Quantitative Methods for Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Quantitative Methods for Business - Essay Example This article offers a far reaching examination of the job of the quantitative strategies in guaranteeing financial proficiency of the administration process.These techniques don't simply assume a significant job in settling on business choices. There are likewise instrumental in estimation. Thirdly they are additionally an important apparatus for taking stock of things, cost and benefit. This is the one of a kind following part of these techniques. Business choice can't be taken on a light note and thus it is completely that all sensible and numerical computations are depleted with the goal that an ideal outcome can be determined before an official choice is actualized that will be vital to the business and the benefit and additionally misfortune that in this manner persevered. The procedure of a Quantitative Method in business is that the technique gives an efficient and hypothetical yet pragmatic way to deal with discovering answers for pending and imminent issues. It is additionally significant in settling on specific choices that require basic reasoning and investigation. This additionally empowers an official or a key chief of the business to take characterizing choices that are authoritative on the whole business dependent on straightforwardness and good instinct through consistent standards. These standards depend on a legitimate schematic that manages every choice in a bit by bit style. This methodology is vital in light of the fact that it venture of the dynamic procedure has its own stressors and set of boundaries. Quantitative strategies additionally have an unprecedented device in its weapons store which is numerical examination. ... The strategy for quantitative examination that is applied includes the valuation of a normal profit of benefit for the shifting measures of uses. This thus permits one to reason the most legitimate and sound strategy to make sure about the offer worth and at exactly the same time making the most benefit in the deal. The deduction behind making sure about the offer worth is applying direct programming to figure the specific harmony between least offer cost and greatest benefit achieved utilizing a creation plausibility bend as a financial capacity. The offer worth consequently should give a beneficial perspective to both the bidder and the customer who requires an offer to be made. The entire point of the Quantitative technique for organizations is to cultivate a logical attitude that is significant during the time spent undertaking procurement, advancement, promoting, the board and execution (Slater et.al, 2002, pp. 222-228). Sequelae Project the board is an unpredictable and request ing field of business improvement that requires the supervisor to be on the highest point of their game consistently. Thusly it is of vital significance that venture supervisors can use the total scope of aptitudes and strategies that are common in Quantitative techniques for considering the business conditions. Also supervisors consistently need to relate dynamic with weighty outcomes. Thirdly they need to investigate reasonable other option. These options thusly should be evaluated to check whether they can be down to earth or hypothetical and a money saving advantage investigation utilizing the Quantitative strategy must be led. At last the consequence of every option being hypothetically applied to the anticipated circumstance must be evaluated before an

Internet Banking Master Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Web Banking Master - Assignment Example The current type of web based financial discovers its foundations in the spearheading activity propelled by four of the significant banks of New York, Citibank, Chemical Bank, Chase Manhattan and Manufacturers Hanover bank. These banks at the same time, yet exclusively, offered home financial administrations that permitted bank client to keep up records just as complete exchanges without leaving the solaces of their home (Mary J.C., 1997) Web Banking got a significant lift with the quick turn of events and entrance of banking exercises led over the web. Exercises like cash move and protections exchanging should be possible through web banking. It's a virtual bank in itself which is regularly an expansion of its physical model. With extending data innovation it is astute for the banks to receive and use it, for extension of business and better and quicker conveyance of administrations to the client. A portion of the advantages of web banking are: Web banking is being utilized both in B2B (business to business) and retail banking. There are additionally a few banks which just have a virtual nearness, for instance Nexity Bank. By and large greater banks will in general offer web banking. This is on the grounds that littler banks regularly discover the expense of the administration unbeneficial before they grow to a specific scale (Gup B.E., 2003) Lloyds TSB is the biggest retail bank in UK serving more than 30 million clients. Being perhaps the biggest bank in UK and the world, it has taken to web innovation in a major manner and offers a variety of administrations to its clients over the web. A portion of the web banking administrations offered by TSB resemble installment of bills, the executives of direct charge and standing requests, online application for investment account over draft - Mastercard - individual advances, online travel cash (without commission),online proclamations, etc. They additionally give web based financial assurance and free week after week text-based notifications and the best is that enrollment for such administrations comes liberated from cost. (Lloyds TSB Bank Plc., n.d.) Web banking has various stages. The principal or essential stage is about 'data'; it offers data about the bank and its contributions. The following level is 'correspondence' which offers collaboration between the client and the bank's data or IT framework. 'Exchange' is at the center of the following stage, where clients for all intents and purposes move cash/reserves, take care of tabs, etc. (Ravi V., 2007) Web bankin

Software Packages Such As Primavera P3; Microplanner Expert; Project

Software Packages Such As Primavera P3; Microplanner Expert; Project Software Packages Such As Primavera P3; Microplanner Expert; Project Scheduler 8 Assist In â€" Assignment Example > Assistance of Software in Communication PlanIntroductionCommunication plan of any company helps in image building and raising public awareness about the company. The perception about the products of the company by the people depends on the communication of company with stakeholders, customers, shareholders and other contacts or suppliers. The communication is capable of saving the company from backstabbing and treachery by the competitors as this involves transparency and planning in executing operations. The comprehensive communication strategy involves public, government, customers, vendors, shareholders, creditors, bankers, stock exchange and media. This needs an allocation of budget at the beginning of the year for every component by communications department. Before the allocation, the involvement of the team in the communication system is according to planning and the budget allocation is accordingly. The allocation depends on the definition of goals also. The communication plan involves the coordination between different persons and departments on a daily basis. Briefly, the components of a communications plan are the 1. Need to communicate 2. Reason for communicating, 3. The subject for communication, 4. Source and destination for communication, 5. Method of communication and 6. Tools of Communication. Role of Software in Communication Role of Primavera Project P3: The essence of usage of Primavera project is it gives control to project managers on their plan. This involves scheduling and resource control. This can manages multiple projects in a multi user environment. Managers can have control on large and complex projects efficiently as it connects to corporation worldwide also. The integration of the data with information is possible by this. To have enough control over any project, one has to clear the complexity and Primavera offers this. By using Colour coded bands, it organises the data. This helps in prioritising, planning and managing the m ultiple projects. The advanced resource levelling option will help in scheduling resources realistically. The PERT charts help in interacting with project data. The communication can be done by intranet, custom reports and e-mail. The data can be organised and is connected to everyone involved with it and coding is done according to user. The PERT streamlines and organises the data as it tracks and analyses the processes. The complex and long tasks need multi year and multi project environments. This demands the establishment of relations among activities in separate projects and automatic scheduling. This depends on individual resources in primavera and delivers high end scheduling. In corporate organisations, groups of tasks are common and these are building blocks of projects. This needs cost data as well as resource data. Integrating resources with cost data is crucial in calculating and communicating profit oriented and cost effective strategies all over the company. The manag ers shall use information in subsequent projects also. Until now, the overall planning is mentioned. To an effective communication, day to day management is also required. In this context, P3 works as one of valuable colleague and helps on a daily basis. This is done by resource scheduling and monitoring the use of resources. This helps in monitoring the work pattern of each person and setting timelines. This involves establishment of resource groups thus forecasting staffing and funding requirements. The Role of Micro Planner: The use of project management software helps in reporting, tracking, project tracking. The reporting is done by Gantt charts and PERT or CPM charts. Word processing and spreadsheets also help as supplements in reporting the facts. The next step is tracking of the project and this compares the actual progress to planned one. This is done, when project staff completes the given tasks and helps in tracking of performance and an effective review of processes. A s stakeholders are concerned with the progress of projects, the time-to-time information given to them about the projects helps in making them aware about the projects. In addition to this Micro Planner will allocate costs to various projects according to resources and offers control over the cost. The control over the costs is possible by figuring out the resource time and effort used by the processes. Micro Planner does this and “most project management software systems lack flexibility in handling costs as well as interfaces into budgeting and accounting systems”, (Lientz, Rea). The cost computations done by project manager may not be suitable with those done by accountants. To integrate and coordinate these two same types of aspects done at different contexts, Micro Planner is necessary. While making the cost control possible the number of hours or total time spent on each project by the resources is a necessity. This is done by providing information of the processes to th e software on a daily basis and at the end of certain period; it gives the clocking report of different processes and tasks. If there is any abnormality in these systems, the checklists offer different types of choices of monitoring, thus making it possible to coordinate the activities. After the completion of the communication report, they need a clear informative format to display right information in a glance by top managers and to assess the activity. Micro planner Expert does this by charting ability and offering interface options with the help of telecommunications systems. These charts are useful when the company offers off-peak discounts or seasonal discounts. The results like money back guarantee schemes and other schemes can be viewed in the form of charts and even toll free service line can be arranged to enable the communication with customers and stakeholders. Role of Project Scheduler: The project scheduler helps in management of the project by correct scheduling of resources. This needs the identification of accomplishment, the way the team works, working together. These aspects are materialised by project scheduler and lead the team towards a common goal as the scheduling is according to it. The project scheduler helps the managers to know and define the scope of work and convey it to the subordinates. The justification of the value of the project to its cost is estimated and risk handling is done accordingly. The scheduling allows to monitor’s the teams progress in selected parts of the project towards the completion. Managing essential communications and acquiring the resources is possible by monitoring the progress. The definition of scope of the project is part of scheduling, as it needs extent to which the team has to work. By this the tool draws a line around the work that the project team will take on and understanding does not drift. When each thing is being completed, the progress reporting is done in the form of charts and tables to stakeholders and higher management. This needs putting together the team of the project. This is possible by scheduler only. When one understands the scope and goal, the scheduling can be done accordingly. The scheduling enables to identify the major areas of work to complete and number of people required for it. Thus, scheduler decides the need of staff or the excess of staff present in the organisation. Project Scheduler helps in understanding the importance of time, as it is an important aspect in scheduling. This serves as a point of reference to monitor the productivity achieved and hence the performance of schedule. The justification of the project manager’s belief is calculated and verified. Project Scheduler relates the scheduling directly to the role in monitoring the performance. This needs the skills like setting limits of scope, gain commitment, satisfying the customer, delivering the benefits, cost efficiency, anticipating the problems, completing the tasks in t ime, matching people and tasks, follow up of vital information, providing resources and setting the standards. Project scheduler provides these.

Influence of the Media on Teens Drinking - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 991 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2018/12/18 Category Media Essay Type Research paper Level High school Tags: Teenager Essay Did you like this example? Alcohol is the most preferred drug among the young generation hence, the most widely abused substance. Most teenagers are facing the consequences of engaging themselves in alcohol consumption habits at an early age. According to Beck et al. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Influence of the Media on Teens Drinking" essay for you Create order (633), many factors lead to alcohol abuse among the young generation. Also, as children move from childhood to teenage age, the experience many changes in their lives. Some of these changes are emotional, physical lifestyle changes. Also, some development transitions like puberty and the increased sense of independence have been directly linked to the abuse of alcohol among young people. Finally, in this Century, alcohol consumption is in most places of the globe is seen as a form of entertainment hence, creating room for teenagers to drink. The paper covers an analysis of the influence of the media on alcohol consumption among teenagers. The media has a more significant influence on the lives of most young people. According to Austin et al. (376), with the rising advertisements on alcohol, teens are exposed to drinking ideas since these publications make drinking look more appealing to them. Most of these commercials on alcohol do not provide a warning to the teenagers on the eff ects of alcohol drinking but instead, promotes these drinks. Many of the commercials on alcohol portrays it positively. There are apparent both positive and negative impacts of alcohol consumption, but these ads make younger viewers think that the idea of drinking is fun hence, the temptation to try to arise. An example of an alcohol advertising video is the Superbad movie. The movie starts two adolescents with the names Seth and Evan. The two are about to graduate from high schools, but before the graduation day, they want to attend a party to break their virginity. While planning their party, one of their friends known as Fogell reveals his intention to obtain a fake identity Card and Seth uses the plan to take advantage and go purchase alcohol with the fake ID. After Fogell goes to the store and successfully purchases the drinks, a robbery takes place where robbers come is and punches his face before stealing the money from the cash register. The movie appears more appealing to the young generation, and most of them in most cases try the same trick when they intend to have drinks for their parties. Most of the companies claim that they do not advertise alcohol with the intentions of entertaining the young people to start drinking but rather, to create more awareness to the people of the right age to switch to other brands but, drink the new name with moderation. Another way in which the media influences young people to drink is via the news coverage of celebrities plus the entertainment industry. According to Braun et al. (153), the media shows off the lifestyles of many celebrities lives which in a way leaves many teenagers exposed. Particular magazines publish information on celebrities out in clubs consuming alcohol. In cases where teenagers see these stars drinking alcohol and taking part in these activities, in most cases they become tempted to try to engage in such activities. An article published on the role of celebrities in promoting the abuse of substances among the young generation shows that most cases of alcohol abuse begin at the age of 14. Many experts have proven that many experts even though the primary cause of alcohol abuse among the young is varied and sophisticated, the influence from the lives of celebrities plays a vital role too. The media also influences thee, teenagers, to drink via the entertainment industry. In most of the entertainment firms, the media portrays alcohol use via televisions, music, and movies. The music industry serves as the primary influence of alcohol consumption among teenagers. Many songs lyrics talk about parties and alcohol drinking. Most of these songs are put out, and the teenagers enjoy them which leaves them more exposed to the idea of alcohol consumption Hanewinkel et al. (1068). Additionally, reality television shows also play a more significant role in portraying the abuse of alcohol. The youngsters watch most of these reality shows. For instance, shows, for example, the real world and jersey promote a lot of partying and alcohol use. In cases where young people see this show, they face the danger of being exposed to the idea which as a result, can influence them to start consuming alcohol (Anderson et al., 229). According to research conducted by different scholars, the reports obtained from more than two thousand teens on their favorite drinks, clearly indicates that most of the brands named by these teens tend to be the same brands with high marketing expenditure such as Smirnoff. This serves as a clear indication that advertising influences teenagers attitudes towards alcohol consumption (Anderson et al., 229). In conclusion, the influence of the media on teenager drinking is continuously becoming a serious challenge. The development is technology is only going to expose alcohol use to the adolescents further. Even though the media in one way or the other tries to show the negative impacts of drinking, it is not enough to eradicate the impl ications of their content n alcohol to the young people. Works Cited Anderson, Peter, et al. Impact of alcohol advertising and media exposure on adolescent alcohol use: a systematic review of longitudinal studies.? Alcohol and Alcoholism? 44.3 (2009): 229-243. Austin, Erica Weintraub, Meng-Jinn Chen, and Joel W. Grube. How does alcohol advertising influence underage drinking? The role of desirability, identification, and skepticism.? Journal of Adolescent Health? 38.4 (2006): 376-384. Beck, Kenneth H., and Katherine A. Treiman. The relationship of the social context of drinking, perceived social norms, and parental influence to various drinking patterns of adolescents.? Addictive behaviors? 21.5 (1996): 633-644. Brown, Jane D., and Elizabeth M. Witherspoon. The mass media and American adolescents health.? Journal of adolescent health? 31.6 (2002): 153-170. Hanewinkel, Reiner, Susanne E. Tanski, and James D. Sargent. Exposure to alcohol use in motion pictures and teen drinking in Germany.? International journal of epidemiology36.5 (2007): 1068-10 77.

Social Media And Its Effects On Society - 1564 Words

Within recent years the Internet and computer technology have made great advancements, allowing for the age of social media to be born and subsequently shaped into what it is today. Social media has become so largely desirable to modern day society due to its large and easy accessibility amongst citizens. However, social networking sites such as Facebook have been found to have negative impacts on individual’s social and psychological well being including things such as basic empathetic social skills1 (Chan 2014). Social awareness and the ability to communicate with one another makes up the crux of what it means to have social well-being. However, through the often anti social aspect of social media, physiological issues and issues of social well-being are being brought to light through research and studies investigating the truly negative effects of social media. Some of the risk that are highlighted through research into the effects of social media includes the risks of ad diction, ‘Facebook depression’, ‘sexting’, cyber bullying and online harassments as well as associated privacy risks of all forms of social media2 (O’Keefe 2011). As human beings it is a part of our intrinsic nature to constantly be up to date and in the know with what is happing all around us; not only directly with our friends and family but also on a global scale. The Internet and social media becomes a beneficial tool in achieving this and allowing for instant dispersion of information. WithShow MoreRelatedSocial Media And Its Effects On Society1597 Words   |  7 PagesSociety Crumbles into Smithereens One Post at a Time You are walking out of the new Star Wars movie, posting about how superb it was, when suddenly you are swooped up and thrown in the back of a vehicle. No one would have thought posting about how you were there earlier would provoke such a situation. After all, social networking is â€Å"safe† and â€Å"friendly.† Now, social media is defined as â€Å"A form of electric communication through which users create online communities to share information,† accordingRead MoreSocial Media And Its Effect On Society1711 Words   |  7 Pagesinfluence usually are not the first words you would expect to come to mind when thinking about the term â€Å"social media,† yet with a little digging you will soon realize it could be the perfect description. Social media can be defined as forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages and other content. Most often social media is understood as a p ositive concept because of the ways it has allowed us to attain cheap and easilyRead MoreThe Effects Of Social Media On Society1359 Words   |  6 PagesIn a broad sense, Social media refers to elements such as websites, television, blogs, IM, and other applications that enable users to create and share various forms of content such as messages, pictures, and information, or to be able to participate in social networking. Social media depends on web-based applications, which allow a high level of virtual interaction on various levels such as social, professional, and educational levels. Social media has had various contributions to the developmentRead MoreSocial Media And Its Effects On Society1592 Words   |  7 Pagesdevelopment of vast social media networks has improved our communications and interactions. These networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, are essential to how information is shared and criticized. The Social Media Handbook defines social media as â€Å"networked information services designed to support in-depth interaction, community formation, collaborative opportunities and collaborative work† (Hunsinger, 2014 p.1). Having an account or profile on these sites is more than a social norm; it is a requirementRead MoreSocial Media And Its Effects On Society1359 Words   |  6 PagesPeople may say social media is good for you but is it really? Everyday, everywhere I always see people on social media calling people bad names, not being able to communicate face to face with each other. Social media, social media, social media†¦ oh what is has done to the world, so many students grades have dropped, criminals PROMOTE crimes. Ultimately, what is at stake here is social media will one day take over the world. 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Having an undergraduate major in Psychology at the University of Southern California and currently conducting research on social media usage at the Brain and Creativity Institute of USC, I have spent significant time researching the issue of social media.Though I agree that social media can be hazardous if not used effectivelyRead MoreSocial Media And Its Effect On Society998 Words   |  4 Pagesis bound to be a shift in social norms. As the times change, so does societal views on acceptable values. One such possibility is the standard value accepted by mainstream society in which the way a female body is sexually portrayed in the media. It appears that society has not only accepted this standard, but has increasingly encouraged a more sexualized representation of the female body. Social media is an informational highway about what is accepted by the larger society and inferred by the individualsRead MoreSocial Media And Its Effect On Society1151 Words   |  5 PagesSocial Media The Workplaces’ Largest Enemy Being employed means that an individual will in most cases have coworkers and bosses; the environment shared between the employees is known as the workplace. In the time before technology, people being fired from their jobs was not an unheard of situation. The difference now is people are being terminated from their jobs because of something they posted on social media. If this was not the case, it would set a precedent that posting inappropriate or hurtfulRead MoreSocial Media And Its Effects On Society Essay1396 Words   |  6 PagesIn our modern world, the use of social media is overwhelming and second nature due to the availability. Several people all around the world possess some form of an electronic device that is capable of accessing social media, rather it be Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and many more. â€Å"Technology’s rampant popularization over the past decade in terms of social media has meant that texting, Facebook, and Twitter have inevitable take n over as the most efficient ways of communicating with each

Sunshine Chapter 20 Free Essays

Assailable. An interesting choice of adjective. I looked up at him, and he looked down at me. We will write a custom essay sample on Sunshine Chapter 20 or any similar topic only for you Order Now I couldn’t see into the shadows on his face. They remained shadows. They didn’t wiggle or sparkle and they didn’t have red edges. They didn’t go down a long way. They were just shadows. Cute. The only person who still looked normal out of my eyes wasn’t a person and wasn’t normal. The look between us lengthened. He might not be able to lure me to the same doom he almost had the second night at the lake, but it seemed to me it was still doom I saw in his eyes. I looked away. â€Å"Improvements,† I said. â€Å"You mean some of this – this – † The phrases that occurred to me were not tactful: this tragic reproduction of William Beckford’s front parlor, or perhaps Ludwig II’s. â€Å"You mean some of this, er, stuff is, er, yours?† â€Å"Nothing you may see, no. I do not like tying up my strength in objects. It was an old argument with my master. Physical shape has a certain durability that the less tangible lacks, but I feel it is a brittle durability. He believed otherwise.† And he’s the one who got skegged, I thought. â€Å"Do you know what Bo’s philosophy of, er, defense is?† Pause. Finally he said: â€Å"He puts most of his energies into his gang. This will not help us locate him.† I sighed. â€Å"This is another of those vampire-senses-are-different things, isn’t it?† I supposed I had to tell him what I’d found through the globenet – how I’d first found the bad nowheresville, the beyond-dark human-squishing space, and what else seemed to be in there. If â€Å"in† was the right preposition. Out? On? Up? With? After? Over? English has too many prepositions. Did I have to mention SOF? I didn’t have to tell him anything yet. He didn’t seem to be in a big hurry to get me home. How close, in ordinary human-measured geography, was this earth-place to Yolande’s house? Ally or no ally, I didn’t like the idea of our being neighbors. â€Å"Bo isn’t his real name, is it?† I said. â€Å"It sounds like something you’d call a sheepdog.† â€Å"It is short for Beauregard.† I laughed. I hadn’t known I had a laugh available. A vampire named Beauregard. It was too perfect. And he probably hadn’t got it accidentally from his stepdad who ran a coffeehouse. â€Å"How much time do we have?† I said. â€Å"Bo, I mean, not today’s dawn.† I was beginning to learn when he was thinking and when he was merely thinking about what to say to me, a bumptious human. This time he was thinking. â€Å"I have been out of context since we last met,† he said. Yes, he said context. â€Å"I do not know. I will find out.† â€Å"Same time, same place,† I murmured. â€Å"Not.† â€Å"I do not understand.† â€Å"We have to meet again, right?† I said. â€Å"And I have things to tell you too. I may have a – a kind of line on Bo myself.† He nodded. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or outraged. Maybe he thought he’d chosen his confederate well. Equal partners with a vampire: an exhilarating concept. Supposing you lived long enough to enjoy the buzz. But I guess â€Å"Hey, well done, congratulations, wow† weren’t in common vampire usage. Maybe I could teach him that too, with â€Å"probably† and â€Å"not before next week.† â€Å"I will come to you, if I may,† he said. â€Å"You would rather I didn’t come here again.† I hadn’t meant to say that either, but it popped out. A clear trace of surprise showed on his face for about a third of a second. I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been looking straight at him, but it was there. â€Å"You may come here if you wish. I†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He stopped. I could guess what he was thinking. It was the same thing I was thinking. Wasn’t thinking. â€Å"Come. I will give you a token.† He slid easily through the gap in the impedimenta (sorry, this household brought out the worst in my vocabulary; it was like every bad novel and hyperbolic myth I’d ever read crowding round to haunt me in three dimensions) and made off into the dark. I had a sidelong peek at the overturned goblet as I passed it. My dark vision steadied if I kept it on Con’s back, so I did, mostly, resisting the compelling desire to try to figure out what some of the more tortured blacknesses indicated by looking at them directly: hydras with interminable heads; Laocoon with several dozen sons and twice as many serpents; an infestations of trifflds; the entire chariot race from Ben Hur: all frozen in plaster or wood or stone. I hoped. Especially the trifflds. Con stopped at a cupboard. It had curlicues leaping out of its lid like a forest of satyrs’ horns, and something – things – like satyrs themselves oiling down the edges. It was satyrs. Their hands were its handles. Ugh. Con, his own hand on one of the doors, glanced at me. â€Å"Why did the Cup distress you?† I shrugged. How was I going to explain? â€Å"My question is not an idle one,† he said. â€Å"I do not wish to distress you.† Not till after we’d defeated Mr. Bo Jangles anyway. Oh, Sunshine, give a vampire a break. He probably thinks he’s trying. â€Å"I’m not sure I can explain,† I said. â€Å"I’m not sure I can explain to me. And vampires aren’t much into family ties, are they?† â€Å"No,† he said. I already knew vampires aren’t great on irony. â€Å"I†¦have got into this because of my inheritance on my father’s side. I’m certainly alive to tell about it – so far – on account of that inheritance, right? But – † I looked into his face as I said this, and decided that the standard impassivity was at the soft, understanding end of the range, like marble is a little softer than adamant. â€Å"I’m a little twitchy about this bond thing with you, and the idea of – of – a kind of background to it – that your master had dealings with my dad’s family – I don’t like it.† I didn’t want to know that the monster that lived under your bed when you were a kid not only really is there but used to have a few beers with your dad. â€Å"And the only training I’ve ever had, if you want to call it training, was a few hours changing flowers into feathers and back with my gran fifteen years ago, and I feel a little†¦well, ex posed. Unready.† I could maybe have said, assailable. â€Å"I see.† Con stared at the ugly door for a moment as if making up his mind, and then opened it. Inside were rows and rows of tiny drawers. I could feel the – well, it wasn’t heat, and it wasn’t a smell, and it wasn’t tiny voices, but it was a little like all three together. There were dozens of things in those drawers and not an inert one in the lot. They were all yelling/secreting/radiating a kind of ME! ME! ME! like the jock kids in school when the coach is choosing teams. I wondered what the cupboard was made of. I didn’t feel like touching it myself and seeing if it might tell me anything. I didn’t like the grins on the faces of the satyrs. Con opened a drawer and lifted out a thin chain. The other voices/emissions subsided at once, some of them with a distinct grumble (or fart). The chain glimmered in the nonlight – the foxy-colored light of the fire didn’t reach this far – it looked like opal, if there was a way to make flexible connecting loops out of opal. It was humming a kind of thin fey almost-tune; my mind, or my ear, kept trying to turn it into a melody, but it wouldn’t quite go. Con poured it from one palm to the other – it looked fine as cobweb in his big hands – and then held it up again, spreading his fingers so that it hung in a near-circle. The almost-tune began to change. It would catch, like a tiny flaw tripping a recording, making it hesitate and skip; but each time it picked up again the tune had changed. It did this over and over as I listened, as Con held it up; and as I listened the strange, wavering nontune seemed to grow increasingly familiar, as if it we re a noise like the purr of a refrigerator or the high faint whine of a TV with the sound turned off. Familiar: comfortable. Safe. I also felt, eerily, that the sound was becoming more familiar because it was somehow trying to become familiar: like the shape of a stranger at the other end of the street becomes your old friend so-and-so as it gets close enough for you to see their face and possibly that ratty old coat they should have thrown out years ago. This sibylline chain was approaching me†¦and dressing itself up as an old friend. It knew its job. By the time it drifted off into silence I was reaching for it as if it belonged to me. Which maybe it did. Con dropped it over my hands and it seemed to stroke my skin as it slid down my fingers. I watched it gleaming for a moment – the gleam seemed to have a rhythm, like a heartbeat – and then I dropped it over my head. It disappeared under the collar of the black shirt, but I felt it lying against me, crossing the tips of the scar below my collarbones, resting in a curve over my heart. â€Å"Thank you,† I said, falteringly. I knew a powerful piece of magic when I saw it and hung it round my neck, but I had never heard of anything quite like this†¦convergence; usually you had to make a terrific effort to match things up even a quarter so well as this. Of course what I didn’t know about magic handling would fill libraries. Also, â€Å"thank you† seemed about as pathetic a response to such a marvel as anyone could make. â€Å"I thought it would be glad to go to you.† â€Å"Er – didn’t you – â€Å" â€Å"No. My master was vexed when he discovered the necklet would not work for him nor any of our kind. This cupboard contains some of his other disappointments.† â€Å"There was a bit of a clamor, when you opened the doors,† I said. â€Å"Yes. These are human things, and they have seen no human since they were brought here.† Pause. â€Å"They do not love being idle. Some of them are very powerful. I can restrain them, even if I cannot use them. I would offer them to you, if†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"If there was any indication I wouldn’t make a total botch,† I interrupted, â€Å"which there isn’t. To the contrary, if anything.† The question of the existence of my demon taint, never far from the front of my mind these days despite serious competition from vampires and immediate death, resurfaced long enough to register that the â€Å"human things† had responded to me as human. Well, if they were comparing me to Con I was a shoo-in. I didn’t know how long they’d been here, but a good guess was long enough to make them desperate. I touched the chain with my finger, and half-thought, half-imagined I heard a faint – the faintest of faint – hums. If I was going to say I’d heard it, I’d say it was a happy hum. But I wasn’t going to say I’d heard it. â€Å"The Cup was my mistake.† â€Å"Allow me to point out that it had been a rather tiring evening already,† I said testily, â€Å"before I met the damn†¦cauldron. And I wasn’t exactly prepared. Nor was I exactly introduced. Even a master handler – which I am not – can be caught off guard.† â€Å"The necklet will allow you to find your way back here,† said Con. â€Å"You may, if you wish, investigate these things further, having prepared yourself.† I laughed a small dry croaking laugh. â€Å"That kind of preparation takes decades of apprenticeship. Ruthless, singleminded, hair-raising apprenticeship. It also requires someone to be apprenticed to, which in my case I have not got, besides being at least fifteen years too old to start.† And possibly calamitously partblood. After a pause, Con said, â€Å"I too had to†¦invent much of my apprenticeship. A master with whom you cannot agree is sometimes worse than no master.† Then why did you stay? I thought. â€Å"There are few, I think, master handlers, who could have traveled the way you traveled this evening to come here, and lived.† My capacity for invention is flash hot stark, I thought. Sucker sunshade. Disembodied radar-reconnaissance. Not to mention Bitter Chocolate Death and Killer Zebras. Pity about the rest of me. â€Å"If you will accept advice from me I would suggest you not come that way again, except in direst need.† â€Å"Happy to promise that one,† I said. â€Å"But don’t find yourself in direst need again either, okay? Or even plain old bland low-level semi-sub-dire need.† â€Å"Ah. No,† said Con. â€Å"I will promise as well. To the extent it is within my mandate.† He closed the cupboard. I thought, if I do get back here, for my first trick I’m going to transfer all that stuff out of that deeply repulsive cupboard, which I’m sure isn’t making any of it rest any easier. Supposing I can find anything more suitable in this baroque fun-house. â€Å"We must be on our way. Dawn is a bare hour away.† â€Å"An hour?† I said. â€Å"You mean you’re – this – is that close to – â€Å" My dismay was hardly flattering, but Con answered with his usual detachment: â€Å"Not in human geography. But the fact that you are here at all – by the way you came – and the necklet you now wear – you will be able to walk some of my shorter ways.† My heart sank. â€Å"You just told me not to use nowheresville again.† Con said, â€Å"I cannot travel that road any more than I can walk under the sun. I do not take you that way.† â€Å"Oh,† I said. â€Å"Well.† I don’t know how we came out above ground again, out into the ordinary night, with a little ordinary breeze and a few ordinary bats swooshing about. Bats. How quaint. I noticed they did not come from where we had come from, however. Wherever that was. I don’t seem to recall coming out, like from a tunnel; the wilder, intenser darkness of Con’s earth-place merely thinned and crumbled, and eventually we were walking on rough grass and turf. With bats skating overhead. I was uncomfortably reminded of my perfunctory clothing when the breeze showed a tendency to billow up inside the long black shirt, but I was so grateful to be breathing fresh air – and because I desperately wanted to be home – when Con took my hand I didn’t instantly jerk it away from him again. At least he didn’t offer to carry me. Even though I was barefoot again. It occurred to me that I had a pattern of being inappropriately dressed during my associations with Con. His shorter way was a little like stepping on stepping stones while the torrent foamed around your feet – in this case the torrent of that conventional reality I was so eager to return to – and threatening at any moment to surge over the edge and sweep you away. I almost certainly would have lost my balance without his hand: you had to look down to see where to put your feet, and reality careering past at Mach hundred and twelve is seriously dizzy-making, plus some of the stepping stones were dangerously slick, disconcertingly like ordinary stones in an ordinary stream, although I didn’t want to think what they were slick with, nor what the equivalent of getting soaking wet might be if I fell off. It was less unnerving than the way I’d gone earlier tonight, as that way was less unnerving than where Aimil’s cosmail had taken me, but it was still unnerving. Very. I wondered if traveling through nowheresville was part of the You will begin, now, I think, to read those lines of†¦power, governance, sorcery, as I can read them, that Con had predicted a month ago. But he’d said read. If this was reading I didn’t want to know about doing. Then the stones seemed to get bigger and bigger and the torrent slowed and grew calm, and we were at the edge of Yolande’s garden. I didn’t notice him leave. I don’t remember his dropping my hand. But as I recognized the shape of the house in the near-light of mundane night under the open sky, I realized I was alone. I remembered as I staggered up the porch steps, trying to avoid the creakiest ones, that I didn’t have the key to my apartment. Again. At this rate I should start keeping a spare under a flowerpot for those nights I found myself doing something strange with Con while barefoot and unsuitably clothed. Maybe it was the necklet, but I put my hand over the keyhole and growled something, I don’t know what, and heard the damn bolt click open. I also heard tiny ward voices chittering at me irritably, but they didn’t try to stop me coming in. I rebolted the door tidily behind me. I didn’t take his shirt off. I fell onto my bed and was asleep instantly. I half expected to wake up and find myself lying in a little pile of ashes, when the black vampire shirt disintegrated under the touch of the sun’s rays; I more than half expected to wake up having had long, labyrinthine dream about Con with a background to match – labyrinthine, I mean. No again. (Although I remembered when I’d last woken up in my bed and hoped that what I remembered about something-strange-with-Con had only been an embarrassing dream. It hadn’t been a dream that time either – and the things-that-weren’t-dreams were by this showing getting more embarrassing. (Speaking of patterns I wanted to break soon.) I did wake stiff as a plank from all my new scrapes and bruises, and with a crick in my neck so severe I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get my face facing frontward again. I looked over my shoulder at the little heap of abandoned clothing in front of the still-open balcony door as I stumbled into the bathroom and star ted running hot water for a bath. I’d been here before too, only last time it was the other vampires that had knocked me around. Be fair, I thought. I’m in a lot better shape than I was when I got home four and a half months ago. I didn’t feel like being fair. For just a moment – for fewer than the ten seconds it had lasted when it happened – I remembered his mouth on mine, his naked body hot and sweating against mine – No. I put my head under the tap and let the water blast all such thoughts away. My hair needed shampooing anyway. The shirt, although it needed a wash, still looked pretty glamorous in daylight. Good quality material. Nice drape. Even if black wasn’t my color. Although at the moment a lot of me was dark blue and purple, and it coordinated very well with that. I scowled at the mirror. My own fault for looking. The chain round my neck gleamed in daylight too. It looked more like gold this morning, but if I stirred it with a finger it had a queer iridescent quality not at all like real gold, not that I had much acquaintance with the stuff. I had always favored plastic and rhinestones. I took the shirt off carefully and put it with the other laundry. Was it natural fibers, I wondered, did it need to be dry-cleaned? I had somehow neglected to ask Con about these crucial details. Borrowing shirts from ordinary guys wasn’t this complicated. For one thing, ordinary-guy shirts usually had washing instruction tags in them. This one didn’t have any tags. I took my bath and wondered if I was going to make it in to the coffeehouse for the lunch shift. I wasn’t anything like as bad off as I had been last spring. I was just sulky. I only took one bath. By the time the water had cooled from scalding to merely hot I could almost turn my head again. I left the rainbow chain round my neck during my bath. I didn’t want to take it off somehow, and I doubted that bubble bath was going to tarnish it. What I did do was introduce it to my other talismans. I hadn’t a clue how to clean up after last night’s magic – none of the words my gran had taught me seemed at all suitable, I felt kind of put off candles and herbs, and I wasn’t in a very thank you mood. But I knew I should be doing something. This was a compromise. As a solemn rite it wasn’t much: I was cross-legged on the very rucked-up sheets of my bed, and still dripping from the bath, wrapped in an assortment of towels. I had pulled my little knife from the pants pocket of the trousers on the floor, and took the mysterious seal out of the bed-table drawer. I smoothed a bit of pillow and laid them there. Then, gently, I lifted the chain off over my head, and dropped it down around them. I don’t know what I was expecting. It just seemed like the thing to do. Knife, meet necklace. Seal, meet necklace. Necklace, meet knife and seal. I suspect we are going into some kind of fracas together, and that you are my co-conspirators – you and that underground guy – and I want to make sure you’re all on speaking terms with one another before I ask you to guard my back. Or something. It was too late in the year for direct sunlight to touch my pillow at that time of day. So I don’t know what happened. But there was a flash like – well, like a ray of sunshine, but it was some ray: like a golden sword, like a Christian saint’s vision of glory. It landed on my talismans with an almost audible whump, like the king’s grip had slipped and he’d clobbered the knight on the shoulder instead of merely tapping gently and dubbing him Sir Thing. And the pillow caught fire. I sat there with steam suddenly boiling off my wet towels, my mouth open, staring. And my brain had gone on vacation without advance warning, because I reached into the fire, closed my hands around my three talismans, gathered them together, and pulled them out of the fire. The fire went out. The pillow lay there, charred and smoking. My hands felt a little hot. No big deal. When I opened my hands there were three overlapping red marks on the palms: one long thin almost rectangular oval, for the knife, one smaller shorter fatter oval for the seal, and a scarlet curl over the ball of one thumb, a slightly ragged thread-width stripe, for the chain. None of the objects themselves now felt any more than human-body-temperature warm. None of them looked a trace different than they had a minute before. Before they had been set on fire by persons or forces unknown. â€Å"Oh,† I said. My voice quavered. â€Å"Oh my.† I made it in for the lunch shift all right. I didn’t want to stay home alone with myself. I hung the chain round my neck again, and put the knife and the seal in two separate pockets. I didn’t feel like leaving anything in the bed-table drawer any more. We’d bonded or something – speaking of weird bonds. Our affiliation had been confirmed by setting one pillow on fire. I put the pillow in the trash and the sheets in the washing machine. My sheets had never been so clean as they’d been in the last few months. I hardly got them on again before something else happened and I was feverishly ripping them off and stuffing them in the wash with double amounts of soap and all the â€Å"extra† buttons pushed: extra wash, extra rinse, extra water, extra spin, extra protection against things that go bump in the night. Unfortunately I never could find that last button. Some day soon I’d buy another pillow and a new set of pillowcases. Turned out once I was dressed in long sleeves and a high neck and jeans you didn’t see the bruises much. There was one on my jawline that was going to be visible as soon as I tied my hair back and a gouge down my forearm that I decided I had to put a bandage on even if this made it look worse than it was. Couldn’t be helped. You can’t ooze in a public bakery any more than you can cook anything without rolling your sleeves up first. I’d worry what to tell Mel later. Paulie was glad to see me. It had been a busy morning, but then it was always a busy morning. â€Å"We’re full up with SOFs,† he said. I grunted. I’d seen them on the way in, glancing through the door to the front, having thoughtfully come in the side way for staff only (and hungry derelicts), just in case of things like SOFs. I put a clean apron on and tied my hair up at lightning speed (lightning bolt, golden sword, Mach hundred and twelve), threw a little flour in my face to camouflage the bruise on my jaw, and was up to my elbows in pastry by the time Pat had drifted apparently aimlessly into the bakery. I hadn’t seen him on my way in; he’d been moving pretty fast himself if they’d called him over from HQ. â€Å"A word with you on your next break?† he said. â€Å"I’ve only just got here,† I said, smudging flour and butter and confectioner’s sugar together briskly. â€Å"Whenever,† he said, loitering. â€Å"It’ll be a couple of hours,† I said quellingly. I could feel Paulie raising his eyebrows behind my back: Pat was usually a friend with privileges. That had been before I’d found out my loyalties were not merely divided, they had hacked me in two and were disappearing over the horizon in opposite directions. â€Å"Whatever you say, ma’am,† he said, saluting, although not very convincingly. â€Å"I don’t suppose there are any cinnamon rolls left?† â€Å"No,† I said. â€Å"Walnut sticky bun?† said Paulie. â€Å"Blueberry muffin, pumpkin muffin, orange, carrot and oat muffin, pear gingerbread, honeycake?† â€Å"One of each,† said Pat, and disappeared. Paulie hadn’t been with us long enough yet to pretend to be impervious to the sincere flattery of people gorging themselves on the stuff you had made. He rubbed his face with a sugary hand to disguise the grin and went off to load up a plate and shout for Mary to take it out front. I was tempted not to admit when I went on break but I was having to do enough lying just plugging through my days – and nights – and didn’t want to get too used to it. It was like I didn’t want to forget the difference between daylight and nighttime: and both my funny eyes and my funny new life-and-undead style seemed to be prodding me relentlessly in that direction. Not funny. My sunshine-self. My tree-self. My deer-self. Didn’t we outnumber the dark self? My hands patted the two pockets that contained the knife and the seal, leaving two more smudges on my apron. I took the apron off and washed my hands and made myself a cup of tea and went out front. Pat had either come back or was still there. Paulie’s piled-up plate two and a half hours ago hadn’t been enough; he was now eating Lemon Lust pastry bars and Killer Zebras. Any normal human ought to have a gut he’d have to carry around on a wheelbarrow, the way he ate. This had crossed my mind once or twice before, being many years acquainted with Pat’s eating habits, but he was SOF, you know? So he got a lot of exercise and had a high metabolism rate. I wondered again what kind of demon he was. If he was a rubberfoot, which came in blue sometimes, he could walk up walls, for example, which must burn a lot of calories. I nodded to him and went out to sit on the wall of Mrs. Bialosky’s flower bed. The sun was shining. He followed me. â€Å"Listen to the news last night?† he said. How to cite Sunshine Chapter 20, Essay examples

Tips for Formal Writing

Tips for Formal Writing Writing assumes many categories. Formal writing is one category. It entails: academic writing, formal letters and business writing. It is governed by certain rules and regulations that should be adhered to. Below are tips for formal writing. Use concise language The language used in formal writing impacts on the understanding levels of readers. The language should be straightforward so that information is interpreted as it should be. Concise language ensures that reader are able to quickly comprehend the goal of writing. Literary devices such as exaggeration, imagery and metaphors should not be used in formal writing. Have a clear goal Formal writing does not offer space for deviations or integration of multiple topics as is the case in informal writing. It aims at conveying a clear goal right from the start to the end. When clarity is observed in writing, the goal is well communicated. In academic writing, a thesis statement asserts the specific goal that a research paper aims to fulfill. Use words that are familiar to you Using unnecessary complex words or vocabulary does not add any value to any category of formal writing. In fact, more harm than good is done making formal writing appear unpleasant. You should stick to words whose meaning is to the full of knowledge. Brevity must be upheld Express information in the simplest way possible. The use of short and simple sentences is the key to brevity. Writers should avoid the temptation to use too many words. It makes formal writing appear less formal. For example, the remedy to cancer is the use of vitamin supplements to aid in its prevention and treatment is not suitable sentence. This sentence is very long and to some extent ambiguous. Instead, it should be expressed as: vitamin supplements are the remedy to cancer prevention and treatment. Use a third person point of view This makes formal writing objective and increases a writer’s confidence. Using first person point of view-I am of the opinion†¦ makes writing both informal and unconvincing. There are exceptions in formal writing which require a first person point of view. If you are writing a formal letter seeking employment, you will have to use the first person mode in some instances. This also applies when writing an academic paper that requires your personal input. Use the non-contracted form of words The key aim in this tip is to refrain from using contractions. Contractions represent a shortened version of words. The contracted words replace specific letters with apostrophes. Words that are commonly contracted include: will not-won’t, cannot-can’t. Although the contracted words rarely alter the meaning of the original words, they make writing less formal. A writer should look out for contractions in an article and get rid of them. Using tools such as the find and replace option available in Microsoft Word writing software is an effective way of completely eliminating contractions in formal writing. Use correct punctuation and spelling Formal writing is greatly dictated by punctuation and spelling. To be certain that formal writing is perfectly punctuated, proofreading and editing must be done. Finally, accruing information about formal writing principles leads to a quality writing process. The tips discussed in this article will support writers in their quest to become proficient in formal writing. Apart from these tips, writers should find out what other tips enhance competence in formal writing.

Problems of Team Cohesiveness in Online Courses

Problems of Team Cohesiveness in Online Courses Introduction When working with an online group, team cohesiveness is crucial for sharing of information and improving each member’s knowledge. The main challenge that befalls online courses teams is how to develop cohesiveness with the team members who might come from different cultural, economical, social, and political background; however with strategic moves, the cohesion can be developed (Parker, 2009).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Problems of Team Cohesiveness in Online Courses specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This paper discusses how to improve team cohesiveness and the benefits that will be attained from health cohesion. Improving team cohesiveness To improve cohesiveness among online members when conferencing members should be allowed to discuss matters that are outside the main topic for some time; although care should be exercised that the amount of time taken does not deviate the main topics to c over. The matters that can bring people together include once culture, political situation in their country, some life experiences that they might have undergone and they are willing to share, hobbies and likes. Other than communicating via the teleconferencing, members should be encouraged to be members of the same social network site as they will be able to discuss other issue of life that will facilitate them opening up and creating the much needed cohesion. When it comes on the part of the course, the team should manage the course such that every member is given a chance to handle a certain topic them train the other members; with such moves, members will feel they are accountable of each other and their cohesion builds. Another aspect that builds cohesion among people is conflicts management and sharing of experiences; in the case there will be an occurrence that calls for solving among the team members, every member should be involves in looking for a solution. When this happe ns, everyone will feel appreciated and a member of the larger team.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Benefits of team cohesion When working with a team that has a healthy cohesion, every member feels accountable and answerable to the larger group, with the feeling everyone works for the good of the other and thus team spirit is facilitated. When working in a team, communication and unselfish sharing of information is crucial, this can only be attained when the team has a good relation that is build through cohesion. There are times that conflicts among the members hinder the delivery of quality results, however when a team is well bonded, then such occurrences are unlikely to happen. Teams that have strong cohesion among themselves are highly motivated and fulfill their tasks and obligations in the team effectively; they are willing to learn and be taught by their c ounterparts. Motivation among members gives rise to high morale of fulfilling tasks that one has been allocated by the team and doing them diligently and on time. When challenged by other team members, member will be taking it positive and work to improve on the areas that have been pointed by others. Teams with good cohesiveness among themselves attain their targets and objectives with ease (Crother-Laurin, 2006). Conclusion Team cohesion is crucial for performance improvement among team members; it creates team spirit and promotes accountability of each team member. To promote the growth of team cohesiveness, team members need to respect each other opinion and criticize others positively. Team with high cohesiveness perform better and are more likely to attain their goals and objectives with ease. References Crother-Laurin, C. (2006). Effective Teams: A Symptom of Healthy Leadership. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 29(3), 4.Advertising We will write a custom ess ay sample on Problems of Team Cohesiveness in Online Courses specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Parker, G. ,(2009). Team Leadership: 20 Proven Tools for Success. New Jersey: Human Resource Development Press.

College Interview Attire What to Wear to Your Interview

College Interview Attire What to Wear to Your Interview SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips As if college applications aren't stressful enough, an interview with the admissions department can ramp anxiety up to eleven. Though an interview is a great way to make a lasting impression, it also introduces some new things to worry about in addition to your application, such as what you're supposed to wear. Like all parts of the college application process, you want to make a good impression, but also be yourself. Not everyone is a fashion maven, and there are additional barriers for students experiencing academic hardship. If you have questions about what to wear to a college interview, you're in luck- we've got answers. From how to style yourself to how to afford business casual on a budget, this guide will help you look sharp and feel confident during your college interview. How to Pick an Outfit for a College Interview If you’re applying to college, it’s quite possible that you’ve never needed to understand what â€Å"business casual† means. How can you be both â€Å"business† and â€Å"casual?† Is that a suit with flip-flops? A skirt and your favorite band t-shirt?If you find the concept confusing, don’t worry- you’re not alone. â€Å"Business casual† is generally how students are advised to dress for college interviews, though some interviews in more professional settings may require you to jazz it right up to â€Å"business† sans â€Å"casual.† Be sure you get information about where you’ll be meeting ahead of time to be sure that your outfit matches the setting- no matter how great your suit is, it’s going to look a little silly in a boba tea shop. So what does business casual mean? This style of dress fits somewhere right between business or formal wear- suits, ties, dresses, the kind of thing you’d see Cheryl Blossom wear onRiverdale- and casual wear- t-shirts, jeans, hoodies, like you might see Riverdale's Archie or Betty wearing. Business casual is meant to be professional, but not uptight; a blazer over a button-up shirt, but not a suit, or a cute dress with flats rather than heels. While a little flair is acceptable, people should come away remembering you, not your outfit. But knowing what business casual is isn’t enough; you also need to buy it. If you or your family have money to spend, any department store will have appropriate business casual items, outlined below. If you’re on a strict budget or simply can’t afford new clothes, many thrift stores, as well as lower cost department stores like Wal-Mart and Target, carry blazers, button-up shirts, and dressy shoes in leather or faux-leather. There may also be local charities like Catie’s Closet or Clothes for Kids that can help you find free or low-cost business casual wear for your interview. Don’t be afraid to ask for help- these organizations want to help you succeed. If you’re unable to afford the perfect outfit and there are no organizations nearby to help you, don’t panic. Dressing well for your college interview is just one part of the application process. You might blow an interview by not showing up, refusing to speak, saying you cheat in school, or admitting that the only reason you’re there is because your parents made you apply, but your outfit probably won’t destroy your chances, particularly if the interviewer can see you made an effort. Aim for somewhere in the middle of the Archie-Cheryl fashion spectrum. What Should You Wear to a College Interview? Business casual is a good starting line for what to wear to a college interview, but some people, such as students who might be auditioning for an arts department or people with tattoos and piercings, may have some additional concerns about what to wear. And with pictures being worth a thousand words, here are a few outfits to help you plan your own college interview outfit. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nines Bambines (@nines_bambines) on Nov 6, 2018 at 10:14pm PST This look is the perfect business casual- sharp, flattering, and not distracting. Business Casual for College Interviews Let your personality shine through in your words, not your clothing. Though these outfits might feel bland in comparison to your normal clothes, they’re the most appropriate thing to wear to an interview. "Business casual" doesn't have to mean unflattering or without personality- as the above outfit shows, you can look confident and work-appropriate at the same time. Dress a little more conservatively than you normally would. Even if you’re wearing a dress, your shoulders shouldn’t be bare- throw on a nice cardigan or blazer to go with your outfit. Your shoes should be clean and unscuffed, and preferably made of leather, fake leather, or suede. Nobody’s going to bend down and check that they’re the real thing, but they should look clean, polished, and professional. For colors, lean toward neutrals, pastels, and cool tones. Bright colors are fine, but try not to go too wild with mixing and matching patterns and bold tones- a blazer over a bright button-up is great, but a pink skirt with an orange shirt and blue shoes is probably pushing it. You want your interviewer to remember you, not your outfit. Opt for a high neckline over a low one. Leave v-necks and plunging necklines at home.Collared shirts are always a good idea for a college interview, and easy to find at any clothing store, including Wal-Mart or Target, as well as thrift stores. Choose no patterns over patterns, and conservative patterns over flamboyant ones. Checks are fine, but plaid is pushing it- and also tends a little more casual than business casual. A simple pattern of chevrons is fine, tropical toucans is not. Think a navy blue shirt with white embellishments or a white shirt with a cute pattern rather than bright with an eye-catching pattern. No jeans, no leggings. Tights should be plain, not patterned or extremely textured. Opt for dress pants, chinos, corduroys, or similar. You might be able to squeak by with dark denim with no holes or embellishments, but if you have another option, take it. Your shoes should be closed-toe and dressy. Heels aren’t necessary, particularly if you’ll also be touring the campus (coming soon - what to wear for a campus tour)- you want to have sure footing and be comfortable. Still, ditch the sneakers and opt for a comfortable ballet flat, wingtip, loafer, or boot. Opt for simplicity over elaborate decoration. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Matt Hartman | #runnineverlong (@runnineverlong) on Oct 30, 2018 at 7:52am PDT Something like this is great for an interview or an interview with an audition. What to Wear for College Auditions If you’re a musician or other performing artist and your interview also includes an audition, dress appropriately. Most of the same rules apply; think button-up shirts and khakis rather than jeans and t-shirts. But if you’re a classical musician, a black and white theme might be appropriate- black pants, white button-up shirt, black blazer, for example. Again, this won’t make or break your chances, but do be aware of what field you’re applying to and keep that in mind as you’re choosing outfits. View this post on Instagram A post shared by ð â€¢ ¸Ã° â€"”ð â€"™ð â€" Ã° â€"Šð â€"â€" ð â€¢ ºÃ° â€"‹ ð â€¢ ±Ã° â€"”ð â€" Ã° â€"Šð â€"Ëœ (@foxfell) on Jul 16, 2018 at 9:40am PDT Though the earrings are a little too big for a college interview, this classy look is perfectly fine with visible tattoos and piercings. What to Do If You Have Tattoos and Piercings If you have facial piercings, please, don’t try to hide them with a bandage. It looks far more unprofessional to try to cover them up with a bandage than to swap the jewelry out for something more understated, if necessary. College campuses are fairly used to wild hair colors, piercings, and tattoos. A nose stud isn’t likely to raise eyebrows unless you’re applying to a particularly conservative school. Use your best judgement- search social media for what students at that college look like, and decide whether it’s better to take your piercing out for a day or to just go with it. Tasteful tattoos are fine for most colleges, and will likely be covered up by an appropriate outfit anyway. If you have a tattoo of anything obscene or offensive, you should make efforts to cover it up. Makeup can help, but be sure to practice before your interview. If you have stretched piercings or body art in unusual places (such as your face or neck), there are ways to cover up or hide them. You can use makeup or a piercing retainer to temporarily hide tattoos or piercings. But keep in mind that neither of these options is foolproof- a retainer won’t trick anybody into thinking you don’t have a piercing on close inspection, though it might make it less obvious at first sight. If you feel like you’re going above and beyond to hide your tattoos and piercings, it might be worth considering whether this is the right school for you. Changing your entire personal appearance to get into college might mean that the school isn’t a good fit. If you’re willing to let the piercing go or have the tattoo removed if you get accepted, hiding it might be worth it- but if not, think about whether it’s really the right school for you. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mary Zilba (@maryzilba) on Oct 30, 2018 at 8:38am PDT A bun and natural makeup are perfect for a college interview. How to Do Your Makeup and Hair for a College Interview Don’t go wild with styling your hair. Keep it simple: don’t worry about lots of gel, hours with a curling iron, or getting a whole new ‘do just for an interview. If you have long hair, consider putting it up in a bun or ponytail to keep it out of the way. Long, flowing waves are nice, but be sure that they’re styled well enough to hold up during an interview. If you’re not sure, a bun or ponytail will look fine. Colored hair shouldn’t be a problem for most schools. Follow business casual styling standards and you should be fine. If you’re concerned a school will frown on dyed hair, you can dye it back before the interview, but, as with piercings and tattoos, consider whether that’s something you’re willing to do for as long as you’re attending. If not, think about whether this is the right school for you. Keep your nails trimmed and clean. A simple manicure- a single color, French tips, and so on- is fine, but now’s not the time for those claw nails or elaborate nail art. Makeup should be natural and simple. There’s no need for heavy eye shadow, lots of eyeliner, or bright lipstick. Stick with neutral colors rather than being adventurous. Any perfume or cologne should be light, if worn at all. If someone can smell you more than a foot away, you’re wearing too much. Do opt for deodorant, though! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Junho âÅ" ª (@mrjunho3) on Oct 28, 2018 at 8:30am PDT Keep any accessories simple and understated. What Accessories to Wear at a College Interview Again, go simple. A light necklace, bracelet, or watch are perfect accessories. If your jewelry might be distracting- whether for you or for the interviewer- leave it at home. Clanky bangles, a statement necklace, or particularly flashy earrings are better for other settings. One accessory you should bring is a bag. You can keep any papers you get during the interview and tour, a water bottle, and anything else you might need safe and out of the way with an appropriate bag. Avoid backpacks or totes with flashy logos or energy drink branding. A simple brown or black messenger bag, a plain tote, or similar is a good choice. A plain backpack will also get the job done, but plain is the operative word; again, you don’t want to stand out for your clothing choice. A good business casual outfit should have you feeling like this. General Tips for Confidence During a College Interview All this information about outfits will help you dress the part, but what else can you do to look and feel your best during a college interview? #1: Wear Something Comfortable If you’re uncomfortable during your interview, you’re not going to be at your most confident. If your outfit isn’t working for you, swap it out for something that does. Break in your shoes and leave the itchy fabrics at home. #2: Find What Looks Good Business casual may not be your normal attire, but you still want your outfit to make you feel good. If you’re tugging at your sleeves or checking the height of your pants all day, you’re not projecting confidence. Other things may make you nervous, but your outfit shouldn’t. #3: Practice! Have a firm (but not overwhelming!) handshake and a confident greeting. If these aren’t things you’re already adept at, practice! Don’t just practice on your friends, who might laugh or go too soft on you. Find someone you trust to put the pressure on a little and see how you perform. #4: Be Prepared to Answer Questions Running through practice interviews will help you develop answers to questions ahead of time. Anticipate questions about your strengths and weaknesses as a student, and have genuine answers- admissions officers have heard every kind of humblebrag in existence, so be genuine. #5: Stay Healthy The night before your interview, get plenty of sleep. Eat a healthy breakfast the day of your interview, and drink plenty of water- and please, go to the bathroom before the interview. Good self-care will help you ace your interview because you’re operating at peak performance. What’s Next? You want to the right outfit for a college interview, but there's a whole lot more to prepare for, too. Check out this list of college interview tips to be sure you know exactly what to prepare for during your interview. Not every college requires an interview for admission. If an interview intimidates you- or you're certain it'll help you land a coveted acceptance letter- check out this list of colleges that require interviews to help you plan your applications. Though you're the one getting interviewed, a college interview is also a great place to ask questions about the college you're applying to that you can't find online. This list of questions to ask a college interviewer will help you get the most out of your experience. Want to build the best possible college application? We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools, from state colleges to the Ivy League. We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools. Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in.

Modern World History - Assimilation & Exclusion in Societies Research Paper

Modern World History - Assimilation & Exclusion in Societies - Research Paper Example Burchardt et al defined social exclusion as â€Å"†¦the attempt of one group to secure for itself a privileged position at the expense of some other group through a process of subordination..† (p.2). Social exclusion has existed in so many ways and forms in societies. South East Asia generally refers to the nations east of the Indian sub-continent and west of China and the Indian Ocean islands south of these nations. It includes Burma, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Most of the people living in these areas speak dialects of the Austronesian family of languages and they share similar cultural practices and animist religious traits (McKay, p.429). In the 13th Century, Jewish, Christian and Muslim influences were felt in the region by traders. After the 1300s the Muslims established the Malacca which became a trading entry point and flourished in trade (McKay, 430) In 1511, the Portuguese captured Malacca and the Spanish occupied Manilla in 1571. Th is marked the beginning of world-class social exclusion in this region. The Europeans sent missionaries to convert the Southeast Asians with a view of training them to integrate into their Europeanized colonies. Mendelssohn & Marika report that the Europeans used the support of these Europeanized natives to suppress ‘inferior’ tribes. ... They were granted second grade status. (Bauer, p79) In 1599, a Dutch fleet containing large quantities of spices returned to Amsterdam and this prospect caused them to establish the Dutch East Indies Company with the intention of taking over the spice trade from the Portuguese (Kagan et al p.77). The Dutch East Indies Company became the national tool for the colonization of several islands in South East Asia by the 1700s. Britain followed with the colonization of Malaysia and some other lands in the region whilst the French took over the territory now known as Vietnam. The next thing that followed was widespread social exclusion, where white Europeans were living privileged lives on the socio-economic plane whilst the natives toiled on the farms. â€Å"In Southeast Asia, economic profit was the immediate and primary aim of the colonial enterprise. For that purpose, colonial powers tried wherever possible to work with local elites to facilitate the exploitation of natural resources. Indirect rule reduced the cost of training European administrators and had a less severe impact on the social group.† (Duiker, p36). The colonial powers forced the natives to work hard on plantations in very harsh conditions. The Europeans exported all the products, mainly palm oil and spices to Europe, which they sold for very high profit margins. Duiker reports that the South East Asian barely had enough to feed himself and his family. However, the Europeans and their ‘priyayi’ (native collaborators) enjoyed luxurious lives in Southeast Asia whilst the locals were denied rights to basic necessities like education, healthcare and justice. The main advantage of colonialism is that it set the stage for the modernization of these nations.

Communicable Disease Medical Definition Assignment - 73

Communicable Disease Medical Definition - Assignment Example It spreads from person to person when a mosquito feeds on human blood (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2012). According to Stanhope and Lancaster, Malaria affects the liver and Erythrocytes, and it is characterized by high fever and other symptoms resembling those of flu. It mostly affects pregnant mothers and children under the age of five (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2012). It is one of the key contributors to infant mortality, especially in African countries, where it is responsible for over a million deaths annually. This disease was earlier considered as a tropical disease, but with the advent of global travel, the disease can affect anybody and anywhere as long as they have been to a Malaria prone region (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2012). Malaria infections in the United States occur to those people who have traveled to areas that are prone to the insect carrying the parasite. The government’s efforts in curbing malaria include medical screening at all points of entry, into the country, to e nsure that those who are infected get immediate treatment regimen to prevent further spread of the infection. It has embarked on public sensitization programs to deal with pest control and how to identify the first signs of Malaria. The use of mosquito nets, repellents, and protective clothing has also been encouraged in a number of counties where there are high mosquito populations like Louisiana and Florida. The challenges that are encountered in the prevention and treatment of Malaria are usually people related. The belief that Malaria is a tropical disease makes people and even some doctors misdiagnose the disease as a bad form of flu since most of its symptoms are flu-like. The government is also making efforts to develop a vaccine that can be given to people traveling out of the country. Â  

Impact of the Discovery of Homo Floresiensis

Impact of the Discovery of Homo Floresiensis The discovery of Homo Floresiensis has profound implications for what it means to be human; it raises questions about the uniqueness of human lineage which is the foundation of our society and our religions. The three great problems for nineteenth century ethnology and prehistory were identified by Latham in Man and his Migrations (1851) as: the unity or non-unity of the human species; its antiquity; and its geographical origin. This shortlist has formed the basis for research into human origins ever since. The ambiguity surrounding each question has been reduced to every generation’s satisfaction, then thrown open again as changes in opinion about the world and its people have led to revisions. This cyclical process has provided the spur to fieldwork and the development of new techniques of classification, analysis and dating. Latham was writing at an interesting time in scientific progress of thought, eight years before the Origin of Species was published. This was the foundation text for the biogeography of Darwin and Wallace which accounted for the distribution of life on the plant. The importance of these studies was their contribution to the scientific investigation of variation via the principle of natural selection. Individuals were the units under selection with the evolutionary results measured by their differential reproductive contribution to the next generation. The notion of a cradle for mankind, a discrete geographical centre for human origins, is an ancient idea. The Garden of Eden is the best known example. Adam and Eve might be replaced, as they were in the last century, but the idea of an ancestral homeland continued. The study of human origins now starts from a very different set of assumptions than it did when Latham penned his three questions. It is also extremely well-informed about process and patterns in the data compared to 150 years ago. The celebration of progress has fallen from the agenda. Living peoples are no longer regarded as living representatives of a past which the Western world once possessed.   But for all these apparently fundamental changes the questions on the agenda remain the same. Why should the study of human evolution be restricted, because of the search for cradles, to some continents. What it means to be human The fascination with humanity’s African origins, singular or otherwise, remains unabated. Great strides in understanding the development of modern human beings are currently being taken at the very southern tip of Africa. While much of the press attention over the past few decades has been on the scholarly debate on whether humans evolved once in Africa, universally known as the Out of Africa theory, or several times all over the world, the multiregional hypothesis, a quiet revolution has occurred centred on what it means to be human (Stringer and Gamble, 1993). Within twentieth century archaeology and palaeontology, probably since the discovery of the Lascaux Caves in France, archaeologists have continually believed that, while anatomically modern Homo sapiens evolved somewhere between 100,000-150,000 years ago, humans didnt actually develop modern behaviours and thought processes until around 50,000-40,000 years ago (Wood, 1992). This event, known in some scientific circles as the creative explosion, was announced by what researchers saw as an abrupt blossoming of symbolic thought; the ability to identify and create representations of entities. Thus, according to the creative explosion theory, H. sapiens displayed a recognisable intelligence equivalent to other hominids of the time, identifiable by the cave artwork at Lascaux. Further evidence of the initiation of modern human behaviour is alleged to include fishing, the manufacture of bone tools, and the use of decoration. Following the initial interest in Africa during the early decades of the twentieth century, the majority of archaeological research moved to Europe. The overwhelming concentration on the visible prehistory of Europe, including both cave and portative artwork, resulted in a deficit of research into human origins in Africa. The research of the past forty years has indeed been remarkable in yielding up a great many fossil and cultural remains from a broad range of African environments. After a period of relative neglect, however, increasing attention was being given to the biological and behavioural changes that led to the evolution of H. sapiens, the last major even in human evolution.   The triumph of archaeological research into the earliest prehistory of Africa was trumpeted by the archaeologist Desmond Clark in the Huxley Memorial Lecture of 1974. Titles â€Å"Africa in prehistory: peripheral or paramount?† it pointed to the overwhelming evidence from Africa for the origi n of hominids, which overthrew the previous view â€Å"that the history of Europe is emphatically the prehistory of humanity.† (Clark,1975). Eventually, evidence of an earlier flourishing of the creative mind began to appear, south of the Zambezi River, and dated to the Mesolithic, the earliest date approximating 70,000 years ago. Similar artefact assemblages known as Howiesons Poort and Still Bay had been found at sites such as the Klasies River Caves, Boomplaas, and Die Kelders Cave I in South Africa (Grine et al., 2000). These sites included sophisticated bone tools, backed blades, a careful selection of raw material for stone tools and the use of a punch technique; however, most of these were controversial in one respect or another, until the discovery of Blombos Cave. Research into the Blombos Cave assemblages have been undertaken since 1991, and artefacts identified have include sophisticated bone and stone tools, fish bones, and an abundance of used ochre (Leakey and Lewin, 1993). Ochre has no known economic function, and it is virtually universally accepted as a source of colour for ceremonial, decorative purposes. The Blombos Cave layers containing used ochre are dated 70,000 to 80,000 years BP, and, in 2004, a cluster of deliberately perforated and red-stained shell beads dating to the Mesolithic was found (Aiello and Dean, 1990). Without any obvious practical purpose these artefacts are currently interpreted as personal ornaments or jewellery, possibly belonging to the occupants of Blombos. The most persuasive interpretation of these finds, and numerous others throughout Africa, within the parameters imposed by previous and current discoveries and research, is that the growth of the human symbolic thought was a slow process that continued t hroughout the Mesolithic in Africa. Symbolism, and its deliberate representation, is a phenomenon previously unidentifiable in any extant species other than H. sapiens, despite the genetic and predominantly behavioural similarity between humans and other primates, and can therefore be interpreted as a distinctly human trait (Spencer, 1876-96). Symbolism, in all its forms, however has not always been strictly the prerogative of H. sapiens.   Many investigators of Neanderthal culture believe that H. neanderthalensis was the earliest species of hominid to ritually bury their dead, and important evidence to support this statement originates from Shanidar Cave, located in the Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq (Solecki, 1971). Between 1951 and 1960, excavations in and around the mouth of the cave were undertaken, allowing the recovery of a range of Mousterian tools, and the analysis of eight burials, relating to the remains of seven adults and one child. While four of these individuals appear to have been killed by rockfalls, four others may have been deliberately buried (Gargett, 1989). Soil samples taken around one particular burial, known as Shanidar IV, revealed the presence of pollen grains and small amounts of vegetable matter. While there was very little pollen in most of the soil samples taken around the skeleton, two samples from the burial itself contained a large number of pollen grains representing a total of 28 plant species (Leakey and Lewin, 1993). This evidence was used to support the hypothesis that more than 50,000 years ago the body was deliberately and ritualistically buried on a bed of woody branches and flowers sometime during the months of May through July, during the blooming season for the plant species. Excavations of the cave over the next decade yielded cultural data as well as skeletal remains of Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthals and Proto-Neolithic modern humans, representing two periods renowned for the scarcity of such material (Solecki, 1975). According to subsequent research, the Neanderthal and Proto-Neolithic people of Shanidar Cave potentially followed culturally-defined methods for burying their dead in a base camp, possibly increasing the groups ties to a traditional home site. They practiced both primary burial (interment of a mostly intact body shortly after death) and secondary burial (final interment of disarrayed or isolated bones or of a body that had undergone some other burial process as a first stage) (Aiello and Dean, 1990). Offerings placed in the grave included bead ornaments and assumed favoured personal objects, but no obvious symbols of rank. The variety of materials included reveals an extensive long-distance exchange trade, and the mortuary practices are comparable to those of other contemporary Near Eastern cultures (Leakey and Lewin, 1993; Solecki et al., 2004). The material culture of the cave and the surrounding Zagros area is characterized by chipped stone industry and such innovations as a variety of ground stone tools, worked bone tools and abundant personal ornaments. These suggest growing cultural richness and elaboration, a semi-sedentary lifestyle and a mixed subsistence strategy based both on wild species of plants and animals and early domesticates (Gargett, 1989). Though the interpretation of deliberate and ritualistic H. neanderthalensis burials remains contentious, with opponents suggesting the presence of flower pollen within the grave is a result not of deliberate adornment of the corpse but of the accidental deposition of flower and plant matter from burrowing rodents, until the theory of ritualistic burial is conclusively disproved it remains a highly persuasive hypothesis for cross-species traits of ‘humanity’. Although much has been made of the Neanderthals burial of their dead, their burials were less elaborate than those of anatomically modern humans. The interpretation of the Shanidar IV burials as including flowers, and therefore being a form of ritual burial, potentially evidence for the acknowledgement of a theoretical afterlife, has been questioned (Sommer, 1999). In some cases Neanderthal burials include grave goods such as bison and aurochs bones, tools, and the pigment ochre. Neanderthals performed a sophisticat ed set of tasks normally associated with humans alone. For example, they constructed complex shelters, controlled fire, and skinned animals. Particularly intriguing is a hollowed-out bear femur with four holes in the diatonic scale deliberately bored into it. Estimated to date at approximately 43,ooo up to 82,ooo years old, this ‘flute’ was found in western Slovenia in 1995 near a Mousterian Era hearth used by Neanderthals. Its significance is still a matter of dispute, however, its perfect fit to bother modern and antique diatonic scales implies the deliberate manufacturing of a musical note making device (Aiello and Dean, 1990). Music beyond the percussive, in addition to ritual and symbolism, is another previously assumed trait of H. sapiens alone, and the Slovenian flute suggests a rethink of what it means to be human may be required. Similarly, the concept of prolonged care of community individuals is a trait usually attributed to the H. sapiens species. While other species present evidence of a rudimentary form of care, the deliberate attention paid to the prolonging of life of an individual with no primitive value to a community, such as providing nutrition to an elderly community member for an extended period of time, is peculiarity associated primarily with H. sapiens. It has been previously believed that this trait, in addition to being singular to the human race, can be interpreted as a definition of what it means to be human. However, similar to the evidence presented above, there has been strongly influential evidence of ‘care in the community’ from Neanderthal societies. Following a 6 year excavation season beginning in 1899, the site of the Krapina caves, Republic of Croatia, yielded a number of osteological Neanderthal specimens. Radiographs undertaken in 1997 indicated a number of surpris ing conclusions. While the overall picture of Neanderthal health, based on the radiographs, was impressive, not all the specimens showed perfect health. Archaeologists were able to document one of the earliest benign bone tumours ever discovered and identified, and one individual may have had a surgical amputation of his hand (Leakey and Lewin, 1993). In addition, several individuals had examples of osteoarthritis ranging in severity, and it is suggested that the extended survival of these individuals following surgery or the onset of debilitating arthropathies indicates a sophisticated level of care from the healthy population. Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar to other mammals in many ways, our behaviour sets us apart. Our unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy virtually every habitat on earth using an incredible variety of tools and subsistence techniques. Our societies are larger, more complex, and more cooperative than any other mammals. Evolutionists, and scientists from other fields of study, argue that only a Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can explain these unique characteristics. The twentieth century is offering a radical interpretation of human evolution, arguing that Homo sapiens ecological dominance and singular social systems stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture. Richerson and Boyd (2004) illustrate that culture is neither superorganic nor the handmaiden of the genes. Rather, it is essential to human adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion. Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology, political science, sociology, and economics, Richerson and Boyd (2004) convincingly attest that culture and biology are inextricably linked, and their interaction yields a richer understanding of human nature. Discovery of Homo floresiensis Currently, it is widely accepted that only one hominid genus, Homo, was present in Pleistocene Asia, represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Both species are characterized by greater brain size, increased body height and smaller teeth relative to the Pliocene Australopithecus genus present in Africa (Brown et al., 2004). But it was the most spectacular fossil find of a generation that has marked twentieth century studies into human evolution. The discovery that a mysterious and apparently ingenious human species may have shared the planet with our own less than 15,000 years ago captured the imagination of palaeontologists and public alike. Excavations at Liang Bua, a large limestone cave on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia, have yielded evidence for a population of tiny hominids, sufficiently distinct anatomically to be assigned to a new species, Homo floresiensis (Morwood et al., 2004). An excavation team under the leadership of Australian and Indonesian scientists have unearthed the remains of eight human beings of relatively restricted stature and reduced brain volume, comparative to previously understood parameters for anatomically modern humans. In recognition of the combination of primitive and derived features, and their subsequently assumed status as a species distinct from Homo sapiens, the fossils were ascribed the name Homo floresiensis (Flores Man) after the island on which they were discovered. One skeleton, estimated to be that of a woman in her 30s and calculated to be approximately 18,000 years old, was only 1 metre tall, and the endocranial volume of the skeleton in question was a mere 380 cc, significant as it may be regarded as small even for a chimpanzee (Beals et al., 1984) and equal to the smallest-known australopithecines (Brown, et al., 2004). Investigations into the specimens, estimated to belong to at least eight individuals, show that H. floresiensis inhabited the cave at Liang Bua for an extended period of time ranging between 95,000 and 12,000 years ago. The common opinion of the archaeologists responsible for examining the tools and animal bones unearthed in the cave is that H. floresiensis individuals exhibited complex behaviour requiring the capacity for speech, and can therefore be regarded as social and intelligent human beings with creative ability. Stones carved and sharpened for particular purposes, and animal bones discovered in the cave, indicate t hat these people were successful hunters, capable of catching animals larger than themselves, and associated deposits contain stone artefacts and animal remains, including Komodo dragon and an endemic, dwarfed species of Stegodon. There has been some speculation that the stone tools found with it were actually made by Homo sapiens, mainly because it is hard to believe a creature with such a small brain could make such sophisticated stone tools. There is no other evidence in support of this, however, and if it were not for the small brain size, there would be no hesitation about assuming floresiensis made the tools because of the close association between the tools and the fossils. The same tools are found through the entire deposit (from 90,000 to 13,000 years ago) and, interestingly, they are not like any stone tools made by Homo erectus (Kaifu et al., 2005). The finds comprise the cranial and some post-cranial remains of one individual, as well as a premolar from another individual in older deposits. Dating by radiocarbon (C14), luminescence, uranium-series and electron spin resonance (ESR) methods indicates that H. floresiensis existed from before 38,000 years ago (kyr) until at least 18  kyr (reference). It is alleged, with much research still yet to be undertaken, that H. floresiensis originated from an early dispersal of Homo erectus, including specimens referred to as Homo ergaster and Homo georgicus, that reached Flores, and then survived on this island refuge until relatively recently. The most likely explanation for its existence on Flores is long-term isolation, with subsequent endemic dwarfing. H. floresiensis overlapped significantly in time with Homo sapiens in the region, however, interactions between the two species currently remain unknown. Importantly, H. floresiensis shows that the genus Homo is morphologically more va ried and flexible in its adaptive responses than previously thought (reference). The finds further demonstrate that H. floresiensis was not simply an aberrant or pathological individual, thereby interpretable as anomalous and inconsequential within the field of human evolution, but is representative of a long-term population that was present on the island for approximately 80,000 years. According to the dwarfism scenario, it is assumed that the H. floresiensis line descended from Homo erectus. The justification for that belief, however, is currently experiencing much debate within the archaeological academic arena, and relies on the comparison between tool assemblages uncovered from the Liang Bua cave, and thus associated with H. floresiensis, and a series of assemblages reported by Morwood in 1998, and dating to approximately 800,000 BP (Morwood et al., 1998). The similarities between these assemblages resulted in the assumption that H. floresiensis was a descendent of the manufacturer of the older collection of tools, H. erectus. H. floresiensis facial anatomy also generally resembles that of H. erectus, and, in addition, the East Asia region in which the island lies is one of the regions where H. erectus was extant for a long period. One article published in Science journal in 1996 listed evidence that H. erectus had survived on Java, an Indonesian island like Fl ores, until as recently as 27,000 years ago. (Swisher et al., 1996) Implications: Society, religion and politics Despite an academic and generic fascination with the process of human evolution, the creationist arguments in disagreement with evolutionary research remain influential. According to many creationist proponents, the reason why scientists have elected to give the fossils in question the name H. floresiensis is that researchers, who have accepted the idea that humans initially developed through evolution, cannot afford to imply a hypothesis that does not accord with the evolutionary ‘myth’ they have presented. Evolutionists are accused of naming ‘old human races’ by a methodology that relies on exaggerated interpretation of the variations presented between hominids, and in comparison with anatomically modern man, and thus results the declaration of the fossils as a new species. According to current creationist advocates, the H. floresiensis fossils are also a product of this methodology, and their description as a new species rests solely on evolutionist †˜preconceptions’. Predominant creationists have gone further to attest that the description of H. floresiensis as a new human species provides no support at all for the theory of evolution, but, on the contrary, reveals how forced the claims regarding it actually are (reference). The concept of the biological species is used in the present day for organisms included in the same category that are able to mate and successfully produce healthy offspring. This definition is based on mutual reproducibility as setting out the boundary criterion between species. According to creationist proponents, however, there is no means of knowing, simply by analysing and categorising the fossilised bones of organisms that lived in the past, which were able to reproduce with which. Classification based on degrees of similarities between bones, and the variations exhibited among these, may not reveal scientifically definite conclusions as some species, such as the dog, exhibit wide variation, others, such as the cheetah, are known to exhibit only narrow variation. Accordingly, when fossils belonging to extinct species are discovered, creationists attest, the variation observed may stem from one of two reasons. This variation either belongs to a species exhibiting wide variation or to a few separate species exhibiting narrow variation, yet there is no way of knowing which of the two actually applies. Indeed, Alan Walker, palaeoanthropologist and evolutionist, admits this fact by claiming that one cannot know whether or not a fossil is representative of the community to which it belongs. He further states that one cannot know whether it comes from one of the ends of the species range, or from somewhere in the middle (Locke, 1999). Evolutionists define the H. floresiensis fossils as a separate species, and regard its small endocranial volume and short skeleton as characteristics of that species. However, creationists contest this by asserting that individuals may not carry all the features in the population gene pool, and, therefore, the features exhibited by individuals may not be those generally exhibited in a given population. Therefore, the smaller the quantity of fossils analysed the greater the risk of error in assuming that their features are those of the general population. Locke (1999) has elucidated this with a simple analogy: if a palaeoanthropologist of the future discovers bones belonging to a professional basketball player, then twenty-first century man may well seem to have been a giant species. He further stated that if the skeleton belongs to a jockey, on the other hand, then humans will seem to have been short and lightweight bipeds (Locke, 1999). According to creationists, therefore, the defi nition of H. floresiensis as a separate species based on its small brain volume and short skeleton, and the assumption that all individuals possessed those same features, is a mistake, and that these fossils may well be regarded as variations seen in old human races living at that time. In relative support for the creationist viewpoint, the real surprise for evolutionists came from learning that a hominid with such a small brain volume lived not millions of years ago but only 18,000 years BP. Chris Stringer, from Londons Natural History Museum, admits this surprise to the archaeological community; that the very existence of a creature with a brain the size of a chimpanzees, but apparently a tool-maker and hunter, and perhaps descended from the worlds first mariners, illustrates how little is currently known about human evolution (Wood, 1992). Peter Brown, one of the leaders of the research team at Liang Bua, describes the bewilderment within academic circles as a result of the cranial measurements, and admits that H. floresiensis is totally incompatible with evolutionary accounts; that small stature is easy to accommodate within the evolutionary theories, but small brain size is a bigger problem to account for. According to the creationist theory advocates, the evol utionists own statements reflect the ‘heavy blow’ the fossil in question has dealt to the ‘illusory’ scenario of human evolution (Wood, 1992). The confusion with regards to the interpretations of H. floresiensis is not restricted to the disparities in hypotheses between evolutionists and creationists. Scientists have been unravelling the mysteries of when early hominids first left Africa, where they went, how many hominid species there were, and how they relate to modern humans, for more than a century. The H. erectus skull recently found in Indonesia adds a valuable piece to the fossil record, but scientists differ about where it fits in the human family tree. One particular specimen of cranium, known as Sambungmacan 4 (Sm 4), was found in the Sambungmacan district of central Java, Indonesia. It is that of a middle-aged or slightly younger male Homo erectus who had probably suffered and recovered from head wounds. Two partial skulls and the fragment of a tibia had previously been discovered in the area. It is assumed that H. erectus, and perhaps other early hominid species, began leaving Africa approximately 2 million year s ago, and fossil remains have been found in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, indicating a widespread global distribution of individuals and communities. In addition to the media-friendly discovery of H. floresiensis, given the moniker of â€Å"The Hobbit† by the press, Indonesia, an island nation in southeast Asia, is the site of some of the earliest Homo erectus remains yet found. The relatively abundant fossil material provides scientists with an opportunity to study the evolution of the species and how it relates to modern humans. Anthropologists from the National Science Museum in Tokyo, analyzed the Sm 4 skull using digital visualization techniques, and compared it with other skulls found in Java. It is argued that morphological characteristics of early H. erectus in Java, represented by fossil finds from Trinil/Sangiran, more closely resemble those of modern humans (Baba et al., 2003). Fossil material from Ngandong, which has been dated to anywhere between 25,000 to 50,000 years old, suggests that Java H. erectus had gone off on an evolutionary tangent of its own, developing distinct features that are not shared by modern humans. It is concluded by this research that Javanese populations became progressively more isolated from other Asian H. erectus populations, and made minimal contributions to the ancestry of modern humans (Kaifu et al., 2005). At one time scientists considered it possible that modern humans were the direct descendants of Asian Homo erectus. That idea has been discarded by many scientists who now think that while African H. erectus may be ancestral to H. sapiens, Asian H. erectus was an evolutionary dead end, similar to earlier theories regarding H. neanderthalensis, rather than the immediate precursor to modern humans (Kaifu et al., 2005). However, debate continues and other specialists believe that the African version of H. erectus is dissimilar enough to belong in a separate species category called Homo ergaster. The geological complexity of the Indonesian islands makes precise dating of the fossil material difficult and controversial. Fossils found at Trinil and Sangiran range in age from approximately 1.8 million years old to maybe as young as 780,000 years old (Swisher et al., 1996). Comparatively, fossils found at Ngandong have been dated at approximately 50,000 years old. The Sm 4 specimen is believ ed to fit somewhere between these two groups in age, and therefore may be contemporary with H. sapiens.   The uncertainty of Sm 4s age lies in part with current disagreement as to whether or not all fossils from Sambungmacan represent a single fauna or are composites being derived from various age strata. Whether there is enough difference between the early fossils and the later fossils that they should be considered two separate species or a sub-species is also controversial. Based on variations in skull shape, and a lack of diversity among Javanese populations living 25,000 to 50,000 years ago, it has been concluded that Sm 4 is a transitional form, an evolutionary step taking the later Javanese populations farther away from classical Homo erectus remains found at Trinil and Sangiran (Baba et al., 2003). However, this conclusions is debated on the basis that the larger brain sizes of later materials, fossils dated at 25,000 to 50,000 years ago, are different enough that they sho uld be considered a different species or at least sub-species. Sm 4 phenotypically appears to be a lot of the other material found in Indonesia. The material is morphologically very consistent, and shows continuity within Indonesian Homo erectus. There are some features, particularly around the jaw joint that may be unique to the Ngandong fossils, however it is not clear whether the features are taxonomically significant or useful as species indicators (Baba et al., 2003).The disparities in the skulls seen in Indonesia may be a function of normal variability in any species, illustrated particularly well when considering the variations in height between ‘normal’ humans and those suffering from achondroplasia; both remain within the species of H. sapiens, however difference in stature can be remarkable. The claim by Desmond Morris, that the existence of â€Å"The Hobbit†, or H. floresiensis should destroy religion (Tattersall, 1986), is one which has been made before. Indeed, Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, still cannot understand why religion survived Darwin (Tattersall, 1986). Yet as science progresses, despite the decline of allegiance to traditional Christian churches in Western Europe, religion continues to grow world-wide in many different forms. Contemporary science, far from solving every question, often highlights the big questions which are central to human existence. This is the case with the discovery of LB1, the 18,000-year-old specimen of the new species Homo floresiensis. The find of this so-called Hobbit on Flores Island excites many academics within many fields, not least archaeology and theology, as it poses the unresolved question of what it means to be human. LB1 becomes part of this contemporary question alongside developments in science, su