Systems in Earth Abides essays

Systems in Earth Abides essays In George R. Stewarts novel Earth Abides, a vivid and highly detailed future of society is painted. After a fast spreading and fast acting disease has all but destroyed civilization, seemingly infecting nothing but humans, only a few survivors are left to live on and determine the future of the human race. But how will the once stable ecosystem of an entire planet react to such a drastic change as the end of civilization as we know it? To answer this question it is important to understand the many concepts and processes involved in systems. First, it is imperative to understand what a system is. A system is a structured set of components which are related to each other and which operate together as a complex whole. There are several types of systems, with the most common being open and closed systems. Consider the desert in chapter 3. As an example of an open system, that is, one in which both energy and materials pass through the system, the materials passing through are the humans and their chips of stone and roads, while the energy could be the wind blowing through. It becomes a closed system, that is, one in which only energy passes through, when the human intervention ceased, and all that is left was the wind (although technically grains of sand could be carried out of the system). Initially after the fall, little changed. For example, the novels main character, Isherwood Williams, henceforth referred to as Ish, was on an almost hermetic research retreat at the beginning of the novel, and thus knows nothing of the plague until he heads into town one day. Upon his first contacts with abandoned homes, there is so little changed that he thinks nothing of it other than perhaps the inhabitants are on vacation, or at a baseball game. As time began to pass, however, the full effect of the loss of civilization on the environment began to be felt. Dogs and cats that had been left in kennels or ho...

Indus Civilization Writing System research paper

Indus Civilization Writing System research paper Indus Civilization Writing System research paper Indus Civilization Writing System research paper: Early civilization was first witnessed in parts of Asia and Middle East. Egyptians and Sumerians were some of the oldest people to develop in the world. In East and South Asia similar developments were being implemented along river bends and valleys. Some of these oldest developments were being carried out in the Yellow River valley, China. Here, the rich silt from Northern China provided the ideal grounds for civilization. The first Asian civilization was witnessed in the Indus River Valley. This civilization was witnessed in the 3rd millennium B.C (Kenoyer 7). This was more than a millennium prior to the Yellow River development. This civilization is also known as Harappan culture and can be categorized in the Bronze Age development together with Egypt and Mesopotamia. Ravi or Harappan stage was the first to be witnessed in the Indus development. The phase got its name tribute to a river in the vicinity called Ravi River. This Ravi stage lasted for approximately one thousand years. On River Hakra another phase came after Ravi. The phase was known as the Hakra stage. The last phase was known as the Kot Diji phase. In Ravi and Kot Diji stage, settlements some discoveries were made of early writing. These writings were dated back to 3300-2800BC together with the Egypt and Mesopotamian writings. These civilizations covered the whole of present day Pakistan and significant parts of both India and modern Afghanistan. Indus got its name from the Indus River which provided the Indus with water to irrigate and for their domestic use. The silt in the valley provided the fertile soils for agriculture (Kenoyer 26). The strategic position of the Indus valley helped in maintaining security. The Deccan plateau and the Himalayas protected the Indus from attacks from other people. The estimated area was about 1,250,000 km squared. Some of these examples of this extended development were parts of north Afghanistan in Shortughai and Hindon near Delhi in India. The population regarding all these areas was estimated to have reached the heights of about 4.5 million people. Most of this civilization is not fully known to people since it was forgotten till in the early 20th century. Writings of these developments still aren’t well scrutinized by humans and remains unidentified. Like it s rival civilization, Indus disappeared in a mystery. It is accounted to the disastrous events during the time and the early invasions from their rivals. Most facts remain unknown to people about this civilization; like the language spoken by the people during this development is a mystery, no one can tell exactly the names of these people (Mughal 88). This is in contrast with Early Egypt and Mesopotamia civilizations. Most of the people lived in enclosed cities where they could get access to the basic needs more easily. The Indus valley had a number of settlements which were referred to as cities. The residents of these cities were mostly traders and artisans. Trade was more defined here with people from the outside coming to bring their good here. The foreign materials were used for construction of city seals, ornaments for the dwellers and other household goods (Ratnagar 49). The beads made were impressive and were used to make ornaments for the wealthy city dwellers. The seals comprised of images of their gods and animals they reared. Trade goods were well trademarked with these seals. The owners of the goods wanted to maintain the originality of their goods to avoid counterfeits. This gives us the sense of early standardization that still guides production up to today. Goods in our modern trade have to possess a trade mark seal to verify that is original. It’s truly the epicenter of urb an society with all the houses in the Indus getting access to water and a good drainage system to maintain the emphasized hygiene. Technologically, most advancement was witnessed in agriculture. But there in Indus area, controversies with some scholars indicating that food was brought to the Indus from foreign land is still heated. Other archeologist like G.Shaffer argued that agriculture was indigenous in the Indus valley. The people here used mostly wheat and cereals. Barley was also a major ingredient in the food used by the Indus. The fertile Indus soil can give a supporting hand on this. The land here was also productive due to the adequate water for irrigation from the rivers in these areas. The agriculture as the studies suggests must have been enough to feed a large number of people in the Indus valley. Technology in agriculture must also have borrowed some aspect here. The plough was also used in this valley for cultivating the land. Although there is no evidence of a defined system of irrigation, the frequent floods might have been used to water the crops in the fields (Ratnagar 63). The Indus must have dug canals to divert water to build small lands that were managed by small number of people unlike in most early civilizations that people were forced to work on lager rice plantations. Moreover, the act of water harvesting was practiced in the Indus valley. This was a major step forward on the modern technology in agriculture where the water stored can be used to grow crops. Studies have shown presence of some reservoirs on the Indus valley. The people in this civilization depended on the monsoon winds which made the weather pattern to provide rainfall for only four months in a year (Thapar 28). The stored water was hence used the dry periods of the year for both domestic and agriculture use. Inclusive of all these advancement scripting and writing was also developed by the Indus. The rocky terrain and metal availability in the valley was a major influence to invention of these writings. In Indus valley, several writings have been found .The oldest and most prominent writings were several forms of seals. The seals are still in good conditions and the written material is quite visible. These seals were made of metal or rock curved in some shapes and writings scripted on them. Seals were useful to the Indus as they were used to mark their belongings and trade goods. Since clay and other malleable were widely used here, seals were very important in making impressions on them. Most of these seals have being around the world of archeologists but very little have been heard from them depicting what the seals represented. The progress on finding the truth about these well-designed writings cannot be wholly seen as blame on the scholars. The earlier used clues by archeologist to decipher the writings were all missing in the Indus scripts. The writings were small and brief bearing 5 symbols as the mean number of writings per seal. The mammoth but few seals had up to 26 symbols. Language that the Indus used is a mystery and no one knows the meaning of a single symbol in the seals. Texts in these seals were not bilingual. Scholars have come up with different theories to try and uncover this mystery. The first one was just a little acknowledgment on the non prior or present existence of such a language. Some said that the language was Aryan. This is a mixture of several languages; Indian, Iranian, Indonesian and English. Since most Northern Indians spoke Indo-European so the people here in the Indus Valley might have spoken old Indo-European language (Ratnagar 49). Although this might seem like a slight break through, the major short coming is giving to the fact that Indo-European cultures used horses in all their transportation purposes and none was discovered on the seals or the remains of horses on the Indus soil. Furthermore, archeologist yet came up with another theory which stated that the language was Dravidian. This language is spoken mostly in South India. This theory can be seen as the closest one to uncovering this mystery. The Vedic texts have shows some considerable influence of the Dravidian language. It’s thought that the Aryan replaced the Dravidian. The Dravidian might have formed the basis of what is currently spoken by Indians. A feature like the retroflex consonants in Indian pronunciations is some but a few evidence supporting this theory. There is also the structural examination that shows the Dravidian presence in Indus valley texts. The analysis simply states the possible agglutinative nature of the language spoken in the Indus valley. The language here had a number of similar signs with different signals ranging from 1 to 3 per sign. The final signs acted as the suffixes to modify words giving them a new meaning. This is well displayed by the Dravidian language. The language used by Indus had approximately 400 script symbols and about 200 signs. The script used must have been logo phonetic; signs were used for their real meaning and phonetic values. Most of the writings were in picture forms but the signs at the end changed the mother meaning of a word. With all these writings the Indus could possible and effectively communicate through scripted pieces of metal, reeds or rocks. The seals were mostly useful in trade arenas where they could be used to mark goods and be used as currencies, pass to some areas and so on. The civilization of the Indus was a major step forward to what we enjoy today in terms of technology, and advancement in major fields of our lives. Ranging in all dimensions of food, life style, and health education and scripting information on materials in our modern world. The Indus mostly feed on bread made of wheat. Barley and rice were also used as food in the Indus valley. Fruits were many in this area, consisting of peas, dates with some areas melons being grown for nutrition. This is the life style in Middle East; these foods are still eaten today there and all over the world (Thapar 28). With all these contributions to the civilization of the world the Indus made a major step forward towards the urbanization of most parts of the world. The trade, city planning, transportation and agriculture made it possible to have our modern cities and have strategies to manage their lives in a mannerly way. ______________ is a professional research paper writing service which can provide high school, college and university students with 100% original custom written essays, research papers, term papers, dissertations, courseworks, homeworks, book reviews, book reports, lab reports, projects, presentations and other assignments of top quality. More than 700 professional Ph.D. and Master’s academic writers. Feel free to buy a research paper online on Indus Civilization from our custom research paper writing service.

Research Report on Competing with Information Technology Paper

Report on Competing with Information Technology - Research Paper Example The issues addressed include; various ways that Spotify music service uses IT to compete with iTunes music service and the technologies leveraged by the two corporations to enable competitive advantage. Most customers are mindful about the music delivery business and the effectiveness of each one of them. Because the music industry will exist into the foreseeable future, most music companies are developing strategies that will help them capture a larger share of the market among its rivals (Kusek et al. 82; Latham 4). This competition, however, has streamed down to only two main competitors existing in the market. These music services include the Apple iTunes and Spotify. These two music services experience large economies of scale and have a huge demand on a global scale. Both Apple iTunes and Spotify have pressed on with sweeping overhauls of their digital music services that allow fair competition. Apple iTunes has about 800 million customer accounts out of which 200 million customers are active buyers. Spotify, on the other hand began in Sweden and move into the United States in 2011. Spotify currently has about 15 million customers that subscribe through payments and 45 millio n customers that listen free, with advertising (Lester 49). There, however, exist various uncertainties as to how Spotify music service will match up to Apple iTunes. Michael Porter’s value chain is applied in iTunes service in order to get an insight of the chain of activities involved before a valuable service is provided to the consumers. Apple iTunes is a service that comes in form of an online platform providing music distribution structures(O’Grady 112). The Value-chain model of iTunes’ primary activities is as follows 1. Content creation- the content is regulated by licensing agreement partnerships with various music labels.In this partnership, iTunes offer artists’ music to customers and for each download Apple is entitled a share in revenues. 2.

Combating Compassion Fatigue Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Combating Compassion Fatigue - Essay Example Cognitive symptoms entail apathy, disorientation, preoccupation with trauma, minimization, rigidity, and lowered concentration. Emotional symptoms include anxiety, anger, fear, sadness, depleted, blunted, enhanced affect, shock, depression, helplessness, numbness, guilt, and powerlessness (Portnoy, 2011). The individual may experience troubling dreams similar to those of the patient. The individual may also experience sudden and involuntary recall of a frightening situation while working with the family or the patient. Concerning behavioral symptoms, the individual may be withdrawn, have poor sleep, a change in appetite, isolated, and hyper-vigilance, have nightmares, moody, and irritable. Spiritual symptoms include pervasive hopelessness, questioning of one’s religious beliefs, skepticism, loss of faith, loss of purpose, and questioning of the meaning of life. Somatic symptoms entail rapid heartbeat, pains and aches, impaired immune system, difficulty staying or falling aslee p, headaches, dizziness, difficulty in breathing, and sweating (Portnoy, 2011). The Nature of the Problems and Their Causes Portnoy (2011) states that compassion fatigue is caused by empathy. Compassion fatigue is a form of burnout that appears unexpectedly and with little or no warning. The condition is generally persistent than burnout. It is the natural outcome of stress; it results from helping and caring for the suffering or traumatized individuals. It entails a preoccupation with the individual or with the individual’s trauma and it does not need to be at the stressful occasion. The condition can result from just being exposed to an individual’s painful narrative. It is further described as the â€Å"convergence of primary stress, secondary traumatic stress, and cumulative stress in the lives of helping professionals and other care providers† (Portnoy, 2011, p48). On the other hand, burnout is described as a type of mental distress that is manifested in no rmal individuals who have never suffered from prior psychopathology. The individuals experience decreased performance at work because of the negative behaviors and attitudes. The main dimensions of burnout include emotional exhaustion, feeling of cynicism and depersonalization, lack of personal accomplishment, and sense of ineffectiveness. Emotional exhaustion is the basic individual stress indicator of burnout and it refers to the feeling of being depleted and overextended of one’s physical and emotional resources. The exhaustion causes the individual to distance himself cognitively and emotionally from work and it is a means devised by the individual to cope with the work overload (Coyle and Ferrell, 2010). Depersonalization (detachment from job) and feeling of cynicism is the burnout interpersonal context dimension and it refers to the excessively detached response and negative callous to various features of the job. Lack of personal accomplishment and sense of ineffective ness is the self-evaluation burnout dimension and it indicates the lack of productivity and achievement at work and feeling of being incompetent. Lack of personal accomplishment emerges from the lack of resources to complete the work; for instance, the lack of necessary tools, lack of crucial information or even insufficient time (Coyle and Ferrell, 2010). The Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Needs Of the Caregiver When caring for patients in palliative care, the

Flagstaff :: Colleges Arizona Education Essays

Flagstaff Flagstaff is a small college town in Northern Arizona, with a population of around 55,000. The city is at an elevation of 7,000 feet and is surrounded by ponderosa pines. The ponderosa pines up here are the largest continuous body of ponderosas in the world. The summers are quite nice with temperatures only reaching the 80’s and with winter temperatures in the 40’s. Northern Arizona University is also located in Flagstaff with a college population of 15,000. Flagstaff is great for outdoor activities, many lakes and streams are close by along with many hiking trails. Flagstaff has all four seasons and is ideal in the winter for skiers and snowboarders. The two years that I have lived in Flagstaff have been really fun. The seasons up here along with all the wildlife make hunting and fishing very plentiful. This is one of the main reasons why I decided to go to NAU, also due to the small town atmosphere along with outdoor activities which were very close by. There are many jeep trails and off road trails to explore all around town. Flagstaff also has an urban trail system that runs through the whole town. This is for people who love to walk and bike ride or who just love to be outside this makes a nice friendly type atmosphere for people. Just outside the city limits are the San Francisco Peaks which rise above 12,000 feet, the aspen trees in the background give a unique experience while hiking or snowboarding in the winter time. The peaks also have a ski resort called Arizona snow bowl, which is the oldest ski resort in Arizona and it also has one of the steepest drops in the state which makes for some difficult runs toward the top of the mountain. When I first moved up to Flagstaff in 2002 the city was not new to me, I had visited many times before with my brother and I knew I wanted to go to college here. I also loved the cool weather along with the heavy snows in the winter. Along with hunting and fishing and the whole outdoors thing I loved to play sports so I rushed some of the fraternities and found one the fit me very well. Intramural sports up here are also a real challenge; after you triumph over all of the fraternities you can move on to all campus, then you can really show what your team is made of.

Diabetic Teaching Summary of Power Point Essay

This diabetes power point was presented at an adult community center in Queens, New York called QCP. This power point highlights the importance of educating yourself on disease and more specifically diabetes. Unlike other diseases that can be managed using only medication, diabetes requires day to day knowledge of the disease including nutrition, exercise and different levels of medication. Type II diabetes can also come on later in life based on diet and exercise or lack thereof. Therefore this power point presentation was important to help people understand how to deal with diabetes and how to prevent diabetes. This teaching plan includes education for both prevention and management of the disease. The power point presentation first describes what type of disease that diabetes is and what exactly the symptoms are. The teaching plan goes on to discuss the three different types of diabetes including Type I, Type II and gestational diabetes. Following along the teaching plan teaches how diabetes is diagnosed and what type of symptoms people have when they have diabetes. This helps people better understand the disease and what their symptoms mean and what causes it. The teaching plan is careful to differentiate between pre-diabetes and diabetes to make sure that people understand the difference before they experience the full blown disease. My teaching plan includes simple learning devices to help the audience remember important facts including the ABC’s of diabetes management. The teaching plans follows up with showing the audience how to delay or prevent type II diabetes which is one o f the most important aspects to teach the audience because it is a preventable form of diabetes. My teaching plan was to explain as simple as possible to my audience the forms of diabetes and the way to protect themselves from developing one or protect themselves from making their symptoms worst. As I observed the audience, they were very engaged in the discussion especially when it came to what type of factors affect their chances of getting diabetes. I did not strictly stay on point  with my power point but I gauged the reactions of the audience and added information to sections that they seemed the most interested in. Overall, I believe my teaching plan worked well because I was able to discuss medical aspects of the disease while also making diabetes education relevant to the lives of my audience. Epidemiology is the study of how disease spreads and can be controlled. In this situation diabetes is not a disease that can be â€Å"caught† in the technical sense of the term. Diabetes is not contagious from one person to another. However, there is an important epidemiologic consideration for diabetes, especially Type II, because of a culture of obesity. There is an increase in the rate of Type II, especially in children. For my audience, I had to consider that people that had an excess of body fat and bodies that are obese were at a higher risk for diabetes. In this country there is an increase in diabetes and this is how the disease of diabetes is spreading. As part of my presentation to address the epidemiological concerns I addressed the type of test results that people can look at in order to decrease their risk for diabetes. Most importantly the numbers to watch include cholesterol and the other two big considerations are to lower blood pressure and decrease weight. I focused my presentation around delay and presentation of diabetes because it is most important to my audience and weight loss is a big part of this. The correlation between Type II diabetes and weight is a direct correlation and diabetes will only continue to go up in this country with the increase of obesity. As I observed my audience they shared with me stories of people they had known that had decreased the amount of diabetes medication that they needed to take to control their symptoms by losing weight. These serve as inspiration stories and it was very important for me to engage my audience. I wanted the audience to understand the direct correlation between obesity and the disease and as they told me these stories it showed me that they did understand. I also observed that this part of the presentation was one of the most important parts to them because they felt like this was something they could control. The epidemiological affects come from an attitude and not from a diseas e spreading in the direct sense of the word and after my presentation my audience understood that fact. My teaching experience did not just come from the power point presentation. I studied my audience to determine what the best topic for my presentation would be. Diabetes is a subject that affects all of us and I wanted my audience to understand this. The first time appearing before a group is a learning experience. I spent the time to get to know my group and how diabetes had affected each of them before I started my presentation. This helped them become more comfortable with me and myself to learn more about them so I could become a better teacher for them. My teaching experience grew more personal as my presentation evolved. I tend to have a very personal approach to teaching because it helps my audience remember my presentation. I found that the parts of my presentation that included personal antidotes from myself or my audience and I found that the audience related better to personal situations rather than cold numbers without anything to back them up. My audience helped me reali ze this and it helped me evolve as a teacher. I noticed that stories engaged the audience when numbers, which I included in my power point, did not engage them as much as the personal stories. My overall evaluation was that the experience helped me learn and it will help me develop my future teaching experiences. Overall, it was a very good experience for me because I was teaching to a group of people who were my age and older and I learned how to handle myself and handle the subject matter. Every experience teaches me more about how to handle my audience and get my point across. Another important aspect is that I believe diabetes was a very important topic to discuss because is it not too over-complicated but I also helped teach important medical information. It is always important to gauge your audience and make sure you do not go over their head. Overall it was a very good teaching experience. I was given the opportunity to hold a question and answer session at the adult community center after I finished my presentation. I also discussed with them how my presentation affected them. The community was very happy to be given a presentation on a subject that had affected so many of them. They also were a very perceptive audience and very honest. The group really appreciated the education that I was instilling on them.A big issue that I noticed was that my audience had some myths about diabetes, including that  Type II diabetes was not a very dangerous disease. However, I was given the opportunity to explain to them about the dangerous consequences of the disease. It is important for my group to understand. It is also important for me as the leader of a presentation to be able to read the reaction of my group and go off of that reaction. As I spoke of above the reaction was favorable to learning about diabetes however it was also difficult for people to understand all the med ical aspects of it. I attempted to break it down into very simple terms for my audience to understand but adding in the numbers especially of cholesterol confused people to some extent. There is also the fact that I was dispelling some myths that people held about diabetes. It was not always easy for people to hear some negative things and on some level I think people were very nervous about learning that not taking care of they correctly may lead to a debilitating illness. Overall though the group reaction was very good and I enjoyed teaching the group and possibly making a difference in their lives. I feel that my presentation had several strengths and weakness. Overall, a strength of mine was my ability to be able to connect with my group. My experience working in an Emergency Room environment helped me learn how to read people and their feelings. I utilized this skill during my presentation and it was to my benefit. My group responded to me and I was able to understand their emotions and what they wanted to get out of the presentation. However my nursing background could also be a weakness. During the presentation, at times, I concentrated too much on the technical aspects of the disease. This is not always the best approach especially when dealing with people who are not comfortable with nursing terminology. Another strength is my comfort level around big groups of people which also comes from my experience working in the Emergency Room. I have learned how to work in chaos. Another weakness however is my dependency on my power point slides. In the beginning of my presentation I tended to carefully keep to the power point slides but as I began to read my group I understood that I needed to use my own personal experience, their personal experience and my power point in order to do the best job that I could. I feel this type of comfort level in teaching and public speaking will come as I gain more experience and participate in more teaching activities. The presentation overall went very well and I am pleased with the job I did. I managed to convey to a group of people the dangerous of diabetes and I helped teach them something. It is important to be able to react well to the group and I learned that throughout my presentation. Each group that I teach is another learning experience and I am always up for new challenges. I learn something every day from this presentation and all my experience will help me in my next teaching experience.

A Reflection On Reading Visual Culture - 2407 Words

READING VISUAL CULTURE Assignment 2 Colour is one of the dominant symbolic aspects of representation; another is the use of words. Expand upon the use of both in the construction of meaning. When it comes to representation, there is no aspect more important than that of colour. Whilst words can be used to describe what kind of emotion it is portraying, colour can change the emotion and meaning of a representation simply by just being there. A good example of the power that colour has can be seen in the painting by Raphael Sanzio called School of Athens (1510-1511). In this painting, Plato and Aristotle are at the centre, both wearing fashionable robes. Plato’s robe can be seen as different colours: Red which symbolises excitement,†¦show more content†¦Green is an emotionally positive color† (Scott-Kemmis, 2013). This colour is used in today’s society as a means of representing safeness and nature through certain symbols as it is a very positive colour. The traffic light is one symbol which helps do this by letting drivers and pedestrians know it is safe to proceed, â€Å"Green means â€Å"go.† When â€Å"all systems are green,† it means everything is in order† (Fact Monster, 2015). Another symbol which uses green is the recycling symbol, when this is seen it is instantly recognised as an organisation which helps the environment. However, much like a colour can add positivity to a representation, it can also add negativity. Envy, jealousy, inexperience and rotting are just some of the negative vibes green can add to a representation (Williams, 2010). In China for instance, where green used to be considered beautiful in the Tang Dynasty (Moss, 2015), the colour itself now represents disgrace (Williams, 2010). In English speaking cultures, green is also associated with envy, a powerful and negative emotion which can control a person (Parrot Smith, 1993). Green was first associated with envy when Shakespeare referred to it in Othello as â€Å"The green-eyed monster† (Shakespeare, 1603) and has been used for symbolising negative emotions ever since. Green, of course, is just the tip of the iceber g when it comes to colours and their representational