Tuesday, August 25, 2020

The Islamic Hegemony Essay Example for Free

The Islamic Hegemony Essay The course of world history could have been adjusted if a solitary detail in the occasions in the 1200’s was changed or didn't occur, or a choice was generally executed at an inappropriate time, spot and circumstance. Different races or countries may have been the world’s superpower today if the correct open doors were available around then, and it just implies that what could be going on today might be turned around in a moment as not a solitary country holds the imposing business model of cultural change. The world we realize today could have been very different if Genghis Khan’s endeavor to pulverize the Persian Empire was crushed. In the following segments we will introduce an authentic modification of occasions and speculate on the outcomes of Genghis Khan’s rout with its repercussions on the political, social and monetary condition of the present. Islamic armed forces have vanquished a great part of the Central Asian locale and changed over the populace to Islam before the Mongolian attack of Persia in the 1200’s which stopped the Muslim development. At whatever point these Muslim warriors went, torment, slaughter and maltreatment on the diverse migrant clans, Turkish, Mongolian and other non-Muslim individuals were propagated. The issue on the Silk Road was the main occasion which modified the course of history. On the off chance that Genghis Khan couldn't crush the Persians, it would have been conceivable that the Islamic Empire extended East ward without confronting any impressive obstruction. China in 1279 during the Sung Dynasty has experienced Mongolian assaults consequently any composed obstruction would be outlandish and the muddled armed forces shaped to contradict the Muslims would be seriously demolished as once huge mob. The chance was incredible that the joined powers of Khwarazmian Empire’s of Shah Muhammad II of Eastern Iran and the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad could grab hold of the domains that the Mongolian crowds have reached; India, China, Central Asia and farther up in Poland. Without the development of Pax Mongolica (Phillips 32), Muslim impact could have arrived at an immense span in Asia, Eurasia and the Caucasus for it was clear that the Muslim armed forces changed over to Islam each country or realm that they had vanquished under the scimitar and the green banner. In this way, we would have two of the world’s most crowded countries (China and India) under Muhammad’s conventions and such could enormously change the level of influence in the contemporary history. With Islam as the world’s driving religion as far as the quantity of adherents. The factor that could have ascribed to the Islamic achievement in scattering its way of life and conviction is that not normal for the Mongolians, who bought in to the way of life of the vanquished lands, they brought alongside tem a composed religion and culture matched with iron will to force their conviction and culture by the blade. Later in Kublai Khan’s rule, he had wanted to overcome Japan from the Korean Peninsula however was ended when the Mongolian armada was obliterated by a hurricane. The Mongol head assaulted in 1274 yet was ineffective because of a tropical storm, referred to the Japanese as the breezes of the Kamikaze. After eight years, Kublai struck again propelling the biggest maritime unit before the 1700s. Be that as it may, the Mongol armada was sunk by another enormous typhoon. After these two lamentable disappointments, Kublai abandoned his arrangements for the victory of Japan. (Hooker 2) Envision when the Islamic winners have attached China into the Islamic authoritative reach with the Arabian line on its steerage, we would have a Muslim Japan, which is a different universe superpower today. With the control of China and Japan, it would have been simpler for the Arab converters to grab hold of South East Asian nations like Philippines, Indonesia and the Indochina and hoard the political and strict force in the area, obstructing the European pilgrim powers from gaining their provinces (Dutch East Indies, Indochina and Philippines) in the early piece of the fourteenth century. On the opposite side of the image, Muslim armed forces were additionally pursuing a war in the Iberian Peninsula, taking Portugal and Spain from their bases in Egypt and North Africa. This could have spelled complete debacle for the Christian armed forces that were likewise occupied with the Crusades planned for retaking the Holy Land from the consolidated multitudes of various caliphates and realms in the Middle East. This would be extraordinarily changed if the Islamic militaries would be focused on the extension in the European realms. Europe around then was confronting steady debates on its firmly sewn states and realms henceforth the political climate was not helpful for monetary exercises. Without exchange from the East (essentially alluded to the Silk Road) the commercial economy was deadened. The Mongol swarms rampaged Europe with: †¦A monstrous attack as opposed to a total occupation; in any case, the image she paints is chilling. Driving over the North German plain, a similar course Cold War organizers envisioned for a Soviet intrusion, the Mongols would have utilized master surveillance to target loot and touching area. They would have sacked Belgium and Holland, wrecking the undeveloped money related focuses of Europe. They would have transformed south into France, crushing Paris and with it the restoration of old way of thinking that it would have facilitated a couple of decades later. Maybe they would have crossed the Alps and desolated Italy, obliterating different origin of the Renaissance†¦The Dark Ages were unadulterated light contrasted with what could have occurred (Dutch) With such factors, the European countries would not have the option to arrive at a phase of monetary development. The Anglo Saxon and European realms were constrained to self-safeguarding and busied with inner clashes, so if at any time the Arabian Empire would represent a danger to the landmass, the countries would not have the option to react as needs be. In spite of the fact that these countries were not completely attached by the Arabian Empire, the period of investigations won't resemble what it was in genuine history. The frontier forces of Europe may have not vanquished portions of Africa in light of a solid Islamic effect on the landmass achieved by the sound exchange relations with the caliphates and emirates in the Islamic world. The Asian mainlands were at that point invigorated with Islamic sultanates that had resulted from China, which was at that point an Islamic domain. The disclosure of the New World may have not been conceivable on account of the occupied consideration of the European countries from investigation to fighting and regional protection. The impacts of these occasions could have deadened the whole European economy as they were abandoning for crude materials for their ventures and caused an emergency in the creation framework making wars of hostility and addition all the more regularly. It ought to be noticed that the Crusades were, speculatively, vanquished by the Muslim armed forces in this manner, the Holy Land was in the sole guardianship of an Islamic state in the Palestine. On the off chance that that was what had occurred, there is a solid likelihood that the Zionist Israel won't exist along these lines an increasingly quiet Middle East. Almost certainly, the solid Islamic states have kept up the power of their oil assets and in this way made a progressively prosperous oil industry liberated from European impacts. Thus, the occasions that could have happened in the 1200’s would have made another world request wherein the Islamic culture is predominant. Most of the world’s populace could have been Muslims and with such prevalence in number strict segregation would be inexistent. It could have been conceivable that a country in Middle East is today’s superpower not the United States. Such was the gravity of the adjustments in world undertakings that even at this very moment, we would buy in Arabic-talking TV stations. The dynamism of history is genuinely delicate. There are numerous prospects in the verifiable improvement of human social orders and each would yield another outcome. Works Cited Dutch, Steven. The Mongols. (1998). May 23, 2008 http://www. uwgb. edu/dutchs/WestTech/xmongol. htm. Hooker, Richard. The Establishment of the Bakufu. Japan, Korea and the Mongols. May 23, 2008 http://www. wsu. edu/~dee/FEUJAPAN/KAMAKURA. HTM. Phillips, E. D. The Mongols. Vol. 2. New York: Frederick A. Prager, 1969.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Journalism Research Proposal Essay Example

News coverage Research Proposal Essay News coverage is the completion of the viewpoint of social gatherings by methods for introduction of realities, appraisals, and remarks that are topical and noteworthy at that point. News coverage suggests the act of assortment and translation of the data about the occasions, topics, and patterns of present day life and its portrayal in various classifications and structures, and resulting dissemination to the mass crowd. The causes of news coverage goes back to the Middle Ages when, ambassadors and dispatches, who read out a declaration, rescripts, and reports, included here and there the author’s analyses. This is mostly why in current news coverage names of papers and magazines are suggestive of those envoys: Courier, Daily Herald, Moscow Gazette, Chicago Tribune, Forum, and so on. We will compose a custom paper test on Journalism Research Proposal explicitly for you for just $16.38 $13.9/page Request now We will compose a custom paper test on Journalism Research Proposal explicitly for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Recruit Writer We will compose a custom paper test on Journalism Research Proposal explicitly for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Recruit Writer Distributed in 1605 in Strasbourg, Relation aller Furnemmen und gedenckwurdigen Historien was viewed as the primary paper. In England, the principal effective day by day distribution was the British paper The Daily Courant, distributed from 1702 to 1735. After some time, the press was framed as a persuasive social instrument under the title of â€Å"The Fourth Estate.† Proficient exercises of a writer are firmly identified with the idea of protection, which is required from the individual who acquired access to private data. The necessity isn't to move such data to outsiders without the assent of its proprietor. For infringement of the classification, writer might be dependent upon common or criminal risk. Various nations have various principles for data conveyance: for instance, the UK government has taken more bills on legitimate risk for revelation of data than the U.S. Congress. There are nations that are known for their abuse and abuse of writers, for example, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The U.S. has never received a government law on the privacy of sources. Each state decides the level of opportunity of a columnist in the treatment of data. Government court may arrange a columnist to uncover a wellspring of data just in outrageous cases †when it influences the result of the legal procedure and the goals of the issue can't be accomplished without revealing the source. Columnists who will not affirm might be dependent upon common or criminal risk. After the 2008 money related emergency, the condition of the business isn't in the best shape. Just in 2008, 16,000 writers lost their positions. Organization Tribune Company (which possesses the LA Times) defaulted on some loans. One of the most established U.S. paper Rocky Mountain News stopped to exist, stopping 150 years of its history. The Christian Science Monitor moved to the dispersion arrange (i.e., day by day paper has become a standard online asset). During the principal quarter of 2009 in the United States 120 papers were shut. Utilize free example examine papers on reporting to get more data and thoughts on the theme. At EssayLib.com composing administration you can arrange a custom research proposition on Journalism subjects. Your exploration paper proposition will be composed without any preparation. We enlist first class PhD and Master’s essayists just to furnish understudies with proficient research proposition help at moderate rates. Every client will get a non-copied paper with opportune conveyance. Simply visit our site and dispatch in the request structure with all proposition subtleties: Make the most of our expert research proposition composing administration!

Friday, August 7, 2020

Local Motion

Local Motion INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in San Mateo in the Local Motion office. John, who are you and what do you do?John: Im John Stanfield and Im the CEO and co-founder of Local Motion, and we build technology for the car sharing industry.Martin: What did you do before you started this company?John: Its a great question. My first career was, I spent 12 years as a wild and forest fire fighter. So, after I finished my physics degree I didnt want to build bombs for the navy, so I continued doing what I did to put myself through school, and that turned into career. I exited that, came to the Bay Area, started a couple of companies, learned a lot about entrepreneurship, found myself at graduate school at Stanford, and thats where the idea for this company started out of my masters work in the mechanical engineering group and design group. I met my co-founder there and we started the company in 2010.Martin: And can you tell us a little bit more about the process, how you did come up with t his idea?John: Sure. So, originally we were looking at local mobility and how a third to half of all trips made by Americans are for less than 5 miles. And generally speaking, we do them in single occupancy, two to three thousand pound automobiles, and so my idea was to build a small, very efficient electric four-wheel vehicle, that was built from the ground up to be sharable, to occupy a lot of these local needs, and so we build a vehicle while I was at Stanford, got some attention, won a summer grant from Lightspeed ventures, studied the market, realized there was a big gaping hole in mobility that needed to be innovated in, and disrupted. And so I launched the company after meeting Clément Gires in 2010. We then raised some seed money, and we build a vehicle, and the idea was to sell it to places and not people, and be sharable from the ground up in its entirety of ethos of this vehicle would be a sharable asset. And what we learned in the process was that we could do much great er good and have much greater impact if we separate our ideas and became vehicle agnostic and stop trying to build cars because, I dont know if youre aware of this, but it takes a lot of money to start a car company. So, we separated the hardware and software that we needed to become vehicle agnostic, and thats what we have today, we install hardware in every vehicle that we deal with, we focus on large groups of assets and fleets, across the government agencies from federal to state and local, to university campuses and corporate campuses.Martin: Ok, great. And how did you get in touch with the first investors?John: Lets see. The first investors were visionary, angel investors, I would say. Were in the kind of the heart of entrepreneurship here in Silicon Valley. Through my Stanford network, I was put in touch with a great deal of entrepreneurs who had had success and are now angel investors, and the Lightspeed venture grant helped the great deal, so that expanded our network in Si licon Valley, and specifically on Sand Hill road. And so a few, as I call them, visionaries, believed in us and wrote us small checks, that allowed us to get started and really push our ideas forward. And without those visionaries, we wouldnt be here today.BUSINESS MODELMartin: John, lets talk about the business model. Can you briefly explain what your solution does and how it works technically, and then talk about the other components like what customers are you targeting, where are you using these technologies?John: Sure. So, I strongly believe that shared mobility can never succeed on a large-scale unless the experience from the users perspective at the door of the car, when theyre accessing that shared mobility. If that experience is better than owning a vehicle, than shared mobility will succeed, and until that day it wont expand in the dramatic way. And so the entirety of my company focuses on making that experience superior. And so what we do is we install hardware in every v ehicle that shows visually the status of that vehicle to the user. So now, when the user walks out to the group of vehicles, they can see, through an LED light, if the vehicle is available or not, and they just walk up with their corporate ID badge that lets them in the buildings or with their smart phone, touch on that reader, the doors unlocked, they get in and they drive away. Its that simple. So, you dont have to book your personal car. Its yours. So why would you need to book your shared car? So we give that on demand, real-time access to every vehicle. You can also step back and say ok, Im a planner, which about 3% of our current fleet rides are actually planned ahead of time, only about 3-5%, and you can go on our mobile app or on our web system, our web-based platform and book a ride ahead of time. And what we do is we take all that information and we analyze it in our own analytics engines and we give that information back to the fleet manager, so that they can make real de cision based on data. On how the ride size distributes, cut cost and increase utilization. And we just charge per vehicle that our system is installed in, right now basically we take the fleet size, we charge per vehicle and usually a 12 month subscription fee, and we dont charge for the hardware upfront. We actually maintain ownership of hardware, that way if we need to replace it we can.Martin: So, from my understanding, in Germany and Europe in general we have some kind of companies like BMW and Mercedes who are doing this kind of individual cars that you can rent via mobile platform etc. You are currently tied in fleets, like Sixt or something like that, and having them to manage the fleet more efficiently, so that dont you have to that much contact between their sales organization and their end customer. Can you tell us a little bit more about how it technically works, the product? And when does it get installed, who does it, how long does it take?John: So, lets just start with the market segment that you hit on. There are roughly 8 million vehicles in the US that are in fleets and that is a market that is very, very undeveloped for sharing. All these vehicles are intended to be shared across user groups, but the way they share them, still have a metal box on the wall with keys in it, or a few individuals that have the keys at their desk and they have a piece of paper when they sign these vehicles out. And so because of the barriers of using keys and having no real organization around the sharing of the assets, they dont get shared and they have far too many vehicles on their lots. We can walk in the door and from day 1 we can offer 20-30% savings across their fleet, just by helping them share and taking the keys out of the equation. So now, instead of the user having to go and find a set of car keys, they just walk to car and the access is at the door. So, really streamlining the use case is essential here.And then what we do technically is we plugin to the cars diagnostics port. That allows us to do two things: get power for a device and pull information from the car itself. When our device is powered up, we force the user to interact with it at the door so we know who it is. We are tracking all movement, so we know how they use the car. We know if theyre abusing the vehicles, we know if theyre driving, how theyre driving, we know where theyre going. So all the information is very important to the fleet manager, so that they can get a snapshot, a real, data driven snapshot of how the vehicles are being used and then make decisions based on that information, so they can, for example, if they see a portion of their fleet that never goes more than 40 miles, why wouldnt they replace that with electric vehicles. That is an efficiency gain, an utilization gain, and then through sharing it proper, proper scheduling, we can help push rides together into certain vehicles that are always going to the same place at the same time with the sam e people. So, really optimizing the entire operational process.Martin: So, would you say that your plan based on this kind of big data is also to provide other services like you said before, analyze on how the fleet is going, and maybe even optimizing insurance contracts based on user groups or car models, something like that?John: Exactly. So, what we do is right now we focus on our core model and then we will, as we grow, offer premium packages to people, so we can help them analyze fleets and slice it in whatever they want with the data that we have. And we will offer those as premium products, yes.Martin: How did you acquire and convince the first customer? Because I can imagine going to big fleet companies who have 500-1000 cars or so, and you are young startup. How did you convince them?John: Couple of things. One is, we were selling cars originally, when we were doing that, couple of the big Silicon Valley companies, such as Google and Apple, they were very interested in that local kind of show piece for mobility. So, Google was our very first customer, they wanted to buy cars. We were talking to them for long enough that when we went through our strong pivot, and removed the hardware and software to become vehicle agnostic, they saw the intelligence in that decision and they already have a fleet of 300-400 vehicles on their campus, and they said Great, lets just start using your devices in our cars. And so that started to progress, that was a great example for us, theyre a tremendous customers because they have a truly multi-model fleet, all the way from human-powered bicycles all the way to highway shuttles, big 60 passengers busses, and everything in between. Model S Teslas, Nissan Leaves, electric bikes, normal internal combustion vans. So were working across the subset of that fleet now and we hope to expand more. And what that did was give us something to point to and show how its working and data that we could pull and analyze and just show the b enefit of our platform. At one point, they were having trouble getting people to plug-in small electric vehicles on their campus, so we just communicated with the users and said Hey, could you please plug the car in when youre done?, and amazingly we went from 30% plugin rate to 90% plugin rate, just in a few weeks. So, proving to the Google that you can change user behavior in few weeks is magical, and taking that to the general population is very powerful.Martin: Currently, fleet management companies are having all the cares stored basically in one location, I assume because there is some kind of person who needs to check in the people and serve the cars, etc. With your technology, would you say that they can more distribute their cars over the city, because you, they dont need to have this kind of human interaction with the final customer?John: So, its an interesting conversation because right now the fleets are very distributed. There are a lot of use cases where there are one o r maybe 2 users per vehicle, and then you have a piece of the fleet that is very centralized, and they call that the motor pool. And so, what were trying to actually do is to take the entirety of the fleet, regardless of where its located, and put it in a centralized motor pool. So that no matter where you are, on the grounds in the city of San Francisco, for example, you as a user could access the vehicles that you have the right to access, with just your badge. And so, looking at it from kind of a geographically agnostic perspective, saying you have access to a centralized motor pool, regardless of where it is, is very powerful. And giving the managers the ability to restrict usage, because you dont want me driving in dump truck, right, I dont have the license or the ability. And so the people who can and are able to drive those high value assets they require licensing control, the manager can very easily manage that from his laptop or mobile phone. And so, the general population can have access to the general population of motor pool vehicles, you can do restrictions, etc, etc, and that is a centralized motor pool, but it may be distributed over a city or more, for a state or even a federal government.Martin: And the registration or validation of identity and all the properties of some of you final customers, how is it then done?John: So, in the states its all done around driving licenses. The beauty of working with fleets is that all that information checking is already done, because the company or the organization takes care of that, so we dont have to. What we do is, we come in and connect the dots between the services theyre already using. For example, most centralized fleets or fleet operators have service providers for maintenance or cleaning, that they already use. And what we do is we come in with our platform and we connect with those dots more efficiently. So, instead of having to fill out a piece of paper that says I need service on this vehicle at this day, and then someone having to go and find the keys, and taking it out of service for a week or two or three, so that they can schedule this maintenance, we give them the ability to push a button on their web interface that turns the light on the vehicle red, takes that vehicle out of service, sends the information and the geolocation of the vehicle to the service provider who can go straight to the car, with their service badge, unlock the doors, drive it to the shop fix and then put it back in service, and then the light turns back to green. So, really what we do is streamline all those operations, using the existing infrastructure that they already have and just connecting the dots very efficiently.CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: John, lets talk about corporate strategy. What do you perceive the competitive advantage of your company?John: So, right now, to date, there havent been any of the connected car companies that had focused on the user side. So, we obsess about the user side, because, as I said, I really feel that in order to make this sharing economy work in the enterprise, you have to have a good user experience at the door. And so, for example, when you tap your badge on our device, it takes less than 2 seconds for the doors to unlock. Thats essential. Because if youre standing at the door for 2 minutes even, as a user, it feels like days, and people then dont trust the system, they refuse to use it, and go back to system where you might as well just be sharing keys. So, we obsess about that experience at the door. And then really the scheduling and the utilization increase is what we are pushing today, and like I said we take the auxiliary systems that theyre already using and connect them more efficiently. So, for us, we dont want to get down the road too deeply on the telematic side, so, for example DOT compliance, or long hold trucking optimization for fuel, stuff like that thats been done many, many times and its very crowded marketplace. Were focused really on the user experience and centralized motor pools for now, thats our core model. Were only 35 people so we have to pick an area thats right for disruption and thats it.Martin: Can you explain your go-to market strategy and your product strategy going forward?John: Sure. So, our go-to market strategy has always been focused on what were good at, and again, to reiterate is the user side. So, going forward we will just continually expend our product offering, looking at new technologies, looking at more interesting and simplified ways for users to gain access, through different sensor technology, through different near field communications, technology whether it NFC (Near field communication), Bluetooth, or RFID. Were just going to leverage what are users had already in their pocket. So we dont want to force them to use something new. And going forward we will start expanding more and more across other geographic areas, for example, we have an office in Paris, righ t now with 5 employees and were focused on European fleet market as well, so I feel that in a lot of ways, the European market is already primed and ready for the sharing economy, because theres a lot more use of mass transit, theres a lot more sense for sharing across large groups of high dollar assets. The car economy there is, the way that corporate executives have their own assigned cars is starting to change, people want to have more cash upfront but still options for mobility down the road, so thats screaming out for centralized motor pools. So, were very excited about the expansion across the Europe as well. And thats how well expand in the next 12 months.Martin: Can you explain your reasoning why you are internationalizing within the same business segment while not adding for other business segments, like individual cars, etc.?John: I feel its really essential to have a strong toehold on the user side and centralized motor pool and then expand out from there. My co-founder i s French, and so we had a very strong connection to talent in France, and we, like I said, we see the European market as very ripe, as well, so we wanted to get it toehold as soon as possible, and so we just took our exact same business model and expanded it into European market.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: So, lets talk about the market development. I mean, youve learned a lot in the case of mobility. Can you give us some kind of trends that you identified, without talking about sharing economy, because you have shared some knowledge of that already?John: Sure, so, if I was speaking straight to, and I do very frequently, speaks straight to OEMs, and lot of the innovation experts here in Silicon Valley come to us and say What do we do to be competitive in the future? and I just look straight at them and say Sell mobility and stop selling so many cars. And thats a very tough thing to understand, from the perspective of someone selling cars, but really thats kind of the just of it. I fee l that, in the near future, the companies that make mobility valuable are the ones that will win and that innovative process will stand out as you make each ride or each minute in the car more valuable than having a car sitting on your driveway 85-90% of the time unused. So, really, sharing is the core of that and selling mobility is the way that this economy will expand on forward.Martin: Do you see that the American car share is changing somehow? Because when you are driving 101 or 85, almost every car is occupied by only 1 person, everybody has a super large car and theres some kind of, lets say, the streets are full of cars.John: Absolutely. But, there are also great trends right now for young people who are waiting longer and longer to get their driving license. So, for example, in my era, you went out on your 16th birthday, you get your driving permit and on 16 and a half you are in line to get your driving license, on the day you can get it. Now, kids are waiting until theyre 17, 18 to get their driving license, because they are treating mobility as they treat applications in mobile devices. They want everything on demand, right now at their fingertips. They dont want to have to deal with the responsibility and the cost of owning a vehicle, its painful these days. And so I think the models are shifting, right now the infrastructure isnt built, and so the Bay Area is a great example. We have the Caltrain, which in America is amazing, but if you go to any other country in the world, 40, I guess its a 30 year old train is kind of laughed at. So, its great because we have it here, but its also very limiting because thats all we have here. So, trends are happening now, which are changing that and of course it happens slowly, but were doing what we can now. And thats why were not waiting for the OEMs to put the hardware in the cars, were making it ourselves. If they would give us access through API to the hardware that existed in the cars it would simplify an d speed this up, but thats not going to happen for 5-10 years, so were doing it ourselves.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS In San Mateo, we meet CEO co-founder of Local Motion, John Stanfield. John shares his story how he co-founded this startup and how the current business model works, as well as what the current plans for near future, and some advice for young entrepreneurs.The transcript of the interview is included below.INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in San Mateo in the Local Motion office. John, who are you and what do you do?John: Im John Stanfield and Im the CEO and co-founder of Local Motion, and we build technology for the car sharing industry.Martin: What did you do before you started this company?John: Its a great question. My first career was, I spent 12 years as a wild and forest fire fighter. So, after I finished my physics degree I didnt want to build bombs for the navy, so I continued doing what I did to put myself through school, and that turned into career. I exited that, came to the Bay Area, started a couple of companies, learned a lot about entrepreneurship, found myself at g raduate school at Stanford, and thats where the idea for this company started out of my masters work in the mechanical engineering group and design group. I met my co-founder there and we started the company in 2010.Martin: And can you tell us a little bit more about the process, how you did come up with this idea?John: Sure. So, originally we were looking at local mobility and how a third to half of all trips made by Americans are for less than 5 miles. And generally speaking, we do them in single occupancy, two to three thousand pound automobiles, and so my idea was to build a small, very efficient electric four-wheel vehicle, that was built from the ground up to be sharable, to occupy a lot of these local needs, and so we build a vehicle while I was at Stanford, got some attention, won a summer grant from Lightspeed ventures, studied the market, realized there was a big gaping hole in mobility that needed to be innovated in, and disrupted. And so I launched the company after meet ing Clément Gires in 2010. We then raised some seed money, and we build a vehicle, and the idea was to sell it to places and not people, and be sharable from the ground up in its entirety of ethos of this vehicle would be a sharable asset. And what we learned in the process was that we could do much greater good and have much greater impact if we separate our ideas and became vehicle agnostic and stop trying to build cars because, I dont know if youre aware of this, but it takes a lot of money to start a car company. So, we separated the hardware and software that we needed to become vehicle agnostic, and thats what we have today, we install hardware in every vehicle that we deal with, we focus on large groups of assets and fleets, across the government agencies from federal to state and local, to university campuses and corporate campuses.Martin: Ok, great. And how did you get in touch with the first investors?John: Lets see. The first investors were visionary, angel investors, I would say. Were in the kind of the heart of entrepreneurship here in Silicon Valley. Through my Stanford network, I was put in touch with a great deal of entrepreneurs who had had success and are now angel investors, and the Lightspeed venture grant helped the great deal, so that expanded our network in Silicon Valley, and specifically on Sand Hill road. And so a few, as I call them, visionaries, believed in us and wrote us small checks, that allowed us to get started and really push our ideas forward. And without those visionaries, we wouldnt be here today.BUSINESS MODELMartin: John, lets talk about the business model. Can you briefly explain what your solution does and how it works technically, and then talk about the other components like what customers are you targeting, where are you using these technologies?John: Sure. So, I strongly believe that shared mobility can never succeed on a large-scale unless the experience from the users perspective at the door of the car, when the yre accessing that shared mobility. If that experience is better than owning a vehicle, than shared mobility will succeed, and until that day it wont expand in the dramatic way. And so the entirety of my company focuses on making that experience superior. And so what we do is we install hardware in every vehicle that shows visually the status of that vehicle to the user. So now, when the user walks out to the group of vehicles, they can see, through an LED light, if the vehicle is available or not, and they just walk up with their corporate ID badge that lets them in the buildings or with their smart phone, touch on that reader, the doors unlocked, they get in and they drive away. Its that simple. So, you dont have to book your personal car. Its yours. So why would you need to book your shared car? So we give that on demand, real-time access to every vehicle. You can also step back and say ok, Im a planner, which about 3% of our current fleet rides are actually planned ahead of time , only about 3-5%, and you can go on our mobile app or on our web system, our web-based platform and book a ride ahead of time. And what we do is we take all that information and we analyze it in our own analytics engines and we give that information back to the fleet manager, so that they can make real decision based on data. On how the ride size distributes, cut cost and increase utilization. And we just charge per vehicle that our system is installed in, right now basically we take the fleet size, we charge per vehicle and usually a 12 month subscription fee, and we dont charge for the hardware upfront. We actually maintain ownership of hardware, that way if we need to replace it we can.Martin: So, from my understanding, in Germany and Europe in general we have some kind of companies like BMW and Mercedes who are doing this kind of individual cars that you can rent via mobile platform etc. You are currently tied in fleets, like Sixt or something like that, and having them to mana ge the fleet more efficiently, so that dont you have to that much contact between their sales organization and their end customer. Can you tell us a little bit more about how it technically works, the product? And when does it get installed, who does it, how long does it take?John: So, lets just start with the market segment that you hit on. There are roughly 8 million vehicles in the US that are in fleets and that is a market that is very, very undeveloped for sharing. All these vehicles are intended to be shared across user groups, but the way they share them, still have a metal box on the wall with keys in it, or a few individuals that have the keys at their desk and they have a piece of paper when they sign these vehicles out. And so because of the barriers of using keys and having no real organization around the sharing of the assets, they dont get shared and they have far too many vehicles on their lots. We can walk in the door and from day 1 we can offer 20-30% savings across their fleet, just by helping them share and taking the keys out of the equation. So now, instead of the user having to go and find a set of car keys, they just walk to car and the access is at the door. So, really streamlining the use case is essential here.And then what we do technically is we plugin to the cars diagnostics port. That allows us to do two things: get power for a device and pull information from the car itself. When our device is powered up, we force the user to interact with it at the door so we know who it is. We are tracking all movement, so we know how they use the car. We know if theyre abusing the vehicles, we know if theyre driving, how theyre driving, we know where theyre going. So all the information is very important to the fleet manager, so that they can get a snapshot, a real, data driven snapshot of how the vehicles are being used and then make decisions based on that information, so they can, for example, if they see a portion of their fleet that never goes more than 40 miles, why wouldnt they replace that with electric vehicles. That is an efficiency gain, an utilization gain, and then through sharing it proper, proper scheduling, we can help push rides together into certain vehicles that are always going to the same place at the same time with the same people. So, really optimizing the entire operational process.Martin: So, would you say that your plan based on this kind of big data is also to provide other services like you said before, analyze on how the fleet is going, and maybe even optimizing insurance contracts based on user groups or car models, something like that?John: Exactly. So, what we do is right now we focus on our core model and then we will, as we grow, offer premium packages to people, so we can help them analyze fleets and slice it in whatever they want with the data that we have. And we will offer those as premium products, yes.Martin: How did you acquire and convince the first customer? Because I can imagin e going to big fleet companies who have 500-1000 cars or so, and you are young startup. How did you convince them?John: Couple of things. One is, we were selling cars originally, when we were doing that, couple of the big Silicon Valley companies, such as Google and Apple, they were very interested in that local kind of show piece for mobility. So, Google was our very first customer, they wanted to buy cars. We were talking to them for long enough that when we went through our strong pivot, and removed the hardware and software to become vehicle agnostic, they saw the intelligence in that decision and they already have a fleet of 300-400 vehicles on their campus, and they said Great, lets just start using your devices in our cars. And so that started to progress, that was a great example for us, theyre a tremendous customers because they have a truly multi-model fleet, all the way from human-powered bicycles all the way to highway shuttles, big 60 passengers busses, and everything i n between. Model S Teslas, Nissan Leaves, electric bikes, normal internal combustion vans. So were working across the subset of that fleet now and we hope to expand more. And what that did was give us something to point to and show how its working and data that we could pull and analyze and just show the benefit of our platform. At one point, they were having trouble getting people to plug-in small electric vehicles on their campus, so we just communicated with the users and said Hey, could you please plug the car in when youre done?, and amazingly we went from 30% plugin rate to 90% plugin rate, just in a few weeks. So, proving to the Google that you can change user behavior in few weeks is magical, and taking that to the general population is very powerful.Martin: Currently, fleet management companies are having all the cares stored basically in one location, I assume because there is some kind of person who needs to check in the people and serve the cars, etc. With your technolog y, would you say that they can more distribute their cars over the city, because you, they dont need to have this kind of human interaction with the final customer?John: So, its an interesting conversation because right now the fleets are very distributed. There are a lot of use cases where there are one or maybe 2 users per vehicle, and then you have a piece of the fleet that is very centralized, and they call that the motor pool. And so, what were trying to actually do is to take the entirety of the fleet, regardless of where its located, and put it in a centralized motor pool. So that no matter where you are, on the grounds in the city of San Francisco, for example, you as a user could access the vehicles that you have the right to access, with just your badge. And so, looking at it from kind of a geographically agnostic perspective, saying you have access to a centralized motor pool, regardless of where it is, is very powerful. And giving the managers the ability to restrict usa ge, because you dont want me driving in dump truck, right, I dont have the license or the ability. And so the people who can and are able to drive those high value assets they require licensing control, the manager can very easily manage that from his laptop or mobile phone. And so, the general population can have access to the general population of motor pool vehicles, you can do restrictions, etc, etc, and that is a centralized motor pool, but it may be distributed over a city or more, for a state or even a federal government.Martin: And the registration or validation of identity and all the properties of some of you final customers, how is it then done?John: So, in the states its all done around driving licenses. The beauty of working with fleets is that all that information checking is already done, because the company or the organization takes care of that, so we dont have to. What we do is, we come in and connect the dots between the services theyre already using. For example, most centralized fleets or fleet operators have service providers for maintenance or cleaning, that they already use. And what we do is we come in with our platform and we connect with those dots more efficiently. So, instead of having to fill out a piece of paper that says I need service on this vehicle at this day, and then someone having to go and find the keys, and taking it out of service for a week or two or three, so that they can schedule this maintenance, we give them the ability to push a button on their web interface that turns the light on the vehicle red, takes that vehicle out of service, sends the information and the geolocation of the vehicle to the service provider who can go straight to the car, with their service badge, unlock the doors, drive it to the shop fix and then put it back in service, and then the light turns back to green. So, really what we do is streamline all those operations, using the existing infrastructure that they already have and just connect ing the dots very efficiently.CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: John, lets talk about corporate strategy. What do you perceive the competitive advantage of your company?John: So, right now, to date, there havent been any of the connected car companies that had focused on the user side. So, we obsess about the user side, because, as I said, I really feel that in order to make this sharing economy work in the enterprise, you have to have a good user experience at the door. And so, for example, when you tap your badge on our device, it takes less than 2 seconds for the doors to unlock. Thats essential. Because if youre standing at the door for 2 minutes even, as a user, it feels like days, and people then dont trust the system, they refuse to use it, and go back to system where you might as well just be sharing keys. So, we obsess about that experience at the door. And then really the scheduling and the utilization increase is what we are pushing today, and like I said we take the auxiliary sy stems that theyre already using and connect them more efficiently. So, for us, we dont want to get down the road too deeply on the telematic side, so, for example DOT compliance, or long hold trucking optimization for fuel, stuff like that thats been done many, many times and its very crowded marketplace. Were focused really on the user experience and centralized motor pools for now, thats our core model. Were only 35 people so we have to pick an area thats right for disruption and thats it.Martin: Can you explain your go-to market strategy and your product strategy going forward?John: Sure. So, our go-to market strategy has always been focused on what were good at, and again, to reiterate is the user side. So, going forward we will just continually expend our product offering, looking at new technologies, looking at more interesting and simplified ways for users to gain access, through different sensor technology, through different near field communications, technology whether it N FC (Near field communication), Bluetooth, or RFID. Were just going to leverage what are users had already in their pocket. So we dont want to force them to use something new. And going forward we will start expanding more and more across other geographic areas, for example, we have an office in Paris, right now with 5 employees and were focused on European fleet market as well, so I feel that in a lot of ways, the European market is already primed and ready for the sharing economy, because theres a lot more use of mass transit, theres a lot more sense for sharing across large groups of high dollar assets. The car economy there is, the way that corporate executives have their own assigned cars is starting to change, people want to have more cash upfront but still options for mobility down the road, so thats screaming out for centralized motor pools. So, were very excited about the expansion across the Europe as well. And thats how well expand in the next 12 months.Martin: Can you exp lain your reasoning why you are internationalizing within the same business segment while not adding for other business segments, like individual cars, etc.?John: I feel its really essential to have a strong toehold on the user side and centralized motor pool and then expand out from there. My co-founder is French, and so we had a very strong connection to talent in France, and we, like I said, we see the European market as very ripe, as well, so we wanted to get it toehold as soon as possible, and so we just took our exact same business model and expanded it into European market.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: So, lets talk about the market development. I mean, youve learned a lot in the case of mobility. Can you give us some kind of trends that you identified, without talking about sharing economy, because you have shared some knowledge of that already?John: Sure, so, if I was speaking straight to, and I do very frequently, speaks straight to OEMs, and lot of the innovation experts here in Silicon Valley come to us and say What do we do to be competitive in the future? and I just look straight at them and say Sell mobility and stop selling so many cars. And thats a very tough thing to understand, from the perspective of someone selling cars, but really thats kind of the just of it. I feel that, in the near future, the companies that make mobility valuable are the ones that will win and that innovative process will stand out as you make each ride or each minute in the car more valuable than having a car sitting on your driveway 85-90% of the time unused. So, really, sharing is the core of that and selling mobility is the way that this economy will expand on forward.Martin: Do you see that the American car share is changing somehow? Because when you are driving 101 or 85, almost every car is occupied by only 1 person, everybody has a super large car and theres some kind of, lets say, the streets are full of cars.John: Absolutely. But, there are also great trends rig ht now for young people who are waiting longer and longer to get their driving license. So, for example, in my era, you went out on your 16th birthday, you get your driving permit and on 16 and a half you are in line to get your driving license, on the day you can get it. Now, kids are waiting until theyre 17, 18 to get their driving license, because they are treating mobility as they treat applications in mobile devices. They want everything on demand, right now at their fingertips. They dont want to have to deal with the responsibility and the cost of owning a vehicle, its painful these days. And so I think the models are shifting, right now the infrastructure isnt built, and so the Bay Area is a great example. We have the Caltrain, which in America is amazing, but if you go to any other country in the world, 40, I guess its a 30 year old train is kind of laughed at. So, its great because we have it here, but its also very limiting because thats all we have here. So, trends are ha ppening now, which are changing that and of course it happens slowly, but were doing what we can now. And thats why were not waiting for the OEMs to put the hardware in the cars, were making it ourselves. If they would give us access through API to the hardware that existed in the cars it would simplify and speed this up, but thats not going to happen for 5-10 years, so were doing it ourselves.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURSMartin: Over the last years, what have been your major learnings that you can share with other first time entrepreneurs?John: I think one of the biggest learnings that we had in early days is first of all, dont be too attracted to your first business model, because its going to change. And second, find your product market fit, and go out and get customers.So, I think one of the mistakes that entrepreneurs make, and I was very close to making this mistake, which is a fatal mistake for your company, is getting to wrapped up around what your first idea is. In my mind, the d efinition of a startup is an entity that can pivot their business model until they find something that sticks. Something thats needed in the market right now, something that you can sell to customers regardless of your size. And we were able to find that and sell that and gain revenue with our early prototypes, and weve done that now for three years. Weve been able to gain revenue and push our vehicle ideas and our entrepreneurial ideas into the marketplace while gaining revenue and testing our devices. And now we have a product thats scalable and ready to go and we just started hiring sales people. So, we focused on products, we focused on product market fit, weve been around since 2010 and weve just started hiring sales people three months ago. So, we obsessed about the product, we obsessed about how to make that product work in the marketplace, and found our niche and landed and now were expanding. So, really finding that product market fit and knowing that people want it and are willing to pay for it is essential.Martin: And what advice can you give somebody who is thinking about a product based company and then is thinking about how should he develop his product? Is there any kind of recipe that you can provide?John: I think simplification is the key. Were great example. Im mechanical engineer and can build a car, but that doesnt mean you should. Really take the idea and strip it down and try to understand fundamentally why youre doing what youre doing. Having a vision for solving problems in mobility and jumping to what youre good at is a way to get great ideas. But again, being fluid with how those ideas flow around the problem and finding the area of least resistance for your product to get into the market is the key.Martin: Great. John, thank you very much for your time.John: Youre welcome.Martin: And the next time you are starting your company focus on the simplicity of your product, and not make it over complex. Thank you very much.

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Important Data About Electoral College - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 811 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2019/05/28 Category Politics Essay Level High school Tags: Electoral College Essay Did you like this example? The Electoral College Introduction The US Electoral College is an electoral system, which in line with the American people elects the President and the Vice President. The system has existed since the drafting of the constitution during the 18th century. There are 538 members in the Electoral College, and cast their votes after every four years. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Important Data About Electoral College" essay for you Create order This electoral system is multi-stage where the presidential winner must secure majority of the electoral vote and more than 50 percent of the popular vote (BBC). Membership to the electoral vote guarantees one power to appoint a presidential candidate. The primary aim of the Electoral College is to represent the majorityrs votes on the best candidate for White House. The Electoral College State members of democrat and Republican parties are responsible for electing the college members after every four years. According to Harper (2), the population size of each state will determine the number of members. Therefore, states like California, Florida, and Texas have more electoral members than others states. Washington DC is not a state and as such, three members represent Washington as a state in the Electoral College to make it more transparent (Belenky 6). On the other hand, 55 electoral members represent California because they are the most populous. Unlike the Congress, the Electoral College ensures that a state has more say similar to its population size. Their staters party members select electoral members. If a state has more Republicans, then most of their popular votes will be republican and a similar case for the Democrats (Neale 8). This has been one of the target areas for most American presidents; they target the most popular states, for them to win both the popular and electoral votes. Presidency is awarded to the candidate with more than half of the electoral votes. A good example is President Obama who had sixty-one percent of the electoral votes. President Trump achieved more than half of the votes but had less popular votes than his counterpart. The electoral vote is more dominant than the popular vote, which explains its criticism. However, some people have criticized the system since it has no accurate representation of the American population (Belenky 6). Technically, the Electoral College voids the link between the popular vote and the presidency. Drafting the Electoral System The founding fathers drafted the Electoral College for two main reasons; first was to prevent the public from directly electing the president. The second was to create a system that allowed more power for less popular states (Neale 8). The original drafters of the Electoral College feared that the tyrant candidates to secure their way into power through public manipulation. The Electoral College ensured that the presidential seat is in the hands of intellect Americans who understand the constitution and the presidency. The less popular states would have less impact on the election process. It allowed the less popular votes to have a significant effect on electing the president (BBC). Notably, less popular states had little consideration as important regions in the electoral process. Today, a presidential candidate must conduct rigorous campaigns in most states to secure his seat in the Oval Office. The popular vote would give power to people oriented towards specific regions. This would create unfairness, and some states could be disadvantaged (Neale 9). The founding fathers drafted the Electoral College to fix the errors in the electoral process. Mechanism The Electoral College was a positive impact on the American people. The system might have flaws, but the effect it has on electing the right candidate is significant. The Electoral College brings a fair representation of the majority population (BBC). As mentioned earlier, the system helps to eliminate the manipulation of the public by tyrant candidates. Notably, the electors are select groups who understand the election process and can evaluate whether a candidate viable for the Whitehouse (Belenky 15). The less populous States have a significant impact in the electoral process, if it was not there, the most populous would have a tremendous impact on the election compared to states. With the Electoral College, the US election can focus on two primary candidates and eliminate the multiparty system (McGee 18). Additionally, there is little chance the US can go for a runoff election. The US electoral process is unique and has proved its effectiveness over the past years. Conclusion Years ago, a group of liberal minds came up had a similar idea of drafting the Electoral College and minimize control of the popular vote. The system has proved itself over the years and Americans have always elected the right candidate after the election. Today, the system may seem useless and against democracy but in the real sense, it is not an enemy. An absolute public vote could make the presidency more vulnerable and make the road to presidency much easier. Unless someone proposes a better electoral system, the current system will remain the best for the American people.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Effects of Child Abuse on Child Development - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 9 Words: 2746 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2019/03/28 Category Society Essay Level High school Tags: Child Abuse Essay Did you like this example? While it has been known for a while that there is obviously an extremely high importance of maternal care in child development. Some research now suggests that the importance of this may lie partially on its effects on anxiety-like behaviors and the regulation of the stress reaction in the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, also known as the stress response control center, which are both significantly lowered (Ramo-Fernndez et al., 2015). However, an effective opposite, child abuse, also shows may also yield negative consequences. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Effects of Child Abuse on Child Development" essay for you Create order Based on data that was collected in 2016 of children raised in the U.S. 9% experience physical abuse and another 4% experience sexual abuse, making for the understanding of its effects of high importance (US Bureau of Children data shit). Where maternal care showed gains in the individuals ability to interact with stress related mechanisms, many of the issues (behavioral, health, psychological) stem from some form of detriment in the individuals ability to cope with these mechanisms. In children experiencing child abuse we see significant increase in the likelihood that theyll experience abuse in other relationships in adulthood, whether they be platonic or intimate relationships. Psychological disorders such as depression, post traumatic stress disorder, suicidality, anxiety not only are experienced at increased rates, but also severity within the population of children experiencing child abuse (Ehlert U. 2013). Additionally, physical health is something that comes into play with th ings such as cardiovascular disease or infections (Norman, et al., 2012). As result of having this many conditions that are interacting with stress mechanisms funding for research focuses on the how these stress reactions are influenced by varying polymorphisms in the genome. While there are many genes that seem to interact in epistatic and pleiotropic ways with stress regulation systems, I will be doing a parallel comparison of two genes: FKBP5 and NR3K1. The FKBP5 gene goes through transcription and translation to form the FK506 binding protein 51. Although the protein gene relationship was only discovered in 1990, many developments in the understanding of the function of this gene have occured (Sanchez, 1990). In the FKBP5 proteins normal function, it intimately interacts with multiple receptors, but the glucocorticoid receptor is of most relevance to us because it is responsible for upregulation of anti-inflammatory proteins and downregulation of proinflammatory proteins (Menke, et al., 2013). The interaction with proteins is important because many forms of issues that correlate with child abuse seem overlap when there is displacement from these proteins normal expression. The FKBP5 gene is activated to down regulate the expression the glucocorticoid receptor in what is known as a negative feedback loop, which when bound to the glucocorticoid receptor prevents its interaction with glucocorticoids like cortisol (Binder, 2009). Altho ugh the FKBP5 protein has several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that could interact with the expression of the glucocorticoid receptor because of potential changes proteins ability to appropriately function; some SNPs that are tested in many forms rs4713902, rs3800373, rs1360780, rs9470080, rs9296158 and rs3777747 (Collip, et al., 2013; Green, et al., 2015). Polymorphisms and Genotypes of FKBP5 Related to Depression Treatment Before the effects of child abuse on this gene and its effects on behavior can be appropriately determined, it is first important to determine what polymorphisms, if any are attributed to varying regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor. Binder et al. (2004) began the sifting of SNPs by looking for sufficient responsiveness of SNPs of depressed individuals to antidepressant treatment, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and rates of remission beyond points of experimental influence. After an additional initial screening of the FKBP5 gene, consisting of the promoter region and exons, 57 SNPs were used to for analysis, including nine newly discovered genes. Using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale to evaluate the 233 participants, a noteworthy response to the antidepressants and remission was observed in SNPs rs1360780, rs1334894 and rs755658. However, a replication of the analysis of SNPs was conducted to control for a large portion of the gene that was encompassed by a gene linkage band that was found to go 288 kb from the 5 exterior of the gene. The replication resulted in the three polymorphisms, rs4713916, rs1360780 and rs3800373, ultimately were found to have the strongest, sufficient correlation, which are located putative promoter region, intron 2 and 3 untranslated region respectively of the FKBP5 gene. Based on the three SNPs falling into FKBP5 range the study was able to conclude that the substantial association of the responses to treatment was, in fact a result of the FKBP5 gene and not adjacent linked genes. Following the confirmation of these SNPs as notable contributors to treatment reactivity, Binder et al. (2004) then looked to discern whether there was variance in the genotypic expression within any of these polymorphisms. Given the sample of the participants from Bavarian psychiatric hospitals, the only polymorphisms that showed notable expression in the population was the rs1360780. A correlative analysis was then conducted on each of the genotypic expressions of the rs1360780, TT, TC and CC (assuming standard nucleotide pairing). The analysis showed an indicative proportion of the individuals within the rs1360780 polymorphism that experience effects from the antidepressant treatment and remission were those of the homozygous TT genotype. Additionally over the course of their lifetime each individual had more than double the likelihood of experiencing depressive episodes. As a result of the positive results for the varying experiences of those of different genotypes of the rs1360780 SNP, the researchers hypothesized an altered phenotypic expression would be measurable in lymphocytes and plasma cortisol levels. Their hypothesis was accurate on lymphocyte expression with FKBP5 levels being nearly two times the expression in TT versus TC or CC genotypes. However, cortisol levels in the rs1360780 polymorphism found no significant distinguishable representation of plasma cortisol levels. The researchers explain these results by suggesting that these changes in expression may have lead to increased sensitivity of the glucocorticoid receptor due to structure variation in the heterocomplex that interacts with the FKBP5 protein. In later literature it is described that the genotype homologous TT, actually forms a TATA Box complex which is known for its enhancement of the transcription on the rs1360780 polymorphism. It is described that this upregulation could also result in the increased sensitivity that was described here (Klengel et al., 2012). FKBP5 Polymorphisms and Genotypes Related to Child Abuse Following an in depth analysis of the different polymorphisms of the FKBP5 gene that are relatively involved in the regulation of some depressive effects without considering experience; now it is important to consider how these different may polymorphisms may act in conjunction with childhood abuse. Binder et al. (2008) using 900 non-psychiatric clinic patients with significant levels of child abuse and non-child abuse trauma. The level of trauma was determined in individuals by cross-section analysis of the individuals scores using the traumatic events inventory assessment, which importantly describes the majority of non-child abuse trauma occurring in adulthood, and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. This study functionally placed participants into 3 levels for both groups described: none (verbal abusive), 1 type (physical or sexual abuse) and 2 type (physical and sexual abuse). This data was regressionally analyzed to rates of PTSD found in participants that was determined using the PTSD symptom scale (PSS). Lastly and most importantly these individuals were placed categorically based on SNPs expression. These polymorphisms including the three functionally correlated with responsiveness and remission in the previous study (rs4713916, rs1360780, and rs3800373) and five others that spanned a 120 kb range within the FKBP5 gene. The Binder et al (2008) study then does a series of cross-sectional analyses to enlighten the relationships between many of these interplaying factors. Firstly, the comparisons of the non-child abuse and child abuse traumas with the PTSD itself. Non-child abuse and PTSD showed a 5 fold increase when comparing the PSS scores from the individuals that experience the low to high levels of trauma. While the child abuse didnt experience as dramatic an increase in PSS, the scores were significantly higher for each one of the levels. Additionally, the researchers found that when the type 1 and type 2 levels of child abuse and non-child abuse were paired together PSS substantially increased in terms of non-child abuse. This suggests that PTSD symptoms may effectively increase after experience of non-child abuse as a result of having experienced child abuse prior. Immediately this raises the question of whether the functional ability of how that form is changed as result of having childhood abuse. Now the case study looked to investigate the relationship between FKBP5 SNPs and PTSD, including whether child abuse or non-child abuse traumas were mediating factors that could be used as potential predictors of that relationship. Using -log10 to determine main genetic effect, there appeared to be no simple correlation between the FKBP5 polymorphism and PTSD experience within the non-child abuse group. However, in the child abuse trauma group there were three different polymorphisms that showed noteworthy PTSD outcome interaction. Two polymorphisms that were demonstrated in the previous study to show an interaction with depression, rs3800373 and rs1360780, and the third and most crucial rs9296158 found in intron 5, all showed an interrelation with PTSD. These polymorphisms specifically resulted in an additive effect suggesting theyre expression or interaction with the glucocorticoid receptor is directly influenced by trauma experienced in early child development. Additionally, when each of these three polymorphisms were tested for variances in expression based on genotype. Binder et al. (2008) conducted an analysis across the separate genotypes in relation to levels of child trauma for PSS. Each mean PSS increased by a factor of approximately four for the most significant genotypes, although these genotypes were only different from others within the SNP when they were at the highest level of child abuse. This suggests that these genotypically distinguishable polymorphisms may experience a form of stress threshold for early developing children that can lead to proportionally higher PTSD outcomes in adult life. Child Abuse Level Relationship with FKBP5 Methylation To this point there is significant evidence that is connecting the levels of child abuse with multiple polymorphisms that vary in their effects genotypically with stress related disorders; however, as was implied in the last case there seems to be mechanism by which the FKBP5 gene or expression of it that is altered seemingly indefinitely after child abuse trauma experiences. Klengel et al. (2012) is a continuation of the last study through the same lab and looks to determine, whether epigenetic methylation effects on the polymorphisms that have been relevant towards present research could be due to childhood trauma. Since this is a continuation of the previous article, the same forms of collecting participant samples, genotyping and data analysis were conducted. Although, to appropriately to determine methylation of the genome the DNA was bisulfite treated and had pyrosequencing performed. The researchers predicted that child abuse events would lead to demethylation occurring at glucocorticoid response elements (GREs), sequences that directly mediate interaction with the glucocorticoid receptors, in the FKBP5 gene with a high risk genotype. First, the researchers determined by using the Illumina OmniExpress database determined that of the polymorphisms that had already been previously associated that with child abuse effects in PTSD that the rs1360780 was most closely integrated with GREs and was contained in a methylation tagging bin of 192 kb long. Following the determination of the highest risk polymorphism rs1360780, a direct comparison between amount of methylation on the FKBP5 gene GREs of the rs1360780 with both physical and sexual abuse were compared to the individuals that had experienced no form of child abuse. The pyrosequencing showed that of the participants that experienced the high degree of child abuse that the FKBP5 gene GRE demethylation occurred in notably high amounts (5%) on the GREs found in the promoter regions as well as introns 2 and 7. Although when genotypic interaction was assessed with each of the demethylated regions, the researchers found that only the demethylation found in intron 7 was also correlated with the highest risk homozygous alleles and heterozygous risk allele carrier. Determining this correlation, emphasizes the effects of early trauma severity on FKBP5 demethylation in risk allele carriers, but not in protective genotype carriers (Klengel et al. 2012). Klengel et al. (2012) then went on to determine whether the demethylation effects were correlated with the childhood trauma questionnaire scores. They found that not only was there correlation with the individuals that had experienced the highest forms of trauma, but also that there was individual correlations with each categorized form of trauma (physical, emotional, and sexual). Although, the effect size, or the mean total demethylation that occured, of the demethylation events were significant smaller than the individuals that had experience multiple forms of trauma. The researchers concluded as result that demethylation of these portions of the genome was proportional to the amount of childhood trauma experienced. Up to this point in the case study, these researchers have been using DNA samples from peripheral blood cells and wanted to determine whether the methylation effects were transferable to neuronal cells. Dexamethasone, demethylation inducing chemical, was used to treat hippocampal progenitor cells found a considerable overlap in portions of the FKBP5 gene demethylation. The demethylation occurred in all introns as a well as the promoter region. It then suggests that there may strong overlap in how these FKBP5 proteins are expressed as a result of child abuse in cells in the brain and not only the those residing in the blood. Methylation of FKBP5 Relationship with Mental Health Disorders It was determined that the FKBP5 gene is a target of demethylation as a result of a child abuse leading to an overall change in its expression based having polymorphisms of particular high risk. The last thing to discern is whether there are statistical merits for whether the demethylation process contributes to some form of mental health disorder. Bustamante et al. (2018) focus on the methylation correlation with major depressive disorder and hypothesized that many of the methylation events that were present in promoter, intron 7 and 2 would be important in determining the depression. 184 participants recruited for this study were selected based on availability of blood sampling for performing the same pyrosequencing that was conducted for the previous study. As it seems to be most consistently representative of the polymorphisms for interacting with child abuse, the rs1360780 was selected to be the mediating methylated gene. The first problem that occurs in this instance is that when the study went to confirm some of the previous percent methylation correlations with level of child abuse from previous studies, Bustamante et al. (2018) found that while the methylation was still different, the methylation was much higher in the high child abuse participants than was expected. In the promoter region, intron 2 and intron 7 the methylation percentages compared to the levels of child abuse in the participants were all much higher than would have been anticipated based on the results of the previous study. Although, there still was present the general association between child abuse level and depression symptom severity (DSS), as well as the genotypic expression of the rs1360780 varying the DSS. While technically the percentages of methylation did see a notable shift between levels of abuse, it potentially brings to question the overall understanding of what controls the base levels of methylation observable w ithin the genome. When the case study followed up these initial analyses with determining if there the methylation percentages acted as significant mediator towards the childhood trauma and the DSS they conducted a regression analysis for each of the GRE linked regions, promoter, intron 2 and intron 7. While of these GRE linked regions were predetermined to have significant correlation with child abuse level, none of these regions were predictors of DSS. The researchers suggest that because of a less significant difference between the mean total methylation percentages that there was far more overlap in data points. Ultimately, the researchers concluded that based on data represented in their research that there was no significant correlation, between methylation and gene expression. Conclusion Based on the evidence provided from a number of resources there is a significant overlap between the FKBP5 gene and a number of health disorders. While PTSD and and major depressive disorder were of the most relevance in this paper, things like suicidality also have a notable increase based on the polymorphic expression of this glucocorticoid receptor mediating gene (Roy et al. 2010). Not only are these genes correlated polymorphically to whether these disorders may be developed in an individual, but based on what was discussed it is also noteworthy, that this gene can actually vary a persons ability to appropriate react to treatment. And even further can FKBP5 polymorphism rs1360780 actually regulates this on the genotypic level of its expression (Binder et al, 2004).

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Logic and Logically Consistent Manner Free Essays

1. What is logic? Is it beneficial for you to think in a logically consistent manner? â€Å"The inherent ability to mentally compare and weigh two or more perceptions and to mentally conclude accurately what is the differences and/or similarities between each perception. † â€Å"Logic is the science or art of exact reasoning, or of pure and formal thoughts, or of the laws according to which the processes of pure thinking should be conducted and formation and application of general notion. We will write a custom essay sample on Logic and Logically Consistent Manner or any similar topic only for you Order Now † Logic is the study of information encoded in the form of logical sentences. 2. What if†¦ if the basic laws of logic such as below is not available to us? a. ) Law of Identity: A is A b. ) Law of excluded middle: A or not A c. ) Law of non-contradiction: A and not A both doesn’t follow. 3. Why symbols are important in the domain of mathematics and in the growth of scientific knowledge? Symbols, in the most fundamental sense of the word, can refer to anything which stands for something else (the signified). There could be a natural relation which immediately suggests the relation between a sign and signified or the relation could be arbitrary and chosen through some convention such as words in a language. Process of symbolization: It is the replacement of something by a symbol for example; one can replace ‘Mass’ by ‘m’, a number by ‘n’. In almost all cases such replacement or naming is conventional and arbitrary. The process of symbolization should not and does not modify or distort that which it stands for. 4. Is communication effective without the logical connectives such as or, and, implies, not, if and only if? 5. Why we treat mathematical truth as certain? Why logic emphasizes on â€Å"tautologies† rather than contradictions? Logic is non-contingent, in the sense that they do not depend on any particular accidental features of the world. Physics and the other empirical sciences investigate the way the world actually is. That no signal can travel faster than the speed of light is depends upon the law of physics. If the laws were different, perhaps this would not have been true. While the principles of logic are derived using reasoning only and their validity does not depends on any contingent features of the world. How to cite Logic and Logically Consistent Manner, Essay examples

Friday, May 1, 2020

A Mothers Biggest Fair Essay Example For Students

A Mothers Biggest Fair Essay One spring afternoon a mother met her greatest fear head-on. Crystal Beck and her three-year-old son Travis were shopping for a new spring and summer wardrobe at a local mall. The mall was very hectic for the middle of the afternoon and to make matters worse Crystal had forgotten her sons stroller at home after taking him for a walk earlier that day. She had told her inquisitive son to say by her side. After visiting a few stores Crystal began to notice that Travis was becoming very anxious. So she made the decision to finish her sons shopping in JC Penney at the far end of the mall, the two made their way to the childrens clothing section located on the third floor. As Crystal searched through the cluttered racks looking for the perfect outfits for her son, still glancing back at Travis who was looking through a bin of stuffed toys. She looked back to the rack for a split second to find the size she needed, and when she looked back up to check on her son he was gone. Crystal began calling his name, waiting for a response, no response ever came. She called again, but louder this time Travis, where are you? With every call for her son her heart began to beat fast and harder inside of her chest. She could feel herself beginning to tremble and shake, her vision became gray and distorted, she then began running though the store call her son and crying uncontrollably. A salesperson stopped her to try to calm her down and find out what had happened. Crystal explained to her still crying and shaking what had happened. The salesperson assured her not to worry, that he would be found. The girl notified security for the store, they brought Crystal to their office and asked for a description of the boy. She told them that he was a three years old boy, with blonde hair and blue eye, and standing 36 inches in height. He was wearing a blue baseball cap, a red long sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and a pair of white Reebok sneakers. When she was done with the description of her son the security officer offered her a glass of water, but she refused it. Her stomach felt as if there was a solid piece of metal lying at the bottom of it. As Crystal sat in the office so many horrible thoughts ran through her head, thoughts that no parent would ever want to imagine might happen to their beloved child. Just then an officer walked into the office with a stone gray look on his face. He asked the officer sitting behind the desk if he could step out into the hall. At that moment Crystal had an overwhelming intuition of fear come over her. She knew that when the officer returned it was not going to be good news. After a short moment, which seemed to her as an eternity the officer  returned into the room. He informed her that a surveillance camera had taken some footage of a man carrying a small child who was kicking and screaming out of the door that fit the description she had given of her son, Travis. Crystal immediately began crying again; she felt herself become nauseous and lightheaded. The officer said Maam, we need you to take a look at the video. Crystal knew that she was the only one, who could positively identify her son, so she agreed to look at what the camera had captured. The officers led her out of the office and down a corridor to the monitoring room. This walk seemed like the longest walk that she had ever had to endure. She took a seat in front of the monitoring television. The officer asked her Are you ready? Crystal could never really be ready for what she was about to see, but she responded with a quiet and unsure Yes. As the tape played out, to her relief the boy in the video was not Travis. She responded with Oh thank God, its not him. Again she began to cry and sob uncontrollably with relief. By this time two-and-a-half hours had gone by since Crystal had last seen her son. She decided that she wasnt doing herself or her son any good just waiting for news. She decided that she was going to help in the search for Travis. After seeing the video she felt that her son was somewhere in that store, and she wanted to be the one to find him. .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 , .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 .postImageUrl , .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 , .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8:hover , .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8:visited , .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8:active { border:0!important; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8:active , .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8 .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u097355a2194ad2554a34ea593f5309c8:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: ADOBE MAGAZINE EssayShe started in the last place she saw her son and followed her mothers intuition. Her intuition led her to the back of the store to the bedding department. With her eyes she scanned the area. A twin-sized bed with Mickey Mouse bedding caught her eye. On that bed she noticed an oddly shaped ball in the middle of it, as her heart began to pound she walked up to the bed and pulled back the covers. To her surprise and delight there lay her blessed child sound asleep unknowingly what was going on around him. Crystal heart immediately filled with joy and relief. She quietly lay down beside her son, holding him in her arms while she sobbed. Fifteen minutes went by when one of the security guard walked by. He immediately saw the two laying in the make-shift bed, standing there in the distance he watch a mother lovingly hold her lost treasure in her arms. He radioed in that the boy had been found and to call off the search and all was back to normal in the store.