Three Quantitive Forecasting

Identify three qualitative forecasting methods and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. 1. Jury of Executive Panel: Executive panel forecasting uses the expertise of experienced upper managers from various aspects of the business to predict forecast. Executives from areas such as sales, financial, operations and production get together to predict trends, sales, and demand estimates for their particular area of expertise. Advantages of Jury of executive include: a. Seasoned professional provides their opinion b.The responses provided are quick since executives are apart of the organization c. Vested interest in the company Disadvantages include: a. Group think (individual managers may go with the group instead of their own opinion) b. Tendency to go along with the #1 man/woman c. 2. Consumer Survey: This forecasting is focused directly to the consumer. A series of questions are presented to the consumer about a particular product or service. I have been asked to participate in numerous consumer surveys about a product or service that I have used.The survey may used to decide if a product should be created, changed or discontinued. It consist of a sampling consumer to determine demand/spending trends. Advantages of Consumer Survey include: a. Information comes directly from the source (the customer) b. Asks the customer their intention. c. Interviews done in person, although they can be time consuming, allows the interviewer to see the respondents body languages. Can probe for deeper questions Disadvantages of consumer survey include: a.Consumers may not be entirely truthful b. Interviews that are done in person can be time consuming. c. Mailing and telephone, although they take less time and money, do not allow for probing questions 3. Delphi Method: Delphi method of forecasting was developed by RAND in 1950 with the original intent to focus on how technology affected warfare. The Delphi method is made up of a panel of experts who answers a series of care fully designed questions. In addition to experts, Delphi method also uses staff and respondents.Delphi method requires anonymity, iteration, controlled feedback and statistical aggregation of respondents (Rowe and Wright, 1999). Because of anonymity, individuals are free to express their opinions without judgment or peer-pressure. Iteration gives them the opportunity to rethink their response after further consideration. Controlled feedback provides respondents with the opinion of the other members of the panel. Advantages of Delphi include: a. Anonymity: It allows respondents to freely give their opinion without fear of the other participants knowing who they are. b.It is conducted in writing so it allows the participants to respond at their convenience within a prescribed period of time. c. Is focused on the current issue only. Disadvantages of Delphi include: a. Anonymity is also a disadvantage. Because the other participants do not know who makes the opinion, there is no ownersh ip for the opinion given. Experts may not be fully committed as they will not receive credit for their opinion. b. Can be time consuming as it requires iterations. c. Requires participants’ time and commitment so some participants may back out before the study is completed.

No One’s A Mystery Essay

â€Å"No One’s a Mystery† is mainly about innocence and how coming-of-age plays an important role in a relationship. Tallent plays out a contrast between hopeful expectations and disappointing reality through the character of a naive, innocent girl involved with an older, experienced man. The girl appears to be very comfortable with Jack, even though he pushes her into hiding below the dashboard, and despite her spirited singing along with Rosanne Cash on the tape deck, her casual drinking of tequila, and her acceptance of the gift. The curiosity builds when he gives her a five-year diary for her eighteenth birthday, almost foreshadowing a future together. The girl had experienced many changes in consequence of being with Jack. Her loss of innocence is further emphasized as she offers the following insights regarding their future together: â€Å"Jack should be home any minute now, but I don’t know if I can wait until after the trout a la Navarra to make love to him. â€Å"In Tallent’s â€Å"No One’s a Mystery†, the story shows having faith in someone is difficult to do especially when you’re in a relationship with a person. In Jack and the girl’s case, the naive girl questions her future with Jack when he treats her like a child and mocks her when she speaks. Jack chooses to mock her realism by challenging her playfully. Although she still has a serious love for Jack, she is now jaded and aware of what difficulties lay ahead. Another example would be when she is interrupted by a skeptical comment from the older man she continues, â€Å"Little Jack is hungry for his supper.† Jack laughs as she draws to a close, â€Å"My nipples are a little sore from nursing Eliza Rosamund.† Stirring traces of sight, smell, sound, and touch, all feed into her introspective outlook, but strangely. The story, â€Å"No One’s a Mystery† by Elizabeth Tallent explores the relationship of two characters, whom are both rather disputable. The young girl in the story remains unnamed and could be considered naà ¯ve and dim-witted while the guy, Jack, is a chauvinist pig. He uses his 18 year-old admirer as an excuse to make himself think he is still young. It is a way to keep him in the frame of mind that he doesn’t need a wife, he can do what he wants and get what he wants without her. Jack doesn’t seem to want a predictable life. His comments to his admirer show that he isn’t ready to settle down with his wife. For the most part his comments are short and indirect, â€Å"It’s her,’ he said. ‘She keeps her lights on in the daytime. I cant think of a single habit in a woman that irritates me more than that.† This quote is showing Jack belittling his wife. It’s something that would be said in a high school relationship. He also puts her down once again by saying, â€Å"She thinks it’s safer. Why does she need to be safer? She’s driving exactly fifty-five miles an hour. She believes in those signs: ‘Speed Monitored by Aircraft.’ It doesn’t matter that you can look up and see the sky is empty† It’s like he is saying these comments to win his admirers affection. However when Jack saw his wife coming in the distance his actions showed little respect for his young admirer. Jack is a selfish person who only cares about himself. Usually cheaters do not look out for others but themselves but he demonstrates it in several ways. The girl notes â€Å"He pushed me down onto the dirty floor of the pickup and kept one hand on my head while I inhaled the musk of his cigarettes in the dashboard ashtray†. This is horrible to have to go through but the girl has fallen in love with him to the point where she doesn’t think anything is wrong with the situation. â€Å"When he saw that I was going to stay still he took his hand from my head and ran it through his own dark hair†. Jack has to be really inconsiderate to put someone through that. He cares for her about as much as he does with all his pop-tops that are on his truck floor. Later on in their trip Jack tells his admirer what he thinks she will be writing in her diary. â€Å"I wonder what I ever really saw in Jack. I wonder why I spent so many days just riding around in his pickup. It’s true he taught me something about sex†. This comment here shows a little about how Jack sees their situation. He knows its not going to last forever and it will come to and end with in a year. You can tell the two have a very comfortable sexual relationship by the â€Å"taught me something about sex† line in his speech. They are both so comfortable around it that he feels free to joke about it around her. Jack’s situation is not one that’s seen as mature or respectful among most people. He uses his lover for sex and keeps his wife in the dark of the whole situation. It is selfish and wrong for Jack to be acting like this. Jack does what he wants all day and has no respect for either of the two women involved in this affair, therefore showing a childish attitude.

Analysis of Optimal Conditional Heteroskedasticity Model

Analysis of Optimal Conditional Heteroskedasticity Model Abstract: Recently cryptocurrency markets have seen an immense growth. Bitcoin is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies accounting for the highest share of all cryptocurrency markets, even though it still remains rather unclear whether it resembles more to a currency, a commodity or an asset. Previous research has shown that Bitcoin is often used for investment purposes, a fact that suggests the importance of analysing its volatility. In this article, we examine the optimal conditional heteroskedasticity model, not only in terms of goodness-of-fit, but also in terms of forecasting performance, an area which has been underexplored in the case of Bitcoin. According to the results, the optimal conditional heteroskedasticity model that can fit the series is not the same as the one that can forecast it better. As modelling GARCH effects in Bitcoin market effectively is crucial for appropriate portfolio management, our results can help investors and other decision makers make more informed decisions. Keywords: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, GARCH, Volatility, Forecasting JEL classification: C22, C5, G1 1. Introduction Over the last few years, the analysis of Bitcoin has drawn a lot of both public and academic attention. Bitcoin is the first implementation of a concept called â€Å"cryptocurrency†, which was first described in 1998 by Wei Dai on the cypherpunks mailing list, suggesting the idea of a new form of money that uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions, rather than a central authority, but the first Bitcoin specification was published in 2009 in a cryptography mailing list by Satoshi Nakamoto ( Bitcoin.org 2017 ). The market of cryptocurrencies has grown remarkably with Bitcoin being considered the most famous cryptocurrency, with an estimated market capitalisation of $ 19.6 billion (coinmarketcap.com accessed on 8th March 2017), which currently accounts for around 84.4% of the total estimated cryptocurrency cap italisation. An overview of Bitcoin can be found in, e.g., Becker et al. (2013), Dwyer (2015), Frisby (2014), Bà ¶hme et al. (2015) and Selgin (2015). Hence, Bitcoin is only briefly introduced here. It has been previously argued that Bitcoin shares some elements of currencies. However, recent fluctuations in Bitcoin prices (see Figure 1) have resulted in unpredictable volatility undermining the role Bitcoin plays as a unit of account (Cheah and Fry 2015), while users have adopted Bitcoin not only as a currency but also for investment purposes. In fact, new users tend to trade Bitcoin on a speculative investment intention basis and have low intention to rely on the underlying network as means for paying goods or services (Glaser et al. 2014). The Bitcoin market is thus highly speculative at present, and therefore Bitcoin may be mostly used as an asset rather than a currency (Baek and Elbeck 2015; Dyhrberg 2016a). Moreover, recent studies have examined the hedging capabilitie s of the Bitcoin (see, e.g., Dyhrberg (2016a, b), justifying the view of it as an asset, as well as the role of different exchanges in the price discovery process of Bitcoin (Brandvold et al. 2015), while it has also been previously shown that cryptocurrency markets share some stylised empirical facts with other markets, e.g., a vulnerability to speculative bubbles (Cheah and Fry 2015). Consequently, Bitcoin has a place in the financial markets and in portfolio management (Dyhrberg 2016a). Bitcoin has posed great challenges and opportunities for policy makers, economists, entrepreneurs, and consumers since its introduction (Dyhrberg 2016b), while Bitcoin price volatility seems to be a major concern for most of the general public at this time (Bouoiyour and Selmi 2016). As a result, studying Bitcoin price volatility is of high importance. Following the extensive literature on modelling financial asset prices using the family of Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskeda sticity (GARCH) models, recently there has also been an increased interest in modelling Bitcoin price volatility using similar methods. Previous studies have used different types of GARCH models when examining the Bitcoin price volatility.For example, the simple GARCH model has been employed by Glaser et al. (2014), Gronwald (2014) and Dyhrberg (2016a). On the other hand, other studies have considered extensions to the GARCH model in order to study asymmetries in Bitcoin price volatility. For instance, the Exponential GARCH (EGARCH) model has been used by Dyhrberg (2016a) and Bouoiyour and Selmi (2015, 2016), the Threshold GARCH (TGARCH) ( GJR-GARCH ) model has been employed by Dyhrberg (2016b), Bouoiyour and Selmi (2015, 2016) and Bouri et al. (2017), while the Asymmetric Power ARCH (APARCH) and Component with Multiple Threshold-GARCH (CMT-GARCH) models have been used by Bouoiyour and Selmi (2015, 2016). Nevertheless, it is rather unclear which conditional heteroskedasticity mo del should be used when studying the Bitcoin price volatility. Previous studies of the Bitcoin price volatility have focused mainly on the use of a single conditional heteroskedasticity model, without comparing different GARCH-type models , though , with the only exceptions being the studies of Bouoiyour and Selmi (2015, 2016), which have split [PK1] the sample into different sub-periods, though , and the study of Katsiampa (2017/forthcomng?), which has not considered the risk-return relationships, though [PK2] . In addition, little attention has been paid to forecasting the volatility of the Bitcoin prices. To the best of the author’s knowledge only the study of Bouoiyour and Selmi (2016) has examined the forecasting performance of the CMT-GARCH and APARCH models, but no study has compared the predictive ability of different GARCH models with regards to Bitcoin. Consequently, we aim to contribute to the literature by investigating which conditional heteroskedasticity mode l can describe and forecast the Bitcoin prices better. The remainder of the article is organised as follows: The next section presents the models employed in this study. The data and methodology used in the study are discussed in the third section, while the fourth section details our empirical results. Finally, the conclusions drawn and the implications are presented in section five. 2. Models In this section, the models used in this research are introduced. The models consist of an Autoregressive model for the conditional mean and a first-order GARCH-type or a GARCH-in-Mean-type model for the conditional variance [1] , as follows , , , where is the Bitcoin price return on day , is the error term, is a white noise process, is the conditional standard deviation, and hence is the conditional variance. When is equal to zero, the resulting model is the autoregressive model with a GARCH-type specification for the conditional variance, while when is different from zero a GARCH-in-Mean-type specification for the conditional variance is obtained. Adding the standard deviation to the mean equation measures the risk and helps with the identification and measurement of any risk-return relationship. The conventional GARCH(1,1) model is represented by , with , and . The GARCH model (Bollerslev 1986) is undoubtedly one of the most popular models for describing the conditional variance of financial returns. Nevertheless, since its introduction, there have been proposed many extensions of the GARCH model and there have been a lot of advances in modelling the conditional variance. Hence in this study, we also consider five extensions to the linear GARCH model, namely the EGARCH model of Nelson (1991), the TGARCH model introduced by Glosten et al. (1993), the APARCH model proposed by Ding et al. (1993), the Component GARCH (CGARCH) model of Engle and Lee (1999) and the Asymmetric CGARCH (ACGARCH) model. All these models constitute example s of extensions of the simple GARCH model and have attempted to describe the conditional variance more accurately. Moreover, compared with the simple GARCH model, the EGARCH, TGARCH and APARCH models allow for different volatility responses to opposite signs of the previous shocks. More specifically, the EGARCH model is defined as , and considers the asymmetric volatility responses to negative news, that is , and positive news, , as given by the sign of , if is different from zero. The TGARCH model is given by , where is the indicator function, with if and 0 otherwise, suggesting that positive shocks and negative shocks have again different effects on the volatility, if is different from 0. On the other hand, the APARCH model is defined as , where , , , and . This model imposes a Box-Cox power transformation of the conditional standard deviation process and the asymmetric absolute residuals (Ding et al. 1993). Furthermore, in contrast with the G ARCH model, the conditional variance of which shows mean reversion to , which is a constant for all time, the CGARCH model allows for both a long-run component of conditional variance, , which is time varying and slowly mean-reverting, and a short-run component, , and is defined as . Christoffersen et al. (2008) demonstrated that by including both a short-run and a long-run component allows the CGARCH model to outperform the GARCH model. Finally, the Asymmetric Component GARCH (ACGARCH) model combines the CGARCH model with the TGARCH model, introducing asymmetric effects in the transitory equation, and takes the following form , where is a dummy variable which indicates negative shocks, while positive values of suggest the presence of transitory leverage effects in the conditional variance. 3. Data and methodology The data consists of daily closing prices for the Bitcoin Coindesk Index from 19 th July 2010 to 10 th January 2017. The estimation sample cover s the period between 19 th July 2017 and 31 st December 2017 leading to a total number of 2357 observations, while the remaining ten observations are used in the forecasting sample. The Bitcoin CoinDesk Index is listed in USD and the data are publicly available online at http://www.coindesk.com/price. The data are converted to natural logarithms, and then the returns are defined as , where is the logarithmic Bitcoin price index change and is the daily Bitcoin price index on day . Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the Bitcoin prices and price returns, respectively, in the estimation period. We start the empirical analysis by producing descriptive statistics for the Bitcoin price returns, while the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) and Phillips-Perron (PP) unit-root tests are also performed to examine the stationarity of the returns. As will be seen in the next section, the results show that the series is stationary. In order to choose the best model in terms of fitting to d ata, three information criteria, namely Akaike (AIC), Bayesian (BIC) and Hannan-Quinn (HQ), are employed. For given data sets, all of these information criteria consider both how good the fitting of the model is and how many parameters there are in the model, rewarding a better fitting and penalising an increased number of parameters. The preferred model is the one with the respective minimum criterion value. However, since model selection is often not only based on a model’s goodness-of-fit to data, but also on forecasting performance, it is important to also check the models’ predictive ability, as a better fitting model does not always lead to better forecasts. Hence, the best model specification in terms of forecasting is selected according to the Root Mean Squared Forecasting Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Forecasting Error (MAE) and Mean Absolute Percentage Forecasting Error (MAPE), all of which are used as measures of forecasting performance. Although the RMSE is one of the most commonly used measures of predictive ability, the additional measures have been used in order to verify the results. [2] The models’ forecasting performance is evaluated based on out-of-sample forecasts, and model selection is examined in terms of both multi-step-ahead and multiple 1-step-ahead forecasting. The preferred model is the one with the lowest values of the measures of predictive ability. Fig. 1 . Daily closing prices of the Coindesk Bitcoin Index (US Dollars). Fig. 2 . Daily Bitcoin price returns. 4. Results Table 1 reports the descriptive statistics for the daily returns of the Bitcoin price index. The daily average closing return is positive and equal to 0.5805% with a standard deviation of 0.0606. Moreover, the returns are positively skewed, indicating that it is more likely to observe large positive returns, and leptokurtic as a result of significant excess kurtosis. The Jarque-Bera (JB) test confirms the departure from normality, while the results of the ARCH(5) test for conditional heteroskedasticity show evidence of ARCH effects in the returns of the Bitcoin price index. Therefore the Autoregressive model for the conditional mean needs to be combined with an Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity process to model the conditional variance. It can be noticed that the ARCH effects can also be observed from Figure 2 where large (small) price changes tend to be followed by large (small) price changes over time. Furthermore, the results from both the Augmented Dickey-Fuller and Phillips-Perron unit root tests indicate that stationarity is ensured. Table 1. Descriptive statistics and unit roots tests. Panel A: Descriptive statistics Observations 2357 Mean 0.005805 Median 0.000741 Maximum 0.528947 Minimum -0.388309 Std. Dev. 0.060607 Skewness 0.873024 Kurtosis 15.64823 JB 16010.55*** ARCH(5) 56.56059*** Panel B: Unit root test statistics ADF -46.90888*** PP -47.56848*** Note: *** indicates the rejection of the null hypotheses at the 1% level. Next, the estimation results of the GARCH-type models are discussed. The conditional mean equation includes a constant and an autoregressive term, while the conditional variance is modelled by various competing GARCH models. The model parameters are estimated by using the maximum likelihood approach under the Gaussian distribution. Table 2 presents the estimation results of each model. These include the model parameter estimates, the log-likelihood values and the three information criteria values. In addition, the ARCH(5) test to check whether the conditional heteroskedasticity is eliminated and the Ljung-Box test for autocorrelation with 10 lags applied to squared residuals, as well as the Jarque-Bera (JB) test of norm ality of the residuals have been used as diagnostic tests, the results of which are also reported in Table 2. According to the results, both the AIC and HQ information criteria select the AR(1)-ACGARCH(1,1) model as the preferred model in terms of fitting to data, followed by the AR(1)-CGARCH(1,1)-M and AR(1)-CGARCH(1,1) models, suggesting the important role of having both long-run and short-run components of conditional variance. The log-likelihood is also maximised under the AR(1)-ACGARCH(1,1) model. On the other hand, the preferred model according to the BIC is the AR(1)-CGARCH(1,1), followed by the AR(1)-ACGARCH(1,1) model. The latter result could be explained, though, by the fact that the BIC penalises more a higher number of model parameters, and hence the selection of the AR(1)-ACGARCH(1,1) model seems appropriate. It can also be noticed that for the AR(1)-ACGARCH(1,1) model all the parameter estimates are statistically significant. Moreover, the results of the ARCH(5) an d tests applied to the squared residuals of the AR(1)-ACGARCH(1,1) model indicate that the selected AR(1)-ACGARCH(1,1) model with Gaussian distribution is correctly specified because the hypotheses of no remaining ARCH effects and no autocorrelation cannot be rejected. Furthermore, despite the fact that the residuals still depart from normality, the value of the Jarque-Bera statistic associated with the residuals of the AR(1)-ACGARCH(1,1) model is much lower than the corresponding value for the raw returns. Consequently, the AR-ACGARCH model seems to be useful to describe the volatility of the returns of the Bitcoin price index. This result seems to be consistent with the study of Bouoiyour and Selmi (2016) [PK3] who found that the best model for the period from December 2010 to December 2014 is the CMT-GARCH model, which also includes both transitory and permanent components as well as thresholds related to positive and negative shocks. With regards to the out-of-sample for ecasting performance, the five- and ten-day-ahead forecasts as well as the five and ten 1-day-ahead forecasts of the twelve competing GARCH-type models were generated. We then compared the models’ forecasting performance based on the three mean loss functions (RMSE, MAE and MAPE). Table 3 reports the obtained results, while the bold numbers indicate the best model in terms of forecast accuracy. An interesting finding is that overall the information criteria for model selection in terms of goodness-of-fit do not agree with the measures of predictive ability. Even though the minimum RMSE values of the 10-step-ahead and ten 1-step-ahead forecasts were both given for the AR-CGARCH model, a result which is consistent with the Bayesian Information Criterion, the results of the other two measures of predictive ability (MAE and MAPE) showed that there are other models that perform better than the AR-ACGARCH and AR-CGARCH models when it comes to forecasting. More specifically, the minimum RMSE values of the 5-step-ahead and five 1-step-ahead forecasts were both given for the AR-EGARCH-M model. On the other hand, the lowest MAE and MAPE values of the 5- and 10-step-ahead forecasting as well as those of the five 1-step-ahead forecasting were all given for the AR-EGARCH model. The lowest MAE value of the ten 1-step-ahead forecasting was also given for the AR-EGARCH model, while the lowest MAPE value of the ten 1-step-ahead forecasting was given for the AR-APARCH-M model. In summary, according to our estimation results the AR-ACGARCH model is preferred to the other competing models in terms of volatility estimates for the returns. However, the preferred model in terms of forecasting is overall the AR-EGARCH. This result is crucial for portfolio management and decision making in general by individuals who use Bitcoin for speculative purposes. Finally, it should be noted that the model parameters were estimated under the Student- t and GED distributions as well, but as there was no improvement in either the goodness-of-fit or forecasting performance, the results are not reported here. [3] This is in contrast with the results of the study of Bouri et al. (2017) who found that the TGARCH(1,1) model under the GED density is the best fit. 5. Conclusions Over the last few years cryptocurrency markets have grown to a great extent, with Bitcoin having attracted a lot of attention from both the public and researchers. This article aimed to offer a discussion into Bitcoin price volatility by selecting an optimal GARCH-type model in terms of both goodness-of-fit to data and forecasting performance chosen among several extensions. It was found that even though the best model in terms of goodness-of-fit is the AR-ACGARCH, a result which is consistent with previous studies [PK4] , with regards to forecasting performance the best model seems to be overall the AR-EGARCH. Consequently, if the objective is to find the best model in terms of pr edictive ability, model selection based on information criteria only might not be adequate. As Bitcoin can combine some of the advantages of both commodities and currencies in the financial markets (Dyhrberg 2016a), it can be a useful tool for portfolio analysis and risk management. Hence, individuals in portfolio and risk management need to get a more detailed view of the Bitcoin price volatility. Our results may thus have important implications mainly for investors but also for other decision makers, such as policymakers, as they can enable them to make more informed decisions.

American Superconductor Company Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

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Contemporary Private Security Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

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Stems Cells - Research Paper Example Stem cells refer to undifferentiated cells that have the capacity to differentiate and form specialized types of cells; these cells also have the ability for self regeneration. The potential of stem cells to differentiate encompasses the ability to develop and form other cell types. For instance, a totipotent stem cell such as a fertilized egg can develop into cell types such as embryonic membranes. In addition, a pleuripotent stem cell can advance and develop into cell types, which may emanate from all three germinal layers. Self-regeneration entails how stem cells divide, leading to the production of other stem cells. The division takes place symmetrically during the early stages of development. This means that each cell undergoes division, resulting to daughter cells that have the same potential (Panno 1). Later on, asymmetrical division takes place with one of the daughter cells produced during symmetrical division, leading to the production of a stem cell and another cell that has more differentiation. Stem cells tend to occur in most multi-cellular organisms. They have the ability to undergo mitotic cell division and renew themselves. As a result, they may differentiate into numerous specialized cell types Panno 10). There are two main sources of stem cells; these include embryos that may be formed during embryological development (embryonic stem cells) and adult tissue, which can also be referred as adult stem cells. Adult stem cells can also be referred as somatic stem cells; after the development of the embryo, they can be found all over the body. Embryonic stem cells emanate from a human embryo, which can be four or five days in the development phase known as a blastocyst Panno 12). Cloning refers to the process whereby there is the production of multiple offspring that tend to be identical. It entails the asexual production of a copy that looks exactly like the original. For instance, cloning can be used in the production of

Argument Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 5

Argument - Essay Example In return, there has been high agricultural production. Opponents of organic food argue that organic farming methods wastes land since they use less land. Further, they argue that there is no prove that organically produced foods are more nutritious than genetically produced foods. Therefore, there is the need to change some assumptions about genetically engineered crops (Dena and Stave 348). Majority of people who use organic food argue that they do so because they aim to avoid health hazards associated with it. Further, they argue that it is good to practice natural methods of food production since it is perceived that food produced using natural methods is healthy and contain less chemicals such as pesticides. For instance, drawing from an experiment conducted on children in US, the urine of those children who consumed foods grown conventionally had more pesticides residues than the urine sample of those children who consumed food grown naturally. Production of food organically does not destroy soil quality but instead keeps the quality of the soil because it does not involve the use of synthetic fertilizers that makes the soil lose its nitrogen and other important nutrients (Dena and Stave 349-352). In addition, organic food encourages biodiversity in the sense that it does not foster the use of intensive herbicides and pesticides that endanger crop species but instead they use no herbicides and apply less pesticide thus increasing the soil organic matter. Conventional farming use synthetic fertilizers made from nitrogen, which in turn finds its way into lakes, rivers, and other ecosystems thus affecting water surroundings. Contrary, organic farming does not pollute the ecosystem because farmers use fewer fertilizers and in some cases, they do not use any fertilizers. It is significant to note that organic method of farming

Primary and Community Care Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Primary and Community Care Policy - Essay Example These families need to be supported on the huge responsibilities (Department of Health 2008). Primary care is diverse and wide in terms of its healthcare with different skilled people who work for the care of patients. Patients can be taken care of by different community service in the comfort of their homes (Walshe and Smith 2011). This paper will review the health care policy relevant to the primary or community care setting, and identify the key factors of the policy and analyze how effective the policy has been in the primary and community environment. This document will analyze some of the major policies that are often discussed. Health care policy Health care policy is the strategic plan, and decision performed to achieve specific health care goal within a society. An explicit health care can make up for a couple of important things (Nolan and Badger 2002). It sets up a vision for the future that assists in establishing targets of reference for the short and medium term goals. It lays down the priorities, and the role expected of different groups, and it creates consensus and informs people on the better way of life. Various policies have been placed to ensure that children are in a position to have the best start of life, and support their families need to give them in the form of a chance to fulfill their potentials. In essence, children and young adults with a grievous life condition are in positions that best equate them to access of high-quality, family centered, sustainable care support, with services provided in a selected setting, as stated by the children, and their families’ desires (Nolan and Badger 2002). The services shall be commissioned and delivered in line with identified local need and national policy and driven by best practice. These practices are associated with the myriad of services that are generally provided in the proposed settings, those that have been chosen by the children, and their families’ (Sines et al 2009). Moreover, disabled children will be considered both at local and national priority in all the settings that the government shall be undertaking. The healthcare communities must be in positions where they can deliver excellent health care services to all their clients without discrimination of the payment of services. According to Smith and Goodwin 2005, better care in all the settings ensures help in improving the outcome for children, young people together with families who might be living with limiting and threatening health conditions (Ashworth et al 2002). Effect created by policy in primary and community environment. Partnership working The government is determined on working together with other partners in the voluntary and private sector in sharing the agenda towards the realization of better changes in the improvement of lives for children who experience life-limiting and life-threatening conditions like the disabled persons. Patient care teams are professionals who are div erse in their line of duty. In fact, the professionals continually communicate on the best ways of taking care and attending to different patient groups, and participate in the care through out. Good working teams are depicted by strong working leadership that is effective, shared obligations, common visions, and cooperation, and obedience, members must also invest in their talents, defined roles, and responsibilities (Cox and Hill 2010). This

Employer's Duty of Care and Issues of Compensation Assignment - 1

Employer's Duty of Care and Issues of Compensation - Assignment Example If the instructions are not stated clearly, the employee may act in good faith to fulfill a particular duty of obedience. This should be done in a manner that is reasonable especially considering the existing circumstances at that particular moment. Jake has been employed on a contract basis as certified auto mechanic at the Rally motors. This therefore means that Jake may perform any job assigned to him by his employer provided the job is reasonable. Even as Jake performs the job assigned to him, he is aware of what is expected of him by the federal or state regulations. Basing on the movie, one can comfortably say that Jake’s actions are within his scope of employment. The current job of oil change is, most likely, not what Jake expected as he entered into an employment agreement with Herman. Instead it is a promotional offer invented by Herman to attract more customers as he says that as the customers’ cars are being serviced, the customers get a chance to check out the new car models. So Jake may argue that as far as what is expected of him in terms of standards is concerned, his actions are within his scope of employment (Goss, 2004). It may be argued that every employee has an obligation to perform his duties as directed by his employer. Such arguments may be as a result shortsightedness in terms of the potential impacts it may have on the business in the future. In this case, for example, customers expect a fully serviced vehicle from the service department especially if the service personnel like Jake are certified. So, it is Jake’s responsibility to do thorough service work on the customers’ vehicles and this includes checking and where possible servicing the tires, brakes and transmission as would be expected of a certified auto mechanic (Murolo & Chitty, 2001). This ensures that the vehicle is safe for driving by the customer. If a vehicle from the service centre gets involved in an accident and the resultant

How We Learn Essay Example for Free

How We Learn Essay ‘What have I learned about learning, and what are the implications of this for my future practice?’ In this assignment I will be identifying in a personal way, what I have learnt about learning from my own education and also drawing from my previous experiences. I will also be exploring ways in which I believe, for my future practice as a teacher, children will be able to achieve their full learning potential. â€Å"Learning is a complex concept and activity† (Hewitt 2008) in which every individual does in enabling them to gain new skills or knowledge. Every individual learns in a different way, where as one technique may work well for one individual, it may not work for another. We should never stop learning in order to progress as an individual. In order for the skills and knowledge to remain stored individuals should keep using the skills in which they have acquired overtime. These skills should be applied to different things such as projects so that the skills are remained stored and fresh in the mind. As every individual has a certain learning style, to help us learn more effectively it is best to know and understand our learning style. Through identifying your learning style, you will be able to capitalise on your strengths and improve your self-advocacy skills. Learning a specific subject, knowledge, skill and so on, is down to many factors which play an important role in learning, these include: intelligence; aptitude; goals; interests; readiness maturation; motivation; self-concept; attitudes values; level of aspiration; learning style and socio cultural determinants – to name a few. I believe that interests and goals are the catalyst to being a successful teacher. Children’s motivational levels in subjects need to be at a high level in order for the child to reach their full potential with their learning capabilities. â€Å"Interest is one of the most important factors which mediates learning and which motivates to act† (Factors Affecting Learning), if a child is not fully engaged in a particular subject due to low levels of interest then their learning capabilities will not be fulfilled. Whilst working in a school setting in 2010, child A stated†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I can’t do maths it doesn’t interest me† when there is no interest from the child, as shown in the example, there can be no learning. For my future practice it is vital that every child’s interest is engaged in subjects in order for the child to  fulfil their whole learning capabilities. Young children possess a need for activity, play, adventure etc. and therefore learn much better through a play way approach. This intern arouses their interest in learning and helps sustain their involvement in learning new skills and knowledge through their work. For effective learning to take place, we should be able to relate it to all that we learn. This will enable us to achieve our goals. â€Å"Goals play a significant role in learning since they give strength and direction to it† (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development) because goals help to direct our attention to the task at hand. Psychologist Murphy and Alexander (2000) have written abo ut a variety of goal orientations which help us to understand learners learning and performance especially at a young age. â€Å"The important orientations are the learning goals, performance goals and work avoidance† (British Journal of Educational Psychology). In my future practice as a teacher, in order to gain children’s interest in learning my aim will be to encourage children to be curious and eager to learn. From my work placement in a school setting, children are more successful when they learn to ask questions, think independently and also being very creative. Children need to be curious about the world, interested in how things work, and also know how to creatively approach problems. Child B asked a question†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Do Fly’s sleep?† I resisted answering the question straightaway and asked Child B â€Å"What do you think? Where do you think we could find the answer?†. In responding in this way, I was encouraging Child B to think for themself, this also helps children build their self-esteem. Creativity is a very important tool in every individuals learning, â€Å"creativity is essentially a form of problem-solving. But it is a special type of problem-solvingone that involves problems for which there are no easy answers: that is, problems for which popular or conventional responses do not work. Creativity involves adaptability and flexibility of thought. These are the same types of skills that numerous reports on education† (e.g., the Carnegie Report, 1986) have suggested are critical for students (Creativity in Young Children). During my work placement in a school setting, creativity was essential for progressive learning. In order for creativity to take place the school created an environment that allowed the children to explore and play without undue restraints. Also, a key to the successful progression of every child’s learning was that we adapted to  every childs ideas, rather than trying to structure the child’s ideas to fit the adults. Learners need to have the opportunity and confidence to take risks, challenge assumptions, and also see things in a new way. I believe in educating the whole child as education comes from a wide range of experiences. All powerful learning occurs through engagement with others, the process and also the product of this learning is very important. Children learn mainly by modelling, actions speak louder than words. â€Å"The majority of learning is tied to developments and takes time to see results† (Emphatic parenting). In order to teach children, we need to supportively help them understand first. A vital part of all learning is that of reflecting over what the individual has learnt. Every individual matters in the learning process because every individual has equal rights to dignity and also respect. As seen, I have learnt about a vast amount of learning techniques that will enable children to reach their full potential, as well as realising how this will be applied throughout my life as a continual learner. I have also, through-out my educational life and previous experience in my placement, discovered the ways in which I learn. This will now enable me to take this knowledge and skill base and apply this to progress successfully in my future practice as a teacher. Bibliography * P. K. Murphy and P. A. Alexander. A motivated exploration of motivation terminology. Contemporary Educational Psychology 25. 2000. Pages. 3–53. * http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/Creativity_in_kids.html * http://www.education.vic.gov.au/studentlearning/studentreports/schools/personalgoals/suppdevplg.htm * http://www.unco.edu/cebs/psychology/kevinpugh/motivation_project/resources/pintrich00.pdf * https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=vq=cache:Q96li6CTQZIJ:pgche09.middlesex.wikispaces.net/file/view/Designing%2BModules%2Bfor%2BLearning.pdf+emerging+beliefs+and+values+about+learninghl=engl=ukpid=blsrcid=ADGEESiw1wdWPcNk-ZQBL2ACM-0-W7K9O1lstl04yY3WlPsommKZNp5iTWsBOHljIA1MRtl54C9rRZR-3qAr5EDvHKuYlDM9gfX_60nQdQPd2MKpVMLOWXZLH0h7eLLO3xdmc9TmBKhKsig=AHIEtbSk1Lb_X3XtcRobYxX30al-Ig7KQw * http://www.egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/32872/1/Unit-5.pdf *

A Straight Sprint Essay Example for Free

A Straight Sprint Essay In this 1st session I will start by telling the players what they are going to do and make sure they know when they are expected to come to the sessions.  This session I will be using the 1st warm-up that I described previously. Also I will be looking at how they perform this as an indication of how fit the players are and maybe reconsider certain parts of my other sessions, if I feel that they will be too physically demanding for the players. The aim of this session is to improve the way and the effectiveness of getting free.  This session will be all about coaching the players how to get free and different methods of getting free. These are as follows:  A Straight Sprint- from their position, turn with both feet facing the direction of movement and sprint to the side of the opponent to give maximum space.  Starting on a line, I will shout go for them to sprint to the next line on the court.  How fast a player can sprint will determine whether or not they can get free. With practise players can become faster and maximise chances of getting away from opponents. Change of Direction Sprinting in one direction before turning on the balls of the feet to sprint in the opposite direction. On my command from the top line of the court they will sprint and when I shout turn, they will turn on the balls of their feet and sprint off again.  This method takes practise and is not always easy for everyone to do. Being able to change direction quickly is important, as not only do you lose the marker you can quickly adapt your direction to play, for example to receive a pass. Change of Speed vary the use of speed, finishing with a sprint. Dont waste energy running fast all the time, jog then quickly change speed into a sprint to get away from a marker and receive a pass. When going through the change of speed method I will shout jog, then suddenly shout sprint and then walk. I will mix the speeds up to get them used to changing speed. This is a good method if your marker gives up easily or is not as fit as you, walking or jogging away when you see the direction of play change can give an advantage, putting a bigger gap between you then sprinting to receive a pass. We will then finish of with a cool down that will take about 10minutes.  Session 2  The Warm up they will be doing in this session will be the general one as it is more physical.  Reverse Pivot or Rolling Off step to one side to draw the defender, pivot on that foot, make quick half turn with back towards defender and sprint in the opposite direction and in a semi circle.  They will go through this skill in pairs, I will shout go and the attacker will go  through the skill trying to get away from the defender. Then the players will  switch places. Sprint/stop/Sprint This is used when an opponent is faster than you, or it could be a fake and go. By faking a run this will confuse the marker and the player can get away to receive a pass. I will shout go and they will sprint, each line they come to they will make a clear stop then sprint on again.  Running the gauntlet  In a designated area, using lines or cones, the white team must attempt to dodge past each defending player. Defending players must only use sideways steps along the linein order to prevent them getting past. This makes the attackers improve their use of sharp and committed movements while practising their getting free techniques to lose the defenders. Changing round so everyone gets a few goes.  Play running the gauntlet, this helps them put into practise the techniques they have learnt in the last session. Hopefully they will improve and use what they know about getting free. They will then do a good cool down as they will have been running a lot.  Session 3  The aim of this session will be to work with the year 9s and give them some different Centre pass tactics to try out, they can then decide which will work best for them and then work on it.  In this session I will be including the 2nd warm up as the session isnt very physically demanding and will not need a vigorous warm up.  I am going to coach centre pass tactics, I feel that knowing new tactics and knowing how to carry them out will be vital for the year 9 team, to help them improve further.

Economic and Social impact of income inequality

Economic and Social impact of income inequality Globalisation has revolutionised the world in many great ways. Heshmati (2003) defined globalisation as the free movements of goods, services, and capital across countries, thus, enabling individuals and organisations to connect with the world in a faster and more economical way as compared to before. However, the rapid growth of globalisation can also be viewed from a different perspective; as they say there are two sides of the same coin. Although globalisation has widened opportunities for organisations to operate internationally and improve economic growth, it does create pressures which would lead to the increase of inequality and poverty in some countries (Duncan, 2000). Income inequality is the disparity of income distribution between the rich and the poor within an economy. Income inequality is also linked to relative poverty, where individual or household income falls below the average income level set by the country which determines the peoples status. The Gini coefficient is the most common method used to measure income inequality. It is based on the Lorenz curve which compares the distribution of a specific variable with the line of perfect equality. According to Slack and Rodrigue (2009), the Gini coefficient ranges from 0 to 1; where 0 represents perfect equality while 1 means complete inequality. Most countries in the world have a Gini coefficient ranging from 0.25 to 0.6. The degree of income inequality, its effect on social and economics, as well as methods to overcome the matter will be discussed further in this report. 2.0 The Degree of Income Inequality Sachs (2008) mentioned in his book that inequality is one of the devastating crises that the world has been experiencing for the past two decades, although it has been around for centuries. The Human Development Report 2002 proved that in 1820, Western Europes per capita income was approximately three times greater than the per capita income of Africa. However, by 1992, the difference has increased up to 13.2 times. This situation reflects the well-known phrase the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Income inequality has become a very serious issue because the increasing gap between the rich and the poor is too great to ignore. This gap exists either because the rich are getting much wealthier or the poor are falling behind, or even both. Now the question is why are the rich getting richer? There are a few reasons to name, but the main drive of inequality is due to the increase inequality of labour earnings. High pays are usually rewarded to skilled workers as well as those with tertiary education qualifications, whereas unskilled workers become the victims of inequality. Unskilled workers are struggling to survive with the mere low wages they earned that does not commensurate with the long hours of work performed. In the worst case scenario, their work might get taken over by immigrants who are more than happy to accept such amount of wage. Stilgitz (2002) quoted: The Westerns may feel working at Nike as exploitation because they receive low pays, but for many people in developing countries, working in a factory is better than staying down on the farm. Not only that, but with the advancement of technology and innovations, computers nowadays are capable of developing productivity in many sectors, thus, creating a high possibility of unskilled labours to be substituted off. Labours who are skilled with machineries and computers on the other hand are in demand for employment. Another reason why the rich are getting richer is owing to corruption. Corruption as defined by the Oxford dictionary is a dishonest or fraudulent act by those in power, which includes but is not limited to embezzlement, bribery, extortion, and fraud. In poor countries, those ranked at the top of the hierarchy are controlling money for their own gain instead of distributing for the societys welfare. Exploitation of natural resources in the third world country by the rich countries also leaves the poor in poverty as the large amount of money received was not returned to the people. Afrikhan (2011) quoted Kwame Nkrumah, the leader of Ghana, saying foreign capital is used by the western powers for exploitation rather than developing the less fortunate countries. In other words, the increase of foreign investments in less developed countries unfortunately does not reduce the gap between the rich and the poor countries. Therefore, yes, income inequality is a very serious matter that should be taken into account because it is directly related to the welfare of society in a country. While it might be argued that inequality creates a positive result in terms of a healthy competition and as motivation to lead a better life, the truth remains that income inequality is nothing but a burden towards society. 3.0 Effects of Income Inequality As mentioned earlier, income inequality is a growing concern not only within a country but is a serious global issue. In this section, the effects of growing income inequality on a countrys economy and social development will be discussed. 3.1 Economy Through the years, economists and policy makers have argued on the possible effect of income inequality on economics. According to Kuznets theory, the relationship of economic growth on income inequality can be illustrated by an inverted-U graph. When a country develops economically, the income inequality of that country worsens. A few decades later as a country grows wealthier with the rich investing more in the economy, the level of inequality reduces. However, the Kuznets theory seems to only apply on developed countries because studies on the third world countries have shown contrasting results (Samanta and Heyes, 2006). Human capital is a great asset to a countrys development because knowledgeable and skilled labours are the drivers of economy. In most poor countries, their economic growth is stunted by the high percentage of unemployed and unskilled labours due to the lack of education. Yet, in actuality, among those who are unfortunate to receive proper education, there are a great number of them who have potential to lead a better life. Regrettably, they do not have the opportunity to pursue education in order to contribute to the development of economy. As a result, the poor are not capable of providing goods and services to the economy that would generate high returns. Other than that, the vicious circle of poverty also affects the economy. This vicious circle is a self-perpetuating process which returns to its initial point with no development from when it begun (Gary, 2010). The vicious circle of poverty is when a person earns low salary, they do not have enough money for savings, and thus, they are restricted to invest which then results in low productivity. Once again, low productivity causes low income, and the cycle repeats itself again continuously. In addition, when income is low, consumption decreases as well. Due to this, the government are spending a large amount of money to eradicate the problem instead of investing on the countrys development, thus causing the drop in economic growth. If the cycle persists in long-term, the economy of the country would face greater risk. In a country suffering from high income inequality, there is a possibility that political instability will occur and would then lead to social unrest that could affect the countrys economy. An example is the current issue in Egypt; where the citizens were dissatisfied with the high levels of corruption, low wages, and poor living conditions. As a result, they protested against their President and government, and it caused serious social unrest. This political instability could discourage domestic and foreign investments; hence, underdeveloped economy. 3.2 Social The inequality affects peoples quality of life greatly when there is a gap between those with high and low income. However, the wealthier people of a country are not affected by the problem at all; instead they are enjoying their wealth in ways we cant even imagine. Take China as an example; there are thousands of people with low living standards in mainland China working in factories with low wages, but people in cities like Shanghai on the other hand are living their lives luxuriously. This situation shows that the income inequality of China is relatively high with a Gini coefficient of 0.42 in year 2007, as stated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In other words, income inequality affects a countrys social development negatively in terms of living standards, health, education and crime rates. Living standards is a measure of material welfare of a population in a certain geographic area. For people with low income, they face difficulties as the living standard would be relatively high for them in order to support their daily necessities as well as their families. Hunger and malnutrition is a very common problem among those unemployed as money is a limited factor. Based on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 2010 report, most of the worlds hungry are from developing countries which consist of 16% of the population. The second impact of income inequality is on the societys health. When there is inequality, it is clear that the less fortunate are affected greatly as they lack access to safe drinking water, exposed to unhygienic environment, and receives inadequate medical services. Some of the common diseases that affect the poor in third world countries are malaria, tuberculosis, kwashiorkor, pneumonia, and AIDS. The unavailability of clinics and medication supplies in certain geographic areas worsens this condition. Not only that, but ignorance in birth control and contraption increases the rate of those suffering from HIV/AIDS. Due to this reasons, the mortality rate in those areas will keep increasing terrifyingly unless safety measures are taken into action. Thirdly, the social effect of income inequality is on education. With limited money to invest, most people with low income do not have the chance to enrol their children into school to obtain proper education. Even if they do have the opportunity, they couldnt afford to continue to the tertiary level without any monetary support. Due to that, most of the poor are trapped in the vicious circle as mentioned earlier. For example, if a man is a low income worker, his son who lacks proper education would have to take up low income works as well; and the cycle of unskilled workers in the mans family will run through the next generation continuously if there is no government intervention. The final social effect on a countrys development is the increase of crime rates. When money is scarce and an individual is desperate for survival, one would do absolutely anything in order to continue living. Theft and robbery is a major problem in most countries as crime is the only way for them to obtain material goods instead of using proper methods. This is because the income inequality that affects the poor has forced a high level of stress upon them, which leads them to committing crimes. Therefore, it is apparent that the crisis of income inequality affects negatively in a countrys development either in terms of economic growth or social welfare. 4.0 Ways to Combat Income Inequality Countries worldwide have already taken action to reduce the wide gap between the rich and the poor by adopting new policies. The government of a country plays an important role in order to overcome the problem of income inequality. The first method to combat inequality is the government should manage their budget system relevantly. The governments main source of income comes from the tax paid by the people of a country as well as foreign investments into the country. Apart from investing on the countrys economy development and welfare expenses, the government should allocate and contribute money to the less fortunate too. One way of contribution is through unemployment benefits which were imposed in some countries such as Australia, Ireland, United Kingdom and Japan. Unemployment benefits are payments to the unemployed by the government or an authorised body of a country. Although the pay is not much, it is sufficient for them to fulfil their basic necessities. With the aid of this b enefit, the rate of unemployment and poverty decreases, thus, reduces the gap of inequality. My second recommendation is to provide training to unskilled labours that has great potential to work in high income jobs. By providing proper education and skills to the poor community, chances of them to break free from the poverty trap are higher. As mentioned earlier, there are actually quite a number of people with potential who are not given the opportunity to display their true potential because they lack education. Therefore, by establishing a program where potential people from the poor community are given training to work in sectors other than agriculture and industrial, will allow them to live their lives a little wealthier than before. The next step to overcoming income inequality is by providing education to the less fortunate with the governments support. Such as building schools in less developed areas, allocate accredited teachers to these areas to educate them, and providing scholarships so that they can move on to tertiary level education. It seems that obtaining a certified education is the only way to demolish the inequality between them and the wealthy. With proper education, it is not impossible for the poor to join the workforce alongside those people whose parents are wealthy enough to support them to study. In other words, education is able to reduce income inequality because they will then be earning the same salary and also automatically improves their living standards. The last possible approach in combating income inequality is through standardising minimum wage per hour for unskilled workers. By standardising minimum wage, living standards of the poor can be recovered and also stimulate consumptions. However, there are arguments indicating this policy would be a disadvantage to a country because foreign investors would opt to invest in other countries which do not apply such policy. Though there is truth behind these words, if countries worldwide practice this policy together, it would provide positive outcomes to the less fortunate. 5.0 Conclusion Throughout this report, I have discussed that the rising of income inequality is indeed a serious matter in which its impact can be seen to affect both economy and social development of countries globally. The disparity of income between the rich and poor ought to be reduced in order to achieve an equal and better living standard among society. Although I am aware that income inequality cannot be solved overnight, I believe that steps should be taken to overcome the problem. Therefore, in conclusion, special policies and global efforts are required to combat income inequality in order to accelerate economic and social development.

Albert Einstein Essay -- Biography Biographies

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (1879-1955) is believed to be the greatest scientist of the 20th century. He developed many theories that led to many breakthroughs. With his well-known famous look, the white messy hair and the absent-minded look on his face, he was the perfect example of the typical scientist. Einstein became internationally renowned as a leading scientific thinker and as an accomplished mathematician. His contributions to science have left a lasting impression throughout the universe. Albert Einstein was a highly intelligent man who earned many honors and accomplishments. Born into a Jewish family at Ulm, Germany on March 14, 1879, Einstein spent his youth in Munich, where his father, Hermann and his uncle, Jacob Einstein, owned a small shop that manufactured electric machinery. His mother encouraged him to study music, but it was his Uncle Jacob who inspired his fascination for mathematics. As a youth, he showed a brilliant ability to understand difficult mathematical concepts. In 1895, Einstein failed an exam that would have allowed him to study for a diploma as an electrical engineer in Zurich. Following the failing of the entrance exam, Einstein attended secondary school at Aarau and planned to use this route to enter the school in Zurich. In 1900, he succeeded with his plan graduating as a teacher of mathematics and physics. For two years Einstein worked as a tutor and substitute teacher. In 1902, he secured a position as an examiner in the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. Einstein married Mileva Maric in 1903, a classmate of his, and they had two so ns named Hans Albert and Edward. However, the outbreak of World War I made him separated from his family and him and his wife divorced in 1919. Einstein late... ...arted preparing for death by drawing up his will in 1950. One week before his death, Einstein signed his last letter. It was a letter in which he agreed that his name should go on a manifest urging all nations to give up nuclear weapons. Albert Einstein died during his sleep April 18, 1955 in Princeton after many years of bad health. "Albert Einstein ranks with Galileo and Newton as one of the great conceptual revisers of our understanding of the universe," Jonas Maxe. All of his life Albert Einstein devoted himself to the world not only with his scientific accomplishments, but his political and social causes as well. It is amazing that the one person who gave us the conceptual understanding of the universe made his last act before death a plea for international peace. Albert Einstein contributed to the world lasting meaning and will always be remembered by that.

Voice and Ambivalence in Bless Me Ultima and Baby of the Family Essays

Voice and Ambivalence in Bless Me Ultima and Baby of the Family  Ã‚        Ã‚   Bless Me Ultima and Baby of the Family serve as the 'coming of age' stories of two minority children. Rudolfo Anaya and Tina McElory Ansa skillfully reveal the richness, diversity, and conflicts that can exist within the Hispanic-American and African-American cultures primarily through the dream sequences in each novel. Dreams are the mechanism used in each work to magnify the individual experiences and conflicts Tony and Lena encounter. In addition and perhaps, more importantly, Tony and Lena deal with ambivalence and find their voices not only through the relationships with other characters, but through the resolution of their dreams. To truly fathom how integral and dependent the dreams are in the novels, a few definitions are in order. Dreams are defined, not only as "images passing through a sleeping person's mind" (Neufeldt 132). Dreams also include the mystical events or dream-like occurrences within each novel. Dreams are a way for each character to connect to the past and, perhaps reveal the future. The otherworldly experiences or dreams of Tony and Lena help guide them down the road of ambivalence, and eventually lead to an awakening or the attainment of 'voice.' Webster's New World Dictionary defines ambivalence as "simultaneous conflicting feelings" (13). These 'conflicts' can be seen in external situations, and typically have serious internal implications. This condition is one of the defining factors of the Hispanic-American experience. Are Hispanics immigrants or minorities? In terms of religion, are they Catholic or Indian? Typically, Hispanic- Americans blend the two choices because neither situation totally applies to them. Perh... ... Once Lena and Tony are reconciled to the swirling adventures that transpire around them, there is a resolution. A rebirth of sorts occurs for each character as they realize that they must take conflicting ideologies and mesh them together to form individual voices.    Works Cited Ansa, Tina McElroy. Interview with Tina McElroy Ansa by Doubleday. Book Group Corner. http://www.randomhouse.com/resources/bookgroup/handifanwith_bgc.html. accessed 30 Oct. 2000. Callahan, John F. In the African-American Grain: The Pursuit of Voice in Twentieth-Century Black Fiction. University of Illinois Press: Urbana and Chicago. 1988. Neufeldt, Victoria, ed. Webster's New World Compact School and Office Dictionary. 1 vol. to date. MacMillan: USA. 1995. Wood, Scott. "Book Reviews: 'Bless Me Ultima.'" Contemporary Literary Criticism. vol. 23 (1983): 22.      

The Hoover Dam and Its Construction Essay -- Hoover Dam Research Paper

Outside of China, the United States is the most-dammed country on the planet. Counting only dams taller than fifty feet high, the U.S. has some 5,000 dams that range from giant hydroelectric dams such as the Grand Coulee in Washington State to flood control dams in the southeast and dams that provide water for irrigation in California. Overall the United States has as many as 2.5 million dams of one sort or another. The design and construction of many of these dams took place between 1930 and 1975. This 45 years period is known as the golden age of dam building, starting with the construction of the Hoover Dam beginning in 1931. By the 1970s the golden age of dam construction began to come to an end with increased concerns of the impacts of dams on their surroundings. To better understand this time period I will look at the construction of Hoover Dam during the 1930’s followed by an examination many of today’s arguments for and against dams [i]. The need for a dam on the Colorado River was known decades before construction actually began due to the numerous destructive floods of the Colorado River. A need for water and electricity was also discovered to help with the development of the West. But there were many factors standing in the way such a large-scale construction project. Finally, in 1927 a bill detailing the project passed in Congress. Many construction companies began to look over the proposals but most agreed that the plan was too ambitious, too difficult, the project site was too unforgiving, and that the technology was not available to build a dam of that size[ii]. Hoover Dam is located in the Black Canyon, on the Colorado River, about thirty miles southeast of Las V... ...onomic impacts of the dam, the impacts of removal, and the economic costs. Notes [i] Davy, Emma. â€Å"Robofish† Current Science March 2, 2001: 10. [ii] http://www.hooverdam.usbr.gov/ [iii] http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA98/haven/hoover/front2.html [iv] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/hoover/ 5 Robbins, Elaine. â€Å"Damning Dams.† E Jan 1999: 14. 6 Franklin, Chris. â€Å"Let the Colorado River run free.† Earth Island Journal Spring 1997: 23. 7 http://www/irn.org/ 8 â€Å"Not so fast; Eliminating dams; Why dams can be green.† The Economist March 3, 2001: 4. 9 Wade, Beth. â€Å"Bringing down the dams.† American City and County June 1999: 20. 10 â€Å"Knocking down dams – A good year for alewives.† The Economist July 29, 2000: 32. 11 http://www.saveourdams.com/ 12 McMahon, Richard Jr. â€Å"Let’s not damn the dams.† The Business Journal January 28, 2000: 47.

Holistic Development Essay

Every child is unique, all children are different no child is the same so this means that all children will grow and develop at different speeds and different rates. Meggitt (2006 p1) states â€Å"developmental norms are sometimes called milestones – they describe the recognised pattern of development that children are expected to follow. Each child will develop in a unique way†. Holistic development sees a child as a whole person it sees all the child’s areas of development. Each area of development that children will develop in, are dependent on one another they interconnect. Even though there are different areas of development and people see them as different areas, they are interconnected to one another or a child would not develop. So when a child progresses in one area, this will indefinitely effect progress in another area so if something when wrong in one area of development, say physical this will have effect on all the other areas social, emotional, intellectual and language. There are also many things that will have influence on a child’s development, teachers, parents, observations and the environment I am now going to talk about these below. Role of the teacher A teacher has a major role of a child holistic development. They will help all the children in there care with all areas of there development. A teacher can help children with any part of their development weather this be physical social etc. I think that a teacher is a very important part of a child’s development, as ezinarticles (2010) says â€Å"We can say that parents and teachers play a very important role in shaping child’s future. † A teacher will help a child with their mental and physiological development, but not only do they help with this but they also help with children learning about table manners, unity, team work and sharing which a child needs to learn in their life and can be sometimes they can be the more important things in life to make the child a better and friendly person. To help children with their development teachers have the early years foundation stage to follow Direct Gov. say that the early years foundation stage is (direct. gov 2011) â€Å"Schools and early year’s providers have to follow a structure of learning, development and care for children from birth to five years old. This is called the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and it enables your child to learn through a range of activities† The foundation stage is split up in to four themes these themes are learning and development, positive relationships, enabling environment and unique child. The learning and development theme is split in to six sections language, communication and literacy, problem solving, reasoning and numeracy, creative, physical personal social and emotional knowledge and understanding of the world. The teachers will follow this to help them with planning activities to help a child development on a whole. The EYFS other themes are equally as important as learning and development. Positive relationships are about the teaching make good and professional relationships with both the children in their class and the children’s parents/guardians. By the teachers in the class showing good and respectful relationships with both them the staff in the class and their parents this will encourage the children to do the same. The unique child’s is also equally as important as the other areas of the EYFS. This theme is all about the children and caring for them as they need to be cared for at a young age, not to discriminate them on their race, age, disability culture, also to keep them as safe as possible in the class and in the school. It very important to also take in to consideration as child’s wellbeing and health. Enabling environments when a child comes in to school in the morning they want to feel comfortable and relaxed so by setting up an environment that will help this will help the child. Enabling environment is also about observations using observations to evaluate and form assessments for the children. Sometimes as an early years teacher when it comes to a child development they only want what is best for the child to help them with their development. One implication that a teacher could find could be with the parents, if the parents refuse for the teachers to help the children with their development as some parents think they always know what is best for the child, which they are there parents and know the children the best but not always there development, so it is very important that us as early years teachers keep the parents involved in their child’s development. We can do this in many ways some of these are observations, photos, work they have done, chats. A teacher will have a major influence on a child holistic development in all different ways. They will help with a child’s behaviour by setting examples of what behaviour is right and wrong in their classroom and showing praise for good behaviour and discipline for bad behaviour. A classroom environment can have also have an effect on a child’s holistic development, by the teacher knowing the children they will be able to set up and environment that the children will like and enjoy and feel welcome in the teachers can do this by asking the children what they would like in their classroom as using a few of the children ideas around the classroom, this will make the children feel a lot more welcome as they will feel that they have made a contribution to the classroom area. This will have an effect on a child’s development (National Strategies 2008) states â€Å"Create an indoor environment that is reassuring and comforting for all children, while providing interest through novelty from time to time†. By creating an enabling environment where children feel welcomed they are more likely to use it and develop within it. It’s not just the class room where teachers can create this, the outdoors is where children learn and develop and explore when there young so by bringing the children’s interests outside too it will help them develop a whole lot more. For example if the children were really in to dinosaurs you could adapt on this to make the children’s learning more fun, helping them with all areas of their development through dinosaurs, they can draw dinosaurs – creative development, count dinosaurs spots – cognitive development, see how dinosaurs lived – social and emotional development, dinosaurs role play area. Create and area outside with trees a dinosaurs habitat and let the children create it with the teacher, so they are fully involved there are loads of different games and learning opportunities that you can create from children’s interest. By doing this it mean that the children will be interested in learning and being involved therefore learning and developing a whole lot more. The role that teachers have with a child language development is important in an early years setting. The teachers will follow the letters and sounds frame which works along with the early years foundation stage. The letters and sounds documentation is used in many early years foundations stages to help the children learn their letters and sounds; it uses many different strategies like jolly phonics. Letters-and-sounds 2010) â€Å"It aims to build children’s speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. † This piece of documentation that has come in recently to help children learn the letters and the sounds of the letters. It will help the children to read and write not only that but it will help with their social skills talking to other people getting the letter sounds right. Physical development has become more and more important in schools because of the growing rate of childhood obesity, so the role of the teacher in physical education has become more important than ever. Children learn through physical development as they like to look around and explore as the early years foundation stage states (EYFS 2008) â€Å"Babies and young children are born with a deep interest in people and with a drive to find out about their world. Their search for meaning is an active process as they seek to understand how people behave and communicate, how objects work and what can be done with them, and how space can be used† children are always active when in school whether this be using there fine motor skills by writing or using their gross motor skills outside playing on the bikes. Children have needs to be active and it is important for them to be active to have a healthy lifestyle. By children being active this is where they learn about their world as there are fascinated by it roaming around on a field looking for snails and slugs children need to do this to learn about the things in their environment. Furthermore outside physical development is just as important as young children love to run about so it is important for the teacher in their role to plan activities for the outside. It states in the document every child outdoors, (every child outdoors 2010) â€Å"Nature is a major motivating factor for exercise. There is very strong evidence that being outdoors is the most powerful correlate of physical activity, particularly in pre-school children† Social and emotional development are closely linked together so when teachers are developing children in these area the teacher will link these two together. Children will develop their social and emotional development by going to school and making friends. It is important for the teacher to build a child’s self-confidence and self-esteem. A child cognitive development is learned through all the other reas of development, as is their language development they will learn language through doing all different activities and will learn new vocabulary by learning new activities. Role of the parents Parents are probably the most important people in a child life meaning they are the ones who majorly help their children with their development. The parents are the ones who start children off with their development, from the day they are born they help them to hold their head up, walk and learn to talk etc. Parents help their children with all the areas of development more than others. â€Å"High levels of nurturance combined with moderate levels of control help adults be responsible child rearing agents for their children and help children become mature, competent members of society. † Parents will know the major mile stones in a child’s development like walking and talking but sometimes parents do not know the little bits of a child’s development, like there mental development, social skills, gaining knowledge and understanding of the world and this can sometimes be the most important. Then this is where a teacher parent relationship can be very important so that they can communicate with each other about their child’s development. It is important that the parents are involved in their child learning and development at school as well as at home for the child’s wellbeing. Parents will help their children to develop in all the different five areas of development which are language development, physical development, cognitive development and social and emotional development. Parents can also have an influence on their child’s development; some parents might find some areas of development more important than others and push their children to develop in these areas more. This could mean that there child may lack in other areas an example of this could be, some parents might think that a child’s cognitive development is more important than a child physical development. So the parents may make the child focus on developing in there cognitive development, and not so much in their physical development so this may mean that the child may not be developing as well in their physical development as they would be in there cognitive. Some parents worry about their children’s development when their children are not at a stage of development that there meant to be at. Any parent will worry about this especially when they are young. All children develop and grow at different rates and speeds as all children are different. The every parent matter documentation (every parent’s matters 2007) states â€Å"many parents are unsure about how they can help their child to learn. They really shouldn’t worry one of the best way to support a child’s development is to have fun with them. † That is what the most important thing is for a child is to have fun to help them to develop especially with their parents as they are the main influences on a child life specially a young child. It is important for a child to play and have fun because children learn through play and it is an important part of their life. When a child is outside hunting for worms or playing on the bikes they just think they are playing but as early year’s teachers we know that they are learning through doing this as will their parents. Roles of observations Observations are very, very important for a child’s holistic development they can play an important part of a child’s development and can potentially help them or can find something wrong with the child‘s development. They can do this by evaluating the observation and comparing it to the thing that they were observing the child for and see whether the child did or didn’t do what the observer was observing for. Observations will mainly be done by the teachers in schools as they have to do them as teachers but parents will also do observations of their children even if this is just watching their children at the park or playing with their toys. There are many different types of observations that a teacher will do some of these are photo observations, written, time sample, sociagram etc. Teachers do observations so that they can see where a child is with their development by doing this they will be able to see if there ahead, at the right level or behind with their development. They can then help the child to progress in a way that suits that child as every child is different and are at different stages of development. When you have done an observation you can then see how affective that observation has been to you and to the child. You will be able to see how affective the observation has been by looking at the results of the observation and again comparing them to what you were observing the child for. A teacher can then see what they can do to help the child; they can then make a judgement on what to do next for the child to help them if they need it in anyway. There are many implications when undertaking observations on a child because they behaviour of the child that day may be different to any other day because something has happened. Another reason could be that the child is tired there are many reasons that a child may behave different that day. This is why teachers with normally do two to three observations of a child on different days at different times to make sure something that have seen that day is nothing out of the ordinary for the child. Doing professional observations does take practice to do them properly. It is important that an early year’s teacher doesn’t just make assumptions from one observation unless they are perfectly sure that they are right from what they have seen. This is why it is important to do more than one observation on a child. Role of the environment The environment in the modern day is having greater effect on a child’s development, more than it ever has in the past. Times are changing and so are the children because of the changing in the environment. Children’s personalities and development can depend on the environment that a child lives in me now quote from associated content (associated content 2008) â€Å". The behaviour patterns children learn depend heavily on models to which they are exposed. The socio-cultural environment is the source of differences as well as similarities in personality development. † Children are not developing at the same rate they did 10 years ago because of the changing of the environment. Society nowadays the children prefer to sit in doors on computer games than play outside with their friends and family. Which is effecting all areas of a child’s development social, emotional, physical, language and especially there cognitive development. It is important for children to go out into the environment and explore, as young children do love to do this, children can learn a lot from the environment. According to recent research it is important for children to explore the environment as if they don’t it can really effect and stunt a child’s academic and development growth. Less and less children are not visiting the countryside to go on walks with parents or grandparents whereas their parents and grandparents would have done this a lot with their family or friends. Fewer children are climbing trees and playing on the park which is natural and humane thing for children to do. When children come home they look more forward to playing on the computer or Xbox than going down to the park or going to play football. By children not getting outside as much and sitting in doors they are growing rates of childhood obesity , which is causing major concerns for children’s development especially there physical development. Also by children playing on their games all day they concentrate less at school and are becoming less interested in school. It is important for children to get outside and explore the environment. Conclusion What a child’s development means to me? It means a lot it is important for a child to grow and to develop at their own rate, as I’ve said throughout this essay every child is different no child is the same. Of course it is important for a child to develop to the developmental norms for their age, to keep up with things and other children there age but some children will develop more rapidly and some children will develop more slowly. Holistic development is all about that, see the child as a whole developing as a whole putting the areas of development together interlinking them all. In conclusion to this I personally think that no area of development for a child is more important than the other, as it is important that a child develops in all there areas of development in their own way. Of course some children are going to develop better in some areas than others that is near enough proven with every child but I think that no area of development Is more important that the next. Some parents may think that cognitive development is the most important area of development, as they may think that children need to be clever/ intelligent to have a good life and a good future ahead of them, but this is not always the case as some children cannot do so well in school even hate school and not develop well in there cognitive development but be absolutely fantastic in other areas say physical and in their future they could become an athlete which is still a brilliant future for a child.