Acid Rain Case Study

Acid Rain: The Southern Company (A) Problem Statement In 1992, executives at the Southern Company have three years to formulate a robust and complex strategy that will involve massive capital outlay and substantial modifications to processes and procedures as it works to comply with provisions enacted in 1990 to the amendments of the Clean Air Act, while simultaneously ensuring they remain sustainable and profitable. Analysis The Southern Company is an American based electric utilities company in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi.It is the fourth largest in the U. S. The case surrounds the challenges the company’s Bowen plant in Georgia faces as it attempts to conform to the new 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. The Bowen plant is a coal fired plant capable of producing enough power to serve residential, commercial, and industrial demands of over one million people. The Clean Air Act recognizes sulfur as a contributor to the acid rain problem and enacted a goal to reduce total national sulfur dioxide emissions to half of 1990 levels.The Act describes the cap and trade approach whereby companies are permitted to pollute a certain amount of sulfur dioxide compared to levels of electricity output they produce. Rainwater is naturally acidic with a pH of around 5. 7. Acid rain can be defined by anthropogenic acidification caused by nitrogen compounds and sulfur dioxide, formed as particulate matter released in man-made products such as smoke stack emissions and automobiles. Environmentalists have grown more concerned about the effects of acid rain which contains lower than normal pH levels in water.The effects of the lowered pH as surface water streams into rivers and threatens aquatic species, disappearance of sensitive coral reefs, disrupts microorganisms and natural acid buffers in soil, weakens tree roots, causes leaf loss, and corrodes limestone and buildings. The case serves to examine the methods and alternatives for which sulfur dioxide is utili zed, and the relation with its pollution within coal-fired energy plants. Through new provisions passed in the Clean Air Act of 1990, the Southern Company’s Bowen plant in Georgia will require strategic action in order to comply with the new law.They must reduce their sulfur dioxide emissions from 262,800 tons per year to 254,580 per year, as well as steeper reductions in subsequent years. If it does not, it will be allowed to buy allowances from other plants or companies to meet the legislative requirements. Conversely, the Bowen plant can work to significantly lower sulfur dioxide emissions and sell their excess pollution allowances to other plants or companies. To this end, the case discusses three options the Bowen plant is investigating in order to comply with the new Clean Air provisions, which are: 1.Option 1: Burn high-sulfur coal without scrubbers and purchase allowances 2. Option 2: Burn high-sulfur coal with scrubbers and sell allowances 3. Option 3: Burn low-sulfu r coal and have potential to sell allowances The Southern Company must consider certain ambiguities as they evaluate their options. First, the pricing of pollution allowances are established estimates and could vary depending on projected levels and future government protocol.Second, if the Bowen plant selects the option that would produce the greatest amount of pollution, it would counter the intent of the Clean Air Act and therefore, even if the option chosen is most advantageous from a profitability standpoint, the company should consider a balance of profitability and adherence to the progression of global conservation. The Southern Company has certain advantages in working toward a solution to bring their plants up to code and in line with new regulations. They have four plants in the southeast, representing a strong energy producing market share in the region.Each plant is in a different stage of code adherence, so the company has flexibility as it considers its options for th e Bowen plant. As a standard, the coal plants have low variable costs, and operate continuously with reliability. The Bowen facility offers affordable electricity, serving residential, commercial, and industrial segments. Some of the company’s weaknesses is they manage a large scale operation and a single strategic business decision may have downstream effects on other plants.In addition, they have dependencies on their external coal suppliers, the fact that their current operations and capital equipment only support emissions of sulfur dioxide requiring government regulation. As Coase indicates, â€Å"when property rights are not defined and enforced, or when transaction costs are high, the contentious parties can call on government to deal with the issue† (Myer), which is exactly what has occurred. Coase reminds us that external effects are reciprocal. There would be no acid rain harm if it were not for economic pursuit that values environmental use.In contrast, ther e would be no discharge of waste were it not for economic activity that values environmental use. Therefore, the focus of the acid rain dilemma is on the producers and users of electricity and the owners of coal companies and their employees, not the owners of the buildings, property tax collectors, environmentalists, or other interest groups wanting to place restrictions on environmental users. Recommendation: The recommendation for this case is largely represented in the Excel spreadsheet that accompanies this paper.Specifically, the lines 2 through 12 on the spreadsheet cite the assumptions that are common among all three options. Option 1: Burn High-Sulfur Coal without Scrubbers: Purchase Allowances Without utilizing the scrubbers, 266,550 tons of sulfur dioxide will emit into the atmosphere. It is impossible to meet input requirements of 8,338 tons of coal and still emit low enough levels to meet the Clean Air Act standards. Bowen’s coal varies widely both in delivered p rices per ton and in heat content per pound; therefore prices are expressed in dollars per ton.From 1992-1995, high sulfur Kentucky coal burned at $41. 46 per ton. From 1995-2016, the price was expected to fall to $39. 82 per ton. They would have to purchase pollution allowances in addition to paying the operating costs for this option. Summary of Assumptions| Description of Value | Cost per Ton – High Sulfur Coal (bottom of pg. 3)| 1992-1995 cost per ton is $41. 46; 1996-2016, price drops to $29. 82| Cost per Ton – Low Sulfur Coal (pg. 5)| For option 3: Starting in 1996, cost for low sulfur is $30. 37 per ton. | Estimated Price of Allowances (pg. )| 1995 allowance is $250; and increase 10% in 1996 on through 2016| Tons of High Sulfur Coal per Year (pg. 4-top)| Annual hi-sulfur coal needed to sustain operations (reference cell C8) 8. 338M tons| Tons of Low Sulfur Coal per Year (pg. 5)| Annual low-sulfur coal needed to sustain operations (reference cell C9) 8. 391M tons | Sulfur Dioxide allowances received /yr. (pg. 2)| 254,580 tons of sulfur dioxide in 1995-1999; and 122,198 in years 2000-2016| Revenue from electricity sales (pg. 4, option 2)| Reference value for option 2 that contributes to loss of 2% revenue (see option 2, line 41). 1551000000 kw*0. 056) = 1206856000| OPTION 1: HIGH-SULFUR COAL WITHOUT SCRUBBERS| Description of Value| Sulfur Dioxide Emitted (pg. 4)| Bowen plant burns 1. 6% sulfur by weight, burning 8. 338M tons, generating 266,550 tons of sulfur dioxide emissions. All years included| Allowances Bought (pg. 2)| Option 1 would require Bowen to buy allowances. Figure is 266,550 tons of sulfur dioxide generated minus the 254,580 allowances afforded, starting in 1995 – 2016| Allowance Cost (pg. 3)| Price of allowances bought times the price, starting in 1995 – 2016 | Fuel Cost| N/A|Additional Operating Cost| N/A| Lost Revenue| N/A| Pre-tax Total| Adds allowance, fuel, additional operating, and lost revenue costs (lines 19 through 22)| After-tax Cost| Adds 37. 7% tax rate starting in 1995 through 2016| Capital Cost| N/A| Depreciation| N/A| Total| After tax cost + capital cost – depreciation (if applicable)| PV| Present value year over year| NPV = | 266. 38 Millions| Option 2: Burn High-Sulfur Coal with Scrubbers and sell allowances Wet limestone flue gas desulfurization (FGD) equipment, commonly referred to s scrubbers, are as large as generators and expensive to install. The gas with 90% of the sulfur dioxide removed would then be vented to the air. Bowen could install the scrubbers during Phase 1 period, and allow them to sell allowances to other utility plants. During Phase 2, Bowen will have to meet the new requirements and would delay capital outplays of installing the scrubbers by five years, however, in Phase 1 period they would have to buy allowances or burn lower-sulfur coal. OPTION 2: HIGH-SULFUR COAL WITH SCRUBBERS| Description of Value| Sulfur Dioxide Emitted| Bowen plant burns 1 . % sulfur by weight, burning 8. 338M tons, generating 266,550 tons of sulfur dioxide emissions before scrubbers installed. Thereafter, beginning in 1995, emissions drop to 26,655| Allowances Bought| Option 2 would require Bowen to buy allowances. Figure is 26,650 tons of sulfur dioxide generated minus the 254,580 allowances afforded, starting in 1995 – 2016, hence allowance cost is much less than option 1, due to less emissions generated| Allowance Cost| Price of allowances bought times the price, starting in 1995 – 2016 | Fuel Cost| N/A|Additional Operating Cost (pg. 7)| Scrubbers add 0. 13 per kwh to operating costs for purchase of limestone and disposal of sludge| Lost Revenue| Additional energy consumption costs impact revenue by 2%| Pre-tax Total| Adds allowance, fuel, additional operating, and lost revenue costs (lines 36 through 39)| After-tax Cost| Adds 37. 7% tax rate starting in 1995 through 2016| Capital Cost| $143. 85M in year 0, $503. 61M in year 1, $71. 97M in year 2| Capitalized Value| $143. 85M in year 0, $503. 61M in year 1, $71. 7M in year 2 = added| Depreciation| Capitalized value * 14% depreciation (1995 – 1999); 2% depreciation (2000-2016)| Tax Benefit from Depreciation| Straight line depreciation | Total| After tax cost + capital cost + tax benefit from depreciation | PV| Present value year over year| NPV = | 309. 90 Millions| Option 3: Burn Low-Sulfur Coal. Compared with the coal burned at Bowen that contained an average weight of 1. 6% sulfur, the low-sulfur coal contains only 1% by weight, but its cost is greater than the expected 1996 cost of high-sulfur coal. There is a capital expenditure of $22. million to change the electrostatic precipitation used to control airborne particulate matter. Prices will rise after the year 2000 because in Phase 2 its price was expected to rise as the tighter control drove up demand. It will take more low-sulfur coal per year to generate electricity versus high-sulfur coal. The lo w-sulfur coal would still emit 167,650 tons of sulfur dioxide per year which is less than half the 266,550 tons of high-sulfur coal. The problem with low-sulfur coal is that it is rare and expensive to mine. OPTION 3: LOW-SULFUR COAL WITHOUT SCRUBBERS| Description of Value| Sulfur Dioxide Emitted| Bowen plant burns 1. % sulfur by weight, burning 8. 338M tons, generating 266,550 tons of sulfur dioxide emissions before scrubbers installed. Thereafter, beginning in 1995, emissions drop to 26,655| Allowances Bought| Option 3 would require Bowen to buy allowances. Figure is 26,650 tons of sulfur dioxide generated minus the 254,580 allowances afforded, starting in 1995 – 2016, hence allowance cost is much less than option 1, due to less emissions generated| Allowance Cost| Price of allowances bought times the price, starting in 1995 – 2016 | Fuel Cost| Additional low-sulfur fuel cost begin in 1996 – 2000 ($30. 7 per ton), and new rate from 2000 – 2016 ($34. 92 per ton)| Additional Operating Cost| N/A| Lost Revenue| N/A| Pre-tax Total| Adds allowance, fuel, additional operating, and lost revenue costs (lines 55 through 58)| After-tax Cost| Adds 37. 7% tax rate starting in 1995 through 2016| Capital Cost| $22. 1M one-time purchase for electrostatic precipitators | Depreciation| Straight-line depreciation beginning in 1997 of 14%| Tax Benefit from Depreciation| Capitalized value * 14% depreciation (1997 – 2000)| Total| Straight line depreciation |PV| Present value year over year | NPV = | 176. 98 Millions| From the suggested assumptions presented above, and the detail from the discounted cash flow Excel spreadsheet, a recommendation is evident to suggest the best option for the Southern Company to adopt, which is option 2 that yields the highest net present value. Continuing the processes of burning high emitting sulfur dioxide coal, with the investment of scrubbers is the most cost effective solution given the company’s conclu sion to retire the plant in 2016.The company must now decide whether to install pollution control equipment and generate excess permits for sale to other companies, or to emit larger quantities of sulfur dioxide, save capital costs, and purchase pollution permits. Considering the discounted cash flow analysis of a make versus buy decision, the company should also consider issues of expected cost minimization, questions of economic and political uncertainty, and the value of flexibility. The analysis depends on assumptions of the behavior of emissions permit prices over time, which a discussion of externalities (acid rain) links to the company’s cost of capital.Various factors complicate the decisions, including real options characteristics, emissions market evolution, substitute investment prices, and public policy. The company should develop a comprehensive risk assessment process that includes all the areas of significant risks to the Company, including potential price impa cts on customers, reliability risk, regulatory risk, impacts on customer behavior, reputational risk, etc. These integrated processes consider multiple environmental considerations and requirements rather than solely on the greenhouse gas regulations.Even though the Southern Company does not have a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target, they should be committed to improving their environmental performance and the communities it serves by being a good environmental steward and working to conserve valuable natural resources. Further, Southern Company employees, customers, and the public, and the protection of the natural environment should be among the Company's highest priorities. The Southern Company is going to face major challenges throughout their daily operations as they implement option 2.The first challenge will be their ability to conduct traditional electricity business operations effectively while transforming the Bowen plant. The new regulations, changes in the energy environment, and transmitting electricity securely are all reasons that could affect their earnings. The Southern Company must work toward balancing the required costs and capital expenditures with their customer’s prices during the renovation period, with ability to sustain future profit margins.To begin the process of exercising Option 2 will require a firm commitment to install scrubbers and that plan needs to begin now with the creation of Requests for Proposals (RFP’s). Company executives have estimates of how long will it take to implement the scrubbers but do not address if they will require additional manpower to handle the maintenance for the scrubbers. The company should be prepared to add new labor which will stimulate additional jobs which will make for a positive public relations story.Option 2 will also place the company in a position light with the ability to sell allowances versus worrying about buying allowances. As society progresses, so too is the se nsitivity to pollution and operating a plant that exceeds the Clean Air Act requirements will position the company more favorably in the industry. The need to cut emissions to conform to Clean Air Act requirements and the anticipated high costs to conform will likely result in an emerging market for emissions trading. To this end, trade allowance prices are likely to increase, thereby potentially generating additional revenues for the company.The company should consider capitalizing on partnerships with environmentalists or green conscious companies by creating a marketing campaign that promotes the purchase of pollution credits so they are not sold to other polluters. Such a campaign could allow people and companies to buy pollution credits to support their social causes, such as students and schools and universities, as well as individuals buying credits for birthday, wedding, or retirement gifts. Because of the Clean Air Act provisions, coal-firing generating facilities must redu ce their greenhouse gas pollution before 2016; it is probable that he company should consider that coal-firing plant operations will not be profitable in the future. Therefore, in addition to implementing option 2 to conform to reduced emission coal fired electricity production, the company needs to consider exploration of other emerging markets for producing energy such as oil, nuclear power, natural gas, and renewables. The strategy process should anticipate cost, emissions, and performance characteristics of each of these options, as appropriate, for individual units.Further, the company should develop environmental strategy schedules that include long term emission control plans. Another avenue the Southern Company should be aware of is its ability to create mergers with other power-generating companies. It is likely in subsequent years, with regulation, alternative fuel sources, and technology advancement changing industry dynamics, power generating companies may see this speci al characteristic of mergers and acquisitions, which can significantly reduce costs while increasing generating capacity and market share.In closing, all three options are going to cause a certain amount of operating energy, management headache, and expense. It is option 2 that appears to be the least painful in that it forces the Southern Company to elevate their Bowen plant with the newest technology with the installation of scrubber systems, while also stimulating labor growth. It also allows the greatest ability to produce excess allowances (except for option 3) that can be sold for revenue.Option 3 is too unstable with the company having to terminate contracts with coal suppliers and convert to a low-sulfur coal product which is scarce and more costly. When the Bowen plant retires its operations in 2016, the company should have mostly converted from coal to newer energy sources, and can liquidate the remaining assets for a higher value versus not making equipment conversions wi th options 1 and 3.Finally, option 2 can be viewed positively by environmentalists, shareholders, and employees by signifying a committed investment in the Bowen plant. References: Reinhardt, F. , (1992). Acid Rain: The Southern Company (A). HBS No. 9-792-060. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing Meyer, R. , and Yandle, B. , (1987) The Political Economy of Acid Rain Cato Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2. The Cato Institute

Photography Merge Into Art Essay

Photography is traditionally regarded positioned at the lightweight end of photographic practice and on the fringe of a true art-form. â€Å"Its close relationship to the economic imperatives of turnover makes the art photograph the transitory image par excellence. † However photography has emerged as a ubiquitous representational form, â€Å"with us from sunrise to sunset, in the privacy of our homes and on public streets, in a format we can hold in our hands and one that towers over us on billboards the size of buildings. Early criticisms of Photography as an art form described the new technique as one that directly reproduced reality. â€Å"However, the disparity between the photographic record and perceptual experience reveals the artistic, political, and representational potential of Photography. The photographic image maintains a privileged place in the pantheon of visual consumption. † The argument is ever present that the entire history of photography has been the chronology of a medium at the secondary border of art. Nineteenth-century amateur photographic societies and photography journals were arenas for protracted debates between those committed to Photography’s status. As a scientific recording tool and those determined to establish Photography as a fine-art form, the opportunity existed for accomplishment and establishment. Certainly gender and sexuality have been implicated in art Photography since the early twentieth century. But during the 1970s there was a marked shift of emphasis in the way that the female body was represented as a fetishistic object of desire in the work of photographers like Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Chris von Wangenheim and Deborah Turbeville. The long struggle to establish photography as a legitimate art form still continues today. There is a clear and obvious tendency of the art establishment to exclude and to narrowly restrict the boundaries of admissible photographic art. The established arts have all contributed to the formation of peripheral spheres of photo activity on the margins of art. † Many questions from the audience addressed the impact of digital technology on the art: of photography yet, the unstated. Understanding that they were, indeed, discussing photography as â€Å"art† spoke directly of the philosophy of Stieglitz, a philosophy that served as the driving force of his life’s work. The collection brought the symposium into perspective, confi rming the power and beauty of Stieglitz’s photography, as it reinvestigated his reputation. The exquisite print quality and the inclusion of various versions of well-known photographs expanded the viewer’s experience of the work. A beautiful photogravure print on tissue of The Steerage (1915) is unparalleled in its beauty and the extensive collection of the â€Å"Equivalens† (1923-31) series brings to mind the collected haystacks of Claude Monet. The collection spans Stieglitz’s career, offering the viewer an unprecedented opportunity to contemplate his development as an artist while recognizing the Modernist elements of his work. Art Venues and Exhibition Halls, Suitable? Photography is entering into the commercial galleries and, most recently, the art business is a growing source of economic aid for the arts. The burgeoning crossover between the worlds of art and art is increasingly apparent – contemporary work is instill with concerns about gender identity, Since the beginning of the â€Å"contemporary age,† there have been countless major photography exhibitions at New York City’s Guggenheim Museum alone, as well as other international events that interweave art and art. The work and philosophy of Alfred Stieglitz is experiencing a: resurgence of interest. The recent retrospective of Stieglitzs gallery exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. , â€Å"Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and his New York Galleries,† reinforces his pivotal position as the â€Å"champion† of American modern art. â€Å"But this view of Stieglitz, more myth than man, has always loomed above his personal work and consequently the work’s relevance to the development of a modern aesthetic. The question is– what does a century Told Modernist like Stieglitz have to say to a post postmodern America? † Researchers demonstrated that in contemporary Western contexts, allusions to other influences, i. e. Africa, through adornments and images such as those found in colonial-era postcards and photography still carry the weight of colonization and its aftermath. Hence some of the profound work in Hine and Sekula. The African body has for centuries been an object of much fascination to Western observers, who framed it to fuel many misconceptions about the continent’s peoples and cultures. The colonialist image of the â€Å"naked savage† long poisoned the relationship between African and Western peoples; the forced or coerced abandonment of indigenous attire in favor of Western dress was for much of the past two centuries a symbol of the â€Å"civilizing† process. Throughout Africa today, deliberate revivals of â€Å"traditional† forms serve as symbols of political and cultural movements, often coexisting with Western styles that have been modified to suit local tastes. † Alfred Stieglitz, his Own Vision. Turn-of-the-century reactions to photography as an art form were vehemently negative. Because the photograph so closely resembled reality, photography was considered by many people, especially establishment painters and critics, to be a reportorial medium exclusively. Even the early Photo-Secessionist–the group of photographers headed by Stieglitz Stieglitz, committed to having the artistic merit of his work recognized—deliberately used soft-focus lenses, or darkroom tricks (including brushing or penciling the negative) to make their photographs look like paintings. In 1890, Stieglitz brought America a message. Photography, he said, is capable of more than factual recording. It can become a personal expression of one’s emotional reactions to life, a potential art. But it is not painting; any more than painting is sculpture. â€Å"He began a life-long fight for the recognition, particularly within artistic circles, of photography as an independent medium. He organized the few workers sympathetic to his ideal, first in the Society of Amateur Photographers and then in the Camera Club, whose magazine Camera Notes he founded and edited, making it the first periodical to respect fine photography. † One enduring feature of photography is its identification with art. In a recent analysis of photography, artists contrasted ‘glamour’ with ‘sophistication’. This format found that in the art press photography was described as youthful, dynamic and pleasure-seeking, On the other hand sophistication is seen as: mature, poised, restrained and introvert. It is no accident that they have coincided with the revival of figurative painting and the rise of conceptual art, of what is called photography as a high art forms, of video, alternative film practices, performance art – all of which have worked to challenge both the humanist notion of the artist as romantic individual ‘genius’ (and therefore of art as the expression of universal meaning by a transcendent human subject) and the modernist domination of two particular art forms, painting and sculpture. The Steerage (1907) The exhibition juxtaposes such iconic images as Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage (1907). The show surveys photography’s thematic and artistic riches from the mid-1880s to the present, from one great era of technical and social change to another. Monumental innovations in the late 19 th century, such as dry-plate technology, hand-held cameras and halftone reproductions, greatly increased the medium’s applications and made it increasingl y integral to American life. All the while he has been photographing, using the camera as a means of personal expression. His prints are simple and direct: they are lyrics that penetrate beneath the surface. The Terminal is more than a record of a vanished scene; it is the essence of Winter in New York. In The Steerage (below) a moment is transfixed which is vitally important to all those travelers to a new land.

Barrack Obama’s Campaign Speech Essay Example for Free

Barrack Obama’s Campaign Speech Essay Communication can be defined as the act/art of exchanging/transmission of thoughts or information by the means of speech, signs, written means and the behavior. It was the occasion of the America’s Presidential candidates Campaign when the Illinois Senator Barrack Hussein Obama delivered the speech announcing his will of seeking the democratic nomination for presidency in 2008. It was on Saturday evening (19. 06GMT) of February 10th 2007 on the Venue of Springfield, when the Senator Barrack Obama now the Elect president of United States of America delivered the persuasive speech used on this focus paper. In this Speech it excellently exploits the elements of speech. First, The candidate Senator Obama by that time was very prepared for the occasion against the deliverance of the amazing speech towards the audience. His introduction of the speech appreciates all the audience present and recognizes their vital role they do play for that occasion. For instances He starts by thanking all the people for their coming and gives the reasons why the occasion was very important to every individual. His introduction captures the attention of the audience giving time to deliver his message. Part of introduction was â€Å"†¦it’s humbling but in my heart I know you didn’t come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be. † Secondly there is use ‘of being yourself ’ while giving the speech. The Senator gives personal and professional examples and life history precisely, possibly helping him to gain support to emphasize his own points of the campaign. The self-example messages matches with the destined purposes of the Campaign. Thirdly, Obama stayed relaxed throughout the speech delivery session, very composed and maximal prepared for the outcome. He remained focused on passing the message. He too employed other means of speech presentation such as movement/ walking, gestures. In addition, the Senator used the Natural humor and avoided depicting/ pinpointing an individual from the Audience and he didn’t over do it thus maintaining the audience on move of the speech. The other element that I figure was the Body plans and hand positions. I keenly observed the movement and gestures of the Senator. He moved within the three positions – the right, the center and the left- and the hand position was well managed and maintained throughout the session. He didn’t hide behind the lectern and he excellently maintained the eye contact with the audience throughout the speech session. Lastly of the elements of speech, the Senator was very keen and well informed about every detailed he presented. He used the environmental reference that surrounded the Venue appropriately on his speech. He understands what is the past, currently and the future happening of the immediate ground. He keenly observes the audience to an extent of identifying some schoolmates but he didn’t mention their names. â€Å"†¦friends that I see in the audience. †. Speech Accomplishment: The speech is accomplishing the real mission of the Senator while being elected as the president of United States of America. He explains out what he will accomplish for the country when he will be in power. He gives new hope the people of America; to believe that ‘yes he can’ bring peace where there is war, bring hope where there is despair, reach what is more possible and build a more perfect union. The Senator aspires to establish convergence place where the farmers, teachers, students, businessmen, laborers, young and the aged, male and female, rich and the poor’s clamoring can be heard. The speech intends to accomplish the enlightenment of the US people the existence of presumptuousness in the present government calling for the change, in the faces of the depressed he will increase the employment opportunities in order to lift the millions out of poverty, Welcome the immigrants to the shores of America and experience justice and righteousness around the globe. The Senator contemplates the currently status of the US and around the globe and promises to accomplish missions such as to quench the anxiety of the feel of rising health care costs and the illusions of the stagnant wages, to bring the war in Iraq to an end by bringing the troops back home by march next year and give Sunni and Shia to resolve the problem and bring out peace, minimize oil dependency that is threatening America’s future, instill an ethic achievements in children by setting high standards of learning providing the resources for them to succeed, recruiting the new army of teachers and giving them the batter pay and more support for the exchange of accountability, making colleges affordable and investing in the scientific researches, to reshape the economy, strengthen the communities, to cut bureaucracy by use of technology, free America from the Tyranny Oil, solve the crisis of global warming by innovation and by capping the greenhouse gases, give incentives for the businesses, and destroying the deadliest unguarded weapons. The Speech was a persuasive, since it is persuading the people of America to elect the Senator as the President of America by voting for him in the year 2008. It was evidenced in his speech as persuasive where he says â€Å" †¦If you will join me in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching before us, if you sense as I sense, that the time is now to shake of our slumber, and slough off our fear, and make good on the debt we owe the past and the future generations, then I am ready to take up the cause, and match with you and work with you to finish the work that needs to be done. † The main aim of the speech was to persuade for votes that resulted to the delivery of the speech. But on the process he enlightens the people the critically analyze and keenly make judgment for the best next US president. I can also say it is informative to some extent that it elaborates the incidences that have been taking place and the others that are likely to take place in the United States of America. Audience’s reaction towards the speech was very applauding during the speech presentation and indeed the audience was very pleased with the amazing speech, contented that Obama can make out to be the best candidate to be elected and very disappointed with the previous disguised government. The speech disclosed the factual facts to the audience, which was the quenching of the long thirst, the beginning of the new hope and the change on which the Americans can believe in. At some points the multitude nodded their heads as a sign of concession/ agreement to what was spoken, and at some point the audience was pity as a sign of how sympathetic and pathetic the situation was in as per that time. The pattern of speech was sequential, topical and spatial. The speech was sequential since it has the introduction, the body and the conclusion as the structure of the speech. Obama welcoming the audience, he presents his speech (The body) where he factually speaks of what he should do when he will be in power, he identifies what to change and or improve, what to innovate and implement, what changes he is able to bring, what was the defects the previous government, and finally he give out his conclusion of expecting the people of America to vote for him if they want the change they can believe in. The speech was also topical since Obama Generally emphasizes on the Change that that Americans can Believe in. He bases his own speech on change and frequently mentions change throughout his speech. Despite of having other minor topics such as speaking about education, the economy, war, resources and the political history his main topic was about change. To some extent but not very, the speech was descriptive. It entails what to be done, how, when and by whom. Obama described in his speech for instance that the only source for change in America is people, the only peace in war at Iraq lies between Sunn and Shia, the only way to prosper in future is by doing the present that needs to be done. Also Obama gave the vivid description on how to solve some of the long-lasting problems in America. For instance the problem of global warming can be solved by innovations that can tap the greenhouse gases, creating more job opportunities, investments can solve the problem of poverty, practice of justice and establishment of converges to listen the clamoring of each and every one in the US. In conclusion, Communication is the transmission of information from one person to another. The occasion of the speech was during the campaign of the Presidential candidate of America on Democratic Party at Springfield. The utilized elements of speech were such as being prepared for the speech presentation, being yourself when representing speech, being composed and contented when delivering speech, body plan and hands position, gestures and movements. Accomplishment of the speech was to convince the audience to vote for Him/ Change. The type of speech was persuasive as he persuades for the votes, the reactions of the audience was a sign of relieve or being relieved if Obama was to be the president and indeed he became. Finally the pattern of the speech is Sequential, topical and somehow spatial. References: 1. Public Speaking an Audience-Centered Approach By Steven A. Beebe and Susan J. Beebe. (2008) 2. http://www. guardian. co. uk/world/2007/feb/10/barackobama. 3. http://www. ljlseminars. com/elements. htm. 4. Organization Pattern Of Speech By Osborn (2000). Barrack Obama’s Campaign Speech. (2016, Oct 02).

Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 130

Essay Example Intelligence is form of capital that has been emphasized in the story. There is also the human capital that is used to aid in the production process. To Henry, Portia was also a form of capital as she helped him carry out his deals successfully. Therefore, capital in this context is anything that helps a person earn money or make wealth. 4. Portia and Henry in their conversations talk about salary and love. According to them, there is a positive relationship between romance and business. In their relationship, they used their romance to do business. Accompanying each other to different business occasions, planning together on their next move and acting as each other’s aide in business meetings complimented their relationship. 5. According to Thorstein Veblen, â€Å"pecuniary emulation† means the behavior in which people try to emulate other people who are socially well off. He observes that as people increasingly acquire wealth, their social class and lifestyles changes. As these aspects of their lives change, they are seen by others to live decently and comfortably. They act as role models as those who envy them try to emulate their behavior and lifestyles. As a result, they try to improve on their earnings and acquire things that closely resemble those of the high people in the society. 6. From Benjamin’s story â€Å"The Way to Wealth,† the â€Å"plain clean old Man, with white Locks† cites the idea, supposedly from Poor Richard that we should â€Å"oversee our own Affairs with our own Eyes, and not trust too much to others† and that we should act independently and avoid debt, yet Richard himself is gratified that others cite his sayings and buy his almanacs, which makes his arguments and ideas be in opposition with the reality. Purchase of his almanacs and other authors citing him are in contradiction to his own reasoning. Benjamin advocates for independency in people’s reasoning and way of doing things, which is however not true

Reflective Portfolio 05204 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Reflective Portfolio 05204 - Essay Example The emergence of globalization has highly influenced various internationalisation strategies of organisation in terms of their international trading procedure. Various organisations have started to market their products within a global platform, it has become essential to analyse and select various internationalization strategies such as standardization or adaptation of the marketing mix (Hise and Choi, 2011). Schmid and Kotulla, (2011) have described that increase in technologies has created a union of culture and similarities in customer demands. Therefore, this situation has developed the practice of standardization of international trading. Standardization approach has assisted organisations to achieve economies of scale while efficiently monitoring the global communication. The standardization of international trading strategy of Coca-Cola Company has enabled the organisation to treat their different market as a single global platform (Newburry and Yakova, 2006). Gerpott and Jakopin (2005) have argued against the implementation of standardization by stating that this process provides little scope of flexibility and marketing effectiveness while it can generate negative reaction due to neglecting local requirements. Alternatively, adaptation of local market allows marketers to modify their marketing mix as per local specifications which provide them comparatively strong hold of the global market. Different successful organisations have considered both standardization and adaptation to increase their global marketing reputation. McDonald’s has utilized both these strategies which assist them to maintain their standard in terms of product line, advertising and customer management. This process has assisted them to focus on modifying their product ingredients and specifications as per local taste preferences (Karpiarz, et al., 2014). The increase in globalized economy has also

Wikileaks Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Wikileaks - Essay Example The organizational operations are designed to protect journalists, activists and whistleblowers. The term wikileaks is a combination of two terms â€Å"wiki† and â€Å"Leaks† each of which is defined separately. According to Jennings, a wiki is a server program that permits users to work together in making up the content of a website. With it, any user who is using a web browser from their own computer can edit the site including other user’s contributions (4). It uses a collaboration of many users. The contributors can view the page any time conveniently before and after changes have been made to it. According to Jennings, the term wiki comes from Hawaiian language meaning fast. From the English dictionary, the word leak is defined as permitting to escape or to flaw. The leak part of the word describes what the organization does (Times Taffn.p). Wikileaks is an organization which gathers information that governments and institutions do not want released and posts it on the internet where everyone can read it. It is a system for untraceable mass document le aking. The founding and registration of wikileaks.org domain name was done on 4th October 2006 and was launched under the sunshine press organization. The founder of wikileaks was Julian Assange who was an Australian internet activist. The wikileaks site however states that it was â€Å"founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and startup company technologists from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa†. It was not until 2007 when Julian Assange was referred to as the â€Å"founder† of wikileaks. The advisory board consisted of Assange, Phillip Adams,Wang Dan, CJ Hinke, Ben Laurie, TashiNamgyalKhamsitsag, Xiao Qiang, Chico Whitaker and Wang Youcai. It started publishing leaked documents in 2007 which were significant and became leading front page news items. Since it was launched and started working, wikileaks has endured and

Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 9

Research - Essay Example Research based solutions are beneficial because they take into account the most recent advancements in the medical field in question while also coming up with practical solutions on how to confront the existing problem. A good example of this is the use of virtual doctor’s assistants in order to leave more registered nurses free to perform the existing duties. Virtual assistants will not just be helpful in ensuring that a lot of medical personnel are liberated to fulfill other duties, but will also contribute towards the streamlining of the use of information technology in various respects by medical organizations. Many hospitals still struggle to implement electronic records that function well. Virtual assistants will help in ensuring that there is better tracking of the records of patients’ health every day. This will in turn reduce the number of doctor visits on a daily basis, empower the patients in terms of their healthcare, and reduce the incidence of serious medi cal problems. The use of virtual assistants is not a reality in many parts of the world and its practicality is still doubted by many healthcare experts (LittleJohn, Campbell, Collins-McNeil, & Khayile, 2012). In addition, there is not much research that has been conducted to substantiate the claims that this is one subject that can help in dealing with staff shortages among other problems. However, it is evident that the use of virtual assistants has more potential benefits than any other solution to date. A virtual assistant will even be able to monitor doctor prescriptions, reducing the incidence of visits to the doctor and thus saving costs. In recent times, health-related developments such as health-monitoring and data tracking have began to be accepted in the mainstream as viable health care solutions. Virtual assistants also need to begin being seriously considered as a serious answer to the majority

Thai Tao Restaurant Opening Speech Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Thai Tao Restaurant Opening Speech - Essay Example The researcher would like to give a special mention to the Thai Consulate General for Guangzhou for the continued support and valuable advice he has given them throughout the process of opening this restaurant. Someone else that the researcher would like to thank is his special friend for his generous support in the opening of Thai Tao restaurant. Could you imagine life without great food? The researcher has never personally experienced life like this, but he knows that at Thai Tao restaurant, great food is their specialty. They prefer quality food rather than quantity. The researcher states that their customers are of great value to them and they will treat them as if they are royalty. Their restaurant will be famous for only serving the very best of food to the right people. Dave Thomas, a great American businessman, once said, â€Å"It all comes back to the basics. Serve customers the best-tasting food at a good value in a clean, comfortable restaurant, and they’ll keep co ming back.† This sums up the type of restaurant that the author really want to become. He wants their customers to enjoy their experience so much that they never want to go to any other restaurant again. It is important to keep their customers coming back to the author can retain a good customer-business relationship. Thailand and China have had a long history of great friendship. The author appreciates this alliance and wants to bring out the very best in Thai and Chinese culture. he believes that these two cultures can be mixed to provide their customers with a nice casual dining experience at Thai Tao restaurant. Their restaurant will provide Southeast Asian cuisine, and they want to bring their Chinese customers the very best that Southeast Asian food has to offer. The author also desires to provide a happy atmosphere in which their customers can enjoy their meal. He believes that there is potential growth for Southeast Asian cuisine in the Chinese market. Their goal is to develop a great bond with their Chinese friends to make them even stronger. The thing that will make them stronger is their unique service and authentic food that will be unmatched by their competitors. The researcher wants to present honesty to their customers, and as such, he will offer distinctive food that will set Thai Tao restaurant apart from the rest. Next, he would like to applaud all of his staff for their efforts to put this all together over the last couple of months. Together, they are a team. Together, they are one family. Together, they can be united and strong. Everyone one of them at Thai Tao has one thing that they strive for: they will serve their customers food of the highest quality and give them a food experience to savor. Finally, the author would like to say that for them, this is just the beginning. This is the first step of their greater plan, which is to expand even further into the Chinese market. In the next two months, they will open another branch in China. But they will not simply stop there; they will establish Thai Tao restaurants all over China. they are prepared to accept that they will make mistakes along the way; however, they are committed to having the best well-known Southeast Asian restaurant in Guangzhou. This might seem like a lofty goal, but it is not.  

Conflict Diamond Speech or Presentation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Conflict Diamond - Speech or Presentation Example In the late 1990s, this trade caught the attention of the world as the protracted conflict in Sierra Leone reached its devastating climax. It is not just Sierra Leone that has suffered – diamonds have fuelled or exacerbated conflicts in Angola, Liberia, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo. These diamonds are regularly produced through the forced labor of men, women and children, or stolen during violent attacks on legitimate mining operations (geology.com). They have, on several occasions, been the main source of funding for brutal rebel groups. Due to the huge amount of money at stake in the illegal diamond trade, bribes, threats and torture often accompany the mining. In Liberia, between 1989 and 2003, there were two civil wars which killed perhaps 250,000 people, while displacing a further 1.3 million (globalwitness.org). Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has used his diamond mines to fund a military campaign against civilians in L iberia and Sierra Leone, and is currently on trial in the International Court of Human Rights. In Ivory Coast, a civil war was sparked off in 2002, and even now, the country remains divided, with widespread human rights violations. Sierra Leone is perhaps the worst example of what blood diamonds can do to a country. Legitimate diamonds once provided the mainstay of the government’s revenues. Gradually, as rebel groups in the east of the country gained control over the mines, these revenues were reduced to nothing. By August 1993, even before the civil war had escalated, the total revenues reaching the government in Freetown amounted to some $8,000 (Dowden, 294). Meanwhile, in the mines, children were being sent down into tiny tunnels, while soft gravel above them regularly collapsed and buried them. The greed engendered by the illegitimate trade in diamonds led to a breakdown of traditional society. Visiting a village in 1993, Richard Dowden spoke to a local doctor who commen ted, ‘There is no trust – not even between these brothers who dig together. We have many killings. A lot of people disappear’ (296). Once Civil War broke out, all this worsened. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) ruined the country’s interior. Bankrolled by diamonds, it raided villages, killing the inhabitants or cutting off their hands. Children were forced to become soldiers, and to kill their families and take drugs. They murdered and raped their way through the country, so that, by the end of the war, it was at the bottom of the United Nations Development Index. Let us consider the alternative. If diamonds are mined legitimately, under license from a popularly-elected and accountable government, and processed legitimately, and sold legitimately, to Western jewelers who insist upon certificates confirming the provenance of the diamonds, the revenues from these sales will be fed back into the revenues of the resource-rich states. A country currently re eling from decades of devastating war can use such revenues to build and rebuild schools, hospitals, roads, railways, and even to rebuild lives, by offering those scarred by the conflict a second chance. By taking the diamonds out of the hands of brutal militias, and into the hands of legitimate governments, we can promote sustainable development in a troubled and impoverished region. For confirmation of this, we need only look to those African countries which have managed their

How might an anthropologist analyse a mainstream film Essay

How might an anthropologist analyse a mainstream film - Essay Example The depiction of the characters in the movie is not only racist in more ways than one, it is also extremely sexist. It takes historically inaccurate facts and places the burden of a sexist society upon the tribes of America. The vision that the director and the makers of the movie endorse is extremely problematic and make for disturbing viewing when looked through with a postcolonial and feminist approach. The dissection of the movie in this paper shall then proceed with the gaze of an anthropologist. Another factor that shall be looked into is the fact that Gibson’s movie was a mainstream one and hence factors in popular notions regarding other cultures. This then brings in the elements of reception and the cultural attitudes that are prevalent in the American and also global population. What sections of the population are targeted is also something that needs to be discussed here. This paper shall seek to look at these elements of the debate and also a psychoanalytic approac h into the understanding of why certain races are depicted as they are in popular culture. However, there is another side to this debate. The changes that are introduced into the idea of the Mayans represent the idea of difference between the city and the forest within Mayan culture. The movie is then an indictment of Mayan elite culture that according to Gibson had degenerated into a set of mindless rituals. The city becomes the center of all forms of evil that Gibson associates with Mayan culture. This is then contrasted with the culture that is prevalent within the geographical confines of the village. This village is then the site of family and bonding between different members of the same society. It is a self-sufficient unit that is understood to be a space where traditional aspects of Mayan life are followed without there being a corruption of these ways. There is however, also the presence of technology in the form of traps and other devices that smoothen the life of the peo ple in the villages. There is thus, an endorsement of the idea of the â€Å"noble savage† as Jean Jacques Rousseau thought of it. It discussed the idea of man in a pure state which made him not merely a savage but also a noble one that was purer than the man who had been corrupted by civilization (Basic Concept: Primitivism and the Noble Savage). Throughout the movie, aspects of Mayan culture are denigrated and the only character whose perspective is taken for a large part of the movie is that of the protagonist, Jaguar Paw. The movie traces the life that this character leads where a process of colonization takes place between different tribes within America. The fickleness of power is made clear in this kind of transfer of power takes place very frequently. One of the people who were met by Jaguar Paw is later seen as a captive within a matter of a few days. All of this leads to the series of human sacrifices that take place at the Mayan temple in an effort to appease the Ma yan god Kukulkan. The degeneration of the culture of the elite and those that live in the city are talked of in this movie. The connection between Jaguar Paw and the nature of his homeland is repeatedly stressed. This can also be seen in the way in which the forest decimates the people of the city who seek to kill Jaguar Paw. The connection between Jaguar Paw and his homeland’

Summary of Running Observation Essay Example for Free

Summary of Running Observation Essay This observation was made at 11:30 am for 20 minutes while the kids were playing in the park. Observation was done on 3-4 year old children. The children were playing in the park under teacher’s supervision. There were two teachers present in the park. Some of the children were playing on the play structure: on slides, some on monkey bars. Children that did not want to play on the play structure were coloring. One of the boys was playing with the ball on the play structure. The teacher instructed him to play with the ball on the grass and another boy joined him too. They started playing catch on the grass. The teacher was keeping an eye on them. After some time a 3rd boy wanted to play ball. The teacher suggested that they make a triangle and play together. After some time one of the boys left to play on the play structure. After 10 minutes into the observation the teacher asked the children if they would like to eat apples. A 3rd teacher bought sliced apples and served them on the table on the side with water and small cups for water. A few kids went to eat apples. After they finished eating apples they wiped their hands with a tissue paper and received a small cup of water from the teacher and went back to play with their friends. While a few kids were eating apples there was a girl screaming and crying on the play structure as she had wet her pants. The teacher tried to console and calm her down but she wanted to be left alone and kept on crying and screaming. After a few minutes another teacher tried to calm her down. The child kept on crying and screaming, â€Å"My pants hurt, Ouchy Ouchy†, and started to pull her pants down. The teacher in a calm voice told the child to stop the tantrum, calm down and then she can help her in the classroom. After few minutes, the child calmed down, holding teachers hand went into the classroom. One of the teacher mentioned that the child’s mom had dropped her early to school and she had a change of schedule that day.

The immortality of the soul and ressurection of the body Essay Example for Free

The immortality of the soul and ressurection of the body Essay 1. Compare and contrast the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body. The concept of the immortality of the soul is a dualist one, meaning that the body and soul are two separate entities. Whereas resurrection of the body is the opposite believing that one cannot necessarily live without the other. People that accept the idea of immortality of the soul believe that the soul is separate from the body and that when we die the soul will live on making it immortal. Resurrection of the body however differs because the body and soul are together and when you die both will be resurrected. Plate is a dualist and he believes the soul is not of this world but another where there are perfect forms of everything on earth. He uses the allegory of to demonstrate this idea. Prisoners are bound in a cave and cannot look out the mouth of the cave. Behind them is a fire casting shadows onto the wall they are facing. They believe these shadows to be reality. One then is released and he is blinded by the real world. He sees the perfection of the world and realises his previous thoughts were wrong. When he tells the prisoners in the cave about what he has seen the do not believe him, because they have not yet experienced it. This is like our souls. They want to be realised into the higher world of perfection because they desire greater things. Renà © Descartes is also a dualist. Cartesian dualism, as his views are now known, centre around the famous statement, â€Å"I think therefore I am.† Our body is just a case for the machine and it is only because our soul is conscious that our body is alive. Gilbert Rile compares this to a â€Å"ghost in the machine†, implying that our body is just a machine and our body makes us aware. Saint Thomas Aquinas shares a similar view referring to the soul as â€Å"anima.† This means animation, believing that the soul animates the body and gives us our characteristics and personalities. Resurrection of the body is very different from immortality of the soul. With this idea the body is needed for a person to live on. This is a very Christian belief because of the Bibles reference to it. On judgement day Jesus will come and those who have lived lives according to the law of God will be resurrected in a new heaven and new Earth. The resurrection of the body is spoken about by many writers in the Bible, including St Paul. There are also examples, with the most famous being Jesus rising on the third day and Jesus bringing a girl back to life after saying she was only â€Å"sleeping.† John Hick has a slightly different variation of resurrection of the body, and postulates his â€Å"replica theory.† Hick suggests that when we die our body and soul our lost, and that God, the omnipotent being, creates an exact replica of us in heaven. This replica can be recognised by our family and friends because we are no different. 1. To what extent is one of these a more convincing concept that the other Both, immortality of the soul and resurrection of the body, have their problems. Immortality of the soul has been challenged by many empiricists such as A.J Ayer and Richard Dawkins because of their idea of a soul. Biologist Dawkins ask where this soul is, it cannot be found in the body and therefore we have no proof for its existence, and if it does not exist then it cannot be immortal implying that there is no life after death. Another problem facing the soul is when a human receives one. Aquinas suggested men get one after 40 days after conception and women after 60; however, again there is no proof for this idea. Rene Descartes also has challenges with his statement â€Å"I think therefore I am.† With some clever word swapping the idea of â€Å"I am therefore I think† was suggested by another philosopher, arguing that the only reason that you are conscious is because exist not because a soul has appeared in your body, we have evolved to think. Resurrection of the soul has some major difficulties also. There is no proof for a life after death, naturally because no one has come back and told us. Also, Despite the Bible having numerous accounts of resurrection, the Bible is not a reliable source that can be taken literally because of some of the other ideas and concepts within it. There is also the question of what happens to those who are dead and judgement day has not come, do they wait in some form of purgatory. Heaven and hell have no empirical evidence either so there is no reason to assume people are there. Hick’s replica theory is arguable the weakest of all the ideas. In his concept God recreates an exact replica of the person that died, but why, if he is God, does it need to be a replica, if he is omnipotent should he not be able to resurrect our body? This is in a way not a life after death because the original person is dead and it is not their body that has lived on. However, it is not so much a question of whether which concept is more convincing than the other, it is more does a life after death actually exist, or have we created one? Has the human race just feared the ceasing of existence, and so to try and give hope and reason to a miserable existence? Or was it created by those who wish to keep the people in order, by making them live in fear of a hell and by giving them a reward for being good, they could create a form of social control.

Measuring the development of rural women

Measuring the development of rural women Although it has been difficult to break down the gender blindness of development history, since 1970, gender’s role in family welfare was made as a visible social construct in development (Kingsbury et al., 2004; Bannon and Correia, 2006). Parallel to improvements made in womens position in many societies, the importance of gender to economic analyses (Kadam, 2012) and their active participation in development has been one of the most troubled aspects of the development debate (Kingsbury et al., 2004). In the rural sector, the attention to gender issues is even more challenging. This means that understanding the linkages between gender equity and development effectiveness is essential aspect of rural studies. Therefore, gender issues have been a core priority of governments including Iran. Although Iran has made considerable progress in terms of human development, its rural areas face some important challenges. Today rural people have, more than ever before, access to educatio n, health facilities and occupational opportunities. But close examination of their living conditions indicates that although the aggregate level of production and consumption has increased, the distribution of benefits continues to show persistent inequalities, including the need for more equitable income and wealth distribution, improved access to health and basic sanitation services. The concern for increasing the development of the rural women makes researchers eager to focus on enormous diversity of pathways to human development monitoring and evaluation. These attempts lead to determining list of indicators for monitoring and evaluation a range of economic, social and environmental goals. However, various life domains directly contribute to individual development. Perhaps, human development approach presents an opportunity not only to review achievements in human development domain, but also to determine challenges at different global, national and regional levels, systematica lly. Not surprisingly, the human development approach, which proved very popular in public discussion, has a crudeness that is somewhat similar to mechanical devices of economic development. Besides, this approach is concentrating on what remains undone especially for different regions. Therefore, the validity of the original human development vision has been criticized on a number of fronts. This paper discusses a modified index for measuring rural women development. The present study outlines different concepts important for concerning rural women development, specifically: (1) quality of life; (2) income; (3) social capital; (4) health and sanitation; (5) food security; (6) rate of education; and (7) life expectancy among rural women in Choram County, South-Werstern of Iran. These concepts provide understanding that rural communities are both an environment of care and a cause of disease. Background Since 1990, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has published a series of annual Human Development Reports (HDRs) in which the human development index (HDI) is computed for each country (Sagar and Najam, 1998). HDI embodies Amartya Sen’s â€Å"capabilities† approach to understanding human well-being, which emphasizes the importance of ends (Stanton, 2007). This framework has continued to be the keystone of annual reports from the UNDP on dimensions of human development demand most attention in the contemporary world: to lead a long and healthy life, to acquire knowledge and have access to resources for a decent standard of living. Adult literacy and combined enrolment ratios have been selected as indicators for the knowledge dimension, life expectancy at birth as the indicator for a healthy life and an adjusted GDP as the indicator for the standard of living. In essence, the HDRs have pushed the development debate boundaries beyond a traditional economic per spective (Sagar and Najam, 1998). Despite the positive view of these qualities by many scholars (Streeten, 1994), yet not all sides of the story are positive. However, substantial progress has seen in many aspects of human development, even in countries facing adverse economic conditions (Human development report, 2010). In the other words, the progress was proved in improving health and education and raising income, which expand people’s social capital (power to select leaders, influence public decisions and share knowledge). But not in poverty and deprivation reduction to end the inequality and insecurity around the world. As much as the HDI has introduced new way of development thinking, it has also been faced with a number of criticisms (Sanusi, 2008). Unfortunately, over the years, the HDRs seem to have become stagnant, repeating the same rhetoric without necessarily increasing the HDI’s utility. Progress has varied, and increasing inequality has also seen among people in different countries, across regions, and especially rural areas both within and across countries. The HDI is a measure which reflects its aims imperfectly; and other important questions concerning human development are left out of the HDI altogether. Srinivasan (1994) summarizes the HDI critiques in five main categories: poor data, incorrect choice of indicators, various problems with the HDI’s formula in general, incorrect specification of income in particular, and redundancy. In fact, the authors have modified the index to address many of its sharpest criticisms, and thus the HDI has evolved over the seven issues of the Human Development Report. Plans that maximize the modified index directly trade-off the allocations to consumption, education and health against each other. This leads to plans that balance expenditures across the three components. Engineer et al (2008) consider net income, in education and health expenditure domain, as indicating capabilities not already reflected in the index and argue for a modified HDI that replaces the income component with a net income component; i.e. income that is net of expenditures on education and health. The multi-dimensional nature of poverty is being emphasized by many analysts and policy makers. Addressing these issues requires new tools. Hicks (1997) proposed a method of incorporating distributional inequalities of three measures of income, education and longevity into the HDI framework. He believed that Gi ni coefficients could potentially measure inequalities in human development (annual income, educational, and life-span attainment). A number of attempts have been made to adjust the raw measure of life expectancy to take into account quality of life and time spent in poor health. One concern is that while females generally live longer, their quality of life may be lower due to poorer health than men. The Global Burden of Disease project popularized one such measure, namely disability-adjusted life expectancy (Murray and Là ³pez 1996). The World Health Organization (WHO) measures healthy life expectancy (HALE) based on life expectancy at birth adjusted for time spent in poor health. Although, these new thinking approaches and thus the new measurement tools reinforce the continuing validity of the human development vision (HDR, 2010), the study of development in regional contexts, rural areas, bring a second debate on the fore, that focuses on the extent to which the definition and experience of development is culturally specific. And, are the standardised indicators appropriate applied devises for all regions? Even when progress in the HDI is experienced in the country level, this does not necessarily excel in the local and regional levels. In the other words, as averages can be misleading, it is possible to have an acceptable rate of progress in HDI and be unequal. These patterns pose important challenges for how to think about human development dimensions, its measurement and the policies to improve outcomes and processes over time especially in regional areas and among the mass development neglected target groups, rural women. Perhaps, the understanding, measurement, and improvement of human development especially in local level have been commonly expressed by the term quality of life (QOL) across multiple disciplines (including sociology, economics, psychology, environmental science, and medicine). The term QOL is a complex, multi-faceted concept (Farquhar, 1995; Carr et al., 2001; Holmes, 2005) which according to Costanza et al (2007) is generally meant to represent either how well human needs are met or the extent to which individuals or groups perceive satisfaction or dissatisfaction in various dimensions of their lives. Similarly, Calman as stated by Vyavaharkar et al (2012) defined QOL as a gap or difference between hopes and expectations of a person and the person’s present experiences at a given moment in time. The limited amount of research has focused on QOL in development studies. However, it seems that QOL in the rural setting according to Phillips (2006) is a multifaceted phenomenon determined by the cumulative and interactive impacts of numerous and varied factors (Zaid and Popoola, 2010) like housing conditions, services, infrastructure, access to various qualities and amenities, income, living standards, satisfaction about the physical and social environment (Phillip, 2006). An integrative definition of quality of life contains two sets of subjective (Carr et al., 2001; Holmes, 2005; Phillips, 2006; Costanza et al., 2007) and objective indicators (Phillips, 2006; Costanza, 2007). The subjective indicator focuses on respondents own assessments of pleasure as the basic building block of human satisfaction, happiness well-being or some near synonym of their lived experiences. However, so-called â€Å"objective† indicators of QOL on the other hand, focuses on indices and data that can be gathered without a subjective evaluation being made by the individual being assessed (economic production and security, health, food security, literacy rates, life expectancy, †¦) and may be used singly or in combination to form summary indexes, as in the UNs Human Development Index (Costanza et al., 2007). However, there are well-documented differences in subjective QOL between men and women, and in different localities as reflected in various researches. While discussing the definition of well-being, Arku et al (2008) emphasized that the indicators can differ between urban and rural residents within a country and similarly between men and women within the same society because of differences in needs, priorities (Chambers, 1997). Shek et al (2005) and Diener and Suh (2000) mention that the indicators are socially and locally constructed based on the cultural values of communities. Veenhoven (2005) also arguing for the need of incorporation of cultural-specific indicators in determining people’s quality-of-life. Similar results are found in the study of happiness. In a recent exploration of this theme, Camfield et al (2009) revealed that the definition and experience of happiness is culturally specific. To understand the position of Iranian rural women in the development debate, it is necessary to modify HDI and thus examine the status of women within household and community structures regarding indicators which were chosen to reflect the average quality of life (QOL) – defined as subjective social well-being, food security, social capital, education and training, income, and life expectancy. Women living in rural areas of Kohgilouyeh and Boyer Ahmad, Iran, are generally known to be suffering from general deprivation including access to and control over land and other productive resources, services and infrustructures, opportunities for employment and income-generating activities, and access to health care. This paper sets out to evaluate development status of rural women in Choram County, Kohgilouyeh and Boyer Ahmad province, South-Western Iran. It proposes ways in which the modified HDI can be improved to better reflect its conceptual intent. The scope of this essay then is not to nit-pick on the finer details of the proposed index, but rather to conceptualize a constructive discussion on how the modified proposed index can be improved to better fulfill its own goal of measuring human development in rural areas.

Margaret Thatcher :: essays research papers

MARGARET THATCHER Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of Great Britian. Margaret changed many policies and she also defended strongly other government policies. An example of this was when Margaret Thatcher was Secretary of state for education and science. The government had to cut school funding by $300 million. She didn’t want to cut anything that had to do with the students missing out of education. It was her duty to provide the best education for them. The solution she had come up with would be one of the most unpopular moves in her career-up to and including her as Prime Minster (Hole 35). The decision she had made was to eliminate free milk from the lower grades. Free milk had already been eliminated from the older students of a previous labor government cut. She said â€Å" I took the view that most parents are able to pay for milk for their children, and that the job of the government was to provide such things in education which they couldn’t pay for, like new primary schools.† â€Å"Mrs. Thatcher, milk snatcher,† was screamed at her (Hole 36). When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister the first thing she wanted to do was limit union power. She felt that union power applied to nationalized industrial monopolies resulted in poor service at exorbitant cost to the taxpayers. She pointed to inefficient work practices, overemployment and restrictive employment conditions such as the all union â€Å"closed shop†. These rules were dictated by union contracts and served to tie the hands of managers and the government alike. Mrs. Thatcher’s greatest grievance concerned the powers union leaders had over strikes ( Moskin 100). Margaret’s first targets were the closed shop, picketing practices, and the use of secondary strikes. During her first term in office, new legislation strengthened the power of individual union members against their leadership and provided for penalties imposed on unions that called illegal strikes. A law was enacted to compel unions to make strike decisions by secret ballot. The unions were getting very angry ( Moskin 100). The National Union of Mine Workers (NUM) had a strike thinking it would defeat the Tory government and Margaret Thatcher. The NUM wanted to promote more socialism in Britian with more nationalization of industry and more control of industry by labor. Because Mrs. Thatcher’s policies were exactly the opposite, his efforts were directed at toppling her Conservation administration.

Process of Floor Maintenance Essay -- Process Essays

PREFACE Floor maintenance is a vital activity in any building which has tile flooring, whether it be a hospital, university or office building. Floors can either reflect a positive or negative image of an institution, depending on how they appear. This paper discusses the proper procedures for the three main steps in floor maintenance: stripping the floor, applying the finish and maintaining the finish. Everyone that is associated with the field of janitorial supplies and maintenance should have at least a general understanding of the correct procedures in floor care. Examples of such people would include janitorial workers, supervisors, and suppliers. The more informed everybody involved in the process is, the more efficient it becomes. Consequently, time and money will be saved. ii INTRODUCTION First impressions may play a role in whether a company gets a government contract or wins a bid. For an individual, it may determine if he/she gets a raise, promotion or even a second date! There is no doubt that making a good first impression is very important. Therefore, for a company, hospital or university, the way its floors look is highly important. Floor maintenance may be thought of as sinkhole of money to some, but to others, it is an investment in the future of the organization. A beautiful plant or building with bright shiny floors can be an advertisement reflecting that company's pride and commitment to excellence. A building that has dull dirty floors may reflect a lack of attention to detail or that the company is second rate. THis paper will discuss the three main steps in the floor maintenance process: stripping the floor, applying ... ...more uniform throughout. The liquid is emulsified so that the different components do not separate. plasticizer: a factory finish on new tile that must be removed in order for the floor finish to adhere. sealer: an undercoating that is applied before waxing to fill in the tile's pores so the finish does not soak into the tile. stripping: the fist process in floor maintenance. This is the process by which all the finish is removed from the tile using a stripping solution, mop and/or floor machine. 12 WORKS CITED Dixon, M. February 1988. Resilient floor care: Presenting a high quality image. Maintenance Supplies. 36-40, 58, 62. R******, Edward, janitorial sales man for 27 years. Personal interview. Techniques of Floor Maintenance. 1988. Baltimore: Grow Professional Products.

I am Just Like Everyone Else Essay -- Personal Narrative, essay about

It's 9:38 p.m.. I guess I've put this off long enough... not that I want to sound unenthusiastic, but it just feels weird. When I looked over the prompts nothing really struck me: I really don't want to drag on about my plastic trophies, or try to convince you that I am the one student that would change your school entirely. The only thing left was to write about a hardship that I had overcome... funny thing though... I couldn't think of many hardships. I mean, a lot of things have happened to me, but most of those things, like my dad dying, were things everyone has to overcome at some point. I never had to do anything... unexpected. That brings me here sitting in front of a screen typing as Chopin plays in the background at 10:00 p.m.. I've changed a lot since my freshmen year; I've changed a lot since breakfast, but I never knew why until just a while ago. When I was a little kid, my class mates would always make fun of me. At first I thought it was because I was stupid, then I thought it was because they were stupid, but by the time I was in eighth grade I had firmly identified the reason for my social awkwardness: I was so much better than everyone else at everything that they were all jealous of me. Why not? It was true. No matter how hard they tried they could never produce answers like me... or questions. Also, I needn't bother about trying to get good grades; that wasn't my "style." Whether by Freudian compensation or an empathic teacher's comment, I began to look at other people as being slower, less farsighted than me. Their senses were dulled while mine were too acute to pay attention to little things like assignments. Entering Valhalla I looked upon the various Goths and Preps, the Ret... ...one there deserved the air I breathed as much as I did. It boggled my mind. Slowly, I began to work back. All the skills I had worked so relentlessly on to be superior were talents in their own right. My road to heaven was being paved with bad intentions. I stopped work on the moonlight sonata (Cj had always played it better than I). I began to teach myself the blues and Chopin. I didn't have to worry about being better at physics than some one. I no longer had to not take notes in class so I could prove to everyone I didn't "need" to. I had always been master to myself, but now I was slave to no man. I was just like everyone else, and that was O.K. That's about all. I can't say that I deserve to go to your school any more than the next guy. I don't really think it will change your life one iota, but I do know that it would change mine. I am Just Like Everyone Else Essay -- Personal Narrative, essay about It's 9:38 p.m.. I guess I've put this off long enough... not that I want to sound unenthusiastic, but it just feels weird. When I looked over the prompts nothing really struck me: I really don't want to drag on about my plastic trophies, or try to convince you that I am the one student that would change your school entirely. The only thing left was to write about a hardship that I had overcome... funny thing though... I couldn't think of many hardships. I mean, a lot of things have happened to me, but most of those things, like my dad dying, were things everyone has to overcome at some point. I never had to do anything... unexpected. That brings me here sitting in front of a screen typing as Chopin plays in the background at 10:00 p.m.. I've changed a lot since my freshmen year; I've changed a lot since breakfast, but I never knew why until just a while ago. When I was a little kid, my class mates would always make fun of me. At first I thought it was because I was stupid, then I thought it was because they were stupid, but by the time I was in eighth grade I had firmly identified the reason for my social awkwardness: I was so much better than everyone else at everything that they were all jealous of me. Why not? It was true. No matter how hard they tried they could never produce answers like me... or questions. Also, I needn't bother about trying to get good grades; that wasn't my "style." Whether by Freudian compensation or an empathic teacher's comment, I began to look at other people as being slower, less farsighted than me. Their senses were dulled while mine were too acute to pay attention to little things like assignments. Entering Valhalla I looked upon the various Goths and Preps, the Ret... ...one there deserved the air I breathed as much as I did. It boggled my mind. Slowly, I began to work back. All the skills I had worked so relentlessly on to be superior were talents in their own right. My road to heaven was being paved with bad intentions. I stopped work on the moonlight sonata (Cj had always played it better than I). I began to teach myself the blues and Chopin. I didn't have to worry about being better at physics than some one. I no longer had to not take notes in class so I could prove to everyone I didn't "need" to. I had always been master to myself, but now I was slave to no man. I was just like everyone else, and that was O.K. That's about all. I can't say that I deserve to go to your school any more than the next guy. I don't really think it will change your life one iota, but I do know that it would change mine.

A Study in Sociology Essay

Suicide always fascinated academic researches for a long time however it is has been an area of study limited to the field of psychology. Sociology is a relatively new field of social sciences. It started looking into suicide, not just as a personal act, but as a social action which is not entirely divorced from social forces. This paper discusses pertinent studies on the phenomenon of suicide and seeks to present literatures concerning this act. Moreover, differing ideas and interpretations on suicide are presented to carefully elaborate different perspectives on the subject matter. A Study in Sociology Arguably the first person to connect suicide to the study of sociology is sociologist Emile Durkheim. He presented that although suicide is a personal choice of the individual, the act is not separated from the context of a society. He looked into pre-existing records and analyzed suicide trends in different societies. Based on these suicide trends, there are four classifications of suicide: 1) Egoistic; 2) Altruistic; 3) Anomic and; 4) Fatalistic. Social cohesion plays a vital role in Durkheim’s theories on suicide. Egoistic suicide occurs when a person has a relatively low degree of integration into a society. On the other hand, a high degree of integration into a society can also result in suicides that are meant for a higher cause within a society. He also argued that changes in social order and the individual’s perception towards social change would explain anomic suicides. The phenomenon of fatalism takes place in extreme social contexts, where a person would decide on killing himself rather than suffering dire social conditions (Durkheim, 1951). Self and Society From an object of study limited to psychology, suicide became a subject of sociology. Durkheim’s research proved that the traditional perspective that view the subject matter as a psychological behavior and entirely individualistic in nature is a constricted framework when looking into suicide. This implies that social structures, social forces as well as social conflicts and changes are intervening factors in a suicide phenomenon. C. Wright Mills (2000) supported that one cannot separate behaviors and actions of an individual from the larger social context. He wrote that â€Å"the personal troubles of the milieu are connected to the public issues of social structure. † The individual committing suicide must therefore be located in his social as well as historical contexts. Current Trends on Suicide Studies After Mills and Durkheim laid the foundations of suicide as a sociological subject, numerous studies concerning suicide have been conducted in both psychology and sociology. Currently, suicide studies are interconnected with other factors such as gender, poverty, small arms, mental disorders and even medicine. It is now linked to modernity (Baudelot and Establet, 2008), attitudes and experiences of oncology patients (Emanuel, Fairclough, Daniels & Clarridge, 1996), a demographic-specific trend such as adolescents (Brent, et. al. , 1988), cultural forces (West, 2005), economic conditions (Ruhm, 2000), as well as access to weapons (Brent, et. al. 1991). Suicide and Modernity Baudelot and Establet (2008) worked with Durkheim’s premises in their study of suicide. They stated that â€Å"The link between suicide, affluence and individualism is more complex—suicide rates do reflect broad social trends but they are also influenced by the structural position and lived experience of small social groups. The notion of social well-being is demonstrated to be a key factor in changes in suicide rates. † While sociology itself cannot accurately predict a suicide case, the collective gathering of these cases provides a fertile ground for sociological interpretations. Modernity is a historical as well as social era where social changes occur and these cases of suicide are descriptive of their milieu. Suicide, seen as such in the context of modernity, is a social fact. It describes the changes that occurred during the time of modernity. Societies that are rigid in its goals during the time of modernity are those that adamantly pursued modernization. It is in this context that suicide rates are known to be higher in the Communist Bloc, China and India (Baudelot and Establet, 2008). Economics and Suicide While both affluent and starving groups of individuals commit suicide, the role of economics cannot be downplayed in the study of suicide. On the macro-economic level, the period of modernity prominently features suicide trends in a time where economies were vibrant and booming. On the other hand, a stagnating economy, such as in a recession, also has an effect on suicide. Ruhm (2000) argues that â€Å"unemployment is negatively correlated to mortality and that unemployment is positively correlated to suicide. † In Japan, suicide is seen in a cultural context. Since individuals in the Japanese society are strongly connected to their social, political and cultural spheres, there is tendency for the push and pull of altruistic-egoistic suicide to occur. This is seen when the rule of law in Japanese society permeates the personal sphere such that debts and divorces are major factors affecting suicide (West, 2005). Suicide and Norms Sociology also attempted to explain suicide in a broader sense—by zooming out of the individual and focusing on social factors that affect the phenomenon. Psychology argues that those committing suicide are psychologically ill or that the individuals committing them are inept in their coping mechanisms. While suicide might seem irrational, there are rational premises that are least likely explored. Societies that are relatively more tolerant of suicide, as well as the individual’s cognitive ability to rationalize the act are also extraordinary factors contributing to suicide trends. Rendering rational suicide normative in a society creates the positive feedback mechanism necessary for a rational suicide to occur. This type of suicide is also surprisingly limited to a specific demographic, namely the educated and successful. Rationality of Suicide One of the fundamental question relating suicide and society lies in the rationality of the act. Is the act ‘rational’ based only on the perceptions and actions of the individual, thereby rendering the act an exclusive study within psychology? Or is this rationality of the act itself being defined not only in terms of the individual’s values but a rationality that is predetermined by the values and norms of a society? Although there are many reasons for suicide, there are factors that least likely determine suicidal trends, but are potent social forces (i. e. education, family, religion) that must be considered. Suicide occurs for a number of reasons such as depression, substance abuse, shame, avoiding pain, financial difficulties or other undesirable fates. † Defying the commonplace definition is the concept of rational suicide. Rational suicide is â€Å"ending one’s life out of a conviction that one has lived long enough, that the likely future holds more pain than joy† (Lerner, 2004). Surprisingly, rationality of a suicide act Keown (1995) showed that there is prime value placed on the moral intention behind the act of death itself. This applies not just in euthanasia but also in rational suicide. What are the intentions behind the suicide? Is the decision independent of life’s problems that can be solved? Is it free from outside pressure from a belief system, mores or culture itself? This is the litmus test of the rationality or irrationality of suicides. Sociological and psychological studies attempted to look into the duality of forces working on suicides—individual and social. It is arguably psycho-social factors that are deterministic of the suicide trends across societies. Social institutions, many sociological studies posit, are playing a huge role in the nature and type of suicides in a given society. Stack and Kposowa (2008) concludes that: â€Å"National suicide rates are predictive of individual-level suicide acceptability. However, the main predictors of suicide acceptability included a measure from social learning theory, religiosity, and a neglected measure of control theory, life satisfaction. † While the act of committing suicide is a very individualistic act, there are factors to be considered that are social forces with repercussions and influences on individual action. The act of suicide presents how the personal milieu is linked to the larger issues within the social institutions. References: Baudelot C. and Establet R. (2008) Suicide: The Hidden Side of Modernity. John Wiley Publications. Brent, D. A. , Perper, J. A. , Goldstein, C. E. , Kolko, D. J. , Allan, M. J. , Allman, C. J. , and Zelenak, J. P. (1988) Risk factors for adolescent suicide. A comparison of adolescent suicide victims with suicidal inpatients. Archives of General Psychiatry. Vol. 45, No. 6, June 1988.

British Government Essay

Evaluate antithetical methods of estimating the up-to-the-minute out(p)ion set up. Do you think that gentleman leave behind induce a push-down list extinction on the same dental plate as the Big Five? mental institution There is consensus in the scientific residential district that the authentic massive degradation of home ground and extinction of m each of the Earths biology is unprecedented and is taking office staff on a catastrophic in ally unaw atomic rate 18s propagationcale.Based on extinction judge estimated to be thousands of propagation the background rate, figures attack 30% extermination of all species by the mid 21st century atomic number 18 not unrealistic, an type comparable to round of the catastrophic mass extinction events of the past. The current rate of rainforest destruction poses a profound scourge to species diversity. Likewise, the degradation of the ocean ecosystems is largecastly evident through the denudation of species that were once dominant and integral to such(prenominal) ecosystems.Indeed, this colloquium is framed by a hatful that if the current global extinction event is of the magnitude that seems to be tumesce call ford by the data at hand, then its effects entrust fundamentally reset the proximo evolution of the planets biota. Robert Whittaker recognise an additional kingdom for the Fungi. The resulting five-kingdom system, proposed in 1969, has start a popular standard and with round refinement is still used in many works, or forms the basis for newer multi-kingdom systems.It is ground mainly on differences in bread and butter his Plantae were mostly multicellular autotrophs, his kingdom Animalia multicellular, heterotrophs and his Fungi multicellular saprotrophs. The remaining dickens kingdoms, Protista and Monera, included unicellular and guileless(prenominal) cellular colonies. experimental extinction judge in the fossil participates The time at which an organism is classified as becoming extinct is when the youngest fossil of its form is found. It is electromotive force that at that place would read been later examples of the organism present, which were just not keep.It is known that some genera puddle existed for long periods around this time without departure any known fossil record by the phenomena of Lazarus taxa. It is believed that these organisms were simply not keep during the time they atomic number 18 missing, or carry on in offshore sediments as however undiscove trigger-happy. This may also be the persona with many other organisms creating the illusion they ar becoming extinct before they ar in reality. Ecological Evolutionary cypher affecting the past extinction some claim that homosexual activity caused a large scale of plants and animals extinction.The others claim that human caused extinctions ar on a exchangeable scale to those that occurred 65 one thousand million eld ago at the margin amidst the Cretaceous and T ertiary eras when most species perished including the dinosaurs. This causes devil distinct worries (1) The loss of species go forth injure humans (2) Quite apart from any harm to humans on that point is a barter to prevent ecocide. According to cocksucker Raven (National Academy of Science) We ar confronting an chance of species extinction greater than anything the world has undergo for the past 65 million years.Of all the global problems that confront us, this is the one that is miserable the most rapidly and the one that will have the most serious consequences. And, hostile other global ecological problems, it is tout ensemble permanent. Different people evaluate this duty differently. Since the purpose of these pages is establish the sustainability of material progress, Ill take the view that although biodiversity is an important amenity, we are mainly concerned with the extent to which losses of diversity are a threat to human progress.One interesting detail in the article concerns the effect of an adjoin in temperature on the north-south range of a plant species, especially of trees. It turns out that the northerly limitation of a species is determined by temperature. As that limit is approached the rate of ontogenesis goes to zero. However, the rate of growth of a species does not decline as it approaches the Confederate limit of its range but remains still or even increases. What determines a species southern boundary is competition from other species that invite high temperatures.For this reason the southern boundary of a species is likely to change behind as its territory is gradually invaded by species liking warm temperature. The invasion is likely to begin in gaps caused by record and various kinds of die-off. According to Lord Robert whitethorn (FRS)-Chief Scientific Adviser to the British Government. just a day passes without one cosmos told that tropical deforestation is extinguishing slightly one species every hour, or perchance even one every minute.such(prenominal) guesstimates are based on pretend species- celestial orbit relations, along with assessments of current place of deforestation and guesses at the global total number of species (which range from 5 to 80 million or more than. ) While such figures arguably have a purpose in capturing public attention, there is a transcend and increasing need for better estimates of imminent rates of extinction, based on a keener understanding of extinction rates in the recent and far past, and on the vestigial ecological and evolutionary causes. Scientists who worry close to extinctions often agree that the world will reach a new equalizer as temperature increases assuming it does. However, they worry that the rate of increase of temperature is unprecedented and that species, especially of plants, will migrate northward too tardily and become extinct. Roughly 43 percent of the earths terrestrial vegetated fold up has diminished capacity t o supply advantage to humanity because of the recent, direct impacts of the land use.This represents 10 percent reduction in potential direct instrumental pass judgment (PDIV), specify as the potential to yield direct benefits such as agricultural, forestry, industrial and medical exam products. Capitalizing on the natural recovery mechanisms is urgently needed to prevent further irreversible degradation and to retain the multiple value of productive land. Differences in extinction rates among groups Estimated Future extinction rates from the species area relations A better instruction of studying rates of complete biota extinction levels has been developed with the analysis of isotopic ratios of Carbon.When life is abundant there is about completely speed of light-12 indoors the geological record. Enzymes deep down organisms, passing into organic matter faster, more efficiently accept this isotope, which becomes lithified into rock. At times of lowered biotic activity, suc h as at an extinction event when a lot of life has been killed, the ratio of coulomb-13 within the rocks will be higher as a higher proportion of carbon will be being bushel as carbonates inorganically. Inorganic precipitation of carbon does not differentiate between the different isotopes of carbon as life does.By analyses of carbon isotope ratios it is then possible to see, by peaks in the carbon-13, at what times there has been a reduction of biotic activity. This is unaffiliated of whether organisms present are being preserved or not, and shows at what rates the extinction is occurring. Estimated future extinction rates from IUCN red itemizations Recent extinction rates are 100 to 1000 times their pre-human levels sanitary known, but taxonomically diverse groups from astray different environments. If all species currently deemed threaten become extinct in the nigh century, then the future extinction rates will be 10 times recent rates.Although new technology provides ex patiate on habitat losses, estimates of future extinctions are hampered by our limited knowledge of which areas are rich in endemics. The 2004 IUCN Red List contains 15,589 species imperil with extinction. The assessment includes species from a broad range of taxonomic groups including vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, and fungi. However, this figure is an underreckoning of the total number of threaten species as it is based on an assessment of less than 3% of the worlds 1. 9 million described species. Among major species groups, the office of threatened species ranges between 12% and 52%.The IUCN Red List identifies 12% of birds as threatened, 23% of mammals, and 32% of amphibians. Although reptiles have not been completely assessed, the turtles and tortoises are relatively well reviewed with 42% threatened. Fishes are also peaked(predicate) represented, but roughly a terce of sharks, rays and chimaeras have been assessed and 18% of this group is threatened. regional case s tudies on freshwater fishes indicate that these species might be more threatened than marine species. For example, 27% of the freshwater species assessed in Eastern Africa were listed as threatened.Of plants, only conifers and cycads have been completely assessed with 25% and 52% threatened respectively. References Robert M. May, lavatory H. Lawton and Nigel E. Stork. Assessing Extinction Rates Extinction Rate Analysis http//palaeo. gly. bris. ac. uk/Palaeofiles/Permian/rateanalysis. html Restoring the value to the worlds degraded Lands Gretchen C. Daily The future of biodiversity Stuart L. Pimm, Gareth j. Russell, John L. Gittleman ,Thomas M. Brook IUCN Red List of peril Specieshttp//www. iucn. org/themes/ssc/red_list_2004/GSAexecsumm_EN. htm References IUCN 2001. IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria Version 3. 1.IUCN Species survival Commission, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK, pp. ii+30. Parr C. S. and Cummings M. P. 2005. Data sacramental manduction in ecology a nd evolution. Trends Ecol. Evol. 20 362363. Purvis A. and Rambaut A. 1995. proportional analysis by independent contrasts (CAIC) an orchard apple tree Macintosh application for analysing comparative data. Comput. Appl. Biosci. 11 247251. Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso (2003) The Specter of Species Extinction Will spheric Warming Decimate Earths Biosphere? 2003 September John Lawton and Robert May BIODIVERSITY AND defunctness RATES 17-May-2004) www-formal. stanford. edu/jmc/progress/biodiversity. html