The issues human resources encounter on a day to fay bases Essay

The issues human resources encounter on a day to fay bases - Essay Example They include among others the management needs to develop human resource strategies at the business formulation level, delegation of the right human resource matters to departmental managers is important in freeing the human resource department and in the process allows it to focus on the development of strategic policies. This role becomes effective when the training section of the human resources training section equips the departmental and line managers with adequate, knowledge, skills, and attitude to enable them to develop and manage staff effectively. Strategic functions of the human resource management form part of the core functions of the department, therefore, it is important that the selection and development of employees with the right skills that fit the job description be thorough. The process of change is gradual hence, it must be planned and managed carefully. The value of the process is in the change in the organization’s culture. Literature Review Armstrong, (34) suggests that business companies are involved in reorganizing their culture in the process of developing responsive and acceptable structures. Notably, achieving efficiency and profitability depends on innovative policies on the management of people, resources, and Financials. He gives priority to the process that the human resources department goes through in managing challenges in the day-to-day operations within the business. Crow, (1997, 23) posits that the issues of human resources management as a strategic approach to handling employees within business organizations is new and has existed for about three decades. Various factors influenced the development of human resources management from the traditional personnel department. They included an increase in pressure from competition brought by globalization and liberalization of trade a market. Other scholars among them Hendry (44) hold that human resources management is not different in any way from the traditional personn el department apart from the change of terminology. Leggae (71) identifies new issues of human resource management as development of an integrated system for the management of human resource issues, transforming the approach to human resources management making the process more professional, dealing with the decentralization of the right human resource management issues, and delegation of appropriate roles of the human resources to departmental managers. Human Resource Issues and challenges Employers experience various human resource issues during their day-to-day operations. These issues include recruiting, productivity, training of employees, arranging staff, and eliminating discrimination within the organization. Employees working in the human resource management on the hand, face challenges that include conflict resolution and making sure that the employees in other departments operate within environments that are safe. Other concerns include dealing with issues that come with o utsourcing, determining and distributing benefits, enhancing and maintaining cultural diversity. The company policy and human resources director dictate the manner in which individual organizations deal with human resource issues. The management of issues by the human resource management is a continuous process irrespective of the type and size of the company under discussion. Productivity Management and organization of employees make

Environmental assessment Essay Example for Free

Environmental assessment Essay This paper has been written to analyze in-depth, the pollution, covering air, water, chemicals, and other such related issues in the United States. Further, I would also be developing an environmental health teaching plan to address one of these issues. Environmental issues are becoming very prevalent in today’s world. The question is why the environment and its concerns are becoming more prevalent, important and famous now. For this, we will need to look at the history. For decades we have neglected this seemingly dangerous issue due to which it has been going unnoticed. The reason we never before paid heed to this concern or issue is because this issue’s repercussions were not evident in the previous years. As no such notice regarding this issue was taken into consideration, it could not even be rectified. (Abel McConnell, 2007). However, with the advent of global warming and other factors such as acid rain, prevalence of carbon dioxide and the ever increasing penetration of green house gases has put many lives at stake making many people fear that this world will not continue to exist or survive for more than 10 years from now on that means that by 2018 this world will have used most of the resources and this is basically due to the wastages of resources available to us. The basic thing that we have to consider here is to think hard about the issue as to how we can prevent our precious resources from depletion, disappearance and from vanishing. To answer this question we can simply say that we should use our resources optimally. (Kemp, 2007). It is believed that the next war that would be held would be for the sole purpose of resources. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre highlights the hidden objective of the resources. Although this act would be illegal and an immoral thing or practice, therefore many countries other than the one going for the war would object to this act for spoiling the world peace. U. S is a super power of the world and it is always trying to get hold of the resources. They are doing this by capturing resources, snatching them and raiding the countries that have abundant of these resources such as O. P. E. C countries and countries with no or minimal problems of the water shortage or the countries thave abundant of resources like the crude oil, natural coal and the natural gas. (Harris 2004). The reason why some countries have been the target of the United States is because although these countries might have some kinds of resources, however they do not have any resources that can be used to combat the threat or the attack coming from the super power such as the US and countries that are the allies of the U. S. such as European Union that also includes Turkey. Furthermore, these countries have a very weak defence and military, but the most important two factors that are responsible for their vulnerability are mentioned below. †¢ Lack of Decisive and Prowess Leadership. †¢ Ignorance to the current affairs and the intelligence. This is one of the major problems that might create huge problems for the countries US has their eyes on. With all the afore mentioned details to the problem, now let us go deeper in to the affects of the ignorance this problem environment exploitation that is also supported by the fact that he next war expected to take place is on the resources. The mere resources which were once used with out any fear of them being depleted once are now being depleted all because of the lack of the knowledge and the lack of the far sightedness of the problem. Now this problem has become very prominent and inevitable. The depletion of resources is not a small problem but it is vice versa. It is a very big problem that can greatly affect our future generations and if this problem goes unsolved today then our generations will have no future or to put it more realistically our future generation is going to be at the mercy of an unsafe future with lots of pollutants in the air. Therefore, if this problem goes unrectified then its repercussions can be innumerable, our future generation is at stake and now is definitely the time to act upon. (Horner, 2007). The United States of America, in past many years have taken initiative to contribute towards environment uplift and betterment of the environment. Environmental hazards do not have any boundary. The boundaries separating the countries subordinate to environmental impacts. Global warming, green house gases, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide penetration know no boundary and their impact is much due to which there is a dire need now is to prevent exposure to these hazards. However, the US cannot alone can not take any initiative to combat this seemingly deadly hazard and so it requires input and the cumulative effort to prevent this penetration in to our lives and body but as the US is one of the major super powers of the world, it must take the initiative. Furthermore, US is well equipped with resources and can lead the world to save the environment. (Houghton, 2004). US has repeatedly been warned of the repercussions of the gases from chimneys that their factories and companies are producing and how their industrial wastage is discarded. Furthermore, US have broken many protocols and pacts on this regard and continue to exploit environment. US can also be given the name of one of the world‘s biggest pollutants. The environments can also affect international marketing decisions and the planning system of the countries. This is because two different states have two different governments and thus having different polices and laws. Therefore, the marketing decisions that are taken in a country are different from each other according to the social, economic and political environment that exists in the country. (Kitchen Schultz, 2000). Reference Abel,D. C. McConnell,R. L. (2007). Environmental Issues: An Introduction to Sustainability. 3rd Edn. Prentice Hall, Paperback. Horner,C. C. (2007). The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism. Regnery Publishing, Inc. , Paperback. Kemp,D. D. (2007). Exploring Environmental Issues (Kindle Edition). 1st Edn. Taylor Francis. Kitchen,P. Schultz,D. (2000). Communicating Globally: An Integrated Marketing Approach. London, Macmillan Business. Scorecard. (n. d. ). More Facts on Pollution. January 3rd, 2009. Retrieved from: http://www. scorecard. org/

The Music of Dmitri Shostakovich Essay -- Musicians

Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia on September 25, 1906, Shostakovich was the second of three children born to Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina. His father was of Polish descent but both his parents were Siberian natives. Dmitri was a child prodigy as a pianist and composer. He began taking piano lessons from his mother at the age of nine. He displayed an incredible talent to remember what his mother had played at the previous lesson and would get caught pretending to read the music, playing the music from his last lesson instead of what was placed in front of him. In 1919, at the age of thirteen, he was allowed to enter the Petrograd Conservatory in Saint Petersburg and studied piano with Leonid Nikolayev. Because the conservatory was poorly funded, it did not have heat; the students had to wear coats, hats and gloves constantly only taking off their gloves when composing. Because of these poor living conditions Dmitri developed tuberculosis of the lymph glands in spring 1923 and had to have an operation. Nevertheless, he completed his final piano examinations at the conservatory in June with his neck still bandaged. Shostakovich, though very intelligent and talented, was seen as immature in his final year at the conservatory Shostakovich initially failed his exam in his Marxist method class. When another student was asked to explain the difference between the music of Liszt and Chopin on sociological and economic grounds, the young composer burst out laughing. Luckily, he was able to petition the decision and re-take the test with a str aight face. In the future, he would learn not to be so casual about politics. His first major musical achievement was the First Symphony, premiered in... ...lder). Works Cited †¢ Burkholder, J. Peter, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca. A history of western music. 8th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. Print. †¢ Fanning, David. Shostakovich studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print. †¢ Hurwitz, David, and DmitriÄ ­ Dmitrievich Shostakovich. Shostakovich symphonies and concertos: an owner's manual. Pompton Plains, N.J.: Amadeus ;, 2006. Print. †¢ Norris, Christopher. Shostakovich, the man and his music. Boston: M. Boyars, 1982. Print. †¢ Volkov, Solomon, and Antonina W. Bouis. Shostakovich and Stalin: the extraordinary relationship between the great composer and the brutal dictator. New York: Knopf, 2004. Print. †¢ David Fanning and Laurel Fay. "Shostakovich, Dmitry." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 14 Apr. 2012 .

Angels Demons Chapter 55-57

55 Langdon and Vittoria exploded onto the courtyard outside the Secret Archives. The fresh air felt like a drug as it flowed into Langdon's lungs. The purple spots in his vision quickly faded. The guilt, however, did not. He had just been accomplice to stealing a priceless relic from the world's most private vault. The camerlegno had said, I am giving you my trust. â€Å"Hurry,† Vittoria said, still holding the folio in her hand and striding at a half-jog across Via Borgia in the direction of Olivetti's office. â€Å"If any water gets on that papyrus – â€Å" â€Å"Calm down. When we decipher this thing, we can return their sacred Folio 5.† Langdon accelerated to keep up. Beyond feeling like a criminal, he was still dazed over the document's spellbinding implications. John Milton was an Illuminatus. He composed the poem for Galileo to publish in Folio 5†¦ far from the eyes of the Vatican. As they left the courtyard, Vittoria held out the folio for Langdon. â€Å"You think you can decipher this thing? Or did we just kill all those brain cells for kicks?† Langdon took the document carefully in his hands. Without hesitation he slipped it into one of the breast pockets of his tweed jacket, out of the sunlight and dangers of moisture. â€Å"I deciphered it already.† Vittoria stopped short. â€Å"You what?† Langdon kept moving. Vittoria hustled to catch up. â€Å"You read it once! I thought it was supposed to be hard!† Langdon knew she was right, and yet he had deciphered the segno in a single reading. A perfect stanza of iambic pentameter, and the first altar of science had revealed itself in pristine clarity. Admittedly, the ease with which he had accomplished the task left him with a nagging disquietude. He was a child of the Puritan work ethic. He could still hear his father speaking the old New England aphorism: If it wasn't painfully difficult, you did it wrong. Langdon hoped the saying was false. â€Å"I deciphered it,† he said, moving faster now. â€Å"I know where the first killing is going to happen. We need to warn Olivetti.† Vittoria closed in on him. â€Å"How could you already know? Let me see that thing again.† With the sleight of a boxer, she slipped a lissome hand into his pocket and pulled out the folio again. â€Å"Careful!† Langdon said. â€Å"You can't – â€Å" Vittoria ignored him. Folio in hand, she floated beside him, holding the document up to the evening light, examining the margins. As she began reading aloud, Langdon moved to retrieve the folio but instead found himself bewitched by Vittoria's accented alto speaking the syllables in perfect rhythm with her gait. For a moment, hearing the verse aloud, Langdon felt transported in time†¦ as though he were one of Galileo's contemporaries, listening to the poem for the first time†¦ knowing it was a test, a map, a clue unveiling the four altars of science†¦ the four markers that blazed a secret path across Rome. The verse flowed from Vittoria's lips like a song. From Santi's earthly tomb with demon's hole, ‘Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold. The path of light is laid, the sacred test, Let angels guide you on your lofty quest. Vittoria read it twice and then fell silent, as if letting the ancient words resonate on their own. From Santi's earthly tomb, Langdon repeated in his mind. The poem was crystal clear about that. The Path of Illumination began at Santi's tomb. From there, across Rome, the markers blazed the trail. From Santi's earthly tomb with demon's hole, ‘Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold. Mystic elements. Also clear. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. Elements of science, the four Illuminati markers disguised as religious sculpture. â€Å"The first marker,† Vittoria said, â€Å"sounds like it's at Santi's tomb.† Langdon smiled. â€Å"I told you it wasn't that tough.† â€Å"So who is Santi?† she asked, sounding suddenly excited. â€Å"And where's his tomb?† Langdon chuckled to himself. He was amazed how few people knew Santi, the last name of one of the most famous Renaissance artists ever to live. His first name was world renowned†¦ the child prodigy who at the age of twenty-five was already doing commissions for Pope Julius II, and when he died at only thirty-eight, left behind the greatest collection of frescoes the world had ever seen. Santi was a behemoth in the art world, and being known solely by one's first name was a level of fame achieved only by an elite few†¦ people like Napoleon, Galileo, and Jesus†¦ and, of course, the demigods Langdon now heard blaring from Harvard dormitories – Sting, Madonna, Jewel, and the artist formerly known as Prince, who had changed his name to the symbol Angels & Demons causing Langdon to dub him â€Å"The Tau Cross With Intersecting Hermaphroditic Ankh.† â€Å"Santi,† Langdon said, â€Å"is the last name of the great Renaissance master, Raphael.† Vittoria looked surprised. â€Å"Raphael? As in the Raphael?† â€Å"The one and only.† Langdon pushed on toward the Office of the Swiss Guard. â€Å"So the path starts at Raphael's tomb?† â€Å"It actually makes perfect sense,† Langdon said as they rushed on. â€Å"The Illuminati often considered great artists and sculptors honorary brothers in enlightenment. The Illuminati could have chosen Raphael's tomb as a kind of tribute.† Langdon also knew that Raphael, like many other religious artists, was a suspected closet atheist. Vittoria slipped the folio carefully back in Langdon's pocket. â€Å"So where is he buried?† Langdon took a deep breath. â€Å"Believe it or not, Raphael's buried in the Pantheon.† Vittoria looked skeptical. â€Å"The Pantheon?† â€Å"The Raphael at the Pantheon.† Langdon had to admit, the Pantheon was not what he had expected for the placement of the first marker. He would have guessed the first altar of science to be at some quiet, out of the way church, something subtle. Even in the 1600s, the Pantheon, with its tremendous, holed dome, was one of the best known sites in Rome. â€Å"Is the Pantheon even a church?† Vittoria asked. â€Å"Oldest Catholic church in Rome.† Vittoria shook her head. â€Å"But do you really think the first cardinal could be killed at the Pantheon? That's got to be one of the busiest tourist spots in Rome.† Langdon shrugged. â€Å"The Illuminati said they wanted the whole world watching. Killing a cardinal at the Pantheon would certainly open some eyes.† â€Å"But how does this guy expect to kill someone at the Pantheon and get away unnoticed? It would be impossible.† â€Å"As impossible as kidnapping four cardinals from Vatican City? The poem is precise.† â€Å"And you're certain Raphael is buried inside the Pantheon?† â€Å"I've seen his tomb many times.† Vittoria nodded, still looking troubled. â€Å"What time is it?† Langdon checked. â€Å"Seven-thirty.† â€Å"Is the Pantheon far?† â€Å"A mile maybe. We've got time.† â€Å"The poem said Santi's earthly tomb. Does that mean anything to you?† Langdon hastened diagonally across the Courtyard of the Sentinel. â€Å"Earthly? Actually, there's probably no more earthly place in Rome than the Pantheon. It got its name from the original religion practiced there – Pantheism – the worship of all gods, specifically the pagan gods of Mother Earth.† As a student of architecture, Langdon had been amazed to learn that the dimensions of the Pantheon's main chamber were a tribute to Gaea – the goddess of the Earth. The proportions were so exact that a giant spherical globe could fit perfectly inside the building with less than a millimeter to spare. â€Å"Okay,† Vittoria said, sounding more convinced. â€Å"And demon's hole? From Santi's earthly tomb with demon's hole?† Langdon was not quite as sure about this. â€Å"Demon's hole must mean the oculus,† he said, making a logical guess. â€Å"The famous circular opening in the Pantheon's roof.† â€Å"But it's a church,† Vittoria said, moving effortlessly beside him. â€Å"Why would they call the opening a demon's hole?† Langdon had actually been wondering that himself. He had never heard the term â€Å"demon's hole,† but he did recall a famous sixth-century critique of the Pantheon whose words seemed oddly appropriate now. The Venerable Bede had once written that the hole in the Pantheon's roof had been bored by demons trying to escape the building when it was consecrated by Boniface IV. â€Å"And why,† Vittoria added as they entered a smaller courtyard, â€Å"why would the Illuminati use the name Santi if he was really known as Raphael?† â€Å"You ask a lot of questions.† â€Å"My dad used to say that.† â€Å"Two possible reasons. One, the word Raphael has too many syllables. It would have destroyed the poem's iambic pentameter.† â€Å"Sounds like a stretch.† Langdon agreed. â€Å"Okay, then maybe using ‘Santi' was to make the clue more obscure, so only very enlightened men would recognize the reference to Raphael.† Vittoria didn't appear to buy this either. â€Å"I'm sure Raphael's last name was very well known when he was alive.† â€Å"Surprisingly not. Single name recognition was a status symbol. Raphael shunned his last name much like pop stars do today. Take Madonna, for example. She never uses her surname, Ciccone.† Vittoria looked amused. â€Å"You know Madonna's last name?† Langdon regretted the example. It was amazing the kind of garbage a mind picked up living with 10,000 adolescents. As he and Vittoria passed the final gate toward the Office of the Swiss Guard, their progress was halted without warning. â€Å"Para!† a voice bellowed behind them. Langdon and Vittoria wheeled to find themselves looking into the barrel of a rifle. â€Å"Attento!† Vittoria exclaimed, jumping back. â€Å"Watch it with – â€Å" â€Å"Non sportarti!† the guard snapped, cocking the weapon. â€Å"Soldato!† a voice commanded from across the courtyard. Olivetti was emerging from the security center. â€Å"Let them go!† The guard looked bewildered. â€Å"Ma, signore, e una donna – â€Å" â€Å"Inside!† he yelled at the guard. â€Å"Signore, non posso – â€Å" â€Å"Now! You have new orders. Captain Rocher will be briefing the corps in two minutes. We will be organizing a search.† Looking bewildered, the guard hurried into the security center. Olivetti marched toward Langdon, rigid and steaming. â€Å"Our most secret archives? I'll want an explanation.† â€Å"We have good news,† Langdon said. Olivetti's eyes narrowed. â€Å"It better be damn good.† 56 The four unmarked Alpha Romeo 155 T-Sparks roared down Via dei Coronari like fighter jets off a runway. The vehicles carried twelve plainclothed Swiss Guards armed with Cherchi-Pardini semiautomatics, local-radius nerve gas canisters, and long-range stun guns. The three sharpshooters carried laser-sighted rifles. Sitting in the passenger seat of the lead car, Olivetti turned backward toward Langdon and Vittoria. His eyes were filled with rage. â€Å"You assured me a sound explanation, and this is what I get?† Langdon felt cramped in the small car. â€Å"I understand your – â€Å" â€Å"No, you don't understand!† Olivetti never raised his voice, but his intensity tripled. â€Å"I have just removed a dozen of my best men from Vatican City on the eve of conclave. And I have done this to stake out the Pantheon based on the testimony of some American I have never met who has just interpreted a four-hundred-year-old poem. I have also just left the search for this antimatter weapon in the hands of secondary officers.† Langdon resisted the urge to pull Folio 5 from his pocket and wave it in Olivetti's face. â€Å"All I know is that the information we found refers to Raphael's tomb, and Raphael's tomb is inside the Pantheon.† The officer behind the wheel nodded. â€Å"He's right, commander. My wife and I – â€Å" â€Å"Drive,† Olivetti snapped. He turned back to Langdon. â€Å"How could a killer accomplish an assassination in such a crowded place and escape unseen?† â€Å"I don't know,† Langdon said. â€Å"But the Illuminati are obviously highly resourceful. They've broken into both CERN and Vatican City. It's only by luck that we know where the first kill zone is. The Pantheon is your one chance to catch this guy.† â€Å"More contradictions,† Olivetti said. â€Å"One chance? I thought you said there was some sort of pathway. A series of markers. If the Pantheon is the right spot, we can follow the pathway to the other markers. We will have four chances to catch this guy.† â€Å"I had hoped so,† Langdon said. â€Å"And we would have†¦ a century ago.† Langdon's realization that the Pantheon was the first altar of science had been a bittersweet moment. History had a way of playing cruel tricks on those who chased it. It was a long shot that the Path of Illumination would be intact after all of these years, with all of its statues in place, but part of Langdon had fantasized about following the path all the way to the end and coming face to face with the sacred Illuminati lair. Alas, he realized, it was not to be. â€Å"The Vatican had all the statues in the Pantheon removed and destroyed in the late 1800s.† Vittoria looked shocked. â€Å"Why?† â€Å"The statues were pagan Olympian Gods. Unfortunately, that means the first marker is gone†¦ and with it – â€Å" â€Å"Any hope,† Vittoria said, â€Å"of finding the Path of Illumination and additional markers?† Langdon shook his head. â€Å"We have one shot. The Pantheon. After that, the path disappears.† Olivetti stared at them both a long moment and then turned and faced front. â€Å"Pull over,† he barked to the driver. The driver swerved the car toward the curb and put on the brakes. Three other Alpha Romeos skidded in behind them. The Swiss Guard convoy screeched to a halt. â€Å"What are you doing!† Vittoria demanded. â€Å"My job,† Olivetti said, turning in his seat, his voice like stone. â€Å"Mr. Langdon, when you told me you would explain the situation en route, I assumed I would be approaching the Pantheon with a clear idea of why my men are here. That is not the case. Because I am abandoning critical duties by being here, and because I have found very little that makes sense in this theory of yours about virgin sacrifices and ancient poetry, I cannot in good conscience continue. I am recalling this mission immediately.† He pulled out his walkie-talkie and clicked it on. Vittoria reached across the seat and grabbed his arm. â€Å"You can't!† Olivetti slammed down the walkie-talkie and fixed her with a red-hot stare. â€Å"Have you been to the Pantheon, Ms. Vetra?† â€Å"No, but I – â€Å" â€Å"Let me tell you something about it. The Pantheon is a single room. A circular cell made of stone and cement. It has one entrance. No windows. One narrow entrance. That entrance is flanked at all times by no less than four armed Roman policemen who protect this shrine from art defacers, anti-Christian terrorists, and gypsy tourist scams.† â€Å"Your point?† she said coolly. â€Å"My point?† Olivetti's knuckles gripped the seat. â€Å"My point is that what you have just told me is going to happen is utterly impossible! Can you give me one plausible scenario of how someone could kill a cardinal inside the Pantheon? How does one even get a hostage past the guards into the Pantheon in the first place? Much less actually kill him and get away?† Olivetti leaned over the seat, his coffee breath now in Langdon's face. â€Å"How, Mr. Langdon? One plausible scenario.† Langdon felt the tiny car shrink around him. I have no idea! I'm not an assassin! I don't know how he will do it! I only know – â€Å"One scenario?† Vittoria quipped, her voice unruffled. â€Å"How about this? The killer flies over in a helicopter and drops a screaming, branded cardinal down through the hole in the roof. The cardinal hits the marble floor and dies.† Everyone in the car turned and stared at Vittoria. Langdon didn't know what to think. You've got one sick imagination, lady, but you are quick. Olivetti frowned. â€Å"Possible, I admit†¦ but hardly – â€Å" â€Å"Or the killer drugs the cardinal,† Vittoria said, â€Å"brings him to the Pantheon in a wheelchair like some old tourist. He wheels him inside, quietly slits his throat, and then walks out.† This seemed to wake up Olivetti a bit. Not bad! Langdon thought. â€Å"Or,† she said, â€Å"the killer could – â€Å" â€Å"I heard you,† Olivetti said. â€Å"Enough.† He took a deep breath and blew it out. Someone rapped sharply on the window, and everyone jumped. It was a soldier from one of the other cars. Olivetti rolled down the window. â€Å"Everything all right, commander?† The soldier was dressed in street clothes. He pulled back the sleeve of his denim shirt to reveal a black chronograph military watch. â€Å"Seven-forty, commander. We'll need time to get in position.† Olivetti nodded vaguely but said nothing for many moments. He ran a finger back and forth across the dash, making a line in the dust. He studied Langdon in the side-view mirror, and Langdon felt himself being measured and weighed. Finally Olivetti turned back to the guard. There was reluctance in his voice. â€Å"I'll want separate approaches. Cars to Piazza della Rotunda, Via delgi Orfani, Piazza Sant'Ignacio, and Sant'Eustachio. No closer than two blocks. Once you're parked, gear up and await my orders. Three minutes.† â€Å"Very good, sir.† The soldier returned to his car. Langdon gave Vittoria an impressed nod. She smiled back, and for an instant Langdon felt an unexpected connection†¦ a thread of magnetism between them. The commander turned in his seat and locked eyes with Langdon. â€Å"Mr. Langdon, this had better not blow up in our faces.† Langdon smiled uneasily. How could it? 57 The director of CERN, Maximilian Kohler, opened his eyes to the cool rush of cromolyn and leukotriene in his body, dilating his bronchial tubes and pulmonary capillaries. He was breathing normally again. He found himself lying in a private room in the CERN infirmary, his wheelchair beside the bed. He took stock, examining the paper robe they had put him in. His clothing was folded on the chair beside the bed. Outside he could hear a nurse making the rounds. He lay there a long minute listening. Then, as quietly as possible, he pulled himself to the edge of the bed and retrieved his clothing. Struggling with his dead legs, he dressed himself. Then he dragged his body onto his wheelchair. Muffling a cough, he wheeled himself to the door. He moved manually, careful not to engage the motor. When he arrived at the door he peered out. The hall was empty. Silently, Maximilian Kohler slipped out of the infirmary.

John Keats – Ode to a Nightingale Criticism

Keats is in love with a nightingale. He is at a loss of how to feel; happy for witnessing the bird’s ‘high requiem’, or sad for not being part of its world. In the first stanza the poet is having clear symptoms of an extreme sadness. His ‘heart aches’ and a drowsy numbness pains’ his sense. This heavy mood is paradoxically denounced in the same stanza. It’s ‘being too happy’ in the nightingale’s happiness that’s causing the malaise. The stanza comes to an end in a joyful mood as opposed the heavy start of the poem. He imagines the bird’s home as ‘some melodious plot of beechen green’.Through this synaesthesia he creates a vivid picture of one of his classic bowers. The second stanza opens with a plea ‘for a drought of vintage’ through which he can fulfill his plea to ‘fade away’. This stanza evokes a lot of appeal to the sense of taste, ‘tasting of flora and c ounty green’. The theme of nature together with a joyful atmosphere is also evident. ‘Dance, and provencal song, and sunburnt mirth’. From the comfort of the dreamy second stanza, the third plunges the reader into the sad reality and banality of life. ‘The weariness, the fever, and the fret’ are a reality that the nightingale doesn’t know.Here ‘youth grows pale’ and ‘beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes’. This sombre stanza induces a feeling of a disappointing reality. It’s much better to belong to a dream than to this painful truth. This stanza is also a typical example of Keats’s obsession with illness and death. He decides to ‘fly’ to the nightingale’s realm. However he won’t do this through substance he pondered about in the first two stanzas, but through ‘the viewless wings of poesy’. This is a eulogy to poetry and its ability to take the reader to the spiritu al realm of imagination.He joins the nightingale where the trees let no light in except for when the wind moves their branches. The last three lines stress darkness and the gloomy colours of mundane existence. In the fifth stanza he cannot see what ‘soft incense hangs upon the boughs’. This synaesthesia leads the reader to touch the scent. He is enveloped in ‘embalmed darkness’ – where balm is a sweet smelling fragrance – but he can still imagine all that there in its midst. Through the heavenly eyes of imagination he can see the ‘white hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine’.He can see ‘fast fading violets’ and the musk-rose that is full of ‘dewy wine’ to make sure we know that this world being describe is the nightingale’s not the poet’s. He can also hear the ‘murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves’. After experiencing the extreme joy of the nightingale’s song he is findi ng it hard to go back to the harsh reality. He is playing with the tempting idea of an ‘easeful Death’. It would be a happy death, ‘now more than ever it seems rich to die’, ‘in such ecstasy’. But then his thought evolves further and understands that the nightingale would go on singing, and being death he would miss his ‘high requiem’.The switching from reality to fantasy keeps going on. The poet is back in the nightingale’s realm. It seems that the switch occurred also in his mood. From the rather dark mood of the sixth stanza, the seventh stanza introduces us to a rather jubilant Keats. He’s full of praise for the ‘immortal bird’ whose voice transcends from ‘ancient days’. ‘It was heard by emperor and clown’, which perhaps implies that its song is for everyone. It was heard by Ruth, a biblical figure who has a ‘sad heart’ to alleviate her pains. It’s song â €˜charm’d magic ceasments’ of faery which are ‘forlorn’ and the seas which are ‘perilous’.These words hint at the pain described in the first stanza, a pain the poet is trying to escape. This idea of pain introduces us to the next stanza. The same word ‘forlorn’ wakes him up; reminds him of reality. ‘Fancy’ or imagination is seen as a cheater. He awakes from this delusion understanding where he really belongs. This brings him to question if it all was a ‘vision, or a waking dream? ’ This is a reference to the transient and brief nature of imagination, perhaps the poem itself. It was all a momentary euphoria, ‘fled is that music: – do I wake or sleep’, it seems that the vision was too good to be true.

Islam Means Submission To Allah Religion Essay Essay Example

Islam Means Submission To Allah Religion Essay Essay Example Islam Means Submission To Allah Religion Essay Paper Islam Means Submission To Allah Religion Essay Paper Islam means entry to Allah ( God ) . Islam was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad who lived from 570 CE to 632 CE in Mecca in contemporary Saudi Arabia. Muhammad was called to prophethood when God dictated the Quran to him through the archangel Gabriel. Although he gained a little followers in his folk, Muhammad was ab initio persecuted for his beliefs. In 622 CE he fled to Yathrib, now called Medina, where the first Muslim political community was formed. Enlisting the aid of mobile Arab kins, Muhammad returned to Mecca, depriving the metropolis of all marks of heathen belief. He was generous to those he defeated, nevertheless, and many converted to Islam. Two old ages subsequently, in forepart of the Kaba in Mecca, he declared Islam the faith of the people, stating he had fulfilled his mission and that he left behind him the Book of Allah and a set of clear commandments. History and Spread By the clip of Muhammad s decease, many people of the Arabian Peninsula had begun to follow Islam. A series of calif and dynasties led the Muslim community after Muhammad s decease, making an Islamic imperium that expanded every bit far as contemporary Pakistan in the E, Spain in the North, and North Africa to the South. This was a period of great rational, cultural and religious verve. In Spain, Islamic civilization lasted until 1492 when the Christian sovereign regained power. After the prostration of the Empire, Islam remained the dominant faith in most In-between Eastern states and important pockets throughout North Africa and Asia. In Australia The history of Islam in Australia pre-dates European colony. From 1650, Muslim fisherman from South East Asia communicated and traded with Natives from Australia s North. Some inter-marriage occurred. In the 1860s, some 3000 camel drivers with camels came from Afghanistan and the Indian sub-continent. This group contributed to the geographic expedition of the Australian outback, working on both the railroad line between Port Augusta and Alice Springs, and the Overland Telegraph Line from Adelaide to Darwin, which connected Australia to London via India. Since the late sixtiess at that place have been a figure of important Muslim migrations into Australia, most notably from Turkey and Lebanon. In the 1990s, refugees and migrators from the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Indonesia and Malaysia have all made their place in Australia. Some Islamic societies in Australia are affiliated with AFIC ( The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils ) , which does non command the single societies but gives a public voice and face to Islam, both in province and federal political relations and affairs of community representation. Between 1991 and 1996, the Muslim community grew by 36 per cent ( approx. 53 000 ) . In 1996, there were over 280,000 Moslems in Australia, belonging to over 70 cultural groups ( ABS ) . Cardinal Motions Islam is divided into two chief religious orders, the Sunni and the Shia. This division arose over the order of calif sequence in the first century of the Islamic calendar. Shiites believe that the true authorization and leading of Muslims after Muhammad s son-in-law, Ali, continued through a line of imaums ( spiritual instructors ) . Sunnis uphold the domination of the calif, the line of swayers elected by the people and mandated to guard the prophetic bequest in the disposal of community personal businesss. This gave rise to the development of Sharia jurisprudence. Shiites constitute less than 10 per cent of universe s Muslims, and possess many internal divisions. The largest modern-day Shia group are the Ithnaasharis, or Twelvers. Shiites are a bulk in Iran. Sunni Muslims constitute 90 % of the universe s Muslims and are considered the Orthodox face of Islam. There are assorted mysterious strands of Islam, such as Sufism and the Ibadites of Oman, East Africa and Algeria. These are non, purely talking, sectarian divisions. Organizational Structure Moslems do non necessitate an intermediary between themselves and God. Imams spiritual instructors and leaders of supplication in the mosques do, nevertheless, play a important function. They are frequently officially educated in affairs of faith and law, and systems exist for settling inquiries of jurisprudence and spiritual observation. The al-Azahr, a Islamic university in Cairo, is conventionally regarded as the highest authorization in Sunni Islam. The Shia developed a hierarchy in line with their beliefs in the sequence of regulation ; in Iran, this finds look in the system of ayatollahs ( senior translators and supreme authorities of spiritual jurisprudence ) . Mosques are non denominational and are run on a figure of theoretical accounts depending on the mosque s regulating fundamental law. Some are ethnically-based. Key Beliefs Moslems hold six articles of belief There is merely one God without bound, called Allah. Muhammad received the Quran as a transcript of the ageless Quran which is inscribed in Eden. God created celestial existences called angels to function God and they are opposed by evil liquors. God sent his Prophetss to the Earth at their appointed times, and the Prophet Muhammad was the last and greatest courier of God. There will be a last twenty-four hours of universe history called the Day of Judgement. Good and evil will be weighed in the balance. The wicked will be punished and the merely will bask ageless life in Paradise. Everything in the existence has a preset class. Nothing happens without the will or knowledge of God. The Sunnah is a aggregation of traditions, moral expressions and anecdotes ( Hadiths ) of Muhammad. It embodies all the amplifications of Quranic instruction. The pattern of spiritual religion is besides built on the five pillars of Islam: Shahadah ( declaration of religion ) : I bear witness that there is no God, but God ; I bear witness that Muhammad is the prophesier of God. By declaiming this, one enters Islamic religion. Salaah ( supplication ) : Moslems are required to pray five times a twenty-four hours, rinsing themselves before supplication and facing in the way of Mecca while praying. Zakat ( charity ) : Moslems are required to give away a per centum of their net incomes to those less fortunate, irrespective of their faith. Saum ( fasting ) : Moslems fast for one lunar month each twelvemonth, a period called Ramadan. During this clip, Muslims reflect on their behavior and strive to sublimate their ideas. Hajj ( pilgrims journey ) : If it is financially possible, Muslims are required to go to Mecca one time in their life-time. Ijma means the understanding of Islam. It is an of import mechanism for deciding theological struggles because it is embodies a sense of past community in present action. Sharia is the sacred jurisprudence of Islam, based on the Godhead disclosures contained in the Quran and Sunnah. Dietary demands. Animals have psyches and so necessitate to be slaughtered in a particular manner. This is the significance of halal ( permitted ) . Cardinal Festivals Ramadan: Celebrates the gift of the Quran. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims must fast between dawn and sundown. Eid-al-Fitr: The festival for the first twenty-four hours after Ramadan. Dhu Al-Hijja: The month of pilgrims journey during which all Muslims, at least one time in their life, should seek to do the pilgrims journey to Mecca. Eid-al-adha: The Festival of Sacrifice which occurs 70 yearss after Eid-al-Fitr. It commemorates Abraham s willingness to give his boy for God. Every household who can afford it must butcher an animate being and administer the meat among relations, neighbors and the hapless. The first twenty-four hours of Muharram: The Islamic New Year begins on the twenty-four hours Muhammad left Mecca to go to Medina. The 12th twenty-four hours of Rabi I: Celebrates the birth of the prophesier. Mirajun Nabi: Commemorates the prophesier s journey from Mecca to the celestial spheres.

Miranda v. Arizona essays

Miranda v. Arizona essays The landmark Miranda v Arizona decision was rooted in the case of Ernesto Miranda. On March 13, 1963, a bank worker in Phoenix, Arizona was robbed of $8.00. Police suspected and arrested Ernesto Miranda for the theft. By this arrest, Miranda already had an extensive arrest record, including robbery, burglary, assault and attempted rape and a separate During the two hour questioning, Miranda was not offered a lawyer. During the interrogation, Miranda confessed to the theft of the $8.00. In addition, he also confessed to the kidnapping and the rape of an 18-year- old woman 11 days earlier. This confession was the most important piece of evidence that eventually led to Miranda's conviction for rape. He was Miranda's lawyers appealed the conviction for rape, arguing that Miranda did not understand how the Constitution's Fifth Amendment protected him from self-incrimination. The appeal was unsuccessful at the Arizona Supreme Court and was then heard at the United States Supreme Court. After hearing the arguments, the high court reversed the Arizona court's decision. Ernesto Miranda was granted a new trial, where his confession Despite the lack of a confession, however, Miranda was again convicted of rape and kidnapping on the basis of other evidence. After serving 11 years in jail, Miranda was released on parole in 1972. In 1976, Miranda was fatally stabbed during a fight. In an ironic twist, the suspect in Miranda's murder was read his "Miranda" rights and chose to exercise his The landmark Supreme Court ruling is one of Chief Justice Earl Warren's most famous decisions. In ruling for the defendant, the Warren court held that defendants who were engaged in a "custodial interrogation" like Miranda must be informed of their Fifth Amendment before being ...

About Richard Morris Hunt, Architect of the Biltmore

About Richard Morris Hunt, Architect of the Biltmore American architect Richard Morris Hunt (born October 31, 1827 in Brattleboro, Vermont) became famous for designing elaborate homes for the very wealthy. He worked on many different types of buildings, however, including libraries, civic buildings, apartment buildings, and art museums- providing the same elegant architecture for Americas growing middle class as he was designing for Americas nouveau riche. Within the architecture community, Hunt is credited with making architecture a profession by being a founding father of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Early Years Richard Morris Hunt was born into a wealthy and prominent New England family. His grandfather had been Lieutenant Governor and a founding father of Vermont, and his father, Jonathan Hunt, was a United States Congressman. A decade after his fathers 1832 death, the Hunts moved to Europe for an extended stay. The young Hunt traveled throughout Europe and studied for a time in Geneva, Switzerland. Hunts older brother, William Morris Hunt, also studied in Europe and became a well-known portrait painter after returning to New England. The trajectory of the younger Hunts life changed in 1846 when he became the first American to study at the esteemed École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Hunt graduated from the school of fine arts and stayed on to become an assistant at the École in 1854. Under the mentorship of French architect Hector Lefuel, Richard Morris Hunt remained in Paris to work on expanding the great Louvre museum. Professional Years When Hunt returned to the United States in 1855, he settled in New York, confident in introducing the country to what he had learned in France and had seen throughout his worldly travels. The 19th century mix of styles and ideas he brought to America is sometimes call  Renaissance Revival, an expression of excitement for reviving historic forms. Hunt incorporated Western European designs, including the French Beaux Arts, into his own works. One of his first commissions in 1858 wasthe Tenth Street Studio Building at 51 West 10th Street in the area of New York City known as Greenwich Village. The design for artists studios grouped around a skylighted communal gallery space was apropos to the buildings function but thought to be too specific to be repurposed in the 20th century; the historic structure was torn down in 1956. New York City was Hunts laboratory for new American architecture. In 1870 he built Stuyvesant Apartments, one of the first French-style, Mansard-roofed apartment houses for the American middle class. He experimented with cast-iron facades in the 1874 Roosevelt Building at 480 Broadway. The 1875 New York Tribune Building was not only one of the first NYC skyscrapers but also one of the first commercial buildings to use elevators. If all of these iconic buildings are not enough, Hunt also was called upon to design the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty, finished in 1886. Gilded Age Dwellings Hunts first Newport, Rhode Island residence was wooden and more sedate than the stone Newport mansions yet to be built. Taking chalet detailings from his time in Switzerland and the half-timbering he observed in his European travels, Hunt developed a modern Gothic or Gothic Revival home for John and Jane Griswold in 1864. Hunts design of the Griswold House became known as Stick Style. Today the Griswold House is the Newport Art Museum. The 19th century was a time in American history when many businessmen became rich, amassed huge fortunes, and built opulent mansions gilt with gold.   Several architects, including Richard Morris Hunt, became known as Gilded Age architects for designing palatial homes with lavish interiors. Working with artists and craftspeople, Hunt designed lavish interiors with paintings, sculptures, murals, and interior architectural details modeled after those found in European castles and palaces. His most famous grand mansions were for the Vanderbilts, sons of William Henry Vanderbilt and the grandsons of Cornelius Vanderbilt, known as the Commodore. Marble House (1892) In 1883 Hunt completed a New York City mansion called the Petite Chateau for William Kissam Vanderbilt (1849-1920) and his wife Alva. Hunt brought France to Fifth Avenue in New York City in an architectural expression that became known as Chà ¢teauesque. Their summer cottage in Newport, Rhode Island was a short hop from New York. Designed in a more Beaux Arts style, Marble House was designed as a temple and remains one of Americas grand mansions. The Breakers (1893-1895) Not to be outdone by his brother, Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843-1899) hired Richard Morris Hunt to replace a run-down wooden Newport structure with what became known as the Breakers. With its massive Corinthian columns, the solid-stone Breakers is supported with steel trusses and is as fire-resistant as possible for its day. Resembling a 16th-century Italian seaside palace, the mansion incorporates Beaux Arts and Victorian elements, including gilt cornices, rare marble, wedding cake painted ceilings, and prominent chimneys. Hunt modeled the Great Hall after the Renaissance-era Italian palazzos he encountered in Turin and Genoa, yet the Breakers is one of the first private residences to have electric lights and a private elevator. Architect Richard Morris Hunt gave Breakers Mansion grand spaces for entertaining. The mansion has a 45-foot high central Great Hall, arcades, many levels, and a covered, central courtyard. Many of the rooms and other architectural elements, decorations in French and Italian styles, were designed and constructed simultaneously and then shipped to the U.S.to be reassembled in the house. Hunt called this way of building a Critical Path Method, which allowed the complicated mansion to be completed in 27 months. Biltmore Estate (1889-1895) George Washington Vanderbilt II (1862-1914) hired Richard Morris Hunt to build the most elegant and largest private residence in America. In the hills of Asheville, North Carolina, Biltmore Estate is Americas 250-room French Renaissance chateau- a symbol of both the industrial wealth of the Vanderbilt family and the culmination of Richard Morris Hunts training as an architect. The estate is a dynamic example of   formal elegance surrounded by natural landscaping- Frederick Law Olmsted, known as the father of landscape architecture, designed the grounds. At the end of their careers, Hunt and Olmsted together designed not only Biltmore Estates but also nearby Biltmore Village, a community to house the many servants and caretakers employed by the Vanderbilts. Both the estate and the village are open to the public, and most people concur that the experience is not to be missed. The Dean of American Architecture Hunt was instrumental in establishing architecture as a profession in the U.S. He is often called the Dean of American architecture. Based on his own studies at École des Beaux-Arts, Hunt advocated the notion that American architects should be formally trained in history and the fine arts. He started the first American studio for architect training- right in his own studio as the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City. Most importantly, Richard Morris Hunt helped found the American Institute of Architects in 1857 and served as the professional organizations president from 1888 until 1891. He was a mentor to two titans of American architecture, Philadelphia architect Frank Furness (1839-1912) and New York City-born George B. Post (1837-1913). Later in life, even after designing the Statue of Libertys pedestal, Hunt continued to design high-profile civic projects. Hunt was the architect of two buildings at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the 1893 Gymnasium and an 1895 academic building. Some say Hunts overall masterpiece, however, may have been the 1893 Columbian Exposition Administration Building, for a worlds fair whose buildings are long since gone from Jackson Park in Chicago, Illinois. At the time of his death on July 31, 1895 in Newport, Rhode Island, Hunt was working on the entrance to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Art and architecture were in Hunts blood. Sources Richard Morris Hunt by Paul R. Baker, Master Builders, Wiley, 1985, pp. 88-91The Tenth Street Studio Building and a Walk to the Hudson River by Teri Tynes, August 29, 2009 at walkingoffthebigapple.blogspot.com/2009/08/tenth-street-studio-building-and-walk.html [accessed August 20, 2017]The History of Griswold House, Newport Art Museum [accessed August 20, 2017]The Breakers, National Historic Landmark Nomination, The Preservation Society of Newport County, February 22, 1994 [accessed August 16, 2017]

Post War US Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Post War US Policy - Essay Example The historical and political reasons for the Soviet strategy and the American Policy and the cold war played important role, influencing the whole world. Even though the relationship between United States and Soviet Union are observed in the perspective of post World War II experiences and in relation with Stalin’s expansionist policies, there are other influential factors. Soviet tried to develop Soviet Bloc of satellites in Eastern Europe and took major steps to influence the major portion of the world. Historical Evidences: Tocqeville(1966), made an observation of the relationship between these two giant nations over a century and a half past. He interprets that they were bound to play influential role in the world history. John Gaddis(1978) finds out the routes of American- Soviet relations back to two hundred years, the time of American Revolution. From that time till World war I, almost for a century, both these nations maintained cordial relationships and kept ideology separated from diplomacy. The American action of purchasing Alaska, made a major change in the cordiality between American-Russian relationship and resulted into gradual deterioration over the period of time. The activities of Soviet during World War II, including the attack on Finland, following Hitler’s attack on Soviet had given rise to new dimension to American-Soviet relations which further turned into a Cold war.

Writer's choice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 11

Writer's choice - Essay Example The customer coming into a store, the average number of the customer to walk in Starbuck within a period of one hour is 32. This is however based on the average as the first hour, one customer may enter while the second hour 8 customer may enter and the value may continue to vary with passing each hour. Therefore, the Poisson distribution model helps us to get an estimate of the customer will enter within the given hours. The data will be given by the chance of an event happening, multiplied by the average raised to the power of X, multiplied by the natural number; e raised in the –ve of the average power which is again divided by the factorial of X. Kevin is one of the team members who arguably have a taste for shopping. In this case we are going to monitor the patterns of her online shopping using eBay as the study area. The information obtained from his online shopping habits will be used to project an analysis that will illustrate when likely Kevin will go shopping online. Averagely, the time Kevin goes for shopping online is 2. 6. This includes the average of the time when he would go for long hour and those he goes for just a short time. Having this data, it can be easy for us to determine the likely hood that he will go in the 2, 3, 4 or 5 hours. Jack is fond of using the word â€Å"right† whenever he wants to drive his point home. I think it also gives him the confidence and the power of conviction whenever he is having a chat with the rest of the members of the class. Using the Poisson distribution model, we can estimate the likelihood that he is going to use the word â€Å"right† in his conversation. As from the previous examples, In case of Starbuck Hotel, the data can be of importance in determining the amount of beverages and snacks to prepare. From the observations, the clients are more likely to come in the afternoon and evening hours. Besides, the

Mobile phone dependency Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6000 words

Mobile phone dependency - Research Paper Example The evolution has occurred, and a series of changes have enabled the modern modes of communication, where technology is the aspect that is driving communication. In the presence, age gadgets are been used to pass messages instead of having to deliver the message to the intended parties. With this development, much have changed from the way people communicate to the language used to pass this messages. In the past, the mode of delivering information was essentially formal, and much respect was accorded to the communication, mostly when it came to face to face, among people of different ages. There are different means to communicate, where the variation is based on the method of sending, transmitting and receiving the message. Technology has far much affected the way of communication in the greatest means. In this age, people have adapted news means of transmission which allow messages to be encoded in the electronic devices and sent through the devices (Jin & Park 2010). Communication through digital devices is considered fast and time-saving, thus the reason the y- generation finds it preferable. Here, it takes a fraction of a minute to encode the information into the gadget, such as through text messages. Then, the message is instantly transferred to the recipient via the internet connection or GSM connection. On the other hand, Thulin and Vilhelson (2010) states that the messenger could take more than a day to deliver a message from one village to the other in the 1000 BC. Currently, it may take many hours to travel to the recipient, in order to deliver the message via face-to-face method. The digital communication is also considered cheap compared to voice to voice communication. In the text and social media communication, the cost of transport is cut to zero because the distance between the parties is not a factor that

Green IT for Services Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Green IT for Services - Research Paper Example Description of these reasons is an important part of this paper. It contains the present situation of the process of making IT green. It talks about the Green IT products that are already on the market. Furthermore, it also talks about the major IT companies that are spending significant volume of resources in making IT green by developing Green IT products. In addition to these, this paper includes the future of Green IT. It can be predicted that over the next few years, a lot of efforts will be made in making IT greener and this will certainly change the outlook for the industry. Information Technology (IT), in the present global society, acts as the ‘central nervous system’ for the business organizations, governments as well as for the social infrastructures. Global communities are connected with each other by means of IT. Today business organizations are ‘Going Green’ as the societies have become more conscious about the environment which is under tremen dous pressure due to massive modernization, industrialization and irresponsible deforestation throughout the world over the past few decades. ... Uncontrolled consumption of electricity puts huge pressure on the financial capacity of an organization. Such practices actually make the entire system an unsustainable one (Baroudi et al, 2009). Furthermore, in order to meet the growing demand for electricity more power plants would be in need and this would ultimately threaten the environment. Hence, it is very important to make IT green. There is hardly any general definition of ‘Green IT’. According to Gary Hird, Green IT can be seen as the collection of tactical as well as strategic initiatives that directly trims down the organizations’ carbon footprint and/or that use information technologies for reducing carbon footprint and/or that incentivize the ‘greener behavior’ by the stakeholders of the organizations (Hird, 2008). During the last few years â €˜Green IT’ has been a popular subject of research for the organizations like IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Cisco etc. These large multinational IT firms have already started to develop products which are more energy efficient and environment-friendly. There are organizations like Green Grid that assists the global IT industry in addressing the issue of energy use (Baroudi et al, 2009). It is important to notice that IT has an inherent ‘Green aspect’. Information technologies deal with data which is a nonpolluting entity. They enable virtual client visits and virtual meetings which require relatively less energy. However, the volume of consumption varies with the nature of the industry. For instance, IT in case of airline industry consumes significantly more energy as compared to other industries (Baroudi et al, 2009).  Ã‚  

History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 61

History - Essay Example The counterculture of the 1960s started in the U.S and spread to countries such as France and U.K. the students in public universities were protesting against the U.S government involvement in the Vietnam War. Similarly, during the same time, there was increased participation in the African American civil rights activism that sought to end racism. As the years passed, the baby boomers or generational gap concerning the Vietnam War, rights of women, and traditional modes of power, human sexuality, and race relations took center stage. Students developed new cultural forms such as hip-hop to fight government injustices and introduce equality in society In the resistance movement, new tactical stages were opened, which were supposed to be used in other campuses. The black students had their demands, which were; cultural recognition rather than paternalistic tolerance, and radical white students awareness of the sinister paramilitary activities carried on in secret by the faculty on many campuses, which were hardly recognized by Columbia (Bloom, Alexander, and Wini 175). The strikes were meant to hear out the students grievances as the black students were complaining of cultural recognition and many other things that were affecting them in society. Moreover, the rules in their campuses were not convenient according to

Sustainable Practices in FM Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Sustainable Practices in FM - Assignment Example The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 1997 encourages countries to make an effort to reduce carbon emissions. Corporate social responsibility requirements for all businesses has now expanded to include a duty to reduce and control carbon emissions (Lee, 2008). In other words, as a business organization, this organization is bound by legal and corporate social responsibility requriements to reduce and control carbon emissions. This report will identify the ways in which a business’s carbon footprint is made up, why there is a need for this organization to manage and control its carbon footprint, options for appropriate renewable energy solutions, recommendations in light of the building’s condition, type and location. ... 5840). Teir 2 businesses are those that create emissions from the use of electricity and gas. Teir 3 businesses include the entire supply chain and could include both tier 1 and tier 2 businesses for which the tier 3 business is indirectly responsible for (Matthews, et al., 2008). In other words, a business can be both directly and indirectly responsible for carbon emissions. This business is a retail organization and although it does not directly consume carbon at the production gate, it does contribute indirectly by purchsing goods for retail from production gates that do. In the meantime, this business also directly emits carbon in the use of energy such as electricity from fossil fuels. All goods and services including food and household products as well as transport, business products such as ink, paper, computers and so on are produced with the emission of carbon (Hertwich & Peters, 2009). This organization provides household products and this is significant because a study con ducted by Hertwich and Peters (2009) found that worldwide, household consumption accounts for 72% of all carbon emissions. Therefore as a provider of household goods, this business indirectly contributes to the largest source of carbon emissions. In addition, this business as a retail business, retailers contribute to a carbon emission in a number of ways. There is the direct emision of carboms from using fuels to indirectly contributing through employee travel or via the supply chain (Minahan & Sands, 2012). The Need for Reducing the Business’ Carbon Footprint There are two significant changes occurring in the market. First, there are countries such as the EU and the US that have

History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 61

History - Essay Example The counterculture of the 1960s started in the U.S and spread to countries such as France and U.K. the students in public universities were protesting against the U.S government involvement in the Vietnam War. Similarly, during the same time, there was increased participation in the African American civil rights activism that sought to end racism. As the years passed, the baby boomers or generational gap concerning the Vietnam War, rights of women, and traditional modes of power, human sexuality, and race relations took center stage. Students developed new cultural forms such as hip-hop to fight government injustices and introduce equality in society In the resistance movement, new tactical stages were opened, which were supposed to be used in other campuses. The black students had their demands, which were; cultural recognition rather than paternalistic tolerance, and radical white students awareness of the sinister paramilitary activities carried on in secret by the faculty on many campuses, which were hardly recognized by Columbia (Bloom, Alexander, and Wini 175). The strikes were meant to hear out the students grievances as the black students were complaining of cultural recognition and many other things that were affecting them in society. Moreover, the rules in their campuses were not convenient according to

Glass Ceiling Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Glass Ceiling - Essay Example ual binary is a persistent feature of the workplace today and the glass ceiling is an implicit manifestation of the impediments that women face in the labor force. According to Paige Churchman, renowned feminist theorist Gay Bryan coined the term glass ceiling many decades ago to describe the invisible barriers to professional advancement that women face in the labor force. Although women have entered the paid labor force in record numbers, attainting leadership roles in a corporate environment remains a challenge and invisible barriers impeded their development. While women hope to lead by example and advance professionally, the challenges that they face today are less overt than they once were but remain important impediments to their full professional advancement (Churchman, 2009). According to Women at Work, Leadership for the Next Century, the glass ceiling is a phenomenon which invisible, artificial barriers to the professional advancement of women remain the greatest impediments to their growth within an organization (Smith, 1999). The glass ceiling is arguably the most important impediment to the professional development of women in the 21st century and it is predicated upon the sexual binary. The glass ceiling is an important challenge for women in the paid labor force because it is implicit and limits their opportunities for professional advancement. While discrimination and sexual harassment are often explicit barriers to the full inclusion of women within the paid labor force, the entry of women into paid labor in record numbers has not resulted in complete equality. According to Nora Frenkel more than 25 years ago, â€Å"women have reached a certain point. I call it the glass ceiling. There isnt enough room for all those women at the top,† (Me yerson & Fletcher, 2000, 127). The glass ceiling, in addition to â€Å"pink collar ghettos†, are important yet often ignored aspects of the challenges women face in the labor force today. These metaphors

The Role and Growth of NATO Essay Example for Free

The Role and Growth of NATO Essay From Thucydides onward, moral philosophers, students of international politics, statesmen, and policy makers have been preoccupied and very often troubled by the role of morality in international politics. There has often been a tendency, in the discourse on political morality and the ethical conduct of statecraft, to alternatively exaggerate or deprecate the influence of morality in internationalpolitics, and hence succumb to either self-righteous moralism or cynicism and skepticism. The task of moral reasoning about international politics is neither a simple nor an easy one, and is made more difficult when moralism is confused with morality. Moralism involves the adoption of a single value or principle and applying it indiscriminately without due regard to circumstances, time, or space. Morality, on the other hand, is the endless search for what is right in the midst of sometimes competing, sometimes conflicting, and sometimes incompatible values and principles (Morgenthau 79). The normative form of political realism admonishes us to think morally, not moralistically, and not to confuse self-righteousness with morality. It reminds us that international politics are too complex to resemble a morality play, and that moral choices are never easy. Yet all is not well in Europe. The end of the Cold War and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union ended the high-intensity threat to the West. Invasion is now implausible. However, the lacuna created by the absence of any high-intensity threat has been filled by low-intensity threats, taking the principal form of chronic instability in the Balkans and the outbreak of ethnic conflict stemming from the breakup of Yugoslavia. Indeed, the various Balkan wars are indicative of the fact that â€Å"history† and a particularly nasty and virulent form of nationalism persist quite stubbornly in that corner of Europe. The horrors and atrocities perpetrated in those wars were shocking to people who believed in â€Å"Never Again† and that European civilization had evolved beyond such behavior. This, of course, ought to be a sobering reminder that peace and stability can never be taken for granted, that liberal values are not as triumphant as some would like to believe, and that Locke, Kant, and Smith might have to make room for Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Hobbes as we are forced to reengage with history. How exactly are we to reengage with history? In the midst of peace and plenty, we have had the luxury of debating and rethinking our conceptions of security. Traditional state-centric notions of security, which privilege sovereignty over the rights and dignity of the individual, are called increasingly into question. They are deemed relics of the past, fig leaves hiding the intellectual paucity of Cold Warriors unable or unwilling to adapt themselves to an altered security environment. We are witnessing the rise of a rival orthodoxy regarding how we think and act about security, one that is centered on human rights and human security—consonant with our posthistorical values and sensibilities—and allegedly better suited to deal with the problems of intrastate warfare and ethnic conflict. This rival orthodoxy, we are to believe, is morally superior and more evolved than traditional notions of security. After all, what sort of person can be against human rights and human security? On 24 March 1999, NATO began Operation Allied Force, an aerial bombing campaign that was to last seventy-eight days. The Atlantic Alliance, arguably the most powerful and successful politico-military coalition in history, created originally to defend Western Europe against a Soviet onslaught, now went to war for human security. In the subsequent military campaign, NATO won and got what it wanted, and then some. The Alliance triumphed without a single combat casualty. Serbian military and paramilitary forces, looking remarkably unscathed despite the scope and intensity of NATO sorties, evacuated the province. A NATO-led military force moved in, and Kosovar refugees started returning home. Kosovo is now a de facto protectorate of NATO and the United Nations, even if the fiction that the province remains a sovereign and integral part of Yugoslavia is maintained. Kosovars are champing at the bit to cleanse the province ethnically of the remaining Serbian minority, even as we insist that our goal is to reconstitute a multiethnic and multicultural Kosovo. Slobodan Milosevic is gone but the genie of ethnic strife is already out of the bottle, and the Balkans remain as unstable as ever (An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State March 2002). A question mark hangs over an â€Å"ethic of responsibility,† meanwhile, because the jury is still out as to whether we will be able to move toward such an ethic when it comes to future humanitarian interventions or whether â€Å"humanitarian warfare† is, as some argue, â€Å"an idea whose time has come, and gone† (Krauthammer 8). From the Balkans to the Caucasus, the environment remains ripe for massive and violent abuses of human rights—thus opportunities to intervene—even if NATO does not expand any further to the East. The temptation to intervene will be great. If CNN is present, we will have emotional and gut-wrenching scenes of human suffering beamed into our living rooms and there will be a clamor to â€Å"do something† (Hudson and Stanier 256).   And why not do something? The Alliance has already bent, if not broken international law over Kosovo. Surely it will be easier the second time around. Furthermore, NATO now possesses a template for â€Å"immaculate intervention.† The Alliance will not deploy ground troops but can instead rely on precision guided munitions dropped from on high, with little or no risk to its servicemen and women (Burk 53–78). Humanitarian intervention is characterized by motive and ends, the motive to do good, and the goal to put an end to human suffering. This is what is supposed to distinguish â€Å"moral† interventions from â€Å"immoral† ones (Abrams 74). It was said of the Gulf War that the West would not have come to the aid of Kuwait if that country had produced broccoli instead of oil. Kosovo possessed neither oil nor broccoli. Hence, we were told by President Bill Clinton that NATO’s actions were intended to â€Å"enable the Kosovar people to return to their homes with safety and self-government,† or alternatively to â€Å"protect thousands of innocent people in Kosovo from a mounting military offensive.† (Roberts 20) The Alliance’s objectives were thus to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo and/or to prevent a crisis from becoming a catastrophe. Kosovo was to be a new sort of war, one fought in the name of universal values and principles—to uphold human rights and prevent a humanitarian tragedy—rather than for narrow interests (Roberts 20). Yet motives and ends are dangerously unreliable as criteria for moral calculation and judgment. Moral judgment cannot be suspended simply because the motives are pure, the cause just, and the ends good. The decision to enlarge the Atlantic Alliance has opened debate as to whether an expanded alliance will help to sustain global peace or provoke greater tension, if not regional or global wars. International relations theorists are largely divided over the question, and the relationship between alliance enlargement and the question of war or peace is unclear and ambiguous. Alliances in general have often been blamed as one of the major factors helping to generate the fears and suspicions leading to World War I, as well as previous wars in European history, at least since the advent of the formal multipolar â€Å"balance of power† system in the mid-seventeenth century. American foreign policy from George Washington to World War II traditionally eschewed â€Å"entangling alliances.† On the other hand, the lack of strong alliances and of firm American commitments to Britain, France, and to key strategically positioned states such as Poland, for example, has been cited as one of the causes of World War II. Following Soviet retrenchment from eastern Europe after 1989, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet state in 1991, the Atlantic Alliance has been praised as the most successful alliance in history. Without NATO, it is argued, the peace of Europe could not have been secured throughout the Cold War. Detractors, however, have argued that NATO’s formation in 1949 led to the counterformation of the 1950 Sino-Soviet alliance—and indirectly to the Korean War—in addition to the establishment of the Warsaw Pact following West Germany’s admission to NATO in 1955. These contrasting perspectives do not clarify the relationship between alliances and war in today’s geostrategic circumstances. The question remains as to whether German unification, followed by Soviet implosion, and now by NATO enlargement into east-central Europe, will prove stabilizing. The Alliance has opted to extend its membership to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary within the former Soviet sphere of influence, raising some fears of a new partition of Europe. At the same time, NATO has promised to consider further enlarging its membership; it has advocated what has been deemed an â€Å"open NATO†Ã¢â‚¬â€in part to prevent a possible new partition between members and nonmembers. Alliance pronouncements promised that Romania and Slovenia would be granted first consideration in a second round, in addition to one or more of the Baltic states. Indeed, NATO has not left out the possibility of Russian membership, but has only taken limited steps in this direction (Kegley and Raymond 275–277). Despite the fact that NATO is one of the most institutionalized alliances ever created, with decades of experience in fostering close ties among its members, the United States chose not to use NATO to organize its response to the attacks. NATO was unable to provide a command structure—or even substantial capabilities—that would override U.S. concerns about using the NATO machinery. European contributions were incorporated on a bilateral basis, but NATO as an organization remained limited to conducting patrols over the United States and deploying ships to the eastern Mediterranean. This U.S. policy choice did not surprise many in the United States. Many U.S. policymakers believed that NATOs war in Kosovo was an unacceptable example of â€Å"war by committee,† where political interference from the alliances 19 members prevented a quick and decisive campaign. The policymakers were determined to retain sole command authority in Afghanistan, so that experience would not be repeated (Daalder and Gordon). The deployment of the NATO AWACS demonstrates this point. The United States did not want to deploy the NATO AWACS directly to Afghanistan, because it did not want to involve the North Atlantic Council in any command decisions. Instead, the NATO AWACS backfilled U.S. assets so the assets could redeploy to Afghanistan. A military official later described the U.S. decision in these terms: â€Å"If you were the US, would you want 18 other nations watering down your military planning?† (Fiorenza 22) However, many Europeans were dissatisfied with the small role that the alliance played in the response to the September 11 attacks and attributed it to U.S. unilateralism and arrogance. While they understood the need to ensure effective command and control, they felt that they had given the United States unconditional political support through the invocation of Article 5 and that they should at least be consulted about the direction of the military campaign. In part, these frustrations resulted from the fact that the military campaign did not fit the model all had come to expect during the Cold War— that an invocation of Article 5 would lead the alliance members to join together and defeat a common enemy (Kitfield). But these frustrations also reflected a fear that the U.S. decision to pursue the war on its own after invoking Article 5 would irrevocably weaken the core alliance principle of collective defense. To uncover a possible answer to the question as to whether an extended NATO alliance will prove stabilizing, I seek to explicate the views of international relations theorist, George Liska. Even though he was well known in the 1960s for his classic definition of alliances, Liska’s later comparative geohistorical perspective of the 1970s and 1980s has often been overlooked or not fully appreciated (Kegley). Although generally pessimistic, Liska argues that major power or systemic war is not inevitable and can be averted, yet only given a long-term strategy of cooptation of potential rivals into the interstate system. For Liska, alliances are neither inherently stabilizing or destabilizing. Like armaments, they do not in themselves cause war, but they can set the preconditions for generalized conflict depending on the manner and circumstances in which they are formed and depending on which specific states are included. Moreover, the expansion of an alliance formation is less likely to provoke major power war when the predominant states of a particular historical period are either overtly or tacitly included. Generalized wars, however, are more likely to occur when the predominant powers cannot participate in the key decision-making processes that affect their perceived vital interests, and thus cannot formulate truly concerted policies. Global conflict has largely stemmed from the apparently recurrent failures of the major contending states to forge long-term entente, or full-fledged alliance, relationships. Since 1991 the world has seen a new opportunities, but the weight of the millennial past continues to burden the present (Liska 17). Although the U.S.-Soviet wartime alliance against Germany, 1941–1945, collapsed after World War II, the superpowers were by contrast able to maintain a general state of peace, though not without intense regional conflicts often fought through surrogates. The ensuing struggle for control of former German spheres of influence, the quarantine of East Germany and other Soviet-bloc states, the formation of NATO, Soviet/Russian fears of a U.S./NATO alliance with the flanking states of Japan and the People’s Republic of China, collectively resemble the 477 to 461 B.C. phase of Athenian-Spartan relations, following the breakdown of their alignment against Persia. Throughout the Cold War, Washington and Moscow sustained a tacit multidimensional â€Å"double containment† of Germany and Japan, as well as other significant regional powers, including China, that helped to prevent open conflict between them. Yet it is precisely the Soviet/Russian role in this multidimensional double containment that has virtually disappeared following German unification (Gardner 7-9). The collapse of the Soviet Empire and its spheres of security parallel the instability that confronted Sparta. Continuing fears of national uprisings and Russian disaggregation, coupled with recurrent wars in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, recall the threats posed by the Helot revolution and the Third Messenian War. The United States and NATO now bid for control over former Soviet and Russian spheres of influence in Central and Eastern Europe much as Athens penetrated Sparta’s sphere in the Aegean and then the Ionian seas. Disputes over power and burden sharing within NATO, considered together with differences over the financing of the 1990 Persian Gulf war and the conduct wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, are reminiscent of Athenian efforts to sustain preeminence over its Delian league allies, regardless of the diminished Persian threat. Moreover, Pericles’ decision to forge a new â€Å"defensive† alliance with the insular power bears similarities to NATO’s decision to extend its alliance with Western Europe into Central Europe, a change depicted as defensive, involving no nuclear weapons or additional troops to be deployed on the territory of new NATO members (Gardner 20–26). Most crucially, should the United States and Russia not be able to reach a compromise over the question of the modalities of NATO enlargement into East-Central Europe, the two powers risk losing their tacit post-World War II alliance against Germany and Japan altogether. This would parallel the Athenian decision to drop entirely its deteriorating ties with Sparta after the new Athenian democratic leadership expelled Cimon. Moreover, American proposals to build a ballistic missile defense in possible violation of the ABM treaty could be interpreted by Russia in much the same way that Sparta interpreted the Athenian decision to build defensive walls around the city of Athens. In a word, the United States is presently poised either to renew its relations with Moscow or else let them sour to an even greater extent, thus risking another round of mutual imprecations that could degenerate into a wider conflict. Turning to another episode involving an essentially bipolar land/sea schism, namely the clash between Rome and Carthage over spheres of influence in Spain, Sicily, and the Mediterranean, raises additional questions about Soviet collapse and NATO enlargement. Much as the Peloponnesian wars can be viewed as a result of the breakdown of the Athenian-Spartan wartime alliance, the First Punic War can likewise be interpreted as a product of the termination of the 279–278 B.C. Roman-Carthaginian wartime alliance against Tarentum and Pyrrhus of Epirus. The alliance between Rome and Carthage followed the classic â€Å"Pyrrhic victory† at Ausculum that opened Sicily up to Greek conquest. The deterioration of that alliance was provoked by the Roman decision to assist the Mamertines against Syracuse in 264 B.C. and to take Messana under Roman protection. This unexpected action led Carthage to support Syracuse in response. This in turn represented a reversal in alliances equally unanticipated by Rome, as Carthage and Syracuse had traditionally been enemies (Harris 187). Carthage subsequently accused Rome of a violation of its previous agreements, which, according to Carthaginian sources, forbade the Romans to cross into Sicily and the Carthaginians to cross into Roman spheres. In fact, Rome and Carthage did sign three treaties in 510–509, 348, and 306 B.C., designed to sustain Carthagian spheres of influence over Western Sicily, Sardinia, Libya, and the Iberian peninsula, but there was no agreement addressing specifically the changing status of a divided Sicily. The 510–509 B.C. treaty, signed in the year that marks the formation of the Roman Republic, sought to affirm Roman agreement to abide by the historically positive relations between Carthage and Etrusca. In the 306 B.C. treaty, Rome vowed not to cross the Straits of Messina in exchange for a Carthagian concession to permit Rome full liberty of maneuver in the Italian peninsula. Moreover, even if there was no formal treaty in 279–278 B.C., there may have been a tacit understanding involving a vague mutual recognition of respective military and commercial spheres of influence that was at least proposed during the 279–278 B.C. wartime alliance against Pyrrhus (Eckstein 79). Whether a formal treaty actually existed is really secondary to the point that Carthage at least operated under the assumption that some type of accord existed in order to justify its previous alliance relationship, and it jealously guarded Western Sicily as the central strategic keystone to its insular defense. On the other hand, Roman expansion to Calabria diminished the size of the buffer region between the two states. As an expanding continental power seeking amphibious status, Rome began to regard the Carthagian presence on Sicily as a potential â€Å"encirclement.† Carthage was regarded as threatening Rome’s maritime trade from ports on the Ionian Sea and in the Gulf of Tarante. The charge that a tacit agreement was violated is not unlike the debate between the United States and Russia, as to whether Washington affirmed absolutely in 1989–1990 that it would not extend NATO into East-Central Europe. Moscow has argued that the decision to enlarge NATO into what it has considered its central strategic region of continental defense contravenes the spirit of the â€Å"two plus four† treaty on German unification not to permit NATO forces into the territory of the former East Germany, as well as the â€Å"gentleman’s agreement† made between George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 against NATO expansion. As a rising land power seeking amphibious status, Rome expanded into Calabria and thereby diminished the historic buffer between Etrucsa/Rome and Carthage, a power in relative decline. In contemporary geopolitics, NATO enlargement into former Soviet and historic Russian spheres of influence similarly risks undermining the post-1945 security buffer between the United States and its German ally and a Russia now in a state of near absolute collapse. Works Cited Abrams, Elliott. â€Å"To Fight the Good Fight.† National Interest 59 (spring 2000): 74. Burk, James. â€Å"Public Support for Peacekeeping in Lebanon and Somalia: Assessing the Casualties Hypothesis.† Political Science Quarterly 114, no. 1 (2003): 53–78. Eckstein, Arthur M. â€Å"Senate and General.† Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987, p. 79. Fiorenza, Nicholas. â€Å"Alliance Solidarity,† Armed Forces Journal International, December 2004, p. 22. Daalder, Ivo H. and Gordon, Philip R. â€Å"Euro-Trashing,† Washington Post, May 29, 2002. Retrieved July 9, 2007 from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-361506.html. Gardner, Hall. â€Å"Central and Southeastern Europe in Transition.†Ã‚   Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005. Harris, William V. â€Å"War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 BC.† Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979, p. 187. Hudson, Miles and Stanier, John. â€Å"War and the Media: A Random Searchlight.† New York: New York University Press, 2003, p. 256. Kegley, Charles W. Jr. and Raymond, Gregory A. â€Å"Alliances and the Preservation of the Postwar Peace: Weighing the Contribution† in The Long Postwar Peace, ed. Charles W.Kegley Jr. (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), pp. 275–277. Kitfield, James. â€Å"Divided We Fall.† National Journal. April 7, 2006 Retrieved July 7, 2007 from nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0407nj1.htm Krauthammer, Charles. â€Å"The Short, Unhappy Life of Humanitarian Warfare.† National Interest 57 (fall 2004): 8. Liska, George. â€Å"Russia and the Road to Appeasement.† Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1982. Morgenthau, Hans J. â€Å"The Twilight of International Morality,† Ethics 58, no. 2 (1948): 79. â€Å"NATO In The 21ST Century — The Road Ahead†. An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State March 2002. Retrieved July 7, 2007 from www.italy.usembassy.gov/pdf/ej/ijpe0302.pdf Roberts, Adam. â€Å"NATO’s ‘Humanitarian War’ Over Kosovo,† Survival 41, no. 3 (2004): 20.

Effects of Ethics on Production of Knowledge

Effects of Ethics on Production of Knowledge Aakashdeep Dhillon Ethical Judgement limit the methods available in the production of knowledge in both the arts and the natural sciences. Discuss. Ethics is a moral principle of an influencing conduct. It is a branch of knowledge that is  similar to moral principles. However, it is not the same as morals, rather is the study of morals. A  right or wrong is just an opinion, and most people have their own opinion what may be right or  wrong. However in ethics, nobodys views are any better or more right than someone else’s. A  person’s ethical views is based upon their society, and cultural they were raised in. What one  person in one society may consider as ethical, may not be considered ethical in another society. Without making a generalization in that sense, it makes it hard to produce knowledge, in the given  areas of knowledge. Personally moving from India to Canada in 2006, was a huge change as I had  switched from Eastern culture to the Western culture and in many ways, I had to change myself to  be ethically correct to be ethically correct here. Hence, the statement in the title does withhold this  fact of, ethical judgements do limit the methods available in the production of knowledge.   Judgement always play a vital role in critical moments, and to obtain the accuracy and  precision of a good judgement, the person must be in a good state, mentally and physically. Any  actions or decisions an artist makes about his piece of work, the artist needs to take into account the  moral responsibility, especially during the times that we are living in. The artists hold the  responsibility ethically, what is right and what is wrong. There may not be a specific law saying  something is wrong, but society may very well a negative reaction which may spiral into  something uncontrollable that may as well start a movement or a new era. This means the artist is  morally responsible for their work when working on their piece, which ultimately limits the method  for producing knowledge. On a personal level, I think an artist must have freedom to do what they want in their work  as it shows their perspective and possibly many others in the society around us inevitably giving us  more knowledge. However, a society as a whole, especially when in large numbers in a specific  area together have different opinions on the piece which they do not agree with and act negatively  towards this. Hence, there is a fine line from what is morally right in society and the artist should  know whether to cross that line or not, especially if the artists job is to please his audience. However, the â€Å"line† that we draw between the ethically correct and the ethically wrong is almost  impossible to make out where it is because it all depends on the subjective standards of society. What is ethical and what is not vary as explained before, different cultures and societies view  things in different perspectives. For example, when I moved from India to Canada, in middle  school my classmates and I had to get into pairs and make a powerpoint about an artist that was  assigned to us. During the presentations I saw a presentation about Michelangelo, and many of his  artwork and sculptures were of nude people. The teacher and the class watched the presentation  and seemed like they had no problems with it. I felt uncomfortable watching it and so I didn’t look  at it. Later, talking to the teacher, she explained it was simply an assignment and it had no other purpose. This opened my eyes to the culture and society here to the society in India when I was  there. A lot of his work would not be accepted in the Indian society and looked down upon as it is  disgracing the human body. Nude art evokes a sense of sexuality and the topic is very intimate and  of something that should be kept on a personal level that’s why it is frowned upon and something  that made me uncomfortable and forced me to react in such a manner. However, I grew  accustomed to it and learnt to deal with such things that I am not used to. I believe an artist uses  their pieces of art to express their feelings about things they feel are important in society or not, and  also art a lot of the times is also used to criticize and mock different areas in society specifically  things like politics or culture. This is where I believe the artists should have a higher ethical  responsibility for their work and think of what they are doing and what may happen. Ultimately,  which leads me to believe that because of ethical judgements the methods to produce knowledge  really are limited in the arts. In the area of knowledge of science, my point of view is the opposite of the arts. In science  I believe any actions the scientists take for their research should not have to worry about the moral  responsibilities. The job of a scientist is to provide the world with research and answers to  questions which is backed by sufficient facts. A job of scientist is to figure out the different things  in the world and how they are made, and what they are made of. Scientists provide us with  information that is beyond our natural understanding. They conduct experiments and write  researches for the world to understand how the world works and I believe ethical beliefs should not  limit them to provide us with information. I believe that every human being must be provided with the truth about their surroundings. If science, did not challenge the ethical boundaries set we may  not have known that the earth was round, or that the existence of god may be a myth. I believe if  sc ience does not question everything without the ethical boundaries many things that happen in the  world go unresolved or unanswered. However, my opinions are different from what the society  may believe in. For scientists, the study of earth and its surroundings isn’t the only they focus on, if you go  into depth scientists branch off into different fields and study other things, such as diseases present  in the world. Scientists must do experiments and write researches for medicines that work and not  work and which may cause harm to humans. Therefore, they conducts experiments on animal  subjects and sometimes even human subjects, to test if something may cause harm or trigger a  reaction. Many people in different societies believe every living thing has a right to live and testing  dangerous products on them and killing them in the process for anothers good is ethically incorrect. Personally, I volunteer at the hospital and on a tour for the hospital and all the different sections in  the hospital. During a tour, they also dissected a human being to show the inside of the human for  knowledge. Hence, the same thing happens in the medical school as they work with real subjects. I  believe it is vital to experiment and conduct tests to come up with a definite remedy if we want to  get to the root of the problems, hence, the scientists should be held morally responsible for the  application of discoveries. Moreover, I believe the ethical responsibility working with the human  subjects is the same as it is with the animal subjects. I believe it is important for the greater good of  society some must be used as experiments whether they are humans or animals. However, a good  majority of the society believes otherwise and believe that everyone is equal and deserves to live as  much as anybody else/ any other living thing. Hence, this holds the scie ntists morally responsible  for the application of their discovery and again the ethical responsibility stays the same when  working with human or animal subjects. This ultimately proves the statement, as it limits the  methods available to produce knowledge in the given field. Consequently, personally I believe that ethical judgements do limit the methods available in  the production of knowledge. However, I believe it should not limit in the natural sciences as many  discoveries will go unresolved if they have not yet been discovered or proven thus far. I believe  comparing the two different area of knowledge, science provides us with some of the greatest  discoveries known to man and it has changed mankind and moved us forward over the years. Whereas in arts, the knowledge obtained is more on a personal level that makes us think about  ourselves only and what we think about certain things, which I believe should be considered as  high as the other, therefore, giving two different answers for the different areas of knowledge. However, many people do think otherwise and because everyone must be taken into account  which ultimately limit the ways of knowing. Word Count: 1461 Bibliography Areas of Knowledge. Theoryofknowledgenet. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2014. Dullwitch Home. Dullwitch Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2014. May 2014 TOK Essay Titles. Theoryofknowledgenet. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2014. Ways of Knowing. Theoryofknowledgenet. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2014.