Animal Farm: Snowball Essay

He was a great leader, a devious leader, but caring at the same time. You may have thought I was talking about a man, but I was talking about a very powerful pig on a farm. I read a book called Animal Farm by George Orwell. The animals in this story represented humans in the Russian revolution. It was a very interesting book and I related most to a character named Snowball. The character that I feel represented me the most is an eloquent, passionate, and intelligent pig named Snowball. In the beginning of the novel, Snowball was the leader of Animal Farm. He and Napoleon often competed against each other. Even though Snowball believed in Animalism and felt that pigs were more superior to the other animals on the farm everyone still agreed with everything that he said. He created the slogan â€Å"Four legs good, two legs bad.† Snowball had always won the animal’s side against Napoleon. Later on, Snowball led a battle against Mr. Jones and the other farmers. The crusade was called the Battle of the Cowshed. After the animals won, Snowball had even more power than he had ever had before. He had an idea that they should build a windmill to power the farm and provide better service for the animals. Napoleon realized that Snowball had to leave the farm. He got Snowball to leave the farm by having dogs chase him away and he never came back after that. The author of Animal Farm named George Orwell, represented Snowball as Leon Trotsky. I think that Orwell did a very good job comparing a pig to a tremendous war leader from the Russian revolution. Snowball and Trotsky shared many characteristics. Some of them are that they were both clever leaders, they both wanted to make life better for their comrades and that they were both admirable, good speakers. In my opinion, it seems like it would be very difficult to represent important, influential people from the Russian revolution to animals. Orwell did a very nice job of comparing the two. Not only does Snowball compare to Trotsky, he also can represent me too. The competent pig, Snowball can represent me in some ways too. We are both smart, nice, caring, and responsible. Another way that we are alike is that we both compete against people. Snowball competes against Napoleon, and I compete against other girls at dance competitions. As you know, Snowball was a devious but caring leader. He led the Battle of the Cowshed, had conflicts with Napoleon, and got chased out of the farm by vicious dogs that Napoleon sent to attack him. I believe that Snowball was a better leader than Napoleon because he cared more about the animals, but at the same time Snowball treated the pigs better than the rest of the animals on the farm. Snowball may have gotten chased out of the manor farm, but he will always be my favorite and most representable leader from the book. Works Cited: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/animalfarm/characters.html. n.d. Orwell, George. Animal Farm. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1946.

Economics †Genetically Modified Food Essay

Introduction In this essay, arguments will be presented which agree and disagree with the question that ‘genetically modified crops are the only way to feed the world’. Genetically modified (GM) foods are made from genetically modified organisms (GMO). Examples of genetically modified organisms include animals, plants and bacteria. The genetic makeup of GMOs are further altered by making specific changes to their DNA and this is done by genetic engineering. Developing nations of India and Africa will be explored in their outlooks on the pros and cons of GM crops and will illustrate how this effects demand and supply. The conclusion will provide a statement which reflects the benefits of GM technology but how care must be taken to ensure the highest level of safety to human and environmental health. In support of genetically modified crops Support for the concept that GM crops are the only way to feed the world take this viewpoint for a number of reasons, one which includes that by increasing the production in supply, the demand for foods will be met by those who are currently experiencing food shortages. Food shortages are an ever increasing problem in third-world countries, including India and Africa. A major cause of food-shortages in these countries comes from there rapidly expanding populations. The increasing demand for food puts pressure to produce and provide more. For this reason, third-world countries face several agricultural challenges. Mangala Rai, Secretary of the Indian Department of Agricultural Research and Education, expressed that production food of from less land would be achieved only through the widespread use of GM crops. Mr Rai understands there is resistance to this concept however stresses that it will solve the desperate state India is in. (, September 2007). Although India is reported to be the second largest producer of wheat, in 2006 and 2007 they imported mass amounts of grain to meet the gap between supply and demand. India’s government took action and approved trials in GM cotton crops and this resulted in India surpassing the United States to become the second biggest producer of cotton in 2006 and 2007. (, February 2008). Researchers from University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Bonn in Germany reported results from farm trials conducted in India, that GM cotton crops dramatically increased yields and considerably reduced pesticide use compared with non-GM crops. ( February 2003). After experiencing great success with GM cotton, C. D Mayee, a senior scientist, and chairman for Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board said, ‘India’s first expected GM food crop is brinjal. Field trials of GM brinjal started in August 2007 and is expected to be commercialised by 2009’. ( February 2008). Similar challenges regarding GM crops were experienced with Africa, which we will illustrate next. In 2002 and 2003, many African countries including Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe were affected with a major food crisis. Unless food aid worth over US $507 million was distributed, it was estimated that 13 million people would suffer extreme starvation by the end of the year. There was initial concern from these countries to accept GM foods from the World Food Programme (WFP); however these countries (excluding Zambia who decided to its satisfaction that GM food aid was not necessary to meet the needs of Zambia’s population and secured non-GM from other sources) national governments elected to accept the GM grain, agreeing that the most important factor to prioritise was the need to alleviate hunger and this outweighed any other concerns. Clive James, chairman of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, said, ‘India can become self sufficient in food production by use of biotechnology in food crops’. He went on to further say, ‘The biggest risk associated with this technology in India is not using it’. (, February 2008). In support of the distribution and production of GM crops throughout Africa is biotechnologist Dr. Wynand van der Walt ( February 2003). He said the GM function offers opportunities to ensure food security in Africa and that there is no evidence to suggest that it poses a negative threat to human health or the environment. Over 3 billion people on all continents consume foods from GM crops and no proven cases suggest their hazardousness. Dr. Wynand van der Walt (February 2003) stated the following: We have high food prices and high food insecurity. We cannot wait for long term policy discussions. The urgency is now and all of us have an obligation to go out and communicate and counter the misinformation we face every day about GM crops. Graph (a) illustrates the relationship between price and foods from GM crops: [pic] Foods from GM crops are less expensive than foods from non-GM crops. Demand for food is high (D), and supplies of food from GM crops is high (S). Against genetically modified crops Those against the argument that GM crops are the only way to feed the world debate this point of view for a multitude of reasons, some which include the potential negative human and environmental impact. Although certain governments from developing countries like India and Africa support and have agreed to accept foods from GM crops as a way to feed their rapidly growing population, passionate anti-GM activists from these same countries strongly oppose its application and have put pressure on political parties to ban GM technology. In 2006, a large informal network representing organisations and individuals from more than 15 states of India was formed called â€Å"Coalition for GM Free India† (. April 2008). Members of this coalition believe that farmers’ science and knowledge, especially with regard to ecological farming, is the only sustainable way forward for farming in India. Their aim is to raise awareness and educate the general public, the media and civil society groups of the destructiveness of GM crops. The Coalition organised a meeting in Hyderabad where over 250 people took part to protest against the use of GM in their food, including farmers and consumers who have directly suffered from the GM cotton crops including those who have experienced huge financial losses, allergies while working in GM cotton crop fields and others who have lost their livestock that grazed on GM cotton crops. There has been a huge outcry from the Indian people to their government to cease GM crop trials. In support of the ban against GM foods in India is leading scientist Dr P M Bhargava (, July 2008). He stated the following: The problem is that no one knows what effect these foods will have on us. In animals, we have a good idea about their possible ill-effects. In science, we collect evidence on the basis of which we make predictions. All our predictions so far are not in favour of GM foods unless they are tested extensively and exhaustively, which they are not today. Experts are crying themselves hoarse; it is for the Indian government to listen. If all our politicians and scientists were committed to their country, not a single GM product would have been permitted in India as of today. I would say that as of today we do not have reasonably conclusive evidence that GM foods are safe. We should therefore exercise the precautionary principle and ban their use unless incontrovertible evidence regarding their long-term safety is obtained, which would take 10 to 25 years. It is a pity that alternatives to GM crops such as integrated pest management and the use of bio-pesticides, which are cheaper and better, and organic agriculture, are being ignored by our government in spite of the enormous evidence in their favour. Objection of accepting GM crops was Zambia of Africa which we will point to next. National government officials (NGOs) of Zambia were sceptical in accepting the GM food-aid from the WFP in their time of famine. Though they did ultimately reject the GM food from WFP, they did not do so before carrying out a thorough investigation. An expert delegation was assigned to travel to the United States and the European Union where they met with the biotechnology industry, government food safety officials, academic scientists and NGOs with an interest in and expertise on GM food safety issues. From these meetings, it was determined that the risks related with the GM maize were greater than Zambia was comfortable with and declined the WFP food-aid. ( October 2004) Although the Zambian government were under enormous pressure to accept GM grain, their stance was supported by several Zambian and regional non-governmental organisations, including Consumers International (CI) and the Zambian Consumer Association (ZACA) which ignited a campaign to press for alternatives food supplies to be made available to the country. In its campaign, CI lobbied the WFP to explore alternatives for supplying Zambia with non-GM grain from countries where such grain was available. There is very little scientific information regarding the long term health risks derived from GM crops and for this reason, many opinions are formed on the ethical stance that GM food implies. Some of these include the dependence on industrialised nations by developing countries, tampering with nature by mixing genes among species, and labelling of GM crops are not mandatory in some countries, including the United States. With so much uncertainly associated to GM crops and with retrospective gained regarding the famine threat to Zambia in 2002 and 2003, CI provided some recommendations including (. October 2004): (i) That the WFP and the U. S. Agency for International Development should immediately stop exerting pressure on affected developing country governments and presenting these countries with a misleading scenario of ‘No Choice. ‘ (ii) That the WFP and all donors should provide real choices (i. e. , sources of non-GM food aid) to any country that rejects or restricts GM food aid. Failure to do so renders the WFP’s long-standing recognition of the â€Å"the right to choose† meaningless. The WFP has a duty to actively seek options for providing non-GM foods that are in fact available to countries that prefer the non-GM alternative. (iii) The WFP should put in place additional mechanisms that enable it to respond appropriately to situations where recipient countries impose restrictions on the acceptance of GM food aid. For example, the preferences of recipient countries should be ascertained in advance of a crisis, so that planning could emphasize making the supply of food sources with different characteristics (e.g. , GM/non-GM) roughly match the expected demand. (iv). Consumer organizations in developing countries should inform themselves on the scientific, economic, trade, ethical and other aspects of the debate over GM foods and crops, so that they may constructively engage with their governments when a national risk analysis on this issue is required. Graph (b) illustrates the relationship between price and foods from non-GM crops: [pic] Foods from non-GM crops are more expensive than foods from non-GM crops. Demand for food is high (D), and supplies of food from non-GM crops is low (S). Conclusion The production of food from GM crops certainly proven scientifically that it has the capability of solving many of the worlds food-shortage problems as was illustrated in our examples in the developing nations of India and Africa. However to depend on it as being the only way to feed the world would be hasty, especially as there is little data reporting of its long term affects on the human race and the environment. In saying that, to ignore proven potentially beneficial technology would be a careless. Whilst our advancement in technology is commendable, we must proceed with care to avoid unintentional impairment on human health or the environment. List of References Layton, A, Robinson, T & Tucker, IB 2009, Economics for today, 3rd edn, Cengage Learning Australia, South Melbourne, Victoria. Environmental Graffiti, ‘GM Crops only way for India to feed itself, says Government’, May 2007, viewed 23 September 2009, . Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2009, viewed 17 September 2009, . Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2009, viewed 17 September 2009, . Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education, The Political Saga of GM Crops in India, 2008, viewed 25 September 2009. Genetically modified crops in India produced greater yields, reduced pesticide use, new study finds, February 2003, viewed 25 September 2009, . Human Genome Project Information, August 2006, viewed 19 September 2009, . International Food Policy Research Institute, Status of Genetically Modified: What is Being Grown and Where, May 2009, viewed 26 September 2009. May-June 2009, ‘Introduction food crisis in the Americas. (REPORT: FOOD CRISIS)’ NACLA Report on the Americas, vol. 42, no. 3, p. 15(1), viewed 18 September 2009, Business Economics and Theory. Gale. Search me! economics, Gale Document Number: A199854228 Guterman, Lisa, 2000, ‘Scientists leave the lab to defend bioengineered food’ The Chronicle of Higher Education vol. 46, no. 32, p. A29(4), viewed 20 September 2009, Business Economics and Theory. Gale. Search me! economics. Gale Document Number: A61878337 World Food Programme, 2009, viewed 25 September.

Adult Education is very important Essay

The problem in India is that we have adopted democracy without preparing the ground for it by educating population. But even now it is not too late if the programme of mass Adult educa ¬tion, or Social education is undertaken in right earnest as a mass movement. No doubt the provision of universal, compulsory and free primary education is the only solution to the problem of illiteracy. But the country cannot afford to leave out a whole mass of adults and grown-ups of our society from the benefits of the literacy-drive. Apart from the political justification to the problem, Adult education is needed because it is a powerful auxiliary and an essential incentive to primary education. No programme of compulsory universal education can bear fruit without the active support and co-operation of adults. It is, therefore, imperative that educational facilities should be provided to adults. Adult education, as the term signifies, is the education of grown-up men and women who are above eighteen years. Bryson says, â€Å"Adult education includes all activities with an educational purpose, carried on by people, in the ordinary business of life who use only part of their energy to acquire intellectual equipment. † Ernst Baker says, â€Å"Adult education is given on a part-time basis and, therefore, given concurrently with work and the earning of a living. † Maulana Azad re-oriented the concept of Adult education for preparing every citizen to play his part effectively in a democratic social order. So he renamed Adult education as ‘Social Education’. In our country, adult education is imparted tinder two aspects: (1) Adult Literacy i. e. education for those adults who never had schooling before; and, (2) Continuation education i. e. education for those adults who had some schooling before. Agencies of Social (Adult) education include all the bodies, organizations or institutions which ‘deliver the goods’ which contact the ‘consumers’ of social education and satisfy their needs. They may be categorized as under: (a) Teachers, Government servants, NSS and other volunteers, social education workers etc. b) Regular educational institutions like schools, colleges, rural colleges, community centres, agriculture extension groups, worker’s educational associations and voluntary organiza ¬tions. (c) Informal educational devices like forums, study circles, group discussions, listening groups, camps. (d) Recreational, educational bodies like theatres, cinemas, clubs, societies, fairs, melas, nautanki etc. (e) Institutions whose primary aim is not education, such as eligious bodies, the Army, Parents Associations, Co-operative Societies and other Government Departments. The scope of Adult education is very comprehensive. Social education covers all those topics that are not touched by education in general at school. Topics like religion, politics and family planning can now be discussed with adults who have a mature under ¬standing. Moreover, it aims at givi ng a new orientation to the outlook of adults to suit the dynamic world. Then, the growth grooves of each individual are different from those of others. Social education harmonizes differences in growth and it also provides an opportunity for growth to those who have not been able to grow properly or completely earlier. About the need and importance of Social (Adult) education Swami Vivekananda remarked : â€Å"So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor, who having been educated at their expense, pays not the heed to them. Our great natural sin is the neglect of the masses and that is the cause of our downfall. No amount of politics would be of any avail until the mas ¬ses are well educated, well fed and well cared for. National development and reconstruction is closely allied to Adult Education. If democracy is to survive, we must educate the masses for social education is the new hope for illiterate masses. Social education is heeded to widen the intellectual and political horizon of the illiterate adults. It is also needed to sharpen the aesthetic sensibility of the adults and to set the cultural tone of the community. Moreover, social educa ¬tion is needed in order to guide in spending their leisure in healthful recreations and useful activities. Lastly, illiteracy and ignorance is a sin; an illiterate adult is a burden on society. Adult education emancipates people from the tyranny of illiteracy. The objects, or purposes, or functions of social education may be stated generally or pragmatically. The philosophically oriented functions of Adult education are clearing concepts of reality of universe and life, reconciling the old and the new approaches to life, balance and independent judgment, self-realisation, human relationship and citizenship training and economic efficiency. According to the second approach which is more pragmatic and practical education has to perform two-fold purposes to the indivi-dual and to the society. From the individual’s point of view social education fulfils various purposes remedial, vocational, health, recreational, self-development and social skills. From the social and national point of view the purposes of social education are social cohesion, national efficiency and development of national resources. On the practical plane, however, there are some difficulties that confront a Social education planner or worker. Some of the main difficulties and problems are : isolation of adult education in education, accommodating difficulties, age structure of the adults, the family circumstances and background of learners, occupational grouping, cultural background, socio-economic background, geo ¬graphical location of the social education centre, level of the social education worker teacher, lack of proper knowledge of adult psy ¬chology, paucity of leisure lack of equipment, lack of motivation, fatigue of adults and their constitutional and temperamental lethargy, lack of proper publicity, hostility from certain vested interests, poor supervision of centres and half-hearted implement ¬ation. The difficulties have to be overcome either by cleverness, or by fact or by compromise, or may be, by intentional avoidance. Only then we can hope to spread Adult Education. The purpose of all good teaching is to produce changes in human behavior. All adult education teacher must adopt a positive approach; he should help the adults learn quickly and effectively and willing by using any of the three prevalent methods – the Teacher Dominated methods, the Learner Dominated Method or the Co-operative Method. He may make use of any or all the seven types of aids given in the Govern ¬ment of India Handbook on Social Education viz, Spoken words, spoken words reproduced through radio or recording, written words, chart, graphs and maps, objects produced or reproduced as models, demonstrations, pageants, dramas, television and other objects represented as pictures, pictures reproduced by episcopate-slides etc. actual objects, field trips and specially arranged exhibitions, museums or films shows. Gandhiji’s idea of social service for college students during the vacation and, later on full time basis will prove invaluable in this regard. Young men and women taking up Adult education as a drive should be fired with a missionary zeal to eradicate illiteracy and ignorance from our country. The slogan should be â€Å"Each one, teach one. † Happily, greater emphasis has been laid on Adult Education in the Seventh Five-Year Plan. The tenth point in Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s 20-point Programme-‘Expansion of Education’-also makes special mention of stimulating Adult literacy. Sizeable funds have been allocated and separate staff, including the block and Aanganwari people has been deployed to foster Adult education. Adult education officers have been appointed in each college and they supervise the running of adult schools by student volunteers. The programme of Adult education has to be undertaken on war-footing. adult education is very important . adults must know the basic things of life. adult education is needed because it is an essential part of primary education. some people in their early age did not get chance to education because of some reasons but if they are old they can get education and discover their live in a new way. people who are not making effort for the success cant succeed in their lives . we can get education in any age . education helps us in many ways. such knowledge is necessary for every person living in a democratic country. education is a important part of our life. education means knowledge and it is very important for us. in old times people do not send their girls to schools for education but now people want that there childern should be educated. if we are not educated we have to depend on others but if we are educated we do not have to depend on others. educated person can differentiate between good or bad. education increase our knowledge

Reasons of the Present World's Explosive State Essay

Reasons of the Present World's Explosive State - Essay Example As the paper outlines, Huntington argues that after the cold war the world, which was divided along the ideological and economic status of states, has changed. The old dividing lines of ideological orientation and economic status are to be replaced by the fresh lines of â€Å"culture and civilization†. With these new demarcations, Huntington divided the world in â€Å"Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilization†. Therefore, he asserts that the conflicts in future got to be along these fault lines. He reinforces his argument by giving four reasons: Firstly, the differences in civilization are â€Å"basic and real† thus are rigid and will cause conflict, which necessarily does not mean â€Å"violence†. Secondly, because of technological advancements, the world has become more interactive and so does civilizations, resultantly the emergence of â€Å"civilization consciousness† and â₠¬Å"animosities†. Third the process of â€Å"economic modernization and social change† has brought new identities in focus. Fourth, the dual role of the West. Finally, the uncompromising nature of cultural characteristics as compared to political or economic interests. The â€Å"centuries-old military interaction† between Arabs (Islam in particular) and West is a testimony to the existence of civilization fault line between these two, which will widen in the absence of other ideology i.e. Communism. Amy Chua, on the other hand, indicates that the unrest in the world is because of three factors: free markets, democracy, and ethnic hatred.  

Natural Disaster and Economic Growth Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Natural Disaster and Economic Growth - Essay Example This essay provides an comprehensive analysis of the economic impact of earthquakes on the performance of the country`s economy, both in the long and in the short run. Natural disasters are detrimental to the economic growth of the countries that face the disaster. The extent and severity of the effect of natural disasters vary across countries, but, the basic impact is not heterogeneous. The great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake hit Japan and it had brought tremendous damage to the country in terms of economic growth of the economy and the social structure. The city of Kobe was the worst sufferer in this disaster. Japan was already a developed nation when the disaster had stricken the country. Research by scholars acknowledges that the disaster had caused â€Å"devastating damage to the economic landscape of southern-central Japan† But, at the same time the results of investigation show that the earthquake made people realize the fact that capital formation is an important element of economic growth in the country. In the long run, level of well being of the survivors of the disaster depends on the rate at which capital is accumulated in the economy. Research results show that the impact of the disaster fades with time and the rate of development of the economy plays a major role in the standard of living of its people Although natural disasters are occurring with increasing frequency and are creating potentially devastating impact on the economies that face it, the economic cause of the disaster has not yet been accurately deciphered. ... Victims show the tendency to adapt with the new circumstances with the passage of time. A subsequent research shows the result of investigation into â€Å"the extent to which the earthquake enhanced the investment in social capital through participation in community activity† (Yamamura, 2013, p. 1). After facing the huge loss to life and property as a result of the earthquake, the people of Japan expressed greater consciousness regarding the importance of social capital. Comparing the data collected between the years 1991 and 1996, it has been found that people were more inclined to make investment in social capital in 1996 than they were in 1991 (Skidmore and Toya, 2002). This significantly increased the rate of investment in social capital by the residents of Kobe. However, rate of investment by the people living in the cities near Kobe did not show any noteworthy change. From this phenomenon the author has inferred that the impact of the disaster decreases with distance; th e effect of the disaster is lesser in the minds of the people that stay far away from the origin of disaster (Yamamura, 2010). Although natural disasters are occurring with increasing frequency and are creating potentially devastating impact on the economies that face it, the economic cause of the disaster has not yet been accurately deciphered. There have been several studies on the medium and long term impact of the disasters on the prospects of development of the countries. According to the works by Cavallo, Powell and Becerra (2010) long term effects of natural disasters from the economic point of view are not understood well. In general, literature existing in this sphere of research shows lack of theory and empirical evaluation of the mechanisms that

How Attractive is the Keurig System in the Office Coffee Market Assignment - 1

How Attractive is the Keurig System in the Office Coffee Market - Assignment Example The data was collected from these test locations and from the feedback that was received from the office, as well as from the different facility managers in these locations. As per the feedback received by the Keurig company, these managers had mentioned that the OCS was considered to be a wonderful type of benefit, which they were able to provide the company staff and this created a better atmosphere in the entire workplace. Indeed the office managers were really positive regarding the performance and the benefits that the coffee machine placed by the Keurig Company since now they feel that the staffs enjoy the coffee breaks because of the in-house availability of the coffee. In addition to this, the company is also able to save valuable office time with the OCS machines, since the staff would otherwise be wasting precious time by taking coffee breaks outside the organization, at the nearest coffee houses. The flavor offered by the Keurig’s coffee machines was also quite acceptable to the staff since there was a total of eight varieties of flavor. Apart from this the marketing team at Keurig maintained that the use of the OCS coffee machines would lead to lowering the wastage levels of the coffee, that would have otherwise been washed off the drain due to the flavor problems, incorrect type of brewing, or because the coffee becoming stale. In addition to this, the OCS machines could be easily cleaned and maintained quite efficiently. The company also marketed what was popularly called as the K cups. Thus as per the company management, it was decided that the company would market and sell both its brewers as well as the K cups through its regional distributors to the offices. Thus the Keurig company was very successful in this market segment since there was approximately a total   1,700 of the OCS distributors and each one of them was able to achieve a whopping sales of $1.4 million.

Pedagogy and Practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Pedagogy and Practice - Essay Example nt paramount views of a community, in that case it can be useful to have such standards to study the assumptions, ethics, and attitude of teaching, learning, and teacher education. The National Science Teachers Association Standards writers describe a model of pedagogy known to teachers and teacher educators. This model consists of: actions and plans of teaching, organization of classroom practices, providing for varied student requirements, appraisal and completion of learners past ideas, and conversion of thoughts into realistic bits. (National Science Teachers Association, 1998) These well-known concepts were evidently explained in Borko and Putnams (1996) review of literature on learning to teach (Watson, & Konicek, 1990). Shulman (1986) came up with a new agenda for teacher education by launching the notion of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Instead of viewing teacher education from the perspective of content or pedagogy, Shulman said that teacher education programs should merge these two knowledge bases to more efficiently organize teachers. Pedagogical content knowledge project researched how a beginner in teaching obtained new understandings of their content, and how these new understandings influenced their teaching. These scholars explained pedagogical content knowledge as the knowledge formed by the blend of subject matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and knowledge of background. Teachers differ from biologists, historians, writers, or educational researchers, not by their subject matter knowledge, but in how that information is planned and used. For instance, skilled science teachers’ knowledge of science is prepared from a teaching outlook and is used as a basis for helping s tudents whereas; scientist’s knowledge is structured from a research perspective. The use of PCK as an issue for research and debate about the nature of a proper knowledge base for developing future science teachers has progressively improved as its inception. (NRC,

Tracing Genetic Ancestry in Humans Research Paper

Tracing Genetic Ancestry in Humans - Research Paper Example Before the advent of molecular technology, ancestral lineage is based on the recollection of and stories passed by the oldest living family member to the younger family members. People born from the same continent also have some attachment, as it seems logical to think they could have come from the same ancestors because of the proximity of their parents with one another. Now, DNA analysis becomes a way of objectively verifying those theories. By comparing the nucleotide sequences of samples against a sequence database from more than 75, 000 indigenous and traditional populations from all over the world, (Biological and Environmental Research Information System, 2010), DNA sequence unique to people from a certain continent, country, town, village or family may be identified (Rotimi, 2003). These populations are each composed of people living within a particular region for several generations and maintaining the same culture (Biological and Environmental Research Information System, 2 010). Anyone who would like to determine his or her group of origin can thus look for these unique sequences in his or her own genome. An example of a population seeking to define their ancestral origin and the populations that have the same ancestors is African-Americans. Certainly, the parallelism in their experiences with slavery and obvious similarities in appearance motivate the effort of linking African-Americans with modern-day Africans. The results of many DNA studies suggest that the common female (140, 000 years old) and male (60, 000 years old) ancestors of modern humans are from Africa. Migration started 65, 000 years ago, when they populated southern Asia, China, Java and Europe (Biological and Environmental Research Information System, 2010). Such movement has caused a modern human population, such as African-American, to be genetically-diverse. For example, African-Americans can have a European Y-chromosome because of the historical admixture of African farming employ ees to European plantation owners (www.rootsforreal.com). As well, in a study of scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University analyzing the genetic make-up of 365 African-Americans, 203 people from 12 West African populations, and 400 Europeans from 42 countries, it was found that African-Americans had as little as 1% and as much as 99% West African ancestry. The genetic sequences implicating West African origin was also found to be similar to those of Igbo and Yoruba from Nigeria and Bantu-speaking populations in Western Africa. In addition, their median proportion of European ancestry is 18.5%. Specifically, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) origin (mothers) were mostly African, while the Y chromosome (fathers) were African or European (http://www.physorg.com/news180632039.html, 2010). Which tools can be used to determine such ancestral connections? Let us start with the most superficial. If an individual would like to verify connections between him or her and an alleged relative, he or she can request for a DNA fingerprinting test. Using certain sequences at 16 chromosomes, the possibility of a blood relationship is calculated (www.rootsforreal.com). As mentioned earlier, matching mtDNA and/or Y-chromosome with the database of samples from different populations can be done to determine ancestral roots. These

Cognitive science Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Cognitive science - Essay Example The modern evolutionary theory depicts human beings as agents that now pursue their interests, which eventually make genes to change. This idea leads to the concept of robotic rebellion when human beings act in ways that do not cohere with original intentions of the genes. However, it is unclear how the rebellion started and motivations of the rebellion. The target example here is the rebellion that human beings are shaping against the genes. Human beings are continually doing things that address their own desires but not in the interest of the genes. People have attuned to the environmental forces to shape what they learn for survival. With the modern evolutionary theory, it is not the genes that determine the things human begins do. Environment plays important roles in triggering human beings who then resort to learning things that comfort and promise them good life. The base example is the learning theory that will help in understanding the motivation and process of development of the modern evolutionary theory. The learning theory posits that human beings have empty brains called tabular rasa (Chance and Mark 274). People gain knowledge through interaction with the environment and consisting elements. The robotic rebellion as confers to human being as vehicles and genes as the controllers is evident through critical analysis of the observational learning. Observational learning relies on the cognition of individuals. According to the observational learning process, human beings learn through what they observe happening within their immediate environments (Chance and Mark 276). It is with gained knowledge that human beings determine lifestyles and strategies to survive in the environment. In the traditional setting of the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, genes special memes used to shape knowledge and characteristics that are in the interest of the genes. With observation,

The technology of cloning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The technology of cloning - Essay Example Cloning is the phenomenon whereby an identical copy of a living creature can be created by man. "The process of making a clone, a genetically identical copy. Cloning can refer to the technique of producing a genetically identical copy of an organism by replacing the nucleus of an unfertilized ovum with the nucleus of a body cell from the organism." (MedicineNet.com, 2012) The cloning technology involves asexual production of an egg which does not have nuclear material. It is mainly the artificial fusion of a non sexual cell with an egg. The resultant is the production of a younger identical organism which is the exact twin of the earlier organism. A physician Lewis Thomas terms human cloning as, "The  cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behavior control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers." (SearchQuotes, 2012) The process sounds relatively very simple but it is a hard fact that the execution of this process involve many complications. It is not only the complications in the processing that are a source of an issue. The main problems are the pre-requisites that need to be settled prior to the processing. On one hand there is a belief that cloning could be extremely beneficial for the human race and would bring cure to many untreated ailments. One the other hand, one school of thought argues that the concept of cloning is against the well being of the society and should completely be eliminated. Others even maintain that cloning could become a menace to the society if left un attended. So it should only be restricted to secret services and should only be used for the well being of the security and safety of the human race as a whole. My views on this topic are that since cloning is such an advanced technology its benefits should be hailed by every individual on this planet. Then only would it be possible to get benefitted by it as a soci ety. When it comes to the sanctity and survival of the human race most of us readily agree that for the survival of the human race severe steps should be taken and any technology should be modified for the betterment of the entire human race and preserved so that it can be benefitted from in times of need. There are several advantages associated with cloning. Some of them are discussed as follows: The concept of human cloning is particularly of use when it comes to the handling of the matter of fertility in human beings. Any genetic defects or any accidental damage caused to genetic organisms, any genetic defects present at the time of birth, or accidental exposure to radiation or toxic substances may result in infertility. Cloning is one of the many technologies that assist in the overcoming of the problem of infertility. Around twelve million Americans are infertile at the age of child bearing. Years of medical treatment cannot result in satisfactory remedies to infertility. It is for such infertile couples that human cloning comes s a sigh of relief. With the help of cloning such couples can dream of happening their own offspring and they would not have to undergo years of continuous and painful treatments to get able to bear an offspring. The thought of having their own biological offspring, at the cost of no uneasiness and complex medical treatment at all would eventually result in the diminishing of clinical depression, inclination towards, suicide, divorce and madness among infertile individuals. A school of thought might maintain that gene therapy is present to cure

Chinese Literature Essay Example for Free

Chinese Literature Essay 2000 by Andre Levy All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in. writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39. 48-1984. Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levy, Andre, date [La litterature chinoise ancienne et classique. English] Chinese literature, ancient and classical / by Andre Levy ; translated by William H. Nienhauser, Jr. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-253-33656-2 (alk. paper) 1. Chinese literature—History and criticism. I. Nienhauser, William H. II. Title. PL2266. L48 2000 895. 109—dc21 99-34024 1 2 3 4 5 05 04 03 02 01 00. For my own early translators of French, Daniel and Susan Contents ix Preface 1 Introduction Chapter 1: Antiquity 5 I. Origins II. Let a hundred flowers bloom, Let a hundred schools of thought contend! 1. Mo zi and the Logicians 2. Legalism 3. The Fathers of Taoism III. The Confucian Classics 31 Chapter 2: Prose I. Narrative Art and Historical Records II. The Return of the Ancient Style III. The Golden Age of Trivial Literature IV. Literary Criticism Chapter 3: Poetry 61 I. The Two Sources of Ancient Poetry 1. The Songs of Chu 2. Poetry of the Han Court II. The Golden Age of Chinese Poetry 1. From Aesthetic Emotion to Metaphysical Flights 2. The Age of Maturity 3. The Late Tang III. The Triumph of Genres in Song Chapter 4: Literature of Entertainment: The Novel and Theater 105 I. Narrative Literature Written in Classical Chinese II. The Theater 1. The Opera-theater of the North 2. The Opera-theater of the South III. The Novel 1. Oral Literature 2. Stories and Novellas 3. The Long Novel or Saga Index 151 Translators Preface. I first became- interested in translating Andre Levys history of Chinese literature, La litterature chinoise ancienne et classique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991), in 1996, after finding it in a bookshop in Paris. I read sections and was intrigued by Professor Levys approach, which was modeled on literary genres rather than political eras. I immediately thought about translating parts of the book for my graduate History of Chinese Literature class at the University of Wisconsin, a class in which the importance of dynastic change was also downplayed. Like many plans, this one was set aside. Last spring, however, when the panel on our fields desiderata headed by David Rolston at the 1998 Association for Asian Studies Meeting pronounced that one of the major needs was for a concise history of Chinese literature in about 125 pages (the exact length of Professor Levys original text), I revived my interest in this translation. I proposed the book to John Gallman, Director of Indiana University Press, and John approved it almost immediately-but, not before warning me that this kind of project can take much more time than the translator originally envisions. Although I respect Johns experience and knowledge in publishing, I was sure I would prove the exception. After all, what kind of trouble could a little book of 125 pages cause? I soon found out. Professor Levy had originally written a much longer manuscript, which was to be published as a supplementary volume to Odile Kaltenmark-Ghequiers La Litterature chinoise (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948) in the Que sais-je? (What Do I Know? ) series. This concept, however, was soon abandoned, and it Several decades ago Anne-Marie Geoghegan translated this volume as Chinese Literature (New York: Walker, 1964). x Translators Preface was decided to publish the Levy appendix as a separate volume-in 125 pages. Professor Levy was then asked to cut his manuscript by one-third. As a result, he was sometimes forced to presume in his audience certain knowledge that some readers of this book-for example, undergraduate students or interested parties with little background in Chinese literature-may not have. For this reason, working carefully with Professor Levy, I have added (or revived) a number of contextual sentences with these readers in mind. More information on many of the authors and works discussed in this history can be found in the entries in The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (volumes 1 and 2; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986 and 1998). Detailed references to these entries and other relevant studies can be found in the Suggested Further Reading sections at the end of each chapter (where the abbreviated reference Indiana Companion refers to these two volumes). I also discovered that re-translating Professor Levys French translations of Chinese texts sometimes resulted in renditions that were too far from the original, even in this age of distance education. So I have translated almost all of the more than 120 excerpts of original works directly from the original Chinese, using Professor Levys French versions as a guide wherever possible. All this was done with the blessing and cooperation of the author. Indeed, among the many people who helped with this translation, I would like to especially thank Professor Andre Levy for his unflinching interest in and support of this translation. Professor Levy has read much of the English version, including all passages that I knew were problematic (there are no doubt others! ), and offered comments in a long series of letters over the past few months. Without his assistance the translation would never have been completed. Here in Madison, a trio of graduate students have helped me with questions Translators Preface xi about the Chinese texts: Mr. Cao Weiguo riftlal, Ms. Huang Shu—yuang MV and Mr. Shang Cheng I*. They saved me E, from innumerable errors and did their work with interest and high spirits. Mr. Cao also helped by pointing out problems in my interpretation of the original French. Mr. Scott W. Galer of Ricks College read the entire manuscript and offered a number of invaluable comments. My wife, Judith, was unrelenting in her demands on behalf of the general reader. The most careful reader was, however, Jane Lyle of Indiana University Press, who painstakingly copy-edited the text. If there is a literary style to this translation, it is due to her efforts. My thanks, too, to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation which supported me in Berlin through the summer of 1997 when I first read Professor Levys text, and especially to John Gallman, who stood behind this project from the beginning. Madison, Wisconsin, 16 February 1999 (Lunar New Years Day) Chinese Literature, Ancient and Classical Introduction Could one still write, as Odile Kaltenmark-Ghequier did in 1948 in the What Do I Know series Number 296, which preceded this book, that the study of Chinese literature, long neglected by the Occident, is still in its  infancy? Yes and no. There has been some spectacular progress and some foundering. At any rate, beginning at the start of the twentieth century, it was Westerners who were the first-followed by the Japanese, before the Chinese themselves-to produce histories of Chinese literature. Not that the Chinese tradition had not taken note of an evolution in literary genres, but the prestige of wen 5 signifying both literature and civilization, placed it above history-anthologies, compilations, and catalogues were preferred. Moreover, the popular side of literature-fiction, drama, and oral verse-because of its lack of seriousness or its vulgarity, was not judged dignified enough to be considered wen. Our goal is not to add a new work to an already lengthy list of histories of Chinese literature, nor to supplant the excellent summary by Odile Kaltenmark-Ghequier which had the impossible task of presenting a history of Chinese literature in about a hundred pages. Our desire would be rather to complement the list by presenting the reader with a different approach, one more concrete, less dependent on the dynastic chronology. Rather than a history, it is a picture-inevitably incompleteof Chinese literature of the past that this little book offers. Chinese high literature is based on a hard core of classical training consisting of the memorization of texts, nearly a half-million characters for every candidate who reaches the highest competitive examinations. We might see the classical art of writing as the arranging, in an appropriate and astute fashion, of lines recalled by memory, something ,Odile Kaltenmark-Ghequier, Introduction, La litterature chinoise (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948), p. 5; Que sais—je, no. 296. 2 Chinese Literature, Ancient and Classical that came almost automatically to traditional Chinese intellectuals. The goal of these writers was not solely literary. They hoped through their writings to earn a reputation that would help them find support for their efforts to pass the imperial civil-service examinations and thereby eventually win a position at court. Although there were earlier tests leading to political advancement, the system that existed nearly until the end of the imperial period in 1911 was known as the jinshi A ± or presented scholar examination (because successful candidates were presented to the emperor), and was developed during the late seventh and early eighth centuries A. D. It required the writing of poetry and essays on themes set by the examiners. Successful candidates were then given minor positions in the bureaucracy. Thus the memorization of a huge corpus of earlier literature and the ability to compose on the spot became the major qualifications for political office through most of the period from the eighth until the early twentieth centuries. These examinations, and literature in general, were composed in a classical, standard language comparable to Latin in the West. This classical language persisted by opposing writing to speech through a sort of partial bilingualism. The strict proscription of vulgarisms, of elements of the spoken language, from the examinations has helped to maintain the purity of classical Chinese. The spoken language, also labeled vulgar, has produced some literary monuments of its own, which were recognized as such and qualified as classics only a few decades ago. The unity of the two languages, classical and vernacular, which share the same fundamental structure, is undermined by grammars that are appreciably different, and by the fact that these languages hold to diametrically opposed stylistic ideals: lapidary concision on the one hand, and eloquent vigor on the other. We conclude by pointing out that educated Chinese add to their surnames, which are always given first, a great variety of personal names, which can be disconcerting at times. The standard given name (ming Introduction 3 is often avoided out of decorum; thus Tao Qian Miff is often referred to En We will retain only the by his zi (stylename) as Tao Yuanming best known of these names, avoiding hao at (literary name or nickname), bie hao ZIJM (special or particular literary name), and shi ming (residential name) whenever possible: When other names are used, the standard ming will be  given in parentheses. The goal here is to enable the reader to form an idea of traditional Chinese literature, not to establish a history of it, which might result in a lengthy catalogue of works largely unknown today. We are compelled to sacrifice quantity to present a limited number of literary stars, and to reduce the listing of their works to allow the citation of a number of previously unpublished translations, inevitably abridged but sufficient, we hope, to evoke the content of the original. The chronological approach will be handled somewhat roughly because of the need to follow the development of the great literary genres: after the presentation of antiquity, the period in which the common culture of the educated elite was established, comes an examination of the prose genres of high classical literature, then the description of the art most esteemed by the literati, poetry. The final section treats the literature of diversion, the most discredited but nonetheless highly prized, which brings together the novel and the theater. Chapter 1. Antiquity Ancient literature, recorded by the scribes of a rapidly evolving warlike and aristocratic society, has been carefully preserved since earliest times and has become the basis of Chinese lettered culture. It is with this in mind that one must approach the evolution of literature and its role over the course of the two-thousand-year-old imperial government, which collapsed in 1911, and attempt to understand the importance (albeit increasingly limited) that ancient literature retains today. The term antiquity applied to China posed no problems until certain Marxist historians went so far as to suggest that it ended only in 1919. The indigenous tradition had placed the break around 211 B. C. , when political unification brought about the establishment of a centralized but prefectural government under the Legalists, as well as the famous burning of books opposed to the Legalist state ideology. Yet to suggest that antiquity ended so early is to minimize the contribution of Buddhism and the transformation of thought that took place between the third and seventh centuries. The hypothesis that modernity began early, in the eleventh or perhaps twelfth century in China, was developed by Naito Konan NAM 1 (1866-1934). This idea has no want of critics or of supporters. It is opposed to the accepted idea in the West, conveyed by Marxism, that China, a living fossil, has neither entered modern times nor participated in the global civilization that started with the Opium War of 1840. Nor is there unanimity concerning the periodization proposed in historical linguistics, a periodization which distinguishes Archaic Chinese of High Antiquity (from the origins of language to the third century) from Ancient Chinese of Mid-Antiquity (sixth to twelfth centuries), then Middle Chinese of the Middle Ages (thirteenth-sixteenth centuries) from Modern Chinese (seventeenth-nineteenth centuries), and Recent Chinese (18401919) from Contemporary Chinese (1920 to the present). 6 Chinese Literature, Ancient and Classical. In the area of literature, the beginning of the end of antiquity could perhaps be placed in the second century A. D. Archaeology has elevated our knowledge of more ancient writings toward the beginning of the second millennium B. C. , but this archaic period, discovered recently, cannot be considered part of literary patrimony in the strictest sense. Accounts of this archaic period are traditionally divided into six eras,2 but to honor them would be to fall into the servitude of a purely chronological approach. I. Origins Since the last year of the last century, when Wang Yirong . 1. 6M (1845-1900) compiled the first collection of inscriptions written on bones and shells, the increasing number of archaeological discoveries has allowed the establishment of a corpus of nearly 50,000 inscriptions extending over the period from the fourteenth to the tenth centuries before our era. Dong Zuobin (1895-1963) proposed a periodization for them and distinguished within them the styles of different schools of scribes. Scholars have managed to decipher a third of the total of some 6,000 distinct signs, which are clearly related to the system of writing used by the Chinese today-these were certainly not primitive forms of characters. The oracular inscriptions are necessarily short-the longest known text, of a hundred or so characters, covers the scapula of an ox and extends even over the supporting bones; the shell of a southern species of the great tortoise, also used to record divination, did not offer a more extensive surface. Whether a literature existed at this ancient time seems rather doubtful, but this scriptural evidence causes one to consider whether eras are the early Chou dynasty (eleventh century-722 B. C. ), the Spring and Autumn era (722-481 B. C. ), the Warring States (481-256 B. C. ), the Chin dynasty (256-206 B. C. ), the Western or Early Han dynasty (206 B. C. -A. D. 6), and the Eastern or Latter Han dynasty (25-A. D. 220). 2These Chapter 1. Antiquity 7 the Shu jing Efg (Classic of Documents), supposedly revised by Confucius but often criticized as a spurious text, was based in part on authentic texts. The presence of an early sign representing a bundle of slips of wood or bamboo confirms the existence of a primitive form of book in a very ancient era-texts were written on these slips, which were then bound together to form a fascicle. The purpose of these ancient archives, which record the motivation for the diviners speech, his identity, and sometimes the result, has been ignored. Of another nature are the inscriptions on bronze that appeared in about the eleventh century B. C. and went out of fashion in the second century B.C. They attracted the attention of amateur scholars from the eleventh century until modern times. Many collections of inscriptions on stone and bronze have been published in the intervening eras. The longest texts extend to as much as five-hundred signs, the forms of which often seem to be more archaic than those of the inscriptions on bones and shells. The most ancient inscriptions indicate nothing more than the person to whom the bronze was consecrated or a commemoration of the name of the sponsor. Toward the tenth century B. C. the texts evolved from several dozen to as many as a hundred signs and took on a commemorative character. The inspiration for these simple, solemn texts is not always easily discernible because of the obscurities of the archaisms in the language. An echo of certain pieces transmitted by the Confucian school can be seen in some texts, but their opacity has disheartened many generations of literati. II. Let a hundred flowers bloom, Let a hundred schools of thought contend! This statement by Mao Zedong, made to launch a liberalization movement that was cut short in 1957, was inspired by an exceptional period in Chinese cultural history (from the fifth to the third centuries 8 Chinese Literature, Ancient and Classical B. C. ) in which there was a proliferation of schools-the hundred schools. The various masters of these schools offered philosophical, often political, discussion. The growth of these schools paralleled the rise of rival states from the time of Confucius (the Latinized version of the Chinese original, Kong Fuzi TL-T- or Master Kong, ca. 551-479 B.C. ) to the end of the Warring States period (221 B. C. ). The hundred schools came to an end with the unification of China late in the third century B. C. under the Legalist rule of the Qin dynasty (221-206 B. C. ). This era of freedom of thought and intellectual exchange never completely ceased to offer a model, albeit an unattainable model, in the search for an alternative to the oppressive ideology imposed by the centralized state. Much of what has reached us from this lost world was saved in the wake of the reconstruction of Confucian writings (a subject to which we will turn shortly). The texts of the masters of the hundred schools, on the periphery of orthodox literati culture, are of uneven quality, regardless of the philosophy they offer. Even the best, however, have not come close to dethroning the Chinese Socrates, Confucius, the first of the great thinkers, in both chronology and importance. 1. Mo Zi and the Logicians. The work known as Mo Zi (Master Mo) is a collection of the writings of a sect founded by Mo Di g, an obscure personage whom scholars have wanted to make a contemporary of Confucius. It has been hypothesized that the name Mo, ink, referred to the tattooing of  a convict in antiquity, and the given name, Di, indicates the pheasant feathers that decorated the hats of the common people. Although we can only speculate about whether Mo Zi was a convict or a commoner, he argued for a kind of bellicose pacifism toward aggressors, doing his best to promote, through a utilitarian process of reasoning, the necessity of believing in the gods and of practicing universal love without discrimination. Condemning the extravagant expense of funerals as well as the uselessness of art and music, Mo Zi Chapter 1. Antiquity 9 wrote in a style of discouraging weight. The work that has come down to us under his name (which appears to be about two-thirds of the original text) represents a direction which Chinese civilization explored without ever prizing. Mo Zis mode of argument has influenced many generations of logicians and sophists, who are known to us only in fragments, the main contribution of which has been to demonstrate in their curious way of argumentation peculiar features of the Chinese language. Hui Shi Ea is known only by the thirty-some paradoxes which the incomparable Zhuang Zi cites, without attempting to solve, as in: There is nothing beyond the Great Infinity.. . and the Small Infinity is not inside. The antinomies of reason have nourished Taoist thought, if not the other way around, as Zhuang Zi attests after the death of his friend Hui Shi: Zhuang Zi was accompanying a funeral procession. When he passed by the grave of Master Hui he turned around to say to those who were following him: A fellow from Ying had spattered the tip of his nose with a bit of plaster, like the wing of a fly. He had it removed by [his crony] the carpenter Shi, who took his ax and twirled it around. He cut it off, then heard a wind: the plaster was entirely removed without scratching his nose. The man from Ying had remained standing, impassive. When he learned of this, Yuan, the sovereign of the country of Song, summoned the carpenter Shih and said to him, Try then to do it again for Us. The carpenter responded, Your servant is capable of doing it; however, the material that he made use of died long ago. After the death of the Master, I too no longer can find the material: I no longer have anyone to talk to. (Zhuang Zi 24) Sons of the logicians and the sophists, the rhetoricians shared with the Taoists a taste for apologues. They opposed the Taoist solution of a 10 Chinese Literature, Ancient and Classical detached non-action, involved as they were in diplomatic combat. Held in contempt by the Confucians for their Machiavellianism, the Zhanguo ce Vg (Intrigues of the Warring States) remains the most representative work of the genre. It was reconstructed several centuries later by Liu Xiang gj 1-(4] (77-6 B. C. ), but the authenticity of these reassembled materials seems to have been confirmed by the discovery of parallel texts in a tomb at Mawang Dui gUttg in 1973. A great variety animates these accounts, both speeches and chronicles; they are rich in dialogue, which cannot be represented by this single, although characteristic, anecdote—it is inserted without commentary into the intrigues (or slips) of the state of Chu: The King of Wei offered the King of Chu a beautiful girl who gave him great satisfaction. Knowing how much the new woman pleased him, his wife, the queen, showed her the most intense affection. She chose clothes and baubles which would please her and gave them to her; it was the same for her with rooms in the palace and bed clothes. In short, she gratified her with more attention than the king himself accorded her. He congratulated her for it: a woman serves her husband through her carnal appeal, and jealousy is her nature. Now, understanding how I love the new woman, my wife shows her more love than I—it is thus that the filial son serves his parents, that the loyal servant fulfills his duties toward his prince. As she knew that the king did not consider her jealous, the queen suggested to her rival: The king appreciates your beauty. However, he is not that fond of your nose. You would do better to hide it when he receives you. Therefore, the new one did so when she saw His Majesty. The king asked his wife why his favorite hid her nose in his presence. She responded, I know. Even if it is unpleasant, tell me! insisted the king. She does not like your odor. The brazen hussy! cried the sovereign. Her nose is to be cut off, and let no one question my order! Chapter 1. Antiquity 11 The Yan Zi chunqiu *T-*V( (Springs and Autumns of Master Yen) is another reconstruction by Liu Xiang, a collection of anecdotes about Yan Ying RV, a man of small stature but great ability who was prime minister to Duke Jing of Qi (547-490 B.C. )-the state that occupies what is now Shandong. Without cynicism, but full of shrewdness, these anecdotes do not lack appeal; some have often been selected as anthology pieces, of which this one is representative: When Master Yan was sent as an ambassador to Chu, the people of the country constructed a little gate next to the great one and invited him to enter. Yan Zi refused, declaring that it was suitable for an envoy to a country of dogs, but that it was to Chu that he had come on assignment. The chamberlain had him enter by the great gate. The King of Chu received him and said to him: Was there then no one in Qi, for them to have sent you? How can you say there is no one in Qi, when there would be darkness in our capital of Linzi if the people of the three hundred quarters spread out their sleeves, and it would rain if they shook off their perspiration-so dense is the population. But then why have you been sent? The practice in Qi is to dispatch a worthy envoy to a worthy sovereign; I am the most unworthy. . . . 2. Legalism. The diplomatic manipulations and other little anecdotes we have seen in the Yan Zi chunqiu were of little interest to the Legalists, who took their name from the idea that the hegemonic power of the state is founded on a system of implacable laws supposing the abolition of hereditary privileges-indeed a tabula rasa that rejects morals and traditions. In fact, historians associate them with all thought that privileges efficacy. From this point of view, the most ancient Legalist would be the artisan of Qis hegemony in the seventh century B. C. , Guan Zi (Master Guan). The work that was handed down under his name is a composite text and in reality contains no material prior to the third century B. C. Whether or not he should be considered a Legalist, Guan Zi 12 Chinese Literature, Ancient and Classical embodies the idea that the power of the state lies in its prosperity, and this in turn depends on the circulation of goods. In sum, Guan Zi stands for a proto-mercantilism diametrically opposed to the primitive physiocraticism of Gongsun Yang (altV (also known as Shang Yang ), minister of Qin in the fourth century. Shang jun shu 1 (The 2 Book of Lord Shang), which is attributed to Gongsun Yang, gives the Legalist ideas a particularly brutal form: It is the nature of people to measure that which is advantageous to them, to seize the best, and to draw to themselves that which is profitable. The enlightened lord must take care if he wants to establish order in his country and to be able to turn the population to his advantage, for the population has at its disposal a great number of means to avoid the strictness that it fears. Within the country he must cause the people to consecrate themselves to farming; without he must cause them to be singly devoted to warfare. This is why the order of a sage sovereign consists of multiplying interdictions in order to prevent infractions and relying on force to put an end to fraud. (Shang jun shu, Suan di) Shang Yangs prose is laden with archaisms, which hardly lighten the weight of his doctrine. It is in the work of Han Fei Zi 4-T- (ca. 280-233) that Legalism found its most accomplished formulation. The book Han Fei Zi contains a commentary on the Classic of the Way and of Power of Lao Zi in which the ideal of Taoist non-action is realized by the automatism of laws. The artifice of the latter may go back to the Confucianism of Xun Zi (Master Xun, also known as Xun Qing ,Ajja, ca. 300-230 B. C. ), a school rejected by orthodox Confucianism. Xun Zi, who happens to have been the teacher of Han Fei Zi, developed the brilliant theory that human nature inclines individuals to satisfy their egoistic appetites: it was therefore bad for advanced societies of the time. The rites-culture-are necessary for socialization. Xun Zis Chapter 1. Antiquity 13 argumentation was unprecedentedly elaborate, examining every facet of a question while avoiding repetition. In a scintillating style peppered with apologues, Han Fei Zi argues that the art of governing requires techniques other than the simple manipulation of rewards and punishments. The prince is the cornerstone of a system that is supposed to ensure him of a protective impenetrableness. The state must devote itself to eliminating the useless, noxious five parasites or vermin: the scholars, rhetoricians, knights-errant, deserters, and merchants (perhaps even artisans). 3. The Fathers of Taoism. A philosophy of evasion, this school was opposed to social and political engagement. From the outset Taoism was either a means to flee society and politics or a form of consolation for those who encountered reversals in politics and society. The poetic power of its writings, which denounced limits and aphorisms of reason, explains the fascination that it continues to hold for intellectuals educated through the rationalism of the Confucians. These works, like most of the others from antiquity that were attributed to a master, in fact seem to be rather disparate texts of a school. The Dao de jing ittitg (Classic of the Way and of Power) remains the most often translated Chinese work—and the first translated, if one counts the lost translation into Sanskrit by the monk Xuanzang WM in the seventh century A. D. This series of aphorisms is attributed to Lao Zi (Master. Lao or The Old Master), whom tradition considers a contemporary of Confucius. He is said to have left this testament as he departed the Chinese world via the Xiangu Pass for the West. In their polemics against the Buddhists, the Taoists of the following millennium used this story as the basis on which to affirm that the Buddha was none other than their Chinese Lao Zi, who had been converting the barbarians of the West since his departure from China. Modern scholarship estimates that the Lao Zi could not date earlier than the third century B. C. The 1973 discoveries at Mawang Dui in Hunan confirmed what scholars had suspected for centuries: the primitive Lao Zi is reversed in respect to 14 Chinese Literature, Ancient and Classical  ours: a De dao jing 1,M1# § (Classic of Power and the Way). Its style, which is greatly admired for its obscure concision, seems to owe much to the repair work of the commentator Wang Bi . T3 (226-249). Thus it is tenable that the primitive Lao Zi was a work of military strategy. Whatever it was, the text that is preferred today runs a little over 5,000 characters and is divided into 81 sections (9 x 9). The Taoist attitude toward life is expressed here in admirably striking formulae, which lend themselves to many esoteric interpretations: He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know (#56). Govern a great state as you would fry small fish! (#60). Practice non-action, attend to the useless, taste the flavorless. (#63) The Zhuang Zi ate, written by Zhuang Zhou 4. -B1 or Zhuang Zi (Master Zhuang), was apparently abridged at about the same time as the Lao Zi, but at the hands of the commentator Guo Xiang # -IM (d. 312), who cut it from fifty-two to thirty-three sections. Scholars cannot agree whether the seven initial sections, called the inner chapters, are from the same hand of Zhuang Zhou as the sixteen following, called the outer chapters, and the final ten miscellaneous chapters. It is in the final ten that we find a characteristic arrangement of reconstructions from the first century, works of one school attributed to one master. In fact, it is the first part which gives the most lively impression of an encounter with an animated personality whose mind is strangely vigorous and disillusioned: Our life is limited, but knowledge is without limit. To follow the limitless with that which is limited will exhaust one. To go unrelentingly after knowledge is exhausting and c.

Emotional Intelligence Essay Example for Free

Emotional Intelligence Essay Emotional Intelligence is a very powerful tool. Emotions can enhance your thoughts, transform relationships and behavior. I realize now that I by using this tool it will allow me to understand myself better. Overcome my work-related challenges, and build healthy relationships. In the context of the role that I play in the financial organization which I work for. The settings are always very professional due to the necessity of rapid change. There is a constant need to find ways of becoming self-motivating. In discovering these tools of awareness I was able to explain to my colleagues to embrace this innovation, they can capitalize upon their special talents and skills. I work in a diverse workforce so I can understand how their emotions will change. At first I could see that the Skills assessment that I handed out to them, made them feel uneasy and a bit afraid. However, I discussed my personal score and in a way they felt more at ease. By the end of the week, all of them had handed them in. We had a question and answer session to discuss our findings. We recognized that this exercise is extremely useful in reducing the interpersonal conflicts, tensions, and even crises that are internal to all human organizations and groups. We realized that we were all capable of applying these tools to improve our everyday lives. I know that we will constantly improve profitability, productivity in the workplace. A Colleague Mike has been a good colleague of mine for about a year now. He was hired as a Private Wealth Investor catering to upscale clients interested in investing there enormous amounts of wealth within our bank. This is a highly competitive business in which a relatively small number of financial institutions compete for what can best be characterized as a niche  market of affluent clients that require excellence in terms of both product and service. Consequently these few financial institutions create a valuable competition to obtain the services of the right kind of educated, skilled, and professional Banker. These salespeople enjoy a great deal of autonomy, often bring their own customer base with them to a store or gallery, and are highly regarded via a commission scale for their efforts. Consequently, a person responsible for managing a sales force consisting of this type of professional must do a good amount of mentoring, nurturing, supporting, rewarding, and otherwise r esponding to the sales force. Members of such a sales force are themselves competitive with one another and this can and does lead to frequent conflict. In my situation, two very valued and successful sales agents working for the company were actively engaged in trying to convince one of their own customers to purchase a particularly valuable and rare painting that the owner of the business had taken in on consignment. Both of the salespeople felt that they were entitled to make the deal. My job was first, to ensure that this valuable painting was sold for the best possible price. My second task was to prevent any conflict from erupting between the two salespeople. Unfortunately, at the time, I was somewhat politically unaware of their longstanding competition at this and other companies. Marilyn Gowing (89) notes that one element of emotional competence and EI is political awareness or the ability to read a groups emotional currents and power relationships. Similarly, among the social skills needed to exercise EI effectively are conflict management, leadership, the ability to build bonds, and the ability to create group synergy in p ursuing collective goals. My own abilities in these areas were somewhat limited. I was unaware of the fact that each of the two salespeople considered me to be playing favorites, or assisting one in closing a deal to the detriment of the other. As it turned out, one sales agent brought a final and quite acceptable offer to me on behalf of his customer before the second salesperson was able to obtain agreement from his customer with respect to purchasing the artwork. My immediate response was one of great pleasure: the company had successfully sold a major work of art for an excellent profit, satisfying my employers needs and the needs of our firms original client who placed the work for sale with the expectation that the work would succeed. My subordinate sales agent was equally pleased because  he would acquire a substantial commission. Finally, I too was pleased because I would receive a commission as well. What I did not take into consideration was the anger and frustration felt by the rival salesperson. After the work of art had been sold and delivered, I h eld a small impromptu social gathering for my staff. During this gathering, I was extremely complimentary about the successful salespersons bargaining skills and salesmanship. I was completely unaware that the rival sales agent was becoming more and hostile hostile to the point where he stormed out of the gathering and resigned from the company on the very next day, citing my poor responsiveness to him as a primary reason for quitting. Analysis of the Situation Looking back on this situation, I realize that my most significant failure in terms of EI was a failure in what Goleman (40) called e-leadership. Goleman (40) said that emotionally intelligent leadership is key to creating a working climate that nurtures employees and encourages them to give their best. It is the climate created by the leader that motivates employees to success and helps employees recognize that they are valued within the organization. What I failed to recognize in managing this situation was that I had two deeply committed, talented, and valued sales agents who looked to me for support as they went about attempting to sell products. Each had a right to expect that I would provide this kind of support and certainly, both had a right to expect that I would reward them and respect their feelings. In the case of the successful seller, I more than lived up to these obligations. In the case of the frustrated sales agent who did not close the deal, I became the immediate target of his frustration over a lost sale. Looking back, I realized that I did not in any way offer this employee my sympathies for a lost sale or indicate that I understood his frustration over the lost sale. Instead, I focused all of my energy on congratulating the victor in this rivalry and I ignored the needs of an equally valuable employee. I lacked the EI to recognize that the unsuccessful salesperson felt that the small social event held immediately after the sale was closed was a further slap in the face. I also lacked an understanding of what I should have done after the situation occurred. I did not attempt, when this salesperson rather dramatically left the social gathering, to find out what was wrong and why he was angry. I assumed that my primary responsibility was to continue hosting the party and to make my  successful sales agent aware of how pleased the company was with his success. I did not, as Cherniss (19) commented, exhibit much in the way of emotional intelligence because I was completely insensitive to the very real and powerful feelings of a staff member. Even when the disgruntled sales agent returned the following day to hand in his resignation, I did not respond appropriately. I failed to recognize the very real anger that this individual felt or that much of this anger was now directed at me. I assumed that this individual   who I knew to be extremely competitive and occasionally somewhat overly dramatic   was not truly serious about leaving what had, after all, been a very profitable relationship with the company. I am afraid that I was somewhat cavalier in my response, simply suggesting that he might want to think it over before making a final decision and rather dismissively stating something to the effect there will be other sales just as good. On my behalf, I think it is important to point out that I was relatively new in a managerial position and had never received any formal training in either EI or human relations management. As Kram and Cherniss (255257) have so significantly noted, EI is something that may be inherent in most people, but it can also be expanded by means of appropriate education, development and training programs. The successful leader who uses EI effectively is not necessarily born; he is she is far more likely to be made via training and the opportunity to out new concepts and skills into practice. In my own mismanagement of the disgruntled employee, I failed to recognize that my job was to use sufficient EI to convey my own empathy for the sales agents loss and frustration, my belief in his competency to make equally important sales in the future, and my own acceptance of his sense of injured pride an achievement. I did not seek to discover what was really frustrating this individual or to learn from him what I could, as a manager, have done differently to provide him with the support and assistance he felt he lacked. While it is possible that there was nothing I could have done to change the outcome of this competition   and no evidence that had it gone differently, I would not have had an equally frustrated person to deal with   the fact of the matter is that in my enthusiasm for one staff members victory, I failed to appreciate that another staff member felt defeated. Knowing more about EI would have led me, for example, to recognize before the event occurred that a potentially dangerous rivalry had been created or  allowed to emerge within my staff that did not bode well for the company or for these individuals. Kram and Cherniss (258-259) noted that ensuring that work groups exist in relative harmony is one of the key responsibilities of the emotionally intelligent manager   somet hing that my management or mismanagement of this situation suggests I was not at the time. EI competencies are therefore important attributes of the individual who must lead a group or manage the activities of individuals who may perceive themselves to be in some type of competition with one another. In a sales organization such as that I have briefly described herein, a few very aggressive individuals may see themselves as competing for customers and commissions; they often enjoy a friendly rivalry, but in this instance my lack of EI made it impossible for me to recognize that the rivalry between the two salespeople had been building for some time to a climax. My apparent preference for one over the other was the final Straw that led the one to quit   and my inability to properly respond to that decision was further proof that I lacked EI. Had the situation taken place more recently as I was participating n this course, I would have recognized the tensions that were emerging as the two salespeople competed to be the one who would fund a buyer for a valuable work of art. I would have worked with them both to make it clear that there would be no winner or loser and I would have not rushed to publicly reward one at what could be interpreted as the expense of the other. I would have exhibited what Goleman (8) calls greater empathy for the frustration of the one and the pride and satisfaction of the other. As significantly, I believe that a manager with greater EI than I clearly possessed would have done more to eliminate the competition that had already   polarized the sales people. While there was little that could be done to change the fact that these workers were paid largely on commission and their ability to sell luxury items at high ticket prices to an admittedly small market segment   I could have created opportunities for developing team synergy that might have diminished these rivalries if not eliminating them entirely. Cherniss (111) does not that many executives and managers who are lacking in EI tend to think mainly in terms of short-term results rather than long-term outcomes and advances. In the situation described above, my focus was not on what my staff needed or their frustrations, but on selling an important item to increase th e profitability of the business. By failing  to understand that one staff member was reaching the boiling point and that I needed to demonstrate my concern an empathy, I lost a valuable employee. Summary and Conclusions This essay has examined the concept of EI and applied elements of the concept to a real-work professional situation n which this writer was an actor. The point of the discussion is to illustrate how ordinary situations in the professional environment can and should be approached with respect to their emotional undertones and content. A leader or a manager with high EI is less likely to allow such conflicts as I have described to escalate to the point of losing a valuable employee. In addition, the leader or manager who is high in EI displays empathy and inculcates in staff members a sense that they are valued for all of their contributions to the organization. Had I been able to reach out to the disgruntled salesperson and make him aware of the fact that this was merely a temporary setback and had I demonstrated successfully that he was valuable to the organization, it is quite likely that the outcome would have been substantially different. While not all conflicts involving employees can be resolved this easily, EI does much to prevent such problems. References Goleman, D. 1995. Emotional intelligence_._ New York: Bantam books. Goleman, D. 1998. Working with emotional intelligence_._ New York: Bantam Books.

Rate of convergence and bisection

Rate of convergence and bisection Rate of convergence estimate of the speed with which a given sequence or iteration approaches its limit, often measured by the number of terms or evaluations involved in obtaining a given accuracy. Although strictly speaking, a limit does not give information about any finite first part of the sequence, this concept is of practical importance if we deal with a sequence of successive approximations for an iterative method, as then typically fewer iterations are needed to yield a useful approximation if the rate of convergence is higher. This may even make the difference between needing ten or a million iterations. Rate of convergence is measured in terms of rate at which the relative error decreases between successive approximations. There are mainly two type of convergence: linear and quadratic. Convergence of a sequence subject to the condition, for p > 1, that as n increases is called pth-order convergence; for example, quadratic convergence when p = 2. One similarly speaks of logarithmic convergence or exponential convergence. The Bisection Method In mathematics, the bisection method is a root-finding algorithm which repeatedly bisects an interval then selects a subinterval in which a root must lie for further processing. It is a very simple and robust method, but it is also relatively slow. The bisection method is simple, robust, and straight-forward: take an interval [a, b] such that f(a) and f(b) have opposite signs, find the midpoint of [a, b], and then decide whether the root lies on [a, (a + b)/2] or [(a + b)/2, b]. Repeat until the interval is sufficiently small. The bisection method, suitable for implementation on a computer allows to find the roots of the equation f (x) = 0, based on the following theorem: Theorem: If f is continuous for x between a and b and if f (a) and f(b) have opposite signs, then there exists at least one real root of f (x) = 0 between a and b. Procedure: Suppose that a continuous function f is negative at x = a and positive at x = b, so that there is at least one real root between a and b. (As a rule, a and b may be found from a graph of f.) If we calculate f ((a +b)/2), which is the function value at the point of bisection of the interval a f ((a + b)/2) = 0, in which case (a + b)/2 is the root; f ((a + b)/2) f ((a + b)/2) > 0, in which case the root lies between a and (a + b)/2. Advantages and drawbacks of the bisection method Advantages of Bisection Method The bisection method is always convergent. Since the method brackets the root, the method is guaranteed to converge. As iterations are conducted, the interval gets halved. So one can guarantee the decrease in the error in the solution of the equation. Drawbacks of Bisection Method The convergence of bisection method is slow as it is simply based on halving the interval. If one of the initial guesses is closer to the root, it will take larger number of iterations to reach the root. If a function is such that it just touches the x-axis (Figure 3.8) such as it will be unable to find the lower guess, , and upper guess, , such that For functions where there is a singularity and it reverses sign at the singularity, bisection method may converge on the singularity (Figure 3.9). An example include and, are valid initial guesses which satisfy . However, the function is not continuous and the theorem that a root exists is also not applicable. Figure.3.8. Function has a single root at that cannot be bracketed. Figure.3.9. Function has no root but changes sign. False position method The false-position method is a modification on the bisection method. The false position method or regula falsi method is a root-finding algorithm that combines features from the bisection method and the secant method. If it is known that the root lies on [a,  b], then it is reasonable that we can approximate the function on the interval by interpolating the points (a, f(a)) and (b, f(b)).  The method of false position dates back to the ancient Egyptians. It remains an effective alternative to the bisection method for solving the equation f(x) = 0 for a real root between a and b, given that f (x) is continuous and f (a) and f(b) have opposite signs. The algorithm is suitable for automatic computation Procedure: The curve  y = f(x)  is not generally a straight line. However, one may join the points (a,f(a)) and (b,f(b)) by the straight line Thus straight line cuts the  x-axis at (X, 0) where so that Suppose that  f(a)  is negative and  f(b)  is positive. As in the bisection method, there are the three possibilities : f(X) = 0, when case  X  is the  root  ; f(X) f(X)>0, when the root lies between  X  and  a. Again, in Case  1, the process is terminated, in either Case  2  or Case  3, the process can be repeated until the root is obtained to the desired accuracy. Convergence of False Position Method and Bisection Method Source code for False Position Method: Example code of False-position method C code was written for clarity instead of efficiency. It was designed to solve the same problem as solved by the Newtons method and secant method code: to find the positive number x where cos(x) = x3. This problem is transformed into a root-finding problem of the form f(x) = cos(x) x3 = 0. #include #include double f(double x) { return cos(x) x*x*x; } double FalsiMethod(double s, double t, double e, int m) { int n,side=0; double r,fr,fs = f(s),ft = f(t); for (n = 1; n { r = (fs*t ft*s) / (fs ft); if (fabs(t-s) fr = f(r); if (fr * ft > 0) { t = r; ft = fr; if (side==-1) fs /= 2; side = -1; } else if (fs * fr > 0) { s = r; fs = fr; if (side==+1) ft /= 2; side = +1; } else break; } return r; } int main(void) { printf(%0.15fn, FalsiMethod(0, 1, 5E-15, 100)); return 0; } After running this code, the final answer is approximately 0.865474033101614 Example 1 Consider finding the root of f(x) = x2 3. Let ÃŽÂ µstep = 0.01, ÃŽÂ µabs = 0.01 and start with the interval [1, 2]. Table 1. False-position method applied to f(x)  =  x2 3. a b f(a) f(b) c f(c) Update Step Size 1.0 2.0 -2.00 1.00 1.6667 -0.2221 a = c 0.6667 1.6667 2.0 -0.2221 1.0 1.7273 -0.0164 a = c 0.0606 1.7273 2.0 -0.0164 1.0 1.7317 0.0012 a = c 0.0044 Thus, with the third iteration, we note that the last step 1.7273 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ 1.7317 is less than 0.01 and |f(1.7317)| Note that after three iterations of the false-position method, we have an acceptable answer (1.7317 where f(1.7317) = -0.0044) whereas with the bisection method, it took seven iterations to find a (notable less accurate) acceptable answer (1.71344 where f(1.73144) = 0.0082) Example 2 Consider finding the root of f(x) = e-x(3.2 sin(x) 0.5 cos(x)) on the interval [3, 4], this time with ÃŽÂ µstep = 0.001, ÃŽÂ µabs = 0.001. Table 2. False-position method applied to f(x)  = e-x(3.2 sin(x) 0.5 cos(x)). a b f(a) f(b) c f(c) Update Step Size 3.0 4.0 0.047127 -0.038372 3.5513 -0.023411 b = c 0.4487 3.0 3.5513 0.047127 -0.023411 3.3683 -0.0079940 b = c 0.1830 3.0 3.3683 0.047127 -0.0079940 3.3149 -0.0021548 b = c 0.0534 3.0 3.3149 0.047127 -0.0021548 3.3010 -0.00052616 b = c 0.0139 3.0 3.3010 0.047127 -0.00052616 3.2978 -0.00014453 b = c 0.0032 3.0 3.2978 0.047127 -0.00014453 3.2969 -0.000036998 b = c 0.0009 Thus, after the sixth iteration, we note that the final step, 3.2978 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ 3.2969 has a size less than 0.001 and |f(3.2969)| In this case, the solution we found was not as good as the solution we found using the bisection method (f(3.2963) = 0.000034799) however, we only used six instead of eleven iterations. Source code for Bisection method #include #include #define epsilon 1e-6 main() { double g1,g2,g,v,v1,v2,dx; int found,converged,i; found=0; printf( enter the first guessn); scanf(%lf,g1); v1=g1*g1*g1-15; printf(value 1 is %lfn,v1); while (found==0) { printf(enter the second guessn); scanf(%lf,g2); v2=g2*g2*g2-15; printf( value 2 is %lfn,v2); if (v1*v2>0) {found=0;} else found=1; } printf(right guessn); i=1; while (converged==0) { printf(n iteration=%dn,i); g=(g1+g2)/2; printf(new guess is %lfn,g); v=g*g*g-15; printf(new value is%lfn,v); if (v*v1>0) { g1=g; printf(the next guess is %lfn,g); dx=(g1-g2)/g1; } else { g2=g; printf(the next guess is %lfn,g); dx=(g1-g2)/g1; } if (fabs(dx)less than epsilon {converged=1;} i=i+1; } printf(nth calculated value is %lfn,v); } Example 1 Consider finding the root of f(x) = x2 3. Let ÃŽÂ µstep = 0.01, ÃŽÂ µabs = 0.01 and start with the interval [1, 2]. Table 1. Bisection method applied to f(x)  =  x2 3. a b f(a) f(b) c  =  (a  +  b)/2 f(c) Update new b à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ a 1.0 2.0 -2.0 1.0 1.5 -0.75 a = c 0.5 1.5 2.0 -0.75 1.0 1.75 0.062 b = c 0.25 1.5 1.75 -0.75 0.0625 1.625 -0.359 a = c 0.125 1.625 1.75 -0.3594 0.0625 1.6875 -0.1523 a = c 0.0625 1.6875 1.75 -0.1523 0.0625 1.7188 -0.0457 a = c 0.0313 1.7188 1.75 -0.0457 0.0625 1.7344 0.0081 b = c 0.0156 1.71988 1.7344 -0.0457 0.0081 1.7266 -0.0189 a = c 0.0078 Thus, with the seventh iteration, we note that the final interval, [1.7266, 1.7344], has a width less than 0.01 and |f(1.7344)| Example 2 Consider finding the root of f(x) = e-x(3.2 sin(x) 0.5 cos(x)) on the interval [3, 4], this time with ÃŽÂ µstep = 0.001, ÃŽÂ µabs = 0.001. Table 1. Bisection method applied to f(x)  = e-x(3.2 sin(x) 0.5 cos(x)). a b f(a) f(b) c  =  (a  +  b)/2 f(c) Update new b à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ a 3.0 4.0 0.047127 -0.038372 3.5 -0.019757 b = c 0.5 3.0 3.5 0.047127 -0.019757 3.25 0.0058479 a = c 0.25 3.25 3.5 0.0058479 -0.019757 3.375 -0.0086808 b = c 0.125 3.25 3.375 0.0058479 -0.0086808 3.3125 -0.0018773 b = c 0.0625 3.25 3.3125 0.0058479 -0.0018773 3.2812 0.0018739 a = c 0.0313 3.2812 3.3125 0.0018739 -0.0018773 3.2968 -0.000024791 b = c 0.0156 3.2812 3.2968 0.0018739 -0.000024791 3.289 0.00091736 a = c 0.0078 3.289 3.2968 0.00091736 -0.000024791 3.2929 0.00044352 a = c 0.0039 3.2929 3.2968 0.00044352 -0.000024791 3.2948 0.00021466 a = c 0.002 3.2948 3.2968 0.00021466 -0.000024791 3.2958 0.000094077 a = c 0.001 3.2958 3.2968 0.000094077 -0.000024791 3.2963 0.000034799 a = c 0.0005 Thus, after the 11th iteration, we note that the final interval, [3.2958, 3.2968] has a width less than 0.001 and |f(3.2968)| Comparison of rate of convergence for bisection and false-position method Like the bisection method, the method of false position has almost assured convergence, and it may converge to a root faster. Finally, note that bisection is rather slow; after  n  iterations the interval containing the root is of length  (b a)/2n. However, provided values of  f  can be generated readily, as when a computer is used, the rather large number of iterations which can be involved in the application of bisection is of relatively little consequence. The false position method would be better i.e. converges to the root more rapidly as it takes into account the relative magnitudes of f(b) and f(a) unlike bisection which just uses the midpoint of a and b, where [a,b] is the interval over which the root occurs. Following is the example of the convergence rate of bisection method and false position method for the similar equation which shows that rate of convergence of false position method is faster than that of the bisection method.