Term paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Term paper - Essay Example In the 1990s, there was a call to understand and address the issue of teacher turnover in the United States. In the 15 years since this call, the turnover rate of teachers is still a central theme in many discussions regarding the teachers, yet there is now a better understanding about this phenomena. For instance, teacher turnover now encompasses several definitions, including teachers exiting the profession, teachers changing fields, or teachers changing schools (citation). Additionally there is now information regarding the reasons that teachers turnover. XXXX (XXX) reported that new teachers leave the teaching field because they fail to cope with the complications that can accompany teaching. Others may quit or move because of disruptive behavior amongst children, issues with the administration or parents, or lack of resources (XXXX, XXXX). Most of the studies surrounding turnover pertain to beginning teachers in general. That is, most reports report teacher attrition and mobility among all teachers, and then by current teaching position. In doing these analyses, large samples are quantitatively described and implications are made about various groups of teachers. While these analyses are important, there is a need to understand reasons for teacher attrition and mobility that are specific to science teachers. This type of analysis should take into account the nuances of the science teaching. Laboratory instruction is one area that is unique to science teachers. For science teachers, they need supplies to demonstrate phenomena and to have students explore basic phenomena in the laboratory. Another area that is unique to science teachers pertains to teaching out of field. Most science teachers are certified in one area, but often teach in different disciplines. A middle school science teacher, for example, who has a degr ee in life science and teaches a general science course, may

Clashes over Muslim minorities in Europe throughout the past ten years Research Paper

Clashes over Muslim minorities in Europe throughout the past ten years - Research Paper Example This has happened because of world developments relating to Muslims such as the Arab revolution, Afghanistan war, uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and the revolution in Iran. Additionally, Europeans countries have recently seen an increasing number of Muslim immigrants to their countries. This has led to reactions by some of those governments to the differences in the religions and the political system of Muslims. Furthermore, the case of September 11th has led to fear of Muslim individuals in most European countries. More of this has also been accelerated by the laws which European government enacted relating to terrorist activities. Clashes by Muslim minorities are an expression of fury because of perceived insults expressed to them by secular European communities. European nations have seen increasing number of immigrants for the past four decades. The immigrants are mainly driven by economic changes in their countries of origin. For example, the immigrants are in search of jobs and better living standards as compared to their countries. With this increasing number of movement to European countries, the Islamic population has so far increased in percentage in comparison to the majority population. Consider the case of France, according to Islam in France (1), the number of Muslims in France are about 3.5 to 5 million which is approximately 6 to 8% of the whole population. With these figures it is clear that the number of Muslims in European countries is large. Most of those Muslims are immigrants from North African countries like Algeria, Tunisia. Others are from Middle East and Turkey. The Muslims in France have settled in most parts of the country. In addition, Taras (54) shows that approximately 70% of the Muslims in France are from Algeria and Tunisia respectively. The author points out that since 1950, there has been an increase in the number of Islamic communities in Europe. The approximation provided by the author is 800,000 to 15 million from the 1950s to 2000. The number has so far risen and by year 2008 there were 20 million Muslims in Europe. The high growth of the Islamic population in Europe has increased the attention from Europeans because the population is more and increasing as compared to other minorities. The reproduction rate caused by the previous settled Muslim contributes to the increasing population including the immigration flows. Tara (55) presented statistics showing that in 2011, the number of Muslims throughout Europe were 44 million in all parts of Europe. This increasing number has caused questions from some of the prominent people especially journalists. One of the journalist blogged about the increasing number of Muslims throughout Europe, with the explanation given being that the growth is high in big cities like London, Paris and Berlin. Most bloggers have been talking about the increasing number, according to the research conducted by US Department of State; the percentage of people talking about incre asing number of Muslims in their country has risen. The statistic of the research showed that 61 percent of people in Hungary agree that there is an increase in the number of Muslims in the country. Other European countries have had the same talk, Italy, Poland, Germany and Britain have falling percentages respectively. The research showed

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Hybrid Cars Engineering Essay

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Hybrid Cars Engineering Essay Even by recently introducing hybrid vehicles to the worldwide transportation system, the need to reduce transport generated CO2 emissions is still a matter of high significance. One promising and at the same time environmentally friendly solution in terms of limiting the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is considered to be the introduction of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). In this technical report HEVs will be compared to conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs), by surveying their technical characteristics and performance, their total cost of ownership (TOC) and their GHG and air pollution (AP) emissions. HEVs can be classified either as parallel or series due to differences at their powertrain configuration. They both use an electric motor and an engine but only parallel HEVs can use simultaneously either of them as a main power source. At series HEVs the engine charges an on-board battery unit that transmits power to the electri c motor. Reduced engine capacity, regenerative braking ability and engine shut-off capability are the main discernible characteristics of HEVs in confrontation to their equivalent conventional models.1Some of the most generally acceptable advantages of the HEVs are their low local emissions combined with a high fuel economy, the long driving range and their commercial availability but they still depended on fossil fuels and they are more expensive than conventional ICEs.2 Technical characteristics and performance Vehicle efficiency and primary energy efficiency, or otherwise well-to-wheel efficiency are the measures used in this study to compare those different drivetrain vehicles. We define the Vehicle efficiency: and, the Primary efficiency where = the useful energy at the wheels, = the energy supplied to the vehicle and = the primary energy.3 Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV): For both parallel and series HEVs the vehicle efficiency is 29%. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle (ICEV): The max efficiency ay ICEs is achieved near the max load point. The mean efficiency is relatively low since no max power can be achieved in normal driving conditions. At mean required power of 10kW the efficiency is low around 18% whereas around 60-90kW reaches up to 35-40%.4 Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV): An electric motor, connected with a generator and a system of transmission forms the main function of BEVs. Due to the development of advanced electronic control systems, the mean energy efficiency over a normal drive schedule has increased both for generators and electric motors.5 The potential vehicle efficiency is 61%. The difference in efficiency between hybrid and conventional vehicles can be partly justified by the use of Atkinson-cycle in the hybrid vehicle engines instead of the Otto cycle in the ICEs.6 In cases where the Atkinson cycle is applied to a well modified Otto cycle engine it results to high fuel economy that can be explained by the lower per displacement power than the traditional ICE four stroke engine. When more power is needed, an electric motor can supplement the engine power which is the basis of an Atkinson cycle working hybrid-electric drivetrain. Bigger work output and higher thermal efficiency than the Otto cycle while operating under similar conditions leads to higher primary efficiency in HEVs.7 In terms of acceleration, BEVs are better than both HEVs and ICEs but in high speed performances ICEs are faster than HEVs with BEVs to be the slowest.8 Total Cost of Ownership The total cost of ownership is by estimation the sum of the purchase price (Components, retail margin, battery, initial on-road costs), the operating costs (fuel, electricity, servicing) and the resale value. The purchase price is fixed for each vehicle (excluding the uncertainties in the battery prices) but in order to define the operational cost we first have to settle a representative drive cycle. In this study we will work with the AUDC (Australian Urban Drive Cycle) which is a bit more intense in the driving behavior than the common ones but still close to the NEDC (new European drive cycle) and the ARTEMIS cycle (150000 km travelled per vehicle lifetime) .9,10 Due to the large uncertainty in the vehicle battery prices we took a baseline value of $800(kWh)-1 or $16.800 [brooker,4] Furthermore, we estimated a base fuel price at $1.4 L-1 as well as a base electricity price at $0.175 kWh-1.11 In order to determine the operational cost of each vehicle we need to define the fuel and electricity consumption of our modeling vehicles. For a Class E parallel HEV the fuel consumption in L/km was calculated 5.7 whereas for the same category the CV had a consumption of 9.4 L/km. The electricity consumption of a Class E BEV is 0.11 kWh/km. It is clear that despite the entailed increase in vehicle electrification in the purchase price it is compensated with a decrease in the operational costs. Only by comparing each vehicles purchase price, the CV is the most cost effective solution of both HEVs and BEVs with the lasts to be the most costly ones mainly because of the high battery costs. On the other hand even though the BEVs have the lower running costs it is shown that the parallel HEVs are the ones with the lower Net Present value. Finally in a recent study it was suggested that even hybrid cars are a quite more expensive than the conventional ICE vehicles thay may reduce fuel consumption by 34-47% compared to them which decreases their NPV even more.12 Environmental evaluation In order to determine the environmental impact of each vehicle we will examine their air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. To estimate the total CO2 emissions we use the product of carbon intensity (CO2e/MJ) by fuel producers, energy intensity (MJ/km) by car producers and demand (km) by car drivers. In Hybrid (gasoline) vehicles the CO2 emissions are 20 gCO2/MJ and 220 gCO2/MJ delivered to vehicle wheels during production and vehicle life cycle respectively. In ICEs the emissions during production and life cycle are 50 gCO2/MJ and 300 gCO2/MJ whereas in BEVs (electricity production from coal) are 320 gCO2/MJ and approximately 0 gCO2/MJ respectively. It is interesting to notify that in case were electricity production comes from renewable sources (wind) the emission at the production stage of BEV are almost defeasance.13,14 Table1 Environmental impact associated with vehicle production stages Type of car GHG emissions (kg) AP emissions (kg) Conventional 3595.8 8.74 Hybrid 4156.7 10.10 Electric 9832.4 15.09 In both HEVs and BEVs we must also consider the environmental impact of batteries. We assume that both vehicles use NiMeH batteries of 53kg (1,8kWh capacity) and 430kg( 27kWh capacity), respectively. The production of those batteries require 1.96MJ of electricity and 8.35MJ of liquid petroleum gas.15 With those data and considering that the number of batteries per life of vehicle is 2 for hybrids and 3 for electrics, the total GHG emission per life of vehicle are more than 12 times higher in BEVs. Finally in order to compare the total GHG and AP emissions for ICE, BEV and HEVs we will consider the scenario that electricity is produced only from renewable energy sources. In that case ICE vehicles are the most polluting ones with almost double GHG and AP emissions than hybrid vehicles and 10 times more than BEV vehicles (450/235/40 g CO2,equivalent /mile respectively).16 Table2 Total environmental impact for different vehicles Car Type GHG emissions(kg) /100 km of travelling AP emissions(kg) /100 km of travelling Conventional ICE 21.4 0.0600 Hybrid HEV 13.3 0.0370 Electric BEV 2.31 0.00756 The average travelling distance during a 10 year vehicle life time is 241,350km.17 We must say here that in any scenario for electricity production the BEV are still the most environmentally friendly vehicles. Furthermore, hybrid cars may reduce Well-to-wheel GHG emissions to 89-103 gCO2 comparing to conventional ICE gasoline vehicles.18 Georgios Fontaras, Panayotis Pistikopoulos, Zissis Samaras, 2008, Experimental evaluation of hybrid vehicle fuel economy and pollutant emissions over real-world simulation driving cycles, Atmospheric Environment 42, 2008, 4023-4035. C.C.Chan, Fellow, IEEE, Alain Bouscayrol, Member, IEEE, and Keyu Chen, Member, IEEE, 2010, Electric, Hybrid, and fuel-Cell Vehicles: Architectures and Modeling, IEEE transactions on vehicular technology, Vol.59, No.2, February 2010. Max Ahman, 2000, Primary energy efficiency of alternative powertrains in vehicles, Energy 26, 2001, 973-989. Ecotraffic, The life of fuels, Stockholm, 1992 Kopf et al, 1997, development of a multifunctional high power system: meeting the demands of both a generator and traction drive system, Electric Vehicle Sympozium 14, Orlando (FL), 1997. Yingru Zhao, Jincan Chen, 2006, Performance analysis and parametric optimum criteria of an irreversible Atkinson heat-engine, Applied Energy 83,2006, 789-800. Shuhn-Shyurng Hou, 2006, Comparison of performances of air standard Atkinson and Otto cycles with heat transfer considerations, Energy conversion and Management 48, 2007, 1683-1690. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, 2006, The 21st century electric car, Tesla Motors Inc. Michel Andrà ©, 2004, The ARTEMIS European driving cycles for measuring car pollutant emissions, The Science of the total environment, 334-335, 2004, 73-74. R.Sharma, C.Manzie, M.Bessede, M.J.Brear, R.H. Crawford, 2012, Conventional, hybrid and electric vehicles for Australian driving conditions Part 1: Technical and financial analysis, Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 25, 2012, 238-249. Annual energy outlook 2012 with projections to 2035, 2012, U.S. energy information administration, June 2012. Oscar P.R van Vliet, Thomas Kruithof, Wim C. Turkenberg, Andre P.C. Faaij, 2010, Techno-economic comparison of series hybrid, plug in hybrid, fuel cell and regular cars, Journal of Power Sources, Vol.195, Issue 19, 2010, 6570-6585. Felix Creutzig, Emily McGlynn, Jan Minx, Ottmar Edenhofer, 2011, Climate policies for road transport revisited (1): Evaluation of the current framework, Energy Policy, 39, 2011, 2396-2406. Mikhail Granovskii, Ibrahim Dincer, Marc A.Rosen, 2006, Economic and environmental comparison of conventional, hybrid, electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Journal of Power Sources, 159, 2006, 1186-1193. M.Rantik, 1999, Life Cycle Assessment of five batteries for Electric vehicles under different charging regimes, report, KFB-Stockholm, 1999. Tien Nguyen Jake Ward, 2010, Well-to-Wheels Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Petroleum Use for Mid-Size Light-Duty Vehicles, US department of energy, Program Record (Offices of Vehicle Technologies Fuel Cell Technologies), 2010. United States Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and renewable energy. Via www.fueleconomy.gov , accessed May 15, 2005. G.J.offer, D.Howey, M.Contestabile, R.Clague, N.P.Brandon, 2010, Comparative analysis of battery electric, hydrogen fuel cell and hybrid vehicles in a future sustainable road transport system, Energy Policy, 38, 2010, 24-29.

Educational Philosophy :: Education Teaching Classroom Teachers Essays

Educational Philosophy â€Å"I’m gonna be a teacher!† I remember telling my second grade teacher, Ms. Akers. It was time to prepare for Open House and we were doing projects based upon our chosen life profession. It was wonderful being in the second grade – you could be anything in the world. And I wanted to be a teacher. That was nearly twenty-five years ago, and my decision still stands. Experience and maturity have changed my views on many issues, but I still want to help shape future generations. I believe our future is held in the hands of today’s children and it is everyone’s responsibility, and an educator’s privilege, to help children discover who they are and whom they can be. While there are many approaches and disciplines related to education, I believe it is naà ¯ve to think that any one approach is all-inclusive. Just as several subjects are studied to make a whole education, several approaches, when combined, can create a more wholesome educational experience. I agree with the Progressivism view that education must be relevant to the needs and interests of students and that learning increases when we are engaged in meaningful activities. A student’s full potential cannot be reached if his/her basic needs such as food, clothing, and compassion are not met. While we are not social workers, we can show the student that he/she is valued and cared for by the way we interact with him/her. Likewise, if a student is not interested in the subject being taught, he/she will be less likely to concentrate and learn. It is our job as educators to create interesting environments with stimulating approaches to learning. It has been my experience that the Behaviorism approach of positive reinforcement is a very effective method. If we, as teachers, provide positive reinforcement whenever students perform a desired behavior/task, they soon will learn to perform the behavior/task on their own. Children need to learn on their own in a relaxed environment and be given support when appropriate. Educational Philosophy :: Education Teaching Classroom Teachers Essays Educational Philosophy â€Å"I’m gonna be a teacher!† I remember telling my second grade teacher, Ms. Akers. It was time to prepare for Open House and we were doing projects based upon our chosen life profession. It was wonderful being in the second grade – you could be anything in the world. And I wanted to be a teacher. That was nearly twenty-five years ago, and my decision still stands. Experience and maturity have changed my views on many issues, but I still want to help shape future generations. I believe our future is held in the hands of today’s children and it is everyone’s responsibility, and an educator’s privilege, to help children discover who they are and whom they can be. While there are many approaches and disciplines related to education, I believe it is naà ¯ve to think that any one approach is all-inclusive. Just as several subjects are studied to make a whole education, several approaches, when combined, can create a more wholesome educational experience. I agree with the Progressivism view that education must be relevant to the needs and interests of students and that learning increases when we are engaged in meaningful activities. A student’s full potential cannot be reached if his/her basic needs such as food, clothing, and compassion are not met. While we are not social workers, we can show the student that he/she is valued and cared for by the way we interact with him/her. Likewise, if a student is not interested in the subject being taught, he/she will be less likely to concentrate and learn. It is our job as educators to create interesting environments with stimulating approaches to learning. It has been my experience that the Behaviorism approach of positive reinforcement is a very effective method. If we, as teachers, provide positive reinforcement whenever students perform a desired behavior/task, they soon will learn to perform the behavior/task on their own. Children need to learn on their own in a relaxed environment and be given support when appropriate.

Effects of Title Ix

Title IX Title IX is a rule established in the NCAA to regulate men and women college sports. The title was passed in 1972. The reason that I am interested in this subject is because I am a college wrestler. Wrestling is one of the greatly affected sports when relating to this. The title states that men and women must have the equal opportunities to participate in sports. Over 150 wrestling programs have been dropped since the passing. This title could greatly affect my life in the next few years.The wrestling coaches here have talked about how our wrestling program here at Appalachian State could possibly be discontinued due to Title IX. The budget for the sports programs here are not even across the board. The money spent on men’s sports is greater than the amount spent on women’s. I do not think that the program is seriously in danger of being canceled, but I do know that we cannot have as many people on the team next year that we do this year. At least 7 people have to be cut before next year.I think that this Title should not be in place at all. There are many more men that want to participate in sports then women. This title takes away from the opportunities that men have to play. Most women sports do not bring in much money. The majority of money on any campus comes from the football team. Men sports bring in more money than women’s, so it would only be right to allow more men sports. I feel like my opinion on this says that I am not really for women sports.That is kind of true. The women sports that I have seen myself are never as interesting as the men sports. Girls are just as competitive sometimes but the level of competition is just not that of a guy’s event. As for our culture, this subject being controversial says that other people feel the same way that I do. This issue is one that will remain controversial for years. Many people have tried to find a solution, but this is a very complex idea. It greatly affects men and women.

Alvin Ailey †Cry Essay

Select TWO contrasting movement phrases. For each phrase: Describe the main motif identified Discuss the purpose of the motif within the context of the work Describe how the motif is manipulated and varied to create the phrase with respect to the elements of composition (space, time and dynamics) Analyse how the phrase contributes to the context of the work and why the choreographer selected this phrase to portray the intent of the work. Alvin Ailey’s renowned choreography, Cry, has become an outstanding success as he represents the hardships of black women that have endured years of slavery and hardship. The piece is a solo performance by Judith Jamison, created for â€Å"all black women everywhere – especially our mothers†[1], and has impacted audiences worldwide as he takes them on a touching journey of desolate misery, violent oppression and prideful joy. Ailey uses a variety of dance techniques and elements of dance to portray the suffering of slavery in the African society, including core motifs, costume, music, space, time and dynamics. The motifs presented are manipulated with these elements of dance to create phrases and portray the intent of the work, distinguishing the changes in mood and tone throughout the sections. Ailey has used various manipulations of motif to present his perception of the African American women who have endured years of slavery. Divided into three sections, the piece introduces the dancer in white costuming as she holds the main motif of the phrase, the white shawl. The dancer begins holding the shawl above her head with her arms outstretched, and brings it forward in front of her in a slow and sustained manner as the music begins to play. Holding it carefully across her body, the shawl can be seen as representative of her life and her values, and her use of slow and sustained dynamics symbolises the worth of the scarf. As she places the white fabric carefully downstage centre, she throws both sides of the scarf in opposite directions and swipes her hand over the scarf gently on a sagittal plane across her body, repeating the movement on either sides. The swiping  movements across her body are manipulated through the dance are manipulated as the movement is performed faster and with increased torso generated movement. The arm movements are also changed in direction as she reaches her arms above her and on a frontal plane. The arm movements in context can be viewed as a pleading for help and escape from the suffering of slavery. The motif of th e scarf or shawl is consistent as she expresses her exasperation behind the scarf, dancing centre stage and across its length. This suggests she is confined by her own body as she lives a life of slavery because of her ethnic background. The phrase continues as she picks up the scarf off the floor and falls to her knees, using the scarf to wipe the floor in a quick and staccato dynamic. This movement reflects her daily routine of hard work and oppression, and the use of sharp dynamics suggests her exasperation and need to escape from her confinement. The repetition of throwing either side of the scarf in opposite directions is repeated, and now followed by the lifting of the scarf in a vigorous and erratic manner. The repetition of this movement followed by the reaching suggests a new stage in her life as she proceeds to wrap the scarf around her body, lifting her torso and head in the process as she projects to the audience. The projection signifies pride within herself and her heritage, as the scarf is representative of her life and her values. Ailey furthermore underlines the pride of her heritage as she wraps the scarf around her head, as if to ‘wear’ her dignity and honour. The motif of the scarf th roughout this phrase has been manipulated to represent different things, such as her value of life, her struggles with slavery and her pride and honour of her heritage. Ailey uses repetition of movement and abstraction to portray her journey, using slow and sustained movements to represent the worth of the scarf as she is careful and wary as she holds in it front of her, and quick, vigorous movements to symbolise the exasperation and struggle of being a slave. The movement representation of African American women’s struggles can be contrasted to the first phrase of Section Three, in which Ailey uses movement to symbolise the ecstatic joy of overcoming oppression. The phrase begins with the dancer in a deep plie with back and head hunched over. From this position, the dancer proceeds to lift herself by performing a full-body roll up. Once she is standing tall and projecting to the audience with her head and torso lifted, the R&B song; ‘Right On. Be Free’ begins to play, immediately introducing a sense of  freedom and liberty. The dancers’ dynamics reflect the beat of the music, moving her hips and torso in a fast and jerky manner. This release of energy symbolises the joy of overcoming the oppression of slavery, and is used throughout the phrase in different manipulations. The first manipulation of the strong release of energy in the hips and torso is seen as the dancer throws her arms and legs in the air in dif ferent directions. This symbolises the boiling sensation of joy and happiness has overcome the dancer entirely and is now moving freely without limitations. The pathways used in this phrase are unsystematic as she moves around the stage randomly and without any sense of order, although her use of levels is mostly high and projected above her as if to praise and cheer in her newfound freedom. The second manipulation of the torso generated movements can be seen in the circular leaps and turns across the stage. This, in conjunction with the continuous torso generated movements reinforces the liberty of movement as she excitedly turns and pirouettes around the stage. The repetition of the torso generated movements and reaching of the arms above her highlights the will to endure the years of slavery in order to achieve freedom, and the success in that particular endeavour. The dancer is once again dancing behind the scarf laid out in front of her, in which before symbolised the confinement of her own body, but with the contrasting music and overall tone of this phrase through her use of dynamics, it is now symbolising the acceptance of her turbulent history and the pride she has with overcoming it. This phrase is important as Ailey uses it to communicate the meaning it had within the African-American women and how the slavery has impacted them emotionally, using fast, jerky d ynamics in contrast with the slow and sustained burden and heaviness of the slavery. In conclusion, Alvin Ailey’s Cry successfully represents the hardships and struggles of the African-American slaves through his use of dance techniques and elements of dance, as he manipulates motif and dynamics to symbolise the journey of slavery and connect emotionally with his audiences. Ailey uses a variety of manipulations including changes in levels, the use of abstraction, the use of costume (the scarf) and dynamics such as a contrast in slow and sustained movement with fast and jerky release of energy. Through comparing and contrasting two different movement phrases, we are able to see the struggles and fights for freedom in the journey of black women who have endured years of slavery and  oppression.