Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Teaching Students to Understand Reading - 741 Words

The central focus of my learning segment is to learn about the relationship between cause and effect, sequencing, and timelines. As we near the CRCT, the students need to be able to describe the relationship between causes and effects. The students will also be able to write their own sentences and stories using different cause and effect strategies. The learning segment will be broken down into four different days, the first day will be focusing on finding cause and effect relationships in literature, the second day will use historical contexts for cause and effect and sequencing, the third day will use science to explain why sequencing is important, and the final day will focus on how personal behaviors can have different effects on the classroom and school. Each day my lessons will delve deeper into the meaning of cause and effect. By the end of the week, my students should be able to explain how their own behaviors affect the classroom and school. The students will work on buildi ng their own stories using different cause and effect signal words. With my students, I know that many of them do not understand cause and effect relationships. I know that they understand that sequencing can be important, but they do not understand what happens if you do not follow sequencing perfectly. My students will learn how cause and effect relationships are seen in literature, social studies, and science. They will also learn about cause and effect relationships in their daily life. IShow MoreRelatedDeveloping Instructional Practices For Students With Specific Learning Disabilities Case Study1280 Words   |  6 Pages Developing Instructional Practices for Students with Specific Learning Disabilities Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Developing Instructional Practices for Students with Specific Learning Disabilities Part One How to Support Students with Specific Learning Disabilities The research-based instructional practices for supporting students with reading, mathematics, and language disabilities in the science and social studies content areas throughout elementary school includeRead MoreMy Experience Teaching For The First Time A Close Reading Activity971 Words   |  4 PagesBased on my experience teaching for the first time a close reading activity I find that responding critically to a text is important because it lets you know more of the reading than event in a text. As a student, I did not like to read and I am guessing is because I was not taught effective reading strategies that could help me improve my reading comprehension and really understand the meaning behind the words of book. Through this activity, the learners, where able to go deeper into the text andRead MoreThe Literacy : A Balanced Literacy Program1517 Words   |  7 Pagesliteracy refers to reading and writing. Both must be taught together within the many components of a balanced li teracy program. Each of these components are important in this program and provide a framework for what and how educators teach. Among teaching, there are five different elements that the National Reading Panel identifies as important to reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. It is an educator’s goal for students to understand these five elementsRead MoreA Balanced Literacy Program For Reading And Writing1634 Words   |  7 Pagesliteracy refers to reading and writing. Both must be taught together within the many components of a balanced literacy program. Each of these components are important in this program and provide a framework for what and how educators teach. Among teaching, there are five different elements that the National Reading Panel identifies as important to reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. It is an educator’s goal for students to understand these five elementsRead MoreLayer Four : Strategies For Multiple Components Of Instruction962 Words   |  4 Pagesinstruction focuses on the strategies students need to learn when reading and writing in a balanced program. This layer also relies on the five components of instruction. This section will add strategies and skills teachers can use to teach each of the five components. This section builds on what was written before by adding these strategies and skills to help build strong readers and writers. Layer 4: Building on the Five Components As mentioned before, The National Reading Panel in 2000 and the No ChildRead MoreTheories And Practices Of Teaching And Learning Literacy1339 Words   |  6 Pagestheories and practices of teaching and learning literacy across preschool, elementary, middle and early high school. A few of the theories and practices of teaching and learning literacy are Freebody Luke’s (1990) Four Resources Model, a cognitive-constructivist view of reading (Graves, Juel, Graves, 2007), and a complex theory of the reading process (Clay, 2013). Freebody and Luke (1990) developed what they felt were four interconnected reading practices or roles a student should use in order toRead MoreScholarly Articles On Teaching And Learning1305 Words   |  6 Pagespaper will examine scholarly articles about teaching and learning in the English discipline. This review of literature seeks to explore factors that can cause poor reading comprehension among students and provide strategies as to how these students’ comprehension and vocabulary skills can be improved therefore, enhancing their academic performance. In addition, this paper will outline an explanation of how the strategies address the needs of diverse students in the English discipline. Issues withinRead MoreComparative Outcomes Of Two Instructional Models For Students With Learning Disabilities1488 Words   |  6 PagesModels for Students with Learning Disabilities: Inclusion with Co-Teaching and Solo-Taught Special Education. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 251-258. Retrieved November 22, 2014. Summary In the following study researchers compared two instructional approaches; co-teaching inclusion and solo-taught special education for students with learning disabilities in regard to their overall academic achievement. Participants of the study included twelve inclusive/co-teaching classroomsRead MoreTeaching Reading Skills With Computer Assisted Language Learning1507 Words   |  7 PagesTeaching Reading Skills with Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) CALL or Computer Assisted Language Learning is known as the area of applied linguistics concerned with the use of computers for teaching and learning a second language or foreign language (Chapel and Jamieson, 2008). Computers have been used for educational purposes since mid-1960s with the work of Suppes, Atkinson, and their colleagues (National Reading Panel, 2006). However, up to 2006, there were still relatively few numbersRead MoreUsing Visual Thinking for Effective Teaching and Learning Essay749 Words   |  3 Pagesto receive and retain information. Visual aids have the ability to stimulate and maintain the learners’ interest, simplify teaching, accelerate learning and reinforce the material being studied. There are a number of benefits in using visual aids in teaching language. The first is visual thinking makes complex information easier to understand. Thanks to visual aids students can see the connection between ideas, and realize how this information can be organized or grouped. With visual aids, new concepts

Monday, December 23, 2019

Implementing and Ehr - 2033 Words

The Future Mandate: Implementation of an EHR Darhlene E. Banks The Catholic University of America HIT-573, Health Care Information Systems Dr. Sue Yeon Syn October 30, 2012 Abstract In evaluating the plans of the Leonard Williams Medical Center (LWMC) and its subsidiary business entity, the Williams Medical Services (WMS), the overall objective is to implement new technology in the form of an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system in order to streamline workflow, provide safe and quality care for patients and remain competitive with other healthcare facilities in providing these components with the use of advanced technology. The implementation of an EMR is the desire of the physician group, WMS, who refuses to listen to†¦show more content†¦Hence, EHR s are inherently complex amalgamations of diverse subsystems targeted toward varied users. The stakeholders are the users and must have a role in implementing any IT or EHR system into its work flow. An EHR can be customized to accommodate any environment depending on the level of expertise of the vendor and how long they have been in the business of creating an optimum system that s customized to fi t the organizations needs. For the most part, EHR s must be designed for efficient, error free use. Ideally, an EHR is a system that encompass all the subsystems that make a hospital meet meaningful use criteria to acquire incentives for adopting EHR into practice. In the next five years, EHR adoption will no longer be a luxury, it will be a MUST. EHR s and other health information technology will be a necessity to practice medicine (econsultant.com, 2010). Rather than purchase several standalone systems, it would behoove one , in my opinion , to purchase an EHR that would satisfy all the needs of the stakeholders, the physician , nurses and other hospital staff and all parties involved in the tertiary practice too. Although LWMS s budget is not large enough to accommodate the full cost of implementing an EHR,Show MoreRelatedImplementation Of Implementing A Nationwide Ehr System2003 Words   |  9 PagesStage 3: The Future and Goal The final step in the process of implementing a nationwide EHR system is Stage 3, which is set to be in full development by 2018. On February 14, 2014 the ONC meaningful use workgroup submitted recommendations for the implementation of Stage 3 meaningful use incentive program to the Health IT policy Committee, however their findings have not been published to date. This will result in the Policy Committee approving recommendations in mid 2015 the Health and Human ServicesRead MoreThe Impact Of Implementing Ehr On Processes Of Care And Outcomes946 Words   |  4 PagesVartak. S., et al. Conducted a research to assess the impact of implementing EHR on processes of care and outcomes in the ED. The ED patient visit log files were used to examine changes in patients’ ED length of stay (LOS). Along with the implementation of the EHR, there was an average increase of 17 minutes (15%) in LOS. One of the objectives of EHR implementation was to reduce the ED LOS by speeding up quick- registration, the triage process, and room assignment. Prior to implementation a patientRead MoreThe Challenge For Providers Implementing Ehrs And Achieving Meaningful Use908 Words   |  4 PagesThe challenge to providers implementing EHRs and achieving meaningful use. The solutions to this challenge contains various tools, training, and the review of other success stories of providers that have been successful in the implementation. Proverbs 16:3, â€Å"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.† The ultimate goal in implementing EHRs is to assist in building an evolving body of knowledge and valuable resources to assist in supporting health care providers and healthRead MoreAbstract. The Purpose Of This Literature Review Is To Compare1120 Words   |  5 Pagespurpose of this literature review is to compare the benefits and risks of electronic health records (EHRs). This literature review has provided different journal articles to compare the risks and the benefits of having electronic health records in a hospital. Some of the articles believe that the use of EHRs in a hospital will be more effective and helpful while others suggest that the use of EHRs in a hospital will not be beneficial due to the complications that may arise with it. The methods usedRead MoreElectronic Health Records ( Ebd )1601 Words   |  7 PagesElectronic Health Records (EHRs) is another version of a patient’s medical history, that is maintained by the healthcare facilities or provider over time, and may include all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that persons care under particular healthcare facilities, including demographics, progress notes, medication, x-rays, surgical history, and etc.(CMS,2012). While the adoption of the electronic health record system seems promising for the healthcare community and having a positiveRead MoreThe History of Electronic Health Records (EHR): An Electronic Health Record is defined by NEHTA1500 Words   |  6 PagesThe History of Electronic Health Records (EHR): An Electronic Health Record is defined by NEHTA Acronyms, Abbreviations Glossary of Terms (p22, 2005) as â€Å"an electronic longitudinal collection of personal health information, usually based on the individual, entered or accepted by healthcare providers, which can be distributed over a number of sites or aggregated at a particular source. The information is organized primarily to support continuing, efficient and quality health care. The record isRead MoreThe Board Of Trustees. Harris Memorial Hospital And . Harris1146 Words   |  5 PagesCommunity Foundation As Harris Memorial Hospital and Harris Community Foundation aims to incorporate the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in the system, being the Board of Trustees it is your imperative to have complete knowledge about the justification of soft costs and the financial benefits associated with the incorporation of EHRs. Hence, there is a requirement for EHR investment, I would like to explain the steps for justification of ROI soft return with an example and the capital acquisition requiredRead MoreLegal Issues And The Electronic Health Record1074 Words   |  5 Pagesmedical record (EHR), there are legitimate issues and concerns that need addressing before one can fully understand the EHR. While implementing an HER offers things such as improved quality of care and increased patient safety, there are also legality issues one faces and may not realize when utilizing an EHR documentation standards change, as well as medical liability. The sooner a facility or physician’s practice c ome to acknowledge and address the patient care issues involved in the EHR, the easierRead MoreElectronic Health Records (Ehr) Are Digital Patient Records1123 Words   |  5 PagesElectronic health records (EHR) are digital patient records whose interoperable and sharable use can lead to improved safety, effectiveness, efficiency, and timeliness of care. The value of EHR is leading to more efforts into integrating medical organizations with the rest of the health care system to maximize patient benefits and improve transitions of care. Highlighting the case for EHR to health care stakeholders, such as organizations, organizational managers, and practitioners, will help contributeRead MoreUpgrading the Health Sector with Electronic Health Records 1649 Words   |  7 Pagesprocesses, is the health sector. This report observes and analyses multiple real life cases of health care providers from the United States who have decided to upgrade from traditional paper based patient charts t o computer based Electronic Health Records (EHR). It should be noted that all of the case studies observed in this report were created by the Centre for Aging Services Technologies who describe themselves as being â€Å"focused on development, evaluation and adoption of emerging technologies† in the

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Theories of Criminal Behavior Free Essays

When evaluating the dynamics of both the strain and control theories one must factor into their analysis the sub-categories of each theory and how they contribute to the overall spectrum of crime, punishment, and social control. The following evaluation consists of those evaluations that consist of the varying forms of both the strain and control theories of crime; including the strengths and weaknesses of each standpoint, the empirical validity of each, and the overall ramifications for crime prevention. Strain Theories Frustration. We will write a custom essay sample on Theories of Criminal Behavior or any similar topic only for you Order Now This is the foundation for the plethora of strain theories that encompass the criminological and theoretical world (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 110). The basic premise of the theory traces its roots back to Robert K. Merton. Frustration to meet societies expectations in terms of success, (Specifically, monetary wealth), is a primary contributor to criminal behavior. Furthermore, the unequal balance between the goals of acquiring this â€Å"wealth,† and the means by which one seeks to achieve this end is described by Merton as an â€Å"anomie. Simply put, it is not so much how one gain’s wealth; it is merely of primary importance that one does in fact achieve it, by whatever means possible (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 112). Merton believed that America’s fascination with acquiring wealth at any cost is a direct link to the strain theory. However, Merton also believed that each individual experienced strain differently. He reasoned that each person experiencing the strain, dealt wi th it within the concept of five variations. The five variations or adaptions to strain consist of conformity, ritualism, innovators, retreatism, and rebellion (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 112-113). Adaptations to strain- Five variations Conformity, in relation to the strain theory, refers to people who utilize traditional means by which to accomplish their goals of material acquisition (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 112). Ritualists, the second adaption to the strain theory, refers to those do not wish to gain monetary abundance or riches. However, like conformists, they do structure their lives in a manner that is conventional. They enjoy their occupations, and their normal everyday lives, but they do not aggressively seek to enter into a higher echelon of economic status (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 113). Innovators are thought to be the most likely to seek out and live a life of crime (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 113). Innovators wish to achieve money and riches, but want no part of the conventional or traditional methods of achieving this end. They do not desire to work hard to achieve their goals. Instead, they look for ways to circumvent the normal or traditional processes of education and hard work. This does not always include crime, as one might initially think. Many inventors and entrepreneurs fit the category of â€Å"innovator. † For example, the founders of Google, Yahoo, and other internet search engine web sites are innovators. Athletes who sign lucrative contracts are also considered innovators. These individuals are not part of the criminal population- they simply seek to find different ways to achieve the same goals of the traditional groups. Alternatively, there are innovators who engage in activities such as dealing drugs, robbing banks, stealing cars, etc. Tibbetts, 2012, p. 112). These individuals represent the other end of the innovator equation. Finally, retreatism and rebellion round out the final two classifications of the adaptations to the strain theory. Retreatists, like innovators, do not adopt the â€Å"normal† concepts of hard work and education; neither do they wish to achieve the end of monetary wealth. All forms of reteatists seek to dis appear from society completely- not buying into its goals or methods (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 113). Lastly, rebellion is usually thought of as the most intriguing of the five adaptations to strain. The difference that pertains to this category of individuals is how they view society’s goals and the means by which one accomplishes them. While they buy into the concept of goals and methods of society, they do not buy into the CURRENT social structure and its associative ideas of goals and means. Instead, they seek to create their own social structure by overthrowing the current structure and replacing it with one in that adapts to their ideas and values (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 113). Evidence and Criticisms of the Strain Theory Since the foundation of the strain theory was laid by Merton, many criticisms have surfaced, as well as supporting evidence. The strength of the theory lies primarily within the fact that the Merton’s work provided a structure whereby societal groups in general are evaluated-not individual groups (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 114). There is also the existence of scattered amounts of evidence based support that poverty links directly to crime (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 114). Support for the theory appears to derive from macrolevel rates (Group rates) of the relation between crime and poverty (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 12). Critics of the strain theory cite various reasons why the theory of strain is not valid, or at the very least, flawed. One such reason is the variation of occupations in which people engage, as well as the wide variety of expectations these people possess in terms of what a certain life course might take. While there are many theories, both for and against and everywhere in between Merton’s strain theory, one cannot argue against the strength of its basic premise of expectations vs. the means to achieve those expectations, and the varying degrees of pressure this places upon individuals. Social Control Theory Control theories operate under the premise that all individuals would subscribe to anti-social behavior save for restrictions that are put in place to guard against their own deviant tendencies (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 152). Basically, control theories stem from the idea that all mankind is evil in terms of base character- man must be contained via laws, guidelines, and restraints. Although not easily tested, the idea of natural criminal inclinations receives a strong supporting cast via recent empirical evidence. Research has found that most people are ‘bent’ towards criminal actions at an early age. An example of the natural tendency towards criminal behavior is indicated by a reported study by Tremblay and LeMarquand (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 153). This study found that most children’s antisocial behavior peaked at the age of 27 months-particularly boy’s behavior (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 153). Other likeminded studies have surfaced that also give rise to this evidence pertaining to antisocial tendencies Tibbetts, 2012, p. 153). Several other control theories present themselves within the realm of criminal behavior. For example, Reiss’s control theory states that criminal tendencies were a byproduct of a weak ego or superego controls among incarcerated youth (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 157). However, Reiss believed that strong family bonds served to act as a counterbalance to these weak ego and super ego controls (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 112). Additionally, traits that a person either possessed or did not possess weighed heavily within the framework of Reiss’s control theory. Examples of personal traits include, but are not limited to, impulse restraint, and the ability to delay gratification (Tibbetts, 2012, p. 12). Control perspectives are the most archaic, yet most respected indications and reasons for criminal actions by individuals. The basic position is that mankind is selfish and seeks its own gratification at any cost. The counteracting barriers to this behavior is put into place by social policies and controls that combat and react to criminal activity and the theory that mankind is ev il and selfish. References Tibbetts, S. G. (2012) Criminological theory: The essentials. SAGE publications, Inc. How to cite Theories of Criminal Behavior, Essay examples

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Amadeus Movie Review free essay sample

The title of the movie should actually be Saltier, because the whole movie is really about his Jealousy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and how Saltier was overshadowed musically by Mozart. In the beginning, Saltier makes a deal with God so He will make Saltier a musical genius, and Saltier believes he has been granted this gift until the day Mozart comes to Vienna. Saltier immediately becomes Jealous that God has bestowed upon Mozart the power he himself worked so desperately to achieve.From hat point on, Saltier becomes obsessed with conspiring against Mozart, at one point paying a maid to go to Mozart place to spy while she is cleaning and report back to him. Eventually, though indirectly, Saltier kills Mozart. The major theme In this movie Is the Jealousy of Saltier, and how It consumed his every waking thought. It is somewhat depressing because it also shows all the hard work of Saltier with no success and the ease of Mozart ability when to him composing music Is quite easy. We will write a custom essay sample on Amadeus Movie Review or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Though the plot is fairly realistic, it is not completely historically accurate.Mozart was even more rambunctious and childish than portrayed in the film, and the ending is traumatized for the Hollywood effect. The acting though, is very well done. Director Mills Forman did a great Job directing F. Murray Abraham (Saltier) and Tom Hulled (Mozart) to stardom. They make the two and half-hours of wigs, wigs, opera, and more wigs bearable. Together they bring the silver screen alive and take us from our era into that of Mozart very seamlessly. The sets are amazing, with great attention to detail and depth.The scenes where the operas take place are very well set up, and they fit in nicely with the time period. The costumes, too, are quite the feat. The many layers (of the womens costumes especially) look extremely complicated to make, and the scene at the party where Mozart plays the Plano upside-down showcases these costumes beautifully. I dont know if I am more impressed by the designers or the actors and actresses who wore them because they look so hot! The wigs are a defining part of the costumes in the film.The most striking reasons these are so appealing and dramatic are that they are o big and almost appallingly white. Some of the Womens wigs are even topped with a huge hat to match the dress or some other exotic object. If you dont watch this movie for any other reason, watch it for the costumes. The makeup artist did a good job, but nothing spectacular or worth highlighting. There arent many special effects, so adding some In there may have made the movie that much more enjoyable. Overall, I give the movie 1 h stars, because the actors really knew their stuff but the plot wasnt all that entertaining.I think the best part overall was Mozart laugh, and the soundtrack was really very enjoyable. I recommend this film to those who wish to learn more about Sellers, and not Mozart, because the movie doesnt really focus much on him. Rent this film if you have absolutely nothing else to do on a Saturday 1 OFF cultural history Junkie. Other than that, a note to the intended audiences (like I said, the culture gurus): enjoy! To the casual moviegoer who likes action or romance: beware- you probably wont be able to watch the whole 160 minutes of Amadeus.

Monday, November 25, 2019

Trying Juviniles as Adults essays

Trying Juviniles as Adults essays Trying Juveniles as Adults and Placing them into Adult Institutions Juveniles being tried as adults, who is to blame? In todays society it is not who or whom it is what. Juvenile offenders are now facing a double-edged sword. Not only can they be tried in a Juvenile court for a crime committed. They are now being charged as adults. Charging a juvenile as an adult has stirred up many different views. When should we say enough is enough? Violent crimes committed by juveniles have become a growing epidemic. The children of today are subjected to violence in popular songs, television shows, and even computer games. Parents having guns accessible to children and the society the child lives in all play a part in the destruction of our youth. Juvenile offenders are now facing tougher punishment for their actions. Juvenile crime is stated as an act committed by a minor that would be considered a crime committed by an adult, such as vandalism, burglary, assault, or murder (Silverstein 11). Juveniles are committing these crimes against families, classmates, and strangers. In many states, a juvenile is any one under the age of eighteen. Young offenders commit these crimes because they feel neglected, that no one cares, and this is a way to get attention. However, professionals say that juvenile offenders commit these crimes due to being abused or even ignored as a child (Valentine). Telling a parent to not ignore, punish, or leave your child home alone or your child could grow to become a criminal, seems severe. Why dont we just tell them how to raise their children? We as a society can not place the blame on a parent the juveniles are the ones at fault. Juvenile crime is dated as far back as the 1600s. Where in the Massachusetts colony, a teenager over sixteen years of age who had cursed at or hit his parents could receive the death penalty (Landau 88). In this time-pe...

Friday, November 22, 2019

Business and Customers Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Business and Customers - Assignment Example From this paper it is clear that customers often have different needs, and, depending on the times, these needs change. Understanding these needs is a clear indication that the customer comes first. This paper will examine the warning signs vendors and sales representatives might check for to know if the industry is commoditized. One warning sign that a vendor and a sale representative should be looking at is the attainment of financial objectives. If a business does not attain its financial objectives, it may be a warning sign that their industry and its products are being commoditized. Customers need an avenue where their products and services needs are addressed. If it were all about prices, then customers would be going for all the cheapest products. However, this is not the case. People believe that the manner in which most businesses approach them is what counts. This may determine if they buy the products or not. Moreover, working with customers is a way to understand what they need. By doing this, understanding how and why an organization will be willing to go that extra mile to taking care of their customers’ needs is easy. If many customers claim that they feel brands are what make them purchase a product, the industry may be commoditized. If they feel that only one brand is satisfying, and they are reluctant to try any other product, it may be a clear indicator that the choices are made based on the commodity’s status. In conclusion, for any business to flourish, it should be willing to work with its consumers. This is the reason why they are in business in the first place. Understanding their needs will promote loyalty among the consumers. This is because people tend to appreciate the attention given to them by businesses.

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Genesis and exodus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Genesis and exodus - Essay Example God also assures Abraham that after punishment He will raise up the Israelites and lead them to the Promised Land. After 400 years of hardship and torture in the exile, the Israelites were ready to leave Babylon and go back to rebuild Jerusalem. However, bearing in mind that it was not an easy task, the books of Isaiah and Genesis encourage the exiles to leave Babylon and go back to rebuild Jerusalem. In order to encourage exiles, these two books (Isaiah and Genesis) used different means including reminding them of the God’s promises. For instance, the book of Genesis reminds exiles how God entered into a covenant with Abram. The book of genesis states that â€Å"And Abram fell sound asleep when the sun went down. Then he was overwhelmed by a great terror. Then the Lord said to him, â€Å"Know for sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign country. They will be oppressed and enslaved for 400 year. But I will execute judgment on the nation that they will serve. Afterwards, they will come out with numerous possessions. But for you, you will join your ancestors peacefully and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sins of the Amorites have not yet reached its limit.† When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking firepot with a flaming torch passed between the animal parts† (Gen. 15: 12-17) On the other hand, book of Isaiah encourages exiles by also reminding them God’s plan. For instance the book of Isaiah states that â€Å"Now, this is what the Lord says, the one who created you, O Jacob, and formed you, O Israel: â€Å"don’t be afraid, for I will protect you. I call you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I am with you; when you pass through the streams, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm you. For I am the Lord your God, the sovereign king of Israel, your deliver. I have handed over

Monday, November 18, 2019

Article Critique on Facebook's future Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Article Critique on Facebook's future - Essay Example Market expectations regarding buyouts, development of a Google-like search engine or a new smart phone have been slashed as minor developments such as adding features seem to be at the epitome of the company’s business strategy at the moment. Nevertheless, the unprecedented success of the user-centric business model of Facebook and its latest foot forward into the mobile industry are major factors that shall shape the future of Facebook. Facebook has truly revolutionized the field of social networking and the way in which millions of users across the world can communicate for free with each other and share their interests, hobbies, activities etc. This is nothing less than a powerful customer database that keeps track of the demographics, psychographics and geographic traits of its customers. However, the collapse of Facebook’s stock has put tremendous pressure on the future of the company. This is because the market had been expecting something revolutionary such as an acquisition, creation of a Smartphone or the development of a search engine similar to that of Google. The announcement of the Graph Search feature and the absence of scope for revenue generation through it, however, shunned these expectations and the share prices fell.This suggests how Facebook’s future is largely hinged with its ability to offer either paid content or attract sufficient advertisers that enable the company make high profits. At the epitome of Facebook’s business model is the fact that the company offers data compilation and acts as a database of users is more significant than the motive of money creation (Eichenwald). Enhancing the financial strength of the company, therefore, requires establishment of newer business models. Furthermore, using the Facebook database as an advertising medium such that the site becomes attractive enough for advertisements remains a challenge. Most ads on the web require users to click on an item to purchase it. However, since Facebook’s business model was not based on immediate sales, it would remain a challenge to incorporate such ads. Even if the company did go ahead with these ads, it is difficult to predict how they would be compatible with the social networking feature offered by the company. Companies such as Google manage to generate ads by using the pay-per-click model where, once users indicate their willingness to buy an item through the search engine, they are flooded with ads (Eichenwald). This, however, remains a remote possibility for facebook. The most intriguing question perhaps is how to use the personal data that is uploaded by users almost every minute onto Facebook? This has, to some extent, been answered by the buzz marketing generated by Facebook Pages whereby advertisers interact one-on-one with customers and learn from their feedback. As opposed to Google that fulfilled customers’ demands, Facebook is stimulating demand (Eichenwald). A major leap in Facebookâ €™s success was brought on by its famous mobile advertising platform where advertisements could be placed in users’ newsfeed (Eichenwald). This allowed ads to go mobile rather than being just restricted to laptops. Also, this has been a breakthrough compared to typical banner ads which interfered with users’ online experience. Even though the net-positive results of having this feature favored its existence, various criticisms have surrounded it. The most important concern is that users are bombarded with advertisements which, sometimes, translates into fewer posts regarding friends compared to posts regarding ads. This puts off majority of users and

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Effect of THNPs on Heroin OD Mortality | Methodology

Effect of THNPs on Heroin OD Mortality | Methodology Chapter 2. Methods 2.1 Introduction This chapter contains a precise description of the process used to search and appraise the evidence for this systematic literature review. The search was carried out during August and September 2014. An in-depth description of how evidence and research available related to the PICO question were generated, will be discussed. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the aim of this dissertation is to determine the effect of THNPs to heroin users, on heroin OD mortality. The analysing process of the PICO question, whether THNPs reduces the incidence of fatal heroin OD deaths, will be amplified through a description of the actual search strategy, and the methods used to appraise the retrieved studies. Through specific criteria, a systematic approach was applied in obtaining and selecting the relevant literature. Identified keywords used for the search syntaxes will be presented, together with the databases used for the retrieval of evidence, and the number of hits produced from each database. Search syntax is the relationship of a sequence of words used in a search strategy. A discussion of the inclusion and exclusion criteria set for this systematic review (SR) will follow, together with the methods of appraisal chosen to evaluate the studies. 2.2 Keywords and databases used PICO Element Description Keywords Population Heroin injection users in the community heroin users, injection drug users, drug users, opioid users Intervention Take-home naloxone program take-home naloxone program, naloxone distribution program, Comparison No comparison Outcome Reduced incidence of fatal heroin OD deaths OD reversal, OD prevention, opioid OD prevention, heroin OD prevention, harm reduction According to Timmins and McCabe (2005) the cornerstone of an effective search strategy is the use of proper keywords. A number of keywords were formulated from the PICO question elements, and from the preliminary search of the literature. These were mainly identified from titles and keywords used in articles found from the preliminary search. Table 2.1 below, shows the keywords used in relation to each PICO element. Table 2.1 Keywords developed to describe the PICO framework The main electronic systematic search with the search syntaxes explained further on in this chapter was carried out using different databases accessed from the Hybrid Discovery (HyDi) available from the online library at the University of Malta. Relevant databases were found on HyDi by choosing the category ‘Health Sciences’ and sub-category ‘Nursing’ since the other sub-category is ‘Midwifery’ which is unrelated. Six databases were used to conduct a search for the literature. These were Academic Search Complete, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Cochrane Database of SRs; via EBSCO host search engine together with Medline via ProQuest search engine, and Science Direct. In addition to these databases Google Scholar was also utilised, but the search syntaxes combinations could not be used since the search engine does not have an advanced search strategy, a nd the search resulted in large thousands of articles. Therefore simple keywords alone were used to search for any other relevant studies, or to obtain full text versions which are not available in other databases. Strengths and limitations of each database are described below in table 2.2. Database Strength Limitation Academic Search Complete Daily updates Provides full text journals Available only from EBSCO host CINAHL Plus with Full Text Weekly updates Over 950 journals Covers references and abstracts from 1982 onwards Available only from EBSCO host English and American language bias Cochrane Library Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials Cochrane Database of SRs Research analyzed using trustworthy methods Large source of literature Up-to-date Complete text reviews Limited by restrictions Medline Records indexed with Medical Subject Heading (MeSHÂ ®) Provides a large source of life sciences evidence needed by health professionals Limited by restrictions Science Direct Provides full text from Elsevier Science journals Provides full text articles Limited by restrictions Google Scholar Free access web based search engine Large amount of results due to lack of an advanced search strategy Table 2.2 Databases strengths Limitations 2.3 Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria For readers to assess reliability and validity of a SR they have to be provided with a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria (Cronin, Ryan, Coughlan, 2007). Furthermore, Torgerson (2003) suggests that a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria are important so that throughout the search, only the articles that will answer the PICO question are extracted while others are eliminated. During the preliminary search it was noted that literature about the subject lacks randomized controlled trials (RCTs’), meta-analysis, and SRs. As shown in figure 2.1, these study designs are found at the top of the hierarchy of evidence as described by Aslam et.al (2012). Hence, all types of study designs were part of the inclusion criteria. Sibbald Roland (1998) said that clinical trials are known to be a gold standard to perform good evidence based practice and although they were in the inclusion criteria, the results were negative since up-to date no RCTs have taken place. Although this is a major limitation for this literature review, one must keep in mind that currently, the first and largest RCT is being carried out as described in chapter 1. Source type selected in all databases was ‘Academic Journals’ since books, newspaper articles, and magazines are not of strong evidence for evidence based healthcare because sometimes they do not have any type of study design, and may be narrative. Each search was limited to English language literature only. Studies that administered intranasal (IN) naloxone were excluded since this method is an off-label method (Doe-Simkins, Walley, Epstein, Moyer, 2009), and in an RCT by Kelly et al. (2005) it was found that IM naloxone was clinically more effective than IN naloxone (6 minutes vs 8 minutes). Table 2.3 and table 2.4 below describe further in detail the inclusion and exclusion criteria respectively. Figure 2.1 The Hierarchy of Evidence Pyramid (adapted from Aslam et al. 2012, p.3) Table 2.3 Inclusion Criteria Inclusion Criteria Rationale Literature had to be in English language Not possible to translate to English Studies published from 1980’s till September 2014 Studies about THN commenced in the 90’s, and so all studies are obtained (Darke Hall, 1997) Involving heroin injection drug users above 18 years of age Since the population are adults injecting heroin, and in all studies found, drug users were of 18 years and above Involving THNP Since this review concerns the outcome of THNP Experimental studies including RCTs’, reviews, observational studies including cohort studies and longitudinal studies To include all study designs and to not eliminate valuable literature Study needed to have an outcome of survival rates or OD reversals associated to THNP If outcomes were different, studies would not answer the PICO question Exclusion Criteria Rationale Studies researching attitudes, views and opinions of health care practitioners providing THN and other stakeholders such as police Outcome of studies unrelated to PICO question Studies about experiences of fatal OD victims where naloxone was not provided to heroin users as a preventive measure of fatal OD Studies had to have THNP studied as a preventive measure rather than other measures Development of instrument tools for THNP evaluation These instruments do not answer the PICO question Users of prescription opiates including methadone Since population is specifically heroin injection drug users Studies including HIV, AIDS, buprenorphine, methadone, and supervising injecting facilities as a main topic For the fact that THNP is the main subject and intervention of this SR Studies were intra nasal naloxone was used Naloxone nasal spray is not yet approved or licensed anywhere in the world Studies where naloxone was not administered by any of the participants The outcome was not attributed directly to naloxone administration Studies not published in English Not possible to translate to English Table 2.4 Exclusion Criteria 2.4 Search Strategy The keywords mentioned in table 2.1 were developed so that each PICO element has its own search syntax as identified by Bettany-Saltikov, (2012). The use of search syntaxes has assisted in narrowing the search to the most relevant studies to the PICO question. Table 2.5 below, shows the search syntax used for each PICO item. PICO element Search syntax number Search syntax Population Search syntax 1 heroin users OR injection drug users OR drug users OR opioid users Intervention Search syntax 2 take-home naloxone program OR naloxone distribution program Outcome Search syntax 3 overdose reversal OR overdose prevention OR opioid overdose prevention OR heroin overdose prevention OR harm reduction OR overdose mortality Table 2.5 Search syntaxes Search syntaxes were combined as described here: Population (syntax 1) AND Intervention (syntax 2) Population (syntax 1) AND Outcome (syntax 3) Intervention (syntax 2) AND Outcome (syntax 3) Boolean logic operator ‘OR’ was used to combine each keyword of each PICO element syntax, while the operator ‘AND’ was used to combine the PICO elements together as described above. In all search fields of the databases used except Google Scholar, ‘In All Text’ was selected for all searches. In Google Scholar the keywords searched independently were ‘take-home naloxone’ and ‘naloxone distribution’. These keywords were searched in titles only, since when searched for anywhere in the article the results were over 50,000 with most of them irrelevant to the dissertation. As shown in table 2.6 below, the defined search resulted in 2,260 articles. After the titles were evaluated whether they fit with the inclusion and exclusion criteria mentioned previously, and removing duplicate articles the search results were reduced to 160 articles by reading through the titles. The abstracts of these 160 articles were read and consequently 25 articles were noted to be directly related to the PICO question addressed in this dissertation, as they all met the inclusion criteria. One of the 25 articles which is a study by Lenton Hargreaves (2000) was not available online for free. The author, Professor Lenton was contacted via e-mail. Fortunately there was an immediate response, and the article was provided for free. However, after reading these 25 articles, 15 were eliminated because they had one or more of the exclusion criteria fit. The remaining 10 articles were identified and had fit all of the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were chosen for the critical a ppraisal of this systematic literature review. Furthermore the search was enhanced by looking up at all the reference lists of the final articles chosen for critical appraisal, but no new studies were found. Identified studies for critical appraisal are the following: Strang et al. (2008), Piper et al. (2008), Tobin, Sherman, Beilenson, Welsh, Latkin (2009), Enteen et al. (2010), Wagner et al. (2010), Bennett, Bell, Tomedi, Hulsey, Kral (2011), Bennett Holloway (2012), Lankenau et al. (2013), Banjo (2014), and Clark, Wilder, Winstanley (2014). In addition to the electronic search, a hand search was done within the University of Malta library which did not produce any results. Table 2.6 below presents the number of hits obtained from each of the databases above and the different search syntaxes combination. Database Keywords Number of hits Academic Search Complete search syntax 1 AND search syntax 2 274 search syntax 1 AND search syntax 3 272 search syntax 2 AND search syntax 3 55 CINAHL Plus with Full Text search syntax 1 AND search syntax 2 7 search syntax 1 AND search syntax 3 114 search syntax 2 AND search syntax 3 10 Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials search syntax 1 AND search syntax 2 0 search syntax 1 AND search syntax 3 0 search syntax 2 AND search syntax 3 0 Cochrane Database of SRs search syntax 1 AND search syntax 2 0 search syntax 1 AND search syntax 3 1 search syntax 2 AND search syntax 3 0 Medline search syntax 1 AND search syntax 2 31 search syntax 1 AND search syntax 3 228 search syntax 2 AND search syntax 3 28 Science Direct search syntax 1 AND search syntax 2 532 search syntax 1 AND search syntax 3 485 search syntax 2 AND search syntax 3 145 Google Scholar take-home naloxone, naloxone distribution 78 Total number of literature found = 2,260 Table 2.6 Number of articles found from each search 2.5 Refining of the research question After finding the relevant literature to the original PICO question, and considering properly the population being studied, the research question was duly refined since this systematic literature review will be based on the impact of THNP effect on heroin OD deaths amongst heroin injection drug users. Initial PICO question was: ‘Do naloxone take-home programs provided to drug users in the community reduce the incidence of fatal opioid OD?’ The question was refined to: Do naloxone take-home programs reduce the incidence of fatal heroin OD amongst heroin injection users? The refining of the PICO question was essential since some of the literature concerned prescription opioid users or general drug users, but the reviewer’s main interest is heroin injection users. 2.6 Methods of Appraisal After identifying the relevant studies and refining the PICO question, the next step for this dissertation was to critically appraise the literature. This will be covered in chapter 3. Critical appraisal is the evaluation of strength and quality of research studies in order to deliver evidence-based clinical decisions and after determining the worthiness of different studies through the use of different critical appraisal tools, multiple research findings can be synthesized together to develop evidence-based-practice (LoBiondo-Woods Haber, 2013). Furthermore, Burls (2009) argues that studies being biased can result in false outcomes and conclusions, because they are not composed of an acceptable quality. A bias is an orderly deviation of the results occurring from the way that a study is led, investigated or reported. In light of this, critical appraisal tools were developed to help researchers in identifying valid and reliable studies. Specific critical appraisal tools in the form of checklists are used to analyse different study designs. Commonly used appraisal tools are: Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) Centre for Evidence Based Mental Health (CEBMH) Critically Appraise Topic (CAT) After studying and considering all of the above methods of appraisal, together with other appraisal tools, it was decided that the CASP appraisal tools are to be used for critically appraising the identified studies relevant to the PICO question. The reason for choosing the CASP appraisal tools is because it is clear, concise, and easy to understand. CASP offers different checklists appropriate for different research designs where one can critically evaluate research through a set of questions and helps in determining the quality of the literature being appraised. At this phase, the studies were also rated and arranged according to the hierarchy of evidence adopted from Aslam (2012) as shown in figure 2.1. 2.7 Conclusion In conclusion, the study’s main objective is to determine whether THNPs reduces the mortality rate of heroin OD. Several keywords were identified from the PICO question elements, and from preliminary search results. These keywords were systematically searched in different databases using different search syntaxes combinations. A set of inclusion and exclusion criteria were then set up in order to get to the studies relevant to the PICO question. PICO question was then refined and then it was decided to use the CASP appraisal tools for evaluating the relevant studies which will be discussed in the next chapter. Words 1763

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Love and Marriage an Affliction or an Alliance: Deceit and Betrayal in

During the Middle Ages and Renaissance period marriage and love were idealized, divine and celebrated. Weddings were large events that included the entire families of both the groom and the bride. Reality was different; women were viewed as being fickle, inferior to men and a possession of men. Women had very little, if any, choice in who they would marry. Marriages were arranged so that both families would benefit in gaining wealth or power. Even though the ruler of England for over 4 decades was female, women were still not respected. Women were kept at home and not allowed to take place in public events. In Shakespeare’s Richard III, male and female relationships are displayed as deeply cynical and are based on lies, lust and political gain. First, the relationship between Lady Anne and Richard is not the only, but one example, of a relationship that is based on lies. As Lady Anne mourns over the murder of her father-in-law Henry VI, Richard comes and greets her with â€Å"sweet saint† (1.2.49) and â€Å"bolsters this greeting with a string of compliments, to which she responds with curses† (Miner, 47). Richard says that the reason he murdered Henry VI and Edward is because of her beauty. â€Å"Your beauty was the cause of that effect/ Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep/ To undertake the death of all the world (1.2.126-128)†. In saying this, Richard â€Å"directs culpability from himself and onto the female figure† (Miner, 47). Richard thought that â€Å"her beauty served as incentive for murder† (Miner, 48). But he lied; he killed both to get closer to the throne, and wooed Anne for the same reason. Second, the relationship between Princess Elizabeth and Richard serves as an example of one that is based on lust. Since Elizabeth â€Å"remains t... ...chard are used as political gain and the new King Richmond is crowned. The basis’s of these relationships are weak and did not, or in some cases, will not last. Richard realizes that Anne is no longer any use to him, and makes a plan to kill her. â€Å"Rumour it abroad / The Anne my wife is very grievous sick / I will take order for her keeping close (4.2.51-53)†. Queen Elizabeth saves her daughter from Richard and sends a proposal to Richmond. Richmond may try to form a closer bond with Elizabeth, or abuse his new power as king. Therefore, the examples in the play give us the message that, relationships that are not based on love, personality and happiness will end unsuccessfully. â€Å"Ay me, for aught that I could ever read / Could ever hear by tale or history / The course of true love never did run smooth (Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" 1.1.132-134)†.

Monday, November 11, 2019

Hepatitis causes and effects

AbstractionHepatitis, one of the major incurable diseases, still exists presents jeopardizing many people ‘s lives. It has many types i.e. Hepatitis A, B, C, D, E and G. The nature of Hepatitis is viral which is caught by either through organic structure fluids or improper personal hygiene in add-on to other causes which remains unknown. This disease leads into serious physiological effects such as weariness, icterus and serious liver complication like liver Cirrhosis. Psychosocial consequence which is another result of Hepatitis includes societal backdown, anxiousness, depression and self-destructive inclination. Despite of the extended researches to happen a remedy for Hepatitis, there is still no effectual intervention for it so the duty of avoiding this infection is both on authorities and persons. Hepatitis is one of the most fatal diseases which was discovered in the early 1880ss ; it can be defined as an redness of the liver organ. Hepatitis is derived from the Latin words â€Å" Hepat † which means the liver and â€Å" itis † redness. The usual cause of Hepatitis is a virus that invades the organic structure through blood watercourse. This virus could acquire into the organic structure either through organic structure fluids or improper personal hygiene, taking to serious physiological and psychosocial effects. There are several types of Hepatitis, such as A, B, C, D, E and G. A, B and C viruses are the most common types of Hepatitis and all these viruses can do similar jobs and have similar symptoms, but they spread in different ways and have different effects on the organic structure. There are several manners of transmittal including contaminated organic structure fluids, improper personal hygiene in add-on to idiopathic causes. Contaminated organic structure fluids include spits, blood, fecal matters and piss. Blood transfusion is the most common method, where the blood is transferred from an septic patient to another patient what would be called â€Å" Horizontal Transmission † . Another method is the â€Å" Vertical Transmission † which occurs when a pregnant adult female base on balls it to her foetus. Furthermore, † contaminated acerate leafs shared by the drug maltreaters or in medical accidents such as needle pricks† is another manner emphasized by ( Nowak and Handford, 2004, p.379 ) . Having unprotected sex and multi-partners are other ways taking to this disease harmonizing to Nowak and Handford ( 2004 ) whom reported that â€Å" Sexual transmittal does happen, peculiarly among the homophiles. Note besides that 20 % of septic s traight persons pass the virus to their spouses. † ( p.380 ) . All of the above mentioned causes can take to Hepatitis B and C which are the most unsafe 1s. The 2nd major cause of Hepatitis is hapless hygiene, for case, personal and general. To get down with contaminated H2O such as sewerage lanes, rivers and public lavatories are topographic points of great hazard for hoarding Hepatitis A particularly to those who live nearby. This type of Hepatitis is normally transferred by fecal matters harmonizing to Fiore ( 2004 ) â€Å" HAV is chiefly transmitted by the fecal-oral path, either by person-to-person contact or by consumption of contaminated nutrient or H2O â€Å" ( p.705-15 ) .Moreover, common veggies and shellfish, such as boodles and oysters may be contaminated by sewerage to go beginnings of infection to worlds. Besides, personal hygiene is another component for reaching hepatitis and can happen by sharing razors, toothbrushes and towels, and leads to Hepatitis B and C. Despite antecedently discussed causes of this disease, there is still a great sector of hepatitis which remains unknown. Statisticss shows that â€Å" about 30 % of hepatitis B infection are of unknown beginning†¦ .40 % of Hepatitis C instances are idiopathic † ( Nowak and Handford, 2004, p.379-80 ) . Where another article points that â€Å" beginnings is unknown but could be considerable ; 50 % of reported patients with hepatitis A do non hold an identified beginning of infection † ( Fiore, 2004, p.706 ) . But McHutchison & A ; Bacon ( 2005 ) emphasized in their diagram of â€Å" Figure 2: Beginnings of Infection for Persons With Hepatitis C â€Å" that merely â€Å" 10 % of Hepatitis C infection are unknown † ( p.S287 ) . There are many effects of this disease which lie under the two classs: the physiological effects and psychosocial effects. Where the physiological effects contain all the symptoms of Hepatitis, the psychosocial effects indicate the emotional and societal effects of being a Hepatitis patient. The symptoms of the assorted signifiers of hepatitis are similar and they are caused by the harm in the liver. The most noticeable symptom is icterus which causes a yellowing of the tegument. Other symptoms associated with hepatitis include weariness, general organic structure hurting, sickness, mild febrility, and loss of appetency. As the infection spreads in the liver, the organ becomes enlarged. It may do hurting in the venters and in worst scenario can take to liver Cirrhoses which mean entire liver harm and finally decease. It takes seven to eight hebdomads after exposure to the Hepatitis virus for the symptoms to look. A patient with Hepatitis is non merely predisposed to physical symptoms, but besides to emotional and societal jobs. These complexnesss include depression and societal backdown as each one leads into the other, added to that depression and anxiousness which normally occur together. Anybody who suffers from Hepatitis will be dying and this anxiousness may take in to depression in sever instances, for illustration when a patient suffers from Hepatitis and he knows it is a serious unwellness rebelliously he will non halt badgering, these concerns can do the individual preoccupied with his unwellness and take him to depression. Furthermore, a Hepatitis patient societal withdraw as a consequence of being unable to happen a spouse who is willing to populate with this fatal disease. It is besides difficult to do people understand the nature of this serious disease and do friends and households accept and accommodate it. All this may drive the patient to be lonely and allure to be self-destr uctive. To sum up, Hepatitis is still one of our life clip enigmas to be solved. The spread of this disease is largely due to the natural or hygienic causes in add-on to some per centum of idiopathic causes which is still unknown. Like any other unwellness, Hepatitis has many drawbacks which could be listed under two classs physiological and psychosocial. Unfortunately, despite the advanced field of medicine Hepatitis remains un-ended and research continues in order to happen the ultimate intervention for it. Until a concluding remedy is found, precautional stairss should be taken by both authorities and persons. The authorities is responsible to guarantee infection control consciousness over this disease through its wellness system. But it is a personal duty to forestall oneself from this disease every bit good as any other disease by following the simple regulations of hygiene and guarantee to acquire proper wellness attention from dependable wellness constitutions merely.MentionsFiore, E. ( 2004 ) . Hepatitis A Transmitted by Food. FOOD SAFETY, 38 ( 1 ) , 705-715. McHutchison, J. G. , & A ; Bacon, B. R. ( 2005 ) . Chronic Hepatitis C: An Age Wave of Disease Burden. THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF MANAGED CARE, 11 ( 10 ) , S286-295. Nowak, T. J. , & A ; Handford, A. G. ( 2004 ) . Pathophysiology: Concepts and Application for Health attention Professionals ( Third ed. ) . New york: Mc Graw Hill. Prevention, C. f. D. C. a. ( 2009 ) . Disease load from viral hepatitis A, B, and C in the United States [ Electronic Version ] . Retrieved 9 Dec 2008 from hypertext transfer protocol: //www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/resources/dz_burden02.htm.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Frankenstein Study Guide

Frankenstein Study Guide Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is a classic horror novel and a prime example of the Gothic genre. Published in 1818, Frankenstein tells the story of an ambitious scientist and the monster he creates. The unnamed creature is a tragic figure who becomes violent and murderous after being rejected by society. Frankenstein remains potent for its commentary on the potential consequences of a singleminded search for enlightenment, as well as the importance of family and belonging.   Fast Facts: Frankenstein Author: Mary ShelleyPublisher: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor JonesYear Published: 1818Genre: Gothic, horror, science fictionType of Work: NovelOriginal Language: EnglishThemes: Pursuit of knowledge, importance of family, nature and the sublimeCharacters: Victor Frankenstein, the creature, Elizabeth Lavenza, Henry Clerval, Captain Robert Walton, the De Lacey FamilyNotable Adaptions: Frankenstein (1931 Universal Studios film), Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (1994 film directed by Kenneth Branagh)Fun Fact: Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein because of a horror story competition between herself and the poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley (her husband). Plot Summary Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist whose main ambition is to uncover the source of life. He succeeds at creating life from death- a creature in the semblance of a man- but is horrified by the result. The creature is hideous and deformed. Frankenstein runs away, and when he returns, the creature has fled. Time passes, and Frankenstein learns that his brother, William, has been killed. He escapes to the wilderness to mourn, and the creature seeks him out to tell his story. The creature explains that after his creation, his appearance caused everyone he encountered to either hurt him or run away from him. Alone and desperate, he settled by the cottage of a family of impoverished peasants. He tried to befriend them, but they fled from his presence, and he killed William out of rage from neglect. He asks Frankenstein to create a female companion for him so that he may not be alone. Frankenstein agrees, but doesnt keep his promise, as he believes the experiment is immoral and disastrous experiment. Thus, the creature vows to ruin Frankenstein’s life and proceeds to kill all whom Frankenstein holds dear. The monster strangles Frankenstein’s wife Elizabeth on their wedding night. Frankenstein then resolves to destroy the creature once and for all. He follows him north, chasing him to the North Pole, where he crosses paths with Captain Walton and reveals his entire story. In the end, Frankenstein dies, and the creature vows to travel as far north as possible to end his own tragic life. Major Characters Victor Frankenstein is the protagonist of the novel. He is an ambitious scientist obsessed with the search for scientific truth. The consequences of his discovery leads to a life of ruin and loss. The creature is the unnamed monster Frankenstein creates. Despite his gentle and compassionate demeanor, he is rejected by society because of his grotesque appearance. He grows cold-hearted and violent as a result. Captain Robert Walton is the narrator who opens and closes the novel. A failed poet turned captain, he is on an expedition to the North Pole. He listens to Frankensteins tale and mirrors the reader as the receptor of the novels warnings. Elizabeth Lavenza is Frankensteins adopted cousin and eventual wife. She is an orphan, yet she finds love and acceptance easily because of her beauty and nobility- a direct contrast to the creatures failed attempts to find a sense of belonging. Henry Clerval is Frankensteins best friend and foil. He loves to study the humanities and is concerned with morality and chivalry. He is ultimately strangled to death by the monster. The De Lacey Family lives in a cottage close to the creature. They are peasants who have fallen on hard times, but the creature idolizes them and their gentle ways. The De Laceys serve as a prime example of familial support in the novel. Major Themes Pursuit of Knowledge. Shelley examines the anxieties surrounding technological and scientific advancement through the character of Victor Frankenstein. Frankensteins discovery and its disastrous consequences suggest that the singleminded pursuit of knowledge is a dangerous path. Importance of Family. The creature is shunned by everyone he encounters. Lacking familial acceptance and belonging, his relatively peaceful nature shifts to malice and hatred. In addition, the ambitious Frankenstein alienates himself from family and friends in order to focus on his work; later, several of his loved ones die at the hands of the creature, a direct result of Frankensteins ambition. By contrast, Shelleys depiction of the De Lacey family shows the reader the benefits of unconditional love. Nature and the Sublime. Shelley evokes images of natural landscapes in order to put human trials into perspective. In the novel, nature stands in opposition to humankinds struggles. Despite scientific breakthroughs, nature remains unknowable and all-powerful. Nature is the ultimate force that kills Frankenstein and the creature, and it is too dangerous a force for Captain Walton to conquer on his expedition. Literary Style Shelley wrote Frankenstein in the horror genre. The novel features Gothic imagery and is heavily informed by Romanticism. There are countless poetic passages on the power and beauty of natural landscapes, and the language often refers to questions of purpose, meaning, and truth. About the Author Born in 1797, Mary Shelley was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. Shelley was 21 when Frankenstein was published. With Frankenstein, Shelley set the precedent for monster novels and created an early example of the science fiction genre that remains influential to this day.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

EPA

EPA Most people often take for granted the simple things in life, which although simple, are also the foundation of life itself. These simple things come in the form of clean air, water, and land for us and our future generations. The protection of the environment has become increasingly important as we now realize the damage that our generation along with previous generations have done to the environment. From bustling New England cities to the quite farmlands of the Midwest, America has come to realize the need to relate and protect the environment from industrial and agricultural pollution, thus the EPA was formed.The protection of ?human health and the environment? is the simple yet powerful mission of the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA. The EPA was established in 1970 after a national cry for safer and cleaner air, water, and land in America. This agency was part of the new informal agenda committee which combined with other agricultural agencies and like the FDA and USDA.Se wer Pipe for New Water Pollution Control Plant i...The major duty of the EPA was to clean up pervious polluted areas and to help reduce and prevent future pollution through the development of new environmental regulation that the EPA would enforce after being passed by Congress. Since establishing the EPA in 1970, hundreds of bills have been passed by Congress with the ambition to prevent future pollution and hazards to human health. Helping to offset some of the daunting tasks in front of the agency, the EPA uses the states to help enforce regulation. The states also benefit from the multiple programs funded by the EPA through state environmental grants.As countries advance into developed, economic nations, environmental protection begins to take a larger portion of public concern and the government is eventually forced to face environmental problems. The EPA was the first...

Monday, November 4, 2019

Financial analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6750 words

Financial analysis - Essay Example In case of any kind of misrepresentation found in the financial statements, they shall be severely liable for not fulfilling their duties and the responsible individual managers are likely to penalize for not being reliable in dealings with the external parties. The parties such as banks and financial institutions that are interested to provide funds to the firm and other individuals interested to invest in the firm or often require third parties to attest the financial statements served by the firm for reliance in the information provided. External audit firms, investment bankers and underwriting firms, provide these certification services. Various clients are served by these third parties and thus they are strongly interested in maintaining their reputation and credibility with the financial community. The report provided by these third parties serves as reasonable assurance in the true and fair disclosure of information in the financial statements. In case of any discrepancy found in the financial information provided by the firm, the reports on the financial statements shall not be clean. Thus adversely affects the credibility of the firm. In case of any frau (d) Legal Penalties In case of any fraudulent or misrepresentation of information found in the financial statements served by the firm, there are heavy penalties for the persons responsible for the fraud which may lead to even insolvency of the firm. Most juridical laws across the globe have severe civil and criminal liabilities for misrepresentation of financial information. Solution (b) Costs Associated with disclosure The various costs associated with the disclosure of financial statements can be classified as under: Collection and Processing costs Litigation Costs Political costs Competitive disadvantages

Saturday, November 2, 2019

German unification Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

German unification - Essay Example The Schleswig-Holstein War humbled Denmark, the Austro-Prussian War ended in the defeat of Austria-Hungary and the Franco-Prussian War completed German unification by the defeat of France. (Mahajan, 1999: 3) Thus, Germany turned out to be supreme and one of the most powerful sovereign states of the region. There was no single event that determined the whole process of unification; rather, many factors worked in combination and contributed to the completion of uplift progression of the German nation. All the strata of society including political leadership, intellectuals, philosophers, poets, writers, economists, military personnel, students, farmers and civil society added their share in the whole development. Otto Von Bismarck, the iron-Chancellor of Prussia, played the most formidable role in this regard.1 His skill as a diplomat was unrivalled during his reign as chancellor of Prussia and Germany. The mastery he showed in foreign policy was such that he was able to outwit all othe r powers and make their leaders look pathetic. (Graham, 2007:1) The Vienna settlement of 1815 conceived the idea of German Confederation of thirty-nine states rather than the unification of the country.2 The decisions taken in the Vienna settlement were extremely unsatisfactory one for the German people especially the moderates and nationalists, who were expecting concrete course of action which could lead them towards the way to unification. But instead of unification, only the positions of different German and non-German princes were restored under Confederation as they had been before the intervention of Napoleon Bonaparte.3 The main objective behind German Confederation was to guarantee external and internal peace of Germany and the independence of the member states. The thirty-nine states agreed not to declare war on one another, and had the obligation of helping one another in the hour of need. (Leads,

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Data Mining (mining for gold) Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Data Mining (mining for gold) - Assignment Example This way, the data is understood or is used for any future marketing campaigns. This type of technique is usually used by many analysts. Issues relating to security of the information obtained by companies about individual customers. This information is prone to crimes such as hacking creating major security concern for both customers and companies. Many customer do not give out their information easily because of privacy complains. This way it is not possible to accurately draw relationship or trend in any particular data as the data may be considered incomplete. Airline companies use data mining techniques to improve their servicing towards customers. The data that is mined to find hidden patterns is about frequent fliers. The issues selected for mining in the frequent flier program are firstly to identify customer characteristics, their most frequent flying zone, class and period of the year in which they usually fly. Secondly, to discover pattern between the sectors based on the activities of the customers. The data mining technique is applied to customer data in three ways: category type, booking type and sector type. Category type revealed that discretionary and invitees were having lower than average use usage whereas members flew more. Booking type disclosed that about 88% of the customers booked their tickets via agents. Data mining can be used by many different industries. One of the types of industry is the super market industry. Data mining can help them identify customer buying patterns i.e. to place products in such a way that can lead to an increase in the buying behavior of the customer e.g. Wal-Mart’s case of nappies and beer. The other industry that can use data mining is the automobile industry. Customer preferences can be found and all future automobile can be based on aspects usually preferred by customers (e.g. low CO2 emission cars and increased promotion of hybrid cars to control

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

History of public administration Essay Example for Free

History of public administration Essay Glossary Bibliography Biographical Sketch Summary Historical accounts of African public administration often highlight the colonial setting and usually overlook pre-colonial Africa. The African civil service has its roots in precolonial institutions on which European powers relied to build the colonial state and consolidate their administration. Thus, this chapter analyzes the development of African administration from the pre-colonial era up to the present. The first section discusses the pre-colonial period. The colonial system constitutes the second section. The third section deals with the post-colonial period and discusses some problems associated with African administration. 1. The Pre-Colonial Period: From the Ashes of Pharaohs to the Berlin Conference At the end of the prehistoric period (10 000 BC), some African nomadic bands began to settle more permanently in villages along the Nile River to develop the political foundation of ancient Egypt. As these early farmers increased their mastery over soil and animal life, irrigation became a key development strategy to increase food production, which in turn multiplied their populations. Eventually, different villages came to recognize their common interests, to coordinate their efforts and broaden community linkages. People from different communities joined together through confederation or conquest for purposes of commerce or defense, and developed African  ©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC POLICY – Vol. I Development of African Administration: Pre-Colonial Times and since Emizet F. Kisangani empires, kingdoms, and chieftaincies. Two types of systems, hierarchical political systems and horizontal or acephalous societies, developed to help generate stable communities and foster prosperity. U SA NE M SC PL O E – C EO H AP LS TE S R S Stateless societies were small political entities and had no bureaucracies as they were mostly based on kinship. Hierarchical societies, however, had bureaucracies to carry out certain functions such as collecting taxes, supervising ceremonies, entertaining dignitaries, and compelling people to do the rulers’ bidding. These polities, which evolved before the arrival of Europeans in Africa, were either centralized or decentralized political entities presided over by emperors, kings, chiefs, or military commanders. The following analysis covers the first hierarchical form of rule that emerged some three millennia BC in ancient Egypt, followed by a brief overview of Medieval Africa. The final sub-section discusses the African administration up to the Berlin Conference in 1884-1885. 1. 1. Ancient Civilization of Africa: The Case of Egypt Around 3300 BC, farming lineages along the Nile Valley joined together as villages to increase production of food and to defend themselves against outsiders. From these villages regional confederations of Upper and Lower Egypt developed. By 3100 BC, a central authority emerged and unified these confederations under the rule of divine pharaohs. From 2700 to 2181, six dynasties succeeded each other to form the Old Kingdom. A century and a half of civil war and provincial rivalries gave rise to the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdoms that ruled Egypt from 2080 to 1640 BC. The Middle Kingdom was replaced by the Second Intermediate Period and the New Kingdom from 1570 to 1090 BC. Three dynasties (18th through 20th) ruled in the New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period began around 1089 BC with the Kushite Kings. The Egyptian empire was multinational consequent to the conquest of foreign nations. The Old and Middle Kingdoms were highly centralized and ruled by â€Å"god-kings† or pharaohs. With its capital at Memphis, the Old Kingdom was divided into provinces. Next to the king was the vizier, the administrative hand of the king, who was also in charge of day to day administrative, fiscal, and judicial matters. Although very few administrative documents have survived, court documents provide a glimpse of the Egyptian bureaucracy. Three basic administrative divisions existed: the Department of the Head of the South, the Office of Government Labor, and the Treasury. The Palermo Stone provides further evidence of administrative structure in the collection of revenue and in the assessment of Egyptian wealth. On the Stone was documented a biennial administrative census that left nothing unaccounted for, so that taxes could be assessed even on the basis of canals, lakes, wells, and trees of an estate. The system consisted of a hierarchical structure with diverse administrative agencies spreading throughout the kingdom for effective management. Another governmental task was the administration of justice, on which was founded the concept of ma‘at (or justice), whereby some high priests bore the title of priest of Ma‘at. In addition to the capital city of Memphis, there were other towns of importance that  ©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC POLICY – Vol. I Development of African Administration: Pre-Colonial Times and since Emizet F. Kisangani made up provinces headed by town governors, who were also chief priests in charge of temple revenue in many parts of Ancient Egypt. Provincial temples were the subject of central government regulations to avoid any strong power at the provincial level. However, during the first intermediate period, the office of governor in charge of civil affairs became the office of chief priest. U SA NE M SC PL O E – C EO H AP LS TE S R S The role of bureaucracy in these early kingdoms was to facilitate the transfer of resources from different provinces to the king’s court. If early administrations were in charge of maintaining irrigation and agricultural output, later administrations seemed to be more involved in supervising construction work and wealth transfer. The proliferation of these later types of bureaucracies, at the expense of those that used to maintain the agricultural system, would probably have produced pressures on the agricultural output and might have been the first sign of political decay in Ancient Egypt. The centralized system itself between the king, court officers, and ambitious governors may also have led to the same result. The New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period generated a great mass of documentation about Egyptian political and administrative life. The form of government remained the same, based on divine kingship. The government always stressed the religious function of the political system. Under the auspices of Gods, the government was expected to maintain the integrity of Egyptian territory and expand its frontiers. The most important function of the government was to create civic and individual security, and the vizier carried out the duty of ensuring that law and regulations were obeyed throughout the bureaucracy. The society was divided into hierarchical stratifications with the king at the top, a small group of high-ranking and wealthy officials next, and a much larger group of bureaucrats (scribes), priests, soldiers, stable masters, citizens, cultivators, and herdsmen filling the bottom layer. The Egyptian political system under the New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period was divided into an internal government and a government of conquests. Internally, the civil government was run by two viziers (northern and southern), overseer of the granaries of upper and lower Egypt, and the chief taxing master. The two viziers also supervised the overseer of the treasury and lower level officials in charge of bureaucracy, judiciary, and the police. At the lowest level of the administrative hierarchy were the chiefs, town mayors, and councils. The government of conquests had several governors who supervised vassal kings and their battalion commanders. Most of the Northern Lands were small and scattered, and under the direct control of various battalion commanders. The goal of this decentralization scheme was to obstruct anyone from controlling a large estate and challenging the king’s power. The governor of the Southern Lands was the Viceroy of Kush and his role became important internally at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty. He also supervised two deputies and a battalion commander. Military forces were all centralized under one commander. In addition to these administrative entities, there existed a religious government hierarchy, with the â€Å"overseer of prophets† at the top, a position held at various times by a vizier who was the head of two high priests. Below them was the priesthood bureaucracy. The corps of the centralized system was maintained by a small group of powerful officials. They headed each department and reported directly to the king who appointed  ©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC POLICY – Vol. I Development of African Administration: Pre-Colonial Times and since Emizet F. Kisangani and removed them. The bureaucracy consisted of a group of educated scribes whose role consisted of collecting taxes, conducting censuses, regulating agriculture, and administering justice and law with a small police force. A professional army was divided into various units, each with its own hierarchy of officers. U SA NE M SC PL O E – C EO H AP LS TE S R S Pressures on land and rising inflation may have been politically significant in later days of the New Kingdom, though bureaucratic inefficiency and abuse of power were probably the main causes of economic collapse. Besides the deterioration of administrative integrity, another major cause that weakened the kingship was the changing relationship between the king, civil government, army, and a few powerful families. Some families came to control major economic resources of the state, and the civil service became less susceptible to royal control. In addition, the kings’ tours of their provinces became less frequent, and royal princes and other deputies carried out religious rites formerly performed by the kings. During the ensuing Third Intermediate Period (1069 664 BC), Egypt was in perpetual crisis and the Egyptian civilization disappeared after the Roman conquest around 30 BC. In summary, the evolution of Ancient Egypt is characterized by the rise and fall of large scale governments that reflect alternating periods of unification and fragmentation. 1. 2. Medieval Africa Medieval Africa was different from the Ancient in several respects. First, Medieval leaders attempted to balance local traditions and regional autonomy in response to their peoples needs by developing and consolidating large-scale kingdoms and empires for purposes of trade or defense. A second difference was the impact of Islam on African societies. Muslims believed that one God (Allah) called on them to undertake jihads (commonly known as holy war against non-believers) when necessary. The most renowned of Africas medieval empires of Mali, Songhay and Morocco rose to the highest stages of their international influence with Islam as the imperial religion. Other medieval African kingdoms and empires developed indigenous political ideologies based on regional customs and beliefs, while Coptic Christianity remained the official state religion in the Abyssinian kingdom of medieval Ethiopia. In 969 A. D. , Muslims from the Maghreb conquered Egypt and established the Fatimid Dynasty in Cairo (c. 970-1170 A. D. ), which was highly hierarchical and whose military was highly professionalized. This strict hierarchy of officials, and the controlling powers of the vizier, left room neither for the autonomous tendencies of provincial governors nor for the growth of widespread corruption. Tolerant of other religions, the system let Copts and Jews occupy prestigious positions in the administration. The centralized administration controlled tax revenues, the payment of troops, and the allocation of military fiefs. The Fatimid administration was in charge of regulating and distributing the waters of the Nile River. Dams and canals were regularly repaired and improved; even an occasional period of low water did not greatly damage the general economic situation. When the Fatimid rule in Egypt was threatened by European Christian Crusaders (c. 1170), it was Egypts professional soldiers, or Mamluks (slave-soldier), who rallied behind Saladin to defeat the Crusaders. He then established a new Mamluk Dynasty in  ©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC POLICY – Vol. I Development of African Administration: Pre-Colonial Times and since Emizet F. Kisangani Cairo from 1171 to1517. By the thirteenth century, the institution of the slave-soldiers became an integral part of the political and social system in many Muslim countries. The Mamluk oligarchy never accepted in its ranks someone who was not a slave soldier, so that the military establishment not only remained hierarchical, but also continued to be a caste dominated by slave soldiers. U SA NE M SC PL O E – C EO H AP LS TE S R S Most Mamluk caliphates were divided into military fiefs centralized under one single Caliph. The basic administrative entity was the village because the Mamluk dynasty obtained most of its revenues from landed estates. A major innovation to ensure payment was that the peasants were prohibited from leaving their villages without permission. In addition to land taxes, the Mamluk caliphates drew their revenues from customs duties, based on ad valorem and the religion of the merchants, so that Christian importers had to pay taxes as high as 30%, whereas Muslim importers paid only 10%. This canonical tax was abolished under the reform of 1316. Several other kingdoms, such as Ghana and Mali, developed in Medieval Western Sudan. But the best known was the Kingdom of Songhay founded around the trading town of Gao (c. 1000 A. D. ). The Songhay Kingdom broke away from Mali and subsequently arose to become the third great empire in the medieval western Sudan (c. 1460-1590). Songhays founding emperor, Sunni Ali, established imperial authority northward into the Sahara in order to control international trade routes and valuable deposits of rock salt (which was mined and cut into large blocks to be traded for gold). Following Ali’s death, one of his generals, Muhammad Toure, overthrew the legitimate heir, and embarked on a hajj to Mecca. In 1496 he returned to wage jihad against nonMuslims. He conquered new territories and ruled over Songhays expanded empire as Caliph of West Africa. Under Muhammads authority (1493-1528), Songhay, especially the towns of Timbuktu and Jenne, rose to become one of the medieval worlds largest multinational empires. The administrative system was open enough to provide lower level citizens some type of upward social mobility. The empire was highly decentralized and Islam was used as a tool to assimilate different communities. Different categories of slaves cultivated fields, constructed adobe buildings and mosques, acted as porters, or served as soldiers and officials in the imperial government. Some of the latter rose through government and military bureaucracies by virtue of meritorious work to achieve high positions of administrative responsibility, as did soldier Muhammad Toure, when he rose by military merit to become a general and then became the emperor of Songhay. As emperor of Songhay, Muhammad established effective central supervision over provincial governors. He also reformed Songhays imperial government so that merit (rather than birth) became the principal criterion for advancement in bureaucracy. Eventually, after Muhammad became blind and was deposed in 1528, Songhays trans-Saharan trade declined. This was also partly due to competition from European sea traders along the West African Atlantic coast, which undercut the trans-Saharan gold trade. After severe political crises of succession disputes, rebellions and civil war that Songhay emperors faced during the 1580s, their imperial army was decisively defeated by Moroccos elite musketeers at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591. Other kingdoms and chieftaincies came up throughout Central, Eastern and Southern  ©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC POLICY – Vol. I Development of African Administration: Pre-Colonial Times and since Emizet F. Kisangani Africa. Although some of these polities were decentralized or confederated, most of them developed as centralized systems where the king or the chief represented the top, followed by the house of the king or an inner circle of advisors, and finally the Council of Elders as the legislative branch. The army and bureaucrats were in charge of maintaining security and law, collecting taxes, and conducting censuses. In most polities, age was a major social feature of stratification, while in other areas the system was meritocractic. 1. 3. Beyond the Medieval Era to the Nineteenth Century U SA NE M SC PL O E – C EO H AP LS TE S R S In the late 1500s and through the 1700s, Europeans and Arabs introduced new weapons and made new demands for captives of war throughout Africa to meet the demands of a growing international slave trade. Consequently, many of Africa’s previous patterns of political and economic growth were disrupted, even though many of the great traditions of medieval African politics and administration continued to guide their evolution. As African kingdoms and empires continued to develop, and trade between coastal cities and interior regions expanded throughout the continent, various African peoples established political confederations based on religious ideology, commercial linkages and/or military authority. Such confederations were committed to establishing broader nationalist ideologies, promoting literacy and advancement by merit, expanding both regional and international commerce, and undertaking significant administrative and military reforms. The first great reformer and leader in North Africa was an Ottoman military commander, Muhammad Ali (1805-1848). He established the first secular schools, engineering and medical colleges, modern factories, modern printing presses, and stateowned textile and munitions factories. His successors continued his policies of borrowing foreign capital and building projects, such as the Suez Canal that was completed in 1869. In the west, the original Asante confederation, established by seven clans near the city of Kumasi (in modern day Ghana), united around the symbolic Golden Stool of their ruler Asante-Hene. This confederation built roads and promoted agriculture, commerce, industry and education through self-help and self-reliance. The Asante emperors implemented several modernization policies in administration that included promoting advancement by merit and the development of state enterprise through public investment. By 1874, the British imperial army defeated the Asante army and annexed the Fante territories into their Gold Coast colony. In East Africa (c. 1800-1885), there was also a movement toward centralization of authority and broadened commercial linkages throughout the region, from Ethiopia’s Highlands to the Limpopo River in Southern Africa. In the first half of the nineteenth century, however, Africa continued to be significantly disrupted by international trade in slaves, even as new Euro-American markets began to demand large imports of such African-based commodities as palm oil, cotton, peanuts, and ivory. By mid-century, European merchants realized that Africans could produce such valuable exports more efficiently and humanely by working in their own countries than by working as slaves in the Americas. Many other nineteenth century African nations were consciously modernizing their various political economies and shifting to regional confederacies,

Sunday, October 27, 2019

The Different Scopic Orders Of The Modern Era Film Essay

The Different Scopic Orders Of The Modern Era Film Essay The modern era has allegedly been dominated by the sense of sight, in a way that has seen it set apart from the premodern era and the postmodern era. In his text Scopic Regimes of Modernity Martin Jay draws our attention to scopic order in the modern era, which is an area with many conflicting views that are not often in alignment with each other. Jay argues the point that there may not be one unified scopic regime, a term used by french film theorist Christian Metz, and that there is room for argument with the idea that there are a number of competing regimes associated with the modern era. Jay looks at the mirror of nature, a metaphor in philosophy by Richard Forty, the emphasis of surveillance that was put forward by Michel Foucault, and the society of the spectacle argued by Guy Debord. Jay also goes on to look at the arguably dominant scopic regime known as Cartesian Perspectivalism, what is normally claimed to be the dominant, even totally hegemonic, visual model of the modern era. Also discussed are the major competitors to Cartesian Perspectivalism, which includes mapping, which is, a visual culture very different from what we associate with Renaissance perspective, one which Svetlana Alpers has recently called The Art of Describing. and the third model of vision, which is best identified with the baroque. Wà ¶lfflin later called it, the classical style, the baroque was painterly, recessional, soft-focused, multiple, and open in his study, Renaissance and Baroque. Jacqueline Roses quote used by Jay to back up his opinion that there are many views which come into play when discussing the subject of scopic regimes, our previous history is not the petrified block of a single visual space since, looked at obliquely, it can always be seen to contain its moment of unease. (Rose, 1986, p.232-233.) Jays argument continues with him writing about the idea that this subject is not one of solidity. Bringing in the notion that the topic of, scopic regimes of modern ity, is best discussed on what he describes as, contested terrain, rather then harmoniously integrated complex of visual theories and practices. Modernity has often been considered resolutely ocular-centric, which is the act of basing all experience on the perception of the eyes, with sight being very direct and centered. The invention of printing reinforced the advantage of visual aids such as the telescope, which with its con-vexed lens helped expand the apparent angular size of distant objects. Along with the microscope, which aids the eye to see objects that are too small visually for the naked eye. These inventions helped put more emphasis on sight and vision. It is difficult to deny that the visual sense has been dominant in modern western culture in a wide variety of different ways, with Martin Jay calling visionthe master sense of the modern era. Scopic Regime, a term first coined by French film theorist Christian Metz in his book The Imaginary Signifier a study on cinema and psychoanalysis. It was used to distinguish the differences from the cinema to the theatre. What defines the specifically cinematic scopic regime is not so much the distance kept, the keeping itself (first figure of the lack, common to all voyeurism), as the absence of the object seen. (Metz, 1982, p.61.) The cinema is profoundly different from the theatre as also from more intimate voyeuristic activities with a specifically erotic aim. METZ It is the last recess that is attacked by the cinema signifier, it is in its precise emplacement that it installs a new figure of the lack, the physical absence of the object seen. In the theatre, actors and spectators are present at the same time and in the same location, hence present one to another, as the two protagonists of an authentic perverse couple. But in the cinema, the actor was present when the spectator was not (shooting), and the spectator is present when the actor is no longer. (Projection). A failure to meet of the voyeur and the exhibitionist whose approaches no longer coincide. (they have missed one another) The cinemas voyeurism must do without any very clear mark of consent on the part of the object. There is no equivalent here of the theater actors final bow. And then the latter could see their voyeurs, the game was less unilateral, slightly better distributed. In the darkened hall, the voyeur is really left alone.(P.63) In this text, Metz develops an analysis between film spectatorship and voyeurism. According to him, enhancing the essential property of the voyeuristic gaze that of keeping the desired, seen object at a safe distance from the viewing subject cinema locates its own data in the for- ever inaccessible, in a realm which is incessantly desirable but that can never be possessed, in the scene of absence. Cinema, in other words, shows us the world, and at the same time it takes it away from us. As Metz writes,  «what defines the properly cinematographic scopic regime is not the maintained distance, nor the care exerted in maintaining it, but the sheer absence of the seen object. Cinema is therefore a form of absolute voyeurism: it is founded on an unbridgeable distance, on a total inaccessibility. 3) Emphasize the prevalence of surveillance with Michael Foucault Our society is not one of spectacle, but of surveillanceWe are neither in the amphitheater, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine, invested by its effects of power, which we bring to ourselves since we are part of its mechanism. (Foucault, 1979, p.127.) Among French intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s it was Michel Foucault who most explicitly interrogated the gaze of surveillance and Guy Debord and his situationist international collaborators who explored the vision of the spectacle. Together they provided an array of different arguments looking from different perspectives against the hegemony of the eye. With their work, the ocular-centrism of those who praised the nobility of sight was not so much rejected, as reversed in value. Vision was still the privileged sense, but what that privilege produced in the modern world was damned as almost entirely corrupting. Foucault called it the unimpeded empire of the gaze. (Foucault, 1973, p.39.) and Guy Debord called it society of the spectacle. (Debord, 1981, p.25.) Gilles Deleuze characterized Foucaults work as a duel investigation of articulable statements and fields of visibilities. Deleuze stated that Foucault continued to be fascinated by what he saw as much as by what he heard or read, and the archaeology he conceived of is an audiovisual archive Foucault never stopped being a voyant at the same time as he marked philosophy with a new style of statement. (Deleuze, 1988, p.50.) Allan Megill, a philosophical writer, has claimed that in his earlier more structuralist moments, Foucault was himself intent on portraying a lucent Apollonian world (Megill, 1983, p.218) within which ocular-centrism was neutrally accepted. The vision that should be incorporated into psychoanalysis Foucault insisted, had to be understood phenomenologically, taking into account the livid spatial experience that emerged from the bodys intertwining with the world. Authentic versions of that experience were undermined, he claimed if vision was reduced to its traditional Cartesian spectral role based on the dualism of subject and object. Foucault was drawn to Belgian Surrealist painter Renà © Magritte, Magrittes work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The representational use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, The Treachery of Images, which depicts a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advert. Magritte painted below the pipe ceci nest pas une pipe translated it means This is not a pipe, Which would appear to be a contradiction, but in reality it is a true statement. The painting is no t a pipe, just an image of a pipe. When Magritte was once asked about his painting, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try and fill it with tobacco. Magritte used the same approach in a painting of an apple, he painted the fruit realistically and then used an internal caption to deny that the item was an apple. In these works Magritte points out that no matter how closely through art we come to depicting an item accurately we never actually catch the item itself. Foucault explored a more visibly explicit version of interaction within Magrittes work, he described Magrittes canvases as the opposite of trompe loeil which is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions because of their understanding of the mimetic conventions of realistic painting. Foucault also referred to them as unraveled calligrams as they refused to close the gap between the image and the world. Resemblance serves representation which rules over it; similitude serves repetition, which ranges across it. Resemblance predicates itself upon a model it must return to and reveal; similitude circulates the simulacrum as an indefinite and reversible relation of the similar to the similar. (Levy, 1990, p.44) The Panopticon (all-seeing) functioned as a round-the-clock surveillance machine. Its design ensured that no prisoner could ever see the inspector who conducted surveillance from the privileged central location within the radial configuration. The prisoner could never know when he was being surveilled mental uncertainty that in itself would prove to be a crucial instrument of discipline. French philosopher Michel Foucault described the implications of Panopticism in his 1975 work Discipline Punish: The Birth of the Prison Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers. To achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have befo re his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so. In order to make the presence or absence of the inspector unverifiable, so that the prisoners, in their cells, cannot even see a shadow, Bentham envisaged not only venetian blinds on the windows of the central observation hall, but, on the inside, partitions that intersected the hall at right angles and, in order to pass from one quarter to the other, not doors but zig-zag openings; for the slightest noise, a gleam of light, a brightness in a half-opened door would betray the presence of the guardian. The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen. Foucault also compares modern society with Jeremy Benthams Panopticon design for prisons (which was unrealized in its original form, but nonetheless influential): in the Panopticon, a single guard can watch over many prisoners while the guard remains unseen. Ancient prisons have been replaced by clear and visible ones, but Foucault cautions that visibility is a trap. It is through this visibility, Foucault writes, that modern society exercises its controlling systems of power and knowledge (terms Foucault believed to be so fundamentally connected that he often combined them in a single hyphenated concept, power-knowledge). Increasing visibility leads to power located on an increasingly individualized level, shown by the possibility for institutions to track individuals throughout their lives. Foucault suggests that a carceral continuum runs through modern society, from the maximum security prison, through secure accommodation, probation, social workers, police, and teachers, to our e veryday working and domestic lives. All are connected by the (witting or unwitting) supervision (surveillance, application of norms of acceptable behaviour) of some humans by others. Or look into the society of the spectacle with Guy Debord The entire life of societies in which modern conditions of production reign announces itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation. (Debord, 1977, par.1.) With the term spectacle, Debord defines the system that is a confluence of advanced capitalism, the mass media, and the types of governments who favor those phenomena. The spectacle is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people in which passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity. The spectacle is not a collection of images, writes Debord rather, it is a social relationship between people that is meditated by images. In his analysis of the spectacular society, Debord notes that quality of life is impoverished, with such lack of authenticity human perceptions are affected, and theres also a degradation of knowledge with the hindering of critical thought. 4) Cartesian Perspectivalism, is normally considered the dominant hegemonic scopic regime of the modern era. It is a way of seeing both then and now, a method of perception that represents space and the subjects and objects in that space according to the rules of Euclidean geometry. Renaissance painters, such as Brunelleschi, and Alberti, who was known as a draftsman rather than a painter, developed a geometric space complimentary to the mathematical space of Descartess philosophy. Perspective in painting projects a plane onto its object of study and creates a one-to-one correspondence between points on the plane and points on the canvas. Brunelleschi, who is traditionally accorded to the honor of being the practical inventor of perspective, he begun by using architectural figures such as buildings, ceilings, and tiled floors which easily match the grid structure of the projective plane.   Later, other objects were fitted and shaped within the geometrical patterning of linear perspect ive. Alberti is acknowledged, almost universally, as being the first theoretical interpreter of perspective. He regarded mathematics as the common ground for art and sciences. I will take first from the mathematicians those things which my subject is concerned. (Alberti DELLA PITTURA) The scopic regime that was interpreted Descartes philosophy is usually identified with Renaissance notions of perspective in the visual arts and the Cartesian ideas of subjective rationality in philosophy. Art historian William Ivins, Jr., in his Art and Geometry of 1946 said that the history of art during the five hundred years that have elapsed since Alberti wrote has been little more than the story of slow diffusion of his ideas through the artists and peoples of Europe. Richard Rorty discussed Descartes ideas in his writing Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, published in 1979. He claimed, in the cartesian model the intellect inspects entities modeled on retinal images In Descartes conception the one that become the basis for modern epistemology it is representations which are in the mind. These two prominent social commentators, have illustrated their view which is considered to be be equivalent to our view of the modern scopic regime. The aforementioned quotes assume that Ca rtesian perspectivalism is the main visual model of modernity, these authors believe it best expresses a natural experience of sight validated by the scientific world view. (maybe say it in a simplified form too.) In his famous essay Perspective as Symbolic Form, Panofsky, a German art historian, highlights the break made through linear perspective by contrasting Renaissance painting with that of Greek and Medieval works.  Ã‚   Prior to the Renaissance, painting concerned itself with individual objects, but the space which they inhabited failed to embrace or dissolve the opposition between bodies.   Space acted as a simple superposition, a still unsystematic overlapping.  Ã‚   With linear perspective comes an abstract spatial system capable of ordering objects: As various as antique theories of space were, none of them succeeded in defining space as a system of simple relationships between height, width and depth.   In that case, in the guise of a coordinate system, the difference between front and back, here and there, body and nonbody would have resolved into the higher and more abstract concept of three-dimensional extensions, or even, as Arnold Geulincx puts it, the concept of a corpus generaliter sumptum (body taken in a general sense). (Panofsky, 1991, p.43-44.) Jay says This new concept of space was geometrically isotropic, rectilinear, abstract, and uniform. The three-dimensional, rationalized space of perspectival vision could be rendered on a two-dimensional surface by following all of the transformational rules spelled out in Albertis De Pittura, and later agreements by Viator and Dà ¼rer. A basic painting device occurred from these findings with the use of symmetrical visual pyramids, or cones, with one of their apexes receding towards the vanishing point in the painting, the other into the eye of the painter. Significantly the eye was singular, and not the normal two eyes of binocular vision. The device was made in the manner that just one eye would be looking through a peep-hole (Kemp Science in art pg 13) at a scene in front of it. Brunelleschi used a peep-hole and mirror system for viewing this perspective demonstration of the Florentine Baptistery. Brunelleschi had drilled a small hole in a panel of wood at a point equivalent to that at which his line of sight had struck the Baptistery along a perpendicular axis. The spectator was required to look through this drilled hole from the back of the panel at a mirror held in such a way, so that it would reflect the image. The eye of the viewer would be fixated and unblinking rather than dynamic. In Norman Brysons terms it followed the logic of the Gaze rather than the Glance, which produced one single point of view. Bryson, who is an art theorist, calls this the Founding Perception of the Cartesian perspectivalist tradition. the gaze of the painter arrests the flux of phenomena, contemplates the visual field from a vantage-point outside the mobility of duration, in an eternal moment of disclosed presence; while in the moment of viewing, the viewing subject unites his gaze with the Founding Perception, in a moment of perfect recreation of that first epiphany. With this visual order arose many implications, with the abstract coldness of the perspectival gaze, which meant the painters emotional connection with the objects they depicted in geometricalized space was lost. The gap between spectacle and spectator widened. Cartesian perspectivalism has, in fact, been the target of a widespread philosophical critique, which has denounced its privileging of an ahistorical, disinterested, disembodied subject entirely outside of the world it claims to know only from afar. (Jay Cartesian perspectivalism itself that it suggest it was not quite as uniformly coercive as is sometimes assumed. Although artificial perspective was the dominant model, its competitor was never entirely forgotten. John White, an artist, distinguishes between what he terms artificial perspective, in which the mirror held up to nature is flat, and synthetic perspective, in which that mirror is presumed to be concave, thus producing a curved rather than planar space on the canvas. The Cartesian perspectivalist tradition contained a potential for internal contestation in the possible uncoupling of the painters view of the scene from that of the presumed beholder. Norman Bryson identifies this development with Johannes Vermeer , who represents for him a second state perspectivalism even more discarnated that that of Alberti. The bond with the viewers physique is broken and the viewing subjectis now proposed and assumed as a notional point, a non-empirical Gaze. This observation opens up more consideration, that there is an alternative scopic regime, that may be understood as more than a sub-variant of Cartesian perspectivalism. 5) Mapping, or as Svetlana Alpers called, The Art of Descriping. A visual culture very different from what is associated with the Renaissance perspective. According to Alpers the hegemonic role of Italian painting in art history has occluded an appreciation of a second influential tradition which flourished during the seventeenth-century Dutch art. contrast realist and naturalist fictionthat the Italian Renaissance art, for all its fascination with the techniques of perspective, still held fast to the storytelling function for which they were used. GEORGE LUKACS Summarizing the contrasts between the art of describing and Cartesian perspectivalism, Alpers points out the following oppositions: attention to many small things versus a few large ones; light reflected off objects modeled by light and shadow; the surface of objects, their colours and textures, dealt with rather than their placement in a legible space; an unframed image versus one than is clearly framed; one with no clearly situated viewer compared to one with such a viewer. The distinction follows a hierarchical model of distinguishing between phenomena commonly referred to as primary and secondary: objects and space versus the surfaces, forms versus the textures of the world. (ALPERS) The non-mathematical impulse of this tradition accords well with the indifference to hierarchy, proportion, and analogical resemblances characteristic of Cartesian perspectivalism. Instead it casts its eye on the fragmentary, detailed, and richly articulated surface of a world it is content to describe rather than explain. 6) Baroque Painting The third model of vision, best identified with the baroque. As early as 1888, and Heinrich Wà ¶fflins study, Renaissance and Baroque, art historians have been tempted to find connections between the two styles in both painting and architecture. In opposition to the lucid linear, solid, fixed, planimetric, closed form of the Renaissance, or as Wà ¶lfflin called it, the classical style, the Baroque was painterly, recessional, soft-focused, multiple and open. The Baroque style began as somewhat of a continuation of the Renaissance. Later, however, scholars of the time began to see the drastic differences between the two styles as the Renaissance style gave way to Baroque art. Baroque architecture, sculpture, and painting of a dramatic nature were powerful tools in the hands of religious and secular absolutism, and flourished in the service of the Catholic Church and of Catholic monarchies. The Baroque artists were particularly focused on natural forms, spaces, colors, lights, and the relationship between the observer and the literary or portrait subject in order to produce a strong, if muted, emotional experience. The Council of Trent (1545-63), in which the Roman Catholic Church answered many questions of internal reform raised by both Protestants and by those who had remained inside the Catholic Church, addressed the representational arts by demanding that paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather than to the well-informed. Due to this Baroque art tends to focus on Saints, the Virgin Mary, and other well known Bible stories. Religious painting, history painting, allegories, and portraits were still considered the most noble subjects, but landscapes, still life, and genre scenes rapidly gained notoriety. Nativity by Josefa de Óbidos, 1669, National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979) Rose, Jacqueline, Sexuality in the Field of Vision (London: Verso, 1986) p.232-233. Metz, Christian, The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p.61. Foucault, Michael, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans, Alan Sheridan (New York, 1979), p.217. Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, trans. A.M. Sheridan (London, 1973), p.39. Debord, Society of the Spectacle. trans. Ken Knabb (Berkeley, 1981), p.25. Deleuze, Gilles, Foucault, trans. and ed. Sean Hand (Minneapolis, 1988), p.50. Megill, Allan, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida (Berkeley, 1985), p.218. Levy, Silvano, Foucault on Magritte and Resemblance, The Modern Language Review, 85,1 (January 1990), p.44. Debord, Guy, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit 1977), par.1. Panofsky, Erwin.   Perspective as Symbolic Form. New York: Zone Books, 1991. 41-43.