Why you have chosen Praire View A&M University for your academic Essay

Why you have chosen Praire View A&M University for your academic endeavors - Essay Example Ever since I can remember, I have had this insatiable desire to take things apart to see how they work. Most of these had to do with electrical and electronic items and more often than not I was recruited to repair things in the home. When I began my search for a university to pursue higher education in my chosen field, I was looking for an institution where I would be encouraged to research new ideas and put my knowledge to use in an atmosphere of creativity and co-operation. My choice was naturally narrowed down to those institutions that had the reputation of producing excellent students in the field of engineering who were given opportunities to enhance their knowledge and skills in industry related environments. It is therefore not surprising that Prairie View was among the top schools on my list. I have for sometime been enthusiastic about developing low cost and easy maintenance electrical/electronic items that can be used in communities that do not enjoy the facilities enjoye d by those in developed nations. I hope that I shall be able to do something towards achieving this goal during my time at university.

Contingency Planning in Action Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Contingency Planning in Action - Term Paper Example In case the initial plan does not work out, the organization should have already identified an alternative to curb the risk (Doughty, K. 2001). The risks should first be identified and prioritized in order of the impacts they could have to the organization. Plan development should be the next step where certain guidelines such as definition of time periods should be done. The next step should be maintenance of the plan; it should be kept practical and relevant. Rephox is an organization based in India. It has its headquarters in Mumbai and a branch in Delhi. The organization has fifty employees in total, thirty of which work at the headquarters and the rest work in Delhi. It is an organization that provides auditing and accounting services. It helps its clients with cost accounting systems, preparation of financial statements, financial reporting, internal audits and services that provide assurance. The organization depends on technology for the provision of their services to clients. It has systems that protect information systems which comply with regulatory requirements. The organization provides information controls for the reduction of costs and gaining of competitive advantage. It uses professional accreditations where personnel handling the information systems must qualify. The business faces certain threats which include internet insecurity. Internet and firewall threats also exist where viruses may infect the audit systems through online services. There is also network and data insecurity threat when transferring information from the branch to the headquarters and vice versa. The organization’s systems might be hacked into and security details such as passwords and biometric controls interfered with. The wide area network for the organization may be interfered with affecting the clients’ servers. The mission of the organization is to serve public interest. This is done by contribution to development of standards and guidance of

Essay about the the movie ( A Perfect Passion - Gail Currie (2008) )

About the the movie ( A Perfect Passion - Gail Currie (2008) ) - Essay Example It is clear from the documentary that the Hopak dance is a great medium that the Ukrainians use to pass their messages across to other Ukrainians non-verbally. Thus, dance has a great value in giving people information without speaking any word. The Hopak dance was seen as an energetic and flamboyant folk dance of the Ukrainian people as it reflected their rural lifestyle. The message of this documentary is clear as it could be deduced from this dance style that the lifestyle of the Ukrainians is in line with the Cossack lifestyle (Dancers). Thus, the dance was used by the director to trace the origin of the Ukrainians and teach lessons of history. Thus, dance is also a way of teaching people their history non-verbally without having to read history books into their ears. The dance described in A Perfect Passion has no fixed pattern of steps and the dance is done according to the mood of the dancers and it helps brings matters that happen in the community to the fore. Thus, dance is seen as a way of spreading information about the society that the dance was performed and this is a non-verbal means of spreading information to the people (Dancers). Thus, dance is also a great means of spreading information to people about current events non-verbally without having to listen to the news. Dance in A Perfect Passion is also a means of spreading messages of love and folktales as lovers perform this dance in order to spread message of love to the people. The dance of couples is a beautiful dance that is used in the documentary to preach love and the sustenance of relationships. The improvised steps by the male dancers are just ways that have been devised to spread some specific messages without uttering any words (Dancers). Men and women dance differently in the Hopak dance style. The squatting kicks, high leaps and turns that are performed competitively by men and the simple dance steps, sways and claps that are performed by women are just ways

Saint-Saëns Essay Example for Free

Saint-Saà «ns Essay Saint-Saens’ third violin concerto is Romantic in style. The melodic line rapidly rises and falls, and rhythmic values are varied from fast, running notes to longer more lyrical lines. At times (such as the beginning of the second movement), the melodic line is fluid and elegant. This trait is typical of the composer and of French music in general during the late nineteenth century. In fact, the author of the textbook remarks that Saint-Saens displays â€Å"an elegance of melodic line in [his] music, which is not unlike the fluidity of the French language. † This characteristic can be attributed to the composer’s nationalism. The accompanying orchestra is rather large (though not as large as those employed by Bruckner or Strauss), another sign of the composer’s Romantic and anti-German tendencies. The music is tonal, with cadences articulating the ends of musical sections. Form Though, as the author of the textbook remarks, â€Å"French composers were also trying to create new forms of music whenever possible,† Saint-Saens’ concerto is in the traditional three movement format. The three movements – allegro non troppo, andantino quasi allegretto, and molto moderato e maestoso – follow the traditional fast-slow-fast pattern established with the Viennese composers Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. Saint-Saens does, however, depart from the traditional double exposition sonata form employed by such composers in first movements. Saint-Saens’ concerto opens directly with the violin playing the main theme, accompanied by the orchestra. Subject Matter In terms of subject matter, this concerto is an example of absolute music: there is no accompanying narrative.

Analysis Of Chinas One Child Policy

Analysis Of Chinas One Child Policy During the mid 1900s, Chinas population was growing at an alarming rate, increasing by at least 2 or more percent each year (Potts 2006:361). Estimated to reach 1.3 billion by the year 2000, Chinese government officials were worried that such extreme growth would serve to harm the potential for future economic growth. Even maintaining acceptable living standards was becoming difficult, with much of the population living in poverty. It was clear that action had to be taken in order to rapidly slow the growth at which Chinas population was expanding. Fertility rates-the average number of children born per woman-needed to drastically decrease so that China would be able to develop as a country able to have influence on a world scale. The One-Child Policy was created and put into action in 1979 in an attempt to limit the number of offspring that families could produce. The majority of families were restricted to bearing only one child, reducing the size of each subsequent generation. Att empts to abide by these laws has led to many potential children being aborted, and many others being put up for adoption. Further impacting the fates of these children is Chinas long standing traditional preference for boys. Many female children have been selectively aborted or put up for adoption, so that families can have another chance at producing a son. The One-Child Policy has been the determinant of two very significant parts of my family. At four years old, my cousin Emma was born. When I was five, she joined our family. Four years later, Darci arrived. Neither girl was born into a Canadian family, nor do they bear any physical resemblances to their parents. Both adopted by my aunt and uncle as infants, my cousins became part of our family as a result of Chinas one-child policy. The majority of others in their adoptive groups are also girls. In my paper, I am going to explore the consequences of Chinas One-Child policy, especially focusing on gender roles, and how the policy has impacted the way in which individuals of different genders are valued and treated. I will analyze the effects that the policy has had based on familial desires, economical incentives, and educational goals. Finally, I will comment on how the policy must be adapted if China wishes to maintain control over its population, both in terms of growth and citizen compliance. Family Traditionally, Chinese culture has followed a very patriarchal structure. As in most countries, males were more valued than females and took on the responsibilities of providing for his family. Women were submissive to the men in the household, and when a marriage occurred, it was the brides duty to leave her birth family in order to become a part of her new husbands (Deutsch 2006:367). In 1979, and even today, many families are of the mindset that a son is more valuable to them than a daughter. Allowed only one offspring, a son is often the more desirable choice for households (ibid:367). There are a few reasons for this. Especially in China, the males ability to carry on the family name is a major factor. As many women take on their husbands last name upon marriage, her maiden name ceases to be a part of her, in practical usage. If a family is allowed to have multiple children, one daughter does not necessarily mean that the family lineage will be discontinued. There is always the possibility for a new son to be born, able to represent the family name his entire life. However, when this option is taken away, many couples feel increased pressure to bear a son on the first try. The development of ultrasound technology in recent years allows couples to learn the gender of their child before it is born. Although this can be an advantage in many ways, knowledge of a female daughter means that there is an opportunity to abort the pregnancy before its advanced stages. While I am not going to comment on the moral issues associated with the abortion itself, frequent abortions of female fetuses has led to a severe imbalance of girls and boys. This will be discussed in more detail later. Economics There is also an economical incentive to take into account here. No different from many other places, males tend to earn higher salaries than females and obtain jobs in more skilled and demanding work placements. While this was not an effect created by the One-Child Policy, the differences in employment between men and women began to increase around the same time as the policy was enacted. Economic reforms introduced in the 1970s gave greater independence to businesses in regards to their labour and operations policies. Rather than a goal of equal labour, businesses were now allowed to make the majority of their hiring decisions and assign what they felt were appropriate wage rates for their employees (Wang and Cai 2008:442). This only served to increase the value differential between males and females. Overall wages gradually increased over time, with males eventually taking over many of the top sector jobs and earning higher wages. A study done (ibid:444) determined that even thoug h women make up a larger percentage of the lower three job sectors, it is still men that are taking home the greater amount. For whatever reason, whether it is for educational reasons or pure gender role discrimination, employers have a clear tendency to prefer male workers over female employees. This gender preference has translated itself into an effect on the One-Child Policy, where families desire sons more heavily than daughters. As the parents of the first generation of One-Child offspring move into retirement age, they will have only one child on whom to rely for financial support. As opposed to previous generations, in which the burden of caring for ones parents could be split between multiple siblings, One-Child adults are faced with the burden of caring for parents individually. Granted, with fewer children to bring up, the cost of parenting is lower which allows for greater saving, however Chinas lack of a substantial pension plan makes it difficult for Chinese citizens t o save enough to support themselves entirely throughout retirement (Potts 2006: 361). Nor do children have the option of defecting care of their parents to a third party: Article 21 of the Marriage Law of the Peoples Republic of China (1980) specifically renders children with the duty to support and assist their parents. This forces only children to bear both the fiscal and social responsibilities of caring for their elderly parents. While it is not ludicrous to ask a child to care for a parent, the One-Child Policy simply intensifies this responsibility, especially if the child is not in substantial financial situation for only him or herself. A daughter, hurt with the plausibility of a lower paying workplace, is more likely to have a harder time supporting her parents than a son would, more able to obtain a financially lucrative position. For these reasons, among others, Chinese couples often weight the value of a son as higher than that of a daughter. However, the higher value placed on male children causes many potential daughters to be aborted, abandoned as infants, or put up for adoption (Martinez 2008:86). Since the one child policy was enacted in 1979, there has been a gradual, but significant, increase in the ratio of males to females, with approximately 33 million more boys than girls under 20 reported in the 2005 census (Nature 2009:1). The shortage of women available to wed leaves many potential grooms unable to find matches, affecting the lives of many Chinese citizens. The One-Child Policy negatively affects Chinese society in this manner, as well as intensifying gender stereotypes that have been persistent in the history of the Chinese people. On the other hand, couples that do end up bearing only one daughter tend to internalize an alternate set of perceptions than those with a single son. Education Despite the frequent prejudices held against females in China, daughters brought up in an only child environment often receive certain advantages. In families of multiple children, with both girls and boys, girls were often treated as lesser family members. With largely predetermined plans, most women did not maintain a prominent position in their birth families through most of their adult life. Instead they would commit themselves to their husbands lives, integrating themselves into his family and adopting their new roles as wives and daughters-in-law. These temporary statuses often devalued daughters in the eyes of their birth families and therefore they were often denied certain opportunities and privileges than their male counterparts (Deutsch 2008:368). Although this specific mindset may be mostly outdated today, statistics show that women still tend to receive less education than men. The Chinese census taken in the year 2000 reflected a difference of approximately 1.1 years of schooling between the sexes (Cai and Wang 2008:443). However, couples that raise only one female child have only one child to rely on during their old age. As lesser schooling often leads to a lesser wage, and given the likelihood of females to earn a lower wage no matter what, parents of single daughters are more likely to invest more time and effort into their education than they might otherwise. Though still not expected to receive a higher level of education than boys, surveys taken in the late 1990s and early 2000s indicated a strong desire for equal education of both sexes (Cai and Wang 2008:443). There is a possibility that this could just be the reflection of the evolution of gender perceptions, though it is very likely that in China at the very least, the One-Child Policy had some effect on this new mentality. As touched upon earlier, the Policy forces elderly parents to rely on a single child for support in their old age. Having the option of relying solely on a female ch ild with a lesser degree of education points towards a less lucrative financial future. A parents desire for a more stable financial future may lead to the provision of a higher degree of education for his or her only daughter. Further adding onto the instability of a parents retirement well being is the fear of losing a daughter to the family of her husband. Without the possibility of additional children to depend on, parents of only daughters are less willing to give up their only child to the household of another family, and therefore tend to value self-sufficiency and education more, promoting increased gender equality. From this perspective, Chinas One-Child Policy creates both negative and positive effects. The Future of the Policy Numerous times in recent years, spokespeople for the National Population and Family Planning Commission of China have stated that the current family planning policy will not be revoked within the near future (Family Planning 2009:1). As a country with an estimated 1.3 billion people at the close of 2010, an efficient tactic for preventing overexpansion is a necessary component of national policy. The One-Child policy is still considered to be of the utmost importance for maintaining effective population control. However, as it currently exists, it is vital that a re-evaluation and revision of the policy take place. A 2009 survey indicated a desire for the allowance of second children by approximately 78% of the population (Family Planning 2010:1). As Chinas population continues to grow, it will be increasingly difficult to ensure that the policy is followed properly. Already, the policy has become harder to enforce, as the independence and wealth of the Chinese people continues to es calate (Hesketh, Lu and Xing 2005:17). The development of the country is such that the One-Child policy may not be practically feasible very shortly. An adaptation is necessary in order to upkeep the efficiency of the policy. In fact, those responsible for the policy seem to have already become aware of this. In 2002, while no major changes were made to its fundamentals elements, specific aspects of the policy were softened gently. Influenced by rising tensions between the Chinese government and its people, the strict quotas based around reproduction were done away with and couples no longer need to obtain permission to have their child (ibid:21). This was a positive step towards the future long-term continuation of the policy. In addition to the concerns of enforcement, there are other worrying issues surrounding the policy. As mentioned earlier, the insufficient numbers of females below 20 years of age is alarming. By the year 2020, it is estimated that the difference between men and women of marriageable age will be dangerously close to the 24 million mark. Authorities from within the Population Association of China are foreshadowing a spike in the sex industry of China, including the trafficking and solicitation of prostitution and pornography (Mcleod 2010:17). This severe imbalance poses an issue that must be addressed, so as to avoid continued long term damage to Chinese citizens and society. As the disproportion increases, it will become all the more necessary for the Chinese to review their Family Planning Policy and patch up the holes that are creating these issues. Conclusion Out of all the countries in the world, China is home to the greatest number of people. Shanghai, one of its most prominent cities, recently hit a landmark population of 23 million people (CNNGO 2011:4). Its population is showing no sign of slowing down naturally any time soon. Chinas rapid expansion makes a policy designated to control population a necessary element of governance. All the same, the current program working towards this goal is causing its own issues. Looking purely at the numbers, the One-Child Policy is working admirably, no doubt one of the reasons for why those in charge are hesitant to retract it. It is estimated that an astounding 250 to 300 million births have been prevented via this policy (Hesketh et al 2005:6). However, now the issues is not so much how many people make up the total population, but what people comprise it. The desire for sons has left many daughters unborn, abandoned, or put up for adoption as infants. This policy is the reason that I have tw o of my cousins, both girls adopted from China at a very young age, as part of my family. Through analyzing the effect that the One-Child Policy has had in the past 30 years, it is clear that in order to continue to be successful in the future, something must be done to re-balance the male-female demographic, as well as change the perception that many have of females as being less valuable than males. While an important part of Chinese government, the One-Child Policy must be adapted if it wishes to remain effective.

Behaviorism Essay -- Psychology, Pavlov, Thorndike

Behaviorism according to Craig & Dunn (2010, p.14), is defined as the view that the appropriate focus of psychology should be on observable behavior. There were several people that help contribute to the study of behaviorism; however there are five that were key in pioneering what we know today; Ivan Pavlov, Edward Lee Thorndike, John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner, and Albert Bandura. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born September 14, 1849 in Ryazan, Russia. His father was a poor village priest, who wanted his son to become a priest as well. Pavlov had planned to become a priest until the age of 21, when he decided he was more interested in a scientific career, (Crain, 2011, p.180). For most of his career he was dedicated to physiological investigations, and in 1904 he won the Nobel Prize for his work on the digestive system. According to Ivan Pavlov.com (2003) the most important dates of his life included, 1907 when he was elected Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1912 given an honorary doctorate at Cambridge University, and 1915 awarded the Order of the Legion of Honour at the recommendation of the Medical Academy of Paris. He died on February 27, 1936. Around the time that he turned 50 was when he started his work on the conditioned reflexes; however for a while he could not decide whether to pursue the implications of his new discovery or to continue with his earlier research, after a long struggle with it, he began studying the conditioning process (Crain, 2011, pp.180-181). Pavlov coined the classical conditioning â€Å"a type of learning in which an association is learned between an environmental event and the stimulus-response reflex that follows (e.g., a salivary response when a person smells delicious food, even before t... ...es the influence of the social behavior of others on our learning†, (Craig & Dunn, 2010, p.16). His most famous experiment was that of the Bobo doll, where he would have three sets of children watch a video, where an adult would begin to beat on the doll and in the end one would get punished, one would get praised, and one would have nothing at all. Then those groups would get their own Bobo doll and he would watch to see if they would have the same aggressions that the adults showed. Some of the important times of his life have been; 1953 began teaching at Stanford University, 1974 served as the president of APA, 1980 received the APA’s Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions, and 2004 Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology by the American Psychological Association, (Cherry, 2010). He is currently still alive and teaching at Stanford University.

Comparing Arnold’s Dover Beach to Hecht’s Dover Bitch Essay

Much as it is a poem of vivid images translated into feelings of melancholia and uber sentimentality, Dover Beach has been touted as one of Matthew Arnold’s most admired poems. It was probably composed in the summer of 1851 and subsequently revised for the volume of New Poems in 1867 (Baum, 1958, p. 85). The poem basks in the feelings of self-conflict, loneliness, alienation and inexplicable emotions set during the Victorian times. The poem consists of four sections or stanzas: the setting (1-14); Sophocles, or the Greek parallel (15-20); the sea at Dover and the Sea of Faith, or the parallel extended (21-28); and the personal appeal (29-37). At the start of the poem, readers could visualize a man standing at the edge of Dover Beach, feeling down and out. His tone is some what indifferent and philosophical about life’s iniquities. He then revealed that there is a woman with him, which he refers to as â€Å"love†. And, it then concludes with a pessimistic lamentation relative to the possibility of human happiness in a time bereft of faith: for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; Anthony Hecht’s Dover Bitch (1968) claimed notoriety in parodying the uber romantic machinations of the male persona in Dover Beach. Hecht even acknowledged Arnold in his poem and begins with these lines: So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them, And he said to her, ‘Try to be true to me, And I’ll do the same for you, for things are bad All over, etc. ’ Noteworthy is that Hecht frankly assumes Arnold to be the speaker and his companion to be a woman, but he does not go on to suppose that Matthew Arnold was telling her not to worry and to leave it all to him; he was fully aware that ‘things are bad/All over’ for everybody, not just for the two of them. There doesn’t seem to be any suggestion in Dover Bitch that Matthew is going to do ‘this girl’s’ worrying about the world as well as his own. Nor is there any such suggestion in Dover Beach; the speaker’s point is that they are both, and indeed we are all, in the same boat; he is as helpless as his friend, whatever the friend’s sex. Gender seems here to be about as irrelevant as it can ever be. Whatever the appearances to the contrary, the world â€Å"Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain†. Nearly everyone assumes that Dover Beach was written with Mrs. Arnold in mind. If one assumes further that the picture of Dover Beach in the moonlight – â€Å"Come to the window† -represents the stop of Arnold and his wife at Dover on their wedding journey in June 1851, there would be corroboration in the later lines: â€Å"the world which seems To lie before us . . . So various, so beautiful, so new†, there would be additional poignancy in the appeal â€Å"let us be true To one another† in spite of all its hostile forces mentioned in the poem. In fact, Duffin (1962) illustrated that Dover Beach provides a lovely picture of married love: the poet, looking out on the calm, moonlit straits, speaks over his shoulder to his wife. In his way, the poet interprets for her the sound of the waves upon the beach, hearing â€Å"the eternal note of sadness† and comparing it with the ebbing of â€Å"the Sea of Faith†. He lets the mood oppress him, making him see life as a loveless, joyless confusion of struggle and flight, with but one refuge—â€Å"Ah, love, let us be true/ To one another! † (p. 75). On the other hand, Hecht assumed that the girl was some sort of a high-class prostitute: Well now, I knew this girl. It’s true she had read Sophocles in a fairly good translation And caught that bitter allusion to the sea, But all the time he was talking she had in mind The notion of what his whiskers would feel like On the back of her neck†¦. To have been brought All the way down from London, and then be addressed As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty. Hecht translated Arnold’s romanticism and helplessness to be viewed by another person who exhibits anarchic individualism, who viewed the iniquities of the woman rather than the feeling. Hecht even deconstructed the poetry form of Dover Beach as he wrote the poem that has a casual tone, something that is spoken as a gossip in a tavern or bar. Readers could even probably assume that the speaker is a bartender. When the presence of the universal becomes more important than its structure, value comes to reside more in intensity than in the meaning of actions, more in the fact of participation with the forces of process than in the results achieved by action and society’s approval of them. Clearly, Hecht took advantage of Arnold’s aloofness to the girl at the starting stanzas. The woman’s presence is only recognized at the end of Arnold’s poem, crafted in such a way readers should think about the whole picture about what the remainder of the story really is. Hecht’s speaker in Dover Bitch could only roll his eyeballs about the uselessness of the heart-rending oration to a woman is who is not all interested in the entire romantic conflagration. The speaker feels that this woman more concerned with her own tangible pleasures than the speaker’s bleak view of life. Both poems are exquisite in their own way. Arnold’s poem was romantic and Hecht’s was allergic romantic. Arnold created this scene at the Dover Beach and Hecht just criticized the speaker in the poem to stop the â€Å"mournful cosmic last resort† idea to view and start to view life’s realities in a different perspective. It somewhat a poetic way of saying that â€Å"Life is a bitch, I know. Deal with it! † Clearly, reading these poems, readers could tell the significance of what â€Å"point-of-view† means when to ascertain what thoughts of the people could be in a story. Works Cited Baum, Paull F. Ten Studies in the Poetry of Matthew Arnold. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1958. Duffin, Henry Charles. Arnold the Poet. London: Bowes & Bowes, 1962.