ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Introduction Buddhism which is construed by many to be a religion is a set of beliefs and observations. It relies on the teachings accredited to Siddharta Gautama who is widely referred to as the ‘Buddha’ or the ‘Awakened One’ (enlightened). To Buddhists, Siddharta Gautama is an enlightened teacher who shared his insights to assist heedful beings to end their afflictions through appreciating the exact nature of an incident, thus escaping the cycle of suffering and rebirth. The means of arriving at this end as per the Buddhists includes: ethical mannerism and unselfish behavior, devotional practices, rituals and the prayers of bodhisattvas that aid in achieving Nirvana, abandonment of world matters, meditation, physical exercises, study as well as nurturing of good judgment (Fieser & Powers, 2007). Therefore Buddhism can be taken to be a path of practice as well as spiritual development culminating into an insight into true nature of life (Harvey, 1990). For instance, the practice of meditation is the vehicle via which one can change and attain qualities such as awareness, kindness in addition to wisdom (Harvey, 1990). While to some people Buddhism is seen as a religion, to others, it is not, since it does offer the idea of worshipping in a creator, god (Harvey, 2001). However the ideologies of Buddhists’ teaching are straightforward and practical. Nothing is construed to be predetermined or permanent, and that actions have a bearing while change is possible (Harvey, 1990). Thus Buddhism is seen as appealing to all people without considering their race, nationality or gender. Through its teachings such as meditation, people can employ them so as to revolutionize their behaviors to be fully responsible for their lives as well as develop qualities of wisdom and compassion (Koller, 2001). Goal of Human life for Buddhist The goal of a Buddhist is Nirvana, which connotes the deliverance of the mind (Fieser & Powers, 2007). This human life should be destined to a cessation of all sufferings and conflicts so as to attain the great happiness (Fieser & Powers, 2007). It is important to note that in Buddhism there are also elements of present life teachings such as economic, social, ethical, intellectual as well as mental or spiritual attributes. Not only is Buddha concerned about goal and life after life but also he stresses the present life more (Walpola, 1974). As far as Buddhists are concerned, there existed life prior to birth and there will be lives after death (rebirth) (Walpola, 1974). This is not similar to reincarnation since after acquisition of Nirvana, re-becoming is no longer present. To achieve this, a Buddhist has to follow the basic concepts summed up the four Noble Truths as well as the Noble Eightfold Path. As per the teachings, the first truth assumes that life is suffering. Life, according to Buddhists, encompasses pain, growing old, illness and subsequent death. In life people also surpass psychological suffering such as loneliness, frustration, fear, embarrassments, disappointments as well as anger (Walpola, 1974). This truth underlying life is undisputed fa
Introduction A timeline is defined as a linear order of events or activities for a project (Alsuliman 2019). It is often recommended that projects have such a chronological order of activities to anticipate outcomes and ensure the efficient delivery of the project. Thus, timelines ensure that no project overruns (delays) are recorded. This research study focuses on project overruns as recorded in construction projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As Albogamy, Scott, and Dawood (2012) note, Saudi Arabia has had a boom in construction over the last decade. This has primarily been attributed to the steady growth and expansion of university campuses in the country. It can be argued that the country’s economic growth, coupled with individual wealth, has encouraged significant infrastructure growth in the country (Majed et al. 2018). On the same note, however, Assaf and Al-Hejji (2006) explain that 70% of these megaprojects are usually delayed. There are several reasons why projects are negatively affected by their overruns. This literature review will analyze some of the common causes of project overruns in Saudi Arabia. The information that will be presented will be collected from secondary sources made up of peer-reviewed journals. It is important to note that the study’s knowledge area will revolve around the causes of project overruns in Saudi Arabia and how this affects the success of construction projects in the country. For example, a critique of Dr. Shabbab Al Hammadi and Sadique M. Nawab’s (among others) study on construction overruns will explain both the causes and consequences of the same. Hammadi and Nawad are both senior civil engineering lecturers at Shaqra University. Causes of Project Delay Alsuliman (2019) notes that one of the most common reasons for project overruns is poor planning at the initial stages. It is critical to point out at this juncture that project overruns are a result of mistakes done by three parties: the owner, consultant, or contractor. The three mentioned make up the decision-making body of a construction project and offer guidance on the initial plan of action (Assaf, Al-Khalil, and Al-Hazmi 1995). Alsuliman (2019) explains that during the initial planning stages, the owner, consultant, and contractor have t
Project Description Currently, the problem of social inequality is one of the most acute. This project is dedicated to the creation of a website on this topic. It should highlight the main problems facing society and ways to solve them. This site should also contain a section with news on this topic. The project is one of the ways to convey the urgency of the problem to the broad public (Hurst, Gibbon, & Nurse, 2016). It will make people more aware of and able to deal with inequality. Completed Work At the moment, the structure of the site has been thought out. It should contain sections on various contemporary issues. These include, for example, gender, race, and age inequality. Each of these sections contains information about the issue, the history of its occurrence, and how to deal with it. In addition, a list of news sources for each topic has been compiled. This will keep the site up to date and highlight the relevance of problems. Further Plans One of the most challenging actions in the future is website development. The project will be created on one of the design platforms that allow people to create a website without in-depth knowledge of programming (for example, Tilda). However, it is necessary to think over the site design and its appearance and then devote a significant amount of time to creating and structuring. In the long term, it will take from 1 to 3 months, but after that, the site will need only occasionally supplemented or edited. Conclusion Social inequality has accompanied human relations for millennia. However, modern people are diligently trying to eradicate it and become more conscious. People often lack information about the causes and consequences of unfair actions. Creating a website on this topic can be one of the useful resources for solving this problem. This will contribute to a friendlier and open society where everyone respects the rights of others. Reference Hurst, C. H., Gibbon, H. M. F., & Nurse, A. M. (2016). Social inequality: Forms, causes, and consequences. Routledge.
Childhood obesity in the United States has been a very serious issue over the last few decades. Similar concerns have been observed in a growing number of European and Asian countries. The First Lady of the United States has stated that the child obesity rates in America have tripled over the past thirty years (qtd. In The weight of the nation , 2012). The First Lady’s words prove the fact that the problem is urgent and thinking that everything is alright is no more appropriate. It is high time to develop and implement a clear plan of action that will help to overcome the problem of childhood obesity. Overall, the rationale of the topic is the growing number of affected individuals and the adverse health effects along with the life hardships they face. The state healthcare specialists continue to be concerned about the high obesity rates in children in the United States and the consequences of the problem. According to Schw
The historical drama, If not Us, Who? ( Wer wenn nicht wir ), was created by a German director, Andres Veiel, and released in 2011. The film tells a story of the romantic relationship between Bernard Vesper (August Diehl), a writer, and Gudrun Ensslin (Lena Lauzemis), a future Red Army Faction (RAF) leader. In 1963, a young student at Tübingen University, Vesper, founds the publishing house, trying to combine business with pleasure by propagating Marxism. He arranges the meetings of the left wing youth, where he meets his mate, Gudrun Ensslin − an advanced student of the German Studies faculty. A stormy, agonizing, and exhausting relationship begins, and Ensslin always takes the leading position in this romantic struggle. Suffering from the imperfections and injustice of the world, the heroine is both spiritually and intellectually stronger than Vesper, who is torn between love for his father and shame for his involvement in the Nazi past (Veiel, 2011). The movie depicts the historical period from the 1960’s-1970’s, when “students and young adults in West Germany grew more politically radical” (Stefanik, 2009, p. 5). After Social Democrats failed to win the election in 1966, Ensslin and her supporters decided to take proactive steps to withstand the system and the political past of the country – the opposition to the older generation was one of the major purposes of the RAF operations. It was also a terroristic group, and after series of bombings and shootings in West Germany, the key RAF activists, including Ensslin, were sentenced to life imprisonment and later found dead in their cells (“German terror trial tapes found,” 2007). Previously, Veiel created a prize-winning documentary, “dealing with the historical facts of the RAF” (“Wer wenn nicht wir,” 2011, par. 3). Thus, If not Us, Who? also provides a rich and accurate historical material. It is full of the details, names, black-and-white chronicles and documents that shed light on the RAF history and do not allow the narrative to turn into a simple melodramatic story despite the fact that personal relationships are in the center of the plot.
Introduction The modern world is characterized by the era of advanced information technology. Computer technology in the contemporary world has become essentially sophisticated, creating a need for every organization and various government departments to embrace computerized information systems in a bid to enhance their operations and processes. With such developments and progress, the reliability of computerized data and the systems that process, maintain and report these data have increasingly become a major concern hence putting the need for an audit. Information Technology (IT) auditors normally evaluate the reliability of computer-generated data which support financial statements and also analyze the specific programs and their eventual outcome. In addition, the IT auditors have a role to scrutinize the sufficiency of controls in information systems and the related operational activities to ensure system success. Information Technology (IT) Audit which has become essential in many organizations can be said to be the “process that involves the collection and evaluation of data, facts, and information to establish whether a computer system has been designed to maintain data integrity, safeguard assets, allow organizational goals to be achieved effectively and uses resources more efficiently”. In IT, and specifically auditing, data integrity is used to refer to the state of correctness and completeness of the information, data, and other relevant facts as well as their validity by the norms specified either by the organization or relevant auditing body. In most cases to realize success with the IT auditing, one needs a functional and an effective IT system that “should lead the organization into achieving its set objectives, and at the same time any efficient IT system should use minimum resources to achieve the required objectives.” When carrying out their work, IT auditors should be concerned in understanding the individual behaviors of the users of the IS and the mode of making decisions in a bid to ensure or ascertain that the system in use is effective. Carrying out an IT Audit Many organizations continue to experience difficulties, especially ones requiring decision-making while carrying out an IT audit. When this confusion persists, it always affects the audit approach system adopted. Therefore, to carry out the audit, three key steps in decision-making are necessary, which are: evaluation of decision; decision on the timing of audit procedure, and decision on the application system selection. Evaluation decision has been regarded as the most difficult one for IT auditors and in many cases to be successful, the decision needs to be made at the end of the preliminary review phase, at the end of substantive testing phase, compliance testing phase, and lastly at the review phase. Throughout this process, the system should satisfactorily safeguard assets, maintain data integrity and achieve system eff
Recent acts of terrorism have not escaped the notice of the department of homeland security. Through the Patriot’s Act, the United States uses the provisions of this law to fight terrorism. A major concern of late to the department of Homeland Security is domestic terrorism, combating terrorism via agencies such as the FBI; DEA has been effective to some extent. The Patriot Act provides for the government to use as such resources as possible in combating terrorism, it also has provisions which allow for wider security actions by government agencies (Purpura, 2007). The powers given to agencies such as the FBI allow them to conduct searches, surveillance without requiring a warrant. Therefore these agencies have been effective in identifying and eradicating terrorist groups within the United States. The Patriot Act has several provisions covering on aspects such as cyber-terrorism, money laundering and border patrols. Through the Patriot Act, United States has been able to tighten security within the United States in all spheres. The act has been effective in fighting terrorism, because provisions like the anti-money laundering has enabled the government to seize funds believed to be funding terror acts against the United States (Bullock, 2008). The Patriot Act has been successful in instilling a sense of patriotism and as a result many Americans have taken up the call to protect their country against acts of terrorism. The drafting and implementation of the Patriot Act has been one of the most successful strategies in combating terrorism due to the underlying reasons that the United States is now more aware and prepared to fight terrorism (Smith, 2010). Success of the Patriot Act Concerns over the success of the Patriot Act has been a major discussion point recently, tradeoffs of the act can be looked at from various view points. In terms of security, the Patriot Act has been successful in reducing terror threats and attacks against the United States. Since the attacks of the twin towers, domestic acts of terror have reduced significantly. However in terms of economy and cost, the implementation of the Patriot Act has been very costly with the government spending a lot of taxpayer’s funds on anti-terror programs (Smith, 2010). Businesses such as airlines had to adjust to tough screening measures and extra surveillance leading to increased operating costs in their operation. These costs associated with the Patriot Act have raised concern especially in light of the world economic crunch. Human rights campaigners and justice departments are of the idea that the Patriot Act violates fundamental rights of Americans and therefore adjustments are necessary for its successful implementation. The act of terrorism should be treated as an act of war; this is because terrorism leads to loss of innocent human beings. Acts of terror are usually targeted att
An organizational Crisis A major organisational crisis faced by Hampton Inn hotels in Libya during the Arab spring was a lack of highly qualified employees to roll out the major services of the organisation (Barnes 2001). The problem occurred when people in Libya started demanding changes in political leadership. The business environment became untenable, well trained employees, especially those who had come from other countries, went back and locals who had the much needed skills also had flown out. The organisation completely lacked skilled manpower to get back on its feet again. Services deteriorated as a result of reduced earnings. Key issues that the organization faced afterwards Guest inconveniences Since there were no skilled employees, there were a lot of inconveniences caused to guests (Fink 2002). For instance, at one point guests complained about service delays and at times unnecessary inconveniences resulting from other guests in their rooms or even outside, in the swimming pool. There were also some problems associated with the failure of the lighting systems. That is, the company fulltime electrician was not within, and so some rooms did not have functional lights, while others had during the night been awaked by the flashing lights outside their rooms. Generally, such kind of disturbances compromises the services offered to the clients and does not appeal to them to make successive visits. Poor Employee service During that time of crisis, many clients indicated to have received substandard services from the front office. For instance, based on the publicly available information, on one occasion some guests, who had contacted the front office for help, indicated that the person who served them was very rude even prompting some visitors to cancel the reservation. Some guests were not served in time and others were left in the parking area without being served. Besides, some guest rooms had not been cleaned for some days. Guests had found waxy materials on the floor and around the comforter. Beds were dressed but not cleaned for some days as they carried some bad smell. Guest room disorganisation During the time of crisis, it was reported that the organisation of some of the guest rooms was below the standard which was previously associated with the organisation (Laye 2002). Some doors to guest rooms had been fixed in haste, that is, opening on the outside. Generally, this kind of organisation predisposed the guests to not just disturbances, but also risk from outside as well. For instance, due to lack of en
The second episode of the Beverly Hillbillies highlights the very first steps the Clampett family takes to enter a new environment. The family arrives in Beverly Hills and is introduced to its new home, neighbors, and everyday routine (CBGP Television, 2013). The audience is faced with an abundance of moments where the family does not understand the local culture. Thus, this gives plenty of space for the audience to use the reactions of newcomers Hillbillies and Beverly Hills residents to encode meaning. The episode of the show was aired in 1962 before the Internet and the era of the free press. Therefore, it is a perfect example of ideology or meaning encoding/decoding postulated by Stuart Hall. He believed that meaning is a message combined with the position of the author (Hall, 2017). Specifically, the creators of a media product have to encode an idea within a TV show in this case so that the audience could decode it based on their beliefs, culture, and identity. Therefore, television was bound to be influenced by ideology since it was created by a group of individuals with a purpose. In my opinion, the central idea of the TV show is that Hillbillies and the Beverly Hills society are very distinct but suffer from similar flaws. Both consider themselves to be right, hate each other because they are isolated, and are not willing to evolve and integrate within the society. In this particular work, most of the meaning is translated via acting in body language and the text spoken by the actors. It is possible to consider the example of a stove when Daisy May Moses is introduced to the object (CBGP Television, 2013). She immediately disregards it as something inferior and impractical. She does not adapt to the changes and wants to cook food by putting wood inside the oven. Quickly, the audience sees that Clampetts are different from the Beverly Hills community. Furthermore, in many families, grandparents are often the people who do not adapt to technological progress and have to be taught to use a computer or a phone on a basic level. This is why this particular image is so powerful as Daisy May Moses is an exaggerated caricature of a typical grandmother. The role of the audience is to agree, partially agree, or disagree with the idea/ideology proposed by the director. The documentary Hillbilly further highlights the ideas proposed by Stuart Hall. The movie describes the way media influenced public perception of the region of Appalachia (Rubin & York, 2018). Naturally, it is a location that not many people visit. As a result, the only information known about Appalachia and its citizens is the data portrayed in the news or on television. Hall (2017) described television as an object that creates myth or ideology, as people are exposed to things or ideas that they have not necessarily interacted with. At the same time, the ideas have to be encoded, which makes them biased, distorted, or preferred. Hence, the semiotic tools used in the documentary are different from those used in the TV show. The modern interpretation of hillbillies is focused on symbolic cod