Human Geography Study Of Spatial Pattern And Spatial...

Human Geography is defined as the study of spatial pattern and spatial organization of human activities and people’s relationships with their environment. The study of spatial organization of human activities is extremely important as it allows us to understand demography, the study of the characteristics of human populations. Demographics allow geographers and government agencies to look at population data from the past and the present to predict future trends in population growth or decline (Knox, 2013, p.2, 99-101). The information gathered through a census or vital records can for example help a nation adjust immigration levels if a country is having a very low birth rate or allocate more funding for health care if a high percentage of its population is over 65. Comparing the demographics between various countries can aid in understanding national, regional and global issues. China, Brazil, Canada, India and Ghana provide a great context to analyze how the environment affe cts populations. The demographic transition theory looks at how populations change from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates. The theory argues that as societies move from pre-industrial to industrial societies, population growth slows. Canada was in Phase 3 – Transitional stage in 1955 as it was almost fully industrialized. The crude birth rate was 27.4, which was in line with other industrializing countries such as Britain and the US. Canada’s crude death rate was also much lowerShow MoreRelatedAp Human Geography - Essay1398 Words   |  6 PagesWelcome to AP Human Geography Ms. Anderson Phone: 548-4051 room 112 E-mail: panderso@hs.spotsylvania.k12.va.us Course Description: The new college-level social studies course provides students with the opportunity to identify and analyze contemporary concerns and problems from local, national, and global perspectives in Human Geography. Using geographical tools and skills, we will explore issues such as population distribution and composition, cultural patterns and processes, political organizationRead MoreHuman Geography And Development Studies1611 Words   |  7 Pagesshape the world; geography helps people understand its effects in the past, present and near future. This essay will examine how both concepts, human geography and development studies and how they share similarities and differences. 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The Return Nightfall Chapter 21 Free Essays

string(68) " breath was warm and fetid and nauseating – like rotten eggs\." â€Å"It actually makes a horrible kind of sense,† Meredith said. They were in Isobel’s family room, waiting for Dr. Alpert. We will write a custom essay sample on The Return: Nightfall Chapter 21 or any similar topic only for you Order Now Meredith was at a beautiful desk made of some black wood ornamented with designs in gilt, working at a computer that had been left on. â€Å"The Salem girls accused people of hurting them – witches, of course. They said they were pinching them and  ¡Ã‚ ®pricking them with pins.'† â€Å"Like Isobel blaming us,† Bonnie said, nodding. â€Å"And they had seizures and contorted their bodies into  ¡Ã‚ ®impossible positions.'† â€Å"Caroline looked as if she were having seizures in Stefan’s room,† said Bonnie. â€Å"And if crawling like a lizard isn’t contorting your body into an impossible position†¦here, I’ll try it.† She got down on the Saitous’ floor and tried to stick her elbows and knees out the way Caroline had. She couldn’t do it. â€Å"See?† â€Å"Oh, my God!† It was Jim at the doorway of the kitchen, holding – almost dropping – a tray of food. The smell of miso soup was sharp in the air, and Bonnie wasn’t sure if it made her feel hungry or if she was too sick to ever be hungry again. â€Å"It’s okay,† she told him hastily, standing up. â€Å"I was just†¦trying something out.† Meredith stood up too. â€Å"Is that for Isobel?† â€Å"No, it’s for Obaasan – I mean Isa-chan’s grandma – Grandma Saitou – â€Å" â€Å"I told you to call everybody whatever comes out naturally. Obaasan is fine, just like Isa-chan,† Meredith said softly and firmly to him. Jim relaxed a hair. â€Å"I tried to get Isa-chan to eat, but she just throws the trays at the wall. She says that she can’t eat; that somebody’s choking her.† Meredith glanced significantly at Bonnie. Then she turned back to Jim. â€Å"Why don’t you let me take it? You’ve been through a lot. Where is she?† â€Å"Upstairs, second door on the left. If – if she says anything weird, just ignore it.† â€Å"All right. Stay near Bonnie.† â€Å"Oh, no,† Bonnie said hastily. â€Å"Bonnie is going with.† She didn’t know if it was for her own protection or Meredith’s, but she was going to stick like glue. Upstairs, Meredith turned the hall light on carefully with her elbow. Then they found the second door on the left, which turned out to have a doll-like old lady in it. She was in the exact center of the room, lying on the exact center of a futon. She sat up and smiled when they came in. The smile turned a wrinkled face almost into the face of a happy child. â€Å"Megumi-chan, Beniko-chan, you came to see me!† she exclaimed, bowing where she sat. â€Å"Yes,† Meredith said carefully. She put the tray down beside the old lady. â€Å"We came to see you – Ms. Saitou.† â€Å"Don’t play games with me! It’s Inari-chan! Or are you mad at me?† â€Å"All thesechans . I thought ;;Chan’ was a Chinese name. Isn’t Isobel Japanese?† whispered Bonnie from behind Meredith. One thing, the doll-like old woman was not, was deaf. She burst into laughter, bringing up both hands to cover her mouth girlishly. â€Å"Oh, don’t tease me before I eat.Itadakimasu! † She picked up the bowl of miso soup and began to drink it. â€Å"I thinkchan is something you put at the end of someone’s name when you’re friends, the way Jimmy was sayingIsa-chan ,† Meredith said aloud. â€Å"AndEeta-daki-mass-u is something you say when you start eating. And that’sall I know.† Part of Bonnie’s mind noted that the â€Å"friends† Grandma Saitou had just happened to have names starting withM andB . Another part was calculating where this room was with relation to the rooms below it, Isobel’s room in particular. It was directly above it. The tiny old woman had stopped eating and was watching her intently. â€Å"No, no, you’re not Beniko-chan and Megumi-chan. I know it. But they do visit me sometimes, and so does my dear Nobuhiro. Other things do, too, unpleasant things, but I was raised a shrine maiden – I know how to take care ofthem .† A brief look of knowing satisfaction passed over the innocent old face. â€Å"This house is possessed, you know.† She added,†Kore ni wa kitsune ga karande isou da ne.† â€Å"I’m sorry, Ms. Saitou – what was that?† Meredith asked. â€Å"I said, there’s a kitsune involved in this somehow.† â€Å"A kit-su-nay?† Meredith repeated, quiz-zically. â€Å"A fox, silly girl,† the old woman said cheerfully. â€Å"They can turn into anything they like, don’t you know? Even humans. Why, one could turn intoyou and your best friend wouldn’t know the difference.† â€Å"So – a sort of were-fox, then?† Meredith asked, but Grandma Saitou was rocking back and forth now, her gaze on the wall behind Bonnie. â€Å"We used to play a circle game,† she said. â€Å"All of us in a circle and one in the middle, blindfolded. And we would sing a song.Ushiro no shounen daare? Who is standing behind you? I taught it to my children, but I made up a little song in English to go with it.† And she sang, in the voice of the very old or the very young, with her eyes fixed innocently on Bonnie all the while. â€Å"Fox and turtle Had a race. Who’s that far behind you? Whoever came in Second place Who’s that near behind you? Would make a nice meal For the winner. Who’s that close behind you? Lovely turtle soup For dinner! Who’s that right behind you?† Bonnie felt hot breath on her neck. Gasping, she whirled around – and screamed. Andscreamed . Isobel was there, dripping blood onto the mats that covered the floor. She had somehow managed to get past Jim and to sneak into the dim upstairs room without anyone seeing or hearing her. Now she stood there like some distorted goddess of piercing, or the hideous embodiment of every piercer’s nightmare. She was wearing only a pair of very brief bikini bottoms. Otherwise she was naked except for the blood and the different kinds of hoops and studs and needles she had put through the holes. She had pierced every area Bonnie had ever heard that youcould pierce, and a few that Bonnie hadn’t dreamed of. And every hole was crooked and bleeding. Her breath was warm and fetid and nauseating – like rotten eggs. You read "The Return: Nightfall Chapter 21" in category "Essay examples" Isobel flicked her pink tongue. It wasn’t pierced. It was worse. With some kind of instrument she had cut the long muscle in two so that it was forked like a snake’s. The forked, pink thing licked Bonnie’s forehead. Bonnie fainted. Matt drove slowly down the almost invisible lane. There was no street sign to identify it, he noticed. They went up a little hill and then down sharply into a small clearing. â€Å" ¡Ã‚ ®Keep away from faerie circles,'† Elena said softly, as if she were quoting. â€Å" ¡Ã‚ ®And old oaks†¦'† â€Å"What are you talking about?† â€Å"Stop the car.† When he did, Elena stood in the center of the clearing. â€Å"Don’t you think it has a faerie sort of feeling?† â€Å"I don’t know. Where’d the red thing go?† â€Å"In here somewhere. I saw it!† â€Å"Me, too – and did you see how it was bigger than a fox?† â€Å"Yes, but not as big as a wolf.† Matt let out a sigh of relief. â€Å"Bonnie just won’t believe me. And you saw how quickly it moved – â€Å" â€Å"Too quickly to be something natural.† â€Å"You’re saying we didn’t really see anything?† Matt said almost fiercely. â€Å"I’m saying we saw somethingsuper natural. Like the bug that attacked you. Like the trees, for that matter. Something that doesn’t follow the laws of this world.† But search as they would, they couldn’t find the animal. The bushes and shrubs between the trees reached from the ground up in a dense circle. But there was no evidence of a hole or a hide or a break in the dense thicket. And the sun was sliding down in the sky. The clearing was beautiful, but there was nothing of interest to them. Matt had just turned to say so to Elena when he saw her stand up quickly, in alarm. â€Å"What’s – ?† He followed her gaze and stopped. A yellow Ferrari blocked the way back to the road. They hadn’t passed a yellow Ferrari on their way in. There was only room for one car on the one-lane road. Yet there the Ferrari stood. Branches broke behind Matt. He whirled. â€Å"Damon!† â€Å"Whom were you expecting?† The wraparound Ray-Bans concealed Damon’s eyes completely. â€Å"We weren’t expectinganyone ,† Matt said aggressively. â€Å"We just turned in here.† The last time he’d seen Damon, when Damon had been banished like a whipped dog from Stefan’s room, he’d wanted to punch Damon in the mouth very much, Elena knew. She could feel that he wanted it again now. But Damon wasn’t the same as he’d been when he’d left that room. Elena could see danger rising off him like heat waves. â€Å"Oh, Isee . This is – yourprivate area for – privateexplorations,† Damon translated, and there was a note of complicity in his voice that Elena disliked. â€Å"No!† Matt snarled. Elena realized she was going to have to keep him under control. It was dangerous to antagonize Damon in this mood. â€Å"How can you even say that?† Matt went on. â€Å"Elena belongs to Stefan.† â€Å"Well – we belong to each other,† Elena temporized. â€Å"Of course you do,† said Damon. â€Å"One body, one heart, one soul.† For a moment there was something there – an expression inside the Ray-Bans, she thought, that was murderous. Instantly, though, Damon’s tone changed to an expressionless murmur. â€Å"But then, why areyou two here?† His head, turning to follow Matt’s movement, moved like a predator tracking prey. There was something more disquieting than usual about his attitude. â€Å"We saw something red,† Matt said before Elena could stop him. â€Å"Something like what I saw when I had that accident.† Prickles were now running up and down Elena’s arms. Somehow she wished Matt hadn’t said that. In this dim, quiet clearing in the evergreen grove, she was suddenly very much afraid. Stretching her new senses to their utmost – until she could feel them distending like a gossamer garment pushed thin all around her, she felt the wrongness there, too, and felt it pass out of the reach of her mind. At the same time she felt birds go quiet all that long distance away. What was most disturbing was to turn just then, just as the birdsong stopped, and find Damon turning at the same instant to look at her. The sunglasses kept her from knowing what he was thinking. The rest of his face was a mask. Stefan, she thought helplessly, longingly. How could he have left her – with this? With no warning, no idea of his destination, no way of ever contacting him again†¦It might have made sense to him, with his desperate desire not to make her into something he loathed in himself. But to leave her with Damon in this mood, and all of her previous powers gone – Your own fault, she thought, cutting short the flood of self-pity. You were the one who harped on brotherhood. You were the one who convinced him Damon was to be trusted. Now you deal with the consequences. â€Å"Damon,† she said, â€Å"I’ve been looking foryou . I wanted to ask you – about Stefan. You do know that he’s left me.† â€Å"Of course. I believe the saying goes, for your own good. He left me to be your bodyguard.† â€Å"Then you saw him two nights ago?† â€Å"Of course.† And – of course – you didn’t try to stop him. Things couldn’t have turned out better for you, Elena thought. She had never wished more for the abilities she’d had as a spirit, not even when she’d realized Stefan was really gone and beyond her all-too-human reach. â€Å"Well, I’m not just letting him leave me,† she said flatly, â€Å"for my own good or for any other reason. I’m going to follow him – but first I need to know where he might have gone.† â€Å"You’re askingme ?† â€Å"Yes. Please. Damon, I have to find him. I need him. I – † She was starting to choke up, and she had to be stern with herself. But just then she realized that Matt was whispering very softly to her. â€Å"Elena, stop. I think we’re just making him mad. Look at the sky.† Elena felt it herself. The circle of trees seemed to be leaning in all around them, darker than before, menacing. Elena tilted her chin slowly, looking up. Directly above them, gray clouds were pooling, piling in on themselves, cirrus overwhelmed by cumulus, turning to thunderheads – centered exactly over the spot where they stood. On the ground, small whirlwinds began to form, lifting handfuls of pine needles and fresh green summer leaves off saplings. She had never seen anything like it before, and it filled the clearing with a sweet but sensuous smell, redolent of exotic oils and long, dark winter nights. Looking at Damon, then, as the whirlwinds lifted higher and the sweet scent encircled her, resinous and aromatic, closing in until she knew it was soaking into her clothes and being impressed into her very flesh, she knew she had overstepped herself. She couldn’t protect Matt. Stefan told me to trust Damon in his note in my diary. Stefan knows more about him than I do, she thought desperately. But we both know what Damon wants, ultimately. What he’s always wanted. Me. My blood†¦ â€Å"Damon,† she began softly – and broke off. Without looking at her, he held out a hand with the palm toward her. Wait. â€Å"There’s something I have to do,† he murmured. He bent down, every movement as unconsciously and economically graceful as a panther’s, and picked up a small broken branch of what looked like ordinary Virginia pine. He waved it slightly, appraisingly, hefting it in his hand as if to feel weight and balance. It looked more like a fan than a branch. Elena was now looking at Matt, trying with her eyes to tell him all the things she was feeling, foremost of which was that she was sorry: sorry that she had gotten him into this; sorry that she’d ever cared for him; sorry that she’d kept him bound into a group of friends who were so intimately intertwined with the supernatural. Now I know a little bit of what Bonnie must have felt this last year, she thought, being able to see and predict things without having the slightest power to stop them. Matt, jerking his head, was already moving stealthily toward the trees. No, Matt.No .No! He didn’t understand. Neither did she, except to feel that the trees were only keeping their distance because of Damon’s presence here. If she and Matt were to venture into the forest; if they left the clearing or even stayed in it too long†¦Matt could see the fear on her face, and his own face reflected grim understanding. They were trapped. Unless – â€Å"Too late,† Damon said sharply. â€Å"I told you, there’s something I have to do.† He had apparently found the stick he was looking for. Now he raised it, shook it slightly, and brought it down in a single motion; slashing sideways as he did. And Matt convulsed in agony. It was a kind of pain he had never dreamed of before: pain that seemed to come frominside himself, but from everywhere, every organ in his body, every muscle, every nerve, every bone, releasing a different type of pain. His muscles ached and cramped as if they were strained to their ultimate flexion, but were being forced to flex farther still. Inside, his organs were on fire. Knives were at work in his belly. His bones felt the way his arm had when he had shattered it once, when he was nine years old and a car had broadsided his dad’s. And his nerves – if there was a switch on nerves that could be set from â€Å"pleasure† to â€Å"pain† – his had been set to â€Å"anguish.† The touch of clothes on his skin was unbearable. The currents of air passing were agony. He endured fifteen seconds of it and passed out. â€Å"Matt!† For her part, Elena had been frozen, her muscles locked, unable to move for what seemed like forever. Suddenly released, she ran to Matt, pulled him up into her lap, stared into his face. Then she looked up. â€Å"Damon,why ? Why?† Suddenly she realized that although Matt wasn’t conscious, he was still writhing in pain. She had to keep herself from screaming the words, to only speak forcefully. â€Å"Why are youdoing this? Damon!Stop it .† She stared up at the young man dressed all in black: black jeans with a black belt, black boots, black leather jacket, black hair, and those damned Ray-Bans. â€Å"I told you,† Damon said casually. â€Å"It’s something I need to do. To watch. Painful death.† â€Å"Death!†Elena stared at Damon in disbelief. And then she began gathering all her Power, in a way that had been so easy and instinctual just days ago while she had been mute and not subject to gravity, and that was so difficult and so foreign right now. With determination, she said, â€Å"If you don’t let him go – now – I’ll hit you with everything I’ve got.† He laughed. She’d never seen Damon really laugh before, not like this. â€Å"And you expect that I’ll even notice your tiny Power?† â€Å"Notthat tiny.† Elena weighed it grimly. It was no more than the intrinsic Power of any human being – the Power that vampires took from humans along with the blood they drank – but since becoming a spirit, she knew how to use it. How to attack with it. â€Å"I think you’ll feel it, Damon. Let him go – NOW!† â€Å"Why do people always assume that volume will succeed when logic won’t?† Damon murmured. Elena let him have it. Or at least she prepared to. She took the deep breath necessary, held her inner self still, and imagined herself holding a ball of white fire, and then – Matt was on his feet. He looked as if he’d beendragged to his feet and was being held there like a puppet, and his eyes were involuntarily watering, but it was better than Matt writhing on the ground. â€Å"You owe me,† Damon said to Elena casually. â€Å"I’ll collect later.† To Matt he said, in the tones of a fond uncle, with one of those instantaneous smiles that you could never be quite sure you saw, â€Å"Lucky for me that you’re a hardy specimen, isn’t it?† â€Å"Damon.† Elena had seen Damon in hislet’s-play-with-weaker-creatures mood, and it was the one she liked least. But there was something off today; something she couldn’t understand. â€Å"Let’s get down to it,† she said, while the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rose again. â€Å"What do youreally want?† But he didn’t give the answer she expected. â€Å"I was officially appointed as your caretaker. I’m officially taking care of you. And for one thing, I don’t think you should be without my protection and companionship while my little brother is gone.† â€Å"I can handle myself,† Elena said flatly, waving a hand so they could get down to the real issue. â€Å"You’re a very pretty girl. Dangerous and† – flash smile – â€Å"unsavory elements could be after you. I insist you have a bodyguard.† â€Å"Damon, right now the thing I need most is to be protected fromyou . You know that. What is this really about?† The clearing was†¦pulsing. Almost as if it were something organic, breathing. Elena had the feeling that beneath her feet – beneath Meredith’s old, rugged hiking boots – the ground was moving slightly, like a great sleeping animal, and the trees were like a beating heart. For what? The forest? There was more dead wood than live here. And she could swear that she knew Damon well enough to know that he didn’t like trees or woods. It was at times like this that Elena wished she still had wings. Wings and the knowledge – the hand motions, the Words of White Power, the white fire inside her that would allow her to know the truth without trying to figure it out, or to simply blast annoyances back to Stonehenge. It seemed that all she’d been left with was being a greater temptation to vampires than ever, and her wits. Wits had worked up until now. Maybe if she didn’t let Damon know how afraid she was, she could win a stay of execution for them. â€Å"Damon, I thank you for being concerned about me. Now would you mind leaving Matt and me for a moment so that I can tell if he’s still breathing?† From inside the Ray-Bans, she thought she could discern a single flash of red. â€Å"Somehow I thought you might say that,† Damon said. â€Å"And, of course, it’s your right to have consolation after being so treacherously abandoned. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, for example.† Elena wanted to swear. Carefully, she answered, â€Å"Damon, if Stefan appointed you as my bodyguard, then he hardly  ¡Ã‚ ®treacherously abandoned’ me, did he? You can’t have it both – â€Å" â€Å"Just indulge me in one thing, all right?† Damon said in the voice of one whose next words are going to beBe careful orDon’t do anything I wouldn’t do . There was silence. The dust devils had stopped whirling. The smell of sun-warmed pine needles and pine resin in this dim place was making her languid, dizzy. The ground was warm, too, and the pine needles were all aligned, as if the slumbering animal had pine needles for fur. Elena watched dust motes turn and sparkle like opals in the golden sunlight. She knew she wasn’t at her best right now; not her sharpest. Finally, when she was sure her voice would be steady, she asked, â€Å"What do you want?† â€Å"A kiss.† How to cite The Return: Nightfall Chapter 21, Essay examples

Industrial society free essay sample

This role can be show through the many positive and negative aspects of his reign. The positive side included the strengthening of Russia’s military but the negative side, at the expense of his countries people. If we were to look at Stalin’s accomplishment, we could see that there was a majority of positive achievements over negative ones. Of the many accomplishments, the most prominent one is Stalin’s famous five year plans. These five year plans helped strengthen industrial and agricultural aspects of Russia as explained in Document 9. These changes could also be seen visually in Documents 2 3 and6 which show the industrial and agricultural growth of Russia during the period where these plans were active. Stalin’s economic plans helped Russian became a modern industrial society and led to Russia’s rise to a world power. Also the focus on heavy industry made to help increase the power of the state. We will write a custom essay sample on Industrial society or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Under a command economy, in which the government controls all decisions made concerning the economy and personal lives, Russia with no doubt grew strong. As stated in Document 1, Stalin saids that to slow down means falling behind, and those we all behind are beaten. But we do not want to be beaten. The attitudes of Stalin provoked the nationalism inside the citizens and rallied them up as a united force which ultimately helped Russia grow economically. It was with Stalin’s nationalism that helped his country grow strong and emerge at the top. Yet, not all aspects of Stalin’s rule were positive. We must remember to not brush over the negative aspects. First, Stalin developed his system of collective farming which combined once privately owned forms into large farms operated by the government. This put an end to individual profit and also an end to personal interest since the government had control of everything, As Stalin proclaimed in Document 4, he saids that with his new system, the state must come first, individuals second. Not only were the individuals of Russia undermined, they were tortured, executed or exiled if they dared oppose Stalin’s policies. Continuing with the system of collective farming, kulaks, rich farmers disliked Stalin’s system and openly resisted. Stalin immediately determined that the kulaks were a problem in his reign and that they must be eliminated. The kulaks were deported to forced labor camps or to Siberia. Stalin also used a forced famine in Ukraine to torture and control his people as stated in document 7. In addition, in order to control his population of people and provide positive views of himself, many posters such as the one shown in document 10 were shown to the public for that Stalin could gain liking. in addition, Stalin went as far as to use false trials to create and instill fear in his people. The accounts of the French ambassador as depicted the atrocities of such trials. In conclusion, although it is true that Stalin did much to positively affect the economy of Russia, he did so by harsh cruel and unnecessary means. He ultimately sacrificed his people for the outcome of the state.

Investment Corporation of Bangladesh Authorized for Private Placements of Securities free essay sample

CONTINUED OPERATION Private Placements ICB is authorized to act as an agent of the issuers and investors for private placements of securities. Under this arrangement, ICB places securities to individuals/institutions on behalf of the issuer for which it charges fees. ICB also acquires shares/securities for its own portfolio both in pre-IPO placement and equity investment. Custodian and Banker to the Issues To act as the custodian to the public issue of Open-end Closed-end Mutual Funds. ICB provides professional services. It also acts as the Banker to the issues and provides similar services through the network of its branches. Fees in this regard are negotiable. Mergers and Acquisitions Companies willing to expand their business through mergers or acquisitions or to Dis-investment projects that no longer viable into present capacity of operation can contact the Corporation. ICB provides professional services advices in respect of shaping up the cost and financial structures to ensure best possible operational results. We will write a custom essay sample on Investment Corporation of Bangladesh: Authorized for Private Placements of Securities or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Besides, in case of divestment, the corporation, through network and established business relationship, bring buyers and sellers together, help them to negotiate final agreement and advice on the emerging corporate structure. Corporate Financial Advice Government enterprises and Companies intending to go public issue often seek professional financial advice on corporate restructuring reengineering. ICB through its expertise provide such services through its expertise. Lease Financing ICB Provides lease finance mainly for procurement of industrial machinery, equipment and transport. ICB provides professional advice and financial assistance to the intending clients. The period of lease, rental, charges, and other terms and conditions are determined on the basis of type of assets and the extent of assistance required by the applicants. Since introduction of this scheme in 1999 good responses have been received from the intending lessees. Investment Portfolio of ICB Being the largest institutional investor ICB contributes significantly to the development of the countrys cap ital market through active portfolio management which is one of the important functions of ICB. During 2003-04 a total investment of Tk. 138. 93 crore has been made in the investment portfolio of ICB including Tk. O. 2 crore in shares of a company through Pre-IPO placement, Tk. 7. 0 crore in debentures of two companies, Tk. 0. 3 crore in preference shares of a company and Tk. 5. 0 crore in bonds of a company. Advance Against Unit Certificates Scheme Advance Against ICB Unit Certificates Scheme was introduced in 1998, especially designed for the ICB unit- holders to meet their emergency fund requirements. One can borrow maximum Tk. 5 per unit by despositing his/her unit certificates under lien arrangement from any of the ICB offices where from such unit certificates were issued. The rate of interest on the loan is reasonable and competitive. Advance Against Mutual Fund certificates Scheme Advance against ICB Mutual Fund certificates Scheme was introduced in 2003, designed for the ICB Mutual Fund Certificate-holders to meet their emergency fund requirement. One can borrow maximum of 50% value of last one years weighted average market price of certificates at the time of borrowing by depositing his/her certificates under lien arrangement from any of the ICB offices. The rate of interest on the loan is reasonable and also competitive. Consumer Credit Scheme As part of business diversification programme, ICB has introduced Consumers Credit Scheme in 2003-04 considering at the need of various household commodities of different employees of govt. , semi-govt. , autonomous bodies and some established private sector organizations. Under this scheme one can enjoy minimum Tk 1. 0 lac but maximum 5 lac credit facilities. The rate of interest on the loan is reasonable and competitive which is fixed by the board of directors of ICB considering the bank rate nd with the guidelines of Bangladesh Bank. Bank Guarantee scheme ICB introduced Bank Guarantee scheme in 2002-03. ICB provides (i) Bid Bond for enabling the business people to participate in any tender or bidding; (ii) Performance Bond for helping the business community to continue their business smoothly by fulfilling their obligations promised by them to their clients; and (iii) Customs Guarantee for solving different disagreements between the customs authority and the business classes at the initial stage. The maximum limit of guarantee is Tk. 2. 00 crore and would be issued against at east 20% cash and 80% easily encashable securities or against 100% cash margin. Re-guarantee from other financial institution is required for guarantee against the amount exceeding Tk. 2. 00 crore. Training Local Training During 2003-04, as part of human resource development programme, ICB endeavoured to develop the skill, knowledge and professional competence of its manpower by arranging various in-house and local training courses. During the year, 26 officers and 09 employees of ICB received local training on different subjects including Policy towards investment and industrialization, VAT and Taxation, Performance Measurement of Financial Institutions-a Credit Rating Perspective, Web page Design and Development,Venture Financing and Factoring, Investment and Merchant Banking, Managing core risks in banking for senior bcinkers, Corporate Governance, Institutional Computer Training, Trade Union Training Course for Organiser, Young Leadership, Development of small and medium enterprises etc.. Foreign Training During 2003-04, no officer/staff participated in any foreign training course. Trustee to the debenture and Securities assets ICB is acting as trustee to the debenture issues and asset-backed securitised bonds. ICB acted as trustee to the issues of 17 companies of which 7 companies has been redeemed successfully. Objectives | To encourage and broaden the base of investment. | | To develop the capital market. | | To provide for matters ancillary thereto. | | To mobilize savings. | To promote and establish subsidiaries for business development. | Business Policy | To act on commercial consideration with due regard to the interest of industry, commerce, depositors, investors and to the public in general. | | To provide financial assistance to projects subject to their economic and commercial viability. | | To arrange consortium of financial institutions including merchant banks to provide equity support to projects and thereby spread the risk of underwriting. | To d evelop and encourage entrepreneurs. | | To diversify investments. | | To induce small and medium savers for investment in securities. | | To create employment. | | To encourage Investment in IT sector. | | To encourage Investment in joint venture capital/project. | Basic Functions | Underwriting of initial public offering of shares and debentures| | Underwriting of right issue of shares| Direct purchase of shares and debentures including Pre-IPO placement and equity participation| | Providing lease finance to industrial machinery and other equipments singly or by forming syndicate| | Managing investors Accounts| | Managing Open End and Closed End Mutual Funds| | Operating on the Stock Exchanges| | Providing investment counsel to issuers and investors| | Participating in Government divestment Program| | Participating in and financing of, joint-venture projects| | Dealing in other matters related to capital market operations| | Trusty, Custodian, Bank Guarantee | | Consumer Cre dit |

Word Choice Inflict vs. Afflict - Proofeds Writing Tips

Word Choice Inflict vs. Afflict - Proofeds Writing Tips Word Choice: Inflict vs. Afflict The verbs inflict and afflict are spelled similarly and, indeed, closely related in meaning, since both refer to pain or suffering. However, these terms are also opposites in some senses, so it is vital not to confuse them in your written work. Read on to find out more. Inflict (Cause Suffering) The verb inflict means cause or impose something unpleasant, usually pain or suffering. Inflict is a transitive verb, so always takes a direct object (the thing being inflicted) and usually requires an indirect object (the thing being affected): The rider inflicted whip wounds upon the horse. In the sentence above, the direct object of inflict is whip wounds, while the indirect object is the horse being whipped. You can also use inflict to mean imposing something unwelcome, often an opinion. In this case, we could use it in a sentence like this: At Christmas, Aunt Emily inflicted her extreme views about child discipline upon our entire family. Afflict (Suffer from Something) The verb afflict means distress or affect something adversely. It is often used passively rather than actively, meaning that we usually say that someone has been afflicted by something. For example: Many people in the region were afflicted by a contagious disease. You can use afflict with the active voice by placing the subject of the sentence before the verb: Whooping cough usually afflicts those who have not been immunized. Something that afflicts a victim is an affliction. This means a state of pain or suffering. You can also use afflict and affliction figuratively, or sometimes sarcastically, to exaggerate the suffering involved in something: We had to cancel our holiday because we’re too busy. Please sympathize with us in our affliction. Inflict or Afflict? These words could both be used to describe the same situation, depending on the perspective adopted. However, because of this, it is essential not to confuse them in your work. Remember, to inflict is to cause somebody pain, suffering or injury. To be afflicted is to be the victim of pain, suffering or injury. If you would like more advice, or to have a 500-word sample of your work proofread for free, get in touch with Proofed today!

Guide to Using Visual Basic for Applications

Guide to Using Visual Basic for Applications One of the most outstanding qualities of Visual Basic is that its a complete development environment. Whatever you want to do, theres a flavor of Visual Basic to help you do the job! You can use Visual Basic for desktop and mobile and remote development (VB.NET), scripting (VBScript) and Office development (VBA !) If you have tried VBA and you want to know more about how to use it, this is the tutorial for you. (This course is based on the version of VBA found in Microsoft Office 2010.) If youre searching a course in Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, you have also found the right place. Check out: Visual Basic .NET 2010 Express - A From the Ground Up Tutorial VBA as a general concept will be covered in this article. Theres more to VBA than you might think! You can also find articles about the Office VBA sisters: There are basically two way to develop programs that can work with Office applications: VBA and VSTO. In October 2003, Microsoft introduced an enhancement to the professional programming environment Visual Studio .NET called Visual Studio Tools for Office - VSTO. But even though VSTO leverages the considerable advantages of .NET in Office, VBA remains more popular than VSTO. VSTO requires the use of the Professional or higher version of Visual Studio - which will probably cost you more than the Office application youre using - in addition to the Office application. But since VBA is integrated with the host Office application, you dont need anything else. VBA is used primarily by Office experts who want to make their work faster and easier. You seldom see large systems written in VBA. VSTO, on the other hand, is used by professional programmers in larger organizations to create Add-Ins that can be quite sophisticated. An application from a third party, like a paper company for Word or an accounting firm for Excel, is more likely to be written using VSTO. In their documentation, Microsoft notes that there are basically three reasons to use VBA: - Automation Repetition - Computers can do the same thing over and over much better and faster than people can. - Extensions to User Interaction - Do you want to suggest exactly how someone should format a document or save a file? VBA can do that. Do you want to validate what someone enters? VBA can do that too. - Interaction between Office 2010 Applications - A later article in this series is called Word and Excel Working Together. But if this is what you need, you might want to consider Office automation, that is, writing the system using VB.NET and then using the functions from an Office application like Word or Excel as needed. Microsoft has stated that they will continue to support VBA and its featured prominently in the Official Microsoft Office 2010 Development Roadmap. So you have as much assurance as Microsoft ever provides that your investment in VBA development wont be obsolete in the near future. On the other hand, VBA is the last remaining Microsoft product that depends on VB6 COM technology. Its over twenty years old now! In human years, that would make it older than Lestat the Vampire. You might see that as tried, tested and true or you might think of it as ancient, worn-out, and obsolete. I tend to favor the first description but you should be aware of the facts. The first thing to understand is the relationship between VBA and Office applications like Word and Excel. The Office application is a host for VBA. A VBA program can never be executed by itself. VBA is developed in the host environment (using the Developer tab in the Office application ribbon) and it must be executed as part of a Word document, an Excel workbook, an Access database or some other Office host. The way VBA is actually used is different too. In an application like Word, VBA is used primarily as a way to access the objects of the host environment such as accessing the paragraphs in a document with the Words Word.Document.Paragraphs object. Each host environment contributes unique objects that are not available in the other host environments. (For example, there is no workbook in a Word document. A workbook is unique to Excel.) The Visual Basic code is mainly there to make it possible to use objects customized for each Office host application. The fusion between VBA and host specific code can be seen in this code sample (taken from the Microsoft Northwind sample database) where purely VBA code is shown in red and Access specific code is shown in blue. The red code would be the same in Excel or Word but the blue code is unique to this Access application. VBA itself is almost the same as it has been for years. The way it integrates with the host Office application and the Help system has been improved more. The 2010 version of Office doesnt display the Developer tab by default. The Developer tab takes you into the part of the application where you can create VBA programs so the first thing you need to do is change that option. Simply go to the File tab, Options, Customize Ribbon and click the Developer box in Main Tabs. The Help system works much more smoothly than it has in previous versions. You can get help for your VBA questions either offline, from a system that is installed with your Office application, or online from Microsoft over the Internet. The two interfaces are designed to look a lot alike: Click Here to display the illustration If your Internet connection is fast, the online help will give you more and better information. But the locally installed version will probably be faster and in most cases its just as good. You might want to make the local help the default and then use the online help if the local version doesnt give you what you want. The fastest way to go online is to simply select All Word (or All Excel or other app) from the Search dropdown in the help. This will immediately go online and perform the same search, but it wont reset your default selection. Click Here to display the illustration On the next page, we get started with how to actually create a VBA program. When VBA is hosted by an application like Word or Excel, the program lives in the document file thats used by the host. For example, in Word you can save your Word macro (its not a macro, but we wont quibble about terminology right now) either in a Word document or a Word template. Now suppose this VBA program is created in Word (this simple program just changes the font to bold for a selected line) and is saved in a Word document: Sub AboutMacro() AboutMacro Macro Macro recorded 9/9/9999 by Dan Mabbutt Selection.HomeKey Unit:wdStory Selection.EndKey Unit:wdLine, Extend:wdExtend Selection.Font.Bold wdToggle Selection.EndKey Unit:wdStory End Sub In earlier versions of Office, you could clearly see the VBA code stored as part of the document file in the saved Word document by viewing it in Notepad where everything in the Word document can seen. This illustration was produced with a previous version of Word because Microsoft changed the document format in the current version and VBA program code doesnt show up clearly as plain text anymore. But the principal is the same. Similarly, if you create an Excel spreadsheet with an Excel macro it will be saved as part of an .xlsm file. Click Here to display the illustration VBA and Security One of the most effective computer virus tricks in the past was to insert malicious VBA code into an Office document. With previous versions of Office, when a document was opened, the virus could run automatically and create havoc on your machine. This open security hole in Office was starting to impact Office sales and that really got Microsofts attention. With the current 2010 generation of Office, Microsoft has thoroughly plugged the hole. In addition to the improvements mentioned here, Microsoft has enhanced Office security in ways that you might not even notice right down to the hardware level. If youre hesitant to use VBA because you heard that it wasnt safe, be assured that Microsoft has gone the extra mile to change that now. The most important change was to create a special document type just for Office documents that include VBA programs. In Word, for example, MyWordDoc.docx cannot contain a VBA program because Word will not allow programs in a file saved with a docx file extension. The file must be saved as a MyWordDoc.docm for the VBA programming to be allowed as part of the file. In Excel, the file extension is .xlsm. To go along with this enhanced document type, Microsoft created a new security subsystem in Office called the Trust Center. Essentially, you can customize how your Office application treats documents containing VBA code in fine detail. You open the Trust Center from the Developer tab in your Office application by clicking Macro Security in the Code section of the ribbon. Click Here to display the illustration Some of the options are designed to harden your Office applications so malicious code doesnt run and others are designed to make it easier for developers and users to use VBA without having security unnecessarily slowing things down. As you can see, there are a lot of ways that you can customize security and going through all of them is far beyond the scope of this article. Fortunately, Microsofts site has extensive documentation on this topic. And its also fortunate that the default security settings are good for most requirements. Since VBA is tied to the host Office application, you have to run it there. That topic is covered starting on the next page. How Do I Run a VBA Application Thats actually a very good question because its the first one that users of your application will ask. There are basically two ways: - If you decide not to use a control, like a Button, to start the program, then you must use the Macros command on the ribbon (Developer tab, Code group). Select the VBA program and click Run. But this might seem a little too much to some of your users. For example, you might not want the Developer tab to even be available to them. In that case ... - You need to add something that the user can click or type to start the application. In this article, we will look at the Button control. But it could be clicking a shortcut, an icon on a toolbar or even the act of entering data. These are called events and what we will write in this and later articles is event code - program code that is automatically run when some specific event - like clicking a Button control - happens. UserForms, Form Controls and ActiveX Controls If youre not just selecting a macro, the most common way to run a VBA program is to click a button. That button can either be a form control or an ActiveX control. To a degree, your choices depend on the Office application that youre using. Excel provides slightly different choices than Word, for example. But these fundamental types of controls are the same. Because it offers the most flexibility, lets look at what you can do with Excel 2010. A simple text message will be inserted into a cell when several different buttons are clicked just to make the differences more clear. To get started, create a new Excel workbook and select the Developer tab. (If you have another Office application, a variation of these instructions should work.) Click the Insert icon. Well work with the Form Controls button first. Form controls are the older technology. In Excel, they were first introduced in version 5.0 in 1993. Well work with VBA UserForms next but form controls cant be used with them. Theyre also not compatible with the web. Form controls are placed directly on the worksheet surface. On the other hand, some ActiveX controls - which we consider next - cant be used directly on worksheets. Form controls are used with a click and draw technique. Click the Button form control. The mouse pointer will change into a plus sign. Draw the control by dragging over the surface. When you release the mouse button, a dialog pops up asking for a macro command to connect with the button. Click Here to display the illustration Especially when youre creating a control for the first time, you wont have a VBA macro waiting to be connected with the button, so click New and the VBA Editor will open with the suggested name already filled into the shell of an event subroutine. Click Here to display the illustration To complete this very simple application, just type this VBA code statement inside the Sub: Cells(2, 2).Value Form Button Clicked An ActiveX button is almost exactly the same. One difference is that VBA places this code in the worksheet, not in a separate module. Heres the complete event code. Private Sub CommandButton1_Click() Cells(4, 2).Value ActiveX Button Clicked End Sub In addition to placing these controls directly on the worksheet, you can also add a UserForm to the project and place controls on that instead. UserForms - about the same thing as Windows forms - have a lot of advantages in being able to manage your controls more like a normal Visual Basic application. Add a UserForm to the project in the Visual Basic editor. Use the View menu or right-click in Project Explorer. Click Here to display the illustration The default for a UserForm is to not display the form. So to make it visible (and make the controls on it available to the user), execute the Show method of the form. I added another form button just for this. Sub Button2_Click() UserForm1.Show End Sub Youll notice that the UserForm is modal by default. That means that when the form is active, everything else in the application is inactive. (Clicking the other buttons does nothing, for example.) You can change this by changing the ShowModal property of the UserForm to False. But this is getting us deeper into programming. The next articles in this series will explain more about this. The code for the UserForm is placed in the UserForm object. If you select View Code for all of the objects in Project Explorer, you will see that there are three separate Click event subroutines that are contained in three different objects. But theyre all available to the same workbook. Click Here to display the illustration In addition to forcing an event by clicking a button, VBA is also used to react to events in the objects in the hosting application. For example, you can detect when a spreadsheet changes in Excel. Or you can detect when a row is added to a database in Access and write a program to handle that event. In addition to the familiar command buttons, text boxes, and other components that you see in programs all the time, you can add components that are actually part of your Excel spreadsheet in your Word document. Or do the reverse. This goes way beyond copy and paste. For example, you can show an Excel spreadsheet in a Word document. VBA allows you to use the whole power of one Office application in another. For example, Word has relatively simple calculation ability built in. But Excel - well - excels at calculation. Suppose you wanted to use the natural log of the Gamma function (a relatively sophisticated math calculation) in your Word document? With VBA, you can pass values to that function in Excel and get the answer back in your Word document. And you can use much more than the Office applications! If you click the More Controls icon, you can see a considerable list of things that are installed on your computer. Not all of these work out of the box and you should have the documentation for each of them available, but it gives you an idea about how broad the support is for VBA. Of all the features in VBA, there is one that is clearly more useful than any other. Find out what it is on the next page. Ive saved the best for last! Heres a technique that applies across the board to all of the Office applications. Youll find yourself using it a lot so were covering it here in the Introduction. As you start to code more sophisticated VBA programs, one of the first problems you will run into is how to find out about methods and properties of Office objects. If youre writing a VB.NET program, youll often look for code samples and examples to solve this problem. But when you consider all the different hosting applications and the fact that each of them have hundreds of new objects, you usually cant find something that exactly matches what you need to do. The answer is the Record Macro ... The basic idea is to turn on Record Macro, go through the steps of a process that is similar to what you want your program to accomplish, and then check the resulting VBA program for code and ideas. Many people make the mistake of thinking that you have to be able to record exactly the program you need. But its not at all necessary to be that exact. Its usually good enough to record a VBA program that is just close to what you want and then add the code modifications to make it do the job precisely. Its so easy and useful that I will sometimes record a dozen programs with slight differences just to see what the code differences are in the result. Remember to delete all the experiments when youre finished looking at them! As an example, I clicked Record Macro in the Word Visual Basic Editor and typed several lines of text. Heres the result. (Line continuations have been added to make them shorter.) Sub Macro1() Macro1 Macro Selection.TypeText Text: _ These are the times that Selection.TypeText Text: _ try mens souls. The Selection.TypeText Text: _ summer soldier Selection.TypeText Text: _ and the sunshine patriot Selection.TypeText Text: _ will, in these times, shrink from Selection.TypeText Text: _ the service of their country. Selection.MoveUp Unit:wdLine, Count:1 Selection.HomeKey Unit:wdLine Selection.MoveRight Unit:wdCharacter, _ Count:5, Extend:wdExtend Selection.Font.Bold wdToggle End Sub Nobody studies VBA just for itself. You always use it along with a specific Office application. So, to continue learning, there are articles here that demonstrate VBA used with both Word and Excel: - Getting Started Using VBA: The Word Working Partner - Getting Started Using VBA: The Excel Working Partner

Shakespeare in Love Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Shakespeare in Love - Movie Review Example This essay considers background information related to the film Shakespeare in Love, including plot, and presents a general critique of various filmic aspects. The film itself is set in 1593 Europe and as indicated occurs during the time period when William Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet. The play begins presenting two competing theatres and extends into other dramatic elements. Researchers have analyzed the play and noted the two central cruces to by the need to get a play produced and the extent that the play will be able to truly articulate the concept of love. In addition, Huntley has considered how the play presents the underlining human drive of desire and love, as articulated in the romance that occurs between Shakespeare and Viola, and the complications presented by Lord Wessex. Shakespeare is indicated to be working for The Rose Theatre. Geoffrey Rush plays Philip Henslowe who is the owner of the theatre. While he has constructed a play titled Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter, upon learning that his love interest has cheated on him with another man he rewrites the play as Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare begins to hold auditions for the lead roles in the play. One of the people that audition for Romeo is Gwyneth Paltrow’s character Viola de Lesseps; however, she is disguised as a man. Shakespeare begins a relationship with Viola after discovering her true identity. In many regards, their relationship resembles that of the fictional relationship of Romeo and Juliet in that in many regards it seems doomed to fail. For instance, Shakespeare is already married, and Viola’s family intends for her to marry a wealthy aristocrat named Lord Wessex. During this time another famed playwright, Christopher Marlowe is featured who offers Shakespeare various types of advice. Soon Shakespeare and Viola find themselves in front of the Queen and make a bet that a player cannot be written that captures the true nature of love. Shakespear e works to present Romeo and Juliet as the true essence of love.

Compare the royal dictatorships of two balkan countries in the 1930s Essay

Compare the royal dictatorships of two balkan countries in the 1930s - Essay Example Bojinovic views that while Balkan region had always been absorbed in its internal politics, it did not prove itself as cooperative towards the outer world. â€Å"Economically and culturally,† Bojinovic submits, â€Å"the Balkan states until the 20th Century were not intensely cooperating with the rest of Europe; only the mentioned coastal parts were connected with the West. As exposed above, the economic and socio-cultural element resulted in a perception of Balkans as ‘other Europe’–very different, even strange.† (Todorova 2001: p 25; quoted in Bojinovic, 2004: p 5) The present paper aims to make a comparative analysis of the nature of the political developments introduced and adopted by the two Balkan states, i.e. Bulgaria and Greece, during 1930s, for both these countries experienced monarchical dictatorship in their political systems during that era. Like other Balkan states, Bulgaria also witnessed grave financial crisis during 1920s, which lasted in 1930s too to a great extent. â€Å"Bulgaria might have escaped the usual turmoil, thanks to its stable peasant economy and the absence of large ethnic minorities. However, two elements led to crises and authoritarianism: rural-urban tensions and terrorism among Macedonian refugees.† (Retrieved from staff.lib.msu.edu) The main reason behind the financial turmoil was political uncertainty and dictatorial regime of Boris III, which put the future and growth of the country at stake in order to prolong his personal rule. Similarly, another Balkan state i.e. Greece underwent similar characteristics. Greece is regarded as one of the most primitive civilizations of the world, which had been source of wisdom, knowledge and inspiration for centuries. In modern times, she had to undergo continuous threat from the neighbouring countries, particularly from the Ottoman Empire. Situated at

Personal Statement Essay Example for Free

Personal Statement Essay I was asked to winter formal my freshman year of high school by the Air Force JROTC commander who just happened to be a senior. Having the head-person in charge even talk to me at all was a big deal back then. I still don’t know how it happened, but with a bit of dumb luck and a lot of late nights out, we started dating. Danail and I were on top of the world. There was nothing we couldn’t accomplish if we set our minds to it, and so we did. We were always out on adventures. You could catch us hiking, backpacking, or just hanging out with friends, but we always had huge smiles on our faces. Slowly getting to know each other better, and planning our futures together, one important detail I found out is that during her sophomore year of high school she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She was in remission, but at the expense of having to endure extensive treatments of chemotherapy and radiation. Halfway through my sophomore year (we were still dating) she was re-diagnosed with malignant tumors in her abdomen. She went through several hospitals and even more treatment plans, keeping her optimism high and still living to love life. Fast forward to this last summer when at 2am on June 12th, 2012 at the Cancer Treatment Center of America in Arizona, our last hope, Danail Lynn Frey took her last breath. She meant more to me than I could ever comprehend at the time, and my life was suddenly derailed in an instant. Immediately after Danail passed away, I felt abandoned and without purpose. I had shaped my life around this one individual and for the first time in my life, I didn’t know what I wanted. Danail was a nursing student at ASU, and we had always planned on me becoming a doctor, and then us joining an organization that benefits third world countries. Having to change my original plans of becoming a neurosurgeon to shape my future with someone else was definitely not an easy decision. Now I didn’t know what to do, and I had to get out. With that being the first summer that I wasn’t packed full of already scheduled activities, I ended up learning how to scuba dive and I went on a trip to San Carlos, Mexico. This trip was just the chance I needed to get out of the painfully familiar places at home and really let me think about what I was going to do. I realized that I had to regain a sense of self and maybe even some independence. Having witnessed first-hand Danail’s amazing oncology team provide for her the care she most certainly deserved, I was able to better fully realize that I knew being in healthcare, more specifically being a physician, was still in store for my future. On top of that, being in the Civil Air Patrol’s emergency services team and already having a background in search and rescue attending the National Emergency Services Academy in Indiana, I decided to combine the two. This thought process started a new personal track revolving around my future that ignited a new fire and passion having been able to better understand the realities of medicine. With that combination, my new focus all geared toward bettering our current healthcare system and looking into international rescue and relief with organizations like the WHO. All of these events helped shape what I want to be, and ultimately, at the end of the day, I know I will realistically change my mind again. Currently here is where I am at. I know it may sound eager, unrealistic, and possibly even pretentious to say this with the only one-specialty or track that doctors are supposed to choose, but maybe eventually not. I would like to practice in multiple fields that I believe are all connected to make the ultimate healer. I have interned as an ophthalmic technician learning about eyes and optics, which has really intrigued me. However, I have also always been fascinated by human behavior and the inner workings of the mind and plan to potentially major in neuroscience. Because of all the second-hand chemo and radiation tragic memories that I experienced, I want to bring alternative cures to cancer into tested clinical environments studying oncology. On top of that, I will always be in the rescue settings. So, trauma and world health medicine are also on my mind. I want to always build upon my education and health experience to incorporate that knowledge into a practice of its own. If Danail taught me anything, it would have been how to love, and that if I set my mind to something, especially as important as medicine, I need to remain true to my goals and use her as my inspiration to achieve them.

Troys Battle with Anger in August Wilsons Fences Essays -- August Wi

Troy's Battle with Anger in August Wilson's Fences Conflicts and tensions between family members and friends are key elements in August Wilson's play, Fences. The main character, Troy Maxon, has struggled his whole life to be a responsible person and fulfill his duties in any role that he is meant to play. In turn, however, he has created conflict through his forbidding manner. The author illustrates how the effects of Troy's stern upbringing cause him to pass along a legacy of bitterness and anger which creates tension and conflict in his relationships with his family. Troy?s relationship with his father was one, which produced much tension, and had a strong influence on Troy?s relationships with his loved ones as an adult. He had very little respect for his father because his father did not, in Troy?s mind, make his family a priority. At an early age, Troy?s father beat him ?like there was no tomorrow? because he caught Troy getting ?cozy? with a girl (549; I,4). Troy said that ?right there is where [he became] a man? (549; I,4). It was at that moment that Troy made the decision to free himself from his father?s power. Despite the fact that he did eventually escape his father?s wrath, the struggle with his father?s aggressive behavior and lack of love resulted in a coldness that resided in Troy?s heart toward life and love. His father did not care about his children; children were there to work for the food that he ate first. Troy describes his feelings toward his father by saying, ?Sometimes I wish I hadn?t known my daddy. He ain?t cared not hing about no kids. A kid to him wasn?t nothing. All he wanted was for you to learn how to walk so he could start you to working? (548; I,4). Although Troy had very little respect for his father and vowed to be nothing like him, many of his father?s harsh personality traits show up in his own personality. Despite Troy?s continuous attempts to push himself away from anything he had ever known about his father, the inheritance of such irrational behavior was inevitable because it was all he had ever known. The inheritance of this angry behavior was, in turn, the cause of his damaging relationships with his own family. Just as Troy endured his father?s cruel ways, Troy?s family is left with no choice but to try to learn to live with his similar ways. Troy?s family is one that strives to maintai... ...y as a responsible person. He overlooks Cory?s efforts to please him and make a career for his son, learned from his past with his own father, is responsible for the tension that builds between him and Cory. This tension will eventually be the cause of the lost relationship that is identical to the lost relationship that is identical to the lost relationship between Troy and his father. Troy?s damaging relationship with his father had a dual effect in his life. It created a conscious awareness of how not to conduct his life and built fences, which inevitably recreated his father in his personality. These fences shaped and formed his relationships with his son. Due to his conscious efforts to not become what he did hold that were his father?s. The narrowness of his thoughts and ideas about life made him an almost impossible person with whom to have a relationship. These flaws permanently changed the lives of the people around him and built barriers which were too solid to ever be broken. Works Cited Wilson, August. Fences. New Worlds of Literature: Writings from America?s Many Cultures. 2nd ed. Jerome Beauty and J. Paul Hunter. New York: Norton, 1994. 522-575.

Paper on “Agricultural Rhythms and Rituals: Ancient Maya Solar Observation in Hinterland Blue Creek”

The article of Gregory Zaro and Jon Lohse, â€Å"Agricultural Rhythms and Rituals: Ancient Maya Solar Observation in Hinterland Blue Creek,† mainly discusses the various and highly effective agricultural practices in Mesoamerica during times when sophisticated equipment and instruments were not yet available.The authors mainly focused on the ancient Mayan civilization whose settlements are now collectively known as Latin America.   Basically, it was evident that much of Mesoamerica was highly successful in terms of agricultural production and the planting and growing of crops, among others.However, the authors stressed that it is important to not that the ancient civilizations that lived in the past had little to no knowledge of soil types, regulation and moisture levels, fertility, the growing cycles, and other requirements and that are essential in crop production, yet they still were able to have successful and sustainable agricultural conditions.The authors point out tha t the main reasons behind their success are their ancient rituals, practices and beliefs which mainly focused on the cosmos and are used to mark the passage of time and the seasons relative to their agricultural production.These practices rituals include sacrifices, rituals that are associated with water management and fertility and the civilizations ability to monitor seasonal changes by observing the movements and changes of the celestial bodies in the sky.In addition, these practices, rituals and other agricultural behaviors, according to the authors, are possibly the most overlooked reasons by most archaeologists who are attempting to have a deeper understanding of ancient civilizations.The authors, in their investigations of these ancient races, found their first evidence at the Quincunx site, an architectural complex in Belize. At the site, they discovered an unusual structure which is unlike the Mayan houses and residential patios.It mostly comprises of central masonry room b locks but the most notable structure of the complex, according to the authors, are the four broad, low, circular cobble platforms that are situated intercardinal directions (which means that the four platforms are placed in southeast, southwest, northeast, and northwest each).   Each platform is also located approximately 20 meters from a central structure.The authors noted that initially, it can be surmised that these five-point or quincuncial   structure was designed mainly to monitor the movements of the sun in the sky every year. But upon closer scrutiny, it is actually closely associated with the Mayan civilizations high regard for astronomy and their dependence on agricultural production.In addition, the authors claimed that the evidence which they use to support their claims include ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts, particularly the Mayan behavior towards astronomy and agriculture;Tthe five-part or quincuncial design of the site; and the solar observations at the s aid site during times of summer solstice on June 21, which are further assessed in relation to architectural elements and features that denote important events in the civilization’s history and way of life.Based on the authors’ accounts, in order to have a better understanding of the Mesoamerican agricultural behaviors and practices, it is first necessary to closely examine symbolisms in their structures, particularly the quincuncial design of the site.Basically, according to historical evidence and studies of Mayan cosmos or their belief in astronomy, the five-part complex mainly represents the universe. Historically, the Mayans believe that universe is composed of four corners and one center, similar to the quincuncial structure.The corners represented what they called the vaxakmen or the race’s standard bearers or spokespersons. In addition, the positioning of these corners also designate and give rise to the center, which more or less represents the Mayan co mmunities themselves.Moreover, the positioning of the quincuncial complex are also closely associated with fertility and famine, which are essential aspects in Mesamerica as these play major roles in determining their way of life.For example, according to the authors, one Mayan Tribe believed that the north is associated with the color white and the god maize/cereal grain, the south is associated with the color and the god of wind, the east is associated with white and the god of rain, and the west is associated with black and the god of death.Meaning to say, the positioning of the quincuncial complex they found may strongly indicate that it is meant to determine their timing in planting crops and other agricultural activities that they Mayan civilization practice during that time.Another example that indicates their strong reverence for astronomy relative to their agricultural production, based on the authors’ article, is the rituals that the civilization practiced. In one r itual, an altar is situated in a center with four corners. In each of the corners, four men sat and imitated the sound of thunder.The entire ceremony is mainly done to pray to the gods to bring rain during times of famine or drought. Moreover, the authors noted that places that are socially significant such as plazas, homesteads, and cornfields also followed the quincuncial rule mainly due to their perception of the universe.Furthermore, the authors also noted that the quincuncial structure is also used in actual agricultural production. Basically, the four corners represent solar events: two zenith passages, in which the sun is directly above the earth, and two summer solstices, in which the sun is either towards or away from the earth, depending on the planet’s tilt.In this regard, quincuncial symbols, especially in places rice in agriculture, help the civilization determine the sun’s position and, in effect, their timing for successful food production.  Finally, i n order to further support and validate their claims, the authors documented a devastated quincuncial architectural site in Belize and recreated it to show the sun’s possible position in the sky and how the Mayan civilization used this to time their agricultural activities.In their excavation, they were able to discover that during the June summer solstice, a person’s shadow was cast from the central structure’s south doorway to the north edge of the southwestern area. From this finding, the authors concluded that the quincuncial structure was indeed crucial to the lives of Mesoamerica as it affects their agricultural production.However, they emphasized that the passage of time has caused a lot of changes in the structures which is why it is hard to assume that all of Mesoamerica used the same quincuncial symbols described above in their lives. But nevertheless, they surmised that all communities in the area shared the same belief that prominent spaces and areas must divided into five parts and four corners in order to represent the universe.

Frame Analysis of Merck

The events that Merck encountered in the early 1990s have brought the company under intense economic and political pressure. Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) lowered the prices of drugs since they gained more control over drug prices and alone accounted for 75% of drug purchases. Generic substitutes put more pressure on the pharmaceutical industry. In addition to the election of President Bill Clinton in 1992, who exerted political pressure on the high profit margins of pharmaceutical companies and their alleged contribution to runway U.S. health care costs. Merck CEO, Vagelos at that time, initiated a series of actions to adapt the company to the pressuring circumstances. The immense outside pressure created a sense of uncertainty and ambiguity which is best explained through the political frame. Vagelos actions demonstrated the power of the political frame which is demonstrated by his firmwide cost-cutting campaign. He also inclined to lay off his employees by his managed headcount and cut all waste strategies. Vagelos exerted a structural act by moving the corporate headquarters from its historic home in New Jersey to a 30 wooded campus near Whitehouse Station. The old headquarter was alongside the company research and manufacturing facilities, but the new site was merely corporate and isolated from the company's other divisions.   This move has weekend the sense of family and relationship through the human resource frame. Although, Vagelos claimed a human resource face to create a new corporate culture to prepare the company to meet external challenges, but his acts spoke of power and conflict through the political frame. The political frame created more confusion for Merck employees especially after Vagelos name Richard Markham as president of the company, who resigned after six months leaving the company in more confusion. The absence of the human resource and the symbolic frames has caused morale of company employees to decrease and there was a perception that Merck was losing its way as a company. Advantages and Disadvantages to Merck Advantages for the political frame are the practice of power in face of uncertainty and confusion. However, the political frame created more confusion and the sense of team was lost. Advantages of the human resource frame builds on the sense of family and strong relationships to embrace the company for exerted pressure. The advantages of the symbolic frame are ability to handle complex and uncertain conditions of the company. Evaluation of Gilmartin Performance in Creating Change: Gilmartin has introduced so much change in Merck to enable the company to survive economic and political outside pressures. His performance would be evaluated in this section using the keys to a successful change introduced by Tucker in 1995. The following objects need to be clearly identified: need, objectives, participation, broad guidelines, details by group, benefits of change, and giving rewards. At first the need to change is identified at Merck to be initiated by the increasing economic and political pressure that was imposed on the company during 1992-1993. The change outside the company signalled change inside Merck. The company strategy and organization was compelling especially after the departure of CEO Roy Vagelos. The objectives of this change were to increase company sales, and revenues, increase morale, develop a sense of direction for the company for the future. Guidelines of the change were to maintain the established high ethical standard of the company while developing the tradition of scientific excellence through a cross-function function.. Participation in the change was mainly administrated by the groups that maintain the company; its employees and management, in addition to stockholders. The benefits of this change were to achieve the objectives mentioned in the previous section. In addition to increased earnings and established a sense of direction for the future to come. Rewards for this change were given to employees’ due to their positive view of Merck. Employees were also very pleased with the progress Merck had on management training and leadership development. Employees were also pleased with the their much developed communication among students. The rationale for my analysis considered the political and economic pressures exerted on the company in addition to decreasing income and revenue pressures which created the need for the analysis. Objectives aimed at the improvement of the initial status presented.   Guidelines were the specific way Gilmartin followed to achieve his objectives.   Participation pointed out the affected or participating elements that would be changed. The benefits gained from this change are at best when they match the objectives or even outperform what was expected as the outcome of change. Rewards are the benefits to participants. Stakeholders of the Recall of Vioxx: The 2004 Merck announcement concerning its recalling of the arthritis medicine; Vioxx, has caused the company stock to decrease by 27% on the following day. In 2005, Merck has set aside $685 million for Vioxx’s legal defense for more than 11,000 cases. The internal and external stakeholders are: Patients taking Vioxx, the United States Food and Drug Administration, Merck ; Company Shareholders, and other pharmaceutical firms. Negative Impact of Vioxx Recall: The potential negative impact of the recall of Vioxx, the most successful product launch in the history of Merck is multi-sided to include many losses. The financial losses were estimated to be ten percent of total expected sales per year which amounts to $2.5 billion per year (Appleby ; Matt 2004). The financial loss is further to be enlarged by the large number of lawsuits filed against the company. However, the bold legal strategy that Merck took to fight every individual Vioxx law suit on a case by case basis is expected to dampen the effect of litigation.   Merck accepts to take the cost of one billion dollars in litigation fee rather than open the door for settlements which would be devastating with the entrance of thousands of new law suits. Merck hopes that the waiting game would cause many plaintiffs to back off. The reputation of Merck also sustained great damage. It is believed that Vioxx is responsible for some disastrous health outcomes. Merck is shown to care all about business with less integrity towards doing what's right for its customers.   However, it is the reputation of Merck relative to other pharmaceutical company’s that really determines the extent of damage to Merck’s reputation. In reaction to the increasing economic and political pressures on Merck, Vagelos should have followed a combination of symbolic and human resource frame to better mobilize the company to sustain the encountered pressures. He should have built on the strong emotions and relationships between company employees who were developed during the company golden age 1992-1993. He also could have adhered to his alleged symbolic frame and created a symbol for the company to adhere to until hard times have passed through. Recommendation to Merck: It is recommended that Merck pursuit the development of new products to make up for the decrease in total sales that resulted from the recall of Vioxx. The company should also improve its reputation within the pharmaceutical industry through the involvement in a number of ethical activities to the community. Merck could re-establish its reputation by blaming the FDA for not recalling the drug after learning of Vioxx’s risks. Merck could work with FDA to change its approval process to ensure the safety of future drugs. References Appleby, J. & Matt, K. (2004). Merck estimates $2.5B impact from pulling Vioxx plug. USA Today Posted 9/30/2004 obtained on October 15, 2007 from http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/drugs/2004-09-30-merck-cover_x.htm   

Attitudes on Immigrants

Attitudes on Immigrants Introduction Attitudes can be described as narrow when they mirror positive or negative assessment of an entity and wide ranging when they comprise principles with the character of assessment (Schuman, Charlotte, Lawrence Maria, 1997). Either way, they can be positive and accommodating or negative and stand-offish.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Attitudes on Immigrants specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More White people generally hold varying attitudes towards immigrants and pro-immigrant policies, that is, policies that favour immigration. Pessimists feel that immigrants should not benefit from pro-immigrant policies for various reasons. They are of the opinion that immigrants seize career opportunities from American born citizens, the state uses up a lot of money aiding them and that their presence leads to escalation of delinquency and law-breaking. Optimists on the other hand have entirely different views. They belie ve that immigrants contribute to advancement in America by coming up with fresh initiatives, enhancing their culture and are beneficial to Americas economy in general. They further express that officially authorized immigrants who are not American citizens should be given similar rights and freedoms to those of citizens and that children of non-citizens who are born in America should have the right to citizenship. These attitudes and subsequent opinions are shaped mainly by core networks (a person’s contacts), group threat from immigrants or intergroup contact with immigrants. They are further influenced by race, education level, age and religion of members of the core networks. Core Networks Core networks focus on particular people and those with whom they socialize. It is believed that a person’s opinion is often shaped by the opinion of their friends and acquaintances (Friedkin, 1990).Advertising Looking for essay on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This is because a friend is someone you trust, open up to, compel, aspire to please and who enlightens you when you are shaping your opinion on people of different races and ethnic backgrounds and the government procedures that affect them (Friedkin 1990). In a community setting, white peoples’ opinions on immigrants are influenced by the total number of people from other races, how learned the occupants of the community are, the period for which they have been acquainted and how close they are. Ordinarily, in a community with many people, close associates reduce hence the likelihood of being compelled to be consistent with the accepted communal tendencies dwindles. This raises the probability of encountering recent facts and knowledge concerning a wide range of topics. Core networks however, tend to consist of people of similar ethnicity hence diminishing the possibility of encountering recent knowledge. This is due to the fact that people of the same ethnicity have the same understanding of ethnic benefit (Blau, 1977). On the other hand, when core networks consist of members of diverse cultural backgrounds, they share knowledge that benefits the different cultures (Bienenstock, Bonacich Oliver; 1990). White people who associate with other races have a high probability of being informed on immigrant-friendly reason thus improving their attitude towards immigrants. Peoples’ attitudes are also affected by how learned they are. Highly learned people associate with more people of diverse racial backgrounds. This is mainly because they work with a wide range of people. This cultivates a sensitive stance towards immigrants and immigration policies that favour them.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Attitudes on Immigrants specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More A professor in a college, for instance, is likely to have students of different ethnicities in his classes. This exposes him to their beliefs, practices and helps him see their contribution to America’s culture and economy. Subsequently, he exposes his colleagues, friends and family to those views and they do the same in their social circles. This shows that an educated network can influence peoples’ views on immigration and immigration policies. Age on the other hand seems to have an unenthusiastic association with immigration issues. Mature people see immigrants more as a burden than as profitable contributors in society thus support more constraints being placed in immigration processes and immigrants. Accordingly, in deep-rooted core networks, people are likely to be convinced not to uphold pro-immigrant views. The closeness of the members of a core network also determines their ability to influence each others’ opinions on immigrant issues. When people in a core network are very close, they are constantly in contact with each other and therefore reserve little, if any time for the people outside their social circles (Oliver Wong, 2003). This kind of behavior drastically lowers their chances of encountering notions that differ from their points of view and makes it much easier to convince ones’ contacts to maintain ancient views on issues such as immigration. In most cases, the maintained views are usually negative and unsupportive of pro-immigration policies. Group Threat and Intergroup Contact In the surroundings of a community, white residents are likely to either get acquainted with immigrants, known as intergroup contact, or feel intimidated by the large numbers of immigrants around them, referred to as group threat.Advertising Looking for essay on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The probability of these two occurrences is frequently estimated using the population of immigrants in a particular area (Krystan, 2000). White people are set in various core networks within their communities which are depended upon by researchers to influence the connection between immigration issues, group threat and intergroup contact. Whites feel threatened by the large numbers of immigrants in urban areas such as cities and counties. This depreciates their general outlook on immigration issues specifically when their level of education is low and also in cases where they happen to have few associations of different racial and ethnic backgrounds in their social circles. Then again, when members of a social circle are well learned or have numerous relations in it, including several of varying ethnicities, they tend to feel less threatened by the presence of many immigrants. This is due to the fact that they obtain current knowledge concerning immigrants and immigration policies f rom their contacts and co-workers (Oliver Wong 2003). In the same way, places that experience constructive intergroup contact such as residential estates and zonal localities, these relations encourage an optimistic outlook on immigration policies and immigrants in the case that correlations are poorly educated and have few contacts of different races. This is because the views of the immigrants seem more genuine than those of their fellow whites. However, in those very areas, social circles of the incredibly learned that also have numerous contacts of different ethnicities may appear less supportive of immigration policies and immigrants. This is caused by their various negative personal experiences with their associations of different ethnicity. They feel that direct dealings with people of various cultural backgrounds gives more insight than that gained from a particular inter-racial contact (Friedkin 1999). Likewise, the members of a social circle in an ancient close knit commu nity or neighborhood are less likely to be impressed by intergroup contact. Such people constantly stay in touch hence maintain their beliefs since they have limited knowledge from other quarters. The members are mostly compelled to disapprove any positive opinions on immigrants and immigration policies social circles. In addition, these core networks may experience more intense feelings of group threat as opposed to the more amicable youthful social circles which share positive knowledge of immigrant issues hence fell less threatened by the number of immigrants among them. In a strong and mature religious core network, members hold on to old teachings. Some old religions, for instance, did not allow mixing of people from different races. Members of such groups are likely to remain unyielding to recent opinions supporting immigration policies. Members of newly rising religions however, will probably be more accommodating of the recent pro-immigrant policies. Conclusion Based on the studies conducted by various scholars over several decades, it is evident that attitudes of white people towards immigrants and pro-immigrant policies are influenced by both dependent and independent variables. Independent variables are those that remain constant and do not change from person to person whereas dependent variables are those that vary from one person to another. A survey conducted using data collected by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) confirms the opinions of the numerous scholars. In my opinion, Americans should strive to be more open-minded and receptive to new ideas. All people should endeavor to make their social networks broader so as to accommodate more people. This kind of contact will allow people of all races to take part in improvement of their lives socially, economically, religiously and politically. This will be a major team player in the advancement of many sectors including the economy and will lead to overall national development. After al l, there is nothing to lose in setting out to try something new, which in this particular case does not cost money. People should also learn to take responsibility and avoid the blame game. For instance, Americans should acknowledge that there are as many white felons as there are those of other races, whether white or blue collar. They should also realize that contrary to some peoples’ beliefs sharing opportunities with people of other ethnic groups does not limit them to Americans. References Bienenstock, E.J., Bonacich, P., Oliver, M. (1990). The Effect of Network Density and Homogeneity on Attitude Polarization. Social Networks, 12, 153–72. Blau, P.M. (1977). Inequality and Heterogeneity: A Primitive Theory of Social Structure. New York: Free Press. Friedkin, N. (1990). Social Networks in Structural Equation Models. Social Psychology Quarterly, 53, 316–28. Krystan, M. (2000). Prejudice, Politics, and Public Opinion: Understanding the Sources of Racial Polic y Attitudes. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 135–68. Oliver, J.E., Wong, J. (2003). Intergroup Prejudice in Multiethnic Settings. American Journal of Political Science, 47, 567–82. Schuman, H., Charlotte, S., Lawrence, B., Maria, K. (1997). Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.