Cultural Geography

What is culture? Culture is the collective of ideas and beliefs about what is customary as well the arts, social institutions, and religions of a group of people. 3. What is a region? A region is an area of division of a place with definable characteristics but without fixed boundaries. 4. What is cartography? Cartography is the science of making maps. 5. Who was Thomas Malthus? Malthus was a British scholar who in 1798 came up with a new theory for population change. . What is demography Demography is the study of statistics such as the births and deaths of a population in order to demonstrate the changing structure of human populations. 7. What is diffusion? Diffusion is the process of spreading things more widely such as cultural elements or diseases. 8. What is the demographic transition? Demographic transition refers to the transition from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as a country matures into a more modern and industrialized system. 9. What is a censu s? A census is an official count of a population. 10. What is migration?Migration refers to the movement of people from one place to another in search of better opportunity. Describe in detail what is geography and what geographers study. Dylon Breyman The Study of Geography When many people think of geography they think only of physical places in relation to each other or perhaps the topographical features of a certain place, but geography is more than Just the study of the physical world. Geographers are concerned with the physical layout of places, but also with the interactions between eople and their environment, and even cultural interactions that involve people in different places.Geography is broken down into two main fields: physical geography and human geography, each field has further subdivisions as well. Physical geography focuses on the natural environment and how a region's climate, topography, organisms, and natural processes interact. While human geographers study t he processes and patterns that effect human society. Although the fields seem very different there are quite a few areas of overlap. Geographers often make connections between human culture and society and the effects that societal hanges may have on the natural environment.For this reason geography has been important for many reasons. It not only gives us more information about the world around us, but can also be used to make predictions by observing current and past phenomenon and interactions. In this way issues such as spread of disease or food supply for a population can be addressed before they become a real problem.

Aldi Case Essay

Individual Action points included in the presentation8 Appendix8 Executive Report Group 9 was assigned with the Aldi case study for the Marketing Management assessment. I was assigned with the role of Group Leader by the members and also trusted with the work for the PowerPoint presentation slides as I stated that I have the proper knowledge. The role of the leader was taken seriously and I starting setting the meeting conditions and proposed and delegated the individual research subjects related to our group case study. The individual research I undertook for the Aldi case study was the defining the Lean concept and detail research of the Continuous Improvement concept. As a group leader I took the decision that all the individual pieces of research to be presented inside the group for all to acknowledge the management concepts used into making the company run lean processes and getting customer satisfaction. Personally I designed the slides and the structure, which was later slightly modified by John Vincent’s proposal. Together we practiced and we have presented remarkably at the final presentation. Within the presentation I exposed a summary of the theoretical concepts of Lean Production, Continuous Improvement, Time Based Management, JIT production and Total Quality Management and was followed by Medet Coban who presented the Economies of Scale Concept while in the closing part John Vincent presented the benefits of Lean Thinking concluded with a Market research regarding Aldi’s competitive advantage. Key areas of personal research and sources of information As part of the Group 9 which had as case study the food retailing company ALDI, the following areas of research have been identified: * Lean thinking philosophy * Lean production * Continuous Improvement * Just In Time Management * Total Quality Management * Economies of Scale. The research of these concepts was distributed among the group members for a more in depth research and understanding. The key areas of research that I undertook for the group activity were 1. Defining and understanding the concepts of Lean Thinking Philosophy and Lean Production 2. Continuous Improvement. Used as sources of information for the foundation of my research were the LSC Library where I am registered as a student and the internet research. Also the group used the information of the case study. The proportion of the Library research weighted aprox. 80% of the total personal research, while the case study information weighted 10% and the internet sources also about 10%. The book references will be found in the appendix at the end of this report. Key theoretical positions summary In the group presentation there were analyzed and presented the following theoretical issues: The Mission and the Objectives The Mission is established by the top management of a company. It represents the long term achievements that are wanted to be reached and the basic principles to be followed to get as close as possible to the proposed mission. These principles must be followed by all employees as they represent the company’s values and in time the will develop into the company’s culture. The Objectives or targets are meant to set the results of the activity that the company needs to achieve in order to accomplish the mission set at the beginning. They can be quantitative or qualitative but always they have to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time defined) In our presentation it was specified that the Aldi’s mission was established using the ideology Lean Thinking and that Aldi uses the same philosophy’s principles in order to achieve its business objective for growth and continuous improvement. Lean Thinking is the concept where efficiency is developed by the improvement of the quality while reducing the costs, time, space and effort. The concept is used most of the time interchangeable with the JIT concept. Lean Production is the process of organizing each process of an organization with the purpose of increasing the efficiency and minimizing the waste. Next there were presented the others concepts used as tools into achieving the lean processes as they were also presented in the case study: Continuous Improvement – relies on gradually improving the organization’s processes for a cumulative increased rate of performance improvement. A learning organization is also able to generalize the knowledge gained in the improvement process by its employees and then replicate it among them. Time Based Management – it’s a general approach meant to reduce the level of unproductive time of the business’ processes. It usually requires multi-trained staff and/or advanced technology but it leads to advantages like faster market adaptability and a faster new product development. Just in Time Production – the management system where a company provides its products/services only as demanded on the market. The benefits of JIT are the reduced cost of stock management (only the necessary stock needed to cover for potentially delay of the suppliers or the production itself), fast adaptability for the demands on the market and waste reduction. Total Quality Management – a general management concept that concludes that all the factors and the resources of the company should be used towards achieving long term success through customer satisfaction. Its philosophy is getting things done right the first time. Economies of Scale – is an effect of running the organization efficiently and applying also the previous concepts. It presumes that a company will increase their incomes with a larger production/activity while maintaining approximately the same level of costs by using its resources efficiently. Individual Key Conclusions First we learned about Lean Thinking concept and how important it is in today’s world to be efficient. Studying ALDI case study we analyzed and discovered that having a competitive advantage on the market is both beneficial for the company and the customers in the same time. ALDI’s competitive advantage was to offer the customers the high quality products at lower prices by using the efficiency concepts that allowed them to run their processes with the minimum waste and costs. The lean thinking was adopted by the top management and included in the mission statement and the business objectives as the strategy to deliver the business benefits to the stockholders and the customers. The efficiency concepts used are interchangeable and complementary and they all lead towards achieving economies of scale profitability. Continuous improvement – everybody in the organization is to accept the responsibility of their tasks and contribute to the efficiency of the organization by improving the process and the standards of the activity. Time Based Management – is the most efficient when the company relies on multi skilled trained staff and can be considered as one of the main results of the continuous improvement. Just In Time concept orientates the company’s activity towards the market requirements and allows it adapt its production volume, standards and diversity to the requirements of the customers. Total Quality Management is a global management concept that guides the entire organization’s activity towards achieving customer satisfaction and every process must be efficiently improved to meet the quality, price and customer service demanded by the consumer. Economies of scale are the primary result of the efficiency concepts that have been applied in an integrated manner towards improving the business processes and to deliver the customer satisfaction. This will achieve the long term durability and development of the company as the mission and the objectives are oriented. The practical issues that arose prior to the presentation were: * The difficulty into arranging a meeting were all the members be present and therefore making some of the group decisions just based on the judgement of the named leader. * The structure of the presentation was changed just on the last meeting as an intervention of one of the members. The risk of losing time into the preparation and repetition was bigger than the risk of the last minute change and therefore we adopted the idea. After having the Power point slides done there have been modifications into the presentation which there were not changed into the printed handout due to the lack of time. Key Critical Observations and Commentary The first impression regarding the case study was that I would have had rather as the group assessment the marketing research and the development of a new marketing strategy. The start of the work on this piece was delayed due to the uncertainty of what exactly we are supposed to do. However, working on this case study gave me the opportunity to remark that Marketing is an integrated component of the entire organizational structure even though the concepts were mostly about operational management. Discovering the management concepts like Continuous Improvement, Just In Time Management, Time Based Management or Total Quality Management made the group realize that the Marketing Strategy is more efficient when the company has its production and services oriented towards getting customer satisfaction. The individual assignment directions I found to be a little bit confusing. Key topics of personal learning They key topic that I personally learned as a result of undertaking the group assignment was the Continuous Improvement concept. I have learned that Continuous Improvement is one of the two improvement methods, the second one being Discontinuous Change or Business Process Innovation. While the second method has a rather radical approach and it’s mostly used as a final resort to adapt to the environment requirements, Continuous improvement relies on gradually improving the organization’s processes for a cumulative increased rate of performance improvement. The 3 steps in assuring CI are: 1. creating the appropriate environment – the Company must create an ambience where all employees adopt the organization’s values and then set up standard procedures for the improvement process. The most common procedure is Deming’s and Shewhart’s Plan Do Control Act cycle. 2. Involving everyone in the Organization – Company is responsible for the employees’ participation. They must train the staff in Statistical Programming Control and work teams to encourage employee participation as well as setting the objectives like Quality Costs Delivery Safety Moral. . Using the proper Problem Solving Skills – Company must make sure that all teams have the appropriate Problem Solving Skills for the process improvement they’re responsible for. Continuous Improvement also relates to the concept of Learning Organization which means that learning of individuals must be generalized and replicated inside the comp any to achieve the best optimum improvement performance. Executive Summary of The Group activity I consider that the team we created and the group assignment was successful due to the following factors: * The final presentation went well, as planned and everybody was happy of the result; * Each student had the opportunity to do a piece of research and then presenting it to the other members of the group which helped learn individually and also teach each other in an interactive manner; * Group relations were well linked and there were no complaints to each other inside the group. The presentation of the individual research increased everyone’s confidence of taken a real presentation on their own for different subjects and in different situations. Individual Action points included in the presentation The personal contribution towards the group presentation consists of: 1. I was firstly elected as the leader of the group. My role was taken seriously and I tried to set the best times for meetings and also tried to get everyone involved in the decisions and brainstorming proc ess 2. I suggested leads to be followed for the presentation. I divided the research subjects and made everyone responsible for their own piece of work. The summary of each subject of research was presented individually inside the group. 3. PowerPoint slides’ design and structure were set personally and each member has its contribution with the content of their research for one slide of presentation. 4. Created the speech for the piece of presentation I was involved and took an active role into the practice of the presentation by directing and suggesting improvements.

The Return: Midnight Chapter 36

Matt broke a lot of traffic rules on the way to the Saitous'street. Meredith leaned on the console between the two front seats so that she could see the digital clock ticking down to midnight, and so that she could watch the transformation of Mrs. Flowers. At last her recently sane, sensible mind forced words out of her mouth. â€Å"Mrs. Flowers – you're changing.† â€Å"Yes, Meredith, dear. Some of it is due to the little present that Sage left for me. Some of it is my own wil – to return to the days when I was in my prime. I believe that this wil be my last fight, so I don't mind using al my energy in it. Fel ‘s Church must be saved.† â€Å"But – Mrs. Flowers – the people here – Well, they haven't always been – exactly nice – â€Å"Matt stammered his way to a stop. â€Å"The people here are like people everywhere,†Mrs. Flowers said calmly. â€Å"Treat them as you'd like to be treated, and things wil be fine. It was only when I'd let myself become a bitter, lonely old woman, always resentful of the fact that I had had to turn my home into a boardinghouse just to make ends meet, that people began to treat me – Well, at best as a loony old hag.† â€Å"Oh, Mrs. Flowers – and we've been such a bother to you!†Meredith found the words coming without her volition. â€Å"You've been the saving of me, child. Dear Stefan was the start, but as you can imagine, he didn't want to explain al his little differences to me, and I was suspicious of him. But he was always cordial and respectful and Elena was like sunlight, and Bonnie like laughter. Eventual y, when I dropped my hidebound barriers, so did you young ones. I won't say more about those who are present so as not to embarrass you, but you've done me a world of good.† Matt ran another stop sign and cleared his throat. Then, the steering wheel wavering slightly, he cleared his throat again. Meredith took over. â€Å"I think what Matt and I both want to say is†¦Well, it's that you've become very special to us, and we don't want to see you get hurt. This battle – â€Å" â€Å"Is a battle for al I hold dear. For al my memories. Back when I was a child and the boardinghouse was built – it was just a home, then, and I was very happy. As a young woman, I was very happy. And now that I have lived long enough to be an old woman – Well, besides you children, I Stillhave friends like Sophia Alpert and Orime Saitou. They are both healing women, and very good at it. We Stilltalk about different uses for my herbs.† Matt snapped his fingers. â€Å"That's another reason I was confused,†he said. â€Å"Because Dr. Alpert said that you and Mrs. Saitou were such good people. I thought she meant the old Mrs. Saitou – â€Å" â€Å"Who is not a ‘Mrs. Saitou'at all,†Mrs. Flowers said, almost sharply. â€Å"I have no idea what her name real y is – perhaps she is real y Inari, a deity gone bad. Ten years ago, I didn't know what made Orime Saitou suddenly so diffident and quiet. Now I realize that it began just around the time her ‘mother'moved in with her. I was quite fond of young Isobel, but she suddenly became – aloof – in an unchildlike way. Now I understand. And I am determined to fight for her – and for you – and for a town that is worth saving. Human lives are very, very precious. And now – here we are.† Matt had just turned onto the Saitous'block. Meredith took a moment to openly stare at the figure in the front passenger seat. â€Å"Mrs. Flowers!†she exclaimed. This made Matt turn to stare in his turn and what he saw made him clip a Volkswagen Jetta parked by the sidewalk. â€Å"Mrs†¦. Flowers?† â€Å"Please park now, Matt. You needn't cal me Mrs. Flowers if you don't want to. I have returned to the time when I was Theophilia – when my friends cal ed me Theo.† â€Å"But – how – why – ?†Matt stuttered. â€Å"I told you. I felt that it was time. Sage left me a gift that helped me change. An enemy beyond your powers to fight has arisen. I felt this back at the boardinghouse. This is the time that I have been waiting for. The last battle with the true enemy of Fel ‘s Church.† Meredith's heart actual y seemed ready to fly out of her chest. She had to be calm – calm and logical. She had seen magic many times. She knew the look of it, the feel of it. But frequently she had been too busy comforting Bonnie, or too worried about aiding Bonnie to take in what she was facing. Now, it was just her and Matt – and Matt had a stricken, stupefied look, as if he hadn't seen enough magic before. As if he might crack. â€Å"Matt,†she said loudly, and then even louder, â€Å"Matt!† He turned, then, to look at her, with his blue eyes wild and dark. â€Å"They'l kill her, Meredith!†he said. â€Å"Shinichi and Misao – you don't know what it feels like†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Come on,†Meredith said. â€Å"We have to make sure that it doesn't kil her.† The dazed look passed from Matt's eyes. â€Å"We have to do this,†he agreed simply. â€Å"Right,†said Meredith, final y releasing him. Together they got out of the car to stand by Mrs. Flowers – no, by Theo. Theo had hair that hung almost to her waist; so fair that it looked silver in the moonlight. Her face was – electrifying. It was young; young and proud, with classic features and a look of quiet determination. Somehow during the drive, her clothes had changed too. Instead of a coat covered with bits of paper, she was wearing a sleeveless white gown that ended in a slight train. In style, it reminded Meredith a little of the â€Å"mermaid†dress she herself had worn when going to a bal in the Dark Dimension. But Meredith's dress had only made her look sultry. Theo looked†¦magnificent. As for the Post-it Note amulets†¦somehow the paper had disappeared and the writing had grown enormously, changing into very large scrawls that wrapped around the white gown. Theo was literal y swathed in haute couture arcane protection. And although she was reed slender, she was tal . Tal er than Meredith, tal er than Matt, tal er than Stefan, wherever he was in the Dark Dimensions. She was this tal not only because she had grown so much, but because the train of her dress was just brushing the ground. She had entirely overcome gravity. The whip, Sage's present to her, was coiled into a circle attached to her waist, shining as silver as her hair. Matt and Meredith simultaneously closed the SUV's doors. Matt left the engine running for a quick getaway. They walked around the garage so that they could see the front of the house. Meredith, not caring what she looked like or whether she seemed cool or in control, wiped her hands, one and then the other, on her jeans. This was the stave's first – and possibly only – true battle. What counted was not appearance, but performance. Both she and Matt stopped dead when they saw the figure standing at the bottom of the steps in front of the porch. It was no one they could identify from the house. But then the crimson lips opened, the delicate hands flew up to cover them, and wind-chime laughter came from somewhere behind the hands. For a moment they could only stare, fascinated, at this woman who was dressed al in black. She was ful y as tal as Theo, ful y as slender and graceful, and she was floating equal y high off the ground. But what Meredith and Matt were staring at was the fact that her hair was like Misao's or Shinichi's – but reversed. Whereas they had black hair with a crimson fringe on the bottom, this woman had crimson hair – yards and yards of it, with a black fringe al around it. Not only that, but she had delicate black fox ears emerging from the crimson hair, and a long sleek crimson tail, tipped with black. â€Å"Obaasan?†Matt gasped in disbelief. â€Å"Inari!†Meredith snapped. The lovely creature didn't even look at them. She was staring at Theo in contempt. â€Å"Tiny witch of a tiny town,†she said. â€Å"You've used nearly al your Power just to stand up to my level. What good are you?† â€Å"I have very smal Powers,†Theo agreed. â€Å"But if the town is worthless, why has it taken you so long to destroy it? Why have you watched others try – or were they all your pawns, Inari? Katherine, Klaus, poor young Tyler – were they your pawns, Kitsune Goddess?† Inari laughed – Stillthat chiming, girlish giggling, behind her fingers. â€Å"I don't need pawns! Shinichi and Misao are my bond-servants, as al kitsune are! If I have left them some freedom, it has been so they can get experience. We'l go on to larger cities now, and ravage them.† â€Å"You have to take Fel ‘s Church first,†Theo said steadily. â€Å"And I won't let you do that.† â€Å"You Stilldon't understand, do you? You are a human, with almost no Power left! Mine is the largest star bal in the worlds! I am a Goddess!† Theo lowered her head, then lifted it to look Inari in the eyes. â€Å"Do you want to know what I think the truth is, Inari?†she said. â€Å"I think that you have come to the end of a long, long, but not immortal life. I think you have dwindled so that at last you need to use a great deal of Power from your star bal – wherever it is – to appear this way. You are a very, very ancient woman and you have been setting children against their own parents, and parents against children across the world because you envy the children's youth. You have even come to envy Shinichi and Misao, and let them be hurt, as revenge.† Matt and Meredith looked at each other with wide eyes. Inari was breathing rapidly, but it seemed she couldn't think of anything to say. â€Å"You've even pretended to have entered a ‘second childhood'to behave girlishly. But none of it satisfies you, because the plain, sad truth is that you have come to the end of your long, long lifetime – no matter how great your Power. We must al take that final journey, and it is your turn now.† â€Å"Liar!†shrieked Inari, looking for a moment more glorious – more radiant than before. But then Meredith saw why. Her scarlet hair had actual y begun to smolder, framing her face in a dancing red light. And at last she spoke venemously. â€Å"Well, then, if you think this is my last battle, I must be sure to cause al the pain I can. Starting with you, witch.† Meredith and Matt both gasped. They were afraid for Theo, especial y as Inari's hair was braiding itself into thick ropes like serpents that floated around her head as if she were Medusa. The gasps were a mistake – they attracted Inari's attention. But she didn't move. She only said, â€Å"Smel that sweet scent on the wind? A roast sacrifice! I think the result wil be oishii – delicious! But perhaps you two would like to speak to Orime or Isobel one last time. I'm afraid they can't come out to see you.† Meredith's heart was pounding violently in her throat, as she realized that the Saitous'house was on fire. It seemed as if there were several smal fires burning, but she was terrified at the implication that Inari had already done something to the mother and daughter. â€Å"No, Matt!†she cried, grabbing Matt's arm. He would have charged straight at the laughing black-clad woman and tried to attack her feet – and seconds were invaluable now. â€Å"Come help me find them!† Theo came to their aid. Drawing up the white bul whip, she whirled it once around her head and cracked it precisely on Inari's raised hands, leaving a bloody gash on one. As a furious Inari turned back to her, Meredith and Matt ran. â€Å"The back door,†Matt said as they careered around the side of the house. Up ahead they saw a wooden fence, but no gate. Meredith was just considering using the stave to pole-vault, when Matt panted, â€Å"Here!†and made a cradle of his hands for her to step into. â€Å"I'l boost you over!† Meredith hesitated only an instant. Then, as he skidded to a stop she jumped to place one foot in his inter-locked fingers. Suddenly she was flying upward. She made the most of it, landing, catlike, on the fence's flat top, and then jumping down. She could hear Matt scrambling up the fence as she was suddenly surrounded by black smoke. She jumped backward three feet and yel ed, â€Å"Matt, the smoke is dangerous! Get low; hold your breath. Stay outside to help them when I bring them out!† Meredith had no idea whether Matt would listen to her or not, but she obeyed her own rules, crouching low, breath held, opening her eyes briefly to try to find the door. Then she almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of an axe crashing into wood, of wood splintering, and of the axe crashing again. She opened her eyes and saw that Matt hadn't listened to her, but she was glad because he'd found the door. His face was black with soot. â€Å"It was locked,†he explained, hefting the axe. Any optimism Meredith might have felt splintered like the door as she looked inside and saw only flames and more flames. My God, she thought, anyone in there is roasting, is probably dead already. But where had that thought come from? Her knowledge or her fear? Meredith couldn't just stop now. She took a step into searing heat and shouted, â€Å"Isobel! Mrs. Saitou! Where are you?† There was a weak, choking cry. â€Å"That's the kitchen!†she said. â€Å"Matt, it's Mrs. Saitou! Please go get her!† Matt obeyed, but threw over his shoulder, â€Å"Don't you go farther in.† Meredith had to go farther in. She remembered very well where Isobel's room was. Directly under her â€Å"grandmother's.† â€Å"Isobel! Isobel! Can you hear me?†Her voice was so low and husky from smoke that she knew she had to keep going. Isobel might be unconscious or too hoarse to answer. Meredith dropped to her knees, crawling on the ground where the air was slightly cooler and more clear. Okay. Isobel's room. She didn't want to touch the door handle with her hand, so she wrapped her T-shirt around it. The handle wouldn't turn. Locked. She didn't bother to investigate how, she simply turned around and mule-kicked the door right beside the handle. Wood splintered. Another kick, and with a wooden scream the door swung free. Meredith was feeling dizzy now, but she needed to see the entire room. She took two strides in, and – there! Sitting up on the bed in the smoky, hot, but otherwise scrupulously tidy little room was Isobel. As Meredith neared the bed she saw – to her fury – that the girl was tied to the brass headboard with duct tape. Two slashes of the stave took care of that. Then, amazingly, Isobel moved, raising a blackened face up to Meredith's. That was when Meredith's fury peaked. The girl had duct tape across her mouth, to prevent her from making any cry for help. Wincing herself to show that she knew this was going to be painful, Meredith grasped the duct tape and stripped it off. Isobel didn't cry out; instead she took in lungful after lungful of smoky air. Meredith stumbled toward the closet, snatched two identical-looking white shirts, and swerved back to Isobel. There was a ful tumbler of water right beside her, on the nightstand. Meredith wondered if it had been put there deliberately to increase Isobel's agony, but she didn't hesitate to use it. She gave Isobel a quick sip, took one herself, and then soaked each shirt. She held one over her own mouth and Isobel mimicked her, holding the wet shirt over her nose and mouth. Then Meredith grabbed her and guided her back to the door. After that it simply became a nightmare journey of crawling and kneeling and choking, pul ing Isobel with her al the time. Meredith thought it would never end, as each inch forward became harder and harder. The stave was an unbearable weight to heave along with her, but she refused to let go of it. It's precious, her mind said, but is it worth your life? No, Meredith thought. Not my life, but who knows what else wil be out there if I get Isobel into the cool darkness? You'l never get her there if you die because of – an object. It's not an object! Painful y Meredith used the stave to clear some smoldering debris from her path. It belonged to Grandpa in the time when he was sane. It fits my hand. It's not just a thing! Have it your own way, the voice said, and disappeared. Meredith was beginning to run into more debris now. Despite the cramping in her lungs, she was sure that she could make it out of the back door. She knew there should be a laundry room on her right. They should be able to feel a space there. And then suddenly in the dark something reared up and struck her a blow on the head. It took her dimming mind a long time to come up with a name for the thing that had hurt her. Armchair. Somehow they'd crawled too far. This was the living room. Meredith was flooded with horror. They'd gone too far – and they couldn't go out the front door into the midst of magical battle. They would have to backtrack, and this time make sure to find the laundry room, their gate to freedom. Meredith turned around, pul ing Isobel with her, hoping the younger girl would understand what they had to do. She left the stave on the burning living room floor. Elena sobbed to get her breath, even though she was al owing Stefan to help her now. He ran, holding Bonnie by one hand and Elena by the other. Damon was somewhere in front – scouting. It can't be far now, she kept thinking. Bonnie and I both saw the brightness – we both did. Just then, like a lantern put into a window, Elena saw it again. It's big, that's the problem. I keep thinking we should reach it because I have the wrong idea of what size it is in my mind. The closer we get, the bigger it gets. And that's good for us. We'l need a lot of Power. But we need to get there soon, or it could be al the Power in the universe and it won't matter. We'l be too late. Shinichi had indicated that they would be too late – but Shinichi had been born a liar. Still, surely just beyond that low branch was†¦ Oh, dear God, she thought. It's a star ball.

Source Analysis Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Source Analysis Paper - Essay Example To the family and other Englishmen, this brought about a reality check in terms accepting Eunice’s choice to stick with the Indians out of her own consent. To the father, John Williams who professed a puritans faith, Eunice’s refusal to come back, called for a concerted prayer for redemption. In this context, the redemption meant freeing Eunice from harm or distress. While, Eunice does not view her action as wrong, the puritans remain adamant for redemption to save her from the Native Americans. The action by Eunice presents a pattern of trying to assimilate into another culture. This choice, results in pain and anguish to John Williams, the father. Among the English, the choice by Eunice then, was viewed as a lost cause. However, there is need to consider fact that, Eunice decided live according to how she sees it fit. In essence, Eunice’s case in this story brings to light how choices and liberty manifested in 1700s United States. Among the custom was, having f reedom to make own choices (Demos 37). As part of exercising one’s own liberty, Eunice deviated from her English roots. This involved converting to Catholism and disowned her name (Demos 107). Such events clearly indicate dissatisfaction with her previous roots. During 1700s, colonialists explored the Americas to practice religious freedom. There was freedom in terms of practicing own religion without disapproval from the King. However, regions such as New England adopted protestant faith, and was regarded more superior than other faith. This is evident when John Williams assert that, â€Å"Eunice should not loss her protestant faith in the hands of the captives† (Demos 37). The book further, reflects on a lack of respect to French Jesuits by the English Protestants. However, Demos assert that, â€Å"the Native Americans were not easily swayed to alien model† (Demos 171). The lack of religious tolerance forced John Williams to spend only a few moments talking to Eunice. It might seem that, Eunice disliked the over dependence on God among the English and her family in New England. Despite the disapproval by John Williams regarding her daughter’s choice, Eunice displayed one of the pinnacle American choices, which is, individual freedom and choice. The Native Americans regard Eunice as an equal, compared to limited liberty allowed by the English at that period in history. In reality, Eunice experienced two conflicting civilizations (Demos 175). In this story, and particular, a focus on Eunice, reflects on the freedoms instituted in the American society. Further, this story picture a period in America when religious tolerance was gaining momentum. Religious tolerance is today identified by all Americans as a vital possession. The choices made by Eunice, reflects on the Bill of Rights. Despite the story being petite histoire, illustrations about liberty are evident in a large way. In addition, the choices by Eunice have established a pr ecedent for future generations of the American society. The precedent, involves freedom to make own choices. The ideals that shape the American society today, reflects back to the journey taken by Eunice in pursuit for choice and liberty (Demos 255). In a review of Demos and Cronon’s arguments, both focuses on history related to New England. Cronon on one hand focuses on ecological changes by comparing Indians and the Europeans. Demos on the other hand, highlights on the puritans roots compared to French Jesuit and the Native American

A Visit of Charity Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

A Visit of Charity - Research Paper Example She presents herself as a campfire girl whose main aim of the trip was to earn three points (Welty 216). In her trip, she carries along a potted plant which she takes to the nursing home. During her visit, she was quite surprised by the behavior of the old women that she met. The short visit to the home was quite a challenge to her that she even felt like fleeing from this bizarre location. This was mainly because of the behavior of the two women that she met in the nursing home. In the narrative, the writer, Eudora Welty presents concerns of selfishness and heartlessness among other behaviors in an ironic tone. This paper will discuss the short narrative, A Visit of Charity. This narration is largely centered on Marian; a 14-year old girl, who once visited an elderly nursing home. The setting of the narration is presented as a beaten block, and it revealed the winter sun like a block of ice (Welty 216). It is redecorated by spiky dark hedge plants. These scenarios imply the lack of warmth and affection from a society towards the isolated elderly citizens in the nursing home. Marian is the central character of the story. The aim of her visit was to earn a minimum of three points in her score. After speaking with the nurse at the main desk, she was taken to a room where she met two elderly women. She was shocked by their behaviors. This included the sheep bleating noise that was made often by one of elderly women in that room. These strange happenings scared the girl, almost making her flee the area. She had carried flowers in a pot which the nurse referred to as multiflora cineraria (Welty 216). Soon afterwards, the flowers were taken away from Marian by one of the old women in the room. The two women in the room started pointing out their thoughts about the potted plant after snatching it from Marian. She then sits back and listens to the two old women argue senselessly. One of the women claimed that the flowers belonging to Marian were

Climate and Air Pollution Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Climate and Air Pollution - Assignment Example The government should introduce tax incentives for companies that adopt the green energy (Dornbusch 62). There should steeper penalties for countries that pollute the environment like oil and gas exploration companies. The Government can open up its market for products produced organically and using green energy. The strategy will encourage companies to shift to green energy to access the market. The strategies will influence the economies differently. Green energy creates jobs encouraging employment of more people (McNamee 108). The trade incentive will encourage more good to be produced to meet the large market demand. Educating the public is crucial. Once people are educated on the importance of green energy, there will be inventions that are beneficial to the economy (Petersons 120). Once green energy is fully adopted effects of global warming will reduce and the money used to tackle disasters channeled

Special Education part II Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Special Education part II - Essay Example Nonetheless, other health impairments is the sub category of AD/HD (Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity disorder) and DSM-IV defined the AD/HD as a â€Å"persistent pattern of inattention’ or ‘hyperactivity-impulsivity’ that is more often displayed and severe than is usually observed in individuals at a comparable level of deployment.† (Anonymous, 2008) So in simple words, Other Health Impairment is a class of disability that includes in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and it refers to the causes such as condition, disease, injury or disorder which substantially affects vitality, alertness or strength. When any of these causes make an impact on the educational life of a person, it gets into the other health impairment disability. 6.2. Causes of Health impairment Allergies e.g. Hepatitis Heredity e.g. Hemophilia Accidents e.g. seizure disorders Multiple factors e.g. Epilepsy Unknown 6.3. Definition: AD/HD is a common behavioral disorder wh ich effects on 8-10% of school age children as per the estimations. It is also reported the boys are three times more probable to be diagnosed with AD/HD compared to the girls. There are 3 defined types of AD/HD impairment types which are Hyperactive-Impulsive, Inattentive and Combined. Characteristics of Hyperactive-Impulsive students are as following: Hyperactive-Impulsive- Individuals who have symptoms of this type usually express hyperactivity differently. Hyperactive individuals (especially children) may run around in circles until they drop down with dizziness. Individuals having this category of disorder will find themselves in situations where they won’t be able to wait in lines, traffics and etc. Also, the common problem which is faced in these individuals is that they act without thinking and are hyperactive. Also, they find themselves having a hard time with focusing on even very easy tasks. Thus, it’s really difficult to handle these individuals and critica l situations and that’s why certain guidelines are made which should be followed to control them and get them to the path of betterment. 6.4. One day in life (Fictional Story) The school gate is so near now. It’s the gate of my school which other kids cross to learn new things in life whether they are about the academic life or the social life, schools are made to teach kids. For me, though it is a totally different place. When I walk through that door, my miseries start and don’t end before the time I leave the school for home. I am a kid with other health impairment. When somebody says something to me, I cannot hear it and reply right away. My mind responds in the normal way, but my hearing has deficiencies. When I hear something I quickly try to respond but I cannot speak in a normal speed. I talk slowly, and I can’t help me. I am not like other kids (as this is what people say, otherwise I think I am totally like them with normal height, physique and everything) so they make fun of me. They call me by different names which I can’t even tell as by even telling those words will hurt me just as much as they hurt me when I am being called all of that. Why I didn’t go to a special school? Because my parents thought I was normal, so did I think till I didn’t join my school and spend time there being a target for everybody’

Great Depression & Wall Street Crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Great Depression & Wall Street Crisis - Essay Example Prior to October 1929, market investment was highly expedient. From 1923, American economy experienced bullish trend in the Wall Street. Lending by banks and brokers was higher than the general face value of the stocks being purchased. Household investors and novice sponsors further aggravated the progress in stock market. Increasing development and prices of iron and steel industry further amplified prices due to speculation. Further introduction of installment in the banking system allowed many families to own what they could not afford otherwise (Suddath, n.p). At this scenario, the demand and supply forces came into play. Due to higher demand and excess of borrowed money, general rate of trade was at its highest. Presence of many small banks despite having no ability to lend without having substantial savings to back up these loans, further strengthen speedy stock exchange. This trend of trading was further increased by the presence of marginal buyers. Marginal buyers only paid 1 0-20 percent of the actual value of shares whereas the remaining amount was credited by brokers or banks. Due to little requirement of investment capital, number of novice investors who were susceptible to negative speculation, increased. On October 29, 1929, best known as Black Tuesday, the stock market crashed completely.However, with increase in the stock prices and overall economic development, small traders and famers extended their production scale which lead to excessive supply of wheat and other eatables.

Child Care in Colleges are Essential Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Child Care in Colleges are Essential - Essay Example That these women are in school should not be a hindrance to their desires. Universities and other colleges could support their student-parents through a number of ways. One is funding. These could be through opening college-based day care centers on site in campuses. These should be operating during convenient hours to ensure all student-parents manage to go to class without worrying about their children. Some universities and colleges receive grants to help run day care centers for student parents within their colleges. This is a move in a positive direction in a bid to increase the number of students who continue with their studies after giving birth while still pursuing their degree courses. Life is difficult enough for student parents, hence the importance of affordable and flexible day care programs to help alleviate their problems. Furthermore, to put the minds of these parents at ease, these day- care programs should be accredited by relevant bodies to ensure that the children are not only safe, but also well taken care of. The curriculum for such programs should also be at par with state and national standards, to ensure that the children are being taken care of the same way other children in non-campus day care centers are. Funding is an important aspect in ensuring success of day care programs in colleges and universities. Funding can come in form of grants from government agencies for children or education through lobbying by the universities and colleges administrations (U.S. Department of Education 1-2). Funding can also come directly from the university or college administration itself. Funding is imperative in the running of day care centers for student parents in colleges since most of these do not have steady or well paying jobs that could afford them more expensive day care programs. The funding cold go towards building or renovating unused campus buildings to convert them into day care centers, materials and labor required to do this, furnish ing the day care centers and paying the people who will be involved in the day to day running of the day care centers. The student parents could be asked to chip in a little money, though not too much, in order to ensure they partake in the running and maintenance of the day care centers, and that it is not free. Given the fact that most student parents face more challenges and responsibilities than students who are not parents, the former are most likely to perform dismally in their studies (Price 3-6). Furthermore, the stress that comes with raising a child, studying and probably working part time may take a toll on these parents, especially if they are single parents. With this kind of background, student parents are likely to drop out of school to take care of their children. This has an adverse effect of the economic and social well being of the parent and child. Second to funding is flexibility of the day care programs. It is pointless to start day care centers in colleges and universities that operate between times that interfere with the student parents’ academics (Anderson and Dektar 6-8). Day care centers that are closed too early or open too late means that parents have to skip classes while they wait for the day care cent

Decline in union membership in the U.S Research Paper

Decline in union membership in the U.S - Research Paper Example The pattern is irreversible, and it is unlikely that unions, as they exist, can survive the gathering economic storms. A History of Confrontation and Concession The history of labor unions in the United States can be traced as far back as 1765 and the Daughter’s of Liberty, a women’s organizational group who, through their making of cloth and other goods at home, supported the Revolutionary War movement. The first male trade unions formed in the late 18th century, and women workers began organizing in earnest in the 1820s. In general, and according to most trade union historians, the movement as a national power evolved after the Civil War with the National Labor Union (NLU) as the first federation of local groups, followed by its successors, the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor (AFL), still powerful and active today. An offshoot, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or "the Wobblies") came to being in the early twentieth century, often â€Å" using violence to promote the cause of unskilled workers† (History of U.S. Labor Unions, 2010, par 3). ... (AFL-CIO), which according to its official site now boasts 12.2 million members-- teachers and miners, firefighters and farm workers, bakers and engineers, pilots and public employees, doctors and nurses, painters and plumbers† (AFL-CIO, 2011, About Us, par. 2). Other groups over time have become part of the matrix, including public sector employees in hospitals, postal workers, municipal workers police and fireman. Counterbalancing unions in existence in the public sector, union membership today in the private sector has â€Å"fallen under 8%--levels not seen since 1932† (History of U.S. Labor Unions, 2010, par. 5) due to lack of interest, illegal workers and undoubtedly workers who are fearful of loosing jobs in a progressively diminishing job market. Outsourcing as a contributing issue can not be discounted. As Dubofsky and Dulles (2004) found, â€Å"the forces of economic liberalization, capital mobility, and globalization have affected measurably the material stand ard of living enjoyed by workers in the United States† (p. ix). Pros and Cons of Unions and Union Membership Since the Industrial Revolution, unions have  been credited with securing improvements in working conditions and wages. Beyond the obvious, in any discussion of unions one of the first points raised is exactly this: what are the benefits of unions and how do they represent the interests of the working person? Views are generally diverse, depending upon particular experiences and who is making the judgment. For instance, employers who wish more mobility in making economic decisions for their company or organization may find the demands of collective bargaining more than they can absorb, or, more than they are willing to absorb. On the other hand, a good collective bargainer can often come to

Shopping as an American Culture Value Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Shopping as an American Culture Value - Essay Example The contention is that though American culture has been manipulated into accepting materialistic 'must have' consumerism as a cultural value, there are those, past and present, who provide a glimmer of hope for a return to the better, more humane values of the American way of life. According to Rao (2004), writing from an Indian viewpoint, the American Dream encapsulated "freedom," and "democracy" in a "land of opportunities." In reviewing the book, 'Affluenza: The All Consuming Epidemic', he cited figures from De Graff et al (2003): Embedding of this value was reflected in "one poll found that 93% of teenage American girls rate shopping as their favorite activity." (Rao, 2004). He further contended that only about one quarter of mall shoppers are seeking to buy a specific item, the rest use shopping as therapy, for amusement, or just for its own sake. Americans in general would seem to have adopted shopping as a cultural value, a way of life. ... There is little doubt that people are buying, not from necessity, but spending above their means in order to acquire possessions in a search for happiness and to belong to their culture. They must have the newest fashion, the best brand, the biggest house, the fastest car in order to feel valued. Social theory provides some answers as to how this has happened. In order for businesses to make profits, they no longer seek only to produce to meet needs, but make sure that demand levels stay high, and so maintain the growth of a capitalist system. By marketing and motivating people to buy, this is accomplished; a psychological manipulation appears to be in place. "Advertising, marketing and the mass media have become central to the stimulation of demand through the continual invention of new wants. The images and identities they disseminate promise satisfactions earlier generations never dreamed of. They suggest life-styles of endless acquisition and inexhaustible glamour, which can be had at the pleasurable price of merely buying more and more." (Noble, 2000, p. 231) This shows how people can be sucked into the shopping vortex, with little or no regard for its effects on the individual or the world in general. The impact worldwide, where poorer nations make the goods, on low pay (rendering American workers jobless), in sometimes slave-like conditions, to feed the greed of multinationals and consumers, presents an immoral and inhumane side of capitalism. Sanders (2000), in an article on Maytag and the North American Free Trade Agreement, stated: "The simple truth is that American workers cannot, and should not be "competing" against desperate workers in developing countries who are forced to work for pennies an hour." (Why Overcoming

Arc of Justice Essay Example for Free

Arc of Justice Essay Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle does a lot more than tell an account of an incident in 1920s Detroit, it goes deeper into the problems of people within the city as well as the city itself. The story focuses on Ossian Sweet, a man from a small town called Bartow, Florida whose parents sent him up north so he could have a chance to make something of himself, which he did. This, however, did not change the fact that he was a black man living in early 20th century America, and moved into the city of Detroit which was known to be the most segregated city in the United States (p. 44) Boyle digs into the personal life of Sweet, as well as the lives of people around him- black and white- to give the reader a clear, realistic aspect of how life was like in 1920s Detroit. The beginning of the novel depicts Sweet’s transformation from a country boy in Florida to an up-and-coming successful doctor in the busy city of Detroit. At the mere age of thirteen, Ossian was sent from the small farm his parents Henry and Dora had to the college in Ohio by the name of Wilberforce. There Ossian began his learning on a campus that was now where near as greatly funded as the white colleges like Harvard. From there he moved on to Howard University, where Ossian got an eye opener about himself as well as the problems with race. When he began his teaching in Harvard in the late 1910s, the race riots were a constant threat, and by living in Washington DC, Ossian got to see a lot of it.

A Memetic Algorithm for Multi Level Redundancy Allocation

A Memetic Algorithm for Multi Level Redundancy Allocation Abstract Reliability Redundancy allocation problem determines the component reliability and redundancy level for each subsystem in order to improve the system reliability. Redundancy allocation problem is NP-hard problem and hence various Heuristic and meta-heuristic approaches are being applied.[1] This paper proposes a memetic algorithm to solve the RAP problem. Although the real engineering experience deals with multi-level systems, in this paper prior assumptions are made such that the algorithm has been applied to single level systems. This proposed MA is then compared against the HGA of a two multi-level systems and the proposed MA has outperformed the HGA of two multi-level system. INTRODUCTION of Articles In this article, a new Memetic algorithm has been proposed to solve the Redundancy Allocation Problem which has attained great attention in recent years. Prior assumptions has been made in order to investigate the Multi-Level Redundancy Allocation problem and the three important assumptions are: If a unit is not at its lowest level then its child units are assumed to be serial and they are fixed. The second assumption is that the redundancy can be allocated to the units at any level and the final assumption is that the quality of each component is predefined and the cost and the reliability are calculated based on child units if and only if the unit is not a component. From the various literature review which has been carried out, it is found that there are few approaches to MLRAP and these are rarely being investigated. Genetic Algorithm and the modified Genetic Algorithm which is the Hierarchical Genetic Algorithm is although considered to be the significant approach for MLRAP, the effectiveness of these approaches can be improved. Thus for the improvement in these approaches, the new Memetic Algorithm has been proposed in this article. Memetic algorithm is a population based eta-heuristic search method which uses the combination of global search engines along with the local search heuristics. According to the article MA is more successful than the GA because of two key issues. One is the appropriate balance between the global and local search engines and the other is the cost effectiveness. In this article two new genetic operators and a new problem specific local search operator are incorporated in the MA framework and a new MA has been proposed for approaching the MLRAP. In this article, the parts of a multi-level serial system has been defined hierarchically at the topmost level and the sub system has been defined at the lower level and the components in the lowest level. As per the assumption made previously, there is fixed number of child units for each unit except a component. The redundancy allocation procedure always starts from the system level and moves to the component level for a multi-level serial system. The reliability of the multi-level serial system can be calculated using, While the reliability of the units at the lower level can be calculated on the basis of the components using, Also the cost for the multi-level serial system is calculated using, When applying the Conventional GA for solving MLRAP, the decision variables becomes in fixed number during problem solving. Whereas in MLRAP problem solving the decision variable changes due to the change in redundancy allocation to a unit. Hence to overcome this problem, a hierarchical structure has been proposed in the article which is capable of changing the decision variables. Nomenclature Explanation of the work presented in journal articles The proposed MA in the article has two types of operators which consists of the genetic operator for global explorations and the local search operator for exploitation. This section explains the articles you reviewed. In the proposed model, the quality of the solutions should be evaluated and from the literature the author of the article has pointed out many techniques to measure the quality of the solution out of which a penalty function which has been proposed by Gen and Cheng has been used to derive the fitness function to evaluate the quality of the solution during the search process. This fitness function is given by, ÃŽÂ ¨(x) is the penalty function which measures the extent of the solution violating the constraints. The initialization of the MA is generally done at the system level and it starts from generating the random population of solutions. For a system of multi-level series, K integer is generated randomly for n child unit n X k redundancy units have to be generated at the second level and goes on until an individual is obtained. Of the two proposed genetic operators, before being applied the hierarchical representation need to be selected. And hence the solution highly depends on type of the hierarchical representation being selected. Then the two genetic operators will be applied to the iteration and both the operator treat the unit or the system at the same level. Of the two genetic operators, the crossover between two individuals occurs in three steps. Initially an intermediate is selected from the system and component level and the higher level is being assigned higher probability. Finally the selected levels exchange their lower structures to give two new individuals. Whereas the mutation also occurs in three steps but is applied to individual level. The first two steps remains the same as the crossover and the third step is replacing the redundancy of the selected unit by a randomly generated integer. Also when changing the redundancy corresponding decision variable o the parent unit should also be updated. The other operator of the proposed MA is the local search operator. In the new MA proposed in the article, local search operator is implemented in three steps. The population solution are evaluated through the metric which is given by, Then a single individual is chosen from the population solution. The local search is carried out based on it. Then the individual with the higher metric is selected for local search. For an MLRAP, it is desired to have an optimal system for a higher reliability and the reliability to cost ratio serves as a measure to determine the potential of the individual solution. The local search operator randomly selects ten pairs of components and for each pair the redundancy of the components are modified and during this search newly generated individual will be stored in the archive if and only if it donot violate the cost constraint. Finally, the preserved inividual will be mixed with the population solution and arranged descendingly and the top most individuals will be used discarding others. Discussion of Contributions Two systems has been taken into consideration. One system with three levels and the other system with four levels. With this systems into consideration, the performance of the proposed MA is to be evaluated and compared with the performance of conventional HGA. Since there are a number of control parameters in both HGA and the proposed MA, there are some values which are to be preset before beginning the experiment. For fair process, the values which has been set for HGA is used as same for the proposed MA for problem A. In this experiment the aim is to study the convergence behavior of the proposed MA in order to compare it with HGA. The best solution obtained in each generation is recorded and the corresponding system reliability is calculated. It is seen that both the methods converged fast whereas the convergence of the proposed MA is significantly better than the convergence of the HGA which is shown in Fig 1. Fig:1 Comparison of convergence between HGA and MA for Problem A.[1] Furthermore the comparisons has been carried by varying the numerous cost constraints. 20 cost constraint values are varied between the intervals 150 to 340 leaving the system parameters unchanged. For every constraint values, MA and HGA were applied 10 times to each cost constraint. The observations are made for each and every run and the reliability and the cost constraints are calculated and compared between MA and HGA. From the calculative comparison, it is evident that the proposed new MA has outperformed the conventional HGA for problem A that is the system with three levels. The same kind of experiment is carried out for problem B to examine whether the advantage of MA holds a variety of system parameters. Similar to the problem A, ten test instances are obtained and the MA and HGA are applied to each instances for ten times. The convergence of MA is significantly better than the convergence of HGA which is shown below. Fig:2 Convergence of MA and HGA for problem 2[1] Since the same kind of experiment was done on problem B, the results were also quite the same. The proposed MA has outperformed the conventional HGA. Discussion of Dificiency and Potential Improvements The article being reviewed here discusses only about the multi-level serial system and the experimentation has been done considering this system alone. Changing the condition and the structure of the system changes the reliability and the cost function of the corresponding solution changes. Also the proposed MA gives significant reliability for the multi-level serial system, the proposed MA should also be extended to multi-level serial systems of complex structures. Also the problems which is being formulated in the article are single objective or are of only one goal of increasing the reliability of the system by having the cost reduction as only one constraint. Instead, in the future research, the problems can be formulated with multiple objective and multiple constraint along with the cost constraint. This type of approach with multiple objective problems will yield multiple solutions which has trade-off between the system reliability and cost constraint. Summary The RAP which has attained a global attention among the researchers motivating them to find the solution for the RAP. Though many algorithms, techniques and approaches have been proposed by many researchers around the world, there is something which can be improved in each and every approach proposed by researchers to solve the MLRAP. In this article, the author has given a detailed approach on how does a reliability problem works and formulated in a way that the problem deals with the multi-level serial system of simple structure. Upon formulating a problem, the author tries to make proper assumptions to advocate the formulated problem. Then the author just solves it with the conventional GA approach which yields a good system reliability. Then the problem is again solved with the new method. This new method is being proposed by the author is the novel Memetic Algorithm where some preconditioning is being done to the solution that is being selected form the population solution. The solution is checked for the quality by using a fitness function. Now the population solution will be initialized and the two search operators of the MA is applied to the selected and preserved solution from the population samples of solution. The solutions which are being obtained from the search operators are then being combined with the population and the best among them is selected. The process is repeated for various generations and the best individual will be selected as the solution for the MLRAP. Then the approaches are compared and it is found that the proposed MA has outperformed the conventional HGA irrespective of the type of multi-level serial system of same structure. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Dr. Wang,   fellow, IEEE, and Dr. Tang, fellow, IEEE and Dr. Yao, fellow, IEEE for their research study that was done by them to prepare the article, which helped me to understand the concept behind the RAP and MLRAP and the techniques used to solve or approach MLRAP. I would also like to express my Thanks to Dr. Pingfeng Wang, Graduate Coordinator in Wichita State University for his valuable advice which guided me through this project and helped me to complete this review successfully. References [1] Wang, Z., Tang, K., Yao, X. (2010). A memetic algorithm for multi-level redundancy allocation. IEEE Transactions on reliability, 59(4), 754-765. [2]  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   Sharifi, M., Cheragh, G., Maljaii, K. D., Zaretalab, A., Daei, A. V. F., Vahid, A. (2015). RELIABILITY OPTIMIZATION OF A SERIES-PARALLEL K-OUT-OF-N SYSTEM WITH FAILURE RATE DEPENDS ON WORKING COMPONENTS OF SYSTEM. International Journal of Industrial Engineering, 22(4), 438-453.

Optimum Currency Area (OCA) Theory

Optimum Currency Area (OCA) Theory What criteria did Mundell use to identify an optimum currency area and how relevant are these criteria today in deciding whether two countries constitute an optimum currency area? An Optimum Currency Area (OCA) is a geographical region in which maximise economic efficiency is attained by the entire region sharing a single currency (a monetary union), or by several currencies pegging to each other via a fixed exchange rate. National authorities have come to the realisation that by merging with other countries to share a currency, everyone might benefit from gains in economic efficiency. An example of this can be seen in the formation of the euro where the countries involved do not individually match the criteria of an OCA, but believe that together they come close. The aim of national authorities is to establish the correct form of economic integration to maximise efficiency. One of the original founders of the OCA theory was economist Robert Mundell. In his first paper ‘A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas (1961) he presented several principal criteria to create a functioning monetary union. To support these criteria for an OCA I shall on occasion refer to an example of consumer preferences switching from French to German-made products by Paul De Grauwe (2003). The change in consumer preferences will cause an upward shift in aggregate demand in Germany and a downward shift in France as shown in 1 below. The output decline in France and increase in Germany is most likely to cause unemployment to increase in France but decrease in Germany. The first of the criteria for an OCA is price and wage flexibility throughout the geographical area. This means that the market forces of supply and demand automatically distribute money and goods to where they are needed. For example, with regards to France and Germany under perfect wage flexibility, the unemployed workers in France will reduce their wage claims, and conversely excess demand for labour in Germany will push up the wage rate. This inevitably shifts aggregate supply for France outwards making French products more competitive, and stimulating demand, whereas the opposite occurs for Germany. 2 below shows the effect of wage flexibility as an automatic adjustment mechanism. Mundell cited the importance of factor mobility as an â€Å"essential ingredient of a common currency† (Mundell, 1961) and thus labour mobility across the geographical region is one of Mundells main criteria for an OCA. In the case of De Grauwes example, French unemployed workers would move to Germany where there is excess demand for labour. This free movement of labour eliminates the need to let wages decline in France and increase in Germany solving both the unemployment problem in France, and the inflationary wage pressures in Germany. The existence of labour mobility relies on the unrealistic assumptions of free movement of workers between regions regardless of physical barriers such as work permits, cultural barriers such as language difficulties and institutional barriers such as superannuation transferrals. Indeed Peter Kenen referred to the additional costs of retraining workers and there is an â€Å"unrealistic assumption of perfect occupational mobilityâ€Å"(Kenen, 1969). Ronald McKinnon observed that â€Å"in practice this does not work perfectly as there is no true wage flexibility† (McKinnon, 1979). McKinnon is simply highlighting the point that in reality wage flexibility, as well as perfect labour and capital mobility do not always exist. Considering a case where wages in France do not decline despite the unemployment situation (no wage flexibility), and French workers do not move to Germany (no labour mobility) both Germany and France would be stuck in the original position of disequilibrium. In Germany the excess demand for labour would put pressure on the wage rate, causing an upward shift in the supply curve. The adjustment from the position of disequilibrium would in this case come exclusively from price increases in Germany making French goods more competitive once more. Therefore if wage flexibility and labour mobility does not exist then the adjustment process will be entirely reliant on inflation in Germany. Mundell stated product diversification over the geographical area is an important determinant of the suitability for a region to share a currency. This has been supported by many economists, such as Peter Kenen who says â€Å"groups of countries with diversified domestic production are more likely to constitute optimum currency areas than groups whose members are highly specialised† (Kenen, 1969). Finally Mundell stated that an automatic fiscal transfer mechanism is required to redistribute money to sectors with adverse affects from labour and capital mobility. This usually takes the form of taxation redistribution to less developed areas of the OCA. Whilst this is theoretically ideal and necessary, in practice it is extremely difficult to get the well off regions of the OCA to give away their wealth. Mundell produced two models in relation to OCA theory. In the first, under a model of Stationary Expectations (SE), he takes a pessimistic view towards monetary integration, however in his second paper he counters this, and focuses on the benefits of a monetary union under the model of International Risk Sharing (IRS), which has conversely been used to argue for the forming of monetary unions. ‘The Theory of Optimal Currency Areas paper by Mundell in 1961 portrays OCAs under stationary expectations. The assumption is made that asymmetric shocks undermine the real economy and thus flexible exchange rates are considered preferable because a shared monetary policy would not be precisely tuned for the specific situation of each constituent region. This paper led to the formation of the Mundell-Fleming Model of an open economy which has been used to argue against the forming of monetary unions as an economy cannot simultaneously maintain a fixed exchange rate, free capital movement, and an independent monetary policy. Whilst the Mundells criteria for an OCA is held in high regard my many economists, there are some criticisms levelled at him. Capital mobility is seen to have been a â€Å"greater adjustment mechanism than labour mobility† (Eichengreen, 1990) and this is a factor John Ingram criticises Mundell for ignoring. Clearly the openness of the region to capital mobility is crucial to the makeup of an OCA, as for trade to exist between participating regions, free movement of capital is necessary. However in the years that followed his 1961 paper on OCAs Mundell realised the criticisms of his previous paper and began to doubt the basic argument for flexible exchange rates as an adjustment mechanism. He became more appreciative of the adjustment mechanism under fixed exchange rates, â€Å"It was not that I had forgotten the Mundell-Fleming model, but that I had gone beyond it† (Mundell, 1997). In Mundells 1973 paper, ‘Uncommon Arguments for Common Currencies, he discarded his earlier assumption of static expectations to look at how future uncertainty about the exchange rate could disrupt the capital markets by restraining international portfolio diversification and risk-sharing. Here he introduces his second model of OCAs under IRS. He counters his previous idea that asymmetric shocks weaken the case for a common currency by suggesting that a common currency can reduce such shocks by sharing the burden of loss. He uses the example of two countries, Capricorn and Ca ncer. In spring, Cancer ships half of its crop to Capricorn and in return it receives evidence of Capricorns debt, a claim to half of Capricorns food crop in autumn. While one country is expanding its money supply and running a balance of payments surplus, the other will be running a balance of payments deficit, and the process is reversed during the next period. Mundell points out that this system is very satisfactory in a world of certainty, however in reality there is speculation about the convertibility of foreign currencies. If Cancer had a bad harvest and produced less crop, to redeem all of notes from the Capricorn would involve providing them with their promised share of crop as usual, leaving Cancer short. The only defence against paying out the promised share of crop would be a devaluation of Cancers currency and thus a reduction in the claim by Capricorn on the crop. Capricorn needs to get enough crops to survive and produce food in the autumn, so Cancer will not also be left short on supplies in the next period. The solution would appear to be a partial devaluation of Cancers currency, so that the burden of loss would be shared between the two countries. Mundell has shown that with different currencies comes the uncertainty of devaluation, a problem which a common currency would not have. Under a common â€Å"world† currency if Cancer has a bad crop the total amount of world currency will exchange for full quantity of crop, irrespective of who holds the money as competition and freedom of arbitrage assures a single price. So long as competition exists, and there are no time lags in the transmission of goods or information, the price of the food will rise for both countries and so the burden of shock is shared automatically and equally by the two countries. To reconcile Mundells two papers and assess the appropriateness the criteria on determining two countries suitability as a currency area I have decided to look at the case of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and its success as a monetary union. There are many examples of countries within Europe that would struggle to maintain international competitiveness without the currency area. The areas of the EU with low labour mobility are furthest away from meeting the criteria of a currency area. However, while the removal of legal barriers (such as visas) has improved this labour mobility, issues such as language barriers remain, for example, a French worker may not wish to move to Spain because they cannot speak Spanish, also people tend to have ties to the places they currently live and may not be willing to move away from them. Bayoumi and Eichengreen (1992) compared the US and Europe with respect to how disturbances in separate regions match shocks in a selected benchmark region. They chose Germany as the benchmark for Europe and found that there is a relatively high symmetry of disturbances within the core of the EU such as Austria, Benelux, Denmark, France and Germany. They also found that the symmetry was lower for western European countries. When compared to the USA, the EMU had a higher probability of asymmetric shocks. However according to Fidrmuc and Korhonen (2001) the extent of the asymmetric shocks is declining in the EU economies. Bayoumi and Eichengreen believe that countries within Europe are further from an OCA than regions in the USA, and so are less appropriate as a currency area. These studies suggest that two countries in the EU are less suited to forming a monetary union than the regions of the USA, although the situation is improving. Frankel and Rose (1998) argued that the higher the trade integration, the higher the correlation of the business cycles among countries, in other words there is greater symmetry of shocks. They also propose that business cycles and trade integration are inter-related and endogenous processes to establishing a currency union. Frankel and Roses empirical findings noted that EMU entry encourages trade linkages among countries and causes the business cycle t o be more symmetrical among the unions participants. Rose and Stanley (2005) find that a common currency generally increases trade among its members between 30% and 90%. These findings agree with Mundells argument that a common currency can help to deal with asymmetrical shocks. Frankel and Roses findings suggest that although two countries considering creating a common currency may not meet the criteria before they join the currency area they may do afterwards. Economists are divided in opinion between Mundells two OCA models. The contrasting views which Mundell presents in his papers have earned him a title as â€Å"the intellectual father to both sides of the debate†. While some economists support the theory of stationary expectations, preferring flexible exchange rates, and conclude against the euro, others advocate the IRS model, preferring the fixed exchange rate, and conclude in favour of the euro. Mundell himself seems to have eventually settled in favour fixed exchange rates in a monetary union however he does still advocate the use of flexible exchange rates in two cases. In the case of unstable countries, whose inflation differs significant from its currency sharing regions and in large countries where there is no established international monetary system, e.g. the USA. From Mundells studies I can conclude that two countries which are heavily integrated through highly mobile factors of production which are highly diversifie d in their goods should join a common currency. With regard to the relevance of Mundells theory today I would say his studies are still valid and used heavily as complementary theory to monetary integration occurring in Europe and throughout the world. References Robert Mundell ‘A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas, 1961 ‘Uncommon Arguments for Common Currencies p. 115, 1973 A Conference on Optimum Currency Areas at Tel-Aviv University, 5th December 1997 Paul De Grauwe ‘Economics of Monetary Union p. 7, 2003) Robert McKinnon ‘Money in International Exchange: The Convertible Currency System, 1979 Peter Kenen ‘The theory of Optimum Currency Areas: an Eclectic view‘, 1969 ‘Monetary Problems of the International Economy, 1969, pp. 95-100 Barry Eichengreen ‘One Money for Europe? Lessons from the US Currency Union, 1990 ‘Is Europe an Optimal Currency Area, 1991 J. Fidrmuc I. Korhonen ‘Similarity of supply and demand shocks between the Euro area and the CEECs, 2001 J. A. Frankel A. K. Rose The Endogeneity of the Optimum Currency Area Criteria pp. 1009-25, Jul 1998 A. K. Rose T. D. Stanley ‘A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Common Currencies on International Trade, pp 347-365, 2005

Civil War :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The civil war drastically altered American history. It would be difficult to find anyone who would disagree with the above statement. But, did the civil war affect the lives of Southern women as drastically? In my opinion, it did. Many people fail to realize that the outbreak of the civil war changed the lives of all Southern women - not just slaves. The women of the Confederacy, black and white, rich and poor, would see their lives changed forever as a result of the war that ensued between the North and the South during the years of 1861 to 1865. The fact is, that even though men were doing the fighting, the women were faced with the more intimidating aspects of the war - new challenges, depravations, unforeseen dangers, and most importantly the uncertainty of their futures. The war required complete mobilization of resources and with three out of four men away at war1, there were many gaps for Southern women to fill. (â€Å"Our Needles.)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The affects of war were widespread and varied by age, location, and marital status, but the clearest and most significant delineations were by class and race. As is the case with most national crisis’s, the war seemed to have an almost leveling affect on social status - everyone shared a common hardship and suffering. The truth is though that women who owned slaves faced much harsher realities of war than those who did not. For slaveholding women, the civil war represented an evil that was slowly diminishing their privileges and affluence, and one that would eventually reshape their entire social identities. While the war disrupted the economy, as is normal, the bigger issue at hand was its attack on slavery. This was most crucial, because the deterioration of a slave labor system was synonymous with the deterioration of wealth for many southern families.

International House of Pancake History :: essays research papers

IHOP was not always a multinational conglomerate. It is now one of the nations leading sit down, cheap restraint chains. With over 1,000 locations world wide it is a commonly known restraint. As of recent IHOP has had a 52-week high of 39.4 and a low of 27.04. Recently, IHOP rang the bell of the NYSE in celebration of the kick-off of the National Pancake Day (March 4) and the launch of a brand rejuvenation strategy for IHOP, which celebrates its 45th year in business this July. In honor of the occasion, Julia A. Stewart, President, CEO, COO rang the bell. Before laying out the entire history of the International House of Pancake here is some simple background information: IHOP Corp. is a family restaurant chain that serves a wide variety of breakfast, lunch and dinner selections. Offering more than 16 types of pancakes, as well as omelettes, breakfast specialties, burgers, chicken and steaks, IHOP's menu is designed to appeal to people of all ages. IHOP restaurants are developed, operated and franchised by the Company. As of December 31, 2003, there were 1,165 IHOP restaurants in 48 states and Canada to be exact. In 1958, IHOP Corp. traces started up by opening of the first International House of Pancakes restaurant in a suburb of Los Angeles, Toluca Lake, California. The American eating public quickly took to the concept of a restaurant based on one of America's favorite foods†¦. pancakes. Within four years the number of units had increased to nearly 50, with many of the restaurants being operated by franchisees. That is incredible when you think about it since it takes a while to start up a franchise. Obviously past, present, and future In 1961 the company became publicly traded under the name International House of Pancakes. The remainder of the decade was a time of acquisition for the company. The company acquired both food and non-food businesses during this period with a strategy of becoming "The Franchise Company." Because of these acquisitions and to reflect properly the diversified conglomerate become, the company adopted the name International Industries, Inc. in 1963. Restaurant brands under International Industries control during the 1960's included International House of Pancakes, Orange Julius, Love's Wood Pit Barbecue, Golden Cup Coffee Shoppes, The Original House of Pies, Wil Wright's Ice Cream Shops, Woody's SmorgasBurger, The Dog House and Copper Penny. Non-food brands included The Big Brake Safety Center, The Golden Oaks Retirement Homes, United Rent-Alls, House of Nine, and Sawyer College of Business.

Haruki Murakami’s Short Stories Essay

Haruki Murakami pens many a short story about a disenchanted character walking through life without much of a reason to be there. His protagonists share a sense of isolation from the other characters; their siblings, significant others, parents and coworkers all fail to get through to them in their different quests to find answers to life’s most important questions. Example: why did a strange man appear at the foot of my bed and lead to my eventual inability to get a good night’s sleep? The literal isolation of the characters from meaningful relationships creates an overarching sense of isolation in the mood of the stories, making the reader too feel as though no one understands them. The protagonists of each of Murakami’s stories share a sense of loneliness and disconnect with the people around them. In â€Å"Sleep,† the protagonist is a woman who has inexplicably lost her ability to sleep. This leads to her discovery of her disinterest in her life. The mundane aspects of her marriage, her relationship with her son, her duties in her everyday life, all become suddenly and horribly apparent to her. However, she does not feel propelled to tell her aforementioned husband or son about her problems with sleep. â€Å"Neither my husband nor my son has noticed that I’m not sleeping. And I haven’t mentioned it to them. I don’t want to be told to see a doctor. I know it wouldn’t do any good. I just know. Like before. This is something I have to deal with myself. So they don’t suspect a thing.† This inability to share experiences with family members illustrates the general attitude Murakami creates within his stories. Obsession with things separate from the self is very apparent in Murakami’s work. â€Å"The Kidney Shaped Stone that Moves Everyday† is a short story in which the protagonist himself is a short story author. Junpei’s own life experiences, in particular his father’s advice that only three women in a man’s life have real meaning to him, informs a story Junpei himself writes, about a doctor who finds a stone that eventually overtakes her life: â€Å"She is engaged in hurried coupling with her lover one evening in an anonymous hotel room when she stealthily reaches around to his back and feels for the shape of a kidney. She knows that her kidney-shaped stone is lurking in there. The kidney is a secret informer that she herself has buried in her lover’s body†¦ The lady doctor grows gradually more used to the existence of the heavy, kidney-shaped stone that shifts position every night. She comes to accept it as natural. She is no longer surprised when she finds that it has moved during the night†¦ After a while, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to take her eyes off the stone, as if she has been hypnotized. She gradually loses interest in anything else.† These excerpts from the story illustrate Junpei’s inability to rid himself of the advice given to him from his father, and in a way illustrate a person’s inability to let things go, how small things like stones grow to large sizes inside of us, and when we try to cast them away, it is not always easy to rid ourselves of them. â€Å"Having cast away the stone, she feels a new sense of lightness. The next day, however, when she goes to the hospital, the stone is on her desk, waiting for her.† This metaphor is a two-layer cake (excuse the metaphor to explain a metaphor!) in which the top layer is, of course, Junpei’s inability to let go of his father’s possibly misguided advice, and the bottom layer is our culture’s inability to unplug the phones, and get off the internet. Social networking digs inside of humanity to create a deep addiction that cannot simply be cast away. Nearly all of Murakami’s stories use a sort of emptiness in the life of his characters to show the effects of the narcissism of the modern age on people and their loss of faith, disconnection from family and friends and the general sense of loneliness. The isolation in Murakami’s work is an elegant metaphor for the isolation social networking creates in modern day society. The hilarious juxtaposition between being just the touch of a button away from someone, whilst being incredibly far away from them at the same time, is shown in Murakami’s character’s inability to truly connect with his or her families. This loneliness and disconnect is created by showing a deep-set misunderstanding between the characters and those around them. In â€Å"Sleep† the protagonist feels unable to share her problems with her family partly because of the fact that previously, people did not notice her going through major turmoil, â€Å"I lost fifteen pounds that month, and no one noticed. No one in my family, not one of my friends or classmates, realized that I was going through life asleep.† She believes that her family truly will not notice, or understand her predicament. She does not want to go to a doctor, because she believes her problem to be something she must go through alone. While this belief that she should not see a doctor could arguably be seen as misguided, it stems from the sense of isolation she already feels from the world. In a certain way this character is invisible to her family. They see her everyday, they quietly appreciate the meals she prepares for them, how she keeps the house for them, but they do not understand the deeper aspects of her personality, or so she feels. The protagonists in Murakami’s stories often feel as though no one in their lives truly knows them, or understands the way that they are feeling. The elegant metaphors in Murakami’s stories hit readers where we least like to be hit. They outline the aspects of our culture’s narcissistic obsessions with the self. Self help books, carefully, obsessively groomed profile pages, meticulously managed comments, and continuously growing corporations all geared towards making a better ‘you.’ For this essay I specifically addressed two of Murakami’s stories, â€Å"Sleep† and â€Å"The Kidney Shaped Stone that Moves Everyday.† These two stories exemplify the aspects of isolation in Murakami’s work, and how that isolation bakes the double layer cake, with the top layer the general goings on in the stories, and the bottom layer the overarching themes of narcissism, and cultural collapse. Pessimistic viewpoint and objectifying attitude towards women aside, Murakami weaves a tight tapestry that is certainly beautiful to look at.

Both Curley’s Wife and Crooks Essay

Steinbecks saucy Of Mice and Men was set in the Great depression in mid-thirties the States. The characters reflect the struggles and harsh whiles nearly(prenominal) working Ameri after parts faced in that era. Isolated, lonely, marginalised and mis blasphemeful, deal had to create new lives for themselves. In the raw Steinbeck describes several characters that argon vulnerable due(p) to the social context of that season Crooks and Curleys married woman face particular calamity which result in them organism outsiders in the state of affairs they consider home. Steinbeck implies advance(prenominal) on in the bracing the views other characters set out of Crooks and Curleys wife snow-cladthorn disaccord from the modern proof endorser. Though both women and forbidding the great unwashed had progressed in their functions by the judgment of conviction of the setting of the novel, honest-to-god attitudes and mistreatment of black people and to an finale women were s till present. Steinbeck immediately emphasises Crooks and Curleys wifes first gear spatial relation via their introduction.They atomic number 18 both introduced in much(prenominal) a mood to highlight their clinical depression think by others and how they are viewed by society. Steinbeck describes Crooks low status very early on in the book through the old swamper edulcorate. Candy describes how Crooks gets ab engross from the boss for things that are beyond his control. An he give the steadfast buck hell too. Ya see the still bucks a nigger. The initial comments depict Crooks as an outsider as he is the lone(prenominal) character described to have been getting ab employ by the boss. It in worry manner shows how Crooks is economic consumptiond as an outlet of the bosss frustration. Candy then describes Crooks using a racial slur. This represents Crooks closing off further as Candys initial interpretation of Crooks is through his colour and non his spirit or other features.The use of the racial term reflects withal how society sees Crooks and that this graphic symbol of row was dealable to the people of these times. Steinbeck uses a similar ploy when initially introducing Curleys wife, as he introduces her a elevate through Candy. We see early on how Curleys wife is regarded on the paste and this gives us an early view of why she is quarantined as such. well- she got the eye well I think Curleys, married . . . a sharp Candys initial respect about Curleys wife elicits the capability composition that she behaves in a sexy manner towards other ranchers, which has puzzled the ranchers to avoid her and consequently caused her segregation. The second remark by Candy put forwards the opinion of her by other ranchers. The use of the strong derogative term for her apparently suggests that she is isolated out of hatred towards her flirtatious attitude.We see early on the Curleys wifes body nomenclature backs up what is said about her b y Candy. She is described as searching to deliver the goods economic aid via her body. Leaned against the door frame so that her body was impel forward. It shows the vainness of Curleys wife which can easily lead to her exclusion due to her being self-obsessed and unable to match to the other workers. The line a uniform shows how she is more than inclined to use her body to gain solicitude from the others and this shows how she has be get on desperate for attention due to her isolation. The language used in the line about how her body is thrown forward which allows Steinbeck to clearly illustrate the extent of which she is going to gain attention, depicting early on the effects of her nakedness.In the novel we see how Steinbeck suggests Crooks in any case demands self-segregation, we see this when Lennie initially tries to talk with Crooks. You got no right to come in my room. This conveys how Crooks being subjected to so much isolation has become given to it, possibly suggesting he has become an introvert. It also shows how Crooks puts on a defensive await due to his marginalization on the ranch. Crooks duologue about his rights on several occasions. zilch got any right in present notwithstanding me The first comment shows how Crooks claims newsflash owner ship of his quarters, this reflects how his constant seclusion on the ranch and society has do him need to protect and claim things that are his.Steinbeck in the novel symbolizes through Crooks possessions how he seeks a way of removing his isolation. A worn vocabulary and a mauled copy of the calcium polished code for 1905 The use of the dictionary and civil code allows Steinbeck to convey to the reader how Crooks is a learned man and also is not someone to quickly need being excluded. It evokes sympathy and a item of empathy for Crooks as we see how he tries to let on a way for him to be judge and also we see he is not a simple a rancher but a man of slight intellect. The use of the civil code also suggests how Crooks may not have initially understood the reasons for his segregation.Both Crooks and Curleys wife are seen to feel as though no-one understands their patch of being alone. Steinbeck does this through the use of rhetorical interrogative moods in their dialect. Spose you couldnt go into the bunk post and play rummy cause you was black. Howd you like that? This remark by Crooks explores how he understands that his seclusion is due to his colour. Steinbeck by using a rhetorical question also allows the reader to sympathize with Crooks and also picture what he describes.Steinbecks propagation to the word black as unlike to nigger also shows how Crooks though orphic tries to maintain his dignity and self-respect. When Curleys wife is talking with Lennie, Steinbeck does the corresponding thing as he did with Crooks. Aint I got a right to talk to nobody? The use of language in this remark also allows us to sympathize with Curleys wife as it a llows the reader to empathize how frustrated she may feel from being shunned on the ranch.Steinbeck shows how Curleys wifes attitude and derogatory remarks about the ranchers has led to her being disliked and shunned on the ranch in chapter 4 when she is in the stables. Standin here talkin to a thump of bindle stiffs- a nigger an a dum-dum and a lousy ol sheep- an likin it because they aint nobody else. This quote shows her low regard for certain ranchers and how she is forced to try and socialize with people she doesnt like out of desperation. It also shows how her remarks about the ranchers bindle stiffs may have caused her to be isolated and marginalized by the workers. It also evokes the idea she lacks the ability to turn over with the other workers in a way where they respond in a corroborative manner. The quote also indirectly suggests Curleys wife is not really meant on the ranch as she says they aint nobody else which illustrates how she has no-one, with whom she can pr operly relate to.Both Curleys wife and Crooks are partly subjected to isolation due to the social context of the time period in which the book is set. Crooks being a black man in 1930s America would have domiciliateed whacking amounts of seclusion and racial violence. Steinbeck conveys this through the little terror made to him by Curleys wife, I could get you strung up on a tree so soft it aint even suspect. The use of the threat allows Steinbeck to explore and clearly depict how Crooks cant escape valve that in this society he willing also be second crystallize and looked upon as different and an outsider. The line shows explores the idea that due to him being classed as different, he is susceptible to being lynched or suffer some sort of violence so easily as it is accepted in society. The use of such a al efficacyy image paves the way for Steinbeck to show the reader the extent of Crooks seclusion. Similarly he does same for Curleys wife, as being a woman in 1930s Ameri ca she would have not had many rights.Steinbeck up to now when conveying this message uses more knotty imagery as a white woman had slightly higher regard than a black man. Steinbeck references how women were usually meant to be in the hallhold, she wore a cotton house dress and Think I like to stick in that house alla time? the first quote describing her attire allows Steinbeck to suggest early on that her marginalized on the ranch is partly due to her gender, the use of the house dress implies that she is not meant to be on the ranch and is out of place. It secondly suggests that she eer tries to avoid being isolated at home and is further out-casted for not in full compelling her role. The second remark also implies how society was such that people were meant to accept their place and, she is shown to not accept her place and at that placefore caused her to be shunned because it.The marginalized characters in the novel have several things in familiar and, ironically, if th ese characters could look beyond their own issues they might find some mutual trust and support. Steinbeck portrays Crooks and Curleys wife (alongside George and Lennie) as having trances of a better future. Curleys wife cherished to be a film brain Coulda been in the movies and Crooks desires a better aliveness as represented by the civil code. However as with the American dream it only happens for a few and it consists of loneliness and despair. At the end of the novel there is not apparent freedom from isolation for Crooks, yet Curleys wife gains some freedom in death. the meanness and the groomings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face