An Existentialism View Toward Batman and Naruto Essay

I. Theory of Existentialism Existentialism is a philosophical movement that posits that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to deities or authoritites creating it for them. It emerged as a movement in twentieth-century literature and philosophy, though it had forerunners in earlier centuries. Existentialism generally postulates that the absence of a transcendent force (such as God) means that the individual is entirely free, and therefore, ultimately responsible. It is up to humans to create an ethos of personal responsibility outside any branded belief system. In existentialism views, personal articulation of being is the olny way to rise above humanity`s absurd condition of much suffering and inevitable death. Existentialism is a reaction against traditional philosophies, such as rationalism and empiricism, that seek to discover an ultimate order in metaphysical principles or in the structure of the observed world, and thereby seek to discover universal meaning. Existentialism originated with the nineteenth-century philosophers Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. It became prevalent in Continental philosophy, and literary figures such as Fyodor Dostoevsky also contributed to the movement. In the 1940s and 1950s, French existentialism such as Jean-Paul Satre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir, wrote scholarly and fictional works that popularized existential themes such as â€Å"dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment, and nothingness. † Walter Kaufmann describes existentialism as â€Å"The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaction with traditional phylosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life. † Existentialism tends to focus on the question of human existence – the feeling that there is no purpose, indeed nothing, at the core of existence. Finding a way to counter this nothingness, by embracing existence, is the fundamental theme of existentialism, and the root of the phylosophy’s name. In existentialism view, they asserts that a human finds oneself already in a world and prior context that the human cannot think away. In other words, the ultimate and unquestionable reality is not consciousness but existence. A central proposition of existentialism is that humans define their own meaning in life. Such a view might be phrased technically by philosophers as existence precedes essence, that is a human’s existence conceptually precedes the essence or meaning that may be ascribed to the life. Satre, in Essays in Extentialism, further highlights this consciousness of being thrown into existence in the following fashion: â€Å"If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. † Emphasizing action, freedom, and decision as fundamental, existentialist oppose themselves to rationalism and positivism. That is, they argue against definitions of human beings as primarily rational. Rather, existentialists look at where people find meaning. Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on what has meaning to them rather that what is rational. A further type of existentialism is agnostic existentialists, who make no claim to know whether or not there is a â€Å"greater picture†; rather, they simply assert that the greatest truth is that which the individual chooses to act upon. II. What is Superhero A superhero – sometimes written as super hero – is a fictional character of extraordinary physical ability dedicated to acts in the sake of public interest. Since the debut of the prototypal superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes – ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas – have dominated American comic books and crossed over into other media. A female superhero is sometimes called a superheroine or super heroine. By most definitions, characters need not have actual superhuman powers to be deemed superheroes, not, although sometimes terms such as costumed crimefighters are used to refer to those without such powers who have many other common traits of superheroes. The two-word version of the term is a trademark co-owned by DC Comics and Marvel Comics. There have been successful superheroes in other countries most of whom share the conventions of the American model. Examples include Cybersix from Argentina, Captain Canuck from Canada and the heroes of AK Comics from Egypt. For this Western area, I will take Batman as the representative. Unlike many superheroes, Batman has no superpowers and instead relies on his own scientific knowledge, detective skills, an athletic abilities. Batman is physically at the peak of human ability in dozens of areas, notably martial arts, acrobatics, strenght, and escape artistry. Rather than simply outfighting his opponents, Batman often uses cunning and planning to outwit them. Batman’s costumes incorporates the imagery of a bat in order to frighten criminals. Japan is the only country that nears the US in output of superheroes. The earlier of these wore scarves either in addition to or as a substitute for capes and many wear helmets instead of masks. Moonlight Mask, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai (the basis for Power Rangers), Metal Heroes and Kikaider have become popular in Japanese tokusatsu live-action shows, and Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Casshan, The Guyver, and Sailor Moon are staples of Japanese anime and manga. However, most Japanese superheroes are shorter-lived. While American entertainment companies update and reinvent superheroes, hoping to keep them popular for decades, Japanese companies retire and introduce superheroes more quickly, usually on an annual basis, in order to shorten merchandise lines. In addition, Japanese manga often targets female readers, unlike U. S. comics, and has created such varieties as â€Å"magical girl† (e. g. Cardcaptor Sakura) for this audience. For this Eastern area, I will take Naruto as the representative. Naruto whose full name is Uzumaki Naruto is a young boy who dreams of becoming the leader of his Hidden Village. It will be difficult though for Naruto, because when he was a baby an evil demon was placed inside him to stop its rampage. As Naruto grew the townspeople saw Naruto himself as the demon, even though he was merely its container. Naruto lives in a world populated by ninja villages. The ninja serve as the armies for the countries that inhabit the world. Most of the countries have their own Hidden Village, which serves to train and manage the ninja of the country. Also the ninja in the series are able to utilize jutsu techniques, which are the secrecy, body and illusion arts of the ninja. These allow the ninja to perform many amazing skills such as the manipulation of the surrounding elements. III. Batman and Naruto: Their Differences and Their Revelance In Existentialism The true feature of Batman as a common people is Bruce Wayne, a millionaire industrialist. He inherited a big corporation, Wayne Corporation, from his father. The ego ‘Batman’ was born because of two accident. The first was the murder of Bruce’s parents. Bruce witnessed his parent killed in a gun-accident. A street-criminal shot them to death. The second was Bruce falling down into a cave in Wayne’s manor. He fell into a dark and humid cave where a hundred of bats lived. Those two accidents led Bruce to learn about martial arts and gadget-operating skill in order to fight the crime in Gotham city. His fear of bat made him wear a bat-costume in doing his operation. Thus, Batman as a superhero who fight a crime has born. This is the very purpose why Batman wants to fight crime: a personal vendetta against criminals. Since Batman does not have any superpowers, he relies on his own scientific knowledge, detective skills, an athletic abilities. Also his wealth enables him to get much modern and sophisticated gadget in order to beat his nemesis. In other hand, Naruto, instead of his lack of intellectual ability in solving a problem, his friend still considers some of his actions brilliant. Naruto does all of his action by intuition, not by a precise step as a ninja should do. What makes Naruto a superhero is that he possesses massive abundant chakra energy inside his body. This chakra is originated from a Nine-Tailed Demon Fox that is sealed inside his body. Together with his friends and mentor, Naruto solve the problem and fight with the evil ninjas. They act in a group of 4 ,3 ninjas and a mentor. They perform a close combat by using martial arts and ninjutsu, and a long-range combat by using flying dagger or shuriken. Once they accomplished a mission, they report to the hokage, which is the leader of the village. Yet, the very important thing that makes they both become a superhero is that there exist some nemesis, villains, that must be eliminated. They both make some struggles to get rid of those system distracted. What differentiate them is the way they make these struggles. Batman eliminates crime in Gotham by his own rule. He does not obey the rules prevailed in that city. He intentionally takes action againts criminal without involving the authorities. It can be concluded that Batman makes his own system to fix the system. However, Batman – intentionally or not – does not kill his enemy. He just sents those criminals to the authorities, to be prisoned or not. Batman’s worst nemesis, The Joker, is still alive until now. Although they often have some ‘fight’, but neither Batman or The Joker is condemned to death. While Naruto’s job is to keep the system in his village to be kept save. He does not violate the system prevailed in his village, instead he is forced to obey that system. His acts are being ruled by Hokage, the highest authority in the village. He is a kind of ‘paid’ superhero that acts upon a mission that is given by that Hokage. Once they accomplished that mission, they have report to that Hokage. Here, Naruto biggest enemy, Kabuto, is remain alive until now. What makes this difference? It is because the different culture that affect the people in West and East. Why Batman have a nerve to make his own system to fix the main system prevailed in his city is due to the Western way of thinking. Western culture tends to emphasize critical thinking. They are learned to break the rules if they think that there are some errors in those rules. Their new ideas are being welcomed, even they are supported to make new inventions. While Eastern country tend to ‘close their eyes’. They have to accept what the older people says. They are not being couraged to make some critics toward the culture. They tend to give high respect (sometimes not in a proper measure) toward conventional ideas. Here it implies in the way Batman and Naruto makes their struggle to fight crimes. Then another point where existentialism takes place also emmerges. Why those superheroes do not kill their enemies? It is because they ‘need’ their nemesis so that they can be a superheroes still. Let’s we go back to the question of what makes those superheroes superhero? What do they pursue? They want to eliminate crimes. Then we come to the question of what causes this crime? Criminals. So superheroes exist because there are some criminals. If there are no criminals, so there are no superheroes. Like what Satre has said, â€Å"If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefineable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. † Thus, superhero is nothing if there is no criminal to make him defineable. This is the meaning of existence preceding essence. I would like to use the term that coined by Heidegger, â€Å"throwness†, that is human beings are â€Å"thrown† into existence without having chosen it. Whether superhero or the enemy do not have the power to choose what they want to be. First they just exist in the world, then they just do the thing that they believe as a greatest truth. This is that greatest truth that they choose to act upon to find the essences of their existencies. Noviana Indah Tri Wahyuni a paper for Comparative Studies Superhero Theme.

Lab Report Eugenol

Introduction Eugenol is a naturally occurring chemical that has medical applications such as its use as a natural dental anesthetic. It can be extracted from cloves by using the method of steam distillation. The extracted compound will then be separated from the water using methyl chloride, which will then be evaporated using a rotary evaporator leaving only the essential oil, Eugenol. IR spectroscopy will be used to determine the structure of the extracted compound. Results and Discussion Four samples of Eugenol were combined to be analyzed for the final product.A lower percent recovery, as indicated by Table 1 could be due to the fact that much of the weight of the cloves was not actually eugenol. Cloves Used| Eugenol Recovered | Percent Recovery| 10 g| 7. 304 | (7. 304/40) x 100% = 18. 26%| Table 1: Calculations of the percent recovery of Eugenol. Figure 1: The structure of Eugenol. The IR spectroscopy run on the sample gave results as shown in Table 2. The –OH stretch acco unts for the hydroxyl group on the aromatic ring as shown in Figure 1.The C-H peaks are from the mexthoxy group on the aromatic ring. The C=C-H are a result of the hydrogen’s bonded to the carbons of the aromatic ring. The peak from the C=O stretch is not from the compound, but may be a result of product contamination. Absorbance | Shape| Intensity| Group-motion| 3512. 21| Broad| Weak| H2O or –OH stretch| 3072. 52| Sharp| Medium| C=C-H stretch| 2948. 85| Broad| Strong| C-H stretch| 2845. 80| Sharp| Medium| C-H stretch| 1767. 18| Sharp| Weak| C=O stretch| Table 2: IR Table of sample taken.Experimental Extraction of Eugenol began by taking 10 grams of cloves and placing them in a 250mL round bottom flask. This flask was then attached to a steam distillation apparatus and heated to the boiling point of about 100Â °C. The steam was condensed and collected in a graduated cylinder. This collected material consisted of water and the eugenol contained in the cloves. 100mL of the product was collected and placed into a separatory funnel. The eugenol now had to be removed from the water by adding 15mL of CH2Cl2 and shaken.The layers were allowed to separate. The CH2Cl2 layer was more dense than water and sank to the bottom of the funnel. The bottom layer was collected and another 15mL of dichloromethane was added to the funnel to repeat the process. This was repeated yet again to obtain a final amount of 45mL of dichloromethane with eugenol dissolved in it. The 45mL of product was moved to a 100mL Erlenmyer flask. The next step was to dry the mixture with 0. 5g of CaSO4 to remove any excess water in the mixture.The flask was swirled to allow for the CaSO4 to collect any water. The product was then allowed to rest and was put through a filter to remove the CaSO4. Once filtered, four different samples were collected in a single 500mL round bottom flask. This product was then placed onto a rotary evaporator to evaporate away all of the dichloromethane and le ave behind only eugenol. This was achieved because the boiling point of the dichloromethane was much lower than that of eugenol. The final product was then analyzed by IR spectroscopy.

“Double Face” analysis from :The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan Essay

Objectives: 1) Explain the most important theme(s) revealed by the author in my section of _The Joy Luck Club_. 2) Be sure to: A) follow all style rules B) give a clear opening statement that clearly identifies the subject In â€Å"Double Face† of _The Joy Luck Club_, Lindo Jong recounts her journey coming into America as she sits in Waverly’s hairstylist, Mr. Rory’s, chair, preparing for Waverly’s second wedding. The symbolism surrounding Waverly and her mother’s conversation through the salon mirror subtly imply an underlying theme of a lack of communication. Waverly and her mother seem to be talking in different worlds as both daughter mother struggle to understand each other’s culture. For example, Lindo tells Waverly that the people in China â€Å"already know that [she] is an outsider,† which confuses Waverly, because the Americanized Waverly cannot understand Lindo’s Chinese metaphors. Afterwards, as Waverly and her mother meet for coffee, Waverly remarks to Lindo that she â€Å"is her own person†, only to have Lindo question herself about â€Å"when [she has] given [Waverly] up;† due to Lindo’s lack of understanding of â€Å"Americanisms†, Waverly’s comment confuses Lindo. Later, Waverly and Lindo speak through the â€Å"mirror† at the salon to each other’s â€Å"reflections†. Since speaking through mirrors is an â€Å"American custom,† Lindo, a traditional Chinese woman who is accustomed to the custom of speaking directly to her elders, finds this s trange. While at Mr. Rory’s salon, Waverly shows a complete lack of respect for her mother. For example, Waverly openly criticizes her mother’s head, as if Lindo â€Å"was not there,† clearly disregarding her mother’s existence. Then, Waverly  speaks to Lindo in a loud voice, as if Lindo  has â€Å"lost her hearing,† condescendingly to her own mother. Furthermore, when Mr. Rory tells Waverly how much she and Lindo look alike, Waverly’s â€Å"eyes and smile†¦ narrow†¦ [like] a cat†¦ before it bites,† as if Waverly is disgusted for resembling her mother. Waverly’s incomplete understanding of Lindo as a â€Å"backwards old woman† who cannot understand American customs, makes her ashamed. Due to a lack of understanding, Lindo and Waverly must change themselves using double faces for each other to understand their thoughts. For example, after Waverly loudly asks Lindo what kind of hairstyle she wanted, Lindo smiled using her â€Å"American face†, a face she says her daughter cannot understand, for it masks her true feelings. However, Lindo later smiles with her â€Å"Chinese face† when Mr. Rory remarks that it was â€Å"uncanny how much [Waverly and Lindo] looked alike.† After, Lindo is surprised when Waverly tells Lindo that â€Å"[people] know that [they] are two-faced.† Misunderstanding her daughter, Lindo thinks she must â€Å"sacrifice the other [face]† if she chooses to show one, whereas Waverly just simply mean to say that they can use their double face to their advantage. New conclusion: In summary, this section hints at the difficulties caused by a lack of understanding  between Lindo and Waverly, as well as the difference in cultures, as both struggle to relate to  each other through mixed messages and foreign customs, only to add to their confusion, propelling the two endlessly in the same cycle. Due to these differences, Lindo and Waverly fail to understand each other’s true intentions and personalities, as these misinterpretations reoccur in the rest of the stories. Ultimately, such misunderstandings cause an emotional distance that is found between Lindo and Waverly, as well as with the other  members of the _Joy Luck Club_. Old conclusion: In summary, this section hints at the difficulties caused by a lack of understanding between Lindo and Waverly, as well as the difference in cultures, as both struggle to relate to each other through mixed messages and foreign customs, only to add to their confusion, propelling the two endlessly in the same cycle. What was wrong: The old conclusion merely restated the thesis, without explaining its significance to the subject, or how it affects the whole story.

L course Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

L course - Essay Example They can get access to important numbers such as the ID numbers and other personal information such as the product preferences of customers. This may end up causing significant losses to the companies as well as to customers. This applies to banks too whereby hackers have had access to information in several banks causing significant losses. Another modern way to attack individual privacy is using surveillance cameras and traffic cameras. This is usually meant to be a step by the government towards ensuring people’s security but instead end up being interference to privacy since these cameras can monitor the movement of people from place to place. CCTV cameras as well are used to enhance surveillance. These have software that even recognizes faces and can even records sounds. In addition, wiretaps which are used the US government to identify a group of individuals who were suspected to be associated to terrorists. Corporation has also been viewed as spying on people, from their strategy of obtaining targeted people’s information from others. The corporations have achieved this by using club cards, rebates and raffles, which may even be sold to other parties. Use of customer lists have also led to the attack towards privacy, whereby one corporation may sell customer names and identities from their customer lists to other corporation thus the information of the customers extending to these other corporations, who thereafter start contacting these customers. Radio frequency identification devices (RFIDs) have also been seen as a way of attacking people’s privacy. They are microchips with antennas in bar codes of products, for the purpose of tracking the products’ use. They track the period that products stay in the stores, the movement to customer houses and finally their disposal. This way, the companies are seen as being spies on people who buy their products. Surrendering

Critical Evaluation of your documentary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Critical Evaluation of your documentary - Essay Example This documentary was to look into the different models of cars and what makes them unique from each other. The original documentary was to look at how cars have evolved from the year 1970 to present, their speed limits, designs, engine types and sizes. Several ideas influenced my original proposal for a documentary. The documentary, Car of the Future, talks of the various models of cars that are to hit the roads by the year and their effect on the environment. The documentary would have projected the models that were before and those that have come to be. Another documentary that inspired my thought on the car documentary that I was to make was that of â€Å"Who killed the Electric Car.† In this documentary, several issues are looked into; the eventual downfall of the car model, how it was made and its branding type. The documentary also looks into duties of government, consumers and the oil industry. The PowerBlock TV show was also a force behind my original proposal for a do cumentary. Different car models are showcased in this show bringing out clearly the many changes that have occurred in the motor industry. The final film turned out to be different from what I had in my original proposal for a documentary. My documentary is about making a confectionary that is liked by most consumers. The inspiration was drawn from a documentary I later saw about a man who was an expert at making sushi. Together with his son who is also his heir, they set out in the basement of an office to show their prowess on sushi making. The relationship that the man and his son share was phenomenal. Their attention to detail and their enthusiasm to give the best of results motivated me. I thought of the issues that are overlooked by people regarding the end results of food. This documentary brings out a clear explanation of how confectionaries are prepared and how good results can be achieved. Another idea that

Comparison of Credit Cards and Paying with Cash Essay

Comparison of Credit Cards and Paying with Cash - Essay Example Measuring the benefits of cash against credit cards is highly individual and dependent upon circumstances. People often use credit cards for convenience. This is good if they pay the bills before interest is incurred, called the â€Å"grace period†. Businesses are also charged for accepting credit cards, so they raise prices. However, interest is high if the grace period is missed and it does not apply to cash on credit. A credit card is easy to use online, but care must be taken to check the transactions as one might see recurring payments applied from the fine print they did not read. Online purchases are much harder to make without a credit card, and generally, incur fees for a payment service. One often overlooked benefit for using credit cards is to build one’s credit rating. In today's’ world getting a mortgage or buying a car with no credit rating can be difficult and may cause the buyer higher interest. Some places have a chip sensing machine that only requires waving or tapping the card on a surface to register the purchase, making it even easier, but that ea se of use may encourage overspending. Cash may lower the price of items or services, but then the buyer must store the receipts and carry that cash, which is not as safe since it can be spent by anyone. When getting cash on credit the cost can be up to 29% and it accumulates at the time of purchase until that balance is paid, so running one’s self out of cash is also not good. Online purchases are much harder to make without a credit card, and generally, incur fees for a payment service, but debit cards that have a credit logo often work. Credit cards are fast and very easy to use. The major drawbacks to using credit cards are also what that makes them tempting to use: deferred payment and convenience.  Ã‚  

Swot analysis of BP Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Swot analysis of BP - Essay Example The company is responsible for converting natural resources into power energy. Now British Petroleum is trying to find fuel resources that reduce carbon footprint and greenhouse gases. The company is trying to accomplish its sustainability mission by finding alternative fuel resources like wind power, solar power, fossil fuels, hydrogen, and natural gas. On the basis of market capitalization British Petroleum is the second largest operating oil and gas company of United State and has number of strengths. First, the strength of the company lies in its successful operations and ability to generate high revenue. Just after a year of the most annihilating oil explosion occurred at British Petroleum’s oil resource in the Gulf of Mexico, the company successfully earned profit of $5.3 billion Stonaker, (2011). This shows the strength of the company because it recovered very soon. It has been argued by many researchers that the oil spill occurred due to mismanagement and poor safety precautions but the quick recovery and ability to bounce back shows how efficient the company is in its operations. Second, important strength of BP is its increasing demand. Bob Dudley in his speech said that the demand of British Petroleum’s products is continuously increasing day by day due to our efficient production and supply, and our search for oil and gas reserves is one of our greatest strength. He further said, 96% of our demand growth comes from developing countries like India and China, this shows we are still market leader in oil and gas industry around the globe. One, criticism on Mr. Dudley’s speech is that he disguised the potential problems that BP is facing in setting up its operations in emerging countries due to their poor law and order situation and terrorism. Petroleum is leading deep-water company because it possesses largest deep-water oil spills and these oil spills

The Nuclear Energy Industry in Saudi Arabia Term Paper

The Nuclear Energy Industry in Saudi Arabia - Term Paper Example Saudi Arabia has 16 percent of the oil reserves proven in the world, ranks highest in the exportation of petroleum liquids and has the largest capacity to export crude oil in the entire world (Independent statistics and analysis, Para 2). The nuclear energy industry in Saudi follows Canada as the second largest exporter of petroleum in the ranking for petroleum exporters to the United States. It takes the fifth position in the world’s largest reserve for natural gas through its production is limited. The industry has plans for increasing the capacity to produce electricity to 120GW to meet the growing electricity demand in the country. The major areas of the industry are the refining of natural gas, petrochemicals, crude oil, petroleum and mineral resources. (Independent statistics and analysis, Para 4). The industry has huge oil reserves for oil with Ghawar field being the largest oil field in the world. Saudi Arabia has the highest rate of oil consumption in the world and holds the highest position for crude oil production in the world. Saudi Aramco has an oil processing facility that is the greatest in the entire world and eight domestic refineries for crude oil. It has the fifth largest reserves for natural gas though it does not export any of its production. The natural gas produced therefore is used for domestic consumption. The increased demand for electricity has pushed the need for the industry to increase electricity generation. This will be necessitated by an increase in nuclear power, solar power and other renewable sources and reducing the overall amount of crude oil burning. The Saudi Electric company is the main electricity generator in Saudi Arabia, followed by the Saline Water conversion corporation. Saudi Aramco has its own power plants that generate power for its o wn use in the oil facilities (Banks 120). There was an announcement by the Gulf Cooperation Council in December 2006 that it was conducting a study on a peaceful use  of nuclear energy.  

Individual Theories Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Individual Theories - Essay Example who commit crimes are aware of their actions’ legal consequences, or ought to have been aware, and this awareness forms the basis of understanding the reasons why some adolescents are still motivated to committing crimes while others are not. This is because there are a number of variables among adolescents, which are believed to influence involvement in crimes. One of the set of factors is social environment that includes an individual’s family, social systems, peer groups, and disruption of social factors. Psychological factors such as an adolescent’s â€Å"intellectual weakness, mental disease, characteristics of personality and emotional stability† as well as economic conditions around an adolescent have also been identified as factors towards adolescents’ crime (Sharma, 2004, p. 205). This, however, is a general and inaccurate perception because not all adolescents respond to their environmental conditions by engaging in crimes, some yield to a dverse conditions of these factors while others do not. As a result, adolescent’s motivation to crime primarily depends on an individual’s personality and not environmental factors. Some adolescents are therefore motivated to commit crimes because of their compromised personality traits while others, who may be facing similar environmental conditions, are not motivated to commit crime because of good personality traits (Sharma, 2004). High dependence on personality traits as an adolescent motivator to crime, as opposed to the teenagers’ environment is supported by individual theories such as psychodynamic theory and behavioral theory. Psychodynamic theory explains that motivation into crimes and other vices are facilitated by psychological instability among individuals that might have developed in the subjects’ early stages in life. Such instability may result from psychological disorders such as schizophrenia, leading to anxiety, fear, and abnormally abrupt reactions. An adolescent with a psychological

Renewable Energy Literature Survey Dissertation

Renewable Energy Literature Survey - Dissertation Example It demonstrated how capital can be obtained for project financing through a combination of debt and equity investment, debt being available through bank loans, institutional debt or through public markets. The paper mentioned the possibility of procuring equity from internal or external sources in public and private markets, and sponsorship through developers, contractors, equipment suppliers, operators, off-takers and fuel suppliers, who are active equity investors. The factors limiting project finance of renewable energy power projects (REPP’s) were examined. The author indicated that resource and technology risks were high and that financial institutions lacked the experience in evaluating risks related to REPP’s. The author also noted that with the rapid change in technology and the shortage of REPP technology engineers, they would have lacked the technical expertise in this area to assess and monitor REPP’s. ... This therefore results in a smaller margin for project financing and consequently puts pressure on costs related to maintenance and overheads. The author also pointed out that government policies, which are often unpredictable, greatly affect the economies of REPP’s. The paper gave focus to the importance of equity, seeing it as the main protection against risks. Lenders will therefore favour equity contributions in the initial part of the project. Lenders see equity investment as a form of commitment by the developers and sponsors. The author also found that security was another significant consideration for the lender, so they would implement safeguards such as a fixed charge over the projects site; a floating charge over the assets of the projects company; requiring that all cash flow be paid into a project account where they would have control, and contingency funds in place for unforeseen problems. The experience and credit worthiness of all participants would also be con sidered by the lender. There financial strengths would be assessed and the ability of these parties to carry out their contractual obligations with the project company would be determined. The article highlighted a number of risks that should be considered. The risk areas include the project itself, technology, construction, fuel/resource, the market, regulatory risks, mitigation and pass through. Project risks affect the amount, timing and availability of funds for the project finance. For technology lenders want to ensure that it is tested and proven, and that it will not be obsolete anytime soon. In relation to the construction risks the paper looked at the probability of cost overruns and delays in completion; most importantly

Human Impacts on Climate Essay Example for Free

Human Impacts on Climate Essay Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth is not only informative but an eye opener especially for those living in the United States. Today global warming is not an obscure phenomenon but a reality that is being faced by everyone from Africa to Australia. Mankind’s actions are now more than ever before are changing the climate of Earth. These actions lead to effects which combine with the natural occurrences which have been taking place in history. In addition evidence from scientific research shows that natural impacts alone cannot be blamed for the increase in the global surface temperatures recorded in the past century. Man’s effect on Earth’s climate has several consequences like: †¢ Escalating concentration of green house gases in the atmosphere †¢ Air pollution †¢ Concentration of airborne particles †¢ Changes in land geology The major problem is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cannot be compared historically as the levels today are much higher then ever before, the exception being when earth was hit by a meteorite etc. the changes and the increase in carbon dioxide have been witnessed since the modernization and industrialization which began in the 1700’s however the worst impact has been since fossil fuels were used excessively from the beginning of 1900 and this also led to change in the use of land. (American Geophysical Union) Al Gore, through statistics shows that there is a direct relationship between the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in the air and the increase in climatic temperatures. Historically the first impact of the human presence on Earth’s geographical and biological systems occurred about 8,000 years ago, when individuals began to systematically cultivate land for agricultural purposes. However the initial impact was not as severe or drastic as the one which occurred in the 1700s. The industrial revolution has been supported and encouraged by the values which have led to glorifying consumption and economic development. (American Geophysical Union) It is a fact that this planet is heating up because of the human society and the greenhouse gases produced. According to the both The National Academy of Sciences and the United Nation have come to the conclusion that there is a relationship between human actions and the temperature increases. (Clark 1013) According a joint statement by G8 in addition to China, India and Brazil, that stated that scientific evidence was quite remarkable and there was no way for the nations but to take actions to stop this destruction. (Clark 1013) The reality is that if people keep on emitting greenhouse gases at this rate, atmospheric temperatures will keep on increasing, and the effect will be felt for generations in future. According to   even strict actions like Kyoto Protocol may be able to control the increasing carbon dioxide after a centaury at the minimum. According to Clark (1013) Research on ice cores by Fedorov et al. (2005) detailing the relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature going back more then 400, 000 years has displayed that there is a strong correlation between carbon dioxide and temperatures. Studies show that historically there was never a time when there was so much carbon dioxide as now in addition the increase in carbon dioxide concentration has increased most rapidly in the past hundred years or so. (Clark 1014) In a news report on National Geographic in February, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) very assertively linked the man’s actions being responsible for the global warming and other climatic changes like increase in sea levels, storms and changing weather patterns. The report quotes Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, comment that: â€Å"Fossil fuel use, agriculture, and land-use change are fundamentally affecting the systems on our planet† (Roach) What Al Gore has done is just point out the facts in a simple style through his documentary so that general s can understand what is happening and do something about this very significant problem. Works Cited Human Impacts on Climate. American Geophysical Union. Adopted by Council December, 2003. AGU Release 03-35. Retrieved May 1 2007

Notes on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essay Example for Free

Notes on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essay Though the novel is entitled The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the story is told by Huck, the key character in the novel is Jim The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has two key characters, one is the slave Jim, the other; the protagonist Huck. Jim and Huck could each be considered the key characters for different reasons, Jim as he is the main representative of the typical slave (slavery being the most important theme of this novel) and Huck for he is the main storyteller. Jim is an important character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and without him the novel would be ineffectual. However The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel about the adventures of the protagonist Huck, and it is more likely that the key character of this novel is Huck because we see everything from his view. In a novel which is written as a satiric social comment upon the southern states of America Jims role as the manifestation of slavery must be a key one. Incidents in which Jim interacts with other characters and their reactions to him are meant to symbolise the wider societys opinions on slaves and the practice of slavery. Jim, is a heroic figure in a book whose main characters consist of liars, cheats and scoundrels. Jim always does the right thing if he can, he always feels empathy for others even if those people show no such emotions for him. The incident at the end of the novel when he saves Tom and risks what he believes to be his own freedom is a case in point. We empathise with Jim because even though other characters suggest that his feelings are least important, whose life is lesser, whose existence is trivial, he manages to stay cheerful, and even kind to those who treat him in this manner. This quality makes him even more heroic, for he is a figure who turns the other cheek, and is kind to others no matter what. Jim doesnt lie or cheat, or steal or gamble and looks down on these activities. Jim is never bitter, he never complains, and never expects Huck to return or even notice what he does for him. However this is no to say that Huck is not heroic himself, his support for Jim, a black man, who Huck has been taught is inferior and as important as a pack horse is astounding, and displays that Huck is strong enough and heroic enough to make the harder choice and choose his heart over his conscience. An example of Huck choosing his heart occurs just after Jim has been sold by the King and the Duke for forty dollars, Huck believes he has been forced to make a choice between Jim and heaven. He chooses Jim with the words All right then, Ill go to hell. It is Jims escape and the subsequent threat of his re-capture that provides the reason for himself and Huck to leave the island and travel down the river where most of their adventures occur. Without Jim Twain would lack a reason for Huck to travel down the river and experience what he experiences, without Jim this would be little more than a story about a boy who fakes his own death, and then lives on an island. Add to this the fact that Jim is the leader during the travel down the river. He is the one who knows all the signs of weather, either good or bad, it is he who makes their journey its success and ensures their lives. Jim is the maturest out of himself and Huck. Hucks immaturity is shown when he puts the rattlesnake in Jims sleeping bag, or when he plays a trick on Jim during the fog. Jims maturity is displayed by his reaction to the incident when Huck plays a trick on him during the fog. Without Jim the novel would be innefectual because Hucks development would be stunted without him. One prime example of Jims importance occurs when Huck comes closer to fully realising that Jim is a real person too and the colour of his skin does not diminish his humanity. Huck has realised that Jim is a human and that he should not play tricks on him or regard him as stupid, around the end of the novel Huck says I knowed he was white inside, Huck is expresing his realisation that Jim is a human in the only way he knows through making Jim white. Hucks realisation is well brought across to us just after he has hidden in the fog, and returned to Jim, Jim works out that Huck is trying to trick him and reacts very badly to Hucks prank. Huck then says. it was fifteen minutes before I could work myself to humble to a nigger- but I done it, and I warnt ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didnt do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldnt done that one if Id knowed it would make him feel that way. Huck and Jim have a symbiotic relationship, they need each other Huck needs Jim to remain dynamic and keep our attention, and Jim needs Huck to justify his presence in the novel. Jims effect on Huck is huge it is through Jim that Huck begins to learn about how the colour of skin does not alter the person inside. An example of this occurs when Huck says and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for theirn . Huck justifies Jims existence as a character of substance in this novel, for through helping Huck and caring for him, Jim is makes an impact on the reader, and hence makes his position in the novel as one of its main characters more tenable. However while it is obviously true that Jim teaches Huck he is not Hucks only teacher, several other characters such as Pap and Tom also teach Huck valuable lessons. One example of Huck being taught by someone other than Jim occurs when Huck says If I never learnt nothin else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way. It is through Huck and his reactions to various events that Twain passes on his opinions to the reader. Huck is a character through which the author, in Twain puts across his point of view, for example Hucks realisation that Jim is also a human and also important. Twain is trying to get this message across to the public. Huck is a representation of the common person at the beginning of the novel. He is white, uneducated, simple, and not willing to think about what he is told just willing to accept it. Hucks realisations about right and wrong, and importantly his own ability to determine this for himself are drawn out and argued logically inside a story which will hold the readers attention. Through Huck Twain frames all the key issues of freedom, racism and slavery, personal integrity and social rebellion against social attitudes of the period. This occurs when Huck interacts with key characters who are representative of a theme or an idea being presented by Twain. For example his interaction with Tom who represents conventional social attitudes, as the novel progresses Huck is less inclined to accept what Tom says or does as correct. One example of this occurs when Huck quits Tom Sawyers band of thieves, he no longer agrees with Tom, and many of Toms imagined incidents such as that of rading the summer school picnic no longer hold any credence with Huck. This moving away from Tom and what he represents, is an indication of Twains rejection of conventional social values. Jim is the symbolic representation of only one of these points of discussion, slavery. Jim is only a part of that whole because he represents only one of the themes that Twain is discussing in this novel. Unlike Huck, Jim is not the one who reveals the authors opinions through his actions and reactions he is merely representative of one of these ideas. Without Hucks presence the novel lacks a unifying element. Jim is unable to fill the void in this regard as he is a relatively static character who does not change. This is unlike the dynamic Huck who changes some of his opinions and learns about many things ranging from serious issues such as slavery to simpler things such as to how to discern what the weather will be. The most important factor that leads me to argue that Huck is the protagonist comes from the fact that the whole novel is told in first person. It is Hucks views not Jims that we get, it is his outlook that colours our opinion, and most importantly his vernacular we read. In fact Jim himself is seen through Hucks eyes, with Hucks opinion colouring our own. Huck is omnipresent, this is not so with Jim he continuously disappears when it does not serve Twain to have him in the episode. Debates inside Hucks mind, the incident when Huck plays a trick on Jim during the fog, and even the whole Shepardson, Grangerford incident are lacking the presence of Jim. When Huck meets the Shepardsons and the Grangerfords, for example Jim magically disappears into the bushes to repair the raft. Huck is in every moment of the novel, and other characters are merely there because they interact with Huck, Jim is no exception. Jim is an extremely important character in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Jim represents slavery the major theme of the novel, is forgiving, and kind, however this makes him a heroic character, not the key character. Huck on the other hand is the key character by virtue of his predominance throughout the book, he is on every page, and every line and unlike Jim he is the character who reveals and in effect discusses issues through his reactions, action and interaction with other characters. Hence it is fair and logical to conclude that although important Jim is not the key character of the novel, that honour must go to Huck.

Cold War Causes and Effects

Cold War Causes and Effects The timing of the Cold War was crucial and one of the most diverse in the recent world history. Not only was it a war of diversity, but a war of great length that lasted about fifty years. What made this time so significant was that the whole world was involved in this war in some way. The world was split into two opposite teams and one minor mistake could have easily resulted in another world war. The Cold War is different from most wars for the simple reason of it was a war that was never actually fought. The Cold War started because Europe lost power at the end of World War II. This left the Soviet Union and the United States competing for economic and military rule. Both countries believed their policies were the best and ultimately wanted all others to follow. George Kennan coined the term containment to describe the appropriate American response to dealing with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Ojserkis, 2003: 53). Containment was a way for the United States to stall the spread of communism and they used this as their main strategy. The United States used both economic and military tactics to ensure their security and influence policies against communism. The Cold War had relatively calm periods but also had periods of high tension. Despite many conflicts, there was never any military force directly between the Socialist and Capitalist. U.S. President Harry S. Truman developed the Truman Doctrine on March 12, 1947. The policy stated that the U.S. would support Turkey and Gr eece to prevent their fall to communism. Several circumstances produced this unexpected presidential success in foreign affairs: the appointment of a new Secretary of State; Trumans own leadership-often erratic, but tough in responding to the large issues of foreign policy and national security; and an economic crisis in Europe (Hammond, 1969: 19). The Marshall Plan was a program developed by the United States to help aid European Countries after World War II. George C. Marshall was the man with the plan and his efforts for world peace would later be honored by the Nobel Peace Prize. The Marshall plan was also offered to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but they did not accept it. The United Nations had the role of stopping wars between different countries. The Marshall Plan helped better the lives of many people. As soon as Congress had authorized the Marshall Plan expenditures for the first year, the Administration, with the cooperation of the Republic leadership in the House and Senate foreign relations committees, began to lay the legislative groundwork for the North Atlantic Treaty (Hammond, 1969: 26). The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, was created as a result of the Cold War and was designed as a defense mechanism against communism. Doubtless the Warsaw Pact, multilateral military alliance with a combin ed command structure, was largely what it appeared to be-a mirror image of NATO (Hammond, 1969: 57). Russia formed the Warsaw Pact as a comeback to the establishment of NATO. Our membership in NATO today is still necessary for peace among the nations. After World War II, the Soviet Union strengthened its military power enough that it felt able to challenge the United States in Europe. One major crisis of the Cold War involved the Soviet Union blocking grounds to Berlin in attempt to allow Communist to start supplying fuel and food. The Soviet Union wanted control over the city of Berlin and they thought by cutting off all ground supplies they could do so. Little did they know, the United Kingdom and United States would respond with the Berlin Airlift to reach the people of West Berlin with the supplies they needed. Flights were continued daily for about a year and then the block finally ended. How the United States and their allies overcame the block and helped the people of Berlin would determine their destinies for many years to come. Although the Berlin blockade undoubtedly increased Cold War tensions and helped foster the environment in which the American arms build-up would later develop, it did not, in itself, lead to any la rge and long-term strengthening of the U.S. military (Ojserkis, 2003: 23). The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. As a result of the collapse of the Communist, the Cold War ended. This is what finally gave the United States major military powers. A war without a fight is difficult to explain. That is what makes the Cold War so unique. This was an expensive war; both sides took hard hits financially and it lasted over four decades. The Cold War probably could not have been avoided since there were too many differences between the United States and Russia. With so many controversies between the leaders it is hard to believe that anything could have been done to have made them see eye to eye.

Free Essays - All Quiet on the Western Front :: All Quiet on the Western Front Essays

All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the greatest war novels of all time. It is a story, not of Germans, but of men, who even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war. The entire purpose of this novel is to illustrate the vivid horror and raw nature of war and to change the popular belief that war is an idealistic and romantic character. The story centers on Paul Baümer, who enlists in the German army with glowing enthusiasm. But in the course of war, he is consumed by it and in the end is "weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope." Through Baümer, Remarque examines how war makes man inhuman. He uses excellent words and phrases to describe crucial details to this theme. "The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts." Baümer and his classmates who enlisted into the army see the true reality of the war. They enter the war fresh from school, knowing nothing except the environment of hopeful youth and they come to a premature maturity with the war, their only home. "We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. We are not youth any longer." They have lost their innocents. Everything they are taught, "the world of work, duty, culture, and progress" are not the slightest use to them because the only thing they need to know is how to survive. They need to know how to escape the shells as well as the emotional and psychological torment of the war. The war takes an heavy toll on the soldiers who fight in it. The terror of death will infest the minds of soldiers and bring about horrible images of death and destruction until they break down and go to pieces. "Every hour and everyday, every shell and every death cuts this thin [line of sanity], and the years waste it rapidly." In these dangerous moments, anybody would have gone mad, have deserted their post, or have fallen. It takes a special kind of soldier to deal with this emotional abuse; a soldier who will not go to pieces at the sight of a mutilated body; it takes a soldier like Baümer. Baümer has "grown accustomed to it; war is the cause of death like influenza and dysentery.

Things Fall Apart Contradicts Stereotypes and Stereotyping in Heart of

Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart Contradicts Stereotypes in Conrad's Heart of Darkness In "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," Chinua Achebe criticizes Joseph Conrad for his racist stereotypes towards the continent and people of Africa. He claims that Conrad propagated the "dominant image of Africa in the Western imagination" rather than portraying the continent in its true form (1793). Africans were portrayed in Conrad's novel as savages with no language other than grunts and with no "other occupations besides merging into the evil forest or materializing out of it simply to plague Marlow" (1792-3). To Conrad, the Africans were not characters in his story, but merely props. Chinua Achebe responded with a novel, Things Fall Apart: an antithesis to Heart of Darkness and similar works by other European writers. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe tells the story of an Ibo man, Okonkwo, and the tragedies which he has to endure. Africans are represented as individuals capable of speech, not just one massive conglomerate of natives. Their customs are not reg arded as eccentric or bizarre, but as the norm-functioning no differently than the variety of Western customs do. And the land itself is described as a mix of towns and farms, not a mysterious land which breeds insanity. In almost every respect, Things Fall Apart contradicts the stereotypes set up in Heart of Darkness. Achebe opens his lecture, "An Image of Africa," with the story of a student who sent him a letter saying how he was "particularly happy to learn about the customs and superstitions of an African tribe," not realizing that "the life of his own tribesmen in Yonkers, New York, is full of odd customs and superstitions" as well (1784). Western thou... ...nters many of the degrading stereotypes that colonial literature has placed on Africa. In his lecture, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," Achebe documents the ways that Conrad dehumanizes Africans by reducing their religious practices to superstition, saying that they should remain in their place, taking away their ability of speech, and depreciating their complex geography to just a single mass of jungle. Achebe carefully crafts Things Fall Apart to counter these stereotypes and show that Africa is in fact a rich land full of intelligent people who are, in fact, very human. Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. 1783-1794. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.

A Historical View of the Victorian Governess Essay -- European History

A Historical View of the Victorian Governess    Although the governess serves as the heroine in Jane Eyre, she was not a popular figure in Victorian England. The governess did not have a social position worthy of attention (Peterson 4). Aristocratic and middle-class Victorians were not even sure how to treat the governess. She was from the same class, but her lack of financial stability made them view her as their inferior. Perhaps the clearest definition of the governess was stated by Lady Elizabeth Eastlake in the Quarterly Review: The real definition of a governess in the English sense, is a being who is our equal in birth, manners, and education, but our inferior in worldly wealth. Take a lady in every meaning of the word, born and bred and let her father pass through the gazette (bankruptcy), and she wants nothing more to suit our highest beau ideal of a guide and instructress to our children. (qtd. in Peterson 10) The only time a woman of birth and education was justified in seeking employment was if she found herself in financial distress, and had no relatives to give her support (Peterson 6). The position of governess was especially appropriate for a lady who sought employment because of the death of her father, or his financial ruin. It was considered appropriate because, while it was paid work, it was in the home. The governess avoided the immodest and unladylike position of public occupation. The position of governess would not cause a lady to loose her social position (Peterson 6). The employment of a gentle woman in a Victorian middle-class family served to reinforce certain values (Peterson 4). The governess was to teach the female children skills that would be attractive in marriage such as fluency in a forei... ...er employment for governesses. These organizations also provided temporary housing, insurance, and annuities for the aging governess. As for the life of a governess, perhaps Bronte described it best when she wrote to a friend regarding his daughter. She claimed as a governess his daughter would never be happy (Bronte, "On the Requirements," 274). Works Cited Bell, Millicent. "Jane Eyre: The Tale of the Governess" American Scholar 65 (1996): 263-8. Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Beth Newman. Boston: Bedford, 1996. ---. "On the Requirements of a Governess." Strong Minded Women & Other Lost Voices from Nineteenth-Century England. Ed. Janet Murray. New York: Pantheon, 1982. Hughes, Kathryn. The Victorian Governess. London: Hambledon, 1993. Peterson, Jeanne. "The Victorian Governess." Suffer and Be Still. Ed. Martha Vicinus. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1972.

A Home Depot Analysis

Final Exam Questions 1a. The way that Nardelli laid out his plan for change was one of the reasons I think it was so successful. He came in and addressed the problems that were easy to point out and also the ones that weren’t apparent to other employees. Nardelli needed to rebuild an organization that could easily compete with other big names, and this was relatively easy because the people at Home Depot knew the importance of taking advantage of its growing size. Nardelli did this by implementing a three strategy plan that involved enhancing the core, extending the business, and expanding the market.Nardelli’s first step in the process was enhancing the core. This involved improving the profitability of current and future stores, as well as in existing markets. From the article Heart of Change, I think that Kotter’s first step, increase urgency, relates the most to Nardelli’s first step. Kotter describes his first step like this; â€Å"A sense of urgency , sometimes developed by very creative means, gets people off the couch, out of the bunker, and ready to move† (Cohen and Kotter 690) essay writer life hacks. I think that this is what Nardelli was trying to make happen in his first step for change.He needed the people of the company to see what the issues were, and make a point to say that if we stay where are now, we will fall behind in a few years. This sense of urgency and improvement was the right step to getting Home Depot employees to care and start to make the best change for the company. The first step leads right into Nardelli’s second step which was, extend the business. Nardelli’s purpose with this step was to get employees to come up with ways to better serve the customers. This was to not only enhance customer service, but to become a standout figure among competitors.This was probably one of the most important steps and I think that Nardelli implemented it very well. I related this step to Kotterâ €™s fifth step of empowering action. I chose this because Kotter outlines this step as â€Å"Key obstacles that stop people from acting on the vision are removed† (Cohen and Kotter 697). The obstacle that Nardelli needed to remove was the similarities between his company and competitors. He did this by offering related home improvement services such as tool rental and home installation of products. This set them apart and allowed them to overcome that â€Å"obstacle† and continue to move forward.I think that this was the most important step because it represents the major ‘bump in the road’ that Home Depot needed to overcome in order to continue to keep growing. The final step in Nardelli’s plan was expanding the market. This was one of the easiest steps to correlate to Kotter because I think that it made the most sense, without specifically saying that same thing. Kotter’s seventh step of don’t let up is described as this; â€Å" a change effort will have direction and momentum†¦ build on this momentum and make a vision a reality†. (Cohen and Kotter 700).The whole point of Nardelli’s third step is to take what they have learned and implemented in the company thus far and expand geographically, even serve new kinds of customers. This was his way of carrying the momentum of success out as far as it could go, and making sure that Home Depot didn’t let their success slip through their fingers. This a very good move on Nardelli’s part, and attracting new customers such as commercial contractors and even women, made a huge impact on the overall morale, and success of the store. The only thing that I would have suggested Kotter adds to his plan, was the implementation of metrics.The Home Depot article talks about how in the beginning there was some harsh resistance to the change, â€Å"Resistance to the changes was fierce, particularly from managers: Much of the top executive team l eft during Nardelli’s first year† (Charan 64). Nardelli did use metrics, and they did make a difference. However, I think that if he had made them a part of his plan and used them earlier in the process they would have made an impression on the executives that did end up leaving. If Nardelli had used metrics I think that they would have correlated with Kotter’s fourth step, communicate for buy-in.This is described as â€Å"simple heartfelt messages sent through many unclogged channels† (Cohen and Kotter 697). Those metrics were the heartfelt messages that needed to be expressed to get people motivated even sooner. With my suggestion Nardelli’s plan should have looked like the following: Enhance the Core, Express Metrics, Extend the Business and Expand the market. Overall, I think that Nardelli did an excellent job, and that taking my advice, would have only yielded better results. 1b. When Nardelli first arrived at Home Depot, the culture was one th at was very close-knit and family oriented.I chose this term to describe the culture because the former CEO and chairman were often thought of as father figures by other employees; â€Å"Many employees simply couldn’t picture this company without these father figures† (Charan 63). When reading the article about Home Depot, there was one specific sentence that stood out to me because it described the pre-Nardelli culture very well, â€Å"It was marked by and entrepreneurial high-spiritedness, a willingness to take risks; a passionate commitment to customers, colleagues, the company, and to the community; and an aversion to anything that felt bureaucratic or hierarchical† (Charan 62-63).Looking specifically at this description of the culture, I can find characteristics that relate directly to low-context cultures, as well as to O’Reily, Chatman and Caldwell’s Cultural Characteristics. I came to the conclusion that the culture at Home Depot was a low- context culture specifically because high-context cultures are based largely on hierarchy. According to our class notes on culture low-context cultures are described as â€Å"cultures that focus on that which is explicit. People are specific and clear in their communication† (Culture Notes 1).This description fits the culture of Home Depot, not only because it strays away from hierarchy, but also because it was very much based on entrepreneurship; which requires specific and clear communication. I believe that the entrepreneurial high-spiritedness that is described above contributes to the feeling of a family oriented and close knit company. Relating the culture to the cultural characteristics of O’Reily, Chatman and Caldwell was relatively easy as well. Specifically there were three characteristics that stood out to me: innovation and risk taking, attention to detail, and people orientation.I chose these because of the way the culture is described. Innovation and risk taking is described as the degree to which employees are encouraged to be innovative and take risks. Not only was it said outright that this was a characteristic of the company, but I feel as though the close-knit environment promoted this kind of thinking; making everyone feel comfortable and open to sharing their ideas. Attention to detail was not as direct as the previous example, but I related this to the description of entrepreneurial high-spiritedness.Attention to detail is described as the degree to which employees are expected to exhibit precision, analysis and attention to detail. This definition drew me to lean towards entrepreneurship because I thought that all of the qualities listed are qualities that would be necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. Again, these are all characteristics that thrive in a close-knit family style culture. Finally, I chose people orientation. This is described as the degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the organization.This definition not only relates to the passionate commitment to customers, colleagues, the company, and to the community part of the description, but it also relates to the definition of low context culture. I know that specifically people orientation talks about people within the company, but I think that part of the reason Home Depot was so successful was that it reached outside of the company to impact people’s lives. Lastly, a major part of the low-context culture definition is that people are specific and clear in their communication, and I believe that people orientation would not be successful if this were not a major factor.The pre-Nardelli culture was very easy to define, and point out specific aspects that made it easy to describe and compare. When talking about the post-Nardelli culture, the only thing that really stood out to me was a difference in the feel of the culture. By this I mean specifically it went from a c lose-knit, family style culture, to a big corporation style that is highly focused on building the organization to take advantage of its outrageous growth. Instead of focusing specifically on the people in and outside of the community, this post culture was a focus on merchandising and collaboration between regional and store operators.Everything was on a larger scale, and even little thinks such as shelf organization and signage were standardized and enhanced, so they were able to stay on the playing field with competitors such as Wal-Mart. While I think that this doesn’t change the fact that it is a low-context culture, because there is still a focus on people and communication and an avoidance of hierarchy, I do think that it changes some of the relatable characteristics of O’Reily, Chatman, and Caldwell’s cultural characteristics.I do not think that they lost innovation and risk taking, attention to detail and people orientation, but simply that the focus wa s significantly diminished. Instead a focus on team orientation and aggressiveness was emphasized. Team orientation is defined in our notes as the degree to which work activities are organized around teams rather than individuals. While the pre culture wasn’t so individually focused that it was everyman for himself, it’s that the post culture needed teams to make sure that all of the new projects like, merchandizing and reevaluation of the store environment, were successful.Finally for the post culture, there was a definite lean toward aggressiveness, which is defined in our notes as the degree to which people are aggressive and competitive rather than easygoing. I do not think that in the pre culture that they were quite on the level of stability from our culture notes, but that Nardelli promoted an environment that allowed people to be assertive and aggressive towards achieving more growth. For the most part I thought that pre- and post-Nardelli cultures were very si milar, minus the shift in focus from family business, to large corporation.

Understanding Native American History

American history is filled with glorious accomplishments that Americans love to point out when saying how great a country this is. Certainly, America is a great country, and as countries go, it has probably done enough now to forever remain as one of the great countries ever to exist on the planet. Perhaps it will someday go down in history beside Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and other great civilizations of the past that have made their mark on human history, but along with its greatness, America has enough faults and shame to give pause for thought. In a country of immigrants, America has historically mistreated its immigrants, especially the Chinese, the Japanese and today the Chicanos. Despite their efforts to get away from religious persecution, the pilgrims were not so eager to avoid religiously persecuting others and forcing their religion upon everyone. Everyone is keenly aware of how America enslaved the blacks and then held them down as second class citizens or less after slavery was more or less begrudgingly abolished. Black Americans were not properly treated in American until the 1970s and even today blacks suffer from the vestiges of past slavery. Yet, with all of the two-sided treatment and mistreatment of so many cultures that have today merged within the amalgamated American culture, with all of the irony and tragedy of those mergers, perhaps none is any more tragic than that of the American Indian.   With all the Native Americans who lived in this country when Europeans arrived, today there are only an estimated 2.75 million remaining.   They are probably the only ethnic group whose numbers in America have fallen since the arrival of Europeans. While the number of Native Americans in the country when Europeans arrived is speculative, it is estimated that there were between 60 and 100 million Natives here when Europeans arrived and that by 1650, the Native population had already decreased by 90 percent due largely to the introduction of European diseases into the Native populations. (MacCleery, 2004) While Black Americans have more or less assimilated into American society despite the mistreatment they suffered, nothing could be further from the truth for Native Americans.   Blacks can be found in large numbers all over the country with few exceptions other than the northwest where there are still areas where people have never seen blacks or rarely do, yet one would be hard pressed to find a Native American in the US away from the reservation. When encountered, they would usually be mistaken for something other than a Native American and always, always they will be speaking a foreign language, usually English, Spanish or both. Forced to abandon their native language, many young Indians today cannot speak their native language and others won't speak it expect to other Natives, and while blacks can occasionally be heard asking for â€Å"reparations† for the wrongs that were committed against them during slavery (those who were wronged are dead) such that their ancestors (those now alive) get to reap the benefits for the suffering of their ancestors, nobody is available to speak up for the Native American who still suffers today in ways that blacks and other ethnic groups do not. Certainly, blacks no longer have their native tongue, but it was not forced out of them in the same way and there was no effort to Americanize blacks.   To the contrary, blacks were maintained separate while the effort towards natives was more like the extermination of the Jews in Nazi Germany.   Whites on the Plains sometimes killed Indians just because they were Indian somewhat like the extermination of the aborigines in Tasmania who were actually, literally hunted down to extinction! Between 1803 and 1833 the Aboriginal population of Tasmania went from 5,000 to around 300 and by early in the 20th century they became virtually extinct, their original languages lost.   Native Americans were intentionally subjected to a similar fate and today their languages are also being lost, this despite the fact that the language of the Navajo code talkers took part in every assault the U.S. assault in the Pacific war against the Japanese from 1942 until 1945. The very languages which helped to save America were not allowed to be spoken among the Natives!   What right do blacks and others have for reparations for what their ancestors suffered when Native Americans are still living basically on reservations in the 21st Century and get virtually nothing? There is no doubt that the survival of the first Europeans to America was due in large part to the ability of the native peoples already here to survive and thrive in this country—in their own land. Even today, each year we celebrate Thanksgiving because we realize that the new visitors to this country owed their survival and existence to the knowledge and ingenuity of the native peoples who were already here. Yet, most Americans today fail to realize the true diversity of the native peoples who already existed here when Europeans arrived. It is estimated that humans lived in North America up to 12,000 years ago and perhaps as much as 40,000 years ago certainly calling into question Bible stories of Adam and Eve a mere 6,000 years in the past. When Europeans arrived, the Native Americans were a vast diversity of cultures, nations and religions that ranged from one coast to the other, people living together in harmony with their environment and with their fellow Native Americans at times, living very much out of harmony with their fellow Native Americans at others.   As was true in Europe, all was not always calm and peaceful co-existence between the various a sundry â€Å"races† and tribes of the Native countries. Native nations differed in terms of their religious beliefs, cultural habits, dietary habits, migratory habits, religions and more, sometimes bringing them at odds with one another, especially in terms of competition for food and perhaps at times for living space. The American mistreatment of the Native peoples they found here began even before the Revolutionary war.   The very natives who saved the lives of the first colonists and pilgrims were treated like second class citizens or not as citizens at all.   By the time of the Revolutionary War, Native Americans had already felt the encroachment of the white Europeans on native lands.   When over two-hundred Iroquois, Shawnees, Cherokees, Creeks and others visited St. Louis in 1784, they were already feeling displaced. One said, â€Å"The Americans, a great ambitious and numerous than the English, put us out of our lands, forming therein great settlements, extending themselves like a plague of locusts in the territories of the Ohio River which we inhibit.† (Galloway, p. 158)   In May 1830, the Indian Removal Act was passed in Congress. It authorized the president to negotiate treaties to remove all Indian tribes living east of the Mississippi. This led to surveyors, squatters and a campaign of harassment against Natives such as the Cherokee. While the Cherokee Nation brought a suit against the Act, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the court had no jurisdiction over the case since Cherokees were not U.S. citizens or an independent nation. (Garrison, pp. 1-12)   This is certainly a sad state of affairs for the Native peoples of American, one for which there has never been a true champion and which has great significance for the way in which Native Americans still live today. Early in the 20th Century, Joseph Dixon wrote an aptly named book entitled The Vanishing Race that detailed many of the struggles and travails of the Native American. With all of the struggles and travails of the Native American, it was not until December 8, 1911 that President Taft signed a bill passed by Congress granting a United States Reservation and the erection of a National Indian Memorial (Dixon, p. xx). Dixon speaks of an â€Å"Expedition of Citizenship to all tribes of American Indians†, an effort to extend friendship to all Indians and to have them unite so as â€Å"to raise the same flag and sign the same pledge of loyalty and receive at the hands of his representative an American Flag†¦that they might call their own.† (Dixon, p. xxii), but while at the time, this might have been viewed as a sign of advancement by white America, it was no more than further evidence of the forced assimilation and continued mistreatment of the Native Americans who were being robbed of their land, their customs, their language, their religion and forced to assimilate into and assume the American culture strange to them and certainly not their own. For example, Calloway speaks of how the far ranging Comanche bands came together as a nation in the 1870s after they were confined to a reservation. (pp. 339-40)   These nomadic people became a â€Å"Nation† more or less because they were forced to do so. In the 1870s and continuing through the 20th Century, native Americans in defense of their homeland who had once suffered military attacks (and still did in the 1870s and beyond) from invading Europeans suffered a different king of attack, the efforts to Americanize the Natives, an effort to reform the native â€Å"savages† as they were called by forcing them into the European ways of life.   Indians were relocated, forced to wear European attire, to cut their hair and to speak the European languages. Christian missionaries played a large role in this effort as the missionaries simultaneously tried to convert the â€Å"savages† to Christianity and to Christ.   As reformer Helen Hunt Jackson put it in her 1881 book, A Century of Dishonor, those who believed that the United States should extend their blessings to the Natives could see that what was happening was just the opposite. Natives were being â€Å"(shot)†¦down in the snow.† (p. 335) It was a concerted effort to remake the Natives by transforming them into the image of white America and it was met with resistance by the natives. Natives, many of whom migrated with their food supply, the weather and the seasons, were forced to adapt to and adopt strange, European ways. While Europeans claimed a kinship to the land, that kinship was very different from that of many natives. The idea of owning land seemed strange to the natives, and being tied to a specific region to till the soil as farmers was not the native idea of kinship to the land. As Europeans pushed West in their quest for â€Å"Manifest Destiny,† they progressively displaced the natives by killing their food supplies, searching for yellow iron (gold), stealing the Natives’ horses and more. Chief Joseph said, â€Å"For a short time, we lived quietly. But this could not last†¦The white men told lies for each other. They drove off a great number of our cattle†¦ We had no friend who would plead our cause before the law councils.†   What Chief Joseph saw happening was common all across the new continent—new to Europeans.   After the Civil war, the efforts at Manifest Destiny continued and increased. â€Å"Winning the West† was a national goal that led European settlers to move into native lands in greatly increasing numbers. So, the native peoples were being robbed, displaced, involuntarily acculturated, tied to the land in ways that were very un-native, and more. While Europeans forced natives into one compromise after another, the growing sentiment among the invading Europeans was that Indians should be treated as wards of the government rather than as independent nations. (Galloway, p. 271) Today Indian tribes enjoy the unique political status as sovereign nations within the United States, a status they already enjoyed before the arrival of Europeans. They have managed to regain what they lost at the hands of the Europeans, but only after paying a terrible price and being nearly exterminated and what they have today is only a shadow of what they had in the past. Certainly, Americans are essentially oblivious to the plight of the Native Americans.   There has never been a successful spokesman for them, no eloquent Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez for the American Natives.   Those who existed in the 19th century were quickly killed, imprisoned or ignored as were the few whites who stood up to champion the cause of the Natives, among them former President Herbert Hoover. Therefore, today, while many Americans are at least vaguely familiar with the plight, suffering, indignity suffered and torture of the African slave, few Americans know the true story of the Native Americans and their suffering, suffering that continues even to the present time.   We need a better understanding of what they have suffered in the past and what they continue to suffer even in the present, how they were dispossessed from their lands, moved elsewhere and basically ignored even to the present. Finding a reasonable way to compensate them will not be easy.   Indeed, compensation is probably impossible.   Who can compensate the Tasmanian peoples now that they have been exterminated?   Likewise, who can compensate the Native Americans not that they have been dispossessed and nearly wiped out?   Their story is one that is seldom told even today and is generally distorted when told.   Can we as Americans continue to live with this situation?   Perhaps we can, but should be?   I believe that the answer to that question is, â€Å"No!† References Dixon, Joseph Kossuth.   The Vanishing Race. The Last Great Indian Council.   Philadelphia, PA: National American Indian Memorial Association Press, 1925. Galloway, Colin.   First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2004. Garrison, Tim Alan.   The Legal Ideology of Removal:   The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations.   University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, 2002, pp. 1-12. Jackson, Helen Hunt.   A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings With Some of the Indian Tribes.   New York, NY:   Harper & Brothers, 1885. MacCleery, Doug.   The Role of American Indians in Shaping The North American Landscape, Forest History Society, 2 November, 2004, 12 June, 2007.

Book Review of 1491 by Charles C. Mann Essay

With 1491:New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus Charles C. Mann has written an extremely interesting and controversial book. Beginning in 1983 Mann began to become aware that research had indicated the commonly held view of the settling of the Americas was wrong. The commonly held and taught belief that the Americas were inhabited by people who crossed the Bering Sea from Europe about 13,000 years ago was wrong. Allegedly these people lived in small, isolated groups that had little impact on the environment. Instead Mann, with considerable documentation and research by scientists, archeologists and geographers supporting this view, argues that the Americas were inhabited thousands of years earlier, existed in far larger numbers, and had been â€Å"successful at imposing their will on the landscape that in 1492 Columbus set foot in a hemisphere thoroughly marked by humankind† (Mann, 1491, 4). Spurred by what he had seen and read and by the fact that his son was being taught the same thing Mann had been taught in high school thirty years earlier, he wrote a book that â€Å"explores what I [he] believes to be the three main foci of the new findings: Indian demography . . . Indian origins . . . and Indian ecology† (Mann, 1491, x-xi). Mann begins his book by discussing the notion of the â€Å"Noble Savage,† a concept that began in the early sixteenth century. This position is the notion that the indigenous people of the Americas lived an idyllic life prior to the arrival of Columbus or were savage barbarians who did nothing constructive. Mann cites Bartolomà © de Las Casas a conquistador who had visited the Americas who believed â€Å"Indians were natural creatures who dwelt, gentle as cows . . . waiting for millennia—for Christian instruction† (Mann, 1491, 12-14). In essence this view is that of a colonist who came to the Americas looking for signs of the Old World. Since the Native Americans apparently did not have as dramatic an impact on the environment subsequent generations viewed the pre-Colombian people as either innocents or as barbarians. Both accounts showed the prejudice that these people lacked â€Å"agency—they were not actors in their own right, but passive recipients of whatever windfalls or disasters happenstance put in their way† (Mann, 1491, 12). It would be interesting to examine the European migration into the Americas from the point of view of the indigenous people. Mann cites studies that have called into question the notion that Native Americans first arrived in the Americas 13,000 years ago over a land bridge in the Bering Straits and slowly migrated drifted south and east until they populated the Americas. In 1987 people who had supported this view publicly admitted that there is clear evidence of human habitation in Chile more than 12,000 years ago. Consequently it is unlikely that natives would have migrated more than 7,000 miles in less than a millennium leaving people in their wake to form new groups of people who would create their own culture. In addition there is evidence suggesting habitation in Chile more than 20,000 years ago. Further exploration has revealed numerous indications of large civilizations throughout Mesoamerica and South America that had existed and ended well before the sixteen century. According to Mann the current view among scholars is that the Western Hemisphere was â€Å"a thriving, stunningly diverse place, a tumult of languages, trade, and culture, a region where tens of millions of people loved and hated and worshipped as people do everywhere† (Mann, 1491, 26-27). According to a 1999 United Nations estimate, the population of the earth in the beginning of the sixteenth century was about 500 million. Estimates by Dobyns and others indicate that by 1630, between 80 and 100 million Native Americans had been killed by a variety of epidemics including small pox, typhus, and influenza. These numbers suggest that nearly one fifth of the world’s population was killed by disease in the one hundred and fifty years after the arrival of Columbus (Mann, 1491, 94-96). According to Mann in 1491 the Inka (or Inca as it is more commonly spelled) was the largest empire on the planet. It was bigger than China, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and bigger by far than any European state. It extended for more than thirty-two degrees of latitude (the United States has a latitude length of approximately twenty-five degrees of latitude though of course a much wider degree of longitude). The Inka had a goal that was remarkably similar to the Europeans; they want to â€Å"knit the different groups of South America . . . into a single bureaucratic framework under the direct rule of the emperor†(Mann, 1491, 66). They wanted to meld together the people’s religion, economics, and arts. At time they were brutal. They would remove people from their homelands by means of a road system of approximately 25,000 miles, the longest in the world and locate them to live with and work with other people who had also been displaced. They developed a system of accounting that used ropes with knots in a way remarkably similar to the binary mathematics use in today’s computers. Such an extensive and sophisticated government hardly supports the theory of the â€Å"Nobel Savage† living an idyllic life, doing nothing that affected their environment (Mann, 1491, 64-82). Interestingly, among those people who are reluctant to accept such an early arrival of Native Americans are Indian activists who do not wish to push the date of arrival of Native Americans further into the past. Particularly in light of the evidence that supports the notion that large civilizations such as the Incas and Aztecs were not the original inhabitants but had supplanted people that had arrived much earlier. If this were the case, the claim that their land was stolen by European immigrants is considerably weakened since the indigenous people at the time of Columbus were not the first to â€Å"own† the land, just the people who had most recently stolen the lands from the previous populations in the Americas. According to his website Mann is a journalist and writer. He is a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, Science, and Wired. He was written for a wide variety of magazines including: The New York Times Magazine, Forbes ASAP, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post. He has co-authored four other books. Mann’s writing tends to focus on â€Å"the intersection of science, technology, and commerce.† He is a three time National Magazine Award finalist and has received numerous awards from the American Bar Association, the American Institute of Physics, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Margaret Sanger Foundation. Mann’s credentials indicate that he is a well qualified writer and does careful research. Mann’s writing has a liberal edge to it that often seeks to correct common perceptions about the topics he chooses to write about: in this case the life of Native Americans before the arrival of Columbus. 1491 is a well-written, well-organized book. Mann provides a survey of research since the early 1950s when the â€Å"Noble Savage† theory of Native Americans was first popularized. Although Mann clearly has a position he wants to convey, he provides a fair presentation of other positions and explains why he believes the â€Å"Noble Savage† theory does not account for many discoveries and recent research. He writes in a very readable style without the many subordinate clauses and circumlocutions professional scholars are often given to. A nice feature of the book is the inclusion of maps and pictures located throughout the book instead of placing the maps on the flyleaf and having the pictures grouped together in the middle. Consequently, the impact of the pictures and maps is greater because they are pertinent to the nearby text. Mann provides ample endnotes both citation and explanatory notes that add to the authenticity of the text. The bibliography is comprehensive and lists use of a variety of scholarly journals from such disciplines as anthropology, geography, history and archeology among others. Mann’s writing is convincing. He provides considerable recently discovered information that contradicts the Noble Savage theory. It is apparent that people have lived throughout the Americas for a much longer time than the 13,000 years conventionally taught. Although future research and advanced technology will likely reveal new details and correct other errors, it is clear to that the indigenous people existed in much more sophisticated societies and in much larger numbers that has been believed. Works Cited Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005 Mann, Charles C. â€Å"Charles C. Mann.† Charles Mann.org. 16 March 2007 .   

Internet security Essay

In the developed and developing world, the use of the internet has increased in popularity. The use of the internet has become the preferred mode of communication and resources for various players like industries, corporations, telecommunications, and governments and in business. In business, the internet has facilitated financial transactions that have greatly changed the face of business making it fast and simple and in conformation to the global village the technology has created. With the increased use of the internet, there has been a corresponding increase in cyber crime from criminals who are seeking either financial gains or other advantages for example military. The frequency of these attacks is very high and the levels of sophistication used are great . This makes it difficult for many organizations to determine new threats, their risk factors and ways of dealing with the menace (Cetron, et al, 2009). Many times it is difficult for the organizations to determine which attacks to deal with first and how to allocate resources to deal with them. In the commercial sector, attacks on electronic financial transactions have resulted in great financial losses and corresponding reductions in user confidence. Electronic transactions consist of funds transfers, data interchange, trade confirmations and benefits transfers. Many crimes that occur have plagued the industry for years like theft, service denial, extortion demands or fraud. Technology has however; greatly magnified the ability of major crimes to be committed in a matter of seconds. Electronic security is an industry that is growing and becoming globalised. This industry offers services in the categories of assessment, access and utilization. To demonstrate the severity of attacks on April, 2009, Chinese and Russian spies managed to infiltrate the United States of America electrical grid and inserted disruptive software into the system (Cetron, et al, 2009). An attack which occurred prior to this one on September 2008 would have caused the collapse of the global economy were it not for intervention. Unidentified hackers robbed the lucrative American financial market accounts a total of five hundred and fifty million dollars in a little less than two hours. If the accounts would not have been closed by the Treasury Department they would have lost almost six trillion dollars. This would have caused the global economy to collapse in approximately twenty four hours. One security threat is phishing. Phishing involves the acquisition of sensitive information like passwords, credit card details, usernames and pin numbers. It makes its presentation as being a legal entity. The unsuspecting victims are lured by receiving communications which purport to be from a popular website or payment processors. It is usually done through instant messaging services or emails (Shu-Min & Shann-Bin, 2006). These communications directs the users to enter their details at a fraudulent website which bears a great semblance to the authentic one. Phishing attacks were observed on two popular brands which provide payment services for banks globally in the United States of America in February 2010. The fraudsters created phishing sites in English and other languages, the most popular being French. These websites targeted customers by sending spam mails with the subject proving the card number and claiming that there was a risk of fraudulent transactions taking place. This attack was created using two types of phishing websites. The first utilised Uniform Resource Locators which were created with domain names with many top level domain variants. The most popular domain which was utilised was . cz which represented the Czech Republic. Upon entering their sensitive information into a card holder page for the false verification, the page redirected to the real website. The second attack utilised Uniform Resource Locators with Internet Protocol domains which were hosted on servers based in the United States (Glaessner, 2002). The Uniform Resource Locators’ strings were very long, typically with more than seven hundred characters. The pages asked for sensitive data but had an auto signed debit card or credit card number. This auto signing was done by placing stolen numbers of cards obtained from earlier attacks on the form. Upon receipt of information the page was redirected to a blank page. Cross site scripting is a form of phishing that occurs in programs or websites that allow user input. If the input data is not properly sanitized the program may then process thee input or execute the codes which the original program was not to do. This has been used to redirect users to fake websites. Users are advised not to click on suspicious links in emails and to check the Uniform Resource Locator’s of the website to authenticate brands. It is also advised that one should type the brand domain name directly into the browser address instead of following links. The use of security software has also been recommended. Pharming involves redirecting the redirection of websites traffic and taking it to a false website. Pharming is done by either converting the hosts file on the victims’ computer or exploiting Domain Name Systems servers’ software (Basu, 2009). These Domain Names Systems servers main task is to convert internet names to their real addresses. A compromised server therefore does not direct traffic to legitimate websites. Highly vulnerable sites of compromised are near internet leaves. If wrong entries on a computer’s host file are made it results in circumvention of name lookup using its own name to Internet Protocol mapping, this makes it a popular target for malware. Once it is rewritten a user can be redirected to a fake copy. The better targets for pharming are desktop computers as they receive poor administration in comparison to most other internet services. Host file compromises can compromise the network router. Many routers specify Domain Name Systems to clients on the network and wrong information here spoils the entire local area network. A compromise in routers is very hard to detect. Pharming also occurs by infecting the victim’s computer with malware or a virus. This causes the redirection of a website to a fake one. An unsuspecting user may enter information site unaware. To avoid pharming, users are advised to search for details that prove that the website is authentic. Typing the sites address into the browser bar also offers some protection. Use of an antivirus to reduce virus infiltration into the computers is also recommended. Vigilance is important in warding off attacks. Trojan horses are also a great threat to internet security. Trojan horses present themselves as valuable software which is available for downloading on the internet. This fools many people into downloading the virus in the presumption that it is another application. A Trojan horse is usually separated into parts which are the client and the server. The client is usually disguised as important software and is situated in some sharing networks like peer to peer or uncertified websites for downloads. As soon as the client Trojan is executed in the computer, the attacker who is the person operating the server has great control over the computer and can destroy it depending on his purpose. The spread of the Trojan horse virus can occur through email attachments using various spamming techniques. Malware creators spread the virus through chat software like Skype and Yahoo Messenger. The virus may also infect other machines by distributing copies of itself to those in the address book of the infected computer. There are many types of Trojan horses. Remote access Trojans give attackers complete control of he victim’s computer and access to any information stored in the files. Password Trojans copy all passwords and look for passwords as they are keyed into a computer and send them to a certain email address. Key loggers log the keystrokes used by victims and send the log information to the attacker and can be configured to online and offline modes of recording. Destructive Trojans cause destructions to files and deletes them completely from infected computers. They are able to delete all system files of a computer (Basu, 2009). While there are other types of Trojans not mentioned here, it should be noted that a Trojan may work with a combination of some of the functionalities explained. To best avoid a Trojan hose virus attack, one should open email attachments or files received from strange senders. Installing and updating an antivirus program is also helpful. For secure electronic online transactions certain criteria have to be addressed and met. There must be secure access control which determines who has access to a system and be able to deny access to intruders. Proper authentication of users and message integrity must also be established. Privacy of the parties involved must also be safeguarded and maintained (Shu-Min & Shann-Bin, 2006). Non-repudiation must be ensured where the sender cannot deny (falsely) sending a message. The use of online signatures has also been manipulated to commit fraud. Electronic signatures are a recognized electronic way of showing that a person has accepted the contents of a message sent electronically. These signatures are increasingly being used in electronic commerce and have evolved into digitized signatures which are encrypted and more secure than a simple electronic signature. While they are themselves subject to fraud the purpose of their creation was to combat fraud (Hansen, 1995). Electronic signatures are based on legal principles which have to be understood by the institutions which wish to use it. The use of digital signatures is a code that authenticates the origins of a document. A well done electronic signature causes the signer to be uniquely identified. It also causes the document to be locked using encryption technology and is electronically stamped throughout the process with time and date. It also stores the document for access without fear of being lost or its existence denied. The security of electronic financial transactions can also be enhanced by the use of digital certificates against phishing and pharming. To avoid manipulation of transactions in signature based online banking, utility of Class-3 electronic card readers should be explored. Virus scanners should be used to protect from Trojan horses. Care when downloading software should be exercised. With the mass adoption of technology, countries around the world are increasingly using technological based solutions to address their needs and carry out their functions. The use of the internet has created a highly competitive market. While cyber crime has not infiltrated or integrated itself equally in many countries it is an industry that is growing very fast and deserves much global attention (Shu-Min & Shann-Bin, 2006). As earlier discussed, it has the potential of destroying whole markets and creating great havoc. Attempts to control cyber crime have not been concerted. Many challenges have arisen in trying to control this threat. Technology is a fast changing and cyber crime has achieved very high levels of sophistication. Cyber criminals have designed malware which are virtually undetectable and are difficult to diagnose. It has proved challenging to design and keep up with these creations (Glaessner, 2002). Due to the high levels of vulnerability to cyber attacks there is an urgent need to formulate clear policies. These policies should include guidelines on how to cyber crime is to be dealt with. This should include coming up with laws that will outline prosecution of cyber criminals due to the potential of these criminals to create damage and go unpunished and detected. Users of the internet and the various services it offers should also assume personal responsibility for their own safety (Cetron, et al, 2009). Studies have shown that the ‘human factor’ is largely the cause of the success of cyber crime rather than advancements in technology. In the United States, despite various public campaigns on internet security, people continue to be reckless with their personal information. This leaves them very vulnerable to attacks by cyber criminals. Predictions have been made that incidences of cyber crime will continue to increase. Users should therefore be very vigilant in monitoring their information. Software to combat cyber crime is available and users should take the initiative to acquire this software to alert them of suspicious websites or claims. They should also regularly update their software like antivirus which is highly dynamic due to the creation of new viruses and malware that occurs at a very high rate (almost daily). In conclusion, electronic financial transactions have created great savings in terms of financial savings for both providers and users and reduced the wastage of time. The use of this technology has correspondingly exposed its users newer forms of crime and every effort must be made to combat cyber crime.