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Types of Spanish Pronouns

Types of Spanish Pronouns Almost all of us like to take shortcuts, and thats one way to think about what pronouns are: In both Spanish and English, theyre usually a shorter and quicker way of referring to a noun. Common pronouns in English include he, she, what, that and yours, all of which usually would be replaced by longer words or more words if we didnt have the pronouns at our disposal. Spanish and English Pronouns Compared In general, pronouns in Spanish function much as they do in English. They can fulfill any role in a sentence that a noun can, and some of them vary in form depending on whether theyre used as a subject or an object. Probably the biggest difference is that in Spanish most pronouns have gender, whereas in English the only gendered pronouns are he, she, he, and him. If a pronoun has gender, it is the same as that of the noun to which it refers. (In English, gendered pronouns nearly always refer to people are animals, although it is possible to refer to a few personified objects by gender, such as when a ship or a nation is referred to as she instead of it.) In Spanish, there are also a few neuter pronouns that can be used to refer to an unknown object or to ideas or concepts. In the list of pronoun types below, be aware that many of the pronouns can have more than one translation, many English pronouns can have more than one Spanish equivalent, and not all pronouns are listed in the examples. For example, the English me can be translated as both me and mà ­, depending on the context, and the Spanish lo can be translated as him, or it. Not all Spanish pronouns are listed here, but enough to convey how others would be classified. Note also that many of these words that function as pronouns, particularly the indefinite and relative pronouns, can serve as other parts of speech. Types of Pronouns Pronouns can be classified as to how they are used, and all of these classifications apply to both Spanish and English. Note that some pronouns, such as me and ella, can be more than one type of pronoun. Subject pronouns replace the subject of a sentence. Examples include yo (I), tà º (you), à ©l (he), ella (she), ellos (they), and ellas (they). Yo quiero salir. (I want to leave. I or yo replaces the name of the person speaking.) Demonstrative pronouns replace a noun while also pointing to it. Examples include à ©ste (this), à ©sta (this), à ©sa (that), and aquà ©llos (those). Note that many demonstrative pronouns have written or orthographic accents on the stressed vowel. Although such accents used to be considered mandatory, these days they are treated as optional if they can be omitted without causing confusion. Quiero à ©sta. I want this. (Ésta or this replaces the name of the object the speaker is referring to.) Verbal object pronouns functions as the object of a verb. Examples include lo  (him or it), la  (her or it), me (me), and los (them). Lo no puedo ver. (I cant see it. Lo or it replaces the name of the unseen object.) Reflexive pronouns are used when the direct object and the subject of a verb refer to the same person or thing. They are used much more in Spanish than in English. Examples include me (myself), te (yourself), and se (himself, herself, themselves). Juan se baà ±a. (John is bathing himself. John is the subject of the sentence, and he is performing the action of the verb on himself.) Prepositional object pronouns are used as objects of a preposition. Examples include mà ­ (me), ella (her), and nosotros (us). Raà ºl lo comprà ³ para nosotros. (Raà ºl bought it for us. Nosotros and us are the objects of the prepositions para and for, respectively.) Prepositional reflexive pronouns are used when the object of a preposition following a verb refers back to the verbs subject. Examples include mà ­ (myself) and sà ­ (himself, herself, itself, themselves). Marà ­a lo comprà ³ para sà ­ mismo. (Marà ­a bought it for herself. Sà ­ and herself are the objects of para and for, respectively, and refer back to Marà ­a, the sentences subject. Possessive pronouns refer to something owned or possessed by someone or something. Examples include mà ­o (mine), mà ­a (mine), mà ­os (mine), mà ­as (mine), and suyo (his, hers, theirs). La mà ­a es verde. Mine is green. (Mà ­a and mine refer to the object possessed. The feminine form in Spanish is used here because it refers to an object name that is feminine. The possessive pronouns in Spanish are usually preceded by el, la, los, or las, especially when they are subjects.) Indefinite pronouns refer to nonspecific people or things. Examples include algo (something), nadie (nobody), alguien (anybody), todo (all), todas (all), uno (one), unos (some), and ninguno (none). Nadie puede decir que su vida es perfecta. (Nobody can say his life is perfect.) Relative pronouns introduces a clause that gives more information about a noun or pronoun. Examples include que (that, which, who, whom), quien (who, whom), cuyo (whose), cuyas (whose), donde (where), and lo cual (which, that which). Nadie puede decir que su vida es perfecta. (Nobody can say that his life is perfect. The relative pronouns here are que and that. The clause su vida es perfecta gives more information about nadie.) Interrogative pronouns are used in questions. Examples include cul (what), quià ©n (what), and cundo (when). Spanish interrogative pronouns use an orthographic accent. Cul es tu problema? (What is your problem?)

Budget Information Problem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Budget Information Problem - Essay Example Finally, the report wraps up with an analytical assessment of these budget information problems and suggests recommendations to address the budget information deficiencies. I as the accountant carried out a survey on the state of the budget information problem. The budget information problem is as a result of a company not being transparent enough to itself and the public or parties concerned. There is no accountability in the way the budget funds are used and in this case. The report will consider the effect of the availability of budget information to Metropolitan health care services company (Tyler, 2007, p. 146). In so doing, it is essential be familiar with nature and organizational structure of the Metropolitan health care services company. The report will establish the central issues in the budget information affecting Metropolitan health care services company. Besides, it suggests the available policy choices that it can employ in their budgeting processes. The company is expected to select a policy option that is in line with the goals in its budget financing. The report found that it was essential for the the company to have information on issues regarding the expenditure and revenue budget. Budget information is vital, and when it is unavailable, it could imply the lack of accountability and hence misappropriation of funds. Debt management information deficiency is also a constraint for the company’s budgetary processes. I observed that the approach taken by company concerning debt management is not appropriate in the budget stipulation. I hold the position that aims to reform the criteria and conditions that will enable the elimination of budget information problem at Metropolitan health care services comp any (Lindridge, 2011, p. 157). There are frequent typical problems that exist in the budgetary making process at Metropolitan health care services company. One of the fundamental problems is budget information concerning

Arguing that owen shows the horrific and piterous nature of war Essay

Arguing that owen shows the horrific and piterous nature of war - Essay Example In this poem he portrays the futility of soldiers deaths and sufferings of men who are still alive, but know that death is â€Å"around the corner†. The message of this poem is that war is senseless, war brings only grief and constant tension to be killed. In contrast to this horrible picture of war reality, the other poem â€Å"The Send Off† depicts the departure of soldiers who have not been faced with reality of war. It is possible to predict that these young boys have heard a lot of battles and operations, but none of them can imagine the casualties of war-time. In both poems, Owen uses similar techniques to impress the reader and convey the message of the poems. His structural and stylistic devices reveal a variety of interpretations as to the meaning in the poems. The title â€Å"Futility† comments on the main idea of the poem, which means death of innocent people (soldiers) who can do nothing to protect themselves. The use of past tense underlines the fact that a soldier on the battlefield is dead and nothing can bring him back. The title â€Å"The Send Off† is an example of sarcasm which questioned the necessity of new deaths. Rural landscapes in â€Å"Futility† underlines that the common sense of a battle field cannot be explained through a personal interest of people taking part in a battle because a soldier means nothing as a subject but more as a tool of a battle field. In â€Å"The Send Off†, Owen uses the phrase â€Å"down the close darkening lanes† to depicts that even nature is against futile sacrifices. The use of â€Å"once† means that a person has only one life, which cannot be â€Å"restored†; it means that soldiers can never rise from the dead. The contrast between picturesque landscapes and deaths helps Owen to emphasize the futility of war-time. The pessimism of â€Å"The Send Off† unveils the outcome of soldiers’ departure when Owen questions the necessity of civic duty or â€Å"The Send Off† which is usually accepted and accomplished

SEMAI OF MALAYSIA Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

SEMAI OF MALAYSIA - Research Paper Example The Semai of Malaysia is unique in a way from other groups or tribes of the American society. What make them different are their beliefs, kinship and health issues; these aspects have made them to survive for many years in this dynamic world. It is believed that the Semai tribe is what remained from the original ancient populations of South East Asia, who then belong to the Senoi ethnic groups. The lands in Malaysia are fertile and productive; this has made the Semai society to practice horticulture- planting crops in their fertile lands. In the recent times, the indigenous community has been made to shift to Malaysia hills and mountains by powerful technologies and peoples. But at times,the Semai community practice a mixed system of arboriculture, shifting cultivations, hunting and gathering. In general they practice hunting and horticultural farming. The main crop that is grown by Semai of Malaysia is rice; at times they plant arrow roots, grapes and corns in their farms. The Semai community is living in densely forested mountains. The horticulture they practice is non- mechanized, that is non-intensive form of plant cultivation performed non- repetitively on a plot of land. The Semai people live in ‘Kampangs’ (close villages) close to their farms and during planting seasons they head back to the forest to go and hunt for the rest of the year. They have low population densities, which has made them to be scattered in different parts of the huge farms and be able to practice shifting cultivation. When such horticultural factors are done, the families are grouped in scattered clusters moving from one location to another. They are known by anthropologists for their behaviour which is non- aggressiveness and a version to interpersonal violence of any kind. The relationship is that married men do not batter their wives, nor beat their parents. Children are not allowed to engage in activities like fights, physical assaults and murder which are virtually unknown to the community. In moving the horticulturalists are immobile as forages that may control rearing among is not a strict within their culture as is with forages. Majority of the children help their parents with providing labour in the fields enhancing productivity (Fix, 1990). The Semai community practice what is referred to as generalized reciprocity which means they can exchange goods and services without having any track or measurements of the exact value of what they have traded with an assumption that the transaction will balance itself in some time to come. This act of generalized reciprocity happens between parents and children, or between couples, or in advanced stages involving clans and large kin groups. This is a formal way of exchange that involves total trust and minimal distance between the two parties. For the Semai community, the main reason for eating is to make one feel full and satisfied. The meal to be eaten should include starch dish which is preferably rice. Eating meat, fowls or fish without any starch is ridiculous to them. The other economic activities include fishing, hunting and gathering. They use weapons for hunting such as, blow pipes and poisonous darts. They also use ‘rattan’ (climbing palms in forests) to make binders, house building, basketry, fish-traps others .(Norwak & Laird, 2010). 2.1Beliefs and values The Semai’s beliefs and values are enshrined in their religion, which embraces of belief on the forest and natural spirituality; a kind of animism. Animism involves traditions of thunder god called â€Å"Enku† which is associated with other kind of animals like a small eye less snake, beings working hand in hand with god, dragons that are present during thunder squalls associated with rainbows. Other animals include a flying animal with feathers and those with rounded scales and moist skins living inside or near water bodies (Dentan, 1983).

Theories in Audience Research

Theories in Audience Research Communication as a complex process which is text have both an explicit and an implicit agenda. (Ruddock, 2001). According to Ruddock, persuasion is achieved not only through information but also through controlling how people make sense of information as nowadays mass media were persuasive on so far as they offered audiences seductive ‘knowledge positions’ that made sense of a chaotic world. (Ruddock, 2001, p.222). Stuart Hall argue that messages have a complex structure of dominance because at each stage they are, imprinted by institutional power relations. (Hall, 1980). Furthermore, in a particular stages a message only can be received at recognizable or appropriate stage where the message is to be used or understood at least somewhat against the grain. (Hall, 1980). This means that power relations at the point to production, will loosely fit those at the point of consumption. (Hall, 1980). In this way, the communication circuit is also a circuit which reproduces a pattern of domination. (Hall, 1980). Hall theory is ideological only and media is powerful when audiences encode from it. There are three challenges of encoding and decoding, Hall argued that (i) meaning is not simply fixed or determined by the sender (ii) the message is never transparent (iii) the audience is not a passive recipient of meaning. (Hall 1973). According to Hall, encoding and decoding is conventional model of communication to be found within mass communications research. This model moves in a linear fashion from the ‘sender’ through the ‘message’ to the ‘receiver’. (RED: 253). According to this model, the sender creates the message and fixes its meaning, which can only be transparently when communicated to the recipient. Hall theory on communication process is system can distort message which receiver might not getting the message they want to or expect (RED: 253). On the other hand, Hall are more on interested on the different way audiences generate and react from the message rather than discover the meaning. (RED: 253). The example implies in Hall t heory are the sender of information will never will be perceived by the target audience in the way they expect because of the chain of discourse. Furthermore, when we recognize that these circumstances will result in messages being imprinted by institutional power-relations as they pass through these stages which we will realize that a message cannot be transparent, because there can be no ‘raw’ presentation of any information. (Hall, 1973). Besides, this reasons also extend to the moment of consumption and distribution which is Uses and Gratification the theory states that consumers are not a passive audience but an active recipients of meaning. (Hall, 1973). On the other hand, the decoding of messages is a complex process which making sense by audience and it will shaped by the imprints of reception, social and economic relations and structures of understanding before any kind of practice or consciousness can be happen. (Hall, 1973). Besides, consumers are for both wh ich is receivers and as a source to understanding of a message. The description as a ’lack of fit’ between the ‘encoders’ as producers and ‘decoders’ as a consumers is an unpredictability because of the codes offered by mass media through conveyed messages to receiver can be interpreted in three ways which is through a dominant reading where the receiver accepts and reproduces the code. (Hall, 1973). For a negotiated reading, normally the code is accepted but partly only shared thus an oppositional reading is the receiver understands the reading but rejects the code. (Hall, 1973). According to Hall notes, â€Å"hierarchically organized into dominant or preferred meanings† (p. 513), some knowledge become institutionalized because there is a preferred reading that is imprinted by a social order (institutional/political/ideological). (Hall, 1973). He argues that although we have polysemy, or multiple meanings, we do not have pluralism. Thi s will result in some messages from the media becoming commonsense constructs, as we enforce certain semantic domains and† rule items into and out of their appropriate meaning-sets† (p. 514). When consumers are faced with messages, and make sense of them within the hegemony of dominant code, they will reproduce already dominant definitions. (Hall, 1973). Hall were insert a semiotic paradigm into a social framework which to clearing the way for both which is textualist and ethnographic work. (Hall, 1973). Hall’s essay has been important to the study of media which is fieldwork like David Morley. He has proceeded model has been criticized for his model which is sender, message and receiver. (Agosto de, 2006) According to Agosto, it is a concentration on the level of message exchange and for the absence of a structured conception of the different moments as a complex structure of relations. (Agosto de, 2006). On Halls theory, his has own militant, position, where he insists that the ‘preferred reading’ is undoubtedly a property of the text which means can be identified on the analysis itself. (Hall 1994). In my opinion, if Hall is right on the textual analysis there are still has many important place in audience work rather than many subsequent scholars have recognized it. However, we cannot deny that textual analysis by dissolving the text into its readings or contextual uses, the question still remains as to the nature of the text that we should analyze. (Agosto de, 2006) At one time, under the influence of structuralist theories of language and meaning (de Saussure 1974; Hall 1981) it seemed obvious that content analysis could be of little help, because of the way in which it disaggregates texts into their atomized constituent parts and according to structuralism to gives them their meanings. (Agosto de, 2006) Besides, as we know from many studies of viewing practices peop le from the whole actually do not consume whole texts on television even though they still do in cinema. (Agosto de, 2006) In plus, in the age of the remote control device, they watch cannibalized schedules of their own construction, as they jump from one bit of programming to another which the structural relations within any one programme will be irrelevant, except in that particular sub-category of viewing in which people will sit down and watch the their favourite programmes. (Agosto de, 2006). Acoording to David Morley’s research involving Nationwide has become an important study when concerning audiences. Morley outlined three hypothetical position which the reader might occupy dominant reading whereas the reader shares the programmes ‘code’ Code means systems of values, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions and fully accepts by the programmes as to be ‘preferred reading’ Furthermore, negotiated reading is the reader partially shares the programmes code and its preferred reading, however they modify it which reflects their position and interest. (Hall, 1973). Oppositional reading is where the reader does not share the programme’s code and completely rejects the preferred reading, which brings an alternative frame of interpretation. (Hall, 1973). A further, fundamental problem about matters of interpretation is raised by Condit (1989) and Caragee (1990) who both argue that many audience scholars have exaggerated the extent of the polyse my of meanings of media texts and ignored the limits placed by texts themselves on the process of interpretation. (Agosto de, 2006). Their argument that most texts have meanings which are perfectly clear to the majority of their readers who only differ in their evaluation of them, takes us back to another unresolved issue raised long ago by John Corner (1981). This concerns the need to disentangle the elements of comprehension and evaluation which are intertwined in the Encoding or Decoding model. This takes into deep water, as Hall`s original (1973) argument was that, in any society characterized by significant cultural divisions, and thus a `systematically distorted` system of communication (Habermas 1970) the elements of comprehension and evaluation will inevitably be intertwined with some kinds of interpretations dismissed by more powerful others as merely `misunderstandings`. (Agosto de, 2006) The unresolved difficulty here is that the price of analytical clarity, if we attem pt to too neatly divide matters of interpretation and evaluation, may be to disassemble the empirical conjunction of these issues and thus to evacuate from the model the very questions of cultural power which it was designed to address (Hall, 1973). Yet further important questions remain about the status of another of the model’s central categories that of the `oppositional reading`. It may well be that the original model, in its search for overtly political forms of opposition to the culturally dominant order, overvalues ‘oppositional’ rather than ‘negotiated’ decodings. (Agosto de, 2006) Moreover, it is by no means clear that an audience’s refusal to even engage with a text sufficiently to make any decoding of it and it irrelevance to their concerns which is the position of many people in the UK, in relation to much of contemporary news and current affairs programming is less of an oppositional reading than one which is at least sufficiently engaged by a text to bother to `disagree` with it. (Agosto de, 2006). As Dominique Pasquier (2003) argues, the ‘indifferent audience’ may be one of the key issues for contemporary audience research. (Agosto de, 2006) Sociologist David Morley argues that ‘members of a given subculture will tend to share a cultural orientation towards decoding messages in particular ways. (Agosto de, 2006) Their individual â€Å"readings† of messages will be framed by shared cultural formations and practices’. In conclusion Morley claims that an individual’s ‘decoding’ of TV programmed are not reduced to a direct consequence of social class position. (Agosto de, 2006). It is always a question of how social position, as it articulated through particular discourses, produces specific kind of readings or decoding. (Agosto de, 2006) These readings can be seen to be patterned by the way in which the structure of access to different discourses is determined by social position’ (Agosto de, 2006) Therefore, the meaning of text will be constructed differently according to the discourses brought by the reader. (Agosto de, 2006) Fiskes Theory suggests that people naturally categorized events that take place in their reality in reference to texts they have experienced in the past which means he is suggesting we all create a context for what we are seeing through intertextual referencing. (Fiske, 1992). People tend to believe that genre is based on real life, however, the human mind tends to give real life events context and genre based on those created in texts. This can apply to generally speaking, any genre. For example, the horror film, when something super natural takes place in real life people may relate it to a text based on ghosts if an object might randomly fall off a shelf in a supposedly haunted location on a ghost walk, people will witness this in reference to things they have seen in the exorcist or other such films. (Agosto de, 2006). According to Marxism Theory is a ‘simple idea is that the policy process, far from being a rational weighing up of alternatives, is driven by powerful socio-economic forces that set the agenda, structure decision makers choices, constraints implementation and ensure that the interests of the most powerful (or of the system as a whole) determines the outputs and the outcomes of the political system. (John, 1992). According to Barry the state’s function is to protect and reproduce capitalism. Public policies thus reflect the role of the state in trying to regulate the economy and ensure social and political stability. (Barry, n.d.).In other words, the state formulates and implementation policy to reflects the interests of capitalism and the capitalist or the ruling class. (Barry, n.d.). The control over ideas through media and process of socialization on more generally, such as education. This is no dominant ideology compared to Hall theory which is system can be distort. Marxist is a capitalist mode of production and it is concentrated of nature power which is critical and it is overthrow the system. (Barry, n.d). Bibliography Barker, M. (2003) ‘I have seen the future and it is not here yet.’ Paper to ARSRP conference Ruddock, Andy (2001) Understanding Audiences: Theory and Method, Sage: London. Fiske, J (1987). Active Audiences. In Television Culture (pp.62-68). London: Routledge. Morley, D. (2006). Unanswered questions in audience research [Electronic Version]. The communication Review, 9(2), 101-121. Peter John, (1992). Analyzing Public Policy 1999. P.92.

Thomas Edison Essay -- biographies bio biography

Term Paper   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thomas Alva Edison is one of the most influential people of his time. This native born Ohioan is credited with many invention that we use today and that many of us take for granted. Countless hours of hard work went into everything he accomplished. That drive is what made him the man he was and defined him as an individual. Thomas Edison was born February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Edison, Jr. and Nancy Elliot Edison. His parents had no special mechanical background. His mother was a former schoolteacher; his father was a jack-of-all-trades - from running a grocery store to real estate. When Thomas was seven years old, his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan. He was a very curious child who asked a lot of questions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Edison began school in Port Huron, Michigan when he was seven. His teacher, the Reverend G. B. Engle considered Thomas to be a dull student. Thomas especially did not like math. And he asked too many questions. The story goes that the teacher whipped students who asked questions. After three months of school, the teacher called Thomas, "addled," which means confused or mixed up. Thomas stormed home. The next day, Nancy Edison brought Thomas back to school to talk with Reverend Engle. The teacher told his mother that Thomas couldn't learn. Nancy also became angry at the teacher's strict ways. She took Thomas out of school and decided to home-school him. It appears he briefly attended two more schools. However, his school attendance was not very good. So nearly all his childhood learning took place at home.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Some of his inventions he deliberately tried to invent, like the light bulb and the movie projector. But some inventions he stumbled upon, like the phonograph. Of all his inventions, Edison was most proud of the phonograph. Edison invented and improved upon things that transformed our world. Some things he invented by himself. Some things he invented with other people. Just about all his inventions are things we still use in some form today. Throughout his life, Edison tried to invent things that everyone could use.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Edison created the world's first "invention factory". He and his partners invented, built and shipped the product - all in the same complex. This was a new way to do business. Today many businesses have copied Edison'... ...ing off ideas and doing experiments as fast as they came to mind. Once the invention had been started, he left the details to others.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Edison was known to be stubborn. When he was a senior citizen, he became protective of his inventions. One historian found an irate letter from Edison to his manufacturing department. Edison had learned that teenagers were turning up the speed of his cylinder phonograph to make the music faster. Edison complained, "I don't want it and won't have it. " To make sure this would not happen again, he ordered his workers to make a control for the record speed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Thomas Alva Edison died when he was 84 years old, on Sunday, October 18, 1931. He was still experimenting up until the time he died. Three days later, on October 21, 1931, electric lights were dimmed for one minute throughout the United States. Edison and his wife, Mina, are buried on their home estate grounds.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Bibliography Smith, John – â€Å"Don’t Follow This† American Publishing Company, Washington D.C., 1969 Dilion, Bob – â€Å"This is wrong† Forever Young Inc. Omaha, NB, 1988 Durst, Fred – â€Å"If you can read this you are too close† Nookie for Life  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Orlando, FL, 1999

Naturally Occuring Earth Quakes

————————————————- Naturally occurring earthquakes Fault types Tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere in the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain energy to drive fracture propagation along a  fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each other smoothly and  aseismically  only if there are no irregularities or  asperities  along the fault surface that increase the frictional resistance. Most fault surfaces do have such asperities and this leads to a form of  stick-slip behaviour.Once the fault has locked, continued relative motion between the plates leads to increasing stress and therefore, stored strain energy in the volume around the fault surface. This continues until the stress has risen sufficiently to break through the asperity, suddenly allowing sliding over the locked portion of the fault, releasing the  stored energy. This energy is rel eased as a combination of radiated elastic  strain  seismic waves, frictional heating of the fault surface, and cracking of the rock, thus causing an earthquake.This process of gradual build-up of strain and stress punctuated by occasional sudden earthquake failure is referred to as the  elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of an earthquake's total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the earthquake's energy is used to power the earthquake  fracture  growth or is converted into heat generated by friction. Therefore, earthquakes lower the Earth's available  elastic potential energy  and raise its temperature, though these changes are negligible compared to the conductive and convective flow of heat out from the  Earth's deep interior. 2] Earthquake fault types Main article:  Fault (geology) There are three main types of fault that may cause an earthquake: normal, reverse (thrust) and strike-slip. Normal and reverse faulting a re examples of dip-slip, where the displacement along the fault is in the direction of  dip  and movement on them involves a vertical component. Normal faults occur mainly in areas where the crust is being  extended  such as a  divergent boundary. Reverse faults occur in areas where the crust is being  shortened  such as at a convergent boundary. Strike-slip faultsare teep structures where the two sides of the fault slip horizontally past each other; transform boundaries are a particular type of strike-slip fault. Many earthquakes are caused by movement on faults that have components of both dip-slip and strike-slip; this is known as oblique slip. Reverse faults, particularly those along  convergent plate boundaries  are associated with the most powerful earthquakes, including almost all of those of magnitude 8 or more. Strike-slip faults, particularly continental  transforms  can produce major earthquakes up to about magnitude 8.Earthquakes associated with nor mal faults are generally less than magnitude 7. This is so because the energy released in an earthquake, and thus its magnitude, is proportional to the area of the fault that ruptures[3]  and the stress drop. Therefore, the longer the length and the wider the width of the faulted area, the larger the resulting magnitude. The topmost, brittle part of the Earth’s crust, and the cool slabs of the tectonic plates that are descending down into the hot mantle, are the only parts of our planet which can store elastic energy and release it in fault ruptures.Rocks hotter than about 300 degrees Celsius flow in response to stress; they do not rupture in earthquakes. [4][5]  The maximum observed lengths of ruptures and mapped faults, which may break in one go are approximately 1000  km. Examples are the earthquakes in  Chile, 1960;  Alaska, 1957;  Sumatra, 2004, all in subduction zones. The longest earthquake ruptures on strike-slip faults, like the  San Andreas Fault  (1 857, 1906), the  North Anatolian Fault  in Turkey (1939) and theDenali Fault  in Alaska (2002), are about half to one third as long as the lengths along subducting plate margins, and those along normal faults are even shorter.Aerial photo of the San Andreas Fault in the  Carrizo Plain, northwest of Los Angeles The most important parameter controlling the maximum earthquake magnitude on a fault is however not the maximum available length, but the available width because the latter varies by a factor of 20. Along converging plate margins, the dip angle of the rupture plane is very shallow, typically about 10 degrees. [6]  Thus the width of the plane within the top brittle crust of the Earth can become 50 to 100  km (Tohoku, 2011;  Alaska, 1964), making the most powerful earthquakes possible.Strike-slip faults tend to be oriented near vertically, resulting in an approximate width of 10  km within the brittle crust,[7]  thus earthquakes with magnitudes much larger than 8 are not possible. Maximum magnitudes along many normal faults are even more limited because many of them are located along spreading centers, as in Iceland, where the thickness of the brittle layer is only about 6  km. [8][9] In addition, there exists a hierarchy of stress level in the three fault types. Thrust faults are generated by the highest, strike slip by intermediate, and normal faults by the lowest stress levels. 10]  This can easily be understood by considering the direction of the greatest principal stress, the direction of the force that ‘pushes’ the rock mass during the faulting. In the case of normal faults, the rock mass is pushed down in a vertical direction, thus the pushing force (greatest  principal stress) equals the weight of the rock mass itself. In the case of thrusting, the rock mass ‘escapes’ in the direction of the least principal stress, namely upward, lifting the rock mass up, thus the overburden equals the  least  p rincipal stress.Strike-slip faulting is intermediate between the other two types described above. This difference in stress regime in the three faulting environments can contribute to differences in stress drop during faulting, which contributes to differences in the radiated energy, regardless of fault dimensions. Earthquakes away from plate boundaries Main article:  Intraplate earthquake Where plate boundaries occur within  continental lithosphere, deformation is spread out over a much larger area than the plate boundary itself.In the case of the  San Andreas fault  continental transform, many earthquakes occur away from the plate boundary and are related to strains developed within the broader zone of deformation caused by major irregularities in the fault trace (e. g. , the â€Å"Big bend† region). The  Northridge earthquake  was associated with movement on a blind thrust within such a zone. Another example is the strongly oblique convergent plate boundary bet ween the  Arabian  and  Eurasian plates  where it runs through the northwestern part of the  Zagros  mountains.The deformation associated with this plate boundary is partitioned into nearly pure thrust sense movements perpendicular to the boundary over a wide zone to the southwest and nearly pure strike-slip motion along the Main Recent Fault close to the actual plate boundary itself. This is demonstrated by earthquake  focal mechanisms. [11] All tectonic plates have internal stress fields caused by their interactions with neighbouring plates and sedimentary loading or unloading (e. g. deglaciation[12]).These stresses may be sufficient to cause failure along existing fault planes, giving rise to  intraplate earthquakes. [13] Shallow-focus and deep-focus earthquakes Main article:  Depth of focus (tectonics) The majority of tectonic earthquakes originate at the ring of fire in depths not exceeding tens of kilometers. Earthquakes occurring at a depth of less than 70  km are classified as ‘shallow-focus' earthquakes, while those with a focal-depth between 70 and 300  km are commonly termed ‘mid-focus' or ‘intermediate-depth' earthquakes.In  subduction zones, where older and colder  oceanic crust  descends beneath another tectonic plate,  deep-focus earthquakes  may occur at much greater depths (ranging from 300 up to 700  kilometers). [14]  These seismically active areas of subduction are known as  Wadati-Benioff zones. Deep-focus earthquakes occur at a depth where the subducted  lithosphere  should no longer be brittle, due to the high temperature and pressure. A possible mechanism for the generation of deep-focus earthquakes is faulting caused by  olivine  undergoing a  phase transition  into a  spinel  structure. 15] Earthquakes and volcanic activity Earthquakes often occur in volcanic regions and are caused there, both by  tectonic  faults and the movement of  magma  in  volcanoe s. Such earthquakes can serve as an early warning of volcanic eruptions, as during the  Mount St. Helens  eruption of 1980. [16]  Earthquake swarms can serve as markers for the location of the flowing magma throughout the volcanoes. These swarms can be recorded by seismometers and  tiltmeters  (a device that measures ground slope) and used as sensors to predict imminent or upcoming eruptions. [17] Rupture dynamicsA tectonic earthquake begins by an initial rupture at a point on the fault surface, a process known as nucleation. The scale of the nucleation zone is uncertain, with some evidence, such as the rupture dimensions of the smallest earthquakes, suggesting that it is smaller than 100 m while other evidence, such as a slow component revealed by low-frequency spectra of some earthquakes, suggest that it is larger. The possibility that the nucleation involves some sort of preparation process is supported by the observation that about 40% of earthquakes are preceded by fo reshocks.Once the rupture has initiated it begins to propagate along the fault surface. The mechanics of this process are poorly understood, partly because it is difficult to recreate the high sliding velocities in a laboratory. Also the effects of strong ground motion make it very difficult to record information close to a nucleation zone. [18] Rupture propagation is generally modeled using a  fracture mechanics  approach, likening the rupture to a propagating mixed mode shear crack. The rupture velocity is a function of the fracture energy in the volume around the crack tip, increasing with decreasing fracture energy.The velocity of rupture propagation is orders of magnitude faster than the displacement velocity across the fault. Earthquake ruptures typically propagate at velocities that are in the range 70–90% of the S-wave velocity and this is independent of earthquake size. A small subset of earthquake ruptures appear to have propagated at speeds greater than the S-w ave velocity. These  supershear earthquakes  have all been observed during large strike-slip events. The unusually wide zone of coseismic damage caused by the  2001 Kunlun earthquake  has been attributed to the effects of the  sonic boom  developed in such earthquakes.Some earthquake ruptures travel at unusually low velocities and are referred to as  slow earthquakes. A particularly dangerous form of slow earthquake is the  tsunami earthquake, observed where the relatively low felt intensities, caused by the slow propagation speed of some great earthquakes, fail to alert the population of the neighbouring coast, as in the  1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake. [18] Tidal forces See also:  Earthquake prediction#Tides Research work has shown a robust correlation between small tidally induced forces and non-volcanic tremor activity. 19][20][21][22] Earthquake clusters Most earthquakes form part of a sequence, related to each other in terms of location and time. [23]  Mos t earthquake clusters consist of small tremors that cause little to no damage, but there is a theory that earthquakes can recur in a regular pattern. [24] Aftershocks Main article:  Aftershock An aftershock is an earthquake that occurs after a previous earthquake, the mainshock. An aftershock is in the same region of the main shock but always of a smaller magnitude.If an aftershock is larger than the main shock, the aftershock is redesignated as the main shock and the original main shock is redesignated as a  foreshock. Aftershocks are formed as the crust around the displaced  fault plane  adjusts to the effects of the main shock. [23] Earthquake swarms Main article:  Earthquake swarm Earthquake swarms are sequences of earthquakes striking in a specific area within a short period of time. They are different from earthquakes followed by a series of  aftershocks  by the fact that no single earthquake in the sequence is obviously the main shock, therefore none have notabl e higher magnitudes than the other.An example of an earthquake swarm is the 2004 activity atYellowstone National Park. [25] Earthquake storms Main article:  Earthquake storm Sometimes a series of earthquakes occur in a sort of  earthquake storm, where the earthquakes strike a fault in clusters, each triggered by the shaking or stress redistribution of the previous earthquakes. Similar to  aftershocks  but on adjacent segments of fault, these storms occur over the course of years, and with some of the later earthquakes as damaging as the early ones.Such a pattern was observed in the sequence of about a dozen earthquakes that struck the  North Anatolian Fault  in Turkey in the 20th century and has been inferred for older anomalous clusters of large earthquakes in the Middle East. [26][27] ————————————————- Size and frequency of occurrence It is estimated that aro und 500,000 earthquakes occur each year, detectable with current instrumentation. About 100,000 of these can be felt. [28][29]  Minor earthquakes occur nearly constantly around the world in places like  California  and  Alaska  in the U. S. , as well as n  Mexico,  Guatemala,  Chile,  Peru,  Indonesia,  Iran,  Pakistan, the  Azores  in  Portugal,  Turkey,  New Zealand,  Greece,Italy, and  Japan, but earthquakes can occur almost anywhere, including  New York City,  London, and  Australia. [30]  Larger earthquakes occur less frequently, the relationship being  exponential; for example, roughly ten times as many earthquakes larger than magnitude 4 occur in a particular time period than earthquakes larger than magnitude 5. In the (low seismicity) United Kingdom, for example, it has been calculated that the average recurrences are: an earthquake of 3. –4. 6 every year, an earthquake of 4. 7–5. 5 every 10  years, and an earth quake of 5. 6 or larger every 100  years. [31]  This is an example of the  Gutenberg-Richter law. The  Messina earthquake  and tsunami took as many as 200,000 lives on December 28, 1908 in  Sicily  and  Calabria. [32] The number of seismic stations has increased from about 350 in 1931 to many thousands today. As a result, many more earthquakes are reported than in the past, but this is because of the vast improvement in instrumentation, rather than an increase in the number of earthquakes.The  United States Geological Survey  estimates that, since 1900, there have been an average of 18 major earthquakes (magnitude 7. 0–7. 9) and one great earthquake (magnitude 8. 0 or greater) per year, and that this average has been relatively stable. [33]  In recent years, the number of major earthquakes per year has decreased, though this is probably a statistical fluctuation rather than a systematic trend. [citation needed]  More detailed statistics on the size and frequency of earthquakes is available from the  United States Geological Survey  (USGS). 34]  A recent increase in the number of major earthquakes has been noted, which could be explained by a cyclical pattern of periods of intense tectonic activity, interspersed with longer periods of low-intensity. However, accurate recordings of earthquakes only began in the early 1900s, so it is too early to categorically state that this is the case. [35] Most of the world's earthquakes (90%, and 81% of the largest) take place in the 40,000  km long, horseshoe-shaped zone called the circum-Pacific seismic belt, known as the  Pacific Ring of Fire, which for the most part bounds the  Pacific Plate. 36][37]  Massive earthquakes tend to occur along other plate boundaries, too, such as along the  Himalayan Mountains. [38] With the rapid growth of  mega-cities  such as  Mexico City,  Tokyo  and  Tehran, in areas of high  seismic risk, some seismologists are warning that a single quake may claim the lives of up to 3  million people. [39] ————————————————- Induced seismicity Main article:  Induced seismicity While most earthquakes are caused by movement of the Earth's  tectonic plates, human activity can also produce earthquakes.Four main activities contribute to this phenomenon: storing large amounts of water behind a  dam  (and possibly building an extremely heavy  building), drilling and injecting liquid into  wells, and by  coal mining  and  oil drilling. [40]  Perhaps the best known example is the  2008 Sichuan earthquake  in China's  Sichuan Province  in May; this tremor resulted in 69,227 fatalities and is the  19th deadliest earthquake of all time. The  Zipingpu Dam  is believed to have fluctuated the pressure of the fault 1,650 feet (503  m) away; this pressure probably increased the power of t he earthquake and accelerated the rate of movement for the fault. 41]  The greatest earthquake in Australia's history is also claimed to be induced by humanity, through coal mining. The city of Newcastle  was built over a large sector of coal mining areas. The earthquake has been reported to be spawned from a fault that reactivated due to the millions of tonnes of rock removed in the mining process. [42] ————————————————- Measuring and locating earthquakes Main article:  Seismology Earthquakes can be recorded by seismometers up to great distances, because  seismic waves  travel through the whole  Earth's interior.The absolute magnitude of a quake is conventionally reported by numbers on the  Moment magnitude scale  (formerly Richter scale, magnitude 7 causing serious damage over large areas), whereas the felt magnitude is reported using the modifiedMercalli intensity scale  (intensity II–XII). Every tremor produces different types of seismic waves, which travel through rock with different velocities: * Longitudinal  P-waves  (shock- or pressure waves) * Transverse  S-waves  (both body waves) * Surface waves  Ã¢â‚¬â€ (Rayleigh  and  Love  waves) Propagation velocity  of the seismic waves ranges from approx.   km/s up to 13  km/s, depending on the  density  and  elasticity  of the medium. In the Earth's interior the shock- or P waves travel much faster than the S waves (approx. relation 1. 7  : 1). The differences in  travel time  from the  epicentre  to the observatory are a measure of the distance and can be used to image both sources of quakes and structures within the Earth. Also the depth of the  hypocenter  can be computed roughly. In solid rock P-waves travel at about 6 to 7  km per second; the velocity increases within the deep mantle to ~13  km/s.The velocity of S-waves ranges from 2–3  km/s in light sediments and 4–5  km/s in the Earth's crust up to 7  km/s in the deep mantle. As a consequence, the first waves of a distant earthquake arrive at an observatory via the Earth's mantle. Rule of thumb: On the average, the kilometer distance to the earthquake is the number of seconds between the P and S wave  times 8. [43]  Slight deviations are caused by inhomogeneities of subsurface structure. By such analyses of seismograms the Earth's core was located in 1913 by  Beno Gutenberg.Earthquakes are not only categorized by their magnitude but also by the place where they occur. The world is divided into 754  Flinn-Engdahl regions  (F-E regions), which are based on political and geographical boundaries as well as seismic activity. More active zones are divided into smaller F-E regions whereas less active zones belong to larger F-E regions. ———————————à ¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€- Effects of earthquakes 1755 copper engraving depicting  Lisbonin ruins and in flames after the  1755 Lisbon earthquake, which killed an estimated 60,000 people. A  tsunami  overwhelms the ships in the harbor.The effects of earthquakes include, but are not limited to, the following: Shaking and ground rupture Damaged buildings in  Port-au-Prince,Haiti, January 2010. Shaking and ground rupture are the main effects created by earthquakes, principally resulting in more or less severe damage to buildings and other rigid structures. The severity of the local effects depends on the complex combination of the earthquake  magnitude, the distance from the  epicenter, and the local geological and geomorphological conditions, which may amplify or reduce  wave propagation. [44]  The ground-shaking is measured by  ground acceleration.Specific local geological, geomorphological, and geostructural features can induce high levels of shakin g on the ground surface even from low-intensity earthquakes. This effect is called site or local amplification. It is principally due to the transfer of the  seismic  motion from hard deep soils to soft superficial soils and to effects of seismic energy focalization owing to typical geometrical setting of the deposits. Ground rupture is a visible breaking and displacement of the Earth's surface along the trace of the fault, which may be of the order of several metres in the case of major earthquakes.Ground rupture is a major risk for large engineering structures such as  dams, bridges and  nuclear power stations  and requires careful mapping of existing faults to identify any which are likely to break the ground surface within the life of the structure. [45] Landslides and avalanches Main article:  Landslide Earthquakes, along with severe storms, volcanic activity, coastal wave attack, and wildfires, can produce slope instability leading to landslides, a major geological hazard. Landslide danger may persist while emergency personnel are attempting rescue. [46] FiresFires of the  1906 San Francisco earthquake Earthquakes can cause  fires  by damaging  electrical power  or gas lines. In the event of water mains rupturing and a loss of pressure, it may also become difficult to stop the spread of a fire once it has started. For example, more deaths in the  1906 San Francisco earthquake  were caused by fire than by the earthquake itself. [47] Soil liquefaction Main article:  Soil liquefaction Soil liquefaction occurs when, because of the shaking, water-saturated  granular  material (such as sand) temporarily loses its strength and transforms from a  solid  to a  liquid.Soil liquefaction may cause rigid structures, like buildings and bridges, to tilt or sink into the liquefied deposits. This can be a devastating effect of earthquakes. For example, in the  1964 Alaska earthquake, soil liquefaction caused many buildings to sink into the ground, eventually collapsing upon themselves. [48] Tsunami The tsunami of the  2004 Indian Ocean earthquake A large ferry boat rests inland amidst destroyed houses after a 9. 0  earthquakeand subsequent tsunami struck Japan in March 2011. Main article:  Tsunami Tsunamis are long-wavelength, long-period sea waves produced by the sudden or abrupt movement of large volumes of water.In the open ocean the distance between wave crests can surpass 100 kilometers (62  mi), and the wave periods can vary from five minutes to one hour. Such tsunamis travel 600-800  kilometers per hour (373–497 miles per hour), depending on water depth. Large waves produced by an earthquake or a submarine landslide can overrun nearby coastal areas in a matter of minutes. Tsunamis can also travel thousands of kilometers across open ocean and wreak destruction on far shores hours after the earthquake that generated them. [49] Ordinarily, subduction earthquakes under magnitude 7. on the Richter scale do not cause tsunamis, although some instances of this have been recorded. Most destructive tsunamis are caused by earthquakes of magnitude 7. 5 or more. [49] Floods Main article:  Flood A flood is an overflow of any amount of water that reaches land. [50]  Floods occur usually when the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, exceeds the total capacity of the formation, and as a result some of the water flows or sits outside of the normal perimeter of the body. However, floods may be secondary effects of earthquakes, if dams are damaged.Earthquakes may cause landslips to dam rivers, which collapse and cause floods. [51] The terrain below the  Sarez Lake  in  Tajikistan  is in danger of catastrophic flood if the  landslide dam  formed by the earthquake, known as the  Usoi Dam, were to fail during a future earthquake. Impact projections suggest the flood could affect roughly 5  million people. [52] Human impacts An earthquake may cause injury and loss of life, road and bridge damage, general  property damage  (which may or may not be covered by  earthquake insurance), and collapse or destabilization (potentially leading to future collapse) of buildings.The aftermath may bring  disease, lack of basic necessities, and higher insurance premiums. ————————————————- Major earthquakes Earthquakes of magnitude 8. 0 and greater since 1900. The apparent 3D volumes of the bubbles are linearly proportional to their respective fatalities. [53] Main article:  List of earthquakes One of the most devastating earthquakes in recorded history occurred on 23 January 1556 in the  Shaanxi  province, China, killing more than 830,000 people (see  1556 Shaanxi earthquake). 54]  Most of the population in the area at the time lived in  yaodongs, artificial caves in  loess  cliffs, many of which co llapsed during the catastrophe with great loss of life. The  1976 Tangshan earthquake, with a death toll estimated to be between 240,000 to 655,000, is believed to be the largest earthquake of the 20th century by death toll. [55] The  1960 Chilean Earthquake  is the largest earthquake that has been measured on a seismograph, reaching 9. 5 magnitude on 22 May 1960. [28][29]  Its epicenter was near Canete, Chile.The energy released was approximately twice that of the next most powerful earthquake, the  Good Friday Earthquake, which was centered in  Prince William Sound, Alaska. [56][57]  The ten largest recorded earthquakes have all been  megathrust earthquakes; however, of these ten, only the  2004 Indian Ocean earthquake  is simultaneously one of the deadliest earthquakes in history. Earthquakes that caused the greatest loss of life, while powerful, were deadly because of their proximity to either heavily populated areas or the ocean, where earthquakes often crea te  tsunamis  that can devastate communities thousands of kilometers away.Regions most at risk for great loss of life include those where earthquakes are relatively rare but powerful, and poor regions with lax, unenforced, or nonexistent seismic building codes. ————————————————- Prediction Main article:  Earthquake prediction Many methods have been developed for predicting the time and place in which earthquakes will occur. Despite considerable research efforts by  seismologists, scientifically reproducible predictions cannot yet be made to a specific day or month. 58]  However, for well-understood faults the probability that a segment may rupture during the next few decades can be estimated. [59] Earthquake warning systems  have been developed that can provide regional notification of an earthquake in progress, but before the ground surface has begun to move, potentially allowing people within the system's range to seek shelter before the earthquake's impact is felt. ————————————————- Preparedness The objective of  earthquake engineering  is to foresee the impact of earthquakes on buildings and other structures and to design such structures to minimize the risk of damage.Existing structures can be modified by  seismic retrofitting  to improve their resistance to earthquakes. Earthquake insurance  can provide building owners with financial protection against losses resulting from earthquakes. Emergency management  strategies can be employed by a government or organization to mitigate risks and prepare for consequences. ————————————————- Historical views An image from a 1557 book From the lifetime of the Gre ek philosopher  Anaxagoras  in the 5th century BCE to the 14th century CE, earthquakes were usually attributed to â€Å"air (vapors) in the cavities of the Earth. [60]  Thales  of Miletus, who lived from 625–547 (BCE) was the only documented person who believed that earthquakes were caused by tension between the earth and water. [60]  Other theories existed, including the Greek philosopher Anaxamines' (585–526 BCE) beliefs that short incline episodes of dryness and wetness caused seismic activity. The Greek philosopher Democritus (460–371 BCE) blamed water in general for earthquakes. [60]  Pliny the Elder  called earthquakes â€Å"underground thunderstorms. â€Å"[60] ————————————————- Earthquakes in culture Mythology and religionIn  Norse mythology, earthquakes were explained as the violent struggling of the god  Loki. When Loki,à ‚  god  of mischief and strife, murdered  Baldr, god of beauty and light, he was punished by being bound in a cave with a poisonous serpent placed above his head dripping venom. Loki's wife  Sigyn  stood by him with a bowl to catch the poison, but whenever she had to empty the bowl the poison dripped on Loki's face, forcing him to jerk his head away and thrash against his bonds, which caused the earth to tremble. [61] In  Greek mythology,  Poseidon  was the cause and god of earthquakes.When he was in a bad mood, he struck the ground with a  trident, causing earthquakes and other calamities. He also used earthquakes to punish and inflict fear upon people as revenge. [62] In  Japanese mythology,  Namazu  (? ) is a giant  catfish  who causes earthquakes. Namazu lives in the mud beneath the earth, and is guarded by the god  Kashima  who restrains the fish with a stone. When Kashima lets his guard fall, Namazu thrashes about, causing violent earthquakes. Pop ular culture In modern  popular culture, the portrayal of earthquakes is shaped by the memory of great cities laid waste, such as  Kobe in 1995  or  San Francisco in 1906. 63]  Fictional earthquakes tend to strike suddenly and without warning. [63]  For this reason, stories about earthquakes generally begin with the disaster and focus on its immediate aftermath, as in  Short Walk to Daylight  (1972),  The Ragged Edge  (1968) or  Aftershock: Earthquake in New York  (1998). [63]  A notable example is Heinrich von Kleist's classic novella,  The Earthquake in Chile, which describes the destruction of Santiago in 1647. Haruki Murakami's short fiction collection  after the quake  depicts the consequences of the Kobe earthquake of 1995.The most popular single earthquake in fiction is the hypothetical â€Å"Big One† expected of  California's  San Andreas Fault  someday, as depicted in the novels  Richter 10  (1996) and  Goodbye California  (1977) among other works. [63]  Jacob M. Appel's widely anthologized short story,  A Comparative Seismology, features a con artist who convinces an elderly woman that an apocalyptic earthquake is imminent. [64]  In  Pleasure Boating in Lituya Bay, one of the stories in  Jim Shepard's  Like You'd Understand, Anyway, the â€Å"Big One† leads to an even more devastating tsunami.In the film  2012  (2009), solar flares (geologically implausibly) affecting the Earth's core caused massive destabilization of the Earth's crust layers. This created destruction planet-wide with earthquakes and tsunamis, foreseen by the  Mayan  culture and myth surrounding the last year noted in the  Mesoamerican calendar  Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã‚  2012. Contemporary depictions of earthquakes in film are variable in the manner in which they reflect human psychological reactions to the actual trauma that can be caused to directly afflicted families and their loved ones. 65]  Disaster mental health response research emphasizes the need to be aware of the different roles of loss of family and key community members, loss of home and familiar surroundings, loss of essential supplies and services to maintain survival. [66][67]  Particularly for children, the clear availability of caregiving adults who are able to protect, nourish, and clothe them in the aftermath of the earthquake, and to help them make sense of what has befallen them has been shown even more important to their emotional and physical health than the simple giving of provisions. 68]  As was observed after other disasters involving destruction and loss of life and their media depictions, such as those of the 2001 World Trade Center Attacks or Hurricane Katrina—and has been recently observed in the  2010 Haiti earthquake, it is also important not to pathologize the reactions to loss and displacement or disruption of governmental administration and services, but rather to validate these reactions, to support constructive problem-solving and reflection as to how one might improve the conditions of those affected. [69]

Public Administration Operations

Public Administration Operations The state legislature merit program is an effective approach to allocating awards; this means that the terms of allocating the awards should be specific when outlining the criteria for those who qualify for the merit award program. Leaving this decision to the managers is likely to cause significant problems regarding the distribution of the merit increase.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Public Administration Operations specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More A better structuring of the program could be achieved by combining the merit increase awards with the 3 percent across-the-board raise for all the state employees. This eliminates potential problems associated with judgments on the distribution of the program (Kearney and Carnevale 56). The program should ensure that there is a uniform merit increase for all the employees basing on their performance. There are a number of issues raised by the merit pay system that req uire implementation. The first notable issue is adopting a merit pay system that is based on the principle of fairness to ensure that no particular group feels that it has been undermined. The second issue raised by the merit pay system is the methodology that can be used in assessment of the performance. The challenge is assessing the performance of senior wardens who have served for a long time, and recently hired guards who are yet to serve. It is important also acknowledge that one size does not fit all (Kearney and Carnevale 65). Developing a plan for the merit pay system requires taking into consideration both the viewpoints of the conflicting sides. This implies that the merit pay system should take into consideration both the concept of performance appraisal and the fact that all the guards are competent and need a merit award for their service. Basing on this, a performance evaluation system will be established prior to the implementation of the merit based systems. This me ans the distribution of the merit based pay awards will base on the outcomes of the performance evaluations. This guarantees fairness during distribution basing on their performance. The reaction of the union is mainly because it is of the opinion that its employees failed to undertake their duties that they are paid to accomplish. It is the role of the union to ensure that employees assume their responsibilities as stated under their pay requirements.Advertising Looking for essay on public administration? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Failure to do so raises questions; this could be the possible justification of the union’s action. In addition, the union action is justified because they were not informed that the students were doing the work that their employees are supposed to do. The termination of the bargaining unit members because of budget cuts was not of importance in this case. This implies that the municipal union should investigate the circumstances leading up to the action prior to the implementation of any action such as the laying off the workers (Kearney and Carnevale 63). The decisions undertaken by labor unions usually have an impact on the daily lives of the citizens; this is mainly because of their disruptive nature. For instance, unions impose strikes and boycotts, which are likely to impose significant effects on the delivery of public services. In this particular case, the union argued for accountability, which resulted to questioning their motives by the public regarding their role. In the capacity of the union president, addressing the conflict requires the reinforcement of accountability among the union employees to undertake their union work. Failing to perform the union work in future will result to punishments such as being laid off. This guarantees that the park is attended at all times without any concerns that the students will abandon cleaning up the par k. In either case, the school should seal an agreement that gives the voluntary responsibility of attending to the park, which will be followed by laying-off the union workers for budgets cuts (Kearney and Carnevale 61). Kearney, Richard and David Carnevale. Labor Relations in the Public Sector. New York: Marcel Dekker, 2001.

Marketing Essays (2921 words) - Marketing, Market Orientation

Marketing Essays (2921 words) - Marketing, Market Orientation RESEARCH AREA Marketing WORKING TITLE A study of consumer purchase, consumption behavior patterns and promotional strategies adopted for marketing by Malaysian small firms RESEARCH OBJECTIVES This paper analyses market concepts, the small firms and use statistical methods to see effect of marketing on performance and growth of small firms. The paper will use primary method of data collection and perform correlation and regression analysis to analyze the impact of marketing on a small firms performance. Thus this paper confirms that marketing plays an important role for success of small business also. RESEARCH QUESTIONS How small business can have long lasting business relations with customers? How should they be able to get sustainable stream of cash inflows? What should be the business concept? What should be marketing strategies? How successful the marketing strategies prove for small business in achieving business success? Is there any relation between marketing and small firms performance? Which dimension of marketing orientation is a major contributor for performance of small firms? ABSTRACT Marketing is becoming one of the important factors for company to sell their products or services. In an ever increasing competitive world it becomes essential to stand away from the crowd and market the firms products or services in such a way so as to gain customer loyalty and establish a brand. Usually most of the market research paper focuses on big firms and small firms are usually neglected. Hence this paper highlights effect of marketing on small business. Keywords: marketing, small business firms, Malaysia, performance INTRODUCTION Malaysia is comparatively a small nation in Southeast Asia. The country is multi cultural society and legal system is primarily based on English Common Law. It is a relatively open state and pretty new industrialized economy. Given growth opportunities the country has traditional model of doing business and many new small firms are coming up in different sectors. As it is comparatively a new industrialized nation, there are many small and medium firms which account for a major sector of total business existing in Malaysia. The small and medium Industries development Corp. (SIMDEC) is the governing body for SMEs in Malaysia. Besides there is also National SME Development Council, which guides policy actions for SMEs. As per this council to separate small firms from big firms it identified SMEs in three categories based on the industry they are into. SMEs can be categorized into micro, small and medium size business entities. In this study we are focusing on small enterprises which have 5 to 50 employees and annual sales turnover more than RM 200,000 and less than RM 10 million. Small businesses are one of the most important business entities for Malaysian economy. Hence it is essential to analyze why some of them are successful while other are not keeping in view Malaysian context. For any company to succeed it is essential that the small firms are able to sell their goods at profit to customers. For this it is essential that the firms have good relation with customers, are able to meet their expectations and earn their loyalty. Problem statement- How small business can have long lasting business relations with customers. How should they be able to get sustainable stream of cash inflows. What should be the business concept? What should be marketing strategies? How successful the marketing strategies prove for small business in achieving business success? These are the few set of questions which this research paper aims to address. The paper will be analyzing marketing orientation for small business using studies done by Kohli and Jaworski (1990, 1993). Further help will be also be taken from work done by many other authors like Kotler, Narver and Slater. LITERATURE REVIEW According to Kotler (1994), marketing raised on four pillars viz. target market segment, customer needs and expectations, coordinated marketing and profitability. The views expressed by Kotler forms the basis for model on marketing orientation propounded by Slater and Narver (1990). Many scholars in marketing have done impressive and deep study on effects of marketing on success of business. Many models have been developed to test effect of marketing on business and see the antecedents and consequences of the same, (Slater and Narver 1994). As per their study Narver and Slater found positive impacts of marketing on both large and small

Probable Difficulties and Risks Associated With Using a Public Assignment - 1

Probable Difficulties and Risks Associated With Using a Public Infrastructure - Assignment Example This paper illustrates that as revealed in the case scenario of ING, it also had to witness similar difficulties when incorporating technology initiatives in its business process. Consequently, the company incorporated a more advanced internet network by building an extranet to offer a Web-to-host service that would enable the brokers of ING to rapidly access the mainframe data ensuring a time-efficient process in responding to the brokers’ needs. The incorporation of an advanced extranet system in ING was also expected to help in accommodating new partners. However, the technology innovation in ING was also criticized to limit the security of confidential data owing to the fact that through its inbuilt extranet system, the private data of the company would be placed over the public internet which would become easily accessible by unknown users. Such intrusions are quite likely to affect the customers’ privacy which is quite likely to ultimately affect the company in it s long-run performance. Another important security concern for the company can be identified as the database level. Due to lack of configuration in the database maintenance system through the newly incorporated extranet framework, any unauthorized employee or external user can easily hack the system and access to all the private information about the company. In order to mitigate its security concerns as a consequence of incorporating an extranet system, ING has been using two NT servers, i.e. a (Private Internet eXchange) (PIX) firewall strategy and an SNA gateway system. It is worth mentioning in this context that the function of the PIX firewall is to prohibit illegal access from the external users to the company’s data acting as an Internet Protocol (IP) firewall. The PIX firewall delivers the advantages of a ‘stateful firewall safety’ system and secures Virtual Private Network (VPN) access to the extranet system applied. The security protection software also provides scalable safety solution with failover support for chosen models to offer maximum dependability within the technology communication system.

Gangs Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Gangs - Assignment Example atson, supports the mission statements of organizations like The Peace Keepers, funded by Simmons, which uses mentors to curb violence and crime in communities by fostering a sense of pride and hope in communities besieged by violence, drugs and crime. Video taped messages by rappers Chuck D., Ludacris and Trenton native Wise Intelligent of the Poor Righteous Teachers will be featured during the event. Jay-Z, who once attended Trenton Central High School, was ranked as the 10th best overall artist of 2000-2009 by Billboard Magazine and was crowned by MTV as the ‘Greatest MC Of All Time.’ He is one of the four wealthiest hip-hop artists/producers besides 50 cent, Russell Simmons and Sean Combs. The rally is a community response to the horrifying news of the gang rapes of 15 and seven year old sisters at the Rowan Towers apartment complex last week by several males while at a party.† (New Jersey Newsroom, 2010) For the purpose of this essay, I interviewed a number of students who attend Trenton Central High School who also attended this concert rally, in order to see how they felt about the case, gang violence, and hip hop in relation to gangs. A lot of people, for example 7 out of the 10 people I discussed this with, all believed that hip-hop contributes to violence and gangs by glorifying the lifestyle and violence. But none of the same ten felt that hip hop music was any influence in the case of the 7 year old girl. In the majority opinion, 6 people believed that the sister was to blame for actually being a prostitute and pimping out her sister to the boys in the gang. Four of the 10 people questioned believed that the boys were to blame for the rape and not the sister. More of the surveyed people would blame the individuals for this crime, but blame the gangs (7/10) for the increase of drugs in the community vs. the individual users (3/10) who create the demand for drug supply. Almost all (8/10) agreed that the way gangs glorify drug use, drug dealing, and