Personal reflection Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Personal reflection - Assignment Example I believe that this form of conceptual learning is not only essential for personal development but is also an area of interest. Personal reflection in general context highlights the overall experience of an individual while working with a group. There are small experiences gathered by an individual in this journey that helps one to restructure their set of values or attitudes. The essay has been divided into four sections which are closely related to one another. Firstly group formation or development will be outlined followed by an approach of conflict management. This particular essay shall encompass importance of leadership role and probable consequences in its absence within a group. The next section of this essay will outline the learning outcomes of this assignment and ways in which it could be implemented in real life scenario. Final section of this essay consists of two main parts such as identifying effects that a conflict can have on an organization and most suitable leader ship approach for handling such conflicts. Conclusion of the essay will include summary remarks of the entire personal experience. While discussing on various aspects of group formation I have used many sources such as consulting my colleagues, going through notes in my diary and even thinking on my personal reflections. I have not highlighted specifically my sources of data and have followed a narrative approach so as to ensure that readers can relate closely with reality. The model portrayed by Tuckman in context of group development briefly outlines four important stages. I shall describe my personal experience which has a strong correlation with the four stages of group development. The model has been elaborated further in figure1. As per figure1, forming stage can be described as one during which bond is established amongst team members. Team members tend to be highly dependent on

Recruitment The Process Of Searching The Candidates Commerce Essay

Recruitment The Process Of Searching The Candidates Commerce Essay According to Edwin B. Flippo, Recruitment is the process of searching the candidates for employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization. Recruitment is the activity that links the employers and the job seekers. A few definitions of recruitment are: A process of finding and attracting capable applicants for employment. The process begins when new recruits are sought and ends when their applications are submitted. The result is a pool of applications from which new employees are selected. It is the process to discover sources of manpower to meet the requirement of staffing schedule and to employ effective measures for attracting that manpower in adequate numbers to facilitate effective selection of an efficient working force. Recruitment of candidates is the function preceding the selection, which helps create a pool of prospective employees for the organization so that the management can select the right candidate for the right job from this pool. The main objective of the recruitment process is to expedite the selection process. Recruitment is a continuous process whereby the firm attempts to develop a pool of qualified applicants for the future human resources needs even though specific vacancies do not exist. Usually, the recruitment process starts when a manger initiates an employee requisition for a specific vacancy or an anticipated vacancy. Objectives of the study The purpose of this paper is to examine the employed jobseekers perceptions and behaviors of third-party online recruitment technology adoption in Bangladesh. There are two objective of this study: General Objective: To analyze the present online/web based recruitment selection of Bangladesh. Specific Objectives: To determine the steps involved with online recruitment selection process processes. To offer a guide to find out online recruitment selection process to job searcher companies job seekers. Show how this activities relate with the organization overall strategy and objective. To determine the organizational convenience regarding the online recruitment practices. To identify the candidates perception about online recruitment practices. Methodology Theoretically speaking, online Recruitment and Selection are two separated functions. Recruitment deals with the forming a pool of applicants for a particular job, whereas Selection deals with finding the best one of the lot. There are two methods: Primary Data: In the primary source, data are being collected directly from some multinational company like; AKTEL Mobile Company, GP (Grameen Phone) Mobile Company, British American Tobacco Bangladesh and much more. Secondary Data: In the secondary source, different textbooks and journals relating to the theoretical frame work of the project was accessed to define and to determine Online Recruitment Selection Process. Moreover, annual reports, company projects profile, related preserved data, catalogs and also from the Internet. Limitations No proper information about organization recruitment selection interview. The Multinational Company has many secrete policies for the organization which is very much related with recruitment selection process they were not interested to prove that information. Some information presented in this report may be biased, as people tend to avoid their own limitation regarding their job and to hold other departments responsible for drawbacks of their own. Moreover, some information was withheld to preserve privacy of the company. So, they cant give the exact information always. This report is prepared totally based on secondary information so it cannot represent itself as a actual practices of online recruitment practices for the organization. Objectives of Recruitment Selection To attract people with multi-dimensional skills and experience that suits the present and future organizational strategies. To induct outsiders with a new perspective to lead the company. To infuse fresh blood at all levels of the organization. To develop an organizational culture that attracts competent people to the company. To search or head hunt people whose skills fit the companys values. To devise methodologies for assessing psychological traits To seek non-conventional development grounds for talent. To search for talent globally and not just within the company. To design entry pay that competes on quality but not on quantum. To anticipate and find people for positions that does not exist yet. Online Recruitment Selection Organizations first started using computers as a recruiting tool by advertising jobs on a bulletin board service from which prospective applicants would contact the company. Then some companies began to take e-mail applications. Now some employers are not only posting jobs and accepting resumes and cover letters on-line but also are conducting employment interviews on-line. Advantages for such Internet recruiting by employers include: Reaching more applicants. Having lower costs and faster response time frames. Tapping an applicant pool conversant with the Net. Employers often begin the Internet search process by establishing an organization website and listing jobs on it. Alternatively, companies with a web page that specializes in posting job listings (an Internet job service)-much like the electronic bulletin board of days gone by-can be used by job seekers. Finally, online employment agencies can be used to post jobs and find applicants on the Net. One advantage of Internet recruiting is that it may improve the chances of contacting passive job seekers-those people who are not actively seeking work. Listing at popular job-search Internet sites is a good way to attract such browsing high-tech workers.27 Indeed, recent surveys show that about 37% of companies now use the Net for recruiting, and the rate is increasing rapidly. Alongside the long-term growth in both temporary and permanent recruitment, there has been an explosion in online advertising. A generation ago the print medias dominance in advertising looked unchallengeable but the emergence of the internet, the rise of job sites, the low cost and speed of advertising online, and companies use of their own websites has challenged that position. In 2006 recruitment advertising in print generated a total of  £1.168 billion in revenues (down 13 per cent for the year) with online advertising worth  £200.5 million (up 27 per cent).14 In a world in which 62 per cent of all UK adults are online, 50 per cent of internet users go online each day and there are 12 million online job seekers in UK, the web is an increasingly important way of connecting with potential employees. As a result of this: 65 per cent of FTSE 100 companies use the internet to recruit candidates. 78 per cent of recruitment companies advertise job vacancies online. UK job sites currently receive around 40 million visits per month. Monster.co.uk alone has over two million CVs on its website. Developing country like Bangladesh, also use online recruitment. About 77 per cent multinational company use the online recruitment now. Bangladeshi website like job1, jobbd, and many other website is popular for jobseeker. The internet is also blurring the old, neat divisions between advertisers and recruiters. Websites are taking on some traditional recruitment functions, particularly where employers are looking to fill low-skilled jobs at minimum cost, while both employers and recruitment companies are investing in their online capability as a way of connecting directly with potential applicants. Purpose of Online recruitment and selection The buzzword and the latest trends in recruitment is the E Recruitment. Also known as Online recruitment, it is the use of technology or the web based tools to assist the recruitment process. The tool can be a job website like naukri.com, joba1.com the organizations corporate web site or its own intranet. Many big and small organizations are using Internet as a source of recruitment. They advertise job vacancies through worldwide web. The job seekers send their applications or curriculum vitae (CV) through an e-mail using the Internet. Alternatively job seekers place their CVs in worldwide web, which can be drawn by prospective employees depending upon their requirements. Process of bringing the prospective employee employer to stimulate / encourage the employee to apply for the job. Determine the present and future online requirements of organization in conjunction with its personal- planning and job analysis activities. Increase organizational individual effectiveness. Increases the pool of job candidates at minimum cost. To search for talents globally not within the organization. The necessities of online recruitment are Low cost. No intermediaries. Reduction in time for recruitment. Recruitment of right type of people. Efficiency of recruitment process. Efficiency gains for the HR dept Drastic reduction in overall cycle time for recruitment from inviting applications to recruitment. Reduction in the time for data entry and processing the raw data. Reduction in time from the traditional manual communication modes to the web based automation. Economies of scale in advertising spend Reduced advertising spend from fewer and smaller adverts. Reduced need for advertising in the local dailies. Saving in storage space for receiving applications and scrutiny. HR staff carrying out higher value activities, for example workforce planning. Less HR staff time spent on basic recruitment tasks. Completely transparent and fool proof system with minimal manual intervention Easy handling of huge volume of data maintenance of confidentiality. Final master database handed over along with an archival of the images for future reference. Online recruitment is not expensive. By saving on time, design and print costs and targeting precisely the best sites for the best candidates, online recruitment is a very cost-effective option. Advertising online opens up a much wider candidate pool than advertising in print. This gives you a much better chance of finding the right candidate for the job Improved ability to target specific audience. Huge saving in printing and postage costs. Cost of placing the job postings. Distribution of postings. Absence of middleman. Resume management. Quality of candidates. Quality of service. Less paperwork. Convenience. Speed. Benefits to the applicant 24/7 access via the Internet with support available through local libraries at no cost to the applicant Online status update in the website. Online redress of queries No need to contact departments in person/phone. Application packs and job details are available online and job applications can be submitted online, thereby enabling a process that is not dependent on postal systems. Functions regarding online Recruitment Selection It is extremely important that HR managers find employees quickly to fill vacancies because otherwise the companies that they represent risk losing a lot of money. So what should HR managers do to find employees quickly and effectively? The answer to this question is easy for the companies that have embraced Internet job sites. Job ads can be posted on the Internet literally within 5 10 minutes: The Internet has increased the speed by which job ads can be posted for job seekers. It is now possible to post a job ad which can be displayed to thousands of job seekers within minutes. Looking through ads is facilitated by key word searches that enable job seekers to find the job ads that are of interest to them, rather than having to wade through pages of job ads in the newspaper. Traditional methods have required for a job ad to be carefully prepared and formatted, keeping in mind that it should be short and to the point because of cost considerations. This has required for companies to prepare job descriptions that are described in brief. The result of short job descriptions can be catastrophic for HR Managers, because such ads often attract the wrong type of candidates. An inappropriate job ad can result either in a flood of resumes from unqualified candidates or in a complete lack of CVs. Either outcome requires additional work from the HR Manager. Internet job ads do not have the space limitations of print job ads. The benefit for HR Managers is that they can now use longer job description that fully describe the company, company location, the job requirements and the working conditions offered. Some Internet job sites can even prepare company presentations in order for job seekers to get a better taste for the company and its culture. This has changed the traditional approach of HR Managers in preparing job ads. In effect HR Managers pass on some of the prescreening to the candidates themselves who are better able to decide whether they meet the job requirements and equally important, candidates can better decide whether they wish to work for the company in question as described in the company presentation. The result is a higher response rate to Internet job offers in comparison to candidates who respond to print advertisements by candidates who fully meet job requirements. This is a win situation for the HR Manager and the job seeker. The Internet enables HR Managers to instantly locate the employees that it seeks: Many Internet job sites also have candidate databases that companies can use to fill vacancies instantly. These databases can usually be searched through by key word searches and sorted by industry, location and other criteria. Such searches are facilitated by the fact that most candidates publish their minimal salary expectations which is very helpful for employers in determining candidate suitability for an opening. There are even some firms that enable employers to use their database free of charge, charging employers a percentage of each hires salary. Potential candidates can submit their job details to the CV database instantly using online forms that they fill out and send to the web sites database. Internet job sites ensure that their database is current by deleting submissions older than three months. Candidates that want their job details to be posted for longer periods must update their CV periodically. Job seekers all over the world have the same instant access to all data: The Internet enables for job advertisements to be accessed instantly by job seekers all over the world. This information is accessible to all job seekers regardless whether they live in Chicago or Jakarta. This has revolutionized recruitment, because for the first time it is possible to find candidates anywhere in the world without paying any extra charges. The only possible additional charge for companies is for relocation for hired candidates who live in other locations. Filling certain positions increasingly requires for HR Managers to search outside the company location. The revolutionary transformations taking place due to changing technology requires for companies to hire employees with knowledge of technology that did not even exist several years ago. Finding the ideal candidate for such difficult positions to fill makes it more than worth it to pay for relocation charges. The savings accrued through the use of Internet job sites will more than make up for additional costs suc h as moving expenses. In addition, attracting skilled and experienced employees from outside the firm will allow the employer to save considerable sums that would otherwise have been required for training. Moreover, the company would not be wasting these training funds on potentially unproductive employees, because they would have already been weeded out by the former employer. The advent of Internet jobs sites has made recruitment an increasingly faster, more effective and efficient process. These new digital corporations make it possible for traditionally expensive newspaper advertisements to be replaced by digital ads that are many times less expensive than their printed counterparts. The popularity of this medium is on the rise, because access to this information is free of charge to job seekers who can efficiently and conveniently browse through job ads any time of day they desire. Employers are no longer limited by space considerations and can include much more about the job offered in their ads than could be done in the newspaper model. All this can be done instantly with just a click of the mouse. How the Online Recruitment Selection Work Online recruitment and selection, e-recruitment and selection, or web based recruitment and selection is the use of online technology to attract candidates and aid the recruitment process. What this usually means is the use of a companys own website, a third-party job site or job board, a CV database or search engine marketing to fill vacancies. Careers websites Or Companys own website: Research suggests that the careers area of a company website is the second most visited area after the home page. People are always looking for careers opportunities so the use of a companys own website as an online recruitment resource is now common practice for many. Indeed, some companies integrate their careers sites to manage the entire recruitment process. Candidates not only apply for jobs via the website but these job applications are pushed through an online HR back-end where HR can monitor, rate and track applications, conduct psychometric tests, screen out unsuitable candidates and, in some cases, even set up interviews. Job sites and job boards: Most employers who have invested in any form of online recruitment will, at some time or another, use third-party job sites and job boards as part of their online recruitment strategy. Job sites and job boards are websites that advertise large numbers of job vacancies from many different recruitment agencies and employers. CV Databases: A CV database is another important product in online recruitment. Candidates can upload their CVs to the CV database and these CVs are then released to recruitment agencies and employers to view and purchase. There are a number of dedicated stand-alone CV database providers, but many job sites and job boards offer access to CV databases as an additional service to basic vacancy advertising. Search Engine Marketing: Search Engine Marketing is slowly becoming another element of online recruitment for employers. Search engine marketing for online recruitment advertising generally involves utilizing Per-Per-Click advertising on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN to drive potential candidates to careers websites. However, search engine marketing for recruitment does require some specialist knowledge and largely remains the preserve of larger companies and recruitment consultancies. Smaller employers will generally only come into contact with search engine marketing when they engage an online recruiter. Online recruiters: Online recruiters are much like other recruitment agencies: they work with you to create a job specification, look after the advertising, screen applicants and provide you with a shortlist of the best. Unlike recruitment agencies, however, their sourcing techniques are all online. They advertise jobs on job boards, scour CV databases for candidates, and utilize social networks and search engines as recruitment tools. And, typically, they charge a flat fee for their service rather than a percentage of salary. Social Networking: Social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and professional networks like Linkedin offer employers another way of reaching potential employees. For many employers, their pages on social networks are often simply duplications of their careers websites. However, some companies are using recommend a friend and referral programs to encourage their current employees to promote vacancies to their friends on social networks. Again, however, using social networks to recruit can be resource-heavy and in the current candidate-rich market, it may be more work that it is worth. As you can see, online recruitment covers a wide range of activities in the digital media space. Obviously, success rests with choosing the most effective channel. In an ideal world you could use all of these channels. Realistically, there is seldom enough time for that. With this in mind, we would encourage smaller employers to use job sites and job boards as a starting point in online recruitment. Job boards offer the most cost effective and, perhaps more importantly for small and medium-sized companies, the most time-effective method of recruiting online. There is lots of online jobs website in Bangladesh. Like bdjobs, jobsa1, prothom-alojobs, jobsbangladesh, deshijob, apnarjob, jobsbd and much more. HR department of any company or job seeker search employee or job resume in this site. There are some steps we can follow for online search. They areà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. Online Jobs Website C.V Sorting Written Test Interview Other Test Final Selection C.V of new jobseeker: What the HR department of any company do: Every company has a different set of criteria and HR Portal tailors its services and products to meet individual needs. 7.4.3.1 First and foremost, you need to establish what you want. There are three main points of entry into the market: 7.4.3.1.1 Media Buying: This is where you simply seek someone to place your adverts on the right job sites and negotiate the media rates. Sounds easy but in fact it can be a hit and miss affair if your adviser doesnt know the market particularly well. 7.4.3.1.2 Beware: There is a right and wrong way to buy online media advertising. Theres a world of difference between posting your ads to the sites you think are right (because youve heard of them or their name sounds OK) and posting to sites you know are right (because hard quantitative data has proven they yield the best candidates for given jobs). HR Portal has been gathering this hard data for years and updates it daily. It is based on how many candidates respond to each vacancy from each job site. They are now also measuring candidate quality by job site. After all, its better to target a smaller site that will yield a handful of suitable candidates than a bigger player that throws you hundreds of unsuitable people. 7.4.3.1.3 And theres more As a major player in media buying in its own right, HR Portal enjoys economies of scale with the job sites. These cost savings are handed on to its clients, enabling them to buy online media at a far reduced rate than they could achieve alone. 7.4.3.2 Media Buying with Pre-Selection/Sorting: It is advisable to supplement your intelligent media buying with a quick, effective candidate handling process. This way, the true benefits of online recruitment will be realized. A good Application Service Provider will develop and tailor such a programmed to your business: dont just accept the cheapest programmed it is unlikely to be flexible. Make sure it meets your needs. Insist it is tailored to your business and check there will be strong support to get it up and running and maintained. HR Portal is very service and support orientated: experience has shown that partnerships with its clients are far more fruitful than just selling and leaving. Furthermore, HR Portal finds that over time its clients needs change: it is far easier to accommodate any updates and upgrades within an on-going relationship. 7.4.3.3 The Full Monty: Well not literally as in the film, but an impressive display of skills and expertise nevertheless. HR Portal can take a job on from scratch: build the website, develop the candidate assessment and management software, identify the best job sites and post ads to them. By now you should feel more confident about venturing online to recruit staff. Once youve tried it out, youll be unlikely to revert to print-only advertising. Online recruitment can offer so much more in terms of value, efficiency and effectiveness. It is the ultimate in flexible and responsive job advertising. But remember, if a jobs worth advertising, its worth advertising properly. Take time to research your options. Talk to some professionals in the marketplace and go for someone who can prove they have the right combination of media knowledge, buying power and software skills. Finally, make sure they will take time to understand your needs so you can invest in a partnership rather than a simple buyer/seller agreement. 7.4.4 Tips for applying for a position online: Fully research the companys website. Test out the consumer experience on the website, to find out how that works. Dont be rushed to complete the application online in one go. Print out pages if you need more time to complete them. Take time to understand the approach. If possible, complete the form in an environment where you can concentrate. Answer all answers as honestly as possible. You will be asked about the answers you put in the online application in a later interview. Do searches for the company on the web. Get as much independent background information about the company as possible. Having completed the application once, dont fill it out again. This will produce duplicate applications, and will cause embarrassment for you. Make sure the email address you supply is one you check regularly, as employers will want to get back to you and will want a quick response. Write down user name and passwords for graduate websites for future identification. Make sure you have your CV in electronic format. This will save time, as most websites will ask you to upload your CV, and you can cut and paste it into the application form. Before submitting your form, double check you have answered all the questions you intended to, and have not left any gaps. Problems of online recruitment and selection While you may wonder how too many candidates applying for your job could ever count as a disadvantage, it is a fact that dealing with inappropriate, irrelevant and bad candidates is the bugbear of many a HR manager. Candidate spam can waste a lot of time. However, with a bit of thought about what job site you use, how you write your job description and using candidate screening and filtering tools on job boards, it is possible to reduce the number irrelevant applicants. Thats right. Online recruitment wont always work. Not every job vacancy you post can or will be filled online. There will always be difficult-to-fill jobs that can only be filled by recruitment consultants, headhunters or in other ways. However, most companies tend to hire for pretty standard job roles so this is seldom an issue. And with more and more job seekers choosing the internet to look for jobs, and more and more job sites and job boards specializing in ever more diverse areas, those difficult-to-fill jobs are becoming fewer and fewer. Limit the applicant audience as the Internet is not the first choice for all job seekers. Cause applications overload or unsuitable applications if care isnt taken drafting the job profile/specification. Exclude those who do not want to search for a new job online. Limit the attraction of those unable to fully utilize technology certain disabled groups. Give rise to allegations of discrimination, in particular the use of limited keywords in CV search tools. Make the process impersonal, which may be off-putting for some candidates. Impact on the cultural fit dimension of recruitment. Turn-off candidates, particularly if the website is badly designed or technical difficulties are encountered. Lose out on candidates, especially if your own website is below the search engine ranking of your competitors. Base recruitment decisions on subjective information found after trawling the Internet for personal information on candidates. Present problem of recruitment and selection practice in Bangladesh: Bribe in the name of donation Biased recruitment Unfair selection Quota based recruitment Unwillingness to recruit female candidates Political recruitment Recruitment biased by religion, groups and Recruitment biased by religion, groups and ethnic priority ethnic priority Not following a standard system Prospects of online recruitment and selection With more and more Bangladeshi businesses, including small and medium businesses, adopting information and communication technologies, HR managers in Bangladesh are increasingly resorting to online hiring. The benefits of online recruitment are many although there are a few problem areas as well. I am forecast at the costs and benefits of online recruitment. The first and most important forecast of online recruitment is, of course, cost savings. Employing headhunters or advertising in the print media involves high costs. While print media advertising costs are in theory position-neutral you pay the same column-centimeter rate whether you are advertising for top positions or for lower and middle level positions in practice, recruiters tend to spend somewhat more on higher level recruitments and relatively less on lower and middle level positions mainly because they opt for better display ads for higher positions compared to lower and middle level positions On the other hand, costs of hiring headhunters is directly related to the position you are advertising as headhunters charge on a commission-on-salary basis so that the higher the position and salary the higher the costs. In contrast, online recruitment usually almost costs nothing compared to either print media advertising or hiring of headhunters and employers can achieve savings of up to 80% by recruiting through online methods. For example, small Technologies Company in Bangladesh needs argent employees. They needed a chief operating office and he needed him fast. But simply didnt have the kind of money needed to either go for print media advertising or hiring a headhunter. He chose to advertise in his preferred business networking site joba1 or jobbd at a cost of only $1000. And, bingo! They got his man in almost no time. Second, online recruitment facilitates just-in-time hiring. When an organization needs a candidate it can access the database of job portals, screen resumes and send a mass mail. It can also shortlist people based on skills, location, salary and availability and move on to the interview stage. Third, online recruitment offers candidates the advantage of knowing the job profile, responsibilities expected and the nature of the organization, which are well defined at the outset. Regular c

Black Holes Essay -- essays research papers fc

If theories of their existence are true, black holes are the most powerful force in the known physical universe. Many people are familiar with the term black hole, but few people actually know anything about them. A black hole forms as a result of a massive star running out of fuel to burn (Chaisson, 193). Once the star is no longer exerting outward force by burning off gases, it begins to collapse under it’s own intense, inward gravity (Chaisson, 193). It is like slowly letting the air out of a balloon. Once the star is compacted to a certain size, while it’s mass, or weight, remains the same, it’s gravity becomes so powerful that nothing can escape it (Hawking, 87). This critical size to weight ratio is known as the Schwarzchild Radius (Hawking, 87). Once a black hole is created in this way, an invisible area, or line around it exists. If any object crosses this line, it can no longer escape the gravitational force of the black hole (Hawking, 87). This line is called the event horizon (Hawking, 87). If black holes are proven to exist, beyond theoretical physics, then they would probably be a very common anomaly in this universe. In 1915, Albert Einstein put forth the first real proposition of such an anomaly in his â€Å"Theory of Relativity† (Bunn, Black Holes FAQ). In the 1930s, three physicists, doctors Volkoff, Snyder and Oppenheimer, were able to prove the validity of black holes mathematically. Since then, black holes have become a very important and integral part of science and the over all understanding of the universe. It has been proven, mathematically, that black holes have infinite, gravity based, escape velocities and an immense effect on light, time and even the very fabric of space. All bodies in space have gravity. According to Einstein’s â€Å"Theory of Relativity†, this is because bodies with a large mass, or weight, actually warp space (Chaisson, 77). For example, if a two dimensional sheet of cloth, stretched and suspended at four corners, represents space, and a bowling ball is placed in the center, the sheet will warp downward. If a golf ball is then set at the edge of the sheet and allowed to move freely it will be attracted toward the bowling ball, unless the golf ball is traveling at a speed great enough to not be effected by the curve. This critical speed is known as an escape velocity. This is the speed at which an object must travel to e... ... the equations are valid, wormholes most assuredly do not exist. If they did it would probably send shivers up the science fiction community’s spine. In the book, Relatively Speaking, the Author, Eric Chaisson says, â€Å"The world of science is littered with mathematically elegant theories that apparently have no basis in reality† (182). Although black holes have not been conclusively proven to exist, there is strong evidence, in the observable universe, that they do. Black holes are very important to the world of cosmology. They allow for the study of common particles under very uncommon environmental variables. Scientists have vastly increased their knowledge of the universe and the properties of matter through the study of a black holes effects on light, time and the fabric of the space. Works Cited Bunn, Ted â€Å"Black Holes FAQ.† NSF Science and Technology Center (September 1995): Online. Internet. http://physics7.berkeley.edu/Bhfaq.HTML Chaisson, Eric. Relatively Speaking: Relativity, Black Holes, and the Fate of the Universe. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988. Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. New York: Bantam Books, 1988. Manthe 5

Public school vs. cyber school Essay

Did you know you have more choices today about where your children attend public school? There is more to public schools than just the traditional â€Å"brick and mortar† schools you attended in past decades. Cyber schools are essentially public schools where students attend school full-time online at home or where ever they have an internet connection. Technology has made it easier than ever before to educate your child at home. According to NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS (2013). â€Å"From school year 1999-2000 to 2010-2011, the number of students enrolled in public charter schools increased from 0.3 million to 1. 8 million students. During this period, the percentage of all public schools that were public charter schools increased from 2 to 5 percent, comprising 5,300 schools in 2010-2011. † (Charter School Enrollment). Students have started to attend Cyber School because of a variety of reasons including: social anxieties, peer pressure, students who are under stimulated with curriculum, students behind in classes, and bullying. If you are saying to yourself that stuff like this only happens in middle and high school, you are kidding yourself. Bullying and Peer Pressure also happen at the elementary level. At third grade the main reason my nephew left public school was because of being bullied. He was the subject of humiliation, when an older student forcefully made him take chewing tobacco and put it in his mouth and keep it there until he got sick in front of other kids. This instance alone was enough for my sister and brother-in-law to pull their son out of public school and begin to Cyber School him at home. It is something like this that makes parents stop and think if traditional public education is the right choice. Families deciding the best option of a public education or cyber school for elementary children need to carefully consider the learning environment, their parental involvement and the academic benefits. The learning environment in which children learn is a determining factor as to whether a child should attend Cyber School or be sent to a traditional brick and mortar school. Public school teachers have classrooms full of fifteen to twenty-five students to provide attention to, which means your child is not getting the proper instruction they need to learn at their best and could lead to your child falling behind. I have seen this with my son who is in first grade, when he comes home I ask him what he learned. His response is â€Å"I don’t know. † Every night we work on homework and he struggles to do simple math facts and with reading sight words (words that students are expected to know in the grade they are in). After the first marking period my husband and I had a parent teacher conference with his teacher and I asked how he was doing in class and was concerned with his math and reading skills not being at the appropriate level. Her response was â€Å"Well he is slow at processing information and it takes a long time for him to get his worksheets done, we have to move on. † At this point in the conference I am thinking I could do a better job teaching him at home. I do not want my son to go unnoticed and fall through the cracks of the public education system and be promoted through grade levels because the teachers are too busy to stop and make sure every child understands the material before moving on. Students who stay at home to learn are in their home where it is a primarily safe and secure environment. Children do not have to deal with the peer pressure, bullying, worry about what clothes to wear or being in the right cliques. With Cyber School your child focuses on doing school work and advancing their education. A child enrolled in Cyber School can be just that- a child, and this alone will give your child the opportunity to focus on what he or she is learning that day. Some children are more productive and have better learning experiences when in the right environment; whether it be at home where they can get individual attention or in a large classroom full of noisy children trying to get the teachers attention. Parents have a choice in how involved they want to be with their child’s education. A public school teacher oversees the daily efforts of the students and parents get reports only if the student is failing or at report card time. Public school parents can be involved in other ways like: helping with homework or help study for a test; be there for plays, concerts and activities; and talk to the teacher and see what areas you can help your child achieve. While some parents want and need to work, making it so they have less time to spend being involved in their children’s education; other parent’s want that hands on approach to ensure their child’s success. Parents’ involvement in their child’s education is crucial in Cyber School while in public education you are leaving your child’s education up to the teacher. A parent would need to manage their child’s schedule, ensure child is completing work at a reasonable pace, while leaving the instructional experience to the teacher. Parents who decide to home school their children should find a way to integrate social aspects into their child’s daily structure; such as, signing him up for sports teams or community clubs like: Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts with other children his age. This way students will be able to benefit from the social aspects, which are needed at every age. Parental involvement is important for the success in any child’s education whether in public school or in Cyber School. There are academic benefits to both public school and Cyber School; where public school students learn valuable social skills by attending classes with others their own age. The social interaction between children and between children and teachers give children the ability to learn to socialize well with other students and make friends. Children are taught at an early age to work together and problem-solve in groups with other children. Public education is a one-size-fits-all approach to education, teachers are to slow down the pace of their instruction to cater to the slowest students in the classroom, even though these are the ones that are sometimes overlooked. My neighbors’ son was overlooked, because when they tested him for Cyber School, they found he was actually not performing well in math. His test score was a whole grade level below where he should have been. With enrolling him in Agora Cyber Charter School he is able to get more help in the subject areas he needs to improve upon. By enrolling your child in Cyber School you are your child’s learning coach, by partnering with the teacher to ensure daily progress and academic achievement. Having your child learn at home with Cyber School will give him/her the individualized attention that the large class sizes in public schools fail to offer. An individualized curriculum will be one that is tailored to your child’s needs, learning style, and strengths and weaknesses. According to Agora Cyber Charter School (2014), â€Å"Agora’s individualized approach means your child can go as fast or slow as he needs to†. Cyber school students move at their own pace and have the ability to focus more time on harder subjects where needed. If a student has problems in addition facts but excels in telling time and counting money then the student can devote as much time as needed to develop those skills; therefore, the benefits of Cyber School leave no weak points in the child’s education. A decision whether to enroll your child in a cyber school or a traditional â€Å"brick and mortar† school involves many factors. Parents must carefully weigh these benefits and decide how important each of these points is to them when making their decision. Both public schools and Cyber schools hold specific and helpful opportunities for children to learn. Every parent should decide what is best for their child’s education; as each child is a unique individual, and their education should be just as unique as them. Works Cited NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS. (2013). The Condition of Education. Retrieved from http://nces. ed. gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgb. asp Agora Cyber Charter School. (2014). K-8 Curriculum. Retrieved from http://www. k12. com/agora/curriculum/k-8#. UxorwDiPLnM.

Why Agriculture Spread During the Neolithic Revolution

Around 10,000 years ago, a dramatic transformation occurred in parts of the Near East that forever affected the human experience. These were the economic and social changes from hunting and gathering subsistence strategies, which characterised over 99 per cent of our long tenure on Earth, to ones emphasising food production and settling down in small villages. This was not an easy transition, nor was it a universal one. Once it occurred, though, it changed the course of human history. Usually known as the â€Å"Neolithic Revolution†. (Simmons 2007: 1)There has been much speculation by academics in many disciplines as to the reasons why agriculture was developed and employed throughout the Neolithic revolution; and how the agricultural developments dispersed across the globe. However, I believe that there are unanimous definitions on both the Neolithic Revolution and agriculture. Both key to the answer of this essay. I believe the Neolithic Revolution to be the first agricultur al revolution to take place globally, which led to people becoming sedentary, resorting to agriculture instead of hunter gathering and mobile communities. Gupta 2010) Cohen (1977: 1) has a similar attitude towards the definition of the Neolithic revolution as he believes it to be, â€Å"the economic and social change [] which witnessed the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as man’s major mode of subsistence. † Agriculture, as defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1973), is â€Å"the science and art of cultivating the soil, including the gathering n of the crops and the rearing of livestock†. However, I believe that agriculture includes other aspects, which link in with it to create a fully operating agricultural system.These include, ‘farming’ and ‘domestication’, both pivotal for agricultural success. Farming is described as, â€Å"the business of cultivating land and raising ‘stock’† whilst domestication is â€Å"described as the action of ‘farming or bringing under control’. (More specifically, domestication can be defined as ‘the evolutionary process whereby humans modify, either intentionally or unintentionally, the genetic makeup of a population of plants or animals to the extent that individuals within that population lose their ability to survive and produce offspring in the wild’: Blumler and Byrne 1991: 24). (Barker 2006: 2) Simmons (2007) concurs that the Neolithic revolution was a transformation of the economic system at the time, but it was also a social change in how food was used and viewed in differing ways. To fully understand the impact of agriculture to Neolithic societies, I will use case studies to highlight my points. These will include the Fertile Crescent of the Near East, believed to be the first place where the use of agriculture has been found as Barker (ibid: 11) suggests ‘that the first farming would ha ve started in the ‘Near East’.However, I will also be using case studies from Africa, specifically the Ethiopian Highlands and the Kuk Swamp in Papua New Guinea. As Cohen mentions that â€Å"the most striking fact about early agriculture, however, is precisely that it is such a universal event† (1977: 5) therefore, it will be interesting to discuss the reasons why such rapid dispersion of agricultural development occurred across the Neolithic world. Why did the people around 10,000 years ago resort to a new way of life and with new ways of feeding?A way of life that was completely different from the people before them who had undertook hunting and gathering to feed themselves; a way of life that led to the beginning of agriculture and turning from mobile to non-mobile communities; forager societies that had been, â€Å"relatively unchanged since the depths of the Ice Age†. (Bogucki 1999: 191) There are many reasons that archaeologists have discussed about why this transition occurred in what has been coined as ‘The Neolithic Revolution’. There are many reasons why this transition occurred and I will explore many of these reasons.I will be looking at the reasons that are incorporated in Barbara Stark’s (1986) three main model types, which show the transition of foraging to the production of food in an agricultural sense. â€Å"Push†, â€Å"Pull† and â€Å"social’ models are used by Stark which create an ‘umbrella’ effect on the main underlying reasons which can be incorporated to fully explore the reasons why agriculture began and how it spread across the globe. When there is stress on a population, it can lead to the population being pushed to protect themselves to ensure that the stress does not damage them.These stresses, in the cause of agricultural causation include population pressure and/or climate change. The stress imposed on the population could have led to the beginning of agriculture being used. (Stark 1986) Many archaeologists have discussed reasons why agriculture began under this umbrella of a ‘push’ model. Childe (1936) began much of the work on the origins of agriculture by developing the Oasis-Propinquity theory; a theory that incorporated a significant climatic change at the end of the Pleistocene, which had a major effect on how animals, plants and humans operated to feed.Childe created the Oasis-Propinquity theory because he believed that this climatic change caused the areas, beginning in the Near East, especially the Fertile Crescent, to become arid and dry, thus becoming deserts. Simmons (2007: 11-12) thought that the new desert conditions of the Near East was causing â€Å"plants and animals [to die] or [they were] becoming scarce. † Without the presence of water nearby to most of the humans, plants and animals in the Near East and North Africa, it led to the congregation of these creatures to areas where water wa s available, such as the desert oases in the Near East.The close proximity that the plants, animals and humans had to undertake daily, it eventually led to the domestication of plants and animals. (Simmons 2007; Bogucki 1999; Pluciennik and Zvelebil 2009) Childe (1936: 77) considers that humans, plants and animals all became â€Å"united in an effort to circumvent the dreadful power of the drought†. The Oasis-Propinquity theory by Childe is only half of the story as to why agriculture began in the Near East. With this theory in mind, the domestication of plants would have been tending to and re-planting year after year.This would have led to the creation of some form of agricultural ideas and system that would have to be used to ensure that the domesticated crops can be utilised to their optimum. This early system of agricultural development would have had to be moulded into the systems that provided significantly greater quantities of food that would be able to sustain a pop ulation that would have been growing because of the change into a sedentary lifestyle. When Childe produced the theory in 1936, his investigations would have been one of the key reasons as to why agriculture developed.Despite still being a key argument in the origin of agriculture, other academics and evidence that has come to light since Childe’s Man makes Himself. Bogucki (1999: 186-187) mentions, â€Å"The difficulty is there is no evidence of widespread desiccation during the period in question between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago. † Paleoclimatic and geomorphological evidence of Braidwood’s Iraq-Jarmo project came to the conclusion supporting Bogucki’s (1999) claim that of no evidence of widespread desiccation. (Watson 1995) As Simmons (2007: 13) suggests that â€Å"these projects [] found no support for Childe’s claim of desiccation. This lack of evidence produces a significant amount of doubt to the Oasis-Propinquity. If there wasn’t a global change in climatic behaviour, it cannot be assumed that dry conditions occurred which resulted in the congregations at oases. Also, Childe’s work puts emphasis on the domestication of primarily animals at the oases and does not hold the beginnings of plant domestication, which inevitably lead to agriculture, in high regard and it was not accredited in his work. (Watson 1995; Bogucki 1999)Despite Simmons (2007: 12) mentioning that â€Å"Childe’s model is frequently acted as one of the origins of agriculture†, I believe that due to the climatic evidence of the time disagreeing with the theory of major climatic change resulting in dry and arid conditions, the Oasis-Propinquity theory does not hold as much regard with the origins of agriculture. I feel that other reasons incorporated in the push model have a much greater impact than Childe’s theory. I believe that the evidence found throughout the Fertile Crescent proves a lacking of substance for th e Oasis-Propinquity Theory and could provide evidence against it.Through the Fertile Crescent, establishments and the societies built up within have no been on major waterways (apart from Jericho), which diminishes the theory. This is because the domestication of all the wild resources occurred without the need for a congregation of plants, animals and humans in a small area surrounding oases’. The speed of domestication of Einkorn for example, showed that this congregation did not need to occur. Einkorn could be domesticated easily due to a number of genetic loci that it was able.Wild cereals and Einkorn had very similar ancestors, which allowed domestication to occur quite easily in the Crescents. (Zohary and Hopf 1993) This shows how significant other theories were in understanding the origins of agriculture. The Hilly Flanks Theory was produced to directly contest Childe’s theory. Braidwood was not enthused with the Oasis-Propinquity theory and did not hold it in h igh regard despite it being one of the significant and key models for the origins of agriculture, and pursued answers for the agricultural origin elsewhere. Braidwood 1960; Braidwood and Howe 1960) The Hilly Flanks Theory was created because â€Å"Braidwood thought that the best place to look for early domestication was where the habitats of the wild precursors of wheat, barley, sheep and goats overlapped. [] With desiccation and other widespread climatic changes discounted as a proximal cause of agriculture, Braidwood sought an explanation in human behaviour. He suggested that food production in the Old World emerged in certain â€Å"nuclear zones† in the arc of the Taurus and Zagros mountains of the Near East known as the Fertile Crescent†. Bogucki 1999: 187) I believe that his view on agricultural origins held a decent basis, as it feels natural for first cultivations by farmers on cereals within their natural habitat. (Miller 1992: 49) Braidwood’s theory was based, quite simply, on that the habitats of the Hilly Flank became so familiar to the people who lived there, that they started to domesticate the plants and animals that lived there in their natural habitats. Archaeological sites in Papa New Guinea, especially in the Upper Wahgi Valley, hold evidence for this theory.The importance of the sites in this region cannot be understated because the evidence that has been found as it showed agricultural developments without any significant evidence to suggest social transformations. Therefore, it can be assumed that people relocated to areas of natural wild resources to undergo â€Å"animal and plant exploitation† (Denham 2011). Without evidence for climatic change, this highlights significant headway in the Hilly Flanks theory. As Simmons (2007: 14) suggests that the people on the Hilly Flank had to become â€Å" [settled] in by groups who came to understand and manipulate plants and animals around them. From Braidwood’s work on the Hilly Flank Theory, there are many assumptions to be made about the origins of the first agricultural systems and I believe that the Hilly Flank Theory holds significant worth to the argument. I believe that it would be sensible for the first farmers to begin cultivating land that they foraged on and/ or lived on as mobile communities. I think this because the ‘raw materials’ were already en situ and the farmers did not have to relocate anywhere else. However, with this idealist notion of ‘being sensible’ views can only be mentioned due to indsight and the difference in culture that we see in our western cultures today. It must be noted that with over two millennia of the populations on earth being hunter-gatherers and foragers, the idea of becoming a sedentary farmer would have been very alien to them. Braidwood’s work on the Hilly Flanks Theory and the subsequent dismissal of Childe’s Oasis-Propinquity theory resulted in a signif icant change in the way agricultural origins were looked at and discussed. However, I believe that the push model had a significant result on why the origins of agriculture were continually discussed.I also must consider population pressure as an important argument for the origins of agriculture. In the early transitional period that occurred during the Neolithic Revolution could have been that many of the populations that existed changed from being mobile communities to becoming sedentary; non-mobile communities. The population that the mobile communities had was in relation to the â€Å"mobility and flexibility of hunter-gatherer organisation† (Green 1980; Lee 1972). Green (1980) discusses that population pressure is because of the decrease (or lack of) logistical mobility.When the population causes an effect on the mobility and flexibility, it can be assumed that the sedentary lifestyle was adopted. It could be argued that with a sedentary lifestyle, the population of the community could increase exponentially as Bellwood (2005: 23) says, â€Å"any major increase in the degree of sedentism [] would have encouraged a growing population, via shorter birth intervals, and would also have placed a greater strain on food supplies and other resources in the immediate vicinity of the campsite or village†.This resulted in the development of Binford’s (1968) Population Pressure model, which; Argued that once people (the early Vatutian in the Levant) became sedentary, populations inevitably increased, leading to an increasing use of locally available plant foods, such as cereals, that had previously been considered marginal. From this intensive use of cereals, and the technology ass65ociated with this processing, a regular cycle of plants and harvesting occurred, ultimately resulting in domestication. (Simmons 2007: 15)This increase in the population could have been down to a number of reasons including; an improved and more regularity in diets, i ncreased life expectancy and fertility, greater protection from diseases and â€Å"the need for more people to assist in seasonal harvests of wild plants† (Simmons 2007: 14-15; Bellwood 2005). Flannery (1969) elaborated further on Binford’s Population Pressure model, as Miller (1992: 49) mentions that Flannery â€Å"suggested that subsistence changes that took place prior to agriculture – during the â€Å"broad spectrum revolution†, could have been a response to population growth in the marginal zone†.A significant population increase can cause dramatic effects on the resources of the surrounding area. It would have come to the point that a foraging and hunter-gathering society no longer has the ability to provide resources for the whole population and leads people to try and find other sources for the resources. These resources, which provide the basis for sustaining life, could be pushed into competitions for the resources. With such competition, I believe that with the knowledge that resources would eventually run out, the population would have resorted to basic domestication of plants and animals for more reliable sources of resources. Neilson 2006) In times where pressures on the population seem great, the adoption of agriculture can lead to too much stress being inflicted on the availability of resources on the population. Stark (1986) emphases that this could create a pushing factor onto the population into agriculture. Without the push into agriculture, the population would have ceased to exist. Despite population pressure having a obvious impact on the ability for sufficient resources to be gained from hunter-gathering, it could have lead to the adoption of agriculture.However, some do not value the Population Pressure theory and believe it â€Å"inadequate as an explanation [because] for it necessary the increased population must be a purely local phenomenon which cannot exist without [locational] factors [or const raints]† â€Å"(Bronson 1975: 74). Sauer (1952) also believes with Bronson that a resource crisis due to pressures on the population due to a significant increase was not a highlighted reason for the genesis of agriculture. Sauer makes it known that the transition that occurred in the Neolithic was due to an altering relationship and the interaction between culture and the environment.This could lead to assumptions that Sauer did not believe that the transition developed out of a lack of food and resources to the ever-growing population. Green (1980) also argues â€Å"that population growth does not necessarily precondition either innovation or increased economic productivity†. As innovation would have to be the precondition to agricultural development, Green’s argument provides significantly altering evidence, which could lead to a different viewpoint on the origins of agriculture.This change in the relationship with culture and environment led to Stark’ s pull model. This cultural change that Sauer discussed had the ability to pull people into adopting the agricultural way of life, discarding the old hunter-gathering way of life. The pull model was based on a shift towards an unprecedented reliance on specific resources, which led to an alteration in the relationship between humans, animals and plants. This reliance ensured that the population was pulled into agriculture (Stark 1986).The pull model also put emphasis on the technological innovation that was developed pre-agriculture and such technology ‘pulled’ the population into the uses of agriculture and to benefit from such implementation of agriculture. The pull model â€Å"prevents a group from reverting to its earlier pattern of resource use† and this can be why, in the eyes of those who believe the pull model was the reason for agricultural development, that the pull model was so successful, effectively pulling those in further along in advancement. Dona ld Henry (1989) proposed a â€Å"pull† model for agricultural arising in the Near East.In his view, there were two key moments in the process of agricultural origins in the Levant. The first occurred around 10,500 BC when a global temperature increase promoted long-term settlement and necessitated a shift from what Henry calls â€Å"simple† foraging to â€Å"complex† foraging. A variety of high-yield resources, including wild cereals, were exploited, and restraints on population growth were relaxed. About 2000 years later, this complex foraging system collapsed possibly as the result of a second climatic change, and the foragers had two options, depending on where they lived.In the highly productive areas of the Levant, where the highest populations were, they began to cultivate cereals. In the marginal areas, people reverted to a simple foraging system. (Bogucki 1999: 190) Henry’s continuation on Stark’s pull model shows that he believes that envi ronmental pull factors resulted in the origins of agriculture. This is especially clear in the Levant where location dominated the resource development, for example: either hunter gathering and foraging or cultivation and domestication – resulting in agriculture.It can be assumed that the majority of highly populated areas of the Levant went to cultivation and that led to the growth of domestic dwellings. Those in marginal areas would have shifted towards domestic dwellings instead of staying as a mobile community. I also believe that technological advancement had a significant impact on the origins of agriculture and the further development of agricultural ways of life. Diamond (1997a) hold technological advancement as one of three linked developments which can be included within Stark’s pull model to try and develop a reason for the agricultural genesis.Technological development allowed people greater ways to â€Å"collect, process and store foods† (Simmons 20 07: 21), which is crucial when harvesting and cultivating is used to process foods and store the years amount of food. Without this development ensuring significantly greater storage capabilities, it causes hunting and gathering daily obsolete. Technological advances created developments, which could be used to â€Å"kill or displace hunter/gatherers† (ibid: 21-22). With violence being a consequence of technology, it would have force those hunter-gatherers into some form of agricultural developments just to survive.Technological advances started to produce greater items for warfare that were superior to what hunter-gatherers were using, mainly for the collection of resources, not fighting. Also, the other variables within Diamonds reasons for the origins were that there was a significant drop in species that used to be wild and resulted in the â€Å"human occupation of available habitats in order to decrease the risk of unpredictability† (ibid: 21). With the decline of wild species, the only option for the population would be to occupy their habitats to ensure that food could be hunted.However, by moving into the habitats were wild species were growing and living, it would have led to significant domestication of the species to ensure that the food is always present. However, there is some opposition to pull models, as Green (1980) says that â€Å"invention-pull models, which attributed agricultural change to technological innovation [which resulted in] considerations of agricultural change being dependent on technological innovation were considered non explanatory because they did not deal with the causes of innovation†.By being pulled into a change, populations would not be able to revert back to their earlier systems of gathering and hunting for food. However, others believe that social changes had a significant impact on the agricultural origins and were developed as one of Stark’s models for agricultural origins – the so cial model. Within the social model, there are numerous theories as to the origin of agriculture, however, all the theories, as Bender (1978) emphasised and â€Å"found that social changes acted independent of technology and economy to create pressures in production† (Simmons 2007: 18).Similar to Bender, Tilley (1996) also believes that greater social and ideological beliefs and their significance played an overwhelming part in the domestication of food rather than economic reasons. The theories that are under the umbrella of the social model are based on social development and competition. Competition feasting was a key theory set forward for the social model.It represents food as power and has been categorised as the â€Å"â€Å"food fight† model† (Simmons 2007: 18) by both proponents and critics (Hayden 1995: 282; Smith 2001: 218-221) With certain individuals accumulating surpluses of food, these could be transformed into items with value. With the accumulati on of surplus food, it would allow people to create feasts for the population. The individuals creating the feast would be held in higher regard in the community because it shows people who were generating the most food for the population.Feasting is a key part of the social model â€Å"given that the Neolithic revolved around food in one way or another; it seems somehow appropriate that feasting be considered as a reasons for its origin† (Simmons 2007: 18-19). By feasting, it was the first aspect of competition within communities. Competitive feasting would have been used as a method for the development and consolidation of power. Competition is a very important aspect of human society as it leads to the best being in positions of power. Within the Neolithic, extra resources must be utilised to ensure that power, influence and status is promoted and competed for. Feasting, gift exchange, trade, and other forms of codified, often ritualised contact† (Pluciennik and Zvel ebil 2009: 469) are the main ways for people to promote their own standings. This promotion of people’s own standards resulted in the need for extra resources beyond their dietary needs in the immediate timescale. This would result in overproduction. Overproduction by hunting and gathering would have got significantly harder with the climatic ever so slightly changing during the early Neolithic.Therefore, agriculture, a â€Å"more intensive system of exploitation† (ibid: 469) must be adopted to ensure overproduction can occur. Hayden (1995) believes that the need for competitive feasting lead to the first domestication of both plants and animals for the production of extra foodstuffs. With the use of food designated as prestige items, the accumulators could exceed their rivals in the consolidation of power (ibid). Runnels and van Andel (1988) have suggested that social customs, such as trade and competitive feasting would have led to motives for food production.Cowgill (1975) mentions that the more food an individual produces, the greater social and political power they possess. This analogy perfectly shows how important food was within a competitive environment and was used significantly to gain the upper hand. Without the implementation of agriculture, the excess food would not have been able to be produced and the ability to gain competitive edge over other individuals would have been diminished. As Miller (1992: 51) says, â€Å"[cultivation was] to ensure a reliable food supply or to increase their food supply to satisfy growing social or dietary needs†.However, Hayden has also put an argument across that does not believe the social model to be a significant reason for agriculture to begin. Hayden (1990: 57-62, 1992: 13) mentions that the social model could not have resulted in a Neolithic revolution to occur immediately as a lot of arguments believe happened. Hayden comments include the fact that a new culture of sharing food would ha ve taken a large amount of time to implement and the fist domesticated plants and animals would not have been appropriate for daily consumption due to his belief that they would have been delicacies.Despite this, I find this argument extremely thin and in my opinion, find it difficult to dismiss such a inquisitive social model, which, due to the change in social behaviour in the Neolithic, could have been very likely to occur, especially when the Neolithic â€Å"was an ideological phenomenon, a new way of thinking† (Simmons 2007: 20). I find that the Neolithic was an era where new ideologies and cultures were being developed and implemented globally throughout the Neolithic on an unprecedented scale.The arguments about how and why agriculture was developed and adopted throughout the globe in the Neolithic have produced very different and sometimes contradictory reasons why the origins of agriculture occurred. However, no one can deny the importance that agriculture had on the world as a whole and the impacts that it had to society as a whole. The impact that agriculture had, in my opinion, is unprecedented and extremely important to how we live in the society today. I can assume that most academics on the topic of agriculture believe that the impact of its adoption during the Neolithic was massively important to the world.Cole (1967: ix) made this quite clear by saying, â€Å"the development of full food production was an evolution rather than a sudden revolution; yet there is no doubt that the consequences of this change were revolutionary in the fullest sense of the world† and as Pluciennik and Zvelebil (2009: 467) also put forward the idea that the adoption of agriculture was one of revolutionary proportions, a â€Å"quantum leap in human history, and the basis for the development of widespread societal characteristics, both good and bad. †There are many main impacts that can be connected to the implementation of agriculture as the main characteristic of subsistence. By domesticating both plants and animals, it led to â€Å"increased sedentism, smaller social units, individual domiciles, investment in burial ritual and trade† (Bogucki 1999: 191), â€Å"specialisation in diet [was] also encouraged by the localisation of agricultural production† (Rindos 1984: 270) and â€Å"populations practicing agriculture come to be more successful relative to both domesticating and on-domesticatory. These populations not only will be generally larger but will also be dispersing at far greater rates [than populations that are not practicing agriculture]† (ibid: 267). Pluciennik and Zvelebil (2009: 467) mention that the impacts include â€Å"sedentism, population growth, certain endemic diseases, social and political hierarchies, literacy, cities, specialised arts and crafts, widespread environmental degradation, extensive trade, property, laws, morality, and more generally civilisation. It could be very easy to use these and suggest the impacts that agriculture had on today’s society, without thinking about the immediate impacts that occurred to the Neolithic society when agriculture was implemented. When agriculture was implemented in the early Neolithic, it can be assumed this would have led to a population increase due to the majority of early farmers becoming settled and becoming sedentary, resulting in a decrease in mortality rates due to better diets and better immune systems.With improved sedentary conditions, population numbers would begin to increase at a much quicker rate, putting significant pressure on food stores, resulting with the need for improved agricultural efficiency and crop numbers. This continues the cycle of population increase, greater sedentary conditions and thus, more agriculture. However, in the background of this cycle, an evolution of social, economic and religious (Bogucki 1999) norms would have occurred changing the culture of the Neolithic signi ficantly.With the culture changing constantly to include agriculture, it would have led to the societies having a greater involvement with agriculture especially when it became the main and/or only way for food to be acquired. The agricultural revolution led to the societies throughout the globe being hit by these impacts and resulting in a totally different world, and in the grand scheme, the beginnings of agriculture and the beginning of the Neolithic revolution could be argued to be the beginnings of civilisation, as we know it today.The impacts that agriculture had on societies throughout the last 10,000 years are unprecedented and the effects of which are still seen today – with some arguing that without agriculture, the world, as we know it in the modern time would not be the same. â€Å"Social, economic, and political complexity [] would not have emerged without the existence of agriculture† (ibid: 203)To conclude, â€Å"in the last 30 years, archaeologists hav e made considerable progress towards understanding the origins of agriculture, but the question of why prehistoric people made the transition from foraging to farming is still elusive† (ibid: 191) pinpointing one reason for why agriculture was adopted would be impossible. However, in my opinion, I believe that understanding why agriculture was developed, a number of reasons must be acknowledged and inter-link to fully determine the true reasons why agriculture was developed during the Neolithic revolution.The â€Å"push†, â€Å"pull† and social models that were established by Stark (1986) provided the most efficient way of trying to understand why agriculture was developed and it led to a significant advance in the way of thinking for its origins. However, â€Å"in the 1990s, social factors [had] begun to assume prominence in attempts to explain the origins of agriculture, although â€Å"push† and â€Å"pull† models still have considerable importan ce† (Bogucki 1999: 190).I believe that the social model provides more all-round reasons for agricultural origins, especially competitive feasting which provided an activity for the whole society to undertake together, thus, producing the beginnings of a society, and trade. This would increase in importance with the development and the increase of more sedentary populations. Despite this, I also feel that the push and pull models are very important. Without population pressures and some climatic change, agriculture would never have been produced.In my opinion, agriculture created the easiest and most efficient way for agriculture to spread and disperse across the globe through trade. Socially, trade was very important within a society, but in the greater picture, it played a much more important role in its dispersal. With the increase in trade, societies would have improved in prosperity and developed. Without agriculture, this would not have been possible. This leads to how mu ch of an impact agricultural development and its adoption had on societies across the globe.Without food production from agriculture, cultural advancements leading to the growth of urban areas, including technological, economic and political developments, which eventually led to the modern societies, we know today (Simmons 2007; Diamond 1997a). The impact that agriculture had on societies cannot be measured electronically, scientifically or any other way because the impacts are on an unprecedented scale; impacts spanning from one corner of the globe to the other and affecting everything.With the beginning of agriculture came the beginning of the New World, a world of new culture, beliefs and ways of life, economic, political and technological change and developments, resulting in the way we are today. Food production triggered the emergence of kings, bureaucrats, scribes, professional soldiers, and metal workers and other full time craftsmen. Literacy, metallurgy, stratified societi es, advanced weapons, and empires rested on food production. (Diamond 1997b) Word Count: 5298 Bibliography: Barker, G. (2006) The agricultural revolution in prehistory: why did foragers become farmers?UK: Oxford University Press Bellwood, P. (2005) First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies. UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd Bender, B. (1978) ‘Gatherer-Hunter to farmer: a social perspective’ in: World Archaeology 10: 204-222 Binford, L. (1968) ‘post-Pleistocene Adaptations’ in: New Perspectives in archaeology. Eds: Binford, S. and Binford, L. USA: Aldine Publishing Company Blumler, M. A. and Byrne, R. (1991) ‘The ecological genetics of domestication and the origins of agriculture’ in: Current Anthropology 32: 23-54 Bogucki, P, (1999) The origins of human society.UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd Braidwood, R. (1960) ‘The agricultural revolution’ in: Scientific American 203: 130-141 Braidwood, R. and Howe, B. (1960) Prehistoric inve stigations in Iraqi Kurdistan. USA: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Bronson, B. (1975) ‘the earliest farming: demography as cause and consequence’ in: Population, ecology and social evolution. Eds: Polgar, S. Netherlands: de Gruyter Mouton Childe, G. (1936) Man makes himself. UK: Oxford University Press Cohen, M. N. (1977) The food crisis in prehistory: overpopulation and the origins of agriculture.USA: Yale University Press Cole, S. (1967) The Neolithic Revolution. UK: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History) Cowgill, G. L. (1975) ‘On causes of ancient and modern population changes’ in: American Anthropologist 77: 505-525 Denham, T. (2011) ‘Early agriculture and plant domestication in New Guinea and island southeast Asia’ in: Current Anthropology Vol 52, No 4: 379-395 Diamond, J. (1997a) Guns, gems and steel: the fates of human societies. USA: Norton Diamond, J. (1997b) ‘location, location, location: the first far mers’ in: Science Vol 278, No 5341Flannery, K. (1969) ‘origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East’ in: The domestication and exploitation of plants and animals. Eds: Ucko, P. J. and Dimbleby, G. W. USA: Aldine Publishing Company Green, S. W. (1980) ‘towards a general model agricultural systems’ in: Advances in archaeological method and theory. Eds: Schiffer, M. B. USA: Academic Press Gupta, A. K. (2010) ‘origins of agriculture and domestication of plants and animals linked to early Holocene climate amelioration’ in: Current Science Vol 87, No 1: 19 Hayden, B. 1990) ‘Nimrods, Piscators, Pluckers, and Planters: The emergence of food production’ in: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 9: 31-69 Hayden, B. (1995) ‘an overview of domestication’ in: Last hunters, first farmers: New perspectives on the prehistoric transitions to agriculture. Eds: Price, T. D. and Gebauer, A. USA: School of American Research Press Henry, D. O. (1989) From foraging to agriculture: the Levant at the end of the Ice Age. USA: University of Philadelphia Press Lee, R. (1972) ‘the intensification of social life among the ! Kung Bushmen’ in: Population growth: anthropological implications. Eds: Spooner, B.USA: MIT Press Little, N; Onions, C. T; Friedrichsen, G. W. S; Fowler, H. N; Coulson, J. (1973) Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. UK: Oxford University Press Miller, N. (1992) ‘the origins of plant cultivation in the Near East’ in: the origins of agriculture: an international perspective. Eds: Cowan, C. W. and Watson, P. J. USA: Smithsonian Institution Press Neilson, R. (2006) The little green handbook: seven trends shaping the future of our planet. USA: Picadore Pluciennik, M. and Zvelebil, M. (2009) ‘The origins and spread of agriculture’ in: Handbook of archaeological theories. Eds: Bentley R. A. and Maschener, H. nd Chippindale, C. UK: Alt amira Press Rindos, D. (1984) the origins of agriculture: an evolutionary perspective. UK: Academic Press Ltd Runnels, C. and van Andel, T. H. (1988) ‘trade and the origins of agriculture in the Eastern Mediterranean in: Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 1: 83-109 Sauer, C. (1952) agricultural origins and dispersals. USA: American Geographical Society Simmons, A. H. (2007) The Neolithic Revolution in the Near East: transforming the human landscape. USA: The University of Arizona Press Smith, B. (2001) ‘the transition to food production’ in: Archaeology at the Millennium: A sourcebook.Eds: Feinman, G. and Price, T. D. USA: Plenum Publishing Company Stark, B. (1986) Origins of food production in the New World. USA: Smithsonian Institution Press Tilley, C. (1996) An ethnography of the Neolithic: Early prehistoric societies in Southern Scandinavia. UK: Cambridge University Press Watson, P. J. (1995) ‘Explaining the transition to agriculture’ in: Last h unters: first farmers; New perspectives on the prehistoric transition to agriculture. Eds: Price, T. D. and Gebauer, A. USA: School of American Research Press Zohary, D. and Hopf, M. (1993) Domestication of plants in the old world. UK: Oxford University Press

Radiocarbon Dating - Reliable but Misunderstood

Radiocarbon Dating - Reliable but Misunderstood Radiocarbon dating is one of the best known archaeological dating techniques available to scientists, and the many people in the general public have at least heard of it. But there are many misconceptions about how radiocarbon works and how reliable a technique it is. Radiocarbon dating was invented in the 1950s by the American chemist Willard F. Libby and a few of his students at the University of Chicago: in 1960, he won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention. It was the first absolute scientific method ever invented: that is to say, the technique was the first to allow a researcher to determine how long ago an organic object died, whether it is in context or not. Shy of a date stamp on an object, it is still the best and most accurate of dating techniques devised. How Does Radiocarbon Work? All living things exchange the gas Carbon 14 (C14) with the atmosphere around them- animals and plants exchange Carbon 14 with the atmosphere, fish and corals exchange carbon with dissolved C14 in the water. Throughout the life of an animal or plant, the amount of C14 is perfectly balanced with that of its surroundings. When an organism dies, that equilibrium is broken. The C14 in a dead organism slowly decays at a known rate: its half life. The half-life of an isotope like C14 is the time it takes for half of it to decay away: in C14, every 5,730 years, half of it is gone. So, if you measure the amount of C14 in a dead organism, you can figure out how long ago it stopped exchanging carbon with its atmosphere. Given relatively pristine circumstances, a radiocarbon lab can measure the amount of radiocarbon accurately in a dead organism for as long as 50,000 years ago; after that, theres not enough C14 left to measure. Tree Rings and Radiocarbon There is a problem, however. Carbon in the atmosphere fluctuates with the strength of earths magnetic field and solar activity. You have to know what the atmospheric carbon level (the radiocarbon reservoir) was like at the time of an organisms death, in order to be able to calculate how much time has passed since the organism died. What you need is a ruler, a reliable map to the reservoir: in other words, an organic set of objects that you can securely pin a date on, measure its C14 content and thus establish the baseline reservoir in a given year. Fortunately, we do have an organic object that tracks carbon in the atmosphere on a yearly basis: tree rings. Trees maintain carbon 14 equilibrium in their growth rings- and trees produce a ring for every year they are alive. Although we dont have any 50,000-year-old trees, we do have overlapping tree ring sets back to 12,594 years. So, in other words, we have a pretty solid way to calibrate raw radiocarbon dates for the most recent 12,594 years of our planets past. But before that, only fragmentary data is available, making it very difficult to definitively date anything older than 13,000 years. Reliable estimates are possible, but with large /- factors. The Search for Calibrations As you might imagine, scientists have been attempting to discover other organic objects that can be dated securely steadily since Libbys discovery. Other organic data sets examined have included varves (layers in sedimentary rock which were laid down annually and contain organic materials, deep ocean corals, speleothems (cave deposits), and volcanic tephras; but there are problems with each of these methods. Cave deposits and varves have the potential to include old soil carbon, and there are as-yet unresolved issues with fluctuating amounts of C14 in ocean corals. Beginning in the 1990s, a coalition of researchers led by Paula J. Reimer of the CHRONO Centre for Climate, the Environment and Chronology, at Queens University Belfast, began building an extensive dataset and calibration tool that they first called CALIB. Since that time, CALIB, now renamed IntCal, has been refined several timesas of this writing (January 2017), the program is now called IntCal13. IntCal combines and reinforces data from tree-rings, ice-cores, tephra, corals, and speleothems to come up with a significantly improved calibration set for c14 dates between 12,000 and 50,000 years ago. The latest curves were ratified at the 21st International Radiocarbon Conference in July of 2012. Lake Suigetsu, Japan Within the last few years, a new potential source for further refining radiocarbon curves is Lake Suigetsu in Japan. Lake Suigetsus annually formed sediments hold detailed information about environmental changes over the past 50,000 years, which radiocarbon specialist PJ Reimer believes will be as good as, and perhaps better than, samples cores from the Greenland Ice Sheet. Researchers Bronk-Ramsay et al. report 808 AMS dates based on sediment varves measured by three different radiocarbon laboratories. The dates and corresponding environmental changes promise to make direct correlations between other key climate records, allowing researchers such as Reimer to finely calibrate radiocarbon dates between 12,500 to the practical limit of c14 dating of 52,800. Constants and Limits Reimer and colleagues point out that IntCal13 is just the latest in calibration sets, and further refinements are to be expected. For example, in IntCal09s calibration, they discovered evidence that during the Younger Dryas (12,550-12,900 cal BP), there was a shutdown or at least a steep reduction of the North Atlantic Deep Water formation, which was surely a reflection of climate change; they had to throw out data for that period from the North Atlantic and use a different dataset. We should see some interesting results in the very near future. Sources and Further Information Bronk Ramsey C, Staff RA, Bryant CL, Brock F, Kitagawa H, Van der Plicht J, Schlolaut G, Marshall MH, Brauer A, Lamb HF et al. 2012. A complete terrestrial radiocarbon record for 11.2 to 52.8 kyr B.P. Science 338:370-374.Reimer PJ. 2012. Atmospheric science. Refining the radiocarbon time scale. Science 338(6105):337-338.Reimer PJ, Bard E, Bayliss A, Beck JW, Blackwell PG, Bronk Ramsey C, Buck CE, Cheng H, Edwards RL, Friedrich M et al. . 2013. IntCal13 and Marine13 Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curves 0–50,000 Years cal BP. Radiocarbon 55(4):1869–1887.Reimer P, Baillie M, Bard E, Bayliss A, Beck J, Blackwell PG, Bronk Ramsey C, Buck C, Burr G, Edwards R et al. 2009. IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0-50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 51(4):1111-1150.Stuiver M, and Reimer PJ. 1993. Extended C14 data base and revised Calib 3.0 c14 age calibration program. Radiocarbon 35(1):215-230.

Yes, Reverse Racism is Real Essays - Racism, Discrimination

Yes, Reverse Racism is Real Essays - Racism, Discrimination Yes, Reverse Racism is Real Racism is an ongoing problem in our society especially considering the curren t political atmosphere. However, the image of racism in the American context that one conjures up usually involves 'the white man' me ting out racism to every person of color like a souther n gentleman reeling out "how do you do's " . That brings the following q uestions to mind: Is there such a thing as reverse racism? Are African American's capable of treating other races discriminatorily and with prejudice as well? Yes, yes , and a thousand times yes. Persons of color are capable of being racist towards other races, including Caucasia ns, contrary to popular belief . The debate about the ability of blacks to be racist hinges on the definition of racism. The definition that is widely accepted by the public treats racism as the systematic oppression of and discrimination towards a race which requires one race to be in a position of power over the other, to institute and benefit from their racist actions. If we were to take this definition as gospel, no Black person could ever be accused of racism as within the Amerikkkan society, constructed and controlled by Whites, Black persons are definitely not the ones in a posit i on of power. That is similar to saying a smaller child can't bully a larger child because the larger child has a physical advantage. That definition is false. There are several ways an oppressed and marginalized group may be able to discriminate against and show prejudice towards their oppressor, and black people have found a w ay to finesse the system. The Oxford dictionary puts it a little bit differently: it defines racism as " p rejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior" . This is a definition one could work with. It simplifies the concept of racism and gives each race or group of people equal opportunity to be able to be prejudiced or discriminatory. Reverse racism is therefore when a minority or marginalized group, such as Blacks, discriminates against their oppressor. You may ask when, where and how can Black people be racist? By the same methods W hite people are racist; either b ehind closed doors or blatantly. A black person using slurs such as cracker' is racist, despite its uselessness as an insult . Calling a white person the c word', while less offensive than it's n counterpart, is still derogatory behavior . Mocking white facial features by saying white people are pale and crusty is racist . Making jokes about the incestuous preferences of Caucasians is racist. S aying that Caucasian lips look like bologna or an open wound is racist ! If you are able to ignore the explicit antagonism in the previous examples of com mon utterances in the black community, you have a bad case of denial. The result of reverse racism is the co ntinued tension between races. The continuous lack of communication and the distrust that racism brings will do nothing to bridge the chasm that exists . The implicit racial segregation will continue and there will be no integration of people of colour into th e system which has been designed to disenfranchise them . By the same token, reverse racism makes the marginalized group no better than the ones who oppress them. This way of living is fruitless and only perpetuates the hatred we see present today. All in all , racism is racism, regardless of the hue of perpetrator . T o only see racism as racism when it is committed by the right race' is a biased view that doesn't always lay the blame where it belongs. Until we can admit the wrongs committed on both sides of the racial divide and move to remedy them, there's no way the divide can ever be bridged.

Definition and Examples of Meaning in Linguistics

Definition and Examples of Meaning in Linguistics In semantics and pragmatics, meaning is the message conveyed by words, sentences, and symbols in a context. Also called  lexical meaning or semantic meaning. In The Evolution of Language (2010), W. Tecumseh Fitch points out that semantics is the branch of language study that consistently rubs shoulders with philosophy. This is because the study of meaning raises a host of deep problems that are the traditional stomping grounds for philosophers. Here are more examples of meaning from other writers on the subject: Word Meanings Word meanings are like stretchy pullovers, whose outline contour is visible, but whose detailed shape varies with use: The proper meaning of a word . . . is never something upon which the word sits like a gull on a stone; it is something over which the word hovers like a gull over a ships stern, noted one literary critic.(Jean Aitchison, The Language Web: The Power and Problem of Words. Cambridge University Press, 1997) Meaning in Sentences It may justly be urged that, properly speaking, what alone has meaning is a sentence. Of course, we can speak quite properly of, for example, looking up the meaning of a word in a dictionary. Nevertheless, it appears that the sense in which a word or phrase has a meaning is derivative from the sense in which a sentence has a meaning: to say a word or phrase has a meaning is to say that there are sentences in which it occurs which have meanings; and to know the meaning which the word or phrase has, is to know the meanings of sentences in which it occurs. All the dictionary can do when we look up the meaning of a word is to suggest aids to the understanding of sentences in which it occurs. Hence it appears correct to say that what has meaning in the primary sense is the sentence. (John L. Austin, The Meaning of a Word. Philosophical Papers, 3rd ed., edited by J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Oxford University Press, 1990) Different Kinds of Meaning for Different Kinds of Words There cant be a single answer to the question Are meanings in the world or in the head? because the division of labor between sense and reference is very different for different kinds of words. With a word like this or that, the sense by itself is useless in picking out the referent; it all depends on what is in the environs at the time and place that a person utters it. . . . Linguists call them deictic terms . . .. Other examples are here, there, you, me, now, and then. At the other extreme are words that refer to whatever we say they mean when we stipulate their meanings in a system of rules. At least in theory, you dont have to go out into the world with your eyes peeled to know what a touchdown is, or a member of parliament, or a dollar, or an American citizen, or GO in Monopoly, because their meaning is laid down exactly by the rules and regulations of a game or system. These are sometimes called nominal kindskinds of things that are picked out only by how we decide to name the m. (Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought. Viking, 2007) Two Types of Meaning: Semantic and Pragmatic It has been generally assumed that we have to understand two types of meaning to understand what the speaker means by uttering a sentence. . . . A sentence expresses a more or less complete propositional content, which is semantic meaning, and extra pragmatic meaning comes from a particular context in which the sentence is uttered. (Etsuko Oishi, Semantic Meaning and Four Types of Speech Act. Perspectives on Dialogue in the New Millennium, ed. P. Kà ¼hnlein et al. John Benjamins, 2003) Pronunciation: ME-ning Etymology From the Old English, to tell of