Observational essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Observational - Essay Example nt will take forever but when these new students see a familiar starbucks coffee shop in the campus it makes them realize that the environment is not that different. I sat at the Starbucks on campus for three days and observed people in the evening. Starbucks is a very clean and nice place in the university to spend some time. I observed that sometimes its environment get very crowded and they use dividers in order to make a zigzag pattern of lines for managing the crowd. At times Starbucks on campus service can be very fast especially at a time where there is no line at all and other times the crowd as to wait for several minutes to get their order. The sitting arrangement and the environment within this coffee shop is highly comfortable which attracts people to go there and interact with many different people. I have observed that Starbucks on campus was a place of relaxation for students. They use to come there tired, sit, spent some time for relaxing and then get back to the tough routine of the university. One of the major events that I have observed during my three day observation is that there was a student who uses to come to Starbucks on campus as a regular student. His class was very near from the shop so he had a great chance of having coffee daily in the morning at one of the most well known coffee shops at his school. Initially everything was going fine but on the last day of the observation I realized that the student was in a hurry and wanted a coffee. He had some important work to do but the line was moving very slowly. He waited for the turn for around half an hour and soon after some time I heard him screaming that Starbucks on campus is a waste of time. He was screaming and saying that it is better to order a pizza somewhere instead of waiting here for so long and that all for a cup of coffee. Other than this one event my observation for Starbucks on campus went very smoothly and problem free. Starbucks on campus is a place where students can

Education and Teachers Essay Example for Free

Education and Teachers Essay Teachers in Taiwan enjoy higher occupational prestige and great job satisfaction.In Germany teachers enjoy teaching. Teachers in China are highly respected. Those within the Indian culture feel that teachers are next to God. American teachers believe that teaching helps societys well-being. Teachers in England are poorly regarded. Teachers are constant companions and they mold student’s personality. They are role models and they motivate the students. However,according to individual experience there are different kinds of teachers some are friendly ,some are strict and others are ideal teachers. The first kind of teachers are friendly teachers. They combine both the guidance of a teacher and the understanding of a friend. Friendly teachers act like philosophers and guides. A friendly teacher helps the students to choose the right path . These teachers are closer to the students and better educators because they understand students needs and help them accordingly. Personality development and positive attitude of the each student is their first priority. Friendly teachers never criticize their students in the class ,and they are always gentle with them. My 8th grade math teacher is the perfect example for this. He was very friendly with us. He used to stay after school to help with our math problems. He used to meet our parents on regular basis. I really enjoyed his teaching methods. He is one of my favorite teachers. So friendly teachers are very important for the students future. The other kinds of teachers are strict teachers. Strict teachers are very tough on students. They dislike any mistakes or carelessness. These kind of teachers have high expectations for their students. Disciplining their students is important for the strict teachers. Students have to be extra cautious about these kinds of teachers. For example, my 6th grade music teacher was very strict. He wanted us to memorize each note. I was nervous when I started that class. I wanted to quit the class because of his strictness. After I realized that he was just helping me through tough times, I admired him. Because of his discipline, I continued the music class. Even though strict teachers are rough sometimes,some students need these kind of teachers. The third kinds of teachers are ideal teachers. Some teachers sacrifice their lives to help the students. They are humble, self -disciplined, helpful, honest ,creative and available to all the students. By respecting the students and giving self confidence to their students, these teachers help the students to become good citizens. They are perfect role models and they also have great hearts. Anne Marie Murphy, 52 is the perfect example for these kinds of teachers. She was a Sandy Hook Elementary teacher who died to protect her students during the shooting. She sacrificed her life for her students. She was the perfect role model. Students who have these kind of ideal teachers are very lucky. Teachers do not all teach same way. Students like their teacher according to their own individual preference. The relationship between teachers and their students is the key element in creating an educational atmosphere that is both pleasant and effective. Teachers are different, however, they all have something in common, and that is the desire to help their students.

Transformation in Louise Erdrichs The Red Convertible Essay -- Red C

Transformation in Louise Erdrich's The Red Convertible      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In Louise Erdrich's "The Red Convertible," the two main characters start off doing seemingly well. However, there are many changes that these two young men go through during the story. Henry experiences the largest transformation due to his involvement in the Vietnam War. This transformation also alters Henry's brother, Lyman, although not for the same reasons. As the story progresses, and these certain events take place, the brothers' innocence is soon lost.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Before the war, the Lamartine brothers, Henry and Lyman, are naive and carefree. They spend all of their time together. They even buy a car together. This red convertible is the most notable way that Erdrich represents the boys' innocence in the story. To get this car, they spend all of the money they have, without even thinking about it. "[B]efore we had thought it over at all, the car belonged to us and our pockets were empty" (461). Soon after purchasing the red convertible, Henry and Lyman set off driving with no real destination. They simply explore the country, going where the road takes them. They have no responsibility, no worries, nowhere to be, and nothing that has to be done. The boys "just lived [their] everyday lives here to there" (461). Lyman and Henry fall asleep under willow trees, wake up, and begin driving again. During their expedition, they meet a girl named Susy. Susy lives in Chicken, Alaska, where they agree to take her. Upon reaching Alaska, the boys do not want to return home. There, where the sun never really sets in the summer, they hardly sleep at all. They live like animals. Before they leave, before winter, an interesting thing happens that truly exp... ...who endures pain. His brother, Lyman, suffers from many of the same things as Henry. Lyman also experiences post-traumatic stress. Although Lyman seems to acknowledge this stress in a rather different way than Henry, it is there all the same. Just as Henry tries to give the red convertible up to his brother, Lyman does the same in the end, and pushes it right back to him. The red car represents a bond between the two brothers, and with Henry gone, Lyman can not bear to have it around anymore. Unfortunately, getting rid of the car does not take care of Lyman's pain. Even a long time after Henry's death, Lyman still experiences post-traumatic stress.   Only now he has a tragedy of his own to endure.    Work Cited Erdrich, Louise. "The Red Convertible." The Story and Its Writer. 5th ed. Ed. Ann Charters.   Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. 460-67. Transformation in Louise Erdrich's The Red Convertible Essay -- Red C Transformation in Louise Erdrich's The Red Convertible      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In Louise Erdrich's "The Red Convertible," the two main characters start off doing seemingly well. However, there are many changes that these two young men go through during the story. Henry experiences the largest transformation due to his involvement in the Vietnam War. This transformation also alters Henry's brother, Lyman, although not for the same reasons. As the story progresses, and these certain events take place, the brothers' innocence is soon lost.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Before the war, the Lamartine brothers, Henry and Lyman, are naive and carefree. They spend all of their time together. They even buy a car together. This red convertible is the most notable way that Erdrich represents the boys' innocence in the story. To get this car, they spend all of the money they have, without even thinking about it. "[B]efore we had thought it over at all, the car belonged to us and our pockets were empty" (461). Soon after purchasing the red convertible, Henry and Lyman set off driving with no real destination. They simply explore the country, going where the road takes them. They have no responsibility, no worries, nowhere to be, and nothing that has to be done. The boys "just lived [their] everyday lives here to there" (461). Lyman and Henry fall asleep under willow trees, wake up, and begin driving again. During their expedition, they meet a girl named Susy. Susy lives in Chicken, Alaska, where they agree to take her. Upon reaching Alaska, the boys do not want to return home. There, where the sun never really sets in the summer, they hardly sleep at all. They live like animals. Before they leave, before winter, an interesting thing happens that truly exp... ...who endures pain. His brother, Lyman, suffers from many of the same things as Henry. Lyman also experiences post-traumatic stress. Although Lyman seems to acknowledge this stress in a rather different way than Henry, it is there all the same. Just as Henry tries to give the red convertible up to his brother, Lyman does the same in the end, and pushes it right back to him. The red car represents a bond between the two brothers, and with Henry gone, Lyman can not bear to have it around anymore. Unfortunately, getting rid of the car does not take care of Lyman's pain. Even a long time after Henry's death, Lyman still experiences post-traumatic stress.   Only now he has a tragedy of his own to endure.    Work Cited Erdrich, Louise. "The Red Convertible." The Story and Its Writer. 5th ed. Ed. Ann Charters.   Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. 460-67.

My First Court Case Viewing-Civil: Small Claims Essay

On the 24th of August 2007, I, with the permission of the prosecution, defence and of course the judge was given the opportunity to quietly observe a civil small claims court case (court 5) at Bromley County Court. This trial had been an ongoing stalemate for a few months; however I luckily was present on the judgement day. Upon arrival the waiting room was busy since there were other more serious court cases going on. The Prosecution, Mr. Austridge, representing himself (accompanied by his wife) was hired by the defence, Ms. Dudley (accompanied by her dad) and a lawyer, Mr. Jones to extend her house however due to a series of poor decisions and errors in workmanship, Dudley terminated the building contract, with her house left incomplete in a state troublesome to herself and her neighbour. Mr. Austridge was prosecuting her on account of his realisation he had been underpaid approximately  £2000. The sequence of events: -Ms. Dudley hired Mr. Austridge to extend her house, consisting of an extension of the kitchen, extension of the porch and a new ensuite bathroom for her bedroom. -Initially Mr Austridge received very inaccurate drawings from Ms Dudley however, he chose to use them anyway and build to her very erroneous specifications. -Mr. Austridge gave Ms Dudley an initial rough estimate of the project which she eventually agreed to after a gradually haggling to a lower value. Furthermore Mr. Austridge didn’t include the duration of the extension due to the fact that the time for this type of extension varies greatly due to the typical British weather and also the number of people there, nevertheless Ms. Dudley hired them and they started on the construction. -After 8 weeks the construction was moving smoothly, with most of the groundwork complete. Dudley showed her satisfaction of the job by occasionally congratulating the builders. A week prior to this Dudley moved to her parent’s house without stating a reason. In fact reason for her leave was that she was allergic to dust but the judge was keen to see whether she brought it to Mr. Austridge’s attention it was unclear for my stay. -2 weeks later Mr. Austridge went on holiday with his family to Cornwall for a 1 week stay; however it was extended by a week due to the fact there was a â€Å"hurricane† making it unsafe to return, Ms. Dudley grudgingly sympathised and didn’t make an issue of it. – Mr. Austridge returns and immediately commits himself to the construction. 2 weeks later Ms. Dudley returned and started complaining that the porch was done wrong, and one of the windows was made of the wrong material. The kitchen was an issue because he made the kitchen in 2 parts one being in the extension and she was upset because in order to make it even he raised the ground. She then again asked for a reduction in price for the errors plus for general saving of money and Austridge agreed and put less plug sockets, bulb sockets for the room. – Due to heavy rain and the incomplete roof gutter (due to the extension) it overflowed into her neighbour’s garden leaving it a mess. – Ms. Dudley terminates the contract, and Austridge requests a meeting with her, she claims that the work took to long and the workmanship was horrendous for the price. – Mr. Austridge takes Dudley to court for inadequate payment in order to pay his team. In my viewing Austridge stated that he reduced the payment in a very lenient way and that he was shocked that Dudley was so abrupt in terminating the contract, despite him stating the construction would have only lasted another week and then later contradicting himself saying it would only take a day. Ms. Dudley strangely left her family in hardship by terminating the contract, she apparently told Austridge about the dust allergy but he denied it immediately. Her dad apparently checked the house everyday and said that he was confident that there was nobody occupying it for large periods of time while she was at her parents. Though not mentioning it to Austridge she said moving was extremely inconvenient and her disabled mother made it a greater ordeal for her. Dudley believes she was the one who should have been compensated and helping her neighbour who had also been adversely affected. Mr. Jones gave me the impression that he was there to stall time as most of his points/contradictions were facts and figures which just hindered the case and Austridge did an excellent job of contradiction Mr. Jones’ which were backed by insufficient evidence meanwhile Mr. Austridge with stacks of paper work to back his points. The judge was forced to recap the events when we went there which she found was futile so she therefore put her foot down and decided to make her decision on the same day. I left before the final decision but I was given the impression it was a very cache 22 situation. Ms. Dudley believing if anything she overpaid and Mr. Austridge thinking he was underpaid. If I was given the opportunity to reach a verdict, from what I deduced, I think that Austridge had a much more powerful, believable case it was clear he was being too much of a nice guy when he reduced the price so willingly and considering Ms. Dudley made the regrettable decision of cancelling the contract, it is still affecting other members of her family and her neighbour, she got the bad end of the stick because of an atrocious decision. Mr. Austridge couldn’t avoid the out of the blue decision and therefore should have been paid for his work.

A Current Issue of Global Concern

A Current Issue of Global Concern: The Significance of Education for Peace and Stability in Afghanistan  © Over 30 years of war and instability have ruined the infrastructure of all spheres of Afghan life. Education has probably been the sector that has sustained the most devastation in Afghanistan. Educating the Afghan populace – especially the young generation – is a critical facet toward engendering enduring peace and stability, alleviating endemic poverty, and resuscitating economic growth in the country.From this writer’s personal awareness, in Afghanistan today most schools lack proper teaching facilities and materials (apart from the usual facilities this would include current library holdings, computerized language labs, computer labs etc) . But perhaps most important of all †¦in Afghanistan †¦there is a critical shortage of qualified teachers. Teachers with current qualifications reflective of those which would be demanded, at a minimum, in n eighboring states †¦let alone the rest of the world.Beyond the issue of availability of adequate educational opportunity however, the educational crisis in Afghanistan is further acerbated by societal circumstances. This writer is certain most readers will be aware of the circumstances which prevail in Afghanistan but, according to a report by Surgar (2011), Afghan parents are reluctant to send their children to school buildings which – because the populace is aware of the grim inadequacy of the schooling facilities – are strikingly empty of activity and children.The Surgar report underpins this writer’s own research on the ground in that it reveals that the quality of Afghan education is â€Å" low† and in most cases a striking non-existence of textbooks and of proper curricula and syllabi is evident. Another issue that has a bearing – but which has not figured prominently in discussions about the re-engineering of the Afghan educational syst em – relates to the socio-cultural bias that many Afghans have toward the education of females, especially in the conservative and remote areas of the country.This is another challenge that the Afghan government needs to wrestle with. According to a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund the disparity between the enrollment (at schools offering even the most basic educational facilities) of girls’ and boys’ is enormous. In 2009 the enrolment of young Afghan girls constituted only 35% of the total primary school enrollments (UNICEF, 2009). This percentage swells in some rural provinces in the south of the country such as in Zabul Province. Due to growing instability 90 out of 100 girls are not in schools in that province.As an average only 50% of all children receive schooling in Afghanistan (IRIN, 2011). Beyond early School education †¦in Afghanistan today there are other significant education related challenges that need to be addressed. Among them is the desperate circumstance surrounding availability of higher education opportunities   (certificate, diploma   and degree programmes)   for those Afghans who have actually made the difficult, and sometimes perilous, journey through early school †¦to qualify with a High School qualification.Part of the issue is an epidemic of despair that, for those who complete early schooling †¦high school †¦ and do not have the resources to proceed further with their education, there are virtually no employment opportunities upon graduation. This situation, obviously, only lends to the damaging environment of thought that education does not do anything to better ones lot in life. Further looming education related problems continue to surface in Afghanistan. According to the Ministry of Higher Education of Afghanistan (2010), the number of high school graduates will reach 600,000 students by 2014.These are young eager Afghans on the brink of adulthood who should be ab le to look to their own country for the provision of further, higher education opportunities with which to prepare themselves to compete in a world filled with others of their own age who are forging ahead armed with modern further education qualifications. Under normal circumstances the half a million or more Afghans who will seek admission to college or university should not – if proper strategic planning had been evident †¦if the governmental will had been evident – have been a problem. Unfortunately such is not the case in Afghanistan.As of this time of writing – in January 2011 – the currently existing public and private universities do not have the capacity to cope with such a huge number of potential new applicants (MoHE, 2010). Although, the Afghan government sponsors higher education of some Afghan students by sending them to countries such as the United State and India,   in a nut-shell this alternative is disastrously expensive for Afgha nistan, and, in most cases, futile. Most Afghan students studying abroad – upon earning whatever qualification they had sought – often do not return to Afghanistan after completion of their education.This writer is personally aware that many seek asylum in the host countries (personal research, 2010). Despite the fact that – since the fall of Taliban in 2001   – the Afghan education sector has – according to the nation’s Ministry of Education – witnessed substantial progress in, for instance,   the amount of overall enrolment in some form of educational pursuit (7 million),   the training of teachers, and the construction of over 4,500 schools (Afghanistan Ministry of Education, 2010); Afghanistan sustains the highest illiteracy rates in the world for both men and women.More than 11 million Afghans over the age of 15 still cannot read or write. In rural areas, where the majority of Afghans live, 90 percent of the women and more than 60 percent of the men are illiterate (REAC, 2010). This situation has created a perfect opportunity for the opposition of the Afghan government to exploit the unawareness of the locals and use them for political and personal agendas (Time, 2010). It is this writer’s strongly-held personal belief that Education has a pivotal impact on peace and stability.If the Afghan government – and the international community which spends billions in Afghanistan facing the enemy militarily – want to bring peace and security to Afghanistan, they must play a strong, supportive role in pressing the Afghan authorities to focus upon educating Afghans. In essence there needs to be a sea-change in the much promulgated strategies we fall victim to so often from supposed experts. The essential need is that there MUST be greater and better educational opportunities inside the country.It is patently obvious that in this vital period of national re-building the authorities have many other vital imperatives to address. Hospitals, transportation infrastructure, etc. But in ignoring the country’s precious resource – its young.. its youth †¦and their education †¦Afghanistan is breeding further problems. The high rate of unemployment and crisis-level –lack of availability of opportunities to higher educational institutions simply means more foot soldiers for the enemy (Associated Content, 2007).The opposition †¦ fighting in Afghanistan†¦ easily recruits disaffected, disgruntled, under-educated, and under-utilized young Afghans and uses them against the Afghan government and coalition forces. Even the encouraging strides to provide more schools, colleges and universities, made by the Afghan education authorities are, to this writer, insufficient. Far too often (public, state-funded) Universities from the Coalition countries float into Afghanistan and enter into arrangements with local government universities.This is not necess arily what is needed. The Afghan Education authorities should not – in this era of resuscitation – try to go it alone. They should encourage private higher educational organizations – who may be more apt to develop genuine long-term relations – given their personal investment not garnered from government coffers – to invest in the country †¦to open degree programmes in discipline areas which will train Afghans to take their place in the global arenas of business, commerce, international trade, international relations, and leadership.The Afghan Education authorities should encourage international private education entities to invest in the nation and its people by making the currently extraordinarily- difficult approval process much leaner and rational. As the new school year begins in Afghanistan, The Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium (HRRAC) released Report Card: Progress on Compulsory Education. The new report urges policymakers to work harder to address urgent and long term education needs in the country. Oxfam International is one of the Consortium members.The report card (for grades 1-9) recognizes that Afghanistan has made progress in enrollment, but finds key gaps in school completion rates, policy management, quality of education and available resources. * Despite the increase in school enrollment, more than half of Afghanistan's children don't attend primary school. Less than 34% of those enrolled are girls. * Drop-out rates are high, particularly among girls. Of those attending primary school, only 9% go on to secondary school. * Female teachers are scarce. In one province there is one female teacher for every 152 male teachers.Increasing the number of female teachers is essential to increase the enrollment of girls. HRRAC recommends that international donors honor their commitments to provide sufficient and long-term funding for Afghanistan and ensure adequate steps are taken to increase the enroll ment of girls and improve the quality of education. The Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium is a group of Afghan and international organizations working in the fields of humanitarian relief, reconstruction, human and women's rights, peace promotion, research, and advocacy.It was established in early 2003 to engage in proactive research and advocacy on human rights issues over a sustained period. Opposition within Afghanistan to girls’ participation in education predates the Taliban. Historically, education for girls was rare in rural Afghanistan and almost exclusively confined to the capital. In 1919 King Amanullah seized the Afghan throne and began a rapid development of the country’s secular education system, with a particular focus on expanding education for women.During this period shortly following independence from Britain, women and girls were encouraged in their scholarly pursuits. This shift, however, directly threatened the centuries-old practice of traditional male-oriented madrassa (religious) education among many of the ethnic tribes in Afghanistan. Amanullah’s experiment with a secular approach to education, along with other reforms prohibiting polygamy and bride price — the provision of money to the wife’s family upon marriage — aroused protest from the country’s religious establishment, who eventually supported the overthrow of the king.Nadir Shah, who took power following Amanullah, was more cautious in his attempt to introduce educational opportunities for women. Nevertheless, over the course of the twentieth century, and in particular during King Mohammed Zahir’s long reign between 1933 and 1973, Afghanistan’s education system steadily expanded even as it continued to be influenced by demands from the country’s conservative cultural and religious authorities. By the 1970s, women made up over 60 percent of the 10,000 students who studied at Kabul University.The ri se of the Soviet-backed People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan in 1978 brought large-scale literacy programs for men and women, again alongside the abolition of bride price and other reforms beneficial to women. During this period leading up the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, reforms in areas such as education stirred resentment among religious and tribal leaders in the rural areas. Although full implementation of these reforms were limited by political exigencies, women were able to experience expanded access to education and also the opportunity to actively participate as university faculty staff.During the Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1989, Afghans lived through a devastating war fueled by external forces and funding from multiple countries, among them the United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and China. Islamic militants, or Mujahideen, thrived in rural areas and constructed their own revolutionary army with the goal of overturning all socialist policies suc h as those governing women’s rights in general, and access education in particular. With the fall of the Communist government in 992, the country was divided among warring factions, many of them religiously inspired Mujahideen groups ideologically opposed to modern education and to education for girls. Millions of Afghans, particularly the educated, emigrated to other countries. Many of the schools not destroyed by war were closed due to lack of security, the lack of teachers and teaching material, or simply because of dire poverty. Education under the Taliban went from bad to worse. The Taliban focused solely on religious studies for boys and denied nearly all girls the right to attend school.During the Taliban’s rule, only about 3 per cent of girls received some form of primary education. The prohibition of female education, coupled with the cultural mandate that women receive their health care from female health care providers, resulted in a vulnerable population re ceiving care from poorly-educated providers. Twenty-three years of war have destroyed the infrastructure of the education system and further increased the illiteracy rate in Afghanistan. Since 2001, the participation of children and adults in education has improved dramatically and there is great demand.Afghanistan has one of the youngest populations on the planet. Unexpectedly large numbers showed up when schools reopened in 2002, and enrollments have increased every year since, with the Ministry of Education reporting that 5. 2 million students were enrolled in grades one through twelve in 2005. This includes an estimated 1. 82-1. 95 million girls and women. An additional 55,500-57,000 people, including 4,000-5,000 girls and women, were enrolled in vocational, Islamic, and teacher education programs, and 1. 24 million people were enrolled in non-formal education programs.These numbers represent a remarkable improvement from the Taliban era. More Afghan children are in school today than at any other period in Afghanistan’s history. In 2003, in response to the lack of educational opportunities in Afghanistan for the general population and especially for females, the United States Agency for International Development funded the Afghanistan Primary Education Program (APEP). APEP offers emergency access to accelerated elementary education for out-of-school youth between 10 and 18 years of age, focusing on females.Between 2003 and 2005, APEP supported accelerated learning programs for 170,000 over-age youth in more than 3,000 villages in Afghanistan. Located at Kabul University, the Women’s Teacher Training Institute opened in September 2004. The institute is currently operating programs that aim to teach basic literacy to Afghan women in rural areas and to reduce maternal and child mortality. Despite numerous positive steps forward in education for Afghan women and girls, persistent violent attacks on schools by resurgent Taliban and other forces co ntinue to force some schools to close.In a statement released in June 2006, Ret. U. S. Gen. Barry McCaffrey stressed the comparative superiority of the Taliban’s equipment and tactics to those of the NATO-trained Afghan National Army (ANA). â€Å"They are brutalizing the population,† wrote McCaffrey of the Taliban, â€Å"and they are now conducting a summer-fall campaign to knock NATO out of the war, capture the provincial capital of Kandahar, isolate the Americans, stop the developing Afghan educational system, stop the liberation of women, and penetrate the new police force and ANA. Summary AIL works to empower Afghans by expanding their educational and health opportunitites and by fostering self-reliance and community participation. What is the issue, problem, or challenge? Afghan women and children had no access to education for a decade. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the Afghan Institute of Learning organized Educational Learning Centers (ELCs) to bring women life-saving healthcare and education. AIL helps local leaders start ELCs and decide where and what services to offer.AIL has requests for ELCs from many communities that have not historically been open to education for women. AIL now supports 44 ELCs in Afghanistan and refugee camps of Pakistan. How will this project solve this problem? AIL’s ELCs serve 350,000 women and children each year with medical and reproductive healthcare, health education, skills training, teacher training, leadership/human rights classes, pre-school through post-secondary education, and fast track classes. Potential Long Term ImpactBecause AIL is run by Afghan women and respectful of Afghan culture, conservative villages trust AIL to begin services for thousands of isolated women in dire need. Other NGOs and the Afghan government now use this model for women’s services. Project Message Our eyes are opened. Now we can read and write. Actually, now we have come to know the value of an edu cated person in a society. We thank AIL for enlightening rural areas with the lights of education. – Salma, woman in a literacy class in a rural ELC

GSW, Georgia Southwestern State University Admissions

GSW, Georgia Southwestern State University Admissions Georgia Southwestern State University Admissions Overview: Applications to GSW include standardized test scores from the SAT or ACT, high school transcripts, and an application form that can be filled out online or on paper. The school has an acceptance rate of 68%, making it largely accessible to those who applystudents admitted to GSW tend to have solid grades and test scores, although the school does take other factors into consideration.   Admissions Data (2016): Georgia Southwestern State University Acceptance Rate: 68%Test Scores 25th / 75th PercentileSAT Critical Reading: 440 / 540SAT Math: 430 / 520SAT Writing: - / -What these SAT numbers meanACT Composite: 19  / 23ACT English: 18 / 23ACT Math: 17 / 23What these ACT numbers mean Georgia Southwestern State University Description: Georgia Southwestern State University is a four-year, public university located in Americus, Georgia. Atlanta and Tallahassee are each about two-and-a-half hours away. The universitys 3,000 students are supported by a student/faculty ratio of 18 to 1. GSW offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate degrees between the School of Business Administration, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Education, School of Nursing, and School of Computing and Mathematics. Campus life is active with about 60 student clubs and organizations including the Artist Association, the Outdoor Adventure Club, and GSW Gaming. The university also has an active Greek life with four fraternities and two sororities. On the athletic front, students will find plenty of intramurals including Indoor Soccer, Flag Football, and Blitz Ball. For intercollegiate sports, GSW competes in the NCAA Division II Peach Belt Conference (PBC) with a variety of sports including men’s golf, women’s cross coun try, and men’s and women’s tennis. Enrollment (2016): Total Enrollment: 2,954  (2,558 undergraduates)Gender Breakdown: 38% Male / 62% Female69% Full-time Costs (2016 - 17): Tuition and Fees: $5,262  (in-state); $15,518 (out-of-state)Books: $1,400 (why so much?)Room and Board: $7,672Other Expenses: $6,044Total Cost: $20,378 (in-state); $30,634 (out-of-state) Georgia Southwestern State University Financial Aid (2015- 16): Percentage of New Students Receiving Aid: 95%Percentage of New Students Receiving Types of AidGrants: 86%Loans: 58%Average Amount of AidGrants: $6,539Loans: $5,505 Academic Programs: Most Popular Majors:  Accounting, Business Administration, Elementary Education, Nursing, Psychology Transfer, Graduation and Retention Rates: First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 70%Transfer Out Rate: 33%4-Year Graduation Rate: 14%6-Year Graduation Rate: 32% Intercollegiate Athletic Programs: Mens Sports:  Basketball, Soccer, Golf, Tennis, Baseball  Womens Sports:  Soccer, Softball, Basketball, Tennis, Track and Field, Cross Country Data Source: National Center for Educational Statistics If You Like Georgia Southwestern State, You May Also Like These Schools: University of Georgia:  Profile  |  GPA-SAT-ACT GraphMercer University:  Profile  |  GPA-SAT-ACT GraphColumbus State University:  Profile  Clark Atlanta University:  Profile  |  GPA-SAT-ACT GraphEmory University:  Profile  |  GPA-SAT-ACT GraphSpelman College:  Profile  |  GPA-SAT-ACT GraphGeorgia Institute of Technology:  Profile  |  GPA-SAT-ACT GraphFlorida State University:  Profile  |  GPA-SAT-ACT GraphArmstrong State University:  Profile  Valdosta State University:  Profile  Savannah State University:  Profile  Auburn University:  Profile  |  GPA-SAT-ACT Graph

Evolution of Warfare Ancient Greece, Romans and Chinese Essays

Evolution of Warfare Ancient Greece, Romans and Chinese Essays Evolution of Warfare Ancient Greece, Romans and Chinese Essay Evolution of Warfare Ancient Greece, Romans and Chinese Essay Throughout the ages, weapons, armor, and even warfare have evolved in astonishing ways to suit societys needs. Many reasons exist for the changes in all these tools. Armor evolved through the need for one to protect him/her-self and weapons evolved alongside to break through this protection. Warfare evolved with society, just as society was evolving itself through time. No other societies better than Ancient Greece, Rome and China can show us how the Age of Armor began and evolved. These societies were the dawn of the great cultures of the world. Greeces epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey best describe the kind of warfare that was used in battle, along with the weaponry and armor of the time. Ancient texts and artifacts grant us access of how Greek warfare had changed and how some aspects of war remained the same, until the Roman times. The Romans improvised and improved a lot of the tactics that were used by the Greeks and along with new inventions they brought warfare into a whole new level. And the Chinese (Qin Dynasty) were the pioneers of many intriguing weaponry and battle tactics. The Greek soldiers were called hoplites (acquired this name from the hoplon, a convex, circular shield, approximately three feet in diameter, made of composite wood and bronze.(Encyclopedia Britannica). These soldiers were characteristically equipped with about seventy pounds of armor, most of which was made of bronze.Hoplites were equipped with a hoplon (shield), a cuirass, a helmet and a greaves which all consistent of bronze and a long thrusting spear with an iron tip and butt, along with a sword. The heavy bronze shield, which was secured on the left arm and hand by a metal band on its inner rim, was the most important part of a hoplites panoply, as it was his chief defense .

Ionic Radius Definition and Trend

Ionic Radius Definition and Trend The ionic radius (plural: ionic radii) is the measure of an atoms ion in a crystal lattice. It is half the distance between two ions that are barely touching each other. Since the boundary of the electron shell of an atom is somewhat fuzzy, the ions are often treated as though they were solid spheres fixed in a lattice. The ionic radius may be larger or smaller than the atomic radius (radius of a neutral atom of an element), depending on the electric charge of the ion. Cations are typically smaller than neutral atoms because an electron is removed and the remaining electrons are more tightly drawn in toward the nucleus. An anion has an additional electron, which increases the size of the electron cloud and may make the ionic radius larger than the atomic radius. Values for ionic radius are difficult to obtain and tend to depend on the method used to measure the size of the ion. A typical value for an ionic radius would be from 30 picometers (pm, and equivalent to 0.3 Angstroms Å) to 200 pm (2 Å). Ionic radius may be measured ​using x-ray crystallography or similar techniques. Ionic Radius Trend in the Periodic Table Ionic radius and atomic radius follow the same trends in the periodic table: As you move from top to bottom down an element group (column) ionic radius increases. This is because a new electron shell is added as you move down the periodic table. This increases the overall size of the atom.As you move from left to right across an element period (row) the ionic radius decreases. Even though the size of the atomic nucleus increases with larger atomic numbers moving across a period, the ionic and atomic radius decreases. This is because the effective positive force of the nucleus also increases, drawing in the electrons more tightly. The trend is particularly obvious with the metals, which form cations. These atoms lose their outermost electron, sometimes resulting in the loss of an entire electron shell. The ionic radius of transition metals in a period does not, however, change very much from one atom to the next near the beginning of a series. Variations in Ionic Radius Neither the atomic radius nor the ionic radius of an atom is a fixed value. The configuration or stacking of atoms and ions affects the distance between their nuclei. The electron shells of atoms can overlap each other and do so by different distances, depending on the circumstances. The just barely touching atomic radius is sometimes called the van der Waals radius since the weak attraction from van der Waals forces governs the distance between the atoms. This is the type of radius commonly reported for noble gas atoms. When metals are covalently bonded to each other in a lattice, the atomic radius may be called the covalent radius or the metallic radius. The distance between nonmetallic elements may also be termed the covalent radius. When you read a chart of ionic radius or atomic radius values, youre most likely seeing a mixture of metallic radii, covalent radii, and van der Waals radii. For the most part, the tiny differences in the measured values shouldnt be a concern. Whats important is understanding the difference between atomic and ionic radius, the trends in the periodic table, and the reason for the trends.

'Memory is simply biased, inaccurate history.' Discuss Essay

'Memory is simply biased, inaccurate history.' Discuss - Essay Example Memory denotes a distinctive and new field of study and a new method of conceptualization of the history as a generic field of inquiry (Cubitt, 2007). History is fundamentally remembered by the new generation by reading the accounts of the historians. It is not uncommon to find the pieces of literature giving completely different information from each other though they are all related to the same event. The main reason why there is so much difference between the historic accounts related to the same events is that different historians have made their accounts solely depending on their own memories. This paper discusses the statement â€Å"memory is simply biased, inaccurate history† drawing upon the elements that incorporate biasness in the memory and make its status as history inaccurate. In the recent years, the notion of memory has attained the status of a leading term in the cultural history. The notion of memory is used with varying levels of sophistication and is practic ed more than theorized. It has been used to study the memory of people that experienced such great and memorable events as the Holocaust survivors (Confino, 1997, p. 1386). In addition to that, memory has denoted past’s representation and its making into a knowledge of shared culture by the successive generations in such vehicles of memory as films, books, commemorations, and different forms and mediums of literature. The pageantry surrounding the British monarchy in the manifestations of its public ceremonies are seemingly the most ancient and related to an immemorial past. It is a product of the last two centuries in its modern form. Traditions that claim to be ancient are sometimes invented or are recently made. People who know about the colleges of the ancient British universities can visualize these traditions on a local scale (Hobsbawm, 1983, p. 1). Along with the rapid advancement of the world, the study of nationalism has also undergone a massive transformation in ter ms of scale, quantity, method, and level of sophistication (Anderson, 1983, p. xii). There is a tendency in human beings known as confirmation bias that causes them to favor the information by which their beliefs are confirmed. People make use of the confirmation bias upon collecting or remembering the information in a selective manner or while interpreting the information in a biased manner. Issues that are emotionally charged have a stronger effect as well as for the beliefs that are deeply entrenched. For instance, people generally use the sources that are in favor of their existing attitudes towards and perceptions of politics. Ambiguous evidence is also interpreted as supportive of people’s existing position. Memory, biased research, and interpretation have all been summoned to explain the polarization of behavior when different parties have the same evidence and yet they disagree with one another, perseverance of belief when it persists after the evidence has turned out to be false, illusionary correlation 0when people misunderstand the link between different events and situations, and the irrational primacy effect that refers to a greater reliance on the earlier encountered information in a series. During the 1960s, a series of experiments showed how biased people are toward supporting their current beliefs. Results of these researches were re-interpreted later as a tendency to evaluate the concepts in a one-sided

Critical analysis of Easter lilies, The Oxen and The Darkling Thrush Assignment

Critical analysis of Easter lilies, The Oxen and The Darkling Thrush - Assignment Example Jane Gardam’s Short story Easter lilies is one of her best short stories in her collection, The Pangs of Love. In this short story, a strange old lady known as Mrs. White decides to have flowers sent over to their church by buying them from Malta. Mrs. White had stayed in Malta for a certain period of time. The old lady decides to abandon custom regulations and using her common sense, she has some of the flowers sent over from Malta. A rich courier drops pearls in a flower bouquet and the old lady is fortunate to pick them. She tries the pearls. Mrs. White shows the human nature by trying to save the little money belonging to the church. She orders flowers from Malta which is cheaper. When the flowers get to their church, she starts to arrange them but falls at the alter and dies. Fortunately, Mrs. White had left all her estate to the church. Her death saves the cash strapped church. Easter lilies is a story of love and sacrifice. The story makes the reader to have a sense of deep sacrifice. The story is full of religious symbols. In its effective nature of communication the message, Gardam employs the use of narrative and recurrent religious symbolism. The language used is narrative in nature making the story to be easily told. Another important style employed by the author is the use of religious symbolism. The death of Mrs. White at the alter during the Easter period is greatly symbolic to Jesus death during the Easter period.... Mrs. White sacrifices her everything for the church just the same way like Jesus Christ did for humanity. Thomas Hardy’s poem, The Oxen is set in a childhood scenario during the Christmas holidays. The notion that cows knelt during every Christmas as postulated in the myth of the birth of Christ forms the basis by which Hardy sets his poem. Reading the poem captures the hope that children have during the Christmas period. The faith of the children is clearly portrayed by the poet when he states, â€Å"occur to one of us there / To doubt they were kneeling then† (The Oxen 7-8). This means that at that early age, the children’s faith in the miraculous kneeling of the oxen was undoubted. However, perhaps, with age, the voice in the poem has lost his faith in waiting and envisioning that Oxen kneel during the Christmas period. There is a sense of loss and exclusion in the poem. Hardy employs various literary styles in the poem, â€Å"The Oxen†. The most import ant style employed by hardy in â€Å"The Oxen† is symbolic imagery and use of direct speech. Symbolic imagery is found in the poem when hardy talks about the myth of the kneeling oxen. The belief in Kneeling oxen’s during Christmas and the deep belief in the myth is symbolic to the innocence that can be found in children. Direct speech is clear in the oxen where the poet quotes directly from other characters in the poem. For example, "Now they are all on their knees," is quoted to show the speech by the elderly. This helps to break the monotony in the poem. Direct speech also shows the authority of other characters in the poem by quoting directly. The darkling thrush is another of Thomas Hardy’s masterpiece. In the Darkling Thrush, the voice in the poem captures a person who wanders

Final Organizational QI Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Final Organizational QI Plan - Essay Example The first and foremost step includes the measures which are taken in order to prevent known infections throughout the hospital. This job is carried out in a hospital by means of not only awareness programs but there is also a need for utmost cleanliness within a hospital. For this reason, hospitals should aptly adhere to the guidelines that are provided by their supervisory committees, for example, hospitals in America have to follow the guidelines of CDC in order to conduct research on different diseases and also to follow protocols in case a rare infectious disease breaks out (Health.vic.gov.au, 2013; CDC, 2013). The second thing that involves the plan is the monitoring of the infection, in case someone has it and to find proper ways to eliminate threats that promote the spread of such infections. For this reason a hospital has to be advanced and equipped with proper technology in order to prevent the infections from spreading, especially within the health care facility, in this ca se a hospital. What follows after it are different surveillance regimens where the hospital has to monitor the status of diseases in order to keep them from becoming an epidemic. Another part where hospitals need to focus upon is how they would collect different data about the disease and how to compile it in order to use it for the prevention of new cases from happening. Different tools are to be identified that the hospital needs in order to check the problems that have immediate effect and conduct studies to not only cure the diseases but also make efforts in coming up with a plan to completely eradicate them. It shouldn't always be about finding the cure because there are thousands of diseases with known cure but they still exist alive and kicking. It should be about finding the roots of the diseases; what areas it stems from and its effects, precautions and then devising a plan about nipping these diseases in the bud. This not only provides service to humanity by finding elimin ation methods for diseases but also improves the quality of service of a hospital where it strives to provide information to WHO about the methods that can prevent and eliminate infectious diseases around the globe. Introduction In order to devise a successful plan for the prevention and control of diseases within a hospital, we have to find out what is the core mission of a hospital and what it sees in itself to provide to the humanity as well as its own development. A hospital’s major mission is to provide health care to people who are sick and to also provide them with cures and treatments depending upon the disease they have while providing quality service for the patients. In order to achieve this mission, a hospital that is big in its stature and reputation, not only tries to cure people through doctors but also through research on different diseases and also providing medical training in the form of med school. A hospital also provides ER services which is one of its m ain department because you would never know what emergency might pop up. Apart from that, clinical duties are also a part of major services that hospital adheres to because it is its responsibility to treat even everyday sickness and diseases. Goals and Objectives Like any other profit seeking organization, a hospital has different goals and objectives that it

International and Comparative HRM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

International and Comparative HRM - Essay Example HRM is a discipline that deals with the recruitment, management, training and promotion functions of people in an organisation. The expansion of operations for a business into the global sphere presents a number of issues that have to be adequately addressed by a business for it to succeed. Multinational organizations continue to handle challenging situations on their human resource management approaches as it varies significantly from the domestic market (Friedman, 2007). Globalisation and Human Resource Management Today, most organizations that are operating in the international and global markets have more employees on their foreign subsidiaries than at home (Poor, 2004). This calls for a change in approach used in the management of the people for the organization to grow and develop its people. This paper gives a detailed analysis of the implications that globalization and the advancement in the international has had on human resource management. The new trends and emerging manag ement practices that have been adopted because of globalisations will also be critically analysed and their potency evaluated. A number of factors have been attributed to the growing globalisation and the need for a larger scale of operation. With raging unemployment and financial crisis, the developed world has been faced with an acute shortage of qualified personnel. This has been attributed to the large number of retirees with fewer graduates into the job market. The emerging economies also provide a better source of low cost labour. This makes it cheaper for international organisations to recruit employees from developing economies (Ibrahim, 2004). The international market is currently characterised by an expanding pool of talented individuals who are more mobile and willing to take up jobs in various parts of the globe. The diverse trainings and educational curriculums of the diverse countries make the nature of training and exposure diverse. As a result, management graduates f rom the United States and those from the United Kingdom may have different approaches to the same management problem. Such scenarios present a number of challenges to international human resource managers who operate in different parts of the globe (Poor, 2004). Organisations, which decide to adopt polycentric approach in international human resource management practise, also have a number of changes that they must make to their policies. Polycentric approach involves the use of the locals from where the subsidiary is located in the management and operation of the unit as highlighted in the works of Howard Perrlmutter, a scholar in internationalization of multinationals corporations (Schuler et al, 2002). Such individuals are thus well trained and made to understand and integrate the organisational culture of the business into their business practises. Polycentric approach in international human resource management has been applauded as the best practise as it is far much cheaper to maintain and operate as compared to the use of expatriates (Kayode, 2012). However, polycentric approach also significantly affects the practises of the human resource managers. This is because the organisation has to come up with terms of engagement and remuneration according to an organisation’

Database and Enterprise Application Security Essay - 1

Database and Enterprise Application Security - Essay Example Through the identification of problems and issues near the beginning of the projects initialization phase the operating system, environment, system architecture, and database can be designed and integrated with security included features. In addition, it also ensures that system development process followed the rules and regulations, legislation and standards application. This paper presents a detailed analysis of web-security issues which need to be considered by the developers of enterprise web-applications. This paper also outlines fundamental security features offered by database management systems and use of these features in securing the database from security breaches. Â  Websites and web applications normally interact and communicate with other back-office applications, remote services, and distributed systems those are competent to be placed with the range of local premises, locations, and facilities at some other location. In this scenario, the difficult to manage and complicated nature of web-based system presents the need for better communication among the systems and this aspect leads to a greater likelihood of experiencing security vulnerabilities or weaknesses. This condition initiates elevated chances of the security infringement.

International and Comparative HRM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

International and Comparative HRM - Essay Example HRM is a discipline that deals with the recruitment, management, training and promotion functions of people in an organisation. The expansion of operations for a business into the global sphere presents a number of issues that have to be adequately addressed by a business for it to succeed. Multinational organizations continue to handle challenging situations on their human resource management approaches as it varies significantly from the domestic market (Friedman, 2007). Globalisation and Human Resource Management Today, most organizations that are operating in the international and global markets have more employees on their foreign subsidiaries than at home (Poor, 2004). This calls for a change in approach used in the management of the people for the organization to grow and develop its people. This paper gives a detailed analysis of the implications that globalization and the advancement in the international has had on human resource management. The new trends and emerging manag ement practices that have been adopted because of globalisations will also be critically analysed and their potency evaluated. A number of factors have been attributed to the growing globalisation and the need for a larger scale of operation. With raging unemployment and financial crisis, the developed world has been faced with an acute shortage of qualified personnel. This has been attributed to the large number of retirees with fewer graduates into the job market. The emerging economies also provide a better source of low cost labour. This makes it cheaper for international organisations to recruit employees from developing economies (Ibrahim, 2004). The international market is currently characterised by an expanding pool of talented individuals who are more mobile and willing to take up jobs in various parts of the globe. The diverse trainings and educational curriculums of the diverse countries make the nature of training and exposure diverse. As a result, management graduates f rom the United States and those from the United Kingdom may have different approaches to the same management problem. Such scenarios present a number of challenges to international human resource managers who operate in different parts of the globe (Poor, 2004). Organisations, which decide to adopt polycentric approach in international human resource management practise, also have a number of changes that they must make to their policies. Polycentric approach involves the use of the locals from where the subsidiary is located in the management and operation of the unit as highlighted in the works of Howard Perrlmutter, a scholar in internationalization of multinationals corporations (Schuler et al, 2002). Such individuals are thus well trained and made to understand and integrate the organisational culture of the business into their business practises. Polycentric approach in international human resource management has been applauded as the best practise as it is far much cheaper to maintain and operate as compared to the use of expatriates (Kayode, 2012). However, polycentric approach also significantly affects the practises of the human resource managers. This is because the organisation has to come up with terms of engagement and remuneration according to an organisation’

The Importance Of Right Assessment Of Own Skills Personal Statement

The Importance Of Right Assessment Of Own Skills - Personal Statement Example I re-assessed my strengths and weaknesses and have come to realize that I am strong on the economic and mathematical abilities more than chemistry. Weighing all the pros and cons of my future plans, the feasibility of a stable job after finishing a certain course and other important factors that would establish my ability to pursue the course indeed had been a challenge. It took days of considerations and re-considerations until I have come to finalizing my decision, which I believe are now well-established with the aforementioned process I have been through. Like Thomas Edison, my rejection of my application as a major in Chemistry did not mean to be a failure, but a chance to review what I have to work on. And indeed it served its purpose as I have come to the inner strengths that can help me in pursuing my own dream based on my interests and not based on other people’s dreams for me. Dr. Robert Schuler, a great American pastor who built the ‘Chrystal Cathedral’, a church made of glass; on his experiences as a child who grew during the recession, said, â€Å"Tough times never last, but tough people do.† I may not have the blood of such great people running through my veins; however, I have their spirit flowing all over me. I believe as they do, that tough times do not drain the strength of a man rather they serve as fuels to engaging himself in his quests. The trials I have been through during my first application accelerated my thoughts on what is to become of my future and thus served as a turning point for important re-considerations. I have become aware that by following my mother’s footsteps, becoming a pharmacist; I would never be able to get to the top because that is not the dream that I am passionate enough to chase for. I might have let my mother down for not trailing her dream and my future might not be as bright as she wished , but I have faith in myself.

The Lemba Clan, Are They Real Jews Essay Example for Free

The Lemba Clan, Are They Real Jews Essay Introduction Walking through the Venda Plaza shopping center in Thohoyandou, South Africa, R dai ae ta a ad a tm ,T aioe f Jws bo e . Gv g i a uznw vdo m n n si o eâ€Å" hts n o my e i rt r† i n h d h hs i m pzl ytn i e l kh ep i dâ€Å"a a l k e . cm f m I al l gi e uz d ei r ud o ,e xln ,Im Ba Jw We a er s eao t e tg o ae c o r n m aoT e hv poe iwt gns N t nowing what to say and not having heard about this g. hy ae rvdt i ee. o k h † before, I let his statement pass. My time in South Africa was devoted to working with a victim empowerment program, but I continued to wonder about the idea of Black Jews. The Black Jew or Lemba population creates a blip on a cultural map of sub-Saharan Africa. When researchers discovered and studied them over the last fifteen years, the Lemba also made a blip on the genetic map of sub-Saharan Africa. Genetic analysis of the Lemba has focused primarily on the Y chromosome, which is useful for studying variation among and distance between populations. The Lemba genetic markers support the oral tradition which says the Lemba came from the north. This paper reviews biological and cultural studies of the Lemba and the correlation between genes and oral tradition to propose a biocultural history for the Lemba people. Biology Genetic Variation across Populations Much of the study of genetic variation has focused on dissimilarity between groups. Genetic variation over time is used to postulate about the place and time of the origins of modern humans as well as subsequent movement and migration. Genetic variation is the greatest in Africa, and it is reasoned that the longer a group has been around, the more variation it will have in its gene pool. Additionally, the longer groups are apart, the greater their genetic distance (Cavalli-Sforza and Cavalli-Sforza, 1995). Maps of variation show migrations out of, around, 1 and back in to Africa (Cavalli-Sforza and Cavalli-Sforza, 1995). Based on comparison of genetic landscapes, maps by Cavalli-Sforza and Cavalli-Sforza (1995) show the arrival of Neolithic cultivators in northern Africa 8,000 to 9,000 years ago. The migration of people continues down the eastern side of Africa, with groups mixing and moving. According to Cavalli-Sforza and Cavalli-Sforza (1995), the Bantu arrived in South Africa 300 to 400 years ago, and the archaeological and linguistic data support the history of Bantu expansion. Cavalli-Sforza’t e o py gnt r aosi a gnr e t og ae g sr s f hl eece t nh s r ee t h uh vr e e o i li p e ad r a linkage analysis. Synthetic maps are produced from principle-component analysis of multiple gene frequencies. MacEachern (2000), however, criticizes Cavalli-Soz’sn eio gns fr s yt s f ee a h s and language for its assumptions about the nature of language and groups and its lack of cni r i o t d e i o hm n oii . A r a e n ui a ntone, os e t n fh i rt f u a sc ts â€Å" fcn t i n s r obudd d ao e v sy ee i hc t e homogeneous monoliths either frozen in place since before A. D. 1492 or caroming around the continent like cultural-ba n b lr bl†MaE ce ,00 7) G nr sn ec as er g ii d as ( c ahr 20: 0. ee lyt t m p i la l n 3 a hi provide a visual representation of variation, but they do not show how the variation came to exist nor do they reveal anomalies. The Lemba are an anomaly in the genetic patterns of Southern Africa. Variation and the Y Chromosome The primary genetic research on the Lemba has used the Y chromosome for comparison with other groups. The Y chromosome has many characteristics that make it favorable for investigating lineage. Almost all of the Y chromosome consists of non-recombining regions and the information is passed intact from generation to generation, from father to son. The variations, called polymorphisms, occur so infrequently that they are commonly called unique event polymorphisms (UEPs) (Stumpf and Goldstein, 2001). UEPs occur along male lines in 2 different time intervals, thus the changes can be compared between and among groups to examine relatedness and age by identifying variations (Bradman and Thomas 1998). More changes on the Y indicate an older line, and more shared sequences between Ys indicate a more similar gene pool. Once thought of as mainly junk, researchers have identified 20 different genes on the Y (Lowenstein, 1999). The function of Y is related to imparting maleness and to fertility (see figure 1). Figure 1: The human Y chromosome (Quintana-Murci et al. , 2000:173) Because most of the Y does not recombine, the Ycrm sm ise a a ui r tl ho oo es en s â€Å"n a n l p e ay t nm tdi ae ru† r s ie l kg gop which allows the history of the paternal line to be deduced (Poloni et a t n al. , 1997: 1015). The non-recombining section of the Y has the potential for a large number of different mutations (Stumpf and Goldstein, 2001). Because most variation in the Y is not expressed, changes are not selected for or against, which allows the record of these changes gets passed on (Bradman and Thomas, 1998). Four types of changes can occur between generations: microsatellites, minisatellites, snips and indels (Bradman and Thomas, 1998). Microsatellites are a section of repeats of a short 3 nucleotide sequence and minisatellites are a section of repeats of longer sequences. Snips refers to single nucleotide polymorphisms, meaning one nucleotide is changed. Indels are insertions or deletions of DNA in a particular location (Bradman and Thomas, 1998). An example of an indel is the Y chromosome Alu polymorphism (YAP). Alu is a sequence of about 300 base pairs which is inserted into a particular region of the DNA. There have been about half a million Alu insertions in human DNA and YAP is one of the more recent (Bradman and Thomas, 1998). Because they are unique event polymorphisms, YAP inserts and snips are unlikely to have arisen more than once in evolution (Thomas et al. 2000). An Alu can be copied, but it is not removed from a locus. After an Alu change, the YAP will accumulate new mutations at the same rate as surrounding DNA loci. One can think of an Alu insertion as a fossil, and patterns of new mutation allow the fossils to be sorted into lineages. (Dolan DNA Learning Center 2002). Different combinations of polymorphisms are known as haplotypes (Bradman and Thomas 1998). The more similar the haplotype frequencies of two populations, the more similar their biological history is likely to be (Bradman and Thomas 1998). Quintana-Murci, Krausz, and McElreavey caution that genetic drift, founder effects, and male-specific migration processes may lead to over-representation of specific haplotypes (2001). Genetic drift refers to random change in gene frequencies between generations which will cause frequencies to fluctuate up or down (Releford, 2003). After enough time and if no other forces are acting on a population, variation within a population will be reduced (Releford, 2003). The founder effect is a type of genetic drift where a small number of people form a new population, causing allele frequencies to deviate from the parent population (Releford, 2003). The Lemba Y 4 If Lemba migrated from Judea and Yemen and maintained the tradition of marrying only within the group, the Lemba Y haplotypes may be over-represented when compared to the neighboring populations. Thus, the Lemba Y is useful for comparison with African and Semitic populations their contribution to the Lemba. More genetic evidence of a non-Bantu origin for the Lemba is expected and found (Bradman and Thomas 1998). The Lemba Y has an additional genetic marker that indicates links to the Jewish priest class Cohen. Members cannot be appointed to this class and priesthood can only be inherited, thus a possible Jewish marker will be preserved down the line (Bradman and Thomas 1998; Cavalli-Sforza and Cavalli-Sforza 1995). Judaism began in Semitic tribes living about 4,000 years ago in the Middle East. In 586 B. C. , the Babylonian exile spread Jewish populations out of present-day Israel (Hammer et al. 2000). Hammer et al. (2000) used Y chromosome haplotypes to trace the parental origins of the Jewish Diaspora. Multi-dimensional scaling (figure 1 ) of frequencies of 18 Y-chromosome haplotypes in 29 populations produced three main clusters: sub-Saharan African, North African, and European. 5 Figure 2: Multi-dimensional scaling from Hammer et al. (2000:6772) The Jewish cluster appears in between the European and North African population clusters. The Lemba population is set halfway between sub-Saharan African and Jewish clusters (Hammer et al. 2000). Genetic and geographic distances were not correlated for other Jewish populations, which supports a recent dispersal and subsequent isolation model. Hammer et al. conclude that â€Å" m j pro o N Yb ll d e i .. ae to a common Middle Eastern source a a r ot n f R ili i rt . t cs o i aec v sy r ppli svr t uad erao (00 74. h iue lo ea an c i s f ou t n ee lh sn ya g†20: 7) T i s sf frvl t g lm o ao a o s 6 s u ui a Jewish origins as well as for supporting old ties to the Middle East. Once populations dispersed from the Middle East, gene flow with surrounding populations was likely. The Lemba present genetic markers identified with Bantu and Semitic populations (Spurdle and Jenkins, 1996; Wilson and Goldstein, 2000). Wilson and Goldstein (2000) examined 66 markers on the X chromosome to study the effect of admixture of Bantu and Semitic populations on linkage disequilibrium. Recent mutations will tend to have more linkage d eu i i (D t n i o eoe ( l n n G l tn20)â€Å" h s n i n i qib u L )h wl l r nsWio ad o s i 00. T e i ic t s lr m a ld s de, g fa difference between partially linked and unlinked loci rules out substructure as the sole source of the LD in the Lemba . . . Ethiopian-Bantu differentiation is not sufficient to produce the d eu i i osre it L m a ( l n n G l tn20: 2.T e oc s ns i qib u be dn h e b†Wio ad o s i 00 3) h cnl i i s lr m v e s de, 9 uo that the Lemba LD has two sources: parental population and admixture. Another examination on the worldwide distribution of Y haplotypes (Poloni et al. , 1997) found a significant correlation between genetic and linguistic distances. The picture of genetic affinities places the Lemba not with other sub-Saharan African populations but with Afro-Asiatic populations (figure 2 ) indicating admixture or a different parent population from other subSaharan groups. 6 Figure 3: Multi-dimensional scaling from Poloni et al. (1997:1019) Spurdle and Jenkins (1996) also looked at Bantu-Semitic variations to establish genetic affinities and offer a model for the origin of the Lemba. Their study analyzed allele frequencies of Y-linked Restriction Length Fragment Polymorphisms (RLFPs). Ht4 is a typical Negroid haplotype and it is found in the Lemba sample at a frequency of . 20, which indicates significant Negroid male gene flow into the Lemba (Spurdle and Jenkins, 1996). Ht7, Ht8, and Ht11 are Caucasoid markers and the Lemba show high frequencies of these markers as well. These haplotypes seem to be typical of Jewish populations but also occur in Asiatic Indians, thus it is not possible to distinguish between Semitic and Asiatic Indian sources with these markers (Spurdle and Jenkins, 1996). The allele frequencies of the Lemba are significantly different from those of the Bantu-speaking Negroid population and the European population but not from those of the Jewish group. Spurdle and Jenkins (1996) conclude that 50% of the Lemba Y chromosomes analyzed appear to be of Caucasoid origin, and 36% appear to be of Negroid origin. 7. One possible method for distinguishing a Semitic origin, versus a general Middle Eastern origin, of the Lemba is to make comparisons with the Cohen modal haplotype, which is dominant in the Jewish priesthood (Thomas et al. , 1998). There are three castes of Jewish males: Cohanim, the paternally inherited priesthood; Leviim, non-Cohen members of the paternally defined priestly tribe of Levi; Israelites, all non-Cohen and non-Levite Jews (Thomas et al. , 1998). If the Lemba Y has Jewish origins, the Cohen modal haplotype is expected to be present. Thomas et al. (2000) continue the study of Bantu and Semitic markers in the Lemba adding the investigation of the Cohen modal haplotypes. Y chromosomes were analyzed for six microsatellites and six biallelic markers in the Lemba, Bantu, Yemini-Handramaut, YemeniSena, Sephardic Jews, and Ashkenazic Jews. The twelve polymorphic markers were characterized in multiple Jewish populations and identified single haplotypes (Thomas et al. , 2000). Genealogical trees were drawn based on microsatellite variation to explore possible origins of the Lemba Y chromosomes (Thomas et al., 2000). The trees can be used to assess whether each Lemba haplotype has a close genealogical relationship with one or more haplotypes in the other five populations. Trees for the individual haplotypes were drawn for each UEP group by measures of average squared distance and proportion of shared alleles (Thomas et al. , 2000). Thomas et al. (2000) designate 67. 6% of Lemba chromosomes as having a Semitic origin and the other 32. 4% to have a Bantu origin. The high frequency of the Cohen modal haplotype in the general Lemba population supports a Jewish contribution to Lemba gene pool found. The Cohen modal haplotype is observed only moderately in Ashkenazic and Sephardic Israelites, in a single Yemeni, and is present in a very low frequency in Palestinian Arabs (Thomas et al. , 2000). The genetic evidence is consistent with the Lemba oral history of Jewish origins in a population outside of Africa followed by admixture with Bantu neighbors. 8 Culture Oral tradition and Origins of Lemba The Lemba people claim ancient Jewish origins. According to oral history, they come from Judea, from whence they traveled to Sena. From Sena they crossed into Africa, moving down the coast, building great cities in Zimbabwe, and finally settling the northern part of South Africa. Additionally, the Lemba assert Jewish identity through their customs of food prohibitions, ritual slaughter of animals, and circumcision (Buijs, 1998; NOVA 1999; Parfitt 1992). These are not black people who have been recently converted to Judaism. Judaism is not a proselytizing faith thus conversion and intermarriage as an explanation for Jewish genes is unlikely (Cavalli-Sforza and Cavalli-Sforza, 1995). However, many groups across the world claim connections to lost tribes of Israel (Parfitt, 1992). Furthermore, the surge in Lemba Jewish identity is connected to political economy and other social circumstances in South Africa in the last fifty years (Buijs, 1998). The Lemba say they came from the North, possibly from Judea. Then they went to Sena, they crossed Pusela and came to Africa, where they broke the law of God and were scattered across African nations (NOVA, 1999). Parfitt (1992) located Sena in a remote valley of Southern Yemen. Parfitt reasons that Pusela is similar to the Masilah River, which they would have had to cross to get from Sena to the sea. The port town of Sayhut was used for Arab exploration of Africa. In Hadramaut, the valley where Sena is located, tribes have the same names as Lemba tribe names (NOVA, 1999; Parfitt, 1992). Genetic samples of Lemba and of people in the Hadramaut showed similar features as well as the Cohen modal haplotype (NOVA, 1999). Lemba Identity in South Africa 9 The Lemba live in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, but according to Buijs it is only in South Africa where one finds the belief of Jewish origins (1998). The Semitic identity was propagated by early white missionaries and colonial officials; their writings emphasized differences of the Lemba by comparison with European Jewish communities (Buijs, 1998). T ee ri supr d a e o o a ii tdn t (u s19: 1. u s19) o s hs w in spot â€Å"n t s f d t ci ty B i,98 6) B i (98 nt tg e h sn e i † j 6 j e that the Lemba were aware of their distinct cultural heritage prior to colonization, but when ethnic identity became important in Apartheid, the Lemba Cultural Association (LCA) became a m d mfrosut g peet a Jws H rae B i asr,T eniec ..n ei o cnt cn a r n dy e i e t . u s s t â€Å" h i s ne . O u r i s h ig j es st their Jewish heritage is a direct result of the struggle for resources, initially land and later civil sri j sit N r e Tasaln V na (98 6) Ietyi l i r i ad e c o , h ot r r vaad ed†19: 2. dn t n u n a a n ve b n e hn n 6 i, c d g c l ethnic identities, is not a static concept. Identity, especially during Apartheid, was tied to power. The Lemba Cultural Association was founded in the 1940s when Europeans were encroaching o r or s T e C polm d spr e u uai n tadh L m a i pr ne n e uc .h L A rc i e a ea tcl r d ty n t e b’ m ot c s e a a t l ei e s a identified the Lemba with a non-African community (Buijs, 1998). During Apartheid, literally meaning separation, people were classified by race: white, cl e,n b c. n’sc laaits e df e acri tt s cnet( e o r ad l k O e oi cpb ie w r e nd cod go h e ocp s od a s a li e i n e se Mandela 1994 for a first hand description of the Apartheid system). The Apartheid government, the white minority, knew that if black people were united, the white autonomy would be threatened. They instituted a Bantu education system that further classified blacks according to tribe and encouraged local identity and rule in hopes of keeping blacks divided (Mandela 1994). In the 1980s, as the white hold on power was becoming more and more challenged, the gvrm nc a d i eednhm l d† h h e stp uhhthy e sl oe etr t â€Å" dpneto e ns w i w r eu sc t t w r tl n ee n a c e a e ei 10 overseen by South Africa but the government no longer provided money or services to these areas. Lemba in Venda Vendaland was created and within these bounds were the Lemba. Before the independent hm l diw saoalfrBak e s ti n f t m e e ad e e o e n, a f r eo â€Å" l Jw †o d tyh sl s n b r a t v b c ei e v cognized as Lemba, because they were associated with whites and considered superior to other Blacks. However, in t â€Å" l k o e n,w e b cseu t io n oe m n ibcm m rf oalt h Ba hm l d hr l k stph r w gvr et tea e oe a r eo e c a † e a e n , v b be Black and not associated with whites. A highly placed civil servant in Venda government cm et â€Å" i t V na e e a etgop I t s dy w w rl h o m n d ‘ t h ed w w r n le ru. nh e as e e i t e wh e e i o e g -skinned .. . V nar t u l e sro uprl s . t C oe pol (a i,92 8. h h ed t a d si a otf pec s.. e hsn ep †Prt 19: ) T i e ee k a h e ft 7 s refers to the days of their arrival in southern Africa. At the beginning of the century, in spite of the dark skin, the Lemba were commonly called valungu – white men (Parfitt, 1992). The civil srate a e,‘ sog s vrt n ge j ti , y e g L m a os’matter . . . e nr r dâ€Å" l a ee h g osu f em bi a e b dent v m k A n yi s n n B tson sh g s rgi w ogiiar u do y e b oi n†19: ) T e ua so a t nst to g rn, s ti t tm L m a r i (92 7.h i a n t tb e g’ 7 status and identity of the Lemba has not been fixed and it has not always been Jewish. Proclaiming a form of Judaism is an event of the 19th century, but it does come from an o e cm la d eg u i n f ao (a i 19)â€Å" h L m a e e a a i l my l r o p ct r i osd ti t n Prt 92. T e e b si d prc a t d, i e li e ic i ft z tu r h and used it as a means of ridding themselves of a rather ancient ambiguity at a time when new ambiguities were being created every dy (a i,9225. T e e b igop i a†Prt 19:5) h L m as ru wt ft h particular traditional practices, and some say they are not a religious group but a cultural one (Sand, 2002). The Lemba culture today points to ancient Hebrew origins but some Lemba practice Christianity and Islam (Sand, 2002). The practices they do ascribe to ancient Jews would 11 not be identified as Judaism in the West, however they have adopted more Jewish traditions in recent years (Sand, 2002). Lemba today In post-Apartheid times, the Lemba identity is flourishing. They continue to have LCA meetings (Buijs 1998). Websites about their heritage and culture are published on the Internet. People in South Africa can identify themselves with whatever group or groups they please. About 80,000 Lemba live in the Venda area of the Limpopo Province in South Africa as well as the Johannesburg township of Soweto (Buijs, 1998; Sand, 2002). Lemba are also found in villages in the southwestern region of Zimbabwe (Buijs, 1998; Sand, 2002). In the Venda region, people speak TshiVenda. Another day when Rudzani and I were walking through the shopping center, he called up to a man with a phrase I did not understand. With a twinkle in his eyes, he told me that was the traditional greeting for a Jewish brother. Again, I let that pass, thinking he could translate it to mean whatever he wanted since I did not know TshiVenda (a favorite joke of my friends there). In reflection and after research, I do not doubt the old Jewish ties and if I go back to South Africa, I will be sure to find out more. Conclusion The problem with constructing the history of the Lemba identity is that it has been passed down through oral tradition. When it was recorded at the turn of the twentieth century, it is possible the outside visitors were biased or projecting a Jewish identity on the Lemba. Genetic data support the oral tradition, and genetic research has identified anomalies in the Lemba population. Across the articles, the same information about the oral tradition and culture of the Lemba was offered. Ethnographic study of the Lemba traditions, not in contrast to Jews or other Africans, is needed to understand what being Lemba means today. Further research considering political 12 economy, as Buijs did, will continue to fill out the picture of constructions and projections of identity for the Black Jews of South Africa. 13 Works Cited Bradman N, and Thomas M. 1998. Why Y? The Y chromosome in the study of human evolution, migration, and prehistory. Science Spectra, 14. Electronic document, http://www. ucl. ac. uk/tcga/ScienceSpectra-pages/SciSpect-14-98. html. , accessed November 19, 2002 Buijs G. 1998 Black Jews in the Northern Province: A study of ethnic identity in South Africa. Ethnic Racial Studies, 21:661-682. Cavalli-Sforza LL, and F Cavalli-Sforza. 1995. The Great Human Diasporas. Reading, MA: Addison Weasley Publishing Company. Dolan DNA Learning Center. Genetic Origins: Alu Insertion Polymorphism. 2002. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Electronic document, http://www.geneticorigins. org/geneticorigins/pv92/aluframeset. htm, accessed November 19, 2002. Hammer MF, Redd AJ, Wood ET, Bonner MR, Jarjanazi H, Karafet T, Santachiara-Benerecetti S, Oppenheim A, Jobling MA, Jenkins T, Ostrer H, and B Bonne-Tamir. 2000. Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 97:6769-6774. Hammer MF, Spurdle AB, Karafet T, Bonner MR, Wood ET, Novelletto A, Malaspina P, Mitchell RJ, Horai S, Jenkins T, and SL Zegura. 1997. The geographic distribution of human Y chromosome variation. Genetics, 145:787-805. Lowenstein JM. 1999. Why the Y? California Wild. Electronic document, http://www. calacademy. org/calwild/spring99/counter. htm, accessed November 19, 2002 MacEachern S. 2000. Genes, Tribes, and African History. Current Anthropology, 41:357-384. 14 Mandela, Neslon. 1994. Long Walk to Freedom: the Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Boston: Little Brown Co. N V O l eL stbs fs e T dr a i’r a alj re. 00( oe br O A n n. otr e o I al uo Prtse r b o ny20. N vm e i i r . ft m k e u 2000). Electronic document, http://www. pbs. org/wgbh/nova/israel/parfitt. html, accessed November 19, 2002. Parfitt, Tudor. 1992. Journey to the Vanished City: Search for a Lost Tribe of Israel. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Poloni ES, Semino O, Passarino G, Santachiara-Benerecetti AS, Dupanloup I, Langaney A, and L Excoffier. 1997. Human genetic affinities for Y-chromosome P49a,f/TaqI haplotypes show strong correspondence with linguistics. American Journal of Human Genetics, 61:1015-1035. Quintana-Murci L, Krausz C, and K McElreavey. 2001. The human Y chromosome: function, evolution and disease. Forensic Science International, 118:169-181. Releford, JH. 2003. The Human Species: An Introduction to Biological Anthropology, 5th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Sand, JP.2002. The Jews of Africa: The Lemba of Southern Africa. Electronic document, http://www. mindspring. com/~jaypsand/lemba. htm. accessed November 18, 2002. Spurdle, AB. 1994. The Y-ALU polymorphism in Southern African populations and its relationship to other Y-specific polymorphisms. American Journal of Human Genetics, 54:319-330. Spurdle A. and T Jenkins. 1996. The origins of the Lemba Black Jews of Southern Africa: evidence from p12F2 and other Y-Chromosome markers. American Journal of Human Genetics, 59:1126-1133. 15 Stumpf MPH, and DB Goldstein. 2001. Genealogical and evolutionary inference with the human Y chromosome. Science. 291:1738-1742. Thomas MG, Parfitt T, Weiss DA, Skorecki K, Wilson JF, le Roux M, Bradman N, and DB Goldstein. 2000. Y chromosomes traveling south: the Cohen modal haplotype and the origins of the Lembathe Black Jews of Southern Africa. American Journal of Human Genetics, 66 (2): 674-686. Thomas MG, Skorecki K, Ben-Ami H, Parfitt T, Bradman N, and DB Goldstein. 1998. Origins of old testament priests. Nature, 394:138-140. Wilson JF, and DB Goldstein. 2000. Consistent long-range linkage disequilibrium generated by admixture in a Bantu-Semitic hybrid population. American Journal of Human Genetics, 67:926-935. 16.

The Domestication Of Wild Animals History Essay

The Domestication Of Wild Animals History Essay The Fertile Crescent has been called the Cradle of Civilization for many years. The Cradle of Civilization is the key to understanding when the human population began to thrive and create villages, cities, and ultimately states. Without the domestication and cultivation of the land there would have never been enough food to support such a dense population of people. Hunting and collecting entirely from the wild could not possibly support even a tiny fraction of the worlds current population (Bellwood, 1). There were seven core domesticates in the Fertile Crescent, they include sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, emmer wheat, einkorn wheat and barley. All of these species were domesticated and had an important role in the Fertile Crescent throughout the two millennia emergence of agrarian societies between 10000 and 8000 B.P. We can best understand the events of this period by first focusing on the developmental history of the individual species of animals and plants that were brought under d omestication, and then combining those individual histories into the more complex overall story in the emergence of the agriculture in the region (Smith, 51). However due to the confines of this paper we will take an in depth look at the animals domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. The story of the Fertile Crescent starts before the emergence of the hunter- gatherers, who were ravaging the forests and grass lands. By 10000 B.P. the beginning of the 2000 year period that would witness the development of agriculture, human societies had taken advantage of the post-Pleistocene proliferation of plant and animal resources, and the Fertile Crescent was inhabited by a diverse array of hunter-gatherer societies (Smith, 51). The Pleistocene era had ended with a much warmer climate that also brought a much moister climate to the area. This climate change was one that favored the wild annual cereal grasses (Sagan, 249). Also it allowed the sparse movement of hunter-gatherer groups to move in to the area. It was there that they discovered that a more sedentary lifestyle produced more of a surplus of food and then that of foraging. The Fertile Crescents environmental zones are keys to understanding the development of the domestications of the animals (and plants). There are three main environmental zones involved in the origin of cultivation in the Fertile Crescent. The eastern section of which comprises the foothills and margins of the Zagros Mountains (Maisels 133). The central or the north is mostly made up of the broad rolling grasslands. And lastly, the western section whose central axis is the important Levantine corridor and Jordan Valley (Smith, 51). There were many changes that occurred due to the domestication of animals (and plants). These changes were many times become genetic due to the consistent selection of the more adequately produced products. In wild grains, the axis or rachis is brittle, which allows the grain to reseed itself easily. Selection of the grains was at first an accidental by-product of harvesting, and later intentionally, the people selected grains in which the axis was tougher, allowing less grain to fall to the ground, thus raising yields (Sagan 247). They also selected plants that were more easily husked. The people used the same natural selection process when choosing livestock. They selected woolly animals from among wild sheep, which are not normally woolly, thus acquiring sheep better suited to lowland heat and from which to obtain wool. Fossil remains indicate that the domestication of the sheep and goat was accompanied by a decrease in the size of the animal. The animals domesticated in the Fertile Crescent were a key to the development of the humans in the area. The readily available source of meat aided in the functions of the brain, which led to the ability to think more complexly and creatively. The brain is fueled by protein therefore with more protein in the diet the mind began to develop more completely. Thus the importance of the domestication of the animals to the human race, without having to hunt for the meat they were getting a more readily available source of protein (Wilkinson 139). The Persian wild goat has been recognized as the ancestor to the first domesticated goat. The Persian wild goat tends to be found in the more rugged terrain. It is in the eastern section of the Fertile Crescent that we find the most evidence of goats being hunted for their meat. Specifically at the site of Ganj Dareh, which was excavated in 1970s, which found at the lowest level, which dates back to 9000 B.P. contained approximately 5000 identifiable goat bones (Old Goats). Brian Hesse of the University of Alabama at Birmingham studied these bones. He used a new analytical technique to try to piece together evidence of the domestication of goats. Hesse theorized that a domesticated herd should have two clear distinguishing characteristics: (1) a large percentage of animals slaughtered for meat late in their immaturity, when they had attained much of their adult size; (2) an adult breeding population in which females far outnumbered males (Smith, 60). Through complex measurements of t he bones discovered at Ganj Dareh, Hesse discovered that the males were being killed before they reached adult hood and the females overwhelmingly stood for most of the population. This stunning breakthrough specifies that an age and sex profile that closely agrees with that of a herd of domesticated goats managed to provide meat (Old Goats). Clear demographic evidence appears to indicate that goats were domesticated at Ganj Dareh as early as 9000 years ago. The increase of the proportions of goat bones among the animal remains is an indicator to the shift to goat herding. Wild Sheep were the second animal to be domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. The wild ancestor of domesticated sheep ranged throughout much of the Fertile Crescent. A large amount of evidence of wild sheep can be found in the central region (Sagon, 245). There is much data to indicate that the wild sheep was not an important prey in the areas of Levant. There is, however, evidence showing that the sheep were a prey in Jericho that date wild sheep back to 10000 to 9500 years ago (Wilkinson 149). The degree to which the hunter-gatherer societies in different parts of the Fertile Crescent relied on wild sheep for food parallels the animals abundance in their local environments 10000 to 8000 years ago. The wild sheep were most were most abundantly discovered in the central region. This is probably why around 8500 B.P. sheep were first domesticated in the central area of the Fertile Crescent. There, the land is better suited to the wild sheep thus they were a more common target for hunte rs in that area, leading to the domestication of the sheep. With the change from being wild to being domesticated, the sheep, according to the fossil record, got smaller due to the selection process of the humans tending to the animals. It is in the apex of the Fertile Crescent that sheep herding first became an important component of agricultural economies (Smith, 57). The pig was, as far as we know the third animal to be domesticated. Wild pigs were greatly hunted in the northern part of the central region. Facts have lead archeologist to date the bones of the wild pigs to 9000 B.P. The pigs continued to be a substantial part of the diet of the people in this northern area of the Fertile Crescent, even after the shift to the herding of sheep and goats (Sagan, 243). The site of Cayà ¶nà ¼ tends to be the marker for the earliest domesticated pig, in the vicinity of 8500 years ago. There have been some tentative theories that approximate the domestication of pigs to be closer to the date of 10000 B.P. (Smith, 67). It is Richard Redding who proposed this theory, which the bones of the pigs at Hallan Cemi, strongly represent the ages of bones of a possible herding community of pigs. However since we know nothing about the ages of the pigs that the hunters targeted we have no basis for making the claim that the pigs at Hallan Cemi were indeed domestic ated and herded. For now it remains unverified but the alluring prospect that pigs were domesticated much before the evidence now shows. Cattle were probably the last and least important of the four main animals that were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. The ancestors of domesticate cattle were probably considered to be a dangerous pay due to the size of the animal. However, it was also a significantly large package of meat. The area in the Levant and Jordan Valley has dated wild cattle bones to approximately 9000 to 8000 years ago. Like the pigs the cattle had an exceptionally large geographical range and extended far beyond the Fertile Crescent. There has been clear documentation of a pattern that shows the reduction of size in the cattle between 8000 and 7000 B.P. While cattle may show to be of little importance to the region between 10000 and 8000 B.P. it later became the dominant species of the market (Smith, 56). Now that we have looked at the individual histories of the animals of four of the seven core domesticates of the Fertile Crescent we see many patterns are emerging. The four species share common lines of evidence that include; geographical range, increase in abundance, reduction in size and change in age/sex profiles (Smith, 67). This evidence has led to the indication that these histories were distinct and still follows the same indication of domestication. The goats were domesticated in the earliest portion of the period, at around 9000 B.P. Then the sheep, pigs and cattle soon followed after approximately 300 years after the domestication of the goats. After the domestication of animals (and plants) the small villages began becoming states, they were becoming more and more like a modern day civilization. The early stages of food production in the Middle East were marked by gradual transition from foraging to producing economies. Many changes were caused by the production and cultivation of food. Such changes include population increase, which caused the resulting migration and forced other areas to respond and begin their own cultivation of their resources. Also, there had been a gradual population increase; this was based on the native richness of the environment, which helped spur the spread of food production (Maisels, 140). On the other hand, in the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial plain, cultivation required irrigation, which began around 7000 B.P. and changed the world of farming. Irrigation allowed farming to spread away from the normal areas that were close to the riverbanks, by bringing the water away from the riverbanks the cult ivation began to strive. By 6000 B.P., irrigation systems had become far larger and more complex, and were associated with a new political system. This new establishment was based on central government, extreme contrasts of wealth, and social classes, the beginnings of the state (Wilkinson, 141). The written and archaeological record indicates that the early Mesopotamian states were city states (Sumer and Elam), ruled by a literate theocracy that managed virtually all major aspects of the economy, which was overwhelmingly agrarian. The theocracy was replaced by 4,500 B.P.; it was replaced by a secular, military monarchy, based upon an elaborate class system (Sagon, 300). Thus ended the revolution of modern humans in the world of cultivation we now knew use the animals (and plants) to our advantage. As time continues to slip by we find more and more ways to maximize the products we get from the domestication of animals (and cultivation of plants) (Sagan, 248). To sum everything up Southwest Asia was inhabited by small groups of hunter-gatherers. These groups, due to the climatic change, became more and more sedentary and begin to develop a source of food production. This production of food came from the domestication and cultivation of plants and animals. The herded animals provided a constant source of protein in their diet and allowed for the hunters to expend their energy in other areas of life. The cultivation of the plants allows for a reliable supply of grains in their diet. This made the people of this time able to support larger families, which turned into villages, cities, and ultimately states.