Free Essays on T-score Statistics

Introduction Technological advances in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) have provided a â€Å"voice† to many people through various devices. This voice has been hypothesized to provide greater benefit then traditional communication board or word processing programs. However augmentative communication devices have not traditionally been used with children who are autistic. Various studies have estimated that 25% to 61% of children with autism remain essentially non speaking (Weitz, Dexter, & Moore, 1997). Children with autism have been subjected to many different treatment approaches to the disorder. In fact, when one reviews the literature, there appears to be as many different treatments as there are individuals with autism. Children with autism are subjected to an enormous variety of educational and therapeutic interventions (Heflin & Simson, 1998). One particularly promising, beneficial tool for learners in general and for persons with developmental disabilities is computer technology. Use of computers for communication and learning may provide consistency, motivation, opportunities for independence, and individualized instruction ( Heimann, Nelson, Tjus, & Gillberg, 1995). However, computer technology is rarely used by individuals with autism. Why are individuals with autism typically not given the opportunity to use computer technology? Is it because the deficits in autism are not amenable with computer technology as in contrast to cerebral palsy a motor-speech impairment? This notion is too weakly supported in the literature to be used as a rationale for not introducing computer technology to individuals with autism. To not give individuals with autism access to computer technology may be ill advised in light of the success of computer based methods in promoting communicational gains in individuals with other developmental disabilities such as mental retardation (Romski &Sevcik, 1993). The research does... Free Essays on T-score Statistics Free Essays on T-score Statistics Introduction Technological advances in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) have provided a â€Å"voice† to many people through various devices. This voice has been hypothesized to provide greater benefit then traditional communication board or word processing programs. However augmentative communication devices have not traditionally been used with children who are autistic. Various studies have estimated that 25% to 61% of children with autism remain essentially non speaking (Weitz, Dexter, & Moore, 1997). Children with autism have been subjected to many different treatment approaches to the disorder. In fact, when one reviews the literature, there appears to be as many different treatments as there are individuals with autism. Children with autism are subjected to an enormous variety of educational and therapeutic interventions (Heflin & Simson, 1998). One particularly promising, beneficial tool for learners in general and for persons with developmental disabilities is computer technology. Use of computers for communication and learning may provide consistency, motivation, opportunities for independence, and individualized instruction ( Heimann, Nelson, Tjus, & Gillberg, 1995). However, computer technology is rarely used by individuals with autism. Why are individuals with autism typically not given the opportunity to use computer technology? Is it because the deficits in autism are not amenable with computer technology as in contrast to cerebral palsy a motor-speech impairment? This notion is too weakly supported in the literature to be used as a rationale for not introducing computer technology to individuals with autism. To not give individuals with autism access to computer technology may be ill advised in light of the success of computer based methods in promoting communicational gains in individuals with other developmental disabilities such as mental retardation (Romski &Sevcik, 1993). The research does...

Caesar, Kaiser, and Czar

Caesar, Kaiser, and Czar Caesar, Kaiser, and Czar Caesar, Kaiser, and Czar By Maeve Maddox To begin with, Caesar was a family name. Now, in various forms, it is a generic term for ruler or emperor. In Roman naming practice, a newborn child was given three names (tria nomina). The praenomen was a name like Lucius or Marcus. The second name was the name of the tribe, clan, or gens, such as the Julii or Cornelii. The third name was the cognomen, a nickname that distinguished one branch of a gens from another. Sometimes an adult would adopt a fourth name called an agnomen. This was a nickname he had earned himself. Caesar was the cognomen of the family to which the dictator Gaius Julius Caesar was born. Its origin has been explained in various ways: The cognomen Caesar originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by caesarian section (from the Latin verb to cut, caedo, caedere, cecidi, caesum).[5] The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations: that the first Caesar had a thick head of hair (Latin caesaries); that he had bright grey eyes (Latin oculis caesiis); or that he killed an elephant (caesai in Moorish) in battle.[6] Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favoured this interpretation of his name.[7] (Wikipeda) Julius Caesar himself had a receding hairline so another possible explanation is that his family may have carried the gene of male pattern baldness and the nickname Caesar (hairy) was ironic. When Julius Caesar was killed, his nephew, whom he adopted as his heir, took the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. The Octavianus was his birth name so he kept it. Later on the Senate gave him the agnomen Augustus. Thats the name by which he is known as the first Emperor of Rome. Augustus and his first four successors were related by blood so they all more or less had the right to the name Caesar. After the death of Nero, however, the Empire was up for grabs. In the chaotic year of the four emperors that followed Neros death, the name Caesar became a synonym for ruler. Galba was the first to assume it as a title. (He got to use it for about seven months.) So famous was the title Caesar that it found its way into all the European languages. It was probably the first Latin word adopted by the Germanic languages to which English belongs. The Romans pronounced the word with a hard c and thats how it came into the Germanic languages. If it hadnt been for the immense influence of Norse and French on English during the Middle Ages, the modern English word for caesar would have developed into something like coser. During the time of the close relationship between the English and the Danes, however, the English replaced their own word with the Norse keiser (cayser, kaiser). Then, after the Norman Conquest, when French became the language of the ruling classes in Engand, the French word, with its soft c pronunciation, became the preferred form. Later on, the word Kaiser came into English again, this time as the title of the German rulers. The word Czar, which English speakers use to refer to the Russian emperors, entered the Russian language as Tsar, the Old Slavic version of Caesar: tsesari. The spelling Czar is a respelling of the Russian word with the letters of the Latin alphabet. The spelling with cz was common in European languages because that was how it was spelled the first time it appeared in a European book in 1549, but the French adopted the spelling tsar in the 19th century and the London Times prefers it. In German it is spelled Zar. In the U.S. the word czar is now used to refer to anyone who is in a position of some kind of control. Ex. Drug Czar (either a powerful drug dealer OR a government official supposed to combat drug trafficking); Education Czar. Little Caesar (1931) is the title of an historically significant film in which Edward G. Robinson played a gangster and defined the cinematic crime genre. Such is the continuing charisma of the word that it continues to be used to suggest power and grandeur. The words association with food is probably owing to its Italian origin. (Ex. Little Caesars Pizza.) A Caesars Salad, however, has nothing to do with the late dictator. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the salad is named for Cesar Cardini, a restaurant owner in Tijuana, Mexico who is said to have served the first one in about 1924. 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 Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:The Meaning of "To a T"50 Idioms About Roads and PathsApostrophe with Plural Possessive Nouns

Business Week 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Business Week 2 - Essay Example There is no use for a research problem that cannot be done. Precision in words used is at the core of a good research statement, with the problem being expressed in the initial few words. Editing of writing includes careful choice of words, clarity of expression, expression of thoughts in full with minimal word use, use of a thesaurus, maintaining short sentences, and rewriting as often as required with alertness for modification. (1). The first additional benefit that a thorough is that it boosts confidence through several factors. These factors include enhanced knowledge on the subject and the understanding that there have been others who have demonstrated interest in the topic by the investment of time, effort and resources in studying it. Another benefit is that it reveals sources of data that may not have crossed the mind. An example of this is that in going through articles on the subject the literary references provide additional sources that may not have been considered. Among the difficult areas of a research are the methodological and design issues. A third benefit of a thorough review of existing literature is that the manner in which similar studies handled these issues could be the means to resolving methodical and design issues. 3. Sometimes students believe that taking the time to prepare a complete and carefully designed research proposal is something to be preached, but not really practiced. Identify at least two different problems related to research design that are commonly encountered when doing research. For each problem, explain how a complete and detailed research proposal would help the researcher avoid the problem? Employing improper data collection tools and the lack of application to ethical issues are two commonly occurring problems related to research design. There are several data collection tools like questionnaires, interviews, and the like,

Global health priorities Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Global health priorities - Coursework Example This spreading dissatisfaction will certainly hamper hospital administration as it attempts to implement solutions to the nursing shortage (Buchan and  Aiken 2010). The current global nursing shortage will also increase a gap between current healthcare administration solutions and efforts nurses believe hospital administrators are making. Prioritized solutions on the medical staff’s list will differ more with those on the hospital administration’s list. This difference will occur in spite of research attempts to understand and close this gap. One way to entice future students to consider nursing professions is to prioritize personal time over compensation as nurses today value personal time more than pay (Buchan and  Aiken 2010). Dynamism at work and home is another solution, as students would not want to spend more time in one role over the other. Future nursing students can be told of almost assured promotions in the profession that leads to an emerging superclass of hospital workers. Incorporated personal and professional lives are aspects of future nursing that students can learn about and admire because they lower the stress of overseeing one’s professional and personal life (Buchan and  Aiken

The Human Nature of Prejudice Essay Example for Free

The Human Nature of Prejudice Essay Many people in society today have the mindset that being prejudice is wrong, especially as it relates to skin color and ethnicity. Social Psychology and Human Nature book describes prejudice as â€Å"an act of a wicked culture† (Roy F. Baumeister, Brad J. Bushman p. 402). Jim Cole’s description is: â€Å"Prejudices will be dealt with here as a single set of dynamics that function to dehumanize people who are identifiably different in some way from the people whose perceptions are limited by the dysfunction we call prejudice (Cole p1  ¶2). † This means that there dysfunctions in childhood structure and it has limited the person take on the world because of a certain disbelief. If taught wrong, you become more prejudice at the more dislike you see in your life growing up because these are your own perceptions on the society. However, being prejudice makes since because it is an acquired behavior. Prejudice does not always mean a person disliking or â€Å"hating† another person, or disliking someone because of their favorite color, height or weight, religious beliefs, etc. Most often times, people do not take notice that prejudice is happening to them until it is about race. If a person has a problem with someone else because they are not the same; different is seemingly fine. We all have problems, problems that can be solved with rehabilitation, some with great medicines and treatments, and others with just life. Some of our problems come from our past childhood. The way we are living and the choices we make could cause a problem; no matter what the situation is we face problems every day. Prejudice is what kind of problem we need to be aware of: socially, mentally, physically, and or most cases, for example, Dennis Rodman’s, psychologically. The problem arises when prejudice is carried out in aggression or when it is used to make people feel uncomfortable. As children, we are born into this world with many cultures already present. There are many things people are born to know. Then there are things that are learned and taught to us from our parents and society. For the most part, many children start off liking everything and everyone that does not physically harm them. It is understood that children do not learn and change behaviors themselves, and that culture influences personality, behavior, and the way in which children respond to those things and people that surround them. In my perspective, the way children learn right from wrong is the whole culture aspect existence. For example, children are indoors more with their family. Children adapt to their parents’ lifestyles, their views, values and beliefs, and their personalities. They learn quickly thus behaviors become a set way. Growing up, children learn how their parents respond to society, neighbors, political views, and even criminal situations. For example, children who commit crime or involve themselves in criminal activities are taught or learned this from somewhere like watching television, playing video games, or simply observing the behavior among family, friends, and loved ones. Richard Trembley said, â€Å"even though children are the most violent and aggressive human beings, they cannot express their anger and aggression because they may be too weak to do so† (p24). Trembley’s discovery on children at a daycare facility revealed that â€Å"25% of the interactions among children involve physical aggression† (p24). This proves that children can be born with natural aggression or be taught aggression. For instance, if you take a child’s toy their first instinct is to cry out of anger or hit you. Both crying and hitting are forms of outward aggression especially if a child throws a tantrum or â€Å"go bananas†. Chapter 10 of the text says this is called, â€Å"nature says go and culture says stop’ (p300). As children grow and mature, they learn how to control their aggression. Growing older force children to make choices and adjustments to the bad behaviors taught and learned earlier in childhood. As children begin to expose themselves to others, they quickly begin to learn from others they encounter. They learn about different cultures and different behavior other than their own or what they are familiar with. Assumptions and conclusions about people are analyzed, measured, and weighed out and behaviors begin to form. Case in point, a young girl dislikes men growing up because she experienced her father mistreating her mom with cheating, cursing, and fighting or simply no man was around in her life to learn positive things about. The girl sees a picture of her father and her mother would tell her that he is a bad man. Now, this becomes the girl’s maxim causing her to freak out or cry even meeting her mom’s new boyfriend. Even with other men, the girl would be hesitant and freak out because she has been brainwashed by her mother men are always trying to hurt or betray you. This probably would take a girl much longer to like men outside of a girl that have had a different experience being around positive men. As illustrated in the text, â€Å"prejudice is a negative feeling toward an individual based on his or her membership to a particular group† (p393). In the above example, the girl’s reaction to seeing men has become a negative feeling especially towards the particular male group. In today’s society, when a person hears the word prejudice, they automatically think racism when in fact it is something completely different. Although it is happening everywhere including in our schools systems, many do not notice that being prejudice is becoming a growing issue. In schools today, teenagers form many groups called jocks, nerds, popular kids, and thugs. Students who are athletic seem to have many favors and higher social ranks than other students. These students get recognition and are always lifted up as being higher than others. Others, such as nerds, are often picked at because of their ability to learn and excel higher than others and often looked down upon by the rest of the students. They usually never get in trouble and dress awkward to other students. The popular kids seem to be liked by everyone. They wear the best clothes and have the most friends. They seem to be everywhere and always involved in many activities. Then there are the thugs, who dress different, speak different, and display negative and hostile behavior almost in every situation possible as part of their expression and culture. All seem to have something unique that makes them very different but as a teenager there can be challenges. Teenagers tend to not like things and people that are different unless they have been taught otherwise. For example, when a child or teenager is moved constantly from foster home to foster home, there are many resentment and bad feelings inside the child. To connect with a family, children have to learn and figure a way to connect with a new family and build a bond just to get along with the family until they are taken away from that family. This seems harsh but it is reality. The experience teenagers feel every time they come across something different triggers that lashing out behavior. Trust, this is a persona feeling. Even though children may start off aggressive, children are brought up liking everything, but by socializing agents, they are taught to reject certain groups. Therefore, the jocks will dislike the nerds because of social and physical intimidation and the popular kids and thugs may dislike each other because of social power and self-centeredness thus creating bullying and a hostile environment in the school system. The bullying creates problem because negative feelings now have created negative actions, which turns into physical aggression, now discrimination occurs. Discrimination is â€Å"unequal treatment of different people based on the groups or categories to which they belong† (p393). The discrimination stage comes after the prejudice takes place. Many people see this stage as being worse than prejudice because this stage is where violence occurs like bullying, verbal aggression, emotional aggression, and physical aggression. As of 2009, 28 percent of kids 12 through 18 are subjected to this violence in school (DeVoe, Murphy). When a child is young, behavior can be influenced. Parents have the ability to discipline and chastise and correct bad behaviors but some children do not fully understand right from wrong. They tend to have differences with one another because of their lack of understanding. But when a child becomes a teenager, behavior is more difficult to change because views are set and so are their behaviors. The older a child becomes the more their decisions become their own. My parents would say, â€Å"The ball is in their court and their actions will reap with consequences. † Prejudice is not formed overnight. Children do not go to bed one night and wake the next morning with prejudice. There must be things or people to influence their beliefs. Some would argue the media, parenting, or a harsh experience is the blame. Whatever the case, prejudice form opinions before facts are known. To change prejudices, it is very important to change the social and media situations and the at-home dynamics that influence our children. Prejudice has been getting worse over the years now that technology is on the rise. There is one form known as cyber bullying. Cyber bullying refers to bullying or discrimination through communication technologies, methods such as mobile phone text messages, emails, phone calls, internet chat rooms, and instant messaging. They are often driven by anger, payback or frustration and this comes from again the intimidation this person may have with someone from a different social group. Kids are receiving these hurtful text messages and emails because the bully got their number from Facebook mobile. Social psychology is the scientific study of how people affect and are affected by others (3). We affect people just ask much as people affect us. These bullies don’t understand that they can bring about long term effects on the very people that they discriminated against and also, themselves. This affects them both physically and psychologically. Solutions to this are simple. The book explains an idea called the contact hypothesis. It says that maybe if two members from different groups were to meet more often, it would decrease racial tension and eventually reduce prejudice. Without the common interactions between the groups on a personal level, the prejudice increases. The interactions must be forced in order for it to have an effect. Psychologists are thinking if push to large conflicting groups together, over time the will little to no conflict. For example, two scientists conducted an experiment on new freshman college students. White and black college students were assigned either a black or a white roommate to live with for the year. These decisions were made by a flip of a coin so that it is a random selection. The results showed that at first some of the students where disgruntled about living in an interracial dorm room, conversely, the feeling of prejudice decreased dramatically by the end of the semester. The students needed time to adjust to their racially opposite roommate (Shook and Fazio 1). This study proves that change can affect us in a large way. In a way so shifting that the nature feeling of being disgruntled occurs. What humans fail to realize is that our ideas and decisions are chosen for us when we are young, however when we are older we began to make our own decisions: how we hang out with, our political preference, and what type of people we are. Society influences all of the above. If we want something, we can have it with hard work. This study takes the freedom of choice away and plants the student in a situation where you have to use what you have learned to handle it. As humans, we dislike change especially when it comes to a very large change such as living with the one race and culture all your life until now having to flip sides and live with someone who is completely different. This is why a person being prejudice is understandable. The big problem with society is the fear of the unknown because we are calm and content with the things that familiar to us. However, when change occurs our minds alert us that something is wrong. This is what creates the thought of being prejudice. You mind does not like what you see so your brain leads you to dislike that certain thing. This makes sense because culture is leading us to like everyone, but our society is leading us in a different. Not saying that everyone is prejudice but some things that a person does, says, or looks like that we just do not like. We are allowed to we are human it is in our blood to dislike. For example, in the Old Testament, â€Å"God divided humanity into two groups, the Jews and Gentiles. God made the Jews holy and he claimed the Jews to be his kingdom of priests† (Ephesians 2:14). However, in our human nature, the Jews because too proud of their role and picked on and despised the Jews. This is similar to the jocks, nerds, popular students, and thug situations going on in the schools. Still, even in biblical times, people were being prejudice of those less fortunate that they are. This supports my claim on how prejudice makes sense because we were created to be prejudice by our Creator. Additionally, to understand prejudice is to know the dynamics around it. Jim Cole, in his article, ask two questions, â€Å"Would you rather live in a land where discrimination is illegal, or would you rather live in a land where no one has the desire to discriminate† (p1)? These are both good questions. Cole explains this below: â€Å"To have a better grasp of how prejudices function we need to look at how we have learned prejudices. There are many stereotypes we learn as children. We do not test these and many times we do not have the opportunity to test them. We learn them as facts and behave as if they are the truth. Then, later in life, when situations come up, we behave automatically out of these earlier stereotyped learnings. This type of learning is not easily accessible for discussion or awareness, but it simply stays with us for later effortless, seemingly automatic application, since the learning is not tested and not challenged, it is not evaluated and not likely to be changed† (p1,  ¶5). Thus, giving people time and attention to adjust their behavior and make better decisions at the right time. This claim supports the idea that as children we learn ideas and certain behaviors and put them into action. Through life experiences, learning is put into action and consequences follows. As Cole illustrates in his article, there is a base of mixture of your childhood learning and what behaviors you have are reevaluated from society. The new way a person perceives the world is different because now they have made their own perception on how things operate psychologically. A mind can become more susceptible and prejudices can be eliminated all the while the behavior responses stays intact. In conclusion, prejudice is something that humans choose to do, but we do not do it on purpose. It comes from our childhood teachings about how to interact with society. This called social psychology. This is what my studying. Social psychology is the study on how our thoughts, feelings, actions, and behaviors are influenced by other people. We need people to survive. Without other people in society, a human would be another animal in the environment. Without people in our life to show us what is right and wrong we will be much disoriented people. Dennis Rodman is great example of the need for people in life. Throughout his life he showed Americans things that we thought were inhuman, but it was normal to him; the way he talked and thought, the way he dressed, and especially the things he did. Dennis Rodman lost his father at a young age. He always was a little weird. People made fun of him. When he was asked â€Å"is your dad the reason why you have a problem†, he responded the same way, â€Å"Some man bought me into this world, but that doesn’t mean I have a problem. † His mother never really had time to work with him and teach him about the real life. She was always working and his older siblings were there just as babysitters. Yes, there was discipline when needed but other than that he basically learned on his own or what he experienced. This style of childhood is what began his early sign of psychological issues. Everyone has a father and if we don’t ever see our father for 30+ years, then we should not be exempted from having a father. This is messing with Freud’s modern concept of physiology, the basis of human nature, one father, and one mother. Rodman is famous for his aggressive manners, many piercings, tattoos, and lively, multi-colored hair. This has to do with his child life with no father. According to Freud, Rodman was trapped in the phallic stage of psychosexual development. Since he had no father, he tended to cling to his mother more; since his mother constantly pushed him away he became very sick in the mind. Thus, creating the situation where he is unsure about his sexuality. Dennis Rodman was a person who didn’t know he liked or wanted out of life do he couldn’t have a specific prejudice toward anything. This supports the claim because Dennis Rodman was a person who did not have the correct people in his life to guide him; so when he was faced with a situation like his first sexual encounter with a woman, he found it as unpleasant because he probably never had the â€Å"sex talk† that most children have with their parents when they hit puberty. He claimed he was bisexual and that he was going to marry himself. He could not understand exactly what a good behavior was and that is why he acted the way he did. Dennis Rodman’s life and personality could really have many different reasons and different approaches that could all be explain thoroughly, but to me, I think that his childhood and played an enormous role in determining his character and the nature of person that is he. Rodman once said that â€Å"Relationships and athletes don’t mix†, with a different set of parents Dennis Rodman would be a 10 times better man that he is today. We know that we are the only things that can help us survive. Dennis Rodman is a good example of how we need people as direction to learn the certain things in life need to live in today’s society. He had no prejudice and because of it he did things from different cultures to see who he was. As humans we need to know who we are to be able to defend ourselves and our culture. When we know our culture is being threatened by another culture we tend to dislike those people; this why most black people are so combative with white people because they feel like they have history to protect and a race to stand up for. We fail to realize that society has turned the page in history and is now accepting of all types of people, or at least forced to by laws and regulations. I feel like some blacks are living in the past and they have not taken a looking into the present. The only thing to blame is the childhood. How they were raised and what they were exposed to is what molds them into who they are today. I think that being prejudiced can be fixed with simple education; not only informing the child about their culture but teach ways of other cultures and telling them the difference. This way the child can express any area of dislike and the lifetime thought of prejudice can possibly be refrained. The difference cannot be negative or it will solve anything and the child may still become prejudice, but now it’s a younger age. That is not the aim. The aim is allow the child to see later on in life and already have a saving knowledge about what they may see. In closing, being prejudice is not just something we do on our own, but it is an acquired behavior instilled in us when we are children. Works Cited Baumeister, Roy F. , and Brad J. Bushman. Social Psychology and Human Nature. Second Edtion. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. Web. 19 Dec. 2012. Culture Society. How to Overcome Prejudice. EHow. Demand Media, 18 Sept. 2007. Web. 10 Dec. 2012. Cole, Jim. Understanding Prejudice. Beyond Prejudice, n. d. Web. 12 Dec. 2012. Rodman, D. (2012). Dennis rodman official page. Retrieved from http://www. dennisrodman. com/main DeVoe, Jill, Christina Murphy, and (ED) National Center for Education Statistics. Student Reports of Bullying and Cyber-Bullying: Results from the 2009 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey. Web Tables. NCES 2011-336. National Center for Education Statistics (2011): ERIC. EBSCO. Web. 31 Oct. 2011. New International Version. Ephesians 2:14. Trans. The Bible, n. d. Web. 19 Dec. 2012. Schamotta, Justin. The Development of Prejudice. EHow. Demand Media, 06 June 2011. Web. 18 Dec. 2012. Shook, Natalie J. , and Russell H. Fazio. Result Filters. National Center for Biotechnology Information. U. S. National Library of Medicine, 2008. Web. 14 Dec. 2012.

Macbeths Incredible Lady :: Free Macbeth Essays

Macbeth's Incredible Lady      In William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth there are two main characters, one of which is more believable than the other. Lady Macbeth is not as lifelike or realistic as her husband. In this essay we shall explore her character. In "Macbeth as the Imitation of an Action" Francis Fergusson specifies the fears within Lady Macbeth:   I do not need to remind you of the great scenes preceding the murder, in which Macbeth and his Lady pull themselves together for their desperate effort. If you think over these scenes, you will notice that the Macbeths understand the action which begins here as a competition and a stunt, against reason and against nature. Lady Macbeth fears her husband's human nature, as well as her own female nature, and therefore she fears the light of reason and the common dayllight world. As for Macbeth, he knows from the first that he is engaged in an irrational stunt: "I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on the other." In this sequence there is also the theme of outwitting or transcending time, an aspect of nature's order as we know it: catching up the consequences, jumping the life to come, and the like. (108) Clark and Wright in their Introduction to The Complete Works of William Shakespeare interpret the character of Lady Macbeth: Lady Macbeth is of a finer and more delicate nature. Having fixed her eye upon the end - the attainment for her husband of Duncan's crown - she accepts the inevitable means; she nerves herself for the terrible night's work by artificial stimulants; yet she cannot strike the sleeping king who resembles her father. Having sustained her weaker husband, her own strength gives way; and in sleep, when her will cannot control her thoughts, she is piteously afflicted by the memory of one stain of blood upon her little hand.   (792) In "Memoranda: Remarks on the Character of Lady Macbeth," Sarah Siddons comments on the Lady's cold manner: [Macbeth] announces the King's approach; and she, insensible it should seem to all the perils which he has encountered in battle, and to all the happiness of his safe return to her, -- for not one kind word of greeting or congratulations does she offer, -- is so entirely swallowed up by the horrible design, which has probably been suggested to her by his letters, as to have forgotten both the one and the other.

Main Character Of The Novel Essay

Throughout the book, we see that George Elliot has a distinct pre-occupation and interest with presenting the working class rural community in an authentic light. She writes the book as a social anthropologist, studying the more primitive community of the time. She has a large amount of sympathy towards the poor, although she herself was not a member of the working class. Using the story as a vehicle she aims to expose the plight and indignity of the poor in Victorian England, it was her main motive. Therefore, her focus throughout the book is in fact village life; in this case a fictional village named Raveloe. Focusing on the villagers, their attitudes and their way of life acts as a way of also commenting socially and politically on the injustices they face. Raveloe can easily be regarded as the main character as without it, the narrative following Silas has little significance. The village shapes the narrative, being responsible for most of the major areas of interest in the tale. All the individual characters provide interest and together form the character of the town, from characters such as Dunsey to Dolly. The story begins with a sympathetic description of the ‘honest folk’ of Raveloe. Our first real source of interest in the novel comes from the villager’s hostile reaction to Silas. We are initially told about Silas through the eyes of the villagers. Elliot echoes the villagers process of thought and way of speech throughout the novel, namely at the beginning. The sound of Silas’ loom is described as ‘questionable’ and he is said to have a ‘dreadful stare’. She is mimicking the mannerisms and phraseology of Raveloe as a whole and its reaction to the unknown. Silas’ mechanical method of working on the loom is seen as un-natural by the villagers, who can only judge him on their own experiences, centred round farming and agriculture. Due to this unfamiliarity, they see even pitiful attributes as sinister. His bad eyesight is thought of as a ‘stare’. This reaction of the village acts just as a reaction of a human character. It is typical of the village to think this way. In this respect then, the village can be regarded as any other character would. It has attributes and a predictable nature. It is these collective attributes of the community that make Raveloe one character, with which Silas’ relationships revolve. His relationships and connections with the characters of the community provide the most significant points of interest in the novel. Initially, there is the theft of his gold by Dunsey, then his integration into the community with the help of Dolly and later his confrontation with Godfrey over the fate of Eppie. Dolly represents the warmer, caring part of the Raveloe community, opposite to William Dane, the bitter symbol of Silas’ past. She is described to ‘seek the sadder and more serious elements of life and pasture her mind upon them’. Dolly seems to almost gain sustenance from helping those in need, in this case Silas. She helps him with the upbringing of Eppie, offering clothes and her own time. She fulfils her found role in the community. Although she can be seen as the prime example of the village’s moral capability, such sentiments are seen universally. When Silas informs the villagers of his lost gold, the villagers group together in order to help him. By entering ‘The Rainbow’, Silas enters the hub of the village community, beginning the process of his integration. After seeing the authenticity and depth of Silas’ grief, any former rumours disappear as the villagers begin to relate him to themselves, seeming anxious to help. The event acts as a rare source of excitement, as the villagers become incapable of distinguishing reality from imagination, fabricating information concerning a pedlar ‘with ear-rings’. However this all represents a symptomatic characteristic of the village – a concern to help others. The villagers’ reaction concerning the pedlar, is an indication of another key characteristic of Raveloe – a belief in superstition. Although the villagers provide lengthy descriptions of this so called thief, we know that no such character even exists. It is an example of how, in such close cut communities, little matters, true or false, can be embellished, escalating into common belief, leading to the creation of new superstitions. Silas is initially associated with the devil and spirit worship. These suspicions are only heightened by his apparent skill with herbal remedies, his strange cataleptic fits, as well as his past home, ‘North’ard’, where wizards, magic and folklore were associated. However his evident massive bereavement following the loss of his gold dispels any former rumours. Much of this superstition originates from the villagers discussions in the ‘Rainbow’, an important focus of the novel. This can be seen in the tale of ‘Cliff’s Holiday’, a well known rehearsed tale. Mr Macey, the apparent head of this specific social community, describes how a tailor, known as Cliff, had tried to ‘ride the tailor’ out of his son, attempting rising up the class system by making a gentleman out of his son. The story however ends with the son dying, and Cliff following him soon after. The story entails much superstition, mentioning ‘old Harry’, a euphemism for the devil, suggesting this unnatural desire to climb the class system was responsible for the death of the boy. The villagers, opposite to Cliff, are in fact very accepting of what they have been given. They feel content with what God has given them. Their pre-occupation is not to rise out of poverty but to merely co-operate with each other in order to make it bearable. This is seen in Dolly’s clear desire to help anyone in need, or at least to do the best she can. None of the villagers seem to complain about their conditions. They support Silas and each other. Another example of this is in Aarons desire to help Silas later on in the novel with his garden. He has no qualms about working in his spare time, he sees it as simply a decent thing to do. These sentiments would largely be a result of his mother, Dolly, and the way she brought him up. The meetings in the Rainbow are an important aspect of the social nature of Raveloe. Like going to Church, it is a social function. This religious aspect of Raveloe is alien to Silas due to his origins of the non-conformist Lantern Yard. He knows nothing of churches, only chapels. This complete lack of knowledge somewhat isolates him from the community; he does not go to church. However Dolly, is adamant that Eppie shall be brought up in the Raveloe faith and at the same time, introduces Silas back into religion. Both the working class are present in such functions as well as the gentry. The gentry are represented by the Cass family. The squire sees himself above the other members of the community, only becoming involved with them at festive, social occasions, such as the new-year party at the Red House. They are differentiated from the poor and, unlike Dolly, Mr Macey or any other members of the lower class community, represent little more than themselves. The Cass family are one of the villagers’ topics of discussion. They perceptively see the faults of the upper class just as they see faults in the lower classes. They take a specific disliking to Dunstan, due to his lack of respect of anyone, especially those below him. Godfrey is also seen as weak, Mr Macey describing him as a ‘slack baked pie’, commenting on his moral flaws. The primitive but nevertheless logical philosophy of, those who do well are rewarded while those who don’t suffer, is apparently proven in both cases. Dunstan ends up dying due his greed, while, although it is unknown to them, because of his rejection of Eppie, Godfrey is seemingly punished by Nancy being unable to conceive. Silas’ innocence on the other hand, is eventually rewarded. He is blessed with Eppie, who changes his life. These conclusions follow the villager’s moral code, maintaining justice. Categorically speaking, the village has a variety of overall attributes and a predictable nature so therefore can be described as a character. Furthermore, being the main focus of the novel, we can go on to suggest it is the main character. We are more aware of the values and nature of Raveloe as a whole than any specific character – even Silas. All the main events of the novel are shaped by the village. Each personality of each character represents a different aspect of the village as a whole. These individual characters amount to create one, main character which dictates the narrative and plot of the novel. Elliot’s concentration on her depictions of the village, indicate that she desired it to be the main focus. Obviously Silas is important, however, it is the events that unfold around him in Raveloe that really influence the direction of the novel.

Transformative Power of Civil Society

Apartheid divided people and was in favour of white people and left the majority of black people poor. This created inequality between black people and white people, thus this resulted in the people in the people who are disadvantaged by apartheid to form civil societies to help fight poverty themselves. This essay will critically discuss whether civil society has transformative potential in south Africa and also to what extent does it have transformative potential, that is if it has transformative potential. This paper will discuss this by looking at what at what civil society is, looking at development and how ordinary people challenge forced development (top down) by engaging in civil society. In this paper three case studies namely the Victoria mxenge and amadiba crisis committee and the xenophobia protest will be used as examples to analyze the topic further. Essentially this paper will attempt to show that civil society is both transformative and non-transformative. Development has been debated by social scientist and they came up with different theories of development. Development theories are trying to equalize the inequalities that were created by apartheid and anlyse and find reasons about why things are like this in south Africa. The theories of development include modernization theory, dependency theory, people centred development theory and sen’s development theory. Modernization theory implies that western culture is more superior and modernization theory looks at the different levels of technological development across the globe and explores development in terms of inequality ( Graaf, 2001). According to Davids (2005) modernization theory focuses on the fact that if the less developed country wants to develop then it should follow the developed countries. According to davids (2005,09) â€Å"modernization theory regards western culture to all others†. This notion of modernization takes us back to apartheid where the western culture was seen as the ideal culture out of the cultures we have in south Africa argues David (2005). This makes the people to start civil societies so that they can voice out their views. Roodt (2001) argues that civil society is formed when the formal government becomes more distant from rural people and the people decide to do things for themselves. Modernization theory is often challenged by civil society by counteracting and challenging the status quo. Graaf (2001) talks about the two main approaches for development which is top-down and bottom up approach. The two approaches monitors how development happens the people that are needed to participate in order for development to happen. According to Roodt (2001,469) argues that â€Å"participation is seen as one of the ingredients necessary to promote sustained development†, thus roodt further says that â€Å"this not to say that development equals sustained development†. The â€Å"top- down approach to development refers to the tendency of the state to implement development with little or no consultation with the people who are meant to benefit† Roodt (2001,469). For example when wanting to develop the poor in south Africa the rich people will come up with ways to do develop them and the poor people will not have a say or will have a little voice. Bottom up approach of development is when the beneficiaries of any proposed development participate through their organizations in determining the type of development most relevant to their needs, and may also participate in the implementation and subsequent running or monitoring of the development† Roodt (2001,469). This approach is dependent o n the needs of the community and its about how the community want to develop its self and not getting some one from the state to tell the community what they should do. But its about the community telling the state what they are doing (Roodt,2001). The bottom-up approach goes hand in hand with civil society and sen’s theory of development. According to Roodt (2001) civil society is the part is the part of the society outside the boundaries of both government and the family which is often seen to be the source of democratic innovation and of resistance to government excess. This means that people create social movements that does not include the government getting involved and so civil society is non-governmental. Walby (2009) argues that the aims of civil society is to respond in changes inresources, power, and material positioning, revorking the frames and material positioning and reworking the frames and discourses that provide meaning. Blaaw (1999) argues that â€Å" civil society is increasingly being looked on as the source of alternative and more equaltable forms of society. Civil society focuses more on people centred development and according to Scholte (1999,07) Civil society exists whenever people mobilise through voluntary associations in initiatives to shape the social order. Civil society challenges top down approach of development because it gets people involve in their own development by challenging the notion of top down approach For example according to Ismail (2009) Victoria Mxenge was building houses for poor people because the houses that the government was building were too small and the government a lot of time to build the house so they built the houses. Note Ismail (2009) notes that since South Africa is a developing country so poor people regards or acknowledges learning and education to overcome poverty. The case study of Victoria Mxenge Housing Development Association part of the south African homeless peoples federation, its an organization made up of women who wants to develop themselves by forming a housing social movement Ismail (2009). In this case study civil society has transformative potential because previously during apartheid â€Å"in South Africa poor women have been excluded from mainstream education by apartheid legislation, lack of money, no easy access to educational facilities, or social prejudices which dictate that women stay at home to care for the family† Ismail (2009,282). So by doing this civil society changed the social order or the functioning of the country by breaking the bounderies. According to Ismail (2009,292) â€Å"The VM women built on traditional notions of African ‘motherhood’ but went further in important ways and developed political skills in mobilising resources and learnt through great personal endeavour, patience, sacrifice and rigour but seldom developed a feminist consciousness and therefore made no analysis of patriarchy or capitalis According to Ismail (2009) this social movement also broke the of women learning in informal and non- formal way, there for civil society transformed them because they can now participate in learning in their every day life and support their daily struggles. Ismail (2009,01) further says that â€Å"in South Africa informal education and learning has developed so that excluded groups do have some opportunity for learning. This development is eople centred because if people where not there it wouldn’t take place. Furthermore â€Å"this development response has given rise to a ‘poor women’s pedagogy’ in which they become the advocators and innovators of development practice†. Victoria mxenge did have transformative potential because it built house for the poor and made a difference and changed the social order that not only can government can build houses for the poor but also women can build houses on their own. However in the end the organization did not have transformative because Victoria mxenge was taking loans from banks to build the houses left the organization in debt and in that sense Victoria mxenge didn’t have transformative potential. Furthermore the state ended up getting involved in the matter and they did not have much of a say now in the development so it didn’t have transformative potential because they did not change the top-down approach of development. Victoria mxenge shows that civil society can be transformative and non transformative. Roodt (2001) talks about sen’s theory, Sen’s theory argues that freedom is the primary end and principal means of development and Victoria mxenge has lost that freedom because they did not choose in the end, but the government choose for them and Victoria mxenge doesn’t have collective agency. Sen’s theory of development talks about development as freedom that looks at human well-being and how to evaluate it. According to Roodt(2001) Sen’s theory values that in order for people or a community to develop, freedon should be taken as the foundation for development. Furthermore more the theory talks about substantial freedoms or opportunities in the sense that if people have substantial freedoms they will have the â€Å"ability to achieve what they value, engage in economic transactions ,participate in political values will be equal to the capability to function in ways they consider valuable archieving the goals they have set for themselves† Roodt,2001. Sen’s theory is people centerd and participation is important in order for development to take place and thus democracy matters in the sense that choice matters and so the theory takes equality and rights of the people seriously ( Roodt,2001). So this means that people centred way of taking decisions about what the community wants and what is valuable is important. sen’s theory of development has human agency because public participation is important. â€Å"Globalization refers to the fact that we all increasingly live in one world , so groups and nations become interdependent† Giddens (2006). The interdependency takes place ecomonically, technology wise and communication wise. During apartheid in south Africa, the global civil society got involved and helped to fight apartheid. According to Klungman (2011,09) â€Å"global civil society is manifestation of social energies released by awakening of human consciousness to possibilities for creating societis that nurture and rejoice in a love of all human beings. According to Scholte (1999) argues and says that global civil society is ensures peace around the world for example if the is war global civil society has to fight and try to create peace there. So in the context of south Africa global civil society helped and fought apartheid . o in this context civil society has shown to have transformative potential by changing the social order that the apartheid government was using and brought democracy in south africa. When globalization takes place they are people who are benefiting from it and some are not benefiting but are actually disadvantaged by globalization. For example looking franchise wise mc donalidazation is not benefiting south Africa in the sense that they build their restaurants but more of the m oney that they get goes to their country of origin so it does not do much on south africa’s economy. So it does not transform south Africa in that context however it does transform south Africa by creating jobs for the unemployed and they get money so it does have transformative power because it helps fight unemployment. Blaauw (2003,02) argues that â€Å"the economic and social choices that government entails for national government also have ernomous implications for civil society organizations and formations†. By this blaauw (2003) argues that the dicisions that the government takes economically and socially affects civil society. Furthermore Blaauw (2003,02) argues that â€Å"the new global reconfiguration, which compels governments to become more responsive to financial markets than the needs of their poor citizens, has met with resistance from social forces ostensibly because of the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion†. This means that since when the state gets involved in global reconfiguration it stops paying attention to the poor and pays more attention to globalisation . n addition Blaauw (2003) argues that as â€Å"global markets forces rise the role of the state as an economic provider lacks and this calls for a need for civil society to develop and grow†. The people respond to being disadvantaged by globalization by striking, forming civil society groups and some by sticking more to their ways of doing things. For example people are afraid of getting involved in globalization because they think they will loose they will loose their money. For example looking at people in eastern cape are still farming for themselves to resist development and globalization. For that reason civil society has changed that and therefore it did not show to have transformative potential, because it did not change the social order of doing things. Looking at the under development in the transkei Bundy cited in (Graaf & Venter, 2001) argues that poverty and self-reliance in the former Transkei region was not in the form of the community not wanting to participate to the modern economic sector opportunities. Amadiba community crisis committee is Community-based organisation which has members of about three thousand local people from Amadiba. Amadiba crisis development fought the lobby group against Xolobeni sand dune mining walby (2009). The organisation was fighting to get the mine back so that it can be theirs and amadiba favour sustainable community based eco-tourism argues Walby (2009). by this the community was in charge of their development and the development it their choice . madiba crisis committee has also partnership with ACC and Sustainable community based tourism Civil society has transformative potential because looking at the amadiba case study the community fought to get the mine back from the people from austraila. The people fought by themselves without the help of the government and the government was not part of the people who wanted the mine. This brought transformation to the community because they were fighting for one thing and with the same vision and they got wh at the mine that they were fighting for . However even though they got the mine they are not using it which brings the point that civil society can have transformative potential and non transformative potential. They don’t have transformative potential in the sense that the mine is not benefiting them in any way because it is not opened and they are fighting alone and taking each other to court. Its also not transformative because the people who are fighting might be both members of the state and business and it leads to conflict, so now they don’t know what to choose between the two. his shows that amadiba crisis committee have agency, because it manage to change the social functioning . The paragraph shows that one organization can have society having transformative potential and also not having transformative potential. During may 2008 south African citizens started a xenophobic attack , where by the citizens were removing people who came from other countries to work here while they are not south African cit izens were removed ( Bond,2010). Bond (2010) furthermore argues that the xenophobic attacks were violent such that 62 migrants were murdered while hundreds of people which includes children and women were attacked and some were raped. Bond (2010) argues that not only did the people attack the migrants but they also burnt their houses and some of the houses were destroyed. According to Bond (2010) peoples reasons for the xenophobic attacks was employment in the sense that they saw the migrants taking cheap labour and taking most of the job opportunities. Employment was the key factor for the xenophobic attact because Bond (2010) mentions that some of the citizens were saying that the migrants come in to the country and open businesses so jelousy was also involved and some said its because the number of foreigners was uncontrollable. So this was implemented because of the lack of effective communication between communities and the state so it caused conflict and the citizen were angry and decided to things by the selfs and remove the foreigners out of the country. In this case civil society had transformative potential because the community did what they wanted to do because the government was not doing anything for them. A civil society was formed then to move the people who are not south African citizens out of the country. The movement was not formal in the sense that was not like amadiba crisis committee or Victoria mxenge because this social movement did’nt have a name and it was a group of people from different parts of south Africa who saw the same problem and started the attack. nd it had transformative potential in a bad way, thus according to Scholte (1999) civil society can be good and evil. Xenophobia brought social change because it resulted in the people going back to their countries and south African citizens getting the job. The movement used bottom up approach of development but the question is, is it really bottom-up because they might have been someone who incited it. The transformation also has consequences which resulted in people loosing their lives . he whole xenophobia transformed the image of south Africa and it made people to have doubts about whether the country will be able to host the 2010 FIFA World cup safely . It led to people wanting to change their minds about coming to watch the world cup. The transformation was bad in the sense that it disturbed south africa’s interrelationship with other countries. So this brings out the proves that this social movement was creating the bounderies that globalization is trying to break. So the transformation was against globalization in the sense that people were now not comfortable coming here and they lost their trust in south Africa. This negative transformation leads to a drop in the number of tourists that comes in the country and this ended up affecting the economic growth which ended up affecting those people who started xenophobia. However while people were chasing foreigners out of the country the was also civil societies formed which had people who were protecting the victims by hiding them (Bond, 2010). Bond(2010) argues that the civil societies that were formed to protect the foreigners used mostly churches to accommodate the people who were being chased out of the country until the xenophobic attacks calms down. This brings the thought that not everyone sees things the same way because some saw the chasing the people out of the country as not good and others saw it as being good. This shows that civil societies can clash with one another and throught the clashing it shows that civil society had a transformative potential because a lot of the foreigners when back to their countries. To conclude civil society has shown to have transformative potential as well as not being transformative potential in south Africa. I have proved that civil society has transformative potential it has helped the country to fight apartheid and change the social order of the way things were done during apartheid. This proved that civil society has a lot of transformative power when people have the same goal and showed that participation is important in order to change things. In the case of xenophobia civil society showed to have transformative potential in the sense that it achieved the goal of the social movement and removed the foreigners from the country. The xenophobic attack showed that civil society can be can be evil as Scholte (1999) argues because during the social movement people were killed and some were hurted and this attack showed that civil society can be negative because people ended up looting houses of the people who were foreigners. The xenophobic attack also showed that civil societies can clash because people want different things. The Victoria Mxenge showed that civil society doesn’t have transformative potential because the organization did not change the top down approach. Furthermore the amadiba crisis committee showed that civil society has transformative potential because the people fought for the mine and got the mine. However it showed that even if people form civil societies to fight for things at times they end up not using the things they are fighting for when they have it. By compering this I can conclude that civil society has more transformative potential in south Africa since apartheid as it has changed many social orders.

Gerardus Mercator

Gerardus Mercator Gerardus Mercator was a Flemish cartographer, philosopher, and geographer who is best known for his creation of the Mercator map projection. On the Mercator projection parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude are drawn as straight lines so that they are useful for navigation. Mercator was also known for his development of the term â€Å"atlas† for a collection of maps and his skill in calligraphy, engraving, publishing and making of scientific instruments (Monmonier 2004). In addition, Mercator had an interests in mathematics, astronomy, cosmography, terrestrial magnetism, history and theology (Monmonier 2004).   Today Mercator is mostly thought of as a cartographer and geographer and his map projection was used for hundreds of years as the quintessential way to depict the Earth. Many maps using the Mercator projection are still used in classrooms today, despite the development of newer, more accurate map projections. Early Life and Education Gerardus Mercator was born on March 5, 1512 in Rupelmond, County of Flanders (modern-day Belgium). His name at birth was Gerard de Cremer or de Kremer (Encyclopedia Britannica). Mercator is the Latin form of this name and means â€Å"merchant† (Wikipedia.org). Mercator grew up in the Duchy of Julich and was educated Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands where he received training in the Christian doctrine as well as Latin and other dialects.   In 1530 Mercator began studying at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium where he studied humanities and philosophy. He graduated with his master’s degree in 1532. Around this time Mercator began to have doubts about the religious aspect of his education because he could not combine what he was taught about the origin of the universe with that of Aristotle’s and other more scientific beliefs (Encyclopedia Britannica). After his two years away in Belgium for his master’s degree, Mercator returned to Leuven with an interest in philosophy and geography. At this time Mercator began studying with Gemma Frisius, a theoretical mathematician, physician and astronomer, and Gaspar a Myrica, an engraver and goldsmith. Mercator eventually mastered mathematics, geography and astronomy and his work, combined with that of Frisius and a Myrica made Leuven a center for the development of globes, maps and astronomical instruments (Encyclopedia Britannica). Professional Development By 1536 Mercator had proven himself as an excellent engraver, calligrapher, and instrument maker. From 1535-1536 he participated in a project to create a terrestrial globe and in 1537 he worked on a celestial globe. Most of Mercator’s work on the globes consisted of the labeling of features with italic lettering.   Throughout the 1530’s Mercator continued to develop into a skilled cartographer and the terrestrial and celestial globes helped to cement his reputation as the leading geographer of that century. In 1537 Mercator created a map of the Holy Land and in 1538 he made a map of the world on a double heart-shaped or cordiform projection (Encyclopedia Britannica). In 1540 Mercator designed a map of Flanders and published a manual on italic lettering called, Literarum Latinarum quas Italicas Cursoriasque Vocant Scribende Ratio.   In 1544 Mercator was arrested and charged with heresy because of his many absences from Leuven to work on his maps and his beliefs toward Protestantism (Encyclopedia Britannica). He was later released due to university support and he was allowed to continue pursuing his scientific studies and print and publish books. In 1552 Mercator moved to Duisburg in the Duchy of Cleve and assisted in the creation of a grammar school. Throughout the 1550’s Mercator also worked on genealogical research for Duke Wilhelm, wrote a Concordance of the Gospels, and compose several other works. In 1564 Mercator created a map of Lorraine and the British Isles. In the 1560’s Mercator began to develop and perfect his own map projection in an effort to help merchants and navigators more effectively plan a course over long distances by plotting it on straight lines. This projection became known as the Mercator projection and was used on his map of the world in 1569. Later Life and Death In 1569 and throughout the 1570’s Mercator began a series of publications to describe the creation of the world through maps. In 1569 he published a chronology of the world from Creation to 1568 (Encyclopedia Britannica). In 1578 he published another which consisted of 27 maps that were originally produced by Ptolemy. The next section was published in 1585 and consisted of newly created maps of France, Germany and the Netherlands. This section was followed by another in 1589 that included maps of Italy, â€Å"Sclavonia† (the present-day Balkans), and Greece (Encyclopedia Britannica).   Mercator died on December 2, 1594, but his son aided in the production of the final section of his father’s atlas in 1595. This section included maps of the British Isles. Mercator’s Legacy Following its final section being printed in 1595 Mercator’s atlas was reprinted in 1602 and again in 1606 when it was named the â€Å"Mercator-Hondius Atlas.† Mercator’s atlas was one of the first to include maps of the world’s development and it, along with his projection remain as significant contributions to the fields of geography and cartography. To learn more about Gerardus Mercator and his map projection, read Mark Monmonier’s Rhumb Lines and Map Wars: A Social History of the Mercator Projection.

Google Earth and Archaeology

Google Earth and Archaeology Google Earth, software that uses high resolution satellite images of the entire planet to allow the user to get an incredible moving aerial view of our world, has stimulated some serious applications in archaeologyand seriously good fun for fans of archaeology.One of the reasons I love flying in airplanes is the view you get from the window. Soaring over vast tracks of land and getting a glimpse of large archaeological sites (if you know what to look for, and the weather is right, and youre on the right side of the plane), is one of the great modern pleasures of the world today. Sadly, security issues and rising costs have sucked most of the fun out of airline trips these days. And, lets face it, even when all the climatological forces are right, there just arent any labels on the ground to tell you what youre looking at anyway. Google Earth Placemarks and Archaeology But, using Google Earth and capitalizing on the talent and time of people like JQ Jacobs, you can see high resolution satellite photographs of the world, and easily find and investigate archaeological wonders like Machu Picchu, slowly floating down the mountains or racing through the narrow valley of the Inca trail like a Jedi knight, all without leaving your computer.Essentially, Google Earth (or just GE) is an extremely detailed, high resolution map of the world. Its users add labels called placemarkers to the map, indicating cities and restaurants and sports arenas and geocaching sites, all using a fairly sophisticated Geographic Information System client. After theyve created the placemarkers, the users post a link to them on one of the bulletin boards at Google Earth. But dont let the GIS connection scare you off! After installation and a little fussing with the interface, you too can zoom along the narrow steep-sided Inca trail in Peru or poke around the landscape at Stonehenge or take a visual tour of castles in Europe. Or if youve got the time to study up, you too can add placemarkers of your own.JQ Jacobs has long been a contributor of quality content about archaeology on the Internet. With a wink, he warns would-be users, Im glimpsing a possible forthcoming chronic disorder, Google Earth Addiction. In February of 2006, Jacobs began posting placemark files on his website, marking several archaeological sites with a concentration on Hopewellian earthworks of the American northeast. Another user on Google Earth is simply known as H21, who has assembled placemarkers for castles in France, and Roman and Greek amphitheatres. Some of the site placemarkers on Google Earth are simple location points, but others have lots of information attachedso be careful, like anywhere else on the Internet, there be dragons, er, inaccuracies. Survey Techniques and Google Earth On a more serious but downright exciting note, GE has also been used successfully to survey for archaeological sites. Searching for crop marks on aerial photos is a time-tested way to identify possible archaeological sites, so it seems reasonable that high resolution satellite imagery would be a fruitful source of identification. Sure enough, researcher Scott Madry, who is leading one of the oldest large-scale remote sensing projects on the planet called GIS and Remote Sensing for Archaeology: Burgundy, France, has had great success identifying archaeological sites using Google Earth. Sitting in his office at Chapel Hill, Madry used Google Earth to identify over 100 possible sites in France; fully 25% of those were previously unrecorded. Find the Archaeology Game Find the Archaeology is a game on the Google Earth community bulletin board where people post an aerial photograph of an archaeological site and players must figure out where in the world it is or what in the world it is. The answerif its been discoveredwill be in postings at the bottom of the page; sometimes printed in white lettering so if you see the words in white click and drag your mouse over the area. There simply isnt yet a very good structure to the bulletin board, so Ive collected several of the game entries in Find the Archaeology.  Sign in to Google Earth to play; you dont need to have Google Earth installed to guess. There is a bit of a process to trying Google Earth; but its well worth the effort. First, make sure you have the recommended hardware to use Google Earth without driving you and your computer crazy. Then, download and install Google Earth to your computer. Once it has been installed, go to JQs site and click on one of the links where hes created placemarks, follow another link in my collection, or simply search the Illustrated History bulletin board at Google Earth.After youve clicked on a placemark link, Google Earth will open and a marvelous image of the planet will spin to find the site and zoom in. Before flying in Google Earth, turn on the GE Community and Terrain layers; youll find a series of layers in the left hand menu. Use your mouse wheel to zoom in closer or farther away. Click and drag to move the map east or west, north or south. Tilt the image or spin the globe by using the cross-compass in the upper right hand corner.Placemarkers added by Google Earth users are indica ted by an icon such as a yellow thumbtack. Click on an i icon for detailed information, ground-level photos or further links for information. A blue-and-white cross indicates a ground level photograph. Some of the links take you to part of a Wikipedia entry. Users can also integrate data and media with geographic location in GE. For some Eastern Woodlands mound groups, Jacobs utilized his own GPS readings, linking online photography in the appropriate placemarks, and adding overlay placemarks with old Squier and Davis survey maps to display mounds now destroyed in their place.If you really get ambitious, sign up for a Google Earth Community account and read their guidelines. Placemarks you contribute will appear on Google Earth when they update. There is a fairly steep learning curve to understanding how to add placemarks, but it can be done. More details on how to use Google Earth can be found at Google Earth on About, from Abouts guide to Google Marziah Karch, or JQs Ancient Placemarkers page, or Abouts Space guide Nick Gr eenes Google Earth page. Flying and Google Earth Flying may not be an option for many of us these days, but this latest option from Google allows us to get much of the joy of flying without the hassle of going through security. And what a great way to learn about archaeology!

Honda Accord or Chevrolet Tahoe Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Honda Accord or Chevrolet Tahoe - Essay Example The 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe is, however, a more rugged machine with both looks as well as fuel efficiency. It is a true SUV and can take both the city as well as country roads with aplomb. It comes in a lot of variants and a hybrid model is a dream machine which can shift from gasoline to electricity without any appreciable difference in performance. The long experience of the ‘General Motors’ company and the intense passion with which it builds its cars shows in this model. It is equipped with a plethora of safety features for the driver as well as co-passengers with easy access to controls which incorporate the latest developments in technology. It ranks at No. 1 as the most affordable of the SUVs. It has plenty of seating, foul-weather and off-road capability and towing capability as well. The Vortec engine is a powerful heart for the machine and comes in variants ranging from 4.8 to 6.2l. The exterior is aerodynamically designed and the style and finish are excellent. T he manufacturers claim that it shows exemplary performance in summers as well as winter. It has been rated as the best value for money car in the modern SUV section. However, despite good after sales service offered by the company, it is no secret that ‘General Motors’ is on the verge of bankruptcy in this era of recession and one can expect setbacks in the future. The course of action to be taken depends upon one’s financial situation, requirements and the safety factors a person needs in this era of heavy traffic on the roads.