Robots Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Robots - Research Paper Example ..............................................................................7 Recommendations ..........................................................................................................7 REFERENCES................................................................................................................9 The global technological advancement has hit higher notch with a shift to use of robot in several activities. It is important to discuss in lengths and depths the significance of robot technology in regard to the increasing need for efficiency in production and service delivery for a better living in the society. Scientists are making several attempts to develop a wide variety of robots that can reason nearly as a human being and undertake several activities. In this respect, it is important to note that further investigation is critical as far as ethical concerns are concerned in the robot technology. There is more investigation on how to improve robot to human interaction as this would result into break rough in their efficiency. A. Background - Robots are man made virtual artificial agents that are computer programmed and can be guided to carry out several activities normally done by man. More research and development efforts by countries and individuals have led to increased application of robots in the society. Ranging from the medical field, space exploration, military among others, scientists are continuously developing more sophisticated robots. Robots are always electro-mechanically operated and therefore lack human aspects which are the greatest concern. B. Purpose/Audience–The purpose of my research paper is to bring awareness and define possible solutions that robot scientists are studying to solve the problem of human robot interaction. By exposing the problem and its severity, this paper may also motivate scientists to invest in solving this crisis. Robotic research scientist students will be the primary audience for my

The World Oil Market Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The World Oil Market - Assignment Example A tight balance between supply and demand can lead to high prices that cause both higher expenditures for consumers and higher incomes for producers. In economics, exhaustible resources generally follow the rule that the rate of growth must equal the rate of interest in order to reach industry equilibrium. However, due to the unpredictable character of future oil supply and demand conditions, oil prices do not generally follow this rule. Most of the time, it exhibits backwardation wherein future prices are lower than current ones. Future demand is hard to predict because it is difficult to foresee changes in energy technologies and it takes years for consumers to switch to other resources should prices go off the roof. On the other hand, investment is expensive and risky and it takes a while before production supply turns to high capacity. Oil prices also behave unexpectedly since the market is responsive to speculative pressures, operational constraints, and political conditions. Hu rricane Katrina, by reducing gasoline supplies (which is chiefly derived from crude oil), became one dramatic factor that caused oil prices to skyrocket in 2005. The storm reduced oil production, transportation, and refining capacity--it paralyzed major oil and gasoline pipelines that carried supplies down from the Gulf Mexico and took down offshore oil platforms. Power outages also caused problems in oil and natural gas distribution in many areas. The large drop in supplies caused oil prices to rise. Additionally, consumer expectation contributed to the demand component. With the hurricane retarding oil production and restricting supplies, they expected prices to rise. They immediately increased the demand by buying gasoline, hoping to fill up their tanks before prices start to rise. Reduced supply and increased demand caused oil prices to increase dramatically, as shown in the graph below: 3. Analyze the structure of the world oil market & identify what kind of market structure it has.   The world oil market structure is oligopolistic since the market is dominated by a limited number of suppliers. An industry is said to be oligopolistic if few supply the majority of the output and if those suppliers are interdependent. In oil production, about 50 percent of the output and 70 percent of the reserves are controlled by a cartel. Production is handled by both the public and private sectors. However, oil production is just one aspect of the market-converting and refining it to other consumer products is another facet of the total world oil industry, one which has its own dynamics and regulations. Worldwide supply and demand determine oil prices, with great influence from OPEC. On the supply side, OPEC provides most of the world's supply and normally acts as a semi-cartel, influencing oil prices by maintaining excess capacity. It also tries to maintain oil prices at its target level by setting quotas or production limits for its members. On the other hand, non-O PEC suppliers have generally limited reserves and typically behave as price takers. OPEC's policy in recent times is to control crude oil inventories and reserves in consuming nations in order to balance the market.

The grieving process Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The grieving process - Essay Example determinants of grief differ according to various factors such as significance attributed to the loss, circumstances surrounding the loss, and utilization of support networks. The grieving process and stages features in Elisabeth Kubler-Ross book, On Death and Dying (1969). Although, the five stages can be regarded as universal, they do not necessarily follow a linear order. Sadness (feelings of pain and sorrow) is the prominent feeling experienced in grief triggered by feelings of emptiness or despair, although distracted by denial, anger, guilt, and fear, which trigger defense mechanisms (Shives, 2008). Shock is mainly an initial response to loss as the individual seeks emotional protection from the overwhelming loss. Most individuals rationalize the loss with numbed disbelief, in an effort to escape from reality (Webb, 2011). The denial and isolation plays out when individuals perceive it to be a mistake. Denial is predominantly a temporary defense followed by isolation. Individuals normally replace denial with feelings of frustration, rage, resentment, and envy. Anger is a common response to feelings of frustration, abandonment, or powerlessness (Webb, 2011). The anger may be directed towards self, God, or life due to the perceived injustices occasioned by the loss. Pain and guilt features less extreme self-reproach regarding things that the griever feels failed to do prior to the loss (Timby, 2009). Bargaining stems from the realization that the individual cannot derive much from anger, and thus opts to make a last ditch negotiation with fate and God. This is heralded by feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. The patient or individual normally reverts to some form of childhood response. Bargaining in this case may feature an endeavor to downplay loss demonstrated by an alteration in behavior (Webb, 2011). Depression arises when the individual can no longer deny or ignore the loss as the feelings of immense loss sinks in, and anger and

The Divine Comedy. The World Structure and The Role of Virgil Essay

The Divine Comedy. The World Structure and The Role of Virgil - Essay Example Thus, there are at least 3 dimensions of Dante’s relationship with Ancient Greek and Roman culture: the poetical one, that is, the influence of the language and symbolism of the previous ages; the difference in world order in Dante’s and classic thinkers’ visions; and the most specific one, Dante’s relationship with Virgil as outlined in the Divine Comedy. This essay addresses all 3 of them. Poetical Aspect Many Dante scholars agree that the most important cultural trait of Classical poetry in the Divine Comedy is its style, that is, its verse, rhetorical topoi, strictness of composition, and the characteristics of genre (Curtius 353-358). Virgil, as well as other figures of ancient writers/rhapsodes such as Lucan and Homer, was the one of the â€Å"regulated poets† whose writing had an imprint of elaborate poetical systems (Curtius 354). Dante wanted his verse and his vision of afterlife to be systematic and logical. Dante’s structured of In ferno is even more elaborate than Virgil’s: in the Aeneid (VI), Aeneus travels through only three sectors of Hell, not shaped as circles and surrounded by different basins rather than parts of one system (Virgil). Still, the overall structure is the same: it is a descriptive journey with a powerful guide (Sybil in Aeneus’s case) beginning in the dark wood and ending on the light mountain top: â€Å"And takes a rising ground, from thence to see / The long procession of his progeny† (Aeneid VI.1024). As for merely linguistic influences, Curtius finds numerous Latinisms in the Divine Comedy , such as his use of the river (‘Fuime’) image used to demonstrate the eloquence of Dante’s speech as related to Virgil’s (Curtius 356). Most of these Latinisms are Medieval, not related to Renaissance poetics (Curtius 354). They indicate that Dante perceived Virgil’s worldview mainly through medieval lens. Thus, his ideas of human nature and th e structure of the world are different from Virgil’s and much closer to Christianity. The World Structure The meaning of Hell is strikingly different in the Divine Comedy and the Classic culture. Dante’s Hell and Purgatory are designed for sinners, being something like a disciplinary place for corrupted souls; thus, it has a strict hierarchy, and every punishment is logically connected with the crime, like the Diviners in Canto XX who are forced to walk with their heads turned back. The punishments are arranged according to the severity of crime, descending into the depth and ending with the frozen circle, like in other medieval literary descriptions of Hell (Turner 87). As the main function of Hell is punishment, the characters are described vividly, in the flesh, and usually with some moral assessment: Those spirits, faint and naked, color chang'd, And gnash'd their teeth, soon as the cruel words They heard.   God and their parents they blasphem'd, The human kind, the place, the time, and seed That did engender them and give them birth (Divine Comedy III.94-98) This is the description of the souls (disembodied!) about to be transported by Charon. In Virgil’s version, it is Charon who provokes disgust; the souls of the dead are described in a neutral if not compassionate way: An airy crowd came rushing where he stood, Which fill'd the margin of the fatal flood: Husbands and wives, boys and unmarried maids, And mighty heroes' more majestic shades, And youths, intomb'd before their fathers' eyes, With hollow groans, and shrieks, and feeble cries (Aeneid VI.422-427). Virgil’s vision of the afterlife, like that of many other Ancient Greeks and Romans, is morally neutral: it’s a fate, an important category of Ancient worldview. Like Ovid, Virgil believed that death is a

Negative Impacts of Large Salaries of Professional Athletes Essay

Negative Impacts of Large Salaries of Professional Athletes - Essay Example The large salary paid to athletes has been a controversial issue since time immemorial. Olympic gold winners such as Usain Bolt and Mike Tyson have topped the table of some of the highest paid athletes in the histories of their respective sports. Athletes make as much as thirty million dollars in a single sports event while a professional doctor in the united states may earn an average salary of slightly over $500,000 a year. The disparity is large a feature that makes athletes live a particular type of life that has consequently defamed both themselves and their respective sports. Among the living examples of poor management of the large salaries, including the life of the professional boxer Mike Tyson and several other athletes in Africa who have lived recklessly thereby losing either their lives or limbs thereby missing the sports (Mottram, 2005). Among the reasons that lead to a poor reputation, the large salaries have earned to both the sports and the athletes include the motivation arising from the large salaries. The athletes have therefore resorted to doing anything possible to win the medals in order to earn the large salaries. As explained earlier, the large salaries are often both a motivation and a reward for the strenuous exercises the athletes undergo during their sports. However, the fame and the millions of dollars have affected the lives of the athletes negatively thereby tarnishing the reputation of the sports. Doping, for example, is a contentious issue in athletes with the sports organizers calling back and banning many athletes who have won their trophies unscrupulously (Santo & Mildner, 2010).

Types of Profit Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Types of Profit - Essay Example This capital expenditure takes time which cannot be completed in the short-run. Similarly, no existing firm can leave the industry in the short-run. The reason behind this is that whenever a firm sets up in any industry it has to incur some sunk costs. In lay man terms, sunk costs are actually setup costs. These costs are barriers that do not let the firms leave the industry in the short-run as no firm wants to leave the industry without minimizing or cashing in on some of their sunk costs. As we have already discussed, that no firm can be lured into or pushed-out of the industry in the short-run. The reasons that may tempt the other businesses entering into industry are off course profits, as discussed above. There are two types of profit that firm makes in the short run based on its costs and revenue. A firm may be making large profits or break-even in this time-scale. In economic terms break-even is known as normal profit because the calculation includes implicit or opportunity co sts, which are not actual cost and hence a firm which is breaking even is making a profit in accounting terms. Normal Profits are usually denoted by AR=AC. Similarly, apart from normal profit a firm might also be making a Supernormal profit denoted by a equation AR>AC. These profits positions can be shown in the following diagrams: In figure 1 we see the condition in whi... In short-run when the firm is earning normal profits, the firm is just covering total costs. Since the TC (Total Cost Calculations) also includes implicit costs like opportunity cost of capital employed, return of capital in alternative uses etc. These are not actual costs and hence breaking even would mean that firm is earning profit which it could earning in alternative businesses and hence there is no motivation for the firm to go out of the industry. The distinction in this situation, for the firm, is AC= AR and thus TC = TR. (Lipsey and Chrystal, 2003) In figure 2, we see the condition where our assumed manufacturing firm is making an abnormal profit. In this situation the firm earns more than normal profit and hence in this case there is no reason why the firm would leave the industry but instead if it leaves the industry, it won't be able to make as much profit as it is earning in this industry. In the figure 2, the shaded area "pink" is the amount of supernormal profit that our manufacturing firm is earning. The above two profits positions that a firm could face in the short-run are favorable conditions and hence no rational firm would leave the industry in the prevailing conditions discussed above. However, the problem arises when our manufacturing firm makes an economic loss. An economic loss is a condition when the firm is not able cover its average cost. In this condition, entrepreneurs often face a dilemma whether to continue with the current production or to cease the operation of the firm altogether. However, one interesting point or assumption that we can make here is that even after making an economic loss, sometimes it is feasible for businesses or firms to continue to operate in the industry. The reasons behind this may be economical or

Emergency Services Management - ManMade Disasters - Media Essay

Emergency Services Management - ManMade Disasters - Media - Essay Example Smoke and soot content in air could rapidly increase 1 to 2 hours prior to the fire reaching the perimeter of our town. 3. As a safety measure, I have ordered the evacuation initially of the western suburbs of Everyville consisting of the areas west of the canal. Evacuation of additional areas may become necessary as we track the advancement of the wildfire. The areas identified for immediate evacuation are shown in the attached map. 4. The evacuation will begin in approximately 1 hour from now and should be completed in a maximum of 2 hours. Police and fire service personnel are being deployed in the area to assist in the evacuation. I request all citizens to help these civic employees, who are putting their lives at risk, to do their jobs effectively. Failure to comply with instructions from police or fire services personnel would be treated as a criminal offence. 5. Carry only the minimum essentials with you when you evacuate your home. These essentials are shown in the simple chart below. In addition carry sleeping bags and change of clothing for each family member and some food and drinking water to supplement what is being arranged at the refuge centers. . You can use your own cars or trucks to move to the refuge areas or use the transport vehicles that have been arranged by the civic authorities. The police and fire service personnel would provide guidance. 6. The refuge areas identified in the town of Everyville are the Civic Center, The Church of St. Andrews, and the High School. The location of these refuge areas are shown on the map released with this statement. Volunteers have been positioned at each of these buildings to assign spaces and to help people settle in. Some arrangements for food and water are also being made. Doctors and nurses from the town hospital will be available to provide medical assistance if needed (CWPP, 2008). 7. Before you