Grammar Errors Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Grammar Errors - Essay Example However, the phrase fails to portray the emphasis on open-ended assessments. To correct this, the author would have used the phrase â€Å"centered on† to indicate that open-ended assessments are the main focus of the grading cycle. Similarly, the title of the book ‘More Perfect Unions’ by Davis captures the attention of the reader but fails in grammar (Davis cover page). The correct title would have been â€Å"Perfect Unions†, since perfection is absolute. It is not possible to have a better object than a perfect one, thus, the phrase â€Å"more perfect† is wrong. Lacquaniti et al. explore malnutrition in elderly people diagnosed with kidney problems who are on dialysis (Lacquaniti, Bolignano and Campo 240). The authors note that â€Å"Numerous hormonal and depletive elements concur in the pathogenesis of malnutrition, and while some can be ascribed to dialysis itself†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The authors give the wrong meaning of the sentence, since they want to point out that dialysis can cause malnutrition but there is another causative factor. The word â€Å"while† should, therefore, be replaced with the word â€Å"although† to portray that both are risk factors in malnutrition, but the others are the main causes. In the book ‘Lecturing: A Practical Guide’, Brown and Race use the term â€Å"enthuse† to indicate how students can be trained to enjoy a lecture (Brown and Race 11). The use of the word enthuse, however, does not portray the urgency of the training. A better way would be to use the term â€Å"motivate†, which indicates the need to excite the students.

Solution Manual for Fundamentals of Investing Essay Example for Free

Solution Manual for Fundamentals of Investing Essay Key Concepts 1.The meaning of the term investment and the implications it has for individual investors 2.Review the factors used to differentiate between different types of investments 3.The importance of and basic steps involved in the investment process 4.Popular types of investment vehicles, including short-term vehicles, common stock, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, fixed‑income securities such as bonds, preferred stock, and convertibles 5.Derivative securities such as options and futures 6.Other popular investments such as real estate, tangibles, and tax-advantaged investments 7.Investment goals including income, major expenditures, retirement, and sheltering income from taxes; the latter includes analysis of tax-advantaged retirement vehicles 8.Building a diversified portfolio consistent with investment goals 9.Sources of taxation, types of taxable income, and the effect of taxes on the investor 10.Developing an investment program that considers differing economic environments and the life cycle 11.The use of short-term securities in meeting liquidity needs 12.The merits and suitability of various popular short‑term investments, including deposit accounts and money market securities Overview This chapter provides an overview of the scope and content of the text. 1.The term investment is defined, and the alternative investment opportunities available to investors are classified by types. 2.The structure of the investment process is examined. This section  explains how the marketplace brings together suppliers and demanders of investment funds. 3.The key participants in the investment process—government, business, and individuals—are described, as are institutional and individual investors. 4.Returns are defined as rewards for investing. Returns to an investor take two forms—current income and increased value of the investment over time. In this section, the instructor need only define return, since there will be another opportunity to develop the concept of return in Chapter 4; also, providing information about recent investment returns always engages students’ attention. 5.Next, the following investment vehicles available to individual investors are discussed: short-term vehicles, common stock, fixed‑income securities, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, hedge funds, real estate, tangibles, tax-advantaged investments, and options and futures. The text describes their risk-return characteristics in a general way. The instructor may want to expand on the advantages and disadvantages of investing in each, although they will be treated in greater detail in subsequent chapters. It is vital for any investor to establish investment goals that are consistent with his or her overall financial objectives. 6.Once the investment goals have been well specified, the investor can adopt an investment plan consistent with these goals, select suitable investments, and build a diversified portfolio and manage it. 7.Personal taxes are discussed in terms of types of income and tax rates. The investment process is affected by current tax laws. Examples of tax shelters, especially tax-advantaged retirement vehicles, and tax planning are provided. 8.Once investment goals are established, it is important to understand how the investment process is affected by different economic environments. The chapter talks about types of investments such as stocks, bonds, and tangibles as they are affected by business cycles, interest rates, and inflation. 9.Liquidity is defined, and short-term securities that can be used to meet liquidity requirements are described. The discussion includes a look at short-term interest rates and the risk characteristics of various short-term securities. 10.The next section covers the various types of short-term vehicles available to today’s investor. The text provides enough detail about everything from passbook accounts to money market funds to commercial paper that students should get a good grasp of the differences between the vehicles. Information on current rates brings realism into the classroom and enhances student perception of the lecturer as a knowledgeable instructor. Answers to Concepts in Review 1.An investment is any asset into which funds can be placed with the expectation of preserving or increasing value and earning a positive rate of return. An investment can be a security or a property. Individuals invest because an investment has the potential to preserve or increase value and to earn income. It is important to stress that this does not imply that an investment will in fact preserve value or earn income. Bad investments do exist. 2.(a)Securities and property are simply two classes of investments. Securities are investments, commonly evidenced by certificates, that represent a legal claim. For example, a bond represents a legal claim on debt, and a stock represents a proportionate ownership in a firm. An option, on the other hand, represents the legal right to either buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price within a specified time period. Property constitutes investments in either real property (land and buildings) or tangible personal property (Rembrandt paintings, Ming vases, or antique cars). (b)With a direct investment, an individual acquires a direct claim on a security or property. For example, an investment in one share of IBM stock directly provides the stockholder a proportionate ownership in IBM. An indirect investment provides an indirect claim on a security or property. For example, if you bought one share of Fidelity Growth Fund (a mutual fund), you are in effect buying a portion of a portfol io of securities owned by the fund. Thus, you will have a claim on a fraction of an entire  portfolio of securities. (c)An investment in debt represents funds loaned in exchange for the receipt of interest income and repayment of the loan at a given future date. The bond, a common debt instrument, pays specified interest over a specified time period, then repays the face value of the loan. (Chapters 10 and 11 cover bonds in detail.) An equity investment provides an investor an ongoing fractional ownership interest in a firm. The most common example is an investment in a company’s common stock. We will study equity instruments in greater detail in Chapters 6 through 8. Derivative securities are securities derived from debt or equity securities and structured to exhibit characteristics different from the underlying securities. Options are derivative securities that allow an investor to sell or buy another security or asset at a specific price over a given time period. For example, an investor might purchase an option to buy Company X stock for $50 within nine months. (d)Short-term investments typically mature within one year while long-term investments have longer maturities, including common stock, which has no maturity at all. However, long-term investments can be used to satisfy short-term financial goals. 3.In finance, risk refers to the chance that the return from an investment will differ from its expected value. The broader the range of possible values (dispersion), the greater is the risk of the investment. Low-risk investments are those considered safe with respect to the return of funds invested and the receipt of a positive rate of return. High-risk investments are those that have more uncertain future values and levels of earnings. 4.Foreign investments are investments in the debt, equity, derivative securities of foreign-based companies, and property in a foreign country. Both direct and indirect foreign investments provide investors more attractive returns or lower-risk investments compared to purely domestic investments. They are useful instruments to diversify a purely domestic portfolio. 5.The investment process brings together suppliers and demanders of funds. This may occur directly (as with property investments). More often the investment process is aided by a financial institution (such as a bank,  savings and loan, savings bank, credit union, insurance company, or pension fund) that channels funds to investments and/or a financial market (either the money market or the capital market) where transactions occur between suppliers and demanders of funds. 6.(a)The various levels of government (federal, state, and local) require more funds for projects and debt repayment than they receive in revenues. Thus, governments are net demanders of funds. Governments also demand funds when the timing of their revenues does not match their expenditures. The term net refers to the fact that, while governments both supply and demand funds in the investment process, on balance they demand more than they supply. (b)Businesses are also net demanders, requiring funds to cover short‑ and long‑term operating needs. While business firms often supply funds, on balance they also demand more than they supply. (c)Individuals are the net suppliers of funds to the investment process. They put more funds into the investment process than they take out. Individuals play an important role in the investment process—supplying the funds needed to finance economic growth and development. 7.Institutional investors are investment professionals who are paid to manage other people’s money. They are employed by financial institutions like banks and insurance companies, by nonfinancial businesses, and by individuals. Individual investors manage their own personal funds in order to meet their financial goals. Generally, institutional investors tend to be more sophisticated because they handle much larger amounts of money, and they tend to have a broader knowledge of the investment process and available investment techniques and vehicles. 8.Short‑term investments usually have lives of less than one year. These vehicles may be used to â€Å"warehouse† temporarily idle funds until suitable long‑term vehicles are found. Due to their safety and convenience, they are popular with those who wish to earn a return on temporarily idle funds or with the very conservative investor who may use these short‑term vehicles as a primary investment outlet. In addition to their â€Å"warehousing† function, short-term vehicles provide liquidity—they can be converted into cash  quickly and with little or no loss in value. This characteristic is very useful when investors need to meet unexpected expenses or take advantage of attractive opportunities. 9.Common stock is an equity investment that represents a fractional ownership interest in a corporation. The return on a common stock investment derives from two sources: dividends, which are periodic payments made by the firm to its shareholders from current and past earnings, and capital gains, which result from selling the stock at a price above the original purchase price. Because common stock offers a broad range of return-risk combinations, it is one of the most popular investment vehicles. 10.a.Bonds are debt obligations of corporations or governments. A bondholder receives a known interest return, typically semi-annually, plus the face value at maturity. Bonds are usually issued in $1,000 denominations, pay semi-annual interest, and have 20- to 40-year maturities. Bonds offer fixed/certain returns, if held until maturity. b.A convertible security is a fixed-income security, either a bond or preferred stock, which has a conversion feature. Typically, it can be converted into a specified number of shares of common stock. Convertible securities are quasi-derivative securities, as their market value would depend on the price of the common stock and the conversion ratio. c.Preferred stock is very much like common stock in that it represents an ownership interest in a corporation. But preferred stock pays only a fixed stated dividend, which has precedence over common stock dividends, and does not share in other earnings of the firm. d.A mutual fund is a company that invests in a large portfolio of securities, whereas a money market mutual fund is a mutual fund that solely invests in short-term investment vehicles. Investors might find mutual funds appealing because a large portfolio may be more consistent with their investment goals in terms of risk and return. As we will see later, a mutual fund offers the investor the benefits of diversification and professional management. Mutual funds do not offer fixed/certain returns. Mutual funds are quasi-derivative securities, as their market value would depend on the price of the assets that make up the fund’s portfolio. Exchange-traded funds are similar to mutual funds but are traded throughout the day on exchanges and priced continuously. e.Similar to mutual funds,  hedge funds pool the investors’ funds to invest in securities but are open to a narrower group of investor than mutual funds and may employ high-risk strategies. They do not offer a fixed return and are most often not based on derivatives. Hedge funds usually employ a professional manager. f.Options are derivative securities that provide holders the right to buy or sell another security (typically stock) or property at a specified price over a given time period. Factors like the time until expiration, the underlying stock price behavior, and supply and demand conditions affect the returns. g.Futures represent contractual arrangements in which a seller will deliver or a buyer will take delivery of a specified quantity of a commodity at a given price by a certain date. Unlike an option, which gives the investor the right to purchase or sell another security, futures contracts obligate the investor to deliver or take delivery. Factors affecting returns on commodity contracts include changes in government policy, unpredictable weather, trade embargoes, and other events. 11.Before developing and executing an investment program, an investor must ensure the following: ï‚ ·Necessities of life such as funds for housing, food, transportation, taxes, etc. are fully provided for. The investor is adequately insured against the losses resulting from death, illness or disability, property damage, etc. Retirement goals are established. The seven steps in investing are as follows: (1)Meet investment prerequisites. Provide for the necessities of life, adequate protection against losses, and setting retirement goals. (2)Establish investment goals. Investment goals are the financial objectives that one wishes to achieve by investing. Common investment goals are: Accumulate retirement funds Enhance current income through interest income and dividends Save for major expenditures like home, education, etc. Shelter income from taxes (3)Adopt an investment plan. An investment plan is a written document describing how funds will be invested. The more specific your investment goal, the easier it will be to establish an investment plan consistent with  your goals. (4)Evaluate investment vehicles. In this step, the measures of risk and return are used to estimate the perceived worth of an investment vehicle. This process is called valuation. (5)Select suitable investments. This step involves careful selection of investments that are consistent with established goals and offer acceptable levels of return, risk, and value. (6)Construct a diversified portfolio. Diversification is the concept of forming a portfolio using different investments to reduce risk and increase return. This concept is central to constructing an effective portfolio. (7)Manage the portfolio. Portfolio management involves monitoring the portfolio and restructuring it as dictated by the actual behavior of the investments. 12.Investment goals are the financial objectives you wish to achieve by investing in any of a wide range of investment vehicles. Common investment goals are as follows: (1)Enhancing current income means choosing investment vehicles that regularly pay dividends and interest that can provide all or some of the money needed to meet living expenses. This is a common goal of retired persons and sometimes an important part of a normal family budget. (2)Saving for major expenditures includes money set aside for such things as the down payment on a home, college tuition, and even an expensive vacation. The amount of money needed and the time period over which one can save will determine the amount set aside and, frequently, the investment vehicle employed. (3)The single most important reason for investing is to accumulate retirement funds. The amount that must be set aside is determined by the level of expected expenditures, expected income from Social Security and other sources, and the amount of interest expected to be earned on savings. (4)Sheltering income from taxes involves taking advantage of certain tax provisions that permit reduction of the income reported to the government or direct reductions in taxes. Investments in certain assets, such as real estate, may be attractive due to their tax advantages. 13.Federal income taxes are charged against all income individuals receive from all sources (with the exception of interest received on some bonds issued by state and local governments). a.Active (ordinary â€Å"earned†) income is the broadest category and includes income from wages, salaries, bonuses, tips, pension income, and alimony. It is made up of income earned on the job as well as most other forms of noninvestment income. b.Portfolio (investment) income is earnings generated from various  types of investment holdings. For the most part, it consists of interest, dividends, and capital gains earned on most types of investments. Passive income is a special category that consists of income derived chiefly from real estate, limited partnerships, and other forms of tax shelters. c.Capital gains are the profits earned on the sale of capital assets—pleasure or investment. They are measured by the amount by which the proceeds from the sale of the capital asset exceed its original purchase price. Currently, long-term capital gains are taxed at preferential rates to ordinary income. Capital gains are appealing to investors because they are not taxed until they are actually realized. d.A capital loss is the amount by which the proceeds from the sale of a capital asset are less than its original purchase price. Up to $3,000 of net losses can be applied against ordinary income in any one year, with the unused portion carried forward to offset future income. e.Due to the opportunities and challenges created by the tax laws, tax planning is an important part of the investment process. Tax planning involves looking at an individual’s current and projected earnings and developing strategies that will defer or minimize the level of his or her taxes. Tax plans involve current income, capital gains, or tax-sheltered investments. For example, one strategy is to take losses as they occur and to delay taking profits in order to minimize current taxable income. f.In general, tax-advantaged retirement plans allow individuals to defer taxes on the contribution and/or portfolio earnings until some future date when retirement withdrawals take place. There are employer-sponsored plans (such as 401(k) accounts), individual-created plans (such as Keogh plans), and individual retirement accounts (IRAs). 14.Investors tend to follow different investment strategies as they move through different stages of their life cycle. a.Young investors, ages 20 to 45, tend to prefer growth-oriented investments that stress capital gains rather than income. These investors have little investable funds, and capital gains are seen as the quickest way to build up investment capital. b.By middle age, ages 45 to 60, there is a consolidation taking place as family demands and responsibilities change. While growth-oriented securities are still used, investing becomes less speculative. Quality-growth vehicles are employed, and more attention is given to current income. The foundation is being set for retirement. c.As the investor moves into the retirement years, age 60  on, preservation of capital and current income become the principal concerns. High-quality stocks and bonds and money market instruments are used as the investor’s objective is to live as comfortably as possible from the investment income. During retirement, one tries to reap the rewards of a lifetime of saving and investing. 15.Stocks and equity-related securities (such as mutual funds and convertibles) are highly responsive to the economic cycle. During recovery and expansion, stock prices are up. As the decline approaches, stock prices begin to decline as well. Growth-oriented and speculative stocks tend to do especially well in an expanding economy. Bonds and other fixed-income securities are sensitive to movements in interest rates. Bond prices also move in the opposite direction of interest rate changes. This means that if interest rates are expected to rise, bond prices would fall, and bonds would not be a good place to hold investment funds. Interest rates generally shift with the economic cycle. Rates rise during normal recovery and fall during economic declines. 16.An asset is liquid if it can be converted to cash (sold) easily and quickly, with little or no loss in value. You would want to hold liquid assets as emergency funds or to accumulate funds for some specific purpose. IBM stock is not considered a liquid investment even though it can be easily sold. As with stocks in general, you can never be sure that, when funds are needed, you can quickly sell the stock without taking a loss. 17.Purchasing power risk for short-term investments occurs when the rate of return on these investments falls short of the inflation rate. This generally happens to fixed-rate investments such as passbook savings accounts. Most other short-term investments have managed to provide rates of return about equal to the inflation rate when one looks at these short-term rates over long periods of time. Default (nonpayment) risk is very small with most short-term investments. The deposits in banks and other federally insured savings institutions are protected up to $100,000 per account by agencies of the federal government. U.S. Treasury bills are perfectly safe and sometimes called a risk-free investment. Commercial paper and repurchase agreements are extremely safe, based upon p ast experience, even though there have been rare instances of problems. These latter two instruments are also not insured. Money market mutual funds have also had an  exceptionally safe history. Of course, the safest money market funds are those that invest solely in government securities and are virtually default-risk-free. 18.Passbook savings accounts and NOW accounts (a checking account), offered by banks, generally pay a low rate of interest and have no minimum balance. Passbook savings and NOW accounts are primarily used by investors as savings accounts, providing the investor with a highly liquid pool of funds. MMDAs are bank deposit accounts with limited check-writing privileges. Central asset accounts are comprehensive deposit accounts and combine checking, investing, and borrowing activities. MMDAs and asset management accounts are more likely used by investors to earn a competitive short-term return while maintaining liquidity. Each type of account, except for asset management accounts, is insured. All but the passbook account typically require a minimum balance, which varies. 19.a. I bonds are savings bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury. They earn interest at a rate that varies with inflation. Interest is exempt from state and local taxes. They are issued in denominations that make them affordable to everyone and mature in 30 years but can be redeemed after one year. b.U.S. Treasury bills are short-term (less than one year) debt obligations of the federal government. T-bills are exempt from state and local income taxes, and federal taxes are deferred. They are regarded as the safest but generally lowest yielding of all investments, and the secondary market for T-bills is highly liquid. c.Certificates of deposits (CDs) are savings vehicles in which funds must remain on deposit for a specified period. Premature withdrawals incur interest penalties. Because of the requirement that they remain on deposit, CDs are less liquid than T-bills, but they are convenient to buy and hold, offer highly competitive returns, and have federal insurance protection. d.Commercial paper is unsecured short-term debt issued by corporations with very high credit standings. The secondary market for commercial paper is very limited and yields are comparable to yields on large-denomination CDs. Typically, only larger institutions deal directly in this market because the denominations range from $25,000 to the more commonly issued $100,000. Commercial paper is not federally insured. e.Bankers’ acceptances are short-term credit arrangements between business firms and banks. Firms use  banker’s acceptances to finance transactions, most often involving firms in foreign countries o r firms with unknown credit capacities. Banker’s acceptances typically are denominated in $100,000 units, are low-risk securities, and have active secondary markets. Yields are slightly below CD yields and commercial paper and above T-bills. f.Money market mutual funds (MMMFs) pool capital of many investors and invest it exclusively in high-yielding, short-term securities, such as T-bills, large CDs, commercial paper, and other similar securities. Because these high-yielding securities are in denominations of $10,000 to $1 million, the MMMF makes them available in a format that is affordable to individual investors. MMMFs are convenient, offer check writing privileges, and yields are based on the ability of the fund manager to invest in various short-term securities. Although they are not federally insured funds, their default risk is nearly zero because the securities they invest in are very low risk and the fund is relatively diversified. 20. The senior managers in a corporation, such as the chief financial officer (CFO), have the primary responsibility of managing the firm’s capital resources and investments. Because so much of the CFO’s primary responsibilities require an understanding of investment principles, a CFO must understand market forces but more importantly communicate in such a way that investors understand the value of the firm and the securities the firm has issued. 21.Because insurance companies have large sums of investment capital under management, they require the skills of a highly trained finance person in investment principles. Since this person is asked to manage risk for individuals as well as businesses, the decisions they make and the strategies they devise will assist the insurance companies’ customers in the creation of their individual successful asset and risk management strategies.

A Whale of a Passion for Psychology :: Graduate Admissions Essays

A Whale of a Passion for Psychology    A beluga whale helped me first realize my true academic passion. I spent my high school summers and weekends volunteering at the New York Aquarium, first in the education department, and later in the training department. It was there, through casual and research-oriented observations of cetaceans, that I began to wonder about animal and human minds. I later had the opportunity to participate in an observational research project, helping to record data on the behaviors of new whale calves and mothers. My informal and formal observations fed my interest in the phylogenetic and ontogenetic bases of cognition and language. As a psychology student at [my school], I had numerous opportunities to research and observe human psychology, both in and out of the classroom. As a sophomore, along with a professor and fellow students in a seminar class, I helped design and run a study on categorization and user's intentions. Later that year we presented our findings at the annual American Psycholog ical Society meeting. In that same year I also assisted a professor in conducting a study on the effects of familiar and unfamiliar music on reading comprehension. I spent the summer following my sophomore year (1997) as a research assistant in the [my school] Psychology Department, funded by a grant from the Howard Hughes Foundation. I collaborated with a professor, a fellow undergraduate student, and a visiting high school student to research, design, and run a study on attitudes towards germs and illness. This included conducting an extensive literature review, specifying research questions, and designing questionnaires that would help us effectively answer our research questions. In addition to strengthening my research abilities, this experience gave me the invaluable opportunity to interact with fellow researchers as a student, a peer, and a mentor. My extracurricular research experience during my sophomore and junior years of college gave me the tools to independently develop and carry out research projects. During my senior year at [my school], I completed a long term library-based research project on the evolution of the human linguistic ability. As a person who tends to look at the big picture when conducting research, this project was the perfect opportunity for me to integrate research from numerous fields and subfields in order to answer a psychologically based question.       Through the study of anthropology, paleoneurology, neuropsychology, linguistics, and psycholinguistics, I explored theories debating the neurological and behavioral bases for language evolution. A Whale of a Passion for Psychology :: Graduate Admissions Essays A Whale of a Passion for Psychology    A beluga whale helped me first realize my true academic passion. I spent my high school summers and weekends volunteering at the New York Aquarium, first in the education department, and later in the training department. It was there, through casual and research-oriented observations of cetaceans, that I began to wonder about animal and human minds. I later had the opportunity to participate in an observational research project, helping to record data on the behaviors of new whale calves and mothers. My informal and formal observations fed my interest in the phylogenetic and ontogenetic bases of cognition and language. As a psychology student at [my school], I had numerous opportunities to research and observe human psychology, both in and out of the classroom. As a sophomore, along with a professor and fellow students in a seminar class, I helped design and run a study on categorization and user's intentions. Later that year we presented our findings at the annual American Psycholog ical Society meeting. In that same year I also assisted a professor in conducting a study on the effects of familiar and unfamiliar music on reading comprehension. I spent the summer following my sophomore year (1997) as a research assistant in the [my school] Psychology Department, funded by a grant from the Howard Hughes Foundation. I collaborated with a professor, a fellow undergraduate student, and a visiting high school student to research, design, and run a study on attitudes towards germs and illness. This included conducting an extensive literature review, specifying research questions, and designing questionnaires that would help us effectively answer our research questions. In addition to strengthening my research abilities, this experience gave me the invaluable opportunity to interact with fellow researchers as a student, a peer, and a mentor. My extracurricular research experience during my sophomore and junior years of college gave me the tools to independently develop and carry out research projects. During my senior year at [my school], I completed a long term library-based research project on the evolution of the human linguistic ability. As a person who tends to look at the big picture when conducting research, this project was the perfect opportunity for me to integrate research from numerous fields and subfields in order to answer a psychologically based question.       Through the study of anthropology, paleoneurology, neuropsychology, linguistics, and psycholinguistics, I explored theories debating the neurological and behavioral bases for language evolution.

Frankenstein Today :: essays research papers fc

Is the Technology of Today Ready to Create Mary Shelley’s â€Å"Frankenstein†? When the novel â€Å"Frankenstein†, by Mary Shelley came out in 1831 the general public was introduced to the idea of man creating another man, scientifically without the use of reproduction. The disasters that followed, in the novel, demonstrated the horrid fact that creating humans was not natural. That was in 1831, when the knowledge of science had not yet evolved enough to act on such an idea. Now as the start of a new millenium approaches, having the capability to scientifically produce one human who is genetically identical to another, or cloning a human, has a lot of people questioning weather or not it is our moral right to do such a thing. It is a classic debate between principles of science and principles of religion.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The more we know about genetics and the building blocks of life the closer we get to being capable of cloning a human. The study of chromosomes and DNA strains has been going on for years. In 1990, the Unites States Government founded the Human Genome Project (HGP). This program was to research and study the estimated 80,000 human genes and determine the sequences of 3 billion DNA molecules. Knowing and being able to examine each sequence could change how humans respond to diseases, viruses, and toxins common to everyday life. With the technology of today the HGP expects to have a blueprint of all human DNA sequences by the spring of 2000. This accomplishment, even though not cloning, presents other new issues for individuals and society. For this reason the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) was brought in to identify and address these issues. They operate to secure the individuals rights to those who contribute DNA samples for studies. The ELSI, bein g the biggest bioethics program, has to decide on important factors when an individual’s personal DNA is calculated. Such factors would include; who would have access to the information, who controls and protects the information and when to use it? Along with these concerns, the ESLI tries to prepare for the estimated impacts that genetic advances could be responsible for in the near future. The availability of such information is becoming to broad and one needs to be concerned where society is going with it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The next step after scientists have identified and studied adult DNA would be to copy it.

Reflection Paper on Organization Behavior

kiwiberry2900 3/9/2013 MGMT 541 Self-reflection paper Motivation Motivation represents psychological processes that cause arousal, direction, and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal directed. There are substantial positive relations between job characteristics, satisfaction, and motivation. Job characteristics of Variety and Task Significance were found to be particularly important to employee satisfaction and motivation.These are examples that almost everyone will encounter in real life: Job design and job enrichment My work experience when I was in Shanghai was with the Taxation Bureau. Initially I was assigned general work in the department such as doing tax registration for the new companies and I wasn’t motivated. The job was simple, just checking and cataloging all of the documents that the company representatives provided, and giving them the application forms. I also answered related questions and followed up after the companies with the tax license were san ctioned.At this job position, the skill varieties were very limited. The routine work was just following the rules and did not need any professional judgment. After a month or so, I felt bored. Besides the skill variety, the job also lacked autonomy. Sometimes I just went out for some reason, probably there were several company representatives were waiting for me, while other time there is nobody show up in a whole day. As a young woman, I can’t further myself in the job, anyone can do it. I had no progress, no satisfaction about the job and no intrinsic motivation.Although the tasks were significant to the whole bureau, it is hard to see our bigger function of the organization. In the end, after I pleased the human resources department several times, I was allowed to join another department. A lot of young people did not like to be fixed on a general position which would not allow them to accumulate the professional experience and explore the deep side of the field, and that often makes a problem in the hierarchical organization. Equity theory The Shanghai Taxation Bureau in which I had worked for more than 10 years is a hierarchical organization including a lot of levels.It is the administrative and management body that carries out the state’s taxation activities within the administrative jurisdiction of Shanghai Municipality. Its main functions and responsibilities include implementing state taxation laws, regulations and codes, researching and formulating tax development plans and annual work plans for local taxation. The administrative position involves supervising every month’s tax declaration and collection and making sure the money will be transferred into the state treasury according to the related laws, regulations and codes.There are 26 branches attached to the taxation bureau, and over 10000 employees working in the shanghai taxation bureau. Big organizations necessitate more comparison between people, or between branches. Peop le from every section seek to get equal benefits out of their input. There are a lot of couples in Shanghai taxation bureau. So if some branches gave the bonus to their employees, everyone in the whole system knew it. And afterwards other departments will mimic the policy to motivate theirs. That reflected the equity theory.From the equity theory, an individual’s motivation level is correlated to his perception of equity, fairness and justice practiced by the management. The higher an individual’s perception of fairness is, the greater their motivation level and vice versa. In the above context, I remembered that the branch leader who first gave the bonus will emphasize the special task they have completed, in order to stimulate his employees who have experienced high level hardship or difficulties. But other branches will spotlight their own achievements in the assignment, ultimately got the same bonus to protect or comfort their own morale in the workplace.In the yea r-end evaluation, every branch or individual will assess their own projects and achievements in the whole year and the human resource management would make overall balances and give different levels of reward. While some job positions comparatively have more opportunities to make achievements, others have less. Under that kind of situation, the management carried out the policy of job position rotation, therefore, almost every qualified employee with education history of financial and accounting would have the opportunities to rotate their positions. This policy is motivational, Extrinsic motivation and intrinsic otivation At my department people were driven by extrinsic motivation. We compared the bonus income, the benefit to others and calculated the upcoming income or vacation. We also expected to be promoted and got high level benefits. As if that is the core of our daily tasks. Sometimes we did some project according to superior’s will rather than the real information to avoid offending the leader. We even did not consider whether the result was meaningful or not. Although the department management wanted to motivate the employees and gave the gift cards to everyone before the festivals, we were not satisfied.We wanted to get more benefits comparing with employees at other branches. From the theoretic framework, these are hygiene factors which would not make people satisfied. Sometimes we got into research projects and worked with the other teammates. These were independent projects. The person in charge the project totally explained the purpose of the project and we felt we got involved and engaged. We were empowered to use our own way to collect data, analyze it, and draw the conclusion. We felt very satisfied in these projects.We cooperated with each other, attracted by the task, and we can focus solely on the project without complicated interpersonal relationships inside of this kind of temporary group. Further more, it was different from our r outine job, which gave us the opportunity to widen our view, enrich the job content, therefore satisfying all the teammates. This arrangement is like intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself, and exists within the individual rather than relying on external pressures or a desire for reward.Leadership From my experience, people want to motivate each other. He should build up himself first, has a long-term vision about the organizations, sets a goal for himself, matches the big environment and has the necessary ability or expertise in some area. Then he should also be authorized to be a leader. He may use his social skill and other ability and management resources to motivate people, and bring them together to a higher level. In my personal experience, I met good leaders as well as bad leaders.When I was a volunteer in a nonprofit organization at Chicago, I was elected as a member of the board of trust ees. In this setting, the president is our board leader and he displayed a typical bad leader profile. First of all, he is not a role model. He should have a positive attitude, and be supportive to every volunteer, but unfortunately he always escaped working hard and treated other volunteers like slaves. Secondly, he did not consider the opinions of other board members, he liked to be self-centered and lack of empathy. This character embodied in his schedule and his arrangement.He had no expert power, his personality is awful and he even played tricks in the nonprofit organization, which made everybody astonished. Now he had lost in the election for the board members. Admittedly, the situation above is very unique. Generally most authorized leaders have some attractive traits such as self-awareness, self-confidence, social skills and persuasive abilities. At the same time, they fully understand the organization goals. But different leaders have their own personal features. My friend Fan is a director of the audit department.I had been in his department for 3 years, and we became friends in the end. Fan is a veteran, he had little professional knowledge in auditing, but he knew management well. His job is to motivate all the auditing group leaders and auditors. He used his legitimate power at first to assign tasks to every group. After the tasks were finished, he gave all the evaluation report to every group with the help of his assistant. At the same time, he used his reward and referent power. He always kept the department on the way of organizational goal, showed his positive attitude, gave everybody most extent of autonomy.He also used his personal relationship to strive for the best interest of our department. That is why he got everyone’s respect. In his department, morale is very high. Nobody wanted to leave. Ahthough Fan is a good leader in most aspects except his professional knowledge, he can’t exert his expert power in his leadership. A great leader is a natural leader, who can exert his idealized influence power to his followers, and help to set common goals for the whole organization, incorporate, motivate followers, have them a clear picture of the future, make them active beyond the call of the duty.Bibliography Kreitner, Robert, and Angelo Kinicki. Organizational Behavior. Boston, MA: Irwin/McGraw- Hill, 1998. Print. â€Å"Equity Theory of Motivation. † Equity Theory of Motivation. N. p. , n. d. Web. 09 Mar. 2013. â€Å"Welcome to Shanghai Municipal Office of State Administration of Taxation. † Shanghai Municipal Office of State Administration of Taxation. N. p. , n. d. Web. 09 Mar. 2013. W. Chan Kim. â€Å"Fair Process Managing in the Knowledge Economy. † (n. d. ): n. pag. Web.

Strength Within Creativity essays

Strength Within Creativity essays Despite oppression, African-American women of the past were able to overcome obstacles by taking on the role of artists. They relied on their creative spirits to carry them through their wretched existence. In Alice Walkers essay In Search of Our Mothers Gardens, she explains how the mothers and grandmothers of her generation held on to their dignity and strength through their expression of creativity. The boldness represented by this creativity shows the dynamic depth of their souls and the courage they found within it. Walker gives examples of some of these women in her essay and uses this method to effectively express her point. Women such as Mahalia Jackson, Elizabeth Catlett, and Frances Harper were able to rise above negative circumstances from their past by allowing their natural creativity to shine. Alice Walker wrote, Our mothers and grandmothers, some of them: moving to music not yet written. And they waited. They waited for a day when the unknown thing that was in them would be made known . . . (Walker 695). Although they were unable to openly express their creativity, they were able to pass it on to their daughters who would have deserving opportunities to be artists. As the granddaughter of a slave on a Louisiana plantation, Mahalia Jackson had the opportunity to allow her grandmother to be known as an artist. Mahalia started her singing career at the age of sixteen as a member of the Johnson Gospel Singers and later became the official soloist of the National Baptist Convention. Speaking of her great success, she stated, I dont work for money. I sing because I love to sing (Broughton 56). It is clear that women of this time were truly deep and passionate about their creativity because of their love for it. It is evident that their grandmothers live on through their lives. Although Mahalia Jackson is not mentioned in Walkers essay, ...

Atomic Bomb3 essays

Atomic Bomb3 essays Now imagine yourself for a while being in one of the following Japanese cities, Hiroshima or Nagasaki. You are having a normal day like always when suddenly you look up at the sky and see an airplane drop millions of papers warning you to get out of your city. The paper fliers tell you to leave your city because you are about to be bombed by a single bomb capable of destroying the entire city. You think it a joke so you do nothing as everyone else does. Three days pass and you are still thinking about what the paper said. Suddenly you hear the expected plane, your heart starts pumping faster, then you see the plane deploy a large object from the sky, you start thinking about what the paper said but now its too late. You see the object hit the ground. There is a large flash, people are running and screaming down the street. Then you realize it really was a bomb. This event took place in World War II when the United States dropped the atomic bomb in Japan. I am going to be speculating about speculation about the cause and effect of the atomic bomb. In 1939, the German born scientist Albert Einstein had informed President Roosevelt about the possibility of creating a powerful bomb. It would produce an extremely powerful explosion by splitting the atom. Einstein and other scientist feared that Germany might develop such a bomb first. In 1942, the United States set up a secret project called the Manhattan Project, to develop the first atomic bomb. The first test explosion of an atomic bomb occurred in the New Mexico Desert in July 1945. Roosevelt died in April 1945, and Vice President Harry S. Truman became President of the United States. Truman met with the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin the Russian dictator in Potsdam, Germany, in July 1945. At the Potsdam Conference, a conference between the Allied forces to discuss war options, Truman learned of the successful test explosion of the atomic bomb ...

Gay Adoption essays

Gay Adoption essays One of the most controversial issues facing the United States today is whether or not homosexual individuals should be granted the rights of adoption. A poll was conducted on the Internet asking the question of whether or not gay individuals should be allowed to adopt. Out of approximately 87,000 people who were surveyed, 49% believed they should be allowed, 50% felt they shouldnt, and 1% were unsure. The nation is clearly divided, but the people against this issue have a slight edge, according to the poll. Opponents of gay rights have developed many reasons for not allowing gays to adopt. One of these points include that gay parents prey on their own children. In a study of 269 cases of child sex abuse, only two offenders were found to be gay or lesbian. It was found that a childs risk of being molested by his or her relatives heterosexual partner is over one hundred times greater than by someone who is homosexual. The second major point is that gay people die younger than heterosexuals. Gay advocates say studies that suggest gay people die younger, were written by a false researchernamed Paul Cameron. Opponents also believe that the children will suffer from taunting and prejudice. Is it fair that one persons prejudice is a reason to ban someone from his or her dream of becoming parents? Regardless of a childs parents sexual orientation, children tease and will be teased. In courts across the country, it is argued that stigma attached to having a gay or lesbian parent will damage a childs self-esteem. However, research has found that although children of homosexual parents do report experiencing teasing, their self-esteem levels are no lower than those of children of heterosexual parents. Some believe that gay people are bad moral examples as parents, and that children will develop problems growing up in an unnatural lifestyle. Courts have expressed...

Ban the Burqa By Claire Berlinski Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Ban the Burqa By Claire Berlinski - Essay Example Claire’s firsthand audience comprised of the magazine’s subscribers and the online surfers, who are less inclined to the reality of cultural and religious significance behind the Burqa ban. Because of the controversies surrounding the banning of Burqa in western countries, it makes sense that her article would highlight the importance of the issue and bring media exposure. Taking advantage of the web platform, she tends to articulate her opinion through the online magazine, for expanding her audience to the global community, bringing greater insight and diversity to the discussion. The Burqa is viewed as one of the traditional Islamic religious ideals, and a visible signifier of Islam and the Muslim people, especially the Muslim women. Even though there are many connotations based on this issue of banning the Burqa, the public rambling and the media stereotyping is the most common consideration. The author clearly poses her argument favoring the ban of Burqa, implying that the use of headgears reveals Islam’s conception of women, women oppression and gender apartheid. The primary purpose of the article is to justify the ban on the Burqa, with considerations on social welfare, women’s freedom and religious oppression. However, the thesis stated in the article expresses a sidetracked view of the author, ignoring the religious ideals and personal freedom of women in a democratic society. The author clearly uses the rhetorical strategies of logos, ethos and pathos to seize the intended audience. At the start of the article, Claire uses ethical appeal that would convince the audience to give consent for the credibility of the argument. By providing facts and real life experiences, the author persuades the audience with Ethos appeal. She even presents the negative impacts of the ban on the Muslims and their religious freedom. â€Å"These bans are outrages against

Reading Response from a Piece of Writing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Reading Response from a Piece of Writing - Essay Example The two purposes are similar because they indicate that pausing occurs whenever there is an end in a tone and the start of another. Indeed, the author doesn’t need to elaborate the reasons separately. They should be in one paragraph. The author gives the relevant basis of how you can measure the speaking speed. He argues that speed is the number of units per unit time. He presents his interpersonal arguments on the best methods to use for measuring the speed of speech. In the text, he analyses the strengths and weaknesses of using either the word or syllable in the measurement of speed. In this way, readers can understand both methods despite the limitations and assumptions. Linking pausing and speech speed to learning serves the pedagogical purpose of teaching or training. From the text and author’s arguments you can see that the aspect of learning how to apply the two phonetic components, you can deliver a good speech to learners. The text gives an insight of the rationale behind stressing some syllables or words after pausing, which is a common skill in effective speakers. Intonation is another phonetic aspect discussed in the text. Note that the author introduces the concept of speech stretch in order to explain the application of tonal variations when one is speaking. The phonetic components discussion has prompted my personal experience in the past encounters with the public. During the launching of the new automated home appliance in a national exhibition, he discovered that many people could not get my points clear. It was a hard time because after pausing at some point in my speech the reporter could not increase the tone immediately so as to be clear and explicit. Little did he know that pausing can be applied together with intonations, he would have succeeded in his presentation.  

Learning the Knowledge and Skills Required of the Profession Essay

Learning the Knowledge and Skills Required of the Profession - Essay Example I am an international student who was born and raised in Russia. I am currently 17 years old. As a young and optimistic individual, I am keen on pursuing a Management course from the Glendale Community College, pegged as one of the renowned educational institutions in the United States. I acknowledged that management is one of the traditional courses that offers vast opportunities for employment. Likewise, since I have been recognized by my parents, peers, and academic instructors, as manifesting leadership traits and skills, I deemed it appropriate to pursue an endeavour where leadership skills could be put to effective use. My professional goals include applying to a global organization right after earning a degree. I would like to be exposed to the organization’s operations that encompass a widely encompassing sphere. As such, as I reviewed the courses in Glendale’s management program, I acknowledge that in the near future, I would like to pursue higher education thr ough taking a master in business administration (MBA) degree. The management course would significantly assist in identifying areas of interest in applying management theories. At this point, I am particularly enthusiastic about delving into human resources management, which is considered a dynamic and multi-dimensional field of specialization – since it involved understanding and evaluating diverse traits, skills, competencies, and abilities of people from varied geographic and cultural orientations. Concurrently, I acknowledge that Glendale would be the perfect educational institution that would provide the theoretical framework, as well as harness the essential skills to become a practising manager in the near future.

Fieldwork observation report - special education Essay

Fieldwork observation report - special education - Essay Example In the social study class students had problem in understanding the class concepts has they were slow in opening the chapter which the teacher requested. The teacher gave out homework to the students and helped them to organize their work sheets. In the second day there were four students and the teacher requested them to study the science test. The students took different turns in reading the science test terms and latter the teacher requested the students to open the green reader book. In the third day all the students started by doing, â€Å"do now†. The teacher requested them to sit on the pillow and open their book. The teacher asked the students to make drawing on their note book. After taking snakes the students enjoyed filling blank mathematical questions. Teacher also helped a certain student on how to carry out multiplication. In those three days, the students showed improvement in learning skills. Each day they learned new thing and understood how to open books and also handle class question. The teachers were also cooperative has they helped the students to learn things which they did not

Philosophy of Religion - Existence of God Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Philosophy of Religion - Existence of God - Essay Example The issue of religious beliefs is also the central subject questioning both the evidentialists and the non-evidentialists approach in addressing the issue. Different arguments for God include; cosmological argument, design argument and ontological argument. This paper, therefore, seeks to establish the best of the arguments that explain the existence of God, any existing criticism of it, and how this objection can be dealt with. Lawhead (326), argue that the proponents of the cosmological argument carry the notion of the existence of something from nothing. In the illustration, for instance, a magician who rubs both hands and opens them only to realize a white dove. They, therefore, question why there is something and not anything. Rowe (4), further illustrates that they believe there exist things that transform other things or alternatively there are things that make the other things be in existence, which is a relatively deductive argument. They claim to establish that the theistic God exists and is attributable to goodness, omniscience, and omnipresence, among others. On the other hand, Lawhead (337) presents another perspective that design proponents exhibit. They argue that God exists by evidence of the design portrayed in the world, also called teleological argument. Here, they explain that Gods existence is evident by the way many things in the world have been designed in fulfilment of some particular goal. So they say that God is the designer. Vinnie (77) gives his contribution to the existence of the universe that it arose from divine cosmic order. Given that any such cosmic order needs God’s presence, it leads to a theory of the existence of God. Hartshorne idea in â€Å"Man’s vision of God â€Å"(1941) turned down traditional empirical perspective that God is conceivable as a necessary being. The last proponents in their ontological argument believe that God is the greatest possible being and He is in existence in human understanding and mind.  It is a meditative belief that God’s existence is in reality as well as in people’s mind.  

Fieldwork observation report - special education Essay

Fieldwork observation report - special education - Essay Example In the social study class students had problem in understanding the class concepts has they were slow in opening the chapter which the teacher requested. The teacher gave out homework to the students and helped them to organize their work sheets. In the second day there were four students and the teacher requested them to study the science test. The students took different turns in reading the science test terms and latter the teacher requested the students to open the green reader book. In the third day all the students started by doing, â€Å"do now†. The teacher requested them to sit on the pillow and open their book. The teacher asked the students to make drawing on their note book. After taking snakes the students enjoyed filling blank mathematical questions. Teacher also helped a certain student on how to carry out multiplication. In those three days, the students showed improvement in learning skills. Each day they learned new thing and understood how to open books and also handle class question. The teachers were also cooperative has they helped the students to learn things which they did not

Why do markets fail Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Why do markets fail - Essay Example According to Wilkinson (2005), â€Å" market failure is the situation where the mechanisms associated with the market unable to allocate resources effectively. In this definition the efficiency word refers to both productive as well as elective parameters. According to his view, the main reasons behind market failure can be classified into the following headings: Monopolies, External factors, Public goods, transaction costs and imperfect information (Wilkinson, 2005, pp.473-474). There are several economists who prefer to call the market failure as market fail to achieve efficiency.. Some specific situation that is contributing to market failure are regulations of the government, costs associated with the transaction, the power of the competitive market (other country), imperfect information etc. Regulations: Restrictions such as price ceilings avoid the price mechanism for competently allocating resources. Market power: Some industries may feature economies of scale, so it is absol utely possible for an incompetent market conclusion to be reached if one organization or a few large institutions are able to leave out others to the disadvantage of potential market participant. Transaction costs: If the cost of any certain product in any trade is high in the first place, a market cannot function properly and it might result in the market failure. Imperfect information: If any one party in the market has material information that the other does not, or both the parties lack substance information that would affect whether or not the deal occurs, or for what price it may take place. Externalities: A trade (or the goods being traded) may inflict considerable costs on individuals not participating in the trade. Alternately, individuals not participating in the trade would realize significant benefits from it but the parties directly involved in the trade would not. Irrational actors: One party is not of sound mind when making the trade, factors are weighted inappropria tely, long-term costs are ignored in favor of short-term benefits, etc.(Wilkinson, 2005, pp.474-478). According to Tatum (2013) market failure is a situation in which the demand for a particular product is not at par with the supply of the same product that manufacturers are now providing for sale.. There are several reasons behind the market failure, with some having to do with pricing and quality, while others are connected to the current general state of the economy. According to his viewpoint, the main reason behind this failure of the market is the externalities. These are simple factors that are outside the control of consumers or the companies producing the goods and services offered for sale. Examples of this include negative situations such as natural disasters that temporarily reduce production, or downturns in the economy that prompt consumers to greatly reduce their consumption of certain products. Positive events may also qualify as externalities, such as an economic re covery that increases consumer confidence and motivates increased purchases of non-essential and luxury products. In the former instance, companies may find that the demand for their products drops suddenly, leaving them with high inventories of finished goods that are not wanted at any price. The latter positive example may mean that, until producers can increase production to meet demand, they will not be able to adequately keep up with customer orders. Other causes of market failure have to do with an imbalance between the price of a product and its perceived level of quality. Price and quality may create a positive or a negative situation, because if consumers think that the price

Advancements in Medical Technology Essay Example for Free

Advancements in Medical Technology Essay Introductions: Have you or have you had someone, that was near and dear to your family and hearts, pass away and think to yourself â€Å"If medical technology was just a little more advance, they might have been able to still be here with me today? † Or was their life, cut from your life to soon, because of the need for more advancements in the medical pharmaceutical side of things such as medications and treatments. Maybe, even be able to give them the therapeutic device that would have been able to give them a longer life expectancy? One thing to think about is that over the past thirty years advancements in the Biological, Pharmaceutical and Therapeutic device fields of Medical Technology has greatly improved the life quality and expectancy of many human beings. (What kind of introduction did you write for your expository essay? Asked a question What other types of introductions might be appropriate for this kind of essay? Providing a startling statistic. Include interesting facts about the subject. What makes your introduction type more effective than another introduction type for your particular essay? By asking a question to the reader, the way that I have asked a question makes it personal to the reader and makes them think and want to read more about what I have written. ) Conclusions: My husband and I believe that if Stem Cell research was around years ago when he was first diagnosed by Type I Diabetes, that he would not have to worry so much about his blood sugars going high or low all the time. Now with the advancements in therapeutic devices, we are able to go to a specialized diabetic doctor (known as a Endocrinologist) and be able to help him get on a Medtronic Insulin Pump, that will help him with getting his sugars stable and give him the right amount of insulin that his body needs to function properly like you and I do. On the bright side due to the fact that there are advancements in medical technology with the therapeutic side of things, there is a small variety of insulin pumps on the market today that he is able to choose from that will fit to his personal needs and wants. With medical personnel continuing to improve upon advancements in the Biological, Pharmaceutical and Therapeutic device fields of Medical Technology, there will be more people out there, such as I that will not have to lose their loved ones before their time. (What kind of conclusion did you write for your expository essay? I think that by finishing up with another question it will hopefully convince the reader that everything I have provided will have them agreeing with my essay. Also something that would be more effective would be to provide an ironic twist, a surprising observation. What other types of conclusions might be appropriate for this kind of essay? Restating the thesis or summarizing the main points of my essay What makes your conclusion type more effective than another conclusion type for your particular essay? By providing an ironic twist, with a surprising observation from my own personal life might help the reader understand more of why I was so passionate about writing about those things in my essay. )

Concepts in Cognitive Psychology

Concepts in Cognitive Psychology Memory, Thinking, Attention, Perception, Language Cognitive psychology is primarily interested in the role of the mind and its conceptual functioning. As by way of communicating information to and from each other and understanding the external world through the process of labelling and categorising certain elements pertaining to that world, the cognitive approach to psychological investigation has been interested in the nature of language from its origins. Such conceptual structures as memory , thinking, attention, perception and language have been put into place informing much research relating to this school of psychology (Sternberg, 2006). The concepts associated with memory, thinking, attention, perception and language are prominent within the school of cognitive psychology are inter related across a multitudes of experiments. Memory can be seen as having a basis in the retrieval, store and recall of information and is commonly divided into the working memory model (or short term memory) and long term memory (or long term store) . Thinking is often associated with the way in which a process of logic is undergone by any subject. Attention is the mental ability to focus and apply thinking and memory, usually characterised in experiments as the. Perception is the way in which the individual may perceive any task and language is the underlying source of communicable information that externalises the subject of any culture. Research into the functioning and processes of semantic memory suggested a key model that was a primary source in the formation of the memory system. This was called the working memory. This model of the working memory, which is a system and procedure whereby information is internalised and subsequently turned into stored long term memory, was believed to be more than just a simple function involving storage and retrieval. At its procedural stage, we can see from the concept of the short term memory model that the process is broken into a schematic procedure in which stimuli, such as words, signs or symbols are encoded and stored within the memory. At this point it is believed to be rehearsed in the mind before being either rejected through forgetting or being accepted into the long term store, probably due to the perception of its significance (Waugh Norman, 1965). Due to its limited capacity, the working memory is believed to incorporate this forgetting procedure due to the effect s of either decay (unrehearsed code) or displacement (rejection due to irrelevance) of the encoded stimuli (Bjork, 1970). However, although many studies have indeed indicated that this model is accurate in terms of the basic procedure of memory, it can not be considered as fully accounting for other important phenomena as the effects of rehearsal are not always found to be defining (Craik Watkins, 1973). For instance, primacy and recency effects that are found in many free recall tests are suggested as being due to the length of rehearsal time spent on the initial words presented to individuals, whilst also finding that fewer words present to displace the more likely the encoding of the latter words presented (Murdoch, 1972). In terms of memory, this research into the phenomenon of primacy and recency effects indicated that slow presentation of words would increase primacy performance, but would have no effect on recency performance (Murdoch, 1972). This indicated that the more tim e permitted to information rehearsal, the stronger the likelihood would be for that information to enter the long term store, whilst contrastingly, the faster that the information was presented to the individual the more likely it was for that individual to forget. What this research suggests is that the working memory model requires an engagement with a target stimuli rather than just mere exposure alone, which suggests a strong relationship with the perception of language and the nature of thought processes (Nickerson Adams, 1979). Further study on the effects of primacy and recency with relation to language indicated that individuals required subjects to identify early and late acquired nouns presented in noise (Young Ellis, 1980). Subsequent findings from these studies indicated that early acquisition of words were recognized more accurately than words acquired at a more recent stage of language acquisition, when the words were matched on frequency, image-ability, concreteness , familiarity and letter length. However, they did not examine the full effect of frequency and the identification of words matched onto age of acquisition or other factors. Subsequently, further research suggested that high frequency words were more intelligible when heard in white noise than words of lower frequency, using lists uncontrolled for age of acquisition (Broadbent, 1971). Essentially, this meant that language and attention were fundamental factors in determining the process of memory. Another important phenomenon regarding the role of language and attention within memory is chunking. This phenomenon indicates the role that thinking plays, in particular the encoding of language meaning. This is the phenomena in which the individual categorises an array of information and configures it as one chunk. For instance, the numbers one, nine, four and five could be stored as one whole chunk as opposed to four individual units when rehearsed under one set of information known as nineteen forty five; a key cultural date. What we can see in this phenomenon is the construct of perception. Essentially, because no significance is placed upon the individual’s prior knowledge or their difference in experience, we can see that the memory model can not account for chunking alone. For example, the chunking of one, nine, four and five would more likely be stored if this chunk correlated with a significant date or number already maintained in the individuals learned experience, such as a soldier who saw the end of the Second World War (Ericsson et al, 1980). Therefore, seeing memory as language alone does not take into account the reality that prior meaning vastly reduces the significance of time taking in memory, as rehearsal is reduced due to recognition of former learned categories in relation to semantic structures held in the mental lexicon. This would suggest that prior learning, familiarity, chunking, categorisation as well as rehearsal can determine the success of word recognition of different lexical constructs. Subsequently, Baddeley suggested a notion of limitation within the working memory, which indicated that encoding stimuli (or information) and storing memory was a system of varying depths of processing (Baddeley, 1992). Situating all five factors as one inter related mechanism we can see then a notion of a mental lexicon from which all language can be understood, constructed, learned and articulated via communication and understanding (Aitchison, 2003). Subsequent inquiry into such a word store has created an appreciation of certain phenomena relating to how individuals understand and articulate language. This has become a very useful resource for research into anything involving the nature of language within the cognitive realm. One such piece of research was conducted by Collins and Quillian, who constructed a model of semantic memory storage and retrieval that was imperative to language. This was called the hierarchy of semantic memory (Collins Quillian, 1969). We can see from this model how memory and language inter relate. In their model, it was suggested that individuals would store memory in sets and would retrieve knowledge judgements according to the familiarity of a certain concept and it s association to certain definers regarding any particular concept. In further studies, it was established that semantic distance was based upon the strength of the perceived relationship between one concept and its hierarchal group (Rosch, 1973). Essentially, knowledge was seen as being stored in the structure of a mental lexicon and concepts were recognised and categorised due to the specific and relevant qualities and properties that it accorded to in the mental lexical structure (Conrad, 1972). This conceptual notion forms the basis for perception as information is seen as belonging to certain defining features held by the knowledge of the individual. The assumption was that the farther you moved up this hierarchy of conceptual information, the more the defining features would decrease (Loftus, 1973). For instance, a Robin would be more strongly accorded to the hierarchy of birds than a flightless bird, such as a chicken, as the defining variable of flight was recognised (Rips e t al, 1974). It was believed that if something were to disturb this hierarchal structure of word storage, then incorrect recall would become present (Loftus, 1973). Subsequently, this suggests that cognition is governed by perception as well as memory and word meaning. Essentially, the conceptual construction of this mental lexicon gives us good indication as to how words are conceptualised, understood and recognised by the individual. This avenue of research requires the investigation into thinking and learning in relation to perception. The role of perception with relation to thinking formed the interest of the seminal cognitive psychologist Bruner, whose studies investigated the nature of learning. He famously devised a test to measure and explore the nature in which people constructed and comprehended meaning. Bruner’s findings suggested that there was an intelligent procedure in operation during learning that performed by way of a hypothesis testing. This form of logical thinking was indicated as being understood through stages of either acceptance or rejection of similarities and categories based upon an intelligent process of trial testing (Bruner et al, 1956). Bruner gave a sample of individuals various sets of pictures, each portraying a variety of different and similar shapes. The different categories of shapes were considered as the conditions of the experiment. Some of the pictures in the conditions shared the same number of shapes; some of them shared the same colour of shapes while others shared t he same number of borders surrounding the shapes. However, in each condition the shapes were marginally different; none were identical. From the findings of these studies, Bruner was able to discern that there were two forms of learning that could be identified. These were dubbed successive and conservative scanning (Bruner et al, 1956). Successive scanning was deemed the type of learning that used a thinking process that involved trail testing that attempted one hypothesis at a time before either accepting or rejecting similarities. However, conservative scanning was believed to indicate a deeper form thinking that categorised certain classes of type before carrying out the acceptance or rejecting of any hypotheses. It was concluded that the latter thought process was a much faster and more efficient process than the former. What is crucial here is that these thought processes have little to do with language or memorised knowledge. However, not everyone within the field of the cogn itive psychology accepts this notion of thinking. Many researchers and theorists related to the field of thinking and perception have argued that categories are an innate knowledge rather than a learned one and so the use of language and memory are not essential to thinking (Fodor Chomsky, 1980). The main implication in this idea is that empirical category learning may not be done with the rejection of hypothesis but with the rejection of the externally governed conceptualisation of the external world. Studies relating to word recall have highlighted the role of attention in the role of psychological research. In one such piece of research the ability to read words was indicated by letter identification and visual configurations (McClelland Johnson, 1977). Other research has indicated the use of non literal cues in the recognition of word (Marchbanks Levin, 1965). In either case, we can see that an attentional basis for word recognition. More contemporary research into the relationship between word recognition and the effects that peer groups had within the educational learning structure indicated that there was a significance of both memory and the symbolic structure of the mental lexicon within the recognition of words that could be applied to the acquisition of knowledge (Fuchs Fuchs, 2005). It would seem that from the results involving lexical decision tasks that the more a child is familiar with the semantic construct of words the more likely they are in recognising the wor ds without error or side effects. Particular attention has focused upon the possibility that the numerous amounts of previously reported effects of word frequency in attentional tasks might actually result from confounded effects of the age of acquisition as the two variables are related. Subsequently, high frequency words tend to be learned earlier in life than low frequency words, so that sets of words selected as being of high or low frequency of occurrence tend also to be sets of words which are acquired early on or more recently. There has been evidence put forward suggesting that the age at which a word is acquired during a child’s development affects performance throughout life. Essentially, the earlier that the process of word acquisition is incorporated the more successful it will be in producing meaning. It would seem that the later the words are acquired, even when attentional factors such as frequency of usage and word image-ability are controlled, the poorer the memory and articulation will be (Brown and Watson, 1987). The effects of frequency can be understood in the interaction activation model of McClelland and Rumelhart (1981). This suggested that there is a node for each familiar word in this connectionist stimulation of word recognition. Each node was believed to have an activation level which varied from cycle to cycle and a resting level which is determined by the node’s level of activation over a long period of time. The node for a high frequency word was believed to be constantly activated. This was effective by having a higher resting level than the node for a low frequency word, which rarely received this activation. Studies have revealed that the age of acquisition is known to affect object naming speed, yet not the speed with which pictures of objects can be classified into semantic categories in the mental lexicon (Morrison Ellis, 1992). The naming of words was then followed by a delayed cue which has also been established as being unaffected by the age of acquisition (Morris on Ellis, 1995). This strongly indicates that the effect of language does not accord to the process of articulation, but to a process of deductive reasoning. However, research by Brown and Watson (1987) has suggested that the phonological output representations of early acquired words are more complete than those for later acquired words and can be accessed more easily. We can see from our analysis of the five key components regarding cognitive psychology and the way in which they inter-relate with one another philosophically and practically that they apply to the psychology of everyday life. Whether it is the perception of birds, the recognition of a word or concept, the thought process that delivers a solution to a problem or simply the recall of a particular number, such as a bank sort code or telephone number, the roles of memory, thinking, attention, perception and language are fundamental components in the psychological study of cognition. It is difficult to conceive of a world without these five components working together. Without perception we would not be able to conceive of a world or understand the processes in which we experience the external environment and inform our knowledge of it. Without language we would not be able to categorise the various constructs that we encounter in the world, exchange our experiences of them or recognise the amount of information that we do. Without memory we would not be able to retain any information or experience that we had gathered about the world or be able to determine what in our immediate experience was relevant and considered vastly significant from what was not. Without attention we would not be able to discern between the varying contexts in which we experience language and information about the environment or acquire specific knowledge and without thinking and understanding thought processes we would not be able to solve problems, reason, make decisions, extract symbolic meaning or even conceive of mental imagery or spatial awareness. These factors are then, vastly significant in the understanding of both cognitive psychology and ourselves and although distinctions between these five components is necessary for both academic knowledge and practical application, they are best seen as factors that inter-relate and are prevalent to studies and practices of cognitive psycho logy. Bibliography Atchison, J., (2003) Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon Sydney: Blackwell Publishing. Baddeley, A.D. (1992) Is Working Memory Working? The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 44A, 1-31 Broadbent, D, E., (1971) Decision and stress. London: Academic Press. Brown, G. D. A., Watson, F. L. (1987). First in, first out: Word learning age and spoken word frequency as predictors of word familiarity and word naming latency. Memory Cognition, 15, 208-216. Bruner, J, S., Goodnow, J, J., and Austin, G, A., (1956) A Study of Thinking New York: John Wiley and Sons. Bjork, R, A., (1970) Positive Forgetting: The Non-Interference of Items Intentionally Forgotten. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 9, 255-68. Chomsky, N., and Fodor, J, A., (1980) Statement of the Paradox, in Piatelli Palmarini, M. (ed.). Collins, A, M., Quillian, M, R., (1969) Retrieval Time from Semantic Memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 8, 240-47. Craik, F, I, M., Watkins, M, J., (1973) The Role of Rehearsal in Short Term Memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 12, 599-607. Ericsson, K, A., Chase, W, G., Faloon, S., (1980) Acquisition of a Memory Skill. Science, 208, 1181-1182. Marchbanks, G., Levin, H., (1965) Cues by which children recognize words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 56 (2), 57-61. McClelland Johnson (1977) The role of familiar units in perception of words and nonwords. Perception and Psychophysics, 22, 249-261. McClelland Rumelhart (1981) An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: Part 1. An account of basic findings. Psychological Review, 88, 375–407. Morrison, C, A., Ellis, A, W., (2000) Real age of acquisition effects in word naming and lexical decision. British Journal of Psychology, 91, 167-180. Murdoch, B., (1962) The Serial Position Effect of Free Recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 482-488. Nickerson, R, A., Adams, M, J., (1979) Long-Term Memory for a Common Object. Cognitive Psychology, 11, 287-307. Rosch, E, H., (1973) On the Internal Structure of Perceptual and Semantic Categories. In Moore, T, E., (Ed.) Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language. New York: Academic Press. Sternberg, R, J., (2006) Cognitive Psychology (4th ed) Belmont: Thomson Waugh, N, C., Norman, D, A., (1965) Primary Memory. Psychological Review, 72, 89-104.

Software Piracy :: essays research papers

Software Piracy   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Software piracy is the failure of a licensed user to adhere to the conditions of a software license or the unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted software by a person or entity that has not been licensed to use the software. Software piracy has become a household word and a household crime and has had a great affect on the software industry. It is a problem that can only be solved by the choices of each individual.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The computer software industry is one of the great business success stories of recent history, with healthy increases in both hardware and software sales around the world. However, software piracy threatens the industry's economic future. According to estimates by the U.S. Software Publisher's Association, as much as $7.5 billion of American software may be illegally copied and distributed annually worldwide. These copies work as well as the originals and sell for significantly less money. Piracy is relatively easy, and only the largest rings of distributors are usually caught. In addition, software pirates know that they are unlikely to serve hard jail time when prisons are overcrowded with people convicted of more serious crimes. The software industry loses more than $15.2 billion annually worldwide due to software piracy. Software piracy costs the industry: $482 every second $28,900 every minute $1.7 million every hour $41.6 million every day $291.5 million every week   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To understand software piracy, one must get inside the mind of the pirate. People, who wouldn't think of sneaking merchandise out of a store or robbing a house, regularly obtain copies of computer programs which they haven't paid for. The pirate has a set of excuses for his actions: prices are too high; the company doesn't provide decent support; he's only going to use the program once in a while. Although, what really makes software piracy seem less bad than other kinds of theft is that nothing is physically taken. There is no immediate effect on the inventory or productive capacity of the creator of a piece of software if someone 500 miles away copies a disk and starts using it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  People tend to think of property as a material thing, and thus have a hard time regarding a computer program as property. However, property is not a concept pertaining to matter alone. Ownership is a concept which comes out of the fact that people live by creating things of value for their own use or for trade with others. Creation does not mean making matter, but rather changing the form of matter alongwith an idea and a purpose. Most often, the actual cost of creating goods is determined in the production of individual items.

News And Newspapers -- essays research papers

News and Newspapers News is simply delineated as â€Å"a report of a recent event; something one has not heard of before†(Websters, 282). Conceding that it is inelaborate in its definition, news is much more intricate as it succumbs to corporate moneymaking ideologies. The corporate essence of news is prevalent in the form of the newspaper â€Å"a paper published periodically for circulating news† that is sold therefore making news a business. In business the saying goes that the customer is always right making news subject to the demands of these consumers. The underlying purpose of news is to â€Å"provide facts upon which decisions are based† (Mencher, 56). Yet this purpose is tainted to accommodate the newspapers need to sell papers. Journalism is the work of gathering news, therefore making the journalist succumb to the corporate needs of the newspaper. The three major newspapers of Toronto (Toronto Sun, Toronto Star and The Globe & Mail) discord in their journalistic techniques for the purpose of selling their produc t. "News is more often made rather than gathered. And it is made on the basis of what the journalist thinks is important or what the journalist thinks the audience thinks is important" (Postman, 14). The Toronto Sun focuses on the audience that yearns for entertainment and adjuts its word selection and choice of articles to accommodate this need for entertainment. The glitz and glamour of today's celebrities provide a fantasy world in which the reader can escape. The Toronto Sun leaves no stone uncovered as it stays on top of celebrity issues to accommodate their audience ‘ the average Joe' with entertainment. â€Å"Michael Jackson's wife gave birth to a baby boy yesterday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center† (T.Sun Feb. 18/97) in the article titled Oh Baby, Jacko to be a dad soon. What makes this article more ominous than any other birth other than that it is entertaining to the star crazed general public? Hundreds Get To Eye Claudia the so called 'superbabe' as she â€Å"breezes her way into The Bay's downtown Yonge St. Store†(T. Sun Feb. 25/97). â€Å"Up to five hundred people waited for up to two hours for a glimpse of the famed beauty and to hear her speak†(T. Sun Feb. 25/97). Imagine how many looked in the Sun for the article. The article choices of the Sun have a direct affiliation to the need for it as a business to p... ...article Hospital's Blood Stock Almost Exhausted contains human interest through its ability to show the community working together â€Å"Although other hospital blood banks were also short of blood, the Toronto Hospital and St. Michael's Hospital agreed to send blood to Sunnybrook by taxi if needed† (T. Star April 2/97). The aspect of community togetherness provokes human interest and complies with the Star's general theme of family. The Globe and Mail article Toronto Desperate For Blood roused human interest thorough community togetherness â€Å"in case the patient required more blood than was on hand the hospital contacted the Red Cross society and two other hospitals to ensure a continued supply." This articles illustration of human interest is moderated through the exclusion of the agreement of the two hospital's to provide more blood even though they were low. Instead the article stuck strictly to the facts that the Globe's readers pay for. Realistically, the sale of newspapers is the primary objective of the journalist illustrated through their use of techniques. Journalistic content and techniques vary according to the audience towards which the newspaper directs its attention.

“Success is ninety-nine percent failure.” – Soichiro Honda

Firstly, there are many standards in defining â€Å"success†. According to the Dictionary. com, success is the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like. It means that each person has his or her level of success, which means some people would think they are success when they earn a large amount of money; some would prefer a high social status; some would consider as having a happy family or achieved their personal goal. â€Å"Failure†, on the other hand, it is a feeling that people are disappointed when their goal or achievement cannot be reached. To be able to reach achievements, failure could be use as a stepping-stone toward success. In other words, â€Å"Failure is the mother of innovation. † The underlying implication shows that each failure is a step along the road to success. People should experience what they have learnt from failure; once they failed they could use the failure as a lesson and learn from what they have failed, use it to gain experience and move toward success. For instance, every person cannot run before they learn how to walk, and they must have the feeling of pain for improvement, and they also need to learn how to stand up wherever they fell. Thomas Edison said,† Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. † He had tried more than 1000 experiments before he came up with a successful invention. His deafness did not disturb him from investing, and he did not give up and even thought the deafness could help him more concentrate. His example is one of the best to represent that one should never give up before success. If this quote put into marketing, one marketing strategy will not bring us to be success and never be the best way to run a business. As the market keeps changing internationally from time to time, companies should not give up to innovate new strategies to fulfill customers’ needs or improve their products regarding the market changes. When the companies suffered from economic downturn, some of them will choose to close down; however, some of hem will try to develop new market strategies to stay in the market if they can think from other aspects. Conclusion In conclusion, â€Å"Success is ninety-nine percent failure† is extremely related to human beings, it is because everyone may not be successful if they do not failed in their life. Everyone has different meaning of success, but people should not give up when they failed, they should to have solution to overcome problems.

Howard Hughes

Legend of the Aviator Howard Hughes is a man of many mysteries, very few actual facts are known about him. Historians constantly argue to decipher which of their theories are correct and which are Just over glorified rumors. The fact is Hughes liked to keep to himself. This man left behind not only the â€Å"Legend of the Aviator† but also one of the biggest gaps in the world of film and aviation. â€Å"Hughes was the ambassador who ushered in a new era of living and a new way of life† (Hack 5). He introduced new ideas and accomplished things that people had deemed impossible.He believed that with his oney nothing was impossible, he made that very apparent through his invention's. He designed planes and made some of the most revolutionary movies that captivated the minds of millions. Howard lived his life behind closed doors, hiding all of his true ambitions and how he achieved them. He also hid the world from not only his crazed ideas but also his mental illness, perha ps because he himself did not know that he was mentally ill. Howard Hughes related every aspect of his life to modernism. Not only did he relate to modernism but he himself was a modernist.His ingenious ideas ere thought to be radical for his time but at the same time they were somewhat inspirational. He was an idealistic man who looked beyond the possible and did not take no for an answer. Because of this, he broke world records and raised the bar for the upcoming 20th century. In order to truly understand this man, his actions, and how the â€Å"Legend of the Aviator† started one has to look into early life. If there ever was a more crucial part of anyones life it was Howard Hughes' upbringing. Hughes birth place and date are not precisely known and are still a major controversy.What ou need to know is that he was born somewhere in Texas in the year 1905. He was born to a very fortunate family. At the time Hughes father Robert was the sole owner ofa crucial piece of equipme nt that was used to drill oil. His father made it rich selling land that contained massive oil deposits and by designing and selling the only drill bit that was strong enough to penetrate hard layers of granite. This drill bit was also the only one that could actually drill deep enough to tap into large oil reserves. In later years Hughes took over the family company after the death of his father in 1924.He inherited 75 percent of Hughes Tool Co. and later bought out the other 25 percent from the rest of his family (Hack 43). He was inspired to be like his father, a businessman. At heart, Hughes was not a businessman but his positive â€Å"go get 'em† attitude helped him seem like one. Hughes' company was once accused of being a monopoly, his response was simply â€Å"We don't have an monopoly. Anyone who wants to dig a well without a Hughes bit can always use a pick and shovel† (Howard 1). Howard Hughes was one of the most iconic fgures of the earlier half of the 20th century.He revolutionized the airline industry, presenting ideas that made flights smother and took less time from takeoff to landing. He single handedly defeated the social norms of his time and was known for setting a certain standard of class. Modernism by broad definition is, â€Å"a style or movement in the arts that aims to break that his individual attitude and matches that of modernism. In 1927 the film industry was booming, and Hollywood was at its highest peak in setting new standards. Out of now where a 23 year old millionaire came from Texas and dropped millions of dollars nto one single film.People were skeptical and thought of this producer as a crazed Texan with money that Just wanted to find a way to spend it, but as proven by Howard Hughes they were wrong. Three years later Hughes' movie was release. He had successfully raised the bar for film industry. The movie Hell's Angels had broken the record for the highest budget spent, most time ever spent on a film and t he highest yield (Hell's 1). The critics withdrew their previous remarks and Howard Hughes' name in the film industry was established. Now the man not only owned a great share of the oil arket but now had his foot in the film industry.He produced films, directed movies, and threw around his money around as if it would never leave his side. Some would call it a gamble, and it was but he never did lose that money. Many people that tried to follow in his footsteps ended up broke, and with nothing left in their pockets. For Hughes it was never the case, he was an invincible man. He could do anything he wanted and have any thing he desired. His bank account kept on growing despite his vast expenditures on his little projects. After working on Hell's Angels he got more nvolved in aviation. Howard Hughes, the man who is known as the Aviator. After production on Hell's Angels was wrapped up, Hughes became more involved in aviation and started designing his own planes† (Hack 103). He c reated some of the fastest planes and thought up ideas that seemed impossible or even pointless. For example, the Hughes H-1 Racer. He designed this plane to be fast, his goal was to take off everything on the plane that it did not need and by doing so he made it light and aerodynamic, thus giving the plane greater speed. He sunk the screws into the aluminum exterior educing wind resistance and made many other small advancements that gave his plane a design that was superior to others.Because of this fascination with planes he always had work. Aviation design opened the door for government contracts designing and creating prototypes of spy planes. Once this door was opened, it shaped Hughes future for years to come. His government contracts were the basis of most of the rumors about Hughes. In his later life scams arose about Howard Hughes, himself trying to plot ways to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro, along with CIA operations that were claimed to be associated with Hughes. These c laims were later discovered to be coverups for a CIA reconnaissance mission of a Soviet Union Nuclear Submarine.To allude the attention of the public to their massive ships trolling international waters, the CIA claimed that it was simply a drilling rig operation owned by Howard Hughes (Central 2). It was later discovered that he had absolutely nothing to do with this government reconnaissance mission and had no knowledge of it. This man didn't always have the best of luck. On two occasions he came close to death. He dodged death and survived two deadly plane crashes. In his first plane crash he was one of the two survivors, out of the four XF-11, â€Å"a military plane that was designed with a counter rotating double propeller system† (History 1).It was the first of its kind and in early experimental stages. Hughes took the XF-11 for its first test flight. Upon his return to the Air Force base after a very successful first flight, he lost oil pressure in one of the right eng ines. Rapidly losing altitude he attempted to crash land in a Beverly Hills mansion. Upon impact the plane's fuel tank ruptured and ignited. Hughes barely managed to escape eath, sustaining third degree burns on most of his body and this left him with a severe case of â€Å"Complex Regional Pain Syndrome† (Hughes's 1).The Aviator died on April 4, 1976 (Hack 215). At this point in his life he was dependent on opiates and codeine and had a hygiene issues. He would only cut his hair once a year and was supposedly seen with long grown out fingernails. He became so mentally ill that he believed that the germs did not come from him but came from the world which is ironic because his health was in very poor condition. He died of malnutrition and kidney damage. X-rays later revealed hat he had five broken off hypodermic needles in his arm.