Predictors of Interracial Dating and Marriage Essay

Interracial relationships and marriages have long been in existence. It was an inevitable outcome of the migration of various other races to the United States since the time of the Mayflower. Such relationships have weathered the height of social discrimination way back during the human rights movements of the sixties and have evolved from the shadows to the forefront of today’s open and well-balanced relationships between a man and a woman. In the United States, it has always been people from the same social class or those financially equal who end up marrying, it is not necessarily out of love. These parings are usually done in order to preserve a certain social order and it works just fine most of the time. It becomes socially unacceptable therefore for someone of a lower or more inferior social position to â€Å"marry up† and make things unpleasant for the couple because their families and friends often get involved and make dating a living hell for the couple. My researches for this paper have proven to me that skin color has never been an issue for any of the interracial couple. Skin color and race have no bearing on their common interests, goals, ambitions, and beliefs in life. The aforementioned are the key predictors in whether their relationship will work or not and for how long in any normal relationship. Even though such relationships have to usually struggle for acceptance in society, the couples involved do not even notice it anymore because to them, they are simply normal human beings in love with one another. Although interracial couplings made up only 2. 9 percent of marriages since 2002 according to the United States Census Bureau, these marriages seem to last longer and seem to be very widely discussed amongst local populations. It is my opinion that 2 social norms, beliefs and traditions most often dictate who we should have a relationship with and eventually end up starting a family with, these very norms are also the reason why such traditional hook-ups fail. In the case of a relationship, the difference in race, traditions, and beliefs work to keep the pairing interesting since it becomes a learning experience for both parties. A marriage is a union of two souls that become one. It is also a life long learning experience for the spouses as they learn about their varied traditions and beliefs and work with each other towards making those clashing beliefs gel and work towards solidifying the union. The people of the 21st century have seemingly decided to turn a blind eye towards interracial couplings. This may be because the United States has become a melting pot for not only the African- Americans, but for the Asians and Hispanics as well. The greater predictor of whom one will most likely choose to love and marry is no longer based on social norms but on personal preferences regardless of skin color, race, and social standing. An estimated 46. 3 million Americans, with ages ranging from 14-24 compose the Millennial Generation, who no longer believe that race is an issue. Instead they set out looking for others who share common perspectives and interests with them. The modern relationships they are involved in are based in multi-cultural diversity and inclusions. Television programs such as Grey’s Anatomy further help to erase the great racial divide as they provide story lines with interracial couplings, such as the Korean Christina Yang and her immediate superior Preston Burke, who happens to be an African-American. Though different as night and day, their relationship simply works, and never 3 was their culture, race, or skin color called into question by their friends, relatives, and co-workers. Instead, they have had to struggle to make their relationship work because of their personal, not racial, differences; the fact that they are an interracial couple makes them interesting to get to know. In an effort to become a politically correct nation, we have become a race of people suffering from â€Å"color-mute syndrome†. It teaches us not to be a racist person by acknowledging a person’s color or race. We are all becoming involved in the process of learning to choose our friends, lovers, and companion solely on the basis of common ground. Race is no longer an issue these days. It is no longer a make or break factor in relationships because we have learned to see beyond color and race, and all the way into a person’s heart and soul. We no longer judge a person by his skin color. A man no longer carries a stigma because of belonging to a certain race or skin color. There are no longer limitations as to who you can be and whom you can be with. Karina Anglada, a 17-year-old High School senior in Chicago who hails from Puerto Rican roots says, † It goes beyond that to whom you get along with. † That in my own personal opinion, is the greater predictor of whom you might choose to love and marry regardless of social indicators. Works Cited: Sharon Jayson. February 8, 2006. New Generation Doesn’t Blink at Interracial Relationships. USA TODAY. February 8, 2006. Retrieved December 30, 2006 from http://www. usatoday. com/news/nation/2006-02-07-colorblind_x. htm Mary Ann Albright. Love Sees No Color. Corvallis Gazette-Times. December 11, 2004. Retrieved January 2, 2007 from http://www. gazettetimes. com/articles/2004/12/12/news/top_story/sunloc01. txt

Speech About Vacation

Preparation outline for Persuasive Speech Specific purpose: To persuade my audience to support the legislation to provide everyone with four weeks paid vacation Central Idea: Adopted paid vacation legislation in the USA will help us to stay healthy, avoid stress and bond with our family. Introduction Attention: I. Do you know that more than 147 countries, including all developed countries, now have a law that guaranties paid vacation to every employee? But the United States is the only industrial country in the world which doesn’t have any legislation about it.What is more, from 1980 to present day we moved from 11th place in the world to 42nd based on vacation longevity, and we spend almost 2 months more at work each year than Western Europeans. II. I am personally also affected by absence of vacation legislation. I have two part time jobs, but unfortunately both my employers do not give me any paid vacation time. My story is not unique, because today in US around 60% of part -time workers don’t receive paid vacation benefits. III. Today, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to encourage you to support the legislation to provide everyone with four weeks paid vacation.Transition: We’ll start by looking at necessity to adopt the paid vacation legislation. Body Need I. Today in the United Stated vacation became a luxury for many Americans, and it is unreasonably short and can only voluntarily be provided by employers as a benefit. A. According to a study commissioned by Expedia. com, 13 days is the average vacation time in the U. S. 1. Average vacation time among the other countries – chart. (Expedia. com and Ray) 2. The Bureau of Labor Statistics a. 1 in 4 workers – no paid vacation b. 40% of American women earning less than $40,000 a year – no paid annual leave . Low-wage and part time workers and employees of small businesses a. Rebecca Ray in her publication No-vacation nation only 35% of part-time workers in the U. S. h ave a paid vacation. B. Paid vacation in the U. S. is only voluntarily provided by organizations.1. Vacation formula is based on years of service. a. Society for Human Resources Management – employees in middle and large-sized companies – work for 25 years to get a 4 week (Ray). C. American work-life is out of balance and we are losing necessary vacation time to stay healthy, avoid stress and bond with our family. . The U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: an average American works one month per year more today than in 1976. 2. Burnout and stress – lack of vacation time, timeday. com: it costs the U. S. economy over $300 billion a year. 3. Men who don’t take regular vacation are 32% more likely to die of a heart attack, and 21% more likely to die early of all causes. Women have 50% more risk of a heart attack. (www. timeday. org) 4. â€Å"Vacations are so important for family bonding†, said William Doherty, professor of Family Social Science at the Un iversity of Minnesota.The strong memories from childhood involve family vacations. And yet fewer families are taking them now (right2vacation. com). Transition: Now that you know the need of paid vacation legislation let’s look what can be done about it. Satisfaction: II. The lack of vacation time is a serious problem in the United States and the only way to solve this is to adopt a law guaranteeing 4 weeks paid vacation to every American. A. The adopted paid vacation law will provide a 4 week vacation to every person regardless of full-time or part-time status, company size, and years worked in the company.And this law would allow us to catch up to other nations. B. All developed countries and more than 70% of all countries in the world already have paid vacation laws, and every European worker gets a minimum of 4 weeks paid vacation, according to the New York Times C. More than two-thirds of Americans strongly support vacation law favoring 3 weeks of vacation and more, base d on the information from the poll results on Rifgt2Vacation. org D. And I know from my audience-analyst questionnaire that most of you also support such plan and would prefer to have 4 weeks of vacation or more.Transition: You can see that vacation time problem can be simply solved by passing such legislation. Now let’s look at effects of a government guaranteed vacation. Visualization: I. Such vacation legislation have worked in many countries, and in the United States it will improve health, family bonding and the life quality overall. A. You will work less and reduce time pressures, and it will give an opportunity to exercise, healthy eating habits and connection with family and friends. And you will likely to stay healthy with having less risk of stress or burnout. B. You would sleep better and your productivity and creativity will increase. C.You will have more time for stay connected with your family, and your future kids will enjoy family vacations and more time outsi de. Conclusion Action: The first paid vacation bill was introduced in the House of Representatives in May of 2009. You can help get it passed by signing the various online petitions. Here are the online sites where you can sign these petitions, and I also will pass you handouts, which provide this information. Here is another way how you can participate in the process: follow this link and print the poster, which you can distribute to your friends or place at work to encourage people to support this legislation. If we will all work together, we can get the paid vacation bill through the Senate and many of us will finally have a paid vacation.Worked cited: â€Å"2009 International Vacation Deprivationâ„ ¢ Survey Results. † . â€Å"Right 2 Vacation. † Take Back Your Time. Web. 15 May 2011. . Ray, Rebecca, John Schmitt . No-Vacation Nation. Washington: Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2007 Take Back Your Time Day. . Tugend, Alina. â€Å"Vacations Are Good for You, Medically Speaking†. New York Times 7 Jun. 2008 U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web. 15 May 2011. .

Suckwell Vacuum Cleaners, Ltd Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Suckwell Vacuum Cleaners, Ltd - Case Study Example Chipped paints happen during the assembly stage. Furthermore, the company experienced missing instructions during the final packaging and shipment. Also, missing serial numbers, broken switches and damaged insulation on main cable are identified as occurring problems in the finish product. Figure 1 summarizes the importance and difficulty to solve with regards to the identified problems. Inadequate suctions and damaged to insulation cable are the most difficult to solve and of high importance because the problems require downgrading of product and replacement of cable as a rectification. Units with suction problems are sold at half the price of a new unit but without Suckwell identity markings. Other problems such as missing instructions and broken switches are considered important but easy to solve because these can be corrected during the assembly stages as well as final inspection of finish products. Perforated bags and scratches on the plastic are also considered as important because they provide aesthetics to the product. On the other hand, missing serial number and paint chipped are categorized as problems of lesser importance because serial numbers are considered as additional information of the product for purposes of traceability while chipped paints can be prevented along the assembly line. The frequency and costs incurred with the problems identif... Sorting the problems identified in Figure 1, the Pareto analysis showed that scratches on the plastic body are the most recurring problem and incurs the highest cost of non-conformance. Thus, this paper will focus on solving the problem with regards to scratches. Figure 3 illustrates the Pareto analysis conducted on the problems identified. A Pareto Analysis requires the utilisation of a chart which is designed by Vilfredo Pareto which also follows the 80:20 rule. The analysis rates the problems according to importance, frequency and impact of the problem to the company. According to Pareto's rule, if a company prevents the cause of only 20% of the cause-effect pairs, they can reduce the number of defect incidents by 80% (Kemp, 2006). In other words, the company separates the vital few from the trivial many where the vital few are considered as the most important problems that need to be addressed (Reliability Analysis Center, 2004). Figure . Frequency and Costs of Non-conformances Problems Identified Frequency Cost of Non-conformance Cost to Rectify Complaints Annual Costs 1. Scratches on plastic body (SC) 340 1,360.00 70,720.00 2. Paint chipped (PC) 150 150.00 7,800.00 3. Perforated bag (PB) 130 130.00 650.00 7,410.00 4. Missing instructions (MI) 20 10.00 520.00 5. Broken switch (BS) 130 71.50 26,000.00 29,718.00 6. No serial number (NS) 12 3.60 187.20 Total Cost 782 1725.10 26,650.00 166,355.20 Figure . Pareto Analysis Cause and Effect Diagram As previously mentioned, the most important as well as part of the vital few problem is the scratches on the plastic body of the vacuum cleaners. Figure 4 is an Ishikawa diagram or a

Business Ethics Presentation Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Business Ethics Presentation - Research Paper Example From the figures, it is a clear indication that the blame was pointed to the bankers for the financial crises. The public felt that the financial problems were due to bad ethics in the banking sector. Bankers have been criticized for issuing risky loans but according to (Lewis 2010), he argues that it is too crude to blame the financial crisis on ethics of bankers. According to Graafland and van deVen (2011) the three areas where of U.S. government has failed include encouraging the credit extension in the real estate market, failure by the government to keep a strong financial policy, and finally failure to regulate and monitor the markets. According to Graafland and van deVen there should be an improved sense of professionalism and duty to the public is needed. When an organization or industry loses its authenticity, the benefit of doubt is also lost. This is according to Kopeck. The corruption perception index (CPI) can also be used to measure the ethics of the US businesses. This method ranks countries on the degree of corruption in the government and also public officials. The method was inaugurated in 1995. The Corruption Perception Index ranks countries on a scale. The scale runs from10-0. The 10TH scale is perceived to be the least corrupt country and one as the most corrupt country. Corruption is a hidden activity hence measuring it is a challenge and that is why organization such as transparency international bases the index on a number of polls which is challenging to measure. The corruption perception index began with 41 countries in the year 1995 and has since grown and expanded to 182 countries and this is included in the 2011 index. The challenge with this method is that measuring the degree of corruption and also ranking is hard. Significantly there has been a steady decline in the United States CPI score over the last sixteen years with the hi ghest score of 7.79. Edel-man Trust Barometer is also another way of measuring trust;

Uses of Force by Chicago, New York, La police Research Paper

Uses of Force by Chicago, New York, La police - Research Paper Example Uses of Force by Chicago, New York, La police As maintainers of law and order in the public, police officers should be more cautious on the way they handle people in the public. From sociological and psychological view point, modern study scrutinizes on the determinants of police use of force using data gathered by Garner and Maxwell in 1996- 1997.The information herein entailed the adult custody arrests in six urban law enforcement agencies in the U.S. Dissimilar to most of the recent studies; the degree of force is extended to comprise threat of force as well as varied levels of physical force. The results have revealed strong and reliable evidence that probability os using force and the quantity of force used by the police largely is dependent on what the suspect commits rather than who the suspect is, even after controlling for other factors. The way a suspect is handled and the conduct towards the police seems as the most essential factor explaining the use of force behavior. The results obtained also reveals the effects of race and the gender relations as well as the occurrence of eyewitness and other officers on the outlook. Police use of force The na ture of police to citizen encounter may vary from civil to very fiery, and this may entail both verbal and physical conflict. Acknowledging that characteristics of such nature may encounter alongside with the behaviors of the officers and suspects is essential to comprehend the factors impacting police use of force. All over the world, policing entails and at times demands some amount of force. Bittner (1975) accentuates on this aspect of police work and, moreover, affirms that police are nothing else but a mechanism for the dissemination of situational acceptable force in the society. The law and enforcement officers, are required to use force in particular circumstances, are trained in the use of force, and, in general, encounter numerous situations on their due course of duty when the use of force is required. For instance, in arresting wrongdoers, averting escape, putting into custody the disorderly participants, or when safeguarding themselves and the blameless victims from get ting injured. As it has been confirmed by Skolnick and Fyfe (1993, p. 37), â€Å"as long as the public continues defying law and order, and resist arrest, use of force by the police remains inevitable. Even though the use of force by the police has been significant inn averting and regulating law and order in the society, it has however contributed to alarming rate of social and legal consequences amid the police and the public. This is an aspect that has predominantly resulted towards studying on this essential topic and would enrich our knowledge towards an efficient comprehension in this area of study. Recent research carried out on police use of force reveals that police use force rarely (Adams, 1999; Friedrich, 1980; Garner, Buchanan, Schade, & Hepburn, 1996; Garner & Maxwell, 1999; Worden, 1996). Whether indicated by authorized use of force, (Alpert & Dunham, 1999), the complaints of the citizens, those surveying the officers, the arrestees, citizens or the observational meth ods the recorded data constantly reveal that only a minor portion of police – public relations makes use of force. On the other hand, the encounter amid of the police and the citizen, in which police officers frequently are compelled to make swift decisions may generate inappropriate or unnecessary use of force that may ruin and lower the repute of police authority and authenticity in the public. Among the different theoretical orientations used to explain police use of force, Terrill and Mastrofski (2002) identifies a particular sociological and psychological perspective that

We are Pro Choice by Nancy Spero Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

We are Pro Choice by Nancy Spero - Essay Example Some of the thin lines are quite delicate like those used on the hands wherein the lines are thinner than usual. The lines used on the feet, on the other hand are also thin but on a regular form. The alternate use of thick and heavy lines defines the dress of the woman without the use of a wide variety of colors. Broad and narrow lines are used as well more specifically on the red woman and the middle one. Contour lines are quite important especially in the making of human images and the artist professionally made use of this kind to put on emphasis on the second woman on the left making the contour lines delicately fine. Broken lines are also widely used in all the images to give more definition to them, bringing out the texture of the clothes and skin of the women. The primary colors, blue and red used in the first and second images from the right respectively, attracts the attention of the viewer to their position. In addition, the use of the complementary colors of red and blue t hat gives more color to the images make them more real and vivid. Secondary colors are produced in the images by mixing the primary colors that give the greenish-blue, orange, brown and lavender hues. The saturation of dark colors on the second woman from the left gives a shadowy effect on her body while the lack of it on the neck and face reveal a clearer view which gives a good contrast on the whole image. The lightness of color on the first image on the right gives tone to the body as darkened or thickened red colors are applied to it. As mentioned earlier, the broken lines helped define the texture of the images especially on the clothing of the women; where the first woman on the left side uses a coarse textured clothing and the one next to her, a finer quality while a silky texture is reflected on the bare skins. Spero used an open space for her images which could also be described as boundless. In this space, she creates the two dimensional red woman and the middle image. The three other images, though give a three-dimensional effect with the use of foreshortening which will be discussed in detail later. Sizes of the images do not actually make a perspective which is farther or nearer to the viewer. Spero uses a unique way of presenting her images in an interesting manner that one has to look more intently at the pictures before deciding how one image is farther than the other. In most paintings, larger images are drawn to emphasize its distance to the viewer while smaller ones are made to look like it is at a farther distance. In We are Pro Choice, though, the overlapping parts of the three images on the left define the distance from the viewer. Though the second image is smaller than the first one, they appear to be almost of the same distance from the spectator because the right foot of the second woman extended over the left of the other while the left hand of the first woman extended over the right hand of the former. In addition, the left hand of the second woman overlapping the middle image shows that the latter is behind the former. Foreshortening, a kind of perspective as mentioned earlier gives a three dimensional effect on the images. For instance, the first image on the right looks like a photograph of a woman where the parts of the body seem to be on different angles though the whole picture is made on the same plane. Looking particularly at this image, as foreshortening aims to give the three-dimensional illusion, the left foot is placed forward of the other so that it is nearer to the viewer. The positioning of the hands also has a similar effect on the imag

Cultural tourism, ecotourism, sport tourism, and other emerging types Research Paper

Cultural tourism, ecotourism, sport tourism, and other emerging types of tourism - Research Paper Example Ecotourism is mainly concerned with enabling the tourist to be enlightened on the effects of human beings on the nature and to help them develop more understanding and love for the natural ecosystems. Generally, ecotourism will involve travel to sites where the plants, animals, and cultural heritage are the main attractions. Ecotourism is becoming a more popular form of tourism in which tourist visit wild and scenic areas such as rain forests, mountains, game reserves, wildlife conservancies for leisure and educational trip, and the tourist are mainly from North America, Europe, or Australia/New Zealand with their destination being mostly the developing countries (Eduweb, 1996). Ecotourism is concerned with integrating conservation, communities, and travel activities a departure from convectional tourism. According to TEIS (1990), those who implement and participate in ecotourism activities should do it in observances of the following ecotourism principles. First, involve travel to n atural destinations, secondly minimize impact, thirdly build environmental and cultural awareness and respect, fourthly, provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts, fifthly, provide direct financial benefits for conservation, more so provide financial benefits and empowerment for the local people, and lastly, raise sensitivity to host countries’ political, environmental, and social climate. Based on these principles, the ecotourism should be in position to analyze environmental and cultural factors, promote conservation through recycling, energy saving activities, avoiding and minimizing pollution, and providing economic gains to the local communities. Ecotourism developed from the global environmental movements in the late 1970s and by the early 1990s, ecotourism along with natured-based cultural, heritage and adventure tourism had transformed, with the global tourism industry being among the fastest growing sectors (TIES, 1990). Ecotourism has helped develop o ther forms of tourism, which borrow from the principles of ecotourism but at the same time, it differs from them. The following descriptions of other forms of tourism can illustrate how ecotourism differs with them though they share some similarities. Adventure travel is a form tourism that involves taking risk and it may involve using unconventional means of transport. The purpose mostly does not include conservation or benefit to local community. Secondly, sustainable tourism involves any form of tourism that does not reduce the availability of resources and does not inhibit future travelers from enjoying the same experience. Thirdly, responsible tourism involves tourism activities or operations, which minimize negative impacts on the environment. Fourthly, nature-based tourism is any form of tourism with focus on nature. Lastly, cultural tourism focuses mainly on interacting with and studying unique cultures (Untamedpath, 2007). The above terms and other terms such as green touri sm, bio-tourism, and low impact tourism have been used in literature and marketing activities to mean ecotourism though they are not the same as ecotourism, an occurrence that confuse tourist and academics in their understanding of ecotourism. The ambiguity and misunderstandings related to description of ecotourism has led to exploitation of many unsuspecting tourists by countries, hotels, destinations, resorts, and corporation making huge profits but

Conformity Assessment Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Conformity Assessment - Research Paper Example Conformity assessment is a comprehensive term defined as â€Å"measures taken by manufacturers, their customers, regulatory authorities, and independent, third parties to assess conformity to standards† . Similarly, the joint ISO/IEC 17000, of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) defines the term as â€Å"a demonstration that specified requirements relating to a process, system, person or body are fulfilled† . However, ISO itself does not undertake such work. Conformity assessment and standardization differ from each other, although they are closely related. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), though established by the United Nations, is a key non-governmental institution. It supports the progress of industrialization, as well as regulates production and consumption . Conformity assessment and standardization need to be mutually supportive in order to promote economic growth and sustainable development . Conformity Assessment and the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) are considered to be at opposite ends of the technical infrastructure business . Manufacturers frequently have their own internal testing sytems to ensure that their work meets the required standard. However, in the private economy, increasingly there is third-party certification of inspection. â€Å"In fact, many national standard setting bodies now make such third-party certification a major part of their own business† . The national bodies provide â€Å"accreditation† certification on the qualification and eligibility of third-party inspectors to do their job. While ISO neither accredits nor certifies, ISO members â€Å"certify the certifiers†.

Whirlpool Leadership Approach Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Whirlpool Leadership Approach - Essay Example attracting and retaining talent; the achievement of this target would help to improve the performance of the firm’s finance sector, which is a key part of the organization. In 2006, a strategic plan was introduced for supporting the recruitment and development of talent across the organization, especially in the firm’s finance department; the specific plan was mainly based on the firm’s existing leadership approaches, as explained below. The leadership approach used for increasing the performance of Whirlpool, mostly through the improvement of the organization’s existing strategies for recruiting and retaining talent in the finance department, can be characterized as transformational since it is highly based on the participation of the employees in the successful implementation of the relevant plan (Stadtler, Schmitt, Klarner and Straub 45). The specific approach has been combined with the Six Sigma model, which has helped to focus on the organization’s weaknesses and to cover most severe organizational gaps. One of the most emergent organizational needs that the firm’s leader had to face was the lack of effective strategy for the development and the training of employees in finance department. The organization’s CFO decided to introduce a series of changes ‘focusing on building organizational capabilities, processes, and talent’ (Frigo, Rapp and Templin 30). However, the above strategy would be successful only if it was carefully planned and monitored. In order for the strategy’s success to be secured, the following practice was used: emphasis was given on three different areas, ‘technical capabilities, career development and leadership’ (Frigo, Rapp and Templin 30). Leadership has been considered as the most important part of the relevant project mostly because of the following issue: the successful update of the firm’s existing practices in regard to the recruitment, the development and the retention of talent has been depended, as

How Technology Affects Library Referencing Essay Example for Free

How Technology Affects Library Referencing Essay It is indeed obvious and true how technology generates most of the things that humans deal with today. The global economy as for example is being controlled by massive computer programs for the sake of considerable advancements for the human society. Alongside with this particular advancement, educational sectors also take advantage of the major innovations made through the use of science and technology. As for this matter, it could be noted that library referencing have also been recreated to be able to support the needs of the present generation from referencing the books that are available through the libraries. How is this possible? The existence of numerous technology-based systems that are primarily made to ease the problems of file-fixing in the field of library-based jobs entirely makes the jobs of the Librarians quite easy to deal with today. As it could be noticed, years before, librarians are expected to type in several details with regards a certain book in card catalogs. Not to mention, alphabetizing them and in tall and long ended cabinets is not that easy to do. The procedure indeed takes time and the filing up takes so much space form the library. Seeing this situation, it could be observed that the technological changes that are appreciated by the libraries of the present generation are now able to increase the capabilities of the libraries to hold more students in terms of space and enhance the skills of the librarian in meeting the issues that concern the students in terms of library-based queries since they already have time for this unlike that of the past years? Furthermore, the question: â€Å"How is this possible† points out to one particular focus of discussion; knowing that technology causes changes to the system of cataloging in the libraries, how do these procedures of filing the book-informations so far helpful both to the students and the librarian as well regardless of the obvious disadvantages mentioned earlier? How are the students able to benefit from the technology-fixed files and informations of books? Does technology really affect the procedures of referencing in the future? These questions are the primary discussions that shall be tackled within the context of this paper. Library and Technology Cataloging is an olden time procedure that is made to arrange the collection of books within libraries. Of course, since libraries are considered to have a large collection of reading materials, arranging them into categories helps in the process of researching for the students or plain readers alone. However, this procedure of arranging the files and taking notes of the information with regards a certain book takes much time and effort from the librarians that they are already incapable of doing the primary responsibility that they should be addressing in their profession, assisting the readers. Today, the development of technology aides in libraries have created a radical change within the systems of arranging the files as well as redefined the role of librarians in completing the tasks appointed for them to finish. Several operating systems are created to be bale to assist the librarians and the readers in browsing the books that are collected by a certain library. What is an operating system, and how does it help in the procedure of making cataloging much easier for librarians? What are Operating Systems? Every computer system is controlled by an operating system. A pre-programmed system controls the operations that the computer system is supposed to perform. This mainly pertains to the responsibilities of the computer and how it is able to complete the tasks that are further addressed to its performance. At present, the operating systems are referred to as computer programs that are supposed to manage both the hardware and software systems of the entire computer facilities. There are . five main tasks that the OS performs as a program: †¢Controlling and Allocating Memory This task mainly focuses on the capability of the computer programs to assimilate the memory priorities of the entire computer system. To allocate the memory means designating the memory priorities on which its performance is most needed. †¢Prioritizing System Requests Most of the time, the system follows a â€Å"first Come First Serve† arrangement. As a result, in multi tasking systems the operations are carried on basing on what request came first, and what has been allocated by the system to come in priority. †¢Controlling Input and Output Devices The input devices are the ones used to enter information within the computer memory while the output devices are the ones used to produce hardcopy of the informations entered within the system. The operating systems that is present within the computer makes it possible for the computer device to perform well and do as it is programmed to. †¢Facilitating Networking To be able to connect to others, networking the systems is needed. Once an operating system is programmed to perform such tasks, it would be able to connect two different systems together to be able to have a connected exchange of information and communication as well. †¢Managing Files To manage files means to arrange them on what part of the memory should be utilized by the files. It also sorts out the files with the necessary section of the computer memory should it be stored in. (Source: Warford, J. Stanley. (2005). Computer Systems. Jones Bartlett Publishers; 3rd edition.. )

Reviewing Theories Of Deborah Stone On Policy Making Politics Essay

Reviewing Theories Of Deborah Stone On Policy Making Politics Essay I name my answer to question as Idea and Deborah Stone, I want go through her book and explain why ideas are so important. According to Deborah Stone, ideas will help people to define alliance, strategic considerations also ideas will help people to get the legitimacy and draw policy boundaries. (Deborah, P 34). According to Deborah Stone, ideas will decide who will be affected, how will they be affected and will they be affected legitimately (Stone, P.34). In the first Chapter, Stone starts her analysis at the city-state (the Greek term polis) level. The public policy is considered as an attempt to achieve a certain community goals (Deborah, P 21). However, due to the fact that everyone has his own understanding of ideas, therefore the political community has become a place for internal debates over who will be affected, how will they be affected and will they be affected legitimately(Deborah, P 34) . The policy-making process has thus become a continuous interaction between the conflict and cooperation. In Stones model, individuals may pursue their goals through collective action. The motivation is not only based on self-interests but also based on public concerns. This is because the public interest is be related to the goal of survival (Deborah, P 33). However, when there is a contradiction between self-interest and public interest, the policy process will be more complicated (Deborah, P 33). When the group is motivated under common ideas, the group will get more strength, and there will be a balance between private interests and public interests in the conflict. Stone directly uses the idea as the core concept of this book. In her construction of polis community vs market individual(Deborah P 33) model, ideas have become the focus. Stone tries to use struggle of idea to explain all stages of policy-making process. Policy-making is followed by a continuous constantly struggle to fight for the classification of standards, types of boundaries, and guide people to conduct the ideal typical definition. The struggle of idea can be seen in several policy levels. According to Stones theory, idea defines what people want from the policy; it is the foundation for people to cognize and understands what the policy is. Idea provides a relationship between advocators and advocacy coalitions; Idea provides causal relationship for these people and groups, and ideas will be reflected to their policy objectives through their actions of obtaining support. And these people with the shared idea will persuade decision-makers to meet their preferences. As mentioned above, Stone sees idea as a constantly changing dynamic and resources of construction. And by given different interpretations of ideas, the concept of the ideas will also change. She points out that the politics of policy is to choose the interpretation (Deborah P 75). Stone argues that the authority to interpret idea is the key factor in the policy-making process. Only legitimated idea can be transformed into policy. And using the legiti macy, peoples knowledge or behavior can be changed. And policy change can also be made through this interaction of ideas. Ideas affects how people cognized politics, and the change of politics will also feedback on ideas. To Stone, idea is not static; idea is an ongoing of constructing and reconstructing process of concepts. Now I will try to exam whether Deborah Stones idea theory can fits with other policy process theory. In the punctuated equilibrium theory, Baumgartner and Jones also argue that idea is a potential power in the policy making process. According to their book Agendas and Instability in American Politics, a powerful supporting idea is associated with the institution (Baumgartner and Jones, P 7); In page 16, they also writethe tight connection between institution and idea provides powerful support for prevailing distribution of political advantage. These statements mean that idea will help people understand what is at stake and how will they be affected (Stone, 2002), policy advocators will use institution arrangement to make their idea be legitimate. Also, in order to gain more power those policy actors will manipulate images and ideas. To Baumgartner and Jones, ideas are important because they provide some potential undergirding institutional arrangements; and the struggle of idea is the struggle over legitimate institution arrangements. In the book Agendas, alternatives and public policies, Kingdon also discusses the importance. In order to make useful policy suggestions, participants in the policy process are competing to develop new ideas; and they are trying to provide their ideas in the form of potential solutions to policy makers. According to Kingdon, policy entrepreneurs lie in wait in and around government with their solutions [already] in hand, waiting for problems to float by to which they can attach their solutions, waiting for a development in the political stream they can use to their advantage (Kingdon, P 165). Shared ideas make policy entrepreneurs into alliance; and these alliances are trying to make their ideas become legitimate. Kingdons primal policy soup (Kingdon, P 139-143) model provides us a picture of how decision makers accept idea through coherent narrative process (ideas are flowing in the streams just as molecules flowing in the soup). According to Kingdon, a policy community creates a sh ort list of ideas. If the ideas can go through the selecting process, softening up process and if they can pass the exam by specialists and policy makers, they may finally become policies. The whole process can be viewed as a continuing struggle of ideas. In this case, ideas are not only competing with other ideas, they are also struggling to survive in this primal soup. I also think Kingdons policy window model is another improvement to Deborah Stones arguments. People are now struggling to make their idea in front of the policy window at the correct time. This model discovers that the during the policy process, critical time is also important for ideas struggling. However, I think there are also some theories which do not fully support Deborah Stones argument. In the garbage can model, because the nature of unclear, policy is not necessarily to be the consequence of the ideas struggling. In Kingdons Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, he describes that as garbage can into which various kinds of problems and solutions are dumped by participantsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ removed from the scene (Kingdon, P 85). In some sense, Deborah Stones Struggling of ideas assumption is more based on a goal-oriented policy making process, in order to make it work, there should be a clear policy goal from all participants; while the classical garbage can model is more like a method-oriented policy making process, it doesnt require a clear goal or solution at the beginning. In the garbage can model, people are not fighting with each other over ideas in the final solution selecting stage, however it is still correct to say that each solution in the garbage can is a result of deliberative idea thinking. I think there is a slight difference between Deborah Stones theory and the garbage can model. Another policy theory which doesnt fully consistent with Deborah Stones theory is the incrementalism theory. According to Lindblom, the incremental policy process is more relied on former existing policies. According to this model, the policy environment generally remains stable. Because the incremental nature of the policy, the new policy will inherent the policy environment from previous policy, if the former policy has resolved the struggling of idea, then there will be less struggling of ideas in the new policies. Since the policy environment is stable, it will be unlikely for us to speculate a violently struggle over ideas. The last policy process theory I want discuss in the context of struggling over idea is the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) theory. The central idea of this theory is that people or groups with the same beliefs (core/policy/secondary) will form a coalition. I think Sabatiers concept of belief is similar to Deborah Stones concept of idea. Especially, I think the concept of policy belief is playing the role of idea in the policy process. I think his core belief is rooted even deeper than idea. The core belief will sometimes become unnoticeable. And using the ACF model, we can find out that the policy process is a competition among different policy beliefs, and I think this observation is close to Deborahs struggle over ideas the essence of policy making.'. But it does not mean that the change in the secondary belief level is also a result of struggling, according to Sabatiers theory, such change is more like the result of an incremental learning process. In conclusion, I think Deborah Stones argument is useful for us to understand some policy process. However, by using different theories we should also notice whether policy processes are struggle over ideas should be analyzed in situations. The Punctuated-Equilibrium model, ACF model and Multiple Stream model indicate that Deborahs argument is valid. In the P-E model, the change of existing idea or appearance of new idea will bring turbulence to the policy process; in the ACF model, the learning process can change beliefs at different level, and these changes will bring feedbacks to the policy process; in the M-S model, policy entrepreneurs will using the opportunity to propose their ideas, and when critical time is come, the coupled stream will become policy. Incremental Model suggests that policy process is not necessarily linked to struggling when the time span of the policy is very short. There could be no struggle when the whole policy process is already fixed. However, I think the origin/first policy in the incremental model is a result of idea struggling. The Garbage Can model suggests that the choosing process within the policy process may appear as a random process, it is not necessarily to be the consequence of the idea struggling.

SERVICE SYSTEMS :: Business and Management Studies

SERVICE SYSTEMS There are many establishments where food is served outside the home, these include: Ø Commercial o Restaurants o Cafà ©Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s Ø Non-commercial (Institutional/On-site) o Business o Government o Education Ø Military In each type of establishment food will be served in a different way, service systems are defined by what dishes and utensils are used, but mainly by the manner of presenting the meal to the customer, clearly the type of service is defined by the desired target customer. These are the major food service systems: Table service Ø Plate service Ø Gueridon service Ø Silver service Ø Family service Other Service Types Ø Buffet Service Ø Take away service Ø Counter service Ø A la carte Ø Table d’hote Specialist food service systems Ø Hospital Service Ø In-Flight Meal Service Type of service depends on the menu, dà ©cor, uniforms, table settings, ambiance and cuisine. Table Service Table service is a method of food service in which the waiter brings customers’ food to the table and places it in front of them. There are a number of different styles of table service: Plate service / American service All food is cooked, portioned and plated in kitchen. It is then served by a waiter to the customer, generally this is done from the right with the right hand. This type of table service reduces staff requirements compared to other types e.g. Gueridon service. Advantages Ø Casual dining Ø Portion control Ø Less service skill needed Disadvantages Ø Less personal Ø Guests can not choose portion Guà ©ridon (French Service-service à   la franà §aise) This is an elaborate type of service in which the guest’s food is prepared in the kitchen and is subsequently arranged on silver salvers, which are placed on and served from a small cart called a Guà ©ridon. The food is heated or flamed at the table side using a small heater placed on the cart; three courses can be served from the tableside Advantages Ø Elegant, Ø Showcases food, Ø Great amount of checking of food can be done Disadvantages Ø Need highly trained staff, Ø High labour costs Ø Capital investment in cart Ø Large amount of space is required for the cart to go around the table Ø Fewer tables in dining room. Silver Service (Russian service, or service à   la russe) The food is prepared and portioned in the kitchen and placed onto silver platters, a dinner plate is placed in front of the customer, in general the right side is for plates and left side is for food – Counter clockwise. Served to the customer using a fork and spoon from the silver platter. This service system is used in banquets. Advantages Ø Elegant Ø Faster than French Service Ø Fully cooked, hot food served at the table quickly

The Truman Show :: essays research papers

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/">Sam Vaknin's Psychology, Philosophy, Economics and Foreign Affairs Web Sites â€Å"The Truman Show† is a profoundly disturbing movie. On the surface, it deals with the worn out issue of the intermingling of life and the media. Examples for such incestuous relationships abound: Ronald Reagan, the cinematic president was also a presidential movie star. In another movie (â€Å"The Philadelphia Experiment†) a defrosted Rip Van Winkle exclaims upon seeing Reagan on television (40 years after his forced hibernation started): â€Å"I know this guy, he used to play Cowboys in the movies†. Candid cameras monitor the lives of webmasters (website owners) almost 24 hours a day. The resulting images are continuously posted on the Web and are available to anyone with a computer. The last decade witnessed a spate of films, all concerned with the confusion between life and the imitations of life, the media. The ingenious â€Å"Capitan Fracasse†, â€Å"Capricorn One†, â€Å"Sliver†, â€Å"Wag the Dog† and many lesser films have all tried to tackle this (un)fortunate state of things and its moral and practical implications. The blurring line between life and its representation in the arts is arguably the main theme of â€Å"The Truman Show†. The hero, Truman, lives in an artificial world, constructed especially for him. He was born and raised there. He knows no other place. The people around him – unbeknownst to him – are all actors. His life is monitored by 5000 cameras and broadcast live to the world, 24 hours a day, every day. He is spontaneous and funny because he is unaware of the monstrosity of which he is the main cogwheel. But Peter Weir, the movie’s director, takes this issue one step further by perpetrating a massive act of immorality on screen. Truman is lied to, cheated, deprived of his ability to make choices, controlled and manipulated by sinister, half-mad Shylocks. As I said, he is unwittingly the only spontaneous, non-scripted, â€Å"actor† in the on-going soaper of his own life. All the other figures in his life, including his parents, are actors. Hundreds of millions of viewers and voyeurs plug in to take a peep, to intrude upon what Truman innocently and honestly believes to be his privacy. They are shown responding to various dramatic or anti-climactic events in Truman’s life. That we are the moral equivalent of these viewers-voyeurs, accomplices to the same crimes, comes as a shocking realization to us. We are (live) viewers and they are (celluloid) viewers.

SWOT Analysis of Tesco

One of the strengths of Tesco is both goods and mall environment have high standard of quality control. The goods provided in Tesco is many, for example Daily necessities. Tesco have market presence in the world each Tesco has sufficient and diversification goods to satisfy the customers. Tesco has an own stockroom to keep the stock. Tesco has a system of positioning to place the goods. Customers can get their goods immediately without ordering. Clean and comfortable environment of Tesco also attracts many customers to buying goods at there. Besides, the customers of Tesco are satisfied that they get value for their money. Tesco guarantees this by Price check survey, Club card scheme and Tesco range products. For the workers inside the Tesco, they are taught ways to serve customers politely and how to fulfill the need of customers successfully. Tesco is good in marketing expertise too. Tesco's format of stores such as extra, home plus, superstores, express and teso. com gives the consumers the convenience and they are highly respected by the consumers. Weaknesses. The weaknesses of Tesco are that it is still largely dependent on UK for its sales. it is doubtful if it will support fair-trade cotton clothing objectives. The business model that Tesco is using is suitable for UK and not for the rest of the world. Even though Tesco sales are growing from low priced items there is fall in sale of non-essential and high priced products. If fair-trade cotton clothing are perceived as non-essential, its sales objectives will not be achieved. Tesco has suffered from bad debt, credit card arrears and household insurance claims. This is financially debilitating. Opportunities Tesco can exercise a high degree of buying power to ensure that it has economies of scale in its fair-trade cotton clothing line. The growth opportunities n Europe and Asia provides excellent opportunities for growth. Most importantly, the growth of online sales shows excellent opportunity for increasing the sales of Tesco. For example, growing online shopping in the UK. In Germany cotton clothing has good opportunity because it has the endorsement of Tesco brand; it has the marketing channels of Tesco, and the backing of an excellent product mix. If fair-trade cotton clothing offers a good product for money it will get a good reception in Germany. Threats There are some competitors exist in market to substitute Tesco. Giant is an example. Giant provides Daily necessities too. In fact, Giant is not famous than Tesco in both goods and service. The goods sold in Tesco is many and even cheaper than Giant, but Giant is the one of competitors for Tesco. Besides, government regulation is one of the threats. For example, when government increase the food or goods cost, it will affect the customer of Tesco decrease.

Eugene O’Neill Essay

INTRODUCTION 1. 1. Origin and Development of American Literature A fundamental difference subsists between American literature and proximately all the other major literary traditions of the world: it is essentially a modern, recent and international literature. The American continent possessed major pre-Columbian civilizations, with a deep heritage of culture, mythology, ritual, chant and poetry. Many recent American writers, especially recently, have looked to these sources as something essential to American culture, and the extraordinary variety and vision to be found there contribute much to the complexity  and increasing multiethnicity of Contemporary American experience. But this is not the originating tradition of what we now call American literature. That originated from the meeting between the land and usually despised Red Indians and the discoverers and settlers who left the developed, literatre cultures of Renaissance Europe, first to explore and conquer, then to populate, what they generally considered a virgin continent – a â€Å"New World† already promised them in their own mythology, now discovered by their own talent and curiosity. Owing to the sizably voluminous immigration to Boston in the 1630s, they brought their conceptions of history and the world’s purport; they brought their languages and above all , the book. The book was both a sacred text, the Bible (to be reinvigorated in the King James Authorized Version of 1611), and a general instrument of expression, record, argument, and cultural dissemination. In time, the book became American literature, and other things they shipped with it — from European values and prospects to post-Gutenberg printing technology– shaped the lineage of American writing. So did the early records kept of the encounter and what they composed of it. Of course a past was being ravaged as well as an incipient present gained when these travelers/ settlers imposed on the North American continent and its cultures their forms of interpretation and narrative, their Christian history and iconography. This American when first came into existence out of writing – European writing – and then went on to demand a new writing which fitted the harshness and grandeur of its landscape, the mysterious potential of its seemingly boundless open space. But â€Å"America† existed in  Europe long before it was discovered, in the speculative writings of the classical, the medieval and the then the Renaissance mind. â€Å"He invented America; a very great man †. Mademoiselle Nioche says about Columbus in Henry James’ The American (1877). 1. 1. 1. Periods of American Literature The division of American literature into convenient historical segments, or â€Å"periods,† lacks the consensus among literary scholars. The many syllabi of college surveys reprinted in Reconstructing American Literature, ed. Paul Lauter (1983), and the essays in Redefining American Literary History, ed. A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff and Jerry W. Ward (1990), demonstrate how variable are the temporal divisions and their names, especially since the beginning of efforts to do justice to literature written by women and by ethnic minorities. 1607-1775 : This era, from the founding of the first settlement at Jamestown to the outbreak of the American Revolution, is often called the Colonial Period, in which writings were for the most part-religious, practical, or historical. William Bradford, John Winthrop, and Cotton Mather are the notable writers. The period between 1765 and 1790 is sometimes distinguished as the Revolutionary Age. It was the time of Thomas Paine’s influential revolutionary tracts; of Thomas Jefferson’s â€Å"Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom,† â€Å"Declaration of Independence,† and many other writings. The years 1775-1828, the Early National Period, ending with the triumph of Jacksonian democracy in 1828, signalized the emergence of a national imaginative literature, including the first American stage comedy (Royall Tyler’s The Contrast, 1787), the earliest American novel (William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy, 1789), and the establishment in 1815 of the first enduring American magazine, The North American Review. Washington Irving achieved international fame with his essays and stories; Charles Brockden Brown wrote distinctively American versions of the Gothic novel of mystery and terror; the career of James Fenimore Cooper, the first major American novelist, was well launched. The span 1828-1865 from the Jacksonian era to the Civil War, often identified as the Romantic Period in America, marks the full coming of age of a distinctively American literature. This period is sometimes known as the American Renaissance, the title of F. O. Matthiessen’s influential book (1941) about its outstanding writers, Ralph Waldo Emerson,  Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne; it is also sometimes called the Age of Transcendentalism, after the philosophical and literary movement, entered on Emerson, that was dominant in New England. In all the major genres except drama, writers produced works of an originality and excellence not exceeded in later American literature. Emerson, Thoreau, and the early feminist Margaret Fuller shaped the ideas, ideals, and literary aims of many contemporary and later American writers. It was the age not only of continuing writings by William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, and James Fennimore Cooper,  but also of the novels and short stories of Pow, Hawthorne, Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the southern novelist William Gilmore Simms; of the poetry of Poe, John Greenleaf Whittier, Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the most innovative and influential of all American poets, Walt Whitman; And of the beginning of distinguished American criticism of Poe, Simms, and James Russell Lowell. 1865-(1914) The cataclysm of the Civil War and Reconstruction, followed by a burgeoning industrialism and urbanization in the North, profoundly altered American self-awareness, and also American literary modes. The years 1865-1900 are often known as the Realistic Period, by reference to the novels by Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and Henry James, as well as by John W. DeForest, Harold Frederic. These works, though diverse, are often labeled â€Å"realistic† in contrast to the â€Å"romances† of their predecessors in prose fiction: Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville. Some realistic authors grounded their fiction in a regional milieu; these include (in addition to Mark Twain’s novels on the Mississippi River region) Bret Harte in California, Sarah Orne Jewett in Maine, Mary Wilkins Freeman in Massachusetts, and George W. Cable and Kate Chopin in Louisiana. Chopin has become prominent as an early and major feminist novelist. Whitman continued writing poetry up to the last decade of the century, and was joined by Emily Dickinson; although only seven of Dickinson’s more than a thousand short poems were published in her lifetime, she is now recognized as one of the most distinctive and eminent of American pets. Sidney Lanier published his experiments in versification based on the meters of music; the African-American author Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote both poems and novels between 1893 and 1905; and in the 1890s Stephen Crane, although he was only  twenty-nine when he died, published short poems in free verse that anticipate the experiments of Ezra Pound and the Imagists, and wrote also the brilliantly innovative short stories and short novels hat look forward to two later narrative modes: naturalism and impressions. The years 1900-(1914) although James, Howells, and Mark Twain were still writing, and Edith Wharton was publishing her earlier novels—are sometimes discriminated as the Naturalistic Period, in recognition of the powerful although sometimes crudely wrought novels by Frank Norris, Jack  London, and Theodore Dreiser, which typically represent characters who are joint victims of their instinctual drives and of external sociological forces. (1914)- 1939. The era between the two world wars, marked by the trauma of the great economic depression beginning in 1929, was that of the emergence of what is still known as â€Å"Modern literature†, which in America reached an eminence rivaling that of the American Renaissance of the mid-nineteenth century; unlike most of the authors of that earlier period, however, the American modernists also achieved widespread international recognition and influence. Poetry magazine, founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, published many innovative authors. Among the notable poets were Edgar Lee Masters, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Robinson Jeffers, Marianne Moore, T. S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and E. E. Cummings— authors who wrote in an unexampled variety of poetic modes. The literary productions of this era are often subclassified in a variety of ways. The flamboyant and pleasure-seeking 1920s are sometimes referred to as â€Å"the Jazz Age†, a title popularized by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age (1922). The same decade was also the period of the Harlem Renaissance, which produced major writings in all the literary forms. Many prominent American writers of the decade following the end of World War I, disillusioned by their war experiences and alienated by what they perceived as the crassness of American culture and its â€Å"puritanical† repressions, are often tagged ( in a term first applied by Gertrude Stein to young Frenchmen of the time) as the Lost Generation, a number of these writers became expatriates, moving either to London or to  Paris in their quest for a richer literary and artistic milieu and a freer way of life. 1939 to the Present, the Contemporary period. World War II, and especially the disillusionment with Soviet Communism consequent upon the Moscow trails for alleged treason and Stalin’s signing of the Russo-German pact with Hitler in 1939, largely ended the literary radicalism of the 1930s. A final blow to the very few writers who had maintained intellectual allegiance to Soviet Russia came in 1991 with the collapse of Russian Communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For several decades the New Criticism—dominated by conservative southern writers. The Agrarians, who in the 1930s had championed a return from an industrial to an agricultural economy—typified the prevailing critical tendency to isolate literature from the life of the author and from society and to conceive a work of literature, in formal terms, as an organic and autonomous entity. The eminent and influential critics Edmund Wilson and Lionel Trilling, however—as well as other critics grouped with them as the New York Intellectuals, including Philip Rahv, Alfred Kazin, Dwight McDonald, and Irving Howe—continued through the 1960s to deal with a work of literature humanistically and historically, in the context of its author’s life, temperament and social milieu and in terms of the work’s moral and imaginative qualities and its consequences for society. The 1950s, while often regarded in retrospect as a period of cultural conformity and complacency, was marked by the emergence of vigorous anti-establishment and anti-traditional literary movements: the Beat writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; the American exemplars of the literature of the absurd; the Black Mountain Poets? Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Robert Duncan; and the New York Poets, Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch, and John Ashbery. It was also a time of confessional poetry and the literature of extreme sexual candor, marked by the emergence of Henry Miller as a notable author. The counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s continued some of these modes, but in a fashion made extreme and fevered by the rebellious youth movement and the vehement and sometimes violent opposition to the war in Vietnam. Important American writers after World War II is Eudora Welty, Robert Penn Warren, Saul Bellow, R P. Warren, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee and many others. 1. 2 RISE OF AMERICAN DRAMA â€Å"In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? † -Sydney Smith, The Edinburgh Review (1820). This was the most profoundly preconceived thought around the world before the epoch of American Drama among many literary critics as well as the literate people, half of those harsh comments were due to impediment and the remaining were sort of ill-treatment. â€Å"There is not, and there never has been, a literary institution,  which could be called the American Drama† †¢ Dion Boucicault This statement provoke very little argument from most American critics more than a hundred years later. In fact, the neglect of American drama is so pervasive that Ruby Cohn, in her history of twentieth-century drama for the Columbia Literary History of the United States (1988), begins with the observation: â€Å"Given the chokehold on drama of a misnamed Broadway, given the lure of Hollywood, and given the power of some small-minded reviewers in the daily press, it is a virtual miracle that American drama merits admission to a history of American literature†. Despite its segregation from the main corpus of American literature, American drama has never been written in a vaccum. It has mirrored peculiarly American social, political, and historical issues in traditional as well as challenging forms and experimental styles. It has been the forum for a plurality of American voices. American drama has always responded to national and regional problems, either in reifying prevailing sentiments or by challenging dominant ideologies. Like other forms of American literature, drama embodies the American struggle. For decades scholars and critics of American literature, engaged in establishing discipline with  canonical hierarchies and feeling embattled in the face of longer-lived English literary studies, have practiced generic hegemony; as a consequence, American drama historically has been the most devalued and overlooked area in American literary studies. Besides all these, there was great theatrical activity during the 19th century a time when there were no movies, TV, or Radio. Every town of any size had its theater or â€Å"opera house† in which touring companies of actors performed. However, no significant drama was performed in this century, with audiences preferring farce, melodrama, and vaudeville to serious efforts. European drama, which was to influence modern American drama profoundly, matured in the last third of 19th century with the achievements of three playwrights: Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and Anton Chekhov. Ibsen who was profoundly influenced by psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, tackled subjects such as guilt, sexuality, and mental illness. Strindberg brought to his characterizations a unprecedented level of psychological complexity. And Chekhov shifted the subject matter of drama from wildly theatrical displays of external action and emotions to the concerns of everyday life. These trio presented characters and situations more or less realistically chiefly known as â€Å"slice-of-life† dramatic technique. Soon after the beginning of the 20th century, realism became the dominant mode of American drama. Very soon after the little theaters off Broadway succeeded with realistic plays. In 1916 and 1917, two small theater groups in New York (the Provincetown Players and the Washington Square Players) began to produce new American plays. They provided a congenial home for new American playwrights like Eugene O’Neill, whose first plays were produced by the Provincetown Players in MA. These small play groups would produce any play, in any style, that commercial theater would not touch. These groups were the beginning of modern American dramatic theater. The post- World War II years brought two important figures to prominence in American drama : Arthur Miller (((1916))-2005) and Tennessee Williams (1911-1983). They remain the dominant figures of the second half of the 20th century. Miller and Williams represent the two principal movement in modern American drama: realism, and realism combined with an attempt at something more imaginative. From the beginning, American playwrights have tried to break  away from the strict realism of Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov and to blend it with a more poetic form of expression. Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1949),Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (1944) and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (1938) are some of the best examples of this style of writing. Contemporary American Theater In the mid 19th century, realism in drama was conceived as a revolt against crude theatricalism. Currently there is a revolt against realism itself and a move toward more theatricalism, with its emphasis on stage effects and imaginative settings. Once again, American  drama is changing to reflect the changing attitudes of American theater-going audiences. Dramatists today have the freedom to express their deepest feelings, whatever they may be, in any form they choose- provided that their approach can be made comprehensible to an audience and touch their emotions. 1. 3 LIFE AND CAREER OF EUGENE O’NEILL â€Å"I was born in a hotel and, damn it, I’ll die in a hotel†- Eugene O’Neill Eugene Gladstone O’Neill (16- October- 1888 to 27- November-1953), the son of James O’Neill and Ella Quinlan was born in an up-town family hotel, named Barret House on broadway at 43, Street, New York. James O’Neill, was a successful touring actor in the last quarter of the 19th century whose most famous role was that of the Count of Monte Cristo in a stage adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas novel. Ella accompanied her husband all the times except for the birth of her first son, James Jr,. and for Eugene. His parents were ardent follower of Catholicism. Ella was exceptionally beautiful woman. She loved music and practiced a curled hand-writing. As he was born in a hotel, he spent his childhood in hotel rooms, on trains and backstage. This filled him with a sense of instability and insecurity. O’Neill later deplored the nightmare insecurity of these early years experience and blamed his father for the tragedies that happened in the life of O’Neill. â€Å"Wherever he (O’Neill) lived, the houses he bought were always big, as if their very size would ensure stability: the other side of the picture is, of course, to be seen in his restless experimentation, which ever allowed him exactly to repeat a way of writing he had once essayed. † O’Neill was educated at boarding schools such as Mt. St. Vincent in the Bronx and Betts Academy in Stamford, Conn. His summers were spent at the family’s only permanent home, a  modest house overlooking the Thames River in New London. He attended Princeton University for one year (1906-07), after which he left school to begin what he later regarded as his real education in â€Å"life experience. † The next six years very nearly ended his life. He shipped to sea, lived a derelict’s existence on the waterfronts of Buenos Aires, Liverpool, and New York City, submerged himself in alcohol, and attempted suicide. Recovering briefly at the age of 24, he held a job for a few months as a reporter and contributor to the poetry column of the New London Telegraph but soon came with tuberculosis. Confined to the Gaylord Farm Sanitarium in Wallingford for six months then he confronted himself soberly and seized the chance for what he later called his â€Å"rebirth†. O’Neill’s first efforts were awkward melodramas, but they were about people and subjects—prostitutes, derelicts, lonely sailors, God’s injustice to man—that had, up to that time, been in the province of serious novels and were not considered an apt subjects for presenting on the American Stage. In the autumn of (1914), O’Neill entered G. P. Baker’s Academy at Harvard to take lessons in playwriting, because of a theatre critic suggestion to his father. O’Neill’s first appearance as a playwright came in the summer of 1916, in the quiet fishing village of Provincetown, where a group of young writers and painters had launced an experimental theater. In their tiny, ramshackle playhouse on a wharf, they produced his one-act sea play Bound East for Cardiff. The talent inherent in the play was immediately evident to the group, which that fall formed the Playwright’s Theater in Greenwich village. Their first bill, on 03-November-1916, included Bound East for Cardiff—O’Neill’s one-act sea plays, along with a number of his lesser efforts. By the time his first full length play, Beyond the Horizon? was produced on Broadway, staged in Morosco Theater, when the young playwright already had a small reputation. In 1918 he married Agnes Boulton, and they lived for several summers at Peaked Hill, a reconditioned life-saving station near Provincetown. During the rest of the year, they lived in other places. They had two children before separating in 1827. His third wife, Carlotta Montercy, accompanied him on many long journeys, to Europe, to Asia, to the American West. They were to be frequently on the move during the rest of O’Neill’s life, and they were to experience many  painful things including the suicide of Eugene O’ Neill Jr. O’Neill’s last years were marked by physical suffering ( his hands paralysed so that he could no longer write), by increasing isolation, by family trouble and dissension. He died on 27 November, 1953. 1. 4 O’Neill’s contribution to American Drama In his own life-time, O’Neill was established as the leading American dramatist. He was awarded Pulitzer Prizes for Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie, Strange Interlude, and Long Days Journey into Night ( he received the highest international recognition in the award of the  Nobel Prize in Literature; a considerable number of books and articles have been devoted to his work since the nineteen-twenties, and in recent years the sign of interest has grown markedly pronounced. His plays are quite popular in the English-speaking world. Despite some critical effort to depreciate O’Neill, he remains America’s outstanding playwright, the only one to win international fame and recognition, and the Novel Prize. He not only built up the American theatre, but also put it on the world map, where now it has a dynamic and distinguished place beside the European and continental theatre—Arthur Miller and  Tennessee Williams helping to sustain that edifice. Unlike Shakespeare, whom popular fancy depicts as a wild bird who sat on the bough and warbled his wood-notes wild, O’Neill had the theatre in his blood and made a lifelong strenuous conscious effort to achieve glory in this field and leave foot-prints on the sands of time. Also, unlike Shakespeare, O’Neill was a highly personal writer, in whose case the partions that divide autobiography and objective reality are very thin paper thin so that his dramatic works constitute a series of personal obsessions, ending up with the most personal of them all- Long Day’s Journey into Night. Full-length plays †¢BREAD AND BUTTER, (1914) †¢SERVITUDE, (1914) †¢THE PERSONAL EQUATION, (1916) †¢NOW I ASK YOU, 1916 †¢BEYOND THE HORIZON, 1918 – PULITZER PRIZE, (1920) †¢THE STRAW, (1919) †¢CHRIS CHRISTOPHERSEN, (1919) †¢GOLD, (1920) †¢ANNA CHRISTIE, (1920) – PULITZER PRIZE, (1922) †¢THE EMPEROR JONES, (1920) †¢DIFF’RENT, (1921) †¢THE FIRST MAN, (1922) †¢THE HAIRY APE, (1922) †¢THE FOUNTAIN, (1923) †¢MARCO MILLIONS, (1923–25) †¢ALL GOD’S CHILLUN GOT WINGS, (1924) †¢WELDED, (1924) †¢DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS, (1925) †¢LAZARUS LAUGHED, (1925–26) †¢THE GREAT GOD BROWN, (1926) †¢STRANGE INTERLUDE, (1928 – PULITZER PRIZE) †¢DYNAMO, (1929) †¢MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA, (1931) †¢AH, WILDERNESS! , (1933) †¢DAYS WITHOUT END, (1933) †¢THE ICEMAN COMETH, (WRITTEN 1939, PUBLISHED 1940, FIRST PERFORMED 1946) †¢HUGHIE, WRITTEN (1941, FIRST PERFORMED 1959) †¢LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, (WRITTEN 1941, FIRST PERFORMED 1956 – PULITZER PRIZE 1957) †¢A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN, (WRITTEN 1941–1943, FIRST PERFORMED 1947) †¢A TOUCH OF THE POET, (COMPLETED IN 1942, FIRST PERFORMED 1958) †¢MORE STATELY MANSIONS, (SECOND DRAFT FOUND IN O’NEILL’S PAPERS, FIRST PERFORMED 1967) †¢THE CALMS OF CAPRICORN, (PUBLISHED IN 1983) One-act plays The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home: †¢BOUND EAST FOR CARDIFF, ((1914)) †¢IN THE ZONE, (1917) †¢THE LONG VOYAGE HOME, (1917) †¢MOON OF THE CARIBBEES, (1918) Other one-act plays include: †¢A WIFE FOR A LIFE, (1913) †¢THE WEB, (1913) †¢THIRST, (1913) †¢RECKLESSNESS, (1913) †¢WARNINGS, (1913) †¢FOG, (1914) †¢ABORTION, (1914) †¢THE MOVIE MAN: A COMEDY, (1914) †¢THE SNIPER, (1916) †¢BEFORE BREAKFAST, (1916) †¢ILE, (1917) †¢THE ROPE, (1918) †¢SHELL SHOCK, (1918) †¢THE DREAMY KID, (1918) †¢WHERE THE CROSS IS MADE, (1918) †¢EXORCISM (1919) 1. 5 His Themes.

Babette’s Feast and the Power of Art Essay

When all deadlines are met and time is out in my favor, one can usually find me sitting comfortably on the couch with a bowl of popcorn on one hand and a remote control on the other. Watching movies has always been one of my favorite leisure. Although I try to see films from different parts of the world as much as I can, perhaps like the many others who belong in my generation, Hollywood movies are always top of the list. Seldom do I find fascination with other international productions especially European ones. They are slow-paced, often more serious and â€Å"less entertaining† than those produced in Hollywood. However, watching the Danish film â€Å"Babette’s Feast† made me reconsider and view European films with a different lens – one with a little more appreciation and interest. While the slow pacing is inherent to this kind of cinema, they also present a different style and meat altogether, leaving more room for its audience to think rather than just instant gratification offered by most American movies. This is very evident in Babette’s Feast. In its subtlety and simplicity, together with the use of brilliant metaphors and symbolisms, it was able to uncover the transforming power of art with beauty and sophistication. Babette’s Feast tells the story of two pious sisters whose lives were changed by their French servant, who was apparently an unspoken artist, Babette. One of the images that constantly reappear all throughout the movie, especially in the beginning, is the image of the dried fish. This symbolizes the life of Martina and Philippa and perhaps even those in the community who was devoted to the preaching of their father that to attain salvation, one must deprive himself all physical or worldly pleasures including food. They lived a life of unhealthy simplicity and unreasonable meagerness. Their simple and puritan way of living is so extreme that it has become dreary and ironically â€Å"lifeless†, like a dried fish in contrast to the delectable meal of Babette in the end. Another powerful symbolism is Babette’s washing of the window from the outside. It speaks to me as if Babette was trying to show the sisters what they have been missing for the longest time. Their world and their lives are similar to the dirty windows Babette were washing – dark and clouded by their austere beliefs. Because of the hyperbolic focus on spirituality, they were blinded from the beauty and joy of the outside world, from the other things that life has to offer including the love from men they rejected when they were young. Through Babette’s feast, which they initially refuted as they believed it was sinful, the sisters were opened to a new world from which they were hiding, to a reality where â€Å"righteousness and bliss [..] kiss†, where the spirit and the flesh are both nourished and nurtured without choosing or isolating one from the other. This reconciliation is symbolized by the candlelight snuffed out in the end. Aside from Babette’s art which is the sumptuous food she prepared very well, another integral element that played a significant role in the transformation of the sisters and the other members of the congregation is the character of General Loewenhielm, one of the sisters’ ex lover. If the sisters lived a deprived life, a deprivation not of accident but of choice, the general was at the other end of the spectrum. He symbolizes everything the sisters were not – luxurious and powerful. He enjoyed a life of abundance and glory. Because of this background, the general honestly and wholeheartedly enjoyed the feast while the others remained skeptical, refusing to surrender to their delight of the food. It was also the general who had this realization that there is joy both from bodily and spiritual nourishment, as he was dumfounded to partake in such kind of dinner in an unexpected place, considering it then as a grace and blessing from the heavens. All in all, Babette as an artist was successful. Like a masterpiece that brings joy to its audience, her feast was able to transform and bring love and happiness on the table, to the people who received her art. And this is what is meant by her statement, â€Å"an artist is never poor.† Her talent, which was able to transcend the material, and her ability to do her very best, is her wealth. Indeed, art has a very strong power to transform. Not only did Babette’s art transformed the characters in the story but the movie itself, as a form of art, was able to transform its viewers, me included. It may not be able to provide the â€Å"fun† from the thrilling and idealistic yet shallow plot of Hollywood movies but it was able to deliver something deeper and more delicate, something worthy of admiration and appreciation.

Financial Environment Essay

Introduction With recent big changes in healthcare legislation, health care organizations are moving towards a system that changes reimbursement procedures. Health care organizations will be reimbursed by the government based on the quality of care provided by that organization. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires certain steps to make Medicare more resourceful by decreasing the amount of overpaid funds to insurance companies, adjusting reimbursement rates to levels that are more suitable, and altering payment scales and systems to support the delivery of efficient, premium health care (â€Å"Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services†, 2013). There are several different types of health care organizations that offer medical services to patients. Because of the many different services and organizations in healthcare, the financial aspect of health care is not so cut and dry. Health care organizations can be described as either for-profit, not-for-profit, or part of a government organization. Some examples of these health care organizations are hospitals, nursing homes, health insurance companies, and home health care agencies. Gapenski (2008) explains that he healthcare field is different from any other field mainly because of two factors. Unlike other types of services, most healthcare providers and organizations are structured as not-for-profit rather than being owned by an investor. Another major factor that contributes to its uniqueness is the fact that payment is made by a third party rather than the individual who receives the services. For-profit Organizations The Watermark at Logan Square, Tenet Healthcare, and Hospital Management Associates (HMA) are just three examples of for-profit health care organizations in today’s market. These are investor owned organizations that must pay taxes and do not receive the same benefits that not-for-profit organizations receive. For-profit healthcare organizations are owned by investors. In terms, this means they have shareholders who benefit directly from any profits that are generated from this organization. Unlike, not-for-profit organizations, these for-profit organizations do not usually have the mission of taking on charity work or cases. Not-for-profit Organizations Not-for-profit hospitals are nongovernment entities that are organized with the main goal of providing inpatient healthcare services. Three examples of not-for-profit healthcare organizations include The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and The Cleveland Clinic. Gapenski (2008) explains that not-for-profit organizations must be structured and managed so that they operate exclusively to the interest of the public. Non-profit organizations were formed with the purpose of servicing the needs of the less fortunate. This later led to non-for-profit hospitals being free from paying taxes because of the fact that they were providing certain social services. Due to the fact that individuals can not benefit from the profits of not-for-profit organizations, dividends from these organizations cannot be paid (Gapenski, 2008). Not-for-profit organizations are also controlled by a board of trustees, which often times makes it hard to make certain changes or decisions without everyone in agreement. Because of the current economy, Ebrahim (2010) explains that not-for-profit organizations stand out more in the area of public policy and the delivery of public services than they have ever before. Currently, the existing economic crisis has caused cuts in funding at both the state and local level. These financial cuts often times force many not-for-profit organizations to reduce the services offered. Obtaining funding with these setbacks is a major challenge for any nonprofit organization. When these organizations are not getting the funds they were once given, it takes a lot of budget restructure to not be incomplete deficit. It is still important  for these organizations to gain some type of profit to be able to purchase more equipment, technology, or even land to help provide quality care. For-profit vs. Not-for-profit Both for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals produce revenues through their daily operations and interactions. Unlike not-for-profit hospitals, for-profit hospitals are able to generate funds by issuing stocks. On the other hand, not-for-profit hospitals can accept tax-deductible contributions. The two different types of organizations generally have different ways of handling decisions regarding different financial and capital investments. A not-for-profit organization does not have the same opportunities for the capital structure that a for-profit organization does. In particular, a not-for-profit organization cannot sell new shares or ownership interests. Governmental Organizations Government organizations, like not-for-profit organizations, have no stockholders who receive the remaining assets when they are liquefied. Government health care organizations offer care to patients at a certain cost or agreed fee. The patient is responsible for a certain amount and the insurance is responsible for the remainder of the bill (Berger, 2008). Conclusion Healthcare finance is not always easy to grasp. It is important that one has a general understanding of how finances are managed in healthcare. It is essential for one to understand the differences in the types of organizations and it may help understand why certain decisions are made. It is also beneficial for one to stay updated on legislation in healthcare because it may directly shape the way that finances are handled. References Berger, S. (2008). Fundamentals of health care financial management. A practical guide to fiscal issues and activities. John Wiley & Sons. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid services. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.cms.gov/medicare-coverage-database/ Ebrahim, A. (2010). Nonprofit agency challenges. Journal Of Policy Analysis & Management, 29(3), 628-632. Gapenski, L. C. (2008) Healthcare finance: An introduction to accounting and financial management. (4th ed.). Chicago, IL: Association of University Programs in Health Administration. 0 replies | 0 drafts

The disturbance in the core’s natural motion causes the Earth

The plot of the 2003 movie â€Å"The Core† is centered on the apparent ceasing of the core’s rotation and the ensuing catastrophes that threaten to obliterate life on earth within a year’s time.The disturbance in the core’s natural motion causes the Earth’s magnetic field to falter, and consequently leads to a myriad of disasters that escalate in intensity and gravity over time. To avert the threat of annihilation, a team of â€Å"terranauts† was organized to travel into the Earth’s core to set off nuclear bombs that will restart its rotation.For obvious reasons â€Å"The Core† falls under the science fiction genre, but as with any typical sci-fi movie, a scrutiny of the movie should reveal just how much of its â€Å"science† is factual and how much is made-up.To resolve the predicament of the stalled core, the terranauts are to drill into the earth’s interior and are to set off nuclear bombs in the inner core to g et it rotating again. For argument’s sake we shall assume that it may indeed be possible to build a vehicle capable of traveling and withstanding the tremendous heat and pressure in the Earth’s interior, and that a nuclear bomb strong enough for the purpose exists.The question will then be whether the shock waves that will be generated by the nuclear bombs be able to jumpstart the core into rotating again.For this to happen, a torque, or a twisting force, needs to be applied to the core to start it spinning. Specifically, the direction of the force should be tangential to the core (â€Å"The Core (2003)†, par. 20), the same way that you would try to make a globe spin by applying force along a tangent in its surface.Contrary to what was shown in Zimky’s simulation in the movie, the shock waves from the explosion will doubtfully have any net effect when it hits the core (â€Å"The Core (2003)†, par. 20) since the waves will radiate out of the point o f explosion in all directions and will hit the core head-on.Even as the waves radiate further out and be propagated tangentially to the core, they would be propagated equally on opposing sides and will therefore cancel each other out.Another questionable observation about the simulation is that the waves seemed to be simply reflected by the outer core-mantle boundary so that it rebounds within the outer core. The bomb explosions are a form of induced seismic activity and from this vantage point, the shock waves can be discussed in terms of primary (P) and secondary (S) waves.P waves are compressional waves that travel along the direction of propagation while S waves involve the displacement of material perpendicular to the direction that the wave is traveling. Both waves travel through the Earth’s interior and are refracted when they pass through materials of a different composition and density (â€Å"Seismic Waves†, sec. 1.1).Considering this, the simulation appears o versimplified, if not inaccurate, since the primary waves will travel outward through the mantle and not simply bounce back inside the outer core. This would probably make the simulation for the sequential detonation of the nuclear bombs likewise inaccurate.Later on in the movie it is revealed that the reason for the core’s stalling was because of a top-secret government project named DESTINI (Deep Earth Seismic Trigger Initiative) which claims to have the ability to produce targeted seismic events anywhere on Earth by focusing high-energy electromagnetic waves down deeper fault lines.It wasn’t explained in the movie why DESTINI intends to target these deeper fault lines but assuming that it is because they intend to produce â€Å"deep focus† earthquakes that are, as of present, not yet fully understood and hence may not be as traceable in terms of their exact cause, then it doesn’t make much sense since these types of earthquakes usually are not as damag ing as â€Å"shallow focus† earthquakes (â€Å"INDEPTH†, par. 5).The latter’s focus occurs much nearer the surface and hence the seismic waves generated will be surface waves. Due to their nature, these waves are much more destructive than the P and S waves (â€Å"Seismic Waves†, sec. 1.2) that will be produced from deep focus earthquakes generated hundreds of kilometers deeper.It is also hard to imagine an instrument capable of delivering energy that is powerful enough to create stress along fault lines and in the process induce an earthquake. Even if such a device were possible, there’s still the question of how to target a specific location.DESTINI claims to be able to create earthquakes ‘anywhere’ but it is arguable that there’s a convenient fault for every conceivable target on the surface of the Earth. Even if the device were to target known active fault lines, it would be impossible to dictate the specific focus and epice nter of the resulting earthquake. It would also be shortsighted not to think that they would be running the risk of inadvertently producing earthquakes anywhere else along the fault line.In the first place, are the catastrophes depicted in the movie really possible if the core were to stop spinning? G. Glatzmaier of the Inst. of Geophysics & Planetary Physics said that â€Å"the super-rotation of the inner core is really neither a pure cause nor a pure effect of the magnetic field. The situation is much more intricate†¦Ã¢â‚¬ , so even if the core stalls it won’t automatically equate to a collapsing magnetic field. Likewise, the disasters attributed to the faltering geomagnetic field were dubious.The incident with the birds in Trafalgar Square is highly unlikely. The answer was in the movie itself – when asked how birds navigate, Keyes’ graduate student answered jokingly that it was through â€Å"eyesight† and only when Keyes asked how they navigate long-range did she reply that it was through sensing the Earth’s magnetic field. Birds do make use of the magnetic field but it is to find their way during long-distance and migratory flights, but even this is under debate (â€Å"All About Birds†).The Earth’s magnetic field does protect us from certain cosmic radiation, including solar winds but (â€Å"Solar Wind†, sec 3.3) microwave radiation is able to penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere because neither the magnetic field nor the atmosphere effectively blocks this type of radiation (â€Å"Solar Wind†, secs. 2 & 4).The Sun’s energy reaches us mostly in the form of visible light (â€Å"Solar System†, sec. 4) and though the Sun does emit microwave radiation, it won’t be in the form of an almost-visible and laser-like beam that can cut a bridge in two as depicted in the movie. Also, microwaves don’t cause severe sunburns because what causes the latter is exposure to u ltraviolet light.The movie did get some basic scientific facts right. Aside from the few already mentioned, the peach analogy is quite accurate if you compare it to a diagram of the Earth’s layers drawn to scale. The Marianas Trench is also indeed the deepest part of the Earth (â€Å"Mariana Trench†, par. 1) and would make a logical choice as the point of entry if you were to travel into the interior of the Earth.Compared to your average sci-fi film, â€Å"The Core† seems to have left most of the â€Å"science† out of its story. From a purely scientific point of view, the plot suffers from huge logical gaps in that the problem, its cause, and even the resolution to the said conflict are highly improbable, if not all together impossible. Hence, it would probably be a more accurate description to say that this fictional piece of work is likewise based mostly on science that is also bordering on fictional.References:All About Birds. 2006. Cornell Lab of Orni thology. 19 March 2007.Glatzmaier, Gary A. â€Å"I am wondering about the significance of the recent report that the earth's solid core rotates slightly faster than the earth's surface. Is this a cause or an effect of the earth's magnetic field?†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Online posting. 21 Oct. 1999. Scientific American.Com Ask the Experts: Geology. 19 March 2007.