Supreme COurt Kelo v. The city U5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Supreme COurt Kelo v. The city U5 - Essay Example The eventual plan fell through. The case was an unmitigated disaster and is a great piece of evidence suggesting courts should mind their own business. The case hinged on the definition of â€Å"public use† in the fifth amendment of the Constitution. Justice Clarence Thomas issued a powerful dissent in which he took the majority to task: â€Å"Allowing the government to take property solely for public purposes is bad enough, but extending the concept of public purpose to encompass any economically beneficial goal guarantees that these losses will fall disproportionately on poor communities. Those communities are not only systematically less likely to put their lands to the highest and best social use, but are also the least politically powerful.† This dissent says it all. The unintended consequences of the activist judges' rulings are unfair and unjust. The problem with activist judges is that they undermine our democracy. They are not elected officials and are not resp onsive to the public. They live in an abstract world where they rarely see the consequences of their actions. Unfortunately, President Obama is keen on selecting more activist judges to sit on the bench of the Supreme Court. Kanner, Gideon. "Kelo v. New London: Bad Law, Bad Policy and Bad Judgment". The Urban Lawyer 38 (2006).

Gem X by Nicky Singer and Genetic Engineering Essay Example for Free

Gem X by Nicky Singer and Genetic Engineering Essay The Science Fiction Book Project is a physics project in which students describe an example of science fiction and the scientific feasibility of the author’s ideas. It promotes the school improvement writing goal by allowing a student to pick a book of their choice read it, research one topic in the book, and write a scientific paper discussing the future of the science of their chosen topic. The book chosen for this project is â€Å"Gem X† by Nicky Singer. In the book, Maxo is a GemX (who1). A GemX is a being who is genetically manipulated to be flawless. Maxo, having the top gene line up and being intelligent and handsome, is the epitome of perfect. He lives in the Polis (where1), a city in the future (when). Maxo finds a crack in his face, which is only supposed to happen to Dreggies, which are the wretched underclass of unenhanced â€Å"naturals.† Maxo begins to search for a cure to the crack in his skin (what1). Maxo is not the only GemX with a crack in his skin; thousands of others in the Polis are experiencing the same horrifying shock as him. The Leaders of the Polis don’t want to give Igo Strang, Maxo’s father and the lead scientist of the Polis, the time that it takes to do the research for why this is happening—the solution is much more dramatic than they think. Maxo tries to save himself and the others from the secrecy and lies of the Polis (why1). On the outside of the Polis where all of the Dreggies live, violence, poverty, and ugliness are routine (where2). There, lives a Dreggie named Gala (who2). Gala is looking for her missing father (what2) who â€Å"disappeared† while volunteering for scientific research in the Polis. Her dying mother’s last request is to see her father (why2). She runs into Maxo on his journey, and he may be the key to finding her father. His father was  the last person to see hers, and she may be able to get information from him. None of them realize that they are all pawns in a bigger game. The city’s Supreme Leader has plans that will leave their lives hanging in the balance. People may develop different opinions about the book, â€Å"Gem X.† The idea and subject of the book give potential in being a great story, but in my opinion it was a poorly written book. Its flow and structure did not appeal. This book is not recommended to those who are picky and read higher quality books. The scientific subject in the book was genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is the deliberate modification of the characteristics of an organism by manipulating its genetic material. Because it is the alteration of genetic code by artificial means, it is different from traditional selective breeding. Genetic engineering includes cloning and genetic selection. An example of genetic engineering is taking the gene that programs poison in the tail of a scorpion, and combining it with a cabbage. These genetically modified cabbages kill caterpillars because they have learned to grow scorpion poison (insecticide) in their sap. There are two types of cloning: therapeutic and reproductive. Therapeutic cloning involves cloning cells from an adult for use in medicine and medical research. Reproductive cloning, which is a whole different matter, is creating an identical copy of a human being, and is highly controversial. Reproductive cloning is has not been performed on humans and is illegal in most countries. Gene selection procedures can be applied after a fetus or an embryo is tested through prenatal screening or through Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD). PGD tests embryos for genetic sequences associated with specific conditions. A cell is extracted from an embryo at its eighth cell stage and analyzed. Embryos with the selected characteristics can be implanted in a woman’s uterus to develop into a child. Genetic engineering is important because it can help us prevent people from being born with diseases and disorders. It can also change produce such as vegetables from attaining bacteria or being eaten up by bugs. It can also increase their level of nutrition as well. In the past, there have been numerous attempts in genetic engineering, both ending with good and bad results. Scientists have worked on genetically modifying animals and plants, to improve them. One example is changing the genetics in produce animals such as chickens so that they become even bigger than the normal and healthy-sized chicken, to increase income when selling them. PGD was introduced in 1990 and is used to prevent Down’s syndrome, Tay-Sachs disease, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell, Huntington’s chorea, and Cooley’s anemia. They have also attempted at cloning as well. They have only done reproductive cloning on animals, and it never got the desired results. Athletes have always desired better sports performance, and have driven many trainers and athletes to abuse scientific research to try and gain unfair advantage over their competitors. Such efforts involved the use of performance-enhancing drugs originally meant to treat people with disease. This action is called doping, and it frequently involves substances such as steroids and growth hormones. Today, cloning and gene selection are popular science fiction topics in movies, books, and comics. PGD has become controversial as well because some parents want to use it to select their baby’s gender and cosmetic traits such as eye color and type of hair to design their own child. Like in â€Å"Gem X†, they want to have, in their own way, a perfect child. A new variation of PGD, Pre-Implantation Genetic Haplotyping, allows for many more genes to be tested with greater accuracy. A new reproductive technique involving in-vitro fertilization has become possible as well. There are currently also problems of gene doping, which is the nontherapeutic use of cells, genes, or genetic elements to enhance athletic performance, and it takes advantage of the gene therapy that involves the transfer of genetic material to human cells to treat them. It increases the amount of proteins and hormones that cells normally make. Although many people desire the ability to select certain genes to have certain traits or clone themselves, the idea of human  genetic engineering raises numerous ethical and legal questions, and it is very controversial in itself as well as its techniques. Many other people are highly against it because it is against our morals and ethics, and they just think it is wrong. Scientists believe that once we overcome these arguments of ethics and morals, develop the technology required, and retrieve more information, we will be able to perform successful genetic engineering on humans in the future. This includes cloning, and gene selection. Researchers are only beginning to use the genetic technology to unravel the genomic contributions to different phenotypes and as they do so, they are also discovering a variety of other potential applications for this technology. The only limits barring genetic engineering are our imagination and ethical code. In the future, cloning and gene selection will be possible. â€Å"Gem X† is a science fiction book that discusses the topic of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is the deliberate modification of the characteristics of an organism by manipulating its genetic material. It can be both helpful, and hazardous, and it may be possible in the future. Genetic engineering gives scientists the ability to alter the very basis of life. Works Cited Genetic Engineering: What is Genetic Engineering?. Futurist growth strategies keynote speaker Patrick Dixon globalchange.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2012. http://www.globalchange.com/geneticengin.htm. Positive Health Online | Article Genetic Engineering Today: The Promise and the Ethics. Positive Health Online | Homepage Welcome to PositiveHealthOnline USA. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2012. http://www.positivehealth.com/article/miscellaneous/genetic-engineering-today-the-promise-and-the-ethics. Simmons, Danielle . Genetic Inequality: Human Genetic Engineering. Scitable by Nature Education . N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2012. www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/genetic-inequality-human-genetic-engine

The World Bank, Tourism, and Sex Work Essay -- Essays Papers

The World Bank, Tourism, and Sex Work "...International Travel, Tours and Vacations to the Philippine Islands, Services and Assistance to Single Individuals Seeking a Romantic Relationship plus Assistance with U.S. Immigration Visa Requirements...." (M-H Travel, 1). This sex tour is just one example of the direct links of tourism associated with sex work in Asia. While specifically analyzing the implications of tourism on prostitution/sex work supported by organizations such as the World Bank, which is profit seeking and economically focused, Thailand and the Philippines seem to be two very affected nations struggling with the issue. There is significant evidence, such as official documents, personal accounts, interviews, and scholarly work, which strongly indicates that the World Bank knowingly promoted tourism in Thailand and the Philippines in order to generate large economic profits. Mass tourism increases and further fuels the sex industry, which forces and degrades poor women into being objects to ensure their survival. To further understand the World Bank and its goals and policies, I explored their official web page. I was first greeted with their slogan, "Our dream is a world free of poverty". It seems like a noble statement that should be endorsed by the general public. Almost immediately I wondered why then did thousands of people from around the globe gather in Washington D.C. on April 16th and 17th to protest against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. On April 17th, CNN reported "The demonstrators, from dozens of different groups, include environmentalists, anti-free trade lobbyists, and human rights activists". That does cause one to question whether or not the World Bank’s motives are as virtuo... ...en in Action 1997. Daorueng, Prangtip and Kafil Yamin. "Southeast Asia: Women Workers Are Last In, First Out." InterPress Service April 30, 1998. Flowers, R. Barri. The Prostitution of Women and Girls. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc, 1998. http://www.cnn.com http://www-wds.worldbank.org/ http://www.web-ster.com/dfike/penpal.htm http://www.worldbank.org/pics/pid/th56269.txt http://www.worldbank.or.th/economic/pdf/moniq12k.pdf http://www.worldsexguide.com/ Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. Ecofeminism. New Jersey: Zed Books, 1993. "Philippines: Women Bearing The Cross of Globalization." Women Magazine Aug. 1999. Sittirak, Sinith. The Daughters of Development. New York: Zed Books, 1998. Truong, Thanh-Dam. Sex Money And Morality. New Jersey: Zed Books, 1990. Nualnoi, T., P. Pasuk, P. Sungsidh. Guns Girls Gambling Ganja. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1998.

Health Insurance Policy

HEALTH INSURANCE POLICY Normally the medical insurance will be available through employer. When the individual unable to get the medical insurance from the employer or seek separate coverage is advised to select individual health insurance plans. Such individual health insurance plan also known as private health insurance. The medical insurance coverage under such plans is ideal for the self employed persons. However who desires to have many options can also go for private health insurance.Long-term care insurance which is a different insurance product available in the United States. The product of LTC or Long Term care insurance helps to provide the cost of long-term care for a predetermined period. The LTI insurance not covered by health insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. The individuals who unable to perform the basic activities of daily living i. e. dressing, bathing, toileting, etc can choose the LTC. One advantage with the product is age is not determining factor to purchase the health insurance for Long Term care.The benefits of LTC include home care, assisted living, hospice care, assisted living etc. Even the product allows paying up to 7 days a week of 24 hours a day for rendering services by visiting care giver, housekeeper, duty nurse etc. Tax qualified and Non-tax qualified offered, hence the individual may choose according to availing tax benefits. Tax qualified policy requires the person to take care policy who are expected to require at least 90 days and unable to perform two activities of daily living.In case of Non-tax qualified policy, the person who is unable to perform one or activity of daily living can purchase the policy. Another insurance product is individual disability. Every disability insurance policy is will vary company to company. But it is not such product which can be purchased easily. Of course, the cheapest disability insurance policy can be purchased by just throwing money. It is such product designed to assist the individual when the income of the person is decreased by the illness in the occupation.The disability insurance also known as DI and the policy assures the holder against the risk that will arise from the work place. So paid sick leave, short-term disability benefits, long term disability benefits etc are covered under the product of DI. REFERENCE: 1. http://www. healthinsurancefinders. com/ 2. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Long_term_care_insurance 3. http://www. about-disability-insurance. com/ 4. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Disability_insurance

Katherine Mansfield Essay

Her feelings of disjuncture were accentuated when she arrived in Britain in 1903 to attend Queen’s College. In many respects, Mansfield remained a lifelong outsider, a traveler between two seemingly similar yet profoundly different worlds. After briefly returning to New Zealand in 1906, she moved back to Europe in 1908, living and writing in England and parts of continental Europe. Until her premature death from tuberculosis at the age of 34, Mansfield remained in Europe, leading a Bohemian, unconventional way of life. The Domestic Picturesque Mansfield’s short story â€Å"Prelude† is set in New Zealand and dramatizes the disjunctures of colonial life through an account of the Burnell family’s move from Wellington to a country village. The story takes its title from Wordsworth’s seminal poem, â€Å"The Prelude,† the first version of which was completed in 1805, which casts the poet as a traveler and chronicles the â€Å"growth of a poet’s mind. †[4] Although the Burnell family moves a mere â€Å"six miles† from town, the move is not inconsequential; it enacts a break with their previous way of life and alerts the family members to the various discontinuities in their lives. Beneath the veneer of the Burnells’ harmonious domestic life are faint undercurrents of aggression and unhappiness. The haunting specter of a mysterious aloe plant and a slaughtered duck in their well-manicured yard suggests that the family’s â€Å"awfully nice† new home conceals moments of brutality and ignorance toward another way of life that was suppressed and denied. [5] As I will propose, these two incidents echo the aesthetic concept of the sublime, as they encapsulate a mysterious power that awes its beholders and cannot be fully contained within their picturesque home. Through her subtle, dream-like prose, Mansfield deploys traditional aesthetic conventions like the picturesque while simultaneously transfiguring, subverting, and reinventing them in a modernist context. The concept of the picturesque was first defined by its originator, William Gilpin, an 18th century artist and clergyman, as â€Å"that kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture. †[6] Thus, a scene or representation is beautiful when it echoes an already-established, artistic conception of beauty, revealing the self-reinforcing way in which art creates the standard of beauty for both art and life. Mansfield presents these picturesque moments in order to demystify them and reveal the suppression and violence they contain. In addition to â€Å"Prelude,† her stories â€Å"Garden Party† and â€Å"Bliss† dramatize the transformation and inversion of picturesque moments of bourgeois life and domestic harmony. While she seems to exhibit a certain attachment to these standard aesthetic forms, Mansfield subtly interrogates many of these conventions in a strikingly modernist way. Through her childhood in a colony, Mansfield also became attuned to the violence and inequalities of colonialism. As Angela Smith suggests, her early writings demonstrate a keen sensitivity towards a repressed history of brutality and duplicity. [7] In her 1912 short story â€Å"How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped,† she questions and overturns the perspective of the colonialist, whose vantage point historically trumps that of the native. The deliberate ambivalence of the word â€Å"kidnapping† dramatizes the conflict between the colonist’s perspective and Pearl’s joyful, eye-opening experiences during her abduction. In a similar way, empire dramatized for Mansfield the way that a picturesque, bourgeois household could suppress alternative perspectives. The Sublime In â€Å"Prelude,† the mysterious, sublime aloe plant disrupts the pleasant domesticity of the Burnell household. Their well-manicured yard with its tennis lawn, garden, and orchard also contains a wild, unseemly side—â€Å"this was the frightening side, and no garden at all. †[8] This â€Å"side† contains the aloe plant, which exerts a mysterious, enthralling power over its awed beholders. In its resemblance to the ocean, the aloe assumes the characteristics of the sublime: â€Å"the high grassy bank on which the aloe rested rose up like a wave, and the aloe seemed to ride upon it like a shop with the oars lifted. Bright moonlight hung upon the lifted oars like water, and on the green wave glittered the dew. †[9] For many writers and poets, the ocean was a manifestation of the sublime because of its unfathomable power and scale that awed and humbled its observers. The aloe’s strikingly physiological effect on its viewers recalls Edmund Burke’s sublime, which overpowers its observer and reinforces the limitations of human reason and control. In his famous treatise on the sublime, Burke writes: â€Å"greatness of dimension, vastness of extent or quantity† is a powerful cause of the sublime, as it embodies the violent and overpowering forces of nature. [10] In a similar vein, the child, Kezia Burnell’s first impression upon seeing the â€Å"fat swelling plant with its cruel leaves and fleshy stem† is one of awe and wonder. [11] In this case, the sublimity of the aloe plant disrupts and challenges the domestic picturesque as it defies mastery, categorization, and traditional notions of beauty. In its resistance to categorization and control, the sublime embodies the part of the ungovernable landscape that the Burnell family cannot domesticate and the picturesque cannot frame. As a result, in â€Å"Prelude,† the magnitude of the sublime interrupts and fractures the tranquil surface of the picturesque by exposing the unfathomable depths beneath it. The colonial backdrop of the Burnells’ yard also contributes to the mysterious, occult power of the aloe. This unruly part of their property hints toward a landscape that eludes domestication and serves as a constant reminder that the Burnell family is living in a land that is not quite theirs and cannot be fully tamed. [12] At the age of 19, Mansfield wrote that the New Zealand bush outside of the cities is â€Å"all so gigantic and tragic—and even in the bright sunlight it is so passionately secret. †[13] For Mansfield, the bush embodies the history of a people whose lives have been interrupted and displaced by European settlers. [14] After wars, brutal colonial practices, and European diseases had devastated the local Maori population, the bush became a haunting monument to their presence. As the Burnell family settles down to sleep on the first night in their new home, â€Å"far away in the bush there sounded a harsh rapid chatter: â€Å"Ha-ha-ha†¦ Ha-ha-ha. †[15] In her subtle way, Mansfield unveils the voices of those whose perspectives are excluded from this portrait of nocturnal domestic harmony. In a similar way, the aloe plant exudes an unfathomable history that is beyond the time and place of the Burnells. Even its age—implied by the fact that it flowers â€Å"once every hundred years†Ã¢â‚¬â€suggests that the aloe exists on a different scale than its human beholders. [16] In its ancient, superhuman scale, the aloe gestures towards the â€Å"gigantic,† indicating a subtle, but implicitly threatening power within, or in proximity of the home. The aloe is a kind of lacuna in the imperial landscape of New Zealand, whose power threatens the colonial household and its control over the landscape. [17] By disrupting and encroaching upon the ostensibly safe domestic sphere, the aloe also echoes the â€Å"unheimlich,† or uncanny, an aesthetic concept explored by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay, â€Å"The Uncanny. † The uncanny becomes, in part, an invasive force violating the sacred, domestic sphere and hearkens back to a previously repressed or hidden impulse: â€Å"The uncanny is something which ought to have remained hidden but has come to light. †[18] In â€Å"Prelude,† the aloe is initially depicted as a threatening force that â€Å"might have had claws instead of roots. The curving leaves seemed to be hiding something. †[19] Positioned within the safe space of their property, the aloe is a menacing, ungovernable force that seems to encroach upon it. The plant becomes part of the repressed history of the landscape—a history that is only apparent to Kezia, her mother Linda Burnell, and her grandmother Mrs. Fairfield, who are attuned to the forces below the surface of the picturesque exterior. Violent Underpinnings Beneath many of Mansfield’s picturesque domestic scenes are moments of violence and rupture. In â€Å"Garden Party,† for instance, a poor man falls to his death during the preparations for a much-anticipated social gathering of the wealthy Sheridan family, undermining the convivial spirit of the occasion. In â€Å"Prelude,† Pat, the handyman, slaughters a duck while the children watch with grotesque enthrallment as it waddles for a few steps after being decapitated. â€Å"The crowning wonder† of the dead duck walking hearkens back to Burke’s sublime, which is experienced in â€Å"Prelude† within the confines of the private residence. [20] The sublimity of this apparent defiance of the properties of death acts as a dramatic external force imposing on the observers’ intellect and reason in a profoundly Burkian way. But later that night, when the duck is placed in front of the patriarch, Stanley Burnell, â€Å"it did not look as if it had ever had a head. †[21] The duck’s picturesque dressing—â€Å"its legs tied together with a piece of string and a wreath of little balls of stuffing round it†Ã¢â‚¬â€conceals its violent death. [22] In a similar way, the â€Å"awfully nice† picturesque house is imposed upon the landscape, as if it had never been any other way. [23] Through reconfiguration and transformation, a new imperial order conceals the fact that an older order once lay beneath it. In both cases, the picturesque functions as a way of naturalizing the violent order of domination. As Pat’s golden earrings distract Kezia from her grief over the duck’s death, the duck’s pretty garnish conceals its â€Å"basted resignation. †[24] There is no such thing as a pure aesthetics, Mansfield seems to suggest, as each serene moment is implicated in some act of violence, brutality, or suppression. In â€Å"Prelude,† the good-natured Pat disrupts a pre-existing picturesque scene in which ducks â€Å"preen their dazzling breasts† amidst the pools and â€Å"bushes of yellow flowers and blackberries. †[25] Tellingly, the duck pond contains a bridge, a typical feature of the picturesque that reconciles or bridges the gap between different aspects of the scenery. In this way, the Burnell family’s cultivation of the land by planting and slaughtering ducks disrupts another underlying order. Their unquestioning appropriation of this pre-existing order mirrors the way colonial life disrupted and undermined the indigenous Maori life. Juxtaposing two picturesque scenes that interrupt and conflict with one another, Mansfield questions and unravels the conventional image of the picturesque. This interplay of various conflicting aesthetic orders constitutes part of Mansfield’s modernist style, in which aesthetic forms are ruptured, fragmented, and overturned. As the yard’s landscape bears traces of the Maori past, so the quiet harmony of the Burnells’ domesticity is underscored by deep, unspoken tensions and an animosity that hints at the uncanny. In fact, the only character who expresses any contentment is Stanley, who reflects, â€Å"By God, he was a perfect fool to feel as happy as this! †[26] Yet even he shudders upon entering his new driveway, as â€Å"a sort of panic overtook Burnell whenever he approached near home. †[27] Beneath this veneer of marital bliss and familial harmony, his wife Linda occasionally ignores her children and expresses hatred towards her husband and his aggressive sexuality: â€Å"there were times when he was frightening—really frightening. When she screamed at the top of her voice, ‘You are killing me. ’†[28] Meanwhile Stanley and Beryl, Linda’s sister, seem to have a flirtatious, indecent relationship: â€Å"Only last night when he was reading the paper her false self had stood beside him and leaned against his shoulder on purpose. Hadn’t she put her hand over his†¦ so that he should see how white her hand was beside his brown one. †[29] Dramatizing these dynamics, Mansfield suggests that a â€Å"happy† household outside of town is not as â€Å"dirt cheap† as Stanley boasts; it comes at the cost of servitude, sexual aggression, and a ravaged Maori landscape. [30] Through these layers, which Mansfield subtly strips off one at a time, she artfully exposes the way that an existing political and aesthetic order is not what it seems to be or how it has always been. Her short stories are fraught with their own tensions; while exposing the picturesque as false and absurd, she nevertheless draws on its conventional associations. Similarly, her subtle attempts to question colonial power are embedded in a seemingly idealized portrait of colonial life. Mansfield creates a seemingly beautiful or normal image, such as the happy family in â€Å"Prelude,† â€Å"Bliss,† or â€Å"Garden Party,† and then slowly challenges it through a subtle counter-narrative. In this way, her deployment of modernist techniques is less pronounced than that of James Joyce and her other modernist contemporaries. Just as she challenges aesthetic conventions, Mansfield unravels the reader’s ideas about her own stories by presenting a seemingly beautiful, transparent narrative that is haunted by tensions, lacunae, and opacity. Like the headless walking duck, these fictions of transparency and harmony quickly collapse upon closer inspection.

Ribosomes and Protein Assembly

Ribosomes and Protein Assembly There are two major types of cells: prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Ribosomes are cell organelles that consist of RNA and proteins. They are responsible for assembling the proteins of the cell. Depending on the protein production level of a particular cell, ribosomes may number in the millions. Key Takeaways: Ribosomes Ribosomes are cell organelles that function in protein synthesis. Ribosomes in plant and animals cells are larger than those found in bacteria.Ribosomes are composed of RNA and proteins that form ribosome subunits: a large ribosome subunit and small subunit. These two subunits are produced in the nucleus and unite in the cytoplasm during protein synthesis.Free ribosomes are found suspended in the cytosol, while bound ribosomes are attached to the endoplasmic reticulum.Mitochondria and chloroplasts are capable of producing their own ribosomes. Distinguishing Characteristics Structure of a Ribosome. Interaction of a ribosome with mRNA.   ttsz/iStock/Getty Images Plus Ribosomes are typically composed of two subunits: a large subunit and a small subunit. Eukarotic ribosomes (80S), such as those in plant cells and animal cells, are larger in size than prokaryotic ribosomes (70S), such as those in bacteria. Ribosomal subunits are synthesized in the nucleolus and cross over the nuclear membrane to the cytoplasm through nuclear pores. Both ribosomal subunits join together when the ribosome attaches to messenger RNA (mRNA) during protein synthesis. Ribosomes along with another RNA molecule, transfer RNA (tRNA), help to translate the protein-coding genes in mRNA into proteins. Ribosomes link amino acids together to form polypeptide chains, which are further modified before becoming functional proteins. Location in the Cell Ribosomes can be found attached to the endoplasmic reticulum or free within the cytoplasm.   ttsz/iStock/Getty Images Plus There are two places where ribosomes commonly exist within a eukaryotic cell: suspended in the cytosol and bound to the endoplasmic reticulum. These ribosomes are called free ribosomes and bound ribosomes respectively. In both cases, the ribosomes usually form aggregates called polysomes or polyribosomes during protein synthesis. Polyribosomes are clusters of ribosomes that attach to a mRNA molecule during protein synthesis. This allows for multiple copies of a protein to be synthesized at once from a single mRNA molecule. Free ribosomes usually make proteins that will function in the cytosol (fluid component of the cytoplasm), while bound ribosomes usually make proteins that are exported from the cell or included in the cells membranes. Interestingly enough, free ribosomes and bound ribosomes are interchangeable and the cell can change their numbers according to metabolic needs. Organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts in eukaryotic organisms have their own ribosomes. Ribosomes in these organelles are more like ribosomes found in bacteria with regard to size. The subunits comprising ribosomes in mitochondria and chloroplasts are smaller (30S to 50S) than the subunits of ribosomes found throughout the rest of the cell (40S to 60S). Ribosomes and Protein Assembly Ribosomes interact with mRNA to produce proteins in a process called translation.   ttsz/iStock/Getty Images Plus Protein synthesis occurs by the processes of transcription and translation. In transcription, the genetic code contained within DNA is transcribed into an RNA version of the code known as messenger RNA (mRNA). The mRNA transcript is transported from the nucleus to the cytoplasm where it undergoes translation. In translation, a growing amino acid chain, also called a polypeptide chain, is produced. Ribosomes help to translate mRNA by binding to the molecule and linking amino acids together to produce a polypeptide chain. The polypeptide chain eventually becomes a fully functioning protein. Proteins are very important biological polymers in our cells as they are involved in virtually all cell functions. There are some differences between protein synthesis in eukaryotes and prokaryotes. Since eukaryotic ribosomes are larger than those in prokaryotes, they require more protein components. Other differences include different initiator amino acid sequences to start protein synthesis as well as different elongation and termination factors. Eukaryotic Cell Structures This is a diagram of an animal cell. colematt/iStock/Getty Images Plus   Ribosomes are only one type of cell organelle. The following cell structures can also be found in a typical animal eukaryotic cell: Centrioles - help to organize the assembly of microtubules.​Chromosomes - house cellular DNA.​Cilia and Flagella - aid in cellular locomotion.​Cell Membrane - protects the integrity of the interior of the cell.​Endoplasmic Reticulum - synthesizes carbohydrates and lipids.​Golgi Complex - manufactures, stores and ships certain cellular products.​Lysosomes - digest cellular macromolecules.​Mitochondria - provide energy for the cell.​Nucleus - controls cell growth and reproduction.Peroxisomes - detoxify alcohol, form bile acid, and use oxygen to break down fats. Sources Berg, Jeremy M. Eukaryotic Protein Synthesis Differs from Prokaryotic Protein Synthesis Primarily in Translation Initiation. Biochemistry. 5th Edition., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2002, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22531/#_ncbi_dlg_citbx_NBK22531.Wilson, Daniel N, and Jamie H Doudna Cate. The structure and function of the eukaryotic ribosome. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology vol. 4,5 a011536. doi:10.1101/cshperspect.a011536

Motivation and Intrinsically Motivated Learners Essay Example

Motivation and Intrinsically Motivated Learners Essay Example Motivation and Intrinsically Motivated Learners Essay Motivation and Intrinsically Motivated Learners Essay Whether in a dramatic rags to riches story or in our day-to-day struggles with our work, weight or habits, motivation is the factor that makes one work until the desired results are obtained. Motivation keeps you in high spirits and prevents you from getting discouraged when you face minor setbacks on your path to success. During childhood, your parents constantly kept motivating you to aim and achieve your goals. However, once you reach adulthood, parents take a backseat and you are left to fend for yourself, so to speak, the required motivation too. Therefore, you need to find ways and means to self-motivate yourself. Types of motivation There are basically two types of self-motivation factors. They are: Extrinsic: Extrinsic motivation lies outside. The grades, the appreciation of others, the pay cheque, the trophies, the incentives, the applause; all of these become your extrinsic motivating factors. When they keep coming, you stay motivated; however, if due to some reason, you fail to get these, it could de-motivate you as well. Intrinsic: Intrinsic motivation is that which comes from within. It is the interest you have or the enjoyment you experience with the work you do on a day-to-day basis in the quest for achieving your goal. In other words, enjoying each task as it comes. That enjoyment keeps you motivated to go on and on. Research has found that intrinsic motivation is the one that is usually associated with high educational achievements by students. Studies showing the power of intrinsic motivation Mark Leppers research (1988) said that intrinsically motivated learners tend to employ strategies that demand more effort and that enable them to process information more deeply. They also prefer tasks that are more challenging and are willing to put in greater amounts of effort to achieve learning goals. Condry and Chambers (1978) found students with intrinsic orientation used more logical information, gathering and decision-making strategies, than students who were extrinsically oriented. There are many methods you can employ so as you stay motivated and reach you goals within the planned time period. The old saying out of sight, out of mind fits in aptly here too. The intensity of your desire to reach yo ur goals tends to fizzle out after some time. To prevent that, you need to reinforce your desire every day. Once you have decided what you want to achieve and in what time and charted out the ilestones to reach your goal, paste a picture that will remind you of the object of your desire (be it a slim body, coveted award, that beautiful bungalow, or the company you want to build) in a place you can view it every day. Starting the day by looking at it will keep you focused at the tasks that lead you to achieve your goals. Choose the people you associate with carefully when you are on a goal. When you surround yourself with positive people, you are always talking positive things. You get positive feedback (this does not mean false praise), which will help you work harder. Detect and stay away from negative and jealous people. Similar to the first point, reading or listening to some motivational piece every day before you start your work goes a long way in helping you stay motivated. There are many people who have done it and shown, and their achievements are not hidden from the world. There are many books where you can read about them. Reading such books will keep your enthusiasm alive while you are in your quest for success. Dont let challenges overwhelm you. Break up your goal into different segments, and tackle each segment at a time. This will prevent you from getting bored and totally giving up on your goals. Completing each segment is easier than completing the whole project. The sense of achievement you get in completing each segment will give you the motivation to start and finish your next segment. This way, before you know it, you have achieved your goal. Dont try to do too many tasks at once, turning halfway from one task and starting to do another. This way, you may not finish both the tasks and will feel discouraged to go on. Completion of tasks give you the sense of achievement that keeps you motivated. During your endeavor, you may find your confidence level waxing and waning. This is because you are not looking at what you have already achieved or your other achievements, you are constantly working towards what you dont have. Dont think about what you assume your contemporaries have achieved. Be proud of what you have achieved so far and just stay focused on your task and move ahead. As you progress on your path of success, track your little successes down, so that when you feel a little de-motivated along the way, you can go back to what you have tracked, and pat yourself for the achievement made so far and move on. Be aware of where you are going. Dont get lost along the way, straying away doing something else than the required task. This will lead you to procrastinate and move away from your goals. Let us assume you want to create a popular blog. However, in order to get some motivation, you start reading posts and end up doing only that the whole day instead of actually writing something. For this, make a list of activities you want to do. For example, if you want to be a famous writer, then you should think of all that you need to become one. Start writing contents on various topics, research on the internet, develop a strong base of proofs and studies, keep writing every day. Start with blogs first, publish it amongst friends, then slowly move on to others. Start writing small articles for local magazines, then newspapers, etc. Sometimes, lack of energy, small failures here and there are factors that cannot be avoided. However, dont let these deter you from your chosen goal. Well begun is half done, they say. Plan out each step of your goal well in advance and get started. Dreams will remain dreams until you take action. Self motivation will help you commit to your goals and make it a reality.

How Income Taxes Affect Economic Growth

How Income Taxes Affect Economic Growth One of the most commonly discussed issues in economics is how tax rates relate to economic growth. Advocates of tax cuts claim that a reduction in the tax rate will lead to increased economic growth and prosperity. Others claim that if we reduce taxes, almost all of the benefits will go to the rich, as those are the ones who pay the most taxes. What does economic theory suggest about the relationship between economic growth and taxation? Income Taxes and Extreme Cases In studying economic policies, it is always useful to study extreme cases. Extreme cases are situations such as What if we had a 100% income tax rate?, or What if we raised the minimum wage to $50.00 an hour?. While wholly unrealistic, they do give very stark examples of what direction key economic variables will move when we change a government policy. First, suppose that we lived in a society without taxation. Well worry about how the government finances its programs later on, but for now, well assume that they have enough money to finance all the programs we have today. If there are no taxes, then the government does not earn any income from taxation and citizens do not spend any time worrying about how to evade taxes. If someone has a wage of $10.00 an hour, then they get to keep that $10.00. If such a society were possible, we can see that people would be quite productive as any income they earn, they keep. Now consider the opposing case. Taxes are now set to be 100% of income. Any cent you earn goes to the government. It may seem that the government would earn a lot of money this way, but thats not likely to happen. If you dont get to keep anything out of what you earn, why would you go to work? Most people would rather spend their time doing something they enjoy. Simply, put, you wouldnt spend any time working for a company if you didnt get anything out of it. Society as a whole wouldnt be very productive if everybody spent a large portion of their time trying to evade taxes. The government would earn very little income from taxation, as very few people would go to work if they did not earn an income from it. While these are extreme cases, they do illustrate the effect of taxes and they are useful guides of what happens at other tax rates. A 99% tax rate is awfully like a 100% tax rate, and if you ignore collection costs, having a 2% tax rate is not much different from having no taxes at all. Go back to the person earning $10.00 an hour. Do you think hell spend more time at work or less if his take-home pay is $8.00 rather than $2.00? Its a pretty safe bet that at $2.00 hes going to spend less time at work and much more time trying to earn a living away from the prying eyes of the government. Taxes and Other Ways of Financing Government In the case where the government can finance spending outside of taxation, we see the following: Productivity declines as the tax rate increases, as people choose to work less. The higher the tax rate, the more time people spend evading taxes and the less time they spend on the more productive activity. So the lower the tax rate, the higher the value of all the goods and services produced.Government tax revenue does not necessarily increase as the tax rate increases. The government will earn more tax income at 1% rate than at 0%, but they will not earn more at 100% than they will at 10%, due to the disincentives high tax rates cause. Thus there is a peak tax rate where government revenue is highest. The relationship between income tax rates and government revenue can be graphed on something called a Laffer Curve. Of course, government programs are not self-financing. Well examine the effect of government spending in the next section. Even an ardent supporter of unrestricted capitalism realizes that there are necessary functions for the government to perform.  The Capitalism Site  lists three necessary things a government must provide: An Army: To protect against foreign invaders.A Police Force: To protect against domestic criminals.A Court System: To settle honest disputes that arise, and to punish criminals according to objectively predefined laws. Government Spending and the Economy Without the last two functions of government, it is easy to see that there would be little economic activity. Without a police force, it would be difficult to protect anything that youve earned. If people could just come by and take anything you owned, wed see three things happen: People would spend a lot more time trying to steal what they need and a lot less time trying to produce what they need, as stealing something is often easier than producing it yourself. This leads to a reduction in economic growth.People who have produced valuable goods would spend more time and money trying to protect what theyve earned. This is not a productive activity; society would be much better off if citizens would spend more time producing  productive goods.There would likely be a lot more murders, so the society would lose a lot of productive people prematurely. This cost and the costs people incur in trying to prevent their own murder greatly diminish economic activity. A police force which protects the basic human rights of citizens is absolutely necessary to ensure economic growth. A court system also promotes economic growth. A large portion of economic activity depends on the use of contracts. When you start a new job, normally you have a contract specifying what your rights and responsibilities are and how much you will be compensated for your labor. If theres no way to enforce a contract like that, then there is no way to ensure that you will end up getting compensated for your labor. Without that guarantee, many would decide it is not worth the risk to work for someone else. Most contracts involve an element of do X now, and get paid Y later or get paid Y now, do X later. If these contracts are not enforceable, the party who is obligated to do something in the future might decide then that he doesnt feel like it. Since both parties know this, they would decide not to enter into such an agreement and the economy as a whole would suffer. Having a working court system, military, and police force provides a large economic benefit to a society. However it is expensive for a government to provide such services, so theyll have to collect money from the citizens of the country to finance such programs. The financing for those systems comes through taxation. So we see that a society with some taxation that provides these services will have a much higher level of economic growth than a society with no taxation but no police force or the court system. So an increase in taxes  can  lead to larger economic growth if it is used to pay for one of these services. I use the term  can  because it is not necessarily the case that expanding the police force or hiring more judges will lead to greater economic activity. An area which already has many police officers and little crime will gain almost no benefit from hiring another officer. Society would be better off not hiring her and instead of lowering taxes. If your armed for ces are already large enough to deter any potential invaders, then any additional military spending drags down economic growth. Spending money on these three areas is  not necessarily  productive, but having at least a minimal amount of all three will lead to an economy with higher economic growth than none at all. In most Western democracies the majority of government spending goes towards social programs. While there are literally thousands of government-funded social programs the two largest are generally health care and education. These two do not fall into the category of infrastructure. While it is true that schools and hospitals must be built, it is possible for the private sector to profitably do so. Schools and healthcare facilities have been built by non-government groups all over the world, even in countries that already have extensive government programs in this area. Since it is possible to cheaply collect funds from those who use the facility and to ensure those who do use the facilities cannot easily evade paying for those services, these do not fall into the category of infrastructure. Can these programs still provide a net economic benefit? Being in good health will improve your productivity. A healthy workforce is a productive workforce, so spending on health care is a boon to the economy. However, there is no reason the private sector cannot adequately provide health care or why people will not invest in their own health. Its tough to earn an income when youre too sick to go to work, so individuals will be willing to pay for health insurance that will help them get better if they are ill. Since people would be willing to buy health coverage and the private sector can provide it, there is no market failure here. To purchase such health insurance you must be able to afford it. We could get into a situation where society would be better off if the poor got proper medical treatment, but they do not because they cannot afford it. Then there would be a benefit to giving  health care  coverage to the poor. But we can get the same benefit by simply giving the poor cash and letting them spend it on whatever they want, including health care. However, it could be that people, even when they have enough money, will buy an inadequate amount of health care. Many conservatives argue that this is the basis of many social programs; government officials do not believe that citizens buy enough of the right things, so government programs are necessary to ensure people get what they need but wont buy.   The same situation occurs with educational expenditures. People with more education tend to be on average more productive than people with less education. Society is better off by having a highly educated population. Since people with higher productivity tend to get paid more, if parents care about the future welfare of their children, they will have an incentive to seek an education for their children. There are no technical reasons why private sector companies cannot provide educational services, so those who can afford it will get an adequate amount of education. As before, there will be low-income families who cannot afford a proper education although they (and society as a whole) are better off by having well-educated children. It would seem that having programs which focus their energies on poorer families will have a greater economic benefit than those which are universal in nature. There seems to be a benefit to the economy (and society) by providing an education to a family with limited opportunities. There is little point in providing an education or health insurance to a wealthy family, as they will likely buy as much as they need. On the whole, if you believe that those who can afford it will buy an efficient amount of health care and education,  social programs  tend to be a deterrent to economic growth. Programs which focus on agents who are unable to afford these items have a greater benefit to the economy than those that are universal in nature. We saw in the previous section that higher taxes can lead to higher economic growth  if  those taxes are efficiently spent on three areas which protect the rights of citizens. A military and a police force ensure that people do not have to spend a great deal of time and money on personal security, allowing them to engage in more productive activities. A court system allows individuals and organizations to enter into contracts with one another which create opportunities for growth through collaboration motivated by rational  self-interest. Roads and Highways Cannot  Be Paid by Individuals There are other government programs, which bring a net benefit to the economy when fully paid for by taxes. There are certain goods that society finds desirable but individuals or corporations cannot supply. Consider the problem of roads and highways. Having an extensive system of roads on which people and goods can freely travel greatly adds to the prosperity of a nation. If a private citizen wanted to build a road for profit, they would run into two major difficulties: The cost of collection.  If the road was a useful one, people would gladly pay for its benefits. In order to collect fees for the use of the road, a toll would have to be set up at every exit and entry to the road; many  interstate highways  work this way. However, for most local roads the amount of money obtained through these tolls would be dwarfed by the extreme costs of setting up these tolls. Because of the collection problem, a lot of useful infrastructures would not be built, although there is a net benefit to its existence.Monitoring who uses the road.  Suppose you were able to set up a system of tolls at all the entrances and exits. It may still be possible for people to enter or leave the road at points other than the official exit and entrance. If people can evade paying the toll, they will. Governments provide a solution to this problem by constructing the roads and recouping the expenses through taxes such as the income tax and the gasoline tax. Other pieces of infrastructure such as the sewage and water system work on the same principle. The idea of government activity in these areas is not new; it goes at least as far back as  Adam Smith. In his 1776 masterpiece,  The Wealth of Nations  Smith wrote: The third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which, though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, and which it, therefore, cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals should erect or maintain. Higher taxes which lead to improvements in infrastructure  can  lead to higher economic growth. Once again, it depends on the usefulness of the infrastructure being created. A six-lane highway between two small towns in upstate New York is not likely to be worth the tax dollars spent on it. An improvement to the safety of the water supply in an impoverished area might be worth its weight in gold if it leads to reduced illness and suffering for the users of the system. Higher Taxes Are Used to Finance Social Programs A tax cut does not necessarily help or hurt an economy. You  must  consider what the revenue from those taxes is being spent on before you can determine the effect the cut will have on the economy. From this discussion, though, we see the following general trends: Cutting taxes and wasteful spending will help an economy because of the disincentive effect caused by taxation. Cutting taxes and useful programs may or may not benefit the economy.A certain amount of government spending is required in the military, the police, and the court system. A country which does not spend an adequate amount of money in these areas will have a depressed economy. Too much spending in these areas is wasteful.A country also needs infrastructure  to have a high level of economic activity. Much of this infrastructure cannot be adequately provided by the private sector, so governments must spend money in this area to ensure economic growth. However, too much spending or spending on the wrong infrastructure can be wasteful and slow  economic growth.If people are naturally inclined to spend their own money on education and healthcare, then taxation used for social programs is likely to  slow economic growth. Social spending which targets low-income families is m uch better for the economy than universal programs. If people are not inclined to spend towards their own education and healthcare, then there can be a benefit to supplying these goods, as society as a whole benefit from a healthy and educated workforce. The government ending all social programs is not a solution to these issues. There can be many benefits to these programs which are not measured in economic growth. A slowdown in economic growth is likely to occur as these programs are expanded, however, so that should always be kept in mind. If the program has enough other benefits, society as a whole may wish to have lower economic growth in return for more social programs. Source:   The Capitalism Site - FAQ - Government

Japanese history part 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Japanese history part 1 - Essay Example The land was still parceled out by the Shogun in order for them to be given a chance to rule in their own domains. Since rice was the crop that was grown by the farmers, it was perceived as a national crop which had to be controlled by the Daimyos. Later the crop was distributed by the Shogun; the rice that was harvested in that particular year meant that 20% of it was to be kept by Shogun (Duus 30). Another 20% of the rice was distributed to the Daimyos and the rest half belonged to the farmers. This policy made the farmers to experience hardships since the Shogun could not consider whether it was poor crop year or otherwise. Through the policy known as Sankin Kotai system, all the Daimyos were loyal to Shogun and still had to move to Edo which today known as Tokyo. Due to the movement and travelling long distance managers financial burden was experienced and this was a must since their wives and sons were held hostages in Edo. The policy was under Shogunate and required or demanded Daimyo at Tokugawa at Endo to leave his family in Edo. This meant that the Daimyo were not supposed to be with their family implying they held as hostages (McKelway 45). The wives of Daimyo and their sons were held hostages during the entire period when the Daimyo was away which imposed a lot of burdens and hardships to Daimyo since maintain two families was expensive and the travelling to and from Endo made life difficult to the Daimyo. These expanses were about 25% thus making life unbearable and too expensive. The Samurai warriors dominated the Japanese feudal system though their total population was 10% including their Daimyo. Samurai were respected by the entire lower class member where they were to bow as a sign of respect. If a farmer or artisan would not bow then the Samurai was legally allowed to chop the head of the individual. Samurai was only to talk to the

Gun on campus position paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Gun on campus position paper - Essay Example Campus is among the safest havens in American society. This year pro-gun organizations will again work to overturn campus bans on guns, including in Florida and Texas, where the debate on the issue has been persistent. AASCU with a backing of 370 colleges and universities in 41 states is engaged in a campaign to keep guns off campus. As articulated in its Public Policy Agenda, AASCU opposes state legislation that seeks to strip institutional and system authority to regulate concealed weapons on campus. Three divides exists in the United States. First, five states, which include Colorado, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah, and Wisconsin have laws allowing â€Å"concealed carry† at public colleges and universities. The rest consists of 21 states that do not permit concealed weapons on campuses and 24 leaving the colleges to decide on their gun regulations. The aftermath of Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 left 33 people dead (Guys and guns amok: domestic terrorism and school shootings from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the Virginia Tech massacre, 2008). A similar incidence at Northern Illinois University resulted in the death of six people. Many views were generated concerning campus gun policies in the state legislatures. Progressive increase in the number of states permitting concealed carry at public institutions has been recorded in the last decade (Smith, 2012). For instance, in 2011 and 2012, state lawmakers presented about 34 bills lobbying for concealed handguns on campuses. Mos t of those bills failed to pass. As different concerns arise from the need to permit concealed carry, many of the bills are back on the docket this year. According to the American Council of Education article, two Supreme Court cases have broadened the application of the Second Amendment, which is the right to bear arms. While most states incorporate this right in their constitutions, the decision in McDonald v. Chicago held

Software Company Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Software Company - Essay Example Strengths†¢ Good knowledge about different software development languages and platforms†¢ Owner is aware of cross cultural diversity and may adopt a new marketing and management strategy†¢ Ability to forecast increases the chances of survivability for the company during financial recessions†¢ High-quality product and cost-effective price†¢ Interested and passionate about software development†¢ Professional Web design and information architecture†¢ Good company locationWeakness  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ Lack of reputation in (country name) market†¢ Owner has to prove himself in (country name) market†¢ Because company is a sole proprietorship, may be slow response time for customers†¢ Limited production rate†¢ Limited growth rate†¢ Services are limited to medium-sized and large companies  Opportunity  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ Software development is a thriving industry†¢ Future strategic alliances†¢ Retainer contractsThreats  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ New comp etitors entering markets†¢ New technological changes†¢ Economic slowdown†¢ Political, legislative, and regulatory changesActions for addressing weaknesses: To increase the responsiveness of the company, the owner will always carry small tablet with him at all times.Future growth opportunities will be considered, such as becoming a registered company to increase product rate and growth.

Learning how to do sitting in volleyball Term Paper

Learning how to do sitting in volleyball - Term Paper Example With the number, percentage of disabled people rising from 10% of the total world population, sitting volleyball has gained much emphasis in the current decades of the 21st century (Katalin, 2008). Sitting volleyball is fundamentally aimed at athletes with ‘lower extremity impairment’ and supposed to play a significant role in building their personality features in a positive manner (HÃ ¤yrinen & Blomqvist, 2007). The skills most demanded in this kind of sports are the discrete skills and skills to ensure continuous practice of the game that would enrich motor learning of the participants. It is in this context that the mechanism of control mostly used in sitting volleyball is based on the notion of motor learning (Vute, 2005). Motor learning is commonly referred as the process of learning through experiences. With significance to its application in the training and coaching systems that are used in sitting volleyball, Vute (2009) argued that success of such processes, depend largely on the psycho-motor abilities of the players along with their motor behaviors. Vute (2009) also argued the different forms of disabilities that might hinder performances of players in sitting volleyball, which include locomotor disorders, amputee, cerebral palsy and poliomyelitis, which may give rise to varying results from motor learning attributes incorporated in the coaching programs in the game. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the application of motor learning in sitting volleyball had been studied with limited significance until date, wherein its wider applicability is observed among normal volleyball players. Katic, Grgantov & Jurko (2006) argued in this regard that motor skills in learning new winning techniques in volleyball depend largely on explosive strengths and the degree of agility among the players, especially when concentrating on female athletes. Emphasizing a similar concern, Milic, Grgantov and Katic (2012) asserted that the influence of motor learning

Gender and Race Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Gender and Race - Essay Example From this paper it is clear that  a queer man is a person who is trying to move beyond traditional notions of human sexuality. In most cases, as the author says, he or she is faced with a serious problem. This problem has to do with traditional notions of sexual identity. It is believed that heterosexual relationships are the norm while homosexuality should be viewed as deviant behavior. This means that homosexuality and homosexual identity are not the norm. However, such a view is contrary to the interests of sexual minorities who are interested in obtaining more rights and opportunities in the field of their sexual identity. Munoz examines the culture that he believes makes every effort to go beyond the traditional notions of identity formation. As an example, he analyses Magda Gomez's performances.  This essay discusses that Munoz uses this excellent opportunity to demonstrate the features of a culture that using different artistic means is trying to break the traditional fram ework in respect of human behavior and identity. On the other hand, Munoz has the opportunity to observe the presence of certain racial and gender stereotypes that continue to exist in the framework of the modern gay culture.  The person goes through a series of stages that ultimately have a decisive importance in the formation of his or her identity. Despite the value of Freud's psychoanalytic theory, it implies uniformity and rigid set of conditions that are necessary for the formation of personality.

Learning how to do sitting in volleyball Term Paper

Learning how to do sitting in volleyball - Term Paper Example With the number, percentage of disabled people rising from 10% of the total world population, sitting volleyball has gained much emphasis in the current decades of the 21st century (Katalin, 2008). Sitting volleyball is fundamentally aimed at athletes with ‘lower extremity impairment’ and supposed to play a significant role in building their personality features in a positive manner (HÃ ¤yrinen & Blomqvist, 2007). The skills most demanded in this kind of sports are the discrete skills and skills to ensure continuous practice of the game that would enrich motor learning of the participants. It is in this context that the mechanism of control mostly used in sitting volleyball is based on the notion of motor learning (Vute, 2005). Motor learning is commonly referred as the process of learning through experiences. With significance to its application in the training and coaching systems that are used in sitting volleyball, Vute (2009) argued that success of such processes, depend largely on the psycho-motor abilities of the players along with their motor behaviors. Vute (2009) also argued the different forms of disabilities that might hinder performances of players in sitting volleyball, which include locomotor disorders, amputee, cerebral palsy and poliomyelitis, which may give rise to varying results from motor learning attributes incorporated in the coaching programs in the game. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the application of motor learning in sitting volleyball had been studied with limited significance until date, wherein its wider applicability is observed among normal volleyball players. Katic, Grgantov & Jurko (2006) argued in this regard that motor skills in learning new winning techniques in volleyball depend largely on explosive strengths and the degree of agility among the players, especially when concentrating on female athletes. Emphasizing a similar concern, Milic, Grgantov and Katic (2012) asserted that the influence of motor learning

Summary of Equity Securities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Summary of Equity Securities - Essay Example Equity security investments that do not form the part of the trading securities are referred as available-for-sale (AFS) securities. This are reported at the fair value with gains and losses that are unrealized and are excluded from the earnings of the company. The investments made in the equity securities are recorded at the cost that takes into account securities transaction taxes, brokerage fees and other costs that are related to the procurement of securities (Subramani 12). The investors invest in the company shares hoping to receive higher return on their cash outflows. The demand of the investors in the financial markets has invariably changed with the passage of time. The companies motivate these investors by providing higher future expected returns on the assets (equities). The equity securities and its features differ in case of different types of companies. The types of companies and the features of stocks are explained henceforth (Fabozzi 6-7). Defensive companies have th e ability to withstand the economic downturn and the future earnings are not affected. Hence, the business and financial risk is low in this case. Examples of such defensive companies are grocery chains or public utilities, which aims at providing its customers with necessity products. The rate of return of defensive stocks does not decline when there is an overall market decline. According to the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), the relevant risk of an asset has covariance with the market portfolio of risky assets. Hence, stocks with negative or low systematic risk (beta value) are considered as defensive stocks according to the theory of CAPM; the stock returns are not affected by the significant changes in a bear market (Scott 102). The earnings and sales of cyclical companies are significantly influenced by business activities. Examples of these

Evaluating Communication Strategies Essay Example for Free

Evaluating Communication Strategies Essay You are working as a human service worker at a local United Way agency that serves several multicultural clients. In addition to the multicultural aspect, the agency also serves children, women, the elderly, and the homeless. Your manager has asked you to decide the best communication approach for each of these clients. About the Clients In the human services profession it is becoming increasingly more important to know and understand the different cultures and their beliefs. When it comes to communicating effectively with people from different cultures, it can be of great help if you first understand the social and psychological forces that drive their verbal and non-verbal behavior. It is important to encompass skills like warmth, authenticity, empathy, permissiveness, and acceptance. Effective Strategies and Techniques Empathy refers to the ability to understand someone else’s point of view and ideas. When a client feels understood, and they think you are more understanding to their point of view, they are more likely to accept and listen to new ideas. Being genuine is the expression of true feelings. Being genuine can be of big usefulness to people in the human services industry. It is important to also be objective. Seeing things from an outside point of view can help the human services worker to be subjective. Self-awareness is the quality of knowing oneself. This can help to convey one’s values, feeling’s, attitudes, and beliefs. Acceptance is an important tool because it shows the clients you believe their beliefs are worthy of consideration. Multi-Cultural Awareness When working in the human services industry it is important to have  awareness of other cultures and their practices. Clients will be more accepting of good or bad news if they feel like they are at least being understood, and being treated fairly. Culture shapes a person’s life from their beliefs and values, to their preferences and attitudes. Understanding a person’s cultural background and beliefs can help you to more effectively communicate the what, why’s, and how’s of thing’s work. It can help you to better communicate what can and cannot be done to help them in their given circumstances.

Conflict In Horn Of Africa Causes And Solutions History Essay

Conflict In Horn Of Africa Causes And Solutions History Essay The conflict in horn of Africa has been going on for centuries. Many people lost their lives due to the unsolved territorial problems between Ethiopia and Somalia and between Ethiopia and Eretria. As we know those countries engaged in a fierce war with each other for quit long period of time which prompted a lot of suffering among the populations of those countries. One might be asking what the cause of this conflict is and why it is so difficult to solve the disputes in a peaceful means and manner. I shall discuss and answer such questions concerning these issues in the following chapters, and I shall write about the root causes of the conflict both historically and politically. In this assignment I will concentrate merely on two countries and they are Somalia and Ethiopia. .Reason for the selection of the topic The main reason which I chose this topic is to illuminate the issue of horn of Africa (Somalia and Ethiopia), in terms of political and social problems caused by a bitter and prolonged war which, the international media, rarely cover its root causes and eventually Ill suggest some ideas which might be important if it is to solve the problem between the countries for good. Problem: What is the reason that the countries in horn of Africa (Ethiopia and Somalia) engaged a fierce war with each other? 2.0. A short background of Somalia Somalia locates in horn of Africa and many Somali people are nomads who move from place to another to get a green pasture for their animals. Somalis are homogeneous people who share same language, culture and religion Somalia. As it is the case in many African countries, Somalia is colonized by British in North Somalia and Italia in south, better known as British Somaliland, Italian Somaliland and French Somaliland (modern Djibouti). The colonizers not only divided Somalia but also annexed western part of Somalia territory (known as Ogaden) to Ethiopia while they gave south western part of Somalia territory (known as NFD) to Kenya. This divide and rule approach caused tremendous war and conflict among the neighboring nations for many years. The war in 1960,s and 1970,s between the two countries attracted the attention of the world Britain withdrew from British Somaliland in 1960 to allow its protectorate to join with Italian Somaliland and form the new state of Somalia. In 1969, a coup headed by Mohamed SIAD Barre led an authoritarian socialist rule that managed to impose a degree of stability in the country for a couple of decades. One of the main successes achieved by Siad Barre in his term was the orthography or writing of Somali language for the first in Somalia history. After the regimes collapse early in 1991, Somalia descended into chaos and factional fighting, and turmoil. In May 1991, northern clans declared an independent Republic of Somaliland that now includes the administrative regions of Awdal, Waqooyi Galbeed, Togdheer, Sanaag, and Sool. Although not recognized by the international, this region has maintained a quit stability in comparison with the south of the country and continues efforts to get recognition by establishing a constitutional democracy, including holding municipal, parliamentary, and presidential elections. 2.1. Short background of Ethiopia Ethiopia is in east-central Africa, bordered on the west by the Sudan, the east by Somalia and Djibouti, the south by Kenya, and the northeast by Eritrea. The Blue Nile rises in the northwest and flows in a great semicircle before entering the Sudan. Its chief reservoir, Lake Tana, lies in the northwest. Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia on Oct. 3, 1935, forcing Haile Selassie into exile in May 1936. Ethiopia was annexed to Eritrea, then an Italian colony, and to Italian Somaliland, forming Italian East Africa. In 1941, British troops routed the Italians, and Haile Selassie returned to Addis Ababa. In 1952, Eritrea was incorporated into Ethiopia. On Sept. 12, 1974, Haile Selassie was deposed, the constitution suspended, and Ethiopia proclaimed a Socialist state under a collective military dictatorship called the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), also known as the Derg. U.S. aid stopped, and Cuban and Soviet aid began. Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam became head of state in 1977. During this period Ethiopia fought against Eritreans secessionists as well as Somali army. A group called the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front seized the capital in 1991, and in May a separatist guerrilla organization, the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, took control of the province of Eritrea. The two groups agreed that Eritrea would have an internationally supervised referendum on independence. This election took place in April 1993 with almost unanimous support for Eritrean independence. Ethiopia accepted and recognized Eritrea as an independent state within a few days. The different nationalities in Ethiopia and how they can co-exist without a conflict was always the issue. The question of nationalities in Ethiopia has been the most contentious issue since Ethiopia took its current shape between the late 1880s and the early 1900s. The northern part of the present day Ethiopia, inhabited by the majority Abyssinians and the minority Kushitic Agews existed for over 2 Millennia in the name of the Abyssinian Kingdom with remarkable civilizations such as A xum, Lalibela and Gonder. However, Ethiopia as we know it today is the result of the internal expansion by King Minelik II of Shoa during the late 1880s until the early 1900s. The majority (70%) of the current Ethiopian population, which lives in the southern, western and eastern regions of the country became part of the present day Ethiopia only during this period of internal expansion. The majority Kushitic peoples such as Sidama, Oromo, Afar, Ogaden, etc and the Omotic peoples such as Wolayita, Gamo, Gofa, Dawuro, Konta, etc and the Nilotic peoples living in the border between Ethiopia and the Sudan all became part of the present day Ethiopia between the 1880s and early 1900s. Historical evidences suggest that the rivalry between the two colonial powers, Britain and France in the horn of Africa, during the Scramble (competition) for Africa, facilitated the rapid Abyssinian expansion towards the south, the east and the west during this period. The two colonial powers provided King Minelik II ample rifles and other war materials that other ethnic groups living in the interior lacked. Therefore the King was able to easily subdue these hitherto independent African Kushitic, Omotic and Nilotic states with in a relatively short period of time. Although these peoples were annexed over a century ago, due to lack of sustainable economic development and industrialization as well as limited urbanization, 85 % of them still live off subsistence agriculture in rural areas. The peoples of the South, the East and the West have therefore fully preserved their unique cultures, languages, histories and economic systems until today. Due to the failure of nation building arising primarily from failed economic development and successive dictatorial political systems, the country remained an amalgamation of nations and nationalities who constantly resented being part of a failed state. It is based on this reality that Ethiopians from the South, the East and the West often voice concerns about the issues of nations and nationalities in the past and current Ethiopian politics. This is often misunderstood by their Abyssinian compatriots who unwittingly or intentionally refuse to accept the diversity of the country. The new government (1991) declared the following declaration: Given the Ethiopias existing situation, the problem of nationalities can be resolved if each nationality is accorded full right to self-governance. This means that each nationality will have regional autonomy to decide on matters concerning its internal affairs. Within its environs, it has the right to determine the contents of its political, economic and social life, use its own language and elect its own leaders and administrators to head its internal organs (Leenco Latta 1999:201) Many Ethiopians argue that over mentioned declaration has never been implemented as it is and the current government continues to massacre all its opponents and civilians. 2.2. Historic enmity between Somalia and Ethiopia The historic enmity between the two countries dates back when Imam Ahmed Ibn Ibrahim better known as Ahmed Gurey/gragn who was ethnic Somali general who conquered Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 16th century. By the summer at 1532 the Imams well armed troops had overrun almost all Ethiopia,s eastern and southern provinces, among them Dawaro, Bali, Hadeya, Ganz, waj, Fatager and Ifat. (Richard Pankhurst 2001:87) The Ethiopians were forced to ask for help from the Portuguese, who landed at the port of Massawa on February 10, 1541 in the reign of the emperor Gelawdewos . This force was led by Christopher da Gama, and included 400 musketeers and a number of artisans and other non-combatants. In response, Ahmad received 900 well-armed men from the Ottomans in Yemen to assist him. While the Portuguese expedition were victorious in most of their engagements with Ahmads forces, da Gama allowed himself to be trapped by Ahmad somewhere north of the Tekezà © River, where he was killed along with all but 140 of his troops. The survivors and Galawedos were able to join forces, and drawing on the Portuguese supplies, they attacked Ahmad on February 21, 1543 in the Battle of Wayna Daga , where their 9,000 troops managed to defeat the 15,000 soldiers under Ahmad. Ahmad was killed by a Portuguese musketeer, who was mortally wounded in avenging da Gamas death. That episode was described in the book The Ethiopians News of the coming of the Portuguese, and of their powerful military equipment, spread rapidly through northern Ethiopia. Many soldiers who sided with the Imam now abandoned him, and flocked to Lebna Dengels widow empress Sebla Wangel. Dom Christovao and his companions were able to cross the greater part of Tegray, and joined up with the Empress, and with Bahr Nagash Yeshaq, the ruler of the coastal province, without encountering any opposition. They then proceeded westwards to Dambeya, north of Lake Tana, where the confronted the Imam, who in April 1542 for first time in his career encountered an enemy well equipped with cannons. Wounded in battle he was obliged to retreat, but managed to send an urgent appeal to zebid, and promised, in return for renewed Turkish aid, to become a vassal of the Ottoman emperor, Suleiman II. The Turks responded by immediately providing him with ten fields-guns and 700 well-armed soldiers. Thus greatly strengthened he succeeded in defeating the Portugu ese in August, when Dom Christovao was captured and beheaded. (Richard Pankhurst 2001:92) In Ethiopia the damage which [Ahmad] Gragn did has never been forgotten, wrote Paul B. Henze. Every Christian highlander still hears tales of Gragn in his childhood. Haile Selassie referred to him in his memoirs 2.3. Ogaden history The Ogaden is contentious territory between Ethiopia and Somalia and it is inhabited by ethnic Somalis. The occupied/annexed Somali territory inside Ethiopia lies between Oromia (Ethiopian region inhibited by Ethnic Oromo) to the West, Afar land to the Northwest, the Republic of Djibouti to the north, and Kenya to the south and The Somali Republic to the east. Somali agro-pastorals people with a single language, culture, and socio-economic structure inhabit the Ogaden territory. As a fact in many other African countries, the European imperial powers demarcated borders between Somalia and Ethiopia and the border between Somalia and Kenya without taking the political and social divisions into consideration. Imperial partition scattered the Somali people, for example, among five sovereign states. Fellow Somalis were now to be found in British Somaliland, Italian Somaliland, French Somaliland, Ethiopia and Kenya. (Alex Thomson, 2000: 13) The Ogaden Somali people were free and independent until colonial powers from overseas came to Africa and started arming the Abyssinian chiefs in the north of present day Ethiopia. The Abyssinians using the arms and expertise provided by the colonialists captured Harar in 1884 and started raiding Ogaden Somali villages in that area, killing civilians. The Ogaden Somalis resisted vehemently the encroachment of the Abyssinian expansionists and succeeded in halting their advance. Even though the Abyssinian military campaign to conquer the rest of the Somali territory failed, the colonial powers recognized its claim over the Ogaden Somaliland and signed treaties with them. In 1935, Italy invaded Abyssinia (Todays Ethiopia) and captured it along with the Ogaden and the territories of other nations in the area. Then the British defeated Italy in the Horn of Africa in 1941, and it administered the Ogaden for eight years until it transferred the first part of the Ogaden (Jigjiga area) to Ethiopia (the Abyssinians) for the first time. The next parts were transferred in 1954 and 1956. Thus, Ethiopia gained the control over the Ogaden without the knowledge or consent of the Ogaden Somalis. From that time onward, successive Ethiopian regimes mercilessly suppressed the Ogaden people and whenever the liberation movements seriously weakened and threatened Ethiopian colonialism, a foreign power directly intervened to re-establish its colonial rule over the Ogaden. Ethiopia since the beginning of this century and up to now has been characterized by one nation using the powers of state to subjugate and exploit all the other nations within that artificial system. For almost one century, the Abyssinians are abusing the concept of sovereignty and statehood to deprive the rights of other people living under the rule of the artificial state of Ethiopia. The historical reality of the process that resulted in its creation also continued to influence the Ethiopian governments interaction with and perception by these peoples. Ethiopian Governments, past and present, are perceived as alien by these people.(Leenco Lata, 1999: 41) It is historically clear that those suppressed nations inside Ethiopia among them Somalis (Ogaden) have always been struggling to be independent from Ethiopia one day. Ethiopia is a state founded on colonial doctrine and bases its rule on the use of force and emergency measures for oppressing the majority of the people and exploiting them. Ethiopia claims that African borders inherited from colonialism should be left intact and it inherited the Ogaden territory from the colonial powers. At the same time, Ethiopia is boasting to be the only African state that was never colonized. This means that Ethiopia has been a participating partner with the colonial powers that divided Africa among themselves but has never relinquished its colonial possessions. To maintain such a colonial state, the rulers had to build a massive military machine and embark on forcefully maintaining one of the most vicious authoritarian rules in the third world. The resultant resistance from the people and the inevitable taxing of material and moral resources of the oppressing elite became Ethiopia Achilles hill and brought about the downfall of its successive regimes. The relentless resistance of the colonized nations and the consequential resource drainage brought down both the rules of Haille Sellassie and the military Junta of Mengistu. The war between Somalia and Ethiopia over Ogaden region in 1964 on the one hand publicized the conflict and brought that cause to the regional and international arenas (Mohamed Abdi, 2007:60) 2.4. Ogaden war 1977 1980 In 1960 northern Somalia got independence from Britain and joined with southern Somalia to form the new state of Somalia. Successive Somali governments objected to the demarcation of the 1,000-mile border with Ethiopia, which was drawn by colonial powers. In 1964, the two countries fought a war over the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, which is home to mainly ethnic Somalis. In 1977 a big war again erupted between Ethiopia and Somalia over Ogaden Territory. By the beginning of the war, the Somali National Army (SNA) was only 35,000-men strong and was vastly outnumbered by the Ethiopian army. However, throughout the 1970s, Somalia was receiving large amounts of Soviet military aid. The SNA had three times the tank force of Ethiopia, as well as a larger air force. By the summer 0f 1977 the Somali victory on the ground was unquestionable, but at the same time the Ethiopian were making headway on the diplomatic front (Mohamed Abdi, 2007:89) 2.5. Soviet and Egyptian role In addition to previous Russian fund and arms support to Somalia, Egypt sent millions of dollars in arms to Somalia, established military training and sent experts to Somalia due to Egypts longstanding policy of securing the Nile River flow by destabilizing Ethiopia. Even as Somalia gained military strength, Ethiopia grew weaker. In September 1974, Emperor Haile Selassie had been overthrown by the Derg.The Derg military dictatorship that came to power in Ethiopia following the ousting of Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. (The military council), marking a period of turmoil. The Derg quickly fell into internal conflict to determine who would have primacy. Meanwhile, various anti-Derg as well as separatist movements began throughout the country. The regional balance of power now favored Somalia. One of the separatist groups seeking to take advantage of the chaos was the pro-Somalia Western Somali Liberation Front Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLf). The Western Somali Liberation Front was a separatist rebel group fighting in eastern Ethiopia to create an independent state. It played a major role in the Ogaden War of 1977-78 assisting the invading Somali Army. (WSLF) operating in the Somali-inhabited Ogaden area, which by late 1975 had struck numerous government outposts. From 1976 to 1977, Somalia supplied arms and other aid to the WSLF. 2.6. Ethiopia and soviet relationship Mengistu Haile Mariam was the most prominent officer of the Derg, the military junta that governed Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987, and the President of the Peoples Democratic Republic of Ethiopia from 1987 to 1991 as head of state on 11 February, 1977. However, the country remained in chaos as the military attempted to suppress its civilian opponents. Despite the violence, the Soviet Union, which had been closely observing developments, came to believe that Ethiopia was developing into a genuine Marxist-Leninist state and that it was in Soviet interests to aid the new regime. They thus secretly approached Mengistu with offers of aid that he accepted. Ethiopia closed the U.S. military mission and the communications center in April 1977. In June 1977, Mengistu accused Somalia of infiltrating SNA soldiers into the Somali area to fight alongside the WSLF. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, Barre insisted that no such thing was occurring, but that SNA volunteers were being allowed to help the WSLF. Somalia decided to make a decisive move and invaded the Ogaden in 13 July 1977. Jijiga is a city in eastern Ethiopia and the capital of the Somali Region of that country and locates in the Jijiga Zone approximately 80 km east of Harar and 60 km west of the border with the Republic of Somalia; this city has been inflicted heavy casualties on assaulting forces. The Ethiopian Air Force is the air arm of the Military of Ethiopia and is tasked with protecting the air space, providing support to the ground forces as well as assisting during national emergencies. Air superiority is the dominance in the air power of one sides air forces over the other sides during a military campaign. It is defined in the NATO Glossary as That degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another that permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea, and air forces at a given time The USSR, finding itself supplying both sides of a war, attempted to mediate a ceasefire. When their efforts failed, the Soviets abandoned Somalia. All aid to Siad Barres regime was halted, while arms shipments to Ethiopia were increased. Plus Soviet advisors flooded into the country along with around 15,000 from Cuba. The greatest single victory of the SNA-WSLF was a second assault on Jijiga in mid-September, in which the demoralized Ethiopian troops withdrew from the town. The local defenders were no match for the assaulting Somalis and the Ethiopian military was forced to withdraw past the strategic strongpoint of the Marda Pass, halfway between Jijiga and Harar. By September Ethiopia was forced to admit that it controlled only about 10% of the Ogaden and that the Ethiopian defenders had been pushed back into the non-Somali areas of Harerge, Bale, and Sidamo Province However, the Somalis were unable to press their advantage because of the high level of attrition among its tank battalions, constant Ethiopian air attacks on their supply lines, and the onset of the rainy season, which made the dirt roads unusable. During that time, the Ethiopian government managed to raise a giant militia force in its 100,000s and integrated it into the regular fighting force. Also, since the Ethiopian army was a client of U.S weapons, hasty acclimatization to the new Warsaw-pact bloc weaponry took place. From October 1977 until January 1978, the SNA-WSLF forces attempted to capture Harar, where 40,000 Ethiopians backed by Soviet-supplied artillery. Artillery is a military Combat Arms which employs any apparatus, machine, an assortment of tools or instruments, a system or systems used as weapons for the discharge of large projectiles in combat as a major contribution of fire power within the overall military capability of an armed force And Armored fighting vehicle The Ethiopians had regrouped with 1500 Soviet advisors and 11,000 Cuban soldiers. Though it reached the city outskirts by November, the Somali force was too exhausted to take the city and was eventually forced to retreat outside and await an Ethiopian counterattack. The expected Ethiopian-Cuban attack occurred in early February. However, it was accompanied by a second attack that the Somalis were not expecting. A column of Ethiopian and Cuban troops crossed northeast into the highlands between Jijiga and the border with Somalia, bypassing the SNA-WSLF force defending the Marda Pass. The attackers were thus able to assault from two directions in a pincer action, allowing the re-capturing of Jijiga in only two days while killing 3,000 defenders. The Somali defense collapsed and every major Ethiopian town was recaptured in the following weeks. Recognizing that his position was untenable, Siad Barre ordered the SNA to retreat back into Somalia on 9 March 1978. The last significant Somali unit left Ethiopia on 15 March 1978, marking the end of the war. 3.0. Somali state collapse and shift of balance of power in horn of Africa Already in 1980s many rebels supported by Ethiopian government were aiming to oust the former president of Somalia Mohamed said Barre. By the end of the 1980s, armed opposition to Barres government, fully operational in the northern regions, had spread to the central and southern regions. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis fled their homes, claiming refugee status in neighboring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. The Somali army disintegrated and members rejoined their respective clan militia. Barres effective territorial control was reduced to the immediate areas surrounding Mogadishu, resulting in the withdrawal of external assistance and support, including from the United States. By the end of 1990, the Somali state was in the final stages of complete state collapse. In the first week of December 1990, Barre declared a state of emergency as USC forces advanced toward Mogadishu. In January 1991, armed opposition factions removed Barre out of power, resulting in the complete collapse of th e central government. State collapse in Somalia had become a fact of life in the region. Ethiopia and Somalia both saw the end of dictatorial rule in 1991. But whereas Ethiopia had picked itself up and reconfigured its political landscape, Somalias clan based political dynamics had consistently worked against the re-establishment of a central government. Somalia was fragmented, but by the late 1990s some of its fragments, Notably Somaliland and Punt land in the northwest and northeast of the country respectively, had established their own administrations that fulfilled most of the functions of government As one can imagine the losses and repercussions of the civil war was almost irretrievable. The human cost was terrible. Thousands of civilians were killed and wounded, and at least half a million fled their homes seeking across the border in Ethiopia and in the republic of Djibouti. Thousands of refugees eventually found refuge in Canada, Britain, Scandinavia, Italy and the USA (Ioan Lewis, 2008:71). 3.1. The rise of warlords and the rise of ICU and Ethiopian intervention with economical support from USA With the collapse of the state in January 1991, Somalia became the first country in modern history to become stateless. Consequently, lawlessness became rampant in the country and criminal militias and gangs terrorized the population. A little over a year after the Somali state collapsed, violent confrontations developed between two competing factions in Mogadishu which finally led to one of them using food as a weapon against vulnerable population in southwestern region of the country in Baidoa. Farmers in the region were unable to cultivate their fields due to the fear caused by gangs and with warlords blocking food shipments to the region thousands of people began to slowly waste away. By the time the news media took note of the problem an awful famine was in full swing and tens of thousands of people were deliberately condemned to death through starvation. The United Nations which had a small contingent of peace-keepers was unable to clear bandits off the roads in order to delive r food aid to those who need it. Life conditions became so bad that the first President Bush was moved to act and ordered thousands of American troops to enter Somalia in order to open the roads so emergency food aid can urgently get through to the people. The troops were able to accomplish this task with relative ease and as a result tens of thousands of lives were saved. By contrast, rebuilding Somalias government from scratch was more difficult, even under the best of circumstances, but the US/UN force had ill-defined mandate and got bad advice regarding the causes of Somalias disintegration. American/UN agenda of rebuilding the government was incoherent and led to a failure in which 18 American soldiers were killed by the militias of one of the warlords of Mogadishu. By then a new American President, Clinton, was so shaken by this singular event that he decided to evacuate US forces from Somalia. Other nations who had contributed troops to the campaign and the UN followed and So malia was left to the warlords. The terror of Warlords became the order of the day since 1995 and several attempts to form a national government failed. A most promising effort in this regard was in the neighboring state of Djibouti where representatives of nearly all Somali civil society groups were invited in 1999 excluding warlords. The conference successfully led to the establishment of a Transitional National Government (TNG). However, the Ethiopian government which had supported many of the warlords, particularly Mr. Abdullahi Yusuf, and supplied them with weapons over the years was not happy about the prospect of a civic administration and worked against it from the start. The combination of Ethiopian sabotage and Somali leaders incompetence destroyed this precious chance. At one point the Ethiopian Foreign Minister told the TNGs Foreign Affair chief that Ethiopia will be able to support the Somali government on the condition that their ally, Mr. Yusuf, was appointed as prime minister. The Ethiopian minister was not pleased when he was told that the responsibility to appoint and confirm the PM rested with the president and parliament. In the meantime, Ethiopia used its diplomatic influence in Africa and elsewhere to call for yet another Somali reconciliation conference with the pretext of forming an inclusive government while it continued to supply the warlords with weapons. The proposal was accepted by the Intergovernmental Agency on development (IGAD) and there started another reconciliation process in which the mediators (Kenya and Ethiopia) openly favored and supported the warlords. After two years of negotiations the conference was brought to a conclusion without any reconciliation among Somalis. The Ethiopian government successfully attained its goals of wasting the remaining time of the TNGs tenure, enabled the warlords to appoint more than two-thirds of the members of parliament, and finally succeeded in having its clients selected as president and prime minister. American policy, during the long two years of negotiations in Kenya, was characterized by tacit support for warlords domination of the conference. In the main, the US representatives in Kenya watched the process from the sidelines and seemed they did not like the quality of the output in the form of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). For nearly two years after the formation of the TFG the American government remained disinterested in the affairs of the TFG. Instead it financed the formation of so called anti-terror alliance which consisted of the very warlords who have killed the population for over a decade. Americas objective in supporting the warlords was to find and arrest three people accused of being involved in the attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and who were presumed to be hiding somewhere in southern Somalia. The warlords contract with the CIA also included capturing or killing those who were considered radical Islamists. Americas warlord projec t backfired as the majority of Mogadishus population sided with the Muslim leaders and rooted the warlords out. American policy makers panicked with the formation of the Union of Islamic Courts (UICs) and the liberation of Mogadishu and surrounding region from the tyranny of the warlords. Shortly after UICs took over Mogadishu senior American policy makers began to speak about the internationally legitimate government of Somalia and actively used Americas diplomatic and other resources to bestow respect on what it previously considered week operation. Meanwhile, Ethiopia activated its propaganda machine and accused the courts of trying to establish a fundamentalist regime which it claimed will endanger its security despite the fact that Somalia did not have an army. It immediately gave a protection force for its client Somali government holed in the regional center of Baidoa. As the Courts spread their reach into most parts of southern Somalia, Ethiopia increased its troop presence in Baidoa into several thousand heavily armed units. The US government encouraged this invasion and used its diplomatic muscle to shield Ethiopia from international criticism. The united American-Ethiopian propaganda machine completed the demonization of the courts as a fundamentalist organization in cahoots with Al Qaida. This joint effort led to US government sponsoring a resolution at the Security Council, 1725, which mandated the deployment of an African Union force in Somalia aimed at protecting the TFG and stabilizing the country. Other countries in the Security Council insisted and prevailed that those countries who share