Homeostasis Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Homeostasis - Assignment Example This homeostatic regulation is made up of three parts that are an effector, a control center, and a receptor. The main role of the receptor is receiving information about the required as the control center processes the information while the effector executes these commands from the control center by making changes in response (Chiras 2013, 4). In maintaining homeostasis, all the body organ systems work together harmoniously in maintain homeostasis within the body. Most systems in the body maintain homeostasis by either use of a negative or positive feedback mechanism. When the hypothalamus receives messages from the body in regards to an internal change in a system, it works to restore the system to its required normal state. The negative feedback mechanisms found when the body regulates temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate. Discussion on how the body is involved in regulating the above is discussed below (Neligan & Baranov 2013, 33). On the other hand, the positive feedback mechanism is a rare mechanism that works by causing even greater changes in the body system instead of restoring the body systems in their normal states. An example is in the release of oxytocin that intensifies contractions during birth. As the birth process takes places, the body signifies more release of the hormone intensifying contractions thus pushing the baby out. The body constantly maintains a set of temperature for its internal environment. The muscles and liver are responsible for the generation of heat within the body. When the body’s temperature is greater than that of the surrounding, the skin loses heat to its surrounding. The standard average homeostatic body temperature is approximately 98.6 F. After or during exercise the body temperature is bound to rise. However, the body will employ some mechanisms to cool itself. The process happens through

Organizational behavior Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Organizational behavior - Assignment Example In addition, goals provide a path which an organization can follow; this way, the managers can know whether they are on the right track and realize the changes they need to make (Montgomery Schools par. 3). Despite the fact that goals determine where one wants to be, there are various objections that are against this point of view. One of the arguments against this statement is that some goals are not easily achievable. Failure to achieve goals may demoralize a person and lead to stress, especially if one had put a lot of expectations in the goals they had set. In addition, goals may be unpredictable since there are some changes that one may encounter along the way, which minimize the chances of achieving goals. Time constraint is another argument against the role of goals in determining where one wants to be. Some goals are achievable only in the long-run and assuming that they will be achieved within a certain period is not realistic (Bratton et al

Romanians And Romanian Culture History Essay

Romanians And Romanian Culture History Essay In the name of the Romanians is reflected the reminiscence of their ethnic origins which are connected with the period when their country was part of the Roman Empire. Although the Romanians speak a language whose basis is spoken Latin, Romanian culture is permeated with traits that stem from periods predating the presence of Romans. Romanian culture owes much to the legacy of the earliest European civilization, the Danube civilization of the sixth and fifth millennia B.C.E. Scientists have often wondered how the Romanians could have maintained their Romance language through long periods of foreign domination and external influence. Similarly, one can wonder how certain cultural patterns of much older periods persisted to form an organic whole with more recent innovations, of what is known as Romanian culture. Most of the 26 million Romanians live in two states with a predominantly Romanian-speaking population. The great majority (Romà ¢nii) inhabit Romania (20.5 million) where they account for 90 per cent of the population. Among the minorities in Romania are (>) Roma (Gypsies), (>) Hungarians, (>) Germans, (>) Tatars and other ethnic groups. Neighboring Moldova is the home country of some 2.8 million speakers of Romanian who call themselves Moldovenii (Moldavians) and these make up 76 per cent of the population. Other ethnic groups living in Moldova are (>) Ukrainians, (>) Russians, (>) Gagauz and others. Romanian minorities are scattered outside the two states with concentrated Romanian population, in Ukraine (0.35 million), Serbia (0.25 million), Greece (0.25 million), Russia (0.18 million), Hungary (0.1 million), Bulgaria. There is a populous Romanian minority in Israel (0.25 million). Since the tenth century the development of the various groups of ethnic Romanians follows different trajectories. Four regional groups with distinct cultural patterns and local varieties of Romanian language can be discerned: 1)Daco-Romanians (the Romanian population north of the Danube, in Romania, Moldova, Ukraine); 2) Aromunians or Macedo-Romanians (in Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and in the historical region of Dobruja, south of the Danube); 3) Megleno-Romanians (Romanian minorities in the South of Bulgaria and in the Northeast of Greece; these groups originated, in a secondary ethnic process, from Aromunian populations); and 4) Istro-Romanians (Vlachs of Istria; Romanian minority on the Istria peninsula in Croatia). Romania is among the areas in Europe where the Neolithic inhabitants adopted agriculture at an early date. The beginnings of plant cultivation and animal husbandry go back to the sixth millennium B.C.E. The western region of Romania, Transylvania, is the cradle of metal-working. There, copper artifacts were worked hundreds of years earlier than in western Asia or Mesopotamia. Early evidence for the tradition of metallurgy in Transylvania dates to around 5500 B.C.E. The art of the ancient Danubians was prolific and varified in style and ornamentation. What strikes the eye in the archaeological record is the multitude of figurines, most of them female, that were found in sanctuaries, together with altars, and in areas of the households reserved for domestic rituals. The aesthetic impression of those figurines has not lost any of its attraction throughout the ages and their timeless aesthetic appeal inspired artists in later periods. In the early twentieth century, the Neolithic spirit was revitalized in the works of modern art. The Romanian-born Constantin Brancusi is among the best-known representatives of this trend. The civilization of Old Europe was overformed by the culture of the Indo-European nomads who migrated westward out of the Russian steppe and established themselves in the areas of the agriculturalists. Old European traditions, though, continued albeit in a fragmentary way. The legacy of the ancient Danubians was not limited to the technology of metal-working or to forms of the visual arts. Old European traditions also persist in certain architectural forms and in the narrative themes of Romanian folklore. And just as certain features of prehistoric shrines eventually evolved into basic parts of Christian churches (), much of what we know as mythology derived, more or less directly, from the ritual-cultural life of prehistoric peasants (Poruciuc 2010: xiv). Those who transmitted the Old European traditions into later periods were the Dacians, themselves descendants of the Indo-European tribes that came to populate Southeast Europe in the fourth and third millennia B.C.E. At the time when the Romans conquered the Balkans and were organizing administration in the provinces of Southeast Europe the Dacians were the strongest military power north of the Danube. At intervals the Dacians and Romans were in alliance but the interests of the indigenous population and the Roman colonizers differed fundamentally so that, eventually, military confrontation was unavoidable. In a long and hard war the Romans subdued the Dacians under their king Decebalus and established their power in Dacian lands, in 106 C.E. The Roman province was named after the people that inhabited the region, Dacia. New villages and towns were founded by the Romans, among them the administrative and economic center of Dacia. That was Sarmizegetuza in Transylvania, named after the former capital of the Dacian kingdom, located at some distance from the Roman town. Living-conditions in Dacia favored acculturation and assimilation, and within a few generations the majority of Dacians had experie nced a shift to Roman lifeways, including a shift from Dacian to spoken Latin. During the period of Roman rule groups of Dacians had been forcefully relocated by Roman authorities to areas south of the Danube, following rebellions of local Dacian tribes against Roman rule. Those Dacians who continued to live south of the Danube assimilated completely to Roman lifeways. During the tenth and eleventh centuries their descendants moved back into the region from where their ancestors had come. The kind of Latin spoken by the Dacians was different from the Latin in Italy or in the western provinces of the Roman Empire, and it absorbed words of the Dacian language before that was no longer spoken and vanished altogether. The development of the Latin speech as used by the new Romans deviated further when Dacia was abandoned by the Roman administration and the military in 271 C.E. and contacts with the Roman world were cut off. The Latin of Roman times gradually changed to become a local Romance language. Those who continued to speak it were ordinary people. This means that Romanian ethnicity finds its roots in the medieval communities of illiterate peasants and shepherds. Written Latin, the language of civilization and of the church in western Europe, played no role in early Romanian society. The medieval Romanian language lacked the medium that roofed local Romance dialects in the West and provided a source for literacy. The Romanian language and the Christian religion have been the major markers of Romanian identity since the Middle Ages. The development of the Romanian speech community, though, was quite uneven in the regions with Romanian populations. Transylvania has been a contact zone since antiquity. After the Romans had abandoned Dacia this region was settled by Germanic peoples, by Gepids (allies of the Huns) and Visigoths, later by Slavic tribes and Hungarian populations. German settlers arrived in the area in the twelfth century, leaving their imprint on culture and political history. Slavic, Hungarian and German influence shaped the interaction with local Romanians whose communities grew in size to eventually become the most populous of the ethnic groups in Transylvania. Political sovereignty was achieved, in the course of the fourteenth century, in other regions with Romanian population, in Moldavia and in Wallachia. The ruler of Wallachia, Mircea the Great (d. 1418), was aware of the po litical trend of his period which saw the rise to power of the Ottoman Turks and he advised his successor to come to terms with the Turks. Stephan the Great (d. 1504) of Moldavia tried to negotiate political relations with the powerful newcomers but, in the end, all of Wallachia and Moldavia were forcefully integrated into the Ottoman colonial territories of Southeast Europe. The region with German settlements in Transylvania (called in German Siebenbà ¼rgen the region with the seven fortified towns) retained some kind of autonomy, albeit under Ottoman supremacy. From 1709 until the 1820s, Romania was ruled by Greek governors (Phanariots) in Turkish services. This period is remembered by Romanians as one of oppression and exploitation. Gradually, Ottoman hegemony in Southeast Europe weakened in the wars with Russia that extended its territory at the cost of the Turks. In 1812, Russia occupied the eastern part of Moldavia, Bessarabia. The development of the Romanian communities in that part was different from the rest of Romania. Russia encouraged anti-Ottoman movements among the Romanians in Wallachia and western Moldavia and, in 1858, these two regions were united under a Russian-supported hospodar, Cuza. The year 1861 saw the proclamation of a Romanian state. The first king to rule the country was Carol I (reigned 1866 1914), a German-born prince of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Romanias infrastructure (i.e. railway system, army, school system, exploration of oil fields) was mostly developed according to the model of contemporary Prussia and later the German Empire. For several decades after World War I that ended in 1918, the countrys territory included Transylvania and eastern Moldavia and was reminiscent of a Greater Romania. As a result of World War II that ended for the Romanians in 1944 eastern Moldavia had to be ceded to the Soviet Union but Transylvania remained within the borders of Romania. Under the communist regime of Ceausescu (d. 1989), the Hungarian and German minorities of Transylvania became victims of a forceful Romanization campaign and many left Romania as emigrants. The demise of communism in Romania and the shift to a parliamentary democracy in 1989 did not change the high-handed attitude of Romanian governments toward minorities. Neither Hungarian nor German are acknowledged as official languages and Romanian, as state language, is the only official medium in administration and education throughout the country. Romanian is a Romance language and forms, with Italian, the eastern group. Its character as a Romance language is apparent in the grammar although less than half of the vocabulary has been preserved from spoken Latin. Nevertheless, these words of Latin origin are among the lexical elements of high frequency and they dominate everyday Romanian. Some 60 per cent of the Romanian lexicon are of Slavic, Germanic, Hungarian and other origin, reflecting the manifold contacts of Romanian with other languages in Southeast Europe throughout one and a half thousand years. Romanian remained unwritten until the sixteenth century. The earliest documents of written Romanian are a letter dating to 1521 (containing some 200 words) and a Lutheran catechism that was printed in Sibiu (the town in Transylvania that was founded by Germans under the name of Hermannstadt), in 1544. During its history, Romania has been written in two scripts. For about three hundred years the Cyrillic script predominated when writing Romanian. Although the Latin alphabet was already used in Transylvania in the late sixteenth century, it competed with Cyrillic well into the nineteenth century. With the rise of Romanian national awakening, the Roman heritage and the Latin script became celebrated. An orthographic system with Latin letters was adopted in Wallachia, in 1860, and in Moldavia, in 1863. The competition between the Latin and the Cyrillic tradition of writing Romanian was renewed in the twentieth century and, this time, it was politically motivated. Some groups of the Romanian-speaking population that lived east of the river Dniestr had remained on Soviet-Russian territory while eastern Moldavia had been united with Romania in 1918. Soviet language planners created a written standard, with Cyrillic orthography, for the Soviet Moldavians, as an ideological counterweight to language use in neighboring bourgeois Romania. When Moldavia was annexed to the Soviet Union in 1940 (and factually in 1944), the Moldavian standard language was used in all of Soviet Moldavia. The revised Cyrillic orthography for Romanian in Moldavia was in use until 1989 when the parliament in Chisinau, the capital of Moldavia, decided to shift to the Latin script and write according to the norms of Romanian in Romania. This regulation means that Romanians and Moldavians use the same standard langu age and write with Latin letters. The 1990s saw the division of the Romanian-speaking population in two independent states (i.e. Romania and Moldova) where they form the majority. Recent development in the two countries has followed very different trajectories. Romania joined the democratic integration movement of Europe and has been a member state of the European Union since 2007. Moldova has remained outside this process because of its weak economy, and it is in this country that ideas about communism still play a vital role in election campaigns. Harald Haarmann Further Reading Fernà ¡ndez-Armesto, Felipe (ed.). The Times Guide to the Peoples of Europe. London: Times Books, 1994 (Romanians: pp. 261-267). Goebl, Hans et al. (eds.). Contact Linguistics, vol. 2. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1997 (Romania: pp. 1458-1486, Moldavia: pp. 1933-1941). Haarmann, Harald. Balkanic Linguistics, vol. 1: Areal Linguistics and Lexicostatistics of the Balkanic Latin Vocabulary (in German). Tà ¼bingen: Gunter Narr, 1978. Pernicka, Ernst and David W. Anthony. The Invention of Copper Metallurgy and the Copper Age of Old Europe. In The Lost World of Old Europe. The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC, ed. David W. Anthony, 162-177. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. Poruciuc, Adrian. Prehistoric Roots of Romanian and Southeast European Traditions. Sebastopol, CA: Institute of Archaeomythology, 2010. Treptow, K.W. A History of Romania. Iasi, 1999.

Sabiduría y enseñanza en la ciudad en crisis (Platón, Apología 18a7-20c3) :: Spanish Essays

"Sabidurà ­a" y "enseà ±anza" en la ciudad en crisis (Platà ³n, Apologà ­a 18a7-20c3) ABSTRACT: Con Platà ³n se produce el reconocimiento de la educacià ³n como el lugar en que una comunidad mantiene su peculiar instalacià ³n en la realidad y por ello como el terreno de la accià ³n politica eficaz. La problemà ¡tica, presente ya desde los textos socrà ¡ticos, es ubicada en el pasaje de la Apologia de Sà ³crates en que la mencià ³n de las ‘acusaciones antiguas’ permite ver el juego de distintos elementos-la paideà ­a, la opinià ³n pà ºblica, el saber-en un momento de crisis. Esta crisis, tanto de la base polà ­tica tradicional como de la polà ­tica pragmà ¡tica, se traduce en un oscurecimiento de que lo que son el hombre y la pà ³lis que da lugar a Sà ³crates y a su tarea como consciencia de la quiebra del mundo polà ­toco. Se desarrolla el alcance ontolà ³gico de ella y sus-paradà ³jicos-consecuencias polà ­ticas y educativas. Una usual caracterizacià ³n sociolà ³gica de la educacià ³n la define como los modos de reproduccià ³n de una sociedad. En el fondo, la educacià ³n està ¡ exigida por el hecho de que una comunidad determinada (asà ­ sean las grandes sociedades contemporà ¡neas) resulta el lugar primario del encuentro del hombre con la realidad, y esta apertura del mundo, por ser siempre concreta, es histà ³rica y finita, y por ello tiene que esforzarse permanentemente para mantenerse abierta, ya que en cualquier momento puede oscurecerse y quebrarse. La educacià ³n es parte decisiva de este esfuerzo. El nombre de Platà ³n parece ligado a una concepcià ³n que, lejos de encontrar un fundamento en la finitud, lo encuentra—si vale la palabra—en lo 'absoluto', dejando a lo finito en una regià ³n ontolà ³gicamente là ­mite. Y sin embargo esta comprensià ³n de la realidad—que el Platà ³n maduro traducirà ¡ en la doctrina de las Ideas—està ¡ ligada al intento de rescatar a su particular comunidad de un naufragio (rescate que Platà ³n cree todavà ­a desesperadamente posible, aunque en realidad ya era tarde). Ya los textos "socrà ¡ticos" (la Apologà ­a de Sà ³crates y el Crità ³n) marcan, en la compleja relacià ³n de Sà ³crates con su ciudad, el reconocimiento, a la vez, del carà ¡cter fundante de lo comunitario-polà ­tico y de la quiebra interna de ese fundamento; y es justamente esta quiebra la que permite reconocerlo como tal. Estos textos tambià ©n marcan el comienzo de la reflexià ³n platà ³nica sobre la educacià ³n, que el drama socrà ¡tico signa inicialmente de violencia. Sà ³crates es la và ­ctima ilustre de una realidad social fallida que se opone con toda su fuerza a quien seà ±ala esa quiebra de sus fundamentos y que aparece asà ­ como 'subversivo' mucho antes de cualquier propuesta de replantearlos o cambiarlos.

Development of renewable energy sources Essay

Unlike solar energy, wind power grown faster the last couple years and is today the environmentalists preferred alternative energy source (Bradley 1). Paul Brown writes, Sebastian Seidel 3 â€Å"Electricity production [in the U. K. ] from wind leapt by 31% last year, making it the fastest growing industry in the field of power generation† (1). Every year, the amount of electricity produced by wind power is increasing, especially in the USA, Germany, Denmark and Spain (Brown 1). The improvements made in wind power generators in the past years, has led to more efficient wind mills. James Flanigan describes, â€Å"[a] single windmill generator today is capable of doing the work of 10 windmills of the 1970s, when wind power experiments began† (2). He adds, â€Å"Wind generation can deliverer electricity at 3 cents to 6 cents a kilowatt-hour† (2). This is a lot less than the average electricity price paid in the U. S. today. But although wind power seems to be the ideal energy source, environmental activist who were promoting alternative energy in the past now have doubts about wind power. Robert L. Bradley reasons in his article, that â€Å"[w]ind blades have killed thousand of birds in the U. S.and abroad in the last decade, including endangered species† (2). Like any human made construction, wind blades are a threat to birds, but so is any electricity line. The Altamont Pass wind-power plant in California is a good example of a misplaced wind power facility. Hardly any research about the animal environment was done when the windmills were set up. But even if one project has a bad impact on the environment and wildlife, wind power has still countless good aspects (Bradley 2). Therefore Hal Harvey, president of the Energy Foundation, declares, â€Å"[w]e’ve found the holy grail: wind is now cheaper than any fossil fuel-based. Sebastian Seidel 4 power source† (qtd. in Linden 1). Hydro-Power means making electricity from water power. In his article, Stuart Baird declares, â€Å"Hydro-Power is currently the world’s largest renewable source of electricity, accounting for 6% of worldwide energy supply or about 15% of the world’s electricity†(1). It has been known to be one of the cleanest ways to produce energy, because it does not produce any exhaust fumes or waste of any kind. As Baird adds, â€Å"hydro-power is better than burning coal, oil or natural gas to produce electricity, as it does not contribute to global warming or acid rain† (2). Another benefit is that it helps to control water, for example with dams. But hydropower dams also have negative environmental impacts, such as blocking fish movements and decreasing water quality. Another disadvantage of this technique is â€Å"the flooding and destruction of entire ecosystems† (Baird 2) and the â€Å"increase of bacteria in the water due to decaying vegetation, which can be harmful to the fishes and to those who eat them† (Baird 4). Like solar- and wind-power, Hydro-Power has many good as well as a few bad aspects. The problems mentioned above result from unplanned, bad managed and oversized hydro-power systems. But, if a dam is well sited, well operated and kept reasonable in size, these environmental impacts can be reduced though not eliminated. Renewable energy has many good as well as many bad aspects. Today most of the electricity comes from coal-, gas- and nuclear-plants. Still, the percentage of electricity made with renewable energy is growing every year. Canada for example adds â€Å"60%† of Sebastian Seidel 5 energy made by hydro-plants to the national grid (Baird 1) and Denmark satisfies 18% of electrical demand with electricity produced wind-power (Brown 1). Within the few next years, due to technical improvements and cheaper production methods, the percentage of renewable energy added to western countries demand will rapidly grow. But lots of research has to be done until then to limit the negative impacts on the environment. Sebastian Seidel 6 Baird, Stuart â€Å"Hydro-Electric Power. † Energy Educators of Ontario 1993. 15 Jan. 2002. Bradley, Robert L. â€Å"Dirty Secrets of Renewable Energy. † USA Today Magazine May 1998. 14 Jan. 2002 Brown, Paul â€Å"Wind power use grows by 30%. † The Guardian 10 Jan. 2002. 17 Jan. 2002. Flanigan, James â€Å"Getting serious about Earth-Friendly Energy. † Los Angeles Times June 2001. 21 Jan. 2002. Greenwald, John â€Å"Energy: Here comes the sun. † Time 18 Sep. 1993. 15 Jan. 2002. Kozloff, Keith Lee. â€Å"Rethinking development assistance for renewable electricity sources. † Environment Nov. 1995. 15 Jan. 2002. Linden, Eugene â€Å"Selling the Sun†¦ and the Wind Renewable energy has come of age-but it’s mostly foreign companies that are making money on it. † Time 16 July 2001. 15 Jan. 2002.

Stefan’s Diaries: Origins Chapter 33

Pale moonlight danced over Alice's bright hair as I rushed toward the shack. I ran my tongue over my still-sharp fangs, reliving the sensation of my teeth pressing into her pliant, yielding neck. â€Å"You're a monster,† a voice somewhere in my mind whispered. But in the cloak of darkness, with Alice's blood coursing through my veins, the words held no meaning and were accompanied by no sting of guilt. I burst into the shack. It was quiet, but the fire was well-tended and burned brightly. I watched the flames, momentarily entranced by the violets, blacks, blues, and even greens within. Then I heard a faint breath in the corner of the room. â€Å"Damon?† I called, my voice echoing so loudly against the rough-hewn beams that I winced. I was still in hunting mode. â€Å"Brother?† I made out a figure hunched under a blanket. I observed Damon from a distance, as if I were a stranger. His dark hair was matted to his neck, and he had streaks of grime along his face. His lips were chapped, his eyes bloodshot. The air around him smelled acrid–like death. â€Å"Get up!† I said roughly, dropping Alice to the ground. Her almost-lifeless body fell heavily. Her red hair was matted with blood, and her eyes were half closed. Blood pooled around the two neat holes where I'd bitten her. I licked my lips but forced myself to leave the rest of her for Damon. â€Å"What? What have you †¦Ã¢â‚¬  Damon's gaze shifted from Alice to me, then back to Alice. â€Å"Y ou fed?† he asked, shrinking even farther into the corner and covering his eyes with his hands, as if he could somehow erase the image. â€Å"I brought her for you. Damon, you need to drink,† I urged, kneeling down next to him. Damon shook his head. â€Å"No. No,† he rasped, his breath labored as he drew nearer to death. â€Å"Just put your lips to her neck. It's easy,† I coaxed. â€Å"I won't do it, brother. Take her away,† he said, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes. I shook my head, already feeling a gnawing hunger in my belly. â€Å"Damon, listen to me. Katherine is gone, but you're alive. Watch me. Watch how simple it is,† I said as I carefully found the original wound I had made on Alice's neck. I sunk my teeth back into the holes and drank. The blood was cold, but still it sated me. I looked up toward Damon, not bothering to wipe the blood away from my mouth. â€Å"Drink,† I urged, pulling Alice's body along the floor so it was lying next to Damon. I grabbed Damon's back and forced him toward her body. He started to fight, then stopped, his eyes transfixed on the wound. I smiled, knowing how badly he wanted it, how he could smell the overpowering scent of desire. â€Å"Don't fight it.† I pushed his back so that his lips were mere inches from the blood and held him there. I felt him take a deep breath, and I knew he was already regaining strength, just from seeing the red richness, the possibility of the blood. â€Å"It's just us now. Forever. Brothers. There will be other Katherines, forever, for eternity. We can take on the world as we are.† I stopped, following Damon's gaze toward Alice's neck. Then he lunged and took a long, deep drink.