Stonehenge :: European Europe History

Stonehenge Stonehenge, one of the great Seven Wonders of the World, but what do we really know about it. What was its purpose, how was it built and by whom. Many different answers come up when asking the question "What was the purpose of Stonehenge", some say that it was a horrid place, which the Druids used for religious sacrifice, but most others have a more positive idea. A temple of the sun, a Pagan Cathedral, or a holy sanctuary in the midst of blessed ground, or maybe a clock or even a place to Predict Eclipses. No one really knows what it was used for; this is due to a great number of facts surrounding all of these ideas. Many ideas come up when talking about why this great structure was built along with an equal amount on who built it. The Druids is the most common response because the Druids inhabited most of the area in which Stonehenge is built. The Pagans are another common answer to this age old question because of the building structure of Stonehenge how it resembles a Pagan Cathe dral. Whoever built Stonehenge, they were an extremely advanced society either on purpose or by complete fluke. Many say that because of Stonehenge's exact solar and lunar alignment. That is was the most common thought is that it was built to predict eclipses for worshiping. The following essay is going to state the facts and myths about the great Stonehenge. By the end of this essay, hopefully a solid conclusion will be found to be the most plausible answer for Stonehenges construction. The moon, it has been a sight for all over time. Back long ago little was none of the reasons for an eclipses, it was thought to be a sing from the gods. In a society which worshiped gods for all the mysteries of the world, the eclipse must have been very special. The builders of Stonehenge must have been marveled at the sight of this holy event, which happened every four years. Most likely the great Stonehenge was built to be a prediction device for the eclipse. Many people have studied Stonehenge and many have found that the stones are mathematically placed to show when and eclipse might occur. "In favor of this solution - that the Aubrey holes were used as a computer are these facts: the number 56 is the smallest number that measures the swing of the moon with an over-all accuracy of better than 3 days, and lunar cycles provide the only method of long-range eclipse prediction related to the seasons of the year.

Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel

Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (1782-1852) was a German educator born in Oberweisbach. He is known as the founder of â€Å"Kindergarten† and was one of the most influential educational reformers of the 19th century. Froebel had a difficult childhood. His mother died when he was still young, and his father, a pastor, and stepmother neglected to care for him. Finally, an uncle took over his care and ensured that he receive a high school education. It was there that young Froebel grew up with a love for nature and strong Christian faith, which led him to seek happiness and unity in all things. Froebel’s faith also led him to think as an educationalist. Froebel studied at the University of Jena for a short time. In 1805, while studying architecture in Frankfurt, he was persuaded to become a teacher by the model school at Frankfurt. He then studied with Pestalozzi at Yverdon, before returning to the University of Gottigen and Berlin in Germany. Froebel believed that there was something missing in Pestalozzi’s theory- the ‘spiritual mechanism’. According to Froebel, this was the basis of early childhood education. â€Å"Pestalozzi takes man existing only in appearance on earth,† he said, â€Å"but I take man in his eternal being, in his eternal existence.† (Shapiro, 1983, p.20.) Froebel took a break from studying to join the army for a year from 1813-1814. Afterwards, he received a position at the mineralogical museum in the University of Berlin. Two years later, he founded a school at Greisheim (which later mover to Keilau) which he called the Universal German Educational Institute. It was there that he taught his methods to other teachers. Froebel opened the first Kindergarten in the year of 1837 in Bad Blankenburg. Later, he also founded a Kindergarten training school at Liebenstein. Froebel felt that children, like plants in a garden, need to be cared for and shielded from outside influences. Froeble believed that children need to imitate a teacher’s values and morals. Therefore, teachers need to be respected, receptive, and easily approachable. Among Froebel’s subordinates, however, there were constant disputes, which he was unable to control. He encountered more problems when the Prussian government did not approve of his ideas. In 1851, an edict was issued, which forbade the establishment of Kindergartens. This decree was repealed almost 10 years later- in 1860. Froebel was not alive at that time and had no idea of the impact he left on the school system worldwide, and especially in the United States. The philosophers of his times, Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) and Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling (1775-1854), also influenced Froebel’s educational ideas. He placed an emphasis on self-activity, physical training, and pleasant surroundings in the development of children. His most important work was the book he wrote in 1826 called Menschenerziehung (tr. The Education of Man, 1877).

Film Analysis Essay on Crash (2004)

The movie â€Å"Crash† – from director and producer Paul Haggis – pictures one day in the lives of various characters in Los Angeles, all of them from different social and racial backgrounds but nevertheless connected and intertwined throughout the story. The movie’s story is being told in a mostly chronological way, except that it puts one scene to the very beginning of the film and then cuts back to the day prior, indicated by the visual text â€Å"yesterday†.In this first sequence, detectives Graham Waters and his partner Ria have been rearended when they arrive at a crime scene, leading to a fight between Hispanic Ria and the accident responsible, furious Chinese Kim Lee, involving race-related insults towards each other. Breaking through the temporal order and showing everything that has happened prior to this fight gives the explanation why Kim Lee is so furious and why she was in such a hurry, as her husband is in hospital for being run over by a car.This strategy of playing with the viewer’s opinion and sympathy about the single characters is one that is central for the movie. Therefore a lot of prejudices are implicitly and explicitly presented through the narrative and the movie’s surface. Anthony and Peter for example are being pictured as two young adolescents just leaving a diner and discussing the (non-)discriminating treatment of the waitress. In Anthony’s opinion even other black people are racist towards Afro-Americans and that white people are scared of them although they are not even dressed like â€Å"gang-bangers†.This gives the impression of young people being worried and angry about ungrounded racial discrimination. Then the dialogue suddenly changes, both of them pull a gun and they steal the car from Rick and Jean Cabot – the two white people they just accused of having prejudices about them – leaving the viewer with a sudden change in the characterization they were given before. The movie continues like this when it shows the Hispanic locksmith Daniel Ruiz – mean-looking, tattooed and with a shaved head.Jean Cabot’s assumption about him being a Gang member who will sell the keys to their house as soon as he is out the door is consistent with his outward appearance. It is not until later in the movie, when he arrives at home taking loving care of his daughter, that the first impression is negated and turned into the opposite. Most of the characters in Crash turn out to be different than the first picture that is drawn of them all the time turning the story towards unanticipated events and revealing important information bout character backgrounds. Beyond that, it is important mentioning the complex net of connections and entanglements that occur between the characters and their stories and events. There is Jean Corbet, accusing her locksmith Daniel Ruiz of being a gang member, whose daughter is almost shot by the Persian sho p owner Farhad, whose daughter works in the mortuary where Detective Graham Waters dead brother is identified as Peter, who stole Jean Corbets car, making her change the locks in her house in the first place.This list of connections could be continued with for another while, as there are more characters involved with even more links between them. This motive of connection is also shown by the cuts from one scene to the next via an audible and/or a visual connection. For instance when Ria storms out of Graham Waters apartment and slams the door after her, the film cuts to Officer John Ryan lying in his bed – suddenly being woken up by his Crash – 2004 Identity and Diversity in American Film Miriam Keller – 05/30/2012 Miriam Keller – 05/30/2012 groaning father.To the viewer it looks like he is wakes up from the slamming door, although there is no diegetic connection. Another example is the cut from Anthony and Peter just having stolen the black navigator, t o the crime scene of the shooting between two drivers. As the car with Anthony and Peter drives through the picture it cuts to a police car passing by in exactly the same camera-shot and revealing the crime scene behind it. Match-cuts like this are a reoccurring stylistic element, emphasizing the just specified net of entanglements.The central topic of racism and prejudices in the movie Crash is shown from various different angles, pointing at the complexity of this issue. It states that nothing and no one can be easily characterized and the importance of looking at the bigger picture instead of pigeonholing someone. All the different characters with their intertwined stories make it clear that everyone is connected and the range of influence of one person’s behavior is further than one would expect.

KRISPY KREME Essay

1. What can the historical income statements (case Exhibit 1) and balance sheets (case Exhibit 2) tell you about the financial health and current condition of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc.? The historical financial statements can tell us a lot about the financial health and condition about Krispy Kreme or any other company. By utilizing some key financial ratios we can determine how the company compares year over year as well as against competitors in many ?different dimensions. These dimensions include short term solvency, or its ability to meet its immediate obligations, long term solvency, or its ability to manage debt leverage, asset management, or its ability to utilize company assets to make profit, profitability, or its ability to generate a favorable bottom line, and market valuation measurement, or its overall company value in the market compared to book value or earnings. 2. How can financial ratios extend your understanding of financial statements? What questions do the time series of ratios in case Exhibit 7 raise? What questions do the ratios on peer firms in case Exhibits 8 and 9 raise? As mentioned above financial ratios can really give an analyst a look into how effective, efficient, and profitable a company is and has been in the past. In exhibit 7, different ratios bring up different questions. The trend of the current ratio is a bit puzzling to me and begs the question, why does it continue to grow? Krispy Kreme has by far the highest current ratio in the industry, and it appears as though some of the biggest competitors have current ratios at or below 1. Although it is good to have short term solvency, too high of a ratio could be a sign of missed opportunities for investment. What else could Krispy Kreme be doing with its liquid assets that might garner increase profitability that seemingly others in the industry are acting on? The next ratio that interests us is the asset to equity ratio, or the equity multiplier. This ratio is an indicator of how the company manages leverage. The higher the ratio, the more of a percentage of operations is funded by equity. Krispy Kreme’s equity multiplier has been relatively consistent since 2001, but is just below par with most of its competitors. What this means to us is that Krispy Kreme is not as effective in utilizing leverage to benefit the company as some of its competitors which doubles up on the previous question asked. What else should Krispy Kreme be doing, or investing in to improve efficiency and performance. Total asset turnover is an important ratio to look at because it is an indicator of how well a company utilizes its assets to generate sales. The first thing that we noticed is that Krispy Kreme’s total asset turnover ratio decreased every year from 2000-2004. This speaks to an increase in inefficiency in the use of asset to generate sales. It should however be noted that it is typical that as companies grow, it is difficult to maintain a higher total asset turnover ratio. That notation is exemplified when you look at the competitor ratios. The biggest competitors like McDonalds and Wendy’s have similar if not lower ratios. Our overall concern is that none of the other competitors had ratios that low and we did not feel that Krispy Kreme was or is anywhere near the size of McDonalds or Wendy’s. This raises the concern that even though the company is expanding and acquiring new assets, it is not effective in translating the growth into sales. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we took a look at ROE, or return on equity. This ratio gives an idea of the profitability of the company as well as a return that an investor would expect on his or her investment. Although Krispy Kreme has benefited from stable ROE over the period of 2000-2004, it is sub-par compared to its competitors. What would make Krispy Kreme more attractive to investors, if its ROE is below average in its own industry? To look a little further into some of the statements and ratios, we did a DuPont analysis for Krispy Kreme and several of its competitors. Each of  the individual components have been previously discussed, but it is interesting to compare them together to see how three of the most important aspects of the business have changed over time. Specifically it is worth noting that Profit Margin has increased significantly every year since 2000. What this means is that Krispy Kreme has gotten better every year at turning each sale dollar into net income. 3. Is Krispy Kreme financially healthy at year-end 2004 When looking at the 2004 DuPont analysis, you see that not only has profit margin increased every year, but it is more than 2% better than the industry average. That being said, Krispy Kreme does not utilize its assets as efficiently as its competitors. This potentially troubling because of the fact that they have gone through aggressive growth in stores recently. Is this an indication that these stores are not generating the sales necessary to justify the investment, or at least as well as its competitors might be able to? Finally the equity multiplier comes in below the industry average. To us this means that Krispy Kreme does not utilize its leverage as effectively as the competition. Perhaps it would be to Krispy Kreme’s benefit to increase leverage and invest in order to increase growth and earnings in a similar manner to its competition. Overall, we believe that Krispy Kreme is moderately financially healthy as of the year end 2004. The profitability of the company is we ll above industry average, and the asset turnover and equity multiplier ratios are not drastically different from industry averages. 4. In light of your answer to question 3, what accounts for the firm’s recent share price decline? There was a decline in the share price because, firstly, the company said to expect fewer earnings because of the low-carbohydrate diet trend and also they had close down few underperforming shops, which was a result of their aggressive store expansion. The main cause of the recent share price decline is when the financial scandals became public. As a result, investors lost confidence in the company. 5. What is the source of intrinsic investment value in this company? Does this source appear on the financial statements?

Robots in Manufacturing Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Robots in Manufacturing - Assignment Example Without a doubt, these robots have started playing significant roles in different areas but this report discusses the role of robots in manufacturing. It is an admitted fact that organizations those are engaged in manufacturing industries need automated systems to deal with their varying needs. In this scenario, robots are reprogrammable, multifunctional machine intended to move material, tools, parts or particular devices through a variety of engineered motions for performing various tasks. This report has studied the uses of robots in various areas of manufacturing. The use of robots in manufacturing is believed to be very helpful for the reason that manufacturing industries require dealing with complicated machines and working on these machines involves serious risk factors especially related to human health. In this scenario, the use of robots can help manufacturing industries deal with these serious issues as well as save lots of costs associated with manufacturing process. In t his report I have studied various aspects associated with robots with respect to their usage in manufacturing. In this report I have discussed how the use of robots allows manufacturing industries to reduce costs by replacing machines with humans. This report presents interesting facts regarding robots that allow readers to get a detailed insight of robots especially their functionality and advantages in manufacturing. ABSTRACT In the past few years, the use of robots has increased in every area of business organizations. Additionally, many organizations have adopted robots for various purposes such as for packaging, installation, moving materials from one unit to another. This report discusses the use of robots in manufacturing industries. The use of robots in manufacturing industries brings a number of benefits such as reduction in costs and saving from health related issues. The basic purpose of this research is to discuss how robots can be used in manufacturing and what benefits can be achieved by the organizations through the adoption of these robots. This report summarizes the concepts discussed by various authors and analyzes it to present the role of robots in manufacturing. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND The competitive environment for manufacturers today has necessitated it for them to be more productive, efficient and dynamic. Since customers are the ultimate stakeholder, all businesses are moving towards meeting their expectations and fulfilling their satisfaction by adopting automated manufacturing to improve in quality cost and timeliness aspects. Moreover, equipment deployed by business in manufacturing processes and operations need to be efficiently utilized to their maximum capacity to enhance profitability. This has been made possible through usage of robots for handling, running and managing machinery, tools and equipment’s (Mathur et al., 2011, p.77). Hundreds of enterprises have succeeded in their business by switching to automated man ufacturing to avail its benefits and exploit new opportunities and horizons (Papakostas et al.,

Bill and Bentham Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Bill and Bentham - Essay Example of imprisoning the murderer and permitting him to live may result in more killings; therefore, the death penalty is considerable and appropriate for killers. The utilitarian theory does not support eye for an eye in the sense that, if a man kills another, he should also be killed. The death penalty here deters any other criminal from committing the same crime or the occurrence of a similar crime. In this case, death penalty takes someone’s life and would prevent him or her from taking more lives; thus, providing the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. Utilitarianism holds that the best course of an action is that which maximizes happiness and reduce suffering (Bentham 67). The moral worth of an action, according to this theory is only determined by its result. Any action intended to control the population for the purpose of inflicting happiness and comfort to the remaining people would be considered ethical, according to the utilitarianism. If the action prevents suffering for people, any action can be taken to prevent high population growth and make people glad to live. However, they believe that population control is vital for improving the stipulation of the working class so that they may enjoy outcomes of capital accumulation and technological progress. The multiplication of jollies with respect to the growth in population would not inflict any immorality provided that everybody is glad about his/her live and that no suffering is encountered as a result of unemployment caused by overpopulation. According to the utilitarianism, it is illogical and unreasonable to eliminate from the end any pleasure and feeling of any sentient being. They argue that animal rights should be granted according to the level of a creature’s self awareness without considering their species. However, if this would be strictly observed, our diets would be affected as people would not want to kill animals for meat. Utilitarianism suggests that it is easy for human

Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 46

Philosophy - Essay Example In spite of the fact that the argument which was described may be rather convincing at first sight, if one carefully analyzes it, one may come up with various fallacies that can be found in its logic. To begin with, one should note that the very first premise is faulty. It is an exaggeration to state that all bodies act to a certain end. Indeed, there is a vast array of objects that do not perform any specific function and, therefore, are not able to have a suitable end for its activity. Of course, it is possible to state that inanimate object should be rejected and the analysis should be limited to animal; however, life of the latter also does not strive to achieve a certain end. While there may be some goals which can be identified, from a general perspective, life of a person, life of a lion, life of a plant and even life of a rock (meaning its existence in one piece before it crumbles) does not serve any purpose or are designed to achieve a certain goal. They might find one is th e process of living, but it surely was not predetermined. The second premise is faulty because it operates with a notion that is rather difficult to design. On the one hand, intelligence is truly a characteristic of a highly developed creature which draws a line between humans and other animals. However, one can not dismiss the fact that even the simplest microorganisms feature some kind of intelligence. Of course, they are not able to think or consider abstract matter, but they are surely active and independent from their perspective. In addition to that, there is no single agreed mechanism of identifying intelligence as the latter might manifest itself in different forms. That is why claiming that some natural bodies are not intelligence is oversimplification. If we accept the validity of the above mentioned statement then the third premise should also