Improving Track Safety Design With Passive External Airbags Engineering Essay

Re design/ rating and recommendations for design and building alterations by bettering the path safety utilizing inactive external airbags. The grass path bikes can be raced with progressively safe since there is a batch more room for development and betterments, both in the instance of bikes every bit good as barriers in the race paths. Sing the current methods and developments applied around a modern grass path race, it is clear that monolithic and a batch more betterments can be made to avoid hurts to the riders, witnesss every bit good as fatal clangs of bikes. Along with this, the overflow countries of the current grass path rushing circuits are surrounded by wooden pole fencing with linking ropes as clang barriers which is non at all safe during the race. Taking a closer expression at the present clang barrier constituents it is obvious that a rope n wooden barrier is the worst comparison to all other barriers as it provides no safety and protection to the riders and witnesss during the high velocity clang. Basically if any stiff and inelastic stuff barrier is installed and if it does non travel off to some extent during a clang, it is non advisable to put in it since the energy absorbing power is really low. And if such an inelastic barrier is installed it may ensue in terrible hurts to the rider and rider and entire devastation of bikes. Other alternate barriers which used more normally are the light froth clang barriers with the wired thin metal mesh of considerable snap and resembles divider fencing and are installed environing the path giving infinite to run off country. Although these barriers are effectual against low impact hits, a current bike has excessively much velocity and torsion for those fencings to defy a hit and high impact. Finally, the most frequently used barrier fencings are wooden barriers which are impermanent and are less soaking up of impact energy. Exploitation of inactive airbag system as a 3rd barrier. In an impulse to better overall grass path safety and to happen a solution for above mentioned track safety jobs, a new development can be used as an alternate barriers for the path safety intents which can be used on the curves where there is a maximal chance of bikes traveling off the path or around the path as a safety barrier. The new coevals airbag system consists of normal airbags which are of inactive and can be used exterior to the path. Each airbag merely a inactive bag, which are pre hyperbolic bag of air and are of peculiar lengths, so that any combination of bags can be used every bit long as the path length, and can be easy transported or shifted from one path to another as all the paths are impermanent, and can be used with add-on to the current wooden barrier or if installed decently can replace the wooden barrier wholly. Therefore doing easy to put in and take after the race when and where of all time required with different path forms. The advantage of the barrier air bag is, it can non merely hyperbolic with normal but it can besides be inflated with any other alternate gases available and sometimes it is flexible more even to make full an equal normal liquid and a type of froth as good. Since the alternate types of rising prices increases the cost of installing and operation normal or dry air from the ambiance is much preferred as compared to any other surrogate. The air bags should be really exactly designed so that it wholly absorbs the bike impulse when it strikes them at really high velocity on the rushing circuits. The alone characteristic of the barrier air bag is when the bike hits the barrier with a really high impact, the inactive external barrier airbag evacuates a certain measure of air which is perfectly equal to the strength of the bike impact on the air bag wall. The bag which is partly deflated during the impact can once more inflated by a suited pump which regains and maintains the force per unit area and volume of the bag back to normal as before the hit. And those bags can be used for full completion of the circuit every bit good as other many races and if badly non damaged it can be used for several old ages till the bag stuff loses its snap due to age or serious wreckage due to crisp and pointed parts of the bikes during the clang. The normal air bag design constellation of the fence of path can be well compared to a drape of much large size, which is composed of many little inflatable shock absorber like which is attached one after the other like a concatenation of all around outside path. The barrier bags can be connected or fixed to each other one behind the other and every bit good to the gimmick fencing which is present behind them or even can be fixed on the land, and provided the air bag should hold adequate perpendicular rigidness so that it should non travel away skiding when the bike crashes the bag at really high impact. The air bags can be rapidly installed behind the 3rd gimmick fencing merely to supply safety to riders and every bit good as the witnesss. Fabrication of the barrier air bags The effectual airbags can be manufactured by run uping or can be thermoformed like plastics from derived functions of assorted tissues in such an interface that the barrier air bag is really extremely immune to high velocity bike hit impacts, parts invasions and resistant to fire in some instances and besides sing all the conditions conditions during the race is on. All the stuffs selected to the airbag industry must be tested and validatingly verified, and a combination of man-made fibers may be besides a really good pick for industry. Materials such as C fibers or Kevlar which has high strength and relatively less weight, which are already widely used in motor athleticss until now, can besides be used for the fabrication of air bags. Flexibility in air bag to accommodate different state of affairss in the race Different force per unit areas can be applied to the airbags depending upon the applications, when blow uping the air bags. Air bag can be filled with more volume of air which in return has more possible energy absorbing capacity, but the job is when the air displaces from the bag when crashed by bike, and therefore the air issues will hold to be sized for assorted velocity impacts. The air issues of the bag should be made sensitive plenty such that when the bike impacts with different velocities several sum of air should be discharged from the bag and the issue force per unit area should be pre determined. Hence every bag must be equipped with sufficient sum of air mercantile establishments which are to be a hermetic waterproofing in the signifier of opening to blow up every bit good at the same clip which enables go forthing the air measure from the bag at the fleeting hits. These air issues are plus points and advantageous cardinal solutions to the airbags as these allow the bike striking the airbags to be absorbed as a whole alternatively of resiling back the riders and bike when they ram the bag. Further customization of the airbags can be done to accommodate different applications. And airbags can besides be constructed for many uninterrupted metres in the signifier of wall, if the paths are to be made lasting, irrespective of length and breadth for effectual protection in a racing path boundary lines. Another betterment can besides be done in the air bags by adding one or more constituents in assembles bags like including pockets to catch the rider individually on the surface as the bike hits the front surface and Michigans, and rider every bit good as rider may wing in the air after crashing to the barrier, can be caught if the pockets are provided on the above or top surface of air bags. And such a constellation can be made possible in air bags by a resistive plastic model. The state of affairs of the path decides whether a combination of little attachable bags or big bags must be used in the race as some of race paths may non hold equal infinite to keep the race path, run offs and every bit good as witnesss. Proper, thorough full graduated table trials and surveies must be carried out before put ining or implementing the air bags on the existent path. It is non mandatory for the form of the airbag and stuff and any form can be manufactured harmonizing to the demand of path safety. The air bags which are put on the race circuits to absorb energy of the bike impact traveling off the paths particularly on the curves and go forthing the curves can be fixed, fastened, welded, glued and can be used incasing them in any arrested development structures or systems in conformity to protect the needed as stated before. The tissue used for the bag surface stuff may perchance be a mixture of glass fiber based, C fiber, man-made fiber based or Kevlar fiber since it is really strong. But it is non good to increase the thickness of the airbags utilizing stacking up of C to one or more beds inside with a orderly harmonic of man-made fibers or with any other combinations of two or more types of hempen texture. Air bag should hold chief characteristic characteristic of resistant to violent and difficult impacts, and to some extent opposition to rupture, fire and an in effectible to the conditions conditions. Airbags can be used in lasting path and every bit good, apart from stiff lasting systems, the airbags can besides be used as nomadic barriers, where of all time required. It can be dismantled, moved and replaced of fixed easy wheresoever needed in different locations where the race takes topographic point and can physically supported on a movable constructions that can back up potentially violent impact clangs. This interesting belongings of the air bag makes it good feasible solution for the impermanent circuits like grass paths and such as those which are used in the universe mass meeting titles. Amongst the advantages of the barrier air bags implemented on the grass path rushing circuits, is the shifting of circuits from a unsafe topographic point onto a more secured topographic points. This system can widely be used alternatively of current path safety systems and can replace the inferior barriers which do non supply any safety to the riders and the witnesss. The belongings of absorbing energy expeditiously through the controlled deflation of the airbags through the air exits. These airbags may go a hope for safety protections that wholly absorbs the impact energies and will non convey back to the bike striking it. Another good advantage of this air bag is the show surface on inside the path every bit good as outside the path harmonizing to the form along the grass path circuits can be efficaciously used by the advertizers. Last but non least at the terminal, there will be existent demand for these sorts of barriers if manufactured consequently with low operation costs and purchasing costs to the path circuits all over the universe. It is really easy to still develop the air bag engineering and executions to supply in the market as all sorts of engineering is available already for bettering the safety and guaranting 100 % safety in the grass paths and other similar paths circuits for witnesss, riders and from their machines during the clang.

Virgin Atlantic Airways Case Study

Critically assess how the organisation has employed e-business technologies to perform its key business processes and improve service levels for its customers To begin with, the online e-business model of Virgin Atlantic Airways is a business to consumer as the Virgin Atlantic Airways sells plane tickets directly to customers without passing intermediaries. Virgin Atlantic Airways implements the e business technologies to perform its key business processes and improve service levels for its customers by improving reservation online, provide all convenient services, flight data , route, cost saving ,more flight and news update and promotion. Reservation Online System First of all, Virgin Atlantic Airways (2012) stated that the reservation online enhance booking system and increase sales. This is because it is convenient for passengers to check dates and flight. No matters where passenger live, they can reserve online and make a payment directly to Virgin Atlantic Airways through credit cards. Secondly reservation online provide all level of services. So passengers can select the service to suit their need. Virgin Atlantic Airways provide services such as economy class, premium economy class as well as upper class. Convenient. B2C or Business direct to customer is quite convenient and efficient with airline business (Kotler, 2008) . This reduces the need of sell agents as intermediary. As a result of this, Virgin Atlantic Airways can sell plane ticket at a lower price. Furthermore, e-business technology can increase foreign passengers through Virgin Atlantic Airways booking system. This is because foreign passengers can check the route , flight data and prices to compare with other airline. However, if they find Virgin Atlantic Airways suit their need more , they will book directly with Virgin Atlantic Airways. Flight Data E-business technologies make a flight data more accurate and fast due to, the system is operated by computer. To demonstrate this, if one passenger book the plane ticket the system will show the seats availability left and if one change his or her mind by cancellation the system will responds very quick. Route E-business technologies could perform its key business processes and improve service levels for passengers by showing the flight route and provide alternative route for passengers to select. Therefore, passengers have varies option to pick the most convenient route and economical route. For a long flight, sometime passengers can pick an economical flight by choosing the flight that transfer at other airport or require couples stop. This enhance customers base and flight booking system. More Flight Virgin Atlantic Airways (2012) mentioned that online system can enhance more flight. This is due to if any flight or route is popular due to high demand or season factors. The system will suggests to possibility to increase more flight . Therefore, Virgin Atlantic Airways revenue and profit will rise as Virgin Atlantic can serve more demand. Cost Saving Cost saving is one of major key success of Virgin Atlantic Airways (Kotler, 2008) . The e business online system can save the cost effectively as there is less need for sell agents and intermediary . Also, the e-business system can manage ticket price effectively as well. This is because if the fuel price and tax price change , the system will adjust the selling price of plane ticket instantly. E –business system which is a computer system require less staffs working. Therefore, the system can save hiring cost. News update and Promotion. Virgin Atlantic website shows all news and promotion update. This is a fast way to communicate directly to passengers and it is quick because the company can just update instantly. This benefits both passengers and the Virgin Atlantic company due to passengers can compare the airways promotion with other airways or decide to purchase the promotion that suit their need instantly.

Black House Chapter Twenty-six

26 WE HAVE HAD our little conversation about slippage, and it's too late in the game to belabor the point more than a little, but wouldn't you say that most houses are an attempt to hold slippage back? To impose at least the illusion of normality and sanity on the world? Think of Libertyville, with its corny but endearing street names Camelot and Avalon and Maid Marian Way. And think of that sweet little honey of a home in Libertyville where Fred, Judy, and Tyler Marshall once lived together. What else would you call 16 Robin Hood Lane but an ode to the everyday, a paean to the prosaic? We could say the same thing about Dale Gilbertson's home, or Jack's, or Henry's, couldn't we? Most of the homes in the vicinity of French Landing, really. The destructive hurricane that has blown through the town doesn't change the fact that the homes stand as brave bulwarks against slippage, as noble as they are humble. They are places of sanity. Black House like Shirley Jackson's Hill House, like the turn-of-the-century monstrosity in Seattle known as Rose Red is not sane. It is not entirely of this world. It's hard to look at from the outside the eyes play continual tricks but if one can hold it steady for a few seconds, one sees a three-story dwelling of perfectly ordinary size. The color is unusual, yes that dead black exterior, even the windows swabbed black and it has a crouching, leaning aspect that would raise uneasy thoughts about its structural integrity, but if one could appraise it with the glammer of those other worlds stripped away, it would look almost as ordinary as Fred and Judy's place . . . if not so well maintained. Inside, however, it is different. Inside, Black House is large. Black House is, in fact, almost infinite. Certainly it is no place to get lost, although from time to time people have hoboes and the occasional unfortunate runaway child, as well as Charles Burnside/Carl Bierstone's victims and relics here and there mark their passing: bits of clothing, pitiful scratchings on the walls of gigantic rooms with strange dimensions, the occasional heap of bones. Here and there the visitor may see a skull, such as the ones that washed up on the banks of the Hanover River during Fritz Haarman's reign of terror in the early 1920s. This is not a place where you want to get lost. Let us pass through rooms and nooks and corridors and crannies, safe in the knowledge that we can return to the outside world, the sane anti-slippage world, anytime we want (and yet we are still uneasy as we pass down flights of stairs that seem all but endless and along corridors that dwindle to a point in the distance). We hear an eternal low humming and the faint clash of weird machinery. We hear the idiot whistle of a constant wind either outside or on the floors above and below us. Sometimes we hear a faint, houndly barking that is undoubtedly the abbalah's devil dog, the one that did for poor old Mouse. Sometimes we hear the sardonic caw of a crow and understand that Gorg is here, too somewhere. We pass through rooms of ruin and rooms that are still furnished with a pale and rotten grandeur. Many of these are surely bigger than the whole house in which they hide. And eventually we come to a humble sitting room furnished with an elderly horsehair sofa and chairs of fading red velvet. There is a smell of noisome cooking in the air. (Somewhere close by is a kitchen we must never visit . . . not, that is, if we ever wish to sleep without nightmares again.) The electrical fixtures in here are at least seventy years old. How can that be, we ask, if Black House was built in the 1970s? The answer is simple: much of Black House most of Black House has been here much longer. The draperies in this room are heavy and faded. Except for the yellowed news clippings that have been taped to the ugly green wallpaper, it is a room that would not be out of place on the ground floor of the Nelson Hotel. It's a place that is simultaneously sinister and oddly banal, a fitting mirror for the imag ination of the old monster who has gone to earth here, who lies sleeping on the horsehair sofa with the front of his shirt turning a sinister red. Black House is not his, although in his pathological grandiosity he believes differently (and Mr. Munshun has not disabused him of this belief ). This one room, however, is. The clippings around him tell us all we need to know of Charles â€Å"Chummy† Burnside's lethal fascinations. YES, I ATE HER, FISH DECLARES: New York Herald Tribune BILLY GAFFNEY PLAYMATE AVERS â€Å"IT WAS THE GRAY MAN TOOK BILLY, IT WAS THE BOGEYMAN†: New York World Telegram GRACE BUDD HORROR CONTINUES: FISH CONFESSES!: Long Island Star FISH ADMITS â€Å"ROASTING, EATING† WM GAFFNEY: New York American FRITZ HAARMAN, SO-CALLED â€Å"BUTCHER OF HANOVER,† EXECUTED FOR MURDER OF 24: New York World WEREWOLF DECLARES: â€Å"I WAS DRIVEN BY LOVE, NOT LUST.† HAARMAN DIES UNREPENTANT: The Guardian CANNIBAL OF HANOVER'S LAST LETTER: â€Å"YOU CANNOT KILL ME, I SHALL BE AMONG YOU FOR ETERNITY†: New York World Wendell Green would love this stuff, would he not? And there are more. God help us, there are so many more. Even Jeffrey Dahmer is here, declaring I WANTED ZOMBIES. The figure on the couch begins to groan and stir. â€Å"Way-gup, Burny!† This seems to come from thin air, not his mouth . . . although his lips move, like those of a second-rate ventriloquist. Burny groans. His head turns to the left. â€Å"No . . . need to sleep. Everything . . . hurts.† The head turns to the right in a gesture of negation and Mr. Munshun speaks again. â€Å"Way-gup, dey vill be gummink. You must move der buu-uoy.† The head switches back the other way. Sleeping, Burny thinks Mr. Munshun is still safe inside his head. He has forgotten things are different here in Black House. Foolish Burny, now nearing the end of his usefulness! But not quite there yet. â€Å"Can't . . . lea' me ‘lone . . . stomach hurts . . . the blind man . . . fucking blind man hurt my stomach . . .† But the head turns back the other way and the voice speaks again from the air beside Burny's right ear. Burny fights it, not wanting to wake and face the full ferocious impact of the pain. The blind man has hurt him much worse than he thought at the time, in the heat of the moment. Burny insists to the nagging voice that the boy is safe where he is, that they'll never find him even if they can gain access to Black House, that they will become lost in its unknown depth of rooms and hallways and wander until they first go mad and then die. Mr. Munshun, however, knows that one of them is different from any of the others who have happened on this place. Jack Sawyer is acquainted with the infinite, and that makes him a problem. The boy must be taken out the back way and into End-World, into the very shadow of Din-tah, the great furnace. Mr. Munshun tells Burny that he may still be able to have some of the boy before turning him over to the abbalah, but not here. Too dangerous. Sorry. Burny continues to protest, but this is a battle he will not win, and we know it. Already the stale, cooked-meat air of the room has begun to shift and swirl as the owner of the voice arrives. We see first a whirlpool of black, then a splotch of red an ascot and then the beginnings of an impossibly long white face, which is dominated by a single black shark's eye. This is the real Mr. Munshun, the creature who can only live in Burny's head outside of Black House and its enchanted environs. Soon he will be entirely here, he will pull Burny into wakefulness (torture him into wakefulness, if necessary), and he will put Burny to use while there is still use to be gotten from him. For Mr. Munshun cannot move Ty from his cell in the Black House. Once he is in End-World Burny's Sheol things will be different. At last Burny's eyes open. His gnarled hands, which have spilled so much blood, now reach down to feel the dampness of his own blood seeping through his shirt. He looks, sees what has bloomed there, and lets out a scream of horror and cowardice. It does not strike him as just that, after murdering so many children, he should have been mortally wounded by a blind man; it strikes him as hideous, unfair. For the first time he is visited by an extremely unpleasant idea: What if there's more to pay for the things he has done over the course of his long career? He has seen End-World; he has seen Conger Road, which winds through it to Din-tah. The blasted, burning landscape surrounding Conger Road is like hell, and surely An-tak, the Big Combination, is hell itself. What if such a place waits for him? What if There's a horrible, paralyzing pain in his guts. Mr. Munshun, now almost fully materialized, has reached out and twisted one smoky, not-quite-transparent hand in the wound Henry inflicted with his switchblade knife. Burny squeals. Tears run down the old child-murderer's cheeks. â€Å"Don't hurt me!† â€Å"Zen do ass I zay.† â€Å"I can't,† Burny snivels. â€Å"I'm dying. Look at all the blood! Do you think I can get past something like this? I'm eighty-five fucking years old!† â€Å"Duff brayyg, Burn-Burn . . . but dere are zose on z'osser zide who could hill you off your wunds.† Mr. Munshun, like Black House itself, is hard to look at. He shivers in and out of focus. Sometimes that hideously long face (it obscures most of his body, like the bloated head of a caricature on some newspaper's op-ed page) has two eyes, sometimes just one. Sometimes there seem to be tufted snarls of orange hair leaping up from his distended skull, and sometimes Mr. Munshun appears to be as bald as Yul Brynner. Only the red lips and the fangy pointed teeth that lurk inside them remain fairly constant. Burny eyes his accomplice with a degree of hope. His hands, meanwhile, continue to explore his stomach, which is now hard and bloated with lumps. He suspects the lumps are clots. Oh, that someone should have hurt him so badly! That wasn't supposed to happen! That was never supposed to happen! He was supposed to be protected! He was supposed to â€Å"It iss not even peeyond ze realm of bossibility,† Mr. Munshun says, â€Å"zat ze yearz could be rawled avey vrum you jusst as ze stunn vas rawled avey from ze mouse of Cheezus Chrizze's doom.† â€Å"To be young again,† Burny says, and exhales a low, harsh sigh. His breath stinks of blood and spoilage. â€Å"Yes, I'd like that.† â€Å"Of gorse! And soch zings are bossible,† Mr. Munshun says, nodding his grotesquely unstable face. â€Å"Soch gifts are ze abbalah's to giff. But zey are not bromised, Charles, my liddle munching munchkin. But I can make you one bromise.† The creature in the black evening suit and red ascot leaps forward with dreadful agility. His long-fingered hand darts again into Chummy Burnside's shirt, this time clenches into a fist, and produces a pain beyond any the old monster has ever dreamed of in his own life . . . although he has inflicted this and more on the innocent. Mr. Munshun's reeking countenance pushes up to Burny's. The single eye glares. â€Å"Do you feel dat, Burny? Do you, you mizz-er-a-ble old bag of dirt and zorrow? Ho-ho, ha-ha, of gorse you do! It iss your in-destines I haff in my hand! Und if you do not mooff now, schweinhund, I vill rip dem from your bledding body, ho-ho, ha-ha, und vrap dem arund your neg! You vill die knowing you are choking on your own gudz! A trick I learned from Fritz himzelf, Fritz Haarman, who vas so yunk und loff-ly! Now! Vat do you say? Vill you brink him, or vill you choke?† â€Å"I'll bring him!† Burny screams. â€Å"I'll bring him, only stop, stop, you're tearing me apart!† â€Å"Brink him to ze station. Ze station, Burn-Burn. Dis one iz nodd for ze radhulls, de fogzhulls not for ze Com-bin-ay-shun. No bledding foodzies for Dyler; he works for his abbalah vid dis.† A long finger tipped with a brutal black nail goes to the huge forehead and taps it above the eyes (for the moment Burny sees two of them, and then the second is once more gone). â€Å"Understand?† â€Å"Yes! Yes!† His guts are on fire. And still the hand in his shirt twists and twists. The terrible highway of Mr. Munshun's face hangs before him. â€Å"Ze station where you brought the other sbecial ones.† â€Å"YES!† Mr. Munshun lets go. He steps back. Mercifully for Burny, he is beginning to grow insubstantial again, to discorporate. Yellowed clippings swim into view not behind him but through him. Yet the single eye hangs in the air above the paling blotch of the ascot. â€Å"Mayg zure he vears za cab. Ziss one ezbeshully must wear za cab.† Burnside nods eagerly. He still smells faintly of My Sin perfume. â€Å"The cap, yes, I have the cap.† â€Å"Be gare-ful, Burny. You are old und hurt. Ze bouy is young und desberate. Flitt of foot. If you let him get avey â€Å" In spite of the pain, Burny smiles. One of the children getting away from him! Even one of the special ones! What an idea! â€Å"Don't worry,† he says. â€Å"Just . . . if you speak to him . . . to Abbalah-doon . . . tell him I'm not past it yet. If he makes me better, he won't regret it. And if he makes me young again, I'll bring him a thousand young. A thousand Breakers.† Fading and fading. Now Mr. Munshun is again just a glow, a milky disturbance on the air of Burny's sitting room deep in the house he abandoned only when he realized he really did need someone to take care of him in his sunset years. â€Å"Bring him just dis vun, Burn-Burn. Bring him just dis vun, und you vill be revarded.† Mr. Munshun is gone. Burny stands and bends over the horsehair sofa. Doing it squeezes his belly, and the resulting pain makes him scream, but he doesn't stop. He reaches into the darkness and pulls out a battered black leather sack. He grasps its top and leaves the room, limping and clutching at his bleeding, distended belly. And what of Tyler Marshall, who has existed through most of these many pages as little more than a rumor? How badly has he been hurt? How frightened is he? Has he managed to retain his sanity? As to his physical condition, he's got a concussion, but that's already healing. The Fisherman has otherwise done no more than stroke his arm and his buttocks (a creepy touch that made Tyler think of the witch in â€Å"Hansel and Gretel†). Mentally . . . would you be shocked to hear that, while Mr. Munshun is goading Burny onward, Fred and Judy's boy is happy? He is. He is happy. And why not? He's at Miller Park. The Milwaukee Brewers have confounded all the pundits this year, all the doomsayers who proclaimed they'd be in the cellar by July Fourth. Well, it's still relatively early, but the Fourth has come and gone and the Brew Crew has returned to Miller tied for first place with Cincinnati. They are in the hunt, in large part due to the bat of Richie Sexson, who came over to Milwaukee from the Cleveland Indians and who has been â€Å"really pickin' taters,† in the pungent terminology of George Rathbun. They are in the hunt, and Ty is at the game! EXCELLENT! Not only is he there, he's got a front-row seat. Next to him big, sweating, red-faced, a Kingsland beer in one hand and another tucked away beneath his seat for emergencies is the Gorgeous George himself, bellowing at the top of his leather lungs. Jeromy Burnitz of the Crew has just been called out at first on a bang-bang play, and while there can be no doubt that the Cincinnati shortstop handled the ball well and got rid of it fast, there can also be no doubt (at least not in George Rathbun's mind) that Burnitz was safe! He rises in the twilight, his sweaty bald pate glowing beneath a sweetly lavender sky, a foamy rill of beer rolling up one cocked forearm, his blue eyes twinkling (you can tell he sees a lot with those eyes, just about everything), and Ty waits for it, they all wait for it, and here it is, that avatar of summer in the Coulee Country, that wonderful bray that means everything is okay, terror has been denied, a nd slippage has been canceled. â€Å"COME ON, UMP, GIVE US A BREAK! GIVE US A FREEEEAKIN' BRAYYYYK! EVEN A BLIND MAN COULD SEE HE WAS SAFE!† The crowd on the first-base side goes wild at the sound of that cry, none wilder than the fourteen or so people sitting behind the banner reading MILLER PARK WELCOMES GEORGE RATHBUN AND THE WINNERS OF THIS YEAR'S KDCU BREWER BASH. Ty is jumping up and down, laughing, waving his Brew Crew hat. What makes this doubly boss is that he thought he forgot to enter the contest this year. He guesses his father (or perhaps his mother) entered it for him . . . and he won! Not the grand prize, which was getting to be the Brew Crew's batboy for the entire Cincinnati series, but what he got (besides this excellent seat with the other winners, that is) is, in his opinion, even better. Of course Richie Sexson isn't Mark McGwire nobody can hit the tar out of the ball like Big Mac but Sexson has been awesome for the Brewers this year, just awesome, and Tyler Marshall has won Someone is shaking his foot. Ty attempts to pull away, not wanting to lose this dream (this most excellent refuge from the horror that has befallen him), but the hand is relentless. It shakes. It shakes and shakes. â€Å"Way-gup,† a voice snarls, and the dream begins to darken. George Rathbun turns to Ty, and the boy sees an amazing thing: the eyes that were such a shrewd, sharp blue only a few seconds ago have gone dull and milky. Cripe, he's blind, Ty thinks. George Rathbun really is a â€Å"Way-gup,† the growling voice says. It's closer now. In a moment the dream will wink out entirely. Before it does, George speaks to him. The voice is quiet, totally unlike the sportscaster's usual brash bellow. â€Å"Help's on the way,† he says. â€Å"So be cool, you little cat. Be â€Å" â€Å"Way-GUP, you shit!† The grip on his ankle is crushing, paralyzing. With a cry of protest, Ty opens his eyes. This is how he rejoins the world, and our tale. He remembers where he is immediately. It's a cell with reddish-gray iron bars halfway along a stone corridor lit with cobwebby electric bulbs. There's a dish of some sort of stew in one corner. In the other is a bucket in which he is supposed to pee (or take a dump if he has to so far he hasn't, thank goodness). The only other thing in the room is a raggedy old futon from which Burny has just dragged him. â€Å"All right,† Burny says. â€Å"Awake at last. That's good. Now get up. On your feet, asswipe. I don't have time to fuck with you.† Tyler gets up. A wave of dizziness rolls through him and he puts his hand to the top of his head. There is a spongy, crusted place there. Touching it sends a bolt of pain all the way down to his jaws, which clench. But it also drives the dizziness away. He looks at his hand. There are flakes of scab and dried blood on his palm. That's where he hit me with his damned rock. Any harder, and I would have been playing a harp. But the old man has been hurt somehow, too. His shirt is covered with blood; his wrinkled ogre's face is waxy and pallid. Behind him, the cell door is open. Ty measures the distance to the hallway, hoping he's not being too obvious about it. But Burny has been in this game a long time. He has had more than one liddle one dry to esscabe on hiz bledding foodzies, oh ho. He reaches into his bag and brings out a black gadget with a pistol grip and a stainless steel nozzle at the tip. â€Å"Know what this is, Tyler?† Burny asks. â€Å"Taser,† Ty says. â€Å"Isn't it?† Burny grins, revealing the stumps of his teeth. â€Å"Smart boy! A TV-watching boy, I'll be bound. It's a Taser, yes. But a special type it'll drop a cow at thirty yards. Understand? You try to run, boy, I'll bring you down like a ton of bricks. Come out here.† Ty steps out of the cell. He has no idea where this horrible old man means to take him, but there's a certain relief just in being free of the cell. The futon was the worst. He knows, somehow, that he hasn't been the only kid to cry himself to sleep on it with an aching heart and an aching, lumpy head, nor the tenth. Nor, probably, the fiftieth. â€Å"Turn to your left.† Ty does. Now the old man is behind him. A moment later, he feels the bony fingers grip the right cheek of his bottom. It's not the first time the old man has done this (each time it happens he's reminded again of the witch in â€Å"Hansel and Gretel,† asking the lost children to stick their arms out of their cage), but this time his touch is different. Weaker. Die soon, Ty thinks, and the thought its cold collectedness is very, very Judy. Die soon, old man, so I don't have to. â€Å"This one is mine,† the old man says . . . but he sounds out of breath, no longer quite sure of himself. â€Å"I'll bake half, fry the rest. With bacon.† â€Å"I don't think you'll be able to eat much,† Ty says, surprised at the calmness of his own voice. â€Å"Looks like somebody ventilated your stomach pretty g â€Å" There is a crackling, accompanied by a hideous, jittery burning sensation in his left shoulder. Ty screams and staggers against the wall across the corridor from his cell, trying to clutch the wounded place, trying not to cry, trying to hold on to just a little of his beautiful dream about being at the game with George Rathbun and the other KDCU Brewer Bash winners. He knows he actually did forget to enter this year, but in dreams such things don't matter. That's what's so beautiful about them. Oh, but it hurts so bad. And despite all his efforts all the Judy Marshall in him the tears begin to flow. â€Å"You want another un?† the old man gasps. He sounds both sick and hysterical, and even a kid Ty's age knows that's a dangerous combination. â€Å"You want another un, just for good luck?† â€Å"No,† Ty gasps. â€Å"Don't zap me again, please don't.† â€Å"Then start walkin'! And no more smart goddamn remarks!† Ty starts to walk. Somewhere he can hear water dripping. Somewhere, very faint, he can hear the laughing caw of a crow probably the same one that tricked him, and how he'd like to have Ebbie's .22 and blow its evil shiny black feathers off. The outside world seems light-years away. But George Rathbun told him help was on the way, and sometimes the things you heard in dreams came true. His very own mother told him that once, and long before she started to go all wonky in the head, too. They come to a stairway that seems to circle down forever. Up from the depths comes a smell of sulfur and a roast of heat. Faintly he can hear what might be screams and moans. The clank of machinery is louder. There are ominous creaking sounds that might be belts and chains. Ty pauses, thinking the old guy won't zap him again unless he absolutely has to. Because Ty might fall down this long circular staircase. Might hit the place on his head the old guy already clipped with the rock, or break his neck, or tumble right off the side. And the old guy wants him alive, at least for now. Ty doesn't know why, but he knows this intuition is true. â€Å"Where are we going, mister?† â€Å"You'll find out,† Burny says in his tight, out-of-breath voice. â€Å"And if you think I don't dare zap you while we're on the stairs, my little friend, you're very mistaken. Now get walking.† Tyler Marshall starts down the stairs, descending past vast galleries and balconies, around and down, around and down. Sometimes the air smells of putrid cabbage. Sometimes it smells of burned candles. Sometimes of wet rot. He counts a hundred and fifty steps, then stops counting. His thighs are burning. Behind him, the old man is gasping, and twice he stumbles, cursing and holding the ancient banister. Fall, old man, Ty chants inside his head. Fall and die, fall and die. But at last they are at the bottom. They arrive in a circular room with a dirty glass ceiling. Above them, gray sky hangs down like a filthy bag. There are plants oozing out of broken pots, sending greedy feelers across a floor of broken orange bricks. Ahead of them, two doors French doors, Ty thinks they are called stand open. Beyond them is a crumbling patio surrounded by ancient trees. Some are palms. Some the ones with the hanging, ropy vines might be banyans. Others he doesn't know. One thing he's sure of: they are no longer in Wisconsin. Standing on the patio is an object he knows very well. Something from his own world. Tyler Marshall's eyes well up again at the sight of it, which is almost like the sight of a face from home in a hopelessly foreign place. â€Å"Stop, monkey-boy.† The old man sounds out of breath. â€Å"Turn around.† When Tyler does, he's pleased to see that the blotch on the old man's shirt has spread even farther. Fingers of blood now stretch all the way to his shoulders, and the waistband of his baggy old blue jeans has gone a muddy black. But the hand holding the Taser is rock-steady. God damn you, Tyler thinks. God damn you to hell. The old man has put his bag on a little table. He simply stands where he is for a moment, getting his breath. Then he rummages in the bag (something in there utters a faint metallic clink) and brings out a soft brown cap. It's the kind guys like Sean Connery sometimes wear in the movies. The old man holds it out. â€Å"Put it on. And if you try to grab my hand, I'll zap you.† Tyler takes the cap. His fingers, expecting the texture of suede, are surprised by something metallic, almost like tinfoil. He feels an unpleasant buzzing in his hand, like a mild version of the Taser's jolt. He looks at the old man pleadingly. â€Å"Do I have to?† Burny raises the Taser and bares his teeth in a silent grin. Reluctantly, Ty puts the cap on. This time the buzzing fills his head. For a moment he can't think . . . and then the feeling passes, leaving him with an odd sense of weakness in his muscles and a throbbing at his temples. â€Å"Special boys need special toys,† Burny says, and it comes out sbecial boyz, sbecial toyz. As always, Mr. Munshun's ridiculous accent has rubbed off a little, thickening that touch of South Chicago Henry detected on the 911 tape. â€Å"Now we can go out.† Because with the cap on, I'm safe, Ty thinks, but the idea breaks up and drifts away almost as soon as it comes. He tries to think of his middle name and realizes he can't. He tries to think of the bad crow's name and can't get that, either was it something like Corgi? No, that's a kind of dog. The cap is messing him up, he realizes, and that's what it's supposed to do. Now they pass through the open doors and onto the patio. The air is redolent with the smell of the trees and bushes that surround the back side of Black House, a smell that is heavy and cloying. Fleshy, somehow. The gray sky seems almost low enough to touch. Ty can smell sulfur and something bitter and electric and juicy. The sound of machinery is much louder out here. The thing Ty recognized sitting on the broken bricks is an E-Z-Go golf cart. The Tiger Woods model. â€Å"My dad sells these,† Ty says. â€Å"At Goltz's, where he works.† â€Å"Where do you think it came from, asswipe? Get in. Behind the wheel.† Ty looks at him, amazed. His blue eyes, perhaps thanks to the effects of the cap, have grown bloodshot and rather confused. â€Å"I'm not old enough to drive.† â€Å"Oh, you'll be fine. A baby could drive this baby. Behind the wheel.† Ty does as he is told. In truth, he has driven one of these in the lot at Goltz's, with his father sitting watchfully beside him in the passenger seat. Now the hideous old man is easing himself into that same place, groaning and holding his perforated midsection. The Taser is in the other hand, however, and the steel tip remains pointed at Ty. The key is in the ignition. Ty turns it. There's a click from the battery beneath them. The dashboard light reading CHARGE glows bright green. Now all he has to do is push the accelerator pedal. And steer, of course. â€Å"Good so far,† the old man says. He takes his right hand off his middle and points with a bloodstained finger. Ty sees a path of discolored gravel once, before the trees and underbrush encroached, it was probably a driveway leading away from the house. â€Å"Now go. And go slow. Speed and I'll zap you. Try to crash us and I'll break your wrist for you. Then you can drive one-handed.† Ty pushes down on the accelerator. The golf cart jerks forward. The old man lurches, curses, and waves the Taser threateningly. â€Å"It would be easier if I could take off the cap,† Ty says. â€Å"Please, I'm pretty sure that if you'd just let me â€Å" â€Å"No! Cap stays! Drive!† Ty pushes down gently on the accelerator. The E-Z-Go rolls across the patio, its brand-new rubber tires crunching on broken shards of brick. There's a bump as they leave the pavement and go rolling up the driveway. Heavy fronds they feel damp, sweaty brush Tyler's arms. He cringes. The golf cart swerves. Burny jabs the Taser at the boy, snarling. â€Å"Next time you get the juice! It's a promise!† A snake goes writhing across the overgrown gravel up ahead, and Ty utters a little scream through his clenched teeth. He doesn't like snakes, didn't even want to touch the harmless little corn snake Mrs. Locher brought to school, and this thing is the size of a python, with ruby eyes and fangs that prop its mouth open in a perpetual snarl. â€Å"Go! Drive!† The Taser, waving in his face. The cap, buzzing faintly in his ears. Behind his ears. The drive curves to the left. Some sort of tree burdened with what look like tentacles leans over them. The tips of the tentacles tickle across Ty's shoulders and the goose-prickled, hair-on-end nape of his neck. Ourr boyy . . . He hears this in his head in spite of the cap. It's faint, it's distant, but it's there. Ourrrrr boyyyyy . . . yesssss . . . ourrrrs . . . Burny is grinning. â€Å"Hear 'em, don'tcha? They like you. So do I. We're all friends here, don't you see?† The grin becomes a grimace. He clutches his bloody middle again. â€Å"Goddamned blind old fool!† he gasps. Then, suddenly, the trees are gone. The golf cart rolls out onto a sullen, crumbling plain. The bushes dwindle and Ty sees that farther along they give way entirely to a crumbled, rocky scree: hills rise and fall beneath that sullen gray sky. A few birds of enormous size wheel lazily. A shaggy, slump-shouldered creature staggers down a narrow defile and is gone from sight before Ty can see exactly what it is . . . not that he wanted to. The thud and pound of machinery is stronger, shaking the earth. The crump of pile drivers; the clash of ancient gears; the squall of cogs. Tyler can feel the golf cart's steering wheel thrumming in his hands. Ahead of them the driveway ends in a wide road of beaten earth. Along the far side of it is a wall of round white stones. â€Å"That thing you hear, that's the Crimson King's power plant,† Burny says. He speaks with pride, but there is more than a tinge of fear beneath it. â€Å"The Big Combination. A million children have died on its belts, and a zillion more to come, for all I know. But that's not for you, Tyler. You might have a future after all. First, though, I'll have my piece of you. Yes indeed.† His blood-streaked hand reaches out and caresses the top of Ty's buttock. â€Å"A good agent's entitled to ten percent. Even an old buzzard like me knows that.† The hand draws back. Good thing. Ty has been on the verge of screaming, holding the sound back only by thinking of sitting at Miller Park with good old George Rathbun. If I'd really entered the Brewer Bash, he thinks, none of this would have happened. But he thinks that may not actually be true. Some things are meant to be, that's all. Meant. He just hopes that what this horrible old creature wants is not one of them. â€Å"Turn left,† Burny grunts, settling back. â€Å"Three miles. Give or take.† And, as Tyler makes the turn, he realizes the ribbons of mist rising from the ground aren't mist at all. They're ribbons of smoke. â€Å"Sheol,† Burny says, as if reading his mind. â€Å"And this is the only way through it Conger Road. Get off it and there are things out there that'd pull you to pieces just to hear you scream. My friend told me where to take you, but there might be just a leedle change of plan.† His pain-wracked face takes on a sulky cast. Ty thinks it makes him look extraordinarily stupid. â€Å"He hurt me. Pulled my guts. I don't trust him.† And, in a horrible child's singsong: â€Å"Carl Bierstone don't trust Mr. Munshun! Not no more! Not no more!† Ty says nothing. He concentrates on keeping the golf cart in the middle of Conger Road. He risks one look back, but the house, in its ephemeral wallow of tropical greenery, is gone, blocked from view by the first of the eroded hills. â€Å"He'll have what's his, but I'll have what's mine. Do you hear me, boy?† When Ty says nothing, Burny brandishes the Taser. â€Å"Do you hear me, you asswipe monkey?† â€Å"Yeah,† Ty says. â€Å"Yeah, sure.† Why don't you die? God, if You're there, why don't You just reach down and put Your finger on his rotten heart and stop it from beating? When Burny speaks again, his voice is sly. â€Å"You looked at the wall on t'other side, but I don't think you looked close enough. Better take another gander.† Tyler looks past the slumped old man. For a moment he doesn't understand . . . and then he does. The big white stones stretching endlessly away along the far side of Conger Road aren't stones at all. They're skulls. What is this place? Oh God, how he wants his mother! How he wants to go home! Beginning to cry again, his brain numbed and buzzing beneath the cap that looks like cloth but isn't, Ty pilots the golf cart deeper and deeper into the furnace-lands. Into Sheol. Rescue help of any kind has never seemed so far away.

The German Automobile Industry and the affect it has on the German Essay - 1

The German Automobile Industry and the affect it has on the German Economy, Stock Utility Analysis - Essay Example With 121 billion EUR, the German car industry earned 60% of its sales in foreign countries. German car manufacturers and suppliers employ more than 1.5million people worldwide, more than half of them in Germany. Recently, domestic employment has been expanded; Since 1994, the number of jobs at home increased by122000.Despite economic weakness in 2002, employment in the car industry remained almost constant with 763 500 people. Owing to the assumption of additional value-added activities from the manufacturers, suppliers even employed additional staff. The German car industry employs more than 12.8% of the working population of the whole German industry. At the same time, it raises one third of the R&D expenditure of the German economy and one-fifth of the investments. During the last five years, 49 billion EUR were invested in Germany; over this period of time, expenditure for R&D exceeded 65 billion Euros, and the R&D staff was increased significantly to more than 70,000 employees (VDA, 2003). Literature Review: Germany was one of the European countries that succumbed early to the fascination of Fordist production methods. German automakers made pilgrimages in the 1920s to the USA, seeking to discover the secrets of the economic future at the holy cities of capitalism, which of course included the Ford plants at Highland Park and River Rogue. Creating the preconditions for a new age in automobile production was a strong motive behind numerous efforts to concentrate car production capacity in Germany. After the postwar stabilization of the economy, the large German banks - above all the Deutsche Bank - toyed with the... Robert Merton (1987), "On the Current State of the Stock Market Rationality Hypothesis," in Ruddier Dornbusch, Stanley Fischer, and John Bossons, eds., Macroeconomics and Finance: Essays in Honor of Franco Modigliani (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press).

Is It Justified for orporations to Promote Stakeholder Involvement and Essay

Is It Justified for orporations to Promote Stakeholder Involvement and Public Good Objectives - Essay Example CSR also involves the relationship of the organization with its key partners: place of work, supply chain, public policy, and community.1 Firstly, a three dimensional terminology has been used to aid in the definition of CSR. This definition involves three diversified concepts of CSR: altruistic CSR which entails the organizations having the responsibility of acting and living while observing the interest of other people. The second dimension reviews ethical CSR which embeds an organization avoiding social injuries and harm to others as it conducts its operations. The final dimension is strategic CSR which incorporates the actions an entity engages in that translate to its benefit and also the benefit of its stake holders. To a greater extent, the discussion in this paper will be more anchored to reviewing the strategic dimension since the paper aims at reviewing to what extent a corporation should engage in maintaining public good though this move is against the interest of the stak eholders.2 Evidence reveals that CSR has its origins and can be traced back to the United Kingdom with reference to factors that make the UK acquire a leadership role. To begin with, UK has a colonial past especially in the African countries and has a viable international position necessitating its anchor in CSR activities. Consequently, UK serves as the headquarters for a great number of accountancy firms especially those bestowed with CSR embedded in the extensive journalistic expansion in the country. Subsequently, UK felt the prime impact of industrial revolution in the eighteenth century and thus experienced the first privatization of industries thus necessitating the need for early involvement in CSR. In addition, UK has spearheaded majority of the non-governmental community projects and aided in the shape of Shell and Unilever with the aid of Anglo-Dutch drivers. All these factors have worked in unison to give the UK a comparative advantage as far as CSR is concerned.3 CSR ha s also been defined as incorporating financial reporting of organizations to the relevant stakeholders. 4 The history of disclosing information currently being referred to as CSR has been documented to have existed in the UK since 1900s with reference to Hardfield’s Limited.5 The disclosures in these company included issues dealing with government policy, commercial responsibility, armaments, and professional responsibility to relevant stakeholders. However, the difference was in the quality of information disclosed with the current information being disclosed in the CSR being of a higher quality. This has led to the documentation of the importance and motivations of companies in the UK to engage in disclosures not only with the aim of informing their stakeholders. Disclosure informs the public of the activities of the organization, organizations also derive CSR positive public relations from disclosing and also to meet the disclosure requirements as stipulated by the stakeho lders. Also, disclosure illustrates if employees are tailored to meeting the company’s target and to show that organizations abide by the regulations of CSR. Disclosure also reveals to stakeholders the importance of other non-financial activities that an organization engages and thus a

Critiquing Prior Decisions Made unit 2 Research Paper

Critiquing Prior Decisions Made unit 2 - Research Paper Example This plan has been successful considering that they are one of today’s most successful companies in the tech industry (â€Å"Apple Inc.,† 2011). Organizing. â€Å"Organizing is identifying jobs to be done, hiring people to do them, establishing departments, delegating or pushing authority down to subordinates, establishing a chain of command...and coordinating the work of subordinates† (Dessler & Phillips, 2008, p. 5). The overall management team of Apple was able to create an unparalleled talent base, which can help the company by having a sustainable future despite the absence of its former CEO Steve Jobs (Lam, 2011). Apple’s success in terms of its unique product design and functionality is evidence that the management team was able to hire the right people and use the right resources. Leading. Leading the company’s people and resources can be attained by creating a culture that is acceptable to all and a constant communication pattern (Dessler & Phillips, 2008, p. 5). Apple’s corporate culture is one of its competitive advantages because it incorporated the company’s success factors such as creativity, leadership, and innovation. This culture remained undefeated for a long time, and the company was known as a perfectionist in product design and reliability (Kurtzman, 2010, p. 116). This culture made them unique from their competitors, and they believed that they are the best tech firm in the industry and nothing can beat them. Also, Apple offered several incentives including the â€Å"recognition bonus of 3 to 5 percent of their base salary...[and the giving of] free iPod Shuffle or iPhone...† to motivate their employees (Muller, 2010, p. 4). Controlling. This function is necessary to determine whether the employees have reached the desired goals or necessary changes (Daniels, 1994). The performance of Apple employees is strictly monitored

The environmental effects on rasing children Essay

The environmental effects on rasing children - Essay Example The maltreatment may involve physical and emotional abuse, experiencing domestic violence, sexual harassment, or abandonment that exposes children to significant physical or emotional stress. Ideally, the frequency and severity of the maltreatment, age of child, and the relationship between the child and the offender defines the social and academic effect of the maltreatment on the child (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2014). The maltreatment can cause trauma that jeopardizes brain development and hinders attachment and interpersonal relationships between the caregiver and the child thus affecting the childrens social life (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2014). Maltreatment leads to learning and cognitive problems that fosters poor academic achievement among the victimized children since it also affects the areas of speech and language (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2014). Maltreatment also leads to numerous mental health problems like depression, post-tra umatic stress disorder, and anxiety that have adverse effects on childrens social life. Such children cannot establish and maintain positive relationships with caregivers or other children since they develop behavioral problems. Children that are subject to maltreatment can also inflict pain on others and develop aggressive and violent behaviors that limit their social life (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2014). Single parent families also effects childrens social and academic life. Single parent families involve families led solely by either a man or woman. However, most single parent families are single-mother families. Apparently, children in single parent families experience less parental supervision compared to children in two-parent households, which leads to significant social and academic effects (Yarber & Sharp, 2010). Single parents depict less involvement in monitoring their children’s social and school activities. As a result, such

Ecologies and Environments United States Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ecologies and Environments United States - Essay Example According to ecologists’ studies, the Rocky Mountains, despite having a snow cover, do have diverse biotic zones that start from tops and extend to the lowlands and plains (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). The biotic zones usually serve as essential habitats for numerous animals and plants, for instance, Tundra in Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The wildlife available in the Rocky Mountains encompasses elk, mule, pronghorns, black bears, coyotes and grizzly bears. In addition, owing to the fact the U.S. seashores at both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the near states usually experience varying climate patterns compared to those of the interior regions (EPA, 2012). In addition, U.S like other industrial states has also experienced the increased predicament of obnoxious gas emissions from its chemical industries. However, as compared to the previous years the emissions have decreased because of the awareness the environmental authorities have created among the citizens to deal with the problem of global warming. For instance, the carbon monoxide emissions dropped from 114,465 in 2000 to 77,685 in 2008 despite minor fluctuations witnessed in between the years (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). The forest cover occupies approximately one third of the total U.S.’ land; it provides habitats for numerous wild animals, not to mention other organisms. Forests have also benefited the society through the provision of clean water, reaction sites (camping and touring) and absorbing excess CO2, especially that generated by different industries (Rahm, 2010). Presently, the U.S. is experiencing habitat range rifts where numerous species are relocating to the Northern colder latitudes, for example, boreal forests, which are almost replacing Tundra vegetation. (Christiansen, Markstrom & Hay, 2011). This has led to negative impacts on numerous species’ habitats and wildlife that rely solely on Tundra ecosystem like snowy owl, for example. The reason can be found in the fact that temperatures are constantly increasing, especially in the central regions, which have yielded to the extinction of some animal species like American Pika etc (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). List the specific factors that distinguish your local ecology and environment. 1. Range shifts - species are relocating to the Northern colder regions due to global warming and unpredictable climatic conditions. 2. Food web interruption due to the increasing rate of range shifts. 3. Precipitation, which has led to the increasing of the oceans’ water levels. 4. Forest cover, though it occupies the third of the U.S total land. 5. Rocky Mountains characterized by diverse biotic zones. Discuss how human activities have affected your local ecosystems Mining in US has become a serious threat to both the ecosystem and human life despite diverse state’s environmental agencies implementing strict rules and regulations to control it (Withington, 2012). The main threat lies in the release of obnoxious gases straight into the atmosphere and discharging of heavy metals into the water masses, which affects aquatic life (UGCRP, 2009). These heavy metals include cyanide, lead and mercury, which not only affect aquatic

Between Constructivist Learning and Direct Instruction Essay

Between Constructivist Learning and Direct Instruction - Essay Example Direct instruction proponents dispute the latest trend in education strategies which encourages learners to construct their own learning via minimal guidance even without prior knowledge of underlying concepts, principles, and processes (Baumann, 1982). They say that this method goes against the human cognitive architecture, that is, learners can only churn out, via long term memory, what was previously inputted to them. Constructivist Learning Constructivist learning, in whatever form it may be, is rooted from the works of Piaget and Vygotsky (Gallagher & Reid, 2002; Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006; Hmelo-Silver, Duncan, & Chinn, 2007). Constructivists propose that learning occurs when knowledge is constructed by the learner through personal experiences, interaction with the environment, and scaffolding guidance of an adult or more experienced person. In response to Kirschner et al’s (2006) position that minimally guided instruction is less effective that direct instruction , Hmelo-Silver, et al (2007) pointed out that a number of constructivist strategies, specifically problem-based and inquiry learning, utilize more than just minimal guidance during scaffolding. They say that scaffolding takes place at a high rate in problem-based and inquiry learning, thus refuting Kirschner, et al’s position. Moreover, Hmelo-Silver (2007) produced a long list of studies and researches which attested to the effectiveness of problem-based and inquiry learning. Another notable point that constructivists try to emphasize is that positive effects of employing constructivist approaches may not be immediately observed from standardized tests (Hiebert, Stigler, & Jacobs, 2005; Hmelo-Silver, Duncan, & Chinn,... So much debate has been going on to pinpoint exactly which mode of instruction would produce the best results for a learner. While it may be disappointing to think that no one has found the secret formula to learning yet, the on-going debate is a welcome clash of ideas because it means that educators still have not rested on the age-old established â€Å"facts† about learning and are still very much in the quest for the improvement of the ease and effectiveness of the teaching and learning process. Maybe no one has found the secret formula yet because there may be no secret formula at all. Perhaps the only reliable â€Å"fact† about learning is that each learner is unique; what might work for one may not work for another. The best that we can hope for is that at the end of the day, teachers/educators/facilitators have done their best in trying to create an appropriate and effective learning environment for the child.

The Core Competence of the Corporation Assignment - 1

The Core Competence of the Corporation - Assignment Example Effectively, the authors stress on the collective learning of the organization, juxtaposed with technical competencies and production technologies as drivers of core competence. They suggest simple tests that can help assess the construct: i) does the competence help the firm in addressing diverse markets, ii) is it easily imitable? and iii) does the customer perceive a benefit from the end product? In the second part of the report, we apply the learnings to a civil engineering situation where there are two organizational actors: BBCL and El Dorado. We find that the potential Joint Venture could lead to development of core competencies. In the current scheme of things, both companies do not have any clear core competencies. We also analyze the firms in terms of the capabilities that they have developed over the years. The Core Competence of the Corporation 1. ... firms that have helped them differentiate their firm’s advantages from others; additionally, these key strengths, which Prahalad & Hamel (1993) term as core competencies have enabled the companies to make their mark in several products. These strengths have led the firms to sustained and profitable growth. 2. Key definitions The authors begin with an introduction to two different companies operating in the telecommunications space: GTE and NEC. The time frame studied is 1980 to 1988. While NEC started small, it ended up bigger in revenues and market share during the end of the period. This provided an impetus for the authors to try and identify what lay behind the scenes at these two telecommunication giants. One of the definitions put forth by the authors is the term ‘core competence’ itself. A core competence could be something similar to a capability developed by a company that could help establish a sustainable, defensible and profitable market position. In a competitive environment, a core competence could be a strategic asset. The next question this leads us to is this: if a capability needs to be defined as a core competence, then what criteria can be used to test it? The authors recommend three tests: 1) Does the capability help the firm compete in several product markets? 2) Can the competence or capability be easily imitated by rivals and 3) Is the customer capable of perceiving a difference because of the company’s competence in a particular domain? If the answers to all three questions are in the affirmative, then the particular competence could be termed a core competence. 3. Key Insights & Takeaways To explain with the help of an analogy, the authors use a tree with its roots, branches and fruits. The roots are akin to the core competence. They

Effects of Cell Phone on Media Essay Example for Free

Effects of Cell Phone on Media Essay The introduction and use of cell phone devices or technologies has transformed everyday practices of people. The role of cell phones the so called portable media devices has gone beyond communication where they are used in complicated multimedia hybrids, personal digital assistants that is PDAs, MP3 players, personal media centres and playing of games (Cary 17). This work therefore examines the effects of cell phone on media together with related or associated issues such as how they are changing the way people interact through watching televisions, advertisement and even reading of articles. Cell phone is being used by people in accessing email and web interface, as game device, MP3 player and digital video camera. The most common one is where people have used the mobile phones to access internet. There are also a number of cell phones that can receive television broadcast over the cellular network. Such cell phones are called phone-game hybrids and include: Nokia’s, N-Gage QD and Samsung’s new arrival that is the SCH-V450 and the Digital multimedia broadcasting handsets (Goggin 39, 2004). Mobile phones have also played a major role in communication, cultural studies and urban design where they are primarily considered as carrier of message or voice-carrier and text message transmission device. In this way cell phones have helped in carrying out advertisements. However, since the current media environment is evolving beyond the primary role of passing information, they are nowadays engaged in a number of functions in which many people view them as Sociotechnical devices, portable and interactive techno spaces which in turn form a variety of media-forms (Gatens 48 and Marvin, 26). Read more:Â  Harmful Effects of Mobile Phones on Students This makes cell-phone become devices which are not only viewed as telecommunication tools but also as transmedia tools. The message being conveyed here is that cell phones are considered both as communication tools and info-mediatic collections within which the technologies and practices of communication, information and media normally interact together. A part from carrying out communication or passing information, cell phones have also been in playing games, taking photographs and downloading materials such as polyphonic ring tones (Everett and Caldwell 53). This has been by the wireless application protocol (WAP) with I-mode technology that enables individuals using cell phone find it easy in downloading materials from the internet using their mobile phones. This was recently launched by the Japan Company called DoCoMo. The use of cell phones in watching news and movies has brought a lot of problems especially on the media industry. The cell phone industry has manipulated the scientific world where pornographic pictures are watched, news and other programs watched on television (Rheingold 175). Customers are lost by the media industry however this has not been proved. . The media industry has raised a lot of question on the problem posed to them by the cell phone industry. The industry looks at the cell industry to be making a lot of money since they loose their customers to them.. Entertainment nowadays can be done through cell phone. Most of the youths more so the adolescent who are the major customers of media industry are nowadays attracted by the cell phone industry (Cary 18, 1992). Games such as Gambling, electronic games, casinos, pod casting and music can be listened to using the cell phones. Cell phone has also promoted business activities. Market research, industry analysis broadcasting and even publishing are carried out using cell phone. Business men and entrepreneurs nowadays use cell phone to advertise their business. This shows that they have shifted their ways of promoting their business through T. V to mobile phones since most people own mobile phones with internet; it is easier for them to access or see the advertisement the moment they log into the internet. Media industry such as televisions that normally offer these programs increasingly face stiff competition from the mobile industry. The use of cell phone in reading novels has made it be referred to as a portable communication media and collection or convergence of technologies. As people use cell phones for reading novels it not only changes the reading habits of people but also changes other media. (Rheingold 161) For example the cell phone novel known as the deep love which was first published as text message was published as a book later(Kasesniemi18). The novel was later on produced and filmed as a movie then made into a television show. Even through the process of changing the cell-phone novel to a book, movie and into television show does not create a new medium. It has also affected other media at the same time. All the other technologies have been merged or conveyed together because of the cell phone (Levinson 132). .Conclusion The effect of cell phone on media is notable in every life. Rheingold (16, 2002) describes cell phone as a handheld communication tool that merges different technologies together. Some of the effects have been noted in reading and downloading of articles online. Online games can be played by the use of phones, movies and news that were initially watched on T. V screens can be watched using cell phones. This has brought a lot of problems on the media industry. As a matter of conclusion it can be said that cell phone has affected the media industry such as movie, film and television in a number of ways, which have been discussed above. Works Cited Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the observer: on vision and Modernity in the nineteenth century. Cambridge; Mass: MIT Press, 1992. Crary, Jonathan. Suspensions of perception: attention, spectacle and modern culture. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1992. Everett, Anna and Caldwell J. T (Eds) Theories and Practices of Dijitextuality: New York: Routledge, 2003.

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted Essay Example for Free

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted Essay Reading Fahrenheit 451 one can only wonder on somewhat naà ¯ve, but nevertheless terrible prophecy of the dark future to come, brought on us by Ray Bradbury. Often seen as a work of fiction or anti-utopia, in fact this is just a social horror story, if such a genre can be invented for its description. The technologies depicted in Fahrenheit are rather primitive compared to modern times. Sure, Bradbury had extrapolated the TV screens of 50’s and predicted the invention of giant TV walls, with â€Å"presence effect† that allows the viewer to feel himself in the center of action. Bradbury had expressed the fears that TV means death of media of a previous generation, being the books. But, as McLuhan stated, the technologies of past ages don’t die so easily, â€Å"The dominant technologies of one age become the games and pastimes of a later age† (McLuhan, p99). As fears that cinema would mean the death of theatre had proved themselves to be incorrect, thus a larger-scale fear that TV means the end of books had proved itself to be false too. On the other hand, Bradbury hadn’t predicted the invention of a new media which would outscore the TV as much as TV outscores the books: the Internet. The TV had no chance to progress into totally-enveloping media reality depicted in the book, losing the race to more modern media. While Bradbury’s technology prediction hadn’t been correct, his social predictions had proved to be uncannily true, if somewhat optimistic. The all-world media programming is here, broadcasted by orbiting satellites, turns the globe into a repertory theater to be programmed (McLuhan, p9). And the news brought to us by every source – from TV to Internet and even to Radio – are apt to be manipulated simultaneously, as was shown brilliantly in â€Å"Wag the Dog†. The censorship depicted by Bradbury isn’t here; instead, we have a total media coverage that produces fake events undistinguishable from real. People do not need to follow instructions told to them on TV; instead, we follow the views and ideas presented to us daily. The Electric Dog doesn’t roam the streets: the society is our Electric Dog that doesn’t kill nonconformists in real sense but effectively blocks ‘them’ from ‘us’. What brings salvation and hope in Bradbury’s world after the holocaust are Bible words. It doesn’t mean that he relies on religion to carry us through the new Dark Ages – rather, he tells us about our inner faith, which isn’t expressed but felt and understood. But as no holocaust had happened yet, only those who really feels in need seek salvation, others are content with what they’ve got. Bradbury’s views on government in Fahrenheit border with clear accusations of fascism, the burning of books being the most obvious historical reference. But fascism in US had became such a popular scare since the end of WWII that we don’t fear it as much anymore. After all, if government would ever decide to apply a ‘stricter’ views to economics like Roosevelt’s New Deal in 30’s, (which is quite possible now because of economics crisis), most voices would be raised in its defense rather than in its critics. People feel the government to be controlled by them, not the other way round. In Fahrenheit society education of youth program them to see their world as unquestionably right, defies critical thinking and praises the conformity instead. This is not only an exaggerated, but also a distorted picture of modern education, depicted just to scare us even more, to create a sense of further isolation of Guy Montag from the world. Bradbury doesn’t give much attention to the youth; this is sensible, for what he longs for is the past. Fahrenheit’s ending can be seen as a longing for â€Å"Golden Age†, the times that never were real but always in our eyes seem to be brighter than today. It is a hymn to nostalgia. But one cannot contemplate his past too long – he must consider the future. We should look ahead and be brave, no matter what dangers are waiting for us there. Works Cited Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Published by Del Rey Books, Random House Publishing Group, 1953, renewed 1981. McLuhan, Marshall, From Clichà © to Archetype, Published by Viking Adult, 1970. Wag the Dog, by Barry Levinson, 1997 (the movie).

Hospital Expansion Analysis

Hospital Expansion Analysis Case Study 1: The Case for Open Heart Surgery at Cabarrus Memorial Hospital- Chemplavil Brief Introduction: Cabarrus Memorial Hospital (CMH) is a large, public hospital located in North Carolina, that prides itself in cultivating a never wavering commitment to its community. Having first opened in 1935, over time CMH has found powerful allies in both Mr. Cannon, owner of Cannon Mills with considerable political and financial influence, and Duke University Medical Center, with who they have formed an educational affiliation and unique teaching arrangement. Due to the boards failure to foresee several front-hand issues, CMH finds itself at a crossroad of sorts. Currently CMH does not have their own open heart surgery program, compelling patients to seek open heart surgery or coronary angioplasties elsewhere. Concerned with the tremendous burden placed on the members of their community and their families to travel to such far lengths to receive adequate care, the board of trustees is considering adding a program of this caliber to their repertoire of cardiac services.    A SWOT analysis and service area structural analysis (Porter) was performed to determine if CMH should apply for a certificate of need (CON) to open a new cardiovascular service program moving forward. Discussion of Key Issues: The potential implementation of a full-service cardiac surgery program in CMH required careful consideration of its existing service area, opposition from competition, need for cardiovascular surgeries, the role of Duke in the proposal, relevant costs, and the likeliness of acquiring approval from North Carolinas DHHS for the CON. Evaluation of CMHs current service area was primarily based upon zip code analysis of current cardiac catheterization and radiation oncology patients, pinpointing Concord and Kannapolis as major sources of patient coverage. With Mr. Cannons help, extensive market development strategies should promote their newly enhanced cardiovascular care and help CMH expand their territory to include farther communities like Rowan County and Stanley County, shaking off bordering service area competition like University, Stanly, and Memorial Hospitals. Study of the population epidemiology points to an inevitably growing need for expanded cardiovascular services, namely open heart surgeries and angioplasties. Projections indicated the at-risk population growth over the next ten years will grow by 31.2% in Cabarrus county, location of CMH. The growing rate of the target, at-risk service area population (45-64) will likely lead to higher rates of open heart procedures (1.39 in North Carolina currently). Proposed costs of the program would total at $2.87 million for year one, $3.81 million for year two and $6.24 million for year three. However, it is known that CMH has sufficient reserve cash to finance the whole project without even acquiring a loan! Based on these projections alone, CMH will reach their break-even point rather quickly, likely sometime after year three, making the addition of a cardiac unit a profitable endeavor. The existing open heart surgery programs in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, and Greensboro are 25 to 60 miles from the service population. This incredulous distance has created confusion and an immense burden for many patients who seek continuity of care as travel times may take up to two hours. It may be wise to consider swiftly bring on home town hero, Dr.   Christy, as part of the new cardiovascular surgery medical staff to embolden the communitys support of CMH and put its patients at ease. Duke can continue its educational affiliation with CMH, and cases needing specialized care would still be referred to Duke. The DHHS of North Carolina awards the CON to centers that achieve an 80% utilization rate for the cardiac surgery suite. Unfortunately, open heart cases from Cabarrus County and Rowan County currently however around only around 73% utilization. CMH will need to make use of adaptive strategies such as the expansion of scope planning that would include market development, product development and market penetration strategies to substantially increase their current volume to hit that threshold. Situational Analysis: SWOT analysis provided detailed findings of the strengths and weaknesses of the internal environment, in addition to the opportunities and threats of the external environment, regarding the current cardiac care CMH provides (Ginter, Peter). Exhibit I: SWOT Analysis Recommendation: CMHs status as a modern, well equipped facility implies that it has the necessary infrastructure to build a cardiac unit, pending a few structural additions. CMHs renovation project would total $3,273,180, and no loans will be needed due to its sufficient reserve fund. Pending a two-year trial run, CMH should track the added comprehensive care that would result from the opening of one heart surgical suite for adult patients, while moving angioplasty to the current cardiac catheterization laboratory. The proposed duration of this project would likely take 3 years and would require the assignment of three dedicated cardiac surgical ICU beds as well as seven telemetry beds to support the open heart program with an almost overwhelming 400 proposed procedures per year from the onset of the program. Benchmarks for Success and Contingency Plans: Implementation of this new program will complicated, but justified. The board should create and follow an action and strategic plan to oversee the creation of this new surgery program. Timelines, benchmarks, and a balanced scorecard will be used to monitor the progress of the plan, and to ensure the standards are being met (Bloomquist P, Yeager). Written reports, like a GANTT chart, which may plot the incurred heart operations against time, can also be used to monitor planning, costs, effectiveness, and resources used by the program (Cellucci L, 2009). Taking corrective action will be dependent on evaluation criteria that will be created by the board and redirection will take place if necessary. If added comprehensive care progress is not being met according to the action and strategic plans, program strategies will be outsourced to an outside consultant. If Dr. Christy is not satisfied with CMHs offer and relocates elsewhere, CMH may be pressed to ask the two surgeons from Duke Medical Center to act as interim on-call heart surgeons or even come on full time to continue the program. If the programs restraining forces continue to outweigh its driving forces, and fails to provide the proposed benefits, termination of the program may be likely. References: Bloomquist P, Yeager J. Using Balanced Scorecards to Align Organizational Strategies. Healthcare Executive; Jan/Feb 2008. pp.24-28. Cellucci, L. W., Wiggins, C. (2010). Essential Techniques for Healthcare Managers. Health Administration Press: Chicago. Ginter, Peter M. Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass, 2015. Print.

The Case Against The Death Penalty :: essays research papers fc

THE CASE AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY It's dark and cold, the fortress-like building has cinderblock walls, and death lurks around the perimeter. A man will die tonight. Under the blue sky, small black birds gather outside the fence that surrounds the building to flaunt their freedom. There is a gothic feel to the scene, as though you have stepped into a horror movie. Unfortunately, this is not a scene in a horror flick; these are the surroundings of an actual prison execution. As early as the founding of the United States, capital punishment has been a controversial and hotly debated public issue. The three most common forms of death penalties currently used in the United States are the gas chamber, electrocution, and lethal injection. The firing squad is an option in Idaho, Oklahoma, and Utah; and death by hanging still remains an option in New Hampshire and Washington state. There are major problems with our criminal justice system. In the last one hundred years, there have been more than 75 documented cases of wrongful conviction of criminal homicide. According to a 1987 Stanford University survey, at least 23 Americans have been wrongly executed in the 20th century. For this very reason, the State of Illinois imposed a moratorium on the state?s death penalty in 2000 when it was discovered that 13 inmates on its Death Row were wrongly convicted. Anthony Porter, one of the 13, spent 15 years on Death Row and was within two days of being executed, before a group of Northwestern journalism students uncovered evidence that was used to prove his innocence. In the United States there are currently 3,490 prisoners awaiting execution. Many of these prisoners are poor and are where they are because they could not afford good legal representation. Most of these prisoners are Black, and they have been arrested and incarcerated in southern states. According to the July 2004 Quarterly Report of the NAACP Criminal Justice Project, 52% of the inmates who currently sit on Death Row are Black or Hispanic. Another argument against capital punishment is that death sentences are not uniformly imposed as punishment in all cases where a heinous crime has been committed. In his book, Legal Lynching: Racism, Injustice and the Death Penalty, the Reverend Jesse Jackson basically argues that if you are a wealthy, White person, your odds of receiving the death penalty are low, but if you are a poor, African-American or other minority, your chances of receiving a death sentence for the same crime are much higher.

Malachi Constant/Unk raped a young woman and murdered his best friend. :: English Literature

Malachi Constant/Unk raped a young woman and murdered his best friend. Why does the reader feel sympathy for him instead of anger? In 'The Sirens of Titan' there are many places where the reader would feel anger towards Malachi Constant/Unk if it is read out of context. However there are also many occasions where the reader feels sympathy and forgives Malachi/Unk. This is helped by Winston Niles Rumfoord who knows everything and Winston's wife, Beatrice, who is another main character. Malachi Constant was born rich and had everything he wanted but the reader finds out after few chapters that he had not had a happy family life. His mother was a whore and he only ever met his father once in his life. "You said you had a very unhappy childhood and made everyone listen to how unhappy it was." In this quote the language is simple and repetitive. This is perhaps to show the annoyance this character has for Constant. It also makes the reader feel less sympathetic here though because he was moaning and complaining which is not a good attribute in people. This might be so that later on the reader can see how they judged him unfairly so that when there is less proof of something bad happening to him they are more easily forgiving of him. This brings out the readers sympathy because the reader realises this is what leads to his financial ruin and bankruptcy because he gets drunk and depressed and gives away all his oil wells. However if we had not read this part then the reader would feel angry at wasting what he had. "Every courageous thing he [Constant] had done had been motivated by spitefulness and goads from childhood" In this quote there are lots of strong negatives that suggest a very powerful outside force. All the words here are emotive and indicate another source had dominance over Constant's life. We, the readers, are told he tries to hard to be sophisticated and fashionable and this makes the reader sympathetic because the reader pities him and relates to him for trying so hard to 'fit in' with others. "Everything Rumfoord did he did with style, making all mankind look good. Everything Constant did he did in style - aggressively, loudly, childishly, wastefully" This is a direct comparison with Rumfoord and shows how young, eager and naÃÆ'Â ¯ve Constant is in contrast to Rumfoord who is much older and knows everything. The adverbs are all negative showing how Rumfoord is a good person but Constant takes everything for granted. The story follows Constant and then Unk throughout the book giving only important facts such as what they look like and character points Malachi Constant/Unk raped a young woman and murdered his best friend. :: English Literature Malachi Constant/Unk raped a young woman and murdered his best friend. Why does the reader feel sympathy for him instead of anger? In 'The Sirens of Titan' there are many places where the reader would feel anger towards Malachi Constant/Unk if it is read out of context. However there are also many occasions where the reader feels sympathy and forgives Malachi/Unk. This is helped by Winston Niles Rumfoord who knows everything and Winston's wife, Beatrice, who is another main character. Malachi Constant was born rich and had everything he wanted but the reader finds out after few chapters that he had not had a happy family life. His mother was a whore and he only ever met his father once in his life. "You said you had a very unhappy childhood and made everyone listen to how unhappy it was." In this quote the language is simple and repetitive. This is perhaps to show the annoyance this character has for Constant. It also makes the reader feel less sympathetic here though because he was moaning and complaining which is not a good attribute in people. This might be so that later on the reader can see how they judged him unfairly so that when there is less proof of something bad happening to him they are more easily forgiving of him. This brings out the readers sympathy because the reader realises this is what leads to his financial ruin and bankruptcy because he gets drunk and depressed and gives away all his oil wells. However if we had not read this part then the reader would feel angry at wasting what he had. "Every courageous thing he [Constant] had done had been motivated by spitefulness and goads from childhood" In this quote there are lots of strong negatives that suggest a very powerful outside force. All the words here are emotive and indicate another source had dominance over Constant's life. We, the readers, are told he tries to hard to be sophisticated and fashionable and this makes the reader sympathetic because the reader pities him and relates to him for trying so hard to 'fit in' with others. "Everything Rumfoord did he did with style, making all mankind look good. Everything Constant did he did in style - aggressively, loudly, childishly, wastefully" This is a direct comparison with Rumfoord and shows how young, eager and naÃÆ'Â ¯ve Constant is in contrast to Rumfoord who is much older and knows everything. The adverbs are all negative showing how Rumfoord is a good person but Constant takes everything for granted. The story follows Constant and then Unk throughout the book giving only important facts such as what they look like and character points

Abortion - Views from Both Sides Essay -- Social Issues

Abortion - Views from Both Sides Abortion is the ending of pregnancy before birth and is morally wrong. An abortion results in the death of an embryo or a fetus. Abortion destroys the lives of helpless, innocent children and is illegal in many countries. By aborting these unborn infants, humans are hurting themselves; they are not allowing themselves to meet these new identities and unique personalities. Abortion is very simply wrong. Everyone is raised knowing the difference between right and wrong. Murder is wrong so why isn’t abortion? People argue that it is not murder since the fetus being destroyed is not living, breathing and moving. Why is it that if an infant is destroyed a month before the birth, there is no problem, but if killed a month after birth, this is inhumane murder? The main purpose abortions are immoral is how they are so viciously done. Everyday, innocent, harmless fetuses that could soon be laughing children are being brutally destroyed. One form of abortion is to cut the fetus into pieces with serrated forceps before being removed, piece by piece from the uterus by suction with a vacuum aspirator. Another form consists of bringing the fetus feet first into the birth canal, puncturing its skull with a sharp instrument and sucking out the brain tissue. The body parts, such as the head, are given letters, rather than refer to the parts as what they are. In my opinion this is for the doctors who cannot face the reality of what they are doing. The re...

Curriculum For Excellence Impact On Teacher Professionalism Education Essay

The being of a relationship between course of study policy and instructor professionalism would look to be an established premise. This is apparent in claims that course of study reform is frequently regarded as a menace to teacher professionalism ( Al-Hinei 2003 ; Apple 2009 ; Locke et Al. 2005 ) . Most notably, it is frequently claimed that the degree of prescription in the English National Curriculum, with the associated demand to run into the prescribed results, reflects a decrease of instructor liberty in favor of answerability ( Walsh 2006 ) . It would look, at this degree so, possible to reason that a decrease in cardinal prescription equates to an addition in teacher liberty which in bend equates to an sweetening of instructor professionalism. To an extent this would look to be an purpose of recent course of study reform in Scotland in the signifier of the Curriculum for Excellence ( CfE ) . The first page of the first ‘Building the Curriculum ‘ papers that claims that ‘teachers will hold greater range and infinite for professional determinations about what and how they should learn ‘ ( Scots Executive 2006:1 ) . However, such a straightforward relationship between course of study policy and instructor professionalism would, pulling on Evans ( 2008 ) , be an over-simplification. Evans suggests that professionalism can non be understood entirely, through analyzing instructors ‘ ‘remit and duties ‘ ( p.23 ) , and instead we must see instructors themselves understand their professional duties. To an extent this would look to be recognised in Scotland ‘s course of study reform, in for illustration claims that the reform requires a ‘culture alteration ‘ ( Scots Government 2009a:5 ) and the accent on the demand for professional development ( Scots Executive 2006:2 ) . This suggests acknowledgment that a alteration of instructors ‘ remit and duties entirely will non impact upon professionalism. In visible radiation of the perceived association between CfE and teacher professionalism – both as stand foring being and necessitating a alteration – it becomes pertinent to see the nature of the professional opinions that greater teacher liberty over the content of the course of study entails, and hence the construct of professionalism it would look to connote. This requires a consideration of the peculiar issues that are associated with the choice of course of study content, and an scrutiny of different constructs of instructor professionalism. Course of study First hence, we must see what is meant by â€Å" course of study † . As a term it would look to be notoriously difficult to specify, with a battalion of potentially conflicting definitions ( Dillon 2009 ) . By and large it can be suggested that ‘curriculum ‘ does non mention to a list, or patterned advance, of points to be taught. The course of study addresses non merely what is taught, but why and how instruction and larning takes topographic point. As such, curricula reflect and advance beliefs about the purposes and nature of instruction ( Flinders & A ; Thornton 2009:8 ) . They reflect different epistemic and pedagogical beliefs – beliefs about the nature of cognition and acquisition and learning – in, for illustration, their administration of ‘knowledge ‘ ( Carr 1988 ) , for illustration those that emphasise the separation of cognition into topics and those that favour integrating of capable countries. However it should possibly be no ted that Carr ( 1988 ) argues that the epistemic and pedagogical bases of much course of study policy is non wholly coherent. It should besides be noted that the current treatment is centred around the construct of ‘explicit ‘ course of study ( REF-moore? ) , – course of study as a statement of the planned or expected acquisition within a school context. Other constructs regard course of study to embrace all the experiences which impact upon a scholar ‘s development ( REF-Dillon? ) . However, notwithstanding the scope of attacks to understanding and making course of study, course of study design needfully entails a choice of what is to be taught. Different course of study theoretical accounts may differ in both when and by whom this procedure of choice takes topographic point. In a to a great extent normative, centralised, curriculum much of the choice is being made by policy shapers. At the other extreme, in a strongly child-centred course of study, choice is mostly made by the kid based upon their involvements. ( BACK THIS UP ) . If we consider the CfE itself, it is apparent that it can non be considered to be puting the determination of what to learn entirely in the custodies of instructors. Priestley ( 2010:23 ) suggests that it reflects a tendency in course of study development in general, in which there is an effort to pull on both ‘top-down and bottom-up attacks to curriculum be aftering ‘ . A procedure of choice has already occurred at the nat ional degree in footings of the signifiers of cognition and accomplishments that are to be developed. Even within this ‘clear model of national outlooks ‘ ( Scots Executive 2006:1 ) , instructors do non hold exclusive duty for course of study content choice. In the pledge, ‘all kids and immature people should see personalisation and pick†¦ ‘ ( Scots Government 2008:17 ) , there is an outlook that students will, to a certain extent, besides be doing determinations about course of study content. Further, there is a strong accent upon collegiality, with instructors working together on course of study development ( Scots Government 2009 ) . However it clearly does take to put more duty for pick in the custodies of the instructor, and in making so is potentially impacting the nature of instructor professionalism. Professionalism In order to analyze this claim more closely it is necessary to see the significance of ‘professionalism ‘ itself. As with ‘curriculum ‘ , it would look that ‘professionalism ‘ is a hard term to specify with many different positions as to what it truly means ( Al-Hinei 2003:41 ; Evans 2008 ) . By and large nevertheless, the term ‘profession ‘ may be regarded as bespeaking a distinguishable ‘class or class of business ‘ consisting of occupations such as physician or attorney, and sometimes teacher ( Carr 2000:22 ) , to which a certain position may be attached. This should be regarded as distinct from the mundane usage of ‘professional ‘ as distinguished from ‘amateur ‘ which focuses on whether or non an person is paid ( REF-Carr? ) . The intent of sing some businesss as ‘professions ‘ differs harmonizing to different positions. Some respect it as a socially constructed construct, proposing it is a agency of continuing power and position with a certain group of people ( Locke et al. 2005:558 ) . Carr ( ? ? : ? ? ) suggests it refers to those businesss that are required to keep civil society ( wellness, justness and instruction ) . Others suggest that there are certain specifying features which mark out an business as carry throughing the standard for ‘profession ‘ ( Locke et al 2005:558 ; Christie 2003:845 ) . Whilst this diverseness of positions exists, there does look to be a general sense that those businesss that are classed as professions involve a degree of liberty to do determinations, a distinguishable cognition base or expertness, and some signifier of attention or service to society ( Carr 2000 ; Christie 2003 ; Goodson 2003 ; Locke et Al. 2005 ) . Professionalism itself may be possibly regarded as the manner in which we describe a profession in footings of its features in relation to these constructs ( Goodson 2003:126 ) . In kernel professionalism is concerned with sing the degree of liberty afforded to persons by an business and the nature of the professional cognition or expertness involved. In this manner, the averment referred to earlier, that the English National Curriculum is considered as a procedure of de-professionalisation, may be regarded as a belief that the degree of prescription involved is cut downing teacher liberty and altering the nature of the expertness required to make the occupation. As such, the distinguishable features of learning are more narrowly defined. Carr ( 2000:15 ) refers to such a decreased liberty and cognition base as ‘restricted professionalism ‘ . It is suggested that instruction is alone amongst the professions in footings of its balance between liberty and answerability ( Carr? ? ) . As Locke et Al ( 2005: 564 ) point out, there is a ‘tension ‘ between professional liberty and answerability. This alone answerability is related to the relationship between instruction and society. Education, or instead schooling, is basically concerned with ‘the sort of society we want to be ‘ ( White 2004:2 ) and is frequently related to the economic wellness of a state ( REF†¦ . ) . This is apparent in the claim that the ‘Curriculum for Excellence can play a important function ‘ in accomplishing the Scots Governments purpose ‘to make Scotland smarter, safer and stronger, wealthier and fairer, greener and healthier ‘ ( Scots Government 2008:3 ) . It is from this impression of schooling as helping, and potentially formative, society as a whole that it is suggested that schools and instructors are accountable in ways that other professions are non ( Carr 2000:44 ) . It is further suggested that instructors are besides more accountable to parents and must accept the legitimacy of the positions of ‘non-professionals ‘ in a manner that attorneies or physicians do non ( Carr 2003:64 ) . It may be as a consequence of this answerability to the province and parents that the dominant construct of instructor professionalism, in policy at least, has become that of the ‘competent instructor ‘ with a focal point on meeting prescribed criterions. ( Goodson 2003:127 ; Menter et al 2010:21 ) . Sing teacher professionalism in footings of criterions is argued to potentially take to a state of affairs in which the professional cognition base of instruction is strictly related to practical accomplishments, such as effectual communicating and the ability to pull off behavior ( Goodson 2003:130 ) . It is besides argued that such a position of instructor professionalism can take to ‘unreflective application of regulations ‘ ( Hegarty 2000:456 ) , instead than size uping and oppugning policy and course of study. It would look sensible to tie in a normative course of study with such a construct of instructor professionalism, as so Menter et Al. ( 2010:22 ) do. This would nevertheless, seem an deficient history of instructor professionalism to run into the demands of a course of study which gives teacher greater liberty of what to learn. Therefore, through concentrating on the particular issues which arise in relation to curriculum content choice, attending will be paid to theoretical accounts of professionalism which could possibly be regarded as more appropriate. Two thoughts will be addressed in relation to content choice. The first: the deductions of sing content choice as a pedagogical accomplishment ( REF†¦ ? ? ) with instructors pulling on, for illustration, cognition of kid development. The 2nd considers the deductions of sing course of study as a ‘selection of civilization ‘ ( Giroux 1980:228 ) , indicating to content choice as holding ethical deductions. Curriculum Content Selection Sing content choice as a pedagogical accomplishment would possibly reflect White ‘s ( 2004a:20 ) averment that instructors ‘ ‘expertise ‘ prevarications in ‘deciding what specific purposes and what student experiences best suit the peculiar kids ‘ . In this instance, instructors professional cognition may be regarded as wider than that of practical accomplishments, instead it involves pulling on pedagogical, capable specific cognition and cognition of kid development, to choose and order the content that makes up the course of study ( REF ) . The instructor is using their professional cognition in order to do professional opinions as to the content which will travel an person to the following phase of development. Clearly this points to the demand for some signifier of course of study purposes. As White ( 2004:6 ) points out, we can non sanely make up one's mind what to learn without mention to an purpose, an indicant as to what the following phase of development really is. Using such an apprehension to the CfE, we can see that the overall curricular purposes are set out in footings of the ‘four capacities ‘ – statements as to the type of individual the course of study seeks to develop ( Learning and Teaching Scotland 2010 ) . At a more elaborate degree, the ‘experiences and results†¦ describe the outlooks for larning and patterned advance for each of the eight course of study countries ‘ ( Learning and Teaching Scotland 2010 ) . The instructor, so, would look to hold autonomy in taking what they teach in order to accomplish the expected acquisition. The demand to do professional opinions of this nature would look to indicate to a construct of a more enhanced professionalism than a more normative course of study, and may indicate to such theoretical accounts as the ‘reflective instructor ‘ ( Moore 2004:4 ) . Such a theoretical account of professionalism is regarded as comprehending learning as affecting more than practical accomplishments. Rather the instructor reflects upon their schoolroom pattern, measuring their instruction, possibly pulling on their theoretical apprehension with a position to bettering and developing their instruction ( Moore 2004 ) . It could besides associate to the construct of ‘the asking instructor ‘ ( Menter et al. 2010:23 ) , in which instructors are regarded as research workers, pulling on observations in the schoolroom to inform their professional determinations in their planning. It is suggested that such a construct of the instructor is ‘very apposite in the context o f the Curriculum for Excellence ‘ ( Menter et al. 2010:23 ) , which seeks to give instructors greater liberty in course of study development. These theoretical accounts would surely look to widen the construct of instructor professionalism beyond that of the sensed technicism of the ‘competent ‘ instructor. As such they may supply suited theoretical accounts for instructors who are involved in the choice of course of study content, puting an accent on instructors ‘ pedagogical expertness. However, if we turn to the 2nd construct, an apprehension of course of study content as a ‘selection of civilization ‘ ( Giroux 1980:228 ) , understanding instructor professionalism in footings of pedagogical expertness may get down to look inadequate. Culture, in its broadest sense, may be regarded ‘as a whole manner of life ‘ , embracing all facets of society including the cognition, accomplishments and activities, such as athletics and ‘recreation ‘ , of that society ( Entwistle 1977:111 ) . However, if we regard instruction as being, in some manner, involved with ‘betterment ‘ ( Entwistle 1977:111 ) , schooling can non be concerned with all those things that make up a civilization. Rather, Entwistle ( 1977:111 ) , suggests that in schooling we select those facets of civilization which are regarded to be contributing to the ‘improvement of the person or group ‘ . This once more points to a consideration of the purposes of instruction: it is merely through an consciousness of what is regarded as ‘betterment ‘ , and hence, what we are taking to accomplish through instruction, that choice of content can sanely be carried out ( White 2004:6 ) . Related to this, cultural choice clearly besides implies a procedure of rating, separating between those things which we regard as ‘desirable or unwanted ‘ facets of civilization ( Entwistle 1977:110 ) . Therefore concerns about the choice of civilization which makes up the content of a course of study can possibly be regarded as originating both in relation to the purposes of the course of study and in the ratings of the comparative desirableness, or worth, of different cultural elements. Concerns that rise in relation to the purposes of the course of study are possibly best exemplified by the unfavorable judgments of a course of study whose purpose is, for illustration to increase employability accomplishments. Those who regard cognition acquisition as holding value in its ain right would see an instrumental attack to content choice as an poverty of instruction, restricting entree to many signifiers of civilization which may non hold direct instrumental value ( pulling on Carr et Al. 2006:17 ) . In this manner so, we can see that the choice of content is in some manner impacted upon by our beliefs about the intent of instruction, and as such sing choice of content as proficient accomplishment may be deficient. However, it is possibly in relation to the rating as to the comparative worth of facets of civilization that the most complex issues originate. It is in sing the relationship between cognition and power that cultural choice becomes debatable. This becomes apparent when we draw on Bourdieu ‘s ( 1986:106 ) construct of ‘cultural capital ‘ . Bourdieu ( 1986:106 ) suggests that different signifiers of ‘culture ‘ are invested with value which can be drawn on for pecuniary addition, or an addition in societal position. If we consider this in footings of ‘knowledge ‘ as a signifier of civilization, so acquisition of certain signifiers of cognition by an person can be utilised in bring forthing income and increasing societal position. For illustration, geting specific biological and medical cognition can enable one to derive both the income and position conferred upon a physician. However, it is non merely the acquisition of the cognition per Se. whi ch is valuable, but instead gaining institutional acknowledgment – in the signifier of an academic making – of possessing a peculiar signifier of civilization ( Bourdieu 1986:110 ) . In this sense, certain signifiers of cognition, certain signifiers of civilization, have greater value by virtuousness of being ‘institutionalised ‘ in the signifier of a making ( Bourdieu 1986:109 ) . This would propose hence, that schools are involved in both the transportation of signifiers of civilization which enable an person to derive economic capital or societal position, but besides in some manner specify what signifiers of civilization are of value. Such an averment is supported by Giroux ‘s ( 1980:228 ) statement that the civilization that is selected to organize the course of study becomes ‘legitimised ‘ by the really fact of its inclusion in the course of study. This construct can farther be seen in claims that the ‘traditional ‘ academic course of study is an elitist choice of civilization, giving value to signifiers of cognition associated with the in-between category ( REF! ) . It is the comparative value that become associated with different signifiers of cognition and different accomplishments that signifiers portion of what is termed ‘hidden course of study ‘ ( Ref ) . This is a mention to the values and thoughts that a school may non explicitly plan to learn, but which however are transmitted to students ( REF ) . It is suggested hence that the exclusion of an facet of civilization from the course of study communicates to pupils a belief about the comparative worth of this facet of civilization ( REF..exemplify? ) Moore ( 2004 ) provides an interesting illustration of this claim of elitism in cultural choice. Moore focuses on portraitures in movie of instructors who are regarded as ‘saviours and non-conformists ‘ ( Moore 2004:58 ) , such as ‘Ms Johnson ‘ in the movie Dangerous Minds. He argues that whilst the attack they take to instruction may be extraordinary, the content of that instruction is non. Moore ( 2004 ) contends that the cultural choice made by these instructors, of what he regards to be representative of in-between category values, ‘may be read as lending to and corroborating societal and cultural prejudices ‘ ( p.58 ) It is in this sense that Young ( 2006:734 ) argues that ‘social involvements are ever involved in course of study design ‘ , those with the power to choose what is included in the course of study have, to an extent, the power to legalize certain signifiers of cognition and certain patterns. It is suggested that through this procedure of advancing and legalizing in-between category civilization ( here we have the impression that a society consists of many ‘cultures ‘ ( ref ) ) , schools are implicated in intrenching inequalities of societal category ( REF ) . Such a claim requires closer consideration in order to understand the agencies by which cultural choice may be regarded to be implicated in affairs of societal justness. One manner in which it is suggested that this is the instance is that persons from a in-between category background have greater entree and exposure to the signifiers of cognition that are regarded as valuable by schools ( Reay 2006 ) . In this manner, Reay ( 2006 ) suggests, kids from in-between category backgrounds are at an advantage, able to pull on the cultural capital they already possess in order to execute good at schools, deriving institutionalized acknowledgment through academic makings, and therefore addition position in society. This would look to foreground a tenseness for those involved in choosing the content of a course of study. On the one manus, it is suggested that if schools do non supply the ‘high position cultural capital that academic and economic success requires ‘ so kids from working category backgrounds are potentially deprived of the ability to raise their societal position ( Anyon 2006:44 ) . However in making so, they are possibly complicit in reproducing prejudice as to what is regarded as legitimate and valuable cognition. It should be pointed out that this debatable history of cognition and cultural choice does non propose that ‘knowledge ‘ is incorrect or should non organize the footing of a course of study ( Young 2006 ) . Rather it suggests the demand to see the exact nature of the content we are taking to include, and significantly exclude, from the course of study. It suggests the demand for contemplation on our grounds for content choice, necessitating an consciousness of our ain prejudices we bring to the procedure ( Chan 2009: ? ? ) . From these observations, in which the choice of course of study content is regarded as holding societal deductions and is implicated in the transmittal of values, an apprehension of instructor professionalism which emphasises practical accomplishments or even pedagogical cognition possibly begins to look inadequate. Therefore the balance of this essay will see the impression that instruction is inherently ethical in its nature, and that teacher professionalism should therefore Centre upon the moral features of the profession ( Goodson 2003 ; Campbell 2003 ; Carr 2006 ) Carr ( 2006:172 ) argues that whilst all businesss are in some manner concerned with ethical issues, these by and large play a ‘regulative ‘ function – they indicate criterions for good pattern. However he suggests that this is non the instance with instruction, instead he suggests that ethical considerations are ‘constitutive ‘ of learning. This is possibly more clear in Campbell ‘s ( 2007:604 ) averment that: ‘It is far more ambitious to extricate the moralss of learning from the really procedure, pattern and content of teachingaˆÂ ¦ ‘ ( CHECK CONTEXT ) It would look that what is meant by this is that the determinations and actions taken by a instructor have ‘moral ‘ significance ( pulling on Campbell 2003:1 ) . By its really nature instruction is involved in organizing kids ‘s values and apprehension of the universe and as such is involved in conveying construct as to what is ‘right ‘ and ‘wrong ‘ ( REF ) . Further, as discussed earlier the determinations made potentially impact upon an persons accomplishment in schooling and therefore perchance impact their future chances. Following from this construct that issues of moralss are inbuilt into instruction, Campbell ( 2008:605 ) argues that ‘ethical codifications ‘ are deficient to turn to the issues faced by instructors. Rather she suggests that instructors requires an understanding by instructors of the complex moral issues they must turn to ( Campbell 2008:605 ) . It would look that within the Scots context there is acknowledgment of this. The ‘Standards for Initial Teacher Education ‘ in Scotland, which ‘specify what is required of a pupil instructor ‘ ( Christie 2003:847 ) , includes mention to ‘professional values and personal committedness ‘ ( Christie 2003:848 ) . There is a danger, Carr ( ? ? ? ) suggests, in bordering values as a competency or criterion, in that it would look to propose that the other facets of learning are ‘value-neutral ‘ . In this manner, the ethical nature of learning possibly can non be reduced to a competence or criterion. Rather Carr ( 2006:178 ) suggests that it is about instructors ‘taking moral issues and inquiries earnestly ‘ . It should be noted that this does non propose that instructors do non presently take moral and ethical considerations earnestly, Campbell ( 2003:2 ) argues that many instructors are cognizant of the moral deductions of their actions. However, Locke et Al. ( 2005:570 ) do suggest that when instructors are capable to high degrees of answerability it can take instructors ‘doing things right ‘ instead than ‘doing the right thing ‘ . Potentially, hence, the CfE ‘s focal point on greater liberty could supply greater flexibleness for instructors to do the determinations they regard to be ethically sound. At the same clip, by increasing instructors ‘ range for taking what to learn the ethical nature of learning possibly comes even more to the bow. It would look so, that in taking to give instructors greater liberty over the content of the course of study, the CfE both can be viewed as potentially heightening instructors ‘ professionalism as understood in footings of degrees of liberty. However, it besides seems to necessitate a consideration of the professional cognition base on which professionalism is based. The importance of pedagogical expertness and development is clearly of import and highlighted as so ( e.g. Scots Government 2009:4 ) . Yet, sing the complexness, and potentially value loaded nature of the cultural choice involved in choosing course of study content it would look of import to underscore the ethical nature of instructor professionalism. In kernel so, the greater liberty afforded to instructors to choose the content of the course of study by the CfE would surely look, as Menter et Al ( 2010:23 ) suggest, to indicate to a theoretical account of teacher professionalism in which instructors both reflect upon and develop their pattern. However in visible radiation of the basically ethical issues involved in content choice, it would look just to propose that instructors ‘ contemplations and determinations should pull non merely on theoretical and practical cognition, but must besides see the ethical grounds for taking to include, or non to include content in their instruction.