ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Brief introduction to the topic of salt water marshes In this particular step the teacher will give a brief introductory presentation on the topic of salt water marshes. He/she will discuss aspects related to how salt marshes form, their environmental impact, what animal and plant species exist within such areas and how important they are to the local ecosystem (Farndon, 2003). The rationale behind this particular step is help students gain a brief understanding of the ecology of salt water marshes before they proceed on the topic on their own. It can be considered a guide of sorts in helping them know what to research, how the research should proceed and what they should present. Separating the class into teams of 6 The basics of a Jigsaw activity is having students investigate particular aspects of a topic on their own and then piece together the information into a learning activity where students become the teachers to other students helping to facilitate a unique learning environment (Souvignier & Kronenberger, 2007). This particular activity is done in order to help facilitate the creation of numerous unique views about a topic instead of basing all answers from just one point of view. Having each 2 individuals per team create a brief impact report for either tidal changes, plants and animals (Emphasize information regarding environmental impact) For this particular step each 6 team group is divided into teams of two individuals that will research topics on tidal changes, plants or animals within Salt water marshes and how each aspect is interconnected in the local ecosystem. By separating the research into groups of two this enables the development of several points of view regarding one particular topic instead of a singular overriding view created by the group (Souvignier & Kronenberger, 2007). Have the 2 individual members per team that are working on the same topic meet together and share ideas on what they learned about tidal changes, plants or animals In this particular part of the activity what is done is to have the two members of each group that are researching about their respective topics meet up and share their views. This is done so that different aspects regarding the same topic are exchanged resulting in a much broader view about the topic they were given and how best to present the topic back to their own group. Have the teams meet up again and share the information they learned in order for all members of the team to be brought up to speed on all aspects of the topic The essence of the Jigsaw activity is to bring together various different views regarding different aspects of a topic and combine them into a cohesive and understandable whole. As such by having each two person team responsible for their topic teach their group members about the topic they learned this makes them more excited about the topic and about teaching it. Inform the students that a brief quiz will be done on saltwater marshes and that they have a 15 minute review period where they should try to confirm all information accumulated This particular activity is done to facilitate greater learning interest
Introduction Technology has single handedly brought about radical changes in the way that business transactions are carried out. The growth of the internet in the period between the early 1990s and today has seen the area of network for businesses spread to cover the entire world (Jay, & Olive, 1997). This internet technology has also led to entrepreneurs coming up with new business ideas most of which are hosted and supported fully over the network. This essay seeks to highlight the importance of the internet in the expansion of businesses outside the United States. How the internet is used and viewed by consumers in other countries Aside from the United States and other developed countries, the internet is far and large a new concept. Countries in Asia Africa are now setting up infrastructure to facilitate the usage of internet including the likes of submarine cables. Apart from direct communication by e-mails and internet calls, students the internet is gradually becoming an acceptable academic resource all over the world. Teachers are softening their hitherto hardliner positions regarding sources for academic material allowing their students the chance to cite information they have collected on the internet. Very few of the developing countries have embraced the internet as a credible place for handling business transactions and in the more conservative regions the internet is perceived as immoral on account of pornographic material it hosts. The lack of computers and other Business Technology 2 facilities which support the provision of internet access have been credited as the major hindrance towards the acceptance of internet commerce in these developing countries. How technology aids in attempts to gain clients outside the US Gaining clients outside the United States is a variable that to a large extent depends on technology and particularly internet technology (Opara, 2003). Depending on the goods or services being provided internet merchandizing is gradually becoming a credible trade domain. Internet calls are by far the cheapest way of voice communication across borders and the numerous money transfer services that are being hosted on the internet have enabled the trade of goods and services without physical contact of the involved parties a reality. For many companies and more so in recent years, the website has been perceived as the greatest sales channel (Opara, 2003). People are able to access information about the company and the services or goods provided and in most instances even purchase these goods and services over the internet. The internet provides the platform for exposure of the company to global markets and supported by other technological avenues like the telephone it is gradually becoming a formidable trade arena. How technology supports attempts to expand a busi
Introduction The significance of high-quality evidence and evaluation in disaster or humanitarian crises becomes increasingly acknowledged (Blanchet et al., 2017; Gerdin et al., 2014). However, the research on the topic of disaster and humanitarian crises is not very extensive, has significant gaps, and is connected to some methodological issues that limit the quality of produced evidence (Blanchet et al., 2017; Smith, Roberts, Knight, Gosselin, & Blanchet, 2015). Similarly, non-research evaluations are also plagued with issues (National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre [NCCTRC], 2011). This fact may be connected to the barriers that prevent the improvement of the quality of evidence and evaluation, and the present paper will consider some of these barriers, as well as solutions to them. While the obstacles are admittedly numerous, solutions to them are available and need to be implemented for disaster and crisis management to be evidence-based and high-quality. The Quality of Evidence and Evaluations in Disaster or Humanitarian Crises Research is considered to be one of the best sources of the highest-quality evidence (Gerdin et al., 2014). However, research in disaster settings is problematic. A major barrier is a methodology that is available and employed during evidence collection. As pointed out by Blanchet et al. (2017), who developed a systematic review of the literature on the topic of public health inter
A carbon credit is a value that has been assigned to reduce carbon emissions, it is an international precaution to control the increase of green houses gases. A carbon credit is equal to one ton of carbon dioxide or any other emitted gas depending on the market rules. Industrial emissions are the major source of green house gases especially industries that use fossil fuels to manufacture goods like steel, fertilizer, cement, textiles among others. Greenhouse gases affect the ability of the atmosphere to trap heat making it absorb more heat, hence global warming occurs. Some of these gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other hydro fluorocarbons. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an organization that was created to control industrial emissions, and it came up with the tradable permit system of carbons which they considered to be environmentally effective, as long as there were clear allocation mechanisms and a long term prices set. They say that, 1 “Policies that provide a real or implicit price of carbon could create incentives for producers and consumers to significantly invest in low-GHG products, technologies and processes.” Emission allowances Emissions trading, which is also known as cap and trade, is a market-based method used to manage greenhouse gases by creating monetary incentives for achieving reductions. However, there need to be a central organ that restricts the maximum level of noxious waste that can be released. Companies who emit more are required to buy credits from those who emit a less from the set value. The emissions allowance or credits were introduced through the Kyoto protocol which sets limits or quotas on the amount of green houses gas that a country can emit. The Kyoto Protocol was formed in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and in 2001 its rules of operation were set in Marrakesh and came to be known as the “Marrakesh Accords.” However, it formally took effect on 16 th February 2001. The accord is an environmental treaty passed by 170 countries in 1992 by the UN. Countries are assigned amount units of which each represents an allowance to emit one metric ton of carbon dioxide or other equivalent greenhouse gas and they are recorded in the national registry. The units are controlled and sold by an organization or private operators from which businesses can buy them. 2 “Operators that have not used up their quotas can sell their unused allowances as carbon credits, while businesses that are about to exceed their quotas can buy the extra allowances as credits, privately or on the open market”. A credit is given to a company, organization or operator when it reduces its emissions of greenhouse gases beyond the set limit, or quota, by one metric ton. “The eventual trade in carbon credits is treated as emission offset, thus a rise in toxin release by the various firms can be set-off by the decrease from other firms. For example, if a manufacturing
Introduction The short story “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor is an intricate psychoanalytical exploration of the characters that are not so different from regular people. In each person and family, some hidden idiosyncrasies and dysfunctions morph their relationship and outlook on the world. The main characters of the story observe and relate to others through judgment leading to their perceptions and blind belief in certain ideas to be fundamentally challenged. Mrs. Freeman and Hopewell Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell in the story are often observing the world around them and placing themselves around other people. The third-person omniscient point of view from the narrator allows the reader to glance into the minds of several introduced characters. Both women exemplify a tremendous amount of judgment about others while being self-absorbed. This is evident especially in Mrs. Hopewell’s “good country people,” an example of her naivete that people around her are either “trash” or good-hearted. She considers herself be wise in the supposedly accurate judgment of character. However, she did accept that life isn’t perfect, with people having their faults. Mrs. Hopewell was kind and patient, seeking goodness in people. Mrs. Freeman was straightforward, constantly voicing her opinion and never admitting she was wrong. Instead, she often sought to point out the mistakes of others. Egoistically, she took credit for the thoughts that Mrs. Hopewell voiced. Around others Mrs. Freeman was often observant, choosing to look quietly on from her favorite spot in the room. At times, she showed some compassion and understanding, especially towards her daughters and Hulga (O’Connor, 218-224). The women’s strong-willed characters mixed with arrogance twist their view of the world. Impressions The initial response to the story’s title was presumptuous, but it was drastically changed as the narrative progressed. Originally, the title gives a perception of a narrative that will be focused on rural life with all its platitudes. However, the brilliance of this story is that the use of clichés such as “good country people” tends to blind the characters to the true nature of things (Donley, par. 5). The phrase itself is a judgment given out by the Hopewell family based on social status. The title brought to attention from the very beginning jumps out at the reader every time it is used, setting up the trust that Hopewells do have in the “country people.” At first, the story seems to be set up as a family conflict until the appearance of Manley Pointer. “‘Aren’t you,’ she murmured, ‘aren’t you just good country people?’” (O’Connor, 254). By the end, the reader realizes that the title plays a driving force behind the narrative so ironically that blind cliché judgment is misplaced. The impression of the title changes drastically as the reader is amazed at the radically mis
Introduction Without a doubt the American Revolution was a pivotal event in US history. It was the war for independence against the British masters. But it was unlike any other war, it was not like the conflict often seen in a typical colony trying to break free from the shackles of its colonizer. The Americans were forced to rebel against what they considered as their Mother country – England. Even with much provocation the Americans tried to prevent the conflict from escalating into a full-blown war. But at the end the pride of the English King as well as the desperation of the English monarchy forced the hand of the settlers to draw the sword. Finally key leaders such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin saw that it was futile to reason with a tyrant and so they united the American people to gain liberty and the right to chart their own destiny. Background The rebellion in the New World came as a surprise to many. No one wanted war but looking back it should have been obvious that war was inevitable. The American Revolution was the byproduct of decades of radical changes that swept Europe – these radical ideas eventually spilled into the American colonies. These were brought about by new ideas. These new ideas challenged the way people look at governments. For thousands of years, the monarchial system of government was the only acceptable form of governance. But in the 18 th century more and more people are challenging the idea kings have the divine right to rule. 1 This is not hard to understand because since recorded history, men and women are witnesses to the human weaknesses of the supposedly anointed rulers. Their eccentricities, love for opulence, and appetite for war had left many of their constituents bloody and poor. There has to be another way to govern a country. King George III was not only determined to dominate Europe but he was willing to spend huge sums of English money to sustain an ongoing campaign with its long-time enemy France. According to Peckham, “In 1763 Great Britain, which had just overwhelmed her principal rival empire, the French, in the Seven Year’s War, found herself with a huge war debt, additional territories to administer, and an ambitious new king anxious to rule as well as reign.” 2 At that time no one in England knew that the exhilarating victory in the Seven Year’s War will be replaced with humiliating defeat at the hands of inexperience rebels living thousands of miles away. The Colony Even before the mass migrations seen in the period between the late 16 th century and 17 th century, the British already knew of the great potential of
Bioterrorism refers to the exploitation of biological toxins or pathogenic organisms to produce disease and death in humans with the aim of spreading terror and fear in the society. It is worth noting that currently bioterrorism agents are fundamentally naturally occurring pathogens that have been genetically altered to make them resistance to drugs and available vaccines. These organisms have also been altered to augment their virulence or make their propagation spreading easier and rapid without earlier detection. Centre for Disease control (2000) points out that bioterrorism is not a new phenomenon in the human history since as earlier as the 6 th century BC the Assyrians did poison the wells of their enemies using a virulence fungus named rye ergot. Around the same period, the Romans utilized corpses of diseased animals for the same purpose. While invading the city of Kaffa (currently the Ukrainian city of Feodosiya) in the 14th, the Mongols (Tartars) catapulted corpses and other bodies of the dying plague victims into the city resulting in unanticipated spread of the plague beyond the walls of the city and was thought to be responsible for the ‘Black Death’ or bubonic plague that shook Europe in the Middle Ages. However, the primary aim of this paper is to analyse the current approaches employed in the detection of pathogenic agents hence prevent or timely respond to a bioterrorism attack. Unlike ancient attacks, the current technological developments have made biological agents more dangerous than ever. According to Wheelis (2007) the fact that both biotechnology experts and equipments are readily available anywhere in the globe has made bioterrorism more imminent than ever. Other factors that have made bioterrorism more imminent are the numerous international conflicts that forced many countries to research and stockpile biological weapons, including Germany, United States, Russia, Japan and Iraq. However, the good news is that most of these weapons have been destroyed as a result of the agreement of the 1972 Geneva Convention on the Prohibition of the Production, Development and Stockpiling of Toxin and Bacteriological Weapons and on their Destruction (Centre for Disease Control, 2000). Despite this good news there are concerns that terrorist groups and rogue nations like Iran and North Korea might acquire this technology and hence carry out a bioterrorist attack. These fears have been reinforced by the recent attacks using biological agents in various parts of the world including the 2001 spreading of Bacillus anthracis via the Postal Service of the United States. Due to the renewed threat of a potential bioterrorist attack various government around the globe have developed rapid pathogen detection methods as a bioterrorism response mechanism. Wheelis (2007) states that current the United States and other developed countries uses a combination of technology and instrument or platform that span the spectrum of platforms and technologies employed in environmental and clinical microbial detection or testing which have been shown to be reproducible, specific, se
Introduction It has been noted so far by the various lecture articles provided in class that labor shortages within various industries comes as direct result of the following examples: companies being reluctant to train their current pool of employees beyond what is necessary, the utilization of hiring strategies that require employees to come with the aforementioned trained skills before hand, the use of temporary workers and finally the constantly changing nature of product life cycles today which require constant training and innovation in order to properly catch up. What these various examples fail to take into account though is the impact of the business processing and outsourcing industry in locations such as the Philippines and India. The Outsourcing Industry For example, in the articles “Employees in U.S. Aren’t Very Happy” and “The Future of the Global Workplace” it is stated that two of the main causes behind the current labor shortage within the U.S. is the reluctance of companies to train and the fact that hiring practices often look for prospective candidates to already have the aforementioned skills the company needs to fill a job yet when examining the hiring and training practices of outsourcing companies such as Convergys and Sykes, who have business processing and call centers located within India and the Philippines, it was seen that they had no such qualms regarding training and hiring. It is interesting to note that the call center industries within India and the Philippines have the highest “churn rates” out of any other industry within such countries. Churn rates (or employee attrition rates) can be described as the number of employee that both move into and out of a particular organization. In the case of the Indian and the Philippine call centers, churn rates can reach up to 15 to 25 percent for particular projects yet there is never an extended period of time where positions are left vacant, rather, a continuous influx of new hires filling in positions left by trained call center agents resolves any problem related to labor shortage and most important of all the BPOs (Business Processing Organizations) or the call centers are not reluctant to train such employees despite the high churn rate. It must then be questioned as to why such companies are not as reluctant to administer training compared to their counterparts in other countries. Differentiating Practices McIvor (2011) explains the main reason behind the difference in practices is related to costs and expected returns (McIvor, 2011). The fact remains that Indians and Filipinos are far cheaper and easier to hire as compared to the average American or European, especially when taking into consideration costs related to benefits, health care and retirement costs (McIvor, 2011). Not only that, the cost of doing business is far cheaper within such countries as compared to the U.S. or Europe and as such allows companies to make more profit by providing the same service due to lower c
Summary For entities to understand the needs of their target market, they need to increase their level of interaction with their customers. Social media has made it easy for firms of all sizes to realize this goal. The article ‘Myspace DIY Ad Service’ expounded on the advertisement that aimed at encouraging businesses of all sizes to create banner advertisements at minimal cost and direct them to their preferred target audience within the Myspace social network site (Woody 1). Through the operation of this advert campaign, firms can now easily market their products and services to their target au