Change Management Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Change Management Plan - Essay Example Although change impacts the entire organization and its employees, in this instance it has an obvious and specific impact on the customer service division since it largely involves the employees who are the primary interface with the customer base once the sale has been completed. As the primary point of contact for customers, the customer service department must be well informed and capable of explaining the change value proposition to all that interact with the company through that channel. Despite the potential of internal resistance, benefits should be emphasizes so that they can be passed forward as well as actualized internally (Daly, 1995). Since these benefits include improved communications and teamwork through a new matrix management structure, the expected value to the customer is faster and more accurate service, and as a consequence, higher margins for the organization. Internally, it means better utilization of available resource since more traditional lines of organiza tion sometimes add to inefficient skill allocation. Management can now reach across departmental boundaries as required, and focus on resolution of issues on a more time sensitive basis. It is also recognized that detailed preparation should be made to m... Collection of comments and feedback from employee reaction to the change has been compiled, research of change management theory and academic research studies specific to this topic has been undertaken, and a review of best practices data of successful companies has been initiated. It became apparent from these sources that some key factors to consider relative to maximizing the value and minimizing adverse reaction to change includes reiteration of the enterprise vision and mission, proactively communicating the value, involving employees and stakeholders affected, managing the rate of change implementation, and preplanning the methodology used in the change process. With these components in mind and in conceptualizing a change management plan for SWC that may assist with guiding organizational movement toward our evolving new structure, it appears that many successful companies that formalize a change management process use project management discipline as template for managing complex processes. Specific to SWC, as the Company expands domestic and global business models it becomes increasing important to define a portfolio management tool to effectively utilize the limited resources available. Balancing the demands of those resources with process requirements, risk and cost variables, a method of realizing the vision embedded in the strategic plan is paramount (PMI, 2004). This approach is process and time tested, and seems to makes sense for any project that may require concentrated planning and implementation. As a result of this compilation of data, a framework that could be used for future change evaluation and

Ethics Boards. Should IRB set common rules for researchers Case Study

Ethics Boards. Should IRB set common rules for researchers - Case Study Example In America, the Institutional Review Boards is a body charged with responsibilities of ensuring that the aforementioned concerns are addressed amicably so that research can be conducted appropriately hence providing reliable findings that will change the complexity of human life. in this particular case, a conclusion will be drawn based five studies case that has indicated how unethically conducted research can affect the normal life of individuals. Considering the first case, the researchers carried out the study on the effectiveness of penicillin in curing syphilis. It is paramount to state that they acted unethically by overstretching the freedom bestowed on them. as such, they acted with least responsibility and disrespect to humanity. In the second case, the researchers disregarded the cultural practices of particular people through excavating of their keens’ remains. Similarly, with the third case, the procedures that involve getting approval by the IRB is quite restricted. As such, it is hard to get approval making some researchers disregard the regulatory body. In the fourth case, the IRB is accused of unethically derailing some mega projects on grounds that they are unethical. Finally, the fifth case concerns researchers who dishonestly obtains human specimen such as blood without properly informed consent. All researchers should seek guidance and authorization before carrying its preliminaries. In addition, they should present the research proposal beforehand to allow experts to give their opinion for or against the procedure.

Ernest Hemingway’s for Whom the Bell Tolls Essay Example for Free

Ernest Hemingway’s for Whom the Bell Tolls Essay Ernest Hemingway is one of the critically acclaimed fiction writers of his time, because of the novels that he wrote which both captivated the readers and at the same time triggered different responses from critics and literary analysts. His works were admired, and the writer given the respect due to him because of the impact he and his works have made in the field of literature. But like the experience of many other great writers, there are also those who do not regard Hemingway’s works with the same level of admiration and fervor. As Shuman wrote, â€Å"Although For whom the Bell Tolls was the unanimous choice of the panel for the Pulitzer Prize in letter in 1941, the chair overturned the recommendation on the grounds that it was too controversial. No Pulitzer Prize for fiction was awarded that year (Shuman 676).† But regardless of this fact, Hemingway’s works have the many different characteristics that made it more than a great read, and one of the most important characteristic of his works is how culture is reflected in his works and how his works are evidently influenced by the existing culture which contributed in the shaping of the story as it happened in the novel. One of Hemingway’s works that reflect this characteristic is his widely popular work For Whom the Bell Tolls. How this text influenced culture positively and/or negatively One of the most obvious impacts of the novel to the culture is the addition of a new masterpiece which literary analysts, critics and historians will reference and refer to for years to come. The novel attacked and complimented Spain and its culture during the time of the life of the characters present there, and because the novel is close to real life where there is a conscious effort to make the story closely akin to Spain, the Spanish lifestyle and other cultures found in the country during the particular time set, readers especially of Spanish decent may find it easy to relate to the novel. So do other people who can relate to the different challenges that is found in the novel that features cultural traits that is never dying and never fading struggle, victory, defeat, honesty, love, betrayal, patriotism, anger and sadness, all of which found in a novel that moves around in a very short yet scattered period of time which was long enough to deliver the message it intends to send to the readers. â€Å"The novel’s action covers only three days, but flashbacks and digression give it a broader scope. In fact, this novel might be called an epic of modern Spain, and it is surely Hemingways love song to the Spanish people (Shuman 676).† Another impact of the novel on the culture is that Hemingway managed to add to the many different tools by which the Spanish people can understand themselves by reviewing their past and the struggles that the people of the old Spain underwent. â€Å"Hemingway’s view of the Spanish, as of all the nationalities and ethnic groups he wrote about, was never blindly complimentary (Shuman 676).† Hemingway’s novel serves as a time machine for people who want to go back during the time of the Spanish Civil War and get a glimpse of the life that was there during that time without the literature of the likes of Hemingway and his novel, it maybe a tad difficult to do so. Through this literary work of Hemingway, Spain and the rest of the world now has frozen an imagination of a real past, and everyone who wishes the journey can return to Robert Jordan and Maria, return the bombs and atrocities of the Spanish Civil War, return to the personal dilemma that every character faced especially in the face of grave, serious and long lasting consequences. This novel can provide a stable leg from which literary and historical analysis can be made particularly with reference to the different levels and spheres of challenges found amongst the Spanish population at the height and extent of the Spanish Civil War. The contribution of Hemingway’s â€Å"For Whom the Bell Tolls† to the society and how the work affected the culture that absorbed it can also be seen in the manner by which the novel acted as an important linchpin in many different literary and historical discussions. Critics and analyst debate and expand different areas of argument involved in the complex subject of the Spanish Civil War, largely because of the contribution of the novel on its literary merit and how it puts color in a very important part of the Spanish history. Hemingway wrote something that will be considered important and significant both by his contemporaries and those who will come before him, and many intellectuals will wonder and argue about the characteristics of the author and the novel and how it ultimately impacted the Spanish culture and the literary world in general. As Kurzweil and Philips wrote, â€Å"Mr. Wilson describes Hemingway’s political consciousness as ‘not so highly developed’ as it is with a writer like Malraux (Kurzweil and Philips 140),† an opinion stemming from the analysis of political consciousness, partisan journalism and the differences in the ability of Hemingway and his contemporaries based on the review of a particular work, in Hemingway’s case For Whom the Bell Tolls. â€Å"Of course, posing the alternative in these terms, one must agree that For Whom the Bell Tolls is vastly preferable to the ‘partisan journalism’ of The Fifth Column. But there is another alternative, namely the treatment of revolutionary struggle as Malraux and Silone have treated it in their novels, on the level of political consciousness (Kurzweil, Philips 140).† The release of this particular work of Hemingway to the consciousness of the people and the inclusion of this material in the overall culture starting the time it was made available to the public affected culture in a way that it allowed students of different disciplines to have another perspective at looking things and to reference another person and another different approach based largely on the how Hemingway and his work is in itself something that stands out from the rest of the field because of its characteristics that is inherent to the author, his style and his outputs. Hemingway’s work provided a new dimension in the world of literary writing, something that other persons can learn from and develop. The effect of the text on the culture indeed was very noticeable, if not high impact. The effect generally rests on the emotive and intellectual spheres of individuals and ripples out through the actions that they take after they are affected by what they read. If the novel altered their behavior and their behavior altered culture, then it is safe to say that the novel indeed impacted culture as culture impacted the writing of the novel vice versa. There are realizations that the readers experience, realization that can perhaps lead to a change in behavior and trigger a change in a particular aspect of the culture. Take for example the realization that readers may experience according to Ferrer, Manuel and Derrick. Through the analysis of the character(s) in the novel, readers are moved towards a realistic realization that can be potent enough to trigger cultural change through newfound cultural enlightenment. Ferrer, Manuel and Derrick wrote, â€Å"For Whom the Bell Tolls suggest that the Spanish Civil War endangers Spain’s entire heritage, so Hemmingway refers to the ancient Phoenician and Greek civilizations that colonized Spain. At one point in the novel, Jordan thinks of the ‘old Iberians’ (Ferrer, Manuel and Derrick 287).† Hemingway makes the direct correlation between Robert Jordans last name the Jordan River â€Å"Just as the Jordan River separates the Hebrews from the Promised Land, Robert Jordan’s demolition of the bridge is designed to protect the ideological promised land of the Spanish Republic (Ferrer, Manuel and Derrick 262).† There were other effects to the culture, like how the work may alter the perception of the people outside Spain and outside that time frame of the particular culture being represented, not knowing which is true and which is inaccurate, since â€Å"criticisms of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls for the last fifty years has been dominated by charges that the writer falsified fact and ignored truths (San Juan 91).†

Holistic View Of The Bilingual Person English Language Essay

Holistic View Of The Bilingual Person English Language Essay The term bilingual in the psycholinguistic literature does not only apply to people who speak two languages equally well because they were exposed constantly to two different languages maybe due to their parents two different native languages. However Bilingualism refers to the regular use of two (or more) languages, and bilinguals are those people who need and use two (or more) languages in their everyday lives. (Grosjean, 1992, pp. 51). This represents a holistic view of the bilingual person as a competent and complete communicator, on the other hand though a bilingual person is surely not the result of the sum of two monolinguals. As early as 1968, Macnamara, Krauthammer and Bolgar wrote: Within certain limits à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦, all bilinguals manage to keep their languages distinct and can switch from one to the other. It follows that to some extent bilinguals experience their languages as psychologically distinct systems, and that they have some device to control which one is used at any particular time. However, fluent bilinguals are capable of switching between their two languages, when for example a third person who can speak only one of the two languages is pulled in a conversation or when the topic of the discussion strongly asks for the use of both languages at the same time. To clarify this point, consider this situation described by Judith Kroll You are sitting at a cafà © or at the airport when you overhear a conversation in English that suddenly switches to another language and then back to English. If you are a monolingual speaker of English, you may notice the mixture of languages without realizing that you have listened to an impressive cognitive accomplishment by the speaker. This exceptional achievement is instead a rather common feature of bilinguals language use in which words of two languages mix together in a coherent and meaningful conversation .. In this sense, a bilingual changes the linguistic form, without alterating the substantial meaning byusing a word which may address the sense of a discourse in a better or stronger way like choosing between synonyms with the same language (Sridhar Sridhar, 1980). Yet when the same bilinguals speak to a monolingual they rarely use or switch to an alternative language in order to prevent the monoli ngual speaker from not understanding. These different circumstances and a variety of other situation where this capability arises leads to question of how the information to be processed or expressed is bound to the activation or articulation of a corresponding word or phrase in the appropriate language. On one hand, for a person repeatedly coping with language switches within the conversation, these apparently strange words come unexpectedly and may perhaps be more difficult to process than their within-language counterparts. On the other hand for a bilingual who has to choose in which language to speak, the process of finding the right word in the right context, which French and Jacquet (2004) refer to as lexical access may result extremely complex , as in addition to the activation of words in one language other than the target, other parole (words) in the other language might be active as well.,. Thus, the simultaneous activation of the two lexico-semantic represenations of a bilingual might address different answers paralleled with the specific processing modality, word recognition or production, driven by the context. In word recognition, language membership is passively conveyed to a person by the orthographical or phonological characteristics of the word (). However, in word production, the speaker actively and intentionally decides which language to use. Therefore, the speaker can exert some control on lexical forms and choose the target which best fits the communicative context among a set of activated representations. We do not claim that the mechanisms and neural dynamics recruited for lexical access are necessarily different in recognition and production, but rather that the processes involved in each may be at least partially different. The aim of this project will be first to trace the effects of a language switch on models of both language production and language comprehension and second to identify the neural correlates of language switching and the impact a switch may have on the cognitive processes which rule lexical access in order to produce or recognize a word. Bilingualism and language comprehension Language comprehension has been investigated in bilingual populations mainly through tasks in which bilinguals are substantially asked to respond to written words in one or both of their languages. In such visual word identification tasks, the language switch is driven by the upcoming stimuli in input, while the output is executed by button press driven by a binary decision. A large number of studies have addressed bilinguals performance in comprehension tasks through both within-language and cross-language tasks such as lexical decision (e.g., Dijkstra, Van Jaarsveld Ten Brinke, 1998; Dijkstra, Grainger, Van Heuven, 1999; von Studnitz Green, 2002), language decision, and categorisation tasks (e.g., Dufour Kroll, 1995; Grainger Frenck-Mestre, 1998). Initial studies revealed, for example, that when bilinguals were asked to read language-mixed passages, their performance suffered compared to reading single-language passages (Macnamara Kushnir, 1971). In lexical decision, responses to words where a switch in language occurs were slower than those to a trial nested in a sequence of words from same language s (Thomas Allport, 1995; Von Studnitz Green, 1997). Ability to recognize words in one language seems to be influenced by the language memebership of the word immediately preceding (the basic language priming effect) (Grainger Beauvillain, 1988; Grainger ORegan, 1992) even in lists of unrelated words. Fluent bilinguals seem to comfortably manage whichever language they are requested to use, however in all of the contexts mentioned just above a language switch during comprehension hurts their performance. This evidence suggests that even when bilinguals read (e.g., Dijkstra, 2005) or hear (e.g., Marian Spivey, 2003) one langua ge alone, both languages are still active. Thus, a crucial point here is to establish if and to what extent the other language is still there when bilinguals use one language alone. One way of testing this hypotheisis is to isolate ambiguous features of the bilinguals two languages , meaning to use words that partially overlap or are totally shared in both languages. When two languages share the same alphabet, we may find words called cognates that look or sound the same and mean the same thing as well. For example, In French and Italian, the words balla and balle are almost spelled identically and have the same meaning and. If bilinguals are really capable of shutting down one language and dress as monolinguals, then performance on these special words (cognates) should not differ from that on distinctive and unambiguous words. If the other language results not to be in standby but always on, then bilinguals should perform differently from monolinguals which in a lexical decision ta sk will need to match the target with only one possible candidate instead of two A cognate benefit on performance has been demonstrated across a variety of tasks (De Groot and Poot, 1997; Van Hell De Groot, 1998a; Van Hell and Dijkstra, 2002;), providing substantial evidence that cognates are represented or processed differently from non-cognate translation equivalent words in the second language. Cognates and non-cognates also show different priming effects: in one of the earliest explorations of the effects of cognates, De Groot and Nas (1991) found cross-language repetition priming for both cognates and non-cognates, but associative priming only for cognates. Given such evidence they reached three conclusions: (1) the representations of both cognate and non-cognate translations at the lexical level of representation are connected; (2) cognate translations share a representation at the conceptual level while (3) non-cognate translation equivalents are represented in separate conc ept nodes. De Groot and colleagues model of cognate representation has continued to develop, but it remains firmly based on the principle that cognates representations in the two languages are shared, or overlapping, more than those of non-cognates. In terms of distributed representations, Van Hell and De Groot (1998) describe the notion of overlap as the patterns of activation for a cognate word and its translation being similar to one another, whereas the patterns of activation for a non-cognate word and its translation may have very little in common. The more features are shared between words, the smaller the lexical distance between their corresponding patterns of activation. In addition, the cognate effect was found not to be restricted only to conditions where stimuli are presented in written form. Costa, Caramazza, and Sebastià ¡n-Gallà ©s (2000), for example, found that bilinguals named pictures with cognate names more quickly than pictures with non-cognate names, while monolinguals showed no difference on the same set of pictures. This confirms that the cognate benefit is not solely due to orthographic overlap in the presented stimuli. Many studies have took advantage of these special properties of cognate words in order to determine how this linguistic ambiguity impacts on bilinguals ability to understand these words in only one of their two languages. Evidence stemming from all these studies strongly supports the idea that the language not in use may be in a sort of sleeping mode and anyway exerts an influence on the bilinguals lexico-semantic system even when a task tunes it to the other language. When cross-language form and meaning converge, bilingual performance is typically facilitated; when cross-language form and meaning conflict, bilingual performance is often hindered, in that it is slower and more likely to be error prone (Dijkstra, 2005). These cross-language effects will likely occur especially in the case of a second less dominant language given that most of time both languages will never be equally strong. Furthermore in conditions where a change in language occurs, the cross-linguistic influence of one language on the other will directly affect the processing of words in either one of the two languages. However it is a point of some controversy in the literature whether the costs associated with switching between languages might be somehow modulated by language specific or ambiguous cues. The Bilingual Interactive Activation model (BIA) and language switching Dijkstra and van Heuven (1998) have proposed a model for word recognition in bilinguals (BIA, the Bilingual Interactive Activation model) in which they try to account for the interaction between active word candidates in both languages. Novel to the BIA model is the use of language nodes. When the BIA model encounters a string of letters, the specific visual features of each at a particular letter position excite letters in the system with corresponding features while different letters are inhibited . Activation in turn from letters is driven to words in both languages where each letter figures in the determined position, while all other words are inhibited. At the word level, language membership will not affect inhibition as all words inhibit each other. Activation thriving from word nodes in the same language is carried on to the corresponding language nodes which store activation from words with a specific language tag, and in turn spread, through a feedback mechanism, inhibition to all word nodes in the other language. Furthermore, these language nodes can be pre-activated reflecting a particular task and this device allows the asymmetric inhibition of words in the two languages; word forms in L1, for instance, can be more inhibited than word forms in L2. The effects of language switching can be explained in this framework through a mechanism which allows lexical activation to flow from one trial over to the next. The BIA hypothesizes that activation of a specific language node paralleled with the presentation of a word in that particular language will not completely decay and fall beneath threshold, therefore when the next item comes up in the other language the corresponding word unit will be partially inhibited. According to this model any cost relative to switching will fall close to zero if the input carries orthographic features unique to a language. Only one or a few word units in that particular language will be active and any advantage or disadvant age held by similar cross-linguistic representations (i.e. as in the case of cognates) of the previous trial will fade out. This model shows that language switching may be a function of the task situation, the nature of stimulus material, as well as the expertise of the bilingual. Figure 1. The Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA) model for bilingual word recognition. Arrowheads indicate excitatory connections; black filled circles indicate inhibitory connections. (Dijkstra van Heuven, 1998) 4.4 The effects of context information and the BIA+ Model Language is a single word, however in its everyday use it implies the use of a set of multiple words to express meaning. It is possible therefore that evidence for cross-language activity stems from the decontextualized nature of word recognition tasks commonly employed to investigate the bilinguals two languages. In the context of a conversation or while we read a passage in one language rather than the other cues which shift the balance of activity in favour of the intended language should be conveyed to a mechanism which could virtually switch off the other language. This indeed does not seem to be the case as recent evidence from a number of studies suggest that contextual cues per se are not able to turn completely down the activity of the language not in use. On one hand we would have intuitively predicted that the frame provided by a stringent linguistic context should reduce the number of viable language interpretations. On the other hand, these findings justify the ease of language switching and the relatively low cost it entails in terms of processing resources (e.g., Moreno, Federmeier, Kutas, 2002). However, a point of some controversy remains and namely the relationship between the word identification system and the linguistic context (as a sentence) or the non-linguistic context information determined in an experimental framework by the task demands (i.e. the participants expectations determined by the instructions). One option is that after the initial stages of lexical processing, information of both types (linguistic and context) may exert an influence on the activation level of forms in the target and non-target language. For instance, context information could inhibit lexical candidates or lemmas in the irrelevant language (BIA model by Dijkstra et al., 1998; IC model by Green, 1986, 1998) or just modulate of the activation level of lexical candidates in each language (Grosjean, 1997). A second option is that non-linguistic context information does not directly influence the activity in the identification system itself, but affects decision criteria only.. The BIA+ model postulates the existence of two distinct systems: a word identification system and a task/decision system. Linguistic information conveyed by a sequence of words in in a sentence context may modulate the word identification system, while non-linguistic context information (e.g., participants expectations and strategies) affects parameter settings in the task/decision system.. However, the model clearly states that the task/decision system and sources of non-linguistic information do not affect the lexical activation levels within the word identification system itself. Therefore while performing in a task (such as lexical decision) an early preconscious, automatic level of processing thriving from activity within the word identification system may be followed by an attention-sensitive level in which lexical forms are selected through a task/decision system with reference to different contextual factors and bound to a specific response relevant to the task at hand (cf. Altenberg and C airns, 1983, p. 187; Dupoux and Mehler, 1992; Balota, Paul and Spieler, 1999). The task schema, which is set up during the practice set or retrieved from memory, designates the algorithm which selects the cognitive processing steps necessary to perform the specific task (Green, 1986, 1998; Norman and Shallice, 1986). The decision mechanism is incorporated in the task schema and monitors continuously the activation level of candidates in the identification system by weighting the different levels of activation of targets with respect to each other within the identification system in order to arrive at an output in terms of response. The decision relies upon a lexical selection mechanism, which triggers depending on the breaking of an activation threshold for a lexical candidate. In other words, the identification and task/decision systems, though interconnected, may be partially independent. The two systems use their own criteria for action triggering (i.e., lexical selection and res ponse selection/execution). The identification system is assumed to recognize a word and is able to select a single lexical candidate with a good degree of certainty) when the system reaches a fair stability. The task/decision system triggers a response when its own criteria are met, some of which ruled by lexical activation, while others driven by a tendency towards optimization in terms of how activated and selected representations in the identification system are linked to possible responses. For instance, in lexical decision the input letter string conveys activity to orthographic, semantic and phonological codes, all of which could allow a discrimination of word and non-word input. However, when participants are asked to make a language decision in the sense to press one button if a presented item belongs to one language (e.g., English) and another button if it belongs to another language (e.g., Dutch) only those codes which facilitate the retrieval of language membership infor mation (language tags) are able to address a correct response. Thus, different schemas underlie different tasks, although one task may obey to different schemas. The schema might capture and use information from different sources in parallel, but presently available evidence suggests that orthographic representations play a major role (Pexman and Lupker, 2001). A number of recent experiments have addressed the predictions stemming from the BIA+ model by asking whether the parallel activity of the two languages can be reduced or eliminated when language ambiguous words that produce cross-language effects out of context, are placed in sentence context (e.g., Elston-Gà ¼ttler, Gunter, Kotz, 2005; Schwartz Kroll, 2006;Van Hell,1998). Schwartz, Kroll, and Diaz (2007) showed that when bilinguals are asked to name a cognate like radio in isolation, they are faster relative to controls if there is both orthographical and phonological overlap across the two languages. However, when they read highly constrained sentences the processing advantage for cognates disappeared while in sentences with a lower closure probability, an advantage for cognates remained, suggesting that knowing the language in which you are reading does not switch off the unintended language. This last assumption leads to the question of whether the decision criteria in a language switching task is affected when cognates are involved considering that the activation threshold for lexical candidates will be broken not as quickly. According to the BIA+ model, the similarity of the input word to the internal lexical representations establishes their activation level. Therefore the larger the overlap between the input string and a representation in the mental lexicon, the more the internal representation is activated. In the case of two languages with alphabetical writing systems, the number of activated orthographic candidates is determined by factors such as the neighbourhood density and frequency of the target word and its within- and between-language neighbours and not by the words language membership. However, If the two input codes specific to each language are different (e.g., letter sets), the activated set of neighbours may become much smaller. Figure 2. The BIA+ model for bilingual word recognition. Arrows indicate activation flows between representational pools. Inhibitory connections within pools are omitted. Language nodes could instead be attached to lemma representations between word form and meaning representations. Non-linguistic context only affects the task schema level. (Dijkstra Van Heuven The architecture of the bilingual word recognition sysytem, Bilingualism:Language and Cognition, 5, 2002 )

Speech :: essays research papers

Hello ladies and gentlemen my name is BLANK and I am here because I am a risk taker. Have you ever heard the expression â€Å"if they jumped off a bridge would you too?† My answer was a nervous â€Å"yes† to a free-fall jump off a bridge. This decision was a life changing one. It was a hot and humid day and my friends and I were out cycling for a few hours to fill in time. After a while we reached a foot bridge that was suspended over water. We all stopped before it. Suddenly my best friend turned around and said â€Å"I dare you to jump off the bridge.† Not to say anything, but I have a huge fear of heights. I have had it since when I went for a short, noisy and scary flight in a light aircraft when I was five. I have problems just going up in an elevator let alone jumping off a bridge. I could see other people jumping off and screaming while they fell towards the water. The noise from the screams was making it worse for me as it was causing my stomach to tighten and making me feel sick. So I decided to take the easy way out of this situation without embarrassing myself in front of my friends. â€Å"Yes, ok† I said nervously. â€Å"But, only if you jump first.† I added. He said â€Å"fine† then got off his bike and put it down and said to look after it. He then made his way to the side of the bridge and stood up on the rail. He waved to us and then he just jumped. No fear or hesitation. He just jumped! I was amazed and then I hear a splash. Oh no! So much for the easy way out of this situation. I had assumed that he would decline and it would be left at that. We watched him swim back to the shore and then he went out of sight. I knew it was my turn next. A few minutes later he reappeared triumphantly and announced that it was my turn to jump now that he had completed his end of the dare. With the spotlight on me and the pressure building as my friends cheered me on I decided that there was no way out and that it was time to face my fears and conquer them.

Immigration Essay -- essays research papers fc

With the many different groups of people coming to this country in search of a better life, we should cut back on who we should allow to have citizenship. There are thousands of immigrants coming to the U.S. every day. A lot of these immigrants are illegal aliens coming to the U.S. to find jobs. Whenever we catch illegals crossing our borders, we should send them right back and that would be the end of the story. Instead we are bringing them to camps to wait until the government finds out what to do with them. With so many immigrants coming over everyday, the U.S. lets people out of these camps and into our society so we can fit the new people who are coming over here in the camps. It is estimated that 4 million illegal aliens are living in the U.S. right now. That means that the government has no idea who these people are or where they are. "Nobody knows who these people are," said a Brownsville, Texas trailer-court owner Bob White. "They could be terrorist, or bandits, or typhoid carriers.† This is why the U.S. government needs to spend more money and stop immigrants at the border. If the United States didn't let any of these people in this country, we would still have people without jobs. So its not like we need these people in our country. In Mexico 60 percent of its labor force is unemployed. So a lot of these people think that there are jobs for them in the U.S., but there aren't. In the first 4 months of 1988 400,000 illegal aliens were caught trying to cross the border. That may sound like a lot, but 300,000 slipped through without being caught. That means that over 40 percent of the people that tried to get into this country illegally, succeeded. If we get more agents on guard by our borders we could cut that number to a tolerable level. Some immigrants that come to this country legally that have a good education and can work well are not a problem. The problem is that there aren't very many of these kinds of people that are trying to get into this country. Many immigrants are poor and just want jobs to keep themselves alive or to support their family. It is hard for illegal immigrants who can't prove that they are legal workers to find jobs. Some employers know from the start that the person they hired is illegal and just hire them because they will work for minimum wage or even less. Trying to get voluntary compliance not hire... ...9FC7B05&ajparam_logpickord=2&ajparam_list1=0&x=22&y=8) â€Å"Immigration and Naturalization.† Immigration and Naturalization Service. (http://www.ask.com/main/metaAnswer.asp?MetaEngine=Infoseek&logQID=6291454C1F8BD311A2D900A0C9FC7B05&qCategory=EDU_&qSource=0&frames=yes&site_name=Jeeves&scope=web&r=x&MetaTopic=U.S.+Immigration+and+Naturalization+Service&MetaURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ins.usdoj.gov%2F&EngineOrdinal=2&ItemOrdinal=1&ask=immigration+metasearch&origin=0&MetaList=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ins.usdoj.gov%2F&x=19&y=10) â€Å"American Immigration Center.† American Immigration Center USA Immigration. (http://www.ask.com/main/metaAnswer.asp?MetaEngine=WebCrawler&logQID=6291454C1F8BD311A2D900A0C9FC7B05&qCategory=EDU_&qSource=0&frames=yes&site_name=Jeeves&scope=web&r=x&MetaTopic=IMMIGRATION%3A+American+Immigration+Center+-+USA+IMMIGRATION+I&MetaURL=http%3A%2F%2Fus-immigration.com%2F&EngineOrdinal=3&ItemOrdinal=6&ask=immigration+metasearch&origin=0&MetaList=http%3A%2F%2Fus-immigration.com%2F&x=24&y=4)

What is enlightenment?

If the mind actually makes perception, this brings about the question whether the outcome has anything to do with the world, or if so, what level. The response to the question, vague, confusing or unusual as it was, made for continuous trouble both in Kant's idea and for a posterity trying to figure him out. To the point that knowledge fully depends on the organization of the mind and not on the world, knowledge would have no connection to the world and is not even true representation, just a solipsistic or intersubjective fantasy. Kantianism looks threatened with the doctrine that we know in our own psychology, not external things. Kant said, in consistent with psychologism that we basically do not know about things as they exist apart from perception. At the same time Kant thought he was trying to defend both a scientific realism, where science really knows the world, and a moral realism, where there is objective moral obligation, for both of which a connection to external existence is essential for enlightenment. Kant believed that rational structure of the mind reflects the rational structure of the world, even of things-in-themselves that the operating system of the processor, through modern analogy, matched the operating system of reality. But Kant had no real argument for this, that is, the ideas of reason just become postulates of morality as well as his system leaves it as something which is unproved. The paradoxes of the efforts of Kant to reconcile some of his conflicting approaches and requirements made it very difficult for the philosophers who came later to take the overall system seriously. Nonetheless, Kant does all kinds of things that seem most appropriate for a non-reductionistic philosophical system and that later philosophy has had trouble doing at all. Kant was able to provide, in phenomenal reality, for a sphere for science that was distinct and separate from anything that would end up relating to enlightenment. The endless confusion as well as conflict which still results from people trying to figure out whether or enlightenment should fit together is fully avoided by Kant, who can say, for instance, that God and divine creation cannot be part of any truly scientific theory due to the fact both involve unconditioned realities, while science can only deal with conditioned realities. In the world, everything affects any other thing, but God is free of any external causal influences. At the same time, Kant can be a phenomenal determinist with science and yet simultaneously allow for freedom and that in a way that will not be entirely explicable to us, a virtue when the very idea of a rational and purposive freedom, and not just subjective choices, but also has involved obscurities that no one has been able to enlighten. Kant's theory tries to prevent psychological explanations for behavior, however enlightening, being used to excuse moral responsibility and accountability. Thus, the disastrous childhood of the defendant, as much as it may be touching and understandable, cannot, to some extent, excuse crimes committed in full knowledge of their significance (Kant 94). The approach used by Kant is also of comparative interest because of the similar ancient Pastors philosophical distinction between conditioned realities, that mostly means that the world of experience, and unconditioned realities, which interestingly include, not only the sphere of salvation, but also space, which of course for Kant was a form imposed a priori on experience by the mind. The problems which must be sorted out with Kant are at the same time formidable. Most crucial is the confusion which results from Kant mixing together two entirely different theories in the Critique of Pure Reason. The first theory explains that the fundamental activity of the mind which is referred to as synthesis, is an activity of thought which applies certain concepts to a previously given perceptual datum from experience.