Iceland Crisis and Causes Led to the Crisis

Iceland and the rest of the world reeling. In retrospect Iceland was essentially operatinglike a firm with a highly unviable growth model. However, the political relationship between Iceland and Britain also greatly added to the economic downturn and financialcrisis. Britain’s use of anti-terrorism laws, in an attempt to protect their economicinvestments in Iceland, essentially labeled Iceland as a terrorist state which onlycontinued to stagnate the inflow of foreign capital.Although without a doubt the primarycause of the Icelandic financial crisis was economic, political factors such as therelationship and interdependence between Iceland and Britain exacerbated the alreadydire situation. Iceland began as an isolated, fairly impoverished country whose survival was based largely on its fishing trade. 1 However, in recent years Iceland had been successfulat establishing itself as a premier offshore banking hub. At one point Icelanders wereecstatic and celebrated the fact that t heir tiny country of about 300,000 people had 3 banks in the worlds largest 300 banks. 2The Icelandic government was able to enticeforeign investors by setting interest rates very high, which encouraged foreigners toinvest largely in financial assets. The large inflow of foreign capital associated with suchmass foreign investment caused the krona to greatly appreciate. Since the krona wasgreatly overvalued it made all imports in both goods and services very inexpensive for Icelanders; the overvalued krona also made it a lot easier for Icelanders to borrow moneyfrom abroad. 3 The high interest rates, gargantuan capital inflow, and an appreciatedcurrency all aided in creating the economic boom that Iceland enjoyed for many years ?This economic boom encouraged Icelanders to borrow from abroad and many failed toforesee that such economic prosperity was limited and that a bust is inevitably going tofollow a boom. The lack of government oversight on the banking system also was an economic factor that led to the financial crisis. One large problem with the Icelandic banking sector is that the banks became so large that the Icelandic government was unable to operate asa lender-of-last-resort simply because Iceland with its mere 300,000 people has a verysmall tax base. 4 At the end of 2006 the total assets of its banks grew to be nine times aslarge as the countries GDP. It would have been less of a problem for the banks to be solarge if they had not remained domiciled in Iceland. It was perhaps too large and ideal of a goal for such a small country like Iceland to become an international financial center. Iceland was essentially acting like a firm when indeed they should have been lookingafter the economic stability of their whole country. The Icelandic government simplylacked the ability to financially sustain their banks in times of economic crisis. If some of the banks in Iceland had foreign lenders-of-last-resort they might have been able toweather out the economic storm.Iceland’s economic growth model was mainly built upon foreigninvestors being able and willing to keep on giving. However, due to the global economiccrisis foreign capital ceased coming in and when it did the myriad of public and privatedebt became quite evident. ? 6 Some analysts argue that problems with the krona have prevented Iceland from being able to control the financial crisis. Since Iceland does not have an effectual currency to manipulate they are largely unable to support the banks andhave no practical ways to bring down the inflation and interest rates, which have beenstaying in the double digits. This is just one of the many economic situations currentlyaffecting Iceland. Without a doubt the prime cause for Iceland’s financial crisis is largely theeconomic circumstances previously discussed. However, political factors such asIceland’s relationship with Britain also played a role in exacerbating the crisis and preventing Iceland from any chance it might have had of financial viability. Iceland andBritain once had a very mutually beneficial friendship, which could be seen in that theywere NATO allies and frequent trading partners.However, as the global economic crisis began to take hold this friendship became tenuous at best. The problems between Icelandand Britain began in late 2008 when Britain, in an attempt to protect its financial assets inIceland, invoke its 2008 anti-terrorism laws to freeze the British assets of a failingIcelandic bank. 8 Specifically Britain froze the assets of Landsbanki and seized the assetsof Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander. 9 The British seizure of Kaupthing Singer &Friedlander was followed shortly by the collapse of its parent bank, Kaupthing, which theIcelandic government had desperately been trying to keep viable.In many Icelanderseyes and certainly in the eyes of the Icelandic government Kaupthing was the last of theMohicans and its demise signaled the end of the Icelandic banking system ? T he political decision to invoke anti-terrorism legislation against Iceland essentially branded it as a terrorist state, which in the eyes of every Icelander was athorough abuse of a small neighbor. Due to this one political action Iceland was listed onthe British Treasury Department’s page with terrorist groups and states such as Al Qaeda,Sudan, and North Korea. 11At this point in the crisis the foreign capital inflows intoIceland were already dismal but this British action triggered an immediate freeze on anyremaining banking transactions between Iceland and abroad. Essentially no one wants todo business with a terrorist state. President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson stated that, â€Å"It(Britain) was absolutely being a bully against a small country because I am absolutelycertain that if it was the case of France and Germany, the British government would nothave acted in the same way- absolutely not†. The Icelandic Prime Minister at the time,Geir H.Haarde, believed that Gord on Brown had â€Å"sacrificed Iceland for his own short-term political gain thereby turning a grave situation into a national disaster†. 12 From the perspective of the Icelandic government their once cordial, neighborly relationship withBritain had been thoroughly abused to the point that a British foreign policy decision played an integral factor in the meltdown of the Icelandic financial sector Undoubtedly Britain’s political decisions affected the financial crisis in Iceland,yet, the Crisis in Iceland also greatly impacted Britain’s economic conditions.Like therest of the world, thanks to the downturn of the global economy Britain has beensuffering its own financial woes. When foreign capital inflows ceased in Iceland thiscaused the krona’s value to fall, which led Icelandic banks to be unable to finance their debts most of which are in foreign currency. This realization by all of the foreigninvestors who were once so eager to invest created a mad rush to get their money out of the failing Icelandic banks.Unfortunately, Icelandic banks did not have proper reservesto cover the massive withdrawals leading all three of Iceland’s banks to be nationalized. 13 Regrettably many British universities, municipal governments, charities and hospitals had been lured in by the high interest rates to invest in Icelandic accounts. CambridgeUniversity had $20 million invested in Icelandic accounts while 15 British police forceshave approximately $170 million frozen in Iceland. 14Many groups that had invested inthe Icelandic banking sector had done so in the convenience of their own home statesthrough the use of online investing sites such as Icesave. co. uk. On their website Icesavenow displays the message that â€Å"We are not currently processing any deposits or withdrawal requests through out Icesave Internet accounts. We apologize for anyinconvenience this may cause our customers†. 15 Certainly for large investors such asCambrid ge University this is much more than a small inconvenienceAt the center of Iceland’s financial troubles is that their banking sector was highlydependent upon a continued inflow of foreign capital. In turn, Iceland’s foreign investorswere also very dependent upon Iceland’s banks to maintain their viability. However,when the inflow of capital stopped the interdependence of Iceland and its investors became very clear. This is exemplified by the Icelandic-British relationship. Britishcitizens and companies alike had been ensorcelled by the call the of high interest rates inIceland.The viability of the banks was based largely on the ability to keep foreign capitalcoming into the country, which allowed the krona to appreciate. When the foreign creditmarket froze and investment decreased drastically the financial interdependence of Iceland and Britain manifested itself Iceland’s main pitfall and cause of its financial crisis is that they essentiallytreated their country as a firm and allowed the banking sector to get far too hugeconsidering, as we have seen, that it had no financial stronghold to back it up.Althoughthe blown-up banking sector and other economic factors created the financial crisis it wascertainly exacerbated by the failed diplomatic relationship between Iceland and Britain. Britain’s use of its antiterrorism legislation only made the economic woes of Icelandworse by essentially making it a pariah that should be avoided by the rest of theinternational community. In the end, Iceland’s financial practices had sown the seeds of their own destruction but the political actions of Britain ensured that it would be a longtime before Iceland’s financial sector will germinate once more.

Comparing Rich Points

Comparing Rich Points: Understanding Japanese Languaculture Research Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for graduation with Research Distinction in Japanese in the Department of East Asian Languages & Literature at The Ohio State University by Andrew Gaddis The Ohio State University March 2012 Project Advisor: Professor James M. Unger, Department of East Asian Language and Literature 1 1. Introduction In this thesis, I attempt to show the linguistic and non-linguistic behaviors that are found prominently throughout Japanese society. This paper is divided into two major parts.The first is devoted to describing the prominence of the metaphorical concept LEARNING IS A JOURNEY in the linguistic behavior of Japan. The second describes how the same metaphorical concept is also found throughout the non-linguistic behavior of the Japanese culture. Based on Lakoff and Johnson’s (1979) general theory of meaning, this paper examines a particular instance of the r elationship between Japanese culture and language in detail, namely the Sino-Japanese noun doo ‘road, way’ ? and native noun miti. Lakoff and Johnson argue convincingly that metaphors are not just literary or poetic uses of words separate from ordinary language use.Metaphorical relations, in their view, are essential to how speakers of a language deal with meanings. One of their key examples is the journey metaphor seen in such English sentences as â€Å"We arrived at a conclusion† and â€Å"I don’t think our relationship is going anywhere. † For Lakoff and Johnson, such sentences illustrate the metaphors ARGUMENTS ARE JOURNEYS and LOVE IS A JOURNEY. Sino-Japanese doo is frequently used as a suffix in nouns with meanings that connote a spiritual path or way, or at least some method of self-cultivation. Since the character ? s customarily glossed miti, this native noun too has that metaphorical connotation. This character was adopted from China by wa y of the Korean peninsula in 2 the 1st millennium CE (Frellesvig 2010), where it long had a strong metaphorical connotation (spiritual path or way) already in the classics of the 1st millennium BCE, most notably the Daodejing of Laozi . Today, we see its widespread use in non-Daoist contexts. I argue that these expressions show that the underlying metaphor LEARNING IS A JOURNEY is particularly robust in Japan language life (gengo seikatu . By comparing Japanese doo and miti ‘road, path’ with English journey, we find similarities and differences that can be understood in terms of the concepts languaculture and rich points introduced by Michael Agar in his book Language Shock. As I will discuss in detail in Section 4, Agar argues (1) that language use cannot be understood outside the cultural context in which it is used, and (2) that conspicuous differences in the way two languacultures talk about the same or similar real-world facts and events reveal how they are struc tured.Human beings have much in common all over the world, so similarities in languacultures are numerous and expected, at least for people living in similar ecological circumstances. Rich points stand out precisely because they occur unexpectedly when one compares two languacultures. By comparing Japanese doo and miti with English journey in Lakoff and Johnson’s sense, I propose to show that the journey metaphor is a locus of an important rich point found within the two languacultures. I turn to the topic of pilgrimages in the second part of the paper (Section 5).Pilgrimages has long had played a significant role in Japanese religious practice. By the time of the Edo period, a gentleman was expected to cultivate skills in â€Å"medicine, poetry, the tea ceremony, music, the hand drum, the noh dance, etiquette, the 3 appreciation of craft work, arithmetic, calculation, literary composition, reading and writing† (Totman 1993,186). Once one has acquired considerable skil l in the art of pursuit, they would often go on a pilgrimage to learn more about the art and study the methods used in distant places. For this reason, pilgrimages were an important learning experience for the Japanese people.Here, I argue that the concept of LEARNING IS A JOURNEY exists even in the non-linguistic behavioral context. In the end of the section, I argue that LEARNING IS A JOURNEY is a common concept to both the linguistic domain and the non-linguistic domain of Japanese languaculture. I attempt to prove that the commonality found in the two domains is not due to a cause-and-effect relationship, where one domain causes the other. Instead, I suggest that both of these behaviors have their origins from a common set of historical circumstances, namely the impact of Chinese culture, Buddhism and Daoism.I argue that the impact of Buddhism and Daoism on Japanese intellectual thought have played a bigger role in shaping this conceptual metaphor that are prominently seen in bo th the linguistic and non-linguist domains of Japanese culture. 2. Theory of metaphor For most people, metaphorical expressions are assumed to be extensions of ordinary language, that is, instances of language outside of conventional usage intended to represent or suggest non-literal meaning. For this reason, metaphor is seen as extraordinary—a device of the literary or poetic imagination. Opposing this view, 4Lakoff and Johnson argue that metaphor is pervasive in everyday language, thought, and action. To understand metaphor, one must first identify its source. Lakoff and Johnson claim that metaphor originates in prelinguistic thought, not in language per se. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Thus, our conceptual system plays a central role in defining our notions of reality. Since we are not consciously aware of most of the actions we do everyday, distinguishing the different components of our concept ual system is by no means straightforward.However, because communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in thinking and acting, we can figure out just what that system is like through linguistic analyses. To give a concrete example, Lakoff and Johnson start off with the concept ARGUMENT and the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR. The following is a list of sentences that they cite to illustrate this point: ARGUMENT IS WAR Your claims are indefensible. He attacked every weak point in my argument. His criticisms were right on target. I’ve never won an argument with him. You disagree? Okay, shoot! (Lakoff & Johnson 1979, 4) 5Notice that these sentences are not just explicitly about war but the actions mentioned in the sentences only make sense in relation to the concept of war. Since argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something or to accept a particular conclusion, we can conceive of arguments as something to win or lose. We defend our position an d strategize a way to attack our opponent’s claims. Though a physical battle does not take place, a verbal one does, and many of the actions we perform in an argument reflect this. This instance well illustrates how metaphor pervades not just language but thought and action as well.The full significance of this theory does not come into sight when looking at a single language and its ambient culture. Try to imagine a culture where arguments are not viewed in terms or war, where no one wins or loses, or where there is no sense of attacking or defending. Imagine a culture where direct confrontation is shunned, where people are extremely cautious not to disprove the opinions of others, where the participants’ social statuses determine the amount of force that will be considered as appropriate in the conversation, and go-betweens are used to solve most conflicts.In such a culture, people would, according to Lakoff and Johnson, view, experience, perform, and talk about the arguments differently. But the people of our culture might not see them as â€Å"arguing† at all, because what they are doing does not fit our metaphorical understanding of what constitutes arguing. This is how a metaphorical concept structures what we do and how we experience it. It is not that arguments are a subspecies of war in any metaphysical sense. It is rather there is a type of conversation that, in English-speaking culture, is 6 viewed, experienced, performed, and talked about in terms of war.The concept is metaphorically structured, the activity is metaphorically structured, and, consequently, the language is metaphorically structured. Although metaphor plays a central role in structuring language, there is nevertheless an extensive range of concepts that are not comprehended with the use of metaphor, which often is referred to literal language. For example, the sentence â€Å"The apple fell on Newton’s head† can be deployed in a completely literal wa y. It could be an example sentence in an academic paper on generative syntax, or a sentence in a child’s book explaining a picture.But in our language, one is more likely to encounter this sentence in a context in which it is freighted with metaphorical meaning. It is typically deployed in contexts where the speaker wants to let the listener know that s/he sees a relevant comparison between something they have either observed or known about and beliefs they share about the invention and discovery. The sentence may be used in a humorous or ironic way (making fun of someone suddenly realizing something), or a dramatic, serious way (praising someone with a proverbial reference).By comparing our abstractions (ideas, emotions, etc. ) to what can be physically experienced, we can get a grasp on them in clearer terms. The JOURNEY metaphor is commonly used in many languages. In English, we have many expressions where the concept of love is often described as that of a journey, which will be referred to as LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor. For example, take a look at the following common expressions: 7 Look how far we’ve come. We’re at a crossroads. We’ll just have to go our separate ways. We can’t turn back now. I don’t think this relationship is going anywhere.Where are we? We’re stuck. It’s been a long, bumpy road. This relationship is a dead-end street. We’re just spinning our wheels. We’ve gotten off the track. (Lakoff & Johnson 1979, 44) In every case, love is understood in terms of a journey. It is clear that the lovers are the travelers, and the relationship is the vehicle. The purpose of the journey is for the travelers to reach a destination, more precisely, for the lovers to accomplish their goals of common interest. What the dead-end street and spinning wheels are alluding to are the difficulties in reaching that destination.The purpose of these expressions is to encourage the listener to draw an inference. Take the expression â€Å"Where are we? † for example. Outside of the love metaphor context, it is a simple question. The metaphorical context invites the listener to reflect on how things came to be the way they are, how they might have turned out differently, and what could be done now to 8 change them. By accepting the scenario of making a journey toward the consummation of love, we can comprehend the analogy used to reason the human relationship of love.To end the section on a similar note, it is sometimes said that English secondlanguage learners have trouble with expressions like â€Å"We’re at a crossroads† or â€Å"it’s been a long, bumpy road. † The likely reason for this is because the difficult part of acquiring language proficiency does not so much lie in the process of mastering the vocabulary or grammar of a language, but mastering the metaphors typically used in the language. This is especially the case since dictionari es take only limited account of the metaphorical meaning of words and phrases.The problem is that ways of talking about the experience of love in English language are metaphorically absent in the learner’s language and culture. 1 Therefore, learning to recognize the metaphorical relations in language is key not only to understanding the way the speakers of the language conceptualize the world but also to acquiring language proficiency. The concept is metaphorically structured, the activity is metaphorically structured, and, consequently, the language is metaphorically structured. 3. doo and miti? Much like in the English language, the JOURNEY metaphor is a frequently used concept in the Japanese language.Take a look at the following examples of the LOVE 1 An idiom is a word or phrase that is morphologically or syntactically irregular with respect to the language in which it occurs. Native speakers often know an expression is idiomatic when asked. Metaphors, on the other hand, often occur below the level of consciousness. 9 IS A JOURNEY metaphor in Japanese: (1) a. koi no katamiti kippu love GEN one-way ticket ‘One-way ticket to love’ b. koizi no yami love’s pathway GEN darkness ‘Love is blind’ c. miti naranu koi path will not love Illicit love affair’ d. huuhu no miti husband and wife GEN path ‘marital values’ Again, in every case love is understood in terms of a journey. It is clear that the lovers are the travelers, and the relationship is the vehicle. It is noteworthy to mention, that the relationship can take various forms of a vehicle in the journey. Notice that there 10 is no single consistent vehicle that the journey metaphors all use. In example (1a) the vehicle of the relationship is some mode of public transport. Consider a situation when this expression is used.Given that this expression about a relationship is understood in terms of travel, the kind of reasoning evoked should generally reflect a situation where the lovers (travelers) are in a quickly progressing relationship (vehicle) to their goal of common interest (destination). The one-way ticket most likely implies that returning back to the start of the journey is not considered for the travellers, and that they are fast approaching their destination as if they were traveling by some mode of public transport. The rest of the examples, unlike (1a), do not specify the means of transportation for the travelers.For examples (1b) and (1c), this is because the purpose of the expression is to describe the impediments the travelers encounter in pursuing the destination. The literal translation of the two would be ‘darkness of love’s pathway,’ and ‘path that will not lead to the destination of love. ’ What the darkness and misguided path are alluding to is the difficulties in reaching the destination, both of which implies that a change of action needs to be taken to successfully rea ch the destination. (1d) literally translates ‘the path of the married couple. This expression represents the ideal path a married couple should take. Take a look at the following for examples of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor, which is also commonly found in both languages. (2) 11 a. zinsei yama ari tani ari life mountain exists valley exists ‘Life has its ups and down’ b. ikiru miti live (vb) road ‘The road of life’ c. senri no miti mo ippo kara thousand-mile GEN road FOC one-step ABL ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’ Notice that the literal translation of these expressions in Japanese and English are highly idiomatic.This is why a word for word rendering of the expressions would seem unnatural. In example (2a), the lexical items yama ‘mountain’ and tani ‘valley’ are translated â€Å"ups† and â€Å"downs. † Knowing that this expression represents life as a sort of journe y with obstacles to overcome, we can conjecture the logic behind this expression without much effort. A traveler would occasionally encounter times of relative ease and difficulty throughout the journey. While walking up a mountain is a laborious task, walking down the mountain into the valley requires considerably less effort.What the metaphor suggests is that the experience of life is much like that. There are times of ups and downs, good and bad, easy and hard etc. Nevertheless, if the expression were to remain in its literal translation, â€Å"life has its 12 mountains and valleys,† it would not be too difficult for the English speaker to comprehend the message being communicated. Since LIFE IS A JOURNEY is a commonly used metaphor in the English language as well, the enormous amount of information that is not explicitly provided will be understood from the knowledge of how life is understood in relation to a journey.It is not that the languages do not have expressions th at are equivalent in meaning, but it is more that the lexical items used to construct a metaphorical expression in one language do not match the lexical items in the other. Therefore, even if the expression is uncommon to the hearer, given that it is a commonly used metaphor in the languages, an intelligent guess can be made to make sense of it all. The following is an example of the LEARNING IS A JOURNEY metaphor: (3) gakumon ni oodoo nasi scholarship DAT royal-road non-existent ‘There is no Royal Road to learning’Based on the meaning of this expression described in the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, the phrase is a translation of the proverbial expression ‘There is no Royal Road to learning’. This phrase is legendarily attributed to Euclid, who is said to have used it in reply to a king’s request for an easier way to learn geometry. A Persian Royal Road actually existed; it was a 1677-mile long highway stretching, in modern terms, from the center of Iran to northern Turkey. To get from the starting point to the end of the highway 13 is believed to have taken over 90 days on foot, but only a week by horse (Herodotus 1889, 213).By metaphorizing the process of learning geometry as a lengthy journey, the claim that a Royal Road did not exist not only signified that there was no shortcut but also that even a king could not make one, as the Persian kings had made the Royal Road. It is interesting to note that despite long survival and overuse, the metaphor retains an appeal for speakers of many languages and is still used. Even Sigmund Freud famously described dreams as â€Å"Royal Road to the unconscious† in The Interpretation of Dreams, 1889 [1998]. In the context of Japanese culture, however, there are many expressions where learning is understood in terms of a journey.The reason for this is because the metaphor LEARNING IS A JOURNEY is a more salient feature in the Japanese language. The following are commonly used expressions of the LEARNING IS A JOURNEY metaphor in Japanese: (4) a. manabi no miti o aruku learning GEN road ACC walk (vb) ‘Walk the way of learning’ b. manabi no miti-annai learning GEN guidepost ‘A guidepost of learning’ 14 c. manabi no sen-ri no miti learning GEN thousand-ri GEN road ‘The thousand-ri way of learning d. manabi no miti ni wa owari wa nai learning GEN the way LOC TOP end TOP non-existent There is no end in the way of learning’ The examples in (4) shows that a metaphorical noun phrase ? ’ â€Å"path† modified by â€Å"learning† can be used in the various expressions. In every case, learning is understood in terms of a journey, and it is clear that the learner is a traveler in pursuit of knowledge. The purpose of the journey is for the traveler to reach a desired destination, more specifically, acquiring knowledge. In these examples, learning relates to journey in the sense that the traveler will leave his or her known environment and venture into an unknown place where new discoveries will be made.In example (4a) the traveler is selfpropelled. That is to say, the traveler’s volition is the vehicle. The expression is probably used in situations where the person using the phrase is still in the progress of acquiring knowledge. Example (4b) illustrates a situation where the learner (traveler) makes use of available resources to alleviate the impediments of reaching the destination (acquiring knowledge). For instance, a traveler will often make use of guideposts as a guide for reaching the desired destination. Similarly, the learner will often rely on teachers, books, 15 r the like to guide them to acquiring knowledge. (4c) illustrates a situation where acquiring knowledge is an arduous task, and it compares this difficulty of attaining knowledge to long distance travel. (4d) is a common expression saying that there is no end to learning. Again, we know that all of these expressions are metaphorical because none of them would make sense literally. More examples are provided in (5): (5) a. zyoodoo become road (the way) ‘completing the path of becoming a Buddha’ b. zyuudoo gentleness road (the way) ‘judo’ c, aiki syuutoku e no miti aiki acquisition -to GEN road (the way) The way to aikido acquisition’ According to the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, zyoodoo is Buddhist terminology that refers to either the moment a Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha after completing certain 16 practices and attains enlightenment, or the time Shakyamuni became enlightened sitting under the Bo tree. This Sino-Japanese term in its literal sense originally meant to attain the way. Zyoodoo is metaphorical inasmuch as it referred in the first instance to the historical Buddha but could then refer to someone else becoming a Buddha; this was no doubt borrowed from a preexisting metaphor use in Chinese.In the case of judo, as shown in (5b), we know that this is in fact a native Japanese noun coined in the Meiji period by the scholar Kano Jigoro (Watson 2008, xv). Before this coinage, this style of fighting was referred to as zyuzyutsu. Which makes sense since martial arts terminology prior to the Meiji period generally used the suffix ? zyutu ‘art, means, technique’ instead of the suffix ? doo. Zyuzyutsu was a brutal method of open handed combat that Kano felt was too violent for the modern age. Thus, in the interest of safety and practicality, he turned it into a sport under the name judo.The new institution Kodokan that he opened in Tokyo was, in his eyes, a place where â€Å"one is guided along a road to follow in life† (Watson 2008, xvi). It must be the case that he applied the suffix doo due to the fact that the metaphorical connotations it carried was appropriate for his philosophy2. The example in (5c) is a title of a book written by Kimura Tatsuo, a mathematics professor at the University of Tsukuba and an aikido enthusia st, about the art of aikido. Syuutoku e no miti generally means ‘the road to acquiring. ’ This phrase is often used to modify the nominal it follows.Thus, aiki syuutoku e no miti in its metaphorical sense means ‘the road to gaining knowledge about aikido. ’ 2 Many other traditional arts and martial arts employed the suffix doo (e. g. kendoo ‘kendo,’ kyuudoo ‘archery,’ sadoo ‘tea ceremony, way of tea’). 17 The reason for the many LEARNING IS A JOURNEY expressions arising in the Japanese language is attributed to an earlier influence from the Chinese classic Daodejing of Laozi. The Chinese word dao (‘road, way’ ? ) has long had strong metaphorical connotation of spiritual path or way. When the oanword and character were adopted in Japanese in the 1st millennium CE, along with them came the connotation. As stated earlier, learning is understood in part by the journey metaphor. Since this thought is crucial to the formation of the meaning, we see an abundance of words whose meanings are shaped by this metaphor. Take the native Japanese verb mitibiku ‘to guide; to lead; to show the way,’ for example. It is a compound word of ? miti and hiku ‘to lead, pull’. This word has departed from the literal meaning based on the meaning of components miti and hiku.We can see this from the following excerpt written by the Japanese poet, Yamanoue no Okura in the Man’yoshu: (6) moromoro no oomikami-tati hunanohe ni mitibiki moosi various NOM god PLUR prow LOC guide request ‘Various gods, I request you to guide this ship by its prow’ The literal meaning based on the components of the word cannot be applied here; however, the metaphorical extension of the meaning can be applied. According to the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, the word has come to mean â€Å"guide† at least since the 8th 18 century, as we can tell from its use in the excerpt.The definition provided here is not the literal meaning, but the metaphorical. The fact that a metaphorical extension has been added to the literal meaning of the word, illustrates how a new metaphorical connotation may be incorporated into the original literal meaning of a word. In the case of , what probably happened was that the literal meaning it was originally associated with was bleached out over time, and took on the metaphorical meaning as its dominant meaning. Through these examples, we have seen that the journey metaphor has a significant role in the Japanese language. Since the expressions provided n this section are highly idiomatic, in most cases, a word for word rendering of the expressions may not intuitively make sense for the non-native speakers of Japanese. However, that does not take away the fact that the expressions in question surfaces from the same underlying metaphor. There are cases where both languages have an expression that serves the same purpose but the lexical matc hing is not quite the same, and there are cases where lexical matchings will be nearly exact. On the other hand, we have also seen how it is possible for a metaphor to be more salient in one language than in the other.These examples illustrate just how a metaphor common to both languages can manifest itself differently. 4. Languacultures and Rich Points To better understand the similarities and differences of the journey metaphor used in the English and Japanese language, I would like to present the concepts 19 languaculture and rich points introduced by Michael Agar in his book Language Shock. Languaculture refers to the notion that a system of conventionalized symbols, sounds, gestures, or the like used by a particular community for communication cannot be understood without also knowing the conventional behaviors and beliefs of that community.Therefore, he argues, it is necessary to tie the concept of language and culture together whenever talking about language (Agar 1994, 60). Rich point refers to a moment when a person is at a languacultural interface and encounters a difference in the ways of communicating from his or her cultural assumptions3. Let us look at the study of junkies by Agar to illustrate this example of rich points. Junkie is a term often used to refer to heroine addicts. During his two-year service in the U. S. Public Health Service, Agar worked to help treat heroin addicts.As a linguist, he started on a collection of terms used by the addicts. What he found peculiar about the collection of terms was that even though they spoke the same language as he did, they made use of certain words that was unique to the junkies. For example, the process of injecting heroin would be described in different terms by junkies, as opposed to people with background in the medical field. The premedical student will most likely begin describing the process like the following, â€Å"Well, you first take this hypodermic syringe, and then †¦ while the jun kie will say, â€Å"First, you take the works, and then †¦ † According to Agar, the heroin users he met during his service used what is referred to as the works to inject heroin; an assembly of the top of a baby pacifier fastened onto an eyedropper with a needle slipped over its narrow end and a gasket of thread or paper to hold it tight. For this reason, the term works is 3 The term languaculture refers to the notion that the use of language differs with respect to its culture. Therefore, differences in language use also occur within a language by various other subcultures. 0 generally used in their culture to refer to the instrument used for injecting heroin. Now, suppose a context where two junkies are walking up the stairs in a building. Here is what they say: (7) â€Å"Say man, you got your works with you? † â€Å"Yeah, they’re right here in my pocket. Don’t worry about it. † (Agar 1994, 90) After learning what the term works refers to, a n ordinary person may infer that this is a situation where a junkie inquires another to make sure he has the necessary equipment for getting intoxicated. However, that was not the reason for their exchange.Instead, they were concerned about the possibility of an authority being in the proximity. Since the possession of this instrument justifies arrest, the junkies were concerned because they were confined in an enclosed space; an enclosed space does not have much room to run or get rid of the evidence. The reason for the exchange quoted above is that one junkie is worried about the possibility of an authority being in the proximity, and the other reassured that he could get rid of the instrument quickly if an authoritative figure were to appear, since they are right in his pocket.This sort of encounter that arises from one’s languacultural assumptions is what Agar refers to rich points. Human beings have much in common all over the world, so similarities in languacultures are numerous and expected, at least for people living in similar ecological circumstances. However, occasionally an unexpected use of language will arise which reflects a difference between the underlying conceptual systems between the two languacultures. These conspicuous differences found in the 21 way two languacultures talk about the same or similar real-world facts and events reveal how they are structured.Having established these points, we can now see the similarities and differences that can be understood in terms of languaculture and rich point. As we have seen, the journey metaphor in Japanese languaculture is similar in many respects to that of the English languaculture. A person of the English languaculture can apply many similar uses of the journey metaphor used in his language to convey messages in Japanese. However, once we took a look at the LEARNING IS A JOURNEY metaphor, we noticed that there is some underlying difference between the two systems of languacultures.This rich point shows that the journey metaphor used in the Japanese languaculture is not always congruent to its uses in the English languaculture, more precisely that the conceptual metaphor LEARNING IS A JOURNEY is a much more salient feature of the Japanese languaculture. The reason why this rich point stands out to the English speaking community is precisely because we place a higher emphasis on knowledge as an entity that can be acquired. Take for example common English expressions like â€Å"I was hunting for the facts,† â€Å"I had to track that down,† â€Å"he won his degree at Oxford. The emphasis for these examples is that knowledge is something to be collected, whereas in Japanese, they place a stronger emphasis on knowledge as something that is to be transmitted to the learner through the process of engaging in the act, as we have seen in the LEARNING IS A JOURNEY examples. 22 5. Pilgrimages in Japan Now that we have made this point that the LEARNING IS A JOU RNEY metaphor is a more prominent feature of Japanese languaculture than English languaculture, let us see how it relates to observations we make about English and Japanese behavioral culture.For one, pilgrimages are loaded with rich points. As we can tell from such classical literary works like Heike monogatari and Sarashina nikki, pilgrimages have been an important religious practice for the Japanese people from at least the Heian period. Although it was originally an aristocratic practice, all classes of people were allowed to go on pilgrimages by the time of the Edo period (Vaporis 2008, 165). Due to the development of a national infrastructure provided with lodging, towns, and horses, this period of peace allowed for the masses to travel comfortably in search of spiritual fulfillment.The commoners were permitted to travel by the authorities as long as they were going on a pilgrimage or had familial purposes. Among the many temples and shrines in Japan, the amount of people maki ng pilgrimages to the Ise shrine increased rapidly. The Ise shrine is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the goddess Amaterasu in the city of Ise in Mie prefecture. Since ancient times, the festivals and offerings of the Ise shrine has been scheduled based on the cycle of agriculture. People would go to Ise to give thanks to the kami and pray for a plentiful harvest. ()The desire to make a pilgrimage to Ise Shrine, at least once in one’s life was universal among Japanese people of the day. The people who have had the opportunity to undertake the pilgrimage would share the things that they had seen and heard on the 23 journey. These travelers’ tales inspired others to undertake the journey, in a cycle that perpetuated the legendary status of the Ise pilgrimage as something that everyone should do at least once in their lives. The Edo period is often referred to as a time of peace and stability in Japan, and as such the people had the means and leisure time to pursue their aes thetic enjoyment.To explain, Tokugawa ideology grouped higher cultural attainments into two categories, bu and bun, military and literary arts. A gentleman of the time were expected to show interest in bun, more so than bu. Bun embraced reading and writing, Chinese thought, poetry, history and literature, noh dance and drama, tea ceremony, and other customary arts (Totman 1993, 186). Once one has acquired considerable skill in the art of pursuit, they would often go on a pilgrimage to learn more about the art and methods used in distant places. Thus, pilgrimages were an important learning experience for the Japanese people.Take the renowned haiku poet Matsuo Basho for example. In his travel diary Oku no hoso miti (Keene 1996), Basho journeys on foot to see the sites that had inspired famous poets before him. He knew the location of the places the poems described, and it was important for him to get a direct experience with the inspiration the poets must have felt when composing thei r poem. Basho’s descriptions of the places he visited, many of which were at shrines and temples, were significant not just because the sites were awe-inspiring, but because of the legends and poems associated with the locations.Like the poems that inspired Basho to take on the journey, his own work have in turn inspired others to travel and learn about the places he talk about from a first hand experience. 24 Sangaku pilgrimages are another example. Sangaku are geometrical puzzles written on wooden tablets, which were placed as offerings at Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. In Japan, it is fairly natural to hang wooden tablets at shrines and temples; for centuries before sangaku came into existence, worshippers would bring gifts like the sort to local shrines. The kami, it was said, loved horses, but horses were expensive.So a worshipper who could not afford to offer a living one, offered a horse drawn on a piece wood instead. In fact, many tablets from the fifteenth cent ury and earlier depict horses (Fukagawa & Rothman 2008, 8). However, there was also a practical purpose in hanging the tablets. Ordinary people at the time could not afford to publish books with their novel mathematical problems. Therefore, as an alternative solution to gain recognition, they took up the ancient custom of bringing votive tablets to temples and began to hang sangaku to advertise their work (Fukagawa & Rothman 2008, 21).Just like the poets who would travel for the sake of knowledge and experience, a number of geometers including Hodoji Zen, and Sakuma Yoken took â€Å"sangaku pilgrimages† to teach mathematics, encourage amateurs and lovers of geometry, and to hang and see previously hung sangaku in temples around the country. Among these itinerants was Yamaguchi Kanzan, a mathematician from the school of Hasegawa Hiroshi. In his journeys, he recorded a substantial travel diary that describes the sights, meetings with friends and other mathematicians, and the sa ngaku, problems he came across.With many distant mathematicians, he has discussed new technical methods of solving mathematical problems. â€Å"If you buy this book,† he claimed, â€Å"then you will be able to know and obtain without traveling the new technical 25 methods of solving problems of far-away mathematicians† (Fukagawa & Rothman 2008, 244). () Pilgrimages were an important method of self-cultivation for people from all walks for life, with interests ranging from martial arts to moral philosophy. There are many reasons for the rise in popularity of pilgrimages, but it is probably the case that the roots of this trend come from Zen Buddhism.The history of Zen begins in Japan with the samurai class of Kamakura. Zen Buddhism had little chance of becoming popular in Heian period Kyoto due to the strong opposition of the older schools of Buddhism. Where as in Kamakura, there were no such difficulties. Due to its philosophical and moral nature, Zen appealed greatly to the military classes (Suzuki 1959, 60). As the samurai’s became a new force in politics, they brought with them the newly embraced religion to the court.This in turn had significant influence in not only the court, but through general cultural life of the Japanese people all the way to the Edo period. Buddhist models inspired many of these pilgrimages that we see throughout history. The prototypical pilgrimages example in Japan is when Zen priests go on angya ‘pilgrimage’ , which literally means, â€Å"to go on foot. † Historically, angya referred to the common practice of Zen monks and nuns travelling from master to master, or monastery to monastery, in search of someone to practice Zen with (Baroni 2002, 8).So pilgrimages in Japan took the introduction of Buddhism, which later became associated with prominent Chinese cultures like Daoism, as we can tell from the various pilgrims mentioned earlier. The interesting thing about it is that this religious practice of undertaking a pilgrimage as a method of self-cultivation is emulated by 26 various other disciplines like the ones mentioned in example (5). It is also interesting to note the varying degree of prominence the intellectual journey has in the context of Japanese culture as opposed to the anglophone culture.Although the concept of an intellectual journey exists in the English-speaking world (e. g. visiting national parks, field trips etc. ), it is not quite as common or close to everyday consciousness as it is in Japan. The lack of explicit metaphors that reflect the notion of LEARNING IS A JOURNEY in English languaculture suggests a correlation of this difference with cultural behavior. The question then arises, what is the nature of the correlation between the observations we make in the linguistic and non-linguistic behavior we see about the Japanese?Is it the fact pilgrimages have had played a big role in the history of Japanese culture that because of the metaphorical bias of LEARNING IS A JOURNEY? Or is the causal relation the other way around? Or is there some third explanation? The main reason for the correlation we find between these two types of behavior is probably not a direct causal relationship between the two. Instead, the impact of Daoism and Buddhism on Japanese thought have probably played a role in making both the metaphor and the pilgrimage behavior prominent in Japan.This is indicated by the fact that many pilgrimages were inspired by Buddhist models, which also had a great impact on vocabulary and the content of literature; the relationship therefore seems the result of a common set of historical circumstances affecting both linguistic and non-linguistic behaviors. Both are an expression of this influence. 6. Concluding remarks 27 In this paper, I have given a contrastive analysis of the role the journey metaphor plays in the English and Japanese languages.I have argued that although there are many similarities in the use of the journey metaphor in the two languages, there also are remarkable differences in that the LEARNING IS A JOURNEY metaphor is a much more salient feature of the Japanese language. Based on the concepts languaculture and rich points, I have attempted to show that the LEARNING IS A JOURNEY metaphor is a locus of an important rich point in Japanese culture, in the sense that it is an underlying conceptual metaphor, which manifests itself in both the linguistic and nonlinguistic behavior of the Japanese culture.To illustrate how this finding might be applied to non-linguistic behavior, I have also examined the issue of pilgrimages. It seems that the correlation between the salience of the metaphor and pilgrimages are due to a common set of historical causes; it does not seem to be the case that the salience of the metaphor was caused by the practice of pilgrimages or vice versa. A contrastive analysis of metaphorical conceptualization proves to be a useful method when examining behavioral differences between two cultures.Further research of this kind should help understand similarities and differences in cultural cognition, linguistics, sociology, and ideology. 28 Work Cited: Agar, Michael. 1994. Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. Baroni, Helen. 2002. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Zen Buddhism. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. Deutscher, Guy. 2010. Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different In Other Languages. New York: Metropolitan Books Frellesvig, Bjarke. 2010.A History of the Japanese Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Freud, Sigmund. 1889 [1998]. The Interpretation of Dreams. Trans. James Strachey. New York: Avon. Fukagawa, Hidetoshi & Rothman, Tony. 2008. Sacred Mathematics: Japanese Temple Geometry. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Keene, Donald. 1996. The Narrow Road to Oku. Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd. Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark. 1979. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 29 Herodotus. 1889. The History of Herodotus: A New English Version.Trans. Rawlinson, George, Rawlinson, Henry, & Wilkinson, John. New York: D. Appleton and Company Suzuki, Daisetz. 1959. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press Totman, Conrad. 1993. Early Modern Japan. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press Vaporis, Constantine. 2008. Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service In Edo, and The Culture of Early Modern Japan. Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press Watson, Brian N. 2008. Judo Memoirs of Jigoro Kano. Victoria: Trafford Publishing 30

Black Heart Essay Research Paper A Small

Black Heart Essay, Research Paper A Small Price to Pay In the fresh Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the mariner Marlow tells a large prevarication to Kurtz? s Intended. To Marlow? [ there ] is a contamination of decease, a spirit of mortality in lies # 8211 ; which is precisely what I hate and detest in the universe # 8211 ; what I want to bury? . He hates and detests those who lie but lowers himself to making it himself at the terminal of the novel. There are many grounds why he does this. Unlike the lies the Manager and the Brickmaker might state to foster their ain selfish dockets, Marlow? s one prevarication serves to protect Kurtz and his Intended every bit good as to forestall the jungle? s darkness and immorality from perplexing the state of affairs one last clip. Marlow prevarications because he knows that the truth would do more hurting and complication than it is deserving. He is ready to set this experience behind him and to travel on with his life and he makes it easier for himself and the Intended by stating a prevarication. At the terminal of the Heart of Darkness, Marlow betrays his ethical motives by stating a immense prevarication to Kurtz? s Intended in order to protect the Intended from the painful truth, to forestall the darkness of the jungle from holding a drawn-out consequence, and to go on his ain trueness to Kurtz and protect Kurtz? s repute that Marlow feels responsible to upkeep. The first ground that Marlow lies is to protect the Intended? s vision of Kurtz. She insists that she knew him the best and that Kurtz needed her. The Intended provinces, ? I # 8211 ; I entirely know how to mourn for him as he deserves? . She besides tells that she? believed in him more that any one on Earth # 8211 ; more than his ain female parent, more than # 8211 ; himself. He needed me! Me? ! Obviously Kurtz was really of import to her. She mourns for over a twelvemonth and still holds him as an graven image. To her Kurtz was a great adult male who? drew work forces towards him by what was best in them. . . . It is the gift of the great? . She neer learns about the savageness to which Kurtz had resorted in the isolation and darkness of the jungle. Marlow is non about to destroy the Intended? s image of Kurtz. When she asks what his concluding words were, Marlow responds by stating Kurtz spoke her name. If Marlow tells her the truth it would hold been much harder for the Intend ed to take emotionally. Alternatively, Marlow allows her to maintain her belief of what she thought Kurtz was. Marlow lies to the Intended to protect her from the wicked truth she may non be able to manage. He grounds, ? Hadn? T he said he wanted merely justness? But I couldn? T. I could non state her. It would hold been to dark # 8211 ; excessively dark wholly? . By non cognizing the barbarian Kurtz became, she may be able to travel on and complete her bereavement. Marlow besides lies to set the darkness of the experience behind himself. He no longer wants it to impact him. One of the grounds that Marlow goes to see the Intended in the first topographic point is to eventually derive a sense of closing from the experience. He had a demand to? give that [ memory ] up, excessively, to the yesteryear, in a manner # 8211 ; to give up personally all that remained of him with me to that limbo which is the last word of our common destiny? . Mar low garbages to allow the darkness and the immorality of the jungle maintain a drawn-out clasp over his life. If he would hold told the truth to the Intended it would hold caused farther complications. He would hold had to see the consequence the truth had on Kurtz? s intended and this may hold affected Kurtz emotionally. He has merely recovered from resentment associated with this experience. Possibly the turbulence of memories and feelings that would happen if he told the Intended the existent truth, would do him to one time once more dip into resentment. In order to forestall these complications from happening, he tells a small prevarication and this efficaciously stops the complications from taking topographic point. Finally, the primary ground Marlow lies because of his responsibility to Kurtz. By going his caretaker during his last yearss, Marlow develops a sense of duty when it comes to Kurtz. He promises to upkeep the great and human-centered repute that Kurtz has in Europe and allows no foreigners to recognize what the existent Kurtz had become. When covering with the Intended, Marlow avoids lying when he confirms to her that he died how he lived. He uses the Intended? s ignorance to short-circuit the truth because she has a positive position of Kurtz? s life. Marlow knows the existent truth but there is no demand to rectify the Intended. However, he is forced to lie when he slips up and tells the Intended that? I heard his very last words? . Marlow lies to protect Kurtz. If he would hold told the Intended that Kurtz? s last were? The horror, the horror? , this would be a breach of the duty that Marlow has to Kurtz. He would instead go against his ain ethical motives that tarnish Kurtz? s re pute. Marlow was carry throughing his duty to Kurtz that was induced by the immense trueness he developed to him during his expedition. A prevarication was a little monetary value to pay in order to protect Kurtz? s great yet false character. Even though Marlow despises prevarication, he feels that stating a little prevarication is better than leting the complications and realisations that the truth would convey. He maintains a stable state of affairs in respects to the emotional province of the Intended and protects Kurtz. Marlow helps himself by finishing the last undertaking he must carry through out of responsibility to Kurtz and eventually will be able to set the full experience behind himself. In order to carry through these positive results, he must state a prevarication in order to avoid the worst results. Marlow himself states, ? It seemed to me that the house would fall in before I could get away, that the celestial spheres would fall upon my caput. But nil happened. The celestial spheres do non fall for such a trifle. Would they hold fallen, I wonder, if I had rendered Kurtz that justness which was due? ? Marlow sees that through an undistinguished prevarication he keeps the worst from happening. Due to this, t he state of affairs remains stable and many people can eventually set this experience behind themselves and travel on. Marlow lies to protect the Intended, to forestall the darkness of the jungle from holding a drawn-out clasp, and eventually to protect Kurtz? s repute from the humiliation that would be caused by the exposure of the truth.

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The Human Reproductive System Essay Example for Free

The Human Reproductive System Essay The human reproductive system requires both the female and male to procreate. Although the reproductive organs will function separately, they will not create another human being without each other. The Male Sperm   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The male reproductive system is more external than the female. Sperm must be created to fertilize the female’s egg and this is done in the testes or testicles of the male. Sperm are mobile cells that contain the male’s chromosomes, to be passed on the offspring. There are hundreds of thousands of sperm produced during a male’s lifetime, all of which have the potential to fertilize an egg. Sperm die off and are recreated at the rate of 1% day and sperm that are released from the body live only a few hours. Scrotum The testes are contained in a fleshy pouch known as the scrotum, which hangs outside the male body in the groin area. The testes themselves are actually over 850 feet of tiny tubing, curled into two balls inside the scrotum. It is in these tubes that the sperm are formed. The scrotum is a highly sensitive area. Normal body temperature will kill the sperm due to their sensitivity to high temperatures; this is why the scrotum lies outside the body rather than internally. In cold weather, the scrotum will pull the testicles closer to the body to maintain the proper temperature. Once formed the sperm must pass through into the epidiymis, which is a larger tube that stores the sperm and lets them mature until it is time to be ejaculated into the female. The epidiymis is encased in the scrotum along with the testes. Ducts   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   When the sperm is ready to be ejaculated it leaves the epidiymis and travels through the vasa deferentia. The vasa deferentia extend from the epidymis and go around the bladder in many different directions. The ends of the vasa deferentia are called ejaculatory ducts. These ducts are located behind the bladder and empty into the urethra. Before the sperm reach the urethra they must also travel through the seminal vesicles, which are also located behind the bladder. Accessory Glands   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The seminal vesicles are part of a group of accessory glands. The seminal vesicles add the semen that coats the sperm during ejaculation. The seminal fluid â€Å"contains mucus, amino acids, fructose as the main energy source for the sperm, and prostaglandins to stimulate female uterine contractions to move the semen up into the uterus.† (biology.clc.uc.ed, 2007)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Inside the body, at the beginning of the urethra, is the prostate gland. The prostate gland is considered an accessory gland and is the largest of these glands. It secretes directly into the urethra and mixes with the seminal fluid. The secretions of the prostate gland are high in alkaline. Alkaline neutralizes the acid left by urine and produced by the female body. It protects the sperm as they make their way through the female to the egg.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hanging from the front of the abdominal cavity on the outside of the body, in front of the scrotum, is the penis. It is made from several cylinders of spongy, erectile tissue. When the male becomes sexually excited, the spongy tissue becomes filled with arterial blood and the veins, which allow this blood to drain off to other areas, seal off. This causes an erection, which is required for ejaculation. The erection is also required to be able to enter the female’s vagina and fertilize the egg. Running through the center of the penis is a hollow tube called the urethra. It allows semen or urine to be released from the body. The male reproductive system  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/BioBookREPROD.html The Female   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The female reproductive organs are internal and produce eggs rather than sperm. The eggs are produced in the ovaries, which are located on either side of the abdominal cavity. The â€Å"eggs† are not like chicken or other animal eggs but more like a collection of special cells. While a female has almost a half million eggs at birth, only about 500 will be released from the ovaries during the time that she is fertile and able to reproduce. Eggs   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The eggs are formed with a process known as â€Å"meiosis†. This means that the egg only has half of the chromosomes needed to complete a new being. The process known as fertilization provides the other half of the needed chromosomes, thus giving the offspring half from each contributing parent. Of the hundreds of thousands of eggs a female is born with, only about 300 of these are ever released to be fertilized. Ovaries   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The ovaries, located on either side of the abdominal wall, create the eggs that are released for fertilization. The ovaries are connected to the fallopian tubes and store the unused eggs as well.   Ovaries also produce the female hormone estrogen, which affects mood, weight and other aspects of the body. Fallopian Tubes From the ovaries are the fallopian tubes, which extend from the ovaries on each side and down into the females uterus. The fallopian tubes lead into the uterus where the fertilized egg will remain as it gestates. In the female human, hormones contribute to the egg being released into the fallopian tubes. This is normally limited to one egg per cycle. Ovulation   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Ovulation is the period when an egg matures and is released into the fallopian tubes. This is â€Å"due to the stimulation of leutenizing hormone (LH), which then stimulates the remaining follicle cells to turn into a corpus luteum which then secretes progesterone to prepare the uterus for possible implantation. If an egg is not fertilized and does not implant, the corpus luteum disintegrates and when it stops producing progesterone, the lining of the uterus breaks down and is shed.† (biology.clc.uc.ed, 2007) Uterus   Ã‚  Ã‚   The uterus is located in the female abdominal cavity. It is lined with millions of cilia. These are tiny follicles that both attach the egg to the wall of the uterus and sweep the lining out when the egg disintegrates. At the end of the uterus is the cervix. The cervix has thick walls and a tiny opening leading into the vaginal canal. The cervix will open to pass the baby through when it is time for it to be born. Vaginal Canal   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The vaginal canal extends from the cervix to the outside opening of the female vagina. It allows the penis to be inserted to fertilize the egg, pass menstrual blood out of the body and allow a baby to pass from the body. The walls are highly elastic and will stretch to accommodate the baby’s head. The Vagina   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The vagina is the outer area of the female reproductive system. It contains the opening leading to the vaginal canal and a tiny opening located right above it. This is the urethra and it allows urine to pass from the body. Directly above the urethra is the clitoris. This is the female counterpart to the male penis and is also highly sensitive. Covering the openings is the vulva. This consists of inner and outer labia, which are folds of skin. The vulva becomes covered with body hair when the female matures. Fertilization   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Fertilization of the egg occurs when the sperm meet the egg at the far end of the fallopian tube. The sperm fertilize the egg, the egg implants itself into the lining of the uterus and a new human is created. The female reproductive system  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/BioBookREPROD.html References http://emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/BioBookREPROD.html http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio105/reproduc.htm http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/general/body_basics/female_reproductive_system.html

Advanced Traffic Monitoring And Switching Using Labview Computer Science Essay

Advanced Traffic Monitoring And Switching Using Labview Computer Science Essay Overview of our project is to avoid congestion in traffic and to give priority to the emergency vehicle. Traffic control systems include signs, lights and other devices that communicate specific directions, warnings, or requirements. Traffic light controller (TLC) has been implemented using FPGA design which has many advantages over microcontroller some of these advantages are the speed, number of input/output ports and performance which are all very important in TLC design. Most of the TLCs implemented on FPGA are simple ones that have been implemented as examples of FSM. This paper concerned with an FPGA design implementation of a low cost 24-hour advanced traffic light controller system that was built as a term project of a VLSI design subject using verilog. The implemented traffic light is one of the real and complex traffic lights, for four roads and motorway with sensors and camera. The system has been successfully tested and implemented in hardware using Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA. Using labview technique it can control the traffic properly. Keywords: Field Programmable Gate Array, Traffic Light Controller, Very Large Scale Integration INTRODUCTION: The TLCs have limitations because it uses the pre-defined hardware, which is functioning according to the program that does not have the flexibility of modification on real time basis. Due to the fixed time intervals of green, orange and red signals the waiting time is more and vehicle uses more fuel. To make traffic light controlling more efficient, we exploit the emergence of new technique called as Advanced Traffic Monitoring and Switching . This makes the use of Sensor Networks along with Embedded Technology. The timings of Red, Green lights at each crossing of road will be intelligently decided based on the total traffic on all adjacent roads. Thus, optimization of traffic light switching increases road capacity and traffic flow, and can prevent traffic congestions. This is a unique feature of this project which is very useful to emergency vehicle to reach the destination properly. The various performance evaluation criteria are average waiting time, switching frequency of green light at a junction and efficient emergency mode operation. The performance of the Advanced Traffic Light Controller is compared with the Fixed Mode Traffic Light Controller. It is observed that the proposed Advanced Traffic Light Controller is more efficient than the conventional controller in respect of less waiting time and efficient operation during emergency mode. Moreover, the designed system has simple architecture, fast response time, user friendliness and scope for further expansion. I.FIELD-PROGRAMMABLE GATE ARRAY A field programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit (IC) that includes a two-dimensional array of general-purpose logic circuits, called cells or logic blocks, whose functions are programmable. The cells are linked to one another by programmable buses. A field-programmable gate array comprises any number of logic modules, an interconnect routing architecture and programmable elements that may be programmed to selectively interconnect the logic modules to one another and to define the functions of the logic modules. The basic device architecture of an FPGA consists of an array of configurable logic blocks (CLBs) embedded in a configurable interconnect structure and surrounded by configurable I/O blocks (IOBs). An IOB allows signals to be driven off-chip or optionally brought onto the FPGA onto interconnect segments. The IOB can typically perform other functions, such as tri-stating outputs and registering incoming or out-going signals. The configurable interconnect structu re allows users to implement multi-level logic designs. In addition, FPGAs typically include other specialized blocks, such as block random access memories (BRAMs) and digital signal processors (DSPs). These specialized blocks perform more specific tasks than the CLBs, but can still be configured in accordance with a variety of options to enable flexible operation of the FPGA. Field programmable gate arrays may be classified in one of two categories. One category of FPGA devices is one-time programmable and uses elements such as antifuses for making programmable connections. The other category of FPGA devices is reprogrammable and uses devices such as transistor switches as the programmable elements to make non-permanent programmable connections. An FPGA can support hundreds of thousands of gates of logic operating at system speeds of tens of megahertz. To implement a particular circuit function, the circuit is mapped into the array and the appropriate programmable elements are prog rammed to implement the necessary wiring connections that form the user circuit. The FPGA is programmed by loading programming data into the memory cells controlling the configurable logic blocks, I/O blocks, and interconnect structure. A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by the customer or designer after manufacturingà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬hence field-programmable. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware description language (HDL), similar to that used for an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) (circuit diagrams were previously used to specify the configuration, as they were for ASICs, but this is increasingly rare). FPGAs can be used to implement any logical function that an ASIC could perform. The ability to update the functionality after shipping, and the low non-recurring engineering costs relative to an ASIC design (not withstanding the generally higher unit cost), offer advantages for many applications. FPGAs contain programmable logic components called logic blocks, and a hierarchy of reconfigurable interconnects that allow the blocks to be wired togetherà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬somewhat like a one-chip programmable breadboard. Logic blocks can be configured to perform complex combinational functions, or merely simple logic gates like AND and XOR. In most FPGAs, the logic blocks also include memory elements, which may be simple flip-flops or more complete blocks of memory. A.FPGA comparisons: Historically, FPGAs have been slower, less energy efficient and generally achieved less functionality than their fixed ASIC counterparts. A combination of volume, fabrication improvements, research and development, and the I/O capabilities of new supercomputers have largely closed the performance gap between ASICs and FPGAs. Advantages include a shorter time to market, ability to re-program in the field to fix bugs, and lower non-recurring engineering costs. Vendors can also take a middle road by developing their hardware on ordinary FPGAs, but manufacture their final version so it can no longer be modified after the design has been committed. Xilinx claims that several market and technology dynamics are changing the ASIC/FPGA paradigm: IC costs are rising aggressively ASIC complexity has bolstered development time and costs RD resources and headcount is decreasing Revenue losses for slow time-to-market are increasing Financial constraints in a poor economy are driving low-cost technologies. These trends make FPGAs a better alternative than ASICs for a growing number of higher-volume applications than they have been historically used for, to which the company attributes the growing number of FPGA design starts. Some FPGAs have the capability of partial re-configuration that lets one portion of the device be re-programmed while other portions continue running. B.FPGA Versus CPLDs: The primary differences between CPLDs and FPGAs are architectural. A CPLD has a somewhat restrictive structure consisting of one or more programmable sum-of-products logic arrays feeding a relatively small number of clocked registers. The result of this is less flexibility, with the advantage of more predictable timing delays and a higher logic-to-interconnect ratio. The FPGA architectures, on the other hand, are dominated by interconnect. This makes them far more flexible (in terms of the range of designs that are practical for implementation within them) but also far more complex to design for. Another notable difference between CPLDs and FPGAs is the presence in most FPGAs of higher-level embedded functions (such as adders and multipliers) and embedded memories, as well as to have logic blocks implement decoders or mathematical functions. C. Security considerations: With respect to security, FPGAs have both advantages and disadvantages as compared to ASICs or secure microprocessors. FPGAs flexibility makes malicious modifications during fabrication a lower risk. For many FPGAs, the loaded design is exposed while it is loaded (typically on every power-on). To address this issue, some FPGAs support bit stream encryption. D.Applications of FPGAs: FPGAs have gained rapid acceptance and growth over the past decade because they can be applied to a very wide range of applications. A list of typical applications includes: random logic,integrating multiple SPLDs, device controllers, communication encoding and filtering, small to medium sized systems with SRAM blocks, and many more. Other interesting applications of FPGAs are prototyping of designs later to be implemented in gate arrays, and also emulation of entire large hardware systems. II.RADIO FREQUENCY COMMUNICATION: RF itself has become synonymous with wireless and high-frequency signals, describing anything from AM radio between 535 kHz and 1605 kHz to computer local area networks (LANs) at 2.4 GHz. However, RF has traditionally defined frequencies from a few kHz to roughly 1 GHz. If one considers microwave frequencies as RF, this range extends to 300 GHz. A wave or sinusoid can be completely described by either its frequency or its wavelength. They are inversely proportional to each other and related to the speed of light through a particular medium. As frequency increases, wavelength decreases. For reference, a 1 GHz wave has a wavelength of roughly 1 foot, and a 100 MHz wave has a wavelength of roughly 10 feet. III.IR SENSOR: A Passive Infra Red sensor (PIR sensor) is an electronic device that measures infrared (IR) light radiating from objects in its field of view. PIR sensors are often used in the construction of PIR-based motion detectors. Apparent motion is detected when an infrared source with one temperature, such as a human, passes in front of an infrared source with another temperature, such as a wall. All objects emit what is known as black body radiation. It is usually infrared radiation that is invisible to the human eye but can be detected by electronic devices designed for such a purpose. The term passive in this instance means that the PIR device does not emit an infrared beam but merely passively accepts incoming infrared radiation. These sensors are used as the road traffic detectors which is used for the detection of the presence (traffic) of vehicles at precisely determined measuring points, are an extremely important element of the urban traffic control system. The intelligent road consists of IR sensors to detect and transferring the data to the server in real time. The detectors are installed along the road in order to ensure the scanning of traffic stream and to transmit its Parameters at proper time i.e. stream velocity, its intensity and quantity of transport Means. The transport means may be subdivided into categories e.g. motor cars, small and big trucks and long vehicles. The essential functions of road traffic detectors are: à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ Optimization of traffic lights control for the road crossings and pedestrians crossings, à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ Creation of traffic database and road traffic changes monitoring in order to implement proper control and management modifications, -Data acquisition at locations for which early detection of traffic disturbances. IV.CCTV: As the name implies, it is a system in which the circuit is closed and all the elements are directly connected. This is unlike broadcast television where any receiver that is correctly tuned can pick up the signal from the airwaves. Directly connected in this context includes systems linked by microwave, infrared beams, etc. This article introduces the main components that can go to make up CCTV systems of varying complexity. Many cities and motorway networks have extensive traffic-monitoring systems, using closed-circuit television to detect congestion and notice accidents V. RF TRANSRECEIVER: This transceiver has a transmit side (Tx) and a receive side (Rx), which are connected to the antenna through a duplexer that can be realized as a switch or a filter, depending on the communications standard being followed. The input preselection filter takes the broad spectrum of signals coming from the antenna and removes the signals not in the band of interest. This may be required to prevent overloading of the low-noise amplifier (LNA) by out-of band signals. The LNA amplifies the input signal without adding much noise. The input signal can be very weak, so the first thing to do is strengthen the signal without corrupting it. As a result, noise added in later stages will be of less importance. The image filter that follows the LNA removes out-of-band signals and noise before the signal enters the mixer. The mixer translates the input RF signal down to the intermediate frequency, since filtering, as well as circuit design, becomes much easier at lower frequencies for a multitude of reasons. The other input to the mixer is the local oscillator (LO) signal provided by a voltage-controlled oscillator inside a frequency synthesizer. The desired output of the mixer will be the difference between the LO frequency and the RF frequency. At the input of the radio there may be many different channels or frequency bands. The LO frequency is adjusted so that the desired RF channel or frequency band is mixed down to the same intermediate frequency (IF) in all cases. The IF stage then provides channel filtering at this one frequency to remove the unwanted channels. The IF stage provides further amplification and automatic gain control (AGC) to bring the signal to a specific amplitude level before the signal is passed on to the back end of the receiver. It will ultimately be converted into bits (most modern communications systems use digital modulation schemes) that could represent, for example, voice, video, or data through the use of an analog-to-digital converter. On the transmit side, the back-end digital signal is used to modulate the carrier in the IF stage. In the IF stage, there may be some filtering to remove unwanted signals generated by the baseband, and the signal may or may not be converted into an analog waveform before it is modulated onto the IF carrier. A mixer converts the modulated signal and IF carrier up to the desired RF frequency. A frequency synthesizer provides the other mixer input. Since the RF carrier and associated modulated data may have to be transmitted over large distances through lossy media (e.g., air, cable, and fiber), a power amplifier (PA) must be used to increase the signal power. Typically, the power level is increased from the milliwatt range to a level in the range of hundreds of milliwatts to watts, depending on the particular application. A lowpass filter after the PA removes any harmonics produced by the PA to prevent them from also being transmitted.

Research Paper -- essays papers

Research Paper Inclusive education means that all students in a school, regardless of their strengths or weaknesses in any area, become part of the school community. They are included in the feeling of belonging among other students, teachers, and support staff. The educational practice known as, full inclusion may have negative effects on the self-esteem of a special needs child. In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, also known as Public Law94-142. Before this law came into effect many children with disabilities were routinely excluded from public schools. Their options were to remain at home or be institutionalized. This law was an important landmark in education and because of this law, today; no child may be denied a free and appropriate public education. Inclusion is a relatively new movement in education developed first by parents and professional advocates. It is an attempted to bring special needs children into the classroom and to educate them in, classrooms with there, non-learning disabled peers. While attempting to do this I think it is extremely important to consider the self-esteem of a child being put in these classrooms. One of the basic elements of self-esteem comes from the comfort in being part of a valued social circle. A child with special needs placed in a regular classroom already feels ostracized because their needs differ from the majority of the class. Inclusion may help a child academically, but the maturity level of these children keeps them socially apart from the rest of their peers. Inclusion was first introduced in 1989 by the CSIE (center for studies on inclusive education). Prior to the introduction of inclusion was the idea of mainstreaming ... ...ith severe disabilities in schools. San Diego, California: Singular Publishing Group. Schwier, K. & Hingsburger, D. (2000). Sexuality: your sons and daughters with intellectual disabilities. Baltimore, Maryland: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc. Tamaren, M. (1992). I make a difference: a curriculum guide building self-esteem and sensitivity in the inclusive classroom. Novato, California: Academic Therapy Publications. Vance, B. (ed). (1998). Psychological assessment of children. Canada: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. This book includes many psychiatric assessments of students in inclusive classrooms. Masters, Jason. (2003). Interview conducted with Jason Masters on April 2003. Pevik, J., Mccomas, J., & Laflamme, M. (2002). Barriers and facilitators to inclusive Education. Council for exceptional children, Vol. 69, pp. 97-107.