Thursday, January 30, 2020

The Lesson of Easter Island Essay Example for Free

The Lesson of Easter Island Essay Bill Gaede once said, â€Å"Science is not about making predictions or performing experiments. Science is about explaining (Goodreads, 2012).† This paper will convey an explanation, based on scientific method, on how the people of Easter Island shattered their island leaving only a small percentage of people to live there. Easter Island is remotely located in the Pacific Ocean. The island is about 1,395 miles from the nearest populated island. When the European explorers reached the island in 1722 they found a desolate landscape with less than 2,000 people existing there. They noticed that the inhabitants lived in caves and had a very limited supply of crops. Who could miss the gigantic statues carved out of stone? This was evidence that there was refined civilization that once lived there. After searching the island and taking survey of what were still here, questions then arise. How did the people of this island transport these statues that stood 33 feet tall, and weighed up to 99 tons as far as 6.2 miles from where they were constructed in the quarries to the coastal sites where they were positioned? What happened to the people who once populated this island? Who were these people, culture, nationality and traditions? Last but not least, where were all the trees and vegetation that once occupied this island? The first hypothesis the researchers considered was the forest was lost because of climate change, but evidence quickly pointed to the hypothesis that the people had gradually destroyed their own island. Researchers predicted that the trees provided fuel wood, building material for houses and canoes, fruit to eat, fiber for clothing, and presumably logs to move the stone statues. Several anthropologists experimentally tested hypotheses by hiring groups of men to recreate the act of moving the statues from the quarries to the coastline. They used an abundant supply of tree trunks as rollers or sleds along with enormous quantities of rope. The only place to find the rope was from the fibrous inner bark of the Hauhau tree which is near extinction  today. With the trees gone, rain would have eroded the soil away. This was confirmed by the data from the lake bottoms. With the erosion taking place the islander’s agricultural land would have lowered yields of bananas, sugar cane, and sweet potatoes leading to starvation and population decline. As a result of the anthropologists and researchers experiments they were able to come to the conclusion that the islanders turned against one another. Confirmation supports such circumstances of environmental deprivation and culture decline. Study of 6,500 bones has shown at least 31 species of birds nested on Easter Island and served as food source. Today only one native bird species is left. Also as resources declined the islanders began keeping their main domesticated animals in fortresses with stone entrances designed to prevent theft. War fell upon the island and the proof was uncovered when the researchers unearthed weapons, skeletons, and skulls with head wounds. The entire world should be able to learn form the mistakes of the people of Easter Island. If we don’t preserve our environment by recycling, saving trees, and protecting land we will be forced to face the same doom as the islanders. Everyone want to urbanize their cities and towns but the community don’t take in account that if they cut down too many trees it can hurt the environment in more than one way. Natural resources are important and if we don’t protect them we may as well prepare for dooms day and only the strong will survive. References Goodreads. (2012, Fall). Quotes About Scientific Method. Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/scientific-method Withgott, J., Brennan, S. (2009). Essential Environment (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pearson Education.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Mass Storage (defined) :: essays research papers

A Mass Storage Device can be defined as: Any device used to supply relatively inexpensive storage for large amounts of data. A sort of jukebox for optical disks or tape cartridges. A mass storage unit can automatically load any disc or tape in its library to provide quick access to vast quantities of information. (Computer Dictionary, Third Edition by Donald Spence, Camelot Publishing) The text written for this paper will utilize several kilobytes of storage space. Several pictures are included in this paper. The pictures will utilize several hundred kilobytes of storage space. The finished paper will utilize about one megabyte of storage space - nearly an entire 3.5-inch floppy disk. But there is plenty of space on the hard drive. Or is there? This picture (from: www.storage.ibm.com/storageadsmhome.htm) illustrates typical amounts of storage space used by common files. Increased demand for storage space affects many people - from individuals (e.g. a Robert Morris College student) to corporations (e.g. USX). The solution for the student is an easy one. Purchase and install a larger hard drive. Or perhaps consider deleting those files from Speech Communications 2 class. The corporation will tackle this problem differently then the student will. One possible option is the use of Mass Storage. Four types of Mass Storage technologies will be discussed: Hard Drives, Optical Disks, Tape Systems and the idea of HSM. The main idea all of these technologies is to end up with additional storage space - especially hard drive space. Hard Drive Storage Hard Drive Technologies could be compared to the hard drive of a personal computer or to floppy disks. Data and programs are stored on magnetic coated disks. Hard drives are fast, but they are expensive. The capacity of hard drives is increasing. Computer Shopper magazine recently featured a 50 gigabyte hard drive. Additionally, the price of hard drive storage has been decreasing. But to continually purchase addition hard drive space may not be the most efficient business choice. Older files may hold great value. Deleting them to free up more space may not be an option. Removable disk drives can be used to free up hard drive space. A Zip Drive can hold 250 megabytes of data. A Jazz Drive can hold up to 2 gigabytes. Storage can also be increased using RAID technology. RAID is the acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. RAID is a storage device that can hold and control multiple hard drives.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Community Practice Essay

Facilitating and obstructing factors for development of learning in clinical practice: a student perspective. Issues and innovations in Nursing Education. Journal of Advanced Nursing 34(1), 43–50; Priest, H. , 2004. Phenomenology. Nurse Researcher 11(4), 4–6; Stockhausen, L. , 2005. Learning to become a nurse: student nurses’ reflections on their clinical experiences. Australian Journal of Nursing 22(3), 8–14). The data were analysed using content analysis techniques, exploring their contextual meaning through the development of emergent themes (Neuendorf, K. A. 2002. The Content Analysis Guidebook. Sage Publications, London). The identified themes related to elements of students’ basic skill acquisition, the development of their working relationships with mentors, patients and others, the learning opportunities offered by community practice placements and the effects that such placements had on their confidence to practice. These themes are discuss ed with regard to the published literature, to arrive at conclusions and implications for future nursing education, practice and research. Author: M. R. Baglin Source: http://www. urseeducationinpractice. com/article/S1471-5953(09)00110-3/abstract Community nursing competencies: a comparison of educator, administrator, and student perspectives. Perceptions of functioning levels of baccalaureate students nearing graduation were assessed, comparing views of 15 educators, 15 health department administrators, and 185 students. A modified list of the 47 essential public health nursing competencies identified through the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services Division of Nursing served as the basis for data collection and analyses. Student competencies in individual skills were ranked higher than group and community competencies by all three groups surveyed. Students ranked competencies at higher levels than educators and educators at higher levels than administrators. Although administrators continue to advise new graduates to work in acute care before entering community health, support for continuation of this practice was not observed based on administrator ratings. Author: Nickel JT,  Pituch MJ,  Holton J,  Didion J,  Perzynski K,  Wise J,  McVey B. Source: http://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/7899221 Enhancing students’ perspectives of health through non-traditional community experiences. The shift in emphasis to community-based health care necessitates that opportunities be provided for nursing students to acquire an understanding of the complex nature of health. A qualitative study was used to demonstrate the benefits accrued by junior baccalaureate nursing students in non-traditional community settings. Key themes that emerged from data analysis included definitions of health and illness as context specific, and environmental factors influencing health. The study demonstrated that learning experiences with diverse communities can broaden students’ perspectives and understanding of health behaviours. Students gained an appreciation of the sociocultural variation in meanings of health and illness as well as of the social and political dimensions of health. Author: Sword W,  Noesgaard C,  Majumdar B. Source: http://www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov/pubmed/8313070 Student Nurse Attitudes Towards Homeless Clients: a challenge for education and Practice The purpose of this research was to describe attitudes of nursing students (and paramedic officers) towards marginalized clients. Convenience quota sampling in a major health faculty was employed. Students participated on a voluntary basis. A 58-item Likert scale, developed by the authors, assessed the student nurses’ attitudes. In general, attitudes towards homeless clients were neutral; detailed analyses, however, revealed that student nurses would decline to care for homeless clients in various situations. Personal experience with homeless patients and positive attitudes of nurses significantly contributed to increased quality of care and equality of treatment for homeless clients. Certain student nurse behaviors warrant immediate attention to prevent marginalized patients from being exposed to unfair, inaccessible and biased nursing care. Based on our results, we recommend that further research attention be paid to the role of ethics education and faculty behaviors, as faculty members serve as role models for professionalization. Zoltan Balogh Semmelweiss University, Budapest, Hungary,  zrinyi_m@freemail. hu,zrinyim@who. int Source: http://nej. sagepub. com/content/11/4/334. abstract Author: Miklos Zrinyi world Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Student Nurses Learn Lessons in Community Health on Tribal Reservations University of Washington School of Nursing students have the unique opportunity to complete a community health rotation on one of two Native American reservations on Washington’s Kitsap Peninsula—the only rural public health clinical offered by the school of nursing. The experience has not only helped students learn about a unique group of people, but also how to relate to any patient population in future community health work. Recently, teams of student nurses were assigned to the Fort Gamble S’klallam reservation and to the Suquamish reservation, focusing on four different projects. One group of students partnered with family services personnel in an obesity prevention program mirroring TV’s â€Å"The Biggest Loser,† in which the person who lost the most weight won a car. Other students developed a nutrition program for an early childhood development center. A third group was involved in educating the staff of an early childhood development center about the prevention of Hepatitis B infections. The remaining group conducted and transcribed interviews with individuals for a community assessment. The goal of the assessment was to understand the community’s perception of its strengths and problem issues and to discover which issues were most important to the community. Author: Megan M. Krischke, Source: http://insightsinnursing. com/2009/07/student-nurses-learn-from-community-immersion/ Foreign studies Foreign nurses can slip into communication  gap According to (marshall 2009) it’s not politically correct — but it’s a frequent complaint of hospital patients in Las Vegas: â€Å"The nurses don’t speak English! The complaint is inaccurate. Foreign nurses working in Las Vegas do speak English. All have passed English language competency exams to become licensed in Nevada. But the complaint also contains an element of truth. More than 15 percent of the Las Vegas nursing workforce is internationally trained, about five times the national averag e of 3. 5 percent, according to an expert at UNLV. Most of these nurses are from Asian countries — the Philippines, India, Japan and Korea. Their English is often heavily accented and they may not understand the nuances of American culture and lingo — which can create challenges for patients and doctors. Xu’s research has shown that foreign nurses have a difficult transition to the American health care system. A study he conducted on Chinese nurses in the United States found they often felt socially isolated and paralyzed by their communication inadequacies. Foreign nurses are also forced to adjust to differences in the job description in the United States, Xu’s research has shown. Asian nurses are accustomed to family members doing tasks like bathing and feeding the patient, and may feel such jobs are beneath their level of education, one of his studies found. Language and communication problems can have a direct effect on the quality of patient care, and on the perceptions patients have of their care, Xu said. An estimated 100,000 people die every year as the result of medical errors in the United States, and communication problems are believed to be a leading cause. Xu said it’s impossible to know how much internationally trained nurses contribute to medical errors because the area is grossly understudied. Author: Marshall Allen Source: http://www. lasvegassun. com/news/2009/mar/10/foreign-nurses-can-fall-communication-gap/ A Study of the Drivers of Commitment amongst Nurses: The Salience of Training, Development and Career Issues According to (McCabe etal 2) this study is to highlight factors influencing the commitment of nurses, and particularly focuses on the role of training, development and career issues. It provides the basis for a HRD framework, outlining policy choices in developing high commitment amongst nursing staff. Design/methodology/approach: The main themes and sub-themes relating to the drivers of commitment and the role of training, development and career issues were identified and explored employing a grounded theory, constant omparative approach. Findings: The main â€Å"fault-line† between nurses and the organization concerned resource management, and the introduction of general management concepts and practices. HRD practitioners should consider using the language and terms of reference familiar to nurses when devising HRD initiatives. Factors positively influencing the comm itment of nursing staff included shared values, involving a sense of â€Å"vocational† commitment towards patient care and nursing. Strong leadership, particularly concerning the role of line management, was seen as important in influencing commitment. Teamwork and support, from both line management and colleagues, was also important. Training and development were highly regarded by nurses, and could be a useful way of recognizing and acknowledging their contribution to health care delivery. Career progression and greater involvement were viewed favourably by some nurses and unfavourably by others. The main issue concerned the possible substitution of nurse practitioner responsibilities with administrative and managerial responsibilities. Research limitations/implications: The findings are solely based on interviews with nursing staff from two NHS organizations. In exploring the various drivers of commitment and the role of training, development and career issues the study’s focus was towards depth, as opposed to breath, of investigation. Practical implications: Valuable information for HRD practitioners and researchers on the drivers of commitment amongst nursing staff and the role played by training, development and career issues is provided. Originality/value: This paper is a useful study on exploring commitment amongst nursing staff and ways in which HRD practitioners and researchers can facilitate and develop commitment. The DoLE official added that while waiting for a chance to be employed overseas, nurses can venture into and already start income generating projects. However, she admitted that the high demand for nurses abroad is a really attractive career to pursue because of its obvious economic returns. Meanwhile, Pineda disclosed that the continuing demand for Filipino nurses overseas is expected to intensify, as the world’s northern countries experience longer lifespans and the graying of their population in the next five to ten years is sure to see the deployment of local nurses. Countries that will continue to offer employment opportunities include the Gulf States in the Middle East such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman,† she said. Further, European countries including the United Kingdom and Ireland will also continue hiring Filipino nurses, even as new markets are emerging in Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Netherlands. Canada, too, is a new market, while Australia and New Zealand likewise offer

Monday, January 6, 2020

The Matrix As Metaphysics By David Chalmers - 1212 Words

In â€Å"The Matrix as Metaphysics,† David Chalmers, contemporary philosopher of mind, illustrates how the Cartesian â€Å"Brain in a Vat† fable (interchangeable with Descartes own â€Å"Evil Devil†) , used as an epistemological thought experiment, treads in the field of metaphysics rather than epistemology. Chalmers argues that, even if man’s world is dictated by these brains in vats, even if man’s world was ruled by an evil devil who purposely deceives their perceptions, man has largely correct beliefs about the world. This idea, however, defies Descartes original intention of the thought experiment being skeptical. So, how does Chalmers make a skeptical and, therefore, an epistemological argument one that is metaphysical instead? To make such a claim, Chalmers first substitutes the â€Å"Brain in a Vat† hypothesis with, what he calls, the Matrix hypothesis. The two hypotheses are practically equivalent, the only differences being that the Matrix hypothesis predicts a virtual, computerized world rather than the imaginary world which the â€Å"Brain in the Vat† hypothesis predicts. After this substitution, Chalmers goes on to argue that, if man is computerized, then there may be some creator, outside of their spacetime, who built said computer (Creation Hypothesis). He then says that, if man’s world is computerized, then, under all its physical processes lie computer code which accounts for those processes (Computational Hypothesis). Chalmers follows up by saying that, if man is computerized,