servants were usually not well-educated and could be taken advantage of. The only ways a chattel slave could be released from a lifetime of unpaid service were manumission (being legally given freedom by his/her owner) or purchase, either by himself/herself rare, but possible or by a third party, such as societies of abolitionists who purchased slaves freedom for them. The best-known of these groups bought land in west Africa and founded there the nation of Liberia, for the purpose of resettling freed American slaves. Interesting sidelight: the term indentured is related to words like dentist and dental. An indentured servant had a written contract with his master. At the time the contract was signed, it was torn in two. The master kept one half and the servant kept one half. To ensure that these halves were part of the original document, the tear-lines were deliberately made irregular and jagged so that no other piece of paper would match. The jagged tearing was indented it looked like teeth

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Analysis Essay Example For Students

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Analysis Essay A monologue from the play by William ShakespeareBENEDICK: This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, shes a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her.

Lab Report on Density Measurement Essay Example

Lab Report on Density Measurement Paper Liquid is usually confined in a container, so its volume is relative to the volume of its container There are various instruments that are used to accurately measure the density of substances; the most commonly used are the densitometers, viscometer and hydrometers [3]. In this experiment, the density of selected liquid samples will be measured using a viscometer. 1. 2 Objectives of the Experiment 1 . To determine the density of low boiling point liquid samples by measuring their mass at controlled volume; 2. To determine the density of alumina by measuring the mass and volume of variously shaped alumina balls; and 3. Compare the density calculated from the given samples with the standard density at room temperature. 1. 3 Significance of the Experiment At the end of the experiment, the laboratory performer is expected to learn the following; 1 . The density of selected liquids and material at a given temperature; and 2. The proper method of measuring the volume and consequently the d ensity of irregularly shaped objects using water displacement method. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE Density is one of the most important and commonly used physical properties of matter. It is an intrinsic property which is represented by the ratio of a matters ass to its volume Density was purportedly discovered by the Greek scientist Archimedes in an unusual circumstance. According to stories, King Hirer of Syracuse asked Archimedes to determine whether his new crown is made of pure gold or not. It was seemingly impossible to identify the gold percentage that composed the crown because chemical analysis was still unstudied in those times. One day, when Archimedes was enjoying himself to a bath, he observed that the further he went down the tub, the lesser he weighed and the higher the water level rose up. We will write a custom essay sample on Lab Report on Density Measurement specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Lab Report on Density Measurement specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Lab Report on Density Measurement specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer He then came to the realization that he could determine the Asia of the mass of the crown and the volume of water displaced by the crown, and compare it to the value measured from the pure gold sample. Hence, density and the principle behind it were revealed Density is dependent on many factors, one of which is temperature. It specifically decreases with increasing temperature. This is because an objects volume undergoes thermal expansion at increasing temperature while its mass remains unchanged. This results to a decrease in density [1]. When matter undergoes a transformation to a different phase, it undergoes an abrupt change in density. The transition of molecules of matter to a less random form, say from gas to liquid or from liquid to solid, causes a drastic increase in the density. However, there are substances which behave differently from this density-temperature relationship, by which one example is water. The greatest density achieved by water molecules are at ICC. At temperatures higher or lower than ICC, its density slowly decreases. This makes ice less dense than water, a property not commonly exhibited by other liquids METHODOLOGY 3. Materials A. Viscometer, 25-ml B. Graduated cylinder, 1000-ml C. Graduated cylinder, 250-ml D. Beaker, 250-ml E. Low boiling point liquids (acetone, 70% solution ethyl alcohol, 70% solution spoilsport alcohol), 30 ml F. Distilled water G. Two sets of alumina balls (small cylindrical, large cylindrical and large spherical balls) H. Analytical balance beam 3. 2 Determining the Mass of a 25-ml Liquid [5] A. Carefully clean and dry the viscometer. B. Weigh the empty viscometer and its stopper in the balance beam and record the mass. C. Fill the viscometer with the liquid sample up to its brim, and insert the stopper carefully. Wipe off any excess fluid on the sides of the hygrometer with a clean cloth or tissue. D. Balance and record the mass of the filled viscometer plus the stopper. E. Empty the contents of the viscometer in a clean beaker. F. Make three trials for each liquid. 3. 3 Determining the Mass and Volume of Alumina Balls [5] A. Measure the mass of each alumina ball in the balance beam. B. Add distilled water to the graduated cylinder and record its initial volume. C.

kkk in the 1920s essays

kkk in the 1920s essays The Ku Klux Klan, is a secret terrorist organization that originated in the southern states during the period of Reconstruction following the American Civil War and was reactivated on a wider geographic basis in the 20th century. The original Klan was organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, during the winter of 1865 to 1866, by six former Confederate army officers who gave their society a name adapted from the Greek word kuklos ("circle"). Although the Ku Klux Klan began as a prankish social organization, its activities soon were directed against the Republican Reconstruction governments and their leaders, both black and white, which came to power in the southern states in The Ku Klux Klan's long history of violence grew out of the resentment and hatred many white Southerners felt in the aftermath of the Civil War. Blacks, having won the struggle for freedom from slavery, were now faced with a new struggle against widespread racism and the terrorism brought about by the Ku Klux Klan. While the menace of the KKK has peaked and waned over the William J. Simmons, a veteran, preacher and salesman, was a compulsive joiner, holding memberships in many different societies and two churches. He had always dreamed of starting his own fraternal group and in the fall of 1915 he put his plans into action. On Thanksgiving Eve, Simmons herded 15 fellow fraternalists onto a bus and drove them from Atlanta to nearby Stone Mountain. There, before a cross of pine boards, Simmons lit a match and the Ku Klux Klan of the 20th century was born. In 1920, the "re-born" Klan consisted only of a few thousand members. With the help of two publicists, Simmons spread the word of the Klan around the U.S. like wildfire. The Klan was to be pro-American, which to them meant anti-black, anti-Jewish and most importantly, anti-Catholic. The Klan grew rapidly from a ...

Sustainable and Renewble resources in Ontario Essay

Sustainable and Renewble resources in Ontario - Essay Example The renewable resources that are found in Ontario are natural resources that can be replenished with the passage of time; the latter happening either through biological reproduction or through processes that occur naturally. These resources can be considered a basic part of the natural environment and in fact, they form a large component of its geographical features. It is therefore important to study the renewable resources of Ontario to determine their lifecycle, since a positive lifecycle is normally an indicator of the sustainability of the resource being studied, and the opposite is true. There is a connection between sustainable and renewable resources and the ability of the people using them succeeding. This depends entirely on the quality of these resources and the depth at which they are used in the day-to-day lives of those who are its frequent users. The practices involved in the use of renewable resources are what determine how well these resources are used as well as the means through which these resources can be sustained for use by future generations.... to contribute to the success of the people’s responsible use of renewable resources and, in fact, many businesses have ensured its implementation within their wider plans of the future (Christidis & Law 81). When the responsible use of renewable resources is integrated together with the mainstream business practices, it leads to the extension of the awareness of individuals in the society concerning the importance of these resources. It has been found that any studies concerning renewable resources, being geographical in nature, has to be done over a specific duration of time in order to note the results of the studies being conducted. Various issues usually emerge that may involve the stakeholders and these may require a response in order to protect the renewable resources in question. It is a fact that many businesses in Ontario at times have aims of integrating the sustainability of renewable resources when conducting their activities as well as in their processes and produ cts, but often, these businesses end up facing significant challenges that they fail to adopt there measures. Recent studies on renewable resources have attempted to reinforce a connection between sustainability and innovation. This has involved the selection and maximization of the value of such studies for the long-term prospects that the businesses that function in this environment will have to consider when making their plans concerning the environment. For instance, a business that has a paper-recycling scheme is able to improve a balance sheet in several ways such as savings on costs, enhancing employee commitment, as well as ensuring that the forests within the province are preserved. Technology is one of the most important sources of solution during the implementation of projects whose

What existentialist artists attempt to communicate through their Essay

What existentialist artists attempt to communicate through their respective work - Essay Example After thinking about my own thoughts and reading Waiting for Godot and watching Garden State, I believe that existentialist artists are attempting to communicate the message of how people let others control their decisions instead of deciding for themselves what to do in the future. In Waiting for Godot, the story revolves around the life of Vladimir and Estragon who undergo strange experiences as they seek to wait for entity identified by the name Godot whose arrival is long awaited, but not forthcoming. Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot to make the decisions for them; however, they lose track of time and self awareness of their lives. â€Å"Let’s go. We can’t. Why? We’re waiting for Godot†¦ What did we do yesterday,† (Beckett, 8-9). They are so dependent on Godot to make the decisions for them that they can’t even remember the events that happen yesterday in their lives. Through this scene, Samuel Beckett is trying to tell his readers that if they rely too much on others, then they will lose the precious memories they made throughout their life because they lost track of time of waiting for someone to forge their future. In addition, Samuel Beckett wants his readers to know how people have the strength to make their own decisions. For example, when Pozzo is trying to ask for help, Vladimir says, â€Å"Let us not waste our time in idle discourage! ... Let us make the most of it, before it is too late,† (Beckett, 90). Every individual has the choice to make an impact on other people’s daily lives. It is not up to others to make the decisions for us, but for us to. Beckett wants his reader there are many opportunities, such as saving someone, that we can take and make impact on history. Another example of individual decision making is when Vladimir realizes that Godot has not greeted them. The experiences of Vladimir and

The Statute of David Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The Statute of David - Essay Example Commissioned by the Cathedral Works Committee in 1501, Michelangelo created The Statute of David, which was his testimony to the beauty of God’s creation. The sculpture was a representation of King David in the Bible. During the critical times of the Florence Republic’s threatening and powerful rival states along with their rival the Hegemony of the Medici Family, the Statute of David symbolized the defense of civil liberties. The Statute of David or â€Å"the Eyes of David† was later turned towards Rome. In 1873, the Statute of David was placed in the Accademia Gallery in Florence. The original location of the Statute of David was replaced with a replica of the sculpture. Michelangelo’s deeply spiritual faith to do God’s Will was an influence in his creation of the Madonna Della Pieta or the bust of the Virgin Mary. The sculpture was created for the St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. Michelangelo sculpted the compassion and serenity in the Virgi n Mary’s face. His purpose for the Madonna Della Pieta was to embody â€Å"the spiritual beauty of the infinite beauty of God.† The Madonna Della Pieta was Michelangelo’s testimony to his eternal love for God. The sculpture is a symbol of the Christian faith. Michelangelo’s spiritual obedience to do God’s Will influenced his artistic work. His spiritual faith allowed him to create many artistic masterpieces that influenced the Italian Renaissance. He created inspirational masterpieces for the world. He is Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, â€Å"the divine one.†

Maldives Efforts To Combat Climate Change An Environmental Sciences Essay

Maldives Efforts To Combat Climate Change An Environmental Sciences Essay Global warming has been causing climate change and this has been affecting the Earth at an alarming rate. Maldivian government are aware of the need to cut down emissions. The tiny Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives will become carbon-neutral within 10 years. This was the pledge made by Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed on March 15. The low-lying country will be among the first in the world to be inundated by rising sea levels caused by human-induced climate change. The highest point in the chain of 1190 islands and coral atolls is just 1.8 metres above sea level. The latest research indicates that if present rates of carbon emissions continue, global warming will likely cause sea level rises about one metre by 2100. This is close to double the rise predicted by most scientists just two years ago.1 71. For the Maldives, climate change is a real issue. The 16th Conference of Parties (COP 16) in Cancun, Mexico from 29 November to 10 December. It estimated that Maldivians emitted 1.3 million tones of carbon dioxide in 2009 via electricity generation, transport, waste and fishing. This was the same estimated amount of carbon emitted by flights carrying 650,000 tourists to the Island each year. The total works out at 4.1 tones per Maldivian compared to 23.5 tones per person per year in the United States. 72. These measures were announced in the face of stark warnings from scientists that rising sea levels could engulf the Maldives and other low-lying nations this century, rendering the Island almost entirely uninhabitable with a rise in sea levels of one metre. 73. Without a global agreement to lower GHG emissions to combat climate change and rising sea levels, the Maldives could disappear from maps in spite of Nasheds efforts.2 74. Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed is listed as the 39th top thinker in the world in Foreign Policy magazine, for his high profile role in combating climate change. Top two billionaires have been travelling the world first to China and soon to India, as well as around the US on a mission to create a global club of Great Givers who will transform philanthropy from a pastime of the wealthy into a calling for everyone who is rich.3 Combat Climate Change. 75. Solar power helps combat climate change, reduces our dependency on imported oil and more importantly cuts out electricity costs. The Maldives stands at the front line of climate change and we dont have the luxury of time to sit and wait for the rest of the world to act. 76. The Maldives which is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels through global warming. The Maldives is made up of nearly 1200 islands that lie of the Indian sub-continent. None of the islands measure more than 1.8 metres (six feet) above sea level, making the country particularly vulnerable to a rise in sea levels associated with global warming. The Maldives face a very real threat from rising sea levels and I share President Nasheeds ambition to prevent the environmental disaster and human rights catastrophe that would befall the islands should the world fail to tackle this problem. 77. Our Climate Change Act is the most ambitious in the industrialized world, committing to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 per cent by 2050. Scotland also has 25 per cent of Europes offshore wind and tidal resources and 10 per cent of wave potential and the capacity make a significant difference in meeting universal climate change goals. The Maldives to become the worlds first carbon neutral country and in turn create a greener, more sustainable future for our planet.4 78. The international community has welcomed President Nasheeds efforts to raise awareness over the dangers of climate change, which threaten to submerge his low-lying nation. That same international community must not sit back and watch as the remnants of dictatorship try and sink the Maldives fledgling democracy.5 Declaration of the Climate Vulnerable Forum. 79. Alarmed at the pace of change to our Earth caused by human-induced climate change, including accelerating melting and loss of ice from Antarctica, Greenland, the Himalayas, Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, acidification of the worlds oceans due to rising CO2 concentrations, increasingly intense tropical cyclones, more damaging and intense drought and floods, including Glacial Lakes Outburst Floods, in may region and high levels of sea-level rise than estimated just a few years ago, risks changing the face of the planet and threatening coastal cities, low lying areas, mountainous regions and vulnerable countries the world over. 80. Conscious that our nations lie at the climate front-line and will disproportionately feel the impacts of global warming, in the end climate change will threaten the sustainable development and, ultimately, the survival of all States and peoples the fate of the most vulnerable will be the fate of the world; and convinced that our acute vulnerability not only allows us to perceive the threat of climate change more clearly than others, but also provides us with the clarity of vision to understand the steps that must be taken to protect the Earths climate system and the determination to see the job done. 81. Recalling that UNFCCC is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change. 82. Emphasizing that developed countries bear the overwhelming historic responsibility for causing anthropogenic climate change and must therefore take the lead in responding to the challenge across all four building blocks of an enhanced international climate change regime namely mitigation, adaption, technology and finance that builds-upon the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol. 83. Taking account their historic responsibility as well as the need to secure climate justice for the worlds poorest and most vulnerable communities, developed countries must commit to legally-binding and ambitious emission reduction targets consistent with limiting global average surface warming to well below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and long-term stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at well below 350 ppm, and that to achieve this the agreement at COP 15 UNFCCC should include a goal of peaking global emissions by 2015 with a sharp decline thereafter towards a global reduction of 85% by 2050. 84. Convinced that those countries which take the lead in embracing this future will be the winners of the 21st Century. 85. All other countries to follow the moral leadership shown by the Republic of Maldives by voluntarily committing to achieving carbon-neutrality. Assert that the achievement of carbon neutrality by developing countries will be extremely difficult given their lack of resources and capacity and pressing adaptation challenges, without external financial, technological and capability-building support from developed countries. Declare that, irrespective of the effectiveness of mitigation actions, significant adverse changes in the global climate are now inevitable and are already taking place, and thus Parties to the UNFCCC must also include, in the COP15 outcome document, an ambitious agreement on adaptation finance which should prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable countries, especially in the near-term. 86. Decide to hold a second meeting of the Climate Vulnerable Forum in Kiribati in 2010 to take forward this initiative, to further raise awareness of the vulnerabilities and actions of vulnerable countries to combat climate change, and to amplify their voice in international negotiations. In this context, request support from the UN system to assist the most vulnerable developing countries take action in pursuit of this Declaration.6 Copenhagen. 87. The event preceded the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) that began, where 192 parties are meeting with the intention of formulating an agreement to stabilize the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Organizers hope the conference will prove as successful as COP3 in 1997, known as the Kyoto Protocol, which led to agreements on mandatory emission reductions. During the week-long visit to Denmark, over 200 delegates aged 14-17 from 42 countries set up stands in Copenhagen town hall promoting their countrys efforts to combat climate change. The Maldivian delegates confessed theirs was one of the most popular with many people fascinated by the immediate threat climate change and sea level rise poses for the low-lying island nations. Maldivians are an innocent (party) suffering from the actions of developed countries.7 88. The issue has taken on urgency ahead of a major UN climate change conference scheduled for December in Copenhagen. At that meeting countries will negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol with aims to cut the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that scientists blame for causing global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere. Wealthy nations want broad emissions cuts from all countries, while poorer ones say industrialized countries should carry most of the burden.8 1. The Guardian. 2. http://www.climateactionprogramme.org. 3. http://www.asiantribune.com. 4. http://www.scotland.gov.uk. 5. The Guardian, ibid. 6. http://www.ecs.org.et. 7. http://www.minivannews.com. 8. http://www.msnbc.msn.com.

The Ins and Outs of the Music Industry Essay -- Music

I propose that all unsigned rising artist should target the business side of the music industry to be successful in the entertainment business because it allows the artist to be taken seriously and make solid connections that can further his/her career. Learning the works of the music industry also enables a new artist to be further successful and profitable. Recent studies show that most new artists without professional representation and a business mindset have a slimmer chance in getting signed to major or independent labels (Lowry, 2011). Overall, the specific change needed is that unsigned artists should be concentrating on their careers as professionals and not amateurs, thus focusing on the ins and outs of the music business and how they can obtain success, generate profit, and endure longevity. Furthermore, learning the fundamentals of the music business is beneficial in many ways. If unsigned artist focused more attention on nurturing their talent to its highest potential, then their chance at reaching success would be greater. According to The Tipping Point, â€Å"The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts†. In other words, talents are needed and the only way to achieve that is if you work continuously hard. Moreover, if new artist become proficient in their talent along with hard work, then success becomes reachable and introduces the theory that, if an artist works hard then they are able to play hard. Studying this deeper, understand that as an artist, beginner or veteran, the idea for commercial success is to know your business. Realize that building a team is a number one priority; most new artist overlook this ... ...). Retrieved May 3, 2012, from About.com. Carmichael, G. (2009, may 12). The Tipping Point Part 4 and 5. Retrieved May 7, 2012, from examiner.com Dictionary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved May 6, 2012, from Itunes. Goldstein, J. (n.d.). Three Methods to Getting Openers and Supporting Slots. Retrieved May 6, 2012, from Music Biz Academy HONSBERGER, S. (2011, Janurary 19). 7 Tips For Maintaining Relationships In The Music Business. Retrieved May 7, 2012, from MusicThinkTank.com Jonny. (2008, September 24). iTunes finally opens up to unsigned acts. Retrieved may 6, 2012, from Distorted-Loop.com Kaufman, A. (2010, April 9). Pop & Hiss: The L.A Times Music Blog. Retrieved May 3, 2012. Kellie, N. (2011, February 15). Maintain a Career in Music. Retrieved May 7, 2012, from Jamplay.com Lowry, D. (2011, November 11). Why 99% of Indies Dont Get Signed. Retrieved May 02, 2012.

MT V.s Human translation Essay

Introduction Today, computers are used in all fields, and even almost every field has it’s own software packages. Using computers to translate a text from one language to another refered to machine translation [MT]. Machine translation is an interesting technology for human translators. It is a fact that MT software can translate texts very quickly. The question is that: Are these machine translations perfect? Are these translation tools like Google valid? MT are somehow acceptable in technical and informative texts but how about literaral or expressive texts? According to Chapman† Literature is the art that uses language†(qtd.in Voigt and Jurafsky 1). So, literary translation represents the strongest formulation of machine translation problems. As MT quality continiues to improve, the idea of using MT to assist human translators becomes increasingly attractive, and human translators can correct mistakes in these machine translations. Translation is not only a linguistic act, but also a cultural one. It involves more than just a word-by-word representation of a text; translators also have to take double meanings, cultural subtleties and slang into accountContext of culture affects the specific meaning of the language. So the analysis of cultural context is essential for Machine Translation (MT). If the cultural context analysis of the source language is omitted in MT, ambiguity or mistranslation will be produced. At least nowadays when we compare MT with human translation, we claim that human say the last word. A Brief History Of Machine Translation The history of machine translation is as old as that of computers. It has been started in the 1950s. Georgetown –IBM experiment consisted of the automatic translation of Russian sentences in to English in a very speciallized field(Organic chemistry), and it was widely recognized as a successful demonstration. Documents in Russian gathered by the U. S. military and intelligence agencies during the 50’s and 60’s. Throughout this period university and government research funding drove the development of MT. However, the real progress was much slower, and in 1966 they found out that the ten years long research had failed to fulfill the expectations, so the funding was dramatically reduced until the late 70’s, at which time advances in theoretically linguistics and the growth of computing and language technology converged, resulting in the first practical MT tools for main frame systems. In the late 1980’s, as computational power increased and became less expensive, more interest began to be shown in statistical models for machine translation. Today there is still no system that provides the holy-grail of â€Å"fully automatic high quality translation† (FAHQT). However, there are many programs now available that are capable of providing useful output with in strict constraints; several of them are available onlin such as Google Translate and SYSTRAN system which powers Alta’s BabelFish. (Wikipedia 1) The importance of Human Translation Translation is not only a linguistic act, but also a cultural one and a prime channel of communication across cultures irrespective of geographic discrepancies. Cultural implications may be higher in cross-cultural translation and may range from lexical level to pragmatic level. More the gap between the source and target culture, the more serious difficulties would take shape. Translation between English and Hindi; which belongs to two different cultures and backgrounds is one of the best examples of such problems. In such situation, cross-cultural communication should be appropriately done using proper translation techniques to avoid ambiguity and miscommunication. Context of culture affects the specific meaning of the language. So the analysis of cultural context is essential for Machine Translation (MT). If the cultural context analysis of the source language is omitted in MT, ambiguity or mistranslation will be produced. Any attempt to replace Human Translation totally by machine translation would certainly face failure for, due to a simple reason, there is no machine translation that is capable of interpretation. For instance, it is only the human translator who is able of interpreting certain cultural components that may exist in the source text and that cannot be translated in terms of equivalent terms, just like what automatic translation does, into the language of the target text. In addition, it is widely agreed upon that one of the most difficult tasks in the act of translation is how to keep the same effect left by the source text in the target text. The automatic translation, in this regard, has proved its weakness, most of the time, when compared with a human translation. The human translator is the only subject in a position to understand the different cultural, linguistic and semantic factors contributing to leaving the same effect, that is left in the source text, in the target text. It is an undeniable fact that automatic translation is regarded as a tool for producing quick and great number of translated texts; nevertheless, the quality of the translation is still much debatable MT evaluation One way for people inorder to assess machine translation’s quality is kind of Back translation. I mean to translate from a source language to a target language and to the source language with the same engine. Although this way sounds good, it is a poor method. When we consider two variables â€Å"inteligibility† and â€Å"fiedelity† in our judgment, in most cases it is easy to separate translation by human from translation by machine. â€Å"Inteligibility is a measure of how understandable the sentence is and fidelity is a measure of how much information the translated sentence retained compared to the original†(Wikipedia 1). Although machine translation currently produces relatively unacceptable output compared to human translation, I do believe it will be much better in the future. Is machine translation output necessarily of lower quality than human translation? Some scholars believe that † Translators who work in technical domain will be increasingly require to interact with MT â€Å"(Pym 1). The need for technical translation has increased dramatically and in the future MT systems will continue to reduce the cost of translation. Advantages & Disadvantages of MT In the past when we had to find the meaning of a word from another language we used a dictionary . This was very time consuming. Moreover, when a paragraph or note had to translated, this could be very difficult because one word has several meanings. When time is crucial factor, with MT you don’t have to spend hours looking up dictionaries to translate the words. Instead, the software can translate it quickly . It is not costly but one of it’s disadvantages is that translation is not accurate and it can’t solve ambigiuity. It can’t produce translations for literary texts with good quality because translating literature requires special literary skills, but it doesn’t mean that machine translation is useless. The quality of translation which can get from an MT system is very low but we know human translator normally doesn’t produce a perfect translation. MT threats the job of translators. MT is an important topic sociolly, politically, commercially, scientifically, intellectually & philosophically. MT and Translating culture-Bound elements One of the most challenging tasks for all translators is how to translate culture-bound elements into a foreign language. According to Newmak: â€Å"Translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language†(qtd in Armellino 1). When words in the source text are strongly rooted in the source culture that they are specific to the culture that produced them, therefore, they have no equivalent in the target culture because they are unknown, or because they are not yet codified in the target language. When cultural differences exist between the two languages, it is extremely difficult to achieve a successful translation. How can MT cope with problems of not only lexical expressions, but also with problems of register, syntactic order, dialects? MT has to decide on the importance of certain cultural aspects and to what extent it is necessary to translate them into the target language. Nida confers equal importance to both linguistic and cultural differences between the SL and the TL and concludes that â€Å"Differences between cultures may cause more severe complications for the translators than do differencs in language structure(qtd. in Glodjovic 2). Idioms are difficult to translate. It is sometimes hard to find the right equivalent for a single word without finding an equivalence for a sequence of words that convey one specific meaning. We know idiomds are culturally specific, which means that they may express a scene that doesn’t occure in the TL. Baker says: Idioms and fixed expressions which contain cultural specific items are not necessarily untranslatable. It is not the specific items an expressin contains but rather the meaning it conveys and it’s association with culture specific context which can make it understanable or difficult to translate. (qtd. in Muller 13) So translating the idioms mostly depends on the context in which it has occurred. Is it possible for Machine translator like Google translation to deal with such problems? What would be the best translation strategies for dealing with Idioms and culturally bound expressons? Human-Assisted Machine Translation Machine translation has faced many problems which can be solved by computer-assisted machine translation at the pre-editing and post-editing stages. As a result the final translation will be more acceptable if MT translation is edited by human inorder to generate more appropiate translation for some words in a sentence and as a result our translation could be semantically and pragmatically more proper and we discard odd and unnatural structures. In human-assisted translation the computer produce the first draft then the proffessional revises it. The question is that : Is machine and post-editing of MT output faster than human translation? To answer this question measuring time will be the main purpose, furthermore who should be doing post-editing? Should it be performed by translators, revisors, non-linguists, or trained specialists? According to Loffer-Laurian†Post-editing of machine-translated text is a task different from traditional HT and revision. Loffer-Laurian maintains that post-editing is not revision, nor correction rewriting. It is a new way of considering a text, a new way of working on it for a new aim†(qtd. in Martinez 23). Poetry and Machine Translation According to Oxford English Dictionary Poetry is â€Å"The art or work of poet†(qtd. in Hovhamisyan 1). Translating of poetry is one of the most difficult and challenging tasks for every translator. According to Robert Frost’s definition â€Å"poetry is what gets lost in translation†(qtd. in Hovhamisyan 1). To sum up the theoretical approaches, it is clear that poetry is the most difficult type of the text and can be considered to be untranslatable. Grammatical differences between the languages causes a lot of problems in translating poetry. Should we , then refrain from translating poetry. Where proffessional translators assumes that the translation of poetry is extremly difficult, is it possible for a machine softwares to translate poems among differen languages? In the following paragraph first sunnet of Hafez it’s English translation by and it’s Google translation are avalible. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? O beautiful wine-bearer, bring forth the cup and put it to my lips Path of love seemed easy at first, what came was many hardships. With its perfume, the morning breeze unlocks those beautiful locks the curl of those dark ringlets, many hearts to shreds strips. In the house of my beloved, how can I enjoy the feast since the church bells call the call that for pilgrimage equips. With wine color your robe, one of the old Magi’s best tips Trust in this traveler’s tips, who knows of many paths and trips The dark midnight, fearful waves, and the tempestuous whirlpool How can he know of our state, while ports house his unladed ships. I followed my own path of love, and now I am in bad repute How can a secret remain veiled, if from every tongue it drips? If His presence you seek, Hafiz, then why yourself eclipse? Stick to the One you know, let go of imaginary trips. Google Translation High boots or stands Casa Ella field and Novell I would be easy to love but difficult The smell of oak tress Saba Nafhay Kakhr open What was the blood from the heart twist lock Mshkynsh Janan how secure mirth at my house because the door JRS will scream that should tell concerning vehicle The mat is a colorful old Garrett says Taha The traveler did not know the way home. Fear of the dark night of the wave and vortex Heil We know where the loose banks All I took from his failure to end stigma Who would he have hidden the secret circle center Guardian of the person, do not be absent from his Hmykhvahy We produce p my Dunya Matthew invitation and Ahmlha In above two translations that one of them is done by human, but the other is produced by Google it is cristal clear that for translating poem MT is not acceptable. It is full of grammatical and lexical mistaks Works Cited Armellino, Elisa. â€Å"Translating Culture-Bound Elements in Subtitling. † Translation directory. N. D. Web. 16 June 2013. â€Å"Evaluation of Machine Translation. † Wikipedia. 15May 2103. Web. 2July 2013. â€Å"Evaluation of Machine Translation. † Wikipedia. 15May 2103. Web. 2July 2013. Fiederer,Rebecca and Sharon O Brien. â€Å"Quality and Machine Translation. † Jostran. Org/issue. 11January 2009. Web. 19June 2013. Glodjovic, Anica. â€Å"Translation as Means of Cross-Cultural Communication. † facta. junis. ni. ac. rs. June 2010. Web. 7July 2013. â€Å"History of Machine Translation. † Wikipedia. Web. 2July 2013. Hovhannisyan, Mariam. â€Å"The Art of Poetry and its translation. † Translation Directory. May 2012. Web. 27 June 2013. Martinez, Lorena. G. â€Å"Human Translation V. S Machine Translation. â€Å",Sceuromix. August 2003. Web. 3July 2013. Muller, Theo. â€Å"Translation of Idioms. † 17 September 2009. Web. 5July 2013. â€Å"Human Translation V. S Machine Translation. † Netmask. it/Products. 2003. Web. 5 July 2013. Pym, Anthony. † Translation Skill-sets in a Machine-Translation. † usuaris. tinet. cat/apym/on-line/training/2012_competence_Pym. May 2012. Web. 1 July 2013. Voigt, Rob and Dan Jurafsky. â€Å"Toward literary Machine translation. † Stanford. edu/jurafsky, N. D. Web. 1July 2013.

Hundred Years War - Joan of Arc and Siege of Orlans

Hundred Years' War - Joan of Arc and Siege of Orlans Siege of Orlà ©ans: Dates Conflicts: The Siege of Orlà ©ans began October 12, 1428 and ended May 8, 1429, and took place during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). Armies Commanders English Earl of ShrewsburyEarl of SalisburyDuke of SuffolkSir John Fastolfapprox. 5,000 men French Joan of ArcJean de DunoisGilles de RaisJean de Brosseapprox. 6,400-10,400 men Siege of Orlà ©ans - Background: In 1428, the English sought to assert Henry VIs claim to the French throne through the Treaty of Troyes. Already holding much of northern France with their Burgundian allies, 6,000 English soldiers landed at Calais under the leadership of the Earl of Salisbury. These were soon met by another 4,000 men drawn from Normandy by the Duke of Bedford. Advancing south, they succeeded in capturing Chartres and several other towns by late August. Occupying Janville, they next drove on the Loire Valley and took Meung on September 8. After moving downstream to take Beaugency, Salisbury dispatched troops to capture Jargeau. Siege of Orleans - the Siege Begins: Having isolated Orlà ©ans, Salisbury consolidated his forces, now numbering around 4,000 after leaving garrisons at his conquests, south of the city on October 12. While the city was located on the north side of the river, the English were initially confronted by defensive works on the south bank. These consisted of a barbican (fortified compound) and twin-towered gatehouse known as Les Tourelles. Directing their initial efforts against these two positions, they succeeded in driving out the French on October 23. Falling back across the nineteen-arch bridge, which they damaged, the French withdrew into the city. Occupying Les Tourelles and the nearby fortified convent of Les Augustins, the English began to dig in. The next day, Salisbury was mortally wounded when surveying French positions from Les Tourelles. He was replaced by the less aggressive Earl of Suffolk. With the weather changing, Suffolk pulled back from the city, leaving Sir William Glasdale and a small force to garrison Les Tourelles, and entered winter quarters. Concerned by this inactivity, Bedford dispatched the Earl of Shrewsbury and reinforcements to Orlà ©ans. Arriving in early December, Shrewsbury took command and moved troops back to the city. Siege of Orleans - the Siege Tightens: Shifting the bulk of his forces to the north bank, Shrewsbury built a large fortress around the Church of St. Laurent west of the city. Additional forts were built on the Ile de Charlemagne in the river and around the Church of St. Prive to the south. The English commander next constructed a series of three forts extending northeast and connected by a defensive ditch. Lacking sufficient men to fully surround the city, he established two forts east of Orlà ©ans, St. Loup and St. Jean le Blanc, with the goal of blocking supplies from entering the city. As the English line was porous, this was never fully achieved. Siege of Orleans - Reinforcements for Orlà ©ans the Burgundian Withdrawal: When the siege began, Orlà ©ans possessed only a small garrison, but this was augmented by militia companies that were formed to man the citys thirty-four towers. As the English lines never fully cut off the city, reinforcements began to trickle in and Jean de Dunois assumed control of the defense. Though Shrewsburys army was augmented by the arrival of 1,500 Burgundians during the winter, the English were soon outnumbered as the garrison swelled to around 7,000. In January, the French king, Charles VII assembled a relief force downstream at Blois. Led by the Count of Clermont, this army elected to attack an English supply train on February 12, 1429 and was routed at the Battle of the Herrings. Though the English siege was not tight, the situation in the city was becoming desperate as supplies were low. French fortunes began to change in February when Orlà ©ans applied to be put under the protection of the Duke of Burgundy. This caused a rift in the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, as Bedford, who was ruling as Henrys regent, refused this arrangement. Angered by Bedfords decision, the Burgundians withdrew from the siege further weakening the thin English lines. Siege of Orleans - Joan Arrives: As the intrigues with the Burgundians came to a head, Charles first met with the young Joan of Arc (Jeanne dArc) at his court in Chinon. Believing that she was following divine guidance, she asked Charles to allow her to lead relief forces to Orlà ©ans. Meeting with Joan on March 8, he sent her to Poitiers to be examined by clerics and Parliament. With their approval, she returned to Chinon in April where Charles agreed to let her lead a supply force to Orlà ©ans. Riding with the Duke of Alencon, her force moved along the south bank and crossed over at Chà ©cy where she met with Dunois. While Dunois mounted a divisionary attack, the supplies were barged into the city. After spending the night in Chà ©cy, Joan entered the city on April 29. Over the next few days, Joan assessed the situation while Dunois departed to Blois to bring up the main French army. This force arrived on May 4 and French units moved against the fort at St. Loup. Though intended as a diversion, the attack became a larger engagement and Joan rode out to join the fighting. Shrewsbury sought to relieve his beleaguered troops, but was blocked by Dunois and St. Loup was overrun. Siege of Orleans - Orlà ©ans Relieved: The next day, Shrewsbury began consolidating his position south of the Loire around the Les Tourelles complex and St. Jean le Blanc. On May 6, Jean sortied with a large force and crossed to the Ile-Aux-Toiles. Spotting this, the garrison at St. Jean le Blanc withdrew to Les Augustins. Pursuing the English, the French launched several assaults against the convent through the afternoon before finally taking it late in the day. Dunois succeeded in preventing Shrewsbury from sending aid by conducting raids against St. Laurent. His situation weakening, the English commander withdrew all of his forces from the south bank except for the garrison at Les Tourelles. On the morning of May 7, Joan and the other French commanders, such as La Hire, Alencon, Dunois, and Ponton de Xaintrailles gathered east of Les Tourelles. Moving forward, they began assaulting the barbican around 8:00 AM. Fighting raged through the day with the French unable to penetrate the English defenses. In the course of the action, Joan was wounded in the shoulder and forced to leave the battle. With casualties mounting, Dunois debated calling off the attack, but was convinced by Joan to press on. After praying privately, Joan rejoined the fighting. The appearance of her banner advancing spurred on the French troops who finally broke into the barbican. This action coincided with a fire barge burning the drawbridge between the barbican and Les Tourelles. English resistance in the barbican began to collapse and French militia from the city crossed the bridge and assaulted Les Tourelles from the north. By nightfall, the entire complex had been taken and Joan crossed the bridge to re-enter the city. Defeated on the south bank, the English formed their men for battle the next morning and emerged from their works northwest of the city. Assuming a formation similar to Crà ©cy, they invited the French to attack. Though the French marched out, Joan counseled against an attack. Aftermath: When it became apparent that the French would not attack, Shrewsbury began an orderly withdrawal toward Meung ending the siege. A key turning point in the Hundred Years War, the Siege of Orlà ©ans brought Joan of Arc to prominence. Seeking to maintain their momentum, the French embarked on the successful Loire Campaign which saw Joans forces drive the English from the region in a series of battles which culminated at Patay.

Understanding Expressive Roles and Task Roles

Understanding Expressive Roles and Task Roles Expressive roles and task roles, also known as instrumental roles, describe two ways of participating in social relationships. People in expressive roles tend to pay attention to how everyone is getting along, managing conflict, soothing hurt feelings, encouraging good humor, and take care of things that contribute to one’s feelings within the social group. People in task roles, on the other hand, pay more attention to achieving whatever goals are important to the social group, like earning money to provide resources for survival, for example. Sociologists believe that both roles are required for small social groups to function properly  and that each provides a form of leadership: functional and social. Parsonss Domestic Division of Labor How sociologists understand expressive roles and task roles today is rooted in Talcott Parsons development of them as concepts within his formulation of the domestic division of labor. Parsons was a mid-century American sociologist, and his theory of the domestic division of labor reflects gender role biases that proliferated at that time and that are often considered traditional, though theres scant factual evidence to back up this assumption. Parsons is known for popularizing the structural functionalist perspective within sociology, and his description of expressive and task roles fits within that framework. In his view, assuming heteronormative and patriarchally organized nuclear family unit, Parsons framed the man/husband as fulfilling  the instrumental role by working outside the home to provide the money required to support the family. The father, in this sense, is instrumental or task-oriented he accomplishes a specific task (earning money) that is required for the family unit to function. In this model, the woman/wife plays a complementary expressive role by serving as the caregiver for the family. In this role, she is responsible for the primary socialization of the children  and provides morale and cohesion for the group through emotional support and social instruction. A Broader Understanding and Application Parsons conceptualization of expressive and task roles was limited by stereotypical ideas about gender, heterosexual relationships, and unrealistic expectations for family organization and structure, however, freed of these ideological constraints, these concepts have value and are usefully applied to understanding social groups today. If you think about your own life and relationships, you can probably see that some people clearly embrace the expectations of either expressive or task roles, while others might do both. You might even notice that you and others around you seem to move between these different roles depending on where they are, what they are doing, and who they are doing it with. People can be seen to be playing these roles in all small social groups, not just families. This can be observed within friend groups, households that are not composed of family members, sports teams or clubs, and even among colleagues in a workplace setting. Regardless of the setting, one will see people of all genders playing both roles at various times. Updated  by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.

Explain how equilibrium is detemined in the keynesian income Essay

Explain how equilibrium is detemined in the keynesian income expenditure model. Use this model to examine the impact of a fall in government spending on the eco - Essay Example Given this rigidity of wages and prices, equilibrium output therefore is determined by demand. The aggregate effective demand is composed of planned real aggregate consumption expenditure (C), planned real aggregate investment (I) and real aggregate government expenditure (G). Real aggregate consumption expenditure is assumed to be a function of real aggregate output (Y) such that if Y rises C also rises but less than proportionally. The equilibrium is attained at that level of income or real output, equal to the effective demand. In the diagram above, the effective demand curve (obtained by vertically summing up C(Y), I and G) intersects the 45 degree line for the level of real aggregate output Y*. Thus Y* is the level of real aggregate output that satisfies the demand supply equality. The intersection point between the effective demand curve and the 45 degree line is referred to as the Keynesian cross. Now if there is a decline in government spending (G) given everything else remains unchanged, the effective aggregate demand will fall for each level of real output. Suppose G falls from G0 to G1. Therefore, the effective demand curve will shift downwards. Therefore the newer intersection point with the 45 degree line shall be to the left of the initial equilibrium point. Y** is the new equilibrium level of income which is lower than Y*. As a result of this decline in the level of real output, there will be a fall in employment as well. As government spending falls, there is a reduction in the effective demand. This reduction causes real output to shrink. This decline in real output again leads to a fall in real aggregate consumption expenditure which in turn reduces effective demand again. This again reduces real aggregate consumption expenditure and so on. However the magnitude of the second fall shall be smaller than the first one due to the non-proportional dependence of consumption on real income. Therefore, as a

Workshop Critique Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Workshop Critique - Essay Example The design chosen by this specific group put into effect KOLB's theory of experimental learning (Kolb 1976). This was against the other models for a variety of reasons. The Johari Window is specific to every individual because of its division into what the person knows about them, what others know about the individual that is known and unknown to them and what is unknown about the individual to both himself and the group (Luft & Ingham). Thus all the Johari Window does is represent information about the individual in relation to his team or group. The ladder of inference concentrates on the understanding that prevents an individual from reaching the wrong conclusions (Senge 1994). Thus, in other words it assists an individual to consider the facts and reality before making any decision. The ladder plays on the individual's belief that his ideas and data might not be the correct or rational proof that the team seeks. This idea was too specific to convincing and teaching the truth so it was foregone as the chosen concept Tuckman's theory is considered one of the most successful team concepts ever created. The concept revolves around concentrating on the team's history: from its creation to the fulfillment of the task, the theory concentrates and succeeds in understanding the entirety of achieving any given task (Tuckman 1965). Tuckman also feels the need of adding a phase known as: adjourning and transforming that applies only after the team has finished their project. Thus, the concept talks of five phases: creating a team, brain-storming ideas, creating rules and values that must be followed, carrying out the practice and learning from experience. Our team chose to follow Kolb's concept. For this concept to come into affect in its entirety it was necessary to run it against a certain sort of experimentation. Kolb's model works on the idea of a four-stage learning cycle: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. Thus every individual in the team succumbs to four different emotions: feeling, watching, thinking and doing (Chapman 2003). Our team merged the Kolb model with certain aspects of the Tuckman model to create an activity and environment that would suit the needs to show the workings and intricacies of team-work. By choosing to play a short game, Tuckman's theory of short projects to be the best indicator came into play. Not only was the activity chosen, short but it also allowed the facilitator to observe the behavior of the team over a measurable timeframe, allowing the judgments that were created to be functional and precise. Also, the activity which took placed allowed every member of the team to engage in each aspect of Kolb's model. Not only was each team member expected to be an active participant but they were also engaged into following the rules of emotionally involving themselves into the task, participating in it, improving by watching the fellow members and eventually doing the best job they thought possible (Kolb & Fry). Outcomes and

Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies Essay - 4

Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies - Essay Example Among many of them, one of the most essential business-level strategies is transnational strategy (Funaru, 2010). According to this strategy, the organization desires to sell its products in global markets comprising of all the essential features and specifications of the local customers. It is done to meet the needs and preferences so as to develop a renowned position in the market among other rivals. Not only this, the profit margin and revenues of the organization might also get enhanced due to its global presence among other competitors (Toyota, n.d.). Apart from this, the management of Toyota Motor Corporation also introduced the strategy of KAIZEN, so as to develop a strong global presence. KAIZEN means continuous improvement of the features and specifications of the products as per the requirements of different markets to create a position in that market. So, it might be depicted that the transnational strategy is the extremely essential for an organization operating successfu lly in automobile sector in long-run (Funaru, 2010). Transnational strategy is the most essential strategy implemented for long-term success as it might facilitate Toyota Motor Corporation to attain a global presence. It might not remain restricted in domestic markets resulting in amplification of the total sale and profit margin of the organization (Toyota, n.d.). ... Justify your opinion. The corporate level strategies of an organization are also essential just as business-level policies (Funaru, 2010). In order to attain a global presence, Toyota Motor Corporation implemented varied types of strategies such as diversification to some other sectors. In order to attain profit margin and brand image, Toyota Motor Corporation decided to get diverted to handloom sector along with automotive segment (Toyota, n.d.). Apart from this, it also decided to go for joint venture and retrenchment. In order to penetrate in various global markets, Toyota Motor Corporation utilized the strategy of joint venture to enter the global markets as its entry is restricted due to trade barriers and presence of varied competitors (Toyota, n.d.). However, diversification is the most essential strategy followed by Toyota Motor Corporation to enhance its brand image and reputation in varied international market among other rivals (Funaru, 2010). It might also prove effective for the organization to improve its profit margin and revenues in long run as compared to others. As a result, the corporative goals might also get fulfilled in an effective way resulting in improvement of the portfolio of the organization (Toyota, n.d.). 3) Analyze the competitive environment to determine Toyota Motor Corporations’ most significant competitor. Compare their strategies at each level and evaluate which company you think is most likely to be successful in the long term. Justify your choice. The competitive environment of the Toyota Motor Corporation is extremely fierce and un-predictable. It may be analyzed with the help of Porter’s five forces model. Competitive rivalry: The competitive

Letter from George Essay Example for Free

Letter from George Essay Im sorry I havent written to you in a long time but a lot of things have happened since I last wrote, unfortunately its bad news this time. It all started when Slim and Curley came in the bunkhouse arguing one night. Then Curley turned to Lennie and says what you laughing at, and then he started lashing out at Lennie and smashed him in the nose. I couldnt stand it anymore Lennie wouldnt fight back so I told him to let him have it. Lennie caught Curleys punch, then he crushed it and he wouldnt let go. When he let his fist go it was flattened, not a bone was left unbroken in his hand. I was sure Lennie and I were going to get canned but Slim saved our skins. He told Curley that if he told anyone what happened and get us canned, we will tell everyone then he would get the laugh. That was good of Slim. I was all right at this point, I was happy, I thought if Lennie play and I our cards right and keep clean for a month we will get our fifty bucks each and get that ranch with old Candy. I started to believe our dream could really happen. All the lads and me were playing horses shoes late Sunday evening. I heard shuffling footsteps from the barn, I looked and saw Candy making his way towards me. His body language said every thing, when he looked at me I felt that something was wrong. He came to me said quietly you better come to the barn. When I saw Curleys wife lying there dead the painful thought going though my mind that I had no other solution to this problem but assume that it was Lennie and knew that was what Candy was thinking. At this point the dream was over for sure of a little ranch. I knew this was the end of the road for Lennie. I knew Curley would want lynch him so Candy and I discussed what we were going to do. I went to the bunkhouse and got Carlsons gun, while Candy went to get the boys. My memory flicked back to the night Carlson shot Candys dog. I went to the barn and heard how they were all planning how they going to get him, Slim reassured me that it was the only way. The others went of all armed; they all went the opposite way to where Lennie should be. I knew he would be by the river where we slept a few nights ago, I told him if he ever got into trouble to go there and wait for me. Sure enough he was there, looking at him made me shiver about the thought of my duty ahead. Lennie expected me to be angry with him but I told him visualise the dream of the imaginary ranch and how the rabbits would hop around and there soft hair. When he looked away I ended his life hoping he was going to a better place. As his lifeless body hit the ground it set a feeling guilt that was unimaginable. I looked at my right hand, which held the gun I throw it away in disgust. Ive moved on now people, just dont care about ranch hands. Best of luck Tom perhaps life will treat you better than Lennie and I.

The Unfettered Language :: Speaking Language Essays

The Unfettered Language In advancing through the stages of one’s life, one also advances through different levels and styles of speaking. One’s personal style of language is adapted to fit these distinct periods of life. In citing a language and using words that others are unfamiliar with, many can be left in a state of confusion. Over time there have been many styles of language that we find difficult to understand and relate to. In Keywords, Raymond Williams is able to take a certain language or group of words and show the reader the different forms of the word/language by giving examples and background, thus clarifying some of the confusion that new languages and words can have. One’s whole life is spent around the same types of people and languages, then all of the sudden when leaving that comfort zone that you had developed you feel like you’re lost. To comprehend the different styles of speaking in our society today, one must understand their origins and the context o f their use. The language (group of words) that I am going to discuss in this paper is the one that we speak here at Duke. It is the vocabulary that many students here at Duke speak, as we have matured past our young teen years, but still search for our adult maturity and lifestyle. I will show how the primary language spoken here at Duke is a much more mature and respectful than that of high school language, but explain how it still lacks in maturity compared to adults way of speech. Teenagers growing up in Northern California, like myself, are known for using â€Å"hella†; it’s a word that I have used for as long as I can remember. But when I came to North Carolina for the first time, I said it to someone who in turn asked, â€Å"California, right?† I responded with a stuttering yes. Why is it that these kinds of things happen? How is it that a single area on the world’s map, or a single group of people start using words that no one else understands or uses? To say that there is just one explanation does not fully justify it. I remember my mother and father being completely confused by what I was trying to say back in high school when my friends and I used words like hella (meaning â€Å"a lot†) and hit (meaning â€Å"hideous†).

The Representation of Evil in Stevensons Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Essay

The Representation of Evil in Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde This essay will show how evil is represented in Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'. 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' is about evil and the duality of people's personalities. To show this I will focus on Stevenson's use of characterization, setting, historical, social and cultural context, settings, symbols and language. Robert Stevenson lived in the Victorian era, this was a very repressive and strict society where it was expected that middle class men would visit prostitutes. This was because people were not supposed to be like animals and have animal instincts such as lust. This meant that middle class men would only sleep with their wives so they could have children and carry on the bloodline. This society would have influenced Stevenson as he was a middle class man himself and he would have experienced his own stifled emotions and hidden instincts, such as lust and rage. Stevenson may also have taken inspiration for the character Mr. Hyde from the crimes of Jack the Ripper who was committing his violent crimes on women at that time. Stevenson may have also been influenced by Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein', which also deals with the themes of dual personalities and evil. In the text Stevenson uses a lot of powerful imagery when describing Mr. Hyde. He uses words such as detestable and deformed. These words create a picture in the readers mind and give them a general feeling of horror, evil and mistrust. Through out the play Stevenson refers to Mr. Hyde as an animal "God bless me the man seems hardly human". This makes the reader picture Mr. Hyde as s... ...one is particularley important and relevant due to the advances of science, which have seen scientists able to clone human embryos. As we can see in 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' and also in Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein" people who play with nature and do not take responsibility for their work and creations ultimately end up creating evil things which they do not understand or know how to control. It could be said that Stevenson wrote the story as a warning to Victorian society about repression and science or maybe it was just an interesting mystery story, which happens to have like many fictions and stories to have become almost true. To conclude I think that evil is effectively portrayed in 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'. Stevenson does this by focusing mainly on the themes of duality and suppression of and in human nature.

Motherhood and slavery Essay

As a capable black woman and as a mother, Sethe feels obligated to provide Beloved, whether her daughter or not, â€Å"a bed to sleep in and somebody there not worrying you to death about what you got to do each day to deserve it† (Beloved 67-68). Therefore, her job as mother, as caretaker, as â€Å"life-giver† and â€Å"life-maintainer† is never-ending, and because it is never-ending, it has the potential to take her to her grave. Beyond that, Sethe fears losing Beloved before she can make her understand that worse than killing her own daughter, â€Å"—far worse—was what Baby Suggs died of what Ella knew, what Stamp saw and what made Paul D tremble. † (Beloved 251). Although not entirely true, for Sethe’s best thing is herself, the one thing about herself that she values, that slavery has not taken away from her is motherhood. This, for Sethe, is maintaining a mental survival for her children, preventive medicine for the ills of slavery. As Kubitschek notes, â€Å"On the plantations†¦ black women’s nurturance—from the physical (nursing milk) to the metaphysical (energy and patience)—is used up primarily in working fields and tending white children† (166). But for Sethe, who was able to have her children with her, â€Å"the major means of protecting children from slavery is to value them and to communicate this value to them† (Kubitschek 166). This is a sacrifice Sethe and many mothers, traditional and nontraditional, are more than willing to make. This becomes especially painful in part two of the novel. When Sethe thinks about Beloved and her own actions, she says she will explain it all to Beloved, reflecting, â€Å"How if I hadn’t killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her†¦ I’ll tend her as no mother ever tended a child, a daughter. Nobody will ever get my milk no more except my own children† (Beloved 200). Here we can see transforming and destereotyping potential of Sethe’s actions. She goes on thinking of how she will change, how she can mother now as a free woman. In this case, it is as if Sethe must be a nontraditional, unstereotypical mother in order to accomplish the traditional mothering role she wants to attain. She also reflects on her faults when Beloved returns, how she was distracted by Paul D and should not have been. But it is at this point that she demonstrates the difference between man and woman, between father and mother. Kubitschek argues that â€Å"In the twilight area of an illegal freedom, Sethe has immediately, upon being summoned back to slavery, acted on a slave definition of mothering: presence is all† (167). Being together, even if dead together, was enough. â€Å"Presence is all. † Lucille Fultz cites Marsha Darling’s interview with Morrison in which Morrison asserts: â€Å"Under the theatrical conditions of slavery, if you made that claim†¦ that you are the mother of these children you were claiming the right to say something about what happens to them. † Morrison terms Sethe’s commitment to her children â€Å"an excess of maternal feeling, a total surrender. † This surrender is configured in Sethe’s desire to protect her daughter from the ills she suffered as a female slave. † (40) Sethe takes her protection of her children one step further. Fultz contends that â€Å"Through desire and knowledge Sethe achieves subjectivity for herself and her children. She refuses to subscribe to the system that treats her and her family as objects† (38). She especially needs to make up to Beloved, perhaps because she killed her, or perhaps because the death separated them as Sethe had been separated from her own â€Å"ma’am. † Kubitschek asserts, â€Å"Still defining motherhood as keeping her children with her, Sethe cannot reject the ghost’s presence† (167). Perhaps it is more a loss of a time component than the actual murder component that Sethe regrets. Thus, because she spent so little time with her own mother, she must spend as much time with her daughters as possible, which leads to their month of playing together. Morrison visually paints their month, noting the â€Å"star-loaded sky,† â€Å"sweet milk,† â€Å"string puzzles in afternoon light,† â€Å"shadow pictures in the gloaming,† â€Å"a garden of vegetables and flowers† (Beloved 240). All of this serves Sethe’s purpose until Beloved decides it is not enough, and Denver realizes â€Å"that her mother could die and leave them both and what would Beloved do then? † (Beloved 243). Beloved has no life of her own, no name, and never did. She was never called anything but the â€Å"crawling already? girl† and â€Å"Beloved† as her gravestone marked her. Not a name to cling to. Morrison tells us that â€Å"Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name† (Beloved 274) because she is a representation of life, many lives, but does not get the opportunity to live her own. She can be the woman during the Middle Passage; she can be the woman in slavery; she can be the woman who escaped slavery; and she is all of these. She â€Å"embodies each and every woman of the African American motherline†¦ and†¦ is also linked to Sethe’s own mother who, like the murdered granddaughter, remains nameless† (O’Reilly 86, 87). But as a result, she is never herself. Morrison poetically crosses three generations of women, who learn and demonstrate survival skills, in a very matriarchally religious trinity—mother: Sethe’s mother; daughters: Sethe and eventually Denver; and â€Å"holy† ghost: Beloved. Each fights for survival of herself, and of future generations through different means. Sethe’s mother rebels and is hanged, but impresses upon her daughter what truly matters—the self and a sense of connection with one’s own matrilineal line. Sethe escapes slavery with her children and is willing to kill them so that they may â€Å"survive† maintaining their natural selves. Beloved is reincarnated. This is her survival, but it also leads to Denver’s ability to survive on her own, which further protects and preserves the potential for future generations. Essentially, all these women can fight for survival at this point in the novel because there is a sense of belonging, of necessity. Sethe gives herself inherence when she places complete necessity on herself for the responsibility of her children. Morrison describes Sethe as a free woman, as a free mother, writing, â€Å"Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another† (Beloved 95). But that is what Sethe is able to do. In the Clearing, she claims herself. At this point, she is finally able to attach herself to the self that she can create. As a result, she can also, hi her mother role, help begin to claim selfhood for those around her. Thus, she returned to 124, â€Å"opened the door, walked in and locked it tight behind her† and when â€Å"Sethe locked the door, the women inside were free at last to be what they liked, see whatever they saw and say whatever was on their minds† (Beloved 198, 199). This is all part of Sethe’s role as mother. She defends others, her own girls especially, with her whole body, her whole home. Yet, the one thing she does not immediately understand or establish for herself, until Paul D makes her realize it, is that Beloved, her â€Å"crawling already?girl,† was not her â€Å"best thing. † Sethe is a woman destined for survival early on because of the actions she takes and the decisions she makes as a mother, but she cannot see her personal value beyond powerful motherhood until the end, when she is a free woman: free of slavery, free of Beloved, beginning to be free of the past, free of the blame of murdering her daughter to â€Å"save† her, and free of the blame of making the ink schoolteacher used to assess their animal characteristics and measurements (Beloved 271). Then and only then does she fully comprehend the destereotyped notion of â€Å"best thing† as herself. Redefining motherhood for herself, Sethe also redefines the foundation of humanity. By making her character commit that horrible act, Toni Morrison asks her reader: is the inhumanity in Sethe’s killing of the baby or is it in the horrible system that drives her to commit this act? Playing with the reader’s mind, Morrison dislocates scenes of the slaves’ beating that are prevalent in narratives of slavery. For the image of the master holding the stick, she substitutes that of the slave committing a violent act on her own child. From now on the slave is given the opportunity to have a voice. Why murder her baby? With this infanticide, Sethe’s writing of history undermines the ideology that founded the white masters. This ideology, based on a racial and gendered duality, locates humanity within the white race. It is this vision and appropriation of humanity that Morrison attacks. If humanity lies in the empowerment of the white man who engages in a violent exploitation of the non-white, driving the latter to kill her child, where does inhumanity stand?

The Quiet American essays

The Quiet American essays In Graham Greene's The Quiet American, Greene uses the characters Thomas Fowler and Alden Pyle to represent a greater picture. In the interactions among these characters, he is simplifying the situation in Vietnam into a personal model to be viewed. Graham Greene developed the attitudes and personalities of his characters almost to be a condensed legend of the countries they represented. In their actions, and opinions formed on them by others, was a reflection of the general feeling overall in Vietnam. Alden Pyle is the title quiet American sent to Vietnam with orders. Seemingly he is quiet because he is the innocent, neutral party coming to aid by selling plastic. He has a good reputation, and is very curt and proper. Naive is best to superficially describe his demeanor; he is only trying to help. But ignorance is probably better to this character for he does not realize the destruction he is causing and does not realize that he is more meddlesome than helpful. And that is exactly what Graham Greene is trying to portray this character's representation of the United States. Pyle as an individual reflects America as a whole as they were seen as ignorantly trying to interfere in Vietnam, being neutral. But actually harming in trying to help Pyle as a character and as the symbol of his country was portrayed of promising the Vietnamese things, trying to forge for them a new life they did not need nor understand. This is seen with his relationship with Phuong as he woos her away from Thomas Fowler with promises of skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty. Phuong, can be seen as the innocent country Vietnam whose promising lands pose the stage for a war between the politics of greedier forces. Phuong and the majority of Vietnam, the peasants, know nothing but their simple existence. They farm their rice paddies; they sustain themselves- that is all they know. No matter who wins the war, how will it affect most ...

Aztec Empire essays

Aztec Empire essays Do Aztec Empire deserved to be destroyed? Is destruction of Tenochtitlan a loss to history? The Aztecs was a great empire in year 1519. They were very strong and their capital city Tenochtitlan was a huge city that built in the middle of the lake and it was man-made. Tenochtitlan was the largest city in the world at that time. But in 1521, the Spanish discovered the Aztec empire and destroyed all the things they had. Tenochtitlan was surrounded soon and the Aztecs were over. Aztecs people were clever and talented in same ways, but there were also ways that they were foolish and uncivilized. So I am going to talk about do the Aztec empire deserved to be destroyed, and is destruction of Tenochtitlan a loss to history. There were many ways that showed the Aztecs were talented and civilized. First, the Aztecs were skilled architectures, engineers, and designers, they could build huge city on the middle of a lake, they also building temples that surrounded the old ones when there is a new empire. The Aztecs were good farmers also, they were skilled to get water from mountains using irrigation even though Mexico is a dry country. Science and technology were also advanced in the Aztec Empire, people built gardens that contain natural medicines. All these evidences tell us that the Aztecs shouldnt deserve to be destroyed and the destruction of Tenochtitlan is a loss to history. Although the Aztec Empire had many ways that shown they didnt deserved to be destroyed, there were certain ways that tell us the Aztecs arent civilized and even very foolish in some ways. Religion was a very important part in the Aztec empire. The Aztecs people treated their god top of everything else and worship them blindly. The Aztecs would do anything to please their god, and even horrible and cruel things like human sacrifices. The priest would do human sacrifice in a cruelly by cut and taking a live mans heart out from his body. T ...

Compensation Is a Core Function of Human Resource Essay Example

Compensation Is a Core Function of Human Resource Essay Example Compensation Is a Core Function of Human Resource Essay Compensation Is a Core Function of Human Resource Essay Compensation is a core function of human resource management, one that has important direct or indirect implications for recruitment, appraisal, training, retention, and labour relations. At the centre of competency, cost, and productivity issues in government, pay for performance is a key methodology in the compensation field and a central component of contemporary civil service reform. This technique is a fitting topic for the anniversary symposium. Most organizations, in fact, say they recognize merit, and most personnel believe that remuneration should be tied to contribution. Managers see pay for performance as a basis of control, and employees embrace its intuitive appeal. It is not surprising, then, that public and private organizations claim to give great deference to merit, the civil service system is even named for it. Yet substantial discontinuity exists between rhetoric and reality, as business scholars point out that performance pay â€Å"may not be as desirable, as easy to implement, or as widely used as commonly believed† (Fisher schoenfelt, Shaw, 2006, p. 512). But the Public service experts such as Jonathan Bruel, IBM Centre for Business of Government, likewise find that it is â€Å"complex and deceptively difficult, both technically and politically† (Mosquera, 2008, August 18). Indeed, the managerial discretion promised by contingency compensation confronts agency missions lacking in simple profit maximization metrics, personnel who may be motivated as much by public interest as private gain, and legal provisions against political manipulation of employees. It is by no means clear that the benefits of developing such systems outweigh the costs. However, the concept of merit today is associated with commercial values and corporate-style performance pay. Although it takes many forms for most administrative, technical, and professional work, pay for performance typically seeks to use a portion of salary increases to award personal productivity. Seemingly consistent with well-known motivation theories and simple common sense, no one argues that people should not be paid for achievement incentive plans have grown in popularity in both the public and private sectors. It is the increasing diffusion of this approach to compensation that suggests the need for a re examination of merit pay for individual performance. This study assesses the practical experience, policy findings, and political realities of performance compensation in the federal government in contemporary history, followed by a discussion of its persistence. The analysis is informed by scholarly research, news media articles, government publications, and data from 15 unstructured, 30- to 50-minute telephone interviews in fall 2008. This small, diverse group of stakeholders offered insights into the promise, problems, and prospects of contingency compensation. Chosen on the basis of reputation and accessibility, it included representatives from news outlets, unions, nonprofits, consultancies public agencies, and academic. Practical Experience To summarize this section, pay clearly matters. But as experience demonstrates, it is difficult to link compensation policies to desired results; good intentions are not necessarily assumed in a political environment, and in any event are simply not enough. For example, President Barack Obama, while not rejecting the concept of contingency compensation, has indicated concern about troubled pay-for-performance systems and seeks to have a civil service bill that includes compensation reforms passed by the 2010 elections. For most agencies, it is a major administrative undertaking to implement performance pay, a task that includes the continuous re-evaluation of motivation and productivity, identification of additional levels of contribution that warrant recognition, and provision of incentives on an equitable and timely basis. As Bob Behn (2004) observes, who gets how much for what are insidiously complicated issues. Too good to be true, pay for performance might be â€Å"a wonderful theory . . . unfortunately details matter† (p. 2; also see U. S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 2006). Although that may not be a reason not to do it, dealing with performance compensation â€Å"is always unsatisfactory,† according to Mark Abramson (personal communication, December 2, 2008) of Leadership, Inc. ; not only is every agency’s situation different, but also the topic is complex and multifaceted. It is easy to see why, in light of the record, simpler, â€Å"set-it-and-forget-it† compensation programs historically have been widespread in the public and private spheres. Indeed, performance pay promoters- tellingly- have not sought to apply the technique to presidents, members of Congress, agency secretaries, or the uniformed services. Policy Findings Shortly this section, research findings demonstrate that to avoid crippling drawbacks, a set of strict policy prerequisites is needed to implement the methodology. Although organizations do not necessarily have to wait for perfect conditions, an honest assessment of their readiness and realistic understanding of pay-for-performance pitfalls is needed (Kerr, 2008). Even in favourable circumstances, incentive remuneration may not be successful because the detailed requirements are very demanding and often impractical. Metzenbaum (2006) reported that â€Å"an overwhelming body of research and experience suggests that promising rewards . . . seldom works when the rewards are linked to attainment of specific targets, progress relative to peers, progress relative to the past, or per unit of product† (p. ). Government agencies should use incentives sparingly and rely instead on â€Å"intrinsic motivators† such as goal setting and feedback. In fact, because those in public service have strong intrinsic motivations, there is reason to expect that a â€Å"market model may actually reduce performance† (Moynihan, 2008, p. 256). Politic al Reality It is difficult to overstate the attractiveness of pecuniary incentives in a political arena. When called into question by practical experience in the field and policy findings in research, stakeholders deny the undeniable and seize on performance pay as a solution to human resource problems. Success is not required, failure is overlooked, and new programs are inaugurated with little attention to agency histories or systematic studies. There are a lot of obstacles regarding performance and pay when we looked into the politic reality of certain country controlled by communism and dictators. The pay is based on revenue of a country not by the performance. Conclusion When unexamined cultural beliefs, well-meaning ideas, ideological goals, and political loyalty prevail, administrative values are overpowered and the ability to manage is thereby impaired. What accounts for the difficulty encountered by performance pay schemes is that the normative framework of contemporary civil service reform (one that takes an inaccurate, glorified view of corporate programs) is simply inappropriate for effective public human resource management (Bowman West, 2007; Riccucci Thompson, 2008). The distinction, stated differently, between pursuing objectives as a function of monetary exchange versus as a function of duty, between an obligation to personal gain versus public good, and between extrinsic versus intrinsic work motivation (Crenson, 1995, p. 90; Perry Hondeghem, 2008). The values of economic rationality inherent in performance pay systems, as David Dillman (2007, p. 892) observes, are inconsistent with the civil service ethos. In the end, government is a public service. The claim that â€Å"people tend to believe things they want to believe† offers a plausible explanation for why so many are so wrong for so long and seem unable to l earn from error. Some of the worst mistakes are not those that take people by surprise but rather those that were made with eyes wide open, a kind of â€Å"false consciousness† that dictates that what is preferred is inevitable. It follows that the more that performance compensation is discredited, the more that such testimony is ignored. Promoters convince themselves over and over again that the methodology will function properly. It is striking, for instance, how unaware some of its champions seem to be of criticisms levied against incentive pay. The legend dictates that no matter what empty, misguided pay-for-performance models should work.