A Comparison of Themes in The Matrix and Allegory of the Cave

A Comparison of Themes in The Matrix and Allegory of the Cave One of the significant topics that is observable in the Matrix is â€Å"being as such†. While thinking about the Matrix, Neo lives in complete daydream, a detainee of computerized reasoning with no genuine control or impression of the real world. He accepts he is living in the city, getting a charge out of sweltering climate when in all actuality his cerebrum is in a body being followed and constrained by machines a great many years after the fact than the time he thinks he exists. The plotline can be straightforwardly referenced to the old philosophical contention â€Å"Brain in a vat†. This contention just affirms that if researchers somehow happened to embed a cerebrum into a container, and include invigorating synthetic substances that cause the mind to work as typical, the cerebrum and its considerations would exist and prosper as though it were in a body. The cerebrum could have encounters, connections, and structure typical the ordinary situations of living in a body which lights the inquiry: What is reality? The mind will be the cerebrum (being in that capacity), it isn't more perplexing than just â€Å"being†. I relate this idea to the expression â€Å"believing isn't seeing â€Å" as what we percieve and accept is all that exists isn't generally the genuine truth of what really exists. In Plato’s Allegory of the cavern, this idea is tended to in a one of a kind way. The men that have been detained in the cavern don't know about the world outside of the cavern. They realize that they exist, and they can see just what is infront of them. As â€Å"shadows† pass by them in their movements from behind just as infront of them they hear their voices yet they can't separate or even comprehend that the voices are really fighting against eminent loss them too, as opposed to simply the figures that are obvious. They can't envision or aknowledge what they don't knows exist as they are adapted to concentrate on the present: â€Å"And assume their jail had a reverberation from the divider confronting them? At the point when one of the individuals crossing behind them talked, they could just guess that the sound originated from the shadow going before their eyes. No doubt† (Plato 9) He likewise makes reference to the fire that consumes behind them, which transmits the light that the detainees are normally adapted to. They have not seen more brilliant light previously, and dont even think about its reality. It would hard to aknowledge that their recognition was so obscured to the real truth of life if somebody somehow happened to let them know. Plato demonstrates this when he makes reference to that if the detainees were to be unchained and compelled to pivot and experience the force of the genuine light of the fire, it would cause them torment and perplexion and weaken their comprehension of what is genuine; despite the fact that it is correct infront of their eyes: â€Å"He would require, at that point, to become acclimated before he could see things in that upper world† (Plato). The detainee is progressively disposed to come back to the manner in which he looked before as what is characteristic simpler to recognize for him. Another powerful topic in both the Matrix and in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is astuteness. Insight is worked through information and experience. I recall that I am here not on account of the way that lies before me but since of the way that lies behind me†(Morpheus in The Matrix Reloaded) At the point when Neo sees the world without precedent for the Matrix, it is hard for him to accept just as percieve. Everything that he thought was the truth was not, at this point applicable to fact. He utilizes his own understanding and the information he picked up from it to awaken the remainder of mankind from the fantasy they are percieving as their existence. This topic in the network shapes an immediate similarity to the intelligence showed in Platos purposeful anecdote of the Cave when the detainee is discharged from the cavern and is blinded by the sun after leaving. The light is so a lot more grounded and bigger than the main light that he knew to exist that his eyes genuinely couldn't deal with it, making him be temorarily blinded. He should change and experience the light so as to watch the remainder of the world that it illimunates. When his eyes alter, he promptly needs to come back to the cavern to enlighten the others concerning reality similarly as Neo did in the Ma trix. By and large, looking at both of these storires reveals a splendid insight upon what is reality and truly impacts me to remain â€Å"present†. What struck me the most is the â€Å"Brain in a Vat† idea in the framework just as in Platos Allegory of the Cave. Much exists past what we can see just as envision, and to comprehend what exists past we should create knowledge utilizing our experience just as our insight.

Photosynthesis Vocabulary Terms and Definitions

Photosynthesis Vocabulary Terms and Definitions Photosynthesis is the procedure by which plants and certain different living beings make glucose from carbon dioxide and water. So as to comprehend and recollect how photosynthesis functions, it assists with knowing the terminology. Use this rundown of photosynthesis terms and definitions for audit or to cause cheat sheets to assist you with learning significant photosynthesis ideas. ADP - ADP represents adenosine diphosphate, a result of the Calvin cycle that is utilized in the light-needy responses. ATP -ATP represents adenosine triphosphate. ATP is a significant vitality particle in cells. ATP and NADPH are results of the light-needy responses in plants. ATP is usedâ in decrease and recovery of RuBP. autotrophs - Autotrophs are photosynthetic creatures whichâ convert light vitality intoâ the synthetic vitality they have to create, develop, and repeat. Calvin cycle - The Calvin cycle is the name given to the arrangement of synthetic reactionsâ of photosynthesis that doesn't necessarilyâ require light. The Calvin cycle takes placeâ in theâ stroma of the chloroplast. It includes the fixing of carbon dioxide intoâ glucose utilizing NADPH and ATP. carbon dioxide (CO2) - Carbon dioxide is a gas normally found in the environment that isâ a reactant for the Calvin Cycle. carbon obsession -  ATP and NADPH areâ used to fix CO2 into sugars. Carbon obsession happens in the chloroplast stroma.â synthetic condition of photosynthesis -  6 CO2 6 H2O â†' C6H12O6 6 O2 chlorophyll - Chlorophyll is the essential shade utilized in photosynthesis. Plants contain two principle types of chlorophyll:â a b. Chlorophyll has aâ hydrocarbon tail that grapples it to anâ integral protein in the thylakoid film of the chloroplast. Chlorophyll is the wellspring of the green shade of plants and certain different autotrophs. chloroplast - A chloroplast is the organelle in a plant cell where photosynthesis happens. G3P -  G3P represents glucose-3-phosphate. G3P is an isomer of PGA framed during the Calvin cycle glucose (C6H12O6) - Glucose is the sugar that is the result of photosynthesis. Glucose is shaped fromâ 2 PGALs. granum - A granum is a pile of thylakoids (plural: grana) light - Light is a type of electromagnetic radiation; the shorter the frequency theâ greater measure of vitality. Light supplies the vitality for the light responses of photosynthesis. light reaping buildings (photosystems edifices) -  A photosystem (PS) complex is a multi-protein unit in the thylakoid film that ingested light to fill in as vitality for responses light responses (light ward reactions)â -The light reliant responses are concoction responses requiring electromagnetic vitality (light) thatâ occur in the thylakoid film of theâ chloroplast to change over lightâ energy into synthetic forms ATP and NAPDH. lumen - The lumen is the district inside the thylakoid layer where water is part to get oxygen. The oxygen diffuses out of the cell, while the protons stay inside to construct positive electrical charge inside the thylakoid.â mesophyll cell - A mesophyll cell is a sort of plantâ cell situated between the upper and lower epidermis that is theâ site for photosynthesis NADPH - NADPH is a high-vitality electron carrierâ used in decrease oxidation -  Oxidation alludes to the loss of electrons oxygen (O2) - Oxygen is a gas that is aâ product of the light-needy responses palisade mesophyll - The palisade meophyill is the territory of the mesophyll cell without many air spaces PGAL -  PGAL is an isomer of PGA shaped during the Calvin cycle. photosynthesisâ -Photosynthesis is the procedure by which creatures convert light vitality into synthetic vitality (glucose). photosystem - A photosystem (PS) is a bunch of chlorophyll and different particles in a thylakoid thatâ harvest the vitality of light forâ photosynthesis shade - A shade is a hued particle. A pigmentâ absorbs explicit frequencies of light. Chlorophyll ingests blue and red light and reflects greenâ light, so it seems green. decrease - Reduction alludes to the increase of electrons. It regularly happens related to oxidation. rubisco - Rubisco is a compound that bonds carbon dioxide with RuBP thylakoid - The thylakoid is a circle formed part of chloroplast, found in stacks called grana.

The Origins of the Coalition Application From the Experts at CEA

The Origins of the Coalition Application From the Experts at CEA The Origins of the Coalition Application The Origins of the Coalition Application Once upon a time, a selection of schools around the land came together to create an easier way for students to apply to a wide number of academic institutions. This first attempt at college application standardization, as you might have guessed, was called the Common Application. This platform remained unchallenged in the world of admissions for many decades, prevailing as the uncontested ruler of the admissions process for the many schools that elected to operate under its domain. In late 2015, a challenger to the Common App’s long-standing dominance finally emerged. An assembly of over 80 colleges around the country gathered to form the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, more commonly known as “the Coalition.” The organization hopes to level the application playing field for students around the world by offering an alternative to the status quo and providing a backup to technology that can often be unreliable when you need it most (like that time the Common App crashed right before the early deadline). The Coalition announced plans to launch their Common App competitor in the summer of 2016. The resulting platform includes some interesting features like a collaboration hub and a locker that allows students to store essays and assignments they are considering for submission. Most schools offering the Coalition App as an option will also allow students to apply via the Common App. Will the use of this new platform affect the challenging but incredibly rewarding task of writing a winning college admissions essay?!! The truth is, it probably won’t affect the essay writing process much at all. First and foremost this is because, as we often tell our students (and as you’ve probably heard from us before), The prompts don’t really matter. Say it again with me now. “The Prompts don’t really matter.” The prompts don’t really matter, because what matters is that you tell a compelling story that reveals something meaningful to admissions about who you are and what makes you tick. Once you figure out what it is you’re trying to say and how you want to say it, your stellar subject can be backed into just about any prompt the Coalition App (or Common App) will throw at you. What these  prompts can do, however, is serve as additional idea fodder and a launch point for topic inspiration, which is why it is helpful to take a look at each prompt and dissect what the questions are really asking. Which is what weve done with our Common App and Coalition App Prompt Guides! About CEA HQView all posts by CEA HQ » Ready to start your college essay? We're here to help. GIVE US A RING »

Selectively Permeable Definition and Examples

Selectively permeable means a membrane allows the passage of some molecules  or ions and inhibits the passage of others. The capacity to filter molecular transport in this manner is called selective permeability. Selective Permeability Versus Semipermeability Both semipermeable membranes and selectively permeable membranes regulate the transport of materials so that some particles pass through while others cant cross. Some texts use terns selectively permeable and semipermeable interchangeably, but they dont mean exactly the same thing. A semipermeable membrane is like a filter that allows particles to pass or not according to size, solubility, electrical charge, or other chemical or physical property. The passive transport processes of osmosis and diffusion permit transport across semipermeable membranes. A selectively permeable membrane chooses which molecules are allowed to pass based on specific criteria (e.g., molecular geometry). This facilitated or active transport  may require energy. Semipermeability can apply to both natural and synthetic materials. In addition to membranes, fibers may also be semipermeable. While selective permeability generally refers to polymers, other materials may be considered to be semipermeable. For example, a window screen is a semipermeable barrier that permits the flow of air but limits the transit of insects. Example of a Selectively Permeable Membrane The lipid bilayer of the cell membrane is an excellent example of a membrane which is both semipermeable and selectively permeable. Phospholipids in the bilayer are arranged such that the hydrophilic phosphate heads of each molecule are on the surface, exposed to the aqueous or watery environment inside and outside of cells. The hydrophobic fatty acid tails are hidden inside the membrane. The phospholipid arrangement makes the bilayer semipermeable. It allows the passage of small, uncharged solutes. Small lipid-soluble molecules can pass through the hydrophilic core of the layer, such hormones, and fat-soluble vitamins. Water passes through the semipermeable membrane via osmosis. Molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide pass through the membrane via diffusion. However, polar molecules cannot easily pass through the lipid bilayer. They can reach the hydrophobic surface, but cant pass through the lipid layer to the other side of the membrane. Small ions face a similar problem because of their electrical charge. This is where selective permeability comes into play. Transmembrane proteins form channels that permit the passage of sodium, calcium, potassium, and chloride ions. Polar molecules can bind to surface proteins, causing a change in the configuration of the surface  and gaining them passage. Transport proteins move molecules and ions via facilitated diffusion, which does not require energy. Large molecules generally dont cross the lipid bilayer. There are special exceptions. In some cases, integral membrane proteins allow passage. In other cases, active transport is required. Here, energy is supplied in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for vesicular transport. A lipid bilayer vesicle forms around the large particle and fuses with the plasma membrane to either allow the molecule into or out of a cell. In exocytosis, the contents of the vesicle open to the outside of the cell membrane. In endocytosis, a large particle is taken into the cell. In addition to the cellular membrane, another example of a selectively permeable membrane is the inner membrane of an egg.

Essay on Bible The Book of Deuteronomy - 1350 Words

The whole book of Deuteronomy is telling the story of a people that made a deal with God. They made promises to serve him according to the way that he wanted to be served. Deuteronomy laid out all the wonderful things that would happen to them if they were obedient and kept their promises. It also laid out what would happen if they did not keep their promise. It was pretty harsh too. They would lose their country; their enemies would take their identity and they would be tossed into slavery and the curse that they were under would visit their children’s children and so on until they decided to follow every rule of worship and to follow every step that God had given them to live by. Damn! That was a pretty cruel God they were working†¦show more content†¦We are the only people on the face of the Earth that were taken into slavery, taken to a strange land, lost our identity, our religion, lost any inkling of our true African history. We are the only people that once set free from slavery, continue to sit in the land of the people that enslaved us and continue to support a system that works against our very existence. Then we have the audacity to expect the same system to give us our civil rights. The funny thing to me is that our people have yet to understand that a civil right is not something that is given to you. It is something that you are. If you do not act accordingly with that understanding, then you can best believe that you will never know that you are truly free to act and be as the Creator intended you to be. No human being can give you a civil right. I also noticed, in the book of Deuteronomy where it was talking about the place of women in an Israelite society. I found it to be very patriarchal indeed! No wonder the Hebrew Israelites were all walking around hating women and trying to manipulate women into some kind of box where she has no voice, to be seen and not heard, never have any say in operations of the Temple. It was very legalistic and completely off balance! That was fine asShow MoreRelatedBiblical Exegesis – Deuteronomy 7:1-11 â€Å"A Chosen People† In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of1000 Words   |  4 Pages Biblical Exegesis – Deuteronomy 7:1-11 â€Å"A Chosen People† In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Deuteronomy is the last volume of the Chumash. The English derivative comes from the name that the book was given in the Septuagint (ΔÎ µÃâ€¦Ãâ€žÃŽ µÃ ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€¦ÃÅ'ÃŽ ¼ÃŽ ¹ÃŽ ¿Ãâ€¦) and in the Vulgate (Deuteronomium). It is based on the inaccurate Septuagint translation of â€Å"mishnah ha-torah ha-zot (Deut. 17:18), which according to traditional Hebrew grammatical rules should mean a repetition [i.e. a copy] of this law. The Septuagint refersRead MoreChapter 5 : The Ten Commandments Reviewed1442 Words   |  6 PagesDeuteronomy 5: 1-21 The Ten Commandments Reviewed The book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Christian and Jewish Bible and the final book of the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy 5: 1-21 begins with Moses summoning all of Israel and declaring the Ten Commandments to the people of the land. The analysis of historical context, literary techniques and the reader’s response to this passage, empowers the readers to appreciate the purpose of the passage. In the book Deuteronomy chapter five, events unfoldRead MoreThe Five Old Volume Of The Pentateuch1048 Words   |  5 PagesPentateuch the five old volume, consisting of the first five books of the Old Testament.This word does not occur in Scripture, nor is it certainly known when the rollwas thus divided into five portions Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,Deuteronomy. The JEDP theory fiferences scholars who believe or doubted that moses was the writer of the Pentateuch. Their view that the Pentateuch represents the conflation of four different sources rather than the work of primarily one author, traditionally MosesRead MoreAnalysis Of The Bible : Course Facilitator Essay1160 Words   |  5 Pagesto interpret the Bible, however, there are many incorrect ways and much arguing over who is more correct. Most of this has to do with Satanists who go incognito as Christians in order to mislead man away from God. Many sincere people fall prey to these Satanists incognito, and through the sincerity of their belief, persuade others that their misunderstanding is the correct way. Do not trust a person s sincerity. Read the Bible and pray to God for understanding and read the Bible again. It helpsRead MoreDeuteronomy : The Old Testament836 Words   |  4 PagesDeuteronomy is a pivotal book in the Old Testament for several reasons. Thought it is the last book in the Pentateuch it seems to be transitional in nature. Deuteronomy opens with all of Israel on the plains of Moab waiting to enter the land that the Lord God had promised their forefathers to give to them (Num. 33:48; 36:13). This is a new generation, for the older generation, which the Lord led out of Egypt, has died in the wilderness. This new generation was not alive when the first covenant wasRead MoreThe Three Speeches Delivered By Moses854 Words   |  4 Pagesmade. Deuteronomy    Deuteronomy comes next in the Pentateuch--the do this, do that, Deuteronomy. The name Deuteronomy means â€Å"the second law.  Ã¢â‚¬Å"It was given because the Greek translators found in it a repetition of some laws previously given, and the enactment of some new laws.† Almost similar in its structure to Numbers this book has three parts, the three parts are the three speeches delivered by Moses in Moab. The first speech Moses gives starts in  Deuteronomy 1:6  and ends with  Deuteronomy 4:40Read MoreWho Wrote The Bible?937 Words   |  4 PagesWho Wrote the Bible? The Bible is among one of the most popular books published and sold all around the world. One questions seems to always be asked. Is the Bible accurate? Were there different authors or just one? In Richard Elliott Friedman’s book, he has answered that question and a plethora of more. The Bible is one of the most studied and prominent books that this world processes. Friedman argues that there is more than just one author when it comes to the Bible. Friedman is able to offerRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book Supporters Of The Documentary Hypothesis 1349 Words   |  6 Pagestwo different groups of people. The next argument is the proposed continuous narration in the J document and E document. The fact that these documents can stand alone as their own pieces of literature has the potential to negate the idea that the books were written during the same period, let alone by the same person. The parallel passages also offer a higher critical argument for the Documentary Hypothesis. The â€Å"doublet† account of Creation traces Genesis 1 to the Priestly source during or afterRead MoreThis week’s reading centered on the social contract between God and the Israelites. The reader,600 Words   |  3 Pagesthis week’s reading. Specifically, the reader’s attention focused on two key aspects: 1) God’s control over nature as the contextual focus, and 2) how Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus set forth blue prints blue prints for a society. Moreover, the reader was previously familiar with the more traditional version of the commandments in Deuteronomy, but found the unfamiliar expression in Leviticus an earthier contrast. The reader previously read the story of Moses parting the Red Sea as God usingRead MoreThemes from Genesis 1-111238 Words   |  5 Pagesfirst five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; called Torah in Hebrew. The term Pentateuch is from the Greek for Penta (five) teuchos (books). Both Jewish and Christian traditions view these five books as a single unit, forming the backbone of the rest of the Bible. Both traditions place the Pentateuch first in the divisions of the Old Testament (Law, Prophets, and Writings). Other designations for the Pentateuch include ‘The Book of Law

Night Creature Dark Moon Chapter Nine Free Essays

We hadn’t been in Fairhaven ten minutes, when gunshots broke the silence. â€Å"Bingo,† I whispered, and climbed out of the car. â€Å"Elise. We will write a custom essay sample on Night Creature: Dark Moon Chapter Nine or any similar topic only for you Order Now † Nic climbed out, too. â€Å"Maybe you should stay inside.† I shook my head and headed for the edge of town. Despite the darkness, I could see pretty well. Enhanced nocturnal vision and superior sense of smell and hearing while in human form were a few bonuses of being a werewolf. No clouds and a three-quarter moon didn’t hurt either. I listened and heard nothing. Drew in a deep breath and caught†¦ something. Too faint to tell, almost as if the scent were a memory or a ghost. Lack of sleep, too much Nic, and the damned talisman had made me edgier than I’d ever been before. I blew the strange smell from my nostrils, inhaled through my mouth for several ticks of the clock, and tried again. This time when I tested the wind, I detected humans. I heard their voices, even though they were whispering. Shadows emerged from the trees. Five of them. Nic joined me. At first hovering behind, then pushing in front, as the shadows became people and drew near. â€Å"It is about time you arrived, Elise.† We’d driven almost nonstop, yet it wasn’t fast enough. Which was as typical of Edward as his outfit – dark pants and dark shirt accented by a bandolier of bullets across his chest. He carried a rifle in one hand and a pistol on his hip. A black skullcap covered his fading blond hair. When the others had teased him about his Rambo complex, Edward had no idea what they were talking about. Once I’d explained, he’d thought the reference a compliment. Go figure. Edward took in my attire with obvious confusion. Sweats, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes were not my style. His gaze became stuck on my hair, which hung loose to my waist. From his scowl, he didn’t like the new me any better than the old one. â€Å"Who is this?† Edward had turned his faded blue eyes, as well as his rifle, toward our visitor. I tried to inch in front of Nic, but he shouldered me back. I was tempted to force the issue but settled for introductions. â€Å"Nic Franklin.† I pointed to the tall, lanky woman on Edward’s left. â€Å"Meet Jessie McQuade.† With short brown hair and eyes nearly the same color, Jessie was attractive in an athletic sort of way. She was a law enforcement officer by training, an award-winning deer hunter by hobby, and one of the newest and best agents in our werewolf division. My gaze shifted to the man on Jessie’s left. His high cheekbones and smooth cinnamon skin revealed his ethnicity, even without the golden feather swinging from one ear. With eyes that nearly matched the shade of his black hair, William Cadotte was a professor by trade, an Ojibwe by birth, and an expert in Native American totems and mysticism by choice. I touched the plastic in my pocket as I introduced Will, making a mental note to show him the totem ASAP. Both Will and Jessie nodded to Nic, then frowned at me. I was in big trouble for bringing a stranger here, and they knew it. In an attempt to stave off the inevitable, I continued to introduce people. My arm swung to Edward’s right. â€Å"Leigh Tyler-Fitzgerald and her husband, Damien.† Leigh was as short as Jessie was tall. Petite, with an almost blond crew cut, her pale skin and blue eyes gave her a doll-like appearance, which had fooled the enemy on countless occasions. Her family and fiance having been murdered by werewolves, Leigh had taken to hunting them with a ferocity only Edward could love. She’d fallen hard for Damien Fitzgerald – the hunky, Irish-American drifter at her side – before she’d discovered he was a werewolf. Nic greeted Leigh and Damien the same way he’d acknowledged Jessie and Will: a quick nod before returning his gaze to my boss. I had little choice but to introduce them. â€Å"This is Edward Mandenauer.† â€Å"Sir.† Nic stepped forward, hand outstretched. Edward didn’t retract the gun, and the barrel tapped Nic in the chest. The older man continued to stare at the younger one without expression. â€Å"I repeat, ‘Who is he?'† Nic’s eyes narrowed, but I gave him credit, he managed to hold his temper and ignore the gun. â€Å"I’m with the FBI, Mr. Mandenauer. I have some questions about the Jger-Sucher agency.† â€Å"Uh-oh,† Jessie muttered. â€Å"Nice meeting you,† Leigh quipped. â€Å"Hope you’ve enjoyed your life so far.† The four of them moved back, away from Edward and Nic, away from me. â€Å"Elise, have you lost your mind?† Edward murmured. â€Å"He could be anyone. He could be – â€Å" â€Å"He isn’t,† I blurted before Edward said too much. In Edward’s mind, everyone was a werewolf until proven otherwise. â€Å"Ah, well, it is easy enough to find out.† I threw myself at Nic, propelling him to the ground before Edward could shoot him with silver and see if he erupted into a ball of fire or merely bled. The others hit the deck, too, just as the rifle discharged above our heads. â€Å"Stay down.† I shoved Nic into the grass. He was shaking, which was understandable. Edward scared the crap out of everyone. I leaped to my feet. â€Å"Old man, you’re pushing the boundaries of sanity.† He shrugged and aimed his gun at Nic again. I was tempted to yank it out of his hand, but I refrained. â€Å"Leave him alone.† Interest lit Edward’s eyes. â€Å"Who is he?† he repeated. He was asking for more than a name, rank, and serial number. He was asking who Nic Franklin was to me, and why I was so concerned for his life. I wasn’t going to tell him. â€Å"He’s FBI. You can’t just shoot him because he annoys you. As much fun as that might be.† Edward’s lips twitched. â€Å"You are sure he is who he says he is?† I was sure he was Nic. Pretty sure he was FBI. Certain he wasn’t a werewolf – or as certain as I could be with the damned lycanthropes changing the rules every chance they got. Because there is one other way to distinguish a werewolf in human form. If we touch, skin to skin, we know. I’d touched Nic in anger, in lust, even love. I’d felt emotions I hadn’t thought to feel again, but I hadn’t felt werewolf. â€Å"Hold on a second.† Damien crawled the few feet separating them and brushed his fingers against Nic’s. Frowning, Nic snatched his hand away. Damien’s hazel eyes met mine. He shook his head. He hadn’t felt anything, either. Edward saw the exchange and put up his gun. Nic stood scowling at Damien, who had moved off to join Leigh. She brushed his shoulder-length, auburn hair back from his face. Just under six feet, Damien towered over his tiny wife. Not only handsome, he had a body that would make a Chippendale jealous. Being turned into a werewolf just after the invasion at Normandy had given Damien a lot of years to work on his pecs. He pressed his mouth to her knuckles, then rubbed his thumb over his mother’s wedding ring, which he’d placed on Leigh’s finger less than a month ago. â€Å"Now that that’s settled,† Edward said. â€Å"Go away.† Nic glanced at Damien. â€Å"What’s settled? Why did he touch me?† â€Å"Damien’s†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I wasn’t sure what to say. Lucky for us, Leigh was a terrific liar. â€Å"Psychic,† she supplied. â€Å"He can tell all sorts of things just by touching a person.† â€Å"Bullshit,† Nic snapped. I couldn’t blame him for his disbelief. Nic lived in the world we had created. A world where monsters didn’t exist except in fiction. Our job was to keep things that way. Edward sighed. â€Å"Believe what you will. Now come along.† He stalked toward town and Nic hesitated, looking first at me, then at Edward. I trusted my employer’s quick change – go away, come along – even less than I trusted myself. I cast my eyes heavenward, then hurried after Edward. â€Å"Wait.† Edward turned and stared past me to Nic. â€Å"You want to talk? Keep up.† I put my hand on Edward’s arm and he flinched. The reaction never lost its power to hurt me. Why I continued to touch the man, I had no idea. Maybe I was hoping that familiarity would end the contempt. â€Å"You can’t shoot him, Edward.† I kept my voice low, just above a whisper. â€Å"Promise.† â€Å"I will do no such thing. There is no telling what might necessitate shooting.† He had a point. I leaned forward, ignoring how he tensed as I came closer. â€Å"Don’t shoot him unless he’s furry. Okay?† â€Å"For now.† Nic came up next to me. â€Å"Do you have the list I gave you?† My hand went to my pocket, even as I remembered losing it. The talisman danced beneath my fingers, and I yanked them away. â€Å"Must have fallen out while we were on the ATV.† Nic shrugged. â€Å"I know it by heart,† he said, and followed in Edward’s wake. My boss called back, â€Å"Perhaps the five of you should bring one another up to speed on†¦ things.† The two men disappeared around the corner of a building. Since I was the seniormost Jger-Sucher, I opened my mouth to begin, and Leigh jumped in. â€Å"Have you found the cure?† I glanced at Damien, then back at Leigh. â€Å"Not yet.† Her exhale of annoyance was accompanied by a few choice curse words. â€Å"I’ve been experimenting with variations of the antidote I used on you,† I began. Not only had Leigh’s family been wiped out by werewolves, but the alpha who had ordered the attack had come after, then bitten, her. His plan had been to make Leigh his mate. Damien had other ideas. He’d killed Hector Menendez and ended the man’s bid for power, but he hadn’t been able to save Leigh. Only I could. â€Å"What works on a regular werewolf – â€Å" I took a deep breath. The words regular werewolf always stuck to my tongue. Damien wasn’t like the rest, demonic inside, possessed by blood lust and the need to kill beneath the moon, uncaring of who he hurt or who he killed as long as his belly was full. No, Damien was different, too. â€Å"Well, it might not work on him,† I continued. â€Å"I need to do more tests. Fiddle with the formula. I’m close. Unfortunately, the compound blowing sky-high is going to slow me down.† â€Å"Any clue who was behind that?† Jessie had inched closer as we spoke. Will, too. The four of them stood in a little cluster, with me on the outside, never one of them, even though we fought for the same thing, worked for and admired the same man. â€Å"None,† I answered. â€Å"Had to be werewolves,† Leigh murmured. â€Å"Unless they’re like Damien – and no one else that we know of is – they won’t want to be cured. They like to kill.† â€Å"But how did they find out what Elise is working on?† Jessie asked. â€Å"It’s supposed to be top secret.† Leigh rolled her eyes. â€Å"Sheesh, McQuade, sometimes I wonder how you walk and chew gum at the same time.† Jessie’s eyes narrowed. She took one step toward Leigh and Will grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back. â€Å"Behave,† he ordered. Leigh smirked, and that was all Jessie needed to have her struggling against Will’s hold. He lifted her clear off her feet, which was quite an accomplishment considering she was only a few inches shorter than he was. â€Å"Leigh,† Damien snapped. â€Å"We’re supposed to be working together.† He glanced at me and shrugged as if to say â€Å"Kids will be kids.† Sometimes Jessie and Leigh were worse than two-year-olds fighting over a single piece of candy. I found it hard to fathom how the two of them could be the best of friends when they were constantly arguing and taking swings at each other. Of course, I’d never had a friend, so who was I to judge? â€Å"Let me go, Slick,† Jessie ordered. â€Å"I won’t kick her ass until later.† Leigh snorted. â€Å"As if.† Will set Jessie back on her feet and nuzzled her neck. A soft, goofy smile settled over her lips, and I smiled, too. Jessie and Leigh might be annoying, childish, and sarcastic, but they were also totally, adorably in love with Will and Damien. I couldn’t help but envy them. â€Å"Promise?† Will pressed. â€Å"What do you want me to do? Write it in blood?† â€Å"Not today.† He let her go. She pushed away from him with a well-placed elbow to his stomach. â€Å"Oof.† Will doubled over and Jessie’s grin grew. â€Å"Quit playing around,† Leigh said. â€Å"Does anyone remember our traitor troubles? Jger-Suchers getting killed? Monsters getting away?† I hadn’t forgotten; I’d just pushed that issue to the back of my mind as I dealt with more pressing concerns. â€Å"Since our identities are already on the market,† she continued, â€Å"someone might have blabbed what Elise is up to.† â€Å"If they aren’t aware of it already, they could find out soon enough.† All eyes turned to me. â€Å"The test subjects in the basement†¦ I don’t know if they’re alive, dead, or booking themselves on the next Jerry Springer.† â€Å"Edward said you killed Billy Bailey.† Jessie’s skepticism was evident in the way her gaze flicked over me from head to toe. â€Å"How’d you manage that?† If I told her I’d ripped out Billy’s throat, she’d rip out mine. â€Å"It wasn’t easy,† I said, and left it at that. â€Å"But I never saw the others. They could be dead.† â€Å"Could be.† Jessie contemplated my face. â€Å"But I have to say, if you’d kept me in the basement, I’d come after you the first chance that I got.† I met her eyes without flinching. â€Å"What’s your point?† I had nothing to be ashamed of. They were werewolves, for crying out loud. I wasn’t going to feel sorry for Satan in a fur coat. â€Å"My point? If they didn’t head straight for you, I think they’re ashes.† â€Å"Billy wasn’t.† â€Å"But he is now. Right?† I blinked. Hell. â€Å"You didn’t burn him?† Jessie practically shouted. â€Å"I was fresh out of matches.† â€Å"Yet you had a silver bullet?† Not exactly. â€Å"It doesn’t matter,† Leigh interjected. â€Å"The main reason we burn the bodies is to get rid of the evidence and avoid questions. Where you left him†¦ the scavengers will have a field day. Even if they don’t, there’s a dead wolf in Montana. Happens.† Leigh was right. Still, I felt like a moron for forgetting standard J-S procedure. That I wasn’t a standard J-S agent was no excuse. As second in command I should have known better. And as second in command I should be made aware of what was going on in Fairhaven. My gaze wandered over the trees. What had they been shooting at when we’d arrived? I took a step toward the forest, and Damien grabbed my arm. â€Å"Not a good idea, Elise, we – â€Å" Damien’s power slammed into me; I could taste his heartbeat, feel the virus in his blood. I knew what he was, but then, I’d always known, and because of that I’d never let my skin touch his. Jerking his hand away, Damien stumbled back. The others stared at us as if we’d both lost our minds. â€Å"Damien?† Leigh reached for him, but he stepped out of her grasp. â€Å"Wait. Give me a second.† I sympathized. Touching another werewolf in human form, when you weren’t expecting it, was like sticking your wet finger into a buzzing electrical outlet. Damien licked his lips, ran a trembling hand over his face, then shook his head. â€Å"You’re†¦ like me.† How to cite Night Creature: Dark Moon Chapter Nine, Essay examples

Write Reflective Essay on Nurse Manager Skills Inventory- Lecture Note

Question: Discuss how you will use your current leadership skill set to advocate for change in your workplace. Identify one personal goal for your leadership growth and discuss your implementation plan to achieve that goal. Answer: In the following reflective account I would describe my strengths and weakness as being the nurse leader and this evaluation I would be doing on the results from the Nurse Manager Skills Inventory. The recognition of the strength and weakness would be on the given four areas of content: Personal and Professional Accountability Career Planning Personal journey disciplines Reflective practices reference behavior/ tenet In this reflective essay, I would also be discussing that how the skill of leadership could be incorporated in the workplace to make work place more efficient and dynamic. The profession of a nurse is to look after the patients in the hospital. Therefore, a nurse is a person who is specialized in the field of medical education. Nursing is defined as an independent profession of science. It is also a part of an integrated health care system which includes a series of activities like prevention of disease, promotions of health and providing patients with the psychological support. Nursing is a system where the nurse uses their skills, knowledge, and sense to diagnose the patient and plan a treatment for them (Gottlieb, 2012). Furthermore, being a nurse myself, I too have my strengths and weakness which is based on the four areas of content described above. By taking the strengths into consideration, I could say that I love my profession and the reason for this is that I am always ready to learn something very new for my field, and to make plans for the future as how I can grow in my profession. For me, discipline is very important in my field and I have also defined limits for me if I am placed in any situations. The setting of such limits for me is that such measures help to grow a person in the profession. I also believe that reliability in a profession is also a major strength for a nurse. The modern society needs reliability in the nurse profession because they believe that the patients life is in their hands. As for the weakness, I could say that I do possess them and the first is that I dont have enough time to study the new things and the latest trends in my area, and second is the communication sk ills which I need to emphasize more, as being the nurse I need to have an effective skills of communication so that I can communicate better with the patients and in their understanding (Mahmoudi et al.,2013). Leadership is challenging and being a nurse leader is no exception, especially when considering the situations and issues unique to the healthcare profession (Huber, 2013). The nurse leader is not only responsible for matters specific to their own department or staff but is also responsible for coordinating interactions with other departments within the organization and for both direct and indirect patient care. A nurse leader sets an example for the staff and cannot be fearful of failure, confrontation, or change (Haycock-Stuart et al., 2015). So in the above context, I personally feel that leadership is an important skill which must be incorporated in the workplace to bring certain new changes and requirement which demands an added responsibility. For the leadership growth, I have set my personal goal to collect all new information as much possible because this information would help me to become a more better and responsible professional in my respective field. The implantation pl an for achieving my goal would be to work harder, read more of the books, attend seminars, and to have communication with higher professionals for my career (Okaisu et al., 2014). To have a strong leadership skill, one should have the following qualities: demonstrate self-confidence are able to trust and empower others have excellent communication skills are aware of the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership give staff a voice in the improvement of patient care environments recognize the need for both personal and professional development Understand the importance of a healthy work environment on staff satisfaction,retention rates, improved patient outcomes, and organizational performance. To sum up, for me the nurses have that profession where they have to monitor the patients health and welfare, performing the different therapeutic and diagnostic procedures for the patient satisfaction. The nurse is referred to as the patients manager. Moreover, the nurses should have better communicative functions to analyze the solution. In general, I can say that nursing is taking care of patients with all their will and responsibility (Doody Doody 2012). References: Doody, O., Doody, C. M. (2012). Transformational leadership in nursing practice. Gottlieb, L. N. (2012).Strengths-based nursing care: Health and healing for person and family. Springer Publishing Company Haycock-Stuart, E., James, C., McLachlan, A., MacLaren, J. (2015).Students and Mentors Understandings of Fitness to Practise Processes in Pre-Registration Nursing Programmes in Scotland(Doctoral dissertation, These Terrifying Three Words". NHS Education Scotland (NES)(www. nes. scot. nhs. uk)). Huber, D. (2013).Leadership and nursing care management. Elsevier Health Sciences. Mahmoudi, H., Mohmmadi, E., Ebadi, A. (2013). Barriers to nursing care in emergency wards.Iranian journal of nursing and midwifery research,18(2) Okaisu, E. M., Kalikwani, F., Wanyana, G., Coetzee, M. (2014). Improving the quality of nursing documentation: An action research project.Curationis,37(2), 1-11.

True Love Essay Example

True Love Essay Alex True Love This is something that divides us as humans, with quite a lot of gray area in the middle. You will find people that swear to the truth of this and others that try to finally prove it false. Right now I see myself in the grey area, questioning. Does true love exist? Is it possible for everyone? I am not sure even what this is seeing as I have yet to be in love. I have often asked myself if there was a one true love for me and if someone somewhere was pulling the strings just right so that I would meet them or not. In recent years the divorce rate in America has gone up. Some say this is because women have become more independent and no longer feel the need to stay with a man in order to survive. I think that Americans have lost faith in an Ancient belief, true love. Or maybe the problem is that we are searching for something that doesn’t exist. Can true love scientifically be proven? Is there something in our body that tells us when we are in love? If we could find a way to prove that true love exists can we tell when two people are really in love? Do we really want to know? If someone that we love dies can we get married again? We will write a custom essay sample on True Love specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on True Love specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on True Love specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Can there be more than one person in your life that you have loved, love, or will love? I want to look into why this is different for everyone. I expect to find what makes us believe in something when most of us can say we have never experienced it. How did this belief come about? Is it possible to fall in love no matter the appearance, gender, or race? I know we all have our prejudices but perhaps true love is the bridge over these barriers. Polygamists treat their wives like property but still say they love them. If you truly love someone how should you treat them? I think that scientific research will show that love does exist and that you can fall in love multiple times in a life. Fate is something that can’t really be proven. I also am hoping to find how the idea of a true love came about. I don’t think that an interview will help much because it varies so much from person to person. What I want to accomplish is to focus on three main points for my paper. First, can true love be scientifically proven? I also want to go into how it has proved the existence of love? (I believe they have)Second, why do we believe in true love in the first place? Third, has America lost sight of the idea of true love or are we focusing on it too much? There is a lot more I could go into but these are my main three. To begin, I first need to establish what true love is. While I am trying to figure out if this proposed phenomenon actually exists, for this section I will assume that it does. This basis will allow for proof or disproof. Getting everyone to agree on one definition is impossible, so I hope to highlight a couple. First, I wanted to find an article on the Christian view of how to find true love. Since most of the population in America is made up of Christians, I felt that it was important that this view was included. It begins with the famous verse from Corinthians, â€Å"Love is patient, love is kind†¦Ã¢â‚¬  This is a view that many people hold dear to their hearts. This article is more of a guide for Christians on how to find true love and tells that in order to find true love that we need to do three things. First, the article says to read the bible and find what to look for in love. Next, honesty is needed with ourselves and the one we love. Finally, to be ready to commit for a lifetime and understand what this commitment means. The view of this article is that love lasts forever and that unless you are looking for the right qualities that you won’t ever find it. While this is only one opinion, it is quite standard. The next definition needed comes from the opposite direction, science. This article from CNN states that researchers from Stony Brook University have proved the existence of lasting love. Their research focused on new lovers and couples that have been together for around 20 years. They analyzed the chemical reactions when the person was shown a picture of their loved one. Old research had found that the chemical reaction in new lovers fade within 15 months and is gone after 10 years. Somehow, these scientists managed to find a few couples that defied these statistics. !0 percent of the couples that had been together for twice the amount of time that their love was supposed to fade by had reactions the same as a new couple. This definition of true love is based on time and fact but it is just as real as an immeasurable definition. This next source is called â€Å"7 Myths of Happily Ever After† by Blair Justice. This is an article about how Americans view perfect relationships (incorrectly). Instead of looking at a definition, this looks at common misconceptions. The first is about how all people look for that person to live happily ever after with. It states that we all are searching for that unconditional love, futilely. We shouldn’t have that unconditional love between us and our partner in order to have that â€Å"perfect relationship. † Then, that when there is true love between two people that they should not have to tell the other what they want. Third we search for someone with the same problems that we have and that will make both of our problems disappear. Maybe he/she will even understand and that will be enough. Fourth, don’t go to bed angry. An unhealthy relationship would be if you never slept away from your partner after an argument. As long as you are not running away and can try and put the heat of the argument behind you. Fifth, we never talk. We actually talk a lot but we need to learn how to communicate better. Sixth, he will change after we are married. We need to get rid of the illusion of changing our partner later. This entire article tells pretty much what Americans view as true love. The question that is brought up by all these wrong beliefs is, if we change how we think about love can we find it? What the focus needs to shift to is recognizing this love. When you fall in love you head in full force. You devote all of your attention to that one person and nothing else. The passion and heat takes over. This is not true love, though. True love is the kind that lasts; this heat we all feel in the beginning of a relationship will always fade. If there were a device to prolong this feeling, it would be coveted by all. How do we act when we are truly in love? In this article from Christian Answers gives a list on how to know when you are in love. The first step to having a true relationship is establishing that what you have is exclusive. By telling your partner that you want to be with them and only them shows that you are ready to commit fully. Next you say that this is the best relationship that you have had. It is like starting a new chapter in your life where you can only go forward. Then, once you are past the lets go anywhere stage and the stage where you stand up for yourself, this article says that you can accept the other person’s interests to partake in them sometimes as well. The article says that you must accept the other person’s beliefs enough to not oppose them. You also have to just be able to enjoy the other person’s company enough that doing nothing together is like a break from the rest of the world, even though you are with him/her. Lastly, it lists that you have to show that you are comfortable being yourself in front of them. Overall I believe that this is a good list of how to recognize true love. There are many people loosing the sight of true love and this can be represented by the amount of divorces in the United States. When two people get married, most say that they will be married forever. Some hold on to the view of happily ever after, while others are more realistic about their life after marriage. One thing that we have to accept is the ending of marriage. While many people say that 50% of all marriages in America end in goodbye, this is not entirely correct, this article states. The facts do show that if the current trend continues that we may even surpass this number. We loose sight of the hope for true love for many reasons. The main reason in this short article is childlessness. â€Å"The absence of children leads to loneliness and weariness†¦Ã¢â‚¬  This last article is called â€Å"True Love? Forget it! † This article argues that true love does not exist. The author, Lynn Truss, says that we often use the non-existence of a perfect partner as an excuse to not find love at all. If someone was â€Å"just looking for the right person† they might pass up on several people that might not be perfect, but are perfect for them. The definition of love is given as what you do with what you’ve got. We often have unrealistic views of love and this is because of two things. First, love is deeply placed in human nature and we see love as something we find. Actually, he states, love is something we create, an achievement. So this article is saying that we make up true love to fill a void in our life that everyone has. Love is something we make not something we just bump into. To turn this last topic around I would like to highlight a girl that never gave up on love, even if it hurt. Nancy Rue says in her book, Coping with Dating Violence that abuse happens in many ways. Sometimes the guy doesn’t want to lose the girl and sometimes he has anger issues. What I was interested in was why women tend to stay with these men when they aren’t treating them right. This book states that women often blame themselves for the abuse. What I am interested in is the fact that some stay because, in the beginning, it was perfect and they were so in love. Was this true love that just went wrong or a facade from the beginning? When girls fall in love with this boy they are really falling in love with him, she states. When a girl is being abused by the â€Å"mental illness† that the boy has. During this process I learned a lot, but not as much as I wanted to. Next year I will have to write a ton of papers. While this project was interesting, I don’t see it preparing me for the future. I already know how to research, so hat was one of the easiest parts. The main thing that I learned from this project was MLA format. I have worked with many kinds of formats before so it was good to be able to focus on just this one. What I really liked about what I did was the quality of research although I wish that I had the time to get more. I also make summaries daily for other classes which made it easier to do the summ aries in here. One thing that I really need to work on is my citations. Most of the times they need a little bit of tweaking, in order to be fully correct, there aren’t too many problems. What I learned in both this area and in MLA format will most certainly help me in later projects. During this particular project I liked it simply because it was different. It is not like the typical high school paper. One thing it could have benefited from was a little less structure. We were able to pick out our own topic which was nice but turning in our summaries every due date was a little confining. I believe that more freedom would have also been more responsibility, so I understand the structure somewhat. I began this paper with an idea. Actually, I had many ideas but my main one was my favorite. This idea has become a growing question in my own life. Does true love exist? Some people believe they can answer this question with a yes or no. This is not the answer that I want. I want a reason, explanation, but most of all information. I’m not researching that feeling you get when you see that cute guy a couple rows over in class smiling at you. I am looking at actual, forever love. I was hungry for information and began searching from many different angles. I found scientific evidence and put it right along side the religious. I read stories about terrible abuse and tales of enchanting love. The scientific evidence claimed its existence, if rare. Just by looking at divorce rates in America shows how wrong we can be about love. These are some of my favorite sources. My absolute favorite has to go to the book I read. This story speaks to me in a way that none of the articles could. One of the stories from this book tells of a girl that fought so hard for love, she almost died. The desperation that she feels is what makes this the best in my eyes. After all of this time I think I can finally say that I have an answer that makes sense to me. True love is out there for everyone somewhere. It is just up to you to find it and hold on tight. There will never be a world where everyone will find this connection but the first step is knowing what to look for. At the very least, you should know what to stay away from. This conclusion has helped me with my own life, even if it never helps another person. I wish that I could not change my question but instead write a follow up piece. If I could it would be on the history of love, how it has evolved. That topic intrigues me but the one I wrote this paper on was just right for me.

Dance of the 1950 essays

Dance of the 1950 essays The decade of the 1950's witnessed the continuing growth of dance activity in North America. The Rock n' Roll explosion of this decade reflects the optimism in society after World War II and provided the chance for the younger generation to clutch to something exciting. This new trend however not only excited people's ears, it also excited their bodies, and initiated people to get up and dance whether it was in the privacy of their own home, at parties, or at the drive-in. Ultimately, Rock n' Roll became synonymous with dance crazes among the young people, for they both did the same thing; celebrated the joys of youth. Unlike dances such as the waltz, when gliding conservatively across the floor in a very conspicuous manner was the "proper" way of dancing, artists such as Elvis Presley introduced gyrating hips and torso moves and a body attitude that seemed to express let loose and do your own thing," which many loved to imitate. Therefore, one could say that dance in the fifties bec ame "dirtier" and more importantly, liberated, being the perfect rebellion act for teenagers during this decade. In the '30s and '40s, you went to Harlem's Savoy Ballroom for the ultimate source of swing era dance style. However this sophisticated approach changed in the 1950s, when adolescents simply went to their living room for a feel-good experience every day after school. Beginning on October 7th, 1952, a new obsession swept the continent, referred to as American Bandstand. Hosted by Dick Clarke, this music and particularly dance show was the most popular of its kind. In order to conform to the carefully crafted bandstand image, Dick Clark did not permit aerials, lifts, dips, partnered charlestons, or jazz moves. Also, the tight confines of the studio were hardly favorable to flash dancing. Therefore, even thought parents disapproved of the Rock n' Roll emergence, as well as what it influenced in their children, American Bandstand was fairly a...

Researched Personal Argument on pro-hunting Essay

Researched Personal Argument on pro-hunting - Essay Example Their argument with regard to this controversial activity of hunting is that a legal solution will ensure that people will no longer rely on hunting for a living. This will have been as a result of it being made impossible to continue hunting under animal protection by legal intervention. Thus, forbidding hunting using legal channels, as is being seen from the point of view of the urban onlookers, is seen to shed light to a brighter future of the wild animals. This is, especially, for those animals which have been hunting targets for the human beings. There exists, also, another perception which is from a slightly different point of view from the previously mentioned one above. This is the one in which the legal intervention is seen as the beginning of a journey towards a complex system of causal activities which will indefinitely continue with the seeking of wild animals’ liberation from the oppression by human being hunters. These activities referred to in this former statem ent are such those that will probably ensure that the human being activities within the environment affect it in a positive ways. First in the list of these activities according to Harvey is the replacement ways of modern agriculture which are unkind and damaging the environment with better ones (Par. 21). Harvey also suggests the employment of an entirely new form of land management (par. 21). Activities which would also bring harmony between those residing in the town and the rest of the population in the other parts of the country are also part of the causal activities which would unfold once the legal employment of protecting wildlife from human being hunters is established. However, this perspective of resolving the issue between hunters, the hunted and the environment has elicited varied criticism. Being also inclined to the opinion of the critics of Harvey’s argument, I tend not to support the establishment of

HR1003 People, Organizations and Management Assignment

HR1003 People, Organizations and Management - Assignment Example Working in call center can be monotonous and seem tedious at times. It can be stressful if a single worker attends high percentage of calls in a single day. Generally, workers have to do night shifts and with not enough information (Norman, 2005, p.7). 3. A person’s involvement towards his work can be assessed by his instrumental orientation to work. An employee will be maintained in an organisation depending on the economic returns from his work. His involvement in his work will be calculated. His job will not be part of his social life. (View From Below, n.d., p.40) 4. Task significance is the concept of determining the positive effect that a person’s job can have on other people. By cultivating this concept, an employee’s job efficiency can be increased as it will make him feel that his efforts are being valued. One example is working for social causes in NGOs (Grant, 2008, p.108). 5. When focusing on gender issues in a factory, Anna Pollert described how women workers feel doubly oppressed by the male workers and also by capitalists. The domestic pressures also remain in the consciousness of these women workers. Pollert said that although these women work in a man’s domain, but still they have managed to create their own existence (View From Below, n.d., pp.46-47). 6. William Thompson says that if a person earns more money in a job of low standard, then he has the tendency to spend more. A person identifies luxury cars and expensive vacations as compensation for hard work. Thompson has seen this similar psychology in workers at slaughterhouses. This attitude helps the workers to tolerate the drudgery of slaughterhouses (Barton, 2006, p.94). 7. Intrinsic rewards of work mean the rewards that a person receives from his own performance towards his job. For such rewards an individual does not have to rely on others. When a worker receives intrinsic rewards from his work, he will not think

Web Application Design for School Organisation Optimization

Web Application Design for School Organisation Optimization Application and Knowledge Design At first, the ontology will be planned in accordance with the methodology of ontology building. Description of the Ontology The ontology domain is based upon the running of a school. The goal of the research is to provide users of the applications with the prospects to get information regarding the requirement that is required in the running of a school. The school will incorporate classes, departments, subjects, all staff etc. Queries In order to get all the required information, a number of queries have to be performed throughout the web. Coupled with the required information, it can be stated that the following queries need to be performed. What is taught Monday morning in room CWG/03 at 9am? How many girls are in year 10 take Science? How old is the head teacher? What teacher is head of the sports department? Who teachers Geography and also Sports? Please give all the names of teachers and their email addresses if known. How many of the admin team are under 40 years of age? Admin Staff members whose surname begin with W Retrieve all teachers and their qualifications Retrieve the name of all subjects taught by the teacher with ID 2341 Why the Domain is Interesting to an Audience? The shift of the paradigms in the field of education in the recent decades, as well as the spreading of education, proposes ways through which the education can be provided under one roof. Practitioners and researchers are making every attempt to find approximate methodologies for making education easily available to every human being. With the proposed ontology, the user can have a concept of the school and will be able to develop the school system in any part of the world with an ease of the information technology. The respective domain ontology will act as an instrument for the construction of the school system in an effective and efficient manner. Consider Salvaging Existing Ontologies In order to make an application that fulfils the needed requirements, the following ontologies have been deployed. Tools for Managing Ontologies In the context of definitions and typologies, there are also several available tools for defining and managing ontologies. Since the initials and more rudimentary (Ontolingua Server, Ontosaurus) to the most recent and advanced, the following typology has been proposed. Ontology Development Tools This group includes the tools that serve for the construction of new ontologies or for the reuse of existing tools (Tolk, 2013). Among its functionalities are the addition and the consultation, as well as the export and import of ontologies, visualization in various graphic formats, etc. Ontology Fusion and Integration Tools These tools try to solve the problem of the combination and integration of diverse ontologies of the same domain; that occurs when two distinct organizations are united, or when it is intended to obtain a quality ontology, from the existing ones (Jain, 2013). Ontology Evaluation Tools They appear as tools for support should ensure that both ontologies and related technologies have a minimum level of quality (Ferraram, 2013). In the coming years, this effort can lead to identical certifications. Annotation Tools These tools are premeditated to consent users to insert information and data (Jain, 2013). Most of these tools have seemed recently, along with the idea of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹ the semantic web. Tools, Storage and Questions They are termed as the instruments that have been created to allow easy use ontologies (Maedche, 2012). The key is the intent that the web becomes a real platform to transmit knowledge. Learning Tools They are semi-automatically used to build ontologies from natural language. Along with the tools or editors, ontologies must mention the existence of different languages à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹that allow the creation and / or development thereof. Most are built by XML syntax or RDF (S) and OIL (Ontology Inference Layer), DAML (DARPA Agent Mark-up Language), OIL and OWL (The Web Ontology Language) (Shvaiko, 2013). In any case, some of these ontology languages à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¹are still in development, although thanks to the work and support of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) OWL seems that consolidates acquiring a clear and obvious progression. Significant Terms used within the School Ontology The significant terms that will be deployed throughout the research paper are mentioned below. Staff Students Teachers/Lecturers Admin staff Rooms Classrooms Staff room Timetable Description of the Classes and Hierarchy Classes The classes are explained in the below mentioned diagram. The Architecture of 3-Tier Content Management is illustrated in the below mentioned diagram. Description of the Classes and Hierarchy Classes Describing Classes Three primary classes will be defined i.e. Users, institutions, and learning resources. The institution class is further divided into colleges. The learning resource class incorporates a list of overall courses as its user class and subclasses consists of a list of every type of users i.e. Instructor, student, and administrator (Jain, 2013).   The overall classes are sub classed under one class that exemplifies overall classes root. Tools and Techniques Used in Prototype Development Owl and Protà ©gà © editor have been deployed to build domain ontologies for its popularity and simplicity. RDQL and Jena2 APIs have been deployed in order to interact with a semantic web reasoner to implement the designed prototype (Kholief, 2012). OWL has been used as the ontology language, reason being; it has been recommended due to its tool support, and functionality. SPARQL is the recommendation of the W3C recommendation as a query language within the framework of Jena for RDF. SPARQL has been deployed to extract the information from the graphs of RDF. This infers that the only information retrieved by the SPARQL is stored in a model that consists of a set of N-triple statements (Ferraram, 2013). Moreover, SPARQL can process the ontology in a wide range of languages, including SPARQL, OWL, similar to other languages of RDF based query ierSeRQL, RDQL, and SPARQL is tough to provide semantics with reference to DL, OWL. A typical SPARQL query possesses the below motioned forms SELECT ?x WHERE (?xshortPrefix : localName   value) USING short Prefix FOR ?x refers to the variables that will return to the applications. The WHERE clause stipulates the graph pattern in the form of the list of the triple patterns USING clause describes an alias for URIs prefix to simplify the URL   (Stevenson, 2015) SPARQL can query regarding the objects or predicates too. However, the limitation of SPARQL incorporates that there exists no query disjunction. The Repository tier stores both; the structure and content of the ontology. The Generic ontology researcher engine resides in the semantic tier amid the end user interface tier and repository tier (Icoza, 2015). The end-user interface tier cooperates with the content server via the reasoner by stipulating the criteria tier attribute-value pairs and the constraints. Then, the reasoner locates the pertinent contents (based upon those conditions), and deliver content to the software agents/ users within an arranged manner. Such a type of system decomposition allows those to develop large-scale software systems and reduces the overall time of development (Kholief, 2012). To illustrate the dependencies or relationships in the respective domain, 2 types of relationships have been used; the direct relationship amid content incorporating its inverse relationship. The other relationship is the transitive or indirect, tier prerequisite that refers to the inherited relationships. Sparql queries What is taught Monday morning in room CWG/03 at 9am? PREFIX rdf: PREFIX owl: PREFIX rdfs: PREFIX xsd: PREFIX sch: SELECT ?course ?weekday ?time ?room WHERE { ?course rdf:type sch:Course   . ?course sch:day ?weekday . ?course sch:time ?time . ?course sch:room ?room . FILTER regex(str(?weekday),Monday,i) FILTER regex(str(?time),9AM,i) } Science course is taught Monday at 9AM in room CWG/03. How many girls take science in year 10? PREFIX rdf: PREFIX owl: PREFIX rdfs: PREFIX xsd: PREFIX sch: SELECT (MAX(?course) as ?course_name)   (COUNT(?students) AS ?no_students) WHERE { ?course rdf:type sch:Course . FILTER regex(str(?course),Science_,i) . ?course sch:hascourse ?students . ?students a ?type   . FILTER( regex(STR(?type), Year10)) . ?students sch:gender ?gender . FILTER regex(str(?gender),F,i) . } The number of girls who take science in year 10 is 2. How old is the head teacher? PREFIX rdf: PREFIX owl: PREFIX rdfs: PREFIX xsd: PREFIX sch: SELECT ?task ?num WHERE { ?task rdf:type sch:Headteacher . OPTIONAL {?task sch:age ?num } } The headteacher is 45 years old. What teacher is head of the sports department? PREFIX rdf: PREFIX owl: PREFIX rdfs: PREFIX xsd: PREFIX sch: SELECT ?name WHERE { ?name rdf:type sch:Sports_head . } His name is Martin Richards Who teachers Geography and also Sports? PREFIX rdf: PREFIX owl: PREFIX rdfs: PREFIX xsd: PREFIX sch: SELECT ?teacher ?teaches WHERE { ?teacher rdf:type sch:Teachers . ?teacher sch:IsLecturerOf ?teaches . FILTER (regex(str(?teaches),Geography_,i) || regex(str(?teaches),Sports,i)) . } Bill Waite teaches both Geography and Sports. Please give all the names of teachers and their email addresses if known. (Optional patterns, week 6, lecture 5, slide 12) PREFIX rdf: PREFIX owl: PREFIX rdfs: PREFIX xsd: PREFIX sch: SELECT ?name ?email WHERE { ?name rdf:type sch:Teachers . OPTIONAL {?name sch:email ?email } . } How many of the admin team are under 40 years of age? PREFIX rdf: PREFIX owl: PREFIX rdfs: PREFIX xsd: PREFIX sch: SELECT (COUNT(?all)   AS ?total) WHERE { { ?all rdf:type sch:Receptionist } UNION { ?all rdf:type sch:Secretary } UNION { ?all rdf:type sch:Switchboard_Operator } . ?all sch:age ?yrs . FILTER (?yrs } There are 2 members of the admin team that have less than 40 years. What members of the admin staff surname begins with W PREFIX rdf: PREFIX owl: PREFIX rdfs: PREFIX xsd: PREFIX sch: SELECT  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   ?all WHERE { { ?all rdf:type sch:Receptionist } UNION { ?all rdf:type sch:Secretary } UNION { ?all rdf:type sch:Switchboard_Operator } . FILTER regex(str(?all),_w,i) } Paula Wilson, Charlie Williams and Jane Wight are the admin members whose surname begins with W. Retrieve all teachers and their qualifications PREFIX rdf: PREFIX owl: PREFIX rdfs: PREFIX xsd: PREFIX sch: SELECT ?teacher ?teaches WHERE { ?teacher rdf:type sch:Teachers . ?teacher sch:IsLecturerOf ?teaches . } Retrieve the name of all subjects taught by the teacher with ID 2341 PREFIX rdf: PREFIX owl: PREFIX rdfs: PREFIX xsd: PREFIX sch: SELECT ?teacher ?id ?subjects WHERE { ?teacher rdf:type sch:Teachers . ?teacher sch:ID ?id FILTER (?id=2341)  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   . ?teacher sch:IsLecturerOf ?subjects } Albert Tatlock, the teacher with ID 2341, teaches ICT. DBPedia A timetable query. Results in HTML Ontology-Oriented Inference-Based Learning Content Management System Application Semantic web technologies based upon ontology are considered as the promising solution in order to provide an explicit definition of the shared conceptualisation regarding certain domain as well as acknowledging assemblage of e-learning contents. Ontologies integrated with profiles of the learner integrate to provide enhanced results within an e-learning LMS system. It could be used in contrast with multi-agent technologies in order to derive personalised learning paths (Stevenson, 2015).   The domain of courses can be easily managed by ontology and provide explicit details of education establishment as well as adaptation of students learning paths. General Concepts of LCMS LMS is regarded as the software package, usually applied on the large scale that enables the delivery of learning resources and courses and management to students. Most of the LMS systems are web-based in order to facilitate anywhere, anytime access to administration and learning content. LMS is referred to as the reporting systems and do not include ways to develop new content or to deliver small learning packets (Icoza, 2015). LMS is fashioned for tracking test results, registration, class lists, grades, managing all learning events within the academics institute and class scheduling. In contrast, the LCMs focus upon the learning content. It provides authors, subject matter experts, and instructional designers to means to develop e-learning content in a more effective way. The core concern that is resolved by LCMs is to develop sufficient content just in time to meet the requirements of the learners group or individual learners (Kuhn, 2012). Instructional designers develop chunks of reusable content rather than entire courses and acclimatising to multiple audiences, and make them available to the course developers all through the academic institute. Sequence Diagram The sequence of steps is performed on the retrieve and query as mentioned in the figure below. The flow proceeds as follows: The user search for certain information after the registration to system Then, the semantic-based LMS check the validation of the query The system informs him about, if there is any error in request sending or if the query is invalid If the query is valid, then the system gets the query at repository data as well as user history repository, and sees there is any existing data (Kuhn, 2012). The system notifies him about the existence of data, if the data exists, then data is retrieved by the system makes an inference to that of fetching data by deploying the rules of validation It saves the result of inference to the repository and includes the outcomes to the original retrieved data and responses to the operator. Figure: Sequence Diagram Fundamental   Ontologies The system is based on the ontological framework to allow formal demonstration of learning content along with its principle building blocks such as; different types of learning activities, learning content, participants within the process of learning i.e. teaching assistants, teachers, learners, etc. (Ferraram, 2013). The ontology domains defined can be salvaged by other ontologies, therefore assimilating various contemporary technologies under single ontology illustrating a large domain. Describing Classes Three primary classes will be defined i.e. users, institutions, and learning resources. The institution class is further divided into colleges. The learning resource class incorporates a list of overall courses as its user class and subclasses consists of a list of every type of users i.e. instructor, student, and administrator (Jain, 2013).   The overall classes are sub classed under one class that exemplifies overall classes root. Outlining Properties Figure: Object Properties Figure: Datatype Properties The ontology of the learning resources is the core of this framework has been demonstrated in the graph illustrated below using the OntoGraft (Kholief, 2012). It consists of a number of properties and classes aimed at formally signifying learning content. The ontologies have been divided into two segments; information of learning course and learning content information. The class courses is the one that has been opted by more than one learner while interrelating with customers. The other class consists of the course content such as; lab experience, PowerPoint lectures, notes, and media. Moreover, the courses are also divided into the subclasses. Class course specifications incorporate the information regarding the field, term, and the course type. In addition, class course enrolment includes information regarding the enrolment of students on certain course (Icoza, 2015). The ontology signifies characteristics to the overall procures of E-learning i.e. Preferences and basic personal data along with the speciation of the features of leaner-specific, including multiple dimensions of learning styles and performance. Figure: Projected Learning Resource Ontology Class Diagram A class diagram is the UML structure diagram that illustrates the structure of designed system by exemplifying the classes in the system, constraints, relationships, their features, amongst the classes.  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   Moreover, the active entities of the anticipated systems include; courses, students, course administrator, and course content. The entities of the business domain include; test, enrolment, course evaluation, and course specification (Kuhn, 2012). The class diagram of the projected system has been illustrated in the below mentioned figure. Figure: Class diagram of Learning Resources ontology Logical Rules The above mentioned rules demonstrate the semantic probing of course content upon the system. The explanation of the rules is mentioned below. rules 1; the privilege of the learner to course content ie enrollment rules 2; pre-request courses of various courses (Ferraram, 2013). rule 3; topic of certain contents such as; authentication lectures of course database is linked to security of topic too Related Work The research will incorporate the approaches of e-learning content management along with the semantic approach that is associated with the represented work. The review has enhanced the e-learning environments with that of the semantic-rich cognisance information. It has intended the educators to utilise this information when updating learning content for future courses. Therefore, heuristics have been developed that allow both; the convergence of LCMS log data and the intelligent analysis into the ontologies of the Semantic web. ILMSs (Intelligent LMSs) have linked the modern approach to the web-based education is dependent upon the LMSs, but under adaptive hypermedia and intelligent tutoring technologies (Kholief, 2012). As the generation of the new Web, the Semantic web has improved conditions for reusing and composing the learning materials. The research has been aimed to develop a simple, learner-oriented, and customised e-learning system as well as to create the material of particular course conforming SCORM. The research emphases upon the development of an ontology of student model that is appropriate with the needs of learning procedures in the faculty of computer science. The oncology has, moreover, incorporated the knowledge regarding student learning styles, student data, as well as the performance of the students (Jain, 2013). The research is based upon the approach, identifying such of those learning objects that amalgamate information technology and educational pedagogy via instructional design. Brief Phenomenon of Ontologies The term Ontology comes from the world of philosophy is the part of metaphysics that deals with being in general and of their transcendental properties, or properties that transcend the limits of the merely experimental (Wanner et al, 2015).   This concept has been adopted by computer science, specifically in the domain of artificial intelligence, adapting it to their needs, and using a metaphor according to which the experimental, physical, tangible, objective and recordable would be the data, and the metaphysical, inedible, subjective would be informative. More rigorously, this metaphorical adoption has given rise to a wide variety of definitions of this new concept, a product of the points of view of diverse authors and, fundamentally, of the different ways of constructing and using ontologies as computer systems (Brizzi et al, 2016). Among the most well-known and used definitions is that states that that an ontology constitutes an explicit and formal specification of menta l abstractions, which are shaped by an agreement of the expert community in a domain and in a design for a specific purpose this definition implies a multitude of aspects that contribute to clarify this concept. Therefore, when analysed in detail, it is ontology provides the structure for a vocabulary controlled in a way similar to a dictionary or a thesaurus. This vocabulary, agreed by the community, is expressed through concepts, thus conforming the abstractions (Johnson, 2016). On the other hand, in terms of the formal specification of a vocabulary, this could be in various forms, such as a flat list of words, a dictionary, a taxonomy, an entity-relationship diagram, a Unified Mark-up Language (UML) model, an XML schema and many other possible ones (Goodchild, 2013). However, the ontologies are much more than described so far and to give a small sample that its possibilities are not confined and trying to clarify and deepen especially, it has resorted to the definition of Neches and employees. It has been argued that ontology defines the vocabulary of an area through a set of basic terms and relations between these terms, as well as such, as rules that combine terms and relationships that extend given definitions in the vocabulary (Kuhn, 2012). This assumes that the ontologies are not formed only by mere concepts with a certain organisation, which would not be much more distant of a thesaurus, but also relations, rules, and axioms are given between concepts that enrich and contribute to expanding the vocabulary of the work domain. In order to clarify, with a concrete case, what is ontology is included below an example regarding possible travel ontology (Stocker et al, 2014). Within it would be all the relevant concepts related to the subject in question, among others: travel, flight, the client, lodging, road, departure, arrival, rate, etc. In this ontology, everything would start from the key concept, trip. Of the same, the different types of trips that a person can perform (flight, train, bus, by boat, etc.). Also, it is the fact that every trip has a single date, time and place of departure and a single date, time and place of arrival, a company and a tariff, concepts all that would be part of the ontology (Whitehead et al, 2013). Once all the basic concepts have been defined, the relations between them, for example, a trip of a certain type with a place of departure and another one of arrival corresponds a determined duration. Another possible relationship would be formed by the place of the concept of departure, place of arrival, and itinerary by road, and that a certain sequence of roads connects two different places. The complexity and variety of relationships can become as can imagine since the multiplicity of relationships can achieve a system much more powerful and effective. Thus, a city of origin may have as points of departure a particular bus station, a train station or an airport (Jain, 2013). Different points of departure that will be depending on the chosen destination or on other issues such as schedules or economic ailments, among others. With this complexity of criteria, intelligence implemented in the system this will be able to guide to the most suitable station or airport, at a certain time and with the relevant transhipments. In this way, the efficiency can be management process of any trip, greatly facilitating the whole process (Ferraram, 2013). Another important element that is part of the ontologies are the axioms (logical expressions), which serve to define meaningful constraints of the type such as, is not possible to travel from the USA to Europe by train or it is not poss ible to travel by boat between Madrid and Barcelona. In addition to it, this small ontology could be implemented on an Information System (GIS), helping to manage all this information in a more efficient and autonomous, because it will allow the user to know what type of transport takes you from one city to another, days and times of departure and arrival, fares, durations, accommodation, etc., all in a smart and automated way. Without forgetting that the information to be obtained can be as much or more complex as it goes bringing greater

My father, my role model Essay

By Jem Finch At first, I thought Atticus was just a feeble, old man. He never took part in anything interesting; he didn’t play poker, stayed in an office, and didn’t go hunting or fishing like all the other men in town. He was never too tired to play keep-away, but when I asked if we could play tackle, he’d tell me: â€Å"I’m too old for that, son. † Whenever there was a football competition, he always told me he was too old for that too. All the other fathers went to it an’ all my father ever did was wear his glasses and read. I was embarrassed by him. Though, my whole opinion changed since the incident with the mad dog and the court hearing with Tom Robinson. I was flabbergasted! Miss Maudie said back in Atticus’ time, he was the deadest shot in town. They called him one-shot Finch and I couldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. I saw him differently then. I was most eager to brag about it too. But it wasn’t just the way he handled the gun that impressed me, it was also ’cause of his modesty. I could tell Scout hadn’t realised it, but Atticus never said a word about his marksmanship. I liked that part of him. I also liked his defence for Mr Robinson. Everyone had been against him for defending a coloured person, but Atticus held his head high. He provided an awful good argument too. I appreciated Atticus’ efforts and grew to respect him. He had taught me that true courage wasn’t a man behind a gun, but it’s when you keep on fighting even if you know you’d lose. I wished I could be more like my father. Then I could become a lawyer too. I figured I wouldn’t care if he couldn’t do a single blessed thing. Atticus is a gentlemen, just like me! By Charles Baker Harris I am real proud of my father. He did so many things for the country I can hardly remember them all. At one time he fought in a war to keep the other countries from invading us. Every now and then he’d show me his collection of the tags he took from the soldiers he killed, and the medals he had earned for his acts of bravery. But that wasn’t all he did. He did other things too. When he had time, he would go fishing and hunting with me. Once, we caught a fish so big it didn’t fit in the boat and we had to get a ship to drag it ashore. The other day he picked me up from his aeroplane and drove me all ’round the country. I could see all the houses from there. They were about the size of an ant and were nothing compared to the house my father had bought me. He was also the president at one time. That’s why he’s always got so much money. But I didn’t like how his job took up so much of his time. He couldn’t allocate any time to play with me then. Apparently he had more important things to do and he couldn’t go hunting with me no more. I didn’t like that. That’s why I decided to run off to Maycomb County to live with aunt Rachel. I thought it’d show him that he needed to spend more time with me. I met Jem and scout down at Maycomb County. Their father was called Atticus I think. But he wasn’t anything like my father; all he ever did was read all day. He was a boring person and weren’t any fun at all. I didn’t know how Jem and Scout got on with him. Seeing Atticus only reminded me of how great my father was. Maybe, in the summer, I’ll return to Washington and see my father again.

Book Summary: the Bible Among the Myths by John N. Oswalt Essay

John Oswalt, in his book The Bible Among the Myths, presents his position to the reader that the bible is different and separate from other writings of the Ancient Near East. He asserts the Bible is both historically accurate and theologically sound. He makes the defense the Bible was divinely inspired and revealed to humanity and unique from other Ancient Near East literature. There was a time when the Bible, and the Israelite religion was different from its neighboring societies. But as times have changed, many people now lump the bible with other Ancient Near East myths. The book is broken up into two sections. The first half of the book, â€Å"The Bible and Myth,† Oswalt takes the time to define what a myth is and what differentiates the Bible from a myth. He then describes the different between the worldview of the Ancient Near East and continuity is different from the Bible’s transcendence. The second half of the book, â€Å"The Bible and History,† examines several philosophical thoughts proposed by others that attempt to explain the Bible’s relevance separate from historical validity. Oswalt provides excellent arguments against the new age philosophies. Oswalt provides an articulate argument for the veracity of the Bible’s history and theology by providing several convincing points to affirm the Bibles varicity. Introduction John N. Oswalt, in his book The Bible Among the Myths, provides the reader with a brief, yet comprehensive view of the differences and similarities between the Old Testament and Ancient Near East religions. In the introduction, he provides a brief overview of scholarly thought regarding the Old Testament literature and Ancient Near East literature and how perspectives have changed in nearly 50 years. Oswalt states at the time he was introduced to the subject, scholars believed the Old Testament and its theology stood alone from other Ancient Near East religions. He now contends that present day scholars believe the Old Testament is just one of many Ancient Near East religions. Oswalt states it was the differences between the Old Testament and other Ancient Near that separated the two. But today, scholars are taking the same data and looking their similarities (11-13). He states that this is a â€Å"vital philosophical distinction between â€Å"essence† and â€Å"accident.†Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Essence† has to do with the essence of the subject whereas â€Å"accident† is those things that are not essential to the subject (13). He insinuates that scholars of today are centering their attention on the â€Å"accidental† attributes of the Old Testament and Ancient Near East religions and not centering on those things that are the essence of the subject; those things that make the religions different. It is these similarities and differences Oswalt states he will center his attention (14). Oswalt then turns the attention of the reader to the definition of a myth. He states there are different definitions of a myth but the Bible is not one of them. He states when people start to think of this word as â€Å"typical of a myth,† then four things happen: 1) The individual is devalued; 2) There becomes a disinterest in history; 3) People become open to the occult; and 4) People do not take responsibility for their actions (14). Oswalt believes what makes the difference between the Old Testament (OT) and the Ancient Near East (ANE) literature is how God makes himself divinely known to his people. The next premise Oswalt boldly states is that if we believe in Scripture theologically, then we can also believe that the Bible is historically true. He states, â€Å"the veracity of the theological claims of the OT is inseparable from the veracity of the historical claims† (16). The Bible maintains a â€Å"unique worldview† and is one that has been revealed by God to his people, Israel. He states there are things we must wrestle with when it comes to investigation the Bible historically from its theological stand but the Bible can uphold its claim to be theologically and historically viable. Chapter 1 Chapters one through five discuss the differences and similarities of the Bible compared to ANE literature. The premise of chapter one is the Bible has had a major impact on the world, especially with its contributions to Greek philosophy and thought. Greek philosophers believed there was one â€Å"unifying principle in the cosmos† (21) and that everything could be identified and reasoned with through logic. As Oswalt states, this brought into conflict the thought of a myth based polytheistic society to a monotheistic mindset. Oswalt states that the Hebrew thought survived through the exilic period in Assyria and Babylon even though they were in direct conflict with the societies in which they were captive. Israel brought into these societies the thought that there was only one God and He was the creator of the world and humanity. In addition, Oswalt states the Israelites brought the unique ideas that God was not dependent upon humanity but himself and that God revealed himself to humanity and gave them specific understandings of what he expected from his people. It was only by God’s design that the people of Israel were able to maintain their religion in a foreign land. Greek and Hebrew thoughts combined into a complementary way of thinking about the universe and the world. The Hebrew religion of one creator who created the world found a place in the Greek philosophy of a unifying principle to the universe. On the other hand, Greek philosophy could combine itself by to Hebrew ideas by linking the cause and effect of the world (26). Oswalt states that there was a necessity for the biblical worldview. Without it liking itself with the Greek philosophy, we would not have a need for reason, understand the importance of history and have value of the individual (27). Chapter 2 Oswalt, in chapter two, attempts to define the word myth but prior to his discourse, he revisits the divergence of scholars going from believing in the OT as a separate piece of literature from all other ANE mythological literature to being placed in the mix of ANE literature as mythology. Oswalt contends the job of defining a myth is challenging especially in a climate the Bible is being placed with other ANE literature. He states there are two definitional problems. The first problem has to do with the definitions of myth. He states there has been a breakdown in providing an accurate definition. The other problem has to do with the definition itself. It may not accurately describe the members of a class (32). Two primary definitions are provided for the reader. The first is the historical-philosophical definition which attempts to â€Å"describe how the myth operates in society† (40). Subdivisions of the historical-philosophical definition are the etymological, the sociological-theological and the literary. The second is the phenomenological. Etymological definition attempts to identify the false nature of an event or story. The sociological-theological definition is a form of story in which conveys some truth about the world. Literary definition of a myth is the narrative attempts to use the source of symbolism to convey truth or meaning (33-39). The phenomenological definition regarding a myth is to look at the common characteristics of the story and how it relates to the society. Oswalt states that all these definitions have a commonality of continuity. No matter their defined variations, they are interrelated. Oswalt states, â€Å"Continuity is a philosophical principle that asserts that all things are continuous with each other† (43). Myths are to have a common approach to the world (45). Chapter 3 The idea of continuity in myths is continued and expended in chapter three. Continuity can better be defined as all elements of a myth are interrelated physically and spiritually, in a circular motion, to each other. In a story, there are no distinctions between humanity, nature and the divine. This also includes the thought of pantheism, â€Å"the divine is everything and everything is divine† (49). The problem with this is that there are no absolutes, and people and nature are equal to god. Oswalt state, there are a number of â€Å"far-reaching implications† with regard to continuity. The first is that myths only look at the here and now, the present, and keeping things as status quo. Myths are not in interested in the future or moving forward. Second, myths do not look at the involvement of humanity and the choices they made. Third, myths also perpetuate the actualization of a â€Å"timeless reality.† Maintenance of the system is needed. This is accomplished through sexual relations in order to maintain fertility of the earth and living creatures as well as performing other ritualistic acts in order to ensure the gods and goddesses maintain the cycle of fertility. Fourth, nature is used as an important â€Å"expression of the divine.† The gods were personified in nature. Fifth, mythology used magic in order to accomplish something in nature or in the divine realm. Finally, because of this continuity, there are no boundaries which cause a blurring o f the natural, human and divine (44-56). Once both sides of continuity are explained, Oswald provides what he believes are common features of myths. There are always elements of polytheism. There are multiple gods. Gods are always represented by some natural element such as wood, stone or other natural element. The gods are not multidimensional and are stereotyped. The gods are not valued nor are humans. The gods are appeased by certain acts and humans are subject to the gods. There is always an element of conflict in the myth either with the gods or other human conflict. Eternity, both before and after the establishment of the world, was and is chaotic. Because humanity is at the whim of the gods, there is no standard of ethic. Finally, the cycle of life is cyclical. Oswalt states that the cycle goes from â€Å"nonexistence to dependence to independence to dependence to nonexistence† (57-61) Chapter 4 Biblical transcendence and the transcendence of God are the major themes of chapter four. While chapter three centered on the identifying factors of what constitutes a myth, Oswalt provides several key elements that make the Bible, especially the God of the Bible, unusual and exceptionally different from other ANE mythological literature and religions. As mentioned before, there is only one godly source of the OT (64). God who is spirit is separate from his creation and cannot be created in any form (65). Once created, the conflict ended with created order both in heaven and on earth (67). God created man in his image and therefore gave him importance by being in his likeness (69). Oswalt interesting notes that God is â€Å"supra-sexual.† Meaning, God is not known by his sexual identity but his roles. In addition, creation is not directed by sexual activity (73). God in all his activities can be relied upon to do all that he said he would do and not deviate as those gods of myths. God prohibited magic was as a method of manipulating Him into some type of action (75). The final element is in regard to the Sinai covenant God made with the people of Israel. They were obligated to live a certain lifestyle whereas there were no restrictions for the other who lived outside of the covenant (76). Comparing and contrasting the biblical worldview from those of a mythological perspective provides some understanding of how radically different and distinctive they are from each other. Transcendence verses continuity; God is above all and separate from the universe, nature and humanity. God interacts with humanity through his covenant relationship. Chapter 5 Oswalt continues his discussion between the differences between the Bible and mythology however he looks at it in light of their similarities. Before he does looks at those similarities, however, Oswalt digs deeper into the ethic as it relates to human relationships with God and man. He states that there are two offences, which are offenses against the gods and offences against other people (85). The mythic ethic, offences against the gods in literature were â€Å"cultic or magical† where offences against people were against society, (85-86). Oswalt points out offences against the gods had nothing to do with their treatment of each other. The biblical ethic was something different, more wholistic. Behavior on every level, social and personal was out of obedience in the covenantal relationship with God (88). God and his relationship with the covenantal people maintained the same standard. The author provides a few examples where it would seem as though the Bible is a similar to myth. He provides examples of the creation story in Genesis and in Psalms to point some similarities in the Enuma Elish (Babylonian creation account) and other literature. Oswalt acknowledges that similarities and disputes them as something the Bible took from mythos but that they were similar practices not intended to make the Bible like other biblical literature as much as identifying the differences that stood apart from other literature. Chapter 6 Chapter six marks the second half of the book as it discusses history and the Bible. Like before in the attempts of defining myth, Oswalt attempts to accurately define history. He defined history, in summary, as a narrative that records events which is recorded for â€Å"human self-knowledge† and used as a means of evaluation in order to capture important events. According to Oswalt, there are several factors that are dependent upon when understand history. The first thing is that people are â€Å"free and responsible.† The second item is that there are causes and effects in everything that happens. The recorded information must be true is the third element. The fourth key is history can be used as a learning tool for other to grow. Fifth thing is that what happened yesterday is just as relevant today and that there is significance in their â€Å"relationships.† Finally, there must be a standard in which the information is evaluated (113-115). There are several ways ancient people of the Near East recorded events of their lives. They are omen texts, king lists, date formulae, epics, royal annals, and chronicles. Omens were documents that contained something that predicted the good or bad of an event or circumstance. The kings’ lists contained the genealogy of the names and duration of the kings in power. Date formulae contained the yearly accomplishments of the kings. Epics were a narrative of events in a hero’s life which attempted to convey life’s philosophy. Royal annals were recorded events of a king and existed to â€Å"glorify the king† not so much to accurately chronicle what really happened. Chronicles were recordings of what actually happened, both positive and negative. They are about as accurate a historical record then the rest. In all, they were specific in the information they contained (116-122). Unlike our historians today or even the historical view of the Bible, the peoples of the ANE perspective was different than ours today. They were generally focused on the here and now and not future orientated. Their orientation included making sure they maintained the status quo in order to maintain the good in their lives. The best for everyone was to maintain the order of their society. They believed that everything was outside their control with a multiciplicity of causes determining their fate. This provides reasons why they were not interested in recording for the future and concerned about seeing the relationships of the events that took place in their lives. The Bible, on the other hand, provides a different perspective. As Oswalt states, â€Å"They [characteristics of the Bible] are clearly presented to us as unique individuals, firmly rooted in time and space† (125). The events which took place were recorded whether they were positive or negative. The events were recorded showing the interrelationships between the events and persons as well as showing the results of human choices and the impact those choices had on the lives of those people. The Bible connects all the pieces together in a way that transcends â€Å"the events themselves† by showing the divine interaction with humanity (127). Oswalt asks the question how then could the Israelite nation be different without myth. He indicates it is because there was only one God who kept â€Å"breaking into their experiencing and smashing their easy interpretations† (134). God kept involving himself in their lives and these events were recorded. Chapter 7 Chapter seven unpacks Oswalt’s position that the Bible is historically accurate and theologically sound. Oswalt debunks the idea that history must be recorded without divine involvement in order for it to be historically accurate. In fact, he indicates that is what differentiates the Bible from any other work (138-139). The author states that it is the unique working of God in the lives of people to reveal his divine purposes, which is nowhere else in any literature other than the Bible (142). It is what he calls â€Å"revelation through Human-Historical experience† (149). God revealed himself and was divinely involved in the lives of the Israelites. Oswalt notes that he Bible did not â€Å"bifurcate between revelation and witness to revelation† (140). The author goes on to state that if we fail to acknowledge God in the history then how can we accept the â€Å"acts† of God presented in the literature. There is also the question of how can God be known if we take him out of the equation. Although many maintain that one cannot have an accurate account of history with God. Owalt maintains that without God there cannot be an accurate history without God. Israel had a different and unique perspective of God in literature. Chapter 8 Chapter eight is an extension of chapter seven although Oswalt moves forward on his conviction that the Bible is both historically accurate and theologically relevant. He critically reviews two popular scholars’ works that have attempted to separate history from the Bible. The first is Rudolf Bultmann’s Existentialist Foundation and the other is Alfred North Whitehead’s Process Thought. The Existentialist Foundation is the way one sees self relevant to history. As Oswalt explains, â€Å"Instead of seeing the self as an entity shaped by history and a human â€Å"nature,† this way of thinking sees â€Å"existence as the most fundamental aspect of historic consciousness† (156). Oswalt states there are several problems with this philosophy; the first major issue is the use of the term â€Å"history.† He says that the term must be narrowed even further. He introduces the reader to the separation of the â€Å"narrative Geschichte from the event Historie. Geschichte is what is â€Å"going on and is in the domain of the theologian.† Meaning what is in the narrative of the story. Historie defines â€Å"what happened and is in the domain of the historian† (157). Historie centers upon what is the event that is actually happening in the story. Oswalt identifies several flaws with the Existentialist philosophy but the major ones are, 1) God is removed from the process; and, 2) The historical narrative excludes the past there is no acceptance of any standard of evaluation or appreciation of past events. Process Thought is seeks to take the events of the Bible and create together the events that take place into a new event. The events are integrated of the past, present and future. It is interested in the event not so much the substance. This too has its faults, one being that it also removes the transcendence of God in the narrative (167). Chapter 9 Oswalt provides alternative views concerning the biblical worldview in chapter nine. He maintains his stand that the biblical narrative has not changed but thoughts about it have and the biblical narrative is different than other mythological narratives. The author provides four alternatives concerning the biblical narrative. The first alternative is from John Van Seters. Seters stand is that several documents were pieced together and then priests rewrote what we now have today. The document was a work by someone using works similar to Thucydides and Herodotus. The second alternative is from Frank Cross. Cross work asserts that the bible came out of rewriting a poetic epic. The third alternative is from William Dever. Dever does deny archeological evidence of biblical history nor does he believe in the bible’s â€Å"religious explanation of Israel’s existence and nature† (178). Dever stand is Israel’s religion was no different than that of the Canaanite religion until after the exile and the religion has been inaccurately perceived. The fourth alternative is from Mark Smith. Smith suggests that Israel’s religion originated from the polytheistic religion of the Canaanites (181). Oswalt argues that not one of these alternative thoughts of the biblical narrative has proved the unique nature of the Bible. Chapter 10 Chapter 10 concludes the book by summarizing Oswalt’s main points he expressed throughout the book. The bible is both historically accurate and theologically sound. The Bible is unique and separate from myth literature but their similarities should not stand in the way of perceiving it as different. What makes it markedly different is that a transcendent God come to involve him into the lives of humanity is radically different means than that of the other cultures which overrode the continuity of myths.