History of my immigration or how I got the new life Essay

History of my immigration or how I got the new life - Essay Example Realizing that conditions were not going to get better in Tyver, I decided that immigration to the United States would be the best course of action for finding a more suitable and rewarding lifestyle. To accomplish those goals, I completed my Russian education by attending college while also working as a data entry clerk at a local factory. Five years later, further economic disruptions caused significant changes to my stable lifestyle in the Soviet Union, causing huge financial losses through lost bank accounts, job stability, and loss of pensions in the entire family. It is next to impossible to accurately inform an individual what it feels like to not know where your next meal will come from, however this was the reality of life in the Moscow region in the early portion of the 1990’s. Hunger was a common element of lifestyle as salaries regarding work outputs were delayed not only for weeks, but for years on end, due to any variety of broad economic rationales. Realizing that I could no longer sustain myself in Russia, I began to explore alternatives, as I had a great education, but no appropriate clothing, no job, and was only 25 years old. I happened upon a newspaper advertisement which stated Change your life and earn money in the process, which was a promotion for USA jobs. A couple of days later, I made the phone call, despite being apprehensive about potentially moving to a foreign country. This singular phone call changed my life entirely. Over a period of weeks, I began to collect all of the necessary information required to travel to the United States, including a visa and a travel ticket. By June 1, 1998, I was ready to leave Russia behind to begin a new life overseas. Though I was quite nervous about making the transfer, unsure of what I would find in the U.S., I realized that there could be no looking backwards if I wanted to find a new life and experience a better quality of living. Upon arrival, I found radical differences in the social

Civilization or people Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Civilization or people - Term Paper Example This essay attempts to prove that Hannibal’s victory at the Battle of Cannae should be attributed to the Carthaginian general’s tactical brilliance, and not to mere luck (i.e. the Roman army was seriously weakened by earlier battles). If Hannibal had exploited his triumph by attacking Rome, the Roman historian Livy believes, the Romans would have been obliged to bring peace claims. However, Hannibal decided not to attack Rome at the moment. Livy believes that this judgment was the ‘salvation of the Roman state.’1 The Battle of Cannae In 217 BC, Hannibal based his army near the Adriatic coast and kept on destroying villages in southern Italy.2 Polybius recounts that Hannibal was deeply informed of the problems posed by the Italian invasion and was aware that his main predicament would be resources.3 Rome was very weak at the time because of the massive losses it sustained the year prior. Still, Rome assigned Quintus Fabius Maximus as the new leader. Because Hannibal has a mightier cavalry, Fabius rested his army in the hills in order to reverse this advantage, resorting to the attack-retreat strategy. This was shrewd and successful given the changing balance of power after the defeats at Trasimeno and Trebia4: â€Å"The Romans hovered in the vicinity of the Carthaginians, cut off stragglers and foragers, and prevented them from founding a permanent base. The strategy avoided Roman defeat and dimmed Hannibal’s glory. It successfully kept Rome’s allies from declaring for Carthage, but it aroused great opposition among Romans themselves, for their state had thrived on a tradition of offensive warfare.†5 However, this was only a brief success. Fabius tried fearlessly to attack the Carthaginians in Falernia. He made sure that Hannibal was caught off guard. That moment, seeing his position as hopeless, Hannibal brought together all the animals in his encampment. He attached flares to each of them and made them attack the Roman encampment. Fear and bewilderment followed. Masked in darkness, with terror raging in the Roman encampment, Hannibal withdrew his whole army of 70,000 soldiers without any fatality on his side.6 Fabius had successfully held back Hannibal for six months, but the Senate decided to end his tenure as commanding officer and assigned two ambassadors, Varro and Paulus. They had realized that to confront Hannibal with not enough advantage would lead to a definite tragedy. Hence, they amassed a huge army: â€Å"Rome assembled the largest army they had ever placed in the field, eighty thousand infantry, and seven thousand cavalry.†7 Hannibal passed through the Aufidus River. The river was actually a barricade in case of defeat. Hannibal planned to take advantage of this positioning to tempt the Roman army to attack. Another lure, even though unintended, was that all of the elephants of Hannibal had been wiped out. It would be a war between two remarkably trained armed forces, th e Carthaginians being outnumbered by the Roman army.8 Both the Roman and Carthaginian armies were organized in traditional order, the cavalry on both flanks and the infantry in the middle. However, Hannibal placed his less reliable Spanish and Gauls foot soldiers at the forefront, while keeping his powerful African infantry on both flanks. This worked as bait for the attacking Roman army, who attacked the Spaniards and Gauls, pushing them, just like what Hannibal had planned. As a result, the U-shaped Carthaginian formation became bowl-shaped,

Pendleton Civil Service Act :: essays research papers

Pendleton Civil Service Act Since the beginning of the government, people gained and lost their jobs whenever a new president took office. These jobs were political pay-offs for people who supported them. Many people did not take their jobs too seriously because they knew they would be out of their office soon. As Henry Clay put it, government officials after an election are "like the inhabitants of Cairo when the plague breaks out; no one knows who is next to encounter the stroke of death." Over the years the flaws that were made and the problems that resulted became more obvious. After an election you could open a newspaper and find many advertisements, which offered government jobs that were filled before the election. On January 16, 1883 the U.S. legislation established a law, which gave employment based on merit rather than on political party affiliation that leads to corruption in the government system. Widespread public demand for reform in the government was stirred after the Civil War by accusations of incompetence, corruption, and theft in federal departments. After a guy who was refused an office job that he was capable of assassinated President James A. Garfield in 1881, civil service reform became a leading issue in the elections of 1882. In January 1883, Congress passed a comprehensive civil service bill sponsored by Senator George H. Pendleton, providing for the open selection of government employees and guaranteeing the right of citizens to compete for federal jobs without regard to politics, religion, race, or national origin. The new law covered only about 10 percent of the positions in the federal government, but nearly every president after Chester A. Arthur, who signed the bill in to law, broadened its scope. By 1980 more than 90 percent of federal employees were protected by the act. The Pendleton Civil Service Act classified certain jobs, removed them from the ranks, and set up a Civil Service Commission to oversee a system based on merit and not political stance. The commission draws up the rules governing examinations for those positions that Congress places in the classified civil service.

Psychological Factors: Axis of Healthcare Setting Essay

Even as the development of medical science and the technology of its instruments have taken modern healthcare system to a state-of-the-art height, the effective management of psychological factors still prove to be the axis of healthcare, where human touch and a thorough understanding of psychology are bare essentials to complement its other part. The medical science too admits it and accordingly various disciplines of study have come up to understand the finer details of human psychology that are entwined with the overall healing process. Thus this essay explores the necessity and scope of health psychology, besides its inherent elements that have bearings in healing process, before reaching its conclusion. What is Health Psychology? Bio-psycho-social factors create a lot of impact on our health and well-being. Health psychology studies those impacts with an aim to eliminate the negative elements in bio-psycho-social factors besides incorporating the positive ones. Accordingly it encompasses areas like stress, coping strategies, perception of pain, personality determinants of health etc. besides the immune response to stress (psychoneuroimmunology). Therefore, health psychology altogether covers a vast area of study and observation on human behavior, where it probes personality variables or traits and social environment before linking one’s impact on the other – as for example, whether stress in a person could lead to minor or major ailments, ranging from cold to cancer. In all, health psychology works on the interaction between physiological and the psychological system. Accordingly, â€Å"biopsychosocial paradigm of health based on a bi-directional model (Knight & Carnic, 2004), propelled by the concept that health psychology can be instrumental in detection and alleviation of disease, as there is a strong coordination between body and mind. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes it significance and in fact lamented that this area of healthcare needs more thrust, where it could forge a â€Å"new alliance between mental and physical health disciplines† (WHO, 1997). From this perspective, there is tremendous scope of development in the field of health psychology, as it a dynamic subject with a plethora of variable factors, which constantly hint on thousand of probabilities. How It Works While any illness is bound to create an emotional impact on the patients, the caregivers too cannot escape such effects. Thus coping with illness requires mental efforts from everyone involved in the proceedings. A study conducted over 150 patients affected with various forms of psoriasis identified the â€Å"existence of psychic stress in 69% of all cases†, which, with the â€Å"involvement of a Liaison psychiatrist† proved to be immensely important towards their cure (Simonic et al. , 2000). Besides these, there are ethical and practical consideration too command in-depth understanding of psychological factors that stand between illness and effective care – especially when the severity of illness can inject pessimism in the patients or when patients’ erratic behavior under circumstance can influence the caregivers’ behavior. Patients can emotionally be vulnerable due to physical conditions, and that can heavily influence their personality traits; in such situations, application of empathy and respect from the healthcare professionals’ side can help to restore the situation. Therefore, appropriate knowledge on health psychology can equip the caregivers for such situations. Significance of Psychoneuroimmunology Popularly known as PNI, psychoneuroimmunology deals with the interactions among behavior, brain and the immune system, aiming at determining its potential for mediating the effects of psychosocial factors in illness and disease. The significance of PNI can be understood from a single fact that stress alone carries the possibility of 68 diseases, most of which are deadly. This state of affairs definitely commands a thorough view of health from the biopsychosocial perspective of health to counter stress. A brief description of stress would be pertinent here to further explain the significance of psychological factors in healthcare. Stress, the Dreaded Menace  Hans Selye proposed one of the most acclaimed definitions of stress in 1926, in which he said, â€Å"Stress is the non-specific response of the body to any demand placed upon it† (14 Day, 1991). He observed that stress stems out from the situations where humans face external changes or demands. This definition clearly indicates that no one can escape the influence of stress, as human life constantly faces such situations. This also clears the deck that external influence on humans will stay all along and thus biopsychosocial factors are embedded with any health problem. If stress is now considered to be â€Å"an excessive or inappropriate activation of the body’s fight-or-flight response† (14 Day, 1991), then it has to be given its due importance in sphere of healthcare, where it should be armed with adequate knowledge about how stress can aggravate the health problems and how it can be diffused. That is where â€Å"Psychoneuroimmunology† steps in, delving deep into the relationship between the immune system and brain and observing the outcomes of its chemistry. Psychoneuroimmunology and Healthcare  According to PNI, â€Å"every part of our immune system is connected to the brain in some way, be it via a direct nervous tissue connection, or by the common chemical language of neuro-peptides and hormones†, where it suggests that the immune system, â€Å"which keeps us free from external invaders besides maintaining internal homoeostasis, is sensitive to outside influences† (Kooker, 2001). This is substantiated by the fact that chemicals secrete in the brain in response to mental-emotional processing like moods and feelings. PNI was accepted as a new discipline in Yale University as early as in 1977, though then it was known as Behavioral Medicine, an outcome of the realization about its significance towards providing total therapeutic solution to patients. Boiling down to its simplest possible form, PNI collects healthy habits that can enhance the power of immunity in humans. This speaks of its broad range of activities, where it weighs the biopsychosocial factors to reach at the core of the health problem. In fact PNI provides much needed attention on the dynamics of body-mind interactions where it acknowledges the fact that â€Å"our brains secrete hormones in response to our thoughts† (Lorraine, 2003). Thoughts Hold the Key The discoveries through PNI have proved that it healthcare cannot afford to keep psychological factors out of consideration. It has shown that thoughts, no matter where it comes from outside or from the subconscious, can heavily influence the body condition. Alongside, researches to this direction have been able to bring out the positive application of thought. Thus the benefits of PNI have already been established. As for example, Neuroscientist Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has able to determine the brain regions that respond to meditation, besides identifying the stress zones under duress (Lorraine, 2003). Findings like these would surely help in both enhancing immunity and preventing stress, as new techniques in stress management have already been stemming out of these findings. Benefits of Transcendental Meditation  Aligned to the progress of PNI as stated above, several techniques of thought regulation or control have been doing rounds. As for example, transcendental meditation has been found to produce a very beneficial state to human body, where it reduces blood pressure, respirator rate, oxygen consumption, blood flow to skeletal muscles, perspiration and muscle tension (Lorraine, 2003). This clearly shows that psychological factors are embedded with well being and in no way they can be kept outside the periphery of routine healthcare system. Physician’s Viewpoint â€Å"We must work as psychologists to erase the line between health and mental health in research, practice, and public policy†, says Norine Gl Johnson, the former president of American Psychological Association in 2001. In her presentation at prestigious Psi Chi Distinguished Lecture she clearly points out the necessity of intertwining health and psychology, where â€Å"educators must be at the forefront of presenting to students and future psychologists the latest in psychology health research and health practices† (Johnson, 2002). Nancy’s words only corroborates the age-old vision that medical treatment cannot be provided without the help of psychology, because psychological factors are the integral part of both illness and well being. Discussion On one hand the researchers have proved the deep impact of psychological factors on both patients and caregivers, while the discoveries regarding the efficacy of new techniques stemming out of modern research and study on biopsychosocial factors clearly show that they are no less potent tools towards managing illness as well as fostering well being. The negative impact of stress or the positive influence of transcendental meditation as cited by studies above amply proves this fact. Accordingly, these facts have already been doing rounds in social and academic circles, thereby convincing people about the impact of psychological factors on both illness and well being. This state of affairs virtually makes it impossible for any healthcare setting to do without any provision of measuring psychological factors involved in any illness. Besides this, the healthcare professionals too would be interested to be equipped with adequate knowledge and application techniques of psychotherapies, which would, in a way, work as their own shields against job stress associated with care giving. Conclusion Evidences show that psychological factors have great bearing on illness and its healing, thereby automatically qualifying them to occupy an important part in the healthcare setting. Going by the experts’ opinion, it can be said that recognition of psychological factors in healthcare setting would not be an encroachment in the domain of conventional healthcare, but would be the advent of a new horizon in its sphere, where it would add tremendous value to the healthcare processes. Therefore, psychological factors form the axis of healthcare in modern day setting, in spite of the presence of state-of-the-art gadgets and availability of effective medicines.

Analysis Of The Article Digibabble, Fairy Dust And The...

In the essay â€Å"Digibabble, Fairy Dust and the Human Anthill,† Tom Wolfe presents a compelling argument about the way convergence is present in many different forms in our lives.The main idea of his argument is of convergence, which is basically defined as the constant change needed to adapt to one s environment. He manages to connect each aspect of his essay with every idea that he presents, making his argument not only sound but valid as well. Wolfe uses evolution as a visual example of the continuous changes occurring in the world. It makes one think about what influences the changes in our world today. Not only does Wolfe use sound logic to make his argument strong, but he also invokes emotion to draw the reader hoping to open up their mind. Overall, Wolfe presents a very valid and supported argument, though there are some doubts due to the age gap between the audiences his argument still remains valid. In the first example, Wolfe uses the American artists in the Ja panese museum The artists were surprised to see that their work was considered to be from the â€Å"Manual Age†. The Japanese students and the digital artwork of that time had surpassed the traditional drawings from the artists. This is a prime example of our world being ever-changing, especially in the area of technological advances. [H]undreds of young Japanese staring at them from the auditorium seats saw them not as visionaries on the cutting edge . . . but as wooly old mammoths who had

Where Do Mosquitoes Spend the Winter

The mosquito is nothing if not resilient. Based on fossil evidence, scientists say the current mosquito we have today is practically unchanged from 46 million years ago. That means it lived through the ice age of 2.5 million years ago — unscathed. It stands to reason that a few months of winter hardly phases a cold-blooded mosquito. So, what happens to the mosquito during the winter? The lifespan of a male mosquito is up to 10 days, and then it dies after mating. The males never make it past the fall. The female mosquitoes spend the colder months inactive in protected places, such as hollow logs or animal burrows. It is fair to say the mosquito enters a period of dormancy, similar to a bear or squirrel hibernating for the winter. She can hibernate for up to six months. Mosquito Eggs in the Fall The first three stages — egg, larva, and pupa — are largely aquatic. In the fall, the female mosquito lays her eggs in areas where the ground is moist. Female mosquitoes can lay up to 300 eggs at a time. The eggs may lie dormant in the soil until spring. The eggs hatch when conditions become favorable again when temperatures begin to rise and sufficient rain falls. These first three stages typically last 5 to 14 days, depending on the species and the ambient temperature, but there are important exceptions. Mosquitoes living in regions where some seasons are freezing or waterless spend part of the year in diapause; they delay their development, typically for months, and carry on with life only when there is enough water or warmth for their needs. Larval and Pupal Stage Certain mosquitoes can survive the winter in the larval and pupal stage. All mosquito larvae and pupae require water, even in winter. As the water temperature drops, the mosquito larvae enter a state of diapause, suspending further development and slowing metabolism. Development resumes when the water warms again. Female Mosquitoes After Winter When the warm weather returns, if the female mosquito hibernated and has eggs to deposit, the female must find a blood meal. The female needs the protein in blood to help her eggs develop.  In the spring, when people reemerge outdoors wearing short sleeves, is exactly the time when newly awakened mosquitoes are out in full force looking for blood. Once a female mosquito has fed, she will rest for a couple of days and then lay her eggs in whatever standing water she can find. Under ideal conditions, females can live about six to eight weeks. Usually, females lay eggs every three days during their adulthood. Places Mosquitoes Do Not Call Home Mosquitoes live in every land region except for Antarctica and a few polar or subpolar islands. Iceland is such an island, being essentially free of mosquitoes. The absence of mosquitoes from Iceland and similar regions is probably because of quirks of their unpredictable climate. For example, in Iceland in mid-winter it frequently warms up suddenly, causing the ice to break, but then it can freeze again after a few days. By that time, the mosquitoes will have emerged from their pupae, but the new freeze sets in before they can complete their life cycle.

America And The Great War Essay - 1326 Words

America and the Great War Throughout history there has been competition for resources and domination. This competition has led to conflicts that have caused destruction, social disruptions and death. World War I was no exception to this competition. World War I was known as the war to end all wars and was caused by a combination of factors. Some causes of World War I was nationalism, imperialism, militarism, and the main cause which was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip of Serbia. While the United States attempted to remain neutral and stay out of the war, Germany choose actions that gave the U.S. no choice but to enter and help their Allies defeat the other powers. Militarism preferred force as a solution to problems, which was one of many things that led to World War I. Nations mobilized their military to show support for their alliances and as a method of inflicting fear to their enemies. This led to development of more military equipment and incr ease in the number of troops. When one nation improved their military, the other nations felt they needed to build a better one. Eventually alliances were formed between nations to ensure that no country became stronger and powerful than the others. Imperialism made countries want to aspire to increase wealth and power by making other territories be under their rule. Countries competed for overseas territories in search of raw materials and market for their goods. It created rivalry inShow MoreRelatedAmerica And The Great War1961 Words   |  8 PagesAmerica and the Great War At the turn of 19-20 centuries, capitalism has evolved into imperialism. The world was almost completely divided between the major powers. Unbalance of economic and socio-political development of the countries increased. 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