ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Introduction Recently, people have heard more and more news about scientific innovations in artificial intelligence. Some people take this news positively, while others fear the negative impact of new technologies on their lives. The world is moving forward, space and the ocean’s depths, and the peculiarities of the brain’s structure and the human body are being studied. However, some people are worried about the development of technology – if the robot now knows how to lift weights, then a furniture mover is no longer needed. This means that this person will no longer receive a salary, and it is unclear what he will do. People hope to create an unconditional basic income, but simple fear spreads more and causes aggression towards artificial intelligence. Modern computers have learned to solve problems that, as previously thought, can only be done by humans. What people have believed requires knowledge, strategic thinking, and creativity, inherent only in humans, can already be accomplished by artificial intelligence. So what in the future will distinguish a human from a soulless machine? Thesis and an Outline of Arguments It seems that in the next hundred decades, people should not expect a complete replacement of humans with robots. The latter will indeed engage in some mechanical work previously performed exclusively by humans. However, not in all professions such a transition will be possible and valuable due to the specifics of labor. In addition, due to the existing measures to support those who lost their jobs, mass unemployment should not be expected. The overall expectation is that the human-robot relationship will simply shift into a new form, and become more complex and interconnected (Popovici 2). In general, the ongoing processes of increasing the role of artificial intelligence in people’s lives should be perceived as facilitating their lives and a way to free up their free time. Arguments A lot of existing technologies are aimed at automating most of the processes. At the same time, these scientific developments seriously affect the daily life of people. These technologies include a variety of bots, Internet assistants, and mobile applications. Organizations, realizing the benefits of automation, are also starting to use robots in operating. Instead of people, artificial intelligence-based systems are hired (Carbonero et al. 8); as a result, business efficiency increases and personnel costs decrease. However, it should be admitted that the extinction of professions is a natural process. Long ago, lamplighters turned on street lights in the morning and turned them off in the evenings. The work was not the easiest one: in the cold and in the heat, people went out very early and returned very late, and their salaries were quite modest. With the advent of electricity, the need for them has disappeared. More recent examples of disappearing professions include typists, several times fewer than seventy years ago. The automation process is most developed in jobs that are too complex or unpleasant for people and harmful to their health (Schwa
Emily Martin’s The egg and the sperm: how science has created a romance based on stereotypical male-female roles examines the way that biologists describe what they discover within culturally conditioned discursive constraints about gender. Through close textual analysis, she exposes the rhetorical biases in the myths which are propounded around reproduction: ‘By extolling the female cycle as a productive enterprise, menstruation must necessarily be viewed as a failure’ (Lamphere 1997, 85). Thus, what is a normal part οf being female is described within textbooks as implying that a system has gone awry, making products οf no use, not to specification, unsalable, wasted, scrap. She contrasts this with the way that the sperm is championed in terms οf the numbers οf sperm produced and their seeming resilience; she concludes, None οf these texts expresses such intense enthusiasm for any female processes. It is surely no accident that the remarkable process οf making sperm involves precisely what, in the medical view, menstruation does not: production οf something valuable. She finds in examining ovulation that ova, produced at birth, tend to be described as if ‘they merely sit on the shelf, slowly degenerating and aging like overstocked inventory’ (Lamphere 1997, 86). In contrast, male sperm production is seen as the continuous production of οf fresh sperm. What Martin finds fascinating is that sperm production is not described as wasteful. She goes on to describe the way that the ova is represented as passive and waiting for the active sperm to penetrate; drawing on more recent research which shows that the sperm’s force is not sufficient to penetrate the ova’s surface, she demonstrates that the ova plays an active role in reproduction and that the egg traps the sperm and adheres to it so tightly that the sperm’s head is forced to lie flat against the surface. She argues, ‘what we are seeing… is the importation οf cultural ideas about passive females and heroic males into the “personalities” οf gametes’ (Lamphere 1997, 94). This has consequences such as pushing back οf the boundaries οf personhood to the cellular level, which ultimately may produce restrictions on pregnant women’s rights in relation to the fetus. Another essay relating to reproduction is Sarah Franklin’s essay ‘Making sense οf missed conceptions: anthropological perspectives on unexplained infertility, which attempts to analyze the stories we tell about conception, which she argues are also ‘cultural cosmologies in microcosm’ (Franklin 1992). With the growth οf assisted conception, pre-conceptual care, and in vitro fertilization, she argues that conception is becoming more public. In a similar way, Rayna Rapp analyses the discourses ‘Constructing amniocentesis’ and investigates the power οf medical discourses ‘to intersect and rewrite the languages previously used for the description οf pregnancies, fetuses, and family problems’ (Rapp 1990, pp. 28-42) This intervention has grave consequences for those forced
Introduction Oil is a natural resource drilled from countries that have oil deposits. The Middle East relies heavily on oil exports to finance various projects. However, there are fears of a shortage of oil deposits in the coming years due to over exploitation of this resource. This region will not have adequate oil deposits to supply to other nations leading to serious effects on its economy. This proposal presents viable economic options that will enable the economy of the Middle East to remain vibrant despite a decline in oil supply. Background The Middle East produces more than 50% of the world’s oil products that are exported to Brazil, China, India, and Russia. The increase and spread of modernization push this demand beyond the ability of nature to produce this product. This leads to price increase and economic sabotages as nations struggle to shape their relations with eastern countries. Oil prices affect the prices of all other commodities in all economic sectors. However, there are fears that the oil deposits in the Middle East will not be sufficient to serve the whole world and there are speculations that this region will run out of oil by 2050. Currently, there is almost a 50% increase in oil demand by emerging markets, and this will lead to an increase in its prices. These fears have forced this region to start planning and identify ways of sustaining their economies. However, it is crucial to note that even if these oil deposits become depleted, they will not be empty. Unfortunately, the remaining oil deposits will not be sufficient for both local and foreign use. Also, oil exploration will become very expensive, and this will force these nations to seek other alternatives for financing their projects. Economic Alternatives Most nations like the United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia have started to embrace modern commercial activities to reduce over-dependence on oil. Other nations should follow suit and adopt commercial practices like Islamic banking that will ensure their oil savings are channeled to other sustainable economic activities. Also, these nations should popularize the use of Islamic insurance services to diversify their investments. This region should develop its tourism industry to ensure it attracts foreigners and locals to various scenic places. The long term conflicts that are synonymous with this region have left this place worst than a scene in a movie. Moreover, the region can embrace agricultural activities to ensure the local population does not experience inadequate food supply. Even though, this region receives insufficient rainfall it can embrace greenhouse farming that uses less water. Also, it should start rearing animals in controlled rooms to ensure the population gets cheap and ready food for consumption and local trading. Transport systems should be developed to ensure the region offers a variety of transport options to and fro
Aging is one of the natural processes that come with health-related challenges. As people grow old, their bodies change with the accumulation of different types of molecular and cellular damage with time. This process leads to the slow by a slow decrease in mental and physical capabilities coupled with an increased risk of disease and finally death. Therefore, as individuals become old, their view about life changes including their goals, expectations, fears, and desires among other elements that constitute life. This paper is a summary of interviews conducted with three interviewees. The first interviewee is Ronald, my godfather, and he is actively engaged in life. The second interviewee is someone that I know and love – my mother and the last interviewee is our long-time neighbor, Mrs. R, who has been bound to a wheelchair for the last year due to her old age. The questions asked in the interview revolved around the interviewees’ expectations versus the realities of aging, whether or not they are lonely, their desires for aging, personal life goals, what they want or not want or fear for aging and/or caregiving, and how society might be better designed for aging or older adults. Interview I Interviewee – Ronald (an actively engaged person) Ronald was the first person that I interviewed. He has been my godfather for the last decade and we have grown very close to each other during that period. The last substantial engagement with Ronald was on the evening of Saturday, February 22, 2020, when I visited him at his house. We talked for hours and in the process, I would introduce my interview questions one by one and the answers would be interrupted by long periods of narrations about his life experiences. Ronald is 78-years old and he is healthy leading a normal life. He does not have any expectations about aging and thus he takes life as it comes, which constitutes his reality of the aging process. He said he never thought too much about aging and all he wanted was to be in a position to do the things that he wanted to do. He noted that he does not feel lonely because with five children, 15 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, he normally gets frequent visits almost every other week. His children and their families also call often, almost every oth
The education system in Saudi Arabia has greatly evolved to allow access to every child, including those with disabilities. This evolution began in 1962 when the Ministry of Education created a special department to improve learning and rehabilitation services of three categories of special children, namely: the blind, deaf and those with mental retardation. Currently, there are more children with disabilities attending public schools, according to Al-Mousa (2010). There are positive educational outcomes, but there is no indication of the success associated with the inclusion of autistic children in mainstream classes. Hence, this study aims at investigating the performance of autistic children to evaluate the success of inclusion. Saudi Arabia boasts of how it supports children with disability as indicated by the incorporation of special learning support services in mainstream schools to reinforce this goal. On the other hand, this support is limited (Alquraini 2011). In a country like Jordan, there is no segregation of children with disabilities from those without. This strategy is controversial because according to the literature reviewed by Al-Zyoudi (2006), different teachers in different countries had different attitudes and perceptions about mainstreaming, and this was influenced by teaching experience, nature of the disability, professional training, curriculum adaptations and collaboration with parents. This finding is in alignment with other studies (Al-Khateeb cited in Al-Zyoudi 2006, p. 60). The al-Zyoudi emphasis that teachers’ beliefs and acceptability highly govern the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream classes. Since this study does not have specific findings in relation to the nature of the disability, this study will aim to correlate aspects that govern t
Introduction The cold war is a historical event that took place between1945 to 1960. This is a period where there was an intense conflict between the nations in the Soviet Union (communist nations) and the democratic nations (for example, United States of America). The war is perceived to have started because the democratic nations and the communist’s nations had two different systems of government and neither of the two governments could compromise theirs to follow another (Gasiorowski 1998, 6). Other factors that contributed to the war include; economic indifference where U.S wanted the world to practice free trade while the Soviet union wanted nothing to do with international trade, the power rivalry where each of the nations wanted to dominate the other, another cause of the war was that the Russians, a member of the Soviet Union had extended Its influence to Europe which displeased many politicians in the united states advocating for the resistance against Russian expansion. It was then in 1947 when the United States secretary of state, George Marshall announced that the United States would aid in the regaining of a well economic trend in the world but laid conditions that implied the European countries that were to get their aid from U.S would have to disclose their economic records to the united states a move that the Soviet union regarded as intrusion of states affair. Together with many other factors the Soviet Union declined U.S offer but America, Britain and other nations got together to form the military alliances that resulted to the cold war. When it came to Middle East, the Americans and British had their own reason to not favor the influence of the Russian spreading across the region. Britain and the United States had certain interests on the Iranian soil including the oilfields. To prevent Iran from falling into the hands of the USSR and to recover the oil company, the British and Americans responded by helping in the coup. The Iranian coup de tat of 1953 set the stage for this Islamic revolution that would come twenty six years later. When the weak Mosaddeq’s government nationalized a British oil company, Afterwards in 1979, the virulent anti American Islamic regime ousted the Shah, who was an American sympathizer. It is thus practical enough to hypothesize that the coup, brought about by the cold war (Amuzegar 1991, 28; Curtis 2007). Iranian revolution is also called the Islamic revolution. It can also be referred to as the 1979 revolution. 1979 is the year which the Iranian monarch was ended by the emergence of the Islamic Republic. This phenomenon was preceded by demonstration against the monarch in the year 1978 (Ruud 2008, 454). The main differen
The purpose of this annotated bibliography is to examine academic literature related to the subject of workforce diversity in order to draw conclusions about the related effects, practical implications, and future projections. Thus, the paper includes evaluations of six sources, including peer-reviewed journal articles, one web-site article, and one chapter from a textbook for this course. The bibliography presents pieces by Aghili (2017), Hossain et al. (2020), Mazibuko and Govender (2017), Ravazzani (2016), Roberson (2018), and Watson and Hoefer (2013). Aghili, S. (2017). The value of diversity in nonprofit management . TBG Insights. Web. The article by Saalar Aghili (2017) focuses on the challenges that nonprofit organizations specifically face if there is a lack of cultural, socio-economic, or racial diversity among their employees. Heterogeneity of staff could help such companies to be more productive and creative, as well as to develop close relationships with the communities they are tasked with assisting. On the other hand, not having any people of color (POC) or women on the team most often results in financial losses, reputational implications, and overall counter-productivity. The article incorporates recent statistics and studies to craft a convincing argument regarding the need for diversity every nonprofit organization has. Most importantly, Aghili (2017) offers a detailed, yet concise, action plan for nonprofit executives to foster diversity in the workplace. Despite that, the main focus of the piece is recruitment, which takes way from the fact that retention has to be acknowledged as a crucial aspect of creating a truly diverse work environment. Hossain, M., Atif, M., Ahmed, A., & Mia, L. (2020). Do LGBT workplace diversity policies create value for firms? Journal of Business Ethics, 167 , 775–791. Hossain et al. (2020) aim to determine whether there are any positive outcomes stemming from organizations adopting diversity policies in relation to people who are a part of the LGBT community. The findings demonstrate that there is a positive correlation between a company’s innovation index and its Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI). Despite that, it could be argued that the most innovative firms are the most likely to implement any sort of change. Thus, they are simply the first ones to adopt LGBT diversity policies, which does not imply that in doing so, an organization becomes more innovative. Mazibuko, J. V., & Govender, K. K. (2017). Exploring workplace diversity and organisational effectiveness: A South African exploratory case study. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 1 (2), 1–10. The study’s purpose is to demonstrate the connection between a diverse workforce and organizational performance. Mazibuko and Govender (2017) conclude that homogeneity of staff has a positive impact on a company’s effectiveness and a level of competitive edge on the market. Thus, in order to expand and attract new clientele, companies must start the process of entering new markets by investing in attracting and hiring divergent personnel. Regarding the article’s implications, the author
Summary and critical reflection In the work “Freaks and Queers,” Clare (2009) sets a personal inquiry into the definition of disability or, rather, the definitions that come together with various “terms,” which the modern world uses to denote people like him (and also those who are different). This amendment is important for the paper since one of its key ideas consists in the fact that disability remains a personal experience, and the definitions provided by different people would vary. The author states that his work aims to explore the things that he cannot understand about his personal “relationship” with disability-related words. These words, in the view of the author, can be used as a disguise or as weapons, and the queer and disabled are capable of taking them from the abusers and use them to build their pride, which in turn enables them to fight against self-hatred and for their rights, place, visibility, and acceptance. To carry out the inquiry Clare discusses the various terms that have been used to denote disability. He does not just provide the definitions for the words like handicapped, cripple, gimp, but describes them with the help of vivid imagery, interprets, and reconsiders their meanings and connotations. He discovers that “terms” vary in their nature and use, some of them can be called derogatory language (that keeps being used by many), others are “wistful lies” (that are the diplomatic versions of derogatory words), and several have been reclaimed from abusers as empowering words. For Clare, the latter include “queer” and “cripple.” Indeed, Clare primarily focuses on the meaning that the words have for him, the role they have played in his life, and proceeds to play in his speech. He finds that he “pauses” at the word “freak,” admitting that it puzzles him, and he cannot detect anything empowering in it. To define this word, he studies the history of freak shows. Clare dwells on freak shows as the means of both exploiting and solidifying the social construct of “normality” (rather, the idea of superiority) and “abnormality” (especially ableism and racism) while also removing the differences between the different types of “queerness” that were portrayed in the shows. Clare states that nature did not construct the idea of freakiness; rather, the freak show did it by highlighting and exaggerating the differences between the audience and the freaks. Clare also emphasizes the fact that freak shows were not educational; they were aimed at getting money, and to this end, provided any number of fictional details about their “exhibits.” At the same time, the “educational” or scientific discrimination also took place at the time, and it provided the ground for racism and abl
Quote 1 “The real history of Cuba is the history of its intermeshed transculturations” (Ortiz, 1995, p. 98) The aforementioned citation serves as a manifestation of multiculturality as one of the most outstanding factors of Cuba’s historical transformations. Indeed, the author presents to the reader the term “transculturation” to draw their attention to the fact that instead of shifting from one cultural impact to another, Cuban culture became a result of simultaneous interaction. Moreover, by appealing to the “real” history of Cuba, Ortiz addresses the complexity of its nature that found its application in the spheres of social hierarchy, economy, and foreign affairs. Quote 2 “And each of them [immigrant cultures] torn from his native moorings, faced with the problem of disadjustment and readjustment, of deculturation and acculturation-in a word, of transculturation” (Ortiz, 1995, p. 98). Analyzing the experience of immigrant nations during the times of the Cuban cultural formation, the author reaches a conclusion that immigrant tribes had a tremendous impact on the genesis of authentic local culture. However, in their turn, immigrant nations were modifying the perception of their customs and traditions. As a result, it may be justified that the term “transculturation” serves as the most appropriate characterization of a sophisticated socio-economic development of a nation. Quote 3 “Men, economies, cultures, ambitions were all foreigners here, provisional, changing, “birds of passage” over the country, at its cost, against its wishes, and without its approval” (Ortiz, 1995, p. 101). The aforementioned quotation represents one of the major author’s ideas on Cuban cultural development, as he appeals to the aspect of cultural transfusion. Indeed, Ortiz emphasizes the fact that unlike some European countries at the time, Cuba represented an agglomeration of various social and ethnic backgrounds supporting the genesis of a unique culture revolving around economy and agriculture. As a result, while remaining foreigners to the land, transcultural inhabitants did their best to find themselves on new promising land. Reference Ortiz, F. (1995). Cuban counterpoint: Tobacco and sugar (H. de Onís, Transl). Duke University Press Books. (Original work published 1947).