What My Sister Means to Me

article 4 nola. com Gulf of Mexico oil spill's environmental impact expected to be profound, long-lasting Published: Friday, May 07, 2010, 8:26 PM As the â€Å"Miss Brandy† shrimp boat skimmed rust-colored clumps of oxidized oil from Chandeleur Sound, seagulls from a flock circling nearby dived beneath a light oily sheen on the water's surface to feed on a school of minnows Friday afternoon. â€Å"The fish are probably coming to the surface because they're dying from the oil,† said Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. Those gulls think they're getting a free meal when really they're getting a load of toxins. † Schweiger, who heads the nation's largest conservation group, led reporters on a six-hour boat tour to survey ecological damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil leak, which has been spewing an estimated 210,000 gallons of sweet crude per day into the Gulf of Mexico since the drilling rig exploded April 20. A 100-mile rou nd trip from Venice to the Chandeleur Islands revealed no oil on the shorelines of several islands. However, areas in Chandeleur Sound are crisscrossed by long ribbons of degraded oil, which turns a rust color as iron in the oil is exposed to air. Once scooped from the water, the oily clumps transform into gooey dark brown globs with the consistency of molasses. Shrimp boats were deployed throughout the sound to skim the water with orange booms to corral the floating oil. Schweiger traced the clumping phenomenon to a decision by BP, which was leasing the rig and is in charge of clean-up efforts, to use dispersants both on the water's surface and below the surface to break up the oil before it can wash ashore. Using dispersants minimizes the damage to the coastline, but the oil is spread throughout the water column and probably does more damage to the fisheries,† he said. â€Å"The dispersants just shift the risk. It's a trade off. † He applauded the decision to halt the use of underwater dispersants on the Deepwater Horizon leak, which is nearly a mile below the water' s surface, deeper than chemical dispersants had ever been used before. About two miles west of the Chandeleur Islands, schools of rain minnows could be seen darting beneath the floating oil. Schweiger said the fish are likely doomed. Dispersants will make oil and water mix, but there's no way to make oil and fish mix,† he said. Most islands in Chandeleur Sound are not protected by containment booms. One notable exception is New Harbor Island, a prime nesting ground for brown pelicans because the mangrove trees enable the birds to build nests safe from high tides. The island is encircled by booms, but beyond the booms were patches of oily water. â€Å"You can protect the island from the oil, but the pelicans are still exposed to it when they feed on fish in contaminated water,† Schweiger said. There have been several confirmed sightings of oil on barrier islands, but he oil does not appear to be staying very long, at least not in high concentrations. Schweiger pointed to a spot on Freemason Island, where he had seen oil the day before. Nevertheless, high tides had apparently washed it away by Friday afternoon, when several killdeer could be seen darting along the shoreline where the oil had been. However, Schweiger noted that little of the oil gushing from the ruptured well for more than two weeks has been removed from the water. â€Å"Just because you can't always see the oil doesn't mean it's not there and that it's not going to have a huge impact on nature,† he said.

Computer programming Essay

1. What common programming language statement, in your opinion, is most detrimental to readability and why do you think that? The go to statement in my opinion can be the most detrimental to program readability, because it makes it difficult to keep track of where the program has been and will go during debugging. Extensive use of go to statements make it difficult to impossible to keep the program code in a top down format. 2. How does the distinguishing between upper- and lowercase in identifiers affect the three criteria? The affect to readability can be positive when it is used in conjunction with a cohesive programming technique. The use of upper case letters to help certain types of identifiers stand out in the code can be highly beneficial. The affect on writability will be positive because the readability of a program helps to improve the writability. The affect on reliability will also be positive because the more readable, and writable a language then there is a positive affect on the reliability. 3. How do type declaration statements for simple variables affect the readability of a language? Having type declarations that are easy to understand are very important to the readability of a programming language. When the type declarations are cryptic or easily confused it degrades the readability because it is not as easy to identify the variable type or distinguish between them. 4. Write an evaluation of Java and of C++, using the criteria described in this chapter. Please be thorough and provide a reason/justification for your evaluation. C++ Readability: C++ is not an overall simple language which complicates its readability. It does however have very good control structures and data type structures which can help the readability. But in general it can be difficult to read. Writability: C++ allows for high levels of data abstraction, and expressivity’s in the language allowing the programmer to create a myriad of structures to solve different programming problems making it very writable. Reliability: C++ has extensive exception handling and type checking capabilities, which lead to a more reliable language. Java Readability: Java because it is a functional programming language, which is structured completely differently than all other common programming languages. All of the computations in Java are carried out by applying functions to arguments. Java does not have the assignment statements or variables common in other languages. Alone this causes enough of a problem with the readability of Java, but the syntax for Java is doubly ambiguous because the same exact syntax is used for both data and function calls. Writability: Java has a high amount of expressivity’s with the use of functions, but the difficulties that can be encountered in readability will affect the writability of the language. Reliability: Java does not have the extensive exception handling of C++. 5. Evaluate both Java and C++ with respect to the ultimate total cost (as discussed in Chapter 1 of the Sebesta text). Again, please be thorough and provide a reason/justification for your evaluation. The total cost of C++ is acceptable. C++ is a very complex language that for a programmer to learn completely can take well over a year, but a programmer can learn enough to make powerful programs in a relatively short time. The style constructs of C++ help to improve it’s maintainability over time which is a major component to the cost of software development. The total cost of Java is potentially more than that of C++. The functional programming environment is sufficiently different from all other imperative languages that training for programmers to learn and become proficient in Java can take longer. Also the syntax similarities with data will make maintenance costs for Java programs to be higher because of their poor readability. Readability. Requiring the declaration of variables forces the programmer to document his/her expectations regarding variable names, data types, and scope (the region of the program where the variable will be applicable). Thus, the program becomes much more readable to the programmer and to others. Writability. Requiring the declaration of variables may actually decrease writability in its most direct sense, since a programmer cannot simply use variables as needed, but must write declarations in their appropriate places to avoid error messages. This increased burden on the programmer can increase programming time. On the other hand, without declarations there can be no local variables, and the use of local variables can increase writability by allowing the programmer to reuse names without worrying about non-local references. Forcing the programmer to plan the use of variables may also improve writability over the long run. Efficiency. As we saw, readability and writability can be viewed as efficiency issues from the point of view of maintenance and software engineering, so the comments about those issues also apply here in that sense. The use of declarations may also permit more efficient implementation of the program. Without declarations, if no assumptions are made about the size of variables, less efficient access mechanisms using pointers must be used. Also, the programmer can use declarations to specify the exact size of variable needed (such as short int or long int). Restricting scope by using local variables can also save memory space by allowing the automatic deallocation of variables. Note, however, that Fortran is a very efficient language in terms of execution speed, so it is not always true that requiring declarations must improve execution speed. Also, speed of translation may actually be decreased by the use of declarations, since more information must be kept in tables to keep track of the declarations. (It is not true, as Fortran and BASIC attest, that without declarations a translator must be multi-pass.) Security. Requiring declarations enhances the translator’s ability to track the use of variables and report errors. A clear example of this appears in the difference between ANSI C and old-style Unix C. Early C did not require that parameters to functions be declared with function prototypes. (While not exactly variable declarations, parameter declarations are closely related and can be viewed as essentially the same concept.) This meant that a C compiler could not guarantee that a function was called with the appropriate number or types of parameters. Such errors only appeared as crashes or garbage values during program execution. The use of parameter declarations in ANSI C greatly improved the security of the C language. Expressiveness. Expressiveness may be reduced by requiring the declaration of variables, since they cannot then be used in arbitrary ways. Scheme, for example, while requiring declarations, does not require that data types be given, so that a single variable can be used to store data of any data type. This increases expressiveness at the cost of efficiency and security.

Australia’s system of government Essay

The Saudi Arabian kingdom is a country that comprise of Arabs and is the largest nation of Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia is sometimes referred to as â€Å"the land of the two holy mosques† and this regards to Medina and Mecca which are the most holy religions in Islamic religion (Wilson & Graham, 1994). The present kingdom in Saudi Arabia is based on the foundations of â€Å"Abdul-Aziz bin Saud†. In 1902, Abdul-Aziz began his efforts and captured the Riyadh ancestral home i. e. Al-Saud. In 1932, the efforts of Abdul-Aziz were culminated with recognition and proclamation of Saudi Arabian kingdom. However, the national origin of Saudi Arabia dates back from 1744 when the first state of Saudi was established. On the other hand, Australia, officially the Australia commonwealth is a nation in southern hemisphere consisting of the smallest mainland continent in the world, the Tasmania major islands, and other several islands in pacific and Indian Ocean (Mackey, 2002). In 1901, the colonies of Australia formed a commonwealth through becoming a federation. Since that federation, the nation of Australia remains as a commonwealth monarchy and has maintained a political system comprising of liberal democratic systems (Farsy & Al-Farsy, 1986). The government of Saudi Arabian central institution is Saudi monarchy. The government basic laws were adopted in 1990s and they declare that the Saudi Arabian kingdom is a monarchy that is ruled by grandsons and son of â€Å"Abdul-Aziz Al Saud†. These laws also provide that the constitution of the nation is the Quran that is governed on Islamic laws (Sharia) basis. According to democratic index of economists, the government of Saudi Arabia is ranked on the ninth position in among authoritarian regimes across the globe (Mackey, 2002). The political system in Saudi Arabia does not recognize national elections and political systems. However, it does recognize local elections and they were held in 2005, and only male citizens were allowed to participate. The powers of the king are tentatively restricted within the boundaries of Saudi traditions and Sharia. The king have to maintain an accord of royal family of Saudi, ulema (religious leaders) and other element that may be important in the society of Saudi. The royal family leading member selects a king from amongst them and is then approved by ulema (Farsy & Al-Farsy, 1986). The kings of Saudi kingdom have developed a central management gradually. The minister council which is appointed by Saudi king, has given views on general policy formulation and has also directed activities of bureaucracy that is seems to be growing. The council comprises prime minister and other twenty ministers (Quandt, 1981). The minister council resolution forms the basis for legislation. However, legislations are ratified through royal decree and they have to be in consensus with Sharia. A Consultative Assembly consisting of 150 members and selected by the ruling king have limited lights of legislation (Wilson & Graham, 1994). The administration of justice is done according to sharia through use of religious court systems. The judges of religious courts are chosen by the ruling king and which are recommended by the supreme council of judiciary (Mackey, 2002). This council of judiciary comprises of 12 senior jurists and the law protects the judiciary independence. The ruling king has the authority to pardon and act as the uppermost â€Å"court of appeal†. There are well formed traditions in the direct access and right to appeal to the high officials in the political system of Saudi Arabia (Wilson & Graham, 1994). On the other hand, the Australia commonwealth is a democracy constitution which is based on federal powers division. Australia employs constitutional monarchy form of government which is composed of government of parliamentary system. â€Å"Queen Elizabeth II† the Australian queen stands in the position of monarch of other commonwealth monarchies. At the federal level the general governor represents the queen while in the state level the governors represent her. The rights of the constitution gives the general governor executive powers but they have to be exercised only when the prime minister gives an advice (Penniman, 1977). Australia has three government branches which include commonwealth i. e. the legislature that comprise the queen, senate and â€Å"house of representative†. Second, the federal council of executive i. e. the executive and comprises of prime minister, councilors and state ministers (Aitkin & Jinks, 1980). Finally, the federal courts and Australia high court i. e. the judiciary. The parliament of bicameral commonwealth comprises the queen, upper house that comprises 76 senators and 150 members of representatives of the house i. e. lower house. The later are designated from constituencies of single members known commonly as seats or electorates which are allocated to the states basing on the population and each state is given five seats as minimum. The senate comprises 12 senators from each state and 2 other senators from each territory (Aitkin & Jinks, 1980). The government of Australia is formed by two main political groups i. e. the coalition and the labor party of Australia. The coalition political group is a formal group comprising of two parties i. e. national party which is minor and liberal party the major party. Numerous minor parties and independent members including Australian democrats and the greens have been represented in the parliament of Australian especially in the upper houses (Appleton, 1983). Contrary to Saudi Arabia where king are chosen from the royal family by the members of the royal family, in Australia there is a compulsory voting for all citizens above 18 years of age. In addition voting in this nation is done at federal, territorial and in state level. There is a compulsory enrollment to vote in all places except in the southern part of Australia (Penniman, 1977). In conclusion even though the Saudi Arabian kingdom is currently stable there are major undercurrents, which are working against royal family. The Saudi Arabia political system is shaped to a greater extent by Faisal king in whom kings have absolute powers. However, the ulema are central in supporting the legitimacy of the rule of the king. The political system of Saudi Arabia has been formalized consultative body. In addition, there are several laws which have been enacted in order to regulate the activities of the modern society. These laws are additions to Islamic laws and are not expected to be against the Islamic laws (Mackey, 2002). In Saudi Arabia the political system is characterized with lack of democracy and there is always opposition due to lack of forums of expressing discontent with the kings and rulers. In addition, the political system in Saudi Arabia is characterized with economic power differences between social groups and therefore leads to opposition. On the other hand, the political system of Australia has been founded in the traditions of liberal democratic. This system seems to be effective since it is based on values of association and freedom of expression, religious tolerance and rule of regulation and law which expresses democracy (Department of foreign affairs and trade, 2008). Reference: Aitkin D & Jinks B (1980): Australian Political Institutions, ISBN 0858965712, Pitman. Appleton R (1983): The Australian Encyclopedia, ISBN 0959660429, Grolier Society of Australia M. E Sharpe. Department of foreign affairs and trade (2008): Australia’s system of government. Retrieved on 17th January 2009 from; http://www. dfat.gov. au/facts/sys_gov. html Farsy F & Al-Farsy F (1986): Saudi Arabia: A Case Study in Development, ISBN 0710301286. Routledge, Mackey S (2002): The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom, ISBN 0393324176, W. W. Norton. Penniman H (1977): Australia at the Polls: The National Elections of 1975, ISBN 0844732397, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Quandt W (1981): Saudi Arabia in the 1980s: Foreign Policy, Security, and Oil, ISBN 0815772866, Brookings Institution Press. Wilson P & Graham D (1994): Saudi Arabia: The Coming Storm, ISBN 1563243954 .

My passion for helping people and studying with the best to begin a Essay

My passion for helping people and studying with the best to begin a new professional life in Public Relations. Kimberly Warfield - Essay Example For this reason, I believe that Public Relations is one field that I will be most successful at. Since my children have become self sufficient and are getting the hang of things as far as their lives are concerned, I have finally decided to come back to studying for a career path. I know I can bring a change to my life as well as that of my family and for this reason I have decided to take this move. As my father had fallen ill during the 4 years of my education at the undergraduate school, I had to bear a difficult time there. I worked full time and attended school in a part time capacity. I also took care of my younger sibling all this while – which essentially made me into a stronger person. I always wanted to go back to studies but at that time my concentration was bent on completely towards the needs of my family and nothing else. As far as my personality traits are concerned, I have been a community leader f late and have continued to devote myself whole-heartedly to the cause of the Middleburg Community Center and facilitated in raising funds for the underprivileged individuals and families so that they could go to schools. I also work in the capacity of a volunteer for The National Infertility Association and this is my sixth year for RESOLVE. This has basically been made possible due to my own infertility condition that I had to go through before I became a mother of twins. God has His way of rewarding people and I do not feel left out in any way. I am most contented and satisfied and all my enthusiasm is in line with achieving a career path for my own self in the times to come. Since my networking is strong and I can easily connect with different types of people and not to forget the thirst of attaining education more and more, I would request the said authorities to consider my admission in the Georgetown University, Washington DC for the

Pepsico Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Pepsico - Essay Example All these activities, from a marketing perspective, enable businesses to attract a market share, run profitably and sustainably. This paper examines the marketing concepts and subjects of marketing strategy that are presented and explained in a documentary program, CNBC special research/analysis on the company PepsiCo, which is headquartered in Purchase, New York, PepsiCo Inc is an American multinational company that produces markets and distributes grain-based snack foods and beverages. Like all businesses, PepsiCo has to gain a share of the highly competitive market, make profits, and create consumer value; however, this is not an easy feat to achieve without strategic marketing concepts and marketing strategies. The first marketing concept inherent in PepsiCo’s marketing strategy is the creation of healthy foods and drinks in response to the rise in global health issues, such as obesity (â€Å"Pepsi Documentary Part 1†). PepsiCo aims to produce snacks and beverages w ith low calorie, sugar, and salt, a challenging marketing strategy that is slowly transforming the scarcely known nondescript company into a leading global beverage and snacks company. Besides that, PepsiCo has an ever-increasing global presence, supplying a wide range of beverages and snacks all over the world; the company aims to satisfy customers through a regular supply of their products. The company fulfills all their customers’ needs by ensuring that there are no shortages of consumer products in the market, ranging from beverages up to snacks. Supplying customers with all their needs is an effective customer-centric strategy that enables PepsiCo to build strong customer relations while making profits. Research and innovation is at the center of PepsiCo’s marketing strategy; the company actively conducts research to discover new ingredients and flavors that can be used in its products (â€Å"Pepsi Documentary Part 1†). This research is very essential in th e creation of new breakthroughs for the company; for instance, in its quest to establish healthier products, the company seeks to discover alternative sweeteners through the research. Research is an effective way of building customer value because the basis for the establishment of outstanding products caters for consumer needs. PepsiCo continuously seeks to create superior brands that are appealing to the customers, so that it can attract its share of the product market. Given the changing global attitudes towards lifestyles in particular, PepsiCo has an obligation to meet the new market needs by ensuring its products are in tandem with the emerging changes. PepsiCo’s research and product development center works tirelessly and relentlessly to establish new ideas the company can implement that, in order to create sustainable customer value and loyalty. For instance, PepsiCo’s product research and development center has been tasked to find ways of reducing the levels o f sugar, calories, and salts in the company’s products as a strategic direction for the future (â€Å"Pepsi Documentary Part 2†). Ethics and cultural considerations are also part of PepsiCo’s marketing strategies; the company is firmly committed to societal values and cultural aspects that characterize its potential target markets. For instance, the company is strongly committed to reducing the leve

Molecular diagnosis of Neonatal mellitus Research Paper

Molecular diagnosis of Neonatal mellitus - Research Paper Example Therefore, the adoption of whole exome sequencing (WES) for diagnosis of NDM at molecular level provided a remedy in general management of NDM as asserted by Bonnefond et al (2010).  Molecular diagnosis of NDM has had several achievements such as it permitted a more rapid and cost-effective diagnosis problems. The analysis of patients with monogenic forms of diabetes is now very fast since the use of molecular diagnosis makes it possible of analysing many diabetes genes simultaneously (Bonnefond et al, 2010).   Molecular diagnosis is applicable where the use of sanger-based sequencing was inefficient. Most importantly, the use of whole exome sequencing for molecular diagnosis is an exceptional tool for further genetic research. In addition, WES is important in further identification of new casual mutations (Ylikallio et al, 2014). For example, the use of WES has identified a new mutation of ABCC8. Therefore, this technology is more comprehensive, cheaper and less labour intensive as compared to other standard sequencing protocols.The Molecular Diagnosis of NDA  Studies show that almost half of NDM cases are transient (TNDM) while the other forms are permanent (PNDM) (Carroll, Brilhante, and Suomalainen, 2014). The several cases of both the forms of NDM that were attend to since the adoption of WES use shows that, majority of all the cases handled had TNDM form. This form had abnormality in chromosome 6q24 and a diagnosis on the frequent cause of NDM shows there is mutation in the pancreatic beta cells.

Religious Influence on Literacy and Politics in Western Civilization Essay

Religious Influence on Literacy and Politics in Western Civilization to 1750 - Essay Example This portrayed the importance of religion and religious doctrines at the time. Besides the major influence of religion in politics and governance, religion influenced the development of literacy in the societies as well. Islam and Christianity are two major religions that influenced the political and literacy development of the western societies prior to the 1750 as the discussion below portrays. The history of the western society portrays the important role of Roman Catholic Church. The church influenced the social structure by influencing the politics of the society. As the largest single unifying factor, the Roman Catholic influenced the formation of the Roman Catholic, which extended its territories to parts of Africa, as the largest political unit at the time the structure and development of the early Roman Empire portrayed the influence of religion in the political and literacy civilization of the western countries. Subsequent developments and restructuring of the society arose from the numerous internal religious wrangles. The development and spread of Islam from the Middle East to parts of Northern Africa and Eastern Europe coupled with the rise of Protestants in central Europe weakened the Roman Empire owing to the fact that they limited the religious influence of the Roman Catholic. This portrays the influence of religion in the formation and governance of the earl y western societies. Prior to the disintegration of the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic offered numerous services to the populace including medical services and schooling besides inspiring the development of arts, culture and philosophies. The church for example used strategic propaganda techniques to increase the influence of the church thereby providing an effective platform for unified governance. The Roman Catholic used such iconic artists as Michelangelo, Caravaggio and Da Vinci to propagate religious propaganda thereby succeeding in unifying the societies.