Domestication History of Squashes (Cucurbita spp)

Domestication History of Squashes (Cucurbita spp) Squash (genus Cucurbita), including squashes, pumpkins, and gourds, is one of the earliest and most important of plants domesticated in the Americas, along with maize and common bean. The genus includes 12-14 species, at least five of which were domesticated independently, long before European contact in South America, Mesoamerica, and Eastern North America. Five Main Species The designation cal BP means, roughly, calendar years ago before the present. Data in this table has been assembled from a variety of available sources, listed in the bibliography for this article. Name Common Name Location Date Progenitor C. pepo spp pepo pumpkins, zucchini Mesoamerica 10,000 cal BP C. pepo. spp fraterna C. moschata butternut squash Mesoamerica or northern South America 10,000 cal BP C. pepo spp fraterna C. pepo spp. ovifera summer squashes, acorns Eastern North America 5000 cal BP C. pepo spp ozarkana C. argyrosperma silver-seeded gourd, green-striped cushaw Mesoamerica 5000 cal BP C. argyrosperma spp sororia C. ficifolia fig-leafed gourd Mesoamerica or Andean South America 5000 cal BP unknown C. maxima buttercup, banana, Lakota, Hubbard, Harrahdale pumpkins South America 4000 cal BP C. maxima spp adreana Why Would Anybody Domesticate Gourds? Wild forms of squashes are harshly bitter to humans and other extant mammals, but there is evidence that they were harmless to mastodons, the extinct form of elephant. Wild squashes carry cucurbitacins, which can be toxic when eaten by smaller bodied mammals, including humans. Large-bodied mammals would need to ingest a huge amount to have an equivalent dose (75-230 whole fruits at once). Interestingly, when the megafauna died off at the end of the last Ice Age, wild Cucurbita declined. The last mammoths in the Americas died off about 10,000 years ago, around the same time squashes were domesticated. See Kistler et al. for a discussion. Archaeological understanding of squash domestication process  has undergone a considerable rethinking: most domestication processes have been found to have taken centuries if not millennia to complete. In comparison, squash domestication was fairly abrupt. Domestication was likely in part the result of human selection for different traits related to edibility, as well as seed size and rind thickness. It has also been suggested that domestication may have been directed by the practicality of dried gourds as containers or fishing weights. Bees and Gourds Evidence suggests that cucurbit ecology is tightly bound up with one of its pollinators, several varieties of an American stingless bee known as Peponapis or the gourd bee. Ecological evidence (Giannini et al.) identified a co-occurrence of specific types of cucurbit with specifics type of Peponapis  in three distinct geographic clusters. Cluster A is in the Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahan deserts (including P. pruinosa); B in the moist forests of the Yucatan peninsula and C in the Sinaloa dry forests. Peponapis bees may well be crucial to understanding the spread of domesticated squash in the Americas, because bees apparently followed the human movement of cultivated squashes into new territories. Lopez-Uribe et al. (2016) studied and identified molecular markers of the bee P. pruinosa in bee populations throughout North America. P. pruinosa today prefers the wild host C. foetidissima, but when that is not available, it relies on domesticated host plants, C. pepo, C. moschata and C. maxima, for pollen. The distribution of these markers suggests that modern squash bee populations are the result of a massive range expansion from out of Mesoamerica into the temperate regions of North America. Their findings suggest that the bee colonized eastern NA after C. pepo was domesticated there, the first and only known case of a pollinators range expanding with the spread of a domesticated plant. South America Microbotanical remains from squash plants such as starch grains and phytoliths, as well as macro-botanical remains such as seeds, pedicles, and rinds, have been found representing C. moschata squash and bottle gourd in numerous sites throughout northern South American and Panama by 10,200-7600 cal BP, underlining their probable South American origins earlier than that. Phytoliths large enough to represent domesticated squash have been found at sites in Ecuador 10,000-7,000 years BP and the Colombian Amazon (9300-8000 BP). Squash seeds of Cucurbita moschata have been recovered from sites in the Nanchoc valley on the lower western slopes of Peru, as were early cotton, peanut, and quinoa. Two squash seeds from the floors of houses were direct-dated, one 10,403–10,163 cal BP and one 8535-8342 cal BP. In the Zaà ±a valley of Peru, C. moschata rinds dated to 10,402-10,253 cal BP, alongside early evidence of cotton, manioc and coca. C. ficifolia was discovered in southern coastal Peru at Paloma, dated between 5900-5740 cal BP; other squash evidence that has not been identified to species include Chilca 1, in southern coastal Peru (5400 cal BP and Los Ajos in southeastern Uruguay, 4800-4540 cal BP. Mesoamerican Squashes The earliest archaeological evidence for C. pepo squash in Mesoamerica comes from excavations carried out during the 1950s and 1960s in five caves in Mexico: Guil Naquitz in Oaxaca state, Coxcatln and San Marco caves in Puebla and Romero’s and Valenzuela’s caves in Tamaulipas. Pepo squash seeds, fruit rind fragments, and stems have been radiocarbon dated to 10,000 years BP, including both direct dating of the seeds and indirect dating of the site levels in which they were found. This analysis allowed also to trace the dispersion of the plant between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago from south to north, specifically, from Oaxaca and southwestern Mexico toward Northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Xihuatoxtla rockshelter, in tropical Guerrero state, contained phytoliths of what may be C. argyrosperma, in association with radiocarbon dated levels of 7920/- 40 RCYBP, indicating that domesticated squash was available between 8990-8610 cal BP. Eastern North America In the United States, early evidence of initial domestication of Pepo squash comes from different sites from the central midwest and the east from Florida to Maine. This was a subspecies of Cucurbita pepo called Cucurbita pepo ovifera and its wild ancestor, the inedible Ozark gourd, is still present in the area. This plant formed part of the dietary complex known as the Eastern North American Neolithic, which also included chenopodium and sunflower. The earliest use of squash is from the Koster site  in Illinois, ca. 8000 years BP; the earliest domesticated squash in the midwest comes from Phillips Spring, Missouri, about 5,000 years ago.   Sources Dillehay TD, Rossen J, Andres TC, and Williams DE. 2007. Preceramic Adoption of Peanut, Squash, and Cotton in Northern Peru. Science 316:1890-1893.Fuller DQ, Denham T, Arroyo-Kalin M, Lucas L, Stevens CJ, Qin L, Allaby RG, and Purugganan MD. 2014. Convergent evolution and parallelism in plant domestication revealed by an expanding archaeological record. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(17):6147-6152.Giannini TC, Lira-Saade R, Ayala R, Saraiva AM, and Alves-dos-Santos I. 2011. Ecological niche similarities of Peponapis bees and non-domesticated Cucurbita species. Ecological Modelling 222(12):2011-2018.Hart JP, Brumbach HJ, and Lusteck R. 2007. Extending the Phytolith Evidence for Early Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) and Squash (Cucurbita sp.) in Central New York. American Antiquity 72(3):563-584.Kistler L, Newsom LA, Ryan TM, Clarke AC, Smith BD, and Perry GH. 2015. Gourds and squashes (Cucurbita spp.) adapted to megafaunal extinction and ecological anachronism through domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112(49):15107-15112. Lira R, Eguiarte L, Montes S, Zizumbo-Villarreal D, Marà ­n PC-G, and Quesada M. 2016. Homo sapiens–Cucurbita interaction in Mesoamerica: Domestication, Dissemination, and Diversification. In: Lira R, Casas A, and Blancas J, editors. Ethnobotany of Mexico: Interactions of People and Plants in Mesoamerica. New York, NY: Springer New York. p 389-401.Là ³pez-Uribe MM, Cane JH, Minckley RL, and Danforth BN. 2016. Crop domestication facilitated rapid geographical expansion of a specialist pollinator, the squash bee Peponapis pruinosa. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 283(1833).Patton PE, and Curran S. 2016. Archaic Period Domesticated Plants in the Mid-Ohio Valley: Archaeobotanical Remains from the County Home Site (33at40), Southeastern Ohio. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 41(2):127-158.Piperno DR. 2011. The Origins of Plant Cultivation and Domestication in the New World Tropics: Patterns, Process, and New Developments. Current Anthropolog y 52(S4):S453-S470. Piperno DR. 2016. Phytolith radiocarbon dating in archaeological and paleoecological research: a case study of phytoliths from modern Neotropical plants and a review of the previous dating evidence. Journal of Archaeological Science 68:54-61.Ranere AJ, Piperno DR, Holst I, Dickau R, and Iriarte J. 2009. The cultural and chronological context of early Holocene maize and squash domestication in the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106:5014-5018.Sanjur OI, Piperno DR, Andres TC, and Wessel-Beaver L. 2002. Phylogenetic relationships among domesticated and wild species of Cucurbita (Cucurbitaceae) inferred from a mitochondrial gene: Implications for crop plant evolution and areas of origin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99(1):535-540.Simon ML. 2011. Evidence for variability among squash seeds from the Hoxie site (11CK4), Illinois. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(9):2079-2093.Smith BD. 2011. The Cultural Context of Plant Domestication in Eastern North America. Current Anthropology 52(S4):S471-S484. Smith BD. 2006. Eastern North America as an independent center of plant domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103(33):12223-12228.Zheng Y-H, Alverson AJ, Wang Q-F, and Palmer JD. 2013. Chloroplast phylogeny of Cucurbita: Evolution of the domesticated and wild species. Journal of Systematics and Evolution 51(3):326-334.

Overview of the First Battle of Panipat

Overview of the First Battle of Panipat Trumpeting, their eyes wide with panic, the elephants turned back and charged into their own troops, crushing scores of men underfoot. Their opponents had brought a terrifying new technology to bear, something the elephants likely had never heard before Background to the First Battle of Panipat Indias invader, Babur, was the scion of the great Central Asian conqueror-families; his father was a descendant of Timur, while his mothers family traced its roots back to Genghis Khan. His father died in 1494, and the 11-year-old Babur became the ruler of Farghana (Fergana), in what is now the border area between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. However, his uncles and cousins fought Babur for the throne, forcing him to abdicate twice. Unable to hold on to Farghana or take Samarkand, the young prince gave up on the family seat, turning south to capture Kabul instead in 1504. Babur was not satisfied for long with ruling over Kabul and the surrounding districts alone, however. Throughout the early sixteenth century, he made several incursions northward into his ancestral lands but never was able to hold them for long. Discouraged, by 1521, he had set his sights on lands further to the south instead: Hindustan (India), which was under the rule of the Delhi Sultanate and Sultan Ibrahim Lodi. The Lodi dynasty was actually the fifth and final of the Delhi Sultanates ruling families during the late medieval period. The Lodi family were ethnic Pashtuns who took control over a large section of northern India in 1451, reunifying the area after Timurs devastating invasion in 1398. Ibrahim Lodi was a weak and tyrannical ruler, disliked by the nobility and commoners alike. In fact, the noble families of the Delhi Sultanate despised him to such a degree that they actually invited Babur to invade! The Lodi ruler would have trouble preventing his troops from defecting to Baburs side during the fighting, as well. Battle Forces and Tactics Baburs Mughal forces consisted of between 13,000 and 15,000 men, mostly horse cavalry. His secret weapon was 20 to 24 pieces of field artillery, a relatively recent innovation in warfare. Arrayed against the Mughals were Ibrahim Lodis 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers, plus tens of thousands of camp followers. Lodis primary weapon of shock and awe was his troop of war elephants, numbering anywhere from 100 to 1,000 trained and battle-hardened pachyderms, according to different sources. Ibrahim Lodi was no tactician; his army simply marched out in a disorganized block, relying on sheer numbers and the aforementioned elephants to overwhelm the enemy. Babur, however, employed two tactics unfamiliar to Lodi, which turned the tide of the battle. The first was tulughma, dividing a smaller force into forward left, rear left, forward right, rear right, and center divisions. The highly mobile right and left divisions peeled out and surrounded the larger enemy force, driving them towards the center. At the center, Babur arrayed his cannons. The second tactical innovation was Baburs use of carts, called araba. His artillery forces were shielded behind a row of carts which were tied together with leather ropes, to prevent the enemy from getting between them and attacking the artillerymen. This tactic was borrowed from the Ottoman Turks. The Battle of Panipat After conquering the Punjab region (which today is divided between northern India and Pakistan), Babur drove on toward Delhi. Early on the morning of April 21, 1526, his army met the Delhi sultans at Panipat, now in Haryana State, about 90 kilometers north of Delhi. Using his tulughma formation, Babur trapped the Lodi army in a pincer motion. He then used his cannons to great effect; the Delhi war elephants had never heard such a loud and terrible noise, and the spooked animals turned around and ran through their own lines, crushing Lodis soldiers as they ran. Despite these advantages, the battle was a close contest given the Delhi Sultanates overwhelming numerical superiority. As the bloody encounter dragged on toward midday, however, more and more of Lodis soldiers defected to Baburs side. Finally, the tyrannical sultan of Delhi was abandoned by his surviving officers  and left to die on the battlefield from his wounds. The Mughal upstart from Kabul had prevailed. The Aftermath of the Battle According to the Baburnama, Emperor Baburs autobiography, the Mughals killed 15,000 to 16,000 of the Delhi soldiers. Other local accounts put the total losses at closer to 40,000 or 50,000. Of Baburs own troops, some 4,000 were killed in the battle. There is no record of the elephants fate. The First Battle of Panipat is a crucial turning point in the history of India. Although it would take time for Babur and his successors to consolidate control over the country, the defeat of the Delhi Sultanate was a major step towards the establishment of the Mughal Empire, which would rule India until it was defeated in turn by the British Raj in 1868. The Mughal path to the empire was not smooth. Indeed, Baburs son Humayan lost the entire kingdom during his reign  but was able to regain some territory before his death. The empire was truly solidified by Baburs grandson, Akbar the Great; later successors included the ruthless Aurangzeb and Shah Jahan, the creator of the Taj Mahal. Sources Babur, Emperor of Hindustan, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston. The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince, and Emperor, New York: Random House, 2002.Davis, Paul K. 100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.Roy, Kaushik. Indias Historic Battles: From Alexander the Great to Kargil, Hyderabad: Orient Black Swan Publishing, 2004.

Does the rotation of auditors improve the quality of auditing Essay - 3

Does the rotation of auditors improve the quality of auditing - Essay Example ntial advantages of MAR fail to outweigh costs incurred and other associated risks. 3 In this context, the essay will review the available literature that analyses whether rotation of auditors improve quality of auditing. It will use deductive reasoning to derive that while there are not much empirical data that prove MAR significantly improves audit quality, at the same time, there is not much conclusive evidence that shows MAR has an adverse effect on audit quality, thus keeping the debate open. Discussion Audit, audit quality and auditor rotation In the UK, it is mandatory for all public sector organisations and large business firms to produce an annual, audited financial report. In this context, the term auditing refers to â€Å"a systematic process of objectively gathering and evaluating evidence relating to assertions about economic actions and events in which the individual or organisation making the assertions has been engaged, to ascertain the degrees of correspondence betw een these assertions and established criteria.†4 The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) had recently published a report asking for public suggestions on the improvement of audit quality and auditor independence, wherein auditor rotation was taken into consideration.5 There are varying opinions on the effects of auditor rotation, and researches have revealed that existing literature fails to derive conclusively on the effects of audit rotation, hence researchers must be careful when analysing audit rotation reports from the past.6 Supporters for auditor rotation claimed that a long-term relationship between an auditor and a company develops a feeling of dependency that in turn diminishes audit quality.7 However, those against auditor rotation claimed that auditor rotation is an expensive process and the costs far exceed any derived advantages.8 Furthermore, they also claimed that auditor rotation is a hurdle, in regard developing a relationship between the firmâ €™s managers and auditors based on confidence and trust, and social exposures between the two often lead to improved audit quality, without hampering auditor independence.9 The theoretical debate on the issue of auditor rotation is based on how one views the auditor. If the auditor is seen as a medium for wealth optimisation, there are various theories that support the concept that there is an improvement of audit quality due to rotation.10 However, if one viewed the auditor as an agent for the principals, rotation is deemed disadvantageous, and a long-term relationship would allow the auditor to get a better understanding of the principals’ objectives, thus making him/her a better auditor.11 The term ‘audit quality’ denotes the probability that an auditor will find shortcomings within a firm’s accounting system (competence), and will report on them (independence).12

Accommodation and outcomes for the special children Essay

Accommodation and outcomes for the special children - Essay Example Designing an activity for preschoolers aged three to four years old is a good way to make use of their motor skills, while at the same time, a means for them to be able to create patterns that they are starting to see in their surroundings, whether observed on their own or intentionally taught by teachers and caregivers An activity that combines finger painting and hand sculpting using a variety of materials that will allow them to choose on their own their choice of materials in creating shapes, figures or even imitate letters of the alphabet -- combines play, creativity and learning. Preschoolers as such are more concerned with the novelty of the activity itself, rather than what they produce. For the teachers and caregivers, it will serve as an activity that will allow them to see the individual interests and capabilities of the children.The setting for such an activity where typically developing children and children with special needs both participate in may be in that part of t he classroom that serves as an art corner surrounded by illustrated materials and special toys of varied shapes and sizes that lend them to handheld explorations. Since a classroom set-up with children with special needs are present, the size of the classroom participants have to be small enough that will enable the teacher to attend to every child, typically developing and those with special needs alike.... The expected outcome for the above activity for those who are typically developing would be that at the end of the activity they would gain confidence in their ability to recreate the shapes and forms that they see in their environment and those that are taught them. Another outcome would be that they would progress from just drawing with no shapes or patterns to a stage where there can portray discernible patters, even relationships among the things that they see and observe. If the activities preceding this activity allowed for the familiarization of the alphabet and the numbers from one to ten through visualization and phonetics, typically developing children may start to write some letters of the alphabet and a few numbers. Another expected outcome since the activity joins typically developing children and those with special needs is that typically developing children would be more open-minded to the fact that other children who are not like them have their own typical or unique ways of doing things. Accommodation and outcomes for the special children: While special children or those with disability have their own pace and their own unique ways of doing things and learning, they could benefit from being with their typically developing peers by making them aware of their own capabilities which are may be different but the similar in terms of aspirations. Accommodations need to be made to enable those who have learning disabilities to be not unduly disadvantaged. At the same time, accommodations are focused to using the IEP whereby each child's individual strength and relative capability are put to use. Jonathan Carter, 3 years old and with Down's Syndrome may benefit from finger painting and hand sculpting activity by allowing his social skills to

Psychology Revision Notes Essay Example for Free

Psychology Revision Notes Essay Participants were divided into four groups which were acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar and semantically dissimilar. Participants were presented with the list a total of 4 times and each time was interrupted to try to prevent rehearsing. They were then presented with a 20-minute interval task and afterwards were asked to recall their list. Semantically dissimilar words were recalled the most telling us that encoding in LTM is semantic. Summary of study on capacity of STM and LTM  Summary of study on duration of STM  Peterson Peterson-  Showed PPs a list of nonsense trigrams and asked them to count back from 400 in 3 second intervals for a duration ranging from 3 to 18 seconds. Found that duration of STM was 18-30 seconds maximum.  Summary of study on duration of LTM  Bahrick-  400 participants aged between 17 and 74 were tested using different methods including free-recall tests, photo-recognition test, name recognition tests and photo-name matching test. PPs performed less well on free recall tests (30% after 48 years) but were much better in the photo-name test (90% after 60 years). Models of memory  Description of the multi-store model of memory, plus evaluation inc. research  Atkinson Shiffrin-  Multi-Store Model which consists of three parts sensory, short term and long term stores. Rehearsal is required in order for information to move across stores and retrieval is needed to access the information. If information is not rehearsed it will decay.  Description of the working memory model, plus evaluation inc. research Baddeley Hitch-  Working Memory Model which consists of three parts central executive, phonological loop (store and articulatory control system) and the central executive. Memory in the real world  Knowledge of what Eye Witness Testimony (EWT) is-  The evidence provided in court by a person who witnessed a crime, with a view to identifying the perpetrator of the crime. The accuracy of eyewitness recall may be affected during initial encoding, subsequent storage and eventual retrieval.  Loftus Palmers (1974) study on EWT-  Reconstruction of an Automobile Disaster. 9 student PPs per 5 conditions (bumped, contacted, hit, smashed and collided). All watched a video then asked to estimate speed. Smashed the highest (40.8mph) and contacted the lowest (31.8mph). PPs in second part of experiment then asked a leading question about broken glass. 16/50 of the smashed condition PPs said yes in comparison to 7/50 in the hit condition. Knowledge of the factors which affect the accuracy of EWT  anxiety-  Christianson and Hubinette (1993)  Anxiety and EWT real incidents involving high levels of stress lead to more accurate, detailed and long lasting memories.  Deffenbucher (2004)  Carried out a meta-analysis of 18 studies, looking at the effects if heightened anxiety on accuracy of EWR. It was clear that there was considerable support for the hypothesis that high levels of stress negatively impacted on the accuracy of EWM. Age-  Parker and Carranza (1989)  Compared the ability of primary school children and college students to correctly identify a target individual following a slide sequence of a mock crime. In the photo identification task, child witnesses has higher rate of choosing somebody than adults witnesses, although they were also more likely to make errors of identification than college students.  Weapon focus effect-  Loftus(1987)  In violent crimes, arousal may focus attention on central details e.g. a weapon. Loftus et al identified weapons focus effect. 2 conditions, one involving weapon the other not. Condition 1 (less violent) people was 49% accurate in identifying man. Condition 2 (more violent) people were 33% accurate. Suggests weapon may have distracted them.

Essay on War -- Politics Conflict Battle War

Essay on war War has been a part of human culture since it's birth. It has led to a great many massacres and has shown us the evil that exists within the souls of humanity. Some have even gone as far as saying that war is human nature. To better understand the reasons behind war and how it affects others, I've examined several different societies and cultures so as to better understand the necessity of war and see the cause of their external war attitude. To do so, different variables from two topics (military institutions and external war attitude) were matched up and crossed so as to look into the answers to these questions. The variables were then calculated and through these graphs, I was able to find different societies in which these variables applied to. The different variables that I looked into were that of hostility toward other societies, acceptability of violence toward people in other societies, decision to engage in war, leadership during battle, and the value of war: violence again st non-members or groups. It is through looking into these variables that I'd like to test my hypothesis on how a countries holdings and military prowess causes more of an aggressive external war attitude towards surrounding countries and societies. With this in mind, I'd also like to look further into each culture to see if the greatness of being a warrior increases the aggression on the outside peoples. Through my research of the various variables, I came across several different societies that scored highly on my variable chart. To further test my hypothesis, I've taken these various variables and researched them through different societies to either prove or disprove m hypothesis. Somalis My research begins with the Somalis. Th... ...es external war attitude. I was also incorrect in that I forgot to include within my hypothesis that the leaders outlook of the situation and how the expansion of their military and their holdings would also bring about a different outtake on how their war attitude would be. So in conclusion, these societies have shown me that the main reason for these societies going into war was their hope of gaining prestige, wealth, and a greater territory. It's something that is not much different than now. After all, it's human nature. Works Cited Keen, Benjamin "The Aztec Image in Western Thought" Rutgers University 1971 Tooker, Elisabeth "The Huron" 1965 Buck, Peter "The Coming of the Maori" 1962 Muir, Lucy Philip "An African People in the 20th Century" 1934 Baxter P.T.W.& A.Butt "Azande and Related Peoples of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the Belgian Congo"(1953)

Staple Remover Components

Components and the Materials of Parts: The formation of the staple remover is based on performance and durability without extra useless parts. The materials that form the tool are managed properly to minimize total costs while maximizing the production rates. There are four main parts: wedges, spring, handle and pin axle. The Wedges of Staple Remover The staple remover is comprised of two wedges on shaft. These engaged wedges are usually made from chrome-plated steel, because it is not only harder than the material of the staple, but also tough enough to resist the force applied to extract it.Although the chrome-plated steel using provides these benefits, it shows mild rust-resistance in very moist environments. However, this disadvantage of the material can be ignored, because the staple remover is produced to be used in offices generally. The expander spring is another important part that brings these wedges back to its original opened state. Also, it is usually made from chrome-pl ated steel like the wedges to prevent any possible failures through metal fatigue in continued use.The handles/grips of the staple remover are important for the usage, but it does not have any functional roles for the aim of the device. The grips provide easy use for users, because people do not have to hold cold and tough metal surface. Grips are largely made from plastic materials which are the most proper choose with its cheapness and formability. The pin axle is a cylindrical cross member which gives the wedges ability to rotate. It is made of stainless steel, which have high rust-resistance in places that have been worn by contact with other metals.

A Whole New Mind – Essay

A Whole New Mind Almarene Lowndes EDL 546 – Summer 2012 May 31, 2012 A whole new mind is a must read for ALL teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders. This book has inspired me to seriously think about my own teaching practices as I strive to prepare my students and I for professional success. After reflecting on the concepts in Daniel Pinks’ book I have asked myself if my school District and I are effectively preparing my students for the future?With budget cuts, high stakes testing, and pressure to raise student test scores have we failed to foster activities that enable students to utilize their brains right hemisphere ultimately, leaving them unequipped for our future? We have reduced the amount of time elementary students spend in Art, Music, and PE. In my own Kindergarten classroom I often struggle with allowing my students to build their creativity because of the pressure of time constraints and adhering to learning schedules/pacing guides.In the introduc tion, Pink gives background knowledge on the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain and clears up misconceptions that many people hold. Pink tells us that the left and right hemispheres of the brain work together. However, the left hemisphere is sequential which gives it the capability to analyze details and the right hemisphere is simultaneous which aids in synthesizing the bigger picture. This information can easily be related to teaching. When teaching my kindergarten students concepts of print, phonemic awareness, and phonics I am tapping into my students left hemisphere.For example, teaching my kindergarteners that we read from left to right, learning the alphabet, and decoding are activities that utilize their left hemisphere. The use of lower to higher level questioning requires students to utilize their left and right hemisphere as well. For example, after reading a story to my class, we discuss and answer questions about the texts we have read. When I ask my students to recall information from a story the left hemisphere is more active. However, when I ask my students higher-level questions that require them to think beyond the story their brains are eliciting help form the right hemisphere.Examples, of these types of questions are: how do you think the character feels, what is the most important part of the story, and what personal connections can you make to the story? Even things such as speech, fluency, and cadence of a story require students to utilize their brains right hemisphere. In a cleverly titled section called: Fear and Loathing in My Amygdales n Pink describes, â€Å"the two almond-shaped structures that serve as the brain’s Homeland Security. † They are called amygdalas. The function of these structures is to process emotions particularly fear.He explained that the left hemisphere is more active in processing this information. I found it interesting when he stated that the right amygdala is stimulated whe n processing faces. It is able to analyze the parts of a face as a whole to come to a conclusion about how one feels. Pink mentioned that this idea transcends to any culture. As an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) certified teacher, I most often receive students who do not speak the English language. One strategy that I use is facial expressions to convey meaning which I now know requires support from our brains right hemisphere.According to Pink our culture has always held L-Directed Thinkers such as lawyers and engineers in high esteem. He points out that now value is being placed on the R-Directed Thinkers such as artist, counselors, and inventors. While I would argue, that both types are thinkers are needed. In my own classroom I would like to make a conscious effort to foster both types of thinkers so that my students can successfully integrate both ways of thinking into their lives. According to Pink teachers live R-Directed lives. However, in my organization I f eel our way of thinking is not supported in the way that the school system is currently structured.There are some key points that I feel our school system should adopt. Furthermore, these same themes can be used in my own classroom to produce learners who are L and R- Directed Thinkers. The themes that resonate with me the most are: Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. â€Å"Symphony†¦ is the ability to put together the pieces. It is the capacity to synthesize rather than to analyze; to see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields; to detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers; and to invent something new by combining elements nobody else thought to pair. Empathy is defined as putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. Play is the idea that work is not just about being serious it is about play as well. Meaning focuses on seeking purpose and the greater good. I would like to think of myself as a sympathetic teacher like Mr. Bomeisler. I am very encouraging as I touch every child while I am working. In my own classroom I strive to help my students reach the highest level of learning, which is synthesizing. Conversely, I have fallen short because while I help my students see relationships between related fields, I need to strive to help them see the relationships between unrelated fields.In many ways I have missed those opportunities to help my students develop their powers of Symphony through simple tasks like drawing, listening to classical music, and celebrating amateurness. I feel that many K-12 teachers struggle with this in their teaching. An example of this is in team teaching. In team teaching a group of teachers, working together, plan, conduct, and evaluate the learning activities for the same group of students. In practice, team teaching has many different formats but in general it is a means of organizing staff into groups to enhance teaching.Teams generally comprise staff members who may represent different are as of subject expertise but who share the same group of students and a common planning period to prepare for the teaching. To facilitate this process a common teaching space is desirable. Team teachers and teachers alike must begin to see the connections between subject areas themselves in order to help students to achieve this. Most often you will hear someone who teaches Science say, â€Å"I do not teach Reading. † This as you may of guessed is untrue since teaching Science is teaching the components of nonfiction text.I also feel, that most schools don’t allow teachers the opportunities to plan together and discuss the relationships between their fields. Many administrators are not empathetic to the idea that if we really want students to be successful they must allow us the time to engage in conversations and planning with each other. Most often team teachers as is the case at my school do not even have the same planning time. We can improve this at my school by al lowing time for us to plan together not only as teammates but as grade levels. In our mailroom it would be cool if we had an inspiration board.This simple idea will help us to expand our minds. Lastly, I suggest that we read and discuss books as grade levels such as: Dialogue, Metaphors We Live By, and No Waste. We always are given professional development books to read when we are given the time to get together. How powerful would it be for the R-Direct Thinkers in my organizations if we were allowed the opportunity to read and discuss these books? You would think that in my organization everyone is empathetic and in turn teaches students to empathize with one another.I am very empathetic and must say that I do wonderful job of guiding my students as they develop relationships with one another. I model this as I develop relationships with not only my students but my parents as well. On the other hand it saddens me to say that every teacher is not empathetic. My mom always told me t hat, â€Å"students don’t learn until they learn that you care. † When you build valuable relationships with students and parents it increases students achievement. In my school environment I feel that we should start with being empathetic with each other.Very few principles show empathy for their employees, which make it hard to foster caring relationships with colleagues at work. Recently, school climates have shifted from working together to competing against each other. As odd as it may sound I would argue that many teachers do not even trust each other. For example, First grade teachers do not trust that Kindergarten teachers have effectively taught their students. Second grade teachers do not trust that First grade teachers have done their jobs. This trend goes from grade to grade.As a result, teachers spend valuable instructional time re teaching information to students. Instructional time should be fun to students. At times I often forget this simple concept. A s a teacher I have found it my personal goal to find creative ways to put the fun back into teaching and learning. On my quest to fulfill this goal there are several suggestions from Pink that I will use to do this. One thing that my group members at JU and I are studying is how can we use gaming to increase students’ achievement? According to Pink, gaming plays a significant role in learning.James Paul Gee argues that games can be the ultimate learning machine. I might also add that games are fun and engaging for students. Next year, I plan to bring my Wii to school and allow students to play games such as Reading Rabbit and Sesame Street in my classroom. Another way that my organization and I can foster the idea of play is being humorous with our students and us. The pressures of high stakes testing, time management, and top bottom pressure exerted on teachers have caused us to become less and less humorous and joyful.There are things that we can do to bring humor and joy i nto teaching. Some immediate ideas that come to mind are simply playing with our students. It is so fun to play on the playground with my students. Not only does this bring me joy but also it brings my students an equal amount of joy and humor in watching me do things that are out of the box for adults. Not only should we play with kids but we should also play with each other. I remember one year some colleagues and I decided to form a kickball team to play on this kickball league one of us had heard about.Not only did allow me to forget about the pressures of teaching it allowed us to empathize with each other through the simple act of playing. Which in turn made us more pleasant at work. Another idea that the educational organization should adopt is getting our â€Å"game on. † Not only should we utilize gaming in the classroom we should participate in gaming ourselves. Lastly, I feel that administrators and facilitators should start meetings by dissecting jokes. This is so mething that I can immediately implement when I facilitate myself.I can also do this with my kindergarteners by using simple jokes starting with knock-knock jokes. Developing happiness through play can add meaning to not only learning but our jobs as well. It is said, that we â€Å"are born for meaning† and live for self-expression and an opportunity to share that which we feel is important. I believe that at some point in time every teacher is passionate about his or her job and are often looking for the opportunity to share his or her expertise. Somehow this passion fades as we stop looking inside ourselves to make meaning out of our jobs.Something that my grade level has done to build meaning is utilizing teardrops. Every teacher on my grade level purchased a small pail to place teardrops in. Each of us was given paper made teardrops that we use to show our gratitude for things that we have done, or modeled, or shared with one another. For example, I was once given a teard rop for staying late to help the people who were new to my grade level fill out student snapshots after I was already done. I gave a tear to another teacher for allowing me the gift of observing her teach a lesson to her students on connections.In my opinion this simple act can add a sense of purpose to our job. This can be implemented on all grade levels and adapted to our students. Pink states that Right-Brainers will rule the future. As teachers we can equip our students for this new era. Administrators can help R-Directed thinkers such as ourselves by creating an environment that is conducive to the way that we think. By implementing simple strategies suggested in A Whole New Mind we can once again find joy in teaching as we strive to increase student achievement.There are many pearls that I have taken from this book. One of the pearls I have taken from this book is that the simple act of empathizing can help to increase student achievement. Another is the idea that play is esse ntial to my classroom and environment as it brings happiness and joy. Also, it is important to look at things from the bigger picture and lastly, seeking purpose and the greater good seems to define us uniquely as humans. Reference: Pink, D. (2005). A Whole New Mind. New York: The Penguin Group.

The Boston Tea Party essays

The Boston Tea Party essays The era of the American Revolution was marked by a series of violent outbreaks in town and countryside. A sequence of urban violence runs from the Stamp Act riots in 1765 through the Sons of Liberty violence, the Boston Massacre, the burning of the Gaspee , and the Boston Tea Party to the incident that triggered the Revolutionary Warthe fighting at Lexington and Concord. Behind the violence in Boston was the city's remarkable patriot infrastructure of the 1760s and 1770s, headed by James Otis, Samuel Adams, and their colleagues. The infrastructure grew out of the convergence of a historical tradition with a contemporary situation. The historical tradition was the CookeCaucus heritage of popular politics in Boston, and the contemporary situation was the diversity and complexity of Boston's social, economic, and political life in the 1760s, which formed a fertile seedbed for the growth of the anti-British movement. In 1773 the East India Company was on the verge of financial collapse. Since the seventeenth century the company had traded in India as its private corporate enterprise. Many company officials had become rich through bribery and special privileges, but the company itself had suffered. One of its few remaining assets, seventeen million pounds of tea held in its London warehouses, remained unsold because of the American boycott, and also because heavy taxes made it too expensive in Britain itself. Why not, Lord North asked, drastically reduce the English tax? With only three pence per pound to be paid on arrival in America, the tea would become so cheap that it would undersell smuggled Dutch tea. The tea would sell widely and the East India Company would be saved from ruin and the government would at last raise some much-needed revenue from the troublesome mainland colonies. This plan received legislative form in the Tea Act of 1773. What North did not foresee was that Americans would perceive this scheme as an insulting b...

How to Write a Classification Essay †The Quick and Easy Way by BestEssay.education

How to Write a Classification Essay – The Quick and Easy Way Writing  a Classification Essay Did you watch Sesame Street as a child? If you did, you probably remember the refrain, â€Å"One of these things is not like the other...', often sung by a memorable character like Susan or Luis. The activity accompanying that song was to look at four objects, and then identify which three belonged together. The fourth object was then the one that didn't belong. This may seem like a simple task now, but you were learning the very skills then that you will need to write a division and classification essay today. Later on, in school, you probably expanded on this skill. For example, you may have learned to classify musical instruments by category (brass, percussion, string, woodwind), events according to historical period (Middle ages, Great Depression, Baby Boom, Industrial Revolution), or even types of art (impressionist, modern, arts and crafts, etc.). What is a Classification Essay A classification essay is paper in which you identify a subject and create different categories within that subject that you can use for the purposes of classification. Then, you write about who or what would be placed into each classification, and why. For example, if your subject was pies, you might choose the categories: savory, fruit based, custard based, cream based, and chess based. In your essay, you would identify these categories, explain why you have selected these categories, and then you would write about which pies fit into the various categories. Remember that as you are writing a classification essay, you job isn't just to identify the categories and what goes in those categories, it is also to justify why you have made that selection. Why, for example, would strawberry cream pie be classified as a cream based pie and not a fruit pie? Choose an Interesting and Familiar Subject If you want the essay writing process to go quickly, pick a subject that you can quickly divide into categories. Then, once you have your categories down, you can pick the elements you wish to write about and how you want those elements classified based on the categories that you have established. Unless the subject matter covered in the class demands it, there is no need to pursue a topic that is particularly intense. Write an Intro Paragraph that Demonstrates the Subject and Categories By the end of the first paragraph, your reader should know how you have divided your subject into categories, and why. This way, when you begin writing your body paragraphs, you can simply go through each item and discuss where you are classifying it and what caused you to make that decision. Try Some Mind Mapping Rather than using typical note taking methods, try using mind mapping or other methods to do your classifying. The visual style of this can make it easier for you to remember what you classified where, and why. Then, when the time comes to write your essay, you can just translate the images that you have created into sentences and paragraphs.

Is Employer of Choice brand is self-applied Essay

Is Employer of Choice brand is self-applied - Essay Example Organizations should consider the hiring process as the first hurdle. The greatest challenge that awaits every employer is to retain employees. This way an organization will be able to hire smart, and retain the best (Leary-Joyce, 2004). There are several steps which can be put in place by an employer in order to become an employer of choice. Every employee wants to be in an environment that is conducive where rules are well defined. Hence, an employer has to create and maintain a policy structure which is comprehensive by investing time and resources. Clear policies that helps in defining employees conduct, entitlement and obligations is desirable as compared to a situation where decisions affecting employees are made in an unplanned way. Employers of choice need to follow their own rules, most employees prefer an employer, who observes rules in a consistent manner, and makes decisions in an unbiased and principled way. Valuable employees can leave an organization due to decisions t hat are considered to be inconsistent and when they perceive their employer to be unfair. Secondly, an employer of choice has to have trust on the employees. For one to be an employer of choice, one has to portray trust and faith among the employees.

Food Handling and Unethical Business Practices Coursework

Food Handling and Unethical Business Practices - Coursework Example Inspection is, therefore, from time to time to ensure adherence to the food handling regulations by the EHPs. Inspection ought to be conducted to ensure that there are no contraventions of the Food Safety Act 1990, as well as the Food Safety Regulations. Another goal of carrying out inspection is to advise food handlers on how contraventions can be corrected. Furthermore, inspection ensures identification of potential risks, an indication of the action that is needed in the event of serious risks. In addition, inspection seeks to issue the enforcement notice of the food regulations (Lund & Hunter 2008: 329). EHPs mainly do investigations so as to make decisions on what actions to take on business operators in the food industry who contravene the set regulations. For instance, if the action is to issue a notice, they must decide what should be included in the notice specification. The EHPs are given a lot of investigative powers, which fall under a broad range of statutory provisions. An excellent example is the Health and Safety at Work, under section 20, relating to powers of inspectors (Stephen 2013: 280). An EHP inspector possesses the power to enter any premises at any time to carry out the relevant statutory provisions. The officer may as well take a police officer with him where he fears obstructions. The EHP also has powers to take any equipment from the visited premises in line with carrying out the statutory provisions. The EHP has the power to take photographs and measurements while on a mission. The EHP also has powers to question any person believed to give relevant information regarding the investigations (Stephen 2013: 281). In carrying out the inspection process, the EHPs are concerned about the temperature control, to ascertain whether the food is left at the right temperature. The inspector also ensures that the food handling facility has enough refrigerators and deep freezers, all set at the correct temperature.