Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Environmentally Sensitive Habitant Calls for Innovative Thinking Assignment

Environmentally Sensitive Habitant Calls for Innovative Thinking - Assignment Example In the past years, erosion has compromised the stability of the river meanders that resulted in â€Å"numerous slip failures in the river banks and of the flood defense embarkments.† The unstable river banks now possess hazards to the residents of the area as well as to those boats and crafts navigating through the river. Undertaking the riverbank stabilization project for Darford Creek is Team Van Oord4 under project Manager EC Harris. Team Van Oord shall work closely with ARUP5, the designer of the project. The task of the company is to â€Å"maintain the integrity of the flood defense embankments along two sections of the west bank†6 and at the same time provide for environmental measures and enhancements to product the sensitive habitat of the Creek area. As a form of habitat enhancement, Team Van Oord creates an engineered salt marsh habitat. The total budget for the project amounts to  £ 3.6 million. The construction project is good for 60 weeks. The construction is under the supervision of the Environment Agency. To stabilize the flood embankments, the contractors need to install a combination of steel sheet piling and timber brushwood faggots. According to the design of the project, the brushwood faggots shall be placed in front of the piling and supported by brushwood stakes. The general idea of this design is that the current of the river will bring about silt which could be captured and trapped in between the brushwood. The trapped silt will eventually accumulate to a certain degree and bury the brushwood faggots. Once the brushwood faggots are completely buried under the silt and sediments, it will become part of the flood embankment system and at the same time create a new salt marsh habitat. The project is deemed as a long term solution to the river bank erosion problem as well as aid in the restoration and protection of the endangered habitat.

Monday, October 28, 2019

Fast Food Nation Essay Example for Free

Fast Food Nation Essay â€Å"Fast Food Nation† is a film directed by Richard Linklater and it was released in the year 2006. This is one of those films, which provide new sources of thinking to a generation. This film deals with a large number of topics, which are old but still existing on our planet. Among these topics the mentionable ones are gender, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation and oppression. The film also shows that although being different parts of the social strata – these things are actually well related with each other. They act not only in the small communities but also throughout the world. There is no bar for these topics among the developed and developing countries in the present day world. â€Å"Fast Food Nation† upholds the problems, which are old enough to have been erased by now. But as a matter of fact, they still loom large in the human societies of all standards. Don Anderson is the main character of the movie. He is the famous Anderson who is known for the preparation of â€Å"Big One† of Mickey’s hamburger. This shows how the protagonist of the film is connected with the world of fast food. The main thing around which the film is constructed is to judge whether these businesses are honest or not. Anderson is not a bad human being but as a matter of fact he does not seem to know everything that is associated with his business. He finds one fault with the products of his company and travels to Cody in Colorado to trace the source of these bad and unhealthy ingredients in the products. Cody in Colorado is the center for the preparation of all the products of Mickey’s. Very soon Anderson comes to know about the faults that are actually taking place while manufacturing the products of his company. These are some of the most horrible truths waiting for him. The film has dealt with some other complicacies as well. Among them, the most important one is the exploitation of the illegal immigrants. People come to America to win a good fortune from various corners of the world. Mexico is one of these countries from where a number of illegal immigrants come in search of jobs. Very soon after entering the country they are exploited by the white settlers of the United States of America. Fast food culture has given birth to a huge industry in this country and most of the immigrants are taken in for the jobs that are available in this industry. Cheap labor is the main reason why the companies are always interested in taking these employees. By doing this, they can also earn a huge amount of profit within short time. (Linklater, et al, 2006) The tagline of â€Å"Fast Food Nation† says â€Å"The Truth Is Hard To Swallow†. In a way this film introduces the audience with the modern day world where almost every vice is present in the society just as they used to exist in the past. The presence of cow manure in the Mickey’s product is highly symbolic as it shows the commonly found tendency to live by cheating on others. A fast food nation like USA today looks after only the benefits from the business and not after the quality of service they are providing the customers with. This is the harsh truth, which Don Anderson discovers in his own company while visiting Cody in Colorado. â€Å"Fast Food Nation† is a movie that concentrates on many of the recent problems, which we come across in the modern world. Apart from that there are also other problems, which are not felt by us. Some of the downtrodden people have to face these truths in their lives. This is really unfortunate as we talk about the overall development of the world we act in a very hypocritical way. According to some of the well known critics â€Å"Fast Food Nation† is a well made angry movie which vents out the idealistic wrath on the wrong way in which the nation like USA is traveling towards a so called progress. It is obviously a credit going to Richard Linklater for the fact that he has chosen such a sensitive subject on which the economy of USA is dependent to a great extent. The glamour-less style of the movie is one of the most important symbolic, which is followed throughout the movie. We all know that America is a country of glamour and this is why a movie based on this country is hoped to be flashing with glamour and style. Unlike all other movies, â€Å"Fast Food Nation† is an entirely anti-glamour movie where all the characters are the dwellers of a very indifferent land. Truth hidden beneath the glamour is the main motive of this movie and this is why Linklater has focused more on incidents rather than the glamorous aspect of the film. (Morris, 2006) Linklater is very much successful in taking the audience to the root of the problems. He takes the audience to the slaughterhouses where raw materials for hamburger are produced. Visiting these places the audience is able to go through a series of events, which are revealing about how USA still deals on the grounds of race, gender and ethnicity. The Mexican immigrants are nothing better than the cows, which are slaughtered for the production. They are also exploited to a huge extent. By connecting to the story of the Mexican border Linklater actually introduces the audience with another horrible truth, which is looming large in the country. The country, which boasts of its democracy, is itself a system of exploitation and this is something, which Fast Food Nation deals with very carefully. Uniglobe is the meat plant where the team of Mexican workers joins. This is the place where the white Americans take the full advantage over the Mexicans as they have come in the country obtaining illegal process. It is very shocking to see a white that works as the floor supervisor threats the Mexican workers to kill them through the slaughtering machine unless they work properly. This show of rudeness opens up the horrible way in which the white people in American society are still dealing with the Mexicans. Money is the main thing, which draws the poor Mexicans to this vast land of USA where they have neither identity nor respect. There is a scene in the movie where a Mexican falls inside the slaughtering machine and loses his hand, which is chopped by the blade. The terrible scene is something, which agitates the audience to the core. Fast Food Nation not only focuses on the macro system of the society but also on the micro system where the workers are exploited at the same rate. We see the troubles, which are faced by Sylvia, the Mexican young woman who starts working as a hotel room cleaner. She faced huge problems in the slaughterhouse of Uniglobe where her husband and sister continue to work. The dangers of crossing the border are one of the most important elements, which the movie has dealt with. It shows the extent of risk, which the Mexicans are ready to undertake for their survival. Throughout the film it has dealt with huge problems in modern America. But the most important thing about them is the fact that everything, which happens in the life of the Mexican friends, is also the parts of the greater American life. Exploitation and all the other associated elements in the movie are actually representing the wholesome picture of the United States of America.   (Mother Jones, 2006) The use of satire in the film is a main thing, which consolidates the theme even more. There are actually three narrative parts that have been used in this movie. The pattern of the movie is very much like the documentary films, which shows the true picture of the world and easily deal with even some of the most controversial topics. Apart from human cruelty, animal cruelty is also an integral part of the film. However, the movie also concentrates on the matter of sexual orientation, which is a big issue in today’s America. Amber, the role played by Ashley Johnson, faces problems seeing the difference of sexual orientations among her friend. She asks her close friends not to meet cute looking boys, believing that they practice homosexuality. This is somehow associated with the slaughterhouse atmosphere and the theme thus becomes more convincing.

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Social Class in Charles Dickens Great Expectations Essay -- Great Exp

Social Class in Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" During the 19th century, Britain was entering a new era. The reign of Queen Victoria had brought about many exciting propositions, with industry leading the way at the forefront. Due to the Industrial Revolution and the fact that Britain was being ruled by a woman, the action of 'Great Expectations' was occurring against the backdrop of major social and cultural changes. Although Britain, as a whole, was becoming exceedingly richer, the Industrial Revolution that was taking place also spawned great poverty. The working conditions in the factories were deplorable. Child labour was prevalent and the slums of large cities, such as London, bred transgression, crime and disease. Only men of property had the right to vote, so the proletariats were excluded from the political system, impeding the aristocrats to take any action on the matters of lower classed citizens. Women had few rights and little choice but to marry and upon doing so everything they owned, inherited and earned automatically belonged to their husband. It was in this underside of society and the injustices of life in Victorian Britain that Charles Dickens' found the material for his novels. These injustices are exactly what link Mrs. Joe Gargery, a downtrodden and poor blacksmith's wife, to Miss Havisham, an 'immensely rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house'. Mrs. Joe Gargery and Miss Havisham may be of totally divergent classes, but they both suffer the detriments of life in Victorian Britain. Although Mrs. Joe Gargery and Miss Havisham are quite idiosyncratic and eccentric characters, they are both examples of very inexorable and domineering women. The eccentricitie... ...dumbfounded and destroyed, beyond the point of repair, and her quirky and peculiar idiosyncrasies fade away. Dickens' chose two very different female characters, which both helped and hindered Pips journey to becoming a gentlemen. In my opinion, I think Dickens' created these characters to show that in both ends of the social spectrum, there are still people who are not happy. Dickens' intended message about women that he tried to portray in this book is mixed. In Mrs Joe Gargery, he shows strength and dominance over men, where as in Miss Havisham, he shows total dependence on men, and we see her world fall to pieces without one. I think he decided to use such extreme characters to help readers understand and realise that not all women are the same. They can vary from being confident and domineering, to being dependant on others and very impressionable.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Let’s be Lefties for a Day Essay

During the â€Å"Let’s be lefties† experiment, I found it very difficult to complete my everyday morning tasks without using my right hand. Some of the things I did that day were laundry, dishes, (which took double the time) and writing with my left hand as well. According to the Huffington post, left handed people make up about only ten percent of the population, but researchers have found that in populations with certain mental disorders, rates increases. According to a recent study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, lefties make about 10 to 12 percent less annually than righties. The paper, written by Joshua Goodman, an economist at Harvard’s Kennedy School, is the first study to document the income gap between right-handed and left-handed people. It may have something to do with how left-handedness correlates with other attributes. Goodman found that left-handed people have more emotional and behavioral problems, have more learning disabilitie s such as dyslexia, complete less schooling, and work in occupations requiring less cognitive skill. In his research, Goodman analyzed five data sets from the U.S. and the U.K. that all look at how being left handed affects cognitive skill and income over a set amount of time. Goodman found that about 11 to 13 percent of the population is left-handed, a finding that prior research supports. Now that we’ve discussed the experiment along with some theories and facts about being left handed, we will now look at the importance of understanding cultural, ethnic, and gender differences by managers and professionals in a business setting. Diversity basically refers to the ways people differ from one another. People differ from each other in many ways such as culturally, ethnically and by gender. It can be difficult at times working as a team  with individuals from different backgrounds. Managers must understand the advantages and disadvantages brought on by different cultures. Cultural and ethnic differences are a fact of life in the workplace. People tend to stereotype individuals from other cultures or races. This can be challenging but must improve. To be effective and provide a better working environment, managers and employees need to recognize, respect, and capitalize on their differences. This will and can reduce stress and make a better workplace. Women in the workplace are still at a disadvantage. Women are regarded as inferior to men at the workplace in relation to job level and salary. In order to understand diversity in a professional workplace, it requires organization to develop policies and procedures that employees need to follow. According to the Health and Humans Services organization, cultural and linguistic competence are a set of behaviors, attitudes, and policies that enables effective work in cross-cultural situations and conveys information that is easily understood by diverse audiences. According to Huffington post, there is still a lot of work to be done with educating people in the acceptance of the diverse cultures and ethnic groups. In conclusion, we can offer videos, literature, activity and role playing as ways to educate individuals to better adjust to the diverse cultures that are around us. Acceptance and respect are the biggest issues. As a manager, we must first accept and acknowledge the culture and learn to grow.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Chagrin, Woman versus the Society

James Joyce’s â€Å"Clay† and Guy de Maupassant’s â€Å"The Diamond Necklace† satirize the conflict between woman and society. They illustrate the lives of two very physically different women of the common class and how they struggle against their environment, for society and fate seal their lives with chagrin. Joyce is more effective than Maupassant in revealing the fictional character in relation to community and social environment, because Joyce uses plot, design, perspective, and language to show subtly what the clay means in the story, wherein the clay depicts Maria’s frailty and commonness, and a life of conflict with herself and her environment, which she is not aware of, while Maupassant employs more of plot, narration, and character to enact a woman’s satirical lifelong struggle to resist her fate, which led her, paradoxically, to become her destiny, after all. Joyce does not reveal the meaning of the title â€Å"Clay† in the plot, which makes it quite difficult to understand the plot and its connection with clay. Soon the plot exposes itself- it is a story about how something so simple can be so complicated too. Maria’s simple life has its own complications, because she struggles with society and her destiny. Joyce provides details about Maria’s life and how she goes about it, day in and day out. For Maria, she is an efficient and reliable person, and a peacemaker. She feels proud of her work, which is portrayed in the barmbracks that she confirms she made herself. She also states that she is happy with her life, even if she has no companion, and she tells Fleming that â€Å"she didn’t want any ring or man either† (Joyce 184). The ring represents the synecdoche for marriage. The ring is also mentioned several times in the story, once by Fleming, once by Maria, and then during the game at Joe’s house. This ring represents Maria’s struggle. Apparently, there exists a gap between her self-perceptions and social perceptions of herself. Maria thinks of herself as more superior. She views Fleming as having the â€Å"notions of a common woman† (Joyce 184), and yet Maria herself is exceedingly common. When Maria thinks about how many minutes her travels are, â€Å"twenty minutes† here and there, it underscores how empty her life is in that she fills it with ordinary numbers. Maria also wants to think that she is happy with being single, but when Fleming jokes her about it, she â€Å"laughed†¦. with disappointed shyness† (Joyce 184). â€Å"Disappointed† juxtaposes with the satisfaction that Maria feels, which accentuates that she is not at all content with her life. The plot expresses, nevertheless, the cluelessness of Maria about herself, which makes it more effective to depict chagrin in several ways. Readers will also feel chagrin, because Maria is not just physically frail; she is also mentally and emotionally frail too. Maupassant employs plot that also does not readily give away the ending. His story satirizes a woman’s struggle to resist her fate, which led her, ironically, to become her destiny. Loisel feels that she is born for something greater, and yet, as Maupassant illustrates, she was born: â€Å"as if through an error of destiny, into a family of clerks† (Maupassant 297). This â€Å"error† implies how Loisel sees her whole life: a huge â€Å"error† of fate. But â€Å"error† takes in a new life, as Loisel makes the biggest of all- borrowing Mme. Forestier’s diamond necklace. This necklace brings Loisel the happiest day of her life, when she receives the life she dreams of- attention, richness, and fame. Ironically, this necklace also seals Loisel’s fate to poverty and toil, both of which she detests. She loses the diamond necklace and she and her husband paid for it for ten years, only to discover in the ending, that the necklace is false. The ending shows the climax of the struggle and underlines that women cannot fight society and their destinies. The language that Joyce uses portrays the common language of Maria’s class. Joyce uses the words â€Å"spick and span† and â€Å"nice and bright,† which are words of commoners and their life of toil (Commentary 192). Words are also frequently repeated, which symbolizes the lack of sophistication in Maria’s life. The repetitive use of â€Å"And†¦And†¦. And† and â€Å"always†¦always† (Joyce 183) is a â€Å"syntactical pattern† (Commentary 192) of the disproportionate plainness of Maria’s viewpoint of her life, and how readers also come to understand how â€Å"boring† her life is. The language reinforces the plot that depicts Maria’s humdrum life, and exposes the struggle against society and fate. Maria ardently believes that she needs no man or ring, but when a common man gives her some attention, she floats in the air enough to forget her expensive plum cake. Thus, Maria cannot deny it; she yearns for a lifelong companion, someone her fate has denied her, and someone society is quick to point out as the source of her loneliness and unhappiness. Maupassant uses narration to illustrate the satire of Loisel’s conflict with her life. He narrates the thoughts of a woman’s yearning for a wealthy life. Loisel dreams of â€Å"elegant dinners, of the shining silver† (Maupassant 298). This narration represents the perspective of Loisel and her endless chagrin. The narration contrasts her life before and after, however, of a dream come true. Before the diamond necklace, Loisel has at least a maid and comfortable lodgings. After the loss of the diamond necklace, Loisel is forced to be who she does not want to be- a common working woman. Furthermore, Maupassant also uses strong characterization, as he narrates the changes in Loisel. From a â€Å"charming† young woman, Loisel transforms into â€Å"strong, hard woman, the crude woman of the poor household† (Maupassant 303). Loisel has become the person she hates, and she has learned to embrace the life she could not ever cherish. Maupassant, however, seems to want to rub it in on Loisel, when he ends the story with the revelation of the false diamond necklace. Loisel must have fainted, or even unsurprisingly, died from chagrin, after this revelation. Joyce predominantly uses the perspective of Maria, from his choice of words, although in a way, it is also revealed that Maria is not who she thinks she is, in the viewpoint of other people. In general, she believes that: â€Å"Everyone was so fond of Maria† (Joyce 183). However, the snide remarks about her spinsterhood, in the laundry shop and at her friend’s home, accentuates that people look down on her or pity her, because of her homeliness and state of singlehood. When Joyce says: â€Å"the tip of her nose nearly met the tip of her chin,† this remarks of how people slate her homely features (Joyce 183). Joyce also designs the story in a way that is not always too obvious, and he compels readers to do extra work, which makes the story more effective in revealing the character’s need for companionship. As readers analyze and research about the missing lines of the song â€Å"I Dreamt that I Dwelt,† this pursuit for something more about Maria ironically responds to the â€Å"attention† that Maria craves for. Joyce’s story design is also different from Maupassant’s â€Å"Moonlight,† because â€Å"Clay† has a different and more meaningful connotation. The clay represents Maria’s emotional and mental frailty. When she chooses clay, a joke of the next-door girls on her, and which is not even directly stated by Joyce, clay represents the mortality of human beings (Commentary 190). Clay also reinforces the meaning of the omitted song lines. Joyce illustrates that Maria unconsciously forgets these lines, because it tells of â€Å"suitors† and â€Å"vows† that fate neglected to give her. Clay hints that Maria will soon die without living life, wherein society says that a lived life equals to a married life. Joyce is more effective than Maupassant in disclosing the fictional character in relation to community and social environment, because Joyce uses plot, design, perspective, and language to show delicately what the clay indicates in the story. The clay portrays Maria’s frailty and commonness, and her conflict with her society and destiny. It is also a suggestion of her mortality, which is limited to a life of loneliness that she has to bear with. Maupassant, on the other hand, addresses the same conflict with dark humor and satire. Of the two, Joyce creates a more distinctive image of a woman who has nothing, who is more pitiable, because of her lack of awareness and admission of her life’s perpetual struggles.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

FreeBSD OS essays

FreeBSD OS essays There are many operating systems out in the world at the current time, however as youve probably realized or would guess some are better than others. For example windows is the most well known and most used Operating System out on the market today and for the last few years. However just because its the one that is most known and used doesnt mean its the best. In fact there are many other Operating Systems that are much better. However each Operating System is better for its own section, though some are overall better. Windows is one of the best for user friendliness but isnt very powerful. However FreeBSD is user friendly (assuming that the person knows something about computers) and is extremely powerful and very stable. Two things that Windows does not have. Some things that make FreeBSD a better Operating System than others out on the market, well the first and most important is the ports tree FreeBSD has, it is Unix based, and has a very customizable kernel for the core of the system. The first thing that makes FreeBSD different from many other Operating Systems is its file system. Its somewhat the same as most other Unix file systems such as on Linux systems. (The FreeBSD Project) Though it has its own commands that allow it to do specific things only unique to FreeBSD. And a very large difference between the file system on a FreeBSD machine rather than a Windows machine is that the navigation of a FreeBSD consists of a hierarchy type system. Much different that a Windows machine has. With a different navigation system than on a Windows machine, this means that there is more control for a user inside their own computer. Also there are many different ways to show and list what files are in a folder and what folders are inside a directory, you can even find out what files are in a different directory without having to be inside it ...

Monday, October 21, 2019

How to Conjugate Italian Verbs Like a Native

How to Conjugate Italian Verbs Like a Native Learning vocabulary for nouns like â€Å"toothbrush† and â€Å"tomato† are important, but without verbs, they’re not as useful. Verbs are essential to communicating in any foreign language, and while Italian verbs have a consistent, logical pattern of conjugation, there are still many verbs that are irregular. Plus, even if you memorize all of the verb conjugations, being able to use them quickly in conversation is another story. I say this to emphasize the importance of getting a lot of practice with verbs both with written exercises and with plenty of speaking.    To get you started, or perhaps to fill in some gaps, below you can read about the three Italian verb categories along with suggestions for your studies so you can learn how to conjugate verbs like a native. Step 1) Learn the present tense conjugations of the verbs avere (to have) and essere (to be). They are the key to learning all of the other Italian verb conjugations. Step 2) Understand that Italian verbs fall into three categories of conjugations depending on the endings of the infinitive: -are verbs Comprare - To buyImparare - To learnMangiare - To eatParlare - To talk -ere verbs Credere - To believeLeggere - To readPrendere - To takeScendere - To get off, to descend -ire verbs Salire - To go upUscire - To go out The stem of regular verbs is obtained by dropping the infinitive ending. In English, the infinitive (linfinito) consists of to verb. Step 3) Recognize that Italian verbs are conjugated in the various persons, numbers, and tenses by adding the proper ending to the stem. To start, let’s use the regular verb â€Å"credere - to believe† as an example. io - credo noi - crediamo tu - credi voi - credete lui / lei / Lei - crede loro, Loro - credono Notice how the ending changes based on the subject. â€Å"I believe† is â€Å"credo† and â€Å"they believe† is â€Å"credono.† Let’s use the irregular verb â€Å"andare - to go† as another example. io - vado noi - andiamo tu - vai voi - andate lui / lei / Lei - va loro, Loro - vanno Since the endings are different for each subject, more often than not you can drop the pronoun. So, for example, instead of saying â€Å"Io credo - I believe,† you can just say â€Å"Credo - I believe† with the â€Å"io† as a subject pronoun. Step 4) Memorize the present tense conjugations of common, irregular verbs. These are â€Å"dovere - must,† â€Å"fare - to do, to make,† â€Å"potere - can, to be able to,† and â€Å"volere - to want.† Step 5) Learn how to use common verbs in the following tenses: Il presenteIl passato prossimoL’imperfetto How do you know which verbs are common? While you could use the lists of the most common verbs online, I think it’s more useful to think about the verbs you commonly use and learn how to be flexible with those. One exercise for figuring out which verbs those are is by writing short compositions about your life, like how to introduce yourself, talking about your family, and discussing your hobbies. You’ll start to notice which verbs are used most often and then you can focus on those to memorize. Tips: Note that in the third person plural the stress falls on the same syllable as in the third person singular form.In a pinch, you can always consult a table of verb endings to determine the correct tense.