Street Children – Bangladesh

STREET CHILDREN – BANGLADESH Children in Bangladesh have to face many challenges. In Bangladesh over 40 million people are living below the poverty line and most of these families do not have own land. They are living and farming in flood-prone areas and face yearly natural disasters, inefficient agricultural technologies, low education, a polluted environment. These family did not get proper health services and is in limited employment. Undernourishment is the common issue for the children. 50 percent of children under age 5 are undernourishment.Children are facing imperative problem with schooling. Very small percent of them complete their primary education. Among them only 40 percent girls complete their primary education. In this situation they need our help. Help the children†¦. This is my very small step to help the Street Children in Bangladesh. They need our help. So we should forward our good hand to help hem. For doing this kind of great job money is not only th e solution, we need the people with good heart and I think you are the one of them.I hope your cooperation to do something good for the children. So come on and cooperate with us with your good think, knowledge, even with a single word. Help the children†¦. If you are stuck for a few minutes at a traffic signal in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, you will probably see children rushing up to the windows of your vehicle. Some of these children carry flowers; some have a stack of books in the crook of their arms, some carry bundles of newspapers and some have candy for sale. They try their best to earn sympathy from commuters to sell their goods.This painful scene is ubiquitous on the streets of Dhaka. These street children are known as Pothoshishu. The street is where they earn their living. The total number of street children in Bangladesh is estimated at 400,000. Almost half of these children live in Dhaka city alone. A very large percentage of these children are young girls. Thes e female street children are especially vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. On March, 2012 Unnayan Onneshan published a report titled â€Å"social connection of the street girls in the context of Dhaka city, Bangladesh† [pdf].The research shows that the majority of the street girls (37. 50%) sell flowers for a living. 18. 80% of these young girls are forced into prostitution, 6. 25 % work in the clothing industry, 6. 25% become beggars, 12. 50% start as shopkeepers and 6. 25% are paper-hawkers. Almost half of these girls have a measly daily income of Tk. 101-299 ($1. 25-$3. 75). The daily income of 43. 75 % of the girls is Tk. 300 (US$3. 75) and above. But they seem to be the lucky ones, because 6. 25 % of the street girls earn less than Tk. 100 ($1. 25) per day.Almost 45% of these girls do not receive any treatment from government medical facilities or clinics. 3 out of 10 of these girls have never been enrolled in any type of educational institution. Most women in Banglad esh are vulnerable to fall victim to abuse such as rape, murder, eve teasing, dowry and acid attacks. But the street children who spend their childhood under the open skies of Dhaka face such risks on a daily basis. This graph is taken from the above report, which shows statistics of violences inflicted upon street girls:

Digital Fortress Chapter 110-114

Chapter 110 Jabba stared blankly at the printout Soshi had just handed him. Pale, he wiped his forehead on his sleeve. â€Å"Director, we have no choice. We've got to kill power to the databank.† â€Å"Unacceptable,† Fontaine replied. â€Å"The results would be devastating.† Jabba knew the director was right. There were over three thousand ISDN connections tying into the NSA databank from all over the world. Every day military commanders accessed up-to-the-instant satellite photos of enemy movement. Lockheed engineers downloaded compartmentalized blueprints of new weaponry. Field operatives accessed mission updates. The NSA databank was the backbone of thousands of U.S. government operations. Shutting it down without warning would cause life-and-death intelligence blackouts all over the globe. â€Å"I'm aware of the implications, sir,† Jabba said, â€Å"but we have no choice.† â€Å"Explain yourself,† Fontaine ordered. He shot a quick glance at Susan standing beside him on the podium. She seemed miles away. Jabba took a deep breath and wiped his brow again. From the look on his face, it was clear to the group on the podium that they were not going to like what he had to say. â€Å"This worm,† Jabba began. â€Å"This worm is not an ordinary degenerative cycle. It's a selective cycle. In other words, it's a worm with taste.† Brinkerhoff opened his mouth to speak, but Fontaine waved him off. â€Å"Most destructive applications wipe a databank clean, â€Å"Jabba continued, â€Å"but this one is more complex. It deletes only those files that fall within certain parameters.† â€Å"You mean it won't attack the whole databank?† Brinkerhoff asked hopefully. â€Å"That's good, right?† â€Å"No!† Jabba exploded. â€Å"It's bad! It's very fucking bad!† â€Å"Cool it!† Fontaine ordered. â€Å"What parameters is this worm looking for? Military? Covert ops?† Jabba shook his head. He eyed Susan, who was still distant, and then Jabba's eyes rose to meet the director's. â€Å"Sir, as you know, anyone who wants to tie into this databank from the outside has to pass a series of security gates before they're admitted.† Fontaine nodded. The databank's access hierarchies were brilliantly conceived; authorized personnel could dial in via the Internet and World Wide Web. Depending on their authorization sequence, they were permitted access to their own compartmentalized zones. â€Å"Because we're tied to the global Internet, â€Å"Jabba explained, â€Å"hackers, foreign governments, and EFF sharks circle this databank twenty-four hours a day and try to break in.† â€Å"Yes,† Fontaine said, â€Å"and twenty-four hours a day, our security filters keep them out. What's your point?† Jabba gazed down at the printout. â€Å"My point is this. Tankado's worm is not targeting our data.† He cleared his throat. â€Å"It's targeting our security filters.† Fontaine blanched. Apparently he understood the implications-this worm was targeting the filters that kept the NSA databank confidential. Without filters, all of the information in the databank would become accessible to everyone on the outside. â€Å"We need to shut down,† Jabba repeated. â€Å"In about an hour, every third grader with a modem is going to have top U.S. security clearance.† Fontaine stood a long moment without saying a word. Jabba waited impatiently and finally turned to Soshi. â€Å"Soshi! VR! NOW!† Soshi dashed off. Jabba relied on VR often. In most computer circles, VR meant â€Å"virtual reality,† but at the NSA it meant vis-rep-visual representation. In a world full of technicians and politicians all having different levels of technical understanding, a graphic representation was often the only way to make a point; a single plummeting graph usually aroused ten times the reaction inspired by volumes of spreadsheets. Jabba knew a VR of the current crisis would make its point instantly. â€Å"VR!† Soshi yelled from a terminal at the back of the room. A computer-generated diagram flashed to life on the wall before them. Susan gazed up absently, detached from the madness around her. Everyone in the room followed Jabba's gaze to the screen. The diagram before them resembled a bull's-eye. In the center was a red circle marked data. Around the center were five concentric circles of differing thickness and color. The outermost circle was faded, almost transparent. â€Å"We've got a five-tier level of defense,† Jabba explained. â€Å"A primary Bastion Host, two sets of packet filters for FTP and X-eleven, a tunnel block, and finally a PEM-based authorization window right off the Truffle project. The outside shield that's disappearing represents the exposed host. It's practically gone. Within the hour, all five shields will follow. After that, the world pours in. Every byte of NSA data becomes public domain.† Fontaine studied the VR, his eyes smoldering. Brinkerhoff let out a weak whimper. â€Å"This worm can open our databank to the world?† â€Å"Child's play for Tankado,† Jabba snapped. â€Å"Gauntlet was our fail-safe. Strathmore blew it.† â€Å"It's an act of war,† Fontaine whispered, an edge in his voice. Jabba shook his head. â€Å"I really doubt Tankado ever meant for it to go this far. I suspect he intended to be around to stop it.† Fontaine gazed up at the screen and watched the first of the five walls disappear entirely. â€Å"Bastion Host is toast!† a technician yelled from the back of the room. â€Å"Second shield's exposed!† â€Å"We've got to start shutting down,† Jabba urged. â€Å"From the looks of the VR, we've got about forty-five minutes. Shutdown is a complex process.† It was true. The NSA databank had been constructed in such a way as to ensure it would never lose power-accidentally or if attacked. Multiple fail-safes for phone and power were buried in reinforced steel canisters deep underground, and in addition to the feeds from within the NSA complex, there were multiple backups off main public grids. Shutting down involved a complex series of confirmations and protocols-significantly more complicated than the average nuclear submarine missile launch. â€Å"We have time,† Jabba said, â€Å"if we hurry. Manual shutdown should take about thirty minutes.† Fontaine continued staring up at the VR, apparently pondering his options. â€Å"Director!† Jabba exploded. â€Å"When these firewalls fall, every user on the planet will be issued top-security clearance! And I'm talking upper level! Records of covert ops! Overseas agents! Names and locations of everyone in the federal witness protection program! Launch code confirmations! We must shut down! Now!† The director seemed unmoved. â€Å"There must be some other way.† â€Å"Yes,† Jabba spat, â€Å"there is! The kill-code! But the only guy who knows it happens to be dead!† â€Å"How about brute force?† Brinkerhoff blurted. â€Å"Can we guess the kill-code?† Jabba threw up his arms. â€Å"For Christ sake! Kill-codes are like encryption keys-random! Impossible to guess! If you think you can type 600 trillion entries in the next forty-five minutes, be my guest!† â€Å"The kill-code's in Spain,† Susan offered weakly. Everyone on the podium turned. It was the first thing she had said in a long time. Susan looked up, bleary-eyed. â€Å"Tankado gave it away when he died.† Everyone looked lost. â€Å"The pass-key†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Susan shivered as she spoke. â€Å"Commander Strathmore sent someone to find it.† â€Å"And?† Jabba demanded. â€Å"Did Strathmore's man find it?† Susan tried to fight it, but the tears began to flow. â€Å"Yes,† she choked. â€Å"I think so.† Chapter 111 An earsplitting yell cut through the control room. â€Å"Sharks!† It was Soshi. Jabba spun toward the VR. Two thin lines had appeared outside the concentric circles. They looked like sperm trying to breach a reluctant egg. â€Å"Blood's in the water, folks!† Jabba turned back to the director. â€Å"I need a decision. Either we start shutting down, or we'll never make it. As soon as these two intruders see the Bastion Host is down, they'll send up a war cry.† Fontaine did not respond. He was deep in thought. Susan Fletcher's news of the pass-key in Spain seemed promising to him. He shot a glance toward Susan in the back of the room. She appeared to be in her own world, collapsed in a chair, her head buried in her hands. Fontaine was unsure exactly what had triggered the reaction, but whatever it was, he had no time for it now. â€Å"I need a decision!† Jabba demanded. â€Å"Now!† Fontaine looked up. He spoke calmly. â€Å"Okay, you've got one. We are not shutting down. We're going to wait.† Jabba's jaw dropped. â€Å"What? But that's-â€Å" â€Å"A gamble,† Fontaine interrupted. â€Å"A gamble we just might win.† He took Jabba's cellular and punched a few keys. â€Å"Midge,† he said. â€Å"It's Leland Fontaine. Listen carefully†¦.† Chapter 112 â€Å"You better know what the hell you're doing, Director,† Jabba hissed. â€Å"We're about to lose shut-down capability.† Fontaine did not respond. As if on cue, the door at the back of the control room opened, and Midge came dashing in. She arrived breathless at the podium. â€Å"Director! The switchboard is patching it through right now!† Fontaine turned expectantly toward the screen on the front wall. Fifteen seconds later the screen crackled to life. The image on screen was snowy and stilted at first, and gradually grew sharper. It was a QuickTime digital transmission-only five frames per second. The image revealed two men. One was pale with a buzz cut, the other a blond all-American. They were seated facing the camera like two newscasters waiting to go on the air. â€Å"What the hell is this?† Jabba demanded. â€Å"Sit tight,† Fontaine ordered. The men appeared to be inside a van of some sort. Electronic cabling hung all around them. The audio connection crackled to life. Suddenly there was background noise. â€Å"Inbound audio,† a technician called from behind them. â€Å"Five seconds till two-way.† â€Å"Who are they?† Brinkerhoff asked, uneasily. â€Å"Eye in the sky,† Fontaine replied, gazing up at the two men he had sent to Spain. It had been a necessary precaution. Fontaine had believed in almost every aspect of Strathmore's plan-the regrettable but necessary removal of Ensei Tankado, rewriting Digital Fortress-it was all solid. But there was one thing that made Fontaine nervous: the use of Hulohot. Hulohot was skilled, but he was a mercenary. Was he trustworthy? Would he take the pass-key for himself? Fontaine wanted Hulohot covered, just incase, and he had taken the requisite measures. Chapter 113 â€Å"Absolutely not!† The man with the buzz cut yelled into the camera. â€Å"We have orders! We report to Director Leland Fontaine and Leland Fontaine only!† Fontaine looked mildly amused. â€Å"You don't know who I am, do you?† â€Å"Doesn't matter, does it?† the blond fired hotly. â€Å"Let me explain,† Fontaine interjected. â€Å"Let me explain something right now.† Seconds later, the two men were red-faced, spilling their guts to the director of the National Security Agency. â€Å"D-director,† the blond stammered, â€Å"I'm Agent Coliander. This is Agent Smith.† â€Å"Fine,† Fontaine said. â€Å"Just brief us.† At the back of the room, Susan Fletcher sat and fought the suffocating loneliness that pressed down around her. Eyes closed, and ears ringing, she wept. Her body had gone numb. The mayhem in the control room faded to a dull murmur. The gathering on the podium listened, restless, as Agent Smith began his briefing. â€Å"On your orders, Director,† Smith began, â€Å"we've been here in Seville for two days, trailing Mr. Ensei Tankado.† â€Å"Tell me about the kill,† Fontaine said impatiently. Smith nodded. â€Å"We observed from inside the van at about fifty meters. The kill was smooth. Hulohot was obviously a pro. But afterward his directive went awry. Company arrived. Hulohot never got the item.† Fontaine nodded. The agents had contacted him in South America with news that something had gone wrong, so Fontaine had cut his trip short. Coliander took over. â€Å"We stayed with Hulohot as you ordered. But he never made a move for the morgue. Instead, he picked up the trail of some other guy. Looked private. Coat and tie.† â€Å"Private?† Fontaine mused. It sounded like a Strathmore play-wisely keeping the NSA out of it. â€Å"FTP filters failing!† a technician called out. â€Å"We need the item,† Fontaine pressed. â€Å"Where is Hulohot now?† Smith looked over his shoulder. â€Å"Well†¦ he's with us, sir.† Fontaine exhaled. â€Å"Where?† It was the best new she'd heard all day. Smith reached toward the lens to make an adjustment. The camera swept across the inside of the van to reveal two limp bodies propped against the back wall. Both were motionless. One was a large man with twisted wire-rim glasses. The other was young with a shock of dark hair and a bloody shirt. â€Å"Hulohot's the one on the left,† Smith offered. â€Å"Hulohot's dead?† the director demanded. â€Å"Yes, sir.† Fontaine knew there would be time for explanations later. He glanced up at the thinning shields. â€Å"Agent Smith,† he said slowly and clearly. â€Å"The item. I need it.† Smith looked sheepish. â€Å"Sir, we still have no idea what the item is. We're on a need-to-know.† Chapter 114 â€Å"Then look again!† Fontaine declared. The director watched in dismay as the stilted image of the agents searched the two limp bodies in the van for a list of random numbers and letters. Jabba was pale. â€Å"Oh my God, they can't find it. We're dead!† â€Å"Losing FTP filters!† a voice yelled. â€Å"Third shield's exposed!† There was a new flurry of activity. On the front screen, the agent with the buzz cut held out his arms in defeat. â€Å"Sir, the pass-key isn't here. We've searched both men. Pockets. Clothing. Wallets. No sign at all. Hulohot was wearing a Monocle computer, and we've checked that too. It doesn't look like he ever transmitted anything remotely resembling random characters-only a list of kills.† â€Å"Dammit!† Fontaine seethed, suddenly losing his cool. â€Å"It's got to be there! Keep looking!† Jabba had apparently seen enough-Fontaine had gambled and lost. Jabba took over. The huge Sys-Sec descended from his pulpit like a storm off a mountain. He swept through his army of programmers calling out commands. â€Å"Access auxiliary kills! Start shutting it down! Do it now!† â€Å"We'll never make it!† Soshi yelled. â€Å"We need a half hour! By the time we shut down, it will be too late!† Jabba opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut short by a scream of agony from the back of the room. Everyone turned. Like an apparition, Susan Fletcher rose from her crouched position in the rear of the chamber. Her face was white, her eyes transfixed on the freeze-frame of David Becker, motionless and bloody, propped up on the floor of the van. â€Å"You killed him!† she screamed. â€Å"You killed him!† She stumbled toward the image and reached out. â€Å"David†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Everyone looked up in confusion. Susan advanced, still calling, her eyes never leaving the projection of David's body. â€Å"David.† She gasped, staggering forward. â€Å"Oh, David†¦ how could they-â€Å" Fontaine seemed lost. â€Å"You know this man?† Susan swayed unsteadily as she passed the podium. She stopped a few feet in front of the enormous projection and stared up, bewildered and numb, calling over and over to the man she loved.

Analysis of “The Metamorphosis”

According to Sokel, he refers to this as an intrinsic drive that comes from someone. One must work hard and be determined on everything that he anticipates to realize. He should not entirely depend on the external forces or commands from external sources to make him go through. He highlights the Marxist idea that someone only appears to be a true human being who can be recognized in the society when he can be positively rewarded by the works of his hands. Whenever he is imposed by the economic necessity, the work cannot actually make him became alienated because he would be engaged with other people, which is already an agent of socialization. He does not become himself as an individual; rather, he is alienated from his humankind. In this short analysis, the metamorphosis, the protagonist might become a wrong person. When Gregor works as a salesperson, he has a lot in his mind. Things might not be adding up according to him because he has to travel long distances to get customer, he has to pay his bills; he also has to take good care of this family. All these burden mounted on him does not make him happy. For this reason, he has to remain alone and except himself from the company of many. The paper will look into this issue through citation of Kafka`s depiction on the way in which the protagonist react to the idea leading his family into the misfortune. He eventually suffer the guilt of conscience which by all means dismisses Marx`s assertion that loss of humanity can also come from external sources like work mates and family members. International Journal of Arts and Sciences CD-ROM ISSN: 1944-6934 2017 Volume 09, Number 04From the journal, Palvos states that dangling among the vicissitudes in the world without harmony accomplishes a great blow to one`s moral identity. In life, every turn a fatality that has nothing to do with an incorrigible personal law and ethical countenance. If this happens, ones hope and determinations are all shuttered and his life remains without a meaning. Gregor`s self alienation and humiliation is suggestive of the modern dilemma of human beings in the technological period of machines who brute facts and information systems. This analysis points through and through to the reality of material existence and the possibilities of its fall, consequently moves toward the complete subversion of an ethical universe. From a responsible man who could take good care of his family to someone who is mentally tortured and only feels comfortable when he isolates himself from other people. Gregor's metamorphosis from a civilized man into a horrific and monstrous vermin, an instinctual underworld character with an almost automatic nature, and finally to a simple bit of matter, turns him into an antagonist who upsets all the instincts of life. Indeed, Kafka's criminal world vermin gives rise to a deep and stifled impulse in modernity, to the gradual spiritual death of the human, a metamorphosis par excellence of the human substantiate that overrides all instinctual and hermeneutical bound. When the mental capability of human being fails to reason, he is recognized as a worthless being that is at par reasoning with all animals. Henceforth, the humiliated modern human -uprooted beyond bound. When one is stripped of all ethical purposefulness, he no longer possesses the moral entity given to thinking and questioning. He is called to de facto accept and obey the mastermind of pretence techno capital reality, and, the geophysical enterprise of its dully respect.Miyamoto, Kaori. â€Å"Erich Fromm's theory of alienation.†University of Massachusetts Amherst, February 2014, pp. 1-47. Positive factors of freedom sometimes blind many people. Myamoto emphasized on this statement by saying that most of the rich and modernized societies today have a lot of freedom and they enjoy it extremely without sensing the side effects associated with the freedom. The societies have failed in looking at the two sides of the coin. He goes by saying that alienation is a side effect associated with the freedom which most of us have failed to look into with a lot of concern. He support his claim by citing Enrich Fromm`s concept of alienation. He says that the relation of human being is very pivotal especially to those who are alienated. Those alienated should be put close to other people. Being alone to people is not enough, but it should be in all dimensions, through feelings, thoughts and even actions. This source identifies alienation as one of the side effect of identification of human being. Kafka`s protagonist, Gregor is very potential and cooperative in providing to the family. He shows all the ability of taking care of his parents. However, at some points, he alienates himself from the family, an aspect of perpetuated by the ended gratitude and concordat he previously got from them. Because of the isolation, he cannot be identified as someone who is financially stable and can take good care of the family.Nicolae, Cristina. â€Å"Franz Kafka's metamorphotic prison: the door and the window.† Studia Universitatis Petru Maior, Philologia 18, 2015, p. 143- According to Nicolae, he makes his argument to the modern family where one appears to be insignificant or cannot realize his life dreams. He argues that the fact that Gregory stays benevolent makes him appear someone who is finally alienated and spends most of his time alone even without the family knowing his whereabouts. Gregor is portrayed as one who cannot be recognized in the society and he struggles with his loneliness at work place where he decided to seek new identity. At one point, the protagonist identifies himself with a creature which does not make him associate in the light; he rather has to hide himself in the darkness. Actually, being rejected makes one loose his value and becomes worthless before other people. In this regard, this source proves resourceful in identifying the change in Gregor which is from metal to physical level because of the challenge he gets while dealing with his family. From the outlook, Gregor does no change his moral standing irrespective of all the humiliations that he comes across. According to this source, morality is a factor in Gregor`s alienation after being neglected by the family. The social strength which is acquired by the family proves a lot of dehumanization as they draw the attention they originally had for Gregor. Yaron, Idan and Herzog, Omri (2013). â€Å"Kafka's ruins in popular culture: A story of Metamorphosis.† Journal of Popular Culture 46:5, 1092-106.According to Yaron, maintaining culture in the society is very important. Culture helps in preserving the codes of conduct that governs good stay in the community. One who alienates himself from the culture has no positive contribution to the society. According to him, Gregor commits no crime towards anyone only that he was not true to himself and there was nothing that amazing that could make him alienate himself the other people. The split that he experiences in his personality, his deepest struggle and abandoning the culture includes everything taking place within him. However, most people who do not experience such things do not know about it. They can either choose to ignore or deny it. Gregor out rightly bears no illusion about the metaphysical chasm that encircles him and the isolation it brings from those around him who are his equals but do not know it. This gulf is not alienation from his family and the hypocrisy of his relations to them both prior and after the metamorphosis, but is the isolation where a disillusioned man who awakens to a radical awareness of his own mortality suffers the awful experience of separation from others. The separation is actually against the culture. The culture does not allow one ton separate from others irrespective of the situation, however, this takes place because of what he feels in his innermost heart. His corporeity points to his mortality which makes the inhuman world his master. Gregor's inhuman world is as incomprehensible to human reason and sensibility as is death; it is far more human and humane than the reality of the people surrounding him who have denied their own mortality. Modernity and the existential metaphysics of life and death in kafka's metamorphosis pavlos e. michaelides (2017) university of nicosia, CyprusFollowing the customs of our world, and according to the laws of habit and self-complacency, it would be beyond the bounds of scientific innovation for us to wake one morning and find ourselves transformed into colossal insects. Grego`s metamorphosis touches a deep, unappreciated, and anguishing reality in life. This is nourished by sources which are deeper than those of cogent reflection and scientific knowledge. Our personal existence can sometime lead us to horrifying and most anguishing discovery. This points out that the transitory nature of our lives and places can absolutely have great demand on our moral nature to reconcile with its true temporal dimensions. In this plinth, Gregor is doomed from the beginning. His far-reaching transformation into vermin is just physical and irrevocably. Later, it fully becomes impossible for him to reconcile the radical discontinuity between his newly discovered physical structure and his prior human self. The sudden awakening to the devastating discovery of his metamorphosis even brings backfire of his daily expectations with a terrifying inability not to achieve them again. His former self remains qualitatively unchangeable, indeed throughout the story is mostly baffled helplessly trying to adjust to radical change. Despite the tremendous effort that he puts, he ultimately finds it impossible to cope or bridge the gap between an unbridgeable void, which makes his insect like physical structure and the retaining of meaningful human identity.

Postevent Nutrition Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Postevent Nutrition - Essay Example A post-event meal should help to restore fluid and electrolyte losses, replenish glycogen stores and prevent low blood sugar (SMCA n.pag 2nd edition). Inappropriate food intake during post event can have serious implications on recovery. Post event meals are very important particularly for glycogen restoration. As it is a known factor that muscle glycogen is severely depleted for athletes, adequate recovery means that the muscles are rested, re-fueled, and ready to go again (Davis 2005). During an event the athlete encounters free radical attack and to overcome the free radical effects, it is important to take adequate antioxidants. Post event must also be the right time for replacing all those vitamins and minerals. These acts as co-factors in the body's enzyme complexes involved in the production of energy and vitamins which protect against free radical damage (SIS n. pag). The most critical factors that determine sports performance is the energy and hydration supply to the body. Similarly, after an event it is important to replace the lost energy and hydration. Athletes replace fluid and fuel by consuming both liquid and solid carbohydrate feeds.

Analysis of Plutocracy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Analysis of Plutocracy - Essay Example He notes that such a rule can take varied forms. First, that some of the individuals who are at the helm of authority are rich and it is the wealth they possess that defines why they are in the high offices. The authority which such people exercise works in favor and the interest of the rich people. The actions that individuals in offices take are influenced by them since they have the primary influence on who hold the offices. Brenner notes that these aspects of plutocracy would not necessarily be exclusive. At some point, the government of the rich and for the rich may not be actually run by the rich. Brenner identifies certain circumstances in which the United States may be seen to be practicing plutocracy. One of the features of USA for the past decade is the gross income redistribution. He points at the statistics that point that since 1973, approximately 80% of the wealth generated nationally has gone to the 2% of upper-class America. Brenner points a few matters that define Plutocracy, including the suspension of equal application and protection by the law and when megabanks make profits which are illicit through the laundering of money for the drug cartels. The second article that the study needs to examine is the Robert Reich article in which he discusses The Koch Brothers and the Danger of American Plutocracy. In his argument, he points that blame should not be directed towards Charles and David Koch for having more wealth compared to the 40% of the Americans at the bottom put together. He notes that the two individuals have played by the rules and have obeyed the law, even with their petrochemical empire. Reich points that the point of departure from the rules is the efforts that the two brothers are making to use their wealth to change those particular rules in their favor. This action would be directly undermining the democracy that America has endeavored to protect. Â  

How Different Leadership Styles Affect Workspace Performance Essay

How Different Leadership Styles Affect Workspace Performance - Essay Example It is quite difficult for one person to manage a large group without having to deal with the factors mentioned above. However, the path-goal theory sets a fair basis for ensuring that every member of the group gets a chance at performing to the best of their ability and receiving the rewards for it. Also, the environment in which the nurses work is very task-based and has a formal authority system that suits the path-goal style. The leader can lead by directing, supporting, setting goals or promoting participation amongst the members of the team, depending on the subordinates' needs. In turn, the subordinates gain experience and satisfaction in their work. This leadership style is commanding uses force. Cook would be giving orders to the subordinates and expecting them to follow these orders closely and act upon them immediately. The tone that Cook would use is upper-handed and she could be heard demanding "to do what I tell you to do". Cook would monitor the subordinates work performance very closely. In her opinion, the subordinates do not make informed decisions. The conversations and interactions are cold, brief and mostly work-related. This style instills fear in the subordinates and Cook would motivate them through threatening ways. Authoritative Leadership Style Although this style may seem very negative, it has a positive approach because the style allows the subordinates to explore and discover ways to achieve the goals. It motivates the employees. Cook would lead by good examples and she could be heard confidently saying, "come with me". In her opinion, the subordinates are individuals with a passion to achieve goals. The conversations and interactions are encouraging and motivating. Cook would motivate the employees by encouraging them to perform better. Affiliative Leadership Style Cook would encourage the team by having team-building efforts to create harmony. In Cooks opinion, "people come first". However, if used excessively, Cook could turn a blind eye to the mistakes that the subordinates make. The communications and interactions are friendly and go beyond work issues. In a way, the subordinates are motivated through the harmony and sense of belonging that the leadership style creates.  

Academic Journal Article Evaluation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Academic Journal Article Evaluation - Assignment Example One hundred forty five students in romantic relationships took part in the study on nonverbal communication. The students were split in different divisions and answered the questions according to their understanding. Prinsen and Punyanunt-Carter (2010) found different responses among the people in the relationships. These responses support the authors research on the ideology that there is a huge disparity in nonverbal communication between men and women who are in varying stages of their relationship. The study found that women rated issues on nonverbal communication statistically higher compared to those considered by men. Men on the other hand rated the imperativeness of nonverbal communication as more crucial and should change as well as increase for relationships to work. Additionally, the scholars also found out that sex dissimilarities in nonverbal communication have the capability to cause message misinterpretation in a romantic interaction. The editorial was extremely informative considering that I am in a romantic relationship. The different aspects discussed added value in my life because I now have the knowledge on how to handle nonverbal

Juvenile Justice Written Assignment Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Juvenile Justice Written Assignment - Coursework Example He believes that the kid will improve if given much support and attention when released from the court in order to avoid being reoffended. The defense attorney also believes that the kid can be involved in more productive activities of his family and society in order to make the best use of his energy and efforts. When the kid is engaged in constructive activities of the society, this will help him to divert his energy in helping the society. This will also help Marquese in doing constructive activities thereby developing life skills which may further help him avoid the criminal activities by appreciating the role of order and justice in the society. The defense attorney therefore claims that Marquese lacked the necessary institutions to help him change his behavior. The kid should therefore be provided with relevant institutions that will help him develop life skills and family nurturing in order to engage and concentrate most of his time and energy in the constructive activities in the society. He should also be given moral support and guidance in order to help him reduce time available and discourage such criminal activities. ... Marquese is referred to as a frequent flier by the system due to his repetitive acts of criminal offences in and out of the court. He was therefore branded a frequent flyer due to his frequent and repetitive cases in court pertaining to criminal activities especially theft. The system has failed this this child because it has taken much into consideration the nature of the child at home and school so as to help him out of such a situation. This name suggests that the child habit could not be reformed but in reality Marquese can actually transform when subjected to close family support and monitoring. This name shows that Marquese was not given the necessary rehabilitation support in order to transform his behaviors. This therefore indicates the failure of the system to provide the child with the necessary support and psychological guidance concerning his situation. This name also convince the child that he cannot change his behavior. The system therefore failed to understand the actu al problems Marquese is undergoing like the abuse of drugs which needs special attention. Marquese was branded with negative names which made him wilder thereby discouraging his change of behavior. Marquese also never received adequate assistance that could help him fit into the society after leaving the court. This child can be rehabilitated because his situation is due to lack of moral guidance and support. This is shown by the arguments of his attorney general. Marquese is said to be a good student in school and he also loves her mother a lot. This child can therefore be rehabilitated through provision of adequate and necessary parental guidance and support of the society in order to engage in productive activities. The child can also transform when

E- Business report (2625words) and Analysis messages(500 words) Essay

E- Business report (2625words) and Analysis messages(500 words) - Essay Example An example of mobile marketing is safaricom which is a company based in Africa where goods and services can be purchased by customers using just a key in their mobile handsets. The focus in E-business is also laid on short messages services, but includes such methods like use of emails amongst other channels. Mobile marketing is an emerging issue in today’s developed and developing economies and as such should be properly addressed as it has a positive impact on e-marketing. Similar to mobile marketing, e-marketing greatly relies on the use of the internet to market and promote goods and services. E-business has made this process of e-marketing easier as it has allowed consumers to access internet activities through their handsets without having to use the traditional desktops and laptops commonly used in the past by individuals. Advancements in e-business have seen a change ‘towards the use and application of mobile phones among organizations and people who wishes to pa ss messages for various purposes and intended audiences. Today, many organizations are adopting me-marketing because they are seeing as an efficient way of marketing their products effectively than the earlier methods they used. However, in spite of e-business being an emerging issue in today’s businesses, using mobile channels is still a challenging issue to those who have not known the dos and don’ts of e-business. Laws and consumer behavior which were witnessed decades ago have drastically changed towards e-business. The mobile marketing forms currently being adopted are direct e-business, modern enabled marketing and traditional media marketing (Pasqua & Elkin, 2013). In e-business, the strongest potential towards service is always inclined towards the messages servicing whereby the voice services always become a commodity. Therefore, I consider e-business to be an effective marketing tool because it is

Visualizing Complexity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Visualizing Complexity - Essay Example The record types are organised in the form of a rooted tree. However, in network model, multiple branches emanate from a single or more nodes (Lima 86). It can be likened to several trees sharing branches. Consequently, the hierarchical model can be said to support one-one relationships and one-to-many relations in contrast to the network data model that supports many to many relationships. The hierarchical model supports a data structure whereby there is a parent-child relationship in contrast to the network model whereby a record can have many parents as well as many children. Whereas the network model uses CODASYL the hierarchical model is not a provider of any independent, stand-alone query interface. The commonality among the models, the hierarchical model and network database model is that in both of them retrieve algorithms are complex and systematic (Lima 109). The hierarchical data model has an insertion a normally whereby one cannot retrieve information on a child who has no parent in contrast to the network model that has no anomalies. In addition, the network model is free from update anomalies as a result of a single occurrence in each set. The hierarchical data model, however, has multiple occurrences of child records, which causes inconsistency problems during the update operations. In hierarchical model, data integrity is based on parent-child relationship and the deletion of parent results. In the deletion of child records, the network model is free from all the deletion anomalies because information is stored in a different table, which further enhances its efficiency. In the network database model, a child entity can have many parents and can be visualised as several inverted trees interconnected by branches contrary to the single inverted trees characterised by branches in the hierarchical model. Folksonomy refers to a classification system derived from the methodology and practise of collaboratively, creating,

Strategies for counter terrorism in United States Essay Example for Free

Strategies for counter terrorism in United States Essay Strategies for counter-terrorism in United States Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   September 9/11 is a day that many people will never forget. It’s a day that’s the world’s peace was on the line. The attack on the world’s trade center proved that terrorism is a real threat in the world. That day I watched TV in shock watching people crying and wailing in pain. Many souls perished in the attack and others were maimed seriously. Counter-terrorism is an action taken to prevent the activities of political groups who use violence to try to achieve their aims. To come up with an effective counter-terrorist strategy, state government need the aim terrorists ‘ interest and goal in their state and what they aim to achieve in their mission. This analysis entails how terrorism occurs and the strategies that America has taken to counter it and challenges of each strategy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The word terrorism originates from the word terrero which is in Latin, meaning fear. Usually terrorists are taken as Middle Eastern men who are motivated by their beliefs to harm innocent people. Unfortunately this vice is diverse, found everywhere in the world and used for any imaginable goal. Mostly terrorists are religiously or politically motivated. There are those homegrown and international. For the homegrown they organize and do it in their country (Cindy C Combs, 2003).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The word terrorism brings fear into many people while others misunderstand it. Terrorists are usually ideologically motivated whereby they use violence towards civilians so as to create fear and panic hoping to change policies or laws in a given country. There various practices used by terrorists to propagate their activities. One way terrorists is to create civil disorder. This can vary from legal protestation to illegal intimidation to the government. Various countries condone different dissent levels whereas in other peaceful assembly this is taken as terrorism. For sure destructive terrorism forms are religious, political, and quasi political. The political terrorist performs the terrorism hopping to change policies, normally in reference to profession, color or creed. The quasi political terrorism is one whereby terrorist’s tactics are used for personal gain. Finally religious terrorism looks at proliferating a person’s belief in the expense of others (Cindy C Combs, 2003). A firm stand should be taken against terrorism since it is very cruel and unjust.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Terrorism goes in and around diplomatic process with a purpose of disrupting safety and peace so as to achieve a goal. For many terrorists, a mission successful is considered when thousands of helpless, children and women lie as corpses in the streets. What many terrorist do is to set as small bomb maybe in a building which results in killing say, forty people and later detonate a larger bomb when crowd of people, policemen and medics gather to witness the outcome.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Terrorists attacks have taken place like hundred times in America and the exact figures are not clear since distinction between political violence and the domestic one is blurred. From the year 1999, there have been over fifty terror attacks which are separate, on domestic soil. According to the FBI’s NCTC records, there were over eleven thousand five hundred terror acts in the entire world by the year 2011. These attacks occurred in seventy two countries and led to approximately fifty thousand casualties of which thirteen thousand two hundred of the fifty thousand casualties suffered extreme trauma.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Each American government agency concerned with counterterrorism, has a purpose in the war against terror. The mission of Federal Bureau of Investigation is to counteract terrorist cells and operatives in United States and to aid in dismantling terrorists networks globally. In United States, numerous agencies including State Department, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency are mandated to counter terrorism. The main objective of the National Counter-terrorism Center is to orchestrate and integrate the formidable abilities of the American government devoted to defeating the threat of international terrorism and reducing the terror to Unites States interests at home and overseas (Jim S., 2001).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Counter terrorism strategy was paramount in the US national security even before the September 9/11 attacks. This is depicted whereby from the year 1958 to the year 1999, over forty legal acts dealing with war reinforcement against terrorism in a ranging degree were adopted. This acts brought about empowering of the state authority and also the agencies of law enforcement to detect and also repress the terrorism act in United States and overseas.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Most of the states use varied goals and sub-goals that dictate their counterterrorism policies. These vary depending on the state’s economic and political situation. Some of these goals include; preventing the attack, getting rid of terrorists and motivation and minimizing casualties and damages should the terrorist attack occur (Michael B. Kraft, Edward M., 2012).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Over the decade, United States has had high level of involvement in counter-terrorism actions. The time of struggle during which it fought against terrorism can be divided into two phases: this is after and before the occurrence of the 11th Sep, 2001. Phase one of counterterrorism is in relation to 1980s to 1990s. In this phase there were clear distinguished tendencies such as: use of military forces and new technologies. They used of military forces to fight international terrorist especially bombing their bases and their agencies. One of these operations was held during autumn-inter the year 2001 in Afghanistan. According to Bush G.W, they joined hands with the afghan people to overthrow the Taliban regime— the defenders of the al-Qaida network- and supported a new democratic government to rise in its place. In the field of information technology, there has been a defense by the United States: the data system and the supervisory c ontrol that are applied in the oil and gas industries, pharmaceutical. In the water supply system, and in chemicals are very vulnerable since the implementation of the information technology. The attack of computers by viruses will have to play a vital role in military. Moreover, united States plan a major role in helping train new agents for counterterrorism in other countries.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Phase two started since autumn the year 2001. Thousands of people from eighty eight countries died as a result of 11th September attack. This attack led to the realization of the vulnerability of any country in the hands of terrorist. These have led to expansion of anti-terrorism cooperation in many countries. According to Paul Pillar, CRI agent who is working on Middle East countries and south Asia,’ the campaign against terrorism must be as diverse as terrorism itself’. He gave the difference among the following various counterterrorism measures; (1) The diplomacy which recognizes no borders among states, (2) the combination of many measures that complement one another, (3) blocking financial support to terrorists groups or even their sponsoring states. They would also try to track their cash flows though very difficult, (4) use of a considerably weak military force. Terroristic bases are normally not large targets and ther efore easy to destroy unlike the military bases which presents a large stationary, (5) intelligence activity is the most crucial tool to deal with terrorism. The challenge with this tool is that most of the terrorists’ data is fragmented, pregnant with meanings and usually highly questionable, (6) they would also combine different measures which complement each other.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One of the America’s main strategies of combating terrorism is diplomatic actions and economic sanctions against countries that tend to back-up terrorism activities. The best example of this is the United Nations mandating and leading international sanctions against West African country—Libya due to the role it played in backing up terrorists who were involved in the bombing of Pan Am 103 in the year 1988.this was the first action that the entire world community took against terrorism. The United States sternly led this action with nations now being aware that US would discipline nations that support terrorism (Spindlove, C. E., 2007)..   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The second strategy which included objectives and policies such strengthening coalitions to beat global terrorism was initiated in the year 2002.the main objective of this strategy is to compel other nations’ government to indentify and destroy terrorist organizations. For instance, when President George Bush was planning war on Iraq, he encouraged Americans to use the full influence they have and work hand in hand with allies and friends to ensure that all actions of terrorists are illegal so that terrorism is perceived as unacceptable behavior that no reputable government can support. This strategy depicts America as using a policy of global coercion but at the time of this strategy, America was waging a war on Iraq. One of the main challenges of this strategy is that it used weapons of mass destructions and the fear of terrorism to help gain back-up for the war using a policy of ‘’your nation is either with us or aga inst us.’’ (Spindlove, C. E., 2007).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The former U.S.A president said that the United States can no longer rely on deterrence to keep the terrorists at bay or defensive measure to thwart them at the last moment. The fight must be taken to the enemy, to keep them on the run. In order to succeed, America need the support and concert action of friends and allies (Bush G.W., 2010, p.8). Conquered with the president, â€Å"in this task of eradication, â€Å"deterrence† is a mere tactic†¦..to succeed in the long run, however ,the united state must address root causes or a next generation of terrorists will emerge. â€Å"They promised to make better the performance of making of decision, action and also for centralized decisions. They also said that the actions would be decided by those who can understand the political, military and also economic boundaries. They are the central authorities. Broad-front strategy, though seen as unwise and wasteful is what united state s hould conduct. As they have been dealing with issues of terrorists organizations, such as al Qaeda, the U.S.SA as realized that the head or the heat of the beast is never single. This means that the center of gravity to look at when attacking may not be there. Bush G.W. has outlined the main objects in the plan of fighting terrorism in United States. He said that the fight entails use of military force including other national power instruments to kill or catch the terrorists, refuse to give them safe haven, or power over any nation. Block them from getting access to WMD, and obstruct their means of support. This plan is also targeted on continuation of political reforms to guard peaceful Muslims in the whole world in their faith. He also said that responsible Islamic leaders should dissociate from an ideology that alters and exploits the Islam for ends that are destructive and rapes a proud religion. (Bush G.W., 2010, p.23).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The main counterterrorism plans are based on pre-emption, prevention, consequence management and defense. America is pursuing preemptive and proactive strategies to combat terrorism. The American security strategy is that of protection of its citizens and assets as it sees deterring and defeating terrorists as the ground for this defense. One of the main challenges of these policies is that they have internal conflict within themselves. On one hand, they seek to promote free and open societies globally while on the other hand, they seek to fight tyranny and terrorists. These strategies contradict each other as America is seen as promoting free and open societies while it benefits itself.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   US usually attach much importance to getting from friendly countries rights to use their territory and tools for the USA armed forces, together with making the improved operating basis in dangerous and regions that are unstable. Today American troops are all over in one hundred and thirty countries of the world, in regards to Heritage Foundation. Most of these troops are majored in Arabic countries, together with Iraq base, Qatar, Kuwait and also in UAE (Spindlove, C. E., 2007).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In conclusion terrorism is a danger to world’s peace and stability. No groups of people should kill innocent people in the name of religion politics or ethnicity. Instead people from all religions, political or ethnic background should co-exist together and embrace peace. Unfortunately the terrorists consider a mission successful when hundreds of innocent souls lie in pools of blood. World leaders should unite their people and encourage them to shun away from terrorism and other related violence. The America’s counterterrorist policy is based on prevention; deterrence, pre-emption and limiting consequences if the act cannot be prevented. It also uses coercion as a strategy to help to strengthen coalitions for its strategies. America feels that exclusive of strong alliances and support from its friends and allies, terrorism will continue to grow and at one point, be a danger to its people and assets. References   Bush, George W. (2010).  Decision Points. Crown Publishers. pp.  399–400. Palestinian extremists, many affiliated with the terrorist group Hamas, launched a wave of terrorist attacks against innocent civilians in IsraelMy views [on Israel and Hamas] came into sharper focus after 9/11. Cindy C Combs (2003), Terrorism in the Twenty First Century, (3rd Edition, New Jersey: Pearsons Educ. Inc.) Jim Saxton. (2001). Patterns of Global Terrorism and Threats to the U.S:Hearing before the Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism. Washington D.C: Diane Publishing Co. Michael B. Kraft, Edward Marks.(2012) . U.S Government Counterterrorism: A Guide to Who Does What. New York:CRC press. Paul R. Pillar.(2003). Terrorism and U.S Foreign Policy: Washington, D.C: R.R. Donnelley and Sons Harrisonburg, Virginia Spindlove, C. E. (2007). Terrorism Today. The Past, The Players, The Future. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc. Source document

Holden Caulfield Character Examination Essay Example for Free

Holden Caulfield Character Examination Essay Character Examination Holden Caulfield is a figment of author J.D Salingers imagination, Holden is the exception to all rules, and the rule to all exceptions. He is in an unclassifiable category, and his physical traits give no clue on how to enravel this enigmatic young man. Holden is caring but cold, timid yet bold, passive but aggressive; these are three of perhaps hundreds of antonyms describing his psyche. Holden is the protagonist in J.D Salingers only acclaimed novel The Catcher in the Rye. The story centers around the adolescence of this rebel with and without a causes life. It is narrated from the point of view of a cynic, with most secondary characters being valueless, trite yuppies with little integrity or worth. Holdens internal voyage is triggered by his expulsion from Pencey, a boarding school in upstate New York. Holden Caulfield is a tall, solidly built teenager. Holden has short dirty blond hair which he wears in a crew cut. He has a pale complexion and has a tendency of getting red in the face. Salinger does not concentrate on the physical traits of his protagonist but rather he thoroughly describes all facets of his psyche. What struck me as odd about Salingers style is that with many secondary and supporting characters in the novel, he paints a very detailed physical analysis from head to toe. Perhaps Salinger made this decision in order to show the reader the complexity of Holden as a human, and that while supporting characters can be brought into the story by external traits, Holdens complex character transcends mere physical description. Holden Caulfield is a cynic by nature and is a self proclaimed judge of others. Holden has no respect for other peoples positive traits, and he adamantly believes that people put on a faà §ade, play a part and have no self worth or moral barometer. It can be said that Holden is a bipolar character, for example; Holden is naà ¯ve yet cynical simultaneously. One might say that it is impossible to be naà ¯ve and cynical at the same time but with Holden it is evident on a regular basis. Holden is definitely cynical, Holden makes impetuous accusations and rash generalizations of people and often he is mistaken in  his judgment because he shows no form of acceptance to the positive value of the human spirit. Holden is also naà ¯ve, not in the pure sense of the word but Holden is naà ¯ve of himself and his thoughts. Holden has strong deep-rooted beliefs of the world being against him and the world being out to get him, but he is mistaken. Holden Caulfield radical belief of his own beliefs makes him naà ¯ve and gullible. The sad part of Holdens terrible attitude towards life, is that to some extent he himself is a fraud, by becoming an arrogant disbeliever of human worth, he is, in his mind justifying his own mistakes and moral flaws. Holden has feelings of insecurity and a fear of loneliness and alienation, his fear plays a large role in his actions during his time in Manhattan. From the moment of his departure from Pencey, Holden was trying to call his old girlfriends; at first he called his old friend Jane Gallagher. After striking out, he was lonely and his way of dealing with his rejection was hopping from bar to bar and from nightclub to nightclub. After Holden recovered from his misadventure with Jane, he called another acquaintance named Sally. Sally and Holden ended up meeting up for a matinee, but Holden, spotted a lunt (phony) and it made him wreck the date. Holden is fickle and impatient, this is exemplified by his hopping from hangout to hangout at night in New York. Holden would make potentially dangerous decisions on impulse. He was not methodical or prudent at all, his impulsiveness could be labeled as recklessness. An example of the dangers of his impetuousness is when after a tough night, he hired a prostitute from the elevator man, Maurice. Holden didnt even think about the consequences of his actions and in the end Holden was in a dangerous situation with Maurice. Holden Caulfields secondary characteristics are what make the plot of the novel so interesting to the reader. Holden Caulfield is a truly fascinating character. In writing this essay, the complexity and the inconsistency of his character traits became more and more evident to me. Holden is a great example of many negative qualities often associated with teenagers such as, impulsiveness, recklessness and various other negative traits not affiliated with teenagers such as cynicism, and a lack of faith. Holden is the most intriguing character I  have encountered in my literary experience. In two years from now when rereading Salingers novel The Catcher In The Rye, I wonder how my thoughts and opinions of Holden Caulfield will change. With further insight to Holdens complex character, I may well appreciate him more and more.

Lavasa A Case Study Synopsis Environmental Sciences Essay

Lavasa A Case Study Synopsis Environmental Sciences Essay Lavasa is an independent Indias first planned hill city. The under-construction town is just an hours drive from Pune in the Mose Valley and the backwaters of the calm Warasgaon dam area. This as-yet incomplete city has been controversial for multiple reasons including: procurement of land, harm to the environment (water usage), and loans acquired through political corruption. Till November 25 2010, the construction work at Lavasa was in full swing when the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) issued a stop-work order and notice to Lavasa Corporation Limited (LCL).The reason given was that the company had failed to obtain environmental clearance from the Union ministry and had proceeded on the basis of a clearance from Maharashtras environment department. The ministrys Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC), constituted in response to the public interest petition moved by the National Alliance of Peoples Movements (NAPM), formed by activists and NGOs, in the high court of Mumba i for new infrastructure projects and Coastal Regulation Zone, said that planning and development of the whole project should be reworked as it violated environment laws, including haphazard cutting of hills. Lavasa challenged the ministrys order in the high court, saying it had taken the requisite clearances from the state and the ministry had no jurisdiction over the project.LCL later applied for post facto clearance from MoEF for the first phase of the project, on February 1; Lavasa is being developed in two phases of 2,000 ha and 3,000 ha. Lavasa: About the project Lavasa Corporation Limited (LCL) is developing a hill station township project located 65 km from Pune in the Mose Valley and the backwaters of the calm Warasgaon dam area, set amidst 7 hills and 60 kms of lakefront. It is touted as independent Indias first planned hill city and is one of the largest Infrastructure Projects in the country. A total of 10,000 hectares (= 25,000 acres) land will be used for the project which includes mostly the farm land and private forests or forest like land. The development plan is spread over 20 years and would complete by 2025. It involves dynamic planning in phases. Phase I: Dasve, Mugaon, Bhoni To establish Lavasa Brand .Development will be mostly mixed use with focus on front-loaded economic drivers Phase II: Focus on meeting residential demand driven through development of economic activities and scaling up of tourism, hospitality, and leisure activities Phase III: Sakhari, Wadaval In addition to residential development, focus on developing a commercial business district Phase IV: Bhode, Mose, Saiv Development of the second commercial business district. Statutory Authorities and their responsibilities There are majorly five agencies that are responsible for framing regulatory framework for environment and pollution control. These agencies have different roles to play as far as framing of policies and their application is concerned. This can be easily differentiated in a tabular form: Ministry of Environment Forests (MOEF), Govt. of India Formulate Strategies Policies Formulate rules acts and seek approval from Parliament Interact with Internation agencies Issue Environmental Clearance Permits Implement Nationa Schemes Monitor the process through Regional Offices Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Govt. of India Prepare Technical guidelines Provide technical backup to MOEF Provide laboratory facility, monitor RD Legal Proceedings Implement registration and other schemes Monitor through Zonal Offices Department of Environment (DOEN), State Govt. Formulate policies strategies formulate rules, acts seeks approval from Legislative Assembly Council Co-ordinate with MOEF CPCB Issue Environmental clearance permits State Pollution Control Board (SPCB), State Govt. Consent management of Industries Legal proceedings Projects Planning Monitring aspects Dayal Committee: A 10-member committee, constituted by the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to assess the environment impact of Lavasa project. Environmental concerns violated in Lavasa project An analysis The Lavasa has always been a contentious issue and a controversial project. For years, it has been blamed for the serious environmental damages including flora and fauna and has been criticized by the Ministry of Environment and Forests for quarrying and hill cutting. However, Post reviewing the project, this ministry provided clearance on 9 November 2011 to Lavasa with specific conditions, such as a cessation of hill cutting activities, building of a sewage treatment plant, and anti-poverty CSR measures aimed at the local population. For a one year period from late 2010 to late 2011, construction of Lavasa had to be halted due to orders obtained from the Ministry of Environment and Forests. In late 2010 it ordered Lavasa Corporation to halt further construction for not having gathered proper clearances. Ministry of Environment and Forests found Lavasa to be violating the rules and regulations under the Environment protection act 1986. According to MOEF, LCL (Lavasa Corporation Ltd) is in violation of The EIA Notification, 1994; The EIA Notification, as amended in 2004; and The EIA Notification of 2006. The site visit report has also brought out the nature and magnitude of the environmental damage caused by the project. As such, the construction activity is unauthorized, being in violation of the above three notifications and is also environmentally damaging. Concept: EIA is a tool to assess positive and negative impacts of a project on surrounding area, population, vegetation, flora, fauna, property and overall environment. Components Air Pollution (From Process and Fuel burning) Water Pollution (Industrial process, Effluents and sewage, Treatment and reuse) Land Pollution (Chemical pollution, Waste substances, solid waste, treatment disposal) Noise Pollution Ecology, Flora, Fauna, Fisheries, endangered species Natural Resources (Air, Water, Land, Rivers, Streams, Ponds Lakes, Hills, Forest,) Ecoà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ sensitive zone, Sanctuaries, Migration routes. Archeological sites, Roads, Military Establishments, Schools, Hospitals, Other social centers Socioà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Economy, Rehabilitation, Resettlement, Compensations Disaster Management, Risk Assessment Major Socio-Environmental Concerns Ecology Lavasa is in the province of WESTERN GHATS of INDIA which is among Worlds 20 most ecologically sensitive HOT SPOTS. Also, the UNESCO is considering declaring Western Ghats region as the World Heritage Site according to media reports. Western Ghat is a crucial factor for Monsoon of India and other meteorologically important parameters The committee has recorded that Lavasa has caused massive destruction of the ecology of the area, especially causing grave damages to hills, flora-fauna, water body, etc Land Land belong to Adivasi (Tribal) Land which cant be sold or bought without the permission of the District administration to a Non Tribal entity, in fact that Mulshi and Velhe talukas, where Lavasa is based, is not designated as a tribal district. In 1976, the Govt. of Maharashtra implemented land reforms in the area. A case filed at police by one tribe Bandya Bhau Valhekar is pending at Mulshi The project is spread over 18 villages consisting of various Gaothans (villages). There are some adivasi communities in the affected area and that there has been a large scale diversion of ceiling surplus land which was allotted to these Adivasis and Nomadic Tribes. Also Ceiling land belongs to the landless poor people as per Ceiling Act. (THE URBAN LAND (CEILING AND REGULATION) , ACT, 1976, No. 33 OF 1976) Land has been either by cheating or using muscule power, A poor farmer Dnyaneshwar Shedge has filed a complaint against Lavasa in one such matter The 80 odd Katkari families of tribal stock in this area belong to Raigadh District; 47 of them are living in Mugaon village. They used to come for seasonal agricultural labor to assist local farmers with rice cultivation before the paddy fields were lost to the Warasgaon dam. But when the lands were submerged, the displaced farmers began to cut trees for making charcoal. Many of those that Lavasa purchased land from are not local farmers but people who were living in Pune, Mumbai, Dubai or even London. A good chunk of land was originally bought by a real estate firm called Expat Limited before Lavasa Corporation came into existence. Even today some of the investors of Expat have not sold their lands to Lavasa. Due to isolation, people had to walk 5-6 hr over hilly terrain to reach the nearest city in order to sell forest products like bamboo and charcoal. Consequently, this district became very sparsely populated with a total population of 3117 as per the 2001 census. Water resources Effects on downstream users- Pune and further users, Pollution. The back water of the dams were filled with stone crushing material and also that the villagers expressed that the project has adversely impacted their life and they are not willing to part with their land for any of the project activities. The Varasgaon Dam is an important dam for water supply to Pune city. The Water Recourses Department of Government has sanctioned a quota of 1.03 TMC water to Lavasa, which was supposed to be the 1 month utility of water by Pune city. Due to this reservoir very nearly dries up in the hot summer months leading up to the monsoon. There are claims that water from Varasgaon is diverted to Lavasa and will result in problems in water supply to Pune city. Township Objection to the cutting of hills for making roads, on the other hand it says that the roads were not wide enough for the expected traffic A world Class huge convention centre does not go with the concept of a hill station with only 9 meters access road, without adequate parking provisions. Quite a few residential buildings are without adequate open spaces, set back distances, parking spaces etc Height of buildings was increased from G+2 to G+5, which was illegal in the original hill station policy. Social Unrest Land being acquired by hook or crook. Inadequate compensation. State machinery used to coerce farmers. No proper plans to rehabilitate the farmers affected. Lavasa has been granted permissions in quick time by bending / breaking the law. Land leased for 30 yrs by govt. which in fact will never be returned and is as good as sold. Environment and Environmental Laws It was mandatory for Lavasa to seek PRIOR Environmental Clearance from the appropriate authorities under EIA Notifications 1994, 2004 and 2006. However none of them was obtained from the appropriate authorities. NAPM pointed out this to Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) Govt of India which in turn issued a STOP WORK notice to Lavasa on 25th November 2010. Lavasa moved to High Court against MOEF order, however; the High Court rejected Lavasas request to allow continuation of construction work. The works at project site came to halt. MoEF constituted Dayal Committee and further Ravindran Committee which recommended that Lavasa should be asked to pay 5% of the project cost as the Environment Protection Fund in lieu of the environmental damages caused by it. Dayal Committee Report and its outcome The Dayal committee visited the site from 5th-7th January, 2011 and inspected every Construction, every site of the project, assessed the environmental state and accordingly submitted the report to the MoEF which included a list of damages that the LCL has caused to the environment conditions .However the chairman of the committee is being criticized for pointing out very Minor issue and damages to the environment. After three days of on-the-spot assessment, the 11-member team of Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) declared that the Lavasa project had caused no destruction of forests. The statement given by the chairman Mr. Dayal of the committee was Prima facie, forest destruction does not seem to have happened in case of Lavasa. The committee also reported that no reduction in water supply to Pune city was found to have occurred as a result of the project. The Dayal committee apparently gave a clean-chit to Lavasa mainly on two issues: Impact on forests and environment Impact on the water supply to Pune city Differing Issues: MOEF Lavasa Corporation Limited LCL (Lavasa Corporation Ltd) is in violation of (i) the EIA Notification, 1994; (ii) the EIA Notification, as amended in 2004; and (iii) the EIA Notification of 2006. The site visit report has also brought out the nature and magnitude of the environmental damage caused by the project. As such, the construction activity is unauthorised, being in violation of the above three notifications and is also environmentally damaging. The MoEF order is more on jurisdiction than on environment issues. However, having regard to the above but taking into account all the facts and circumstances of the case, particularly the submissions made with regard to the investments already incurred, third-party rights which are accrued, the various steps taken for establishment of a comprehensive hill station development, the employment generated and the claimed upliftment of the area under consideration, MoEF (Ministry of Environement and Forests) is prepared to consider the project on merits with the imposition of various terms and conditions, including the following: The payment of substantial penalty for the violation of environmental laws, which is incontrovertible; Over and above the penalty, creation of an Environmental Restoration Fund (ERF) by LCL with sufficiently large corpus which would be managed by an independent body with various stakeholders under the overall supervision of MoEF; Imposition of stringent terms and conditions, to ensure that no further environmental degradation takes place and that any degradation that has already occurred would be rectified within a time-bound schedule. MoEF does not have objective and measurable norms. Therefore, instead of restricting themselves to environmental issues, it has resorted to questioning state government jurisdiction, Special Planning Authority, MKVDC land transfer, land purchase, Lavasa master plan approval by collector, Hill Station policy, regional development plan, MRTP Act, etc. These haves nothing to do with environmental issues. Naresh Dayal, chairman of the technical committee, after completing his site visit made a statement to the media in Pune that there was no major environmental degradation and yet the report seems to magnify minor environmental issues to justify continuance of the stop work order. There were more than 1,000 villagers supporting Lavasa, whereas those supporting Medha Patkar were a mere dozen. Yet the committee gives more space to highlighting issues of Patkars supporters. Any road under construction in hilly regions requires cutting which looks harsh and bare initially. Reference photographs included in the report only show such roads in the early stages of construction and which were only about 5 km in length. It has conveniently kept out the photographs of over 100 km of roads that have been completed with enhanced green cover. Conclusion: With all the above observations carried out by the government constituted committee, post-facto green signal to Phase-I of Lavasa by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) given on the November 9th , 2011 was widely condemned by many intellectual groups and was declared as a  blot on the democratic process. It also created a shockingly dangerous precedent in the history of environmental action in India. MoEFs improper action has in fact sent shock-waves to eco-activists within the country and also across the world. Although it is not the first time in the long history of Indian Environmental clearance regime that political highhandedness has been used to subvert rule of law and the ends of justice, this case is unique since the  clearance has disregarded well established evidence based on facts collected by no other than the MoEF itself. It is surprising that the Ministrys decision has come in the wake of the case filed by the Maharashtra government against 15 perso ns including promoters of Lavasa Corporation for alleged violations of the Environment Protection Act (EPA), while the Maharashtra Chief Minister on the other hand has recommended that Lavasa be considered for environmental clearance, exposed the  double standards of the state government.

Nurse Practitioners as Primary Care Providers Essay -- Health Care, Th

Nurse Practitioners as Primary Care Providers Every individual in the world deserves to enjoy health and wellness. Maintaining or achieving proper health needs enables individuals to be productive at work and leisure. Traditionally, many people have had barriers obtaining adequate healthcare due to economic constraints or personal inconveniences. Despite impressive technological advances in medicine, the challenge of delivering quality healthcare to the Americans continues to be debated amongst the nation’s political and healthcare leaders. The aging baby-boomers and the increased number of uninsured people add to the equation of population growth which results in limited access to primary healthcare for the entire public. On the other hand, this has ignited the need for advanced practiced registered nurses to unveil the profession’s fullest potential. Nurse practitioners have been called to the public to meet the demand for safe and convenient healthcare. These academically and clinically well prepared nurs e practitioners demonstrate their knowledge, skill and leadership in the communities (Hansen-Turton, Miller, Nash, Ryan, & Counts, n.d.). Due to the magnified concerns for additional access to healthcare, ANA has supported nurse practitioners’ ongoing work in retail-based health clinics to reflect a positive movement towards accurate, quality medical care for all citizens. Since the year 2000, the nurse practitioners have been employed by convenience care clinics or retail clinics such as Minute Clinic and Take Care Health Systems. Either independently owned or as commercial chains, the retail clinics staff a family nurse practitioner or a physician’s assistant that offer the convenient location and evening hours... ...istered nurse should have a clear understanding about the prevailing need for advanced practice nurses in our communities. Next, all nurses must realize the need to convene as one voice in order to participate in the transformation process that affects the nursing profession. In fact, the influential nursing voice representing the largest healthcare workforce can substantially impact the policies and reform that affect our communities. Equally important, nurses should prepare to improve clinical and communication skills in preparation to accept more responsibilities for promoting and managing today’s healthcare complexities. Nurse Practitioners in retail care clinics, demonstrating skill and artistry as primary care providers, symbolize the positive transformation the nursing profession is engaged with in fulfilling the urgent needs of the communities.

Buchi Emechetas The Joys of Motherhood as an African Feminist Text Ess

Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood as an African Feminist Text Upon my first reading of Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood, I immediately rejoiced--in this novel, I had finally encountered an account of a female protagonist in colonial and postcolonial African life. In my hands rested a work that gave names and voices to the silent, forgotten mothers and co-wives of novels by male African writers such as Chinua Achebe. Emecheta, I felt, provided a much-needed glimpse into the world of the African woman, a world harsher than that of the African male because woman is doubly marginalized. As a female in Africa, the opposite of male, woman suffers sexual oppression; as an African, the opposite of white in an ever-colonized nation, the African woman also suffers racial oppression. Nnu Ego, Emecheta's protagonist, became at once for me the poster female of Africa, a representative of all subjugated African women, and her story alerted me to all the wrongs committed against African women, wrongs that could only be righted through feminist discours e. As with many surface readings I have performed as a student of literature, however, my perspective on The Joys of Motherhood began to evolve. First, I realized and accepted Nnu Ego's failure to react against oppressive forces in order to bring about change for herself and the daughters of Africa; I consoled myself, reasoning that the novel still deserves the feminist label because it calls attention to the plight of the African woman and because its author and protagonist are female. Rereading the novel, however, also triggered the silencing of my initial response. I focused on such passages as the dying wish of Ona, Nnu Ego's mother, who implored Agbadi, Nnu Ego's father, ... ...econd African Writers Conference, Stockholm, 1986. Ed. Kirsten Holst Petersen. Upsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1998. 173-202. ---. The Joys of Motherhood. New York: George Braziller, 1979. Nnoromele, Salome C. "Representing the African Woman: Subjectivity and Self in The Joys of Motherhood." Critique 43.2 (2002): 178-190. Ogundipe-Leslie, Molora. "The Female Writer and Her Commitment." Women in African Literature Today. Ed. Eldred Durosimi Jones. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1987. 5-14. Okeke, Phil E. "Reconfiguring Tradition: Women's Rights and Social Status in Contemporary Nigeria." Africa Today 47.1 (2000): 49-63. Schipper, Mineke. "Mother Africa on a Pedestal: The Male Heritage in African Literature and Criticism." Women in African Literature Today. Ed. Eldred Durosimi Jones. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1987. 35-53.

Why People Gamble Essays -- Gambling Addiction Money Essays

Why People Gamble For centuries, people have indulged in different types of gambling: poker, horse races, bingo, lottery, and slot machines. Gambling has seduced any and almost everyone between the ages of sixteen and ninety years old. Before turning eighteen, the legal age of casino and horse race admittance, those younger make monetary bets on football and high school stunts. Gambling is even more prevalent today than it was yesterday with the added attraction of on-line casinos, offering jackpot equivalent to twenty years salary in exchange for a credit card / debit card number. Gambling was suppressed in the 1920's as a result of Prohibition and because of this will forever lure people into its taboo trap. Gambling as sport is hard to resist because it offers immediate gratification. Not only is there a chance that you may quadruple the amount of money that you lay down, a literal payoff, but there is also a feeling of hope, an alternate limbo between reality and fantasy that can be translated int o a sort of mental payoff. The question is: is it all about the money? It couldn't be all about the money, unless the general public was extremely stupid. The odds of winning the lottery are lesser than the odds of someone being struck by lightning (1 in 649,739) or than someone being killed by a terrorist attack abroad (1 in 650,000). (7). It has been said, "If you bought 100 tickets a week your entire adult life, from the age of 18 to 75, you'd have a 1 percent chance of winning the lottery". (7) Now, a number of psychological studies have been done which indicate that the desire to play the lottery has more to do with the inability or unconcern of a person to calculate the total sum of their own money over time spent of th... ...ody responds well to their desire to gamble, to diversify, to extend their minds and risk. Whether it be monetary, behavioral or just plain desire to risk, humans are drawn towards the new and the chancy. It is the danger of loss and the thrill of life that keeps us breathing. Works Consulted: 1)Alvarez,A. The Biggest Game in Town. New York: Chronicle Books, 2002. 2)Brunson,Doyle. Doyle Brunson's Super System. Cardoza Pub, 1979. 3)Dostoeyevsky,Fyodor. The Gambler. New York: Viking Press, 1966. Sources Consulted: 4)http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/new/gamb-fin.htm 5)http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010524062100.htm 6)http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0004400A-E6F5-1C5E-B882809EC588ED9F 7)http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001309.html 8)http://www.reflection-idea.com/psychics.html 9)http://hanson.gmu.edu/gamble.html Why People Gamble Essays -- Gambling Addiction Money Essays Why People Gamble For centuries, people have indulged in different types of gambling: poker, horse races, bingo, lottery, and slot machines. Gambling has seduced any and almost everyone between the ages of sixteen and ninety years old. Before turning eighteen, the legal age of casino and horse race admittance, those younger make monetary bets on football and high school stunts. Gambling is even more prevalent today than it was yesterday with the added attraction of on-line casinos, offering jackpot equivalent to twenty years salary in exchange for a credit card / debit card number. Gambling was suppressed in the 1920's as a result of Prohibition and because of this will forever lure people into its taboo trap. Gambling as sport is hard to resist because it offers immediate gratification. Not only is there a chance that you may quadruple the amount of money that you lay down, a literal payoff, but there is also a feeling of hope, an alternate limbo between reality and fantasy that can be translated int o a sort of mental payoff. The question is: is it all about the money? It couldn't be all about the money, unless the general public was extremely stupid. The odds of winning the lottery are lesser than the odds of someone being struck by lightning (1 in 649,739) or than someone being killed by a terrorist attack abroad (1 in 650,000). (7). It has been said, "If you bought 100 tickets a week your entire adult life, from the age of 18 to 75, you'd have a 1 percent chance of winning the lottery". (7) Now, a number of psychological studies have been done which indicate that the desire to play the lottery has more to do with the inability or unconcern of a person to calculate the total sum of their own money over time spent of th... ...ody responds well to their desire to gamble, to diversify, to extend their minds and risk. Whether it be monetary, behavioral or just plain desire to risk, humans are drawn towards the new and the chancy. It is the danger of loss and the thrill of life that keeps us breathing. Works Consulted: 1)Alvarez,A. The Biggest Game in Town. New York: Chronicle Books, 2002. 2)Brunson,Doyle. Doyle Brunson's Super System. Cardoza Pub, 1979. 3)Dostoeyevsky,Fyodor. The Gambler. New York: Viking Press, 1966. Sources Consulted: 4)http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/new/gamb-fin.htm 5)http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010524062100.htm 6)http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0004400A-E6F5-1C5E-B882809EC588ED9F 7)http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001309.html 8)http://www.reflection-idea.com/psychics.html 9)http://hanson.gmu.edu/gamble.html

The Human Impacts of Tectonic Landforms and Hazards

Even today there are people who do not understand why or where tectonic activity takes place. Tectonic activity does not only take place at plate boundaries – intra-plate earthquakes, e.g. Bam, Iran. This leads people to think it won’t happen to them. The developing world has fewer resources or expertise to study the natural environment (or human environment) – methods to identify areas at risk may not exist (e.g. poorer levels of education), especially if the area is not very active. Read this Ch. 22 Respiratory System Pompeii – a classic case of ignorance to disaster. The lack of an eruption in ‘living memory’ led many to believe that Vesuvius was dormant. In 79AD there was no expectation of an eruption – people were caught completely unaware. At the time, the science was not understood – many believed the eruption, and preceding earth tremors were the gods’ anger. Choice: Some people know the risks, but lack financial resources, or have close links to family in the area, and are therefore unable/unwilling to move. Other choose to stay, as the benefits outweigh the costs, e.g. Southern California – well paid jobs and a pleasant climate outweigh concerns over earthquake risk. The benefits of tectonically active areas: Minerals and natural resources – volcanoes bring valuable resources to the surface of the earth, e.g. Diamonds, copper, gold. Seafloor volcanoes contribute to the accumulation of metals, e.g. zinc, lead – mining industries. Fertile soils – volcanic material breaks down through weathering to provide nutrients (minerals) for plant growth. Geothermal energy. Tourism and associated employment, e.g. hotels, transport, tour guides. Heat and pressure turn organic matter into deposits of oil and gas. Impacts on people and possessions: The severity of the impacts depends on physical factors (e.g. event profiles, geology, terrain) and human factors (e.g. population density). Physical impacts on people: Damage/destruction of property and infrastructure. Volcanoes – luckily  ¾ of erupted lava is from underwater volcanoes, much of it along ocean ridges, so the impact is minor. The greatest risk is at destructive plate margins. Most active volcanoes are found in the developing world, e.g. Latin america, the Caribbean, parts of Asia and the south-west Pacific. Increased urbanisation and population growth concentrates people and infrastructure. Earthquakes – the worst earthquakes are not necessarily those with the largest magnitude. The worst impacts are felt in densely populated areas and areas with high vulnerability. Economic impacts on people: These can be direct or indirect. Often greater in developed countries than developing countries. Direct impacts include capital goods and equipment destroyed. They can occur immediately, or later as a result of follow-on damage or deterioration. Indirect impacts occur as a result of interruption to commercial systems, lost wages, and lost opportunities to do business. Macroeconomic impacts are felt across the whole economy of the community, region, or in the worst case the whole nation. The Northridge earthquake (California, 1994) – 60 deaths but US$30 billion in economic impact, as it hit dense infrastructure in the San Fernando Valley. Social impacts on people: Human life is irreplaceable. Volcanoes – most impact on human life is due to pyroclastic flows or lahars (e.g. Nevado del Ruiz). Earthquakes – tsunamis are particularly terrifying. The 1883 Krakatau eruption triggered tsunamis that killed 36 000 and destroyed 165 coastal villages. The impact on human life is usually greater from earthquakes than from volcanic eruptions. Primary casualties – those killed/injured directly by the event. Usually greater in developing countries than developed. Secondary casualties – those that survive the event itself but die/are injured due to insufficient resources or lack of medical care. Again, usually greater in developing countries than developed. Tertiary casualties – those with pre-existing medical conditions that are aggravated by the event. Includes those who become ill/die. For example, through disease contracted in the post-disaster environment. In developing countries, these are often the largest group of casualties. Poverty reduces the capacity to reduce the impacts, or to recover. Environmental degradation reduces natural impact buffers, e.g. mangrove removal (Indian Ocean, 2004), and therefore contributes to delaying recovery time. Note: to more accurately compare the impacts in developed and developing countries, it is better to use damage cost as a % of GDP, as developed countries have more infrastructure, etc., to be damaged. The absolute costs may be lower in a developing country, but the relative costs (as a % of GDP) are likely to be much higher.

Building a 21st Century Organization

The power and versatility of the human visual system derive in large part from its remarkable ability to find structure and organization in the images encoded by the retinas. To discover and describe structure, the visual system uses a wide array of perceptual organization mechanisms ranging from the relatively low-level mechanisms that underlie the simplest principles of grouping and segregation, to relatively high-level mechanisms in which complex learned associations guide the discovery of structure.The Gestalt psychologists were the first to fully appreciate the fundamental importance of perceptual organization (e. g. , see Kohler, 1947; Pomerantz & Kubovy, 1986). Objects often appear in different contexts and are almost never imaged from the same viewpoint; thus, the retinal images associated with physical objects are generally complex and varied. To have any hope of obtaining a useful interpretation of the retinal images, such as recognizing objects that have been encountered p reviously, there must be initial processes that organize the image data into those groups most likely to form meaningful objects.Perceptual organization is also important because it generally results in highly compact representations of the images, facilitating later processing, storage, and retrieval. (See Witkin & Tenenbaum, 1983, for a discussion of the importance of perceptual organization from the viewpoint of computational vision. ) Although much has been learned about the mechanisms of perceptual organization (see, e. g. , Beck, 1982; Bergen, 1991; Palmer & Rock, 1994; Pomerantz & Kubovy, 1986), progress in developing testable quantitative theories has been slow.One area where substantial progress has been made is in models of texture grouping and segregation. These models have begun to put the study of perceptual organization on a firm theoretical footing that is consistent with the psychophysics and physiology of low-level vision. Two general types of model for texture segr egation have been proposed. In the feature-based models, retinal images are initially processed by mechanisms that find specific features, such as edge segments, line segments, blobs, and terminators.Grouping and segregation are then accomplished by finding the image regions that contain the same feature or cluster of features (see, e. g. , Julesz, 1984, 1986; Marr, 1982; Treisman, 1985). These models are relatively simple, are consistent with some aspects of low-level vision, and have been able to account for a range of experimental results. In the filter-based models, retinal images are initially processed by tuned channels, for example, â€Å"contrast-energy† channels selective for size and orientation.Grouping and segregation are then accomplished by finding those image regions with approximately constant output from one or more channels (Beck, Sutter, & Ivry, 1987; Bergen & Landy, 1991; Bovik, Clark, & Geisler, 1990; Caelli, 1988; Chubb & Sperling, 1988; Clark, Bovik, & Geisler, 1987; Fogel & Sagi, 1989; Graham, Sutter, & Venkatesan, 1993; Victor, 1988; Victor & Conte, 1991; Wilson & Richards, 1992).These models have some advantages over the existing feature-based models: They can be applied to arbitrary images, they are generally more consistent with known low-level mechanisms in the visual system, and they have proven capable of accounting for a wider range of experimental results. However, the current models do not make accurate predictions for certain important classes of stimuli. One class of stimuli are those that contain regions of texture that can be segregated only on the basis of local structure (i. e. , shape).Another broad class of stimuli for which most current perceptual organization models do not make adequate predictions are those containing nonstationary structures; specifically, structures that change smoothly and systematically across space. Nonstationary structures are the general rule in natural images because of perspective pr ojection, and because many natural objects are the result of some irregular growth or erosion process. A simple example of a nonstationary structure would be a contour formed by a sequence of line segments (a dashed contour) embedded in a background of randomly oriented line segments.Such contours are usually easily picked out by human observers. However, the elements of the contours cannot be grouped by the mechanisms contained in current filter-based or feature-based models, because no single orientation channel or feature is activated across the whole contour. Grouping the elements of such contours requires some kind of contour integration process that binds the successive contour elements together on the basis of local similarity. A more complex example of a nonstationary structure would be an image of wood grain.Such a texture contains many contours whose spacing, orientation, and curvature vary smoothly across the image. Again, such textures are easily grouped by human observe rs but cannot be grouped by the mechanisms contained in the current models. Grouping the contour elements of such textures requires some form of texture integration (the two-dimensional analogue of contour integration). The heart of the problem for existing quantitative models of grouping and segregation is that they do not represent the structure of the image data with the richness achieved by the human visual system.The human visual system apparently represents image information in an elaborate hierarchical fashion that captures many of the spatial, temporal, and chromatic relationships among the entities grouped at each level of the hierarchy. Grouping and segregation based on simple feature distinctions or channel responses may well be an important initial component of perceptual organization, but the final organization that emerges must depend on more sophisticated processes.The major theoretical aim of this study was to develop a framework for constructing and testing models o f perceptual organization that capture some of the richness and complexity of the representations extracted by the human visual system, and yet are computationally well defined and biologically possible. Within this framework, we have developed a model of perceptual organization for two-dimensional (2D) line images and evaluated it on a number of â€Å"textbook† perceptual organization demonstrations.In this article we refer to this model as the extended model when it is necessary to distinguish it from a simplified version, the restricted model, described later. Perceptual organization must depend in some way on detected similarities and differences between image elements. Furthermore, it is obvious that similarities and differences along many different stimulus dimensions can contribute to the organization that is perceived. Although there have been many studies of individual stimulus dimensions, there have been few systematic attempts to study how multiple dimensions inter act (Beck et al., 1987; Fahle & Abele, 1996; Li & Lennie, 1996). The major experimental aim of this study was to measure how multiple stimulus dimensions are combined to determine grouping strength between image elements. To this end, we conducted a series of three-pattern grouping experiments to directly measure the tradeoffs among two, three, or four stimulus dimensions at a time. Predictions for these experiments were generated by a restricted version of the model appropriate for the experimental task. The experimental results provided both a test for the restricted model and a means of estimating the model's parameters.The estimated parameter values were used to generate the predictions of the extended model for complex patterns. The next four sections describe, respectively, the theoretical framework, the restricted model, the experiments and results, and the extended model and demonstrations. Theoretical Framework for Perceptual Organization In this section we discuss four imp ortant components of perceptual organization: hierarchical representation, detection of primitives, detection of similarities and differences among image parts, and mechanisms for grouping image parts.These components taken together form the theoretical framework on which the restricted and extended quantitative models are based. Hierarchical Representation It is evident that the mechanisms of perceptual organization yield a rich hierarchical representation that describes the relationship of â€Å"parts† to â€Å"wholes† at a number of levels; that is, the wholes at one level often become the parts at the next level. However, there is evidence that the process by which the hierarchical representation is constructed does not proceed strictly either from local to global or from global to local.The global structure of a large letter composed of small letters can be discovered before the structure of the individual small letters is discovered (Navon, 1977), and there exist ambiguous figures, such as R. C. James's classic Dalmatian dog, that can be solved locally only after at least some of the global structure is discovered. On the other hand, the discovery of structure must sometimes proceed from local to global; for example, it would be hard to extract the symmetry of a complex object without first extracting some of the structure of its subobjects.Any well-specified theory of perceptual organization must define what is meant by parts, wholes, and relationships between parts and wholes. Given the current state of knowledge, all definitions, including the ones we have adopted, must be tentative. Nonetheless, some basic definitions must be made in order to form working models. In our framework, the most primitive objects are defined on the basis of the current understanding of image encoding in the primary visual cortex of the primate visual system.Higher order objects are defined to be collections of lower order objects (which may include primitive objects), together with information about the relationships between the lower order objects. The range of relationships that the visual system can discover, the order and speed with which they are discovered, and the mechanisms used to find them are unsettled issues. As a starting point the relationships we consider are quantitative similarities and differences in size, position, orientation, color, and shape.These dimensions were picked for historical and intuitive reasons: They are major categories in human language and therefore are likely to correspond to perceptually important categories. The precise definitions of these dimensions of similarity between objects are given later. Detection of Primitives: Receptive-Field Matching One of the simplest mechanisms for detecting structure within an image is receptive-field matching, in which relatively hard-wired circuits are used to detect the different spatial patterns of interest.For example, simple cells in the primary visual corte x of monkeys behave approximately like hard-wired templates: A strong response from a simple cell indicates the presence of a local image pattern with a position, orientation, size (spatial frequency), and phase (e. g. , even or odd symmetry) similar to that of the receptive-field profile (Hubel & Wiesel, 1968; for a review, see DeValois & DeValois, 1988). The complex cells in the primary visual cortex are another example.A strong response from a typical complex cell indicates a particular position, orientation, and spatial frequency independent of the spatial phase (Hubel & Wiesel, 1968; DeValois & DeValois, 1988). Receptive field matching may occur in areas other than the primary visual cortex, and may involve detection of image structures other than local luminance or chromatic contours, for example, structures such as phase discontinuities (von der Heydt & Peterhans, 1989) and simple radially symmetric patterns (Gallant, Braun, & Van Essen, 1993).An important aspect of receptive -field matching in the visual cortex is that the information at each spatial location is encoded by a large number of neurons, each selective to a particular size or scale. The population as a whole spans a wide range of scales and hence provides a â€Å"multiresolution† or â€Å"multiscale† representation of the retinal images (see, e. g. , DeValois & DeValois, 1988). This multiresolution representation may play an important role in perceptual organization.For example, grouping of low-resolution information may be used to constrain grouping of high-resolution information, and vice versa. The quantitative models described here assume that receptive-field matching provides the primitives for the subsequent perceptual organization mechanisms. However, to hold down the complexity of the models, the receptive-field matching stage is restricted to include only units similar to those of cortical simple cells with small receptive fields. These units proved sufficient for the line pattern stimuli used in the experiments and demonstrations.Receptive-field matching is practical only for a few classes of simple image structure, such as contour segments; it is unreasonable to suppose that there are hard-wired receptive fields for every image structure that the visual system is able to detect, because of the combinatorial explosion in the number of receptive-field shapes that would be required. Thus, there must be additional, more flexible, mechanisms for detecting similarities and differences among image regions. These are discussed next. Similarity/Difference Detection MechanismsStructure exists within an image if and only if some systematic similarities and differences exist between regions in the image. Thus, at the heart of any perceptual organization system there must be mechanisms that match or compare image regions to detect similarities and differences. (For this discussion, the reader may think of image regions as either parts of an image or as grou ps of detected primitives. ) Transformational matching A well-known general method of comparing image regions is to find out how well the regions can be mapped onto each other, given certain allowable transformations (see, e.g. , Neisser, 1967; Pitts & McCulloch, 1947; Rosenfeld & Kak, 1982; Shepard & Cooper, 1982; Ullman, 1996). The idea is, in effect, to use one image region as a transformable template for comparison with another image region. If the regions closely match, following application of one of the allowable transformations, then a certain similarity between the image regions has been detected. Furthermore, the specific transformation that produces the closest match provides information about the differences between the image regions.For example, consider an image that contains two groups of small line segment primitives detected by receptive-field matching, such that each group of primitives forms a triangle. If some particular translation, rotation, and scaling of one of the groups brings it into perfect alignment with the other group then we would know that the two groups are identical in shape, and from the aligning transformation itself we would know how much the two groups differ in position, orientation, and size. There are many possible versions of transformational matching, and thus it represents a broad class of similarity-detection mechanisms.Transformational matching is also very powerful—there is no relationship between two image regions that cannot be described given an appropriately general set of allowable transformations. Thus, although there are other plausible mechanisms for detecting similarities and differences between image regions (see section on attribute matching), transformational matching is general enough to serve as a useful starting point for developing and evaluating quantitative models of perceptual organization. Use of both spatial position and colorThe most obvious form of transformational matching is based on standard template matching; that is, maximizing the correlation between the two image regions under the family of allowable transformations. However, template matching has a well-known limitation that often produces undesirable results. To understand the problem, note that each point in the two image regions is described by a position and a color. The most general form of matching would consist of comparing both the positions and colors of the points. However, standard template matching compares only the colors (e. g. , gray levels 2 ) at like positions.If the points cannot be lined up in space then large match errors may occur even though the positional errors may be small. A more useful and plausible form of matching mechanism would treat spatial and color information more equivalently by comparing both the spatial positions and the colors of the points or parts making up the objects. For such mechanisms, if the colors of the objects are identical then similarity is determined solely by how well the spatial coordinates of the points or parts making up the objects can be aligned and on the values of the spatial transformations that bring them into the best possible alignment.In other words, when the colors are the same, then the matching error is described by differences in spatial position. For such mechanisms, B matches A better than B matches C, in agreement with intuition. Later we describe a simple matching mechanism that simultaneously compares both the spatial positions and the colors of object points. We show that this mechanism produces matching results that are generally more perceptually sensible than those of template matching. Attribute matchingAnother well-known method of comparing groups is to measure various attributes or properties of the groups, and then represent the differences in the groups by differences in the measured attributes (see, e. g. , Neisser, 1967; Rosenfeld & Kak, 1982; Selfridge, 1956; Sutherland, 1957). These attributes might be simple measures, such as the mean and variance of the color, position, orientation, or size of the primitives in a group, or they might be more complex measures, such as the invariant shape moments. It is likely that perceptual organization in the human visual system involves both transformational matching and attribute matching.However, the specific models considered here involve transformational matching exclusively. The primary reason is that perceptual organization models based on transformational matching have relatively few free parameters, yet they are sensitive to differences in image structure—an essential requirement for moving beyond existing filter- and feature-based models. For example, a simple transformational matching mechanism (described later) can detect small differences in arbitrary 2D shapes without requiring an explicit description of the shapes.On the other hand, specifying an attribute-matching model that can detect small differences in arbitr ary shapes requires specifying a set of attributes that can describe all the relevant details of arbitrary shapes. This type of model would require many assumptions and/or free parameters. Our current view is that transformational matching (or something like it) may be the central mechanism for similarity/difference detection and that it is supplemented by certain forms of attribute matching. Matching groups to categoriesThe discussion so far has assumed implicitly that transformational and attribute matching occur between different groups extracted from the image. However, it is obvious that the brain is also able to compare groups with stored information because this is essential for memory. Thus, the visual system may also measure similarities and differences between groups and stored categories, and perform subsequent grouping using these similarities and differences. These stored categories might be represented by prototypes or sets of attributes.Rather than use stored categori es, the visual system could also measure similarities and differences to categories that emerge during the perceptual processing of the image. For example, the visual system could extract categories corresponding to prevalent colors within the image, and then perform subsequent grouping on the basis of similarities between the colors of image primitives and these emergent color categories. Grouping Mechanisms Once similarities and differences among image parts are discovered, then the parts may be grouped into wholes.These wholes may then be grouped to form larger wholes, resegregated into a different collection of parts, or both. However, it is important to keep in mind that some grouping can occur before all of the relevant relationships between the parts have been discovered. For example, it is possible to group together all image regions that have a similar color, before discovering the geometrical relationships among the regions. As further relationships are discovered, the rep resentations of wholes may be enriched, new wholes may be formed, or wholes may be broken into new parts and reformed.Thus, the discovery of structure is likely to be an asynchronous process that operates simultaneously at multiple levels, often involving an elaborate interleaving of similarity/difference detection and grouping. Within the theoretical framework proposed here we consider one grouping constraint—the generalized uniqueness principle—and three grouping mechanisms: transitive grouping, nontransitive grouping, and multilevel grouping. The uniqueness principle and the grouping mechanisms can be applied at multiple levels and can be interleaved with similarity/difference detection.Generalized uniqueness principle The uniqueness principle proposed here is more general: it enforces the constraint that at any time, and at any level in the hierarchy, a given object (part) can be assigned to only one superordinate object (whole). An object at the lowest level (a pr imitive) in the hierarchy can be assigned to only one object at the next level, which in turn can be assigned to only one object at the next level, and so on. The sequence of nested objects in the hierarchy containing a given object is called the part–whole path of the object.The generalized uniqueness principle, if valid, constrains the possible perceptual organizations that can be found by the visual system. Nontransitive grouping Our working hypothesis is that similarity in spatial position (proximity) contributes weakly to nontransitive grouping. If proximity were making a dominant contribution, then separated objects could not bind together separately from the background objects. 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