Mountain Biking Essays (384 words) - Mountain Biking, Cycling, Trail

Mountain Biking If you want the rush of going downhill at thirty miles an hour on two wheels with wind blowing dirt in your eyes and mud flinging all over you, then mountain biking is for you. However it isn't for the faint of heart. When you fall, you fall hard, and if you ride hard, you go through parts like a runner goes through water. Also keep in mind that mountain biking isn't for everyone. You have to want to live on the edge. The thrill is the reward for all of your efforts. So let's take a walk through a day at the course. The sun is shinning in my room as I wake up on another beautiful Saturday morning. The one thing that excites me as I rise is the fact that today I am going mountain biking. So I get dressed and call my friend Sean. Sean is the person who I go mountain biking with the most. We normally go to a place in Barrington. It is a forest reserve that has great trails. After Sean arrives at my house we do a little pre-ride bike check. We make sure that all of the components are securely on the bike and that the tires are properly inflated. With water bottles filled and bikes ready to go, we are off. Not long after we arrive at our destination we see others just like us who are out to enjoy a great day at the trails. With bikes ready to go so are we. Usually we start off with the small trails that have some hills to them. After we are tired of the small stuff we get into downhill chutes, cross-country riding and all the hard riding that mountain biking is all about. Occasionally, we have a spill or two but nothing to serious. In my case however, the only time I go mountain biking by myself, I fall and break my collar bone. So after a few hours of riding all our energy on the course, we decide it is time to go home. You know that you rode hard if you are covered in mud and dirt. And after another successful ride, we go home to plan our next day at the course. Sports and Games Essays

Fun Ways to Assess Student Learning Informally

Fun Ways to Assess Student Learning Informally There are a variety of ways to assess a student’s progress and understanding. Two of the primary methods are formal and informal assessments. Formal assessments include tests, quizzes, and projects. Students can study  and prepare for these assessments in advance, and they provide a systematic tool for teachers to measure a student’s knowledge and evaluate learning progress. Informal assessments are more casual, observation-based tools. With little advance preparation and no need to grade the results, these assessments allow teachers to get a feel for student progress and identify areas in which they might need more instruction. Informal assessments can help teachers  pinpoint students’ strengths and  weaknesses and guide planning for upcoming lessons.   In the classroom, informal assessments are important because they can help identify potential problem areas and allow for course correction before students are required to demonstrate understanding at a formal evaluation. Many homeschooling families prefer to rely almost entirely on informal assessments because they are often a more accurate indicator of understanding, particularly for students who don’t test well. Informal assessments can also provide vital student feedback without the stress of tests and quizzes. Following are just a few examples of creative informal assessments for your classroom or homeschool. Observation Observation is the heart of any informal assessment, but it is also a key stand-alone method. Simply watch your student throughout the day. Look for signs of excitement, frustration, boredom, and engagement. Make notes about the tasks and activities that elicit these emotions. Keep samples of student work in  chronological order  so that you can identify progress and areas of weakness. Sometimes you don’t realize how much a student has progressed until you compare their current work to previous samples. Author Joyce Herzog has a simple but effective method of observing progress. Ask your student to do simple tasks such as writing an example of each math operation he understands, writing the most complicated word he knows he can spell correctly, or  writing a sentence (or short paragraph). Do the same process once a quarter or once a semester to gauge progress. Oral Presentations We often think of oral presentations as a type of formal assessment, but they can be a fantastic informal assessment tool, as well. Set a timer for  one or two  minutes and ask your student to tell you what he’s learned about a particular topic. For example, if you are learning about parts of speech, you could ask your students to name as many prepositions as they can in 30 seconds while you write them on the whiteboard. A broader approach is to present students with a sentence starter and let them take turns finishing it. Examples include: â€Å"My favorite thing about this topic was†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬Å"The most interesting or surprising thing I learned about this was†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬Å"This historical figure was†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Journaling Give your students one to three minutes at the end of each day to journal about what they learned. Vary the daily journaling experience by asking students to: list 5-10 facts they’ve learned about a topicwrite about the most exciting thing they learned that daylist one or two things they’d like to know more aboutnote something that they’re having trouble understandinglist ways that you could help them understand a topic better. Paper Toss Let your students write questions for each other on a piece of paper. Instruct students to crumple their paper, and let them have an epic paper wad toss. Then, have all the students pick up one of the paper balls, read the question aloud, and answer it. This activity wouldn’t work well in most homeschool settings, but it’s an excellent way for students in a classroom or homeschool co-op to get the wiggles out and check their knowledge on a topic they’ve been studying. Four Corners Four Corners is another fantastic activity for getting kids up and moving while also assessing their knowledge. Label each corner of the room with a different option such as strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree, or A, B, C, and D. Read a question or statement and have students go to the corner of the room that represents their answer. After students reach their corner, allow them a minute or  two to discuss their choice in their group. Then, choose a representative from each group to explain or defend that group’s answer. Matching/Concentration Let your students play matching (also known as  concentration) in groups or pairs. Write questions on one set of cards and answers on the other. Shuffle the cards and lay them, one by one, face down on a table. Students take turns turning over two cards trying to match a question card with the correct answer card. If a student makes a match, he gets another turn. If he does not, it’s the next players turn. The student with the most matches wins. Concentration is an extremely versatile game. You can use math facts and their answers, vocabulary words and their definitions, or historical figures or events with their dates or details. Exit Slips At the end of each day or week, have your students complete an exit slip before leaving the classroom. Index cards work well for this activity. You can have the questions printed on the cards, written on the whiteboard, or you can read them aloud. Ask your students to fill out the card with answers to statements such as: Three  things I learnedTwo  questions I haveOne thing I didn’t understandWhat I found most interesting This is an excellent activity for gauging what students have retained about the topic they are studying and to determine areas which may need more explanation. Demonstration Supply the tools and let students show you what they know, explaining the process as they go. If they’re learning about measurements, provide rulers or a tape measure and items to measure. If they’re studying plants, offer a variety of plants and let students point out the different parts of the plant and explain what each does. If students are learning about biomes, provide the settings for each (drawings, photos, or dioramas, for example) and model plants, animals, or insects that one might find in the biomes represented. Let students place the figures in their correct settings and explain why they belong there or what they know about each. Drawings Drawing is an excellent way for creative, artistic, or kinesthetic learners to express what they’ve learned. They can draw the steps of a process or create a comic strip to depict a historical event. They can draw and label plants, cells, or the parts of a knight’s armor. Crossword puzzles Crossword puzzles make a fun, stress-free informal assessment tool. Create puzzles with a crossword puzzle maker, using definitions or descriptions as the clues. Accurate answers result in a correctly-completed puzzle. You can use crossword puzzles to evaluate understanding of a variety of history, science, or literature topics such as states, presidents, animals, or even sports. Narration Narration is a method of student evaluation widely used in homeschooling circles and inspired by Charlotte Mason, a British educator, at the turn of the 20th century. The practice involves having a student tell you, in his own words, what he has heard after a read-aloud or learned after studying a topic. Explaining something in one’s own words requires comprehension of the subject. Using narration is a useful tool for discovering what a student has learned and identifying areas that you may need to  cover more thoroughly. Drama Invite students to act out scenes or create puppet shows from topics they’ve been studying. This is especially effective for historical events or biographical studies. Drama can be an exceptionally valuable and easy-to-implement tool for homeschooling families. It’s common for young children to incorporate what they’re learning into their pretend play. Listen and observe as your children play to evaluate what they’re learning and what you may need to clarify. Student Self-evaluation Use self-evaluation to help students  reflect on and assess  their own progress.  There are many options for a simple self-assessment. One is to ask students to raise their hands to indicate which  statement applies to them: â€Å"I fully understand the topic,† â€Å"I mostly understand the topic,† â€Å"I’m a little confused,† or â€Å"I need help.† Another option is to ask students to give a thumbs up, a sideways thumb, or a thumbs down to indicate fully understand, mostly understand, or need help. Or use a five-finger scale and have students hold up the number of fingers that corresponds to their level of understanding. You may also want to create a self-evaluation form for students to complete. The form can list statements about the assignment and boxes for students to check if they strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree that the statement applies to their assignment. This type of self-evaluation would also be useful for students to rate their behavior or participation in class.

Karl Marx's Ideas About Religion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Karl Marx's Ideas About Religion - Essay Example The writings of Karl Marx are still recognized today as the foundation of socialist thought. In his 1948 Communist Manifesto, he decried the imbalance of the power between the people and the economic ‘powers that be’ which included the religious establishment. Marx’s views on religion emanated, as do most persons, from his experiences early on in life. This discussion presents an overview of Marx’s childhood and early adult influences which served to shape his religious ideology, describes then critiques this philosophy. Marx was born in Germany in 1818 to Jewish parents and raised in a middle-class environment. His father, though a devout Jew, was forced to either become baptized as a member of the Protestant religion or lose his job as a respected lawyer. German’s long-standing mistrust and hatred of the Jews began long before the Nazi regime took control in the 1930’s. In 1835, Marx entered the University of Bonn where he met his future wife, Jenny von Westphalen whose father, socialite Baron von Westphalen, piqued Marx’s interest in romantic literature.

Chauncy and Gay Male Culture, 1890-1940 (responses) Assignment

Chauncy and Gay Male Culture, 1890-1940 (responses) - Assignment Example I feel the response is correct in its assessment of gay male culture through the questions answered. The second response correctly identifies the three myths that Chauncey aims at dismantling. The response is however not very well detailed when it comes to assessing the questions raised. The author identifies the reasons for gay closure on a narrower perspective. The author should provide a wider perspective of the reasons gays remained closeted at certain points in history. The author provides his answers to the question as to why gay men got forced underground by simply quoting Chauncey. The author should elaborate on Chauncey’s reason a bit further. The response also has a few grammar mistakes in regards to the use of tenses and sentence structure which require ironing out. I feel the author in the second response has valid answers to the questions posed but needs to structure his sentences for his or her answers to come out more

P2 Cycle in WDM Networks

P2 Cycle in WDM Networks P2-CYCLE IN WDM NETWORKS M.DILEEP Smt K .APARNA Abstract The Failure Independent Path Protection (FIPP) p cycle is efficient scheme. If failure occurs in pre configured cycle it is protection is reconfigured between those two nodes. In this paper we use Parasitic Protection Links (PPL). PPL’s are p-cycles with have attached links. PPL’s are used to protect the not only failure nodes but it connected to PPL to cycle. P2 cycle is known as p cycle with parasitic protection links. We address The P2 cycle in mesh networks can be analysed by using single link failure. We further propose two P2-cycle based heuristic algorithms, Strict Routing Protection (SRP) and Flexible Routing Protection (FRP), to address the dynamic traffic case. In the dynamic case, both SRP and FRP outperform FIPP p-cycle schemes in terms of blocking probability in most scenarios considered. In general, the P2-cycle protection scheme outperforms the p-cycle based in terms of capacity efficiencies which being slightly slower in terms of traffic recovery speed. Key words: Parasitic Protection Links (PPL), Strict Routing Protection (SRP), Flexible Routing Protection (FRP). I. INTRODUCTION Network survivability, defined as the Continuous operations of network are performed in case failure occurred in the network [3]. In generally optical networks carry information in terabytes. A failure in network causes lot of loss of data. Ring based networks can easily come due to their structure and fast recovery management. In ring based it takes 50-60ms but it gives capacity redundancy high. As mesh based networks emerged, more capacity efficient protection schemes were proposed which allow backup capacity sharing. These schemes are into three categories: link-based, segment-based and path-based [29]. Link-based protection schemes produce the fast traffic recovery speed but suffer from the worst resource efficiency . Best resource efficiency is achieved by path based protection scheme. Shared Backup Path Protection (SBPP) is one of the path protection schemes. it is high capacity. upon a network failure. It takes long time o recover from traffic. Segment based protection schemes lie between the link-based and path-based schemes, and offer a better combination of bandwidth efficiency and recovery time. Path-based protection schemes usually achieve the best resource efficiency. Among them, a path protection scheme, namely, Shared Backup Path Protection (SBPP), was shown to be the most capacity efficient protection scheme [8]. However, it suffers from long traffic recovery time upon a network failure. Segment based protection schemes lie between the link-based and path-based schemes, and offer a better combination of bandwidth efficiency and recovery time . The pre-configured protection cycle is known as p-cycle, combines the good qualities of mesh and ring based protection schemes and achieves the recovery speed of ring- based with the capacity efficiency of mesh protection. P-cycle has been proven theoretically to be the most efficient pre-configured protection scheme in terms of capacity efficiency and recovery speed . II. Dynamic Traffic Scenarios In dynamic traffic without the prior knowledge of arrival time of future requests. Due to the pre-configuration property of traditional p-cycles, it is extremely difficult to re- provision all the protection cycles whenever a new session arrives in order to minimize overall cost. Each provisioning takes large computation cost and complex network reconfiguration. Therefore, most of the work in the literature assume that established p-cycles should not vary with time or traffic. The authors in proposed three different routing algorithms along with link-based p-cycle protection scheme to deal with dynamic traffic. The results indicate that the proposed p-cycle based design performs better than SBPP in dense networks but worse in sparse networks. Protected Working Capacity Envelopes (PWCE) is another method to address dynamic traffic scenarios. It divides the entire network into two partitions: working and protection. Both static and dynamic traffic can be accommodated as long as the tot al traffic do not exceed the limit of working envelopes. Although some decent results have been shown in the literature, p-cycles still have such intrinsic weakness in dealing with dynamic traffic. If an incoming session whose end nodes do not lie on any cycle, it cannot be protected and a new cycle has to be constructed to protect this session, or the existing cycles must be reconfigured. An example shown in Figure 4.2 illustrates such weakness and also reveals the advantage of P2-cycles. In Fig. 4.2(a), session1 has been provisioned and protected by cycle C1(ECBFE). As session 2 arrives, the primary path of session 2 is provisioned as P2(ABCD). Under FIPP p-cycle scheme, cycle C1 cannot protect it and thus a new cycle C2(ABCDEFA) is constructed to protect it as shown in Fig.4.2(b). However, instead of building a new cycle, using P2-cycle approach we can add two PPLs (A,F) and (D,E) to connect the end nodes of P2 such that C1 can also provide a protection segment (AFED) for P2 as shown in Fig.4.2(c). Therefore, both sessions are protected by a P2-cycle with much less cost. Fig 1: P2-cycle deals With Dynamic Traffic III. Problem Statement In dynamic traffic scenarios, a WDM mesh network is given with network resources, such as the maximum number of wavelengths and the cost on each span. Each traffic request arrives to the network in a dynamic fashion such that it needs to be considered individually based on the current network status. The network status consists of the detailed working and available wavelengths on each span as well as all the accepted sessions and P2-cycles provisioned in the network. Given a network modelled as an undirected graph G = (V;E) where each undirected span e2E has a cost ce, the current network which includes the currently used and available wave- lengths on each span e, each accepted session l and their protection P2-cycles. Provision incoming unicast sessions against any single-link failure with the minimum overall blocking probability by using P2-cycle scheme. The assumptions required in this dynamic traffic case are the same as that in the static case. We design two heuristics to address the dynamic traffic case. In the first method, named Strict Routing Protection (SRP), the primary and protection path for each incoming session are computed separately. The primary path is firstly provisioned using Dijkstras shortest routing algorithm. Based on the primary path, either an existing P2-cycle or a new cycle is found to protect it. In the second method, named Flexible Routing Protection (FRP), the primary and protection paths of an incoming session are constructed jointly. The existing P2-cycles will be preferred to being used first. If no existing one is able to protect the session, a new cycle will be formed. We allow spare capacity sharing between different sessions to increase the capacity efficiency. A. Strict Routing Protection (SRP): The motivation of SRP is to always choose the shortest path to route the primary traffic in order to leave more spare capacity for protection, since the capacity used for primary path cannot be shared among different sessions. And then we check whether any available P2 cycle can be exploited to protect this newly established session. Once being set up, the cycle for a P2-cycle cannot be changed. The protection links that are added to PPL’s are one hop away from end nodes. The detail of the algorithm SRP described in following steps: 1. As a new session dl(sl; tl) arrives, establish the primary path fl between sl and tl under current network status by using Dijkstras algorithm. If it fails, the session is blocked; 2. Sort all the existing P2-cycles, cp â‚ ¬ C, in the increasing order of (dl; cp), which is One hop indicates that there exists a span in the network that connects a node to the cycle. If (dl; cp) = infinite 1 for all cp â‚ ¬ C, then no existing cycle is able to protect this new session. Thus, a new cycle needs to be constructed to protect dl. 3. For each existing protection cycle, cp, we construct a temporary graph G0, consisting of only the cycle spans of cp and all the spans connecting the source and destination nodes of l to the cycle . All the spans used by fl should be removed to ensure that its protection path is link-disjoint. Then, all the sessions protected by cp are checked and if an existing session in D can share the same cp with the new session l, we should make sure that either their primary paths or their protection paths are link-disjoint. we remove the protection paths of all the sessions in D whose primary paths are not link-disjoint with fl. If a protection path can still be found in the remaining G0 this protection path will be ql for l. Accordingly, the protection cycle is also determined, which should be updated if some PPLs are also used. 4. If every existing cp fails to protect dl, a new cycle will be constructed to protect it. We first attempt to find two diverse paths to form a cycle that is link-disjoint to fl. If such cycle cannot be found, then we find a path, ql, link-disjoint to fl and the cycle is formed by combining ql with fl. B. Flexible Routing Protection (FRP): Different from SRP, the flexible routing protection scheme considers primary and protection paths jointly for each arriving session. Instead of determining the primary path in advance, we examine each existing P2-cycle and find each potential protection path along the cycle that can connect the source and destination. For each potential protection path, we try to discover a primary path for it. If it succeeds, the session is accepted. Otherwise, a new cycle is constructed to protect the session. Flexible Routing Protection (FRP) Scheme Algorithm FRP is explained in following steps: Given a new session dl(sl; tl), all the available P2-cycles cp â‚ ¬ C are sorted in the increasing order of (dl; cp). For each available cp, list all the possible protection paths for dl. If the end nodes sl and tl are on the cycle, there are two possible segments along the cycle. If sl or(and) tl is not on the cycle, the path will be composed of parasitic links connecting sl or tl to the cycle and an on-cycle segment. We assume the average node degree in a given network is denoted by  µ. Each cycle can provide two on cycle segments between any pair of on-cycle nodes. Each end node, sl or tl, can be connected to the cycle by at most  µ PPLs given the node degree  µ. Hence, the average number of candidate protection paths provided by any P2-cycle For each candidate ql, run Dijkstras algorithm to find a primary path fl in G that is not only link-disjoint to ql but also link-disjoint with other primary paths protected by the same cycle if their protection paths are not link-disjoint. If it succeeds, we store the combination in a temporary set T, which is initialized as ;. After checking all the existing P2-cycles, we check set T and find the combination with minimum cost of fl. We recover the spans removed from G and update the network status. If no existing P2-cycle can be used to protect session dl, we use Bhandaris algorithm to find two link-disjoint paths between si and ti to form a new P2-cycle. If it fails, the session is blocked. Otherwise, the session is accepted and one of the paths (usually the shorter one) is used as the primary path fl, and the network is updated. IV. Results for Dynamic Traffic Based on two P2-cycle protection algorithms, SRP and FRP, proposed for provisioning dynamic requests, we conduct a simulation study to compare the performance of these algorithms under dynamic traffic. The networks used in the simulations are NSFNET, COST239 and USNET, in which USNET network, shown in Fig. 2 has 24 nodes and 43 edges and the average node degree is 3.58. Fig.2 USNET(24 nodes, 43 edges) In each simulation run, 1000 randomly generated unicast requests are loaded to the network sequentially and the reject ratio is recorded. The arrival of traffic follows Poisson distribution with  ¸ requests per second and the duration of an accepted connection is exponentially distributed with a mean of  ¹. The traffic load measured in Erlangs is ÃŽ »Ã‚ µ Each connection requires an entire wavelength to transmit the traffic. The maximum capacity on each network link is set to 16 wavelengths. Figures 3,4,and 5 show the blocking probability of dynamic traffic using SRP, FRP and FIPP p-cycle in NSFNET, USNET and COST239 networks, respectively. Each point in the figures is the average value of 200 simulation runs for each traffic load. For FIPP p-cycle scheme, the primary path of each arriving connection is provisioned first by using Dijkstras algorithm, and then protected by a p-cycle. Fig 3(a):Comparison of blocking probability in NSFNET(W=16) Fig 3(b):Comparison of blocking probability in COST239(W=16) Fig 3(c):Comparison of blocking probability in USNET(W=16) The results show that both SRP and FRP achieve lower blocking probability than FIPP under most of the network scenarios. In NSFNET, SRP achieves better performance than the other two schemes. In USNET, FRP outperforms SRP and FIPP under every scenarios. In COST239, however, SRP and FIPP achieves the same session blocking ratio, which is better than FRP, when the traffic load is relatively low. As the traffic load increases where the network is very saturated, FRP turns to perform better than SRP and FIPP. Based on the results, SRP performs better than other two schemes in relatively small and sparse networks at a low level of traffic load. FRP achieves the best performance in larger and denser networks, especially when the network is very saturated. One of the reason that SRP performs better in small and sparse networks, such as, NSF, is that to provision a session always using the shortest path will save some capacity for protection in a long run. Hence, more capacity can be used for protection such that more cycles can be established. in a network with high nodal degree, a cycle is more likely to reach a large group of nodes compared with a sparse network. In this case, FRP has a higher chance to protect a given session by using existing P2-cycles when network load is very high and the network is over saturated. Fig 4(a).Comparison of NOR in NSFNET(W=16) Fig 4(b).Comparison of NOR in cost239(W=16) Fig 4(c).Comparison of NOR in USNET(W=16) We also studied the average NOR of each accepted connection as in dynamic traffic scenarios and the results are shown in Figures 4(a),4(b) and 4(c). As expected, FIPP achieves the best solution with exact two node reconfigurations for each connection. Meanwhile, SRP also performs better than FRP in three networks. This reveals that connections protected by FRP use more PPLs than those used by SRP, which follows from the basic concept on which the two algorithms are based. It is worth noting that the average NOR achieved by SRP is almost stable below 2.4 in NSF and USNET and 2.7 in COST239. This indicates that most of the connections only need two no reconfigurations upon a network failure, especially in NSF and USNET. FRP has larger average NOR because it iterates every existing p-cycle in the network to protect each session and choose the one with minimum cost but not the one with minimum NOR. Shorter primary paths always results in longer protection paths such that more PPLs are us ed to protect each session. Therefore, based on the simulation results, SRP and FRP both achieves the lowest blocking probability than FIPP in most of the network scenarios considered and each scheme has advantage over the other in different network scenarios. SRP has better failure recovery performance than FRP. In dynamic traffic scenarios, the P2-cycle protection scheme is faster protection scheme provides an enhancement of capacity efficiency over the FIPP p-cycle with asmall change in the recovery time. VI. Extension The p2-cycles can be extended to link failures can be obtained. If one node can be failed then the data will be passed through alternative paths to reach to the destination. The p2 cycle can be defined as the original p-cycle The protection links that are added to PPL’s are one hop away from end nodes. For p2-cycles the network data can be efficiently transferred to destination which is one hop away from the nodes. V. Conclusions In this paper new p cycle protection is done in mesh based protection networks. By using the parasitic protection links (PPL), FIPP p-cycle can be extended through paths from end nodes which are one hop away from the failure nodes of p cycles. In dynamic traffic scenarios., in dynamic their are two algorithms are proposed Strict Routing Protection (SRP) and Flexible Routing Protection (FRP), to handle dynamic traffic demands in order to minimize the total number of blocked sessions. In dynamic traffic case the blocking probability less by using algorithms SRP and FRP comparing with FIPP p cycles. The numerical results shows the P2-cycle protection scheme is a more highly capacity efficient than the Failure Independent Path Protection p-cycle scheme in dynamic traffic case. the P2-cycle protection scheme is a more effective alternative of existent p-cycle-based and path-based protection schemes, Considering the factors of capacity efficiency and recovery speed References D. Zhou and S. Subramanian, â€Å"Survivability in optical networks,† IEEE Networks, 2012 P. Arijs, B. V. Caenegem, P. Demeester, and P. Lagasse, â€Å"Design of ring and mesh based WDM transport networks,† Optical Networks Magazine, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 27-41, 2011. S. Ramamurthy and B. Mukherjee, â€Å"Survivable WDM mesh networks. Part I-protection,† in Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM, vol. 2, pp. 744-751, 2011. S.krishna â€Å"Survivable WDM mesh network,†, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 870-883, 2009. P. H. Ho and H. T. Mouftah, â€Å"shared protection for optical networks,† IEEE Communications Magazine, pp. 97-103, February 2002. Bharat T. Doshi, Subrahmanyam Dravida, P. Harshavardhana, Oded Hauser, and Yufei Wang, â€Å"Optical Network Design and Restoration,† Bell Labs Technical Journal, JanuaryCMarch 1999 Caihui Ou, J. Zhang, H. Zhang, L. H. Sahasrabuddhe and B. Mukherjee, â€Å"New and Improved Ap-proaches for Shared-Path Protection in WDM Mesh Networks,† IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, VOL. 22, NO. 5, MAY 2004 Dahai Xu, Y. Xiong and C. Qiao, â€Å"Novel algorithms for shared-segment protection,† IEEE Journal of Selected Areas on Communications, v21. p1320-1331, 2003 Janos Tapolcai and et al. â€Å"A New Shared Segment Protection Method for Survivable Networks with Guaranteed Recovery Time,† IEEE Transactions on Reliability, Vol. 57, pp. 272-282, 2008. W.D D. Stamat, â€Å" Next Generation networks,† in Proc. IEEE ICC’ 98, 1998, pp. 537-543

Handmaids Tale Essay -- essays research papers

Many of the principles of Gilead are based on Old Testament beliefs. Discuss Atwoods use of biblical allusions and their political significance in the novel.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ‘The Handmaids Tale’ is a book full of biblical allusions, before Atwood begins the text an epigraph gives us an extract from Genesis 30: 1-3 â€Å"And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel; and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.† This principle from the Bible is used throughout ‘The Handmaids Tale’, the principles being that it is the idea of both assemblages that a women’s duty is to have children and that it is acceptable for a man to be angry if a women can not produce a child. Both these beliefs show that in jointly the Bible and ‘The Handmaids Tale’, women are completely defined by fertility and are classed as ‘walking wombs’. ‘The Handmaids Tale’ recreates the selected stanzas from the bible with Jacob, Rachel, Leah and the two handmaids. The tale is an Old Testament story about surrogate mothers, on which the novel is based. The section gives biblical precedent for the several practices of Gilead, by doing this it paves the way for Atwood to comment on patriarchy where women are undervalued and abused in all walks of life. The idea is also expressed later when we discover the ‘Red Centre’ governmentally known as the ‘Rachel a nd Leah Centre’. As the basis of the novel it is replicated many times throughout the text, for example, it is found in the family reading before the monthly ceremonies, and in Rachel’s plea ‘give me children, or else I die’. This clearly lays emphasis on the threat to the Handmaids life. By failing to produce a child, they will be classed as Unwomen and sent to the Colonies to die. Atwood, to coordinate with biblical references has employed a biblical name for the place where the book is set. Gilead is the name Atwood saw fit to call her town. The fundamentalist Republic of Gilead is named after a place in the Old Testament, a mountainous region east of Jordan. Gilead is closely connected with the history of patriarch Jacob, and the prophe... ...ical references, for example, the lords prayer in chapter thirty where she changes the ‘norm’ and asks for the things that she really wants. Just like the commander and the teachers of regime do in order to get what they want. â€Å"Now we come to forgiveness. Don’t worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. For instance: keep others safe, if they are safe. Don’t let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. You might even provide a heaven for them. We need you for that. Hell we can create ourselves.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Gileads official discourse is a hybridised rhetoric, which combines biblical language with traces of American capitalist phrases; for example, ‘in God we trust’ is the motto on the dollar bill. Marxism and feminism. It uses and abuses the bible in the same way as it uses the slogans of the liberal ideology it has overthrown.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬ËœThe Handmaids Tale’ is a blunt warning to modern society, Atwood underlines that all the points in her novel have occurred in the world previously, and if propaganda establishes itself it could take place again.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  

Conflict Resolution (Team Dynamics for Managers) Essay

A major conflict that appears in many, if not most, groups appears to be miscommunication or lack of communication. There are several solutions available to resolve miscommunication. Each member of a team has certain strengths and skills that help resolve occurring issues. When a team is confronted with miscommunication or lack of communication, having a plan is a necessity. Lack of communication can easily lead to miscommunication in a group and cause many reoccurring issues. Certain confliction techniques can be used to not only eliminate the issue, but also understand the underlying issue at hand. Conflict and Solution Personal Strengths to Resolve Issue Creating a detailed learning team charter that involves all members allows each individual to contribute their strengths in problem solving. Generally, charters are mainly used as a tool to contact other members outside of the team environment. The other members offer their information and would be responsible to check into the team in a reasonable amount of time. This is the beginning opportunity to highlight each member’s strengths and especially how willing they are to participate. Participation is one of the main behaviors that help a team strive or fail. How little or how much a person chooses to participate confides solely within them. This is especially true since individuals learn and retain information in different ways; the application of strengths can be applied in separate and unique formats in a team. The most appropriate conflict management would be Jerry Wisinski’s A-E-I-O-U Model, which focuses on collaboration and what he calls positive intentionality, the assumption that other people are not trying to cause conflict (Engleberg & Wynn, 2010). After completing the charter and knowing what is expected of each member, the most appropriate method of communication would be speaking with and checking in with members outside of the group. Conflict Management Techniques Each conflict is special in its nature and requires customized care depending on the situation or context with which the problem resides. â€Å"†¦all managers—whether they be supervisors, middle managers or chief executive officers—must learn to manage conflict if they are to be effective in leading their particular organizational units† (DuBose & Pringle, 1989, p. 1). The idea that a problem should be â€Å"managed† crops up because conflict is a known and necessary part of organizational development. Conflicts shape organizations; but why must an organization go through a difficulty or hardship in order to understand conflict management? â€Å"The term ‘managing’ implies that conflict is not inevitably destructive† (DuBose & Pringle, 1989, p. 1). Conflicts are not unchangingly damaging because it is necessary for growth to come across a few growing pains. Organizations with good management almost always succeed and dreams of growth come into fruition when conflicts are appropriately managed and managers understand the integrality of their interpretation of conflict management and its many different techniques. The team was very natural in its ability to choose a proper technique and utilize it in order to overcome the conflict at hand. The collaboration technique was used successfully as the team was forced to put their heads together and come to a decision with regard to the conflict. The collaboration was effective due to the participants’ unwavering objectivity and understanding of the conflict and how to manage it. Each party had their responsibilities laid out neatly in order to quickly and professionally get the job done. The team was highly prepared for any conflicts and managed them upon manifestation due to the highly comprehensive group. Accommodation is another technique the team productively used. Accommodation is used when the conflict is more important to the other party involved in the conflict and is treated with thoughtfulness by the other members; this technique was also successful because the team was able to â€Å"pick their battles† and strive to meet all the expectations of the team leader, and their teammates (DuBose & Pringle, 1989). Additional Conflict Management Techniques Team communication generally appears to be a conflict that exists within the members of the group. This can only be solved within the members and the willingness to strive, learn, and accomplish together as a group. It takes personal inactive and being open to other’s suggestions to make communication strong and effective. Strong communication would prove to eliminate miscommunication and therefore lack of communication. Setting goals can always be a productive approach to ensuring success and keeping members focused on what needs to be accomplished, and the most effective route to complete tasks. The important balance of goal setting in groups is making sure that personal and team goals do not outweigh one another. Goals are more productive when they are shared and known with other individuals. Making, keeping, and sharing goals in the team environment are essential to success and eliminating miscommunication. In some cases where conflict is stronger than problem solving, it is necessary to seek help outside of the group. Third-party intervention occurs when a group seeks the services of an impartial outsider who has no direct connections to the group, but has the skills needed to analyze the conflict and helps resolve it (Engleberg & Wynn, 2010). In learning team environments, the instructor is the third-party intervention and has authority to make decisions as deemed necessary to help keep the team productive and functioning as a whole. Arrival of Decision The group’s natural understanding of conflict management, and the team leader’s fantastic ability to choose proper techniques, strengthened the team’s ability to get the job done. When conflicts arose, the team effortlessly went through a decision process and effectively outlined the techniques that worked the best. The team was able to utilize all participating members’ strengths to move on with the project after nipping all problems in the bud. While some issues call for more drastic measures, accommodation and collaboration was the team’s two most valuable assets when managing conflict internally. Some issues require an entire modification of the organizational structure which could set back the team, and even the organization, for a very long time. Good management within the organization knows the proper way to take care of problems that arise from conflicts. Good management understands that the symptoms and the disease are two completely different things and should be handled as such. When managers â€Å"settle† problems for lower-level managers, it implies that they do not fully understand the real problem and how to fix it. Symptoms are stopped once the root of the problem is remedied. Conclusion When lack of communication occurs in a group, miscommunication is often followed. Certain personal strengths, such as a willingness to strive and learn from others are important in a group setting. Creating a team charter helps eliminate the issue of miscommunication. Setting goals, being open to other’s thoughts and opinions, and seeking help from outside of the group are all techniques to resolve a conflict in a group setting. The arrival of decisions are done by working as a team, using proper problem solving techniques, communicating, and having a good leader. References DuBose, P. B. & Pringle, C. D. (1989). Choosing A conflict management technique. SuperVision,50(6), 10-10. Retrieved fromhttp://search.proquest.com/docview/195581288?accountid=35812 Engleberg, I. N. & Wynn, D. R. (2010). Working in groups (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson/Allyn &Bacon.