Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray Essay Example

Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray Paper Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the story of corruption and how it can easily spread. It focuses strongly on art and decadence and it definitely alludes to degeneration and decay throughout. Characters, especially Dorian Gray, often focus on beauty as the leading quality in the world. He also forms a double life, much like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in the sense that has a more civilized public life with a malicious, corrupt secret life full of sin. One of the major gothic topics displayed in this text portrays civilizations lapse into corruption and barbarism while seeming still civilized on the surface. The story begins with Basil Hallward, a somewhat successful artist, painting a portrait of Dorian Gray. Basil completely worships the beautiful, pure, young Dorian Gray, and in fact even admits it to his close friend, Lord Henry. Basil paints such a vivid picture of Dorian that he convinces himself that he has put some of his own soul into the piece. This alludes to the somewhat supernatural qualities of the painting. Basil explicitly explains that he doesnt want Henry spoiling Dorian Gray, but nonetheless fails to prevent the two from meeting. Lord Henry immediately starts exerting his infectious influence on Dorian Gray. We will write a custom essay sample on Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Dorian is astonished at how beautiful he looks in the portrait, but instantly starts to panic with his newfound Lord Henry outlook: Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself' (26). After meeting Henry, Dorian sees the portrait as a mockery and immediately wishes for it to age and decay in his stead. This incident marks the beginning of Dorian Grays downward spiral into corruption and malice. Another intriguing detail to note about this quote relates to its foreshadowing content. Dorian mentions killing himself, which he ultimately does at the conclusion of the plot. He attains everlasting youth and beauty and still ends up slaying himself, only to return to a decayed hideous form. Dorian Grays first major act of tyranny pertains to his first love, Sibyl Vane. Sibyl Vane dazzles her audience and captivates Dorian Gray with her marvelously whimsical performances on the stage. Dorian becomes infatuated with her acting as an art, rather than her as an actual person. Sibyl, much like Dorian prior to corruption, is innocent and naive towards real life and real emotions. She lives her life through the stage and feels more alive as her characters than she does in the real world. Dorian, Dorian, she cried, before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. (74). After coming into contact with Dorian, she realizes true love and begins to see her true world on the theatre as nothing more than a farce. Her realization of authentic emotions corrupts her art and she no longer possesses her beautiful eminence. The corrupting taint that eventually encompasses the life of Dorian Gray begins to manifest itself with the ruining of Sibyl Vane. Sibyls inability to continue her marvelous performances on stage infuriates Dorian Gray and he breaks her heart by basically calling her worthless. He leaves the girl with nothing but his harsh words. This devastating incident causes Sibyl Vane to commit suicide, and the first stain of degeneration that should have marked Dorian Gray, shows up on his portrait instead. The Picture of Dorian Gray contains several interesting incidents of foreshadowing. Basil remarks to Lord Henry quite early on in the story that Dorians good looks will most likely cause severe tragedy in the future. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings (7). Obviously this premonition by Basil comes true as Dorians looks eventually become the sole driving motivation for his vindictive actions, and eventually drive him to self-destruction. The other intriguing note is that Basil claims to have put himself in the portrait of Dorian Gray. Thus one could derive that this indicates a similarity to Dorian and could explain his demise as well. Another part of the novel that seemed so dreadfully obvious that I almost pinpointed its exact occurrence, pertains to Basils untimely murder by Dorian Gray. The story reveals on page one that Basil would most likely be murdered, and since Dorian Gray is the protagonist, I assumed that he would be the executioner. Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago, caused at the time, such public excitement, and gave rise to so many strange conjectures (1). Oscar Wilde would not have put this line into the text if we were meant to presume that Basil would eventually pass away peacefully due to old age. A sudden disappearance in a gothic story typically alludes to a murder or death. As for the actual assassination scene in the novel, Wilde spent time describing the particular night just prior to the incident, as a cold, foggy night and mentions that Dorian tries to avoid interacting with Basil in several ways. This attempt at avoidance already brings about a sense of tension. Once inside the mansion Basil repeatedly irritates Dorian with preaching which helps to increase the anxiety. Basil reveals that he was meant to catch a train to Paris later that night and points out that he has missed it. This provides Dorian Gray with an alibi as well as a period of time before Basils disappearance will be noticed. Dorian becomes increasingly agitated until he eventually sets the series of events into motion with a crazed sensation: A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man. You shall see it yourself, to-night! he cried, seizing a lamp from the table. Come: it is your handiwork. Why shouldnt you look at it? (129). This quote shows that Dorian blames Basil for the corruption as well as Dorians malicious determination to suddenly show it to him. Dorian had always been dreadfully frightened at the notion of someone seeing the corruption of his dual life, and yet with the increased confrontation almost instantaneously determines to show Basil. Once Basil naively agrees to follow Dorian, I knew that he would soon meet his demise. No living soul has ever seen the corrupted version of Dorians portrait aside from Dorian, and it seemed highly likely that it was going to remain that way. Dorian Gray continually attempts to maintain a civilized front in his public life despite his increasingly tarnished dual life of sin. The magical properties of the portrait allowed his true self to be hidden on the canvas while he paraded around in a beautiful serene guise known to the public. He continually endeavors to maintain his fraudulent civilized appearance by dressing luxuriously as an aristocrat and attending fancy dinner parties with other civilized people. And yet his true contaminated self persistently acted out in barbarous ways. He murders Basil Hawthorne in a barbaric rampage, and then attempts to cover up the entire incident by blackmailing a former colleague, Alan Campbell, whose life has been ruined by Dorians corrupting influence. This wicked deed for self preservation forced upon Alan eventually places so much pressure on Alan that he eventually commits suicide, thus bringing the known Gray murder rate to a total of three. Dorian enjoys the malevolent sensation in private and feels the pleasure of his barbaric double life. Eventually Dorian Gray requires frequent trips to the opium dens of London to erase the barbaric incidents from the mind of his untainted body. Although the corrupted incidents remain as physical memoirs on the portrait that reflects Dorians secret barbaric dual life, the opium attempts to wipe clean the mind of the pure, civilized life represented by the physical body that he shows to the public. When Dorian finally confronts his savage life and attempts to dispose of the portrait by barbaric means, the two lives merge and Dorian ends up killing himself via the same means as he murdered Basil. The civilized life is ended while attempting to end the barbarous life, showing which one truly prevailed.

Sigmund Freud Biography essays

Sigmund Freud Biography essays Sigmund Freud, often called the Father of Psychoanalysis, was born in 1856 in Moravia, present day Chechoslovakia. He was born to Jewish parents, Jacob and Amalia (twenty years older than her husband), who moved their family to Austria when their oldest son was four years old. His father, having a brilliant mind and good sense of humor, worked as a wool merchant to make a living. Sigmund seemed to take after his father in that he also was very intelligent, always being at the top of his class. Sigmund had two much older half-brothers and seven younger brothers and sisters. He also had a Catholic nanny whom he thought of as a second mother. His childhood consisted of many complex family relationships with his father and nanny especially. This is believed to have encouraged some of his most famous theories, such as the Oedipus Complex. Freud began his education in 1873, at the age of seventeen, attending the University of Vienna. He went to medical school and spent much time studying physiology and neurology. There, he became a brilliant researcher and began to work in Paris, as a doctor, with a French neurologist named Jean Martin Charcot. The two were both very interested in studying the emotional disorder of hysteria. Charcot was a hypnotist who influenced his ideas on the treatment of neurosis. The two doctors stumbled upon what they called "the talking cure" by treating a woman with hysteria through hypnosis, recalling traumatic events while hypnotized. In 1877 his interest in psychology began. He wrote his first book at this time, called "The Interpretation of Dreams". In this book he tried to prove that dreams are just attempts at wish fulfillment. In the early 1900's Freud published many papers on religion, literature, and history. His first well-known paper was written in 1901 called "Psychology of Everyday Life." In 1902, Freud was appointed associate professor at the University of Vienna and he fou...

Show how the state's role in providing welfare and assistance changed Essay

Show how the state's role in providing welfare and assistance changed between 1834 and 1911 and offer reasons for this development - Essay Example The Poor Laws of 1597 and 1601 passed in haste at the end of the Elizabethan era went on to form the basis of social welfare provision for over two hundred years (Hobsbawm, 1962, p. 300). These limited yet frequently required measures were administered with the priority of only assisting the paupers, the old, the unemployed, and the underemployed who were considered to be genuine (Schama, 2002, p. 420). Anybody that the Poor Law administrators believed to be undesearving of assistance had to find work, rely on the charity of others, turn to crime, or face starvation (Hobsbawm, 1975 p. 80). Sometimes to escape poverty in Britain, and to avoid the workhouse people emigrated to British colonies such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to build a better live for themselves. The state was content to promote emigration because it strengthened control over colonies whilst reducing the number of poor people in Britain seeking welfare and assistance (Ferguson, 2003 p. 75) The politicians responsible for drafting and then passing the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834 had the express objective of decreasing the cost of social welfare provision instead of broadening the scale not to mention the scope of the government’s involvement in society (Hobsbawm, 1962, p. 301). The Poor Law Amendment Act provided relief for the poorest and the less fortunate members of society but it came at a price for those people. It came at a price because the state in 1834 right through the rest of the 19th century aimed to tightly limit its role in providing welfare and assistance (Hobsbawm, 1987, p. 40). The restriction of state welfare and assistance measures to only the most desperate cases reflected the strong hold of classical liberal thought that the state should only intervene in economic affairs on a very limited basis (Eatwell & Wright, 2003 p.

Customer Service, and Company Culture of Zappos.com Assignment

Customer Service, and Company Culture of Zappos.com - Assignment Example According to the research findings, from its inception, Zappos value proposition has been to create and deliver to each customer a WOW experience. They are able to achieve this by simply empowering their workforce to deliver a shopping experience that is irresistible. They provide unrivaled customer service and free fast shipping, while at the same time offering almost one thousand two hundred and fifty brands and two million eighty hundred thousand products. As a result of this strategy, they have a fanatical customer loyalty with up to 75% being repeat customers. Zappos ability to create and capture value emanates from their nearly obsessive passion to create customer satisfaction and good customer relationships. In fact, customer’s loyalty is of such great importance to Zappos that it is their primary goal to be the best customer experience and customer service company. They have a culture that runs deep down and that is customer-focused. In order to create and capture valu e, Zappos directly invests the huge amount of money into customer service. They will only hire employees who are customer-oriented who are able to fit into their culture of optimal employee satisfaction. Even after employing people who are customer-oriented, they further train these individuals thoroughly the art of creating customer loyalty. Zappos approach to creating and capturing value is customer-centric. They make use of such strategies as offering free delivery for products purchased, they even allow for free returns when a customer is not happy with the product and they also have a 365-day return together with periodical service upgrades. As a result, 75% of their sales emanate from current customers and still have a tremendous rate of growth despite the poor economy. Zappos has also developed a service culture which is built around ten core principles which stipulate that every new employee has to take four weeks of customer training on loyalty.

Advantages and disadvantages of the health insurance system in US Essay

Advantages and disadvantages of the health insurance system in US - Essay Example anaged care insurance systems, through PPOs and HMOs in America, hopes to influence the rules of supply and demand in consumer care, and Medicare provide programs that increase accessibility for the poor and elderly. But many think that healthcare organizations need to reach out to the community in terms of educational programs that seek to foster the health of the community as a whole, rather than treat ailments in a specialized manner and have it end at that. Accessibility, as well as education, is an important goal for the model healthcare program in terms of conceptual framework. attractive alternative to many people who are facing financial challenges. The rapid growth of individuals from Medicare who have gone to managed care during the nineties is a strong portrayal of how popular managed care is in terms of what it offers, which is in many cases substantially more than Medicare. Many managed care insurance providers offer prescription drug coverage and other types of coverage that are not covered by Medicare. But many wonder whether managed care operations can keep cost effective with so many clients and so much liability and responsibility to individuals on these will have to be solved for the future to look very bright. In the US insurance system, HMOs are a relatively new development, although some of them have roots in the mid-twentieth century. There are still application-based and ethical imperatives to ask the status of these programs, especially in terms of their relevance to government healthcare programs as supplementary services and their position in a dynamic healthcare economy that is becoming increasingly privatized. This reflects the essential debate between government control and interference in national healthcare. That is,

History of the concept of creativity

History of the concept of creativity History of the concept of creativity In spite of its current popularity, the concept of creativity, i.e. its name, is a recent notion that, nevertheless, went through a number of development stages and metamorphoses caused by the changes in the way the concept of creativity was perceived by societies at various stages of development. The process is not finished yet. Sometime in the future the general concept of creativity will hopefully be converted into a specialized concept, i. e. its regularities will be enumerated while its particularities linking it currently to a culture or a subculture will be eliminated. In the following text, the evolution of the concept of creativity throughout history is reviewed briefly, with the focus on important milestones and personalities. The milestones are arranged in a temporal sequence, whereas outstanding personalities are quoted where necessary, rather than presented in a strict temporal sequence. It is intuitively easy to accept the thesis that creative acts have been around as long as the homo sapiens, the humanoids and, indeed, living organisms. The concept of creativity appeared much later, and came forth very gradually. On the long way to establishing it, many intermediate new terms were generated, some of which have been used for centuries, in exceptional cases until our time. They help us understand more easily what creativity is and how it interacts with other operations in the intellectual sphere. Theoretical views of creativity follow the development of human culture and thought. Therefore, the concept of creativity is a component of the history of the human thought to the same extent as any other intellectual manifestation (Briffault, 1928). Much of the historical developments as accounted for in the following review are based on Tatarkiewiczs book (1980), Dictionnaire philosophique, and the following references: Verma (1969), Lindberg (1976), Abdus Salam (1984), Agar (2001), Ahmad (2002), Steffens (2006), Covington (2007), Roshdi (2007), and Medieval Classic civilization; An Encyclopaedia. Prehistoric times Remarkable and very advanced objects testifying to human creative genius are known from the art history. They originate from many parts of the world and from many different cultures and epochs. Perhaps the foremost examples of the earliest manifestations of creativity are various objects produced by the Australian Aborigines. The Aborigines are presumed to have moved to Australia from India some 50 000 years ago. Their most puzzling creative product is the boomerang for them hunting tool, for us an enigmatic object of scientific studies. Other important manifestation of human creative act and thought originates from Egypt and Mexico. These countries distinguish themselves not only by very advanced ability to produce objects, but also by the scientific (most often astronomic) knowledge embedded in these products. The pyramids of Egypt and those of Mexico, Guatemala, or Belize, the Mayan calendar, and the way of using mathematics in Egypt and in Mexico, are absolutely amazing even today. The Mayan astronomers had developed a spatial geometry parting from astronomy. The mathematics they used is still more accurate than the computational algorithms that make the flow of data in modern information networks possible (Ferrera-Balanquet, 2009). Another cultural area of great importance extends in Asia, particularly in the area comprising the present day Iraq, Iran, India, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. Buildings, materials and various concepts of physics embedded in the buildings testify to the high level of knowledge these peoples possessed thousands of years ago. In China and Japan, too, creativity enhanced knowledge in a manner that after thousands of years is still admired. India stands, as usual, apart in that it knew creativity as â€Å"insight† since times immemorial. For instance, in the extinct Pali language the word vipassanÄ  consists of the Sanskrit prefix â€Å"vi-â€Å" and the verbal root à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡paņº. It is often translated as †insight† or â€Å"clear-seeing,† One should not be misled by the â€Å"in-â€Å" prefix in â€Å"insight†.. â€Å"Vi† in ancient Aryan languages is equivalent to the Latin â€Å"dis-†. It is reasonable to conclude that in the word vipassanÄ  the prefix â€Å"vi-† generates the meaning â€Å"to see apart†, or discern. Alternatively, the â€Å"vi† can function as an intensifier. In that case vipassanÄ  may mean â€Å"seeing deeply†. A pali synonym for â€Å"VipassanÄ Ã¢â‚¬  is paccakkha, menaing â€Å"before the eyes,† which refers to direct experiential perception. Thus, the type of seeing denoted by â€Å"vipassanÄ Ã¢â‚¬  is that of direct perception and experience, as opposed to knowledge derived from reasoning or argument. It has also been adopted as the name of a kind of Buddhist meditation. Ancient Greece The people of Ancient Greece had no terms corresponding to â€Å"creativity† or â€Å"creator†. Yet, the poet was considered to be one who creates. Whatever was â€Å"creative† in the present sense of the word, was called art. The concept of art (in Greek  Ã…  Ã‚ Ã‹Å" Ã‚ Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¼Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °, from which technique and technology evolved), implied subjection to rules. Poetry (from  Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ´Ã‚ Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ´Ã‚ Ã†â€™Ã…  Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¼ to make) was an exception, although it was limited only to  Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ Ã¢â€š ¬Ã†â€™Ã…  Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ã‚ Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ´Ã‚ Ã‹â€  (poetry) and to the  Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ´Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ã‚ Ã…  Ã‚ Ã… ¡Ã‚ Ã‹â€  (poet, or maker) who made it, rather than to art in general. The reason was that art was considered an imitation of what already exists, â€Å"the making of things, according to rules†, hence subjection to laws and rules. In painting, music, or literature, there was no freedom. They were governed by what was known as ÃŽÂ ½ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¿ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¼ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¿ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¹ (the laws). This conservative attitude and need for subjection prevailed in the works of Plato who claimed, mainly in Timaeus, Dialogue of Ion, and in The Republic, that a good work is contingent on observing an eternal model as suggested by Nature, and never deviate from that model. The eternal models were within reach, in the surrounding world, of which artists were the imitators. They thus had to abide by certain rules. In the visual arts, freedom was curtailed by the proportions that Polyclitus had established for the human frame. He called them â€Å"the canon† (meaning, measure). Likewise, in music, no freedom was necessary because melodies for ceremonies and entertainme nt were known. They were prescribed as nomoi. Making of things according to rules, or à Ã¢â‚¬Å¾ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ µÃƒ Ã¢â‚¬ ¡Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ·, was not considered to contain any creativity at all. In fact, if they had contained creativity, the state of affairs would be considered bad by the Greek standards of that time: Something similar to the negative perception of creative accounting nowadays [Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 244]. Man ought to discover the laws of Nature and abide by them. Seeking freedom of action unnecessarily distracts him from seeking the optimum way. In Ancient Greece the artist was not an inventor, he was a discoverer [Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 245]. It means that he had to study the laws of Nature, discover and see how related entities interact, and use them as a model. This world-view had its own justification. Nature is both perfect and subject to laws. The artists ambition must be to discover these laws and submit to them, rather than seek the distracting freedom from these laws, a freedom that would deflect him from attaining the optimal state. Poetry stood outside these limitations. The poet invented a whole new world and gave it life. The poet differed from the artist, the imitator, in that laws did not bind him. In spite of the absence of the term for creativity, creation, or the creator, the poet, and only the poet, was understood to be a creator.According to the Greek view, the poet was an inventor, i. e. he put together unrelated entities and let them interact in an arbitrary manner. This is what made poetry the only exception from the rules applying to art. In terms of truthfulness of this world-view, Aristotle, who established the term truth, was not sure whether poetry required adherence to truth, i. e. whether it imitated Nature. He thought that poetry was in the realm that was neither true nor false [Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 245-6]. The concepts of imagination and inspiration, too, were restricted to poetry only. Poets were seen differently and they saw things differently. But not everybody was reconciled with this restriction. An example can be found in the Odyssey, where a question is posed why the singer should be forbidden to entertain his listeners with singing as he himself will. Yet, even in this rigid environment of dogmas, some progress took place. Thus, in the 3rd century, Porphyry of Tyros graphically visualized the concept categories of Aristotle. In the 4thcentury of the Christian era, Pappus of Alexandria searched for a science of invention. He named his techniques â€Å"heuristics†. Antique Rome The Roman civilization developed from the Greek civilization. It was younger, thus more progressive and more exploratory than was the civilization of Greece. Therefore, things were seen in a different light in Rome, and the Greek concepts were viewed as partially outdated. To begin with, the vocabulary was enriched with new concepts, which shook up the foundations of the Greek thought. This effort happened to follow two counter-directions. on the one hand, Cicero wrote that art embraces those things â€Å"which are known† (â€Å"quae sciuntur†) [Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 245]. Horace, on the other hand, elevated painters to the level of poets in giving them the privilege of daring whatever they pleased (â€Å"quod libet audendi†), instead of following the â€Å"eternal model†. Moreover, in the declining period of antiquity, Lucius Flavius Philostratus discovered a similarity between poetry and art, and found that art and poetry have imagination in common. Cal listratos expanded these ideas by stating that as much as the art of the poets and writers of prosaic literature is inspired, so are the hands of sculptors. They, too, are gifted with the blessing of divine inspiration. The novelty of these postulates follows from the fact that Greeks had applied the concepts of imagination and inspiration to poetry only, but not to the visual arts. The Greek language had no word for creating, whereas Latin had. Creare and facere were two Latin words corresponding to the Greek à Ã¢â€š ¬ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¿ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ µÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¹Ãƒ Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. Yet, initially the two Latin terms had almost the same meaning (Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 246), and were thus interchangeable. Christianity Under medieval Christianity, the Latin â€Å"creatio† came to designate Gods act of â€Å"creatio ex nihilo† (i.e. creation from nothing). â€Å"Creatio† thus no longer could apply to human activities. Its meaning differed from the meaning of â€Å"facere† (to make). Applied to human activities, facere was the only word to be used. Cassiodorus, the important statesman and writer of the 6th century, explained that things made and created differ, because we can make but cannot create. His important works on this topic, written after his retirement, include De anima (published 540), Institutiones Divinarum et Saecularium Litterarum (published probably 543-555), and De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarum [Tatarkiewicz 1980, p. 247]. This more or less â€Å"secular† interpretation of creativity collided with the archaic views of some Christian writers. To begin with, they believed that art did not belong to the realm of creativity. In this respect they had the same belief as the Greeks. Medieval Christian writers granted no exception to poetry. They claimed that poetry had to follow its rules. Therefore it was an art, i. e. a craft rather than a creative activity. The dominant figure among these writers was St. Augustine, a personality whose works are of interest even today. He is claimed to have used the word imagination as a precursor to creativity. Imagination, according to St. Augustine comprised disposition, multiplication, reduction, extension, ordering, any kind of re-composition of images, etc. (Rodari, 1983). These very same components of â€Å"imagination† are used even today [Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 247]. Further changes were recorded in the Middle Ages: poetrys exceptional status was gradually revoked, because poetry had its rules. It was thus regarded as an art, i. e. a craft, rather than creativity. The new, religious interpretation of the expression notwithstanding, the opinion that art is not related to creativity persisted. The works of two influential early Christian writers, Pseudo-Dionysius and St. Augustine, prove it. The same can be said the works of Hraban the Moor and Robert Grosseteste, in the 13th century. Renaissance There are two periods in European history, called the Renaissance. The first one is the 12th century Renaissance. It was a period of many innovative and creative cahnges during the High Middle Ages, such as social, political and economic transformations. Parallel developments in philosophy and science resulted in an intellectual revitalization of Europe. The second renaissance is the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century. Some historians claim that the changes having taken place in the Middle Ages paved the way to the Italian Renaissance, as well as to the scientific developments of the 17th century. The French historian Jacques le Goff, an agnostic, argues that the Middle Ages formed an entirely new civilization, distinct from both the Greco-Roman antiquity, and from the modern world. The medieval achievements of the human mind and the human hands can only be related briefly. The First Rrenaissance . The most creative political acts of the 12th century were the founding of the Hansa in Northern Europe (along the southern shore of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, with a few excursions deeper into Central Europe), the Crusades, the rise of towns, and the rise of the early bureaucratic states. In the cultural sphere the vernaculars began to replace Latin increasingly, higher education became more prominent, with universities sprouting all around the European continent between the Atlantic and the Theisse river, the Romanesque art was gradually replaced by the Gothic art, the liturgical drama, and a European system of law was established. These changes are true milestones. In the arts, more emphasis was put on architecture and sculpture, while in parallel there was a revival of interest in Latin poetry and Latin classics. An outer expansion began in the late 13th century, when the Venetian explorer Marco Polo set out to follow the Silk Road to China. His doc umentary Il Milone made Europeans more aware of the Far East, which inspired many missionaries (Giovanni da Pian del Carpini, Giovanni de Marignolli, Giovanni di Monte Corvino, and others) to go east and spread Christianity. The greatest leaps of human knowledge were, however, recorded in science and technology. Since Ibn al-Haytham (also known as Alhazen, 965-1039) laid down the foundations of the scientific method, the emphasis was put on seeking truth. Science thus became a formal discipline, different from philosophy. In early Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire, the most advanced culture of antiquity, suffered losses and a decline in its scientific capacity. Likewise, Western Europe, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, suffered a catastrophic loss of knowledge. This was partially offset by the efforts of Church scholars, like Aquinas and Buridan, who preserved elements of scientific inquiry. In that manner, by translating and imitating the works of Islamic scholars Europe could begin catching up with the scientific discoveries of the Islamic world, the Mediterranean basin, India, and China. The most important steps to Europes scientific recovery at that time comprise the following events: Development of the scientific method (Alhazen, Biruni, Bacon, and Grosseteste); Arithmetic and Algebra (Al-Khwarizmi); Differential calculus (Bhaskara); Mechanics (Avicenna, with a later contribution by Ibn Bajjah, also known as Avempace, Buridan, Galileo, Descartes and Newton); Optics(Aristotle, Plato, Galen, Euclid, Hero of Alexandria, Ptolemaeus. In the 10th century, Alhazen proved empirically that light propagates linearly;Robert Grosseteste developed a theory of optics based on the works of al-Kindi and Ptolemaeus. Roger Bacon expanded on Grossetestess theory and integrated Alhazens optics into it. Finally, Kepler was able to use the foregoing findings to develop the modern theory of optics); Surgery(Abulcasis or Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi developed procedures and instruments of modern surgery, such as the scalpel, syringe, vaginal speculum, etc.). In 1266, Theodo ric Borgogni published his Chirurgia, in which he advocates antiseptic surgery); Alchemy and Chemistry (The Jaberian Corpus, written in the 10th century by the Brotherhood of Purity (Ismaylia), the Summa Perfectionis, by Paulus de Tarento, the Secret of Secrets by al-Razi (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi);Trigonometry (al-Tusi, Regiomontanus and Puerbach made these methods wider known in the 15th century); Navigation (the astrolabe and the portable compass, Peter de Maricourt); Accurate lunar models(Ibn al-Shatir; Copernicus is believed to have relied on al-Shatirs model); Incendiary weapons and bombs (flame-throwers, land- and sea-mines, and rockets). Among important technological accomplishments and developments, the following can be listed: The windmill, first mentioned in 1185 (England); Paper manufacture began around 1270 (Italy); The spinning wheel (13th century); The magnetic compass for navigation, and the astrolabe (toward the end of the 13th century); Eyeglasses, in the late 13th century (Italy); The Hindu-Arabic numerals introduced to Europe in 1202 with the book Liber Abaci by Leonardo of Pisa; The stern-mounted rudder, which can be found on church carvings. The philosophy developed in the Middle Ages was the Scholasticism. It is founded on a reinterpretation of the works of Aristotle, with further refinements by scholars like Avicenna, Averroes, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure, and Abà ©lard. Scholasticism believes in empirical studies, and its practitioners supported the Catholic Church. Perhaps the most famous practitioner of Scholasticism was Thomas of Aquinas. His Philosophy of mind teaches that the mind of a newborn baby is a tabula rasa that was given the ability to think, and to recognize forms, patterns, or ideas through a divine spark. In the late Middle Ages, the rate of scientific progress declined significantly due to the decline of the Muslim empires and the Byzantine Empire. This situation lasted until after the Renaissance. The Italian Reanaissance. The Italian Reanaissance brought further changes into the mode of thinking and lifestyle of people. The Renaissance philosophy is that of Humanism, which perhaps is more a method of learning than a philosophy per se. An approximate, but generally accepted definition of Humanism is â€Å"the movement to recover, interpret, and assimilate the language, literature, learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome†. Unlike the medieval scholars, humanists would apply a combination of reasoning and empirical evidence in reading and appraising ancient texts in the original. Humanist education focused on the study of five humanities: poetry, grammar, history, rhetoric, and moral philosophy. Above all, humanists asserted mans genius and the ability of the human mind, which is unique and extraordinary. Humanism is more secular in some aspects, but it unquestionably developed against a Christian backdrop, particularly in the Northern Renaissance. That period gave mankind some outstanding theologians, all of them followers of the humanist method. They include Zwingli, Calvin, Thomas More, Erasmus, and Martin Luther. In particular, Dr Martin Luther must be viewed as the liberator of the human soul, with whatever effect it had on subsequent cataclysmic developments in society, science, business, and trade. Although the people of the Renaissance were well aware of their freedom and creativity, the term creativity was not established yet. It was not until the 17th-century that the word â€Å"creativity† was applied for the first time. The man behind it was Polish poet Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (1595-1640), also known as â€Å"the last Latin poet†. Sarbiewaski applied the term only to poetry. In his treatise, De perfecta poesi, he wrote that a poet â€Å"invents,† and creates anew (â€Å"de novo creat†) in the manner of God (â€Å"instar Dei†) (Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 248). Other arts, in Sarbiewskis opinion, do not create. They merely imitate and copy. Why Sarbiewski regarded creativity as something that only poetry could be associated with, thus excluding visual arts, follows from his opinion that arts (other than poetry) imitate and copy, rather than create, in that they assume the material from which they create is already available, and so is the subject. At the end of the 17th century Andrà © Fà ©libien (1619-75) called the painter â€Å"a creator†. Spanish Jesuit Baltasà ¡r Gracià ¡n (1601-58) saw art as the second Creator that complements nature. This formulation is reminiscent of Sarbiewskis formulations (Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 248). In the 18th century, the occurrence of the concept of creativity in art theory kept increasing. It was complemented with the concept of imagination. In Joseph Addisons opinion imagination â€Å"has something in it like creation†. A similar opinion was held by Voltaire (1740). These authors, however, equated only poet with creator (Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 248-9). Contrary views proliferated, too, particularly in France. Diderot worked with imagination, which he viewed merely as â€Å"the memory of forms and contents†, which â€Å"creates nothing†. It only combines, magnifies or diminishes. â€Å"The human mind cannot create†, wrote Charles Batteux. He, too, saw its products as displaying the stigmata of the model used. Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715-80) and Luc de Clapiers, known as marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-47), proposed similar ideas (Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 249). There were three reasons why they rejected the idea of human creativity: Creation was at that time reserved for creation ex nihilo. The latter was beyond mans abilities. Creation is a mysterious act. Enlightenment psychology, however, had no room for mysteries. Artists of that time age observed their rules. Creativity, however, seemed irreconcilable with rules. The third objection was, however, weak. Houdar de la Motte (1715) was one of the thinkers who suggested that rules, too, â€Å"are a human invention† (Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 249). The philosopher Marsilio Ficino wrote that the artists work is the result of thinking it up (â€Å"excogitatio†). Leon Battista Alberti, the theoretician of architecture and painting, claimed that he preordains (â€Å"preordinazione†), and Raphael claimed that his ideas shape his painting. Universal genius Leonardo da Vinci claimed that it was his idea that determined how his painting was shaped, using shapes that do not exist in nature. Another painter, Raphael Santi, too, claimed that he painted according to his ideas. Giorgio Vasari claimed that nature is conquered by art. Paolo Pino, the art theoretician from Venice claimed that painting is â€Å"inventing what is not†. Likewise, Paolo Veronese declared that painters take the same liberties as they were poets and madmen. â€Å"A new world, new paradises†was what an artist shapes, maintained Federico Zuccari. Cesare Cesariano extended this to architects whom he considered â€Å"demi-gods.† In the realm of music, according to the Dutch composer and musicologist Jan Tinctoris, a composer was â€Å"one who produces new songs†. He thus associated novelty with a composers work. Writers on poetry were even more consequent. Capriano claimed that poetic inventions spring â€Å"from nothing†. Francesco Patrizi held that poetry was a â€Å"fiction†, â€Å"shaping†, and â€Å"transformation† (Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 248). The developments in the Renaissance science were as dynamic as in the arts. Science and the arts were intermingled, which manifests best in the works of Leonardo da Vinci. He made observational drawings of nature and anatomy, set up and conducted controlled experiments in water-flow and aerodynamics, systematic study of motion, and medical dissection. Leonardo devised principles of scientific research method in the spirit of holistic, non-mechanistic and non-reductive approach popular today. Leonardo deserves the epithet â€Å"the father of modern science†. The focus on the process for discovery, the scientific method, corroborated by influential proponents such as Copernicus and Galileo, is perhaps the most significant development of that time. This revolutionary way of learning about the world stressed the importance of empirical evidence, as well as the importance of mathematics, rather than highlighting a given discovery. Age of Reason In the 18th century, the Age of Reason and Change, the concept of creativity appeared more frequently in art theory. Once again, famous personalities needed an ancillary concept to explain and justify creativity. One such concept was that of imagination. It was first used in 1712 by the English essayist, poet and publisher Joseph Addison. He published 11 essays on imagination in The Spectator. In one essay he claims that only the sense of sight supplies ideas to the imagination. He speculated about a congruence between imagiantion and creativity. By the same time, the famous French author and philosopher Franà §ois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire distinguished between passive and active imagination. On the latter he wrote in his Dictionnaire philosophique that â€Å"Active imagination is that which joins combination and reflection to memory. It brings near to us many objects at a distance; it separates those mixed together, compounds them, and changes them; it seems to create, while in fa ct it merely arranges; for it has not been given to man to make ideas-he is only able to modify them†. Voltaire continued: â€Å"This gift of nature is an imagination inventive in the arts in the disposition of a picture, in the structure of a poem.† Both authors thus indicate that poets are creative, and they equate poet with creator. Modern times The resistance against recognizing art as creativity, seen in the preceding centuries, crumbled totally in the 19thcentury. Now art gained recognition as creativity and, moreover, art alone was regarded as creativity. At the turn of the 20th century discussion of creativity in the art as well as in the sciences, e.g. by Jan Ã…Â ukasiewicz (Sinisi, 2004), and in nature (cf. Bergson, 1907) began. At this point concepts proper to art were applied to the sciences and to nature [Tatarkiewicz, 1980, p. 249]. There was, however, a long waiting time to the scientific study of creativity. The thinking of some modern time scholars will be expounded in the subsequent chapter. The beginning of scientific study of creativity is generally taken to be J. P. Guilfords address to the American Psychological Association in 1950. Many scholars joined in the effort to explore creativity in the years to come. They took a more pragmatic approach to this esoteric subject. As creativity became established as a discipline, scholars realized that creativity depends on being practiced. Creativity reveals itself in accomplishments and deeds, rather than in words. While a sound theoretical approach still was important, more and more emphasis was put on developing practical creativity techniques. Important personalities illustrating this approach include Alex Osborn, who in the 1950s invented brainstorming. In the same decade, Genrikh Altov, later calling himself Altshuller, came up with his â€Å"Theory of Inventive Problem Solving†, better known as TRIZ. In the 1960, Edward de Bono became famous after having developed his influential theory of â€Å"Lateral thinkin g.† These and other theories and techniques are expounded in more detail in subsequent chapters.

Ethics of Genocide and Eugenics Essay -- Biology Medical Biomedical Ge

Gene Therapy: Genocide and Eugenics or Striving for a More Perfect Population Controversy and Ethics Just as there are different types of people who look at one glass of water and describe it as half full or half empty, the public has many different views on the future of our society. Gene therapy is also a glass that can be viewed in different angles – different perspectives. Some say it has great potential to shape the ideals of our future, while others believe it signifies intolerance for disabilities, imperfections that supposedly deplete from a person’s interests, opportunities and welfare (quoted by Peter Singer, xviii). This global issue has brought people with different opinions in the open, arguing their views using history, morality and foresight. â€Å"It is human nature to strive to improve everything.† (as quoted from Ron Harris by Singer, xxii) As the world moves forward in science and technology, it seems that only humans themselves are lagging behind. Success and perfection are so important as to even play a role in determining human characteristics – once thought to be inalterable – right down to gene selection. In our increasingly capitalist society, parents want their children to be born with as much an opportunity to excel as others. It is the same well-meaning motivation that drives parents to make more money to buy a bigger house in a better community, so their children could live better and attend a higher-scoring school (Singer xvi). So with equal or greater conviction, they want their children to be born with a relatively high IQ, good looks and a healthy body. This mentality is adequately represented by a website: ronsangels.com, which sells eggs of women â€Å"with beauty and brains† to the highest bidder (... ...ne starts life with an equal chance of health and success. Yet, gene therapy can also be thought of as a straight route towards a dark outlook, where perfection is the first priority, genes are seen as the ultimate puppeteer, and personal freedom to thrive based on one’s self isn’t believed to exist. With the emergence of each new technological discovery comes the emergence of each new ethical debate, and one day, each viewpoint on this momentous issue may be able to find a bit of truth in the other. Eventually, our society may reach a compromise on gene therapy. Bibliography: Cambridge. The Ethics of Inheritable Genetic Modification. Cambridge: Cambridge Universtiy Press, 2006. Rpt. in The Ethics of Inheritable Genetic Modification. Collins, Francis S. "Foreward." Playing God? 2003. By Ted Peters. 2nd ed. Great Britain: Routledge, 2003. Rpt. in Playing God?

Bohemian Rhapsody: an Existentialistic Piece of Literature Essay

The song bohemian rhapsody by Queen relates to existentialism in which the song talks about an existentialist’s way of life. Existentialism is the belief that people are searching to find out who and what they are throughout life as they make choices based on their experiences, beliefs, and outlooks. Existentialism is centered upon the analysis of existence and the way humans find themselves existing in the world. The song bohemian rhapsody has several different qualities that make it an existentialistic piece of literature. At first glance Bohemian rhapsody is about a man ashamed about murdering another human being. After looking at it closer there are examples of an existentialistic lifestyle. Bohemian rhapsody starts with narrator’s shock of the realization that he just committed a major crime, â€Å"caught in a landslide, no escape from reality†, and how he cannot believe he just murdered a man. Existentialists believe that decisions are not without stress and consequences. The line â€Å"I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy† is a great example of how he doesn’t want sympathy for the decision he made to kill a man because he knows that that decision will bring him stress and consequences. The narrator states how he is â€Å"easy come, easy go’, inferring that he usually as it comes and learns along the way, yet another belief of existentialist. Existentialist usually do not believe in a god or an afterlife so they believe that anything acquired in this life will not matter after they are dead. You can also consider the line â€Å"Any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me† as another existentialistic idea incorporated in the song because the narrator infers that he doesn’t really care what will happen to him because none of it will matter when he is dead. The line â€Å"easy come, easy go, will you let me go†, has a little more meaning to it the earlier line, â€Å"easy come, easy go†. The added line â€Å"will you let me go† shows that he takes responsibility for what he has done but wants others to forget him because it will not matter when they are all dead. The stanza â€Å"Nothing really matters, anyone can see, Nothing really matters, Nothing really matters to me Any way the wind blows ENDED. † Also shows how the existentialists believe that nothing really matters in life because once you are gone nothing you did in this life will matter. All of these lyrics show how existentialism is incorporated into the song bohemian rhapsody.

Eagle Fire Department Staffing Analysis Health And Social Care Essay

The job was the Eagle Fire Department lacks the cognition of whether or non a staffing alteration in 2003 has been effectual in run intoing the demands of community stakeholders by dramatically cut downing the mean clip it takes firemans to â€Å" turnout † for a call for service to an exigency scene. The intent of this research was to find if the staffing theoretical account that the Eagle Fire Department presently employs is effectual in supplying for a sufficient figure of forces when volunteer/paid-on-call employees are out of the community working at their regular occupations and are unavailable to reply exigency calls for service. This undertaking would carry on quantitative research to find to find if the 2003 staffing alteration resulted in a lessening of turnout clip to exigency calls for service by the organisation. The research would uncover a important lessening in turnout clip when the section was staffed with on-premises forces.IntroductionThe Eagle Fire Department is a preponderantly volunteer/paid-on-call municipal fire section located in rural southwesterly Waukesha County, Wisconsin. A sleeping room community to the Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin metropolitan countries, Eagle lacked a sufficient degree of staffing during daytime exigency events in the community. To decide this, the community began funding paid-on-premises staffing in 2003. The job is the Eagle Fire Department lacks the cognition of whether or non the staffing alteration in 2003 has been effectual in run intoing the demands of community stakeholders by dramatically cut downing the mean clip it takes firemans to react to an exigency scene. A quantitative survey would necessitate to be conducted to turn to this issue. The intent of this research is to find if the staffing theoretical account that the Eagle Fire Department presently employs is effectual in supplying for a sufficient figure of forces when volunteer/paid-on-call employees are out of the community working at their regular occupations and are unavailable to reply exigency calls for service. If a staffing lack is identified, this research would show the demand for the Town and Village of Eagle to increase staffing beyond what is presently being provided. This undertaking would carry on appraising research to reply the undermentioned inquiries: a. ) what was the turnout clip during responses from 1996 – 2003 prior to the paid-on-premises staffing? B. ) what was the turnout clip during responses from 2003 – 2010 after paid-on-premises staffing was added? c. ) does the information discovered through research demonstrate that the Eagle Fire Department is run intoing province and federal guidelines that govern fire section staffing and response? e. ) Based on these consequences, should the Eagle Fire Department urge staffing alterations to the Town and Village of Eagle boards?Background and SignificanceEagle, Wisconsin is a diverse community located in rural southwesterly Waukesha County, Wisconsin, about 35 stat mis from business district Milwaukee. The community is surrounded by the pristine lands of the Southern Kettle Moraine province wood which is regionally revered for its stat mis upon stat mis of hike, biking and sno wmobiling trails. Because 40 % of Eagle is province Department of Natural Resources or nature conservancy land, the community is stifled by its inability to turn to the West and north and as a consequence, Eagle retains much of its small-town quaintness and capturing entreaty to occupants looking for an flight from the bunco and hustle of large metropolis life. Eagle is 36 square stat mis and is comprised of two separate municipalities: the Town and Village of Eagle, each of which retains full liberty from one another but works together and financess several joint community ventures such as the fire section, library, and park and diversion scheduling. The combined population of the community is 5,471. Like many little southeasterly Wisconsin communities, Eagle is considered a sleeping room community for the Milwaukee metropolitan country as most of the occupants work outside of the community during the twenty-four hours. Eagle is home to many concerns and industries and has a strong touristry base due to the province wood and Old World Wisconsin, which is a â€Å" life museum † tourer attractive force that accurately depicts the history of rural life by securing historical edifices and so traveling them to the museum site. Actors and actresses depict Wisconsin colonist life to funny and frequently baffled invitees. The community is served and protected by the preponderantly volunteer/paid-on-call Eagle Fire Department [ EFD ] , a full-service combination fire section. The section operates out of one fire station that is centrally located within the community and responds to all exigencies within the Town and Village of Eagle, every bit good as common assistance aid to adjacent communities. The Eagle Fire Department protects critical substructure which includes State Highways 59 and 67 every bit good as the Wisconsin and Southern Railroad, each of which bisects and transverses the full community. The section was originally organized in 1927 by a group of husbandmans who saw the demand for a fire section to protect the community. The mission of the organisation did non alter until about 50 old ages subsequently when in the early 1970 ‘s the section began supplying exigency medical services to the community through an ambulance plan. With the execution of exigency medical services, the preparation demands to go a voluntary fireman and exigency medical technician began increasing and the one-year call volume doubled from about 75 to 150 calls. The rank of the organisation remained strong with between 40 – 50 voluntaries on the roll at any given clip. During the 1980 ‘s and 1990 ‘s, province mandated preparation demands continued to increase and lodging developments began to shoot up as available farming area began to slowly lessening. Many more occupants of the community were transposing to work and were non able to volunteer as much clip to the organisation. As a consequence of the needed addition in preparation hours, rank began to easy worsen. In 2003 the organisation reached a hamlets and was holding trouble staffing for exigency calls that occurred during the twenty-four hours. A determination was made to staff the fire station with paid-on-premises firefighter / exigency medical technicians who would work from 6:00 am – 6:00 autopsy Monday through Friday. This staffing agreement allowed at least one individual to reply a call for service while trusting on the voluntaries who were able to react during the twenty-four hours for extra work force. In 2006 the section hired a full-time calling Fire Chief to pull off the twenty-four hours to twenty-four hours operations. The section is still staffed for 12 hours a twenty-four hours with paid-on-premises forces. During the eventide and nighttime hours, the community is entirely protected by its dedicated voluntary work force. Because the current staffing theoretical account still relies so to a great extent on the voluntary work force, it can be highly hard to foretell concern hours staff handiness which complicates the section ‘s ability to efficaciously react to exigency calls for service. There has ne'er been a conclusive survey done to find if the bing staffing theoretical account utilized by the Eagle Fire Department is effectual. As a consequence, the section is powerless to find if it should seek extra support to spread out the bing paid-on-premises plan, hire extra calling firemans, or remain position quo.Literature ReviewThe literature reappraisal for this applied research undertaking focused on reexamining anterior research conducted on staffing preponderantly volunteer/paid-on-call fire sections and ordinances that exist at the province and federal degree that regulate or dictate fire section staffing. Staffing Models Harmonizing to Wilson ( 2009 ) , the stating â€Å" Do more with less † seems to hold been the unofficial slogan of the fire service for more than 200 old ages. Wilson affirms that there will come a clip when firemans will be able to make merely so much before on scene resources are depleted. From fires to EMS calls and everything in between, no affair how a individual looks at it, the fire service is the last line of defence when it comes to a community in an exigency state of affairs. So the outlook of making more with less is non appropriate to this occupation. Varone ( 1995 ) held that surveies have been conducted in respect to firefighter staffing and the increased efficiencies found with the addition of forces staffing but no conclusive surveies have been done to find if there is a correlativity between fireman staffing and on scene incident safety of forces. Varone discovered that informations from the Providence ( RI ) Fire Department staffing survey in 1990 – 1991 showed that reported hurts in the studied firefighting companies decreased from 42 during the control period when staffing was three members per setup [ fire truck ] , to 31 during the survey period when the survey companies were staffed with four members. This represented a 23.8 per centum decrease in hurts. Bay City, Michigan is no alien to cutbacks, holding closed a fire station in 2009 that led the firemans brotherhood and other outraged citizens to proclaim that shuting a fire station would do an addition in response times which would impact the quality of life for all occupants of the metropolis ( Editorial Board, 2011 ) . Harmonizing to the Bay City Times ‘ ( 2011 ) column board, Fire Chief Gregory Michalek told the City Commission that in 2009, the mean response clip was 5 proceedingss and 48 seconds. In 2010, the clip had plummeted about a minute, to 4 proceedingss 43 seconds. The National Fire Protection Association recommends response in less than 6 proceedingss. The betterment in Bay City is even though the quicker response would look to undersell the chief statement that the firemans brotherhood has made in recent old ages whenever metropolis functionaries bring up fire section budget cuts – that fewer Stationss and fewer firemans would be longer delaies until aid arrived at a fire or medical exigency. The Bay City Commission early in January 2010 decided to do lasting a impermanent closing of Station 5 at 1209 E. Smith St. in the Banks country. This was after a argument in 2009 over the shutting in which the firemans brotherhood warned, and occupants worried, approximately predicted longer delaies as fire crews responded to the country. That seemingly has n't happened. Fire crews from the Central Fire Station at 1401 Center Ave. on the East Side and at Station 4, 212 Dean St. , on the West Side each are about three stat mis off from Fire Station 5 ( Editorial Board, 2011 ) . Internationally, Australia utilizes a nationalized voluntary fire system dwelling of over 60,000 voluntaries. These firemans, who respond in the rural countries of the state, supply the first line of defence against the 100s of 1000s of shrub fires that burn yearly. Because volunteer/paid-on-call firemans work in the field because they want to instead than depending on the occupation as a exclusive agency of income, voluntary keeping and occupation satisfaction is paramount ( Rice & A ; Fallon, 2011 ) . Harmonizing to Rice & A ; Fallon ( 2011 ) , unpaid motive can be conceptualized within the model of societal exchange theory – in order for voluntary attempts to be sustained over clip, the wagess to the voluntary must transcend, or at minimal, balance out the costs. The determination to go on volunteering is typically re-evaluated throughout the voluntary ‘s term of office, where appraisals are made about the comparative wagess and costs of their engagement. There must be a delicate balance when measuring staffing in a preponderantly volunteer/paid-on-call section. The demands of the community must be balanced with the keeping involvement within the voluntary corps. An extra factor that assists with voluntary keeping is acknowledgment and recognition. Despite high degrees of service bringing, it has been argued that those working within the exigency services in Australia experience a wide deficiency of acknowledgment. Recognition of voluntaries is of peculiar concern to exigency service bureaus given that organisational surveies repeatedly find that staff often quit in cases where they feel undervalued. Harmonizing to Janke ( 2009 ) and Compton & A ; Graninto ( 2002 ) , staffing strategies are by and large a local issue and are dependent on the frequence of fires, budgetary considerations, the community hazard degree, and the demand for services. Other factors include the population protected, denseness of the population, and the type of constructions protected. In the terminal, staffing degrees may change widely from section to section. Keeping an unfastened duologue with members of the organisation is built-in to the success of any staffing theoretical account alteration. Laws and Standards Governing Fire Department Operations The United States fire service is efficaciously governed by a set of criterions that are established and reviewed every four old ages by the National Fire Protection Association [ NFPA ] . There are legion criterions that exist that govern fire section operations and the minimal figure of firemans that must be present on an exigency scene to prosecute in operations. NFPA 450, the Guide for Emergency Medical Services and Systems, Chapter 5, Section 5.5.2.3.4 provinces, â€Å" most experts agree that four respondents [ at least two trained in advanced cardiac life support ( ACLS ) and two trained in basic life support ( BLS ) ] are the lower limit required to supply ACLS to cardiac apprehension victims † ( National Fire Protection Association, 2009 ) . While it is by and large acknowledged by most fire sections that exigency medical services is the staff of life and butter of their operations, construction fires and incidents necessitating specialized deliverance accomplishments are really dependent on work force. NFPA 1720, the Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations by Volunteer Fire Departments, Chapter 4, Section 4.3.1 provinces that, â€Å" the fire section shall place lower limit staffing demands to guarantee that a sufficient figure of members are available to run safely and efficaciously. † Further, based on NFPA 1720, a matrix has been developed which indicates that the Eagle Fire Department should hold a minimal staff of six firemans respond to the scene within 14 proceedingss of the call for service and be able to run into that standard 80 % of the clip. However, one time on scene, National Fire Protection Association relates that between 19 and 23 forces typically constitute the first-alarm assignment to a confirmed single-family brooding fire, as observed by rating squads. However, non fewer than 24 firemans and two head officers, one or more safety officers, and a rapid intercession squad ( s ) should react to high-hazard tenancies ( schools, infirmaries, nursing places, explosive workss, refineries, high-rise edifices, and other high-life jeopardy or tenancies with big fire possible ) . Not fewer than 16 firemans, one head officer, a safety officer, and a rapid intercession squad should react to medium-hazard tenancies ( flats, offices, mercantile, and industrial tenancies non usually necessitating extended deliverance or firefighting forces ) . Not fewer than 14 firemans, one head officer, a safety officer, and a rapid intercession squad should react to low-hazard tenancies ( one- , two- , or three-family homes and scattered little concerns and industrial tenancies ) . At least 12 firemans, one head officer, a safety officer, and a rapid intercession squad shall react to rural dismaies ( scattered homes, little concerns, and a farm edifice ) ( National Fire Protection Association, 2008 ) . The Occupational Safety and Health Administration [ OSHA ] mandates that two firemans be equipped in full protective equipment with a ego contained take a breathing setup be stationed outside of an environment that is imminently unsafe to life and wellness. Dearly, this is known as the two in/two out regulation which requires a lower limit of four firemans to prosecute in structural firefighting operations. There is an exclusion to this regulation if a life safety jeopardy exists and if firemans moderately believe a deliverance can be made it is allowable to go against this regulation ( Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 2008 ) . At the Wisconsin province degree, there are several steering administrative codifications that affect fire section scene operations. Wisconsin Comm. 30, the Fire Department Safety and Health Standards, do non proclaim a minimal staffing degree for operations straight, instead, the codification references antecedently cited NFPA and OSHA criterions. Based on the literature reappraisal, there is no constituted minimal degree of staffing that must be present expecting a call for service. Rather, systems must be designed such that when a call for service is received, the system responds in an expedient mode within the guidelines established at the province and federal degree.HypothesissThe void hypothesis is that the 2003 staffing alteration of the Eagle Fire Department had no consequence on norm turnout clip. Alternate hypotheses include: ( a ) the staffing alteration in 2003 did hold an consequence on diminishing the norm turnout clip. ( B ) call type ( EMS, Fire, and MVA ) had an consequence, either positive or negative, on the norm turnout clip. ( degree Celsius ) winter months had an consequence, either positive or negative, on the norm turnout clip.MethodologyThe original research for this undertaking was initiated via the cyberspace where a cursory reappraisal of literature related to volunteer staffing both domestically and abroad was sought. Beginnings were so identified in an effort to find what guidelines and criterions exist at the province and federal degree to modulate fire section staffing and response. Eagle Fire Department staff were assigned to roll up and analyse run study statistics for calls for service that the organisation responded to from 1996 – 2010. With the exclusion of 2008 and 2009 calls for service, which were recorded electronically, all informations had to be entered into a database manually, from manus written records. Data sought was the day of the month of the call for service, the twenty-four hours of the hebdomad, the clip the call was dispatched, the clip the first unit responded en path to the call for service, the clip that the first unit arrived on scene, and the figure of forces that responded to the call for service. Because a alteration in staffing occurred in 2003, the information was analyzed to find if the alteration caused a lessening in the norm turnout clip – the elapsed clip between when the call is dispatched by the 911 centre until the clip that the first unit acknowledges en path. The information could be so be analyzed to find if the organisation was run intoing province and federal guidelines with respect to exigency response, if any exist. The dependant variable in this analysis is whether or non the station was staffed at the clip an exigency call for service was dispatched. Several independent variables were identified. First, the type of call for service is of import to find whether or non call fluctuation has an impact in the turnout clip. For this undertaking, calls for service were grouped into three chief classs: Fire, Emergency Medical Services ( EMS ) , and Motor Vehicle Accident ( MVA ) . Calls for service coded as â€Å" EMS † were all calls necessitating exigency medical services, whether it was advanced or basic life support. Calls were coded as â€Å" Fire † if the call for service was fire related such as a edifice fire, field fire, natural gas leak, or other public aid call. Finally, calls were coded as â€Å" MVA † if the call for service was for a motor vehicle accident. Other independent variables identified involved the month that a call for service occurred. This was of import because the conditions could play a important factor in response efficiency when the fire station was unstaffed. For the intent of this survey, the months of November, December, January, February, and March were identified as months that would hold the highest likeliness of snow and icy conditions which would halter the section ‘s ability to react quickly when volunteers/paid-on-call firemans had to react to the fire station to obtain equipment and setup. So that accurate statistics were identified as related entirely to the Town and Village of Eagle, common assistance calls to other organisations were excluded from this survey as they would ‘ve increased the mean response clip well due to the geographic location of the Eagle Fire Department and the distance the section must go to supply aid to other communities. While reacting common assistance to help another bureau, 20 – 30 minute travel times are non uncommon. From the information collected, arrested development analysis was conducted to find if the void hypothesis should be rejected or accepted. Arrested development analysis was chosen because it allows the research worker to show the strength of the relationship between the identified independent variables against the dependent variable of turnout clip. Multicollinearity would be investigated to find if two or more independent variables are extremely correlated. Based on the information gleaned from the survey, consequences would be presented to the Eagle Fire Commission and Town and Village of Eagle boards to inform them whether or non the section ‘s bing staffing theoretical account is effectual, and, if non, urge alterations for the hereafter.ConsequencesThe first research undertaking sought to find the norm turnout clip of respondents prior to the paid-on-premises plan being implemented in 2003. The 2nd research inquiry dovetails on the first and sought to find the mean response clip after the paid-on-premises plan was implemented in 2003. There were 4084 instances, or calls for service, that the Eagle Fire Department responded to 1996 – 2010. From this information, it was determined when the station was and was non staffed. Turnout times were calculated from by deducting the clip the first unit went en path to a call for service from the clip that the call was dispatched. This was known as the TD to ER clip. Based on the information evaluated, it was determined that the Eagle Fire Department ‘s norm turnout clip was 4:02 for all calls for service that occurred 1996 – 2010. However, when the independent variable of staffing is introduced, there was a important decrease in the norm turnout clip to 2:23. When comparing the dependant and independent variables, the r-squared value is.404. Therefore, 40 % of the fluctuation in turnout clip can be explained by the independent variable which is the station being staffed. The incline between the dependant and independent variable of the station being staffed is -1.815. This indicates that when the station was staffed during a call for service, one can anticipate an mean clip turnout clip decrease of 1.815 proceedingss versus when the station was non staffed. Is the relationship between the dependant and independent variable statistically important? The t-score of -52.603 corresponds to a significance degree of 0.00, intending that there is a less than one in 1,000 opportunity that the relationship between turnout clip and the station being staffed is due to error. Insert table 1 here Insert table 2 here Based on these consequences, we can reject the void hypothesis and accept the alternate hypothesis. Staffing does hold an impact on the norm turnout clip of the Eagle Fire Department. There are several other variables that could hold an consequence on the norm turnout clip of the Eagle Fire Department. One illustration that could hold an consequence is the type of call for service that is being responded to. Calls for service such as construction fires or motor vehicle accidents require particular protective cogwheel that must be put on, or donned, prior to go forthing the fire station. Would these types of calls have an impact on turnout times? Harmonizing to the informations analyzed, exigency medical ( EMS ) calls for service were the baseline analyzed at 4.02. Calls affecting â€Å" fire † took somewhat longer to turnout for, with an norm of 4.134. The incline is somewhat different between the dependant and independent variables. For FIRE, the incline is.114 which indicates that when a call for service is related to fire, it takes an extra.114 proceedingss to turn out versus a standard EMS call. The t-score of 2.574 corresponds to a significance degree of 0.010, intending that there is a 10 % opportunity that the relationship between turnout clip and fire calls for service is due to error. Calls for service affecting motor vehicle accidents ( MVA ) took less clip to turnout for, averaging 3.998 proceedingss. For these calls for service, the incline is -.022 which indicates that when a call for service is related to MVA, it takes.022 fewer proceedingss to turn out versus a standard EMS call. The t-score of -.419 corresponds to a significance degree of 0.675, intending that there is a 67.5 % alteration that the relationship between turnout clip and fire calls for service is due to error. Insert table 2 here One other country that could hold an consequence on informations involves the clip of twelvemonth that a call for service is dispatched. Apparently, calls for service that occur in the winter months would hold an impact on unstaffed response times as the volunteer/paid-on-call employees must foremost react to the fire station before reacting to a scene. What impact do these months have on norm turnout clip? For the intents of this undertaking, winter months were considered to be November, December, January, February, and March as these were the months when Wisconsin snow and ice would reasonably impact the section ‘s ability to react in an efficient mode. Based on the information evaluated, it was determined that the Eagle Fire Department ‘s norm turnout clip was 4:00 for calls for service that occurred during these five months from 1996 – 2010. When comparing the dependant and independent variables, the r-squared value is.405. Therefore, 41 % of the fluctuation in turnout clip can be explained by the independent variables which are the clip of twelvemonth ( winter versus non-winter ) that a call for service was received. The incline between the dependant and independent variable of the winter months is varied between -0.092 to 0.073. This indicates that conditions did hold an impact on the norm turnout clip, though the alteration in norm was negligible. Is the relationship between the dependant and independent variable statistically important? The t-score scope identified corresponds to between an 18 % and 62 % opportunity that the relationship between turnout clip and the winter months identified is due to error. Insert table 6 here Insert table 8 here Tolerance and the discrepancy rising prices factor ( VIF ) are two statistical countries that help to set up if multicollinearity exists. A little tolerance value indicates that the variable under consideration is about a perfect additive combination of the independent variables already in the equation and that it should non be added to the arrested development equation. All variables involved in the additive relationship will hold a little tolerance. Some suggest that a tolerance value less than 0.1 should be investigated farther. If a low tolerance value is accompanied by big standard mistakes and nonsignificance, multicollinearity may be an issue. The VIF measures the impact of collinearity among the variables in a arrested development theoretical account. The Variance Inflation Factor ( VIF ) is 1/Tolerance, it is ever greater than or equal to 1. There is no formal VIF value for finding presence of multicollinearity. Valuess of VIF that exceed 10 are frequently regarded as bespea king multicollinearity, but in weaker theoretical accounts values above 2.5 may be a cause for concern. ( Research Consultants, 2010 ) . The consequences of this undertaking revealed that multicollinearity was non an issue. Tolerance was in surplus of 0.900 and VIF was between 1.0 and 2.2 for all independent variables. Insert table 2 here Insert table 8 hereDecisionThe research has revealed that there are no Torahs or criterions necessitating communities to supply paid staffing on premises in their fire Stationss. The National Fire Protection Association, Occupational Health and Safety Administration, and the State of Wisconsin mandate lower limit staffing demands one time on scene of an exigency. The National Fire Protection Association ( NFPA ) recommends that calling fire sections, which are by and large comprised of full-time paid forces, turn out within 60 seconds ( National Fire Protection Association, 2010 ) . There is no known criterion that exists for voluntary or paid-on-call fire sections, nevertheless. Though most people would impute the â€Å" fire section † to merely seting out fires, in most instances 80 % + of all calls for service in an bureau are medical in nature. An unstaffed volunteer/paid-on-call fire section must hold first respondents go to the fire station, obtain the necessary setup, and so react to the exigency scene. In some instances, this oversight in clip is O.K. as the nature of unwellness is minor and lives are non at interest. In other instances, the badness can be much higher and seconds can do the difference between life and decease. In a sudden cardiac apprehension, when a victim ‘s bosom stops all of a sudden whipping, there are merely proceedingss with which bystanders and exigency medical technicians can impact a deliverance. The encephalon needs a changeless supply of O and foods to map. Cerebral hypoxia occurs when there is non adequate O acquiring to the encephalon because the bosom is non pumping any blood throughout the system. Brain cells are highly sensitive to a deficiency of O. Some encephalon cells start deceasing less than 5 proceedingss after their O supply disappears. As a consequence, encephalon hypoxia can quickly do terrible encephalon harm or decease ( Hoch, 2011 ) . Though the literature reappraisal revealed that NFPA 450 does non mandate a minimal figure of respondents present on premises available to react, the criterion does urge at least four people to supply effectual advanced life support attention ( National Fire Protection Association, 2009 ) . The information revealed that the Eagle Fire Department ‘s response clip is an norm of 4:02 when the station is unstaffed. This leaves 58 seconds for an ambulance to make a victim ‘s place to get down supplying resuscitative attention to a sudden cardiac apprehension victim before lasting encephalon harm consequences. With a response country of 36-square stat mis, this can be a daunting challenge. Harmonizing to Compton and Granito ( 2002 ) , fire suppression operations have three basic maps: ( 1 ) deliverance, ( 2 ) work affecting ladder, physical entry, and airing, and ( 3 ) the application of H2O. To raise ladders, ventilate, hunt, and deliverance at the same time takes speedy action by at least four and frequently eight or more firemans, each under the supervising of an officer. If approximately 16 trained firemans are non runing at the scene of a on the job fire within the critical clip period, so dollar loss and hurts are significantly increased as is fire spread. As firefighting tactics were conducted and judged for effectivity, the writers held that five-person companies ( squads ) were 100 % effectual at executing these undertakings in an expeditious mode. Four-person companies were 65 % effectual, and three-person companies were 38 % effectual. Under the current staffing matrix of the Eagle Fire Department, during current staffed periods, the section operates at the two-person company degree whose effectivity as non been measured. When the section is unstaffed, the section typically operates at a three or four-person company though response can significantly detain due to the handiness of volunteer/paid-on-call employees and their single response to the fire station to obtain equipment and setup. In a 2008 study, the Eagle Fire Department concluded that in order to increase staffing to one individual, 24 hours per twenty-four hours, a budget addition of $ 87,000 would be needed to fund this plan, non including capital disbursals needed to upgrade the fire section installation to suit nightlong staffing. In order to supply four fireman / exigency medical technicians on a full-time footing, twenty four hours a twenty-four hours, the section would necessitate to budget about $ 1.5-million yearly for wages and benefits. This would ensue in a 600 % addition of the current operating budget. This option was non financially executable ( Heim, 2008 ) . This undertaking has revealed, nevertheless, that staffing the fire station does supply a touchable benefit of cut downing the norm turnout clip by about half. Though the current staffing matrix merely provides for one exigency respondent, there is a batch that one individual can make at a medical scene or fire until auxiliary staff arrives from the volunteer/paid-on-call ranks. Expanding this plan to twenty four hr coverage would be of important benefit to the community as it would let the section to react efficiently and run into the demands of community stakeholders. The challenge in implementing such a plan will be to procure gross to fund the plan. Expanding coverage would still necessitate an extra $ 87,000 yearly and revenue enhancement levy restrictions would most likely prevent the municipalities from implementing such a plan without seeking a referendum. A 2009 Town of Eagle referendum that was proposed to supply support to staff the paid-on-call plan failed with a 3-1 bord er ( Nixon, 2009 ) . Several restrictions were encountered while carry oning research for this undertaking. First, bing informations keeping policies limit the records kept in storage to the old 15 old ages. Records older than 15 old ages are destroyed. Therefore, information was merely available from 1996 – 2010 which allowed for seven old ages of unstaffed and eight old ages of staffed responses to be evaluated. This disparity may somewhat skew the consequences. Second, the Eagle Fire Department switched despatch bureaus in 2006. It is the despatch bureau ‘s duty to keep accurate records of clip, nevertheless it is acknowledged that during times of heightened call volumes, the starter may non hold been wholly accurate in entering all times. This disparity may somewhat skew the consequences, though the discrepancy is expected to be minimum. Further rating should be done to formalize the consequences of this survey finding if other like-sized fire sections that have undergone staffing alterations which involved transitioning from an unstaffed fire station to one that is staffed have experienced the same decrease in norm turnout clip. Additionally, surveies should be done in volunteer/paid-on-call fire sections to find if on-premises staffing as an consequence on the loss of life and belongings loss as a consequence of fire.

The Top 7 SAT Writing Tips to Boost Your Score

The Top 7 SAT Writing Tips to Boost Your Score SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Having taught SAT Writing to hundreds of students, I understand that this section of the SAT can be confusing and complicated. You have to remember all the grammar rules you were able to avoid learning throughout your schooling. You have to identify subtle grammatical errors that are often committed by gifted writers. Through my experience teaching, I have identified some general rules for the SAT Writing section that have helped students of all levels improve their scores. In this article, I’m going to give you my top 7 tips for success on SAT Writing. These are things to keep in mind that should simplify the material and make selecting correct answers a little bit easier: Focus onUsing Grammar Rules to Answer the Questions Use Process of Elimination to Rule Out Answers Given Two Grammatically Correct Answers, Pick the More Concise One Watch for Consistency Issues Know that "Being" Is Almost Always Wrong Read the Passage First for Improving Paragraphs Questions Don't Be Afraid to Pick "No Error," But Don't Pick It Every Time #1: Rely on Your Knowledge of Grammar Rules to Answer Questions Don't rely on what sounds right to answer SAT Writing questions, except on idiom questions. Many of the SAT Writing sentences are lengthy or use uncommon phrases. The sentences might sound odd to your ear, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong. Similarly, some of the sentences contain grammar errors that are so common that these sentences are likely to sound fine to you. Check out this real SAT Writing example: If you rely on what sounds right to answer this question, you may very well miss the error. However, if you know your grammar rules and apply them here, this question shouldn't pose too much of a challenge. In this sentence, many students will assume that the "I" in answer choice C is correct because "Sandhya and I" sounds proper; the compound object makes the error more difficult to spot with the "what sounds right" method. However, those students who have mastered their SAT grammar rules and use their knowledge of grammar will see an underlined pronoun and check for errors in pronoun case or agreement. They will know that "I" can only be used as a subject and "me" can only be used as an object. Because "I" is receiving the action, it should be in the object form. The answer is C. In this sentence, "I" should be changed to "me." Always focus on finding specific grammar errors. Some of the more common grammar issues on SAT Writing are wordiness, fragments/run-ons, parallelism, pronoun agreement, and subject verb agreement. #2: Eliminate Wrong Answer Choices For every SAT question, you should eliminate answer choices you know are wrong to help you pick the correct answer. For sentence improvement questions, try to identify the error(s) before looking at the answer choices. Eliminate any choice you know doesn't correct the grammatical error in the original sentence or creates an additional error. Here is an example to illustrate this point: Here we have a typical dangling modifier question. The sentence begins with the phrase "spread by rat fleas." Whatever was spread by rat fleas should come directly after the comma. After looking at the rest of the sentence, you should be able to determine that bubonic plague was spread by rat fleas. Therefore, any answer choice that doesn't start with "bubonic plague" is wrong. Immediately, you can get rid of answer choices A, B, and C. You have now given yourself a much better chance of getting this question right. You only have to look at two answer choices. Because answer choice E is more concise and clear than D, the correct answer is E. For identify the error questions, eliminate any choice you know is correct. Go through each underlined portion individually until you're able to locate the error or determine that there is no error. Say good-bye to wrong answers #3: The Most Concise Grammatically Correct Answer Choice Will Be Right This tip applies mostly to the improving sentences subsection. If more than one answer choice is grammatically correct, the more concise one will be right. The shortest answer will not always be right, but if you can narrow a question down to two choices that are both grammatically correct, typically the more concise answer will be the right one. Let'srevisit theprevious example question to demonstrate this: Because we identified the dangling modifier, we were immediately able to narrow down our choices to D and E. Both D and E are grammatically correct, but answer choice E expresses the same information in a more concise manner. Therefore, answer choice E is the correct answer. For a more thorough explanation of this rule, check out my article on wordiness. #4: Consistency is Key Many of the grammar rules on SAT Writing are related to consistency. Generally, verb tense, subject, and person should remain consistent in a sentence. Also, other grammar rules like parallelism and illogical comparisons relate to keeping things consistent. Take a look at this SAT Writing question: In the underlined portion, the verb "has been" is in the present perfect tense. However, in the first clause, the verb "was" is in the simple past tense. The shift from past to present perfect tense does not make sense in the sentence. The verb tenses should be consistent. To correct the sentence, "has been" should be changed to the simple past "was." After eliminating wrong choices, we’re left with C and D. Due to parallel structure rules, the infinitive â€Å"to conceive† should be used to be parallel with â€Å"to espouse† on the other side of the conjunction. The answer is D. And SAT Writing success #5: The Word "Being" Often Signals an Error While "being" can be used correctly, it is often an indication of a grammar error. The word "being" can signal wordiness, idiom, and fragment errors. Whenever you see the word "being" in a sentence improvement or identify the error question, you are likely to find a grammar error. Look at this real SAT example: If you encountered this question on your SAT, the word "being" should immediately raise a red flag. Check to see if it's signaling a grammar error. In this sentence, "plus being" is awkward and unnecessarily wordy. The sentence would be more clear and concise if you replaced "plus being" with "and." You should still check the other answer choices quickly to make sure you didn't miss an obvious error. In this sentence, all the other answer choices are correct. #6: Skim the Paragraph Improvement Passage Before Answering Questions In the paragraph improvement subsection, you should quickly read the paragraph improvement passage before answering the questions. While reading, note any obvious errors and identify the main idea. For a more thorough breakdown of answering paragraph improvement questions, read this article on how to approach paragraph improvement. #7: "No Error" is Less Common, But There Will Be Correct "No Error" Answers On the improving sentences and identify the error questions, the sentence will be correct about 10%-20% of the time. Do not fear the "No Error" answer, but if more than 30% of your answers are "No Error," you've definitely made mistakes and need to look at the sentences more closely. What's Next? Review these posts on the 8 most common mistakes on SAT Writing and the secret to SAT Writing. Additionally, you'll want to make sure you learn the strategies for improving sentences and identifying sentence errors. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points? Check out our best-in-class online SAT prep program. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your SAT score by 160 points or more. Our program is entirely online, and it customizes what you study to your strengths and weaknesses. If you liked this Writing and grammar lesson, you'll love our program.Along with more detailed lessons, you'll get thousands ofpractice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Check out our 5-day free trial:

Critical analysis on two primary research papers Essay

Critical analysis on two primary research papers - Essay Example The aim of this analysis is to assess these two articles and how well they follow general research standards and the use of (appropriate) methods. As a core requirement in the presentation of a scientific argument a paper has to begin by introducing the topic chosen in terms of a â€Å"research question" and a â€Å"hypothesis† (a â€Å"preliminary†, i.e. ahead of the actual research, answer to the question). It should then proceed by clearly stating the aim of the research and how the authors propose too â€Å"explore the problem† by comparing to other â€Å"literary source and concept†. Importantly, such published articles need to define the â€Å"setting† and/or the â€Å"sample† and qualify these and the literature in terms of a particular set of â€Å"methods† to be used and deemed appropriate, be they person-oriented and qualitative, or of a more quantitative nature, or a mix of the two groups. Following the method, is the †Å"results-section†, an analysis and discussion of the data collected. Finally, conclusions and recommendations are made, and including discussion how the study has tested the research question. Limitations of one’s findings should also be noted (Rees, 2003). The Research Process Research, the search for knowledge and problem-solving, is a process of adding to knowledge (Ellen, 1984). By this understanding, research is an ongoing process. There are, however, certain procedures to be followed and standards to be adhered to, be they of an â€Å"inductive† (experimental: â€Å"arriving at a theory based on facts†) or â€Å"deductive† (â€Å"facts are organized to match theory†) nature. Based on this division, one arrives at a â€Å"positivistic† and â€Å"relativistic stance†, resulting in a contrast of â€Å"explanation† (deduction, positivism) and â€Å"understanding† (induction, relativism) (Bowling, 2002, pp. 117-3 2; Alexander, 1983; Gellner, 1985). â€Å"The contrast has been exemplified by the different emphases placed upon structure and upon process; upon positivist, empiricist observation as against intellectual inference and propositions about deep structures of society; by notions of detachment and objectivity opposed by more subjectivist views; by assumptions of validity and certainty of generalisation set off against those of ambiguity, uncertainty of findings. Such contrasts are not unilineal; they often overlap† (Firth, 1992, p. 215). Firth’s last sentence is revealing. Contrasts between a quantitative and qualitative approach are often being set up but they do not refer to real differences in the end. It is, as another anthropologist notes, rather â€Å"a matter of degree† since both dimensions (induction and deduction) are indispensable for an understanding of other people and their worlds (Geertz, 1974). The alleged contrast is as straw man argument. Research question and hypothesis in the two articles 1. Brotherton, Abbott and Aggett’s (2006) article is about how percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) feeding relates to the daily lives of adult patients. The authors aim was to explore that question (research question) from two perspectives, that of patients and carers. Their research question assumes (hypothesis) that the two parties hold different notions and models regarding the

Battle of the 73 Easting Thesis Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Battle of the 73 Easting - Thesis Example The 2ACD and 1ID of the US Army utilized advanced technology and superior military strategy to launch an intensive sustained surprise attack which destroyed the Tawakalna forces. This paper examines the main battles fought by the two US divisions that broke through the central lines of the Tawakalna force and the events that occurred in the two-day duration of the battle. The US-led Coalition Force victory over the elite Iraqi Republican Guard unit, Tawkalna division at 73 Easting is the most decisive ground combat that weakened the Iraqi military and gave way for the destruction of the other Iraqi Republican Guard units which ended the Gulf War (Borque 2). The Coalition victory in the 73 Easting battle is attributed to the superiority of the Coalition military forces, strong and decisive leadership and the utilization of a good battle plan. The victory of the Battle of 73 Easting is the result of the optimum combination of several Army Doctrines (Atkinson 9). First of all, the posse ssion of modern equipment and technology is important in battles. Secondly, a superior military strategy, audacity, effective communication and co-ordination can help defeat the most resolute and bravest army. Surprise, followed by intensive assault is an important tool to destabilize the enemy and prevent them from gaining their tempo and ensure their defeat. Finally, there is the need to use specialized units to execute specific tasks in order to gain military success. The Battle of 73 Easting culminated from the need to destroy and weaken the Iraqi Republican Guard (IRP), which had been a tool used by Saddam Hussein to destabilize international peace by invading Kuwait (Atkinson 2). The battle started on the 26th through to the 27th of February, 1991 at a barren desert just 25 kilometers off the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border. The 7th Corps of the US Army played major role in the Battle of 73 Easting under the command of Lieutenant General Fredrick Franks Jr (McGregor 2). General H. Norman Schwarzkopf held the Central Command of the operation (McGregor 2) . Jointly, the 2nd Armored Cavalry Division of the 7th Corps was the main unit of ground troops that was tasked with facing the Tawakalna central position in the 73 Easting Battle. They were ably supported by the 1st Infantry Division. A total of 4,500 troops made up the core of the 2ACD. However, for the purpose of the battle, 5,500 more troops joined the 2ACD in its three squadrons (Daily 52). Each squadron was equipped with a tank company, howitzer batteries, headquarters troops and three cavalry troops (MacMaster 1). Each troop cavalry had 120 soldiers, nine armored battle tanks and 12 bradley fighting vehicles (Daily 52). The British 1st Armoured Division in the south and the 3rd American Armored Division in the north supported the 2AD in the operation (Donaldson 182). The plan was to encircle the Tawakalna stronghold and meet the 2ACD and 1ID to cut off the Tawakalna stronghold. There is no report of the comma nder of the Tawakalna forces in the war (Adrian 362). It is logically inferred that it reported directly to and took orders from Saddam Hussein. In events leading to the battle, the Iraqi government, in defiance of international law had invaded Kuwait claiming it as an Iraqi territory (Musallam 1). The Tawakalna Division of the IRP was a significant elite unit that played a central role in the invasion and maintenance of Iraqi military presence in Kuwait (Adrian 362). The