5 Reasons Teachers Should Start Writing a Blog

Are you thinking about starting your own teacher’s blog? You know that digital technology is sweeping classrooms on a global basis, creating blended learning environments. And you also know that to stay effective as a teacher you need to embrace some of this technology. For many, the problem is knowing where to start, how to initiate and integrate these new systems into the classroom. And while most of us are now comfortable with using a smartphone and personal computer, unless you’re a hardcore geek, the idea of massive technological setup can seem intimidating. It’s not that you’re a closet Luddite, it’s just the idea of learning an entire new system can feel a bit overwhelming. So, rather than thinking you’re going to have to learn code, be a social media guru, and invest decades learning how to run complicated software programs, focus instead on sufficiency. Set a goal of learning what will be sufficient to create your own blog. Or, in teacher terms ‘just enough’. â€Å"[Teachers] need [to learn] ‘just enough’ to help them complete a curriculum-related or instructional task. Anything beyond this is wasted effort.† And blogging can be a simple and gentle way to get more comfortable with technology in the classroom. For taking steps to create a blog, this post from Teach Junkie 24 Steps to Creating An Awesome Teacher Blog is a good place to start. So, let’s explore 5 good reasons teachers should start blogging. 1. Blogging is Efficient. A common area of resistance for many teachers is the thought that blogging will take up too much time. But in truth, once the initial setup is done and you’re familiar with the platform, blogging is an efficient and effective medium to communicate with students, parents and other teachers. You can use a blog to: Organize and consolidate all of your files, links, research data and multimedia sources in one place. And of course, you can keep private pages for your eyes only. Share students work within an online community for collaboration, reviews and peer critiques. Communicate in a two-way flow with parents. You can post classroom lessons and curriculum online as well as class progress, events and activities, so that parents are always in the loop. And parents can add their comments to your posts as well – or you can set a dedicated email address for private communications. Post classroom and homework assignments, schedules for upcoming tests and review material. This means no excuses of ‘not knowing’ when projects are due, and are helpful for students who are absent. This post from Angela Watson on Blogging Tips for Teachers is a good read for practical advice on setting a schedule, how to pick a theme, niches, etc. 2. Collaboration and Extended Reach. Today’s EdTech tools such as blogging allows for a broader range of collaboration between students and teachers as well as between teacher and teacher. It’s a great way to share what you’ve learned with other teachers, and to learn from those with a bit more technical savvy – as this very informative post 50 Ways EdTech Benefits Teachers and Students from Tom Vander Ark demonstrates. And, as an integrated tool in blended learning, blogging can also enhance â€Å"communication, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, digital literacy, entrepreneurship, global awareness, and digital responsibility/citizenship.† Blogging also facilitates expanded influence for â€Å"professional learning networks across districts and around the world.† 3. Blogging Builds Voice. For aspiring writers or teachers of drama, English, journalism etc. blogging is a very effective way to develop their â€Å"voice†, one of the key qualities in becoming a better writer – and thus, a better communicator. Critical for being a good teacher. But it can also be the voice of social consciousness. Anyone who works within the parameters of public service knows how difficult it can be when trying to effect positive change. Blogging allows us to take our concerns into the public arena – as Susan Bowles did when she refused to give the FAIR test to her kindergarteners. Use this tactic with discretion of course. Park your post in ‘drafts’ and sit on it overnight; or consult with your peers or superintendent before publishing. 4. Use Blogging as a Learning Tool. Setting up a blog, learning how to use it, composing original content and curating information is a great way to teach language, writing and editing skills in the classroom. And getting students involved with their own in-class blog also teaches them how to interact in a public platform with integrity and respect, and develops good â€Å"digital citizenship skills.† This post by educator Susan Lucille Davis offers a step-by-step process on Blogging Basics for setting up a classroom blog. 5. Blogging Gives Perspective. Let’s face it, just like our students, we don’t always behave in the classroom the way we’d like to. Events unfold, buttons may get pushed and then we assign meaning to those events based on past experiences. These meanings then color our thoughts and feelings which may be expressed in a manner somewhat less our usual high level of professionalism. Blogging can be a safe environment to gain perspective on what’s happened by creating a space for reflection; as the act of writing itself helps to clarify and refine our thoughts for objective examination. In situations that are unusual or create uncertainty, the professional should â€Å"reflect on the phenomena before him The act of reflecting-on-action enables us to spend time exploring why we acted as we did†. In short, blogging helps to create distance so we can see the situation clearly – it helps to keep us sane! Well, there you have some good reasons to start blogging as well as some teacher recommended resources to make your entry into the blogosphere easy and successful.

Free Essays on White Elephants

Abortion has been the subject of much debate for many years, and is many times linked to the feminist movement and the liberation of women. However, in the short story â€Å"Hills like White Elephants† Ernest Hemingway uses abortion not to represent the liberation of women but their oppression by using an argument between a couple to open our eyes to the exploitation of women, within American Society. Similarly, Russell Banks uses an argument about this same issue to expose the mistreatment of Minorities within society in his short story â€Å"Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat†. Both of these authors creatively use disagreements about abortion to reveal some saddening truths about our society. In â€Å"Hills like White Elephants† Hemingway writes a dialogue between a man and a women who are obviously involved in a relationship that is facing some trying times. It is never made clear what the exact problem is or what the argument between the couple is about, but it can be inferred that the couple is discussing abortion and it is clear that the man, known as â€Å"the American†, is for abortion and that the woman in the story, Jig, is against it. Hemingway is talking about an issue much deeper than abortion itself he is in fact using this relationship to represent the men’s exploitation of women in American society. His point is made clear through the way he withholds extemporaneous information, his portrayal of the characters, and his use of symbols. When reading a story it is important to decide what issues the author is discussing, in his story Hemingway makes it clear that the only issue he wants the reader to focus on is the conflict between â€Å"the American† and Jig. He prevents the reader from focusing on the actually relationship or the couples past by giving the reader very limited amounts of information about the characters and their history. By withholding information he prevents the reader from focusi... Free Essays on White Elephants Free Essays on White Elephants Abortion has been the subject of much debate for many years, and is many times linked to the feminist movement and the liberation of women. However, in the short story â€Å"Hills like White Elephants† Ernest Hemingway uses abortion not to represent the liberation of women but their oppression by using an argument between a couple to open our eyes to the exploitation of women, within American Society. Similarly, Russell Banks uses an argument about this same issue to expose the mistreatment of Minorities within society in his short story â€Å"Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat†. Both of these authors creatively use disagreements about abortion to reveal some saddening truths about our society. In â€Å"Hills like White Elephants† Hemingway writes a dialogue between a man and a women who are obviously involved in a relationship that is facing some trying times. It is never made clear what the exact problem is or what the argument between the couple is about, but it can be inferred that the couple is discussing abortion and it is clear that the man, known as â€Å"the American†, is for abortion and that the woman in the story, Jig, is against it. Hemingway is talking about an issue much deeper than abortion itself he is in fact using this relationship to represent the men’s exploitation of women in American society. His point is made clear through the way he withholds extemporaneous information, his portrayal of the characters, and his use of symbols. When reading a story it is important to decide what issues the author is discussing, in his story Hemingway makes it clear that the only issue he wants the reader to focus on is the conflict between â€Å"the American† and Jig. He prevents the reader from focusing on the actually relationship or the couples past by giving the reader very limited amounts of information about the characters and their history. By withholding information he prevents the reader from focusi...

Discrete Population Growth Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Discrete Population Growth - Lab Report Example y, during a period of an extremely populous generation resources are brought to scarcity and life and reproduction are made harder for individuals, leading to a decline in population numbers. These ideas are well reflected by modeling the situation with a function assuming low values on both ends of the range of argument, and high values in and around its center. The equation below is a simple example of this kind of model, using a variable parameter k to account for variable reproductive strength of different species and/or a given species in different environments. The equation predicts the size of (n+1)-th population pn+1 as a quantity considered dependent only on the size of n-th population pn: Using the program Grapher by R. Decker, the first 100 terms of the sequence generated by equation [1] were generated and plotted for several initial situations characterized by different combinations of p0 and k. Graphs in Figures 1 to 4 show four situations combining the values of 0.5 and 0.8 for p0 and 1.5 and 2.5 for k. The graphs make clear the sequence converges rather quickly under these conditions. The limit values are 0.33 for k = 1.5 and 0.6 for k = 2.5, regardless of p0. This behaviour is seen for k values between 1 and 3. The graph in Figure 5 is different in that there are two values between which the population numbers keep alternating. The graph has been produced for values k = 3.2, p0 = 0.5. Experimenting with the program proved such behaviour is characteristic for values of k between 3.0 and 3.4 (see also Figure 6). For values of k exceeding 3.4, the lines observed in Figure 5 become increasingly split or blurred (see Figures 7 and 8) until k = 3.6, where the alternating course of the sequence gives way to chaotic behaviour (see Figures 9, 10, 11 and 12). In this range, changing the value of k by only 0.001 has profound impact on the sequence terms (compare Figures 9 and 10, and Figures 11 and 12). Figure 12, produced for k = 4.0, reveals an

Waging Nonviolent Struggle Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Waging Nonviolent Struggle - Essay Example initial protest rally of more than a thousand people before the building of which housed the communist party’s core committee(Sharp, Gene, &Paulson 103). Then this Latvians presented a solid resistance on the conscription by pretending to not speak Russian and by removing or even replacing avenue signs, signposts, house numbers, as well as place name tablets to be able to confuse the army. This generated a move by the Latvian Supreme court on June 20, 1991 to create nonviolent safeguard center to arrange nonviolent resistance so that you can protect Latvia next to a rumored attack from Moscow, the nonviolent mobility encouraged people to set up small centers of amount of resistance in each of their cities (Sharp, Gene, &Paulson 103). With everyone happy to resist employing nonviolence, the pressure on the Baltic Says and in Moscow. In a planned nonviolent strategy, laying the actual groundwork is fundamentally important. Working upon laying groundwork for nonviolent movements is determined by defining ambitions and aims, choosing tactic and practices, making mishap plans in addition to training. The withdrawal of consent, cooperation in addition to submission can challenge the system as this affects the actual opponent’s options for power. How critically the flashbacks does so will vary with the products the types of the action, the amounts of the activists, and their persistent in the face of repression (Sharp, Gene, &Paulson 103). To balance out repression entails using different degrees of pressure for example, control of communication and information, internal pressure, and confiscation in addition to exceptional

Youth Justice Sytem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Youth Justice Sytem - Essay Example Surely the aberrant youths cannot be prosecuted the same way as adults as there is a different degree of criminality. The young criminal is always considered as a troubled youth whose parents, the church, the state and its institutions must partake of the blame. He is deemed as a victim of circumstances, of the weakening and destruction of the family and the family values, of fads such as drug use, cults, gangs and even heavy metal music as well as a product of violence in the newspapers, TV and the cinema. On the other hand, youth crimes cannot just be handled with kid gloves or reacted to by a mere slap of the wrist as these are potent symptoms of the debilitation of the moral fabric of society and thus, the weakening of the bonds that hold tight the dam that preserves society. Surely, if youthful criminals are detained for a while and released prematurely to society, they will be back to wreak more and deadlier havoc. At first, most societies dealt with youth crime control by subscribing to the environmental theory of crime which believes that youthful crimes are caused by external and environmental factors that are mostly beyond the control of the youthful offender. When this proved to be a failure, most societies shifted to the classical theory of crime which holds that the individual's crime is a result of his exercise of his free will and thus he must be deterred from commission 2 of crimes by severe punishment (Olivo et al 52). Today, UK has decided to meet halfway and has come up with a legislation called Youth Criminal Justice Act 2003, which holds that the youthful offender must be punished but he must undergo rehabilitation, pre-emptive intervention, education and a host of other services like the concept of restorative justice offered by the Youth Justice System (Stephenson xvii). The above was triggered by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of which UK is a signatory. In 1990, UK has agreed to accede to the UN provision respecting "special protection measures covering the rights of children in the juvenile justice system" and the provision granting to each child offender the right to "family environment and family care" as well as the "right not to be subjected to torture" (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child). The UN Riyadh Guidelines 1990 also provided for early intervention which is a shared responsibility between state and the parents. Concomitant to the provisions of the Youth Justice System was the establishment of Youth Justice Board (YJB) by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Its role is to oversee and provide leadership for the improvement of the performance of the youth justice system (Smith 83). Its main responsibility is to prevent the commission of offenses by young persons (Ghate 1). Other responsibilities are the securing of facilities for the juvenile offenders, the development of models of restorative justice and the development of parenting programmes (Smith 86). The Act declared that its main objective is the reinforcement of the responsibilities of parents to exercise control over their offsprings.

Woolworths Overview Of The Company Marketing Essay

Woolworths Overview Of The Company Marketing Essay Its core business focus is the provision of retail and financial services to upper and middle income groups mainly in South Africa but also in Africa, Australia and New Zealand.  This includes men, women and kids. Who are the competitors in the market? Other retailers selling food (butchers, bakers, convenience stores, etc. excludes takeaway food and restaurants) Mass merchants (including discount department stores; department stores) Size of the company Woolworths Holdings Limited is an investment holding company and one of the top 100 companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange Shares in Woolworths: 52% of market Employees:  24,649 Stores:  637 Turnover:  R 25.582bn p/a Market share: 9%-10%   Vision: Woolworths vision is to provide quality products and services to its customers all the time through price strategies, fresh food strategies and human resource strategies. Woolworths main strategies are to increase efficiency and be cost effective. Mission: Woolworths mission statement and main strategy is to deliver to customers the right shopping experience each and every time. Goals Sustainable growth within the context of the changing social and environmental needs Woolworths goal is to work harder to drive social development poverty drives environmental destruction and that in turn creates more poverty. To help alleviate poverty, we need to expand the existing initiatives of the Woolworths Trust and link with the transformational goals to drive enterprise development. The third priority relates to Woolworths impact on the environment, in particular the issue of diminishing biodiversity.   The fourth priority addresses climate change directly by focusing on reducing Woolworths carbon footprint. Woolworths recognizes climate change as an issue requiring urgent action if the risk of serious damage to global prosperity and security is to be avoided. Strategy: The strategic intent considers four areas of focus: the customers, operations, and the people. Woolworths main strategy is to increase efficiency and be cost effective.   Under this strategy there are different strategies that the company uses such as price strategies, fresh food strategies and human resource strategies/growth strategy. QUESTION 2 What would you change? What parts of the strategy? Low price Strategy: (high quality vs. low price) I would change the current pricing structure as it gives negative perception about the quality of their products. For consumers to believe that they offer high quality, price must be slightly more than usual as it creates a value-add considering the input costs. Product Strategy: (healthy organic foods) I would increase the percentage of organic food in the stores to increase/promote healthy eating. Growth strategy: (entering new markets) The stores are currently situated in high economic areas. I would therefore introduce Woolworths into low to medium income earners in different locations. Why would you change it? (What internal/external forces?) Low price Strategy: (high quality vs. low price) Because the input (fixed variable) costs have to be considered in order for the value added to be fairly presented so that the company can also see a good profit depending on the area of location. E.g. a Woolworths store in Cape Town will differ in prices to a Woolworths store in Mitchells Plain. Product Strategy: (healthy organic foods) When a big amount of customers consume a lot more of organic products, the will relate to Woolworths as the healthy alternative. Growth strategy: (entering new markets) This will give everyone the same shopping experience and affording them a chance not to travel too far for shopping. Safety strategy: When this is implemented in families, it can have a multiplying effect and reach a lot of people within a short period. Financial Services: (credit cards personal loans) Both cards allow customers to earn W points. Therefore, it is not necessary to have cards instead of one. One stop shop: (sells a variety of things) I would focus only on one or two offerings as too many products create confusion regarding the real product offering. QUESTION 3 How would you change it? Low price Strategy: (high quality vs. low price) I would push the price a bit higher because the high quality does not match the price. I would include all costs, improve packaging and set a higher mark-up. Product Strategy: (healthy organic foods) I would get more suppliers of organic food on board and attract more healthy-conscious customers as well create more awareness on healthy eating and how it impact on effective leadership. Growth strategy: (entering new markets) I would introduce more Woolworths stores in medium income areas first. Then, I would roll it out to low income areas (townships) such as Khayelitsha. Advantages My strategy achievement in terms of company goals Low price strategy: one of Woolworths main strategies is to increase efficiency and be cost effective. The advantages of our strategy, the high price high quality strategy, would allow the quality of Woolworths goods to be high all the time. There will be less costs going into the research and implementation of many of the many strategies for Woolworths, to allow for the high quality low price strategy. It will also be less time consuming for Woolworths and Woolworths is known in the past for having high prices. People still have the perception of Woolworths having high prices. Product Strategy: Because they have allowed for these high prices they are also able to increase the percentage of organic foods. This is obviously good for healthy eating habits and maybe in the long term decreasing the unhealthy eating disease rate in South Africa. Woolworths can also create healthy eating plans for individuals to increase buyers for the company. Growth strategy: (entering new markets) the advantage of this would be to increase the Woolworths clientele. This would allow for many other buyers to experience the Woolworths experience. Safety strategy: The advantages of this would be promoting the good ethics of the Woolworths Company. Financial Services: the advantage of merging the visa and the difference cards would allow for efficiency when coming to the till at a Woolworths store. You will be able to have the choice on which transaction you would like to use. This will allow for more customers to get involved with both choices. Having one Woolworths card with both options is better than having two cards. One stop shop: The advantages of having all these products is that it caters for all needs. This also allows the company to use a variety of promotion techniques to get through to their customers. Disadvantages Low price strategy: At the moment times are tough and people are still suffering from the last recession. To increase the prices could make the company have a bad name. The main reason they decrease the price is to give everyone the chance to have the Woolworths experience and be in the same level as their competitors offering goods at better quality. So increasing the price could steer the customers away although a slight increase wont really affect the customer too much because of the quality of their products. Product strategy: Costs of these organic goods are expensive and the company is already trying very hard to keep high quality goods at low prices. Growth Strategy: Woolworths prices are higher than the usual Shoprite. Many people in low earning areas tend to go to Shoprite but there quality of food is not as good as Woolworths. People in low income areas are not really interested in quality and they are more interested in price. I feel it is a disadvantage to put a Woolworths store in low income areas because they will not make enough money to keep the store going. Maybe they could increase the amount of stores in the medium earning areas but still this would be a far reached goal to bring it in the low earning areas. The price of the goods is just too high. Safety strategy: Because this is seen as part of work. Most workers wont want to waste their time extending this technique to their families. It will be seen as extra work to be done. Financial services: this will be time consuming for the company and there will be costs involved to implement this strategy. One stop shop: Woolworths has already made itself known for having all these products but some products are more known to their customers then others. Woolworths needs to have their other products, like homeware, better promoted. Having all these products is the store can be costly. People will rather choose to go to Mr. Price home than to buy homeware appliances at Woolworths. Woolworths needs to strengthen their market in there other products or they will be losing profits. Conclusion Woolworths strategy works very well. It works so well that I feel these small changes wont make much of a difference because they know what they have and they know where they are in the market. They were able to change their strategy over the years and even by doing so it has made them even more successful. This is the reason I feel there strategy is well implemented. QUESTION 4

Catal Huyuk was a Civilization Essay examples -- essays research paper

Catal Huyuk was a Civilization According to archaeologist in order to be defined as a civilization certain criteria must be met. Early archaeologists believed in order to be considered a civilization a society must have cultural superiority, which meant they must have the ability to read and write. If this was the sole criteria used to judge if a society was labeled a civilization, then you could say the Inca of South America, who constructed cities on top of mountains and had a complex system of irrigation canals, were not one because they did not have a system for reading or writing. Modern archaeologists now think of civilization as not better but different. The modern definition of civilization consists of the development of cities, or urbanization, the existence of a centralized political unit, a dense population in the thousands and a degree of organizational complexity. After reading and listening to class lecture I believe that Catal Huyuk should be considered a civilization. As you read on I will discuss point by point why I feel Catal Huyuk was a civilization.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Signs of craft specialization are very apparent at Catal Huyuk. There are a variety tools and weapons made from obsidian, flint, stone and bone. A process called flint knapping, or chipping, was used to shape a stone, like flint, into a sharp tool which could be used in arrowheads. Another process that was used in making tools was called grounding. This involved using two ston...

Economic Development Land Tenure Systems

  Land tenure can be defined as the traditional or legal rights which individuals and groups have to land and the behavior characteristics which directly result from these rights. The above definition denotes social relationships manifested in the property rights which individuals and groups have to the land. Land tenure is a crucial factor in the operation of rural land markets, influencing the pace and direction of agricultural development. Since land tenure systems govern access to the means of production in agriculture, they have also been an intensely political subject in rural societies.The first indication of tenure considerations is found among certain preliterate or primitive societies. Among these groups the appropriation of land has not assumed importance in and of itself and the land is viewed as free in total. But in some societies which have progressed no further than a hunting and fishing economy, exclusive claims sometimes are made on certain parcels of land.Since c olonial times, the dominant belief has been that individual tenure is more progressive, modern, efficient, and better for economic growth than indigenous communal tenure. The arguments in favor of labeling claimed that customary tenure is insecure for the small farmer and provides no incentive for land improvements, that it prevents land from being used as collateral for credit and that it prevents the transfer of land from inefficient users to efficient ones. They expected that indigenous customary tenure would wither, but it has proved surprisingly resilient and adaptable, and has coexisted with modern tenure. The most effective form of policy intervention would be governmental guidance, so that customary tenure systems evolve and operate more effectively.Some studies argue that tenure insecurity is correlated negatively with the quality of resource management. Over usage and degradation of natural resources, such as deforestation and soil erosion, are often characterized because of incomplete, inconsistent property rights, as the costs are borne by society as a whole, whereas benefits accrue to individuals. The relationship between customary tenure and land degradation indicates that customary tenure is partly responsible for land degradation. However the behavior that leads to land degradation by smallholder farmers under customary tenure cannot be linked to their lack of tenure security under customary tenure. Rather it is linked to other reasons such as lack of knowledge of conservation practices, use of traditional agricultural production practices that are not sustainable, and lack of inputs such as labor. In this regard, small farmers need extension methods that focus on relevant technologies that promote sustainable agricultural production. (Lynn Smith, 1953)The concept of land reform is itself a controversial and semantically intriguing topic. Its narrowest and traditional meaning confines it to land distribution. A broader view includes in it other related changes in agricultural institutions, such as credit, taxation, rents, cooperatives, etc. It can also be interperated that these reforms are practically synonymous with all agricultural improvement measures — better seeds, price policies, irrigation, research, mechanization, etc.The Land Tenure reforms to be found in any country appear to a great extent to be the function of government. They are closely related to the social and economic well-being of the people. The latter fact sets the stage for the discussion in this chapter. Its concern is the major forms or systems of land tenure and the distinct patterns of social and economic relationships characteristic of each. By way of illustration they point out, among other examples, that individualism and individual initiative are usually more developed in a community of individual farm-owners on small holdings than in a community where one or a few men own all the land and the workers are serfs, laborers, or non-managi ng tenants of one kind or another.The extent to which the ownership and control of the land is concentrated in a few hands or widely distributed among those who live from farming is probably the most important single determinant of the welfare of the people on the land. Throughout the world wherever there is a widespread distribution of land ownership and control.The implication of intense pressure of farm population on agricultural land inevitably results in a farm-tenure situation that is unsatisfactory from the point of view of working farm people. This is so because pressure of population on land drives down the marginal productivity of labor and the real return to labor as a factor of production. If farm land-tenure reforms are not accompanied by policies to reduce excessive pressure of farm population on agricultural land, such reforms are likely to be of little or no avail. Fortunately, the two recent programs to assist depressed rural areas to some degree reflect an awarenes s of this principle.The term that is basic to land tenure theory and which helps to explain the usefulness of the interdisciplinary approach is distribution. According to economic theory, laying aside all qualifying statements for the sake of simplicity, the impersonal market distributes economic rewards according to merit. However, is too narrow a concept to explain fully the distribution principle even in a † free † market. (Alvin L. Bertrand, Floyd L. Corty 1962)The reform or liberal position on the land question thus far had been to make the public-land system function in a democratic way by assuring the small man the right to acquire a piece of the national domain. Limitations were put in the Preemption, the Graduation, the Homestead Acts and their variations to make certain that only the small man could take advantage of them until the issue of the patent, but beyond that they had no effect. All such measures were therefore used by large interests acting through fa ke buyers to acquire lands they could not legally acquire otherwise.Timber land in Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and Washington, grazing lands in Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, and Idaho, wheat lands in Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota passed into the hands of great lumber companies, cattle companies, and bonanza farm groups under laws that were designed to prevent large-scale accumulation. The unwillingness of Congress to experiment with restrictions on alienation made inevitable the concentration of ownership which grieved western agrarians. (Alvin L. Bertrand, Floyd L. Corty, 1962)Evans, Greeley, George, and other radicals had failed to carry the mass of land reformers with them on the question of alienability. Americans found it easy to be radical or to favor reform when to do so did not impose any self limitation, but few were attracted to any idea that might restrict their right to accumulate property or to sell and gain the unearned increment.The reforms which were b eing adopted at this late time were both ineffective and to some extent unwise. Since the desirable size for land-use units was increasing as population moved into the arid and semi-arid regions, the 320 acre limitation on the amount of government land persons could acquire compelled either evasion and abuse of the laws to acquire adequately sized units or the establishment of small grain farms in areas unsuited to cultivation. This pattern of evasion and abuse of the land laws and the establishment of small grain farms in areas better planned by nature for grazing carried well into the twentieth century. Not until 1934 were comprehensive and far-reaching reforms initiated to produce a desirable and constructive plan of land use.The preponderant, almost the universal view of Americans until near the end of the nineteenth century was that the government should get out of the land business as rapidly as possible by selling or giving to settlers, donating for worthy purposes and ceding the lands to the states which should in turn pass them swiftly into private hands. No matter how badly owners abused their holdings through reckless cultivation, destructive and wasteful cutting of the timber, prodigal and careless mining for coal and drilling for oil, few questioned their right to subject their property to any form of use or abuse.An extensive part of the fertile coastal plain and piedmont of the South and of the hill-farming area of the northeast could be cultivated in such a way as to reduce the land to barren, gullied, and eroded tracts no longer able to produce crops, to support families, and to carry their share of community costs, but few denied the right of the owners to do as they wished with their property or, more fundamentally, questioned the system of land distribution that seemed to invite such practices.The shore line of the Atlantic, of bays and inlets, of inland lakes all near congested urban areas could be monopolized by a wealthy few, and still t here were few complaints. Rich landlords, speculators, and corporations could buy unlimited amounts of land from the United States, or purchase from other owners who had acquired tracts from the state or federal government and keep their holdings from development for years, thereby blighting whole areas, delaying the introduction of schools and roads and doing immeasurable harm to neighboring residents.ReferencesAlvin L. Bertrand, Floyd L. Corty (1962) Rural Land Tenure in the United States: A Socio-Economic Approach to Problems, Programs, and Trends. Southwest Land Tenure Research Committee   Louisiana State University Press. Place of Publication: Baton RougeAlvin L. Bertrand, † The Social System as a Conceptual and Analytical Device in the Study ofLand Tenure,† Land Tenure Workshop Report, Chap. VII.Lynn Smith, The Sociology of Rural Life (3d ed.; New York: Harper & Bros., 1953), 274.Rawls John ( 1971) The Theory of Justice. Belknap Press.Rawls J (2001) Justice as Fa irness: A Restatement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Roth Michael 2002) Integrating Land Issues and Land Policy with Poverty Reduction andRoland R. Renne, Land Economics ( New York: Harper & Bros., 1947), 429.William H. Nicholls, † Southern Traditions and Regional Economic Progress,† SouthernEconomic Journal, Vol. 26 ( January, 1960), 187-98; id., Southern Traditions and Regional Economic Progress ( Chapel Hill, N. C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1960).

Technical Project Paper

Technical Project Paper Technical Project Paper In videogame development confidentially is going to be most critical in what risk needs to be assessed. Upon reviewing your network structure, I have outlined some areas that need to be reviewed and systems established to mitigate the potential risks. The security controls will need to be more strict using smart cards or tokens or even biometric devices as a second layer to the authentication process. Establish a threshold of failed attempts for logon attempts while maintaining auditing logon events. These logs will provide you with a record of traffic and who and when someone entered or exited the system. The first phase that needs to be addressed is the 7 domains of your infrastructure. We will look at the User Domain this is who has access to an organizations information system. There are roles, tasks and responsibilities and accountability from the employees in the organization to keep sensitive information secure. As we know that human error is the greatest weakness in any IT infrastructure. The second domain is the workstation this is where your employees actually connect to the network, could be a laptop a desktop computer, smartphone or even remote access. This is where you want to make sure everyone is required to logon to system with strong passwords and that they are required at least every quarter to change their passwords. This is typically where malicious software in found in the system or installed on the workstation. The key here is to check for unauthorized users and make sure the anti-virus protection is up to date and all patches are installed. Your external firewall stops unauthorized traffic from entering or leaving your network. As packets of data travel the internet you external firewall adds a layer of protection by filtering every packet that arrives at either side of the firewall. Intrusion Detection System IDS - The IDS is in a location you want it to be in a place that will identify possible points of entry into the network. The IDS must be configured properly but it can add a layer of integrity to the infrastructure and trace user activity, notify you when the system is under attack. It can detect errors in the system configuration. The IDS will also help to mitigate some DoS attacks from occurring. Exchange Server - This is placed properly behind the firewall and with the DMZ, now we must configure it so that we disable the HTTP and only allow HTTPS this will narrow an attack. We would want to install whitelisting software to add protection from the Remote Administration Tool (RAT) gaining entry. File Transfer Protocol FTP - uses TCP as a connection oriented data transmission but it is in clear-text. The packets are numbered and acknowledged as being received to increase integrity of the file transfer. However these packets can easily be "eavesdropped" upon and therefore need to be protected. You would want to hide the data with cryptography or encryption. Third domain is LAN domain this is where computers connect to one another connection like the file servers or printer server. These should be configured with access controls to require logon ID and password authentication for access so only the required people have access to those servers that are supposed to. This domain is where data is usually transmitted unencrypted and the spreading of malicious software takes place. Implement encryption between workstations to maintain confidentiality. Wireless Access Point allows wireless capable devices and wired networks to connect like a hotspot. So this device needs to be behind the internal firewall and mac address filtering. Change password on settings from the default password. Change the SSID network name name of the device. Set your static IP address for your wireless networks. configure security settings change encryption on wireless settings and change to WPA or WPA2 if available. Server 2008 Domain Controller (DC) This is pretty standard now days and

Grafftiti essays

Grafftiti essays Graffiti comes from the verb "graffiare", which means to engrave or design on solid surfaces. Some artists believe that graffiti started in an ancient time when people had no formal way of communicating verbally and drew pictures on the wall representing actions. Other then that most graffiti artists believe that graffiti had first started around the 60's. In the sixties people tagged there names on building walls, tunnels, and any place were a lot of people will see it. People also used graffiti to mark territorial spots for gangs and cultural groups. As years went by more people were following the bad example of others and more people were getting into it. Instead of most tags relating to gangs or cultural groups more individuals were tagging for a rush. As more people were tagging towns and cities were becoming filled with graffiti. Individuals usually had a specific word or term in which that they tagged every time. The individual would try to get that tag in as many places as possible to In todays style there are many different terms that are for all The most usually seen tags are called scribbles and they are a form of writing a your tag in a very cool looking style. Another common type of tagging is called a throwup and it is usually done with a couple colors and some highlights and background. it usually takes people around ten to twenty minutes to The last type of tagging is called a "peice" short for masterpeice. This type of tagging are beatiful peices with many colors and backgounds and all types of shading and coloring. WAYS COPS ARE TRYING TO REDUCE GRAFFIT ...

Discuss the motives underlining M&A and compare the outcomes of the Essay

Discuss the motives underlining M&A and compare the outcomes of the different methodologies used to analyse M&A - Essay Example There are two types of acquisitions; â€Å"private and â€Å"public†. This depends on whether the company acquiring is or is not listed on a public stock market. The difference between Merger and Acquisition is that Merger deals with two companies joining to become one while Acquisition has one company, which is doing the buying (Sherman and Hart, 20016:11). The work that follows discusses the motives underlying M&A, and compares the outcomes of the different methodologies used to analyze M&A. All companies that engage in any business are under one rule: grow or die. Those companies that plan to grow take away market share from their competitors look for the creation of economic profits and provide returns to shareholders (Sherman and Hart, 2006: 1). Those that lack plans on growth are stagnant, do not plan any growth strategies, they end up losing customers and market share and lose shareholder value. Mergers and Acquisitions contribute a lot to these two conditions. It help s the stronger company to grow faster than the competition and ensures quick swallowing of the weaker companies or them making irrelevant through exclusion (Sherman and Hart, 2006:1). Motives underlying M&A Different business enterprises and companies have used Mergers and Acquisitions as a means of growth strategies. ... The three differ according to the ideas behind them (Schmidt, 2010: 67) Economic motives Different authors have devised different theories to explain economic motives that encourage people to engage in Merges and Acquisitions; Efficiency theory This theory presents the motive of benefiting shareholders and managers of the acquiring company (Farschtschian, 2012:18). According to this theory, companies plan and execute Mergers and Acquisitions to achieve financial, operational and managerial synergies (Faulkner, Teerikangas and Joseph, 2012). The shareholders with this motive aim to benefit from net gains through synergy. Monopoly theory Under this theory, companies engage in Mergers and Acquisition with the motive of achieving market power. Mergers and Acquisitions under this motive may allow companies to cross-subsidize products, at the same time limit competitions in more than one market, and discourage potential entrants from the market. All of this result to monopoly power for the company. The shareholders under this motive aim at the wealth transfers from customers. Managerial Motives Theories that explain managerial motives include; Empire/Agency building theory This theory shows the motive aimed at benefiting managers. In this motive, managers plan for Mergers and Acquisitions aiming at maximizing their own utility instead of shareholders’ value (Karenfort, 2011: 9). The managers, according to this theory, plan to engage the company in mergers and Acquisition aiming at benefiting or creating their own reputation. Another motive is the need to transform to a corporate identity or recognition. This is where companies merge to gain popularity (Sherman and Hart, 2006:13). Financial motives The following theories explain the

Tackling the Incidence of Cardiovascular Diseases Essay

Tackling the Incidence of Cardiovascular Diseases - Essay Example According to statistics obtained from the World Health Organization (WHO), CVDs are the primary cause of deaths worldwide. It is estimated that more people die from CVDs annually than from any other disease. The WHO further reports that in 2004, CVD was responsible for 17.1 million deaths globally. This represented 29% deaths worldwide. Of these, 7.2 million deaths were due to coronary heart disease, while stroke was associated with 5.7 million deaths. The WHO estimates that by 2030, deaths due to CVD would amount to 23.6 million, most of which will have resulted from stroke and heart disease (â€Å"WHO Fact Sheet†). In sight of this grim reality, it is high time that scientists explore beyond conventional medicine. Current treatment of CVD involves balloon angioplasty, heart transplantation, coronary artery bypass surgery, and repair or replacement of valves. Though widespread, there are always implications and setbacks to these methods. In most cases of heart failure, congen ital cardiac anomalies and post-myocardial infarctions, the only possible cure is heart transplantation because â€Å"the ischemically injured failing heart lacks contractile myocardium, functional vasculature, and electrical integrity, which has made treatment of the underlying injury untenable† (Ott, Davis and Taylor, 2005). However, due to a severe scarcity of organ donors and the fear of organ rejection, transplantation science needs a full-blown transformation. Therefore, in this proposal, I put forth possible areas of research in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine that are emerging as promising frontiers in transplantation technology, and how they can be used in tackling the incidence of cardiovascular diseases. Here, I wish to explore new technologies in tissue engineering and discuss how I will approach my research objectives for postdoctoral studies in this field. Context and literature review Most of the current research is focused on tissue engineering to reproduce functional myocardium, heart valves and even the entire heart from the cells of the patient. In the treatment and prevention of heart failure, technologies that induce cardiac repair are being sought after. Therefore, â€Å"cell-based† regenerative medicine is the first step in this direction (Ott and Taylor, 2006). â€Å"By combining stem and progenitor cells with increasingly complex scaffold materials and culture conditions†, it is possible to create an entirely new organ derived from the patient’s own cells (Song and Ott, 2011). Studies have been done on cardiac stem cells isolated from â€Å"uncommitted cardiac progenitor cells† of ventricles. These cells can mature into smooth muscle, endothelial and cardiomyocyte cells that can be used to produce organs or parts of an organ (Ott et al, 2007). In another approach, skeletal myoblasts, myogenic or angiogenic precursors, hematopoietic progenitor cells and blood-derived or bone marrow mesench ymal cells can be used for cardiovascular repair (Ott, McCue and Taylor, 2005). Using cardiac derived stem cells, progenitor cells or cardiomyocytes, a functional and contractile myocardium can be engineered using â€Å"biocompatible scaffold materials† (Tee et al, 2010, p. 683). Scaffold materials are required to guide the division of cells to enable the development of an organ just like an extracellular matrix. Attempts are being made to make patient specific scaffolds through bio manufacturing (Bartolo et al, 2009, p. 212). Failed cardiovascular components can be replaced with â€Å"biocompatible tissues that have the potential to rapidly restore the lost function and slowly regenerate by remodeling†