Similarities and Differences on Matrimony Between the Religions of Term Paper

Similarities and Differences on Matrimony Between the Religions of Shinto and Catholicism - Term Paper Example Some even go to great lengths in order to have the most unique and one-of-a-kind wedding. This phenomenon is true for people from all walks of life, from east to west, and for all types of culture and nationality. However, for those who choose to walk on the solid and established path of religious weddings, the options are not as wide and varied. Couples have to follow the prescribed ceremonies laid down by the church. And Shinto and Catholic believers are no exception. This paper shall look into the traditional Shinto and Catholic wedding ceremonies, as well as their similarities and differences. More than the financial or social considerations, couples chose to begin their married life in a religious ceremony for good luck and good life. The belief that a union blessed by God, whoever that might be, will bring marital and financial bliss is the primary motivation for having a religious wedding. Catholic Matrimony Catholicism is centered on the Seven Sacraments, the pillars of the Catholic faith. The word sacrament is derived from the Latin word â€Å"Sacramentum† which literally means â€Å"a sign of the sacred.† The seven sacraments are Baptism, Reconciliation, Eucharist, Confirmation, Marriage, Anointing of the Sick and Holy Orders. With the sole exception of the sacrament of the Holy Orders which is for the Catholic Clergy, a Catholic is expected to receive all of the six sacraments in that same order. Those who do not marry are said to be called for the vocation of single-blessedness, with strong emphasis on chastity. Among Catholics, marriage is not just a union of two lovers, more importantly it is the union of two souls with Christ. For this reason, the church strictly implements rules for the couple to follow. One of which is the fulfillment of the prerequisite sacraments before marriage. Before two people shall be wed in a Catholic ceremony, both of them must first be baptized into the faith, be reconciled with the Lord through the process of confession with a priest, receive the Eucharist through the communion during mass, and then have their faith confirmed by the Bishop. Ideally, these preparatory acts are often performed years before the intended marriage. Children who are born into the faith are often baptized as infants, go through confession and receive the Eucharist in their early teens, and finally get confirmed in their mid-teen years. However, for those who have just found the faith, the baptism, confession, communion of the Eucharist and confirmation may be done just days before the wedding. The only requirement is that they are performed one after the other and in the same order. Being a catholic sacrament, matrimony within the faith is a religious more than a love affair. The wedding does not just happen on the big day itself. Before the couple will receive the holy sacrament of matrimony, the church does its part in helping the lovers think through their decision to get married. The couple is required to attend a Pre-Cana seminar, which is basically a catechesis designed to prepare the couple for their new life as a catholic couple and parents. Then before the wedding, most churches implement the mandatory call for engaged couples where the church announces to the congregation that the couple intends to get married and whoever should have knowledge of any impediments must inform the church thereof. This is embodied no less in the â€Å"Apostolorum Successores† promulgated by the Vatican which states that: Engaged couples  should receive appropriate personal preparation for marriage, so as to enable them to live their sacramental union fruitfully, and so as to avoid, as far as possible, situations where the marriage is null through lack of capacity or of true

Hypothesis Exercise on Green Logistics Chain and Issues (CO2 emissions Essay

Hypothesis Exercise on Green Logistics Chain and Issues (CO2 emissions from Freight Transport in the US) - Essay Example They can end into obliging an increased usage of maintainable skills or alternate energies or merely they can confine individual zones or kinds of cars from being employed. It can be anticipated that the execution of supportable conveyance rules forces the logistic business to use environmentally unsafe means of transportation and consequently apply green logistic tools. Additionally since there are less of fuel efficient vehicles through the car fleet in United States of America, the logistic firm opt for use cargo wagons that are the chief causes of greenhouse gas discharges. Again, the requirement to meet the client’s fulfillment is one of the vital roles of the logistics. Customer fulfillment can be realized by several means such as haste of transport, quality of the transported goods and chattels or the likelihood of returning properties owing to recoveries. It can be assumed that a greater need for the client for justifiable and Green Logistics helps the dissemination of Logistics plans. The growing awareness of environmental problems can result to stimulating task for the logistics firm. As transportation and the involved business are among the vilest contaminators an intensifying consciousness in such a way can lead to weight illogicality and disgrace contrary to it. So as not to create a bad appearance it is undeniably vital to adjust to those inclinations. It can be assumed that it is essential for the logistic firm to conform to a growing environmental awareness in an extensive fragment of the community through executing Green Logistics policies. Has the Green Logistics fully succeeded in reducing the rate of pollution United States of America? Green logistics has both failed and succeed in dressing the environmental issues. Oil is the organic base for vestige energies for example petrol; diesel and paraffin that are the most frequently used powers for

Review of a Construction Company

Review of a Construction Company Introduction Construction industry has developed rapidly in last few dictates. Today it becomes very essential for a country for its development. It spreads from the small to the large scale construction. The most obvious thing about the construction Industry is that its products are exceedingly expensive and have a long run tendency to increase in price faster than most other goods and services. This report is presented as a means of summarizing the three different size of construction business organization (Small, Medium, and Large). Also consideration is given on introductions of organizations, explaining company background and business control procedure. ICTAD grading of the organization Specialty Grade Financial Limit (Rs. Million) Building Construction Highways Bridge Water Supply Drainage Irrigation Land Drainage Dredging Reclamation Storm Water Drainage Groynes Revetments Reclamation C1 X ≠¥ 600 C2 600 ≠¥ X > 300 C3 300 ≠¥ X > 150 C4 150 ≠¥ X > 50 C5 50 ≠¥ X > 25 C6 25 ≠¥ X > 10 C7 10 ≠¥ X > 05 C8 05 ≠¥ X > 02 C9 02 ≠¥ X C10 01 ≠¥ X (ICTAD 2008) Large Size of construction State Engineering Corporation State Engineering Corporation is one of the superb consultancy services considering the Sri Lankan construction industry. It was established in 1962 with the name of â€Å"Engineering Corporation†. By the end of 1962 name was changed as â€Å"Sri Lanka State Corporation† and currently it is known as State Engineering Corporation. This is semi government establishment, because of that most of the state project handled by this organization and also it has good reputation and popularity due to its grateful services on construction project to the client in all over the country. The head office has located No: 130, W.A.D. Ramanayake Mawatha, Colombo-02. Service provider by State Engineering corporations The Organization consists of seven main sections. Since then, it’s capability in the latest techniques of design and construction has equipped in to handle any type of construction work. Under this field, they mainly carry out following activities. Design and construction of buildings Foundation and piling works Supply installation of water supply, drainage and sewerage systems Contracting foundations for towers and erecting towers Civil engineering construction including highways, bridges, water supply projects and irrigation projects Provision of construction management services Landscaping real estate development Construction Components Consultancy Human Resource Administration Finance Division Internal Audit Division Construction, Construction Components, Consultancy and Mechanical Electrical section under profit obtained category and other Human Resource Administration, Finance Division and Internal Audit Division under public benefit category. Machine and Equipment: There are machines and equipment’s in every site which belong to State Engineering corporations. State Engineering Corporation has the financial strength to purchase what they want in construction sites. And also most of the offices are fully equipped with photo copiers, fax machines, telephones, computers etc. Reputation: State engineering corporations has gained a sound reputation over Sri Lankan society and the government. Therefore currently the government contracts and private contracts are awarded. Facilities: State Engineering corporations has extensive in-house computer facilities, an excellent technical laboratory, a well-managed stock of survey and drawing instruments, geological and soil investigation laboratories and a large fleet of vehicles to provide construction services on major engineering projects in any part of the country. They have their own batching plant and Machineries to handle any kind of job. Construction group The Construction group has two divisions. They are contracts estimation and construction division. First division is mainly handling pricing BOQ and tendering process. Second division is performing after getting the contract. It carries out all types of heavy and light civil Engineering construction and building construction work for state and private sector. Consultancy group The Consultancy group is providing a complete Consultancy services such as Architecture, civil, structural, Electrical Mechanical and quantity surveying. Organization Structure Management Style The administration of State Engineering Corporation is directly under the ministry of housing construction. There are one GM, one assistance GM, and six DGM, under control of MD and well qualified staff. This is a decentralized organization. The objective of decentralization is not only to improve the efficiency of the group, but also to furnish a sense of belonging even to non-technical staff to strive towards the wellbeing of the group. The organization structure is given in annex 1. The organization mission is to continuously advance their position of leading civil Engineering construction in the country and to build a reputation for quality speed, efficiency and reliability. To achieve their mission they are having following polices. Maintain the budgeted turnover Execute all project within time Optimize return on capital Performance of the Organization Planning, Investigation, design and construction of industrial and engineering project in public sector and with the approval of minister in private sector. Functioning as consultant to state corporations and government department for pre mentioned works. Carrying out research with a view to improving existing construction materials and techniques and methods. Training of architect, engineering, quantity surveyors and others technical staffs necessary for carrying out the construction of industrial and engineering projects. Quantity Surveying Section State Engineering Corporation consists of a separate Quantity Surveying department through it providing Quantity Surveying services. The Quantity Surveying department is mutually functioning with other section. In QS section there are 35 members work together. The chief QS as head of the section senior QS project QS are working under head. The chief QS have the authority of making decision within that field. SEC renders professional services in a Quantity Surveyor’s capacity both in pre contract and post contract stages. The SEC is one of the leading consultancy organizations in the construction Industry. Most of the time projects are obtaining because of the goodwill of the organization past performance in handling of large number of projects. In accordance with the management point of view synergy concept creates the high efficiency. So the team work is the main concept of this firm. For the concept good relationship between subordinates are very important. SEC firm there is better relationship between subordinates. State Engineering Corporation is a semi government firm and a formal organization. So the decision is coming from top level managers. Because of its higher hierarchy level, the command tasks long time to reach the bottom level of management and works. This is not an avoidable problem in a formal organization, but if top level managers and low level managers have a communication as informal they can minimize this problem. (State Engineering Corporation of Sri Lanka) Medium Size of Construction Company RN Construction The RN Constructions (Pvt) Ltd was established in 1996 and within those eight years of time it has become one of the leading contractor organizations in the Sri Lankan construction industry today. It has completed more than 150 buildings (over 3,000,000 sq.ft.) within last eight years. RN Constructions has acquired excellence in building constructions such as, Factory buildings Ware house buildings Commercial buildings Housing projects Manufacturing plants and Processing Units RN has been in a powerful position of strength, i.e., it has got a group of professionally qualified, experienced in-house staff members are possessed of the high and medium class of specialized technical positions. Also it has been equipped with large no of construction equipment, machinery and tools.  (RN Construction) Organization Structure of RN Construction Management structure of RN construction denotes simply a matrix structure and it is flat in its nature where trend toward an average number of layers as well as responsibilities are with non-management employees. The next important feature is its narrow span of control. Today it is believed such an organization design like this is more suitable to facilitate the achievements of corporate objectives and implementation of strategies. The organization structure is given in annex 2. RN construction is a recently established organization which building up a good reputation for quality outputs in the industry when compared to the other organization at its own capacity. When considering the organizational structure, it is more applicable to the organization because there is a good relationship between higher level of management and the employees at the middle and lower levels of management. It helps to motivate the employees on their works and to develop the loyalty to the organization as well. That is distinctive advantage to the organization to carry out the missions while achieving their goals in the Sri Lankan construction industry. When looking at the organization one weakness that I have identified was that lot of pants and machineries were not properly managed among each work site. Hence RN Constructions owns large no of machineries, it is an advantage to the organization to earn higher profits during the construction. But I have noticed that most of the machineries were idling at the work site without generating any output to the construction process. This will be directly affects to reduce their extra profit earnings in the long run. Therefore it is better to have a proper resource management on this area to minimize the idling and to maximize the profits in every work output. Small size of construction Company Prasadhi construction Prasadhi construction is among the most respected construction companies in the country. This construction design, finance, built and operates infrastructure and facilities with highest quality, speed and care in a sustainable manner in the most economical way. Prasadhi Construction has shown ability to complete his job no matter how big, how complex or how remote the project, Prasadhi Construction have proven competency over last 25 years. Professional Staff As an emerging company we provide more than 50 jobs including civil electrical engineers, technical officers, supervisors,Masons. Carpenters, Plumbers, Electricians, Welders, Tillers, Aluminum Fabricators Wefacilitate training programs for our employees. They are being encouragedfor higher education while working in the company. Achievements Prasadhi Construction has been rewarded as the best construction company in southern province in the year of 2006. At present we have C5 grade and our strategic plans are made to achieve C1 in building construction in 2020. Financial Capability 20 Million Permanent O.D. facility Equipment We are not encouraged to maintain a maintenance department. So in most of the cases we prefer to hire vehicles from our suppliers. But some necessary equipment such as Tipper, road roller, Concrete Mixer, Concrete Vibrator, welding plants, generators, water motors are there. Organization Structure One of most important aspect of any organization is its management structure. Prsadhi’s management structure is considerably focused on to a modern hierarchical power delegation. The above-mentioned structure consists of 7 Board of Directors including the Chairman. Prasadhi management structure forms a matrix structure and it consists of a centralized and formal authority and wide span of control. Reference to the organizational structure – (Annex-03) Competition in the construction industry often results in low profit margins. Also called long-term assets, these are holdings the business intends to keep for at least a year and that typically yield interest or dividends. Included are stocks, bonds and savings accounts earmarked for special purposes. (Jinnett 1990) Conclusion This report is based on investigate three different size of construction business organization. The constructions Professional are the parties that responsible for constructing the project. In traditional management where the owner, design professional, and contractors are separate companies, the contractor would be termed a prime contractor. The prime contractor is responsible for delivering a complete project in accordance with the contract documents. The matrix organizational structure adopted by most kind of construction head office can be regarded as the most suitable structure, when considering the scope nature of projects carried out. But the gap between the top management and employees at middle and lower levels is one of the main drawbacks observed in the site organization structure. Lack of communication in between management levels had given rise to distrust and disbelief among employees. References ICTAD. (2008). [online]. Last accessed 04 March 2014 at: http://www.ictad.lk/sub_pgs/con_registration.html [online]. Last accessed 02 March 2014 at: http://www.rnconstructions.com/strength.htm [online]. Last accessed 25 Feb 2014 at: http://www.secsl.lk/ JINNETT, Linda Pinson and Jerry (1990). BUSINESS PLAN FOR THE. Management and Planning Series,

artificial intelligence Essay -- essays research papers

Artificial intelligence or Al for short capability of a computer to perform functions that is normally associated with human intelligence, such as reasoning, learning or self-improvement. Its concept requests a lot more than present information to the user; it requires that the machine is not only able to store and manipulate information but also to deal with its "meaning". AI is what we call understanding, a combination of computer science, physiology and philosophy. The element that the fields of Al have in common is the creation of machines that can "think". In order to classify machines as "thinking", it is necessary to define intelligence. To what level does intelligence consist of, for example, solving complex problems, or making generalizations and rel...

Adolescents Happiness and Academic Success Essay

Adolescents’ happiness and academic success; How it is affected by Divorce Abstract The challenges faced when a family is going through divorce can have a large impact on a teenagers overall ability to succeed in every day activities such as school or extracurricular activities. This may be caused by feelings of overwhelming stress and pressure to take full responsibility of other siblings or distraught parents, therefore taking time away from school work. On page 362 in the sixth edition of Psychology themes and Variations, it shows the results of Holmes’ and Rahe’s theory of life-changing events and their connection with stress levels. On a scale of one to one-hundred, divorce rated a seventy-three. We decided to study how students at Mountain Crest are academically affected by divorced parents. We found that a slightly higher number of students with married parents participated in healthy extracurricular activities and obtained better grades than students with divorced or separated parents. But the results were not as drastic as we expected. Introduction â€Å"Life changes are any noticeable alterations in one’s living circumstances that require readjustment. † (Pg 362, sixth edition of Psychology themes and variations). There are many different events that cause change in one’s life, a common alteration being divorce. We wanted to study how the performance of high school students is affected by family situations, such as divorced or married parents. We predicted that students who come from broken families (divorced and/or remarried parents, step-siblings, ect. ) have a lower level of peace and a higher level of contention in their home. We hypothesized that this would affect their scholastic accomplishments and they will have lower grade point averages and less involvement in healthy extracurricular activities such as school sports and clubs. Method We conducted our survey at Mountain Crest High School in Hyrum, Utah in April of 2008. First, we asked people if they would take a survey for us. In larger groups such as full classes, we asked for the teacher’s permission to conduct a survey in their class. We took our surveys in general/required classes such as computer technology and history creating a widespread mix of students. Before passing out the survey’s we instructed the sample to hold the survey in the air when they were completed, and ensured them that no one would know what they had marked. This was to attempt to eliminate distortions in self-report caused by peer pressure. When the sample group agreed to take our survey we passed them to the volunteers. When each person was finished with their survey we went around personally and collected their survey. We surveyed a total of sixty students, ranging in ages 15-18. We selected random classes with a variety of students of different races and gender. After collecting the surveys, we divided them according to their parents’ marital status. We then tallied the results of the students’ grades and involvement in extracurricular activities in each pile. Results ResultsExtracurricular activitiesGrade Point Average YesNo3. 0 or higher2. 9 or lower Married 28173213 Divorced/separated7887 †¢We found that 62. 2% of adolescents with married parents were involved in healthy extracurricular activities, while 53. 3% of students with divorced or separated parents were not. †¢71. 1% of students with married parents maintain a grade point average of 3. 0 or above. 46. 6% of students with divorced or separated parents obtained a lesser GPA of 2. 9 or lower. Discussion Our data didn’t turn out to be as drastically contrasting as we expected, in fact some of our statistics argued against our hypothesis. This has a lot to do with the place that the experiment was performed. Because we are in Utah, we experienced a large sample bias considering Utah (especially Cache Valley) is a highly religious community. If we conducted the same experiment at a different high school or somewhere outside of Utah, our results would be dissimilar. This being because Mountain Crest is a predominantly high achieving school in the area of academics, and also because most students at MC come from LDS families with strong belief in family unity. This resulted in a low number of students from broken families to survey, and a high number of students from functional families to survey. If we were to do this experiment again, we would survey an even number of students with divorced parents and students with married parents, so our results would be more accurate. We might also consider surveying students from other schools to get a broader variety of students. We believe that the reason kids from broken families aren’t as successful in academic activities is because they don’t have the same amount of support from home that other students with happily married parents have. We assume that the students may have more stress from heightened contention at home. Students coming from functional families are more capable of maintaining a higher GPA because of higher support levels from family members. They also have less stress because they don’t have the worry of dealing with issue of balancing separated parents and siblings.

Abraham Lincoln Bio Essay

Since his death in 1865, Abraham Lincoln has been immortalized as one of, if not the greatest hero in American history due to his role in ending the Civil War and abolishing slavery. He led our country through its’ darkest days and was able to prevent the south from successfully seceding and preserving the United States. Throughout history many have been called heroes, some deservedly and others not. Lincoln’s recognition as a hero is valid because of his many achievements and his leadership style. Lincoln was born in February 1809, in Kentucky. His early life was difficult, losing his mother to illness at 9 years old. The family was poor and Lincoln needed to work to help support them. As a result, he had very little formal education, but it was this hard work and humble beginnings that ignited the spark in Lincoln to learn. When he was a young man the family moved to Illinois and it was there that Lincoln learned the law and became interested in local politics. In 183 4 he was elected to the Illinois State Legislature. He taught himself the law, was admitted to the Bar in 1836 and also began a career as a successful lawyer. Between 1847 and 1849 he served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a result of the increased opposition to slavery, the Republican Party was born and Lincoln joined the party in 1856. It was his anti-slavery views and the continuing passing of laws to protect slavery that further sparked his interest in politics. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate but obtain national exposure from the race due to his unique communication and debating techniques. It was this exposure that found him as a candidate for President in 1860. He was elected the 16th President of the United States and the first President from the Republican Party. Because of his well-known views on slavery, the  secessionists began their plans to split from the Union prior to his taking office. The Civil Was began in April of 1861 with the attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Almost immediately in his role as President, Lincoln was faced with the most challenging situation of any President prior to him. His decision-making and communication skills, though unpopular at times, would be a vital part of his success over the next several years. Lincoln possessed strong social intelligence skills. He was sensitive to other people’s feelings and moods, and he was particularly adept at reading people. Lincoln had a great ability in understanding the motivations of others, and was skillful at getting others to cooperate with him. He knew to be pleasant and approachable while also being fierce when fighting for causes he believed in. One tool that Lincoln would use was storytelling. He would use stories from his past which would put people at ease while at the same time relaying his point in a clear way. Another method he would use was to ask questions to get his rivals to see things his way. His communication style and speeches were simple and logical. Abraham Lincoln’s most famous speech was the Gettysburg Address given in 1863 at the dedication of the National Cemetery after the battle at Gettysburg. The speech last just over two minutes and was an example of how Lincoln understood his audience. There had been much â€Å"Pomp and Circumstance† throughout the ceremony and many long speeches prior to his. The words he chose were short and to the point, but were full of inspiration and emotion. The speech focused on the principles of the founding fathers of our nation and the words from the Declaration of Independence that â€Å"all men are created equal† and that all men have the unalienable rights to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. One of the main things Lincoln wanted to accomplish with this speech, was to rally support for the 13th Amendment, which would abolish slavery and was in jeopardy of failing to pass in Congress. Lincoln again used his influence as a communicator to get the 13th Amendment passed. He would spend hours with his political rivals building relationships. It was important that he understood their perspectives on the issues and would give them the opportunity to express their views and needs. His approach was thoughtful and personal. This bill was met with much opposition and it took great skill and tenacity on Lincoln’s part to insure its passage. Many Presidents since Lincoln have also faced challenges when trying to pass  legislature, among them our current President Barack Obama. Whether or not you are a supporter of our current President aside, some similarities can be seen between the two. As was the case with Lincoln, Obama is known for his listening skills, and taking in ideas from all sides. He is a skilled orator and there is a strong sense of morality in his tone when speaking. There are many references to President Lincoln in Obama’s speeches which show the influence the former President has on him. Abraham Lincoln led our nation through one of its most turbulent times. He used his communication skills and understanding of people to obtain success. His ability to talk to people and understand what they stood for while moving them to see things his way led him to be regarded as one of our greatest Presidents. References A-E Networks. Abraham lincoln – biography [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/abraham-lincoln-9382540 Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided PBS. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/lincolns/player/ Hubbard, C. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.historynet.com/abraham-lincoln Communicate like Abraham Lincoln. Retrieved from:http://www.communitelligence.com/blps/article.cfm?weblog The Connections Between President Barack Obama and President Abraham Lincoln (n.d.)Retrieved from: http://www.reobama.com/ObamaLincoln.htm House passes the 13th Amendment. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/house-passes-the-13th-amendment

Roman Empire Essay Example

Roman Empire Essay Example Roman Empire Essay Roman Empire Essay Rome was founded as a kingdom by royal twin-brothers Romulus and Remus in 753 B. C; and the Roman tradition claimed that Rome had been under the control of seven kings from 753 to 509 B. C. According to tradition, Rome became a republic in 509 B. C. (not from the beginning, as it is asserted in the film). By the end of the Republic, Rome becomes the biggest city in the world. In 44 B. C. Augustus establishes the Empire. During the reign of Nero, the Great Fire of Rome took place, but that only gave a new growth to the city. The population of Rome topped out in the 2nd century (over 2 million people) and then began declining. At the end of that century, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a plague killed 2,000 people a day2. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (April 26, 121 – March 17, 180), was given this name when he was proclaimed the Emperor. At marriage he took name Markus Annius Verus; his original name was Marcus Annius Catilius Severus). His mother was from a rich family who were of consular rank; his father was of Spanish origins. His father’s maternal aunt was the Emperor’s wife. In 136, Hadrian had announced that his eventual successor would be a certain Lucius Ceionius Commodus, renamed L. Aelius Caesar. Marcus had already attracted the attention of Hadrian: he was subsequently engaged to Ceionia Fabia, Commodus daughter. The engagement, however, was annulled later after the death of Commodus, as Marcus was betrothed to Antoninus daughter. Therefore, on the death of Hadrians first adopted son L. Aelius Verus, Hadrian made it a precondition of making Antoninus his successor that Antoninus would adopt Marcus and Lucius Ceionius Commodus (Lucius Aelius son, ten years junior than Marcus, renamed Lucius Aurelius Verus), and arrange for them to be next in the line. This Antoninus did, adopting and designating them as his successors on February 25, 138, when Marcus was only seventeen years of age. He would become emperor at 40. In 145, Marcus married Annia Galeria Faustina, who was Antoninus daughter and his paternal cousin. He became Roman Emperor in 161. He was the last of the Five Good Emperors who governed the Roman Empire from 96 to 180, and is also considered one of the most important stoic philosophers. His tenure was marked by wars in Asia against a revitalized Parthian Empire, and with Germanic tribes along the limes Germanicus into Gaul and across the Danube3. Starting from the 160s, Germanic tribes and other nomadic peoples launched raids along the Northern border, particularly into Gaul and across the Danube. This new impetus westwards was probably due to attacks from tribes farther east. A first invasion of the Catti in the province of Germania Superior was repulsed in 162. Far more dangerous was the invasion of 166, when the Marcomanni of Bohemia, clients of the Roman Empire, crossed the Danube together with the Lombards and other German tribes. At the same time, the Iranian Sarmathians attacked between the Danube and the Theiss rivers. Due to the situation in East, a punitive expedition could be launched only in 167. Both Marcus and Verus led the troops. After the death of Verus in 169, Marcus led personally the struggle against the Germans for the great part of his remaining life. The Romans suffered at least two serious defeats by the Quadi and Marcomanni, who could cross the Alps, ravage Opitergium (Oderzo) and besiege Aquileia, the Roman main city of north-east Italy. At the same time the Costoboci, coming from the Carpathian area, invaded Moesia, Macedonia and Greece. After a long struggle, Marcus Aurelius managed to push back the invaders. Numerous Germans settled in frontier regions like Dacia, Pannonia, Germany and Italy itself. This was not a new thing, but this time the numbers of settlers required the creation of two new frontier provinces on the left shore of the Danube, Sarmatia and Marcomannia, including todays Bohemia and Hungary. The emperors plans were however prevented by a revolt in East, led by Avidius Cassius and prompted by false news of the death of Marcus after an illness. Of the eastern provinces, only Cappadocia and Bithynia did not side with the rebels. When it became clear that Marcus Aurelius was still alive, Cassius fortunes declined quickly and he was killed by his troops after only 100 days of power. Together with his wife Faustina, Marcus Aurelius toured the eastern provinces until 173. After a triumph in Rome, the following year he marched again to the Danubian frontier. After a decisive victory in 178, the plan to annex Bohemia seemed poised for success but was abandoned after Marcus Aurelius again fell ill in 180. Marcus Aurelius was able to secure the succession for Commodus, whom he had named Caesar in 166 and made co-emperor in 177, though the choice may have been unknowingly unfortunate. This decision, which put an end to the fortunate series of adoptive emperors, was highly criticized by later historians since Commodus was a political and military outsider, as well as an extreme egotist with neurotic problems. For this reason, Marcus Aurelius death is often held to have been the end of the Pax Romana. It is possible that he chose Commodus simply in the absence of other candidates, or as a result of the fear of succession issues and the possibility of civil war. Marcus Aurelius had 13 children: among them were Commodus and Lucilla. Marcus Aurelius Commudus Antonius, the son of Marcus Aureilus, ruled in 180-192. He was known as a good archer, he also had passion for gladiatorial combat. He even went to the arena, dressed as a gladiator. He always won since his opponents always submitted to the emperor. In 193 Commudus was strangled in his bath by the wrestler Narcissus, ordered by Commodus mistress/cousin Marcia, a day before Commodus planned to march into the Senate dressed as a gladiator to take office as consul. Commodus death marked the end of the Nervan-Antonian dynasty4. The opening battle most likely is intended to depict the last fight of the Macromanic wars. The film says they are fighting in Germania; however, the war was really against Germanic tribes in the area of the province of Pannonia. Of course Germania is more familiar to viewers and works better geographically with Maximus home in Spain. Nearing the end of the battle, Maximus raises the cry Roma Victor, meaning Rome, the Conqueror. (Greco-Roman culture often anthropomorphized aspects of civilization and nature in order to depict them as gods/goddesses to be recognized. ) The sequence of the battles unfurling is not historically accurate, as legionaries abandon formation in favor of a more Hollywood-friendly action scene in which they combat the Germanic Marcomannii in one-on-one battles, in which the barbarians would have excelled. In reality the Romans favored close-knit formations and would not break formation unless being ordered to retreat (hastily) or if the legionaries broke under the strain, in which case, unless able to reform or reach friendly lines, they would almost certainly be wiped out5. IV. Summary evaluation. This film, not being documental, does not directly follow the history of Roman Empire. Many of the facts were specially mutilated for the battle scenes by the script writer in order to make the film more spectacular. Though it refers to real events, it is still just an invention of the director who wishes to entertain public. Despite the historical inaccuracies, it is obvious, that all battle scenes, visual effects, the script, and the live action are simply brilliant. Beyond the doubt, the staginess of this film is on the highest level. Yet it is up to a viewer to decide what he needs more of the film – authenticity or staginess. Bibliography 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/73rd_Academy_Awards.

Eradication of Marijuana essays

Eradication of Marijuana essays The use of illicit drugs is subject to much public concern and contention. Of the most popular and widely used is marijuana. Derived of the plant Cannabis sativa, the growing acceptance of marijuanas medicinal purposes as well as the continuing government campaign against drugs has created a renewed awareness of marijuana. By definition, marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug; considered a soft drug, it consists of the dried leaves of the hemp plant; smoked or chewed for euphoric effect1. In the past thirteen years, the number of people fifteen or older, who have used the drug, has nearly doubled in Canada2. The debate over legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana in Canada has been on-going since 19723, but still there has been no verdict. There have been several debates between the political parties about legalizing marijuana, but at this time there are still significant concerns about the issue and the focus has been on the eradication or limiting the use of marijuana. While the social views and border policies will potentially serve to lower the criminal rates of marijuana use, it is the judicial system and government of Canada that will ultimately determine its role in Canadian society. It is this area which truly reflects the concerns about marijuanas effect on the nation as a whole, either as a harmful substance leading to greater crimes or as an accepted drug of choice, like alcohol. An examination of each of the three areas, including border policies, influences of lobby groups and foreign nations, current laws and social outlooks will determine that the push for eradication of marijuana use is the direction the Canadian government needs to go in order to limit or accept this drug into society. Canadas first object that has played a small role, but has had an impact in reducing the use of marijuana in Canada, is society. Lobby groups all over Canada have been educating people on the risks of mar...

Analysis On Financial Statements Economics Essay

Analysis On Financial Statements Economics Essay ATandT Inc. (NYSE: T) is a United States telecommunications corporation headquartered in Texas. Founded in 1983 as SBC Communications, it became AT&T Inc. upon purchase of AT&T Corporation in 2005. It is the leading U.S. provider of wire-line and wireless communications. AT&T delivers 3G wireless services through AT&T Mobility LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary. Other major segments include broadband internet, digital television, directory publishing, and business communications. In 2006, AT&T Inc. acquired BellSouth communications corporation, valued at $86 billion, absorbing its wire-line, wireless, and broadband interests. AT&T has stated specific future goals in 4G wireless, speech recognition, telehealth, and digital convergence. Recently, AT&T selected Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson as equipment providers for its LTE (4G) wireless deployments. AT&T has over 150 million customers and 280,000 employees. AT&T reported a $124 billion operating revenue and $23 billion net income as of Dec . 31, 2008. Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) is a United States telecommunications corporation headquartered in New York. It was founded in 1983 as Bell Atlantic. Bell Atlantic acquired GTE Corp. in 2000 and changed its name to Verizon Communications Inc. It is the second largest U.S. provider of wire-line and wireless voice services. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture, with Vodafone Group holding 45 percent ownership. Through its FiOS product, Verizon provides fiber-optic delivery of internet, television, and digital voice. Other major operations include IP networks, applications, and professional services for business. In 2008, Verizon stated its goal to surpass AT&T as the U.S. market leader in wireless voice and data communications in the United States. It is aggressively pushing fiber-optic deployments to combat industry-wide access-line losses. Verizon has over 91 million customers and 220,000 employees. Verizon reported a $97 billion operating revenue and $6.5 billion net income as of Dec. 31, 2008. Balance Sheet – unusual items AT&T:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  At Dec. 31, 2008, AT&T reported a current ratio of 0.53, and a long-term assets / long-term liabilities ratio of 1.92. This mismatching indicates that too much short-term financing has been used to acquire long-term assets. AT&T may have problems meeting its short-term obligations without additional refinancing. If additional financing cannot be obtained, a lack of asset liquidity poses a bankruptcy risk. At Dec. 31, 2008, AT&T reported goodwill at $71.8 billion, accounting for about 27% of their total reported assets. This stems from AT&T’s aggressive acquisition strategy. The high amount poses a great asset impairment risk. Only losses, not gains, can be recorded for goodwill. If the acquired entities lose value, as judged by an annual impairment test, the loss of recorded assets and corresponding write-offs against stockholders’ equity can be subst antial. Verizon:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  At Dec. 31, 2008, Verizon reported wireless licenses valued at $62.0 billion. These are indefinite-lived intangible asset which account for 30.6% of Verizon’s total assets. Wireless licenses are extremely important for a telecommunications company, but placing such large valuation on an intangible is a serious risk. Estimating fair value is very subjective, and any significant write-offs (as judged by a periodic impairment test) could threaten stockholders’ confidence. At Dec. 31, 2008, Verizon reported cash and cash equivalents of $9.8 billion. Having such a large amount of cash and cash equivalents (investments with a maturity of 90 days or less) is good for liquidity. However, a significant portion of this $9.8 billion could be converted to less-liquid, higher-interest investments that mature within a year, or even long-term investments. Having so much cash-on-hand is a problem because it is not being inve sted to return additional value to the business.

The current trends in hardware Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The current trends in hardware - Essay Example An OS also takes care of sharing of a system by multiple users and also handle the various authentication issues in multiple user systems. The sharing of resources also forms a vital functionality of the OS in a multi user system. Conventionally all these functionalities of the OS are implemented in the kernel. And the kernel is accessible to all the programs that run in the system. Almost all systems use a system language or command to program the kernel. This is not modifiable by the user and remains outside his purview. Even if it needs to be modified, the complexity and the vastness is overwhelming and it requires heavy debugging and testing to ensure that the modification is bug free and it does not affect the rest of the functionalities. Also the pageability of kernels is extremely limited and even if it can be pages it takes a lot of work to decide what can be paged. All these restrictions and drawbacks of adding and modifying functionalities are slowly being eliminated and on ly those functionalities that are absolutely necessary are being added to the kernel. Innovative ideas to efficiently retrieving and handling information are thus being ignored because of the complexities involved in implementing them. Though Lisp Machine and Smalltalk managed to bring this user modifiable functionality in an easy to use language they failed to separate the user from the program. This principle of separation between the user and the program is one of the core principles of an operating system by definition. Another design method is the multi server system which attempts to break down the kernel into logical parts with interfaces between them. This makes it easier for the user to add more functionality separately to the specified block. Also the debugging phase becomes much easier since the code is less. This OS design addresses the users need to customize but the barrier between the user and the system still remains. I.e. the user still needs certain privileges to m odify the system code. [9][2][16][17][3] [5][6][10] GNU Hurd This new development seeks to address all the drawbacks mentioned till now and also to provide the dynamic user modifiable functionality to the OS. This new design seeks to achieve this goal by restricting the area of the system code. It makes the system code pertain to only specified basic areas and leaves the rest of the process to be defined by the user. The user can also add the remaining parts and can share these parts with other users without being bothered about the viability and the authenticity of the code and system. Let us take a look at each of the mechanism that is part of the new design system called Hurd. In the Translator Mechanism, the Hurd is found to use the Mach ports as a method to communicate between the user and the server. Every mach port is different and it implements a certain set of protocols which identify the operations that it can do and also represents the object of the port. The protocols or rules of conduct specified by the Hurd are the input/output protocol, the file, the socket protocol, and the process protocol. Each file can have a translator associated with it. Here the server executes the translator program associated with each file instead of each file returning its own port. The translator is allotted a port to the actual contents of the file,

WRITE A PROFILE ON ONE OF YOUR FRIEND ON A SOCIAL NETWORK Essay

WRITE A PROFILE ON ONE OF YOUR FRIEND ON A SOCIAL NETWORK - Essay Example I think perhaps it is her lively character that serves the chief ground for her becoming a national motor club representative. Irina tells me this is not the kind of stuff she is into much but it motivates her to find out that majority of people appreciate the way she is. Of course, the club has still made her go through certain struggles due to human imperfections. Nevertheless, she acknowledges at heart this truth in nature and proceeds to earn more trust and respect so she can go about an increasingly remarkable performance every time. To this point, I could not help wondering how life would treat me if there is no such friend as Irina Ward with whom to share life’s topsy-turvy yet fulfilling quest for inner beauty. At 45, being a mother of four must have been a mundane task but Irina is the type who grows fondly in love with her kids and discovers in each of them a huge bundle of joy to keep her going at work and elsewhere. This is something which my friend would not tire or may not be kept from sharing to people within her circle of influence including myself. For Irina, the precious moments of living are not really worth too dear a cost to die for. In a child’s delightful eyewink or in plain yet eager hugs from her little ones, she knows and feels that love truly speaks to the soul to create the brightest of

Hatian Revolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Hatian Revolution - Essay Example The army had fought great wars against the armies of Britain, Spain and France, defeating them all in a span of thirteen years. Like the American independence war and the French revolution several decades earlier, Haiti revolution had its basis on the principal of self-rule and termination of cruelty from white masters. The American war of independence was against subjugation by colonialists, with proponents claiming that no country was superior to the other. The principal concern was lack of representation in governments while the Americans were paying taxes to their German and Britain colonists, a practice that amounted to subjugation of their rights. The French revolution on the other hand was an extension of the self-rule principle from nation state relations to the domestic spheres. Their basic tenet was that all citizens in a state were superior to the state itself and that no man was superior to the other. Whereas these two revolutions form the basis for freedom fights, they b oth centred on rights and freedoms of white men only and did not extent to non-whites or to women. Ironically, the Haiti revolution was against slavery and misrule by French and American among other white countries including Spain and Britain. With large farmlands and other economic activities in their colonies, white rulers mistreated local residents and black slaves whom they forced to work under very demeaning conditions (Sara 45). Once a free independent nation, the urge to avenge against the French colonialists drove the new government under the rule of Dessalines to order a total elimination of all white French settlers on the island under the pretext that they posed security risk to the young nation. This venture spared Americans and other foreigners, but led to extermination of thousands of white Frenchmen, women and children. The extend of Dessalines’s ire towards former French settlers surfaced in his â€Å"liberty or death† proclamation where he described wh ite Frenchmen as insatiate blood suckers who had fattened themselves with the hard toils of Haitians. Dessalines destroyed a considerable size of the island’s population in unleashing revenge on the remaining white French settlers. Population estimates indicate that a third to half of the population had died or fled the island over the thirteen years of war while over a hundred thousand were permanently disabled (Sara 33). The revolution period also saw sugarcane plantations, mills, and irrigation works destroyed, burned out or abandoned. The large standing army also kept productive men out of the fields. Dessalines declaration that no Haitian soldier could work on the fields left the fields short of close to forty thousand productive workers. Further, after thirteen years of fighting, the habit of hard work had diminished among the Haitian population. Women who had previously worked as slaves on the field continued to fill that role after independence, contributing essential ly the bulk of Haiti’s productivity, since they constituted over two thirds of the population (Leyburn 77). They however too abandoned this form of manual labour, taking up small scale trading instead. Without devoted and willing labourers on the fields, Haiti’s productivity took a serious dip down the drain. It is estimated that between 1789 and 1801 sugarcane production declined by 80%, while coffee production declined to 30% compared to production before the revolution begun. With this kind of decline in major economic production sectors, the viability of the nation and its economic future were in great peril. Realising the need to improve the island’

German unification Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

German unification - Essay Example The Schleswig-Holstein War humbled Denmark, the Austro-Prussian War ended in the defeat of Austria-Hungary and the Franco-Prussian War completed German unification by the defeat of France. (Mahajan, 1999: 3) Thus, Germany turned out to be supreme and one of the most powerful sovereign states of the region. There was no single event that determined the whole process of unification; rather, many factors worked in combination and contributed to the completion of uplift progression of the German nation. All the strata of society including political leadership, intellectuals, philosophers, poets, writers, economists, military personnel, students, farmers and civil society added their share in the whole development. Otto Von Bismarck, the iron-Chancellor of Prussia, played the most formidable role in this regard.1 His skill as a diplomat was unrivalled during his reign as chancellor of Prussia and Germany. The mastery he showed in foreign policy was such that he was able to outwit all othe r powers and make their leaders look pathetic. (Graham, 2007:1) The Vienna settlement of 1815 conceived the idea of German Confederation of thirty-nine states rather than the unification of the country.2 The decisions taken in the Vienna settlement were extremely unsatisfactory one for the German people especially the moderates and nationalists, who were expecting concrete course of action which could lead them towards the way to unification. But instead of unification, only the positions of different German and non-German princes were restored under Confederation as they had been before the intervention of Napoleon Bonaparte.3 The main objective behind German Confederation was to guarantee external and internal peace of Germany and the independence of the member states. The thirty-nine states agreed not to declare war on one another, and had the obligation of helping one another in the hour of need. (Leads,

Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Assignment Example This is because referrals, detentions, and disciplinary measures are not effective on the side of such students. ESOL students tend to experience difficulties in learning, which is not the case with the native speakers of the language. From my experience, these students fail regularly in their classes. I, therefore, concluded that ESOL students require more than normal lectures can offer so as to help them in their understanding (Stoynoff & Chapelle, 2005). The idea that an individual could require special education is mostly derived from the medical history of the student. However, it is worth noting that students with special needs can perform as their normal peers with little assistance (Special Education and Student Services, 2012). Special education programs are divided into several categories such as the visual students and the auditory students. As the students’ ability differ, the approach to different subjects with regard to special students also varies. The first les son to consider is measurement. Measurement is about the idea of a number that is used to show the size or the amount of something (Measurement Index, 2013). The major objectives of determining measurement include ensuring that a precise measurement is recorded as it could be used in other calculations. The procedures of determining measurements are diverse and unique to the unit whose measurements are being determined. There are many things that can be measured, but the common ones are length, area, time, volume and mass. Specific instruments are used to measure these elements. For instance, with respect to length, an instrument such as a ruler can be used to determine short lengths. To engage the students, in this subject, I would begin by asking suggestive questions such as what a ruler is and what it is used for. The next step could be explaining the meaning of words such as mass and volume to the students. While explaining volume, to make it easy for the students to understand, it would be appropriate to use the model approach. This is where a small version of a large object is used to show how measurements are taken, and how to use them in calculating the subsequent volume. This would also serve as a perfect way to introduce the lesson to the students. Besides the theory part, for better understanding bearing in mind that these are special students, practice is essential to their understanding. Therefore, the teacher should be involved in the initial stage of the practice as the guided practice to show individual students how to use various instruments in acquiring accurate measurements. As a teacher, after I am satisfied that the students have understood the concept, I leave them to discuss with their peers on the subjects then answer any possible questions the following day. It is of extreme importance to realize that there exist different types of special students. With regard to the visual students, the teacher should concentrate much on visualizing the subject. This incorporates using labeled diagrams in the classroom and multimedia such as power point animations and video clips showing the procedures of obtaining the measurements. With respect to auditory students, it would be important to use the practical part of the lesson when showing the student how to acquire the measurement. Since

Recycled Toothbrushes Make Sense Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Recycled Toothbrushes Make Sense - Essay Example The great advantage to Recycline is that they get raw materials for production at free cost in partnering with Stonyfield Farm. It is cost-effective and time saving as it eases the efforts made on collecting raw-materials through this partnership deal. An array of techniques can be applied for the sales promotion of these recycled products. In the current business scenario people are exceedingly influenced or affected by the power of advertisement. The celebrities appear in advertisements have an intangible influence on people as they attract public to the respective products. So deploying contemporary celebrities will certainly increase the sales. Announcing special offers on product sale is an emerging trend these days which Hudson can also implement as one of his marketing tactics. In addition to product offers, giving price reduction during special events can also promote sales at a considerable range. It is very difficult for a firm to withstand in the modern business world without being highly competitive. As the business trends change, business policies should also be changed. For this, entrepreneur must be up to date with appropriate strategies to meet the challenges of market fluctuations. Since consumer based marketing is the core of current businesses, the company can launch regional outlets in order to be available the products as and when required by consumers. House door delivery is also a suggestive method. The company can also make use of Information Technology to provide services to customers and collect feedbacks from them. At the same time company should maintain quality of the

Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Assignment Example This is because referrals, detentions, and disciplinary measures are not effective on the side of such students. ESOL students tend to experience difficulties in learning, which is not the case with the native speakers of the language. From my experience, these students fail regularly in their classes. I, therefore, concluded that ESOL students require more than normal lectures can offer so as to help them in their understanding (Stoynoff & Chapelle, 2005). The idea that an individual could require special education is mostly derived from the medical history of the student. However, it is worth noting that students with special needs can perform as their normal peers with little assistance (Special Education and Student Services, 2012). Special education programs are divided into several categories such as the visual students and the auditory students. As the students’ ability differ, the approach to different subjects with regard to special students also varies. The first les son to consider is measurement. Measurement is about the idea of a number that is used to show the size or the amount of something (Measurement Index, 2013). The major objectives of determining measurement include ensuring that a precise measurement is recorded as it could be used in other calculations. The procedures of determining measurements are diverse and unique to the unit whose measurements are being determined. There are many things that can be measured, but the common ones are length, area, time, volume and mass. Specific instruments are used to measure these elements. For instance, with respect to length, an instrument such as a ruler can be used to determine short lengths. To engage the students, in this subject, I would begin by asking suggestive questions such as what a ruler is and what it is used for. The next step could be explaining the meaning of words such as mass and volume to the students. While explaining volume, to make it easy for the students to understand, it would be appropriate to use the model approach. This is where a small version of a large object is used to show how measurements are taken, and how to use them in calculating the subsequent volume. This would also serve as a perfect way to introduce the lesson to the students. Besides the theory part, for better understanding bearing in mind that these are special students, practice is essential to their understanding. Therefore, the teacher should be involved in the initial stage of the practice as the guided practice to show individual students how to use various instruments in acquiring accurate measurements. As a teacher, after I am satisfied that the students have understood the concept, I leave them to discuss with their peers on the subjects then answer any possible questions the following day. It is of extreme importance to realize that there exist different types of special students. With regard to the visual students, the teacher should concentrate much on visualizing the subject. This incorporates using labeled diagrams in the classroom and multimedia such as power point animations and video clips showing the procedures of obtaining the measurements. With respect to auditory students, it would be important to use the practical part of the lesson when showing the student how to acquire the measurement. Since

Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence Essay Example for Free

Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence Essay Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence are two important and popular persuasive documents in American history. Both documents were written in 1776 about the same subject (Famighetti 512; Independence Hall Association 1999). However, as one reads the different documents one would observe the difference in tone and styles adopted by each author to express their ideas. As persuasive works both presents the current problems that they were facing, both give reasons as to why the problem was occurring and both presents a solution to the problem. The subject of both documents was Great Britain’s relationship with the American colonies. Both documents were written at a time when Great Britain was pressuring the American colonies to pay unreasonable and unfair taxes to her (Perry 431). Paine had felt that Great Britain was abusing its power while Jefferson argued that Great Britain was a tyrant. Then each author proceeded to enumerate their own reasons why they think it was so. In view of the current circumstances, both authors had felt that the colonies should free itself from Britain’s rule. In communicating his ideas, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was written more in the direction of an editorial persuasive essay that aimed to make the people become aware of what was really going on between Britain and the American colonies. In the opening paragraph Paine clearly admit that what he was about to say may not be the general belief or views of his readers, â€Å" perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor†( Independence Hall Association1999 ). He was merely presenting his opinion regarding a certain situation. On the other hand, Jefferson’s works was already a call to action as if the people already knew what was going on. The assumption that he was addressing to people who already knew the real situation was in the statement, â€Å"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another† (Fameghetti 512), as if implying that certain events of which the people were aware of is now leading them to separate from Britain. In other words, Common Sense was educating the people while The Declaration of Independence was largely calling the now â€Å"educated† people to action. Thomas Paine’s discourse was merely voicing his opinions and informing the people of the real situation, his tone of voice was more of calm persuasion as if he was waking up the general American public from a long sleep of indifference and ignorance when he observes that the Americans were in â€Å"a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong† which â€Å"gives it a superficial appearance of being right†( Independence Hall Association 1999 ) . Paine then ended his document with a suggestion of what the American people should do. Jefferson on the other hand, adopted a more confident, assertive and with a sense of urgency tone in his work, with the goal of rallying more sympathizers and followers to the cause of independence and urging them to make an immediate action. This can be supported by the fact that by the time the document was conceived and read, not all Americans agreed to the separation (Perry 431). Yet Jefferson used the â€Å"We hold these truths to be self-evident†, using the word â€Å"we† to mean that he was assuming that all Americans was sharing his views and with this regard he was playing the role as the voice of the American people (Fameghetti 512). Unlike Paine, Jefferson ended the document not with a suggestion but with a bold announcement for the need of separation (Fameghetti 513). Moreover, the organization of both documents was different. Jefferson took a rather direct and abrupt approach in communicating his views. He immediately introduce his ideas in the beginning few paragraphs citing John Locke’s â€Å"inalienable rights† as the main basis for his argument and without much hesitation supported his view on separation by listing Britain’s faults. The theme of his works was more to justify American acts of rebellion so that other nations such as Spain and France from which they hope to gain support for their cause will not consider their revolutionary actions as illegal acts of rebellion (Maier 43). Paine, on the other hand, adopted a storytelling format in presenting his views. He took pains in providing background information about his subject (Independence Hall Association 1999). He examined every detail and favorable examples and presented them as logical explanations in support of his views of why it is better for a nation to be independent of Britain. When one examines each documents, one can conclude that in Common Sense, Paine acted as a persuasive educator, whose role was only that of a man who had the task of arousing the interest of his readers to side with his views while Jefferson acted more as an active leader of rebellion, whose main goal was to inspire the people to make immediate action in response to their belief that Great Britain should not rule over them. Works Cited Famighetti, Robert. The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1996. New Jersey: Funk and Wagnalls Corporation, 1995. Independence Hall Association. â€Å"Common Sense by Thomas Paine†. 1999. US History Organization Website. Accessed April 4, 2008 http://www. ushistory. org/paine/commonsense/singlehtml. htm Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Perry, Marvin. A History of the World. New York: Houghton and Mifflin, 1988.

Business Development And Its Relationship To Ict Information Technology Essay

Business Development And Its Relationship To Ict Information Technology Essay From time to time, Information and Communication Technology has made a great impact in contributing to the business development and improvement that enables a business to become more efficient, beneficial and also it also provide secure jobs. Besides, Information and Communication Technology has assist in effective communication and also co-operation between a company and its clients. Unlike the old days, when Information and Communication Technology has not been widely introduced and used into the society, business people are unable to speed up their work and also less efficient. In the globalizing technology society today, Information and Communication Technology is used in marketing, by helping companies to reach new markets and to offer customers to purchase goods and services at anytime they need, and almost all the time, at a reduced cost and also enhancing the level of customer service by using website. Business people also use e-mails to contact their clients and also to market their products and services directly to their potential customers and also to stay in contact with many customers and suppliers. In fact, by using the advanced marketing strategies, it will increase the effectiveness in communication and is able to access information through their websites, so that customers are able to gain information and to increase their business needs. Before the society started using Information and Communication Technology, business people uses pamphlets, banners and etc. to market their products. Without Information and Communication Technology, business men have difficulties staying in contact with their customers and hardly reach to other potential customers and suppliers. On the other hand, finance has also developed in the Information and Communication and Technology. Practically almost all companies use software program in business society today. In example, Sage and Excel are companies that manage other companies accounts and monitor at the financial information from time to time. These companies help to respond to the customers by offering discounts and also help in improving the management of their finances. With the help of these advanced technologies, many companies are relief for their accounts are managed by a company that alters at almost 24 hours. In the 80s, when Information and Communication Technology has not even exist, accountants have to spend wee hours checking the accounts in their offices or even at home in order not to make any mistakes in the finances. Even so, without these advanced technologies in the 80s, accountants had to record and file the companies account in files and papers and often, accountants had difficulties in fin ding the old records when needed. However, Information and Communication Technology has helped many accountants in saving companies data in the database which is easier to locate when the files are needed. In the business society, companies often need their staffs to be away from their desk and office to attend meetings and meeting clients at almost everywhere. From this aspects, many employers demand for an adjustable working systems which is accessible to the computer. Now that the society is so dependable in Information and Communication Technology, business people can work out of their office with laptops, PDA and smart phone. During the time when Information and Communication Technology has not exist, staffs and business people can only access into customers and suppliers needs and information from files in the office only and this could not help to satisfy a customer needs in any changes. In an office that have two or more computers creates a network, which allows the resources like printers, internet access, files and information to be share among colleagues and staffs can also access into the information and files at home to remote working systems that supports changing busines s needs. Back when the Information and Communication Technologies had not exist, staffs and business people can only access to resources like files or printers one thing at a time. This will delay ones work speed. Moreover, in the developing 21st century today, Information and Communication Technology is widely used in social media. The society today connects among themselves via advanced technology and social network like Facebook and Twitter, networks that helps in spreading messages faster and in simpler ways. Besides, it is essential that businesses are dominated by Facebook and Twitter which are used in business line that provides better solution for customers because business people and customers tend to communicate more in two-way communication instead of one-way communication. Business people also use social media to market their products, provides information about their products and deliver application to their user base towards the society today who uses and connects into social network every day. Studies show that the society today connects themselves into the social media two times more than before. Hence, business people who want to market their products connect themselves to soc ial network like e-Collaboration, Facebook and Twitter and post them online to market their products for a wider coverage. Before Information and Communication Technology was introduce into the society, where there werent any advanced social network like Facebook and Twitter, business people cannot market their products into a wider coverage of the society and resulting low marketing sales and lesser the profit for the company. Back then, business wasnt as developed as how it is for now. Also, many companies today are very dependable on the Information and Communication Technologies in managing and monitoring customers and clients. Many companies use advanced technologies like Customer Relationship Software(CRS) to manage their existing clients and also generate potential clients from there. Companies that use Customer Relationship Software have many data recorded in their database to keep track with customers, send messages and promotion to the potential clients. During the time when Information and Communication Technology hadnt been brought up, customers data and records are recorded in papers and files, which has never made it easy for business people to keep track with the potential customers. Without the technologies before, things werent any easier for business people. In addition, the impact of Information and Communication Technology in business is great and has influenced and change many things in many ways. In example, Information and Communication Technology is used in e-Business in order to reduce the transaction costs and also to widen the marketing coverage, as well as to increase the productivity and speed of doing business. Trinidad and Tobago are the examples of how the technologies has helped in e-Business in modernizing the private sector, to aim in encouraging e-Business For example, where the impact of ICT in Business like the E-business as the use of ICT in business to reduce transaction costs, to broaden market reach, and to increase the productivity and speed of doing business. E-business is a catalyst for modernizing the private sector in general, such as Trinidad and Tobago, seek to encourage e-business with a view to increase demand for domestically produced ICT products. To this end, the government of Trinidad and Tobago plans to co-develop, with private sector, an integrated e-business application for local companies to conduct online sales. Furthermore, the government has offered to help identify comparative advantages for local e-business and will collaborate in the development of skillnet, a service that provides recruitment, learning and career information. It is the close alignment between ICT and business processes that can provide competitive advantage to organizations and produce high quality products and services at lower cost, resulting in a strategic advantage(McCabe, 2003; Nevens, 2002). In general, there are two types of enterprise applications that support business processes example, logistics,CRM, etc and applications that directly implement business processes like example, electronic banking,mobile telephony, airline e-tickets and so on. For the first type of enterprise applications, it is possible to gain competitive advantage by combining ICT with unique company culture and knowledge. This unique combination enables the company to function effectively and utilize key assets such as organizational knowledge and culture. The second type type of enterprise application provides a service or product to customers and its timely deployment and unique features can result in competitive advantage. Due to the impact of ICT on the main factors influencing the way of doing business abroad, manifold changes are taking place within the organizational structures of the economy. The analysis below examines the consequences of these changes for three ares; the internal organization of companies, the organization of markets, i.e. the relationship between companies and its customers, and the organizational forms of co-operation between different companies. This classification is useful, since the fiscal analysis will refer to these three categories. ICT also serve as a platform for the business activities of a company, for example if the supply of information and services constitute its main business activities. Moreover, companies may market ICT and the Internet itself, example, if they provide memory capacity or websites, as an Internet Services Provider (ISP). Using ICT tools, such as video-conferencing or e-mail, decisions which are relevant to the company can be taken either in dif ferent locations or at the same time in different places. In addition, the management of a company may often be situated elsewhere and not in the company itself. As link between different companies can be created using ICT, it is possible to cooperate internationally without needing to centralize all activities in one location. Thus, activities are no longer dependent on geographical distances Information and Communication Technology has expended so great in business and it was so successfully developed especially in telecommunication, and it has impacted so many people in good aspects. Maxis and Digi are examples of how Information and Communication Technology has successfully developed in telecommunication. Information and Communication Technology has contributed as a communication tool and aided in keeping everyone in contact in just a key button away even though the distance is very far away. In this case, it is known that Digi uses many communication tools in keeping track with its customers especially via Facebook in Malaysia. Besides, Information and Communication Technology has helped telecommunication in keeping track with business partners and people via video conferencing in business plans, and research shows that it is two times more of people communicate via face-to-face in various forms. Moreover, business people need not travel far to attend a meeting instea d they can sit in their office and attend the meeting via video conferencing. However, there are also negative impacts of Information and Communication Technology on business sectors in telecommunication. People tend to abuse the usage of Information and Communication Technology that has expended so great to assist the society in a different form while some people uses Information and Communication Technology in a way which it is not created for. Some people uses the advance in telecommunication in Information and Communication Technology to start a crime, such as kidnapping and also blackmailing someone else. It has been shown in research that telecommunication usage is abused with other way especially in identity stealing. Business Development and its relationship to ICT? Business Development is the process of improvement that enables a business to become more efficient, profitable, and thereby creating or safeguarding jobs. Business development therefore does not only concern marketing and sales departments, but all parts of a business which constitute its value chain and requires effective communication and co-operation within a company. Over the last 20 years ICT has increasingly been identified as a major contributor to the process of business development and improvement and it has been identified that ICT à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. is responsible for around half of productivity growth in modern economies. It drives improved efficiency and better services and products across the entirety of the private and the public sectors. (Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society). What has been the impact of ICT on Business? The use of ICT and technology has affected every aspect of business, transforming not only the way that business is conducted but also creating new business sectors and jobs. The creation of companies like Google and e-Bay which did not exist 10 years ago, was only made possible by advances in technology and the changes that this has created in the way that people behave (currently Google is valued at  £44billion Source BBC 5th June 05). Some examples of the nature of this change include:

William Carlos Williams: Free the Poetry! :: Biography Biographies Essays

William Carlos Williams: Free the Poetry!      Ã‚  Ã‚   Williams does away with traditional poetic structure in order to free the actual poetry inherent in the sounds and meanings of words. In his poetry, he offers a lesson in aesthetics regarding how to engage his poetry as a way of looking at reality. At the literal level, his poetry speaks self-reflexively about its significance: "It is hard to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." His poetry attempts to re-engage people in reality. As he contends: "Anything is good material for poetry. Anything"(Paterson V). This belief is evidenced in a passage from "Two pendants: for the Ears":    2 partridges 2 Mallard ducks a Dungeness crab 24 hours out of the Pacific and 2 live-frozen trout from Denmark.    He turns a fashionable grocery list into poetry by arranging the words upon the page in a manner allowing for poetic rhythm to emerge (Weatherhead 108). Rather than creating poetry according to the conventional choosing of images and creating analogies between them, his primary focus is the arrangement of words to create rhythm.    In "The Red Wheelbarrow," Williams takes familiar images but rearranges them in a way that differently emphasizes their meanings through rhythm. He does this by breaking apart certain phrases which conventionally flow together in one's mind: "depends" is broken away from "upon," "wheel" is separated from "barrow," "rain" divided from "water," and "white" is disjoined from "chickens." By altering the rhythm through divergent arrangement of words upon the page, Williams creates a new context through which to view and absorb familiar images (Koch 50). This re-birth of the ability to newly engage old images structurally serves the significant poetic function (that the literal line about men dying miserably every day for lack of what is found in poetry does) to remind us of poetry's value in connecting us with reality. His shifting poetic structure forces the reader to engage his images freshly.    Williams further instructs the reader in how to view his poems in one entitled "To a Solitary Discipline":    Rather notice, mon cher, that the moon is tilted above the point of the steeple than that its color is shell-pink.    Rather observe

Essay --

Executive summary This report discusses how management prepares them to anticipate change in the business environment in the long run and short run too. Change is very important for each and every organization in today’s world because world today has become a daily changing place and in order to keep pace with the changing world we need to bring about a constant change in our organizations, too. There are certain methods by which the senior management can prepare them for anticipating the need for change. The first method is by doing a detailed research and studying for the change. The second method involves having the awareness about the ever changing needs of people and the change process. The third method discusses about having a complete understanding about the compulsion and urgency for change. Lastly, being mentally tough for the change process is the fourth method to prepare the management for anticipating change in the short and long run. Introduction: Change is a constant and ingoing process in an organization. Change can be defined as one of the many characteristics of organization development. The change efforts are based on the analysis of particular problems and their purpose is to attain specific goals. Change is not an easy thing to implement and anticipate. It is a difficult and a challenging process; therefore the management has to take certain steps in order to prepare them for antedating the change in business environment. The senior management can prepare themselves for a change through studying and researching about change, by having a sound awareness about the change process and by understanding the necessity of change and by being mentally tough about the change process. All in all, a constant change is ... ...reparing them for anticipating the need for change that will be necessary for the organization. This is most applicable for the long run change because if the senior management is working for the environment today they will be efficient to keep a check on the long range changes too, that are being forecasted for the future. Conclusion: Change is required for all types of organizations and in every field. Whether the change is long range or short range the senior management will have to prepare them for the change process. The factors that can prepare the senior management to anticipate change are consciousness about the change, research and study, identifying the necessity for change and the mental toughness for change process. The senior management must possess these factors in order to prepare them for anticipating the long range as well as the short range change.

Attrition Rate in the Call Center Industry

Attrition has been an evident problem for every organization due to either jack of appreciation or lack of proper job sculpting. But what is attrition? Simply put, it is the reduction in the number of employees through retirement, resignation, etc. Attrition affects two things: 1) the morale of other employees; and 2) the financial position of the organization. The group chose this topic because we are greatly interested in such field. The group is curious as to why the rate of turnover in the call center agency is high and what is the effect of this to the call center organizations.Why do these employees leave their jobs as call center agents? Is it because of the unjust compensation that these call centers are providing or is it because call center agents in general are not happy with what they do? We can draw many conclusions but at the end of the day, conducting a research would give us peace of mind. B. Significance of the Study The significance of the study is to be able to giv e emphasis as to why the rate of turnover in the call center industry is high. The group will only focus on the causes and the effects of attrition in the said industry.The study would serve as a guide and would be of great help to call center organizations in maintaining employees in their company. Furthermore, the study would be able to show the importance of the call center industry in the city of Manila. C. Problem and Objectives Problem: What are the causes Of attrition and how does it affect the call center industry? Objectives: To explain what attrition is and its difference from turnover To give emphasis on why call center agents resign To determine the factors of attrition To show how attrition affects the call center industry To present the facts obtained through out the whole research D.Assumption and Hypotheses Call center agents resign from their currents posts because they are not pappy with what they do. There will always be that feeling of being unsatisfied and it wi ll always bother them. Some would think to themselves, â€Å"Why am I doing this when can do so much better. † Most fresh graduates or undergraduates who are in need of fast cash apply at call centers to have something to do for the mean time but after a while, they move on, leaving the organization to find quick replacements at which before that can do so, the financial position Of the company will be affected.E. Scope and Limitations This study focuses on the cause and impact of attrition in the call center industry with regard to the turnover rate of employees, why call center agents leave call centers, and how the loss of employees affect these call centers. The study will only gather respondents that are call center agents that are employed within the jurisdiction of the city of Manila. F. Definition of Terms Attrition – a reduction in the number of employees or participants that occurs when people leave because they resign, retire, etc. And are not replaced Burno ut -? physical or mental collapse caused by overwork or stress Call center – an office set up to handle a large volume of telephone calls, especially or taking orders and providing customer service Call center agent -? basic employee of a call center Compensation – something awarded to someone Customer service -? provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase; a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation Economy -? consists of the production, distribution or trade, and consumption of limited goods and services by different agents in a given geographical location

First Week of College

Brad Campagna Kathy O'Rourke College has so far exceeded my expectations in a huge way. As a new member of the ice hockey team there were many uncertainties and worries, as well as tons of excitements and anticipations. Obviously the biggest part, school, was nerve wracking and exciting too. In college hockey its very common that players take a few years off of school prior to attending, to play hockey in junior hockey leagues. This created a bit more nerves then excitement for the classroom aspect of school since i've only taken 3 college courses since graduating high school, making it a bit harder to get back into the swing of things.Besides getting back into school routine, being a hockey player in college has made the beginning of school an unbelievable experience for me. On move-in day while still in the process of getting everything together, my roommate and I met the first player on our team. Since my roommate is also on my team it was a huge relief to meet someone before our parents even left. Since then it's been smooth sailing and have made number of friends on the team, many which I already know ill be very good friends with in the future. This was probably the biggest relief for me so far because I had no idea what to expect.I kept worrying about how the kids, especially the new recruits, would be and literally every one is an awesome person. I didn't realize how much being on a sports team would help me make friends this fast, which I am extremely grateful for. We've all had so much fun already and we are just one week into school. On top of all of that, we are all at least 20 years old and up as freshman. I think this gives us a big advantage of transition for things like college because we are all at least two years more mature then we would have if we had gone right from high school.Now that is not to toot my or any of my friends horns, but I do feel as if the maturity level is definitely higher then it would have been by the overall way we carr y and present ourselves as opposed to being 17 or 18. If the year is going to continue on like this, I can only imagine how much fun it's going to be. This is also all going without mentioning the hockey part. Hockey hasn't even started yet which excites me that much more. I think and hope we have a very good team that can do very well throughout the season. Now obviously college isn't all fun and games.The school aspect of college hasn't really sunk in yet since were not very far into the semester. It definitely concerns me somewhat, but I think I will end up doing well. I naturally have a good work ethic through hockey, so I plan on using that into the classroom. Sure it will be harder sometimes because of practices and games and whatnot, but thats what my teammates and the rest of the accommodations that Potsdam supplies for us are for. It's a good start for me professor wise, since pretty much all of them seem to be very good at what they do.The only thing that has gotten me a l ittle annoyed and anxious about is all the reading. Reading takes up a lot of time and that what most of college is. My time management needs to be very efficient if I'm going to do well this year. I hope my next four years here will just keep getting better and better as I meet new people and explore new things. There is still so much I haven't done yet and so many experiences I have to look forward too as long as my school works stays up to par.When my career at Potsdam is over I hope I will have accomplished my goal of excelling in every way whether its school, hockey, friends, community status and more. Obviously I plan on having my degree whether I continue with my Business major or change to something else. I hope and expect to have good grades throughout the whole experience not just getting by. I also expect to do very well in hockey and hope to make an immediate impact on the team and carry it out through the whole four years here.I also hope to have my friends that I've al ready made be my best friends and friends for the rest of my life. Finally by the time I leave Potsdam I hope to have had a big impact on the overall community. The hockey team stresses a high importance of being active in the community and having a positive attitude in every place in every situation. So far there's been much positivity here and I will be contributing to that as much as possible. If my whole time at Potsdam is going to be how this first week has been, then I anticipate having an extremely good experience here.

Christianity and Islam Essay

A few months ago, when a Vatican official announced that Catholicism was surpassed by Islam as the world’s largest faith, many news agencies around the world carried what seemed to have been a largely unnoticed issue for this present generation – religion. At least for some time, renewed debates about whether or not one should indeed consider Islam as a religion that commands world’s largest followers surfaced one after another. The issue many people think should not be dismissed is the fact that Christianity – a religion which combines an array of all its offshoots namely Roman Catholicism, Orthodox, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Evangelicals, among others – still has the largest adherents compared to any other religion, including Islam. Even if Christianity may be broken down into some larger or other smaller denominations, many people subscribe to idea that since all Christians root their belief in Christ, one must take them as belonging to a singular religion, the largest in the world to be exact. To consider Christianity as a single religion involves rounds of new separate debates. Surely, when the differences between the mainstream Christian blocks and the thousand of other minor denominations are brought into the fore, their respective beliefs will manifest diversity, resemblance, opposition, and even contradiction. Tedious as this process may appear, one may not yet consider the fact that even in the Islam religion itself there are further classifications of membership that must be taken into careful account. Again, it is legitimate to inquire whether it is proper to take Islam as a unitary religion, or they too must be broken down into their finer types. As one may correctly observe, inner divisions within the world’s largest religions – Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. – appear to be a fundamentally given fact. One can perhaps inquire whether it is possible to identify a major religion with millions, if not a billion of adherents, which does not have any, or have not suffered from any inner rift at any given point of its history. It may be interesting to ask therefore, what accounts for the eventual internal fall out of world religions in history? Better yet, how must we attempt to understand what happens in a religion that has been divided into smaller aggregate types in the course of history? II. Rationale and Scope This brief study presents a case for divisions transpiring within world religions. But since the scope of studying the issue is broad (considering that there are many major world religions to cite), this research shall be restricted at tackling Christianity and Islam as chosen types. Specifically, the study shall describe the events that transpired during the Catholic-Protestant divide of the mid 1500’s for Christianity, and the Shiite-Sunni divide for Islam. To be sure, there are other identifiable divisions which can be noted in the history of Christianity. While there are small schisms involving â€Å"heretics† who refuse to accept fundamental Christian teachings, Christianity is said to have been divided into two major blocks during the 11th century. It produced the dichotomization between the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox, which until the present still exists. For the purposes of limiting this study, the Christian division which shall be discussed in this study shall dwell on the Luther-led Reformation of the 1500’s. Meanwhile, it is also insightful to note even in the Islam religion, there have been various types of smaller divisions and schisms. For the purposes of this study too, the rift between the Shiites and the Sunnis that was created in the early years of Islam religion shall be the one in focus. A short analysis and interpretation of the sample religions used shall comprise the conclusion of this study. III. Discussion Proper a. Nature of Religion Before relating the events defining the divisions that were experienced both by Christianity and Islam, it will be helpful to cite some theories to help explain the dynamics of religion. This is important since it shall provide a working perspective which is to be used later on in the analysis. Religion is a phenomenon which may be understood in many ways. Basically speaking, it refers to the common innate feeling or â€Å"belief in a Supreme Being† (McCutcheon, 2007, p. 22). Religion obviously stems from a belief that there is a higher being that must be worshiped or adored. But religion does not pertain to kind of personal belief alone. It also describes how a believer finds the need to belong to a community which shares the same belief, and thus obey a given set of rules within it. Thus, another definition for religion may also be expressed as a â€Å"unified system of belief and practices relative to sacred things† which â€Å"unites (believers) into one single moral community† (McCutcheon, 2007, p. 22). Combing both definitions enable one to fully appreciate the fact that religion pertains to both a personal ascent to God, and a commitment to a community, a set of rules and a specific set rituals. When seen under the lenses of scientific inquiry (e. g. anthropology, sociology, philosophy, etc. ) religion reveals patterns and dynamism consistent with human belief system, knowledge, interest and relationships. This means that religion is molded into the belief system of the believers. For instance, if Christians hold that Christ in his lifetime was compassionate to the poor, it follows that they too, since they follow Christ, must do something good for their less fortunate brethren. Or if Moslems take Mohammad as their example, and Mohammad was a deeply spiritual man, they too must not take spirituality lightly in their lives. Religious mindset is committed to certain courses of action (Slater, 1978, p. 6); and these actions are meaningful only because believers draw their identities from a person or a belief system they embrace – be it the Lordship of Christ, or the greatness of the Prophet Muhammad (Slater, 1978, p. 82). This is one of the primary reasons why religions possess their â€Å"continuing identities† (Slater, 1978, p. 82). So long as a group of Christians identify themselves to the teachings of their religion, say Catholic Church, they will remain to be Catholics. As indeed, so long as a group of Moslems identify themselves to the teachings of their religion, say Shiite group, they will remain to be identified with it. What explains the shift in a belief system is when one cannot anymore identify either with a teaching, or specific religious structures. It is a general rule that key to a religion’s perpetuity is establishing an identity. When people start to feel alienated with what they used to hold or believe it, it can explain why a group of believers create their own groups to accommodate their otherwise alienated belief system. To help establish the point, it may be good to lay down two glaring examples. b. The Shiite-Sunnis Divide Islam was born at least five hundred years after Christianity was already an institutionalized religion. But what started out only as a small community following Muhammad, Islam grew in exponential proportion in just a short span of time. Within the rapid growth came bitter disputes and eventual breakaways. Although Islam is a religion which does not readily recognize that there are divisions within them, scholars are almost unanimous in agreeing that some factions already broke from within the Moslem community dating back to the days when the religion itself was merely beginning to be established. In a sense, Islam is a religion broken down into at least two major divisions even before it got to be formally established as a religious phenomenon. It all started when a certain man named Muhammad, who by the way was born in 570 to a very poor family, begun to attract followers after experiencing visions and revelations (Renard, 1998, p. 7). His reputation spread in neighboring places, and soon found himself at odds with ruling empires for the large number of followers he had gathered. After this increasingly expanding community finally settled in Mecca in 630, Muhammad would die two years after (Renard, 1998, p. 7). His death would then see his community figure in a prolonged tug-of-war for rightful succession, and would officially begin the drift within the newly established religious community. One group claimed that Muhammad chose his rightful successor in the person of his son named Ali before he died. The other group contested the claim and said, no instructions were made by the Prophet whatsoever. Instead, they held that it was appropriate for to appoint leaders themselves, and eventually chose Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s father-in-law, as the first of the four caliphs (meaning head), to rule the Islam community. Those who embraced the leadership of Ali were eventually known as the Shiites, while the followers who believed Abu Bakr’s caliphate eventually came to be known as Sunnis. As such, the neat separation within the just-emerging Islamic religion has been established. Since it exists up until today, it can be described as the â€Å"largest institutional division within the Muslim community† so far (Renard, 1998, p. 13; Ayoub, 2004, 72). c. The Catholic-Protestant Divide The era that colored the Catholic-Protestant divide was a Church marred with controversies, silent disenchantment and an ever growing discontent among Christian faithful. As history would show, it was through and because of Martin Luther – and his whole ebb generating protests against the Church – that the radical break from Catholicism was to be established. But hundreds of years before the supposed break, there had already been numerous events that point to the restlessness within the membership of the Church which it tried to quell. What were the controversies about? As early as the 1300’s, roughly two hundred years before Luther was born, an ordained priest by the name of John Wycliffe started to publish series of attacks against some of the major teachings and traditions of the Church. In 1372, he was summoned and reprimanded by Church authorities for his teachings that dwelled on the following: his denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation (a belief that the bread and wine used in celebrating the Eucharist is transformed into the real body and blood of Christ), attacks on the authority of the Pope as the head of the Church, corrupt practices within the Church, and emphasis on preaching and the use of Scriptures for teaching the doctrines of the Church (Cook, 2008, p. 95). Wycliffe probably represented the first courageous voices which tried to confront what’s wrong with the Church. In fact, he did try to raise legitimate concerns about both the divisive doctrines and lamentable discipline which the Church at that time practiced. Years after, Luther would pick up from where his predecessors had left out. In 1517, he released his Ninety-Five Theses to the public – a collection of ninety-five protests against many Church teachings – both doctrinal and moral – and Church practices, such as indulgences (spiritual merits obtained in return for monetary donations), celibacy (the promise for priests not to marry), Eucharist, among others (Cook, 2008, p. 100). Since the general religious atmosphere at that time was already ripe for reforms, his ninety-five theses were easily duplicated and spread throughout the German empire – a testament, as it were, to a huge popular support he enjoyed for the risks he took. Luther’s break from the Church was formally established when he burned the Papal bull Exsurge Domine (a decree which threatened him of excommunication if he did not recant his protests) in front of many people in a public square (Cook, 2008, 101). After which, he did subsequently ask the authorities of the German kingdom to support his cause for Church reform. Luther is remembered as a man who broke the Catholic Church apart. True enough, even before he died, he already saw the far reaching effects of his call for reforms he perhaps initially did not intended to jumpstart. Thanks to Luther, Christianity would never be the same again. The â€Å"Germany after (the) Reformation† movement in the mid 1500’s became a home to a new breed of Christians who came to be branded as Lutherans, Calvinist, Reformers, or even Protestants (Pennock, 2007, p. 168). In principle, Luther earned the reputation of being an agent of division within the Christian religion. IV. Conclusion To be sure, Christianity and Islam are not the only major religions in the world which had suffered a kind of break-up from within. Religious divisions are commonplace, and that variations sprouting from within large communities may be brought about by various factors. When divisions occur, one normally observes that differences pertaining to a host of issues including (but not limited to) doctrines, practices, or even recognized leadership become patent. As earlier mentioned, the dynamics of religion may help explain why a feeling of alienation (or a loss of identity) can push a believer or a group to break-away from mainstream religion to form their own set of practices and norms independently. Christianity and Islam were taken as exemplifications. In the points that were developed, it was seen that they share a history with lots of bitter disputes, which in turn led to an eventual division. But both religions suffered from internal rifts quite differently as well. Islam’s division was more political in nature, as two major factions with their respective claims to rightful succession to their now-dead Prophet-leader tore the emerging community apart – thus, the Sunnis and the Shiites. Christianity on the other hand, after experiencing many breakaway groups in the course of history, had to suffer yet another major blow from internal disputes led by Martin Luther in the 1500’s on account of doctrine and practices. What followed was a Christian religion torn once again, which ushered the creation of a big faction named Protestants. Religious divisions can be put under rigorous inquiry. There are viewpoints that consider these divisions as something that separate one group after another, while there are those who propose to see the same divisions as something that merely distinguish (but not separate). While the two viewpoints may be valid in their respective senses, this study places much interest not on their â€Å"distinguishability† or â€Å"separability†, but on the fact that, truly, religious divisions from within happen. References Ayoub, M. (2004). Islam. Faith and History. Oxford: Oneworld. Cook, C.. (2008) The Routledge Companion to Christian History. New York: Routledge. McCutcheon, R. (2007). Studying Religion. An Introduction. London: Equinox. Pennock, M. (2007) This is Our Church. A History of Catholicism. Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press. Renard, J. (1998)101 Questions and Answers on Islam. New York: Paulist Press. Slater, P. (1978). The Dynamics of Religion. Meaning and Change in Religious Traditions. San Francisco: Harper and Row. (Also consulted) http://ca. news. yahoo. com/s/capress/080330/world/vatican_muslims