The Strong and Durable Digging Equipment – Excavator and Its Parts

Digging equipments for construction is a very strong and durable one. They are usually made of steel which can carry heavy materials without breaking and dig to the ground with the use of the excavator bucket teeth. This part of the machine is built like this so that it will break down the materials that it will dig and it would be easier for the machine to do its task because of this feature. As a result also, it is easier for the bucket to dig through the earth and scoop it up for easy loading and unloading. Excavation is part of a construction project that requires heavy equipment machinery specifically an excavator bucket. It is an attachment that is very useful in construction projects that requires a lot of digging like in making bridges, trenches, ditches and also in mining. The bucket is an application that can be attached even at cranes, tractors, and other construction machinery. As the word itself, its main purpose is to dig and load a larger volume of material that is of great help and at the same time convenient to the workers at mining and construction sites. The excavator bucket suppliers have designed this very efficient machine for a lot of purposes. In the construction area, it is used to break the soil and remove it for the purpose of making trenches, ditches or bridges. Aside from the soil, it can dig through any materials that are within its capacity. In landscaping, it generally is used to excavate the earth so that the area will be designed according to the plans. Moreover, it is used for mining wherein it clears the ground for different mining tasks. In addition it can even dig to the ground to gather raw materials like ore and rocks. Operation of the excavator bucket requires you to be responsible of maintaining it in good shape. Like other machines, it must be checked for any damage and parts that needs to be fixed for it to work well in the area. You must be responsible in keeping it functional and efficient for you to accomplish your work according to your plans. The excavator parts all work together in order to appropriately perform its task. The bucket has a point of attachment wherein it is designed to move and be maneuvered easily according to the wishes of the operator. The tasks and the area that the machine will be used will determine its size. Large and heavy equipment ones are more preferable if you are going to use it on larger projects. Moreover, a compact or smaller in size construction machinery is recommended for small areas and not so big projects. The excavator bucket is indeed very useful in different areas especially that it is a very durable and powerful equipment in digging up materials based on its capacity. It serves a lot of purposes to workers and contractors. Maintenance is also easier if you do daily checkups and inspection on the equipment daily before you proceed with your tasks. Jaw breakers: http://www. hxjq-crusher. com/1. html vibratory feeder: http://www. hxjqchina. com/product-list_14. html combination crusher: http://www. hxjqchina. com/product-list_16. html

Ensorship and mass culture in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Essay

Of the famous dystopian literatures of the 20th century Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 offers perhaps one of the more interesting suggestions to the historic causality of censorship.   While subtle hints of ignorance is power for a tyrannical government is mentioned by some characters ala 1984, most of the text instead suggests that in the dystopian world of Fahrenheit 451 that censorship is not so much intentional as it is a side-effect of a postmodern predilection toward, as Frederic Jameson notes, a cultural waning of affect and a world of signs without signifiers, a pastiche of histories without meaning (Jameson, 2001). The books being censored then, in Fahrenheit 451’s dystopian America, then have less of an impact on the society than the drama and entertainment created from their discovery and destruction and that more than the censorship therein this blissful ignorance is the dystopian element in Bradbury’s novel. Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopia for the intellectual.   Within the story is presented an (assumed) United States where people live reasonably happy lives.   From everything we see in the novel they are well fed, live in wonderful fireproof houses, have jobs, families and plenty of entertainment.   Yet, as main character Guy Montag dwells on, people kill themselves still and a constant threat of war seems to loom in the background of the novel. Yet there is never any discussion of why, and no matter how many â€Å"picture walls† or radios are turned on throughout the course of the book no more information is ever truly recovered as to how or why the country finds them in this mess.   Yet no one outside Montag and a handful of outsiders seem to think there is any problem with this. People in Montag’s world seem encouraged to live a life of leisure.   Montag’s boss, Beatty, talks endlessly about sports and his coworkers play hand after hand of poker. Dance faster than the white clown 2 Montag’s wife, Mildred, is addicted to the â€Å"picture wall†, or television, and is constantly begging for a fourth and final wall to be installed.   Violence as entertainment, even, seems to in some way be supported generally by society as Mildred seems to take pleasure at one point from hitting small animals with her automobile.   Yet there also seems to be an urge and encouragement of sameness, as echoes in many other works of dystopian speculative fiction.   Montag notes of his colleagues, â€Å"These men were all mirror images of himself! Were all firemen picked then for their looks as well as their proclivities?† (Bradbury, 1991)   His friend early in the story, Clarisse, falls victim to this sameness as she seems pushed out of public school because she doesn’t â€Å"mix.† (22)   Mildred, although a seemingly perfect member of society also seems to suffer from the strain of sameness as Montag notices a body strained by dieting. When we think of censorship, especially in the context of dystopian narratives, we often think of an oppression of knowledge by the government in order to control the proletariat.   Yet in several sections of the novel Bradbury makes allusions that the government didn’t censor the book initially, but rather the public abandoned the book and the government got rid of it as an after thought.   In his history lesson on the fireman, Beatty explains: The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! [†¦] Authors, full of evil thoughts, luck up your typewriters.   They did.   Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca.   [†¦]   But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive.   And the three dimensional sex magazines of course.   [†¦]   It didn’t come from the Government down.   There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship to start with, no!   Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God! (47) Dance faster than the white clown 3 Beatty explains that a globalized consumer market and an increasing demand to be entertained with bigger and better products is what killed the book and the government made firemen â€Å"custodians of our peace of mind† (48) to prevent unhappiness.   Jean Baudrillard discusses homogeneity in consumer society as â€Å"where everything is taken over and superseded in the ease and translucidity of an abstract ‘happiness,’ defined solely by the resolution of tensions.† (Baudrillard 2004) This seems to fit well with the construction of media and hyperconsumerism in Montag’s world, as all things in his world seem to exist for the purpose of happiness and entertainment.   Baudrillard’s description of the consumer experience could easily come from any number of facets of Montag’s life: Work, leisure, nature and culture: all these things which were once dispersed, which once generated anxiety and complexity in real life [†¦] these activities which were more or less irreducible one to another, are now at last mixed and blended, climatized and homogenized in the same sweeping vista of perpetual shopping. (30) The sadness and dystopia of Montag’s reality is not that the books are banned, but rather, as Montag’s ally Faber notes, â€Å"the public itself stopped reading of its own accord.†Ã‚   Montag’s society believes books are boring, difficult and bring only confusion and unhappiness and are so blindly obsessed with the consumption of happiness that even if books were available they would probably be ignored. If we think of a dystopia as a world where people have no interest in educating themselves or learning about things that may potentially make them unhappy, a world where image and a pastiche of history are all that are important, then we may very well have to worry that our own society is becoming a kind of dystopia.   Of course books are still readily available, but studies show that Americans are taking less time to read and that reading comprehension skills are greatly suffering. (Brown, 2008) As Beatty describes we too are Dance faster than the white clown 4 craving faster, more flashy and more dramatic entertainment.   Internet phenomena like Twitter, where users are limited to messages of no more than 140 characters, and Youtube, where the average video is 5 minutes, are outstanding examples of our ever shortening attention spans.   As a society we are looking ever conspicuous consumers, as Frederic Jameson says, on an unending quest for bigger, faster, better.   (Jameson 2001) Unfortunately in a post-Bush America there’s a lot to be said that we have entered a dystopia.   We are a country possessed by fear and worry, where children who, like Clarisse, â€Å"don’t mix† are being pushed out as safety risks.   Our activities and interests are being more carefully monitored by authorities than they have ever been. In the UK, fears of future terrorist activities have caused authorities to create advertisements encouraging neighbors and family to report suspicious activity, in very similar ways to that of Fahrenheit 451. (Doctorow, 2009)   If we think pessimistically on such events it is very easy to think we are in a doomed and dire situation like in the book and, as Faber says, â€Å"the whole skeleton needs reshaping.† Bradbury obviously wrote Fahrenheit 451 out of a growing concern that the world he lived in was being overtaken by a world of people who chose pleasure over the burden knowledge can bring.   He wrote it hoping that things could be turned around.   I suppose he might be horrified at many of the new ways people are wasting their time, the new distractions that keep us from educational entertainment.   However, the pursuit of knowledge continues on, albeit in sometimes altered ways. The book may be going out of style but knowledge continues on in forms on the internet, is discussed on the radio and (sometimes) television.   While there are dystopian elements to our world there is still hope for intellectualism and literacy.   Bradbury’s book stands as a warning to heed to prevent ignorance and cultural destruction. Dance faster than the white clown 5 References Baudrillard, Jean (2004). The consumer society: Myths and Structures. London, England: Sage Publications. Bradbury, Ray (1991). Fahrenheit 451. New York, New York: Ballantine Books. Brown, Joseph (2008).†As the constitution says†: Distinguishing documents in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Explicator. 67, 55-58. Doctorow, Cory (Mrch 24, 2009). Boing Boing. Retrieved April 15, 2009, from London cops reach new heights of anti-terror poster stupidity Web site: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/24/london-cops-reach-ne.html Jameson, Frederic (2001). Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.

Analysis of the Influences That Make People Risk Takers

Analysis of the Influences That Make People Risk Takers What Makes People Take Risks? Have you ever felt you are on risk before? If yes, how do you feel at that moment? And would you like to do it again? The answers can be very different for each person. In order to know what the differences are we should know what risk is. Risk is some kind of possibility of suffering harm or loss or a situation involving uncertain danger. From the meaning of risk, people can look at risk in different point of view. Some people dont want to take or to deal with risk at all but some people want to take risks because of many reason; biological factors, getting self-confidence, and getting away from boring life. First of all, people have risk taking instinct, which causes them to deal with any dangerous situation eagerly. This might be due to a dangerous, difficult, and uncertain past that ancestors passed on that made them strong and well trained for taking risks. In the article Taking the Bungee Plunge, Bensimhon (cited in Men’s Health, 1992) mentions the same thing that human being are intrinsic risk takers who survive and who thrive on risks. By this reason, it is obvious that some people want to take risk because they have risk taking instinct. In addition, Israeli scientists have found one kind of gene know as D4DR that influences people’s characteristics. The scientists believe that people who have the gene tend to look for thrills. This kind of gene, D4DR, is also called thrill-seeking gene. (â€Å"For Our Ancestors, Taking Risks Was a Good Bet†, 1999) In other words, the thrill-seeking gene in human is another reason that influenced people to take risk. Secondly, it’s mentioned in the Bensimhon’s article also about how people get confidence after thriving risks. In this case, people have the best moments when their body or mind is stretched to its limits while they are taking risks and after accomplishing it, they feel very confident. In addition, in the article â€Å"Risking Nature†, the author also mentions the same idea that people seek out nature even though it’s dangerous because of a desire for self-reliance. (â€Å"Risking Nature†, 1999) Naturally, people like to have freedom or to be self-reliance, so when they take risks, it’s like they can control their destiny by themselves. For example, when students have a chance to go study abroad, it’s taking a risk because they have to make the decision to come to another country which they have to deal with strangers, a new culture, a new language, and different kinds of food. They can’t meet their family, friends, or girlfrien d/boyfriend. Its a very big difference for them to adapt to everything new in their life. They might be unhappy staying oversea which is a risk. However, they still want to try to get over this risk because they have the wish to reach their goal and to succeed in their education. In addition to the reasons mentioned above, people who take risks also want to get away from their boring life. According to Bower cite in the article â€Å"Going over the Top†, a number of athletes who do the extreme sports is increasing and the reason is to get away from their boring life and to seek something exciting and challenging. The players think adventure sports are relatively safe but worth trying. Also in the article, Douglas says that every day life’s dissatisfaction causes the spread of extreme sports. In conclusion, I think some people take risks because of different reasons based on what that they think or want to get from the risk they are going to take. It could be good for their mental or physical health or maybe both. Doing so should be based on awareness, carefulness and safety of that people. Then no harm will happen to a risk taker.

Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Strategy - Essay Example The supplier caters almost 35% of the requirements of the company that is huge and might put the company in jeopardy (Thompson, 2012). In the given circumstances, the company needs to take into account the adverse economic environment and formulate a successful corporate strategy to cope with the business complexities (Johnson et al 2011). Haberberg and Rieple (2008) demonstrate that a well-planned corporate strategy provides means to renew competitive advantage in line with the changing environment. Accordingly, it will be most appropriate to delve deeper into the existing toy market scenario. Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the UK constitute almost 73% of the total European toy market. Most of the supply of the toys in the Europe comes from China. The infant and preschool toy segments constitute almost 20 percent of the market – a largest segment in the total toy sales. Toy shops in the five major countries of Europe sell almost 40% of the total sales in toys (The Toy Sector in Europe, 2010). Furrer (2011) argues that the ultimate purpose of any corporate strategy is the value creation. In order to sail through difficult times, the company needs to adopt positioning strategy to earn higher revenues by using scarce and limited resources at its disposal (Besanko, 2010). Accordingly, the company will be benefitted by positioning to the fastest growing infant/preschool segment of toys and expand by capturing the imagination of this class of children. Porter (1985) argues that it is important to differentiate the product from its competitors so that it is valued by buyers and the uniqueness in the product is eventually rewarded through a higher price. Moreover, innovation is must to make product distinct and unique Grant, 2010). In order to ensure uninterrupted supply, suppliers’ evaluation and selection process needs to be done most meticulously (Sollish & Semanik, 2011) and therefore an effective and flaw-less sourcing strategy needs to be at

Epidemiology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Epidemiology - Essay Example In the case of a food outbreak, it is a responsibility of the public health officials to examine the problem and look for possible solutions to control it. It is their obligation to make sure no more people are affected and avoid similar outbreaks from happening in the future. In the above case, I would rush to a nearby health center to make the officials aware of the problem. The food born outbreak really requires a public health response. As the main role or responsibility of public health officials is to collect information on any serious outbreak, it will be so helpful if information on the above case, food born outbreak among the children is examined. There is where the woman can get to know what the really cause or genesis of the problem was. The type of emergency described in the above case is an epidemiological investigation. In this investigation, after food borne disease outbreak is recognized, the public health officials starts immediately an observation to get enough information with a sole aim of controlling the outbreak so that more people don’t get affected even in times to come. In order to examine the root course of the problem, information is the main key. The public health officials could ask some questions like; what did he or she eat? Where was he when the problem started? How did it start? Have he ever suffered from the same? How many children are suffering the same problem currently? Have you visited any other medication? It is good to know which steps we can take to manage such an outbreak. The steps for managing the above disease are; gathering original information about the cases and report it to the right person at the nearby health center, formulating an original case definition that is like who is ill, what are their signs among others. It is also important to record the gender and even age of the affected. Another step is to formulate an original questionnaire to find out if there exists a common contamination source

Alessandro algardi Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Alessandro algardi - Research Paper Example With the landmark of Cardinal Millini (d. 1629) in Santa Maria del Popolo, the Frangipani landmark in San Marcello al Corso, and the bust of Cardinal Laudivio Zacchia (Berlin), Algardi developed as the main opponent of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the field of representation figure. Failing to offer Berninis dynamic imperativeness and infiltrating characterization, Algardis pictures were acknowledged for their temperance and surface authenticity. Algardis nearby companionship with Pietro da Cortona helped create his notoriety in Rome and likewise acquainted him with a classicizing style in figure that owed an extraordinary arrangement to Roman demeanor to authentic correctness and the impact of Christian antiquarianism. Maybe his most paramount requisition in the 1630s was for the marble tomb of Pope Leo XI in St. Dwindles (1644; raised 1652). Leo XI ruled as pontiff an insignificant 27 days in April 1605 (the requisition hailed from the popes incredible-nephew, Cardinal Roberto Ubaldini). Algardi accentuated Leos kindheartedness with figurative figures of benevolence and charitableness and the help model Cardinal de Medicis Legation to France. Dissimilar to Berninis tomb for Pope Alexander VII, which consolidated white and shaded marble with bronze, Algardis ecclesiastical tomb was etched altogether from white marble. After the decision of Pope Innocent X (1644), Algardi superseded Bernini in ecclesiastical support. Between this date and his demise in 1654, Algardi generated some of his most commended lives up to expectations, around them the situated statue of the pope now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori (1645) and a goliath marble easing of the Meeting of Attila and Pope Leo in St. Subsides (1646–53), which affected the improvement and advancement of illusionistic reliefs. Despite the fact that he was by and large less showy than Bernini, Algardi in this work viably made an overwhelming-size account whose foremost

GA Army National Guard Should Provide Laptop Access to all Soldiers Assignment

GA Army National Guard Should Provide Laptop Access to all Soldiers - Assignment Example The reason for this effort is to find out the best possible way to give the Georgia Army national Guardsmen access to computers. There are two options on the table to achieve this. Option one is to designate a computer lab at each armory, while option two is to buy laptops for soldiers. Cost, efficiency, time, desirability and practicality form the criteria for rationing the decision. Internet research, phone calls, unit surveys and interviews are performed to research data to analyze the criteria. After careful analysis option one turns out to be the better of the two. Designating a computer lab offers many advantages and scores higher on the criterion table. Other than lower cost ‘option one’ can be completed in lesser time. Technology is imperative in the military. There are no second opinions in the argument that the soldiers need to learn, acquire and practice the technology skills. The war in Afghanistan is ending. The troops have to return home soon. In the near future The National Guard will be relatively inactive at the international level. The Georgia Army National Guard is focusing on the education and the professional growth of their soldiers. Although the national guards are not recruits where the administration forces them to complete their education and grow in the professional career of their choosing, yet, if they do choose to grow within the ranks then they need to put a lot of effort in accomplishing those goals. And the best way to do that are the online courses. These courses take weeks to complete. And those courses are not the only thing on their schedule. They have to show good performance in the annual and monthly NCOERs. The administration is also responsible for completing any c ounseling statements. The soldiers have a lot of work that they need to complete on a computer. The unfortunate thing is that not all soldiers have computers or desktops in their homes. Moreover, the soldiers have different computers and

Florida Learning and Developmental Standards Personal Statement

Florida Learning and Developmental Standards - Personal Statement Example I have a favorable disposition towards the document and the positions taken therein. Its developmental expectations section recognizes the importance of family relationships and the complex interaction of genetic predisposition with environmental experience. I agree that the best developmental environment is one in which good health and proper nutrition are combined with a caregiver environment of responsiveness and nurturing. This includes the recognition of the fact that learning is not restricted to designated times of play or education, but also naturally occurs during daily routines and everyday experiences. There is an obvious relationship between the early developmental years and future success in both academic and social pursuits. In terms of the use of the standards themselves, the document recognizes the importance of creating a framework for caregivers and teachers to understand while acknowledging that the standards are limited by individual variations in development and should not be used as the sole device for assessing individual children. That said, however, the standards are a useful tool for choosing curricula and determining adequate provision of services and experiences. It provides for assessment as a positive process, which brings about benefits for the children from whom the data was collected.

United Cereal Case study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

United Cereal Case study - Essay Example The Launch of Eurobrand would lead to the loss of United Cereals priority; these are the customers (Barlett and Carole 2011). However, this will mean a drop in production and marketing cost by 10-15% in 3 years. As the United Cereals are the first to introduce such an idea, it will guarantee them a substantial market penetration (Barlett and Carole 2011). My concern is that the panel will not represent all the views of the diverse European market. This would be rectified by changing the organizational structure that exists within the United Cereals. It should be more flexible. Lora should authorize the launch of Health Berry Crunch as a Eurobrand as there are far more advantages than disadvantages. The recommendations could be implemented by trying to get the support of the United Cereals’ management. The management should be comfortable with the Eurobrand Team. They should not be in a position that they feel their authority is challenged. Eurobrand Teams will provide a platform for United Cereals to grow. Based on the proposal its formation would reduce the cost of production while increasing

Love in Time of Cholera Essay Example for Free

Love in Time of Cholera Essay Time of CholeraLove, as Mickey and Sylvia, in their 1956 hit single, remind us, love is strange. As we grow older it gets stranger, until at some point mortality has come well within the frame of our attention, and there we are, suddenly caught between terminal dates while still talking a game of eternity. Its about then that we may begin to regard love songs, romance novels, soap operas and any live teen-age pronouncements at all on the subject of love with an increasingly impatient, not to mention intolerant, ear. At the same time, where would any of us be without all that romantic infrastructure, without, in fact, just that degree of adolescent, premortal hope? Pretty far out on lifes limb, at least. Suppose, then, it were possible, not only to swear love forever, but actually to follow through on it to live a long, full and authentic life based on such a vow, to put ones alloted stake of precious time where ones heart is? This is the extraordinary premise of Gabriel Garcia Marquezs new novel  Love in the Time of Cholera,  one on which he delivers, and triumphantly. In the postromantic ebb of the 70s and 80s, with everybody now so wised up and even growing paranoid about love, once the magical buzzword of a generation, it is a daring step for any writer to decide to work in loves vernacular, to take it, with all its folly, imprecision and lapses in taste, at all seriously that is, as well worth those higher forms of play that we value in fiction. For Garcia Marquez the step may also be revolutionary. I think that a novel about love is as valid as any other, he once remarked in a conversation with his friend, the journalist Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza (published as El Olor de la Guayaba, 1982). In reality the duty of a writer the revolutionary duty, if you like is that of writing well. And oh boy does he write well. He writes with impassioned control, out of a maniacal serenity: the Garcimarquesian voice we have come to recognize from the other fiction has matured, found and developed new resources, been brought to a level where it can at once b e classical and familiar, opalescent and pure, able to praise and curse, laugh and cry, fabulate and ing and when called upon, take off and soar, as in this description of a turn-of-the-century balloon trip: From the sky they could see, just as God saw them, the ruins of the very old and heroic city of Cartagena de Indias, the most beautiful in the world, abandoned by its inhabitants because of the sieges of the English and the atrocities of the buccaneers. They saw the walls, still intact, the brambles in the streets, the fortifications devoured by heartsease, the marble palaces and the golden altars and the viceroys rotting with plague inside their armor. They flew over the lake dwellings of the Trojas in Cataca, painted in lunatic colors, with pens holding iguanas raised for food and balsam apples and crepe myrtle hanging in the lacustrian gardens. Excited by everyones shouting, hundreds of naked children plunged into the water, jumping out of windows, jumping from the roofs of the houses and from the canoes that they handled with astonishing skill, and diving like shad to recover the bundles of clothing, the bottles of cough syrup, the beneficent food that the beautiful lady with the feathered hat threw to them from the basket of the balloon. This novel is also revolutionary in daring to suggest that vows of love made under a presumption of immortality youthful idiocy, to some may yet be honored, much later in life when we ought to know better, in the face of the undeniable. This is, effectively, to assert the resurrection of the body, today as throughout history an unavoidably revolutionary idea. Through the ever-subversive medium of fiction, Garcia Marquez shows us how it could all plausibly come about, even wild hope for somebody out here, outside a book, even as inevitably beaten at, bought and resold as we all must have become if only through years of simple residence in the injuring and corruptive world. Heres what happens. The story takes place between about 1880 and 1930, in a Caribbean seaport city, unnamed but said to be a composite of Cartagena and Barranquilla as well, perhaps, as cities of the spirit less officially mapped. Three major characters form a triangle whose hypotenuse is Florentino Ariza, a poet dedicated to love both carnal and transcendent, though his secular fate is with the River Company of the Caribbean and its small fleet of paddle-wheel steamboats. As a young apprentice telegrapher he meets and falls forever in love with Fermina Daza, a beautiful adolescent with . . . almondsshaped eyes, who walks with a natural haughtiness . . . her does gait making her seem immune to gravity. Though they exchange hardly a hundred words face to face, they carry on a passionate and secret affair entirely by way of letters and telegrams, even after the girls father has sound out and taken her away on an extended journey of forgetting. But when she returns, Fermina rejects the lovesick young man after all, and eventually meets and marries instead Dr. Juvenal Urbino who, like the hero of a I9th-century novel, is well born, a sharp dresser, somewhat stuck on himself but a terrific catch nonetheless. For F lorentino, loves creature, this is an agonizing setback, though nothing fatal. Having sworn to love Fermina Daza forever, he settles in to wait for as long as he has to until shes free again. This turns out to be 51 years, 9 months and 4 days later, when suddenly, absurdly, on a Pentecost Sunday around 1930, Dr. Juvenal Urbino dies, chasing a parrot upon mango tree. After the funeral, when everyone else has left, Florentino steps forward with his hat over his heart Fermina, he declares, I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love. Shocked and furious, Fermina orders him out of the house. And dont show your face again for the years of life that are left to you . . . I hope there are very few of them. The hearts eternal vow has run up against the worlds finite terms. The confrontation occurs near the end of the first chapter, which recounts Dr. Urbinos last day on earth and Ferminas first night as a widow. We then flash back 50 years, into the time of cholera. The m iddle chapters follow the lives of the three characters through the years of the Urbinos marriage and Florentino Arizas rise at the River Company, as one century ticks over into the next. The last chapter takes up again where the first left off, with Florentine now, in the face of what many men would consider major rejection, resolutely setting about courting Fermina Daza all over again, doing what he must to win her love. In their city, throughout a turbulent half-century, death has proliferated everywhere, both as el colera, the fatal disease that sweeps through in terrible intermittent epidemics, and as la colera, defined as choler or anger, which taken to its extreme becomes warfare. Victims of one, in this book, are more than once mistaken for victims of the other. War, always the same war, is presented here not as the continuation by other means of any politics that can possibly matter, but as a negative force, a plague, whose only meaning is death on a massive scale. Against this dark ground, lives, so precarious, are often more and less conscious projects of resistance, even of sworn opposition, to death. Dr. Urbino, like his father before him, becomes a leader in the battle against the cholera, promoting public health measures obsessively, heroically. Fermina, more conventionally but with as much courage, soldiers on in her chosen role of wife, mother and household manager, maintaining a safe perimeter for her family. Florentino embraces Eros, deaths well-known long-time enemy, setting off on a career of seductions that eventually add up to 622 long term liaisons, apart from . . . countless fleeting adventures, while maintaining, impervious to time, his deeper fidelity, his unquenchable hope for a life with Fermina. At the end he can tell her truthfully though she doesnt believe it for a minute that he has remained a virgin for her. So far as this is Florentinos story, in a way his Bildungsroman, we find ourselves, as he earns the suspension of our disbelief, cheering him on, wishing for the success of this stubborn warrior against age and death, and in the name of love. But like the best fictional characters, he insists on his autonomy, refusing to be anything less ambiguous than human. We must take him as he is, pursuing his tomcat destiny out among the streets and lovers refuges of this city with which he lives on terms of such easy intimacy, carrying with him a potential for disasters from which he remains safe, immunized by a comical but dangerous indifference to consequences that often borders on criminal neglect. The widow Nazaret, one of many widows he is fated to make happy, seduces him during a nightlong bombardment from the cannons of an attacking army outside the city. Ausencia Santanders exquisitely furnished home is burgled of every movable item while she and Florentino are frolicking in bed. A girl he picks up at Carnival time turns out to be a homicidal machete-wielding escapee from the local asylum. Olimpia Zuletas husband murders her when he sees a vulgar endearment Florentino has been thoughtless enough to write on her body in red paint. His lovers amorality causes not only individual misfortune but ecological destruction as well: as he learns by the end of the book, his River Companys insatiable appetite for firewood to fuel its steamers has wiped out the great forests that once bordered the Magdalena river system, leaving a wasteland where nothing can ive. With his mind clouded by his passion for Fermina Daza he never took the trouble to think about it, and by the time he realized the truth, there was nothing anyone could do except bring in a new river. In fact, dumb luck has as much to do with getting Florentino through as the intensity or purity of his dream. The authors great affection for this character does not entirely overcome a sly concurrent subversion of the ethic of machismo, of which Garcia Marquez is not especially fond, having described it elsewhere simply as usurpation of the rights of others. Indeed, as weve come to expect from his fiction, its the women in this story who are stronger, more attuned to reality. When Florentino goes crazy with live, developing symptoms like those of cholera, it is his mother Transito Ariza, who pulls him out of it. His innumerable lecheries are rewarded not so much for any traditional masculine selling points as for his obvious and aching need to be loved. Women go for it. He is ugly and sad, Fermina Dazas cousin Hildebranda tells her, but he is all love. And Garcia Marquez, straight-faced teller of tall tales, is his biographer. At the age of 19, as he has reported, the young writer underwent a literary epiphany on reading the famous opening lines of Kafkas  Metamorphosis,  in which a man wakes to find himself transformed into a giant insect. Gosh, exclaimed Garcia Marquez, using in Spanish a word in English we may not, thats just the way my grandmother used to talk! And that, he adds is when novels began to interest him. Much of what come [sic] in his work to be called magical realism was, as he tells it, simply the presence of that grandmotherly voice. Nevertheless, in this novel we have come a meaningful distance from Macondo, the magical village in  One Hundred Years of Solitude  where folks routinely sail through the air and the dead remain in everyday conversation with the living: we have descended, perhaps in some way down the same river, all the way downstream, into war and pestilence and urban confusions to the edge of a Caribbean haunted less by individual dead than by a history which has brought so appallingly many down, without ever having sopoken, or having spoken gone unheard, or having been heard, left unrecorded. As revolutionary as writing well is the duty to redeem these silences, a duty Garcia Marquez has here fulfilled with honor and compassion. It would be presumptuous to speak of moving beyond  One Hundred Years of Solitude  but clearly Garcia Marquez has moved somewhere else, not least into deeper awareness of the ways in which, as Florentino comes to learn, nobody teaches life anything. There are still delightful and stunning moments contrary to fact, still told with the same unblinking humor presences at the foot of the bed, an anonymously delivered doll with a curse on it, the sinister parrot, almost a minor character, whose pursuit ends with the death of Dr. Juvenal Urbino. But the predominant claim on the authors attention and energies comes from what is not so contrary to fact, a human consensus about reality in which love and the possibility of loves extinction are the indispensable driving forces, and varieties of magic have become, if not quite peripheral, then at least more thoughtfully deployed in the service of an expanded vision, matured, darker than before but no less clement. It could be argued that this is the only honest way to write about love, that without the darkness and the finitude there might be romance, erotica, social comedy, soap opera all genres, by the way, that are well represented in this novel but not the Big L. What that seems to require, along with a certain vantage point, a certain level of understanding, is an authors ability to control his own love for his characters, to withhold from the reader the full extent of his caring, in other words not to lapse into drivel. In translating  Love in the Time of Cholera,  Edith Grossman has been attentive to this element of discipline, among many nuances of the authors voice to which she is sensitively, imaginatively attuned. My Spanish isnt perfect, but I can tell that she catches admirably and without apparent labor the swing and translucency of his writing, its slang and its classicism, the lyrical stretches and those end-of-sentence zingers he likes to hit us with. It is a faithful and beautiful piece of work. There comes a moment, early in his career at the River Company of the Caribbean when Florentino Ariza, unable to write even a simple commercial letter without some kind of romantic poetry creeping in, is discussing the problem with his uncle Leo XII, who owns the company. Its no use, the young man protests Love is the only thing that interests me. The trouble, his uncle replies, is that without river navigation, there is no love. For Florentino, this happens to be literally true: the shape of his life is defined by two momentous river voyages, half a century apart. On the first he made his decision to return and live forever in the city of Fermina Daza, to persevere in his love for as long as it might take. On the second, through a desolate landscape, he journeys into love and against time, with Fermina, at last by his side. There is nothing I have read quite like this astonishing final chapter, symphonic, sure in its dynamics and tempo, moving like a riverboat too, its author and pilot, with a lifetimes experience steering us unerringly among hazards of skepticism and mercy, on this river we all know, without whose navigation there is no love and against whose flow the effort to return is never worth a less honorable name than remembrance at the very best it results in works that can even return our worn souls to us, among which most certainly belongs  Love in the Time of Cholera,  this shining and heartbreaking novel.

The 4g Wireless Networks

The 4g Wireless Networks The current system has very limited services; 4G is going to be The Technology which is going to be highly in demand. With the developing of 4G this power can be utilized to its fullest potential for various people in different walks of life. This is will help the military services of any nation to a great extent as the video clarity and data transfer speed will help the uniformed men in the war front. Likewise for the corporate this is a boon as they can have virtual offices all over the world and monitor their business by sitting in one corner of the world. And even for the personal use it is of great help to the people as it has the better quality of service, connectivity and also helps the people in all the fields. This fourth generation helps us to gather all kinds of information which is needed without any difficulty. This 4G has lots more benefits when compared to the 3G and it also provides better service to the people in a high level. Introduction: The wireless technologies evolution has many generations such as 1G, 2G which is of wireless cellular system. The wireless systems which are currently in use provide only limited services. The users of 2G and 2.5G are asking for better quality in data, multimedia and voice similar to the quality of the wired. But the data rate required for it is very high, which is also beyond the 3G capabilities. This motivated in the research of the Fourth Generation wireless network s (4G). The 4G vision unifies many mobile and the wireless networks. Anyway, there is a basic difference to the wireless cellular and the WLANs. The wireless networks in the fourth generation will have different networks and it will overlie one with the other. The mobile station which has multiple interfaces will be fully equipped which will enhance its mobility. The 4G wireless networks will have different kinds of wireless components which will provide large number of service to the users, so that the people can communicate with the help of these networks and architecture. The 4G wireless networks are very flexible and will provide wide range of technology to the users. They will not only be able to use the internet services but also will be able to use the other services like voice and some other day-to-day applications. They not only help in improving the services but also help us to obtain wide range of information and services. Requirements: The 4G is a safe and secure platform and many services can be made use of it. It gives the complete satisfaction to the users. Low Handoff: This handoff will cause the delay in the services and it will also create loss to the communication of the data. Hence this should be managed for the better communication. Access: The access is the important thing in the 4G networks as it gives connectivity to the users and it also provides the end services. Network: The network should be of multi-service so that it will not only give the basic access but also gives a wide range of services to the people who will need voice and other services. Broadband: The 4G network integrates using the high end platform and it is also cheaper and effective to use, and it can be maintained easily. Security service: For success of 4G, the important aspect is security and to make sure that the networks are safe and protected. Models: The 4G has different range of models and it can be made use as required. Optimal networks: In this, according to the agreement the optimal network for the service is selected and the connectivity is selected based on the internet network layer. Hybrid networks: The core layers will be present and the layers will have networks of different kinds which will be presented layer below layer. Heterogeneous networks: This deals with different and all kinds of networks which has one common network. When the core layer is the same it minimizes the overheads and will also improve in the performance of the network. The fourth generation wireless network comprises 4 basic layers. They are Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN), Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (WMAN), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), and Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN). WPAN Networks WLAN Networks WMAN Networks WWAN Networks The networks of the lower levels has high bandwidth and play a small area of networking and sometimes the networks of the lower level can play the role of the networks in the higher level. The WPAN has the shortest network connectivity. It has connection only to the personal needs like; the Bluetooth can be used with it. It covers only a relatively short distance. The WLAN also covers a short area, but more than the WPAN. It covers the local area. For e.g. the use of internet in an area. The WMAN covers more than the WLAN. It provides communication between a metropolitan area. The WWAN is the wide area but it does not have a very high bandwidth. The use of cellular, GSM can be accessed with this network. Wireless Fourth Generation Architecture: Inter Technology Hybrid Unit (HU): This hybrid unit acts as a bridge between the different layers. It combines many networks to access different technologies. The hybrid units are of different types, they are: WWAN-WMAN: This node provides a link between the WWAN and the WMAN network. For the WWAN it can act as the base station and for the WMAN it acts as a subscriber station. WMAN-WLAN: For the WLAN this unit acts as an access point, and for WMAN, it is the subscriber station. WLAN-WPAN: The networks WLAN and WPAN will be interconnected using this unit. It can operate the Bluetooth the ad-hoc networks. The main components of the cellular networks are the Mobile Switching Center (MSC), Home location Register (HLR), Serving GRPS Support Mode (SGSN). Properties of 4G: Network Architecture: It has Hybrid network architecture. Driving Architecture: It has converged data and voice over IP. Switching: It has digitalized switching with packetized voice. Radio Access: MC-CDMA, OFDMA. Database: ELHR, VLR, EIR, AuC. Data rates: It has data rates of 100Mbpsc. Roaming: It has global roaming. Compatible: It is compatible to 3G. Handsets: Numerous mode voice, data streamed video with higher data rates. Applications: Internet, MMS, Multimedia, HDTV M TV Bandwidth: It has bandwidth of 100MHz Frequency Band: It has higher frequency bands of 2-8 MHz Component Design: It has smaller antennas, software multiband and wideband radios. FEC Tech: It has concatenated coding scheme. IP: All IP (IP6.0) As the wireless communication system develops the expectations and the demand among the people keeps increasing. These wireless networks work on their capacity and limits also has some crucial period. The re-configurability can be done at any level, and it will be useful for the network provider as well as the user perspective. This provides selection between the alternate networks and is based upon all the issues. The re-configurability mechanism tells not only about the physical layer but also the stacks of the entire protocol. These 4G systems will provide many features to the users and it will provide end-to-end connectivity. The accessing, roaming and the other dynamic features are very useful and everything is obtained at a minimal cost. They can also choose between the other wireless networks if required. The following figure shows about the interoperability of the 4G layers. The 4G networks usually support the global roaming and the end-to-end services in the wireless networks, and these thing usually depend upon the Quality of Service issues (QoS). The capacity and the bandwidth for the 4G should be many times more than that of the 3G to meet the business requirements. The 4G depends not only upon the speed and version but entirely for its service and the quality. The main difference between the 4G and the previous generations is that in 4G both the voice and data can be sent, but in the other generations the voice and only a small amount of data can be sent across. The 4G can be used wireless with the Digital Subscriber line (DSL). The people throughout the world would be benefited and can use for communication, as its service and quality are very good. They can even do business from one part of the world to the other as it has good speed and is reliable. The people who have not yet used the 3G can directly hop on the 4G as it is more useful and of good speed. It will be based on the network IP technology. 4G is more useful than Wi-Fi. In Wi-Fi the distance matters and it can be accessed only in the slow path. But this 4G is faster and it can be accessed from any place and it is also cost-effective. Quality of Service: The quality of service plays a very challenging role in the 4G networks. It provide a wide range of service and a better quality to the users. There are 4 types of quality of service, they are: 1. Packet- level Quality of service: This QoS refers to the packet level service which also takes care of the error rate, and the space occupied by the buffer. It has a good packet quality which is very helpful to the users. 2. Transaction level Quality of Service: This transaction level depends on the transaction time it takes to complete a service and also about the packet loss. Some of networks can accept the packet loss but the others cannot. 3. Circuit level Quality of Service: The circuit level service is about the calls which have been connected and also about the circuit level transfer and other transactions. It provides a good quality of service for the calls and services. 4. User-level Quality of Service: The user level quality depends upon the application and the other services. It also depends upon the mobility of the users which may support the quality of the network. Conclusion: 4 G is developed with the following aspects and advantages: Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s speed would be 50 times high than 3G. The expected bandwidth of 4G is about 10Mbps. It has options of three-dimensional virtual reality, video and the ability to feel at the event even if you are not present physically there. We get to interact with people, products and know about the places when the cyber and real world merge. The smart card in your mobile would advice you to do what next as it will be monitoring your movements. Last but not the least 4G will provide access and support for authentication, paying off bills, security and also supports whichever has mobile specific services.

Rosa Louise Parks Essay -- Civil Rights Movement Biography History

Rosa Louise Parks   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The woman who earned the title â€Å"Mother of the Civil Rights Movement†, Rosa Louise Parks is an enormous inspiration to the African American race. Rosa was born in Tuskegee, Alabama on February 4, 1913 to James and Leona McCauley (The Life of Rosa Parks). Both of Rosa’s parents were born before slavery was banished from the United States. They suffered a difficult childhood, and after emancipation the conditions for blacks were not much better. Rosa’s mother was a schoolteacher and her father was a farmer (Rosa Parks: Pioneer of Civil Rights Interview). Rosa’s parents separated in 1915, and her mother moved Rosa and her younger brother to Montgomery, Alabama to live with their grandmother (Rosa Parks: The Woman Who Changed a Nation).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The southern states during this period of time were extremely segregated. Confederate Army veterans from Pulaski, Tennessee established the Ku Klux Klan, a secret society in 1866 during reconstruction. Members of the Klan beat and murdered several black people. During election times there would be several occurrences where Klan members would beat, rape, and murder blacks, trying to intimidate the republican representatives. In order to hide their identity, they would where white robes, and white sheets over their faces with only the eyes cut out. They would burn crosses to petrify their victims and their families (The New Encyclopedia of America 133). The Ku Klux Klan was very involved in Montgomery, where Rosa and her family were living.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Rosa’s mother was a very important role model for her and her brother. Because their mother was a schoolteacher, she home schooled Rosa until the age of eleven (Rosa Parks: The Woman Who Changed a Nation). After she was eleven, Rosa attended the all-black school of Montgomery Industrial School for Girls where she cleaned classrooms in order to pay her tuition. After attending the school for girls, she enrolled at Booker T. Washington High School, another black school, until the age of 15. She was forced to drop out of her High School because her mother was ill and she needed to return home to take care of her (The Life of Rosa Parks).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When Rosa McCauley was 20 years old in 1932 she met and married a barber by the name of Mr. Raymond Parks. Rosa began to sew and to take on several seamstress jobs, and also housekeeping jobs (Rosa Parks: The... ...ry Bus Boycott. Silver Burdett Press, 1991. Freedom Hero: Rosa Parks. AP News Wire. 12 August 2008 http://www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?=rosaParks The Life of Rosa Parks. Troy State University. 25 August 2008 http://www.tsum.edu/museum/parksbio.htm Lopes, Marilyn. The Rosa Parks Story: How One Person Made a Difference. 15 December 2003 http://www.nncc.org/Curriculum/rosa.parks.html NAACP http://www.naacp.org/home/index.htm Rosa Parks: The Woman Who Changed a Nation. Grandtimes. 20 Dec 2003 http://www.grandtimes.com/rosa.html Rosa Parks: Pioneer of Civil Rights interview, June 2, 1995, Williamsburg, Virginia. http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/par0int-1 Smith, Shanice. "American Poetry." The New Encyclopedia of America. 3rd ed. 2003. Spotlight on Mrs. Rosa Parks, Mother of the Civil Rights Movement. Girl Power. 15 December 2003 http://www.girlpower.gov/girlarea/gpguests/RosaParks.htm Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley. "Witness to America : an illustrated documentary history of the United States from the Revolution to today." Harper Resource 1999 "TIME 100: Heroes & Icons of the 20th Century" Time Warner Publishing, June 14, 1999

Man Against Nature in Jurassic Park Essay -- Jurassic Park Essays

Man Against Nature in Jurassic Park   Ã‚  Ã‚   "The world was made for man to conquer and rule, and under human rule it was meant to become a paradise" (Ishmael 82). Much like this evolutionary mythological theory, the movie Jurassic Park tells a tale of man's attempt to rule over nature. Through the movie's description and imagery, the viewer perceives the arrogance of humans to control nature, and the consequences and failures of this flawed intention. John Hammond, park creator, uses state of the art technology and ideas to recover dinosaur DNA, fill in missing gene caps, and breed the previously extinct animals to exploit his accomplishment. This process is set into motion without regard to the ethics behind the research, and without asking if pure scientific curiosity and drive should usurp natural evolution. Hammond arrogantly takes these responsibilities in hand and proceeds without consequence, as if he were somehow above his natural counterparts in mother nature's eyes. When this superiority is broken down, those who thought they were in control realize that their control was imagined. Jurassic Park conveys the consequences of human insolence in believing that nature is purely beautiful and subordinate to their existence, and this illusion of superiority reveals nature's true chaos and danger.    Having bred species of dinosaurs, and built a series of rides and attractions for this theme park, Hammond seeks the endorsement of several specialists to satisfy his investors' curiosity and concerns. Dr. Grant (a Paleontologist), Dr. Sadtler (a Paleobotanist), and Dr. Malcolm (a Chaotician), as well as a lawyer all are summoned to the island of Isla Nublar, 120 miles from Costa Rica and home of Jura... ...sts of Jurassic Park don't realize that the control they think that they have does not exist.    In Jurassic Park, nature appears beautiful and controllable when it is viewed from afar. The arrogant and naà ¯ve creators of Jurassic Park believe that they can regulate nature when, how, and where they please. Throughout the movie, this illusion gets broken time and time again. In actuality, nature is chaotic, uncontrollable, and dangerous. These aspects are taken for granted by the scientists of Jurassic Park and sometimes today in society. "They got so caught up in whether they could they didn't stop to think whether or not they should."       Works Cited Jurassic Park. Dir. Steven Speilberg. Perf. Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff   Goldblum. Universal Studios, 1993. Quinn, Daniel. Ishmael. New York: Bantam/Turner, 1992.   

Beloved :: essays research papers

A TREE CAN BE A HEAVY LOAD TO CARRY Throughout our lives, we have all had our own â€Å"tree† carved onto us. Whether it is on our back, in our heart, in our soul, our hands or feet, we can all share the knowledge and pain our lives have borne. So there is an understanding of how and what Sethe has had to bare throughout her life, and every branch of her tree has its individual story to tell. Not only has she been affected by the choices she has had to make, but also everyone who has come in contact with her have been affected. One branch of Sethe’s tree tells of her killing her baby and another tells of the guilt she has felt throughout the years and the near destruction of her from the haunting of her dear â€Å"Beloved’s† ghost. Another tells of her boys running away and another tells of the neglect that her younger daughter has had to face. Because of this guilt, she almost paid for it with her life. However, the stages that her mind her took through with coming to terms with her involve ment in Beloved’s murder, her redemption of that burden, and near madness were the elements that helped to guide her through the guilt. From the redemption of her guilt, Sethe has learned that when a branch of her tree has weltered a little, which means that her family bond is not as strong, the tree does not die, because it has a strong root. A root that represents all of the sorrow’s of her life, but she is still strong and is willing to fight to get rid of the weltering branches and sprout new ones, which represents new hope, new life and new beginning. In comparison with Sethe, many of us could probably relate to Sethe and the tragedies and devastations she has had to face. Like her, we and the people around us have had to face death, neglect, uncertainties, self-doubt or inner demons. Sethe explains that she took her baby’s life in order to save her from the treacherous world that she would have greeted. She did not want her baby to grow up in slavery like she had to, or starve because she did not have any milk to feed her. â€Å"†¦.and I could not let her nor any of em live under schoolteacher.

Behavior Management of Exceptional Children

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT OF EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN: TRANSITION SERVICES Transition Services is defined by the 1997 Amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) as a coordinated set of activities for a student, designated within an outcome-oriented process, which promotes movement from school to post-school activities including: post-secondary education, career training, adult services, independent living, community participation, and integrated employment (including supported employment. The coordinated set of activities shall be based upon the individual needs of each student, taking into consideration his/her preferences and interests. IEP goals and objectives are required for the following areas: * Instruction * Related Services * Community Experiences * Development of employment and other post-school adult living objectives * Daily living skills and functional vocational evaluation are required. â€Å"The importance of the transition specialist, or career education specia list, in the types of projects cannot be underestimated. The relationships these staff members maintain with the participants are crucial to the structure and success of these services†(Bullis and Cheney, 1999). Vocational Assessments Vocational Evaluation is a comprehensive process that systematically uses work activities, (either real or simulated), as the focal point for assessment of capabilities, vocational exploration and guidance. The purpose of vocational evaluation is to assist individuals in vocational development. Vocational evaluation incorporates medical, psychological, social, vocational, cultural, and economic data into the assessment process to determine realistic vocational areas. Transition Planning Transition planning begins at a very early age. It continues through each educational phase of the student's life, culminating with adult living. A continuum of services focuses upon a student's preparation for transition through participation in career awareness activities, career exploration, vocational training and employment. A continuum of Transition Services has been developed to serve as a guideline for transition planning. The continuum begins at preschool and ends at age 22. Transition planning is documented in the Individualized Education Program (IEP) beginning at age 14. â€Å"There is a lack of student and parent output, little documentation of transition plan specifics for each student, and IEP that were almost exclusively academically focused with no obvious links between goal/objectives and transition outcomes. Indeed, these weaknesses in the use of the IEP process and document planning for transition directly affect the implementation of transition services†(Collet-Klingenberg, L. L. , 1998). It is the responsibility of the IEP chairperson – usually the special education teacher – to arrange IEP / transition planning meetings for students at age 14 and older. The IEP notice to parents must include the following information: * The purpose of the IEP meeting is to develop / review the IEP and to consider Transition Services for inclusion into the IEP. * The student is invited to attend the IEP meeting. * Appropriate agency representatives have been identified and invited to the IEP / transition planning meeting. The IEP transition meeting must include all required IEP participants, plus two other representatives, as follows: * Parents or Legal Guardians * Special Education Teacher * Regular Education Teacher * Public Agency Representative (if appropriate) * Student * Other Individuals at the discretion of the parent or agency * Interpreter, when the parent or legal guardian is deaf or not proficient in the English language. * Career Education Teacher / Coordinator If the student does not attend the meeting, steps should be taken to ensure that his/her preferences and interests are considered. If an invited agency representative is unable to attend the meeting, other steps shall be taken to obtain participation. The IEP /Transition Planning meeting participants will provide input for expected outcomes. The following questions may be discussed. * What are the interest, preferences, and goals of the student after graduating or exiting school? * What support would be required to reach post-secondary goals? * Will the student be referred to an adult agency? * What type of adult agency service(s) is needed after graduation, if any? Who will be responsible for the referral(s) (i. e. special education teacher, the school based staff, parent, student, others? * Who will follow-up to ensure that the linkage between the school and adult agency(ies) was established? The IEP Team will develop transition goals and objectives that focus on the desired adult outcomes (long range transition goals). Students' preferences, strengths and limitations, career / vocational skills development, n eeded support services, job availability, medical and transportation requirements are also considered. Parents' expectations of desired student outcomes should be obtained and considered. What exactly is the Transition Plan? The Transition Plan is a part of the IEP. It includes long-range transition goals, indicating the students' preferences and interests after exiting school, are identified. â€Å"The skills needed to be successful in post secondary educational and vocational; settings, such as self-awareness, awareness of appropriate career options, and the ability to engage in self-advocacy when necessary, takes many years to develop† (Janiga,s. , J. ; Costenbader, V. 2002). Transition Services needed to achieve the long-range goals are determined. Agencies involved in transition planning while the student is still in school should be identified. That involvement is considered â€Å"agency linkages†. Transition goals and objectives are written. Agency responsibilities should be recorded in the IEP on the Transition Plan. Transition activities (objectives), persons re sponsible for the activities, and timelines are recorded. If an agency fails to fulfill its responsibilities, the IEP Team must reconvene to identify alternative strategies. Transition plans are reviewed, discussed and developed annually. The special education teacher, who completes the Transition Checklist, maintains a summary of transition planning. The Transition Checklist is reviewed and updated annually at the IEP meeting. A copy of the Transition Checklist is provided to the parent / guardian for further reference and planning. To assist in the development of transition plans at the IEP meeting Guidelines for transition services agenda is used. The guidelines outline what should be done before, during and after the IEP meeting. Records Keeping The special education teacher maintains a portfolio for each student, beginning at age 14, or grade 9. The portfolio documents a collection of evidence of the student's skills, abilities, and employment competencies (see your school's Special Education Coordinator or your school-based Transition Coordinator to obtain the portfolio). The student is responsible for participation in the development and maintenance of his / her transition portfolio. Portfolios are maintained as documentation of transition services activities. Adult Agencies An adult agency representative can attend IEP / Transition meetings for students who are 16 years of age, or in the 11th grade, and thereafter, if considered necessary by the IEP Team. An agency representative may attend IEP / Transition meetings for student's age 14 or younger, if considered necessary by the IEP Team. Some students will move from school to adult life requiring little or no more involvement with adult agencies than their non-disabled peers. Examples of such agencies or services are community colleges, vocational technological schools, other post-secondary educational institutions and the military. Other students may require time-limited adult services, such as the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA). There are also students who will need ongoing support from adult agencies such as the Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration (MRDDA). The IEP Team will determine which services may be appropriate for such students. Adult agencies may include, but are not limited to, the following: * Rehabilitation Service Administration Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration * Commission on Mental Health Services * Others Private agencies representation may be invited by parent / guardian or student of appropriate: * College / Community College * Vocational Technical Schools * Adult Education Services/ Training * Armed Forces * Others Transportation for Special Education Transport ation is a related service for special education students when it is necessary in order for a student with a disability to participate in an appropriate educational program. The Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) makes individual decisions about transportation during the development of the Individualized Education Program (IEP) and placement. The MDT must consider the following: * Determine a need for specialized transportation and reflect the need in the student's IEP * Review the student's need for transportation at any IEP review * Qualifications for transportation include the following: * Limited sensory or physical endurance Significantly reduced intellectual development; and/or reduced problem solving skills Parents must do the following in order for transportation to be provided for their children: * Provide accurate address information to the Division of Special Education and ensure that it is updated if necessary during the school year * Call your child's principal of any address changes during the school year. It can take 3 to 10 school days to make transportation changes during the school year * Have your child ready when the bus arrives in the mor ning * Meet the school bus in the afternoon. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bullis, M. , ; Cheney, D. (1999). Vocational and Transition Interventions for Adolescents and Young Adults with Emotional or Behavioral Disorders. Focus on Exceptional Children, 7, 1-24. Collet-Klingenberg, L. L. , (1998). The Reality of Best Practices in Transition: A Case Study. Exceptional Children, 1, 67-78. Janiga, S. , J. ; Costenbader, V. , (2002). The transition from High School to Postsecondary Education for students with Learning disabilities: A Survey of College Service Coordinators. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 5, 462-8, 479.

Brand Placement

Businesses strategically place their brands and products in movies or in TV series to subtly get consumers to notice their brands, this Is called brand placement. Two products which I have noticed In movies are Apple Imams In the Twilight movie Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011) and Manual Blank shoes in the Sex and the City Movie (2008). These were both big blockbuster hits which many people viewed and obsessed over. They both star very famous celebrities who play desirable characters.In the movies both the brands are clearly shown with the characters so the viewer ill relate who the character is with the brand to give the brand symbolism (Levy, 1959). In Sex and the City we first see the Manual Blank heels when the mall character Carrie Bradshaw Is shown her new wardrobe which will soon be filled with her clothes that are envied by viewers. The scene is romantic and everything is perfect in Carrie's world which suggests that the consumer would be in a similar situation if they had theses shoes.The label on the box is clearly shown as Carrie carefully puts her prized possession on the shelf. The shoes appear at the end of the vie during a special scene where Carrie Is being proposed to, the heel is used to close the deal of the proposal. This once again Incorporates the shoe with happiness and romance. Sex and the city has been a popular TV series (1998 – 2004) so there was a huge hype when the movie was released. Carrie Bradshaw is a well known character for her glamorous life; Carrie is an icon for fashion and high class.We straight away draw a connection with any brand associated with Carrie Bradshaw to being an ultimate luxury brand, and as a viewer I desire to own the brands shown in the movie to make myself appear more glamorous. The Sex and the City's target audience are females over 16 years. It has an emphasis on relationships and high fashion. I aspire to be Like Carrie and her friends as they were Independent and bring out ideas of their own about s ex and women being in control.The Manual Blank shoes are targeted to me and women with similar interests in fashion and their appearance. The shoes are a very high priced item but the brand makes me think that I would be superior to others if I own this luxury good. By owning Manual Blank shoes I would feel a part of the top label brand community which they associate Carrie with (Ganglier, 2012). I believe that If I owned them I would appear more glamorous and they would give me class and style. These shoes would affect self image positively for me (Williston, 2012).This is because I would feel more important and confident with these shoes on. Mascots Hierarchy of Needs suggests that â€Å"people are motivated to fulfill their basic needs, before moving on to other, more advanced needs† (Cherry, n. D. Para. 1). The needs are shown on a pyramid starting with physiological needs then safety needs, social needs, self-esteem needs and finishing with self-actualization (Cherry). M anual Blank shoes fall Into the self- esteem group as they can give the owner confidence and status (MBA Online Programmer, n. ). The Culled family in Twilight are depicted as perfection. They are beautiful, rich, and intelligent and are identified as superior to everyone else. The brand Apple appears in Breaking Dawn during a serious scene in the movie where the Culled family are desperately researching to find a life line. As the computer is reliable and a good source of research as an intellectual family such as the Culler's use them. Breaking Dawn was the third top grossing movie of 2011 which shows the age audience that this movie reached out to (Midi. Mom, Inc. N. D). The Apple symbol glows on the screen with the family in the background to emphasis that this is a brand that a family as perfect as the Culler's would use. The Twilight series is targeted to teenage girls and women who fantasize over the desirable men in the movie (Denial, 2011). The Twilight Saga has been a huge hit, as at 13/04/12 its Faceable page has 31 ,951 , 1 55 likes with many of these fans being obsessed over the characters and actors in the movie.With other 31 million fans, Apple is getting their rand out to a huge audience who are likely to be influenced by what the characters are associated with. Twilight fans will believe that by associating themselves with the brands that are used in the Twilight Saga movies they will be more alike the characters. I am a fan of the brand Apple; I personally own an Apple pod and an Imax. My pod is something I could not imagine functioning without as it holds many songs as well as having other functions such as the internet, email and camera.I personally spend a lot of time on my Imax both for social reasons communicating with people and to get university work completed. These Apple products are essential for me as I could not imagine my daily life without them. It is part of my culture to be up to date on the latest technology, and to be able t o communicate indirectly through the internet with my peers (Williston). It is a norm within my culture to own Apple products, the people around me and I use Apple products daily (Williston).By having Apple associated with famous actors such as Robert Patterson and Kristin Stewart, the brands are a part of these actors indirect reference group as the actors are people you aspire to be like (Williston). These groups give us â€Å"a point of reference in deciding what consumption behavior to undertake† (Williston, 2012. Group Influence & Social Norms Lecture). Indirect reference groups can have a different amount of influence on consumers depending on many factors including how attractive the reference group is, whether the product is being used publicly and the consumer's self-esteem (Williston).Apple is already a very well known brand and as soon as the logo came into view on the screen the viewers would have straight away recognized it and began to make connections with he b rand and the Robert Patterson or Culled family reference group. Brand equity is important when trying to make your brand familiar with consumers it is â€Å"The value premium that a company realizes from a product with a recognizable name as compared to its generic equivalent† (Investigated, n. . Para. L). Brand equity is about the name and symbol of the brand, it includes brand loyalty, name awareness, perceived quality, brand associations and other proprietary and brand assets (Ganglier). With Apple and Manual Blank appearing in these well known and popular movies they are gaining a lot of brand awareness which is important as when consumers are choosing between options they will pick the brand they are most familiar with.Viewers of Sex and the City associate Carrie with high quality goods so by seeing Carrie with her Manual Blank shoes consumers will automatically relate the Manual Blank to top quality which will add value to the brand. Manual Blank and Apple have been suc cessful at getting their brands out Breaking Dawn Part One. The characters and actors are dollied by many so a lot of consumers are likely to be influenced to purchase these products. By owning the products shown in the movies consumers will be able to associate themselves with the brand communities and reference groups.

Radioactive Dating

Dating techniques are procedures used by scientists to determine the age of a specimen. 2 types of Dating: *Relative Dating *Absolute Dating Relative Dating -methods tell only if one sample is older or younger than another sample. -They do not provide an age in years. Stratigraphy -Main Relative Dating Method -is the study of layers of rocks or the objects embedded within those layers. -based on the assumption that deeper layers were deposited earlier, and thus are older than more shallow layers. Seriation is the ordering of objects according to their age.James Ford – used seriation to determine the chronological order of American Indian pottery styles in the Mississippi Valley. Absolute dating * any method of measuring the age of an event or object in years. * To determine the absolute ages of fossils and rocks, * scientists analyze isotopes of radioactive elements. Isotopes * atoms of the same element that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. * Most isotopes are stable, meaning that they stay in their original form. * Other isotopes are unstable. * Scientists call unstable isotopes radioactive.Radioactive decay * Radioactive isotopes tend to break down into stable isotopes of the same or other elements. * Refers to the process in which a radioactive form of an element is converted into a decay product at a regular rate. – This dating is not a single method of absolute dating but instead a group of related methods for absolute dating of samples. * Because radioactive decay occurs at a steady rate, * Scientists can use the relative amounts of stable and unstable isotopes present in an object to determine the object’s age. Dating Rocks — How Does It Work? In radioactive decay, an unstable radioactive isotope of one element breaks down into a stable isotope.* The stable isotope may be of the same element or of a different element. Parent isotope * The unstable radioactive isotope. Daughter isotope * The st able isotope produced by the radioactive decay of the parent isotope. * The rate of radioactive decay is constant so scientists can compare the amount of parent material with the amount of daughter material to date rock. The more daughter material there is the older the rock is. Absolute Dating Methods Cation-Ratio Dating – used to date rock surfaces such as stone artifacts and cliff and ground drawings.-this technique can only be applied to rocks from desert areas, where the varnish is most stable. *Thermoluminescence Dating – very useful for determining the age of pottery. Has the advantage of covering the time interval between radiocarbon and pottasium-argon dating or 40,000,000 years. *Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) – very similar to thermoluminescence dating, both of which are considered â€Å"clock setting†. * This technique can be used to determine the age of unheated sediments les than 500,000 years old. a disadvantage to this technique i s that in order to get accurate results, the sediment to be tested cannot be exposed to light, making sampling difficult. Radiometric Dating Determining the absolute age of a sample, based on the ratio of parent material to daughter material. If you know the rate of decay for a radioactive element in a rock you can figure out the absolute age of the rock. Half-life * the time needed for half of a sample of a radioactive substance to undergo radioactive decay.After every half-life, the amount of parent material decrease by one-half. Types of Radiometric Dating Scientists use different radiometric-dating methods based on the estimated age of an object. * There are four radiometric-dating techniques. 1. Potassium-Argon Method * Potassium-40 has a half-life of 1. 3 billion years, and it decays leaving a daughter material of argon. * This method is used mainly to date rocks older than 100,000 years. * Relies on the fact that when volcanic rocks are heated to extremely high temperatures, they release any argon trapped in them. 2. Uranium-Lead Method * Uranium-238 is a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 4. 5 billion years.Uranium-238 decays in a series of steps to lead-206. * The uranium-lead method can be used to date rocks more than 10 million years old. 2 types of Uranium-Lead Dating *Daughter deficiency methods *Daughter excess methods * In daughter deficiency situations, the parent radioisotope is initially deposited by itself, without its daughter (the isotope into which it decays) present. * In the case of daughter excess, a larger amount of the daughter is initially deposited than the parent. 3. Rubidium-Strontium Method * The unstable parent isotope rubidium-87 forms a stable daughter isotope strontium-87.The half-life of rubidium-87 is 49 billion years * This method is used for rocks older than 10 million years. 4. Carbon-14 Method * used to date charcoal, wood, and other biological materials. * Carbon is normally found in three forms,, the stable isot opes carbon-12 and carbon-13 and the radioactive isotope carbon-14. * Living plants and animals contain a constant ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12. 1. Once a plant or animal dies, no new carbon is taken in. 2. The amount of carbon-14 begins to decrease as the plant or animal decays. 3. The half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730 years.The carbon-14 method of radiometric dating is used mainly for dating things that lived within the last 50,000 years. – Radiocarbon (14C) is a radioactive form of the element carbon. It decays spontaneously into nitrogen-14 (14N). Fossils: evidence of past life Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals (also known aszoolites), plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record. -Fossilization processes proceed differently according to tissue type and e xternal conditions:– 1. Permineralization is a process of fossilization that occurs when an organism is buried. .2. Casts and molds The remaining organism-shaped hole in the rock is called an external mold. If this hole is later filled with other minerals, it is a cast. An endocast or internal mold is formed when sediments or minerals fill the internal cavity of an organism. 3. Authigenic mineralisation This is a special form of cast and mold formation. he organism (or fragment of organism) can act as a nucleus for the precipitation of minerals such as siderite, resulting in a nodule forming around it. 4. Replacement and recrystallization Replacement occurs when the shell, bone or other tissue is replaced with another mineral. A shell is said to be recrystallized when the original skeletal compounds are still present but in a different crystal form, as from aragonite to calcite. 5. Adpression (compression-impression) Compression Fossils, such as those of fossil ferns, are the result of chemical reduction of the complex organic molecules composing the organism's tissues.However, the phytoleim is lost and all that remains is an impression of the organism in the rock-an impression fossil. 6. Carbon films are thin film coatings which consist predominantly of the chemical element carbon. 7. Bioimmuration occurs when a skeletal organism overgrows or otherwise subsumes another organism, preserving the latter, or an impression of it, within the skeleton Palaeontologists rely on stratigraphy to date fossils. Stratigraphy is the science of deciphering the â€Å"layer-cake† that is the sedimentary record.If a fossil is found between two layers whose ages are known, the fossil's age is claimed to lie between the two known ages. Types of Fossils: 1. Index – (also known as guide fossils, indicator fossils or zone fossils) are fossils used to define and identify geologic periods (or faunal stages). 2. Trace – consist mainly of tracks and burrows, but also include coprolites (fossil feces) and marks left by feeding. – are particularly significant because they represent a data source that is not limited to animals with easily-fossilized hard parts, and they reflect animal behaviours.Transitional – is any fossilized remains of a life form that exhibits traits common to both an ancestral group and its derived descendant group. This is especially important where the descendant group is sharply differentiated by gross anatomy and mode of living from the ancestral group. 4. Microfossils a descriptive term applied to fossilized plants and animals whose size is just at or below the level at which the fossil can be analyzed by the naked eye. 5. Resin Fossil resin (colloquially called amber) is a natural polymer found in many types of strata throughout the world, even the Arctic.Derived A derived, reworked or remanià © fossil is a fossil found in rock made significantly later than when the fossilized animal or plant died : it happens when a hard fossil is freed from a soft rock formation by erosion and redeposited in a currently forming sedimentary deposit. 7. Wood -wood that is preserved in the fossil record. Wood is usually the part of a plant that is best preserved (and most easily found). Fossil wood may or may not be petrified. The fossil wood may be the only part of the plant that has been preserved: therefore such wood may get a special kind of botanical name.

Crime in the Information Age Essay

It’s not difficult to gauge what the popular notions of crime in the United States are. Engage in any polite conversation over dinner or cocktails and one is likely to hear similar themes: â€Å"crime is out of control, it’s just not the same world we grew up in, it’s not safe to walk down the street anymore, it’s a mean world out there,† etc. The underlying theme that can be drawn from these notions is fear. There is a widespread conception that crime is a rampant problem in this country and that violent crime and others are on the rise. However, these beliefs are not supported at all by the facts, even those put forth by our own law enforcement agencies. So why then, are most Americans so concerned with the threat of violent crime in particular? While the answer to this question is a complex one involving many contributors, the focus of this essay is concerned with the impact of popular media on these perceptions, because the media, it would seem, is one of the most influential contributors to the social construction of crime in this country. The coverage of crime, and particularly violent crime, in the news media has increased in frequency of coverage and sensationalized reporting despite statistical proof that violent crime has been decreasing for many years. This phenomenon is of great concern because how we arrive at our perceptions of our world should be critically examined so policy solutions react to truth not manipulated reality. As of 2001 homicides made up one to two-tenths of one percent of all arrests, yet made up 27-29% of crime coverage on the nightly news (Dorfman and Schiraldi). Still one of the most shocking statistics from Dorfman and Schiraldi’s study states that, â€Å"Crime coverage has increased while real crime rates have fallen. While homicide coverage was increasing on the network news by 473% from 1990 to 1998, homicide arrests dropped 32. 9% from 1990 to 1998. We can see one indication of the effects of this unrealistic reporting in 1994 when, for example, in a Washington Post/ABC poll respondents named crime as their number one concern (far more than any other issue) with 65 percent of those who responded as such saying that they learned about this issue from the media (Jackson and Naureckas). The fact is, however, that violent crime has been on the decrease for roughly thirteen years and is estimated to be at a roughly thirty year low (U. S. Department of Justice). The following g raph rom the Department of Justice shows a dramatic decrease in the rates of violent crime beginning in the early nineties: ? The National Criminal Victimization Survey, which is conducted differently than the more common Uniform Crime Reports, shows a decrease in violent as well as property crimes in the United States for more than a decade (qtd. in Torny 118). The evidence seems to be overwhelming; no matter what the method used for measuring crime rates there is an obvious decrease in crime, especially with respect to violent crime in the United States. These are just a couple of the statistics researchers and academics have compiled over recent years addressing the discrepancy between media coverage of crime and actual crime statistics. So in light of these multiple studies using different methods, how and why is it that media coverage of violent crime has grown exponentially? Surette explains that crime is both an individual and cultural product (237). There is a correlation between media consumption and support for more harsh criminal justice policies and perceptions of the â€Å"mean-world view† (Surette 196). This supports the theory that the more news a person consumes, particularly television news, the less they know about the actual state of the world. Surette explains that while the media certainly does have an impact it is not the only factor in creating this culture of the fear of crime and impacts those who live in a more isolated environment and consume higher levels of media (200). He also notes that research suggests that those who watch a good deal of television have trouble differentiating between the television world and the real world (204). The media has a â€Å"relationship with fear† that can correlate with fear fore some viewers (Surette 206). One example of this â€Å"relationship with fear† that the media seems to have can be found in a 1994 article in â€Å"US News and World Report† where the authors, despite noting briefly that violent crime by all statistical accounts is actually down, names the previous year as â€Å"the scariest year in American history† seeming to assert that the numbers don’t matter (Jackson and Naureckas). The article also makes a good point about the contradiction between perceptions of crime and the reality of crime: â€Å"the drumbeat of news coverage [that] has made it seem that America is in the midst of its worst epidemic of violence ever. That sense is not supported by the numbers† (Jackson and Naureckas). Throughout the rest of the article similar contradictions abound and it is difficult to tell exactly what conclusion should be drawn from it. The causes of crime, as with most crime reporting, are not dealt with in the article while â€Å"random violence† is examined closely (Jackson and Naureckas). Most violent crime is perpetrated by someone whom the victim knows yet the theme of â€Å"random violence receives much more attention in the media (Jackson and Naureckas). The US News piece illustrates how the media engages in a form of â€Å"doublethink† where despite knowledge of factual evidence indicating a decrease in crime they continue to put forth images that depict violent crime as an epidemic and continue to support perceptions of fear, distrust, and cynicism. This fear mongering often plays into preconceived notions of crime and violence such as racism, ageism, and classism held by some. A 2001 study by Dorfman and Schiraldi found that crimes against African Americans were underrepresented in reporting and overrepresented as perpetrators, white victims tended to receive more lengthy coverage as well. In Los Angeles television news African Americans were 22% more likely to be shown on TV committing violent crimes than non-violent ones despite the fact that arrest reports indicate that African Americans in Los Angeles commit both types of crime almost equally (Dorfman and Schiraldi). The study also shows how youths are also disproportionately covered: 7 out of 10 local TV news stories dealing with violent crime in California had youths as the perpetrators despite the fact that youths commit only 14. 4% of violent crime in that state. Furthermore, half of the stories dealing with minors for any reason involved violence even though only 2% (though due to unreported crimes the actual number may be higher) of California youths have been victims or perpetrators of violent crime (Drofman and Schiraldi). The study also found by looking at news reports over the last decade that in Hawaii there has bee a 30 fold increase in the number of youth crime stories despite a steady decrease in youth crime over that same time period. This increased focus on youth crimes has led to increased support for treating juvenile offenders as adults and, especially in instances of more serious crimes, applying the same retributive punishments previously not applied to young offenders (Glassner 73). These findings show how not only are the media’s sensationalized reporting of crime contributing to a false sense or reality for many people, but are also einforcing stereotypes and bigotry. Utilizing these preconceived ideas also intensifies the impact of fear based coverage. This sense of fear that the media is able to conjure up in certain situations can easily be manipulated by politicians and policymakers looking to gain some support. According to Glassner, the more fearful people are of crime the more likely they are to support more punitive justice systems instead of rehabilitation programs. This is especially true with respect to juvenile offenders (72). Glassner further argues that it is interesting that as we cut into funding for educational, medical, and antipoverty programs we begin to grow more concerned about crime and there seems to be what he calls â€Å"unacknowledged guilt† about why crime now seems inevitable (72). While the media is often the target of criticism and blame it has been argued that largely the media mirrors public opinion and can be controlled by it (Gans 76). There is evidence however that particularly brutal crimes or large amounts of coverage of crime can shift public opinion somewhat. For example, polls show an increase in support for the death penalty following news of horrifying crimes (Gans 76). Gans believes that despite the fact that the news media is often thought of as having more power than it actually does it may have long-term effects on public opinion (88). So, even though the media of course cannot shift public opinion overnight in the long run a shift in coverage of sensationalized crime coverage can have long lasting effects of the political climate around crime policy. If the tone of the media is largely controlled by previously held notions of media consumers then how might the news media correct the public when it’s beliefs are erroneous? Chiricos examines the effect of â€Å"moral panics† which something or someone becomes defined as a threat to societal values or norms (2). Moral panics are signaled by a rapid increase in the volume of media reporting and are often followed by political action as the public feels that â€Å"something must be done† (Chiricos 60). Every so often crime and violence becomes the subject of a moral panic in America. Chiricos examines two moral panics occurring in the early to mid nineties: crack cocaine and violent crime. Both of these stories where covered in much the same way: as inner-city problems leaving the ghettos and threatening the middle-class way of life (63). When this issue was framed as a direct threat to suburban America a moral panic followed. When crime was confined to urban areas and â€Å"ghettos† there was little to worry about until the perception became that crack and violence was spreading into areas that were considered to be â€Å"safe†. During this time 49 percent of Americans then said that crime was the most important issue facing the country compared to only 9 percent before the moral panic began to set in (Chiricos 64). The panic was further compounded by reports that these issues were spreading to children which Chiricos notes is a common component of the rise of a moral panic (65). The reaction to these panics was unsurprising. Panics are viewed as sudden problems and treated with fundamentally inappropriate solutions such as sending more people to prison and building more of them (Chiricos 67). Following moral panics, according to Chiricos, â€Å"commands† are issued by the public (71). The policy ramifications from these moral panics included 9. 7 billion dollars for more prisons, California’s three strikes program, and various repressive laws aimed at adults and children alike in many states (Chiricos 71). These examinations of the media’s relationship with public opinion point out how in this age of information the media is an important factor in how we carry out our democracy and decide what issues are important. If this has become the case than there are serious concerns for how the media is serving democracy. Lawrence sees the media as an arena where problems are constructed and there is constant struggle between elites, groups, and the public seek to define and address problems (3). What constitutes a problem is socially constructed. This is also true of crime problems. Lawrence is concerned with how problems are socially constructed in the media because when something is defined as a problem facing the country power is conferred upon the social institutions we would likely look to deal with it (5). So, in the arena of the media if crime is framed by elites as stemming from the degradation of society or loss of opportunities for many people then programs and institutions organized for supporting the poor and communities will be empowered. However, the usual winners in this clash of frames typically define crime as an epidemic problem fueled by a justice system which is too soft on criminals. With this frame politicians must appear â€Å"tough on crime† and power is given to more punitive crime control policies and the prison-industrial complex flourishes as more and more money is spent on warehousing offenders. This further disempowers social welfare institutions as money spent on police and prisons cannot be spent on education, healthcare, or welfare programs. This struggle to define problems can be looked at as a clash of differing realities where vastly different takes on issues exist but one is adopted by the media and then disseminated to the public (Lawrence 5). Lawrence says that the prevailing reality held by the most successful definers typically comes from officials within the government (5). There exists a close relationship between government officials and the news media. They are the primary definers and therefore the strongest factor in how we construct the reality of crime (Lawrence 5). This is unhealthy because, with the issue of crime in particular, officials are quick to define crime as an epidemic issue filled with fearful imagery and then act against criminals in draconian ways. When they construct a reality where they are needed to protect their constituents justice in harmed for the sake of political capital. This manipulation of reality and fear for the sake of power is addressed by Entman but with respect to the war on terror instead of crime and justice. He argues that the elite exert control by hegemony and indexing (4). Hegemony refers to the way officials release only information that supports the narrow reality that they seek to perpetuate and indexing is how the media reflect this narrow debate among elites quite closely (Entman 5). With this control over public perception it is relatively easy for officials to frame issues such as crime or terrorism. When they win the battle to define a problem obvious remedies arise. If terrorism is framed as an attack on our way of life rather than a consequence of our projection of power across the globe then it follows that the remedy is defense and war. Similarly, if elites succeed in defining crime not as a consequence of lost economic opportunities but as a result of naturally deviant personalities then the reaction that follows is to lock up these defective personalities and isolate them from the rest of â€Å"normal† society. The way in which we think about various issues and problems directly affects how we deal with them. Most in society would say that the solution to problems is obvious because it is. What is missed however is the fact that how we think about problems can completely shift the ways in which we deal with them. In order to change policy then the first step is to change the perceptions and the reality surrounding it for officials and the public alike. Lakoff tells us that if we can reframe issues we can create social change (XV). When we change the way the public sees the world, largely through the media, and alter that perceived reality we can change the policies that follow. So why then does the media seem to be so concerned with violent crime and creating feelings of fear and anxiety in its consumers? The reason seems to be sensationalized journalism meant to increase viewership and a system where officials control our perceptions through the media. It needs to be understood that passive consumption of the media is unhealthy and we should think critically about how reality is constructed by elites and the media because, that subjective reality directly affects the solutions that are used to deal with our problems. While so many people are given the impression that crime is rampant the underreported fact is that crime has been decreasing for many years. In order for there to be rational crime control policy in the United States we need to have accurate information about the reality of crime in this country. In order for this to happen the media must provide an accurate depiction of crime that is constructed by a fair debate in the public arena of the media. There is a lot at stake in how we perceive the world around us and how we think about crime and punishment.