The devestating effects of logging in the rainforest Research Paper

The devestating effects of logging in the rainforest - Research Paper Example Furthermore, according to the statistics, â€Å"more than 80 percent of the world’s ancient forests† (Tscharntke, 2007) have been destroyed due to the logging. This paper is a brief attempt to explore various dimensions devastating effects of logging in rainforests on various stakeholders. Discussion â€Å"Rainforests once covered more than 14 percent† (Bermingham, Dick & Moritz, 2005) of the total land on this planet; however, â€Å"today every second, the world is losing one and half acre of rainforests† (Bermingham, Dick & Moritz, 2005) and thus, it is left with less than 6 percent of rainforests. Research indicates that if this process continues then we are likely to run out of rainforests in the coming three decades (Tscharntke, 2007). Currently, almost a quarter of the western dugs are derived from rainforest ingredients. Furthermore, interesting is the fact that scientists believe that they have only checked less than a percent of the total species of rainforests, which means that with deforestation of rainforests, the world is losing the cure of many diseases (Bermingham, Dick & Moritz, 2005). Logging is most common in the developing and underdeveloped countries of the world where there are large reserves of rainforest. Quite understandably, considering the income levels of these countries, money becomes an urgent, unavoidable, and imperative need. On an average, a hectare of trees in rainforest can earn the loggers more than 40000 US dollars, which is nearly equal to a fortune for them. To make matters worst, most of the governments in these countries are also involved in these practices since they have no other way to earn foreign exchange. However, these governments fail to realize that the logs that they sell to countries like America and other European countries, they later spend more than half of the foreign exchange or export earnings to buy important wood products as pulp, paper and others from these very countries (L aurance & Peres, 2006). It is important to note that timber industry claims to be following â€Å"safe† logging practices, which include selective logging and full forest harvesting. Interestingly, both of them are not at all safe. Selective logging may refer to the process of choosing specific mature trees to harvest. Once the harvesting process is complete, a sapling is planted so that a new tree can grow. However, this never results in favorable results. In most rainforests, average size of trees is very high which blocks sunlight and nutrients for other small trees (Jepma, 1995). Furthermore, research indicates that removing one tree from a bunch of trees in a rainforest may result in the death of 17 more trees. This is true because trees develop a system of interdependence with each other especially in rainforests (Tscharntke et al., 2009). Full forest harvesting which refers to the process of harvesting the entire trees with its branches and leaves is an even dangerous method of logging. The nutrients taken from the soil are usually in the leaves and branches of the trees and taking them away leaves the forest with lesser chances to grow again. Furthermore, with direct exposure of sunlight in the gaps and empty spaces dries the soil and the soil loses precious nitrogen (Tscharntke, 2007). In the absence of rainforest trees, the balance of carbon dioxide is being disturbed since there

Reading response Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Reading response - Article Example Poets like Yang Wanli (1127-1206) saw the natural environment as an art image brushed using paper and ink. This is the main reason for the utilization of visual images in the poems (Ortiz 257). The Cambridge illustrated history of China is attractive and historically significant. The author applies an integration of economic events and political history, through adequate analysis of; wide cultural changes, political institutions, demographics, religious history, and intellectual history. The author also adequately illustrates the western and the Chinese different perspectives on the past. The songwriters and thinkers were very anxious due to the inability of the Song government to realize adequate military dominance. The individuals who showed the threats of the northern neighbors did not adequately recommend the utilization of foreign styles. They strongly stressed Chinese cultural identity. Han Yu did not embrace Buddhism in china, because it was not Chinese or indigenous (151). Shie Jie explained that it was not appropriate for the Chinese to abandon their ancestors and the sacrifices provided to them. The controversial issues related to Chinese culture loyalty were ana lyzed by the song painters and also poets by the depictions of common stories of women of Chinese origin, forced to reside with the barbarians (Ebrey 150). Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting describes diverse painting approaches; Neolithic petroglyphs images, early silk paintings, paintings of the landscape through the twelfth century literati, and the present day hand strolls. Chinese paintings always illustrates the abilities of enthralling. The book effectively studies the Chinese painting history that covers approximately three thousand years. The book applies several images of Chinese paintings to show historical trends of paintings. The

Organizational Cultures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Organizational Cultures - Essay Example The significant aspect lies on the basis of these societal and industrial cultures bringing about an imperative basis for the organizational culture to exist in the most basic sense. One must understand that the organization cannot exist in seclusion and it has to remain in constant touch with the society in which it exists and the industry under which it finds competitors for its own selves and the strategic alliances, mergers and unities that form as a result of the same. (Deeks, 1993) Now the foundation lies merely on the manner under which the strategic and the tactical moves are adopted by this organization under study and how best it delivers towards the needs of the stakeholders, customers and employees working for the benefit of the organization itself, both from the short term perspective as well as an investment in the long run. Societal and industrial cultures change with the passage of time and since their change is somewhat of a certainty, one can easily predict the impact the same has on the organizational cultural regimes. This is very true in the case of the society being an extremist one, which does not encourage freedom of speech and expression. What this does is to limit the creative talent of the inhabitants of the society and thus shelve them in a corner for as long as it could. This marks the basis of the changing industrial culture which gives out a strong meaning of seclusion and quietness in the related realms. The message that goes out to the cultural basis of the organization under study is that it has to confine its meaning and value deliverance in accordance with the industry which up till now has listened to what the society had to speak for its own self. (Collins, 1998) The result is self-evident. There have been changes made in the wake of the organizational culture which has taken its basis from the industrial modifications coming directly from the society

Business in Emerging Markets Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Business in Emerging Markets - Essay Example The Multinational Companies (MNCs) that have experience in working in developed markets have started to drift their interests towards emerging markets such as Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This is because they have attained a saturation point in these wealthy developed economies and condensed their profit margins (Arnold and Quelch, 1998). These economies offer a lucrative ground for investments mainly due to their potential client base and a significant perspective for growth in the future. Emerging markets are usually characterized by a record of recession and economic depression and a stagnant economy. These economies exhibit a political scenario of unrest and turbulence, an aging population, low fertility rates and slow growth rates in the industrial sectors. However, these markets provide some of the peak economic growth indicators and give way for the MNCs to step in and expand their markets (Rahman and Bhattacharya, 2003). According to Rahman and Bhattacharya, there are typically three criteria that define a developing nation as an emerging market. The first one is that the nation identified as an emerging market should have a promising potential to return large profits and economic growth in the future. Second, the nation needs to be open to overseas investments and should have economic policies that promote foreign investments. Also, this exposure to foreign investments and the related policies should undergo continuous evolution so as to foster further investments and hence, greater economic growth.  

An Outline History of the World Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

An Outline History of the World - Essay Example It is possible that this pagi consisted of specific clans which later migrated and got divided into large families which were headed by the father, the paterfamilias. Each of these, in turn, had acquired possession of slaves of both genders, called famuli, in the beginning from the native land and later from other regions. The slaves, like women and children, were excluded from the participatory realm of governance in the polis. Individual rights were restricted to the adult male community, in a similar manner to the Greek system, on which the early Roman civilization has borrowed a lot. However, as Boris Piotrovsky points out, there is a different version to the legend of the founders of Rome, Romulus, and Remus, as â€Å"they were the sons of a slave woman and the hearth deity†. 1 Hence the history of ancient Rome, the rise of its Empire, glorious battles and its eventual fall is replete with references to slaves, predominantly from the perspective of the dominant community but interspersed with events that were the first instances of slave revolts which led to legendary epochs. Tacitus’ Annals presents a case of the city prefect Padanius Secundus’s murder by his slaves. The general sentiment regarding the case was to execute all the slaves who were employed in his house. There was a riot in which some members of the Senate were concerned about the cruelty involved in such a decision, taking into account the fact that the slaves included many women and children who were ostensibly innocent. However, the strong arguments made by Gaius Cassius in support of the decision to execute all the slaves won over this concern by some senators to â€Å"eliminate excessive cruelty†2. According to him, â€Å"if we must die, we will not be unavenged nor will the guilty survive†.  

Assessment methods, their merits and demerits Essay Example for Free

Assessment methods, their merits and demerits Essay Mainly, three types of assessments are in practice, initial, formative and summative assessment. Initial assessment can be a formal or informal process of identifying each learner’s strengths and help them to understand their areas of development, and the setting action plan accordingly. In formative assessment, teacher or assessor monitor students learning performance during the learning time against a set criteria. Students struggling areas are identified by feedback records and action plan for teachers to adopt teaching strategies and student to motivate for more study is adjusted. In Summative assessment, teacher evaluates the learner’s performance at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against a standard and other students’ performance. Summative assessments are high stakes or high point values and include: a)Written exams b)Quizzes c)Dissertations and projects d)Instead of comparing the advantages and disadvantages of these assessment types, I would prefer to discuss assessment instruments I used in these assessments and talk about their merits and demerits. Assessment typeStrengthLimitations 1.Written exams 1. Good tool to assess students’ knowledge without guessing. 2. It forces student to think and articulate that thinking. 3. Take less time to create test as compared to MCQ where assessor has to make more choices and student will choose one. 4. Teacher can provide better feedback on answers. 1. These tests needs language skills with and ESL students can’t demonstrate their capabilities. 2. These tests are time bounds and a slow writing student may not able to show his full knowledge. 3. Performance in these test based on memorizing facts instead of showing creativity. Assessment typeStrengthLimitations 2.Oral Exams1. This format decreases miscommunication and misunderstanding  while questioning or answering. 2. Student doesn’t need to follow any set lines for answer. 3. Give more chances to examiner to ask how student came to this answer. 4. More assessors can take part in this format. 5. More areas can be covered in less time. 1. Could be biased and less fair result oriented. 2. Requires a trained examiner to set such format which cost more. 3. Shy students can be distracted by other factors and c\they may not give their fullest. Assessment typeStrengthLimitations 3. Portfolios1. Assess and promote critical thinking. 2. Give opportunity learner to be self-directed, active, peer -supported and independent. 3. More than one assessor validates the performance. 4.Promotes creativity and problem solving 5. can be used to assess professional and personal development.1. Difficult to identify whether this is student’s own effort or somebody else’s. 2. Involve large amount of paper work which gives less time to focus on course. 3. Reliability issues. 4. Student can easily hide their weaknesses in this type of assessment. Assessment typeStrengthLimitations 4. Projects and dissertations1. All round ability testing i.e practical, analytical and interpretative skills. 2. Teaches students time management and if in group then teaches leadership and team work skills. 3. Increase motivation to complete task quickly and in time.1. Making of such format assessment is hectic and time consuming. 2. Validity and reliability of assessment is not high as compared to other formats. 3. If resources not available to learning, performance will be compromised. In my teaching career, I have gone through all above mentioned assessment tools and found written exams are widely used in many parts of world. People love written exams because they pile up work and when exam is near, they memorize it and ready for exam, no creative work during the term just collecting the notes. Trend is slightly changing in the world and other assessment tools are in practice, mostly university are assessing courses by  assignments, project and dissertations and these formats require continuous study and work that’s develop students other skills along with the completion of these tasks.

History Of The File Management System Information Technology Essay

History Of The File Management System Information Technology Essay Its the first management system introduced in 1960s. This was actually the proof of concept, in which the feasibility of storing large amount of data was shown. Its the management system in which all data is stored on a single large file as indicated from its name. It just contains data in which there are no relationships and no links between data and records. Its main drawback is searching a record or data takes a lot of time. Also these systems had a lot of drawbacks like for updating or to modify the data we have to do a lot of efforts as searching took time. Sorting the records was one of time taking process. Courtesy of http://en.kioskea.net/contents/bdd/bddtypes.php3Hierarchical Database System: 1970s 1990s In order to take account of the disadvantages in the previous file management system, this data base system was introduces a new concept of parent-child relationship between the flat files (like trees concept). The origin of data is called root have several branches coming out of it at different levels and the last level is called leaf. For example a parent can have many children but a child can only have a parent (1: M relation). This model uses pointers for navigation between stored data. For accessing the data we have to follow the hierarchy from top to bottom. Its main drawback is that if we need to modify or wants to add something in the data we have to alter all the structure thats again a very tedious task. Some times our data can best model if we have multiple parents/owners, so hierarchical Database system restricts ourselves in doing so. Network Database System: 1970s 1990s Courtesy of http://en.kioskea.net/contents/bdd/bddtypes.php3Some database can be best modeled by having multiple parents per child. So many-to-many relations were introduced in which a record can have multiple owners (M: M). Examples are DMS and IDMS. Its the more flexible than hierarchical database system as it reduces redundancy. Its drawbacks are:    ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Maintainability (for changing the relationships we may require physical reformation of data),  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Lack of strength. Any failure in the system leaves the dangling reference to the data which can somehow be recovered   As there is no limit on relationships so our system becomes more complex. Courtesy of http://en.kioskea.net/contents/bdd/bddtypes.php3 Relational Database System: 1980s present (second generation DBMS) In order to overcome the drawbacks in the previous systems, this Database system was introduced in which data is organized in tables as shown (each record shown in a row and attributes shown in the columns). Its structure, i.e., a table, is easily understood and the design and standardization process is well defined. So the relationships formed between the tables. Its the flexible, well-established system. Due to its sound theoretical base this database system is used from many years. Standard data access language through SQL( SQL is limited when accessing complex data) SQL considered the fourth generation language. This system dont support for complex data types. Courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_databaseObject-Oriented Database Management System: 1990s present (third generation database system) During 1990s unstructured data become more common so in order to handle these increasing complex data, object-oriented database system were introduced. Its a model in which information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming. Object databases should not be used when there would be few join tables and there are large volumes of data. Object-oriented data base management system gives high performance to manage objects and give ease to the complex connection of objects. This makes it so much reliable than any other data base management systems. This is one of the database management systems that supports the creation of data as objects. This includes some kind of support for classes of objects and the inheritance of class properties and methods by subclasses and their objects. Today, object oriented databases plays important role in enterprises develop systems and infrastructure to deal with more complex data requirements. OBJECT-RELATIONAL (1990s-present): Its the same as relational data base but using the concepts of object-oriented data bases that are classes, inheritance and concept of objects. It can be described as mid-way between relational data base and object-oriented data base. In this DBMS the approach is same as that of relational DBMS. There are some features of an object-relational data base management system that includes SQL that can be used to create both relational and objects. It also supports to different functions of object-oriented. DATA-WAREHOUSING (1980s-present): Its the collection of data which helps management in decision making. . Its basic concept is to provide architectural model for the flow of data. In large organizations there are multiple tasks assign to different groups of persons each having their records. The warehouse includes development of systems to extract data from their operating systems plus provides managers flexible access to the data. It focuses on modeling and analysis of data for decision makers. Excludes data not useful in decision support process. Data once recorded cannot be updated. Data warehouse requires two operations in data accessing i.e. initial loading of data, access of data. The benefit of the data ware house is that it gives same data regardless of the source that is easier to analyze information. Another benefit is that if the source system data is washed out the information in the data ware house which is under control can be stored safely. WEB-ENABLED (1990s-present): The dramatically effect on database environment is the ascendance of the internet thats why its called web-enabled data base system. Web-enabled data base is simply a data base which is web-based interface. The main purpose of web-enabled allows users to access data from central warehouse. The application of web-enabled data base is ticketing of an airline or buying computer direct from manufacturer through internet. All of this needs data base and easy connection if multiple users are through internet. Example of web-enabled data baseIn 2000s the most common change in data base environment is addition of XML defined web services. It is found everywhere for business purposes. Summary of Database Application: Courtesy of Modern Database Management 8th edition by JEFFREY A. HOFFER