Comparison of Venus of Willendorf and the Lady of Auxerre Term Paper

Comparison of Venus of Willendorf and the Lady of Auxerre - Term Paper Example Artwork traces its origin back from the ancient days. The use of symbols by man has been in existence since time immemorial. Signs and symbols were used as a form of communication as they represented different objects, ideas, and even events. For example, the dove was used as a symbol of peace while the anchor represented hope. Symbols have also been used for confidentiality purposes; there are cases where some communities used symbols to preserve their secrets so that only members of the particular community would understand the message being conveyed and have any outsiders excluded from understanding. It has been argued that these symbols are not just mere fantasies and imaginations by man but contain some fragments of truth in them. The use of symbols has also received appreciation among Christians. This is evident from the writings of a Catholic scholar one Father Martin C. Darcy. From one of his books â€Å"The meaning and matter of history,† he appreciates the existence of poetic insight and myth and insists that they should not be written off. He goes ahead to note that myths and symbols created a link between the old age dry facts and the present day civilization. This, therefore, indicates that the signs and symbols that have always existed from time immemorial are of great significance to mankind and need to be studied in the depth to get to understand what they actually stand for. These sign and symbols convey important messages and lessons from the ancient times and should therefore not be ignored.   The Venus of Willendorf is artwork in the form of sculpture. This artwork is a statuette of an obese female figure approximately 11 cm high that is about 4.3 inches. Conspicuously, the feet supporting the obese figure are quite small and the ankles are not easily visible. The artwork behind the sculpture portrays vast knowledge in the field of anatomy.  

Agile Project Management

Agile Project Management Agile project management has been in use in software projects over the last number of years, but lately it has been incorporated into many different types of projects such as the military, telecommunications and retail. (Scrum Alliance). This paper focuses on using agile project management techniques in the telecoms industry. Jim Highsmith and Gary Chin are two advocates of agile project management, Highsmith (2004) claimed that the agile project management framework which consists of five phases, each with supporting practices. The five phases are Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, and Close. Each of these phases has to be implemented in order otherwise the project will not strictly follow the agile process. Agile proposes to deal with a project in small development cycles; self managed teams, customer collaboration and iterations. It also proposes to have an end product for testing at the end of each iteration, so the customer or end user can see what direction the project is goi ng. Scrum is a project management framework and is ideally suited for projects with high uncertainty. It is used on some of the worlds largest telecommunications development projects such as British Telecom and Siemens because of its high productivity with distributed and outsourced development teams. 2 What is agile project management? Agile project management has been defined as short cycles of product development that deliver incremental updates of the product rapidly based on the changing needs of the customer. This methodology is the opposite of waterfall project management, which values extensive planning and pre-production. (Labine, 2010) The agile approach consists of a number of stages including rapid iterative planning and development cycles allowing a project team to constantly evaluate the project and obtain immediate feedback from users or stakeholders allowing the team to learn from their experiences after each cycle. After the streamlined planning requirements, definition and solution design phase is completed to get the project underway iterations or more detailed planning requirements are created. This allows for immediate modifications of the product as customer views change. Agile project management requires a dedicated full time team including a customer or end users. (Haas, 2007). Agile project management differs to traditional project management in the approach; agile promotes self managed teams with the project manager taking more of a leaders role rather than a managers role. The main priorities of an agile project manager are to gather all the information from stakeholders and integrate a plan, advise the team of estimates, make decisions, build and sustain a teams culture and ensure teams stick to the process, customer relationship, check progress and plans and to communicate the teams progress. (Thomas, 2008) With agile project management both the project team and the stakeholders actively work together to understand and prioritise functionality. The agile project management life cycle can be seen in figure 1. This identifies how the plan, develop, learn and evaluate phases all fit together. Agile management uses an approach with short iterative cycles, they are based on the theory of plan, do, check and act. These cycles happen at different levels, each day, each time box, each release and each project. Agile demands team look at how fast they are progressing and adjust accordingly. Agile management methods are used when the project value is clear and the customer actively participates throughout project. (Thomas, 2008) Figure 1. Agile project management life cycle model Agile management concepts Haas (2007) identified the key elements that provide the basis for agile project management as visual control, co located high performing teams, test driven development, adaptive control, collaborative development, feature driven development, leadership and collaboration, a move from cost to revenue focus and lessons learned. Vision control assists teams in organising work in projects. Publishing time plans and progress charts allow the team to view the projects the same way and to clearly see where the project is at. Co located high performing teams greatly increases the quality of coordination and communication. Project managers need to have everyone working together in a collaborative manner. Agile teams develop test plans and at the same time they define requirements. If a requirement isnt testable then it is not fully developed. Adaptive Control tries to have everyone on the team adapting to different situations. The project manager acts a leader not a task manager, they work with the team establishing working relations and setting the team ground rules. Agile team members have to be able to continuously adapt to improve their methods as lessons learned from previous cycles are incorporated into the next iteration. Collaboration is needed among all team members to get the best results from the team, they also need to document feedback and implement learnings on the next iteration. Feature driven development greatly reduces complexity and allows teams to focus on one feature at a time. Leadership and collaboration rather than command and control facilitate leadership in a team rather than traditional management. The project manager aims to remove and resolve any problems the agile team encounters. The business analysts manage the business benefits of the project and continuously focus the agile team on the business needs. The move from cost to revenue focus features prioritise based on value such as increased revenue to market share. The lessons learned program is completed after each cycle here the teams hold a lessons learned session to determine where improvements can be made for the next iteration. The team adapts to how members work together to improve the team performance. (Haas, 2007) 2.2 Five stages of agile project management With agile project management the focus is on continuous innovation to deliver project requirements. The product should also be adaptable to facilitate future customer requirements. Agile also strives to have both people and process adaptability to respond rapidly to product and business change. It focuses more on revenue than cost so that that the project supports business growth and profitability. Highsmith (2009) one of the founders of the agile alliance published, Agile project management: creating innovative products, in this he identified five stages of agile project management. Highsmith defined the five stages of agile project management as: 1. Envision: How to determine the product vision, the project objectives and constraints, the project community and how the team work together. 2. Speculate: Developing a capability and or feature based release plan to deliver on all aspects of the vision 3. Explore: To plan and deliver project running tested stories in a short iteration, constantly seek to reduce the risk and uncertainty of the project. 4. Adapt: Review the delivered results, the situation and the teams performance and adapt as necessary. 5. Close: Conclude the project, pass on the key learnings and celebrate. Envision: This phase creates a vision for the project team that covers what, who and how. If theres no vision phase, this means that the rest of the properties of agile project management are a wasted effort. The envision phase is a critical success factor early in any project. Team members need a vision to determine who will be involved, customers, members, management, stake holders and envision how to work together as a group. The purpose of the envisioning phase is to clearly identify what is to be done and how work is to be accomplished. The envision stage has four practices, product vision, project objectives and constraints, project community and approach. Product vision allows member of the team to fully understand their project. Teams should have a clear product vision and the product vision should be revisited regularly. Project objectives include a project data sheet, this is a single-page summary of key business and quality objectives, product capabilities, and project management in formation. A project data sheet contains clients, customers, project leader, product manager, executive sponsor and the project objective statement. The project objective statement includes the capabilities, quality objectives and risks that can impact on the project. The project community includes getting the right people for the job. In Agile project management the team members need to have an appropriate technical ability, be team players and be self disciplined. The final step in the product vision stage is how the team will deliver the product, between working as a team with developers and major stakeholders in the project. For large projects a meeting is usually needed to discuss the product vision. After the envision phase the team has reviews to ensure they fully understand the vision. (Highsmith, 2009) Speculate: The speculate phase consists of gathering initial based requirements for a product and defining a workload as a backlog of product features. In the speculative phase, the team design their iterations. Iterations are the planned stages of work in the project and each iteration has a timeline and a plan. The agile plan is to have a product at the end of each iteration. This would involve the stories, tests, and documentation being packaged to be deployed. Iterations are used to concentrate on small pieces of work that depend on the type of project being completed. Estimating project costs and generating administrative and financial information are also done in this phase. Within the speculate phase plans have to be able to adapt to change as customers understanding of their requirements change, work efforts vary and people can leave or join teams. This phase establishes a target and a direction for the team. During this phase the team should have an understanding of the prod uct structure, and the release plan. Agile project speculating helps the project team to answer some of the following questions. Determine how the product and its features will evolve in the current release Balance anticipation with adaptation as the project unfolds Focus on the highest-value features early in the project Think about the business goals, project objectives, and customer expectations Provide necessary cost and schedule information to management Coordinate interrelated activities and features across teams Consider alternatives and adaptive actions Provide a baseline for analyzing events that occur during the project Explore: Agile project management focuses on agile leaders tasks of creating self organising, self disciplined teams that deliver products. Iteration management covers planning and management during iteration cycles. The main explore activities are iteration planning and monitoring, technical practices and project community. Iteration planning and monitoring consists of three main activities: iteration planning, workload management, and monitoring iteration progress. The primary responsibility for managing this work lies with the iteration manager. The iteration manager may also facilitate meetings such as retrospectives held at the end of each iteration, several practices can be applied generically to many types of products-both hardware and software. These generic technical practices are driven by the desire to keep quality high and the cost of change low. The four most common technical practices are simple design, continuous integration, ruthless automated testing, and refactoring . (Highsmith, 2009) Adapt: In the adapt phase the results are reviewed from customer, technical, people and process performance, and project status perspectives. The analysis looks at the actual versus planned project. The results of adaptation are fed into a re-planning effort to begin the next iteration. After the envision phase, the loop will be speculate, explore and adapt with each iteration successively refining the product. Control and correction are common terms applied to this phase. Plans are made, results are monitored and corrections are made implying what plans were right and the actual results. Adapt implies modification or change rather than success or failure. In agile project management responding to change is more important than following a plan. (Highsmith, 2009) Close: Projects are partially defined by the presence of both a beginning and an end. The key purpose of the close phase is the learning and the incorporation that learning into the work of the next iteration or passing it on to the next project team. This phase is the final step in the project, and is often overlooked. Finalising documentation, support material release notes and financial material all have to be tidied up before a project can close. In software projects the project is usually archived for safe keeping. In agile project management when closing a project it is important to have a project retrospective. This helps the team learn about its dynamics and intra team learning activities. It also allows the team to talk about what went well in the project and where it hit obstacles. (Highsmith, 2009) 3 Scrum project management Scrum project management approach embraces the agile iterative and incremental practices. Scrum can be used on projects of any size. It can manage XP projects, where XP projects uses customer on site with this the project team can be sure they are creating what the customer wants. SCRUM is revolved around simplicity, resulting in the delivery of a product that moves the project forward. It works on small pieces of the project at a time, these are known as iterations. Each iteration consists of some requirements gathering, analysis, design, development and testing combining to create an iterative release cycle. (Murphy, 2004) Scrum has three defined roles, the product owner, scrum master and the project team. The product owner is generally the product manager. The scrum master is the project manager or team leader. They enact scrum values and practices. They are responsible for issues that may hold up the project. The project team should consist of between 5-10 members. The team should include cross-functional team members, involving individuals from a multitude of disciplines including designers and developers. The scrum product backlog records the project requirements that are defined by the product owner. The project team creates a sprint backlog that comprises of product backlog items that they believe can be completed in a thirty day period. After thirty days the team should have a shippable product. (Murphy, 2004) The product owner, scrum master and the project team make rough estimates of how long each item will take. This SCRUM process can be seen in figure 2. Figure 2 The Scrum Process Scrum daily meetings are time limited, the daily Scrum meeting is typically confined to 15 minutes. Only extraordinary projects should require more than 15 minutes. The purpose of the Daily Scrum meeting is to answer Scrums three questions: What did you do yesterday? What will you do today? What obstacles are in your way? At the end of each sprint, a sprint review meeting is held. Again this meeting is time boxed. The team presents what they have developed during the sprint to the product owner. after the sprint review and prior to the next sprint planning meeting the scrum master holds a sprint retrospective meeting with the team. The scrum master encourages the team to revise within the scrum process framework and practices, its development process to make it more effective for the next sprint. (Murphy, 2004) 4 Agile project management in the telecommunications industry Agile methods like Scrum can be applied to any project to help deliver improved results. (Mac Iver, 2009). Many telecommunications companies utilise scrum techniques. This can be seen in the case study at TechCore. (Schwaber, 2004). Previous to the implementation of scrum the company could not see its priorities. By creating a product backlog this allowed the company to see that revenue could be made by focusing attention on product development. Within four months of implementing Scrum, the company had achieved its goals and the company prospects had improved. Before the implementation of scrum, TechCore had day log review meetings where the manager would impart his knowledge and direction to the development engineers. These meeting often went off track taking up the full teams day. With scrum the manager got involved in daily scrum meetings, with this they identified that teams werent taking and individual problems were holding up the project. As each engineer reported his or her st atus, Michel the project manager saw that if he focused his attention on product development, he could expedite design decisions, ensure that the correct path was taken, and actually get involved in the critical business of his company. He focused his efforts on helping the team with its short-term problems, which were all related to preparing the subsystem for the show. The daily scrum meetings also highlighted supply chain problems where engineers were waiting for component deliveries. Once this problem was identified the project manager employed two junior engineers to work with supply chain to identify and source components as quick as possible so there was no delay to the project and it freed up senior engineers time from dealing with these smaller matters. (Schwaber, 2004). The scrum project management technique has also been used in a nationwide WAN upgrade project as seen in Appendix 1, this project involved upgrading up to four hundred sites all over Ireland, each site need ed new network equipment installed including routers and switches and all sites had to be visited individually. All network equipment had to be configured before the site visit. This was one of the biggest projects undertaken by the project manager interviewed in Appendix A. By implementing Scrum the team of six people, the scrum master and the project manager all had a clear and concise understanding of what was happening at any given time. The teams were split up into three groups of two pairs. With this the project manager hoped that the pairs would work together in both configuring and installing the network equipment. The map of Ireland was divided into geographical sections, these sections were each going to represent a sprint, which would take approximately five weeks to complete. Each area was then assigned to a team. The first week of the sprint all staff were office based, configuring network equipment, for the remaining four weeks of the sprint the three teams were on sit e. Daily sprint meetings were held in the office which was ideal, as all members shared an office, these meeting were quick, clear and concise, covering what has been done today, what the plan for the rest of the day was and if there were any problems holding up the project. Once the teams were on site, a quick conference call between the teams and the scrum master covered the daily sprint meeting. With this the teams were always in contact and could share problems, solutions and new ideas. The main problem the teams ran into was if a team member was off work due to holidays or sick leave, where this happened, the scrum master could easily fit into any of the three teams, and carry out the work of the scrum master and the technician on the ground so that the project could stay on target for the specific dates that were outlined in the scrum backlog at the beginning. He identified that this may not be ideal in other SCRUM projects, but it works in this situation. At the end of the five week cycle the team and mangers would have a sprint review meeting, in this they identified where they were seeing recurring problems, what extra equipment or tools were required and how the process could run more smoothly. After the first sprint review meeting all three teams had small problems but improvised to complete what they had planned to do. During the sprint retrospective each team had different problems including faulty network equipment, lack of tools and no access to the communications room in buildings, once these were identified the scrum master found solutions to them and the same problems didnt reoccur. 5 Conclusion After researching this topic, there is not a lot of documentation of agile project management in the telecoms industry. Companies such as BT and Siemens have successfully implemented agile techniques into their software development teams, but they have not documented using agile in implementing their telecoms projects. One case study completed at Techcore an American telecommunications company (Schwaber, 2004) that has successfully implemented agile project management; from this case study before the implementation of agile the CEO of the company was trying to run all aspects of the company but was failing miserably. Once agile methodologies were implemented it became evident where and why their projects were failing as the CEO was trying to run all aspects of the company at the same time, and no are was given priority over any other. The development of the product backlog and the implementation of daily SCRUM meetings proved to be beneficial from day one. SCRUM also identified where time was being lost in the procurement of components as engineers were often left waiting for equipment resulting in the project being held up. The interview with the project manager from Appendix A also identifies how implementing SCRUM in a telecoms project was a success and the results were obvious very early on in the project. In this WAN upgrade project, the project managers implemented SCRUM, split the team of six into pairs, designed a product backlog, separated the project into sprints, held daily meetings as well as sprint review and sprint retrospective meetings. The project is still ongoing but as of this moment both project managers and senior managers have identified this project as a success. If agile is implemented in stages covering the envision, speculate, explore, adapt and close phases identified by Highsmith, the project proves to be successful, but if any of the five processes are missed the project may not prove to be as successful.

Cloning Essay examples -- Essays Papers

Cloning For hundreds of years man has wondered what it would be like to clone human beings. With the idea of cloning comes many different opinions and positions. The idea of creating an army of "super humans" has long been a dream of many people. Others have feared what would happen to the world if cloning were possible and if cloning is morally correct. Overall, religion and ethics play a vital role in the both of these viewpoints and greatly effect many positions on the topic of cloning. In February of 1997 Dr. Ian Wilmut, a 52-year-old embryologist at the Roslin Institute in dinburgh announced the cloning of a lamb named Dolly 1. He had replaced the genetic material of sheep's egg with the DNA from an adult sheep. The findings of Dr. Wilmut immediately created many new controversial questions. None were as controversial as: Will they apply this to humans as well? According to Dr. Wilmut, the answer was "there is no reason in principle why you couldn't do it"(clone humans), but he added, "All of us would find that offensive."2 From the viewpoint of those in favor of cloning human beings do not see it as morally, or ethically wrong. Many see it as an opportunity to have children, or possibly to "re-create" a child who is dying from a terminal illness. Many infertile couples are worried that they would never have the chance to someday have children through new technology that would be brought about through cloning. Others believe that it is an invasion of personal freedoms because the government may try to dictate what a person can do to their body. Anita Manning, a writer for USA TODAY revealed another argument in favor ... ...n, Daniel. "A Step Too Far." 23. 3 Manning, Anita. "Pressing a 'Right' to Clone Humans." p1D. 4 Glassman, James. "Should we Fear Dolly?" Sec A p17. 5 Anyonomous. "World Wide: Clinton Proposed" Sec A p1. Works Cited: - Anonymous, "Trials and Triumphs in the History of Cloning," Successful Farming 97 (1999) S28 - S30. - Anonymous. "World Wide: Clinton Proposed" Wall Street Journal 10 Jun 1997: Sec A p1. - Callahan, Daniel. "A Step Too Far," New York Times 26 Feb 1997: Sec A, p23. - Chase, Chevy. "Dealing with Dolly: Inside the National Bioethics Advisory Commission," Health Affairs 17 (1998): 264 - 267. - Glassman, James K. "Should we Fear Dolly?" The Washington Post. 25 Feb 1997: Sec A p17. - Manning, Anita. "Pressing a 'Right' to Clone Humans." USA Today. 6 Mar 1997: p01 D.

The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck

The plight of women had often been a popular topic of literature. Throughout history, the men dominated, overshadowing women in the process. The male sex had always been recognized as superior while the female sex was perceived as inferior; thus, they are not given the same opportunities. The social distinction between males and females had been documented in numerous pieces of literature. Literature often illustrated the injustice and equality women were subjected to while living in a patriarchal society.One of the pieces of literature that show the difficulty of being a woman in a man’s world is the short story entitled â€Å"The Chrysanthemums† by John Steinbeck. In this literary piece, Steinbeck shows the struggle of a woman to find herself as she attempts to assume a relevant role in society. This is the reason why one critic said this about the story: â€Å"[It is a] delicate, indirect handling of a woman’s emotion, [especially] the difficulty of a woman i n finding a creative, significant role in a male-dominated society. †Ã¢â‚¬Å"The Chrysanthemums† by John Steinbeck features Elisa Allen, a 35-year-old married woman living in a ranch with her husband Henry (Steinbeck). Initially, the story appears simple enough; it tells the story of a woman who is passionate about flowers and takes pride in caring for them. However, a closer look would reveal that the woman in question is in the midst of an identity crisis. She is a female who longs to be relevant in a society where only the men are considered relevant. She hopes to become relevant through her skills in planting chrysanthemums, but in the end her efforts were futile.Elisa’s attempts to be of significance are shown early in the story. Elisa is aware that it is the men who are significant in society. She also knows that the only way she could be significant was to assume a male persona, or at least try to fit herself in masculine mould. In the story, she attempts to be significant through her skill in planting chrysanthemums. This is the reason why the first description of Elisa is masculine; her appearance hints her desire to somehow fit in a male-dominated realm. In the beginning of the story, she is wearing a â€Å"figured print dress,† but that feminine garment is overshadowed by masculine elements.These elements include â€Å"a man’s black hat,† â€Å"a big corduroy apron with four big pockets† and â€Å"heavy leather gloves† (Steinbeck). Her manner of dressing illustrates her efforts to be masculine, to have a place in a man’s world. Elisa’s masculine manner of dressing is supported by her masculine actions. When she was attending to the chrysanthemums, she was exerting great effort. She was described as â€Å"over-eager, over-powerful† (Steinbeck). It was said that the plant stems were â€Å"too small and easy for her energy† (Steinbeck).In a way, her movements reflected the need to prove herself; she wanted to prove that she is just as capable as men are. When she was eagerly gardening, she looked at the direction where her husband and his clients were. The fact that she looked in their direction meant that she wanted them to see her and what she could do. Through the eagerness in her work with the chrysanthemums, Elisa sought to have the men realize that she could be significant just like them. The response of Elisa’s husband to her plants mirrors the response of society to women and their efforts.After his meeting with his clients, Henry comes up to Elisa and comments about her new batch of chrysanthemums. Upon Henry’s words, she â€Å"straightened her back† and there was â€Å"smugness† in her reply (Steinbeck). The gesture of straightening her back seems to be an assertion that she was responsible for the success of her plants. The tone of her reply affirms that she is proud of her achievement in planting. For Elisa, he r accomplishment with her chrysanthemums is her means to make a significant contribution in society. However, Henry soon undermines her efforts.He said: â€Å"I wish you’d work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big† (Steinbeck). For Henry, flowers are irrelevant. He believes raising apples would be better and more important. His comment seems to imply that Elisa’s efforts are not good enough to society. Instead of being discouraged at Henry’s response, she answers him with the conviction that she can raise apples. Elisa says, â€Å"Maybe I could do it, too† (Steinbeck). In this instance, Elisa asserts equality between men and women. Henry suggested that she should raise apples rather than chrysanthemums, and she took it as a challenge.She believes that she can do it as well. When the repairman tells Elisa that his life is not fit for a woman, Elisa asked: â€Å"How do you know? How can you tell? † (Steinbeck). For Elisa, women ar e just as capable as men. As if to prove that men and women can be equals, she tells the repairman: â€Å"I can sharpen scissors, too. And I can beat the dents out of little pots. I could show you what a woman might do† (Steinbeck). Later on in the story, the identity of Elisa shifts. The story begins with an Elisa who is rather masculine and who asserts herself to be capable of activities usually attributed to men.She seeks to contribute to society with her ability to grow chrysanthemums. By the latter part of the story, the readers can see a different Elisa; she no longer resembles the Elisa earlier in the story. This time, Elisa embraces her feminine side. She dressed up with her best underwear and stockings, as well as a dress that was a â€Å"symbol of her prettiness† (Steinbeck). She styled her hair and she put on makeup. Elisa then assumes a completely female role, a new identity different to masculine identity she portrayed in the beginning.In this instance, th e reader sees the two different identities of Elisa. The dichotomy between the two identities illustrate Elisa’s search for her self in a society where being a woman is extremely difficult. The search for the self is posed with the dilemma of either staying true to one’s feminine nature or to take a more masculine stance to be recognized in society. In the end, Elisa is faced with the reality of male dominance in society. When she and her husband were driving to dinner, she sees the chrysanthemums she gave to the repairman discarded on the road.It was through her skill and talent in growing the chrysanthemums that Elisa wished to make her significant contribution to society. In fact, the flowers themselves symbolized a woman’s effort to make herself relevant in a society eclipsed by men. However, the disregard for the chrysanthemums shows that a woman’s effort to assert her importance in society is futile. Because of her frustration over the neglect of he r flowers, Eliza â€Å"cried weakly—like an old woman† (Steinbeck). In the end, she gave in to her emotions, just like what is expected of women in general.Her battle to make herself relevant in a man’s world ended in defeat. â€Å"The Chrysanthemums† by John Steinbeck reveals how women are affected by the patriarchal society in which they live, and how their struggle to make themselves relevant in society leads to the search to their own identity. Steinbeck indirectly reveals the plight of women during his time through the story’s protagonist Elisa Allen. Elisa struggles to find herself as she is caught between showing her feminine self and assuming a more masculine stance to establish her worth in society.Throughout the story, she repeatedly asserts the fact that she can also do what men can do. However, she seeks to be more relevant to society through her skill in gardening, especially in growing chrysanthemums. In the end, her efforts were wort hless. Just like the plants she gave to the repairman, her efforts did not amount to anything. In the end, she failed to make herself relevant, and proved how difficult it is for a woman to be significant in a male-dominated society. Work Cited Steinbeck, John. The Chrysanthemums. 1938. 20 Oct. 2008 < http://www. nbu. bg/webs/amb/american/4/steinbeck/chrysanthemums. htm>.

Native American Medicine Essay

The medical cures and healing traditions used by the Native Americans are rather interesting and different compared to modern day Anglo Saxon cures. Native Americans, using their basis of ideas and beliefs, have developed a general idea of naturalistic cures and healing processes. Although the cures and healing processes are much different than Anglo Saxon ideas of curing and healing, the Native American processes tend to work well and even better than many Anglo Saxon cures. Native American medical and healing beliefs and processes are generally based on a more natural curing or purification process than the processes of modern day Anglo Saxons. Many Native American healing processes have been practiced for around 40,000 years. Different Native American healing traditions have appeared to share roots with different cultures, such as ancient Chinese traditions. Although many of the Native American healing traditions appear to share roots with ancient Chinese traditions, the greatest influence on Native American healing is the environment in which they have lived. The different plants and animals around them influenced their healing practices to be all natural. Another influence on their healing practices was other tribes. The migration of tribes around them allowed the tribes to share their knowledge of natural cures. Trade was also very helpful in Native American healing practices because many of the natural remedies required herbs from surrounding environments or long distances, and being able to trade with traveling tribes saved much travel time and risk. Although Native American healing practices have proven to be successful, a lot of their traditions have been lost. Many of the practices were driven underground and lost because they became banned or illegal in many parts of the United States. After 1978, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed, and the Native Americans were once again allowed to practice their healing traditions. The long gap without practicing certain healing processes resulted in the loss of many of their practices, however. Even today, there are still difficulties with Native Americans being allowed to perform different ceremonies and rituals because the land serves other purposes. (www.cancer.org). Native Americans have successfully lived for many years by using their own idea of natural cures and purification. Native American healing is a broad term that includes different healing beliefs and practices of hundreds of indigenous tribes or North America. It combines religion, spirituality, herbal medicine uses, and purification rituals that are used to treat the indigenous people either medically, emotionally, or behaviorally. According to Lakota Sioux, the basis of natural beliefs and connections comes from the story of the white buffalo. The story begins with a woman appearing during the time of famine. She was wearing a white buffalo skin and carrying a sacred pipe. After appearing to the tribe, she explained to them that the wooden stem was for the trees and everything growing on earth. Her red bowl was to symbolize the flesh and blood of all people and the smoke was the breath of their prayers going to Wakan Tanka, the creator. The woman then presented the pipe ceremony to the tribe, which included offerings made to the four directions while drums were played and sacred songs were sung. The people then began to understand the connection between sky and earth and the unity of all life. Before leaving, the woman said she would return when the time was right and turned into a buffalo, changing colors several times. Finally, she became a white buffalo calf and disappeared. The people followed her teachings and were no longer hungry. Years later, a white buffalo calf, very rare, appeared and changed colors throughout its life. The calf is believed to be the woman. (www.native-americans-online.com). Through this story, many indigenous tribes have believed nature to be the cures and purifications needed for the soul to become whole. There are many types of Native American healing practices, and they are promoted to help with a variety of ills. Some of the most common aspects of Native American healing include the use of herbal remedies, purifying rituals, shamanism, and symbolic healing rituals to treat illnesses of both the body and spirit. Herbal remedies are used to treat many physical conditions. Practitioners use purifying rituals to cleanse the body and prepare the person for healing. Shamanism is based on the idea that spirits cause illness, and a Native American healer called a shaman focuses on using spiritual healing powers to treat people. Symbolic healing rituals, which can involve family and friends of the sick person, are used to invoke the spirits to help heal the sick person. (www.cancer.org). The Native American belief in spirituality caused the Native Americans to believe that diseases are caused by an object piercing the soul through sorcery. A disease can also be believed to be the complete absence of a free soul. Their naturalistic beliefs allowed them to believe that even diseases are considered natural occurrences, and because they occur naturally, they can be cured naturally as well. By using natural remedies, â€Å"medicine men† attempted to cure diseases that have invaded tribal villages. Natural remedies used by the medicine men included different concoctions of plants, fungi, or animals that could be eaten or rubbed on a certain area of the body to cure the illness. Before Europeans invaded Native American land, Native Americans had not had an extreme amount of experience in the treatment of disease. However, after the Europeans invaded their land, they (the Europeans) brought many diseases with them. Some of the deadly diseases included smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, typhoid, influenza, and pertussis or whooping cough. At the first sign of the diseases, the indigenous people continued trying their natural remedies, but after many failed attempts at curing the diseases, the people would often avoid the sick and leave them to die because they believed that evil spirits had taken over their soul. With the Europeans bringing many diseases to the indigenous land, the indigenous people believed the Europeans to be evil spirited and deadly. The many diseases brought by the Europeans caused a major Native American depopulation. In order to try to cure these diseases or other illnesses, Native Americans relied on the use of what they referred to as t he â€Å"medicine man† or â€Å"healer†. The medicine man was very well educated on the surrounding nature and knew what natural remedy would cure the illness. Often times, the medicine man would have to travel to other lands in order to find a certain plant or a fungus that was needed in the remedy. Medicine men were very effective at curing illnesses because of the knowledge they had of nature. Not only did the Native Americans use natural remedies to cure illness, but they also used natural purification processes in order to purify or cleanse their soul in an emotional healing process. The purifying ritual is a ceremony known as a sweat lodge, where the indigenous people would sit in extreme temperatures and sweat out the evil in them which allowed them to be cleansed. To begin the sweat lodge process, one must offer a pouch of tobacco to the medicine man. The tobacco is used to represent the spirit of the person presenting it. By offering the tobacco to the medicine man, one is asking him to work on their behalf in the spiritual world. When presenting the tobacco, one would also bring forth their specific desire such as an alcohol or drug problem. The sweat lodge process begins with the passing of what are known as tobacco ties. Many tobacco ties are hung around inside the sweat lodge and each tobacco tie represents a prayer. The four sacred herbs, sage, sweet grass, cedar, and tobacco, are used in order to help purify the room and allow the spirits to work. Then rocks, primarily lava stones from volcanoes, are heated using a fire until they are white hot. Once the rocks are white hot, they are brought into the lodge in order to begin the sweating process. To keep the rocks hot, water is poured onto them making an immense amount of steam and heating the lodge. Now that the purification process has finally begun, everyone sits in a circle and goes around, one person at a time, offering prayers. After all prayers have been given, the medicine man blends them all together in a mystical process altering the state of mind to something beyond the physical form. This is where the real healing takes place. As the purification process comes to a conclusion, a new ceremony known as wopela begins. Wopela is simply giving thanks. All participants bring in gifts for the medicine man in order to thank him for leading them through the purification process. The medicine man begins a prayerful state and takes the prayer ties and sets them up in the north end of the center. This allows the prayers to be carried to the Great Spirit in a good way. The medicine man then blows out the candles the lodge becomes pitch dark. Another emotional healing strategy is the use of the medicine wheel. The medicine wheel was an important transformation in the process of Native American tribes realizing that they are much different from each other. Basically, the medicine wheel was a sheet decorated in special symbols, colors, or stones that allowed others know about the inhabitants of the tribe. One was placed in front of every tepee or hut to notify others of that individual’s strengths and weaknesses. By doing so, each individual had their own guidelines to follow for personal growth by realizing what one needed to learn and what one needed to teach. After many generations, the people began to lose the concept of blame and anger upon others. One tribe member from Arizona states â€Å"If I said to you, ‘Does anyone ever make you angry?’ you would say yes. But in reality, this is totally impossible. You choose to be angry by the way you process the event. This is something you were taught to d o as a child. If you could imagine not one person in all of New York City having the concept of anger, that’s what it was like during that time period of no wars before the white man came.†(www.native-americans-online.com). By placing a simple wheel outside their homes, the Native Americans began to learn to cope with their anger and not place blame upon others. This shows a strong cultural emotional healing process because it rid the tribes of anger and blame on others. Indigenous people also believed in psychiatric healing beliefs by altering their state of mind. They were able to alter their state of mind through events such as drumming and chanting rituals, Salish spirit dancing, and visual stimuli. All processes were used in order to calm down an individual. The drumming or chanting of rituals acted as a concentration device to its listeners. A constant beat or pattern would reduce the tendency of the mind to wander. It would also enter the brain wave patterns and sometimes the subjects’ brainwaves would change to match the frequency of the drumming or beating. As for the altered states produced in the Salish Spirit Dance, the sensory stimulation would release neuro-endocrine opiod agents that would produce a peak experience during that dance performance. It is quite obvious that the healing processes of the indigenous people vary greatly from the healing processes of modern day Anglo Saxons. For example, in seeking a cure, Anglo Saxons search for a man made discovery to lead to a cure where as the indigenous people rely on nature for their cures. Although the Anglo Saxon solutions are very effective, the natural remedies also work and are less harmful. All Anglo Saxon cures provide quick solutions but at the risk of side effects which are not present in natural remedies. One belief of the indigenous people was that the illness was caused by nature, so nature can cure the illness. Another difference in Anglo Saxon healing processes is emotional or psychiatric healing. Anglo Saxon traditions in emotional healing include the use of a therapist or other person to talk to in order to solve the problem. The indigenous people use a similar cure, except they seek a higher cure such as the sweat lodge in order to be in contact with the spirit world. Anglo Saxons also place blame and problems on others in an attempt to relieve themselves of the pressure or danger of events. The indigenous people however, do not like to place blame on others, but on themselves. The indigenous people begin looking for a cure inside oneself in order to fix the problem. Although many rituals and healing processes of the indigenous people are much different than the processes of the modern day Anglo Saxons, the processes of the indigenous people have proven to work effectively in curing the illness. Their belief in having a pure soul contributes to the rituals they perform in order to heal. Both Anglo Saxon and Native American healing processes have been proven effective, with the difference being the focus of the solution. Native American medical and healing beliefs and processes are generally based on a more natural curing or purification process than the processes of modern day Anglo Saxons. Sources Used http://muwww-new.marshall.edu/jrcp/VE13%20N1/jrcp%2013%201%20thomason.pdf http://www.native-americans-online.com/index.html http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/mindbodyandspirit/native-american-healing

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Andrea Yates Argument Paper essays

Andrea Yates Argument Paper essays The death penalty is the most severe punishment awarded to an individual who has abruptly ended the life of another human being. Recently five innocent children died at the hands of a mother who was declared mentally unstable. Andrea Yates was not in control of her own actions when she took the lives of her children, therefore Andrea did not deserve the death Mental illness is a state of mind or feeling or spirit and is closely related to depression. Depression is a suppressed or low feeling. Andrea Yates suffered from a number of mental disorders which increased the state of severe out of control emotions. In her young years she was studious, high achiever, and very caring even to the point of becoming a registered nurse. Not being able to full fill that desire to nuture her sensitivity to the feelings of helping others added to the mental state of depression. Added to that was the death of her father which often times will push down an individual. Andrea was robbed of her spirit of life and body of energy with this helpless feeling of depression. Meanwhile while desperately trying to overcome the state of depression Andrea sought medical help and began taking anti depressant drugs. These drugs do worse damage to an already depressed person. Prozac and Zoloft are so closely related that they can be viewed as the same drug. Prozac can worsen the depression in patients. Andrea Yates was taking Zoloft and the possibility the medication added to the depression driving her further into a mental unstable condition such as psychosis. Added to the fact that during this time she was pregnant and nursing her babies as well. Both of these factors cause post partum depression. It is clear that Andrea Yates never had time to recover from post partum depression before another pregnancy occurred and combined with the anti depressant drugs she lived in continual depression. Pr ...

Learn About Italian Easter Traditions and Customs

Learn About Italian Easter Traditions and Customs A huge explosion will be detonated Easter Sunday in front of the magnificent green– and white–marbled neogothic church in Florences centro storico. Instead of running in fear from a terrorists bomb, though, thousands of spectators will cheer the noise and smoke, for they will be witnesses to the annual Scoppio del Carro- explosion of the cart. For over 300 years the Easter celebration in Florence has included this ritual, during which an elaborate wagon, a structure built in 1679 and standing two to three stories high, is dragged through Florence behind a fleet of white oxen decorated in garlands. The pageantry ends in front of the Basilica di S. Maria del Fiore, where Mass is held. 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During the spring holy days that center around the vernal equinox there are also many other rites practiced throughout the country that have their roots in historic pagan rituals. In addition, the Monday following Easter is an official Italian holiday called la Pasquetta, so if traveling be prepared for another day of repose. Tredozio On Easter Monday the Palio dellUovo is a competition where eggs are the stars of the games. Merano The Corse Rusticane are conducted, fascinating races with a special breed of horses famous for their blonde manes ridden by youths wearing the local costumes of their towns. Before the race, the participants parade through the streets of the town followed by a band and folk dance groups. Barano dIschia On Easter Monday the Ndrezzata takes place- a dance which revives the fights against the Saracens. 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Other classic Easter recipes include carciofi fritti (fried artichokes), a main course of either capretto o agnellino al forno (roasted goat or baby lamb) or capretto cacio e uova (kid stewed with cheese, peas, and eggs), and carciofi e patate soffritti, a delicious vegetable side dish of sautà ©ed artichokes with baby potatoes. A holiday meal in Italy would not be complete without a traditional dessert, and during Easter there are several. Italian children finish their dinner with a rich bread shaped like a crown and studded with colored Easter egg candies. La pastiera Napoletana, the classic Neapolitan grain pie, is a centuries–old dish with innumerable versions, each made according to a closely guarded family recipe. Another treat is the  Colomba cake, a sweet, eggy, yeasted bread (like panettone plus candied orange peel, minus the raisins, and topped with sugared and sliced almonds) shaped in one of the most recognizable symbols of Easter, the dove. The Colomba cake takes on this form precisely because  la colomba  in Italian means dove, the symbol of peace and an appropriate finish to Easter dinner. Uova di Pasqua Although Italians do not decorate hard–boiled eggs nor have chocolate bunnies or pastel marshmallow chicks, the biggest Easter displays in bars, pastry shops, supermarkets, and especially at chocolatiers are brightly wrapped  uova di Pasqua- chocolate Easter eggs- in sizes that range from 10 grams (1/3 ounce) to 8 kilos (nearly 18 pounds). Most of them are made of milk chocolate in a mid–range, 10–ounce size by industrial chocolate makers. Some producers distinguish between their chocolate eggs for children (sales numbers are a closely guarded secret, but the market for these standard quality eggs is said to be shrinking with Italys birthrate) and expensive adult versions. All except the tiniest eggs contain a surprise. Grown–ups often find their eggs contain little silver picture frames or gold–dipped costume jewelry. The very best eggs are handmade by artisans of chocolate, who offer the service of inserting a surprise supplied by the purchaser. Car keys, engagement rings, and watches are some of the high–end gifts that have been tucked into Italian chocolate eggs in Italy. Italian Easter Vocabulary List Click to hear the highlighted word spoken by a native speaker. lagnello- lambBuona Pasqua- Happy Easteril coniglietto- bunny rabbitla crocifissione- Crucifixionla pace- peacela Pasquetta- Easter Mondayla primavera- springla resurrezione- Resurrectionla settimana santa- Holy WeeklUltima Cena- Last Supperle uova- eggsVenerdà ¬ Santo- Holy Friday

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Pulmonary Hypertension Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Pulmonary Hypertension - Essay Example Genetic factors may account for mutations in the blood vessels which may manifest in the increased prevalence of smooth muscle cells and fibroblasts in the walls of the blood vessels (Ali, Summer, and Levitzky, 2005). Pulmonary hypertension may also be caused by congenital heart defects like atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect, patent ductus arteriosus, and congenital heart problems which have left to right shunts (Ali, Summer & Levitzky, 2005). In instances when the pulmonary hypertension would worsen, the right-side pressure may overwhelm systemic pressure and â€Å"poorly oxygenated mixed venous blood bypasses the lungs and enters the systemic circulation, causing severe shunt-related hypoxemia† (Ali, Summer & Levitzky, p.129, 2005). Non-specific symptoms like dyspnea on exertion, fatigue, angina pectoris, and syncope (Ali, Summer & Levitzky, 2005). These are however symptoms which also apply to other cardiopulmonary disorders like ischemic and valvular heart disorder. Hoarseness is a symptom more specific to pulmonary hypertension because it is caused by compression of the recurrent laryngeal nerve due to the enlarged main pulmonary artery (Ali, Summer & Levitzky, 2005). In cases of cardiac overload, sodium and water retention increases under the influence of the aldosterone hormone. Sodium and water retention consequently manifests as volume overload causing distended neck veins (jugular vein distention), ascites, and leg edema. Other symptoms may include tachypnea, dizziness, apprehension, fear, persistent hypoxemia, excessive fatigue, and cyanosis (Canobbio, 2006). Dizziness, fatigue and syncope are largely due to insufficient cardiac output (Newman, 2008). Initial diagnostic tests may include chest x-ray, spirometry, ECG, and echocardiography, and CBC following a complaint of significant exertional dyspnea in patients who seem relatively

On Defining Governance, Democracy and Decentralization Essay

On Defining Governance, Democracy and Decentralization - Essay Example Increasingly, among international organizations (such as the World Bank and the United Nations), governance is used as a concept to both provide a broad overview of and describe the way societies manage themselves. In the dialogue routinely engaged in by the United Nations and the World Bank "governance" is normally spoken of in terms of three systems - the political/administrative; the economic; and the civil society. When looking at governance from this perspective an important additional dimension is introduced into any discussion of the relationship between governance, democracy and decentralization because one is forced to pay attention to the significance of decentralization for economic development. This represents a very significant dimension in terms of the overall well-being of the society as a whole for it can be central to the defining of its development potential. Governance has also been described and dealt with, particularly in the past two decades, in terms of how to improve the functioning of the actual political/administrative system extant in a particular country. ... rnmental organization (which frequently means the downsizing of government bureaucracies); and the strong encouragement of transparency and accountability in government. There is obviously a long history of discussion about and consideration of what are the attributes of democracy and democratic governance. During the course of the past half century, most attention in this regard has focused upon four basic attributes. These include the conduct within a country of free and fair elections; the existence of a reasonably well-organized and competitive party system; a delineation of, respect for, and protection of basic civil liberties and human rights within the society; and, the encouragement, support of and active participation of a vigorous civil society and, in particular, strong interest groups. While democracy and its attributes have been the topic of much thought, writing and discussion, it is still the case that there are not totally precise measures of or delineations of where democratic governance begins or ends within a society. In fact, democracy is inevitably a "work in progress." The institutions and processes of democracy are constantly in a state of evolution. Such evolution is not always necessarily in a progressive or productive fashion. Clearly there are moments in almost all societies in which democratic processes and values suffer setbacks. Likewise, there are other times when what is normally evolutionary progress toward higher levels of democratic governance sometimes become dramatic movement. The concept of decentralization is perhaps a little less clearly defined in part because it is the newest of these concerns. One of the things that has added some misunderstanding to the debate and discussion over decentralization is the frequent

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Strategies

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Strategies INTRODUCTION Live birth with healthy child is the ultimate goal of ART cycles. There is a complexity of interlinked events that decides the final outcome of ART. This event can be categorised as, Clinical (stimulation protocol, opu, embryo transfer, pregnancy rate etc), Patient related (age, diseases) and Laboratory (ART Lab- oocyte, sperm, embryo, media, etc). There cannot be any single thumb rule for success in any ART cycle due to numerous variations in each categories. However by setting up Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and interpreting the data statistically we can have a better understanding of our success combinations as well as flaws. In this topic we will restrict our discussion upto laboratory category. ART lab and equipments are designed to mimic intra-uterine/ intra- fallopian tube environment. Thus by giving minimum stress to gametes a better embryo or blastocyst can be achieved which may result in healthy pregnancy. In order to have significant pregnancy rate various studies have been performed keeping in mind variables like, co2, pH, temperature, media etc. To have an insight of entire process majority of KPI are directed towards maintaining the above controls and also the clinical aspect of patient. This KPI gives us entire picture from patient age, stimulation protocols, drugs, opu, gametes, zygotes, embryos as well as record of temperature of work stations, room temperature, humidity, incubators conditions, ph, air quality , infection control policy. Thus KPI makes us more vigilant and observes the pattern of success or failure of our lab. By using our KPI we can have customised settings of our monitors and set protocol for a cycle. This Gametes and embryos are in artificial environment mimicking natural environment a stricter control on ph, temperature, air are perhaps most crucial. It is believed and observed that a compromise in any of this parameters does cause detrimental effect on embryos. Usually laboratories have protocols of checking the incubator settings, media, temperature daily. We do observe success rate to vary routinely. Where a drop in preganacy rate is to be considered more seriously , this makes us ponder over our KPI which should reflect the cause. We have observed many instances but we discuss about three such scenarios which caused damage to our pregnancy rates and KPI helped us. First Scenario- opening incubator door frequently On one occasion we observed more number of patients than usual in a batch of ART, while other KPI parameters were within accepted range. This observation lead to the fact that increased number of patient resulted in increase in number of oocytes.. This means that the load on incubator was much higher than usual. This load can be described by frequent opening of door to make fresh plates , transfer embryos, change media, observe growth, and embryo transfer. We used a conventional front load door incubator. Our KPI did not have a count or time period of incubator door openings, though it was handled to be bare necessity. To establish this assumption few studies observed that, there is a difference in temperature throughout the incubator where front and upper shelf had temperature nearer to 37 c as compared to other locations. Temperature displayed on screen of incubator was just an average. Temperature probe recorded average temperature of inside the incubator and hence KPI recordings were quite stable . However an important study observed that incubator door opened for 5 seconds takes a temperature recovery time of around 20 minutes whereas dishes took 30 minutes to come back to 37c. This can be explained due to cooler air from room entering the incubator and also cold co2 gas being pumped in due to decrease in co2 concentrations. IVF work station also has heating mechanism adjusted to 37 c but even that is average temp. And we do see different tempertaure in different parts of table. Further work station is also cooled by laminar air flow . Studies have proven that prolonged temperature variations impacts fertilisation especially high temperature affects cytokinesis of embryos. However we did not record absolutely mass failed fertilisation or mass embryo arrest .Though the number was less but the embryos progressed to blastocyst formation and also gave pregnancies. This leads to debate of optimal temperature required for embryo culture. Researchers have proved that core body temperature of reproductive axis to be 1c less than 37c. Interestingly a study observed difference in blastocyst formation from culturing the embryos at 36c .however fertilisation rate and implantation rate at both 36 c and 37 c were similar. With the concept of mimicking natural environment it was observed that preovulatory follicle had 2.3c less temperature than 36c. This could explain why even after temperature fluctuation we could still get good blastocyst as well as implantation. Another possible theory is a temperature regulating mechanism in embryo which remains an interesting research. Temperature fluctuations have an impact on pH also . Considering the importance of temperature and as most study design are carried out at 37c and better success rate at this temperature makes us accept cell culture to be at 37c. In order to set things right measures were initiated to reduce the number of patients or oocyte in one incubator. On an average not more than 2/3 patient with 6-8 dishes were kept in an incubator. Open culture system was changed to closed culture. Procedures like Dish equilibration, sperm swim up where carried out in mini incubator rather than routine incubators. Another way of controlling this could be use of embryo scope or using single step media or bench top incubators. But we preferred the older method to be cost effective. Second scenario- pH of media, calibration of instruments. Our KPI includes routine CO2 check by CO2 analyser and they were fairly within accepted range and settings were adjusted depending upon observed value to maintain co2 at 5 % or 6% . this percentage varied according to media manufacturing company like, SAGE needs equilibration at 5 % while vitrolife needs it at 6% . As co2 is used to maintain Ph . Despite being vigilant there was drop in overall blastocyst formation and implantation rate. A study of KPI statistics revealed more or less steady co2 and temperature with no changes in protocols . A detailed study questioned co2 analyser observation and it was found that co2 analyser was not serviced or calibrated over 6 months. Investigations confirmed Co2 analyser reading to be faulty. This scenario explains a lot about calibration of our instrument which are meant to check and control our functioning instruments like incubator.Routinely a calibration tolerance of 0.1 was accepted by us. We were using colourless media( vitrolife) rather than â€Å"pink† media ( phenol) hence changes in ph of media were unnoticed. literature supports ph to be most crucial for gamates. Routinely a ph of media scaling of 7.2-7.4 is accepted for cell culture. ph of media is also very dynamic and influenced by temperature,co2, volume of media. This leads to debate of optimal ph of media. Studies have revealed variable ph,that is alkaline in oviduct and acidic in uterus. Oocytes also showed varied ph from Germinal vesical stage ( 7.04 +/- 0.07) to MII stage ( 6.98 +/- 0.010). while amphibian oocytes shows rise in pH during fertilisation but unseen in humans. This opens a theory of intracellular ph regulatory system to mai ntain optimal Ph as required . This balance of CO2 and HCO3 in media sets the extracellular ph(phe) while intracelluarly (pHi) HCO3/Cl ad Na+/H+ regulatory systems maintain stability in cell. This self regulatory system of embryos seems to maintain the balance inspite of fluctuations and hence we see blastocyst formation and even implantation rates. Oocytes maintain their pHi through combination of follicular fluid, granulose cells. Hence denuded oocyte are more vulnearble and depends only up on pHe of media. Studies observed that raising ph to 7.4 or lowering to 6.8 affected the embryo metabolism where alkalinine media caused more damage. Thus ph around 7.2 seems to be more stabilising. Studies have observed ph irregularities to affect actin, cytoskeletal elements, meiotic spindle, cell apoptosis, mitochondria position in embryo. This problem was addressed by calibrating our co2 analyser every 3 months. Media tubes should be capped off immediately after opening to prevent evaporation which can cause ph fluctuation.KPI included servicing dates of each instruments with due date notifications.† Pink media† was not used considering toxicity of phenol and above all in subsequent cycles pregnancy rates were up with above correction.

Euthanasia and Christian Beliefs Essay -- Euthanasia Mercy Death Healt

Euthanasia Euthanasia is defined in the Chamber’s English Dictionary as â€Å" the act or practice of putting someone painlessly, or as gently as possible, to death†. There are various forms of Euthanasia, which I must explain before referring to the teachings of the different Christian denominations. The most common of them is Voluntary Euthanasia, where the patient decides for themselves, that they would prefer to be dead. They might decide at the time, or perhaps they might have written a ‘living will’ instructing doctors to kill them if they are ever in a situation where they will never be conscious again. There is also In-voluntary Euthanasia, were someone else decides against the patient’s wishes that would be better off dead, and enforces it in the act of killing them. Therefore it is often out-classed as Euthanasia, because it is not ‘gentle’. Non-voluntary Euthanasia takes place in a situation where the patient cannot be asked, or more correctly, cannot answer. This may be because the victim is a baby and can’t speak yet, or perhaps the victim is in a coma and is unable to respond to people around h im, but in this case a relative or doctor will decide for the person. It is also important to distinguish the difference between killing someone (Active), and letting them die (Passive). Killing a person is expressed in an action. An example of this, would be a doctor injecting his patient with a poison. Whereas letting someone die, is expressed in not performing an action. An example of this would be a doctor not supplying his patient with drugs that would save his life, and as a result the patient’s life is shortened. I will set, discuss, and finally evaluate a debate about Voluntary Euthanasia using contexts from both the Roman Catholic Church, and the Church of England. Some of the key influences I will refer to are Natural Law, Situation Ethics, Doctrine of Double Effect, The Golden Rule, Church documents, and the Bible. Ignoring all religious views, an argument for Voluntary Euthanasia performed by someone other than the patient, is that it is simply ‘mercy killing’. This would, under general Christian views, be just because it was an act of love, and after all that is what Christianity revolves around. One question, that must be answered is, ‘Is there a difference between killing and letting someone die, when it comes to an argu... ...f the family would suffer as a result of his death, then he should not die in an unnatural way. But, it is more likely that they will be suffering with him, and will feel the relief if he does not, and they do not have to watch him, live any longer in his painful condition. If this is the case, then they should back his feelings, and give him their support. It has been said that although the earth does not belong to the people, God did create humans to make their own decisions on it. Therefore in the case of voluntary euthanasia, there is no doubt that the end decision must be made by the patient, and not the doctor. If the patient is in a persistent vegetative state, then the appeal for his death, falls into the non-voluntary category, and is of no complication to my conclusion. As I have said already, the fifth commandment is addressing the point of murdering innocent people. Murder is when one person intentionally kills another without legal justification or excuse. If euthanasia was legalised, then it would not officially be murder. In such a case, a Christian would not be violating the fifth commandment, and there would be no reason why he could not be a supporter.

The Modem :: essays research papers

The Modem First of all I would like to start with an introduction I chose this topic because I thought it would be interesting to learn about how a modem works in a computer. With modem we are able to access the Internet BBS' or Bulletin Board Systems. The MODEM is one of the smartest computer hardware tools ever created. modem is an abbreviation of Modulator De Modulator it is fairly simple to explain; through the telephone lines we are able to send messages between one single computer or a group of computers. The Originating computer sends a coded message to the Host computer which decodes it and there we have the power to access the Internet, talk to other people through terminal programs and retrieve files from other computers. The first patented computer modem was made by Hayes in the early eighties and from there they rapidly developed the first modem speed was 300 baud and from there a 600 baud than 1200 and so on. The fastest modem made today is a 56k which is very fast. Not as fast as ISDN (The Wave offered through Rogers cable) or even as advanced as Satellite modem. Most people now have 14.4 or 28.8 baud modems (Baud is "Slang" for Baud Rate Per Second) the reason for the increase in 14.4 and 28.8's is that they are cheap and fairly recent and haven't gone out of date yet. There are two types of modem external and external modems internal plugs into a 16 bit port inside your computer and external connects through either a serial (mouse)port or a parallel (printer)port most people like the external modems because they don't take up an extra space in your computer (according to PC Computing) prices in modems range price from $100 (28.8bps) to $500(software upgradable 56k). Facsimile machines also have a form of modem in them, usually a 2400baud modem to decode the message. So imagine a world without the modem for a second; NO fax NO Internet NO direct computer communications whatsoever. The three major modem manufactures are Hayes (original modem) US Robotics and Microsoft. In conclusion life today it would be very hard to live without modems some businesses would cease to exist due to ill communications between offices and without modems we wouldn't have videoconfrencing e-mail and other tools we have

Effective Parenting Techniques

There are so many things in the world that people do to help children. Many people volunteer to help children and some decide to raise a child. Out of all the things to do raising a child is most difficult, and also very rewarding. When an individual chooses to be a parent, he or she should have four traits: a positive lifestyle, stability, tolerance, and patience. Having these traits helps on the long road of effective parenting (The Nemours Foundation, 2011). Discussion of Topic When an individual has a positive lifestyle, their child will look up to their parent. A positive lifestyle is good for a child because a parent is considered a role model. This means parents should have a job, a car, a place to live (a apartment or house), not abuse drugs or alcohol, and speak using manners. For example, if a child hears his parent cursing or using vulgar language the child is more likely to use it himself. Even if the child sees his parent working hard to make a good living, they are more likely to work hard to achieve the same thing (The Nemours Foundation). According to a Scottish government report, the keys to giving a child a good start in life is to love, cuddle, and red bedtime stories. Scotland must become a more â€Å"child-friendly† place with a renewed focus on improving early years through measures such as a new generation of family centers funded through private, public and not-for-profit sources. Children were always acting out anywhere they where and in order for this to stop parents had to pay much more attention to their kids (Currie Brian, 2011). Parents often become less involved in the lives of their children as they nter the middle grades. But your young adolescent needs as much attention and love from you as he needed when he was younger and maybe more. A good relationship with you or with other adults is the best safeguard your child has as he grows and explores. By the time he reaches adolescence, you and he will have had years of experience with each other; the parent of today's toddler is parent to tomorrow's teenager (Effective Parenting, 2006). Your relationship with your child may change. In fact, it almost certainly must change; however, as she develops the skills required to be a successful adult. These changes can be rewarding and welcome. As your middle school child makes mental and emotional leaps, your conversations will grow richer. As her interests develop and deepen, she may begin to teach you how to slug a baseball, what is happening with the city council or county board or why a new book is worth reading (Effective Parenting, 2006). When our children behave badly, we may become angry or upset with them. We may also feel miserable because we become angry or upset. But these feelings are different from not loving our children. Young adolescents need adults who are there for them – people who connect with them, communicate with them, spend time with them and show a genuine interest in them. This is how they learn to care for and love others. According to school counselor Carol Bleifield, â€Å"Parents can love their children but not necessarily love what they do, and children need to trust that this is true. † (Effective Parenting, 2006) Young adolescents need support as they struggle with problems that may seem unimportant to their parents and families. They need praise when they've done their best. They need encouragement to develop interests and personal characteristics. Psychologist Diana Baumrind identifies three types of parents: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. By studying about findings from more than 20 years of research, she and her colleagues have found that to be effective parents, it's best to avoid extremes. Authoritarian parents who lay down hard-and-fast rules and expect their children to always do as they are told or permissive parents who have very few rules or regulations and give their children too much freedom are most likely to have the most difficult time as parents. Their children are at risk for a range of negative behavioral and emotional consequences. However, authoritative parents, who set limits that are clear and come with explanations, tend to struggle less with their adolescents. â€Å"Do it because I said so† probably didn't work for your son when he was 6 and it's even less likely to work now that he's an adolescent (Effective Parenting, 2006). Young adolescents need strong role models. Try to live the behavior and values that you hope your child will develop. Your actions speak louder than words. If you set high standards for yourself and treat others with kindness and respect, your child stands a better chance of following your example. As adolescents explore possibilities of who they may become, they look to their parents, peers, well-known personalities and others to define who they may become (Effective Parenting, 2006). There are also the five B’s for effective parenting which are be positive, be specific, be certain, be consistent, and be immediate. People including children do things for one of two reasons: to avoid pain or to pursue pleasure. As a parent, you constantly work between these two options. If you use lots of negatives like punishments to drive behavior, your child will do just enough to avoid the pain. Rewarding good behaviors rather than punishing bad ones, improves the chance that you'll get cooperation and not conflict from your child. Noticing unacceptable behaviors and stopping them with a punishment is easy. It takes effort to recognize good behaviors and praise them. You'll need to do both; but the more you recognize the good, the less likely you are to see the bad (Effective Parenting, 2006). Relevant Chapters In chapter 8 of the text it talks about the self view of children during their school years. It talks about how preschoolers develop their self-concepts as a result of how their parents treat them and based on the society and culture they live in. Like in Erikson’s initiative vs. guilt is when children act independently, but feel guilt or sense of failure when they don’t succeed or are belittled for the action. The foundational concept of this stage is that children become aware that they are people and begin to make decisions that shape the kind of person they are to become. Children with supportive parents later become independent and autonomous. Children with restrictive or overprotective parents later feel shame and self-doubt. Good effective parenting skills are needed in order for children to become great people in life. Summary In order to have good parenting skills a parent needs to have great effective parenting techniques like using the five B’s. Using the five B’s will get your children to have better cooperation and will never act out as much. Children will always need support from their parents whenever they have issues. They also need to have strong role models because if they don’t then how are they going to learn when they make mistakes. Parents are the ones that have to teach their children what is right from wrong. As kids grow older they make mental leaps that will later create better conversations. Children will become great adults if parents follow effective parenting techniques.