beloved essey Essay

beloved essey Essay beloved essey Essay From the beginning, Beloved focuses on the import of memory and history. Sethe struggles daily with the haunting legacy of slavery, in the form of her threatening memories and also in the form of her daughter’s aggressive ghost. For Sethe, the present is mostly a struggle to beat back the past, because the memories of her daughter’s death and the experiences at Sweet Home are too painful for her to recall consciously. But Sethe’s repression is problematic, because the absence of history and memory inhibits the construction of a stable identity. Even Sethe’s hard-won freedom is threatened by her inability to confront her prior life. Paul D’s arrival gives Sethe the opportunity and the impetus to finally come to terms with her painful life history. Already in the first chapter, the reader begins to gain a sense of the horrors that have taken place. Like the ghost, the address of the house is a stubborn reminder of its history. The characters refer to the house by its number, 124. These digits highlight the absence of Sethe’s murdered third child. As an institution, slavery shattered its victims’ traditional family structures, or else precluded such structures from ever forming. Slaves were thus deprived of the foundations of any identity apart from their role as servants. Baby Suggs is a woman who never had the chance to be a real mother, daughter, or sister. Later, we learn that neither Sethe nor Paul D knew their parents, and the relatively long, six-year marriage of Halle and Sethe is an anomaly in an institution that would regularly redistribute men and women to different farms as their owners deemed necessary. The scars on Sethe’s back serve as another testament to her disfiguring and dehumanizing years as a slave. Like the ghost, the scars also work as a metaphor for the way that past tragedies affect us psychologically, â€Å"haunting† or â€Å"scarring† us for life. More specifically, the tree shape formed by the scars might symbolize Sethe’s incomplete family tree. It could also symbolize the burden of existence itself, through an allusion to the â€Å"tree of knowledge† from which Adam and Eve ate, initiating their mortality and suffering. Sethe’s â€Å"tree† may also offer insight into the empowering abilities of interpretation. In the same way that the white men are able to justify and increase their power over the slaves by â€Å"studying† and interpreting them according to their own whims, Amy’s interpretation of Sethe’s mass of ugly scars as a â€Å"chokecherry tree† transforms a story of pain and oppres sion into one of survival. In the hands of the right storyteller, Sethe’s marks become a poignant and beautiful symbol. When Paul D kisses them, he reinforces this more positive interpretation. The chapter provides other similar examples of the way that Paul D’s presence works to help Sethe reclaim authority over her own past. Sethe has always prioritized others’ needs over her own. For example, although she suggests in her story that schoolteacher’s nephews raped her, Sethe is preoccupied with their theft of her breast milk. She privileges her children’s needs over her own. When Paul D cradles her breasts, Sethe is â€Å"relieved of their weight.† The narrator comments that the â€Å"responsibility for her breasts,† the symbols of her devotion to her children, was Paul’s for a moment. Usually defined by her motherhood, Sethe has a chance to be herself for a moment, whoever that may be. Paul D reacquaints Sethe with her body as a locus of her own desires and not merely a site for the desires of others- whether those of the rapists or those of her babies. Paul D’s arrival is not comforting to Denver because Paul D threatens Denver’s exclusive hold on Sethe’s affections. He also reminds Denver about the existence of a part of Sethe that she has never been able to access. Although she is eighteen years old, Denver’s fragile sense of self cannot bear talk of a world that does not include her. She has lived in relative isolation for her entire life, and she

Most Abundant Element in the Universe, Earth, and Body

Most Abundant Element in the Universe, Earth, and Body The most abundant element in the universe is hydrogen, which makes up about 3/4 of all matter! Helium makes up most of the remaining 25%. Oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe. All of the other elements are relatively rare. The chemical composition of Earth is quite a bit different from that of the universe. The most abundant element in the Earths crust is oxygen, making up 46.6% of Earths mass. Silicon is the second most abundant element (27.7%), followed by aluminum (8.1%), iron (5.0%), calcium (3.6%), sodium (2.8%), potassium (2.6%). and magnesium (2.1%). These eight elements account for approximately 98.5% of the total mass of the Earths crust. Of course, the Earths crust is only the outer portion of the Earth. Future research will tell us about the composition of the mantle and core. The most abundant element in the human body is oxygen, making up about 65% of the weight of each person. Carbon is the second-most abundant element, making up 18% of the body. Although you have more hydrogen atoms than any other type of element, the mass of a hydrogen atom is so much less than that of the other elements that its abundance comes in third at 10% by mass. Source​Element Distribution in the Earths Crust

San Diego International Airport Green Project Research Paper

San Diego International Airport Green Project - Research Paper Example Therefore, airports are important regional, national and international commerce. They create an avenue for the connection of a nation’s aviation system with other modes of transport. There is a need to carry out research to solve operating problems by adopting new technologies, and introduce innovation to the airport industry. When planning to implement a terminal improvement project, the terminal planning process should provide insights on potential issues and future trends that they affect the functionality of that terminal (Ashford, Mumayiz, & Wright, 2011). Significant changes in technology, airline operations and industry structure have occurred, creating the need for a balance of importance of certain planning factors for airport terminal buildings. These changes have occurred in cost effectiveness, passenger and baggage security, gate utilization to ensure low cost, and concessions (Brown, 2010). The airport and aviation industry is ever changing. This has led to the need for today’s airport buildings to be planned and constructed in ways that will safeguard flexibility for future modification at the list expense, while responding to variations in demand, the changing passenger needs, airlines and aircraft. Therefore, there has to be a flexible, balanced and visionary planning for airport terminals to ensure future flexibility (Brown, 2010). It should be noted that the creation of plans and designs of airports that provide superior services to travelers is difficult. Airport operational needs are extremely dynamic, creating more challenges in the planning and designing of sustainable airports (Brown, 2010). Additionally, in most cases, capital investment resources for expansion and construction of modern, efficient airports are limited. Therefore, development of airport facility designs which can provide the

Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Psychology - Essay Example According to Sacks, â€Å"Does the mind run the brain or the brain the mind?† This poses an interesting question regarding the development of mental abilities, which runs parallel to that of the nature vs. nurture debate. Are cognitive abilities the result of the neurology and brain development of the person, or does what a person learns influence brain development? The question is similar to that of the chicken and the egg. Thus, the question of whether our abilities are biologically driven or if they are environmentally driven are laid as a foundation to human growth and development. The compendium of human knowledge and consciousness is seated within our skulls as the brain. The brain is the most vital organ in our body in that it controls everything, both voluntary and involuntary. It is a vast collection of neurons, which work together to rely, process, and send out information. It is organized into different lobes that govern different cognitive tasks that develop with a ge. As a person ages, these parts of the brain become more complex and eventually start working together in order to processes and integrate things together. The conscious and the unconscious merge here with the storage of memory and the performance of cognitive tasks. One of the most unique features of the brain is in its adaptability (plasticity). If a part of the brain becomes injured, it will rewire itself by creating new pathways in order to bypass the damaged tissue. As a person learns, the brain rewires itself in order to make new connections to make the pathways of thought more efficient and complex. However, the reason that a person is able to learn is due to the fact that these pathways have already been created. Even as the brain develops, there is a certain threshold that is met in which the neurons will eventually lose productivity and die off. Because of this learning is hindered, however recent studies show that additional cognitive exercises can keep these neurons al ive longer, thus showing how an environmental, or rather external stimulus, can play a part in being able to alter the physiology of a person. The first basis that psychology looks at is from the biological/physiological standpoint. Innately, humans are born with traits, which are derived from a genetic code. These discrete units, called genes, are passed down from generation to generation. The genetic code, DNA, encodes for proteins and other chemical components in the brain. As a result, some behaviors and physiological functions are affected by errors or mutations in the DNA. These mutations can occur as the result of random probability as well as through interaction of environmental effects. Thus, the behavior of an individual can result from these inherent features, which are determined by biology. For example, in cases of aggression, researchers find that amounts of testosterone in an individual can effect how aggressive an individual is. Both male and female individuals have testosterone in their body (except in the case of some genetic disorders). However, there are factors in which the levels of testosterone in the body can either be abnormally high or abnormally low. Thus, we see deviations from the normal patterns of behavior. From this example, it can be shown that biology and genetics does play a role in influencing human behavior. Another important basis in biopsychology is the development of the

Data Preprocessing Essay Example for Free

Data Preprocessing Essay Data Preprocessing 3 Today’s real-world databases are highly susceptible to noisy, missing, and inconsistent data due to their typically huge size (often several gigabytes or more) and their likely origin from multiple, heterogenous sources. Low-quality data will lead to low-quality mining results. â€Å"How can the data be preprocessed in order to help improve the quality of the data and, consequently, of the mining results? How can the data be preprocessed so as to improve the ef? ciency and ease of the mining process? † There are several data preprocessing techniques. Data cleaning can be applied to remove noise and correct inconsistencies in data. Data integration merges data from multiple sources into a coherent data store such as a data warehouse. Data reduction can reduce data size by, for instance, aggregating, eliminating redundant features, or clustering. Data transformations (e. g. , normalization) may be applied, where data are scaled to fall within a smaller range like 0. 0 to 1. 0. This can improve the accuracy and ef? ciency of mining algorithms involving distance measurements. These techniques are not mutually exclusive; they may work together. For example, data cleaning can involve transformations to correct wrong data, such as by transforming all entries for a date ? eld to a common format. In Chapter 2, we learned about the different attribute types and how to use basic statistical descriptions to study data characteristics. These can help identify erroneous values and outliers, which will be useful in the data cleaning and integration steps. Data processing techniques, when applied before mining, can substantially improve the overall quality of the patterns mined and/or the time required for the actual mining.

Computer Creativity in Soccer :: Technology Artificial Intelligence Essays

Computer Creativity in Soccer Studies concerning computer creativity in art and music have been central issues in the field of Artificial Intelligence for over thirty years, and several scholars of computer science are optimistic that computers will eventually be able to create original works (Miranda, 16), but not until recently had any computer programmer pursued Artificial Intelligence in athletics. This is a particularly daunting field because our knowledge of robotics is still very primitive, but this does not merit neglecting further investigation. Robotic soccer has emerged as a new challenge in Artificial Intelligence, but the question remains of whether robots playing sports has anything to do with true â€Å"intelligence,† or the level of creativity that is necessary to produce something artistic. The study of robotic soccer is similar to that of computer-composed art in several ways, the simplest parallel being that the more intelligent a computer is, the more it excels at each of the fields. After a certain point, raw computing power will not help a computer to improve anymore at either soccer or art, but the ability to think originally will be essential in bringing out true talent in a machine. The concept for robotic soccer originated in 1994 at an AI conference when professor of computer science at University of British Columbia, Alan Mackworth, presented a team of motorized miniature Porsches with computer chips that chased a ball around, trying to knock it into a goal. The motorized cars were equipped with only a vision system and some basic programming, but much to the excitement of the crowd of European and Japanese spectators, they were completely independent of any human control. Mackworth had originally come up with the idea only a few years earlier, after learning of MIT and IBM’s joint project to build Deep Blue, the most advanced chess-playing computer program that became better than any human player after beating grandmaster Kasparov in a best out of five game match. Mackworth realized how simple it was to construct a computer that could outwit a human opponent at chess, commenting that, â€Å"chess computers sit in a room and stare at a board. I thought AI should raise the bar.† (Preville, National Post) Chess seemed to be tailored towards computers - it is a single-player, strategical game in which players have no time constraints when thinking through all possible moves, and it does not necessitate mobility.

Pharmacy Leadership

Sculpting the Pharmacy Leaders of Tomorrow Introduction Leadership has so much influence in our lives because so often it determines whether we enjoy a particular activity. Life is short – so why participate in an activity if we don’t enjoy it, and if we do participate, why not do so with all of our energy? Therefore, having an understanding of leadership and acknowledging its significance is vital within our day-to-day lives.Leadership can be described by many, â€Å"as the process by which a leader imaginatively directs, guides and influences the work of others in choosing and attaining specified goals by  mediating between the individuals and the organization in such a manner, that both will obtain maximum satisfaction. †1 Leadership is about building teams and communicating so that everyone works together. The importance of leadership is a key ingredient to all successful businesses and championship teams around the world. Teams that have this synergy tend to thrive and be the ones on top.Thus, leadership is dynamic in all aspects of life. At the forefront of any successful business or team is the leader. A leader is anyone who inspires and influences people to accomplish organizational goals. They motivate others to pursue actions, focus thinking, and shape decisions for the greater good of the organization. A leader is also a knowledgeable and trustworthy individual that communicates effectively and sets an example by living the corporate values everyone is expected to follow. Often times many contemplate whether leaders are born or made.Effective leaders are not simply born or made; yet they are born with some leadership ability and develop it over time. 1 Legendary collegiate football coach Vince Lombardi once said, â€Å"Contrary to the opinion of many people, leaders are not born, leaders are made, and they are made by effort and hard work. †1 Thus, we are all leaders, and all individuals have potential leadership skills, which stresses the importance of leadership development. Anyone can have the fundamental requirements necessary for the leadership role, but it’s how they develop them that matters.Leadership development is defined as an effort to enhance a learner’s ability to lead, an endeavor focused on developing the leadership abilities and attitudes of the individuals sitting at the top of the chain of command. Successful leadership development requires a lot more than the ability to give orders. It also requires diplomacy, top of the line people skills, and a certain level of ruthlessness. Leadership within Pharmacy These leadership attributes and skills pertain to all professions, regardless of the career path chosen for each individual.In the pharmacy profession, transition into a leadership role often happens serendipitously, resulting in what is sometimes referred to as accidental leadership. Today’s pharmacy students receive very little exposure to pharmacy administ rative career options and administrative leaders throughout the curriculum. Thus, they are often unaware of many leadership opportunities available to them upon graduation. Furthermore, those who do develop an interest in advanced administrative training often do so after they have already committed to a post-graduate staff position or a clinical training program without an emphasis on administrative practice.By not exposing students to administratively focused career options during their impressionable clerkship years, we are losing many potential future leaders. 5 We need to spark their interest in administrative practice earlier, while they are still in pharmacy school, and introduce them to a career that focuses on leadership and creating innovative pharmacy services and practice models that improve patient care. 5 Pharmacy school provides future health care professionals with the knowledge and skills of pharmaceutical therapies in order to deliver adequate, high-quality patient care to those with health illnesses or diseases.As society becomes more and more saturated with clinical drug experts, there soon will be a higher demand for some of these individuals to lead and operate pharmacy departments. With many students having very little to no experience in leadership or managerial roles, how will these future health care providers of future generations become equipped with the essential leadership skills and attributes to successfully operate a pharmacy?A high-performance pharmacy department is one that aspires to maximize its contributions to the clinical outcomes of patients and financial position of its health system by functioning at the highest levels of effectiveness and efficiency. Achieving a high-performance pharmacy practice requires leaders committed to a clear vision for excellent practice. These pharmacy leaders must continuously enhance their team’s commitment to that vision, using recognized benchmarks of best practice to extend phar macy’s influence across the continuum of care. Do Residencies Promote Effective Pharmacy Leadership? Within pharmacy curricula, students are required to perform in various academic rotations in order to gain further knowledge of the profession in diverse areas of the field. Upon graduation from a graduate program such as pharmacy school, students also have the option of applying for a residency, or post-graduate training, to enhance their pharmacy learning and provide more experience within the profession. According to many, residencies are categorized as clinical and general.Current American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) accreditation standards state that the purpose of a post-graduate year 1 (PGY1) residency is â€Å"to accelerate growth beyond entry-level professional competence in patient-centered care and in pharmacy operational services, and to further the development of leadership skills. †2 Therefore, the main purpose of a PGY1 residency is to inc rease the competency of pharmacists in the clinical environment and that PGY1 training should focus on effectiveness, efficiency, and competence in the clinical environment reinforced by experience in a strong pharmacy operations environment. In the desire to be recognized as a clinical profession, pharmacy-training programs have devoted the vast majority of resources to patient care and clinical activities. This is done at the expense of training practitioners who are not knowledgeable about the operations of a pharmacy department and have difficulty integrating clinical expertise and patient care with the skills necessary to navigate complex organizations.While operations and management expertise can be obtained through completing a post-graduate year 2 (PGY2) residency in health-system pharmacy administration, many believe the emphasis on the interconnectedness of operational knowledge and clinical practice success should be a solid part of PGY1 residencies. 2 The core experience s required in a PGY1 residency program include acute care, ambulatory care, drug-use policy, and practice management.An evaluation of various training programs revealed that approximately 80% of residency training time is directed toward acute and ambulatory care experiences, with the remaining time divided among orientation, drug-use policy, and administrative experiences. 2 Ironically, in an era of a leadership crisis within the pharmacy profession, the primary individuals responsible for the training and nurturing of young leaders are preceptors with expertise in clinical specialties that do not always have an understanding of the importance of the infrastructure that supports their work.The profession has made significant progress in training highly skilled, knowledgeable patient care specialists, some of whom now direct residency programs and profoundly influence training. While this is exemplary practice, it is also essential that the new generation of drug-specialists be fami liar with the operational aspects of a pharmacy department (e. g. , be able to create a budgetary impact proposal to justify an anticoagulation clinic or defend the purchase of smart pumps for a health system for safer delivery of I. V. medications). While completion of a PGY1 residency by itself cannot create a well-rounded, clinically competent practitioner who is well versed in organizational abilities, it is noted that residency training is the ideal starting point to establish the concept. 2 Residents are the future of the pharmacy profession, and it is imperative that they recognize, have experience in, and respect the critical role and linkages of the clinical pharmacy expert to pharmacy management and to the health system. 2 What Are the Essential Skills of a Pharmacy Leader?In December 2004, an article was published in American Journal Of Health-System Pharmacy by five authors who had over 140 combined years of experience in health-system pharmacy leadership positions. 4 Tw o of the five authors were past pharmacy directors at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics (UWHC), where the combined master of science (M. S. ) in hospital pharmacy and administrative residency program was started. These experienced administrative leaders described the leadership skills they believed were ssential for a high performance pharmacy practice, noting that there was documented synergy between great leadership and high-performance pharmacy practice. The skills described included the following:4 * Creation of a vision that is adopted by all department personnel * Core personal values that extend to an individual’s professional life * Ability to develop relationships across the organization * Lifelong learning * Develop spheres of influence across the organization * Ability to take risks and be an opportunist Transferring knowledge across the department and the hospital * Successful work–life balance * Succession planning Specifically for patients, the y also believed that pharmacy leaders and managers should hire the best pharmacists possible, provide the best tools for pharmacists to do their work (e. g. , automation, information resources), have adequate pharmacy staff, and ensure a culture of medication safety. 4 All of these leadership skills and attributes are thus part of the manager and residency training program at UWHC.I believe that similar skills and goals should also be applied to pharmacy student rotations, and therefore students must be provided options for selecting clerkship rotations specialized in health-system pharmacy administration. Even if those who participate in such clerkship experiences decide to pursue a clinical rather than administrative career path, they will be more effective clinicians as a result of their broadened view of the profession and their understanding of the challenges of pharmacy management. They will no longer be the clinical practitioner telling our future students that administration is unrewarding â€Å"busy work. Practitioners will be more able and willing to articulate the impact pharmacy administrators can have on advancing pharmacist-led patient services and will discuss this career option with students in a more favorable light. Expanding the availability of administrative clerkships is a win–win proposition for students and the profession. 5 Delivering Leadership Skills Via Dual-Degree Programs An additional opportunity for pharmacy students to acquire fundamental leadership skills and attributes is in the pursuit of an advanced degree in business.Many pharmacy schools across the nation, including Sullivan University College of Pharmacy (SUCOP), are implementing dual degrees for those ambitious students that seek these administrative positions within the pharmacy profession. The dual PharmD/MBA degree will provide students with clinical health care expertise along with a business background and skills that are necessary to enter managerial positi ons within pharmacy. University of Arizona College of Pharmacy PharmD/MBA student Elizabeth Munch states â€Å"business pervades every facet of health care, now more than ever.And an understanding of the business aspects of pharmacy is crucial no matter which aspect of pharmacy is considered. Business training will only serve to increase the competence and effectiveness of today’s health care providers. †6 These intensive dual-degree programs provide students a way to hone problem-solving, leadership, and communication skills while engaging with students and mentors in other disciplines. Pharmacy schools that offer these programs do so to â€Å"prepare graduates for alternative non-academic pharmacy careers† as leaders in for-profit, nonprofit, and government health organizations. In particular, a leader within the pharmacy profession needs pharmacy-specific knowledge and skills for ensuring consistency and credibility within and outside the department, recruiti ng and retaining the right team members, establishing the pharmacy team’s value beyond a traditional role, becoming a more influential player within the health system, identifying challenges as opportunities, creating passion for change, and thoughtfully making difficult decisions. Having better pharmacy leaders results in better patient care, improved medication safety, and enhanced pharmacy productivity, all of which usually lead to better medication use within health systems. Conclusion It is critical that today’s leaders take steps to ensure that pharmacy maintains a strong pool of managers to continue the important work of guiding the profession. Starting an administrative clerkship rotation is an easy way to expose students to the rewards of leadership and the satisfaction of teaching and mentoring.Pharmacists are becoming increasingly involved in managing patients with chronic conditions, while also collaborating more with physicians and other health care provid ers in a multidisciplinary team. Therefore, balance and retention of important skills that enable and leverage these new opportunities are what we need. We must also encourage residency program directors and preceptors to convey the importance of and provide excellent training in clinical care and disease management, as well as operations infrastructure, logistics, and leadership.References 1. Lussier, R. N. , & Achua, C. F. (2007). Leadership: theory, application, skill development (3rd ed. ). Mason, Ohio: Thomson/SouthWestern. 2. Ivey, M. , & Farber, M. (2011). Pharmacy residency training and pharmacy leadership: an important relationship. American Journal Of Health-System Pharmacy, 68(1), 73-76. doi:10. 2146/ajhp100051 3. Thielke, T. (2010). Synergistic relationship between pharmacy leadership development and pharmacy service innovation.American Journal Of Health-System Pharmacy, 67(10), 815-820. doi:10. 2146/ajhp090445 4. Zilz, D. , Woodward, B. , Thielke, T. , Shane, R. , & Sco tt, B. (2004). Leadership skills for a high-performance pharmacy practice. American Journal Of Health-System Pharmacy, 61(23), 2562-2574. 5. Knoer, S. , Rough, S. , & Gouveia, W. (2005). Student rotations in health-system pharmacy management and leadership. American Journal Of Health-System Pharmacy, 62(23), 2539-2541. oi:10. 2146/ajhp050226 6. Enderle, L. (2011). Dual degrees: full speed ahead. Pharmacy Times. Retrieved from http://www. pharmacytimes. com/publications/career/2011/PharmacyCareers_Fall2011/Dual-Degrees-Full-Speed-Ahead 7. Johnson, T. J. , & Teeters, J. L. (2011). Pharmacy residency and the medical training model: Is pharmacy at a tipping point?. American Journal Of Health-System Pharmacy, 68(16), 1542-1549. doi:10. 2146/ajhp100483