Thursday, October 31, 2019

Principles and practice of leadership and management Essay

Principles and practice of leadership and management - Essay Example According to Egri and Herman, contingent leadership theories are those that predict relations while Hartog (1999) in an in-depth research on culturally implicit theories observes that contingent theories are twofold as attributes embraced in one culture may be discouraged in another. Since there are myriads of these theories, many of them overlap to an extent that merges others into a whole i.e. the transactional, laissez-faire, and transformational/charismatic leadership. Egri and Herman defined transactional leaders as those in charge of subordinates’ work performance to achieve a certain goal whereas the transformational leaders are those that inspire others to achieve their goals, visions, and missions by empowering them.Egri and Herman added that of particular importance in leadership is the behavior of the leader since it acts as a gauge on how to handle his or her subordinates, peers and superiors. Thus shaded light that highly effective leaders are those that are able to use multiple approaches such as human resource, structural, political, symbolic among others to ensure that they influence the team towards achieving their objectives.Culturally based theories expound leadership attributes that are ingrained in any particular culture. He argues that criterion used by different societies to consider one as a leader is of paramount importance since, across cultures, they are quite different if not complex behaviors and attributes that are critically looked for in leadership and may differ in different cultures.... e in charge of subordinates’ work performance to achieve a certain goal whereas the transformational leaders are those that inspire others to achieve their goals, visions and missions by empowering them. Egri and Herman (pp.6) added that of particular importance in leadership is the behavior of the leader since it acts as a gauge on how to handle his or her subordinates, peers and superiors. Thus shaded light that highly effective leaders are those that are able to use multiple approaches such as human resource, structural, political, symbolic among others to ensure that they influence the team towards achieving their objectives. Culturally based theories expound leadership attributes that are ingrained in any particular culture, (Hartog 1999 p.7). He argues that criterion used by different societies to consider one as a leader are of paramount importance since across cultures, they are quite different if not complex behaviors and attributes that are critically looked for in l eadership and may differ in different cultures. This makes the cultural conception of the most characteristics of a leader to vary. Hartog continues to highlight that the Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs) have over time been employed to explain leadership attributes and perceptions. These theories are based on the general attributes that are universally considered in a leader across cultures. As aforementioned, the ILTs are formed with universally accepted elements such as categorization, prototype etc. which are the backbone of these theories. These theories are employed in almost all the main leadership theories as the root systems for their existence. For instance, in discussing the transactional, laissez-faire and transformational theories, (Hartog 1999, Egri &Herman 2000) the key

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Communication and practice within the early years environment Essay

Communication and practice within the early years environment - Essay Example By the exhaustive definition, we can say that it’s a process that can be termed as complex because it’s not a just a one way sending of message but also, receiving it and understanding its exact intent. It also requires the receiver to send a feedback to the sender of the message stating that he has understood the message. Wilbur Schramm (1954) said that the feedback is very important, because it justifies the extent to which the receiver has grasped the message, and if there is any mistake in the understanding of the meaning, it can be corrected there and then itself. It involves information from many sources, therefore the sender has to refine the raw data that he comes across and put it together in a more comprehendible manner so that it becomes easier for him to send the message as well as the receiver to understand it. The content of the message should be relevant to the situation the sender is in and it should also be clear and precise. This was also illustrated b y the model given by Shannon and Weaver (1949) namely The Information Processing Theory. Wherein he said that a full loop of communication has a source, source’s message, a transmitter, a signal and a receiver. The receiver again sends a message which has to be sent to a particular destination. After this model Wilbur Schramm (1954) said that the sender encodes the message and the receiver decodes it to make sense of what has been imparted through the medium of a transmitter (a phone, a letter, face to face interaction, gestures etc.). According to him, the individual’s knowledge and experience play a vital role in the communication. The importance of feedback was also reinforced through his work. Next came the Berlo’s Model of communication in 1960. He argued that the source and receiver should communicate at the same level. With respect to children, Bandura (1977) devised a theory of imitation. According to him, children learn to communicate by observing and i mitating the parents and teachers. They try to make role models out of them. Seeing them behave them in particular manner, they act in the same way. When these associations happen over a period of time, these behaviors get reinforced and get deep seated. Interpersonal communication is a selective, systemic, unique, processual (is an ongoing process) transactions that allow people to reflect and build knowledge of one another and create shared meaning (wood, 2010). Dainton (2011) also argued that interpersonal communication as a process occurring between two individuals, when they are close in proximity, able to provide immediate feedback and utilize multiple senses. If we ponder over the former definition, we come to segregate the definition into its various subparts. Interpersonal communication has a selective nature, which means that we select people with whom we want to communicate. We meet a plethora of people every day, but we don’t quite have any associations with these people. Secondly, we can describe the aforementioned phenomena as systemic, which means that it takes place within and around before stated systems that are valid as well as reliable. Thirdly, the process of interpersonal communication is unique in its own right because like it’s mentioned above, every human is different and therefore the way

Sunday, October 27, 2019

The Massive Influence On The Indian Society Religion Essay

The Massive Influence On The Indian Society Religion Essay Caste as we have discussed before is a wide area to look into. It has massive influence on the Indian society in its own way. Though it was officially banned in India there still remains a part of it in the minds of Indian people. It has been much seen in rural areas than in urban areas as the people in urban area are more educated. As a part of this there have situations of lower caste being abused even now in certain regions. Practicing untouchability and caste differentiation is legally forbidden in India. Caste system leads to what is called a social exclusion. It means the inability of an individual to participate in the basic political, economic and social functioning of society (Thorat,S,Newman,K.(2007).pg4121). Entitlements to all theses powers become narrower as it moves farther down to the hierarchical levels of the caste system. Jobs usually regarded as degrading are usually done by the lower caste (dalits) and the best example being the manual scavenging. Manual scavengin g is the worst surviving symbol of caste untouchability in India which drives people into degrading jobs just because their birth in particular class. According to one of the leading newspapers in India, The Hindu, there has been an incident of a woman who was born into a family of manual scavenging who physically scraped the human excreta on the latrine floors and carried it away in a basket. While doing her work she slipped from a narrow wooden staircase and broke her foot to which none of her employers were willing to lift her even in this state just because they thought touching her was polluting. She was then picked up by a pincer of logs and her family took her to the local dispensary. Such sickening behaviour of the individuals is as result of the caste system or it can be even termed as evils of caste system. Government of India took steps to outlaw this practice but however these governments have a long tradition of insolently disobeying their own laws if they are pertainin g to uphold the rights of the poor. Finally an extraordinary campaign named the Safai Karmchari Andolan(SKA) used non-violent mass-resistance, community organisation and the courts to force governments to end this centuries old practice.(The Hindu, May 9.2010) In the western countries like United Kingdom, it is commonly found that people end up marrying the people they work with. But this has not been the case with the Indians. In modern corporate India when people enter into an organisation they do not have the intention of getting married with the people they work with. Moreover they share the relation that of a friend. But that does not mean that none of them end up getting married. I come from a state called Kerala which is situated in down south of India and there are people from lower caste who are educated and hold a white collar job. Some of them might end up marrying their colleague who may not be from the same caste or even from the same religion. This change of attitude in people of Kerala is more or less due to the education and knowledge given to them. To go a little deeper into the prevalence of caste in Kerala back in period, I like to bring to notice a saint and a social reformer named Sree Narayana Guru who battled against the discrimination of the lower caste by upper caste. The caste system was rampant in Kerala during the 19th and early part of 20th century. As mentioned before caste was based on the job each one did. A lower caste had to go through a number of rules such as one should not enter temples, not allowed to wear slippers, should not be seen within a certain distance of the upper caste. Anyone defying these rules are subject to hideous punishment s like cutting of hands etc. All this outrageous acts by the upper caste was put to an end by this great soul Sree Narayana guru who led a social revolution against this terrible system. However, this movement by this great soul infuriated only the extremely orthodox but was accommodated by the majority (M.S.Joe,March 18.2010). This revolution was perhaps one of the most nonviolent revolutions the world would have ever experienced. He built temples and wrote hymns which could be used by people in any religion. The government thus changed their legislation wherein the lower castes were allowed to enter temples run by upper caste. This temple entry proclamation was equally accepted by people throughout India including the the Christians and the Muslims(Govt of Kerala. Accessed on 7-7-2010) .Later on he opened the gates of education by building schools where everyone could attend the sessions and thus produced a high proportion of educated people. Though he masterminded this entire peaceful social revolution and achieved freedom for the unprivileged he is little known outside Kerala (Sree Narayana guru Mission of the UK, 1978.accessed on 1-7-2010). Caste does not pose a great problem in the present scenario. These have been situations were a high caste and a lower caste work together without any chaos. In an organisation, a lower caste can be a manager and a Brahmin can be in the lower cadre and this is entirely based on the talent and skill of the employee and caste system does not actually come in the way. This is the case of modern India thanks to the valuable education system. But when it comes to politics within the organization there may be biasness happening between different individuals of the same caste or religion. However this could been seen across the world and not just in India. A question might come up in the minds of Non-Indians regarding the functioning of caste system in India which accommodates people with different concepts and ideas of the same. I would like to throw some light on this issue by illustrating certain events that have been happening in India which shows that the two ideologies of caste being i mportant and unimportant co-exists in this same country. In spite of the proclamation of temple entry made by the Maharaja of Travancore in Kerala sixty years ago, there are still issues happening around relating to the caste system. To bolster this argument, an incident that happened in Kerala, where one of the famous playback singers named Yesudas who is a catholic was denied the entry into one of the famous temples in a district in Kerala. The reason him being a non-hindu and the irony behind this is that the temple authorities still plays the songs sung by him in the temple though they may restrict his entry into the temple. Another such incident was witnessed by the people of Kerala when the Union minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi was humiliated or rather saddened due to the fact that a ceremonial purification was done in the temple after he had his grandsons ceremonial first feeding. The reason being his wife who was a Christian is supposed to have polluted the temple by her visit (India today, June 18.2007). This purification was done by the high priests of the temple who are the Brahmins. There are issues happening in northern India as well. There was an issue which dates back to 1936 before India got its Independence from the colonial British rule. An untouchable in a village called Chawara in the Jaipur state was beaten up because of the fact that he gave a dinner to his fellow untouchables where he served Ghee which was considered as a luxury for the rich(Dr.Ambedkar.B.R,(1944).Accessed on 7-7-2010). Such disheartening practices are not to be seen now though a glimpse of it still remains in rural parts of India. It is distressing that such system does exist today to a certain extent due to a certain extremely orthodox section of the society. However this small segment is being alienated in the present scenario because of their conventional attitude. Going back to the caste system and marriages in India, as we discussed before, arranged marriages are accepted more than love marriages. To support the above judgment I would like to bring forth an example of how Indian families find spouses for their children. This is quoted from a matrimony site where a profile of a girl is registered in that particular site for the purpose of marriage. About Me Sangita is my second daughter and a Microbiologist by profession. She is a simple, well mannered girl, with a kind and compassionate nature.Homely and well versed with household responsibilities. She had the best of schooling and college education available here in Bangalore. She is employed in a leading Bio-Tech Company in Bangalore. She grew up under a joint family environment. Primary Information Age 27  Yrs Height 5  Ft  4   In / 163 Cms Weight 54 Kgs / 119 lbs Body Type Average Complexion Fair Blood Group B+ Mother Tongue Malayalam Physical Status Normal Socio-Religious Background Religion Hindu Caste Ezhava Sub Caste Ezhava Star Eating Habits Non Vegetarian Horoscope Match Must Smoking habits Non-smoker Drinking habits Non-drinker Zodiac Capricorn Educational Professional Information Education Category Masters Arts/ Science/ Commerce Education in Detail MSc.Microbiology Employed in Private Sector Occupation Scientist / Researcher Occupation in Detail Microbiologist Annual Income Rs.  1,50,000 Family Details Family Values Traditional Family Type Nuclear family Family Status Upper middle class Ancestral Origin Mayyanad/Kollam Fathers Occupation Retired PSU Manager Mothers Occupation Housewife No of Siblings 1 About My Family The family is settled in Bangalore for more than 50yrs.We have many relatives both here and in Kerala. My elder daughter is married and settled in Perth/Australia along with her husband and their newborn son. We are simple, God fearing and have liberal views. After my VRS from a leading PSU, I am self employed in a Small Business dealing in Watches, Solarlamps and Ayurvedic/herbal products. My wife is a teacher by profession but chose to be a housewife .Sangita is simple and homely girl,well mannered and trained to be a responsible wife. Soft-spoken, systematic and disciplined in her work. Partner Preference Specifications Age 28 33 Yrs Height 5 Ft 6 In 6 Ft Marital status Unmarried Physical Status Normal Mother Tongue Malayalam Educational and Professional Preference Bachelors Engineering/ Computers, Masters Engineering/ Computers, Masters Arts/ Science/ Commerce/ M Phil/ Others, Management BBA/ MBA/ Others Annual Income Any Occupation Any About My Partner A Qualified Professional, with clean habits, good health and a sense of responsibility. Honest and easy going by nature. Having a sense of humour. God fearing ,compassionate and considerate .Focused and hardworking to attain his goals in life. Assistance will be provided to relocate to Australia if interested. Socio-Religious Preference Religion Hindu Caste/Division Ezhava Star Not Specified Eating Habits Doesnt matter Smoking Habits Not Specified Drinking Habits Not Specified (Bharat Matrimony. Accessed on 7-7-2010) The above illustration clearly states that caste does a play its part when it comes to marriages. This phenomenon would be completely alien for a Westerner who does not pass through such stages to find their partner. On the personal front, I come from a Hindu family under the sub caste called Ezhava. Talking about inter- caste and inter-religious marriage, I do have a Christian and a Brahmin members in my fathers and mothers family respectively. This might create confusion in the mind of the reader whether Caste system was not being followed strictly even twenty to thirty year back. Conversely, I do not mind saying that I will not be allowed to marry someone outside my religion. Therefore it can be seen that it is the same family which allows inter caste marriage and also at the same time restricts it. At this juncture, I opine that the existence of caste system to an extent depends on an individuals perception he or she holds. It is not always right to say that Indians are adamant i n following this system. Moving on to the effect of caste system on the corporate world, I would say that it has hardly any effect on the working of MNCs or any other organisations in India. Talking to folks and friends back home, it can be understood that in organisations like Infosys, Wipro etc it hardly matters what caste you belong to as long as you have the talent and skill to perform the job. This changing attitude of the present generations is due to the valuable education being given. This lets them think out of the box and not emulate the traditional practice which was intolerable at that point of time. As a matter of fact, nowadays there is no restriction on the selection of jobs because one belongs to a particular caste. A middle class family or people belonging to the so called Sudra caste can afford to have doctors or engineers or even scientists evolving, provided he or she has the expertise and ability to do it. To bolster the above argument, I would like to quote a s triking example which happened in India few years back when a dalit man named K.R.Narayanan originally from Kerala was elected as the President of India from year 1997 2002(Britannica encyclopedia, Accessed 8 July 2010). He hails from an untouchable family where his father was a traditional healer and could not afford a good education. In spite of this he came up the ladder because of his hard work and talent and occupied the most competent post of becoming the President of a Nation. He was the first dalit member to occupy this post. (BBC news, 9 November 2005).Currently one of the states in India called Uttar Pradesh has a dalit women as the Chief Minister. From the above illustration it can be evidently seen that caste system does not come in the way of a person while choosing his profession in the modern corporate India. However this modern corporate Indian can be caste conscious in various other situations like marriages. The higher caste manager in an organisation may not have any issues in working with a low caste employee but on the other hand he would not allow his children to marry an outcast. Yet, as mentioned before, it differs from one individual to other. Hinduism has a noteworthy effect on the Indian society and spirituality is the base of a majority of Indians. The Holy book of Hindus Bhagavad Gita has the true definition of caste system that prevailed in the ancient India compared to which now the meaning of it have been distorted according to the needs of certain individuals or missionaries. To quote a verse from this Holy text and thereby find out the real meaning to the four fold caste system. Catur Varnyam maya srstam guna karma vibhagasah Tasya kartaramapi maam viddya kartaramavyayam(Bhagavad Gita,ch 4,13 sloka) The above lines says that the four- fold caste which are Brahmins, Kshatriyas,Vaishyas and Sudras have been created according to the ones own Guna(Quality) and Karma(work). They have been divided on the basis of three qualities or Gunas which are mainly Satva(Goodness), Rajas(Passion) and Tamas(Ignorance) and these are attributed to Brahmins, Kshtriyas and Vaishyas, Sudras respectively. These mental temperaments differ from person to person which makes them fall into a particular Varna or caste. However later on the power politics in the early middle ages in India, the communal feeling came up in certain individuals mind and therefore completely disregarded the meaning of the verse mentioned above. The Brahmin, who comfortably interpreted these lines according to his will and thus changed the whole idea of the caste system. The definition of varnas discussed so far not only helps in removing the present misunderstanding but also showers us with some data to recognize its true signifi cance that a person cannot be a Brahmana by mere birth but only with good deeds, intentions and thoughts that he carries along with him. It also says that he alone is a Brahmana whose thoughts are sattvik (goodness) as his actions are. A Kshatriya who is rajasik in his thoughts and deeds. A sudra who is Tamasic(ignorant) is not only one who lives a low life for satisfying his base animal passions and flesh appetites. Hindus also believe in the concept of re-incarnation which says that a persons current incarnation and experiences are at least in part, the fruit of past action (J.R. Milner Murray.1993). According to the Hindu belief, an individual is said to be born as a Brahmin if he had done good deeds in his past life and born as a lower caste if done something bad. The law of karma or merit is what is considered here. But at present there is no firm evidence that people actually live according to such concepts.

Friday, October 25, 2019

Fleeting Satisfaction in Madame Bovary Essay -- Madame Bovary Essays

Fleeting Satisfaction in Madame Bovary      Ã‚   The desire to have romance, rapture, and passion can often times be fleeting and momentary where as the foundation of true love and commitment generally stands solid throughout many trials. In Madame Bovary (1857), a novel written by Gustave Flaubert, the main character of the story, Emma Bovary, finds both passion and commitment in different facets yet she chooses to yield herself to the desires of her heart and seek out passion in other men instead of staying in the comfort of commitment offered to her by her husband.    Emma is first introduced in the story when her ailing father needs tending from a local physician. The doctor is Charles Bovary, whom Emma will later marry. Charles is married at the time he first visits Emma's father. However, Charles wife is old and frail and passes away shortly after he meets Emma. Charles then marries Emma and they move to a small town in France named Yohnville, where Charles sets up his practice. Early in their marriage, Charles takes Emma to a party held by the Secretary of State of France in a large chà ¢teau. After a small taste of royalty, Emma is enamored with the romantic feel of living a royal life. She begins feeling unhappy with her marriage, complaining her husband is boring and dull compared to some of the men she had met at the party. She soon seeks out companionship with other men and eventually becomes two different men's mistress. They, however, tire of her romantic ideas and leave her. Throughout her marriage to Charles, and the diff erent relationships she has, all Emma can see is hopelessness and despair, so she eventually eats poison and dies, leaving her husband and her young daughter, Berthe. ... ...irs (441). Though she may not have realized it, Emma's actions affected many more people than just herself.    All Emma Bovary wanted in her life was to be loved with a passionate love, and she eventually was both loved with commitment and loved with passion, but neither of those satisfied her longings. She compromised her standards for the one thing she desired most and eventually paid the ultimate consequence with her life. The need to feel passion and romance is not nearly worth the price of a human being's life. Madame Bovary truly discovered that the desire to have romance, rapture, and passion is often times a fleeting satisfaction whereas the foundation of true love and commitment stands solid throughout many trials.    Work Cited Flaubert, Gustave. The World's Great Classics: Madame Bovary. New York: Grolier Incorporated. 1968.   

Thursday, October 24, 2019

No definition of a miracle is adequate Essay

Many philosophers have attempted to define what exactly constitutes a miracle in a number of ways outlining definitions which contain the criteria for what phenomena can be counted as miraculous. Whether a definition is adequate seems highly subjective but will likely be one that is acceptable by non-Christians as well as Christians who in all probability will want a definition that accepts many of the miracle in the Bible to indeed be miraculous. Mackie’s definition of miracles describing them as events that occur when the world is not left alone and is intruded by something that is not part of the natural order necessitates that miracles are caused by a supernatural entity which may be considered to be God. This appears to suggest that his definition would indeed be adequate for some Christians given that it sets apart miracles from coincidences turning them into occurrences which could provide evidence for their faith. Moreover it allows a more specific idea of what constitutes a miracles disallowing events with an entirely naturalistic explanation maintaining them as unique events. However, Hick likely would criticise Mackie’s arguments for not be adequate given the ambiguity of what the natural order and the laws that govern it are. Hick suggested that laws were generalisations that are formed after events have happened, suggesting that that the natural order couldn’t be intruded upon. Also it may be that what is perceived to be an intrusion by something outside of the natural order is actually just a lack of understanding of the natural order on our part. This means that though an event such as the Moon Landing would have been defined as inadequate centuries ago, today it would not. This undermines the adequacy of the definition given that what it encompasses will change with time. A further issue with the adequacy of Mackie’s definition is that it could be argued to not be sufficiently specific given that it makes no attempt to define what exactly constitutes something distinct from the natural order, and it may in fact not be God. This would undermine its adequacy for Christians who believe that God is responsible for causing miracles and may not accept they are caused by other beings. Swinburne’s definition of a miracle appears to resolve this issue defining miracles as a violation of a law of nature by a god (a very powerful rational being who is not a material object). That said, the requirement for God to intervene in the world poses a number of challenges to Swinburne’s’ definition especially given that God’s need to intervene in his creation contradicts the idea that he is an all powerful being if the world requires changes. Additionally philosophers like Wiles would argue that if God has the ability to intervene in the world in order to perform miracles in certain instances then his failure to prevent evil and suffering in the world undermines his characteristic of omni-benevolence. For this reason a definition that requires God’s intervention to cause miracles may be inadequate given the contradictions that would occur if such an event happened. On the other hand, many Christians do accept that God intervenes in the world and if so this definition of miracles may indeed be adequate also determining whether God is responsible for an event may be impossible as it may just be due to limited understanding of events. Additionally, Swinburne’s definition is undermined by Hick’s challenge arguably even more so than Mackie’s given his explicit use of the term ‘natural laws’ and also would likely be subject to change as understanding changes. Holland’s definition of miracles appears to avoid the contractions associated with Swinburne and Mackie’s explanations not requiring the physical intervention of God suggesting from the outset that it may be more adequate. This is because Holland only requires miracles to be an extraordinary coincidence of a beneficial nature interpreted religiously. The emphasis on interpretation also removes the difficulties associated with determining the cause of the miracle while still encompassing Biblical miracles. However it would likely be criticised for being too subjective given that different people would differ on whether the same event is miraculous. Additionally the Catholic church which usually requires a person to have performed at least two miracles in order to be Canonized as a saint would likely not accept miracles as defined by Holland as they only accept events without naturalistic explanation suggesting the definition is inadequate for how the term miracle is used by some Christian denominations. In conclusion, it seems probable that no definition of miracles is adequate given that although Swinburne and Mackie’s definition of miracles may encompass many of the instances of how miracles are used, they are undermined by the difficulty in determining natural laws and also whether God physically intervened. Likewise while Holland goes some way to avoiding these contradictions in his definition it remains highly subjective and also doesn’t reflect how miracles are used in Christianity. Additionally it will likely also lead to significant differences between what people consider miracles. Moreover, the existence of so many contrasting definitions of miracles suggests that there isn’t a single definition that is adequate given that there is no consensus on what makes an event miraculous so any definition will be subject to significant disagreement. For this reason the statement that no definition of miracle is adequate can be considered to be true.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Monsoosn

Monsoosn is a typical seasonal wind in low altitude climate that changes direction between winter and summer season. Monsoon wind typically flow from the geographical land in winter season carrying cool dry air (dry phase), and to the land in summer carrying warm moist air (wet phase), causing a sweeping change in the rain and temperature patterns of the area.The â€Å"monsoon† word is derived from the Arabic word mausim, meaning changing season. Initially the word monsoon was used to describe winds in the Arabian Sea, but with the passage of time it is employed for seasonally changing wind systems all over the world. The difference in the heating of land and water surface results in pressure difference between land and ocean. (Roger G. Barry, Richard J. Chorley, 1998)In the winter to maintain the energy balance between land and water heat is transferred by land- sea breezes. This pressure difference gives rise to monsoon. In winter season the air over the land area is colder than over the oceans, generating a large high pressure area over the Siberia, leading to air movement across the Indian Ocean and South China, causing clear skies for South Asia and East. While the exact opposite phenomenon occurs in summer.In summer monsoon of Southwest Asia wind starts blowing from the ocean the continent with wet shower patterns. The air over the continents land is much warmer than over the oceans, resulting in moisture laden wind movement from the ocean towards the continent. When this humidified air unites with comparatively dry west air flow crossing over the mountains, it starts rising till reaches its saturation point with the development of heavy showers and thunderstorms. (Roger G. Barry, Richard J. Chorley, 1998)The most prominent pattern of monsoon system is seen in eastern and southern Asia; however it has also been prevailing in Australia, West Africa and the Pacific Ocean. A small scale monsoonal system exists in the southern United States called Nort h American, Mexican or Arizona Monsoon. Between July and September the North American monsoon is circulating over southwest North America bringing remarkable increase in rain showers in normally arid regions of Arizona, New Mexico and northwestern Mexico. The west or northwest winds with similarities to the original Southwest Asian monsoon turn more south or southwest having monsoonal circulation brings moisture from Pacific Ocean, Gulf of California and Gulf of Maxico.The monsoon is an important aspect of atmospheric circulation. It brings humid air from over the oceans traveling across the land to the mountains being lifted up due to day time heating from the sun, finally causing thunderstorm and turning out into rain over the land. The large areas in the tropics and subtropics are under the influence of monsoons. In highly populated areas of the world like Asia or India, the monsoon is vital for agriculture for harvesting land and thus the food production. From time to time a str ong monsoon circulation has been seen bringing flood or if the monsoon is late in a specific year, it has been seen causing droughts.A very interesting phenomenon similar to monsoon occurs in smaller spatial and temporal scale, the mountain and valley breezes. The reason behind their occurrence is the same as that of monsoon. During the day the valley and area around it becomes warm heating the air from scorching sun which makes it less dense with a propensity to rise and a gentle upslope wind occurs.This upslope valley wind if carry enough humidity may cause showers and even thunderstorms in warmest part of the day or early afternoon. Exactly opposite to this phenomenon at night slopes cool down quickly causing the air around to cool and blow down from the mountain to the valley forming some sort of gravity wind named mountain breeze. Technically speaking nay kind of down slope wind is called Katabatic or fall wind which is best used for considerably stronger wind than mountain bre eze. (Peter Combs, 2000)The monsoon season prevails from June to September, and is liable for widespread rain leading to flooding across India and Bangladesh. This is a very common phenomenon in this region of world happening time and again. Noticeable monsoon effects are recorded in the history of meteorological study in past.Bangladesh is a low-lying, poor nation of 144 million people, where seasonal floods and cyclones due to monsoon kill hundreds every year. A powerful cyclone in 1991 killed 139,000 people along the coast with a record worst in a decade monsoon rains. (Peter Combs, 2000)In June 2007 heavy rains swept across southern India’s Karnataka state western Maharashtra state killing 38 people. This sweep had also caused flooding and wild storms that had hit also the neighboring Pakistan where 228 people were killed in a week.â€Å"Hundreds of people died last year in South Asia in floods and landslides which are common during the monsoon season. But officials in I ndian and Bangladesh say that this year's flooding is the worst they have seen in over a decade. â€Å"Some 400,000 houses were damaged in floods in 18 of the state's 24 districts,† the chief minister of the Indian state of Assam, Tarun Gogoi, told AFP news agency†. â€Å"Flood waters are continuing to rise in Bangladesh and eastern India, swamping large stretches of land and affecting millions of people.† http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/On August 23 in 2005 hurricane Katrina had developed. It was the one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. Atlantic monsoon season had brought damage in a large extent of the north-central Gulf Coast. Severe loss of life and property had occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana due to flooding of vast area. The hurricane caused much more devastating destruction across the entire Mississippi coast and into Albama as far as 160 km from the storm’s center.New Orleans has a long history of natural disasters being geographically positioned in a region frequently hit by hurricanes. In the year 1915 a category four hurricane had caused Lake Pontchartrain to overflow killing 275 people in the same area hit badly by the Hurricane Katrina.Hurricane Betsy with category three occurred in 1965, flooded half of New Orleans and submerged up to 20 feet in some areas, and left 60,000 inhabitants homeless.Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf near to New Orleans in 1969, once more causing destructive flooding in the area and displacement of people. As recorded by National Weather Service report monsoon season throughout 1995-2004 have brought 13.6 tropical storms, 7.8 hurricanes, 3.8 major hurricanes.References:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/Peter Combs. Clouds and Climate Change; Focus, Vol. 46, Spring 2000Roger G. Barry, Richard J. Chorley. Atmosphere, Weather, and Climate; Routledge, 1998

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Overloading While

Overloading While Overloading While Overloading While By Maeve Maddox Because English is blessed with so many subordinating conjunctions, there’s no need to overuse any of them. The conjunction while, for example, tends to pop up in contexts in which a different conjunction may be the better choice. The first and most obvious use of while is as a temporal conjunction to introduce a clause that has something to do with time: While I was sleeping, the cat ate the canary. (Here while means â€Å"during the time that.†) While is used to introduce clauses that express opposition: While she was quite attractive, she believed that she was ugly. (Here while means â€Å"despite the fact that.†) While is also used to introduce a clause that provides a contrast: Mary dressed in princess clothing, while her brother dressed in cowboy costume. It is this use of while that leads to ambiguity. Does the while clause express contrast, or does it express time? The sentence could be interpreted to mean that Mary dressed as a princess during the time that her brother dressed as a cowboy. If contrast is intended, the conjunction whereas would make the meaning clearer. Sometimes while is used as if it were a coordinating conjunction like and, as in this description of a motorcycle: New, soft palm grips provide nice comfort, while broad mirrors are neatly placed for clear rear vision. Here are some â€Å"adversative† conjunctions that you may wish to substitute for while when appropriate: even though although though whereas where Here are some additional temporal conjunctions to use when while is not quite what you want: until after before when since once whenever as soon as as long as by the time Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Useful Stock Phrases for Your Business Emails60 Synonyms for â€Å"Trip†Using "zeitgeist" Coherently

Monday, October 21, 2019

Maybe You Can Learn to Say Maybe in Spanish

Maybe You Can Learn to Say Maybe in Spanish Spanish has several ways of saying maybe, perhaps, or possibly. Most of the expressions of possibility are frequently used with a verb in the subjunctive mood. Uses of Quizs  or Talvez to Express Possibility Quizs or, as it is also spelled, quiz, is typically used with verbs in the subjunctive mood, although it is not unusual to hear it used with a verb in the indicative mood. Quiz(s) can be used interchangeably with ​talvez, also spelled tal vez. These words are typically placed at the beginning of sentences.   Puede  que, literally meaning it can be when it is the subject of a sentence, is an alternative phrase for expressing possibility. It is normally followed by a verb in the subjunctive mood. Spanish Sentence English Translation Quizs te cases, o quizs no. Perhaps you will get married, or perhaps not. Quiz en otra vida t y yo fuimos amantes. Perhaps in another life you and I were lovers. Quizs ms tarde. Perhaps later. Quiz no venga nadie. Maybe nobody will come. Talvez yo te pueda ayudar. Perhaps I can help you. Tal vez maana sea solo un recuerdo. Perhaps tomorrow will be only a memory. Tal vez no pensaron en esto. Maybe they didnt think about it. Puede que debas cambiar por otro medicamento. Perhaps you ought to switch to another medication. Su plan dental puede que no cubra el costo total de su cuenta. Your dental plan maybe wont cover the total cost of your account. Puede que estemos equivocados. Perhaps we are mistaken. Using Posible The Spanish adjective  posible, meaning possible, can be used to form the adverb  posiblemente, and  can be used in much the same way as  quizs and tal vez, although it is less common than its English counterpart, possibly.   Es posible que, literally meaning it is possible that, can also be used as an alternative to one of the other ways of expressing possibility, and in standard Spanish, it is followed by a verb in the subjunctive mood. Like the English phrase it stands for, es  posible  que often expresses a greater degree of doubt than maybe. For example, Es posible que hoy te vea  translates to, It is possible I will see you today. Spanish Sentence English Translation Posiblemente Cuba no participar en campeonato. Maybe Cuba wont participate in the championship. Posiblemente sea mi imaginacin. It could be my imagination. Si presenta sntomas en primavera, posiblemente sea alrgico al polen. If symptoms appear in the spring, you may be allergic to pollen. Colloquial Way of Expressing Possibility A lo mejor is a more colloquial way to express possibility than quiz and tal vez. Although its literal translation is at what is best, it isnt used that way.  Do  not use the subjunctive mood with a lo mejor. Spanish Sentence English Translation A lo mejor soy imbcil. Perhaps I am stupid. Hay tres cosas que a lo mejor no sabes de m. There are three things that perhaps you dont know about me. A lo mejor nos estn haciendo un favor. Maybe they are doing us a favor.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

3 Strategies for Getting a Promotion

3 Strategies for Getting a Promotion You’ve made yourself indispensable. You’re everybody’s go-to worker bee. There’s no project too difficult, no task too daunting for you, no crisis you can’t fix!   The trouble is, you feel like you’re doing the work of three people, but only getting the credit for your position. Even if there’s simply no room in the budget to give you a raise right now, it is possible to have your new responsibilities more accurately reflected in your job title. It’s not a silly thing to want your title to sum up what you do; this will make it much easier to represent yourself on your resume and on networking platforms like LinkedIn.Here are three guidelines to steer you in your quest for a title bump.1. Choose wiselyIt’s tempting to choose a trendy title like â€Å"Bliss Doula† or â€Å"Marketing Ninja,† but kitschy names like this can actually hurt your career. Choose a title that, while not boring, accurately represents your responsibilities, experience, and skills, and then sex it up only as much as you can without appearing ridiculous. The trick is to broadcast to the professional world exactly how capable you are- not to win any self-branding contests.2. Know your momentThere are good times and bad times to ask for a title bump- even one that’s totally deserved. If your extra work, the stuff you feel is â€Å"above and beyond,† could still reasonably fall under the clause in your job description that says â€Å"Other duties as required,† then chances are your boss or HR manager isn’t going to go for a title change. Wait until you have a really convincing argument. Document the scope of extra work you’re doing- particularly if you’ve taken over responsibilities from other positions.3. Make your caseIf you can show the extra weight you’re bearing, then you’ll have a much better time convincing the powers-that-be to give you that sexy title u pdate- and the prestige and swagger that come with it, even if only in your head.Go into the meeting prepared. Have a revised, written version of your job description that you can compare with the job description when you were hired. Compare your current duties to other positions within the company, or in the field. If you can prove you’re doing what the market recognizes as falling under a better title, any reasonable HR department will hear you out. Feel free to bring in research from GlassDoor or LinkedIn to help seal the deal.Whether or not you succeed, if you’re really going above and beyond, it might be time to ask. And if your higher-ups aren’t willing to recognize and reward you for the work you’re actually doing, that’s always a good thing to know.

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Modern dance Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Modern dance - Research Paper Example Modern dance is considered a synonym of contemporary dance. The two dances share ideological or aesthetical characteristics. The name is a dance term that is used to refer to a dance trend born in the 16th century and had lasted up to the 1950’s. The dance trend had its homes in Germany, the United States and some of the surrounding countries. In the 1920’s there was a passion for interpretive dancing sweeping America. Dancers and audiences alike had been introduced to a new form of theatrical dancing that was serious. Most of the groundwork had already been laid for the first generation of the modern dancers; they then began to develop the art to what we have presently today. Lester Horton attended early classes in ballet dancing together with the Native American dance. He did this at a school called Denishawn. In 1932, his first dance group appeared and over the two ensuing decades, the group became quite renowned. They had adopted an individual theatrical style and technique that had embraced the themes of the political and social protests as well as dressing. He choreographed projects that were commercial and created dances for the nineteenth film of Hollywood. Some companies such as Alvin American Dance Theater still teach his dancing style (Kassing79). At the end of World War II, the founders of the modern dance style had already produced a group of talented students whom they sent out to start their own dance styles. The great battle that has been fought over respectability and position of the modern dance style has been fought and won already. The second generation did not have to take their art or themselves with the seriousness that the founders had in the dance. Artists who were renown during the second generation of modern dance include artists such as pearl primus, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp and Josà © Limà ³n (Kassing 35). The artistic and social upheaval of the late 60’s and late 70 has signaled radical changes to modern dance. Today modern

Friday, October 18, 2019

Managing people Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Managing people - Essay Example The purpose of writing this paper is to identify the ethical policies and practices of an organization, its benefits and effects on stakeholders, and how people at the managerial level play their role in developing and implementing organization’s ethical policies and practice. Corporate level managers and executives are facing a lot of pressure from the external forces to maintain their ethical records. External forces may include government, legislative bodies, consumers, and employees etc. The objective of adopting ethical principles and practice is to provide ground for the development of modern ideas of doing work and collaborative efforts for business activities. Traditional concept of doing business aiming higher profit and enrichment of shareholders is no more successive because business ethics are now important aspect that every manager has to deal with (George 1982). Ethical managers believe in the fulfilment of following aspects: Achievement of corporate social respo nsibility Development of fair trade policies with business partners Ethical leadership, supervision, and control Community development Mutual cooperation (with employees and other stakeholders) Fair production and distribution Environmental protection Communal enterprise Fulfilling social rights, employee empowerment, and work life balance (Crane and Matten 2007). Managers who believe in serving ethical behaviour and practices gain more and achieve higher degree of cooperation and trust from their stakeholders. Adoption of ethical values results in higher revenues due to positive sentiments amongst general public and higher demand from the customers. It develops strong moral as well as financial support from ethical investors, and increases brand awareness and brand recognition. Moreover, ethical behaviour increases employee satisfaction, commitment, and their loyalty towards job and finally, it generates better corporate image and goodwill for the business (Andreasen 2001). On the other hand, managers may also face some drawbacks or disadvantages by adopting ethical policies such as higher costs for promoting corporate image and compliance with the fair trade policies with suppliers without quality compromise. Another disadvantage can be the development of false or wrong expectations among stakeholders. Organizations also lose their freedom to maximize profit. For example, an organization transfers its manufacturing facility to an underdeveloped country for less costly production due to the availability of cheap labour. Practices like child labour, poor work safety, and low wages are acceptable in that country, but all these may not be permissible in organization’s ethical policies and practices, therefore managers and other executives would compromise on profitability giving higher consideration to the values that the company holds for the society it operates in (Andreasen 2001). According to Milton Friedman, â€Å"primary and only responsibility of business is to make money† (Duska 2007). This statement can be true to some extent and most of the supporters of this view suggest that self-interest of an organization seeking profit automatically benefits the overall society. It is true that all profitable businesses provide benefits to their shareholders but stakeholders may or may not get their share. Stakeholders basically are those people or groups who directly or indirectly get benefits from organizations. Stakeholder includes shareholders, employees and their families, the

Every American should pay the same percentage of taxes. The Rich Essay

Every American should pay the same percentage of taxes. The Rich should not be forced to support the poor and lazy - Essay Example he US income tax structure as either of these have faced the same problem, for albeit it has followed an essentially progressive taxation framework since its inception in that the rich have had to bear larger tax rates compared to the poor, often there have been certain tax cuts or impositions that allegedly go against the principle of progression itself (Folsom, 1999). Apart from this aspect, the assumptions that justify progressive taxation have also been challenged leading to considerable debate that has not limited itself to only politicians or economists. Considerable amounts have been written and spoken about regarding the tax system that should be followed and the structure taxation should assume in the USA. The common layman like the erudite scholar has developed his particular opinion regarding the pattern in which taxes should be levied and the incidences the different economic classes should bear. This lack of consensus is at least partially a result of under-comprehension of the socio-economic aspects that govern the system and this lack of comprehension is evident in the large furore that is the inevitable result of any tax cuts for the upper or the upper-middle class. This non-substantial general comprehension stems from among other things, the fact that the degree of progression has observed remarkable instability and variation in th e US economy. For instance, while in 1954, federal income tax was imposed at different rates ranging from 20% to 91% for 24 different income bracket layers (Internal Revenue Code, 1954) brackets with the tax rates varying from 10% to 35% in 20061. Thus although both these structures were progressive in nature, the changes brought about that reduced the number of brackets as well as the magnitude of the tax rates can be argued to have been regressive, as the maximum tax rate has been reduced from 91 to 35 percentage points and the minimum has been reduced to 10% from 20%. The IRS reports that for the year 2006, the top

Maya Angelous cultural impact, and her treatment in the media Essay

Maya Angelous cultural impact, and her treatment in the media - Essay Example legacy precedes her as the most successful visible woman autobiographer, and autobiographical voice of her time since all her life seemed like her work. Maya brought diversity to literature and theatre through her writing changing the course of society for the better in her profession, as depicted by Pulitzer Prize, Emmy Award, Tony Award, and inclusion in The National Women’s Hall of Fame. In all, Maya left a legacy of the legendary poet, tireless activist and a writer despite struggles in her life. Criticism of Maya’s books and writings were both negative and positive depending on the point of view of the critique. Maya’s critics included positive reviews by Elsie Washington saying, "the black womans poet laureate" after reciting, â€Å"On the Pulse of Morning† in President Clinton’s inauguration. Another positive review was by Younge, who said Maya had been able to blend poetry, conversation, and song through merging her talents to create an art performance that results in social uplift and issue a personal message. Negative criticism to Maya were on the use of her life in her writing to which she said she was in agreement to black and white writers saying she writes for money. Other negative criticism came from parents owing to her depiction of pornography, lesbianism, violence, and premarital cohabitation. Other criticism included language use, sexually explicit scenes, and irrelevant religious

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Causes of the Mexican-American War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Causes of the Mexican-American War - Essay Example In addition, if one is to point the finger of blame at someone, at least a basic examination of who that person was, should be done first - as, even if the situation was that person's fault, an understanding of that person's motivation will surely give a greater understanding of the conflict itself. That is where this examination of the causes of the Mexican-American War will start - with a brief look at American's eleventh president himself. We will then deal with the westward expansion of the American population and the concept of Manifest Destiny. Only then will enough information be avalible to make a preliminary determination of how much each cause (including Mr. Polk) actually contributed to the start and continuation of the Mexican-American War. James K. Polk was born in North Carolina in 17951. His father was of Scottish and Irish background, and his mother was Scots as well. Hi father was a Democrat who supported Jefferson, thus Polk was brought up as a Jefferson Democrat.2 One of ten children in a successful farming and slave owning family, James was often ill, which delayed his formal schooling3. In 1806, his family followed its relatives in a move to Tennessee, where they became quite well to do plantation owners, and, in addition, his father became a county judge. Growing up in a successful slave owning family quite probably affected Polk's presidential policies, especially those concerning slavery and territories that strongly supported slave-holding. Through family connections, James Polk was accepted and attended the University of North Carolina. It was there that he first developed the skills that he would use in his political career - as both a speech maker in the Dialectic Society, and as the Society's first two term president. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, Polk moved to Tennessee to study law, and to be a the Clerk with the state Senate simultaneously from 1819-18224. In 1822, Polk left his position as Senate Clerk to run for office. His strong speech making skills won him the seat, and soon the reputation of one of the senate's great orators.5Polk was a very strong leader who, by the time he became president in dominated the American government of the day. It was the seven years that Polk spent in congress starting in 1828, as the speaker of the house and as Tennessee's governor that developed the strong leadership skills he employed as America's eleventh president6. It was these skills that Polk employed when war broke out after the annexation of Texas, which forced him to adapt his peacetime leadership skills to those of Commander in chief of the American Forces7. A similarly volatile situation with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory, was resolved by Polk though diplomacy alone. Thus, James K. Polk was able to employ both military and diplomatic means to solve conflicts and international disagreements. 2.1 Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny Manifest Destiny is an expansionist view where one country or people expands by pushing the other out of the way - "elbowing owners of property rudely to one side" while "making away with their possessions."8 It was "a policy of imperialism rationalized as inevitable (as if granted by God)"9.

Air Passenger Duty Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4250 words

Air Passenger Duty - Research Paper Example It is expected that at the end of the paper, there shall be a definitive decision taken by the Welsh Minister on the way forward, as far as air passenger duty is concerned. 2 Background The air passenger duty could be said to be the brainchild of the Holtham Commission, which in 2010 came out with a recommendation to the Welsh Government on the need to make significant adjustments to its existing tax policies, especially those on minor taxes2. As part of the minor taxes to be considered was the air passenger duty. But since its imposition, the air passenger duty has come under intense public, academic and professional debate as to whether or not everything is being done right with the tax in terms of the allotment of duties and whether or not the air passenger duty should continue to exist at all. Currently, the air passenger duty is charged as a levy on a group of passengers tagged as chargeable passengers, using a group of aircraft tagged as chargeable aircraft from a United Kingdo m airport3. Even though the passenger may be the eventual payer of the levy, the duty is actually charged to the owner of the aircraft and thus the operator of the aircraft becomes payable to the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government does not therefore have any direct interactions with the passenger as far as the levies are concerned and it will be noted that even with the operator of the aircraft, the charge of the air passenger duty takes effect once the passenger aircraft first becomes airborne4. Currently, there are no fixed rates of duties or levies cutting across all chargeable aircrafts and for chargeable passengers. Rather, there are variations in the charges depending on the destination of the chargeable... It is worth mentioning however that the air passenger duty is currently non-devolved, meaning that not all countries within the United Kingdom are forcibly obliged to be implementers of the law. For example, it will be noted that in the Scotland and Wales, for example, the United Kingdom government is still undertaking a feasibility study to ascertain the likely effects that devolution would have on these countries; and thus the current study that is being undertaken. As part of the feasibility study and review that is taking place is the consideration on the constitutional and financial arrangements in Wales that would enhance or otherwise detract the successful implementation of the duty. It is therefore expected that by the close of the roles assigned to the commission in charge, known as the Silk Commission, there will be a clear statement on how financial accountability can be improved when the duty is brought into enforcement in Wales. Even more, the package of powers that give a constitutional right for the implementation of the duty shall adequately be considered to ensure that the provisions of the law do not conflict with any existing State legislation. It will be based on the findings that further action will be taken on the devolution of the air passenger duty. As pending is made of the final outcome of the commission’s work, it is important that discussions begin on how the air passenger duty will affect the larger Welsh economy and particularly the air transport industry.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Causes of the Mexican-American War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Causes of the Mexican-American War - Essay Example In addition, if one is to point the finger of blame at someone, at least a basic examination of who that person was, should be done first - as, even if the situation was that person's fault, an understanding of that person's motivation will surely give a greater understanding of the conflict itself. That is where this examination of the causes of the Mexican-American War will start - with a brief look at American's eleventh president himself. We will then deal with the westward expansion of the American population and the concept of Manifest Destiny. Only then will enough information be avalible to make a preliminary determination of how much each cause (including Mr. Polk) actually contributed to the start and continuation of the Mexican-American War. James K. Polk was born in North Carolina in 17951. His father was of Scottish and Irish background, and his mother was Scots as well. Hi father was a Democrat who supported Jefferson, thus Polk was brought up as a Jefferson Democrat.2 One of ten children in a successful farming and slave owning family, James was often ill, which delayed his formal schooling3. In 1806, his family followed its relatives in a move to Tennessee, where they became quite well to do plantation owners, and, in addition, his father became a county judge. Growing up in a successful slave owning family quite probably affected Polk's presidential policies, especially those concerning slavery and territories that strongly supported slave-holding. Through family connections, James Polk was accepted and attended the University of North Carolina. It was there that he first developed the skills that he would use in his political career - as both a speech maker in the Dialectic Society, and as the Society's first two term president. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, Polk moved to Tennessee to study law, and to be a the Clerk with the state Senate simultaneously from 1819-18224. In 1822, Polk left his position as Senate Clerk to run for office. His strong speech making skills won him the seat, and soon the reputation of one of the senate's great orators.5Polk was a very strong leader who, by the time he became president in dominated the American government of the day. It was the seven years that Polk spent in congress starting in 1828, as the speaker of the house and as Tennessee's governor that developed the strong leadership skills he employed as America's eleventh president6. It was these skills that Polk employed when war broke out after the annexation of Texas, which forced him to adapt his peacetime leadership skills to those of Commander in chief of the American Forces7. A similarly volatile situation with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory, was resolved by Polk though diplomacy alone. Thus, James K. Polk was able to employ both military and diplomatic means to solve conflicts and international disagreements. 2.1 Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny Manifest Destiny is an expansionist view where one country or people expands by pushing the other out of the way - "elbowing owners of property rudely to one side" while "making away with their possessions."8 It was "a policy of imperialism rationalized as inevitable (as if granted by God)"9.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

The force you exert Essay Example for Free

The force you exert Essay The target of this investigation is to find out how the force you exert on pulling back a rubber band, which will in turn catapult an empty margarine tub, affect the distance which the margarine tub will travel. We will not be changing any of the other factors of the experiment, only the force and extension of the rubber band, for that is the variable which we are investigating. Prediction I predict that the more force you exert, the further the margarine tub will travel, however, I think that the force and distance relationship will not increase evenly, instead it would first increase rapidly, then the increase will be less significant, and then rise slightly. Scientific reason for prediction Rubber is not a material which obeys Hookes law and its extension doesnt increase uniformly. Some elastic materials are intended to absorb energy. The greater the force that is applied, more the rubber band is extended. The force in the rubber band is stored as potential energy which is reverted into kinetic energy once I have let go of it, this energy is transferred into the margarine tub as kinetic energy and therefore it moves. A stretched or compressed elastic band is capable of doing work when released. As the rubber band is released, the force that it exerts diminishes with distance. Equipment   Rubber band   Chair/stool   Rulers   An empty margarine tub   A newton meter that goes up to 10N Procedure   Loop the rubber band around the front legs of a chair. Place a margarine tub at the centre of it.   Place 2 metre rulers in a row from the position of the margarine tub. Hook a newton metre on to the centre of the rubber band and pull it back in accordance with the required force.   Release newton metre.   Measure and record the distance travelled by the tub.   Repeat for the other forces. Diagram Fig. 1 Front view of apparatus. Fig. 2 Side view of apparatus Fair test We made sure that it was a fair test by the following conditions: All tests were carried out on the same surface to minimise variations in friction, etc. All tests were carried out with the same rubber band; elasticity, energy storage potential, etc, may be different in various rubber bands.   Use the same margarine tub for all tests or the mass, size and shape may vary.   Always place the tub in the same position at the start of each experiment.   Make sure that the newton meter is always hooked at the centre of the rubber band to avoid directional change of the tub after catapulting.   Always newton meter around the same amount of rubber, eg, if the rubber band is looped around the stool, hook it around both lengths: 2 Table to show increase in distances From the average points, the graph shows a generally straight line of increase. As the force exerted increases, so does the distance which the margarine tub travels. On average, the increase from each previous (i. e. one less newton) experiment is 18. 77cm although there is a rather large difference in the range between experiments. The range of the largest increase and the smallest is 21. 4cm; the smallest increase being 7N to 8N, which was only 7cm and the largest was from 5N to 6N; which was 28. 4cm. However, ignoring any anomalies, you can see that the increase in differences between distances are normally larger in the second half of the experiments with the larger forces, than the in the first half with the smaller forces. One thing I noticed was the relationship between the distance travelled and the force exerted, there seemed to be a strong pattern forming; the distance of a certain force multiplied by 3 is more or less equal to the distanced travelled by the margarine tub at a force that is twice the size of the primary force. See Table 3. Force (N) Distance (cm) 1.Table. 3 The results show a strong relationship between each other, when the force doubles, the distance trebles. I also noticed that the relationship worked very well for the first few values but not so fittingly for the later half (larger forces). This fits well with the Force/Extension law of rubber; if the pattern had occurs throughout the results then it would mean the relationship between force and extension could be plotted as a straight line, but that is not the case. It was especially apparent with the largest results we had gained for each experiment; the line of best fit was a curved line. It does not fit my prediction because I had predicted that the increase of distance would get bigger for the larger forces, but then again, our range of forces wasnt exactly that large either. Rubber is a polymeric substance and does not obey Hookes law, force and extension of rubber is not a straight line and therefore the force that it exerts on the margarine tub does not increase evenly; force diminishes with distance and it remains elastic until it breaks. The energy stored as a material is deformed is represented by the area between the curve and extension axis. See Graph 2. Graph. 2 Graph showing the amount of energy stored in proportion to extension. Energy is never used up and in this case, it is transferred into the margarine tub, which in turn uses this energy to drive its movement. In the law about the conservation of momentum, the resultant force is based on the initial forces of the two bodies, so my results suggest that the more force I exert on pulling back the rubber band, the faster it recoils and therefore increasing its momentum, which in turn gives transfers it onto the stationary margarine tub. My predictions Evaluation I think that my results are reliable because I had repeated each experiment three times and had gotten more or less similar results and it is probably accurate seeing as it fits into a pattern and the results show up as a relatively straight line. Also, we did not move the rulers during the experiment nor the newton meter. There were anomalous results however, possibly caused by collision with dirt on the floor or an off centre impact with the tub; which may result in a change of direction or a different path of projection being taken. If I was to do this experiment again, I would change the following things:   The surface on which we were working; we were working in a rather crowded environment and the floor was not clean so there was lots of friction and this could have affected the results.   The release mechanism; I think that the way we released the rubber band could have been improved, rather than letting the whole newton meter go, we could just have a detachable part for the device could have dragged across the floor and lengthened time of impact. I would mark out the centre of the tub so that I got it exactly centre each time rather than just estimating. I would mark out the centre of the rubber bad so that I got it exactly centre each time rather than just estimating. In addition to this set of experiments, I would also like to measure the speed of the retraction of the elastic band and the extension of it so that I can incorporate it into some of the other rules of physics and see if it fits with my analysis. If I had those results I could introduce momentum into the analysis as well. I could also test out some larger forces to see if the pattern mentioned in Graph 1 actually applies in this case. The results I had attained did not quite show that pattern but it could have just been a small section of a bigger whole. To measure the speed of the retraction, I would measure the distance of the extension and time the lapse between release of the rubber band and the impact with the tub and divide the distance by the time. See Fig. 4. Fig. 4 Measuring extension.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Mission Command Military Utility Leadership Management Essay

Mission Command Military Utility Leadership Management Essay When organizations are experiencing rapid change and economic pressure, leadership plays an essential role in helping to survive economic and operational hard times. Contemporary definitions of leaderships involve effective leaders, good communication skills, managers able to inspire their employees, making possible a vision where other people can identify. According to Ussem (2001), leadership is at its best when the vision is strategic, the voice persuasive and results tangible. In the study of leadership an exact definition is not essential but guiding concepts are needed. The concepts should be general enough to apply to many situations, but specific enough to have tangible implications for what we do. Visionary leadership, managers able to provide trust, empower employees and create a will to succeed are the key factors in order to survive such a challenging business environment. Mission command is a leadership methodology originally created for military organisations, Yardley and Kakabase ( 2007) state that Mission command, has the power to transform a traditional employer employee relationship into a responsibility based system which previously required orders being given, now progresses to just the information being passed down, employees will then be responsible for deciding themselves what actions need to be carried out allowing to them contribute and bring forward their innovative ideas. This system allows employees to develop an interest in what they do as they feel responsibility for the outcomes. In this essay I intend to explain how this leadership methodology works, characteristics and benefits followed by the possibility of implementation within commercial organizations What is Mission Command? Mission Command is the leadership philosophy used by the British Army it has been proven to be effective in difficult and high pressure environments over several years. It is also a management methodology and a system to deal with environmental volatility, by allowing individuals to make quick decisions in uncertain and continuing changing environment. It provides a frame work in which the individual can make decisions and translate them, without delay as the situation progresses. As a philosophy tries to maximise vision, initiative and diligence. Yardley and Kakabase state the four key elements of this leadership Philosophy are. a. A commander gives his orders in a manner that ensures that his subordinates understand his intentions, their own missions and the context of those missions. b. Subordinates are told what effect they are to achieve and the reason why it needs to be achieved. c. Subordinates are allocated the appropriate resources to carry out their missions. d. A commander uses a minimum of control measures so as not to limit unnecessarily the freedom of action of his subordinates. e. Subordinates then decide within their delegated freedom of action how best to achieve their missions. These principles can be translated into a four steps system to be used by organisations: A ) The leader promotes understanding of the tasks, the level of importance, a framework of action, as subordinates feel involved at the same time as understanding expectations of their superiors. B ) Subordinates know what they are expected to achieve by understanding reasons of the task and the outcome needed, they will be in line with their objective. C ) Individuals will be provide with the assets they need in order to perform their task effectively. D) Once the task is been understood, subordinates know what to achieve and the resources to do so the manager can take a passive position, providing guidance when it is needed. E) Employees will have the autonomy to decide how to use the resources and when is this appropriate in order to be successful. This will increase their initiative and commitment towards what is required to do. Mission command states by performing these elements organisations will experience fluid communication between managers and subordinates, clear goals, knowing what is require from them, the tools and resources to achieve it. Subordinates are able to use their free will to determinate how to perform effectively their tasks, understanding what they have to achieve and also have knowledge of what resources are available. All this will be achieved by having a supportive and informative leader. Employees will be empower by taking a very active role, this is an extremely essential characteristic in a continuing changing environment. Managers will then simply supervise, giving assistance only when it needed. Positive effects: Fluent communication, promoting understanding based on comprehension and discernment of the task, Individual must understand the purpose, the process and how to perform in order to achieve it.   Clinton O. and Sonny S (2009) explains that, the interaction can enhance an employees understanding of the situation, can calm their fears, reduce their stress levels and can let the employee know that they are an integral and valued part of the turnaround process. Trust communication will be clear only when there is a high level of trust, mutual understanding between managers and employees. The leader must build trust in order to practice Mission command. Yardley (2010),Trust is built by behaving with integrity, consistency, and by setting and maintaining high standards of behaviour and having to follow through on the difficult decisions where you know you have a choice between the right and the expedient. Its probably one of those truisms that it takes a long, long time to build up trust and you can quite quickly throw it away if you take the wrong action. In order to build trust managers have to be aware of their behaviours and attitudes, basically because they need to be the example to follow in terms of showing values, becoming a model and guide for subordinates to imitate. Empowering : enable employees to make decisions without having to consult the leader, involving employees in the process , how things are getting done. Managers have to encourage employees to play a more active role. Decentralisation: establishing a less centralized, task oriented approach to operational leadership and decision making. Taking initiative promoting freedom of speed and action. Giving clear direction that explains the why and the what but letting employees to decide how. Timely Effective Decision Making: employees having the power to adapt to a constantly changing environment are crucial to answer the challenges organizations face experiencing rapid change and economic pressure. Can Mission Command work in any type of organization? Difficulties to implement Mission Command. Within a military structure mutual trust is much easier to develop than in a commercial organisation. This is because commanders and soldiers are experiencing a life threatening experience. Under this circumstances trust is a need in order to communicate clearly and coordinate effort to succeed. In relation with critical circumstances, organisation had experience in the past year the effects of an economy crisis. Many companies were not clear regarding how they will manage this situation, causing lack of trust from employees towards their organisation. Individuals felt insecure on their jobs, less motivated as a result of the redundancies, feeling under stress and pressure to prove they were worth in order to secure their job. This experience confirms how difficult is for managers to promote trust under stressing circumstances, without trust, communication between managers and employees will not be effective, consequently it will be very difficult to empower employees. Mission command promotes employee empowerment; this is a strategy and philosophy that enables employees to make decisions about their jobs, giving the opportunity to decide how they will perform a task. The problem is not every employee is ready to take responsibility for making decisions, employees might not be interest to gain more responsibilities, if this is the case they will experience a feeling of stress and discontent when performing the task. Also there are jobs where is specially needed to attach to the pre establish rules, like workers in a factory performing operational activities, there is no opportunity to decide how to achieve the task in the best possible way, if an employee does not follow the procedures to manipulate a machine his / her health and safety will be compromised. This leadership methodology does not consider the multiple roles of an individual in a society. Misti Stoddard Susan R. Madsen (2007) In order for employers to attract and retain the most capable human resources, attention must focus on the relationships among the interdependencies of the work-family interface and a variety of constructs, including individual health. Understanding the benefits of combining work and family will assist men and women in their quests for greater satisfaction in life. It will also help employers understand how to cultivate greater job satisfaction among their employees and improve individual and organizational performance. Individuals within a company are also parents, students, professionals, athletes. They do have others interest outside the organisation. In contrast, armies operates in a different context, when in a mission individuals are normally travelling to distant destination, they live within military bases. It can be said while working in the army individuals are able to interact merely with other soldiers, they are limited to act only with other in the army forces, under this circumstances there is no possibility to play any other role individuals take part in a society with like enjoy social activities or been able to spend time with their families. While in a mission they just play their actions as soldiers. Mission command propose decentralisation as part of the leadership style, this characteristic refers to the ability to delegate. Some organizations managers often feel the need to retain control simply because they are uncomfortable with delegating power, by doing that they feel as if control is being lost and that unnecessary risk is being introduced to the job. This type of managers might be very good in terms of creating budget, reducing costs but does not necessary mean they are good as leaders. Furthermore organisation working with line production, this is a fabrication design for the creation of large amounts of standardized products, will not find necessary to delegate as they had a system based in simple and repetitive task design to maximise production. Conclusions To facilitate the implementation of Mission Command it is necessary to create trust within individuals. Without it individuals will not experience fluid communication. A combat is a life threatening scene, under this experience trust between soldiers and commanders will not be difficult to achieve. Organisation experience a different context, further research has to be done in order to discuss the characteristics of trust in commercial organisations. The diversity of roles individuals can play in society, has to be taking into account, their interest and reason to work can differ from an individual to another. Understanding the benefits of combining these roles will bring positive outcomes for organisations. Mission command leadership style, requires managers ready to provide guidance towards employees if autonomy is expected. In reality not every manager is a good leader, additionally not every job requires individuals able to discern methodologies, in this cases organisations will not find suitable to empower employees as they might require people to carry operational activities, a good example can be mass production, organisations will define the best ways to use all the resources. To conclude further investigation has to be done in other to find a solution to issues such as the difficulty to build trust, how to promote leaders able to provide guidance and the multiplicity of roles individuals plays in todays society.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Immigrants and Immigration - We Are a Nation of Immigrants Essays

We Are a Nation of Immigrants The United States is a nation of immigrants, a melting pot of the worlds people. The argument of immigration and whether it enhances or threatens life in the United States is ongoing. Having been through the immigration process, because my wife is a immigrant from Germany, has caused me to know immigration enhances life in the United States. Diversified cultures have strengthened our social fabric and have molded our national morals and social values. Thru the years every new immigrant brought with them the best ideas of their society and together with guts and hard work they turned a rugged wilderness into flourishing towns and cities creating opportunity for the next generation of immigrants. Our society was founded with the idea that each individual is important, honest labor brings rewards, and each individual is guaranteed the right to be free. Peter Martin wrote "Towards Something American" in Harpers Magazine (July 1994), and asserted he is not sure we even have a American culture. Sure we do, American culture can not be defined in the traditional sense and has slowly evolved from the European culture of the initial immigrants to a vast vat of the world's cultures and traditions. We've adapted the best of the world's cultures and traditions to fit in with American society, molding our social values. Not that each American thinks and acts the same way, that makes Americans special. We have many ideas of what our culture should be. The Germans have October Fest, the Irish have Saint Patrick's day, and the Jew's have Hanukkah. In many instances it is based on our geographic location within the United States and the people who settled there. Oth... ... possess similar job skills as natives. Mr. Simon writes, "Immigrants typically arrive when they are young and healthy. Hence new immigrant families use fewer welfare services than do average native families because immigrants do not receive expensive Social Security and other aid to the aged". This allows the immigrants to contribute more to the system then they use. The immigration issue will not be solved in the near future. The debate will continue and both sides will argue tainted statistics that are bent to conform with their ideas. Since the United States is a nation of immigrants and the most powerful nation in the world, we've been doing something right. Can we deal with the immigration issue smarter, with more hard facts, and with less emotion? I say yes, but in the meantime lets not fix something that may not be broken.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Managing a Culturally Diverse Workforce Essay -- Business Management

In today’s ever changing and highly integrated world, corporations have a growing need to hire and maintain an exceedingly diverse and multicultural workforce. With increasing globalization, multinational corporations have a great advantage as they have an opportunity to work in different cultures and take advantage of a diverse pool of skills. However, there is a major cost of working in a different culture. Various issues arise when managing a culturally diverse workforce and the management needs to tackle the problems effectively. It is important to have an idea of different cultures as it helps in improving the efficiency and productivity of the employees. However, there are many issues when we are conducting cross-cultural analysis. These issues arise because of our lack of understanding of other cultures and at times, we are ignorant about our own culture. This can result in confusion about other cultures and we fail to understand that completely. This is a very serious issue that needs to be identified and resolved, as it is results in serious distortions about the cultures we are trying to understand. The paper will highlight various theoretical and practical cross-cultural management issues and will include various recommendations to solve these problems. CROSS-CULTURAL MANAGEMENT ISSUES The term culture is versatile and can be explained as a broad idea or concept. It is difficult to explain the term with a single definition, however, It can be defined as a set of values which define a way of life for the individuals and the society. It explains what is good or bad and right or wrong in a particular society. Thus, culture is a value system, which provides the ways of perceiving people, thinking patterns and the socia... ...ndations, which are helpful in solving these issues. Though sophisticated stereotyping and schemas are a helpful tool in understanding a culture but they are not sufficient. We need certain advanced tools to understand a culture completely. One of the most essential elements is attributional knowledge along with factual and conceptual understanding. This simply means that one should have an understanding to give credit when credit is due i.e. a person should have a clear understanding that any characteristic can be applied to anyone in a particular situation. This can be done through practice and by using a step by step model of cultural understanding. A detailed description of the Cultural Sense Making Model has been provided. By having a thorough understanding of our own culture and by considering context, we can have a better understanding of a different culture.

Friday, October 11, 2019

Frankensteins Cat Essay

In China, the world’s manufacturing powerhouse, a new industry is taking shape: the mass production of mutant mice. Peek into the 45,000 mouse cages at Shanghai’s Fudan University and you’ll see a growing collection of misfits. By randomly disabling the rodents’ genes, the scientists here are churning out hundreds of odd animals, assembly-line style. They have created mice studded with skin tumors and mice that grow tusks. There’s a mouse with male-pattern baldness, hair everywhere save for a lonely bare spot on its head. Some of the mice have strange behavioral quirks—they endlessly bury marbles, for instance, or make only left turns. One strain ages at warp speed. Another can’t feel pain. While some of the rodents have obvious abnormalities, others reveal their secrets over time. One variety appears normal on the outside, with thick white fur and healthy pink ears and noses. But the animals are klutzes. They are clumsy and spectacularly uncoordinated. They fail miserably when researchers put them through their paces at a special rodent boot camp. In one test, the mice are tasked with standing on top of a rotating rod for as long as they can manage, the rodent equivalent of a logrolling challenge. It’s not an easy undertaking, but normal mice eventually find their footing. The mutant mice never do. They also have trouble balancing on a narrow wooden beam and keeping their grip when suspended, upside down, from a wire screen. And they have strange gaits—taking abnormally wide steps and holding their tails at odd angles, curved up toward the ceiling, instead of letting them simply drag along the floor behind them, as mice usually do. Even stranger, perhaps, are the Lonely Hearts Club mice. The males of this strain look like regular rodents, but the females consistently refuse to mate with them. The poor guys, lacking some certain je ne sais quoi, simply have no sex appeal, and they are rejected time and time again. These mice are just a small sample of the more than 500 different kinds of mutants the Fudan team has created. Ultimately, the researchers hope to create 100,000 strains of modified mice, each eccentric in its own way. It would be enough to fill a carnival sideshow thousands of times over. * * * As long as we’re dreaming up animal sideshows, we needn’t stop with peculiar mice. Science has given us a whole new toolbox for tinkering with life, and we have the power to modify animals in profound new ways. We are editing their genetic codes, rebuilding their broken bodies, and supplementing their natural senses. Headlines frequently herald the birth of strange new creatures: Bionic beetles! Glowing cats! Spider goats! Roborats! The breakthroughs are simultaneously astounding and puzzling. What are these creatures exactly? What do they look like? Who’s creating them, and why? And are these animals really so novel? Indeed, we have a long history of refashioning animal bodies. Take the varied members of the species Canis lupus familiaris—the modern dog—which are products of millennia of life with humans and bear little resemblance to their ancestors, gray wolves. Exactly how this dog domestication began is a subject of intense debate. Some scientists suggest that we deliberately set out to acquire canine companions, adopting wild wolf pups. Others hypothesize that hungry wolves, attracted to the bones, trash, and scraps produced by early humans, approached our camps on their own terms, and that our tolerance of the least threatening interlopers gave rise to future generations of human-friendly canines. Either way, as wolves became part of human society, moving from cold ground to warm hearth, they lost many of the traits they needed to survive in the wild. Their bodies and heads shrank, their faces and jaws grew more compact, and their teeth decreased in size. As our relationship with canines developed, we began to breed them more carefully, molding dogs that excelled at specific tasks. We created the bulky, barrel-chested mastiff to guard our homes, and the dachshund, a wiggly salami of a dog, to shimmy into badger burrows. The diversity among modern dogs is so astounding that the thirty thousand dogs that strut their canine stuff at Crufts, the largest dog show in the world, don’t even look like members of the same species. One year, the â€Å"Best in Show† contenders included King, a hound with a deer’s build, all legs and lean muscle, and Ricky, a tiny black-and-white fluff ball who could stand easily underneath King’s smooth brown belly. They shared the ring with Donny—a standard poodle whose shaved gray haunches were set off by a thick white mane—and Cruella, an Old English sheepdog whose long, shaggy hair obscured all but the black dot that presumably served as her nose. Today, thanks to us, dogs are the most physically diverse species on Earth. We’ve reshaped other species, too, turning scrawny chickens into plump broiler birds and bristlyhaired wild sheep into producers of soft wool. The list goes on and on. We learned to breed animals that suited our every need, creating hunters, herders, guardians, food sources, and companions. Over the course of generations, the members of many species diverged from their wild ancestors and took their place in a human world. But selective breeding was a blunt instrument, one that required us to transform animals using educated guesswork, breeding desirable hounds together, over and over again, until a puppy we liked squirmed into the world. It took thousands of years to turn wolves into dogs. Now we can create novel organisms in years, months, even days. Today, the tools of molecular biology allow us to target one specific gene, to instantly turn it on or off, to silence or amplify its effects. For instance, the researchers at Fudan University are creating their stunning array of strange mice simply by knocking out a single gene at a time. To do so, they’re relying on a special genetic tool called a transposon or a â€Å"jumping gene,† a segment of DNA capable of hopping around the genome. When the scientists inject a transposon into a mouse embryo, this foreign piece of DNA inserts itself into a random place in the rodent’s genome, disabling whatever gene it finds there. But the real beauty of the system is that when this mouse grows up and mates, the transposon jumps to a different location in the genome of its pups, sabotaging a new gene. With each mating, researchers have no idea where the transposon will end up, what gene it will disrupt, or what the ultimate effects will be. It’s like throwing darts at a genetic dartboard. Blindfolded. Only when the pups are born, and start exhibiting various abnormalities, do the scientists learn what part of the genome has gone haywire. The approach is allowing the researchers to create cages upon cages of novel mutants, simply by playing matchmaker between their amorous rodents. In some cases, the scientists are making furry freaks faster than they can figure out what’s wrong with them. We can also recombine genes in ways that nature never would—just consider a very curious cat skulking about New Orleans. With downy orange fur and a soft pink nose, the feline looks like your average tabby. But flick on a black light, and the cat becomes Mr. Green Genes, his nose turning from soft pink to electric lime, due to a bit of jellyfish DNA tucked into each of his cells. The insides of his ears and the whites of his eyes glow brightly, his face emerging from the dark like a modern-day Cheshire cat. (His son, Kermit, also glows green. ) Meanwhile, nearly two thousand miles away, a barn in Logan, Utah, is home to a strange herd of goats. Thanks to a pair of genes borrowed from a spider, each female goat produces milk that’s chockfull of silk proteins. When the milk is processed in the lab, scientists can extract the spider proteins and spin them into silk. Genetics isn’t the only field providing us with the power to reengineer other species. Advances in electronics and computing make it possible to merge animal bodies with machines, to use tiny electrodes to hijack a rat’s brain and guide the rodent, like a remote-controlled toy, through a complicated obstacle course. Breakthroughs in materials science and veterinary surgery are helping us build bionic limbs for injured animals, and we can train monkeys to control robotic arms with their thoughts. Today, our grandest science fiction fantasies are becoming reality. * * * Some of us may find our growing control over living, breathing beings to be unsettling. After all, biotechnology is the stuff of dystopian nightmares, and many an apocalyptic scenario has been constructed around crazy chimeras or world-conquering cyborgs. Ethicists and activists worry about whether we should be altering other species when we can’t possibly get their consent. Some say that manipulating the planet’s wild things—whether we’re inserting genes or electrodes—is profoundly unnatural, causes animal suffering, and turns other life-forms into commodities. Critics worry that our effort to remake the world’s fauna is the worst example of human hubris, the expression of an arrogant desire to play God. It’s true that remaking other species according to our own wants and needs doesn’t necessarily put animal welfare first. Selective breeding hasn’t always turned out well for animals—we’ve saddled dog breeds with all sorts of hereditary diseases and created turkeys with such gigantic breasts that they can barely walk. And of course, biotechnology gives us new ways to do damage. The Fudan University scientists have created mouse embryos with defects so severe that they die in the womb. Some of their mutant mice are prone to tumors, or kidney disease, or neurological problems. One strain, unable to absorb nutrients from food, essentially starves to death. In fact, a whole industry has sprung up to sell diseased lab animals to scientists, with numerous biotech companies hawking their unique creations. In October 2011, many of these companies converged on St. Pete Beach, Florida, for an international meeting of scientists who work with genetically modified organisms. Representatives from various biotech firms held court from booths ringing a hotel ballroom, advertising animals that had been engineered to suffer from all sorts of medical afflictions. One company was selling pigs with cystic fibrosis and cancer; a brochure from another outlined eleven available strains of rodents, from the NSE-p25 mouse, designed to display Alzheimer’s-like symptoms, to the 11BHSD2 mouse, which has a tendency to drop dead of heart failure. (And just in case nothing there caught your fancy, one company’s poster promised, â€Å"You design the experiment, we’ll design the mice. †) These companies aren’t making sickly animals purely to be cruel, of course; studying these creatures yields valuable insight into human disease. That’s good news for us, but little consolation for a tumor-riddled rodent. If there is peril here, there is also great promise. Biotechnology could do more for animals than it’s given credit for. Sure, we can make animals sick, but we can also choose to deploy our speciesshaping powers to help other species survive and thrive, to create healthier, happier, fitter critters, and some scientists are doing just that. With the sophisticated techniques at our fingertips, we may even be able to undo some of the damage we’ve done to other species, alleviating genetic disorders in dogs, for instance, or bringing wild animal populations back from the brink of extinction. Some forwardthinking philosophers are dreaming of more extreme interventions, such as boosting the brainpower of apes, and using genetic modification and electronic enhancement to help animals transcend the limits of their own bodies. Right now all the options are open. Though biotechnology’s strange new creatures are being created in the world’s labs, they don’t tend to stay there very long, and there are already cutting-edge animals living in fields, homes, and nature preserves across America. Before long, we may all be able to shop for animals the same way that scientists in Florida shopped for carefully engineered mice. Imagine a future in which we can each pick out the perfect animal from a catalogue of endless options. We could create something for everyone. Avid nighttime reader? How about your own Mr. Green Genes so you can stay up late, reading by the light of the cat? For the twelve-year-old who has everything, skip the toy cars and planes at Christmas and wrap up a remote-controlled rodent. Equestrians could order up a foal with the same genes as the winner of last year’s Kentucky Derby, while sprinters could get themselves a golden retriever whose artificial carbon-fiber legs would allow it to run as fast as a greyhound. The tools of biotechnology are becoming increasingly accessible to the public; future generations of animal lovers may be able to design their own creatures without fancy lab equipment or advanced scientific training. * * * In the pages that follow, we’ll go on a journey from petri dish to pet store, seeking out the revolutionary breeds of beasts that are taking their places in the world. We’ll venture from the rocky shores of California to the dusty fields of Texas, from the canine clones that live in Korean labs to the pets that sleep in our homes. We’ll delve into genes and brains, into work that seems frivolous and projects that are anything but. We’ll meet an engineer who is turning beetles into stunt planes and a biologist who believes cloning just might save endangered species. And, of course, we’ll come to know the animals themselves—from Jonathan, a sad sack of a seal with hundreds of online friends, to Artemis, a potentially life-saving goat whose descendants could one day take over Brazil. Along the way, we’ll puzzle through some larger questions. We’ll probe how our contemporary scientific techniques are different from what’s come before and whether they represent a fundamental change in our relationship with other species. We’ll consider the relationship we have with animals and the one we’d like to have. Most of us care deeply about some form of animal life, whether it’s the cat or dog curled up on the couch—60 percent of Americans share their homes with pets of one species or another—the chickens laying our eggs, or some exotic predator fighting to survive as its habitat disappears. Now that we can sculpt life into an endless parade of forms, what we choose to create reveals what it is we want from other species—and what we want for them. But even if you feel no special affection for the creatures with whom we share this planet, our reinvention of animals matters for us, too. It provides a peek into our own future, at the ways we may start to enhance and alter ourselves. Most of all, our grand experiments reveal how entangled the lives of human and nonhuman animals have become, how intertwined our fates are. Enterprising scientists, entrepreneurs, and philosophers are dreaming up all sorts of projects that could alter the course of our collective future. So what does biotechnology really mean for the world’s wild things? And what do our brave new beasts say about us? Our search for answers begins with a tank of glowing fish. 1. Go Fish To an aspiring animal owner, Petco presents an embarrassment of riches. Here, in the basement of a New York City store—where the air carries the sharp tang of hay and the dull musk of rodent dander —is a squeaking, squealing, almost endless menagerie of potential pets. There are the spindly-legged lizards scuttling across their sand-filled tanks; the preening cockatiels, a spray of golden feathers atop their heads; and, of course, the cages of pink-nosed white mice training for a wheel-running marathon. There are chinchillas and canaries, dwarf hamsters, tree frogs, bearded dragons, red-footed tortoises, red-bellied parrots, and African fat-tailed geckoes. But one of these animals is not like the others. The discerning pet owner in search of something new and different merely has to head to the aquatic display and keep walking past the speckled koi and fantail bettas, the crowds of goldfish and minnows. And there they are, cruising around a small tank hidden beneath the stairs: inch-long candy-colored fish in shades of cherry, lime, and tangerine. Technically, they are zebrafish ( Danio rerio), which are native to South Asian lakes and rivers and usually covered with black and white stripes. But these swimmers are adulterated with a smidgen of something extra. The Starfire Red fish contain a dash of DNA from the sea anemone; the Electric Green, Sunburst Orange, Cosmic Blue, and Galactic Purple strains all have a nip of sea coral. These borrowed genes turn the zebrafish fluorescent, so under black or blue lights they glow. These are GloFish, America’s first genetically engineered pets. Though we’ve meddled with many species through selective breeding, these fish mark the beginning of a new era, one in which we have the power to directly manipulate the biological codes of our animal friends. Our new molecular techniques change the game. They allow us to modify species quickly, rather than over the course of generations; doctor a single gene instead of worrying about the whole animal; and create beings that would never exist in nature, mixing and matching DNA from multiple species into one great living mash-up. We have long desired creature companions tailored to our exact specifications. Science is finally making that precision possible. * * * Though our ancestors knew enough about heredity to breed better working animals, our ability to tinker with genes directly is relatively new. After all, it wasn’t until 1944 that scientists identified DNA as the molecule of biological inheritance, and 1953 that Watson and Crick deduced DNA’s double helical structure. Further experiments through the ’50s and ’60s revealed how genes work inside a cell. For all its seeming mystery, DNA has a straightforward job: It tells the body to make proteins. A strand of DNA is composed of individual units called nucleotides, strung together like pearls on a necklace. There are four distinct types of nucleotides, each containing a different chemical base. Technically, the bases are called adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine, but they usually go by their initials: A, T, C, and G. What we call a â€Å"gene† is merely a long sequence of these As, Ts, Cs, and Gs. The order in which these letters appear tells the body which proteins to make—and where and when to make them. Change some of the letters and you can alter protein manufacturing and the ultimate characteristics of an organism. Once we cracked the genetic code, it wasn’t long before we figured out how to manipulate it. In the 1970s, scientists set out to determine whether it was possible to transfer genes from one species into another. They isolated small stretches of DNA from Staphylococcus—the bacteria that cause staph infections—and the African clawed frog. Then they inserted these bits of biological code into E. coli. The staph and frog genes were fully functional in their new cellular homes, making E. coli the world’s first genetically engineered organism. Mice were up next, and in the early 1980s, two labs reported that they’d created rodents carrying genes from viruses and rabbits. Animals such as these mice, which contain a foreign piece of DNA in their genomes, are known as transgenic, and the added genetic sequence is called a transgene. Encouraged and inspired by these successes, scientists started moving DNA all around the animal kingdom, swapping genes among all sorts of swimming, slithering, and scurrying creatures. Researchers embarking on these experiments had multiple goals in mind. For starters, they simply wanted to see what was possible. How far could they push these genetic exchanges? What could they do with these bits and pieces of DNA? There was also immense potential for basic research; taking a gene from one animal and putting it into another could help researchers learn more about how it worked and the role it played in development or disease. Finally, there were promising commercial applications, an opportunity to engineer animals whose bodies produced highly desired proteins or creatures with economically valuable traits. (In one early project, for instance, researchers set out to make a leaner, faster-growing pig. ) Along the way, geneticists developed some neat tricks, including figuring out how to engineer animals that glowed. They knew that some species, such as the crystal jellyfish, had evolved this talent on their own. One moment, the jellyfish is an unremarkable transparent blob; the next it’s a neon-green orb floating in a dark sea. The secret to this light show is a compound called green fluorescent protein (GFP), naturally produced by the jellyfish, which takes in blue light and reemits it in a kiwi-colored hue. Hit the jelly with a beam of blue light, and a ring of green dots will suddenly appear around its bell-shaped body, not unlike a string of Christmas lights wrapped around a tree. When scientists discovered GFP, they began to wonder what would happen if they took this jellyfish gene and popped it into another animal. Researchers isolated and copied the jellyfish’s GFP gene in the lab in the 1990s, and then the real fun began. When they transferred the gene into roundworms, rats, and rabbits, these animals also started producing the protein, and if you blasted them with blue light, they also gave off a green glow. For that reason alone, GFP became a valuable tool for geneticists. Researchers testing a new method of genetic modification can practice with GFP, splicing the gene into an organism’s genome. If the animal lights up, it’s obvious that the procedure worked. GFP can also be coupled with another gene, allowing scientists to determine whether the gene in question is active. (A green glow means the paired gene is on. ) Scientists discovered other potential uses, too. Zhiyuan Gong, a biologist at the National University of Singapore, wanted to use GFP to turn fish into living pollution detectors, swimming canaries in underwater coal mines. He hoped to create transgenic fish that would blink on and off in the presence of toxins, turning bright green when they were swimming in contaminated water. The first step was simply to make fish that glowed. His team accomplished that feat in 1999 with the help of a common genetic procedure called microinjection. Using a tiny needle, he squirted the GFP gene directly into some zebrafish embryos. In some of the embryos, this foreign bit of biological code managed to sneak into the genome, and the fish gave off that telltale green light. In subsequent research, the biologists also made strains in red—thanks to a fluorescent protein from a relative of the sea anemone—and yellow, and experimented with adding these proteins in combination. One of their published papers showcases a neon rainbow of fish that would do Crayola proud. * To Richard Crockett, the co-founder of the company that sells GloFish, such creatures have more than mere scientific value—they have an obvious aesthetic beauty. Crockett vividly remembers learning about GFP in a biology class. He was captivated by an image of brain cells glowing green and red, thanks to the addition of the genes for GFP and a red fluorescent protein. Crockett was a premed student, but he was also an entrepreneur. In 1998, at the age of twenty-one, he and a childhood friend, Alan Blake, launched an online education company. By 2000, the company had become a casualty of the dot-com crash. As the two young men cast about for new business ideas, Crockett thought back to the luminescent brain cells and put a proposal to Blake: What if they brought the beauty of fluorescence genes to the public by selling glowing, genetically modified fish? At first, Blake, who had no background in science, thought his friend was joking. But when he discovered that Gong and other scientists were already fiddling with fish, he realized that the idea wasn’t far-fetched at all. Blake and Crockett wouldn’t even need to invent a new organism—they’d just need to take the shimmering schools of transgenic fish out of the lab and into our home tanks. The pair founded Yorktown Technologies to do just that, and Blake took the lead during the firm’s early years, setting up shop in Austin, Texas. He licensed the rights to produce the fish from Gong’s lab and hired two commercial fish farms to breed the pets. (Since the animals pass their fluorescence genes on to their offspring, all Blake needed to create an entire line of neon pets was a few starter adults. ) He and his partner dubbed them GloFish, though the animals aren’t technically glow-in-thedark—at least, not the same way that a set of solar system stickers in a child’s bedroom might be. Those stickers, and most other glow-in-the-dark toys, work through a scientific property known as phosphorescence. They absorb and store light, reemitting it gradually over time, as a soft glow that’s visible when you turn out all the lights. GloFish, on the other hand, are fluorescent, which means that they absorb light from the environment and beam it back out into the world immediately. The fish appear to glow in a dark room if they’re under a blue or black light, but they can’t store light for later —turn the artificial light off, and the fish stop shining. Blake was optimistic about their prospects. As he explains, â€Å"The ornamental fish industry is about new and different and exciting varieties of fish. † And if new, different, and exciting is what you’re after, what more could you ask for than an animal engineered to glow electric red, orange, green, blue, or purple thanks to a dab of foreign DNA? Pets are products, after all, subject to the same marketplace forces as toys or clothes. Whether it’s a puppy or a pair of heels, we’re constantly searching for the next big thing. Consider the recent enthusiasm for â€Å"teacup pigs†Ã¢â‚¬â€tiny swine cute enough to make you swear off pork chops forever. Harold Herzog, a psychologist at Western Carolina University who specializes in human-animal interactions, has studied the way our taste in animals changes over time. When Herzog consulted the registry of the American Kennel Club, he found that dog breed choices fade in and out of fashion the same way that baby names do. One minute, everyone is buying Irish setters, naming their daughters Heather, and listening to â€Å"Bennie and the Jets†Ã¢â‚¬â€welcome to 1974! —and then it’s on to the next great trend. Herzog discovered that between 1946 and 2003, eight breeds—Afghan hounds, chow chows, Dalmatians, Dobermans, Great Danes, Old English sheepdogs, rottweilers, and Irish setters—went through particularly pronounced boom and bust cycles. Registrations for these canines would skyrocket, and then, as soon as they reached a certain threshold of popularity, people would begin searching for the next fur-covered fad. Herzog identified a modern manifestation of our long-standing interest in new and unusual animals. In antiquity, explorers hunted for far-flung exotic species, which royal households often imported and displayed. Even the humble goldfish began as a luxury for the privileged classes. Native to Central and East Asia, the wild fish are usually covered in silvery gray scales. But ancient Chinese mariners had noticed the occasional yellow or orange variant wriggling in the water. Rich and powerful Chinese families collected these mutants in private ponds, and by the thirteenth century, fish keepers were breeding these dazzlers together. Goldfish domestication was born, and the once-peculiar golden fish gradually spread to the homes of less-fortunate Chinese families—and households elsewhere in Asia, Europe, and beyond. As goldfish grew in popularity, breeders stepped up their game, creating ever more unusual varieties. Using artificial selection, they created goldfish with freakish and fantastical features, and the world’s aquariums now contain the fantail, the veiltail, the butterfly tail, the lionhead, the goosehead, the golden helmet, the golden saddle, the bubble eye, the telescope eye, the seven stars, the stork’s pearl, the pearlscale, the black moor, the panda moor, the celestial, and the comet goldfish, among others. This explosion of types was driven by the desire for the exotic and exquisite—urges that we can now satisfy with genetically modified pets. We can also use genetic engineering to create animals that appeal to our aesthetic sensibilities, such as our preference for brightly colored creatures. For instance, a 2007 study revealed that we prefer penguin species that have a splash of yellow or red on their bodies to those that are simply black and white. We’ve bred canaries, which are naturally a dull yellow, to exhibit fifty different color patterns. And before GloFish were even a neon glint in Blake’s eye, pet stores were selling â€Å"painted† fish that had been injected with simple fluorescent dyes. With fluorescence genes, we can make a true rainbow of bright and beautiful pets. * Engineered pets also fit right into our era of personalization. We can have perfume, granola, and Nikes customized to our individual specifications—why not design our own pets? Consider the recent rise of designer dogs, which began with the Labradoodle, a cross between a Labrador retriever and a standard poodle. Though there’s no telling when the first Lab found himself fancying the wellgroomed poodle down the street, most accounts trace the origin of the modern Labradoodle to Wally Conron, the breeding director of the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia. In the 1980s, Conron heard from a blind woman in Hawaii, who wanted a guide dog that wouldn’t aggravate her husband’s allergies. Conron’s solution was to breed a Lab, a traditional seeing-eye dog, with a poodle, which has hypoallergenic hair. Other breeders followed Conron’s lead, arranging their own mixed-breed marriages. The dogs were advertised as providing families with the best of both worlds—the playful eagerness of a Lab with the smarts and hypoallergenic coat of the poodle. The rest, as they say, is history. The streets are now chock-full of newfangled canine concoctions: puggles (a pug-beagle cross), dorgis (dachshund plus corgi), and cockapoos (a cocker spaniel–miniature poodle mix). There’s even a mini Labradoodle for doodle lovers without lots of space. Tweaking the genomes of our companions allows us to create a pet that fulfills virtually any desire —some practical, some decidedly not. When I set out to get a dog, I thought I had settled on the Cavalier King Charles spaniel: small, soft, and bred for companionship. Then I discovered a breeder who was crossing Cavaliers with miniature poodles, yielding the so-called Cavapoo. I was sold. I loved the scruffier, shaggier hair of the Cavapoo, and given what I knew about biology, I figured that a hybrid was less likely to inherit one of the diseases that plague perilously inbred canines. A dog that didn’t shed would be an added bonus. Plus, poodles have a reputation for being brainy, and I’m an overachiever; if I was going to get a dog, I wanted to be damn sure he’d be the valedictorian of his puppy kindergarten class.