On The Beach Essays - Radiobiology, English-language Films

On The Beach On The Beach In the big city of Melbourne, Australia, material goods have become scarce. There are no cars, and very little of the luxuries that there once were. It takes hours to get simple necessities such as milk. All this is because of the nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere. This nuclear war has wiped out every living thing, including all humans, throughout countries like China, Europe, and even the United States. It all began with a fight between Russia and China, who wanted to destroy each others land. They managed this with nuclear bombs, and without realizing the consequences, killed off their own people along with everybody else due to the radiation that was left behind. The radiation has killed all forms of life in the Northern Hemisphere so far, and is now steadily approaching the Southern Hemisphere; the only place left on the planet with life. Lieutenant Commander Peter Holmes lives in Melbourne with his wife, Mary and their infant, Jennifer. They, along with everyone else in Australia, have heard and known that the radiation is slowly coming and scientist have predicted that they only have until September before it spreads throughout Australia, killing them all with a slow sickness. This sickness includes symptoms such as nausea, diarrhoea, and trembling. It could take anywhere from three days to three weeks to die, depending on ones resistance in their body. Peter is aware of the short time he has left to live out his life, yet his wife Mary fails to realize that there will be no next year, or next spring. She continues to plan ahead as if she will still be alive years or even months from then. Peter helps to comfort her by allowing her to think this way and buying her things such as flowers for the garden that will not bloom until the next year. Peter is called on assignment in the beginning of the book to go on a cruise aboard the U.S.S. Scorpion, the only submarine left. The goal of this cruise is to see if there is any form of life in the northern cities of Cairns, Port Moresby and Darwin. Any form of life would include birds, plants, animals or vegetation. On this cruise, the crew in unsuccessful in finding any forms of life except one dog roaming around. They go back to the port in Melbourne and are docked for some time. While docked, Peter invites the Commander Dwight Towers to stay with him and his wife for the weekend to go sailing and swimming. Mary decides she wants this to be an adventure for Dwight, and therefore invites her friend Moira Davidson. Moira seems to be different then most girls; very forward and drinks too much, and strong in her beliefs. Yet her and Dwight manage to establish a friendship, which they maintain throughout the book. A few weeks later, another cruise is assigned, both involving Commander Dwight Towers and Peter Holmes. This cruise will be much more difficult and more strenuous. They plan to go up to the United States and around the west coast of Canada to see if they can find the radio signals they have been receiving from where they think is Seattle. The navel officers believe that there must be someone up there running the radio stations to be getting signals. The cruise is planned to take two months, while being submerged underwater for twenty-seven days of those two months. Before Peter leaves for his cruise he wants to make sure that his wife and daughter are taken care of if the radiation were to come quicker then expected and he was not there to help her or be with her. He goes to a nearby chemist for information on what happens to a person when hit with radiation sickness and what to do when it happens. The chemist tells him of all the symptoms and gives him some pills that no one else has been able to get yet. These pills are designed to kill a person peacefully in their sleep, and are meant to be taken when a person knows that they dont want to go on with living through

Compounds With Ionic and Covalent Bonds

Compounds With Ionic and Covalent Bonds An ionic bond is a chemical bond between two atoms in which one atom seems to donate its electron to another atom. Covalent bonds, on the other hand, appear to involve two atoms sharing electrons reach a more stable electron configuration. Some compounds contain both ​ionic and covalent bonds. These compounds contain polyatomic ions. Many of these compounds contain a metal, a nonmetal, and also hydrogen. However, other examples contain a metal joined via an ionic bond to covalently bonded nonmetals. Here are examples of compounds that exhibit both types of chemical bonding: NaNO3 - sodium nitrate(NH4)S - ammonium sulfideBa(CN)2 - barium cyanideCaCO3 - calcium carbonateKNO2 - potassium nitriteK2SO4 - potassium sulfate In ammonium sulfide, the ammonium cation and the sulfide anion are ionically bonded together, even though all of the atoms are nonmetals. The electronegativity difference between ammonium and the sulfur ion allows for an ionic bond. At the same time, the hydrogen atoms are covalently bonded to the nitrogen atom. Calcium carbonate is another example of a compound with both ionic and covalent bonds. Here calcium acts as the cation, with the carbonate species as the anion. These species share an ionic bond, while the carbon and oxygen atoms in carbonate are covalently bonded. How It Works The type of chemical bond formed between two atoms or between a metal and set of nonmetals depends on the electronegativity difference between them. Its important to remember the way bonds are classified is somewhat arbitrary. Unless two atoms entering a chemical bond have identical electronegativity values, the bond will always be somewhat polar. The only real difference between a polar covalent bond and an ionic bond is the degree of charge separation. Remember the electronegativity ranges, so youll be able to predict the types of bonds in a compound: nonpolar covalent bond - The electronegativity difference is less than 0.4.polar covalent bond - The electronegativity difference is between 0.4 and 1.7.ionic bond - The electronegativity difference between species forming a bond is greater than 1.7. The difference between ionic and covalent bonds is a bit ambiguous since the only truly nonpolar covalent bond occurs when two elements of the same atom bond with each other (e.g., H2, O3). Its probably better to think of chemical bonds as being more-covalent or more-polar, along a continuum. When both ionic and covalent bonding occurs in a compound, the ionic portion is almost always between the cation and anion of the compound. The covalent bonds could occur in a polyatomic ion in either the cation or the anion.

Hard High School How It Affects Your College Chances

Hard High School How It Affects Your College Chances SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Attending a tough high school can certainly affect some of your performance statistics. It's natural to wonder whether these shifts in your numbers are going to affect your chances of college admission. In this article, we cover what colleges are really concerned with when they look at your record, and we explain why you don't need to be worried if your high school is especially hard. What Is a "Hard" High School? There are a few reasons a high school might be considered "hard." Usually, it's because the school iscompetitive within the student body; there are a lot of students taking the really tough classes and doing well in them. Grading policy is also a consideration.Hard schools are slow to give out A's, whereas others practically chuck them at any student in sight. Size can also impact how hard a high school appears to be. At a large and competitive school, it's hard to get a top class rank- you're competing against a lot of other people. At a small and competitive school, it's hard to get a good percentile ranking because a slight difference in rank can translate to a relatively large percentile discrepancy. A hard high school is one where students who would otherwise get top grades and top ranking have a hard time doing so, either because the grading is so tough or because their peers are so competitive. What Colleges Look At Many students worrythat the relatively lackluster grades or ranking they achieve at a hard school may seem unimpressive to colleges. Basically, they're afraid they won't look smart. They think they won't be able to get into their desired college(s) because they didn't a perfect GPA and graduate as valedictorian. As it turns out, colleges, especially the more selective ones, do their best to view youwithin the context of yourhigh school environment. When colleges receive your transcript, they also receive a brief "school profile"whichsummarizes the school in terms of courses offered, the grading scale, average grades and tests scores, and the class size. Admissions officers will see that your school has tough grading policies and that an imperfect GPA doesn't imply a lack of understanding in your courses. Colleges are looking to see whether you sought out the most rigorous courses available to you and whether you excelled in them. Also, remembercolleges are looking for the whole package. Grades are a huge part of it, but they're also looking at test scores, extracurriculars, letters of recommendation, and personal statements. Colleges won't assign (or dock) you points based on how difficult your high school is- they'll do their best to be fair to students from all backgrounds. There areplenty of factors to weigh when it comes to college admissions. Ways to Boost Your Application You're essentially trying to stand out by means of some skill or accomplishment. Commitment to extracurricular endeavors is a great place to start. Quality trumps quantity here; it's better to be deeply involved in a few select activities than barely involved in a whole bunch. Stellar application essaysalso score major points. Spend serious time on your personalstatement, and get help revising and editing it. Make sure it has a balance of the personal and professional- this isn't a scholarly essay for an academic journal, but it's not a diary entry, either. Awesome letters of recommendation make a great impression. Choose your recommendation writerscarefully. It's alright to remind them of your accomplishments- describe the points you'd definitely like them to include. Impeccable test scores catch the eye. Standardized tests are a convenient place to shine. Invest your time and energy in preparing for the SAT and/or ACT ahead of time. The Final Word You don't need to worry about a college looking down on you because of your hard high school. The most selective colleges spend extra time looking at the context of your numbers, and the less selective schools are, well, less selective. The best you can do is perform your best at the high school you attend. Take the hardest classes you can actually manage, and don't worry overmuch about how the resulting grades will look. If it so happens that you don't get into the college you'd hoped for, remember there are multiple reasons why things may not have lined up; it's almost certainly not a matter of the hard high school you attended, but just the fallout of an extremely- and often unjustly- selective system. What's Next? Are you getting started on the college application process? Pay attention to the important deadlines listed in our article on that topic. If you're wondering what kind of application you ought to submit, read what our experts have to say about that very issue. Also check out this inspirational guideto how one student was successfully admitted to Harvard. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Evidence-Based Practice Project Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Evidence-Based Practice Project - Assignment Example It would be appropriate to get consent or approval for the potential subjects because most of them will not be of legal age. It would be appropriate to seek approval from the relevant institutions such as the school administration or the parents to ensure that the process of implementing the solution is legal and addresses issues of confidentiality and ethical consideration. This project will take about three to four months to carry out because there are several aspects that must be covered to ensure that the potential solution is well addressed in terms of risks and potential benefits. The timeline will cover aspects such as the identification of the population for study, identification of the potential study group, and selection of the subjects from the sample among other aspects. This will allow for proper decision-making on whether to fully implement the solution (Cooke-Davies, 2002). The implementation of the proposed solution will require different resources to ensure that it is done in the required manner. First, human resource will be required in terms of the subjects that will be used as the study participants. As already stated, these will be taken from teenagers. The human resource will also feature research assistants who will help me collect the data and results from the chosen group. Secondly, I will need fiscal resources to cover the expenses that will be needed for instance printing of materials, searching and looking for the echocardiography machines, movement when administering the research among others. Time will also be a resource, as it will be needed here. Changes might be needed in the implementation of the solution. For example, a study subject might decide not to participate at the middle of the intervention calling for inclusion of a new subject, the machines could not be readily be available or the fiscal resource could be limited. However, such changes will be determined in the

Case briefs Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Case briefs - Assignment Example The case went through the court of first trial all the way to the Supreme Court. At the court of first trial, a suppression motion was granted to the defendant. This is because the court found out that the search warrant that had been issued earlier was not based on a feasible cause. To be specific, the court contended that that search warrant was surrounded by contentions of an untested informer and inadequate validation by the police. Upon the subsequent trial to the Court of Appeal, the court affirmed the decision of the court of first trial. The Court of Appeal declined the exclusionary rule that was put forward of good faith. Lastly, when the case reached the Supreme Court of the U.S, certiorari was granted. The legal issue that was in this case was whether the exclusionary rule to the fourth amendment should be amended so as to permit the usage of evidence acquired by police officers acting in judicious dependence on a search warrant dispensed by an isolated and impartial magistrate but eventually established to be uncorroborated by credible cause. The court held that the exclusionary rule ought to be amended so as allow the use of evidence acquired in the justifiable belief of acting under good faith that a given search warrant conformed to the said fourth amendment. Justice White stated that the exclusionary rule to the fourth amendment ought to be amended so as to allow the use of evidence acquired in the justifiable belief of good faith that an issued search warrant complied with the provisions of the fourth amendment. He argued that the exclusionary rule was a judicial-made remedy and not a constitutional right. He said that the rule’s main objective is to deter the misconducts that may be occasioned by the police officers. He further contended that it can be amended if the police officers have tangible evidence that can be used if it can be shown that the

Slaughterhouse Essay Example for Free

Slaughterhouse Essay In the novel Slaughterhouse 5 written by Kurt Vonnegut, it can be perceived that the overall plot structure does not follow the expected chronological order of most other novels. Normally, the life of Billy Pilgrim would be represented as a linear story. This means that it would show the order of events as they happened in time. The lack of chronological order in the novel and the abrupt and random changes in time are used by the author to represent how the life of a soldier is affected after the war. Throughout the novel, Vonnegut implements this structure also to define Billy’s personality and characteristics. Vonnegut uses the ideals and beliefs of the Tralfamadorians to influence the structure of the novel. The Tralfamadorians believe that â€Å"there is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time†. The author represents this idea in the structure by alternating between stories and times, telling the story as Billy lives it, to show what he thinks of life and death after war. Vonnegut successfully writes the novel in this style to allow the readers to consider these ideals in their own lives. This is portrayed in the novel when Billy says repeatedly â€Å"so it goes† when someone dies; meaning that he doesn’t look at death like an end, it just look at it like another part of life. Vonnegut succeeds in showing the readers the elements of the novel all at once using random changes and skipping from one event to another abruptly. The author also gave this particular structure to the plot of the novel because it represented the bombing of Dresden as an event that kept going forever. The fact that the bombing of Dresden didn’t have much historic attention, although it was a real massacre, encouraged Vonnegut to describe it as Billy Pilgrim sees it: endless. As Billy went over his life more than once, the author wants the reader to know how hard and devastating was for Billy to live war more than once. The harshness and the uselessness of war are represented with this method. Another structural technique implemented by Vonnegut is foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is when a warning or an indication of a future event is given before the actual event occurs. This is clearly seen throughout the entire novel but especially in the first chapter. â€Å"It begins like this: Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. It ends like this: Poo-tee-weet? (p. 31). Here Vonnegut deliberately breaks the concept of time as well as the concept of tension. The most important events in this novel are foreshadowed by the author before, to relieve this negative tension that the whole theme of war creates. A clear example is seen in page 56: Billy sat down in the waiting room. He wasnt a widower yet. This technique allows the plot of the novel to be much more relaxed as well as giving the readers a sense of tranquility and fluidity. An effect of the novel’s plot structure in the overall meaning of the book is the fact that Billy’s life is replicated by the structure; producing a metaphor of the damage warfare creates. An example of this is when Billy jumps in time to his death repeatedly. He knows exactly how, when and where he dies. He knows that he will be killed by Paul Lazzaro after he delivers a speech in a stadium filled with people, about everything he learnt on tralfamadore in 1976. This helps the audience to understand the damage war causes to the minds of soldiers. The fact that the storyline is incoherent to the reader shows exactly how Billy has lived his life every day since the war. Also the disjointed characteristic of the structure portrays how the events in Billy’s life are all disassociated. To conclude, the author uses a non-chronological plot structure for reasons such as, to represent a soldier’s life after war and the ongoing massacre of Dresden. Vonnegut achieves, with the use of extended metaphors and careful descriptions, to convey the reader a sense of discontinuity in the novel and therefore an overall â€Å"image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep†.

Schizophrenia Essay -- essays research papers

I have always been interested in my pattern of thinking. Often I have always thought that people don’t use their imagination as much as I do. I have always been into the darker side of life, watching horror movies and listening to heavy metal etc. Obviously this is all fantasy though; demons aren’t really going to rip me to pieces like in the movies. Some people can’t differentiate reality from fantasy though. I know in my head that I am able to think like most psychopaths but I am able to tell the difference between right and wrong. What I mean by that is I understand where they’re coming from and how they see the world because at times I feel that way. I want to why I am able to control my thoughts (as sick as they may be) and actions as to where they can’t Fear plays a major role in the actions of most people. People who have psychotic episodes tend to be less fearful of the world around them. For example whereas most people would scream at a horror movie they wouldn’t even flinch. That’s how I seem to be (although I’m used to horror movies since it’s the more creative genre of films). Does fear actually help someone to maintain his or her sanity? If they had no fear would that mean that they would be able to do anything no matter how crazy it sounds? Better yet, does everyone who lacks fear turn out to be psychopath? I lack most of the fears that other people have but I’m not clinically insane. These are the questions I will try to answer in determining what causes someone to become completely detached from the world around them. A lack of fear isn’t enough to determine if someone is a potential psychopath. Freud believes that our fears are stored in our unconscious mind. We never actually know what our fears are and yet they’re there. He believed that â€Å"each of us has a censor operating somewhere within or nervous systems, whose chief task is to prevent sexual or other types of threatening impulses or memories from breaking through to consciousness to embarrass us† (Human Behavior 291). I think that theory is complete nonsense since I am aware at all times what is going on in my head. To simply put it, if you know you’re afraid of something then it’s not unconscious. A theory with more credibility comes from Pavlov. His theory is based on conditioning. Conditioning is when the fear is learned over time through certain key events. Pavlov describes this ... ...reactions and I enjoy acting weird.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I believe that the reason why I am not a schizophrenic is because I am able to control my fears and anxiety. The key word here is control. Without it you’re nothing but a machine made up of flesh and bone. Schizophrenics don’t have control over their thoughts or actions and that is why they seem out of touch with reality. Most of this control has to do with fear and anxiety. For example: any normal person would be scared if the F.B.I. was after them but people with a disorder seem devoid of any emotion. They do however acknowledge the content of the event but still seem oblivious to the world around them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Instead of using medication or seeing a psychotherapist, the best way to treat this disorder might be to detect it from an early age. Naturally we will still have to administer medication and send them to a professional. Too often though people without schizophrenia are being diagnosed with having it and vise versa. Along with the drugs I think we should treat them the same as we would someone with high anxiety or any type of phobia. That is if doctors are willing to take the time to.

Case Analysis of Sutton Health Essay

This network identified that traditional payment processing system had limitations that hindered the effective collecting of revenue. What with the recession, healthcare organizations have seen an increase in the inability to collect debt from the self-pay, the uninsured and underinsured patients. This has caused a lot of struggle when it comes to the organizations to meet the operational margins and the profits. I find there are a number of reasons for the new increase in patient’s debts, the most common are, poor accounting practices, lack of patient information and correct demographics. There is new governance that is designed to provide more coordinated care to said patients (Gleeson,2010). There are five geographic regions that reflects the health care access to the customers of Northern California. Each of the five regions will have governance structure and it will oversee many of the Sutter affiliated medical facilities and also the hospitals. In its effort to increase point of service collections and improve the overall revenue cycle Sutter health took steps to measure performance using a handful of specific primary benchmarks, empowering PFS staff to assume responsibility for every individual account they handle, ensure each registration is analyzed using a rules engine to identify problems before patients leave the registration desk and ensure PFS staff receive appropriate co mprehensive training to excel under the new system† (Souza, McCarty, 2007). Obtaining the correct patient information plays a large part on non-collectable debt because patients are not able to be reached. These limitations were associated with limited access to accurate information by the account representatives, ineffective performance measures and fragmented centers of the service provision. The Sutter Health program developed a system that was comprised of solutions that were geared towards overcoming these limitations. The key problems and issues, is that the United States healthcare system is characterized by huge upkeep from collecting revenue from patients. This situation is brought about by a health care insurance system which entails high deductible pay health plans and as well as higher co-payments plan. (Souza, McCarty, 2007). This situation has been made worse through the large proportion of the population not having healthcare coverage. The traditional health care system has had a hard time meeting their target revenue collection. This is due to several problems that attached along with the traditional payment system. Unlike when dealing with the payments through insurance claims but also dealing with the up-front payments that are required by the hospital for payment of services before the patient could even receive the service (Souza, Mccarty, 2007). So this means that the patient services staff (PFS) has to have complete and accurate information about above said client. This presented a problem for the traditional payment system where much of the customer payment system was processed in the back end. This system also required that the PFS staff ask for money from self-pay patients, but the PFS were not accustomed to this under the traditional system. The PFS staff found it hard to wait for the back end section to process customer information and to provide a breakdown of the patients payment details. So this became a tedious task for hospital accounting departments as well as for patients that had to wait a longer period before receiving services. The inefficiency of the traditional system not only resulted in low quality services, but also in low revenue collections. The system provides such a broad range of health care services, which include acute, sub- acute, home health, long term, outpatient care as well as physician delivery systems. These services are provided through an integrated health care delivery approach that gives the system the ability to deliver a full range of healthcare products and services. rks. Sutter also recognized that the traditional system did not provide a means for analyzing selected data nor did it generate required detailed report on demand. This led to more cost as the hospital had to rely on programmers to generate such reports. The front desk staff also lacked real time information which hindered their ability to serve the client without consulting the back end staff. It also meant that the front desk staff could not monitor the patients progress (Souza, McCarty, 2007). Another challenge was that the PFS members were not empowered enough to be held accountable for each patients accounts they dealt with and it reduced the amount of accountability among the staff. These are some of the key challenges that the Sutter system were meant to address. The solutions that were employed by Sutter Health was an attempt to overcome the challenges stated above. Sutter Health implemented certain changes in the fore mentioned system that would make their operation more efficient. The strategies identified by the Sutter program entailed transferring most of the back end tasking to the front desk; providing accurate and complete information to managers and upfront staff; providing more effective performance evaluation and integrating all data elements within the system (Souza, McCarty, 2007). Allowing front desk staff to handle much of the payment process was deemed to have an effect on the efficiency of the process. Various solutions were employed to ensure that this is achieved. One of these solutions entailed using benchmarks to measure performance by the Patient Service Staff (PFS). Sutter identified a handful of primary benchmarks which included; Unbilled A/R days, Gross A/R days, Major A/R days, Cash Collection,percentage of A/R over 90, 180, 360 days (Souza, McCarty, 2007). This benchmark introduced shorter periods with which staff performances could be evaluated. This move was timely especially when onsidering that the industry has changed and things happen in terms of hours and days but not months. Another solution involved empowering the PFS members to have full responsibility over the accounts they are dealing with. This move was meant to increase a sense of responsibility and accountability as each individual members will be responsible for his or her own account (Souza, McCarty, 2007). This also gave the PFS members more autonomy to act as they saw fit and this improved the speed and efficient of service delivery by these staff members. The program also provided the PFS members with tools, that enabled them to automate their accounts, sort out their accounting using various means and seen their performances based on the achievement of the target. PFS and other accountant representatives were presented with individual dashboards that helped in the tracking of their progress in meeting targets. This also helped in enforcing the benchmarks set by this program. Sutter’s health program also introduced a front end collecting system as means of overcoming the mentioned problems. The pint of access collecting system introduced an opportunity for the health care facilities to reduce claims and denials. Though this system the patient records are analyzed before the patient leaves the registration desk. This enables the front desk staff to identify problems such as bad debt, patient or invalid patient type early enough and take the necessary corrective action. The Sutter health program also embarked on a comprehensive training program that was designed to support the existing PFS members and the registration staff. This gave staff the necessary competence to deal with the tools provided by this system. The training program also eliminated the need to hire formally educated staff to operate the system that would and more than the $10-$20 an hour paid to current registration and PFS staff. For example, registration staff who were not used to asking patients for money were trained in effective communication skills. The training was also designed to introduce autonomy and effectiveness which acted as a motivator to the employee.

Apis Mellifera: The Life of the Western Honey Bee Essay

Who would think that an insect less than an inch big could be of so much importance to the human society? Throughout the history of mankind, the Western Honey Bee has proven to be of many uses to the human society. The study of the honey bee has shown the true intricacy and efficiency of their colony. Each member of the colony works together in a nearly flawless environment of productivity. For these reasons, and many more, the Western honey bee has proven itself to be one of the most fascinating and useful insects there has ever been. In order to be able to understand the honey bee and its colony, one must first learn about the bee’s physical make-up. Similar to a typical insect, the Western honey bee can be divided into three major sections; these sections are the head, thorax, and abdomen. The first section, the head, is a very intricate part of the body. The head contains the eyes, antennae, and the mouthparts. The eyes are an intriguing feature, seeing as the honey bee has two different types of eyes. The first type is the two compound eyes. The compound eyes are more of the typical kind of eyes. These eyes can sense light and color, though the bee’s spectrum of color varies slightly from the human eye’s spectrum. The honey bee also has three simple eyes, which are called ocelli. The only known function that these eyes serve is to sense the intensity of the light (Dade 65). The two antennae also play a crucial role in the life of the bee. The antennae are the nose of the honey bee, allowing it to sense odors. Along with sensing odors, the antennae aid in their ability to taste. The mouthparts of the honey bee contain the mandibles and proboscis. The mandibles are jaws that help in chewing, grooming, and several other functions. The proboscis is similar to the human tongue in the fact that its function is to lick and suck up nectar into the honey bee’s mouth. The next section of the bee, the thorax, contains the legs and wings. These both contribute to the mobility of the bee. There are six legs on a honey bee which come in three pairs. The legs perform multiple functions, among these being that they aid in mobility, grooming, and storing pollen. The honey bee possesses two pairs of wings, the front wings and the hind wings. These wings provide for very efficient flight, allowing the bee to beat its wings at an astounding rate of 200 times per second; they have also been known to travel up to 60 kilometers on one meal (Winston 26-29). The third and final section of the bee is the abdomen. The most well-known and feared function of the bee, the stinger, is found in the abdomen. Large portions of the bee’s digestive, excretory, circulatory, and respiratory systems are also found in the abdomen. The internal systems of the honey bee are as fascinating as its physical qualities. Much like a human, the honey bee also has a digestive system. When a bee consumes food, it travels through its esophagus to its crop. While in the crop the food can be regurgitated and transferred to another bee. After passing through the crop, the food travels to the midgut. This is where the digestion and absorption of nutrients takes place in the bee. Then the digested food is either excreted through the rectum or used for energy. The circulatory and respiratory systems of the honey bee are fairly simple with the dorsal heart and aorta being the main contributors in blood circulation. Unlike a human, the bee does not have veins and arteries for the blood to travel through. Instead, the blood fills the body cavity and enters the heart through the ostia. After passing through the ostia and heart, the blood travels to the head. The honey bee respiratory system also varies a great deal from the human’s. The honey bee breathes through holes called spiracles. These spiracles are connected to the tracheae which are tubes that transport the oxygen in and the carbon dioxide out of the bee. The honey bee’s ability to fly is a very important and interesting ability. As mentioned previously, the honey bee has 4 wings, a pair of frontal wings and a pair of hind wings which are located on the thorax. There are two muscle systems that move the wings, the direct and indirect muscles. The direct muscles are attached directly to the bases of the wings, whereas the indirect muscles are located in the thorax but are not attached to the wing bases. The indirect flight muscles are much larger than the direct flight muscles and likewise play a greater role in the honey bee’s flight. The indirect muscles control the up-and-down wing strokes as well as the back and forth strokes. There are two sections of the indirect muscles, the vertical muscles and the longitudinal muscles. There is a pair of each of these two types of indirect muscles. The vertical and longitudinal muscles expand alternately; this causes the wing to flap, providing the motion for flight. This happens at an extremely quick pace, which allows the wings to beat at 200 beats per second. Not only can it do this quickly, but it can do it efficiently. The bee can travel for very long periods on just one meal. Honey bees live on just three items; these are nectar, pollen, and water. Nectar provides carbohydrates for the bees, while the pollen provides proteins. Most of the nectar and pollen that the bees collect though is used in the production of honey. In a summer, a typical honey bee colony of around 30,000 bees consumes about 20kg of pollen (Seeley 82). If you multiply out the distance required for an average travel times the 1. 3 million foraging trips that it would require to harvest 20kg of pollen, then it would be equivalent to traveling to the moon and back over seven times. The water, too, aids in the production of honey, counting for 18% of the make-up of honey (Dade 43). Though it is probably not surprising because they are called honey bees, the bees’ number one food intake is honey. The bees put out a lot of energy gathering all of their pollen and nectar; this requires them to eat a large amount in order to have enough energy to complete all of their honey production. Western honey bees often build their hives in forest tree branches. Studies have shown that the scouts are very picky when searching for a future nest site. The scouts tend to choose a nest location that is not too far from their current location, yet they prefer nests that are not too close either. Scouts seem to prefer a nest site that has an entrance facing south because the south tends to receive more sunlight. They also desire for the nest site to be positioned roughly three or four meters above the ground (Seeley 73). Once a location is decided upon by the colony, the comb construction is started immediately. The workers in the colony start to mass produce beeswax for the construction of the comb. In order to be able to produce the wax, worker bees eat pollen for the first week that they are alive. The workers really focus on building the new nest since virtually nothing can happen in the colony without the comb. Their hard work pays off; they can accomplish over 90% of the comb building in merely 45 days or even less. The bees have an intricate design for the honey comb. They form hexagonal shaped cells in the comb, maximizing the amount possible. These cells come in three different sizes. The smaller size is for the worker eggs, the slightly larger size is for the drone eggs, and the largest size is saved for the queen eggs. However, there are less than 20 cells for the queens. The left over cells that are not being used for the reproduction of the bees are put into use as storage cells. This is where honey is stored after it is formed. There are three different types of members of a honey bee colony. There are workers, drones, and the queen. All three of these play a vital role in keeping the colony working in harmony. The first of these three is the worker bee. Worker bees are female, yet they never become fully sexually developed like the queen does. The worker bees, as one can imagine, provide the work force of the colony. They are the scavengers and collectors of pollen and nectar. Worker bees also take part in the reproduction process by laying unfertilized eggs that will hatch as drones. The average life span of a worker bee varies depending on the season. If born during the spring or summer, their life span is just a month on average. However, if born during the winter then they can live for up to half of a year (Erickson, Carlson, and Garment 100). The second type in the honey bee colony is the drone. Drones are fatherless, male bees that have hatched from unfertilized eggs. As a result of having no father, the drones only have 16 chromosomes instead of the normal 32 that worker and queen bees have. The lifetime of a drone is just two months during the summer, which is the only time that they are present n a colony. When the summer is over, the drones are kicked out of the colony. In the end, this causes them to die of starvation. The only real purpose that the drones serve in the colony is to mate with the queen bee. After mating with the queen bee, the drone is killed from the process. The third and final type of bee in the honey bee colony is the queen bee. The queen bee comes from fertilized eggs and is the only member of the honey bee colony to achieve full sexual maturity. Also, the queen bee has the longest lifespan by far in the colony. She can live up to five years; however, a lifespan of one to two years is more common. The mortality rate of the queen is quite high with 60 percent of the queens dying within the first year (Erickson, Carlson, and Garment 11). The queen varies greatly from the other members of the colony. She has a smaller brain and eyes, yet a larger body. She is designed to produce thousands of eggs, and can even lay more than 2000 eggs per day. Though there are often multiple queens that are birthed at a time, there is only one reigning queen of the colony at one time. The first queen to hatch out of her cell seeks out and destroys the other queen larvae before they can develop fully. Throughout her life, the queen is catered to. The workers groom and feed the queen. The queen is the most important member of the colony; she is responsible for producing all other members of the colony. The method of reproduction in the honey bee colony is very unique. The queen bee is responsible for essentially all of the reproduction in the colony. Just five days after reaching adulthood, the queen bee will go out on what are called mating flights. On a mating flight the queen will fly out from the nest, followed by several drones. A drone will catch up to the queen bee and begin mating with her while in flight. After the queen bee has received the sperm from the drone, she will release the drone and he will fall to his death. The mating process kills the drones. The queen will mate with six to eighteen drones, or until she has enough sperm for her egg laying. Following the mating process, the queen’s fertile ovaries will enlarge; this allows for the queen to be more efficient with her egg laying. The queen can produce two to three thousand eggs per day, which is over two to three times her body weight. If the queen wishes to produce a drone, hen all she has to do is withhold the semen from the egg. The queen will lay her eggs in the cell of the comb where they will stay, being taken care of by the worker bees, until they hatch. Along with the queen, worker bees can produce drones. The workers account for a very small portion of the eggs though. The most notorious feature of the honey bee is by far their ability to sting. Nearly everyone has experienced the sharp pain of a bee sting at some point in their life. The worker bees and queen bee are capable of stinging; the drones cannot sting since they do not have a stinger. When a worker bee stings, their barbed stinger and poison sac are ripped out of the bee and the bee ends up dying. However, the queen bee does not have a barbed stinger, her stinger is smoother, and therefore she can sting multiple times without endangering her health. Honey bees, of course, have enemies and threats to their colony. These enemies vary in sizes and detriment to the colony. Some common enemies are spiders, insects, and animals. The largest threats to the honey bee colony include bears, badgers, wax moths, and humans. Bears are attracted to the colony by the sweet honey. They are very powerful and can severely damage a colony with a few swipes; the bears try to knock the combs so that they can eat the honey. This is where the defense system of the honey bees kicks in. During the bear’s attempted break in, it is common for the bear to receive quite a few stings that leave them howling in pain. There is a specific type of badger that is known for hassling honey bee colonies; they are appropriately called the honey badgers. The honey badgers team up with the honey guide, a type of bird, in finding and raiding the honey bee comb. Wax moths are detrimental to the honey bee colony for different reasons than the badgers and bears. The wax moths are an invasive pest that seeks out week bee colonies. When they find a week honey bee colony, the wax moths quickly take advantage of the situation. Wax moths can completely destroy the wax combs of the honey bee nest. The greatest threat to the honey bee population cannot be blamed upon anyone but the humans. Humans account for a large amount of damaged hives, poisoned bees, and even aid in the spreading of diseases in the bee population. Human’s pesticides can be very etrimental to the honey bees; this is largely an unintentional result, yet it is a serious problem. The largest point of interest and most useful trait of the honey bees is their aid in the pollination of flowers and crops. Without the honey bee’s contribution in pollination, farmers and gardeners around the world would be struggling to grow any form of plant life. Pollination occurs when a worker bee travels from the hive in search of food. The worker bee gathers nectar from different flowers. While the worker bee is obtaining the nectar, she is also covering herself with pollen from the flower. The bee will visit many different flowers throughout the day, and she will be bringing the pollen from different flowers to other flowers and therefore pollinating them. The honey bee is the most significant contributor of all pollinators, responsible for pollenating â€Å"more than 100 agricultural crops in the United States† (Honey Bees are Important Pollinators, para. 4). â€Å"In the United States alone, it is estimated that honeybees accomplish 1/4 of the pollination needed for all fruit produced for human consumption – an estimated $10 billion worth of work each year! (Great Plains Nature Center). The Western honey bee is of vital importance to the human population. It provides many necessities and has proven itself useful to humanity in many ways. Not only is the honey bee vitally important to the welfare of the human civilization, the insect is also a very interesting and fascinating model of a society based on hard work and efficiency. There is something benef icial for everyone to learn in observing the Western honey bee that aids them in becoming a better individual and contributor to society.

Learn About Thermal Inversion

Learn About Thermal Inversion Temperature inversion layers also called thermal inversions or just inversion layers, are areas where the normal decrease in air temperature with increasing altitude is reversed and air above the ground is warmer than the air below it. Inversion layers can occur anywhere from close to ground level up to thousands of feet into the atmosphere. Inversion layers are significant to meteorology because they block atmospheric flow which causes the air over an area experiencing an inversion to become stable. This can then result in various types of weather patterns. More importantly, though, areas with heavy pollution are prone to unhealthy air and an increase in smog when an inversion is present because they trap pollutants at ground level instead of circulating them away. Causes of Temperature Inversions Normally, air temperature decreases at a rate of 3.5Â °F for every 1000 feet (or roughly 6.4Â °C for every kilometer) you climb into the atmosphere. When this normal cycle is present, it is considered an unstable air mass and air constantly flow between the warm and cool areas. As such the air is better able to mix and spread around pollutants. During an inversion episode, temperatures increase with increasing altitude. The warm inversion layer then acts as a cap and stops atmospheric mixing. This is why inversion layers are called stable air masses. Temperature inversions are a result of other weather conditions in an area. They occur most often when a warm, less dense air mass moves over a dense, cold air mass. This can happen for example when the air near the ground rapidly loses its heat on a clear night. In this situation, the ground becomes cooled quickly while the air above it retains the heat the ground was holding during the day. Additionally, temperature inversions occur in some coastal areas because upwelling of cold water can decrease surface air temperature and the cold air mass stays under warmer ones. Topography can also play a role in creating a temperature inversion since it can sometimes cause cold air to flow from mountain peaks down into valleys. This cold air then pushes under the warmer air rising from the valley, creating the inversion. In addition, inversions can also form in areas with significant snow cover because the snow at ground level is cold and its white color reflects almost all heat coming in. Thus, the air above the snow is often warmer because it holds the reflected energy. Consequences of Temperature Inversions Some of the most significant consequences of temperature inversions are the extreme weather conditions they can sometimes create. One example of these is freezing rain. This phenomenon develops with a temperature inversion in a cold area because snow melts as it moves through the warm inversion layer. The precipitation then continues to fall and passes through the cold layer of air near the ground. When it moves through this final cold air mass it becomes super-cooled (cooled below freezing without becoming solid). The supercooled drops then become ice when they land on items like cars and trees and the result is freezing rain or an ice storm. Intense thunderstorms and tornadoes are also associated with inversions because of the intense energy that is released after an inversion blocks an area’s normal convection patterns. Smog Although freezing rain, thunderstorms, and tornadoes are significant weather events, one of the most important things impacted by an inversion layer is smog. This is the brownish-gray haze that covers many of the world’s largest cities and is a result of dust, auto exhaust, and industrial manufacturing. Smog is impacted by the inversion layer because it is in essence, capped when the warm air mass moves over an area. This happens because the warmer air layer sits over a city and prevents the normal mixing of cooler, denser air. The air instead becomes still and over time the lack of mixing causes pollutants to become trapped under the inversion, developing significant amounts of smog. During severe inversions that last over long periods, smog can cover entire metropolitan areas and cause respiratory problems for the inhabitants of those areas. In December 1952, for example, such an inversion occurred in London. Because of the cold December weather at the time, Londoners began to burn more coal, which increased air pollution in the city. Since the inversion was present over the city at the same time, these pollutants became trapped and increased London’s air pollution. The result was the Great Smog of 1952 that was blamed for thousands of deaths. Like London, Mexico City has also experienced problems with smog that have been exacerbated by the presence of an inversion layer. This city is infamous for its poor air quality but these conditions are worsened when warm sub-tropical high-pressure systems move over the city and trap air in the Valley of Mexico. When these pressure systems trap the valley’s air, pollutants are also trapped and intense smog develops. Since 2000, Mexicos government has developed a ten-year plan aimed at reducing ozone and particulates released into the air over the city. London’s Great Smog and Mexico’s similar problems are extreme examples of smog being impacted by the presence of an inversion layer. This is a problem all over the world though and cities like Los Angeles, California; Mumbai, India; Santiago, Chile; and Tehran, Iran, frequently experience intense smog when an inversion layer develops over them. Because of this, many of these cities and others are working to reduce their air pollution. To make the most of these changes and to reduce smog in the presence of a temperature inversion, it’s important to first understand all aspects of this phenomenon, making it an important component of the study of meteorology, a significant sub-field within geography.

A Modest Proposal With A New Critical Approach Essay -- Johnathan Swif

A Modest Proposal, by Jonathon Swift is very much an ironic persuasive essay. He is proposing the eating of babies as a way to help with poverty. Throughout the essay he makes many thought-out yet almost unthinkable arguments that support his proposal. You do however know he doesn't really want people to start eating babies. He is just trying to show a major problem in a shocking way. His arguments for the eating of babies are as follows: it would greatly reduce the number of poverty stricken people (especially children); it would give those same people income when they sold their children; the nation as a whole will have more money because of this new income; there would be more food for everyone (baby might even become a delicacy); people would save a lot of money by not having to support their children after the first year of birth; and finally, it would help out marriages since there would be less stress on the parents. These theories are stated and supported throughout Swift's essay. He uses the structure of the essay to help you get a good understanding of the material he is presenting. The basic structure of the essay starts out with him explaining the problem he plans to help solve, that Dublin is poverty stricken. There are too many beggars with way too many children. Next, he starts to subtly drop hints about his proposal. He explains that he is going to, "Humbly propose (his) own thoughts," and that he hopes they, "Will not be liable to the least objection."(Abcarian, 629) He continues by further explaining some of his proposal's benefits, then in a list fashion states the six main arguments for it. Swift then adds his last few reasons why people should consider h t before he is about to say something horrible. This is ironic because it is not expected. The speaker has just totally changed his tone. The biggest use of irony is situational irony. The whole proposal is absurd and the speaker kn ows it. He is proposing the idea to show the larger picture. That there is no solution to this problem, and no one has any useful ideas. The eating of babies is utterly outlandish which is precisely why he chose it. The speaker of this modest proposal uses irony to create a tension that helps to convey a certain message. That message is that even though this may be a totally outrageous proposal, no one can complain or judge until they have a proposal of their own. Works Cited Fish,Tom. "The Literary Criticism." http://www.cumber.edu/litcritweb/# Lynch, Jack. "New Criticism." http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Terms/newcrit.html

Explain the function of religion (e.g from a sociological, Essay

Explain the function of religion (e.g from a sociological, pychological and anthropological perspective). Can the relationship between religion and magic be seen as dangerous - Essay Example Religion is supposed to define the way of living of a society. . The sociological functions of religion are far more than that could be written in words and explained. Religions serve in a society by affecting the life style of a mere individual and by affecting a whole society. Religion is supposed to be a key stone in a society on which the whole society exists and survives. Different religions serve as a form of identity for the societies of the world. They define the way of living and provide order to a society. â€Å"The ten Commandments† given to Moses served as a source through which the followers of that particular religion defined their way of living. However, religions are supposed to have both positive and negative impacts in a society. As man is considered as both the creator and the creation of society, religions is supposed to take away the supposed freedom from the man that allows him to rule this world in his own way. According to some people with a different mindset, religion is thought to create a social conflict by opp ressing the people in the society and creating illusions to ease pain (Leming 1998). However this role of religion has not been accepted by a major group of people who consider religion as a source of harmony. Whether from a same region or not, from the same ethnicity or not, people of the same religion get together at specific times. This allows them to get to know each other properly and make the bond between them more and more strong. Christmas, Hajj and many other religious festivals are such examples when people from around the world get together at one place, families reunite; friends meet and enjoy the company of each other. Religions are solely responsible for such happenings which serve as an important factor in the strength of a society. All the important factors that contribute to the development