Classical Era Essay Example for Free

Classical Era Essay The introduction level of classical civilization in the book World civilizations: The Global experience the author mainly emphasizes on people-society interactions as the main characteristics distinguishing this era. Most of the information discussed by the author on this chapter encompasses cultural, social, economic and political aspects of history (Stearns, 1999). The author considers cultural and social aspects the key factors that contributed to classical civilization. According to Stearns the classical world civilization era was mainly characterized by the integration of regions consisting of people from diverse groups. Thus according to the author classical civilization was a result of political cultural systems overarching (Stearns, 1999). In describing the world civilization during the classical era the author in addition explores historical issues such as intellectual issues and class. From the authors perspectives human agency and inequality during this era played a key role in classical civilization. In this paper other than identifying the characteristics discussed by Stearns that he considers the distinguishing characteristics, I will also develop a personal stand on whether I agree or disagree with his characterization. The author analyses world civilization during the classical era using themes from great civilization of India, the Mediterranean and China regions. According to the author some of the characteristics that can be associated with world civilization during this era include decline of religious power in politics, decline and fall of classical empires, the developed of new world’s religions and increased global connections (Stearns, 1999). This according to the author resulted to emergence of a new phase of world’s history. Expansion and integration the main themes that are associated to classical civilization were as a result of territorial expansion. In addition, according to the author during this period there were some government’s efforts to integrate the people of different regions which resulted to the formation of new territories (Stearns, 1999). In his discussions on Classical civilization Stearns (1999), argues that integration which later contributed to the global civilization during this period was as a result of two factors; promotion of social unity and development of new strategies for governing the new territories. While classical era is mainly considered to have had a huge impact in the Mediterranean, China and India regions, there were also other minor developments in other regions of the world which shared similar characteristics during the classical era. In Northern Europe as a result of need to increase food security new territories were developed which extended to Northern Asia (Stearns, 1999). Thus the theme of integration was evident in other regions as well. In some regions poor governance and need for liberation according to the author promoted integration with states that were already undergoing civilization. The author uses Japan as an example that in order to improve their political structure they had to develop contacts with China resulting to integration. The author uses other examples to show that world civilization shared a common historical course which during the classical period was as a result of social cohesion and integration. According to the author during classical era nomads and other primate societies were only agents of contacts (Stearns, 1999). The author considers these social groups to have slowed the civilization process during this period especially because they posed threat to trade, religion, technology advancement and other factors were considered to promote integration. According to the author in order for the societies he considered to have played role in classical civilization to succeed, they had to battle with nomad and other societies he considers to have created hostile environment for civilization. His argument however contradicts those of other authors who consider these social groups to have promoted classical civilization process mainly by helping to promote trade. While some of there practices inhibited free integration the social groups mainly promoted political integration. In addition, these social groups contributed in the development of cultural characteristics which is considered part of classical civilization heritage in most parts of the world. These cultural characteristics are still part of modern culture several decades after the end of classical period. Other characteristics that the author considers to represent the classical era include sexual value characteristics (Stearns, 1999). Some of civilization characteristics such as sexual beauty and behaviors such as homosexuality have their origin during the classical era. Stearns argues that these civilization characteristics developed as need for social expansion and integration. For instance, as a result of integration new rules were developed on fidelity mainly to lower the dangers of excess sexual exposure. However, the regulation resulted to the development of Confucianism on sexual matters especially toward homosexuality. In addition, as a result of civilization sexuality topics became open discussion a civilization characteristic that is evident up to date. Despite the fact that the distinguishing characteristics that the author uses to describe civilization in classical period are relevant, I do not agree that these were the only characteristics that could be used to describe this era. In his writing the author has used a restrictive perspective which is only able to cover certain societies that were deemed as civilized during this period. His mode of argument limits the possibility of one being able to compare these characteristics using any other society other than the ones he has analyzed-China, India and societies in the Mediterranean region (Lockard, 1995). Thus these characteristics of this era raise more questions on whether the author already had his own perspective of the kind human nature which existed during this period and thus used it to develop these characteristics. The author tends to overlook differences that are attributed to classical civilization such as a result of governance traditions, religion, artistic structure and even everyday life. Arguing that classical civilization was mainly as a result of similarity in the global perspective on governance, religion and technology advancement is incorrect. The author should have provided a different perspective of describing the characteristics that can be used to describe this period especially aspects contributed by societies outside the Eurocentric conception of classical civilization. There are social identities outside the ones described above which also contributed greatly in the classical civilization process. For instance, the nomads played an important role in the development of trade networks which later promoted the civilization integration process. The author mainly uses some of the factors that resulted to society integration thus according to him integration to only depicted a stage of primitiveness in some societies. Rather than viewing some forms of integration such as hunting, gathering and nomads which played a key role during this era’s civilization as means of production he describes it to have marginalized the civilization process during this are. I don’t to agree with his argument because based on other authors production during this historical time had a big impact in the process of civilization. Unlike the author who seemed to marginalize some forms of production such as hunting, nomadism which he considers to have interfered with other aspects that contributed to civilization such as political and economy, I believe these aspects had a big role to play especially in civilization in the production era (Lockard, 1995). The characteristics that author used to describe classical civilization can only be considered to be based on racial aspects. His mode of describing civilization during the classical era tends to overlook contemporary social identities which contributed to classical civilization. The author in order to be able to integrate the two main characteristic for this period into all social groupings should have used the aspect that describes how various groups contributed to civilization during this period as a result of integration and need of expansion. The aspect of having fixed aspects on which social identities resulted to civilization during this era lowers the strength and the positive impact interaction of various societies had in the civilization process. However, most authors argue that the nomads had a key role to play in classical civilization mainly because they catalyzed the invention of new military tactics and materials associated with this era such as the Gunpowder which was developed in China to counter nomad’s threat. The author considered sexuality as another unique characteristic that was used to characterize this era. According to Stearns (1999) during the classical era gender integration played a key role in promoting civilization. Most of the integration by different societies resulted due to intermarriage especially during developed of trading systems. It is during this period that religious institutions such as the Indian system started spreading to other parts of the continent. As a result, most religions started striving to develop a signature identity that would divine them. These religious institutional characteristics are also considered to distinguish the civilization process during the classical era (Lockard, 1995). The author associates some of the society’s characteristics associated with this era to have resulted from integration of sexual values by various social groups. As a result they were a new approach on gender that was established during classical civilization. Some of these approaches which the author considers to characterize civilization during this era include development of an artistic sexual beauty expression, and development of certain sexual behaviors such as homosexuality. Conclusion During the classical era the author of World civilization: Global experience describes integration and expansions as the main distinguishing characteristics for this period. According to the author the need to improve the political structure, economy, technology and even every day life in India, China and the Mediterranean region greatly impacted the civilization process. The author considers some of the social aspects such as development of new sexuality behaviors that are associated with this era to have originated from the actions of people in these regions. Despite the fact I agree with the author on the distinguishing characteristics of this era, I disagree with his arguments mainly because he tends to overlook other social identities such as nomads who played an equal important role in promoting classical civilization especially by acting as the agents of promoting social integration. In addition, their every day activities contributed in the expansion of the social structure resulting in formation of new territories (Lockard, 1995). The author should have also included how some of the contributions by these groups which he considers primitive social identities resulted to classical civilizations. Including other social identities in his discussion would have erased the notion that he had already developed a particular concept about human nature during this period. In addition, the author should have described in details the classical empires collapse which can be considered another characteristic for classical era. References Lockard, C. (1995). Integrating Southeast Asia into a framework of world History: The period before 1500. Vol. 29. Society of History education press. Stearns, P. N. (1999). World Civilizations: The Global Experience Vol. 1. MA: Addison Wesley Longman press.

DNA Molecule :: Biology, The Mitochondrial Cyt B

Haruan Channa striatus is in great demand in the Malaysian domestic fish market. Therefore, detailed knowledge of the genetic diversity and population genetics of Haruan C. striatus are needed for sound management, conservation, stock identification and successful fishing of the species. Haruan, the local name for the snakehead Channa striatus is an obligate freshwater fish of the family Channidae, which has important economic value as food fish, and has pharmacological properties as well as medicinal value (Mat Jais, 1991, 2007a, 2007b; Rahim et al., 2009; Jamaluddin et al., 2011). Haruan C. striatus can be morphologically distinguished based on coloration, meristics and morphometrics (Mat Jais, 1991; Rahim et al., 2009), as well as the distribution of scales on the underside of the lower jaw, and the morphology of the suprabranchial organs and a sharp pointed ridge at the mid-ventral part of isthmus (Vishwanath and Geetakymari, 2009). The wild species found in small rivers, lakes, pools and shallow water bodies where agro-chemicals are applied in their natural habitats can survive in harsh environments with low dissolved oxygen and high ammonia (Rahim et al., 2009; Jamaluddin, 2011). Haruan C. striatus in particular has a diploid chromosome number of 2n = 42, with a karyotype composed of 6 metacentric, 2 acrocentric and 34 telocentric chromosomes, NF=50, without heteromorphic sex chromosomes (Supiwong et al., 2009). The mitochondrial cyt b is one of the most important proteins encoding genes on the heavy strand of the mtDNA molecule, which has been widely used in molecular marker techniques for many applications to access intra- or interspecies genetic diversity, genetic variation, phylogeography, species and hybrid identification, phylogeny in numerous species and genera, population genetic structure, conservation and demographic history (Hsu et al., 2009; Li et al., 2009, Ma et al., 2010; Thangaraj and Lipton, 2010). Due to the potential of Haruan C. striatus previous studies have analyzed the genetics of this species at the morphological, biological, diet, physiological, biochemical composition, ecological and chromosomal level for breeding programs and medical and pharmaceutical activities for anti-microbial, antiinflammatory, cell proliferation, induction of platelet aggregation and anti-nociceptive properties (Mat Jais, 2007b; Rahim et al., 2009; Supiwong et al., 2009; Dahlan-Daud et al., 2010; Jamaluddin et al., 2011). In recent years, preliminary analysis of Haruan C. striatus populations has been examined based on different molecular markers, such as analysis of mitochondrial mtDNA (Abol-Munafi, 2007; Lakra et al., 2010; Jamaluddin et al., 2011), randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD; Ambak et al., 2006) and allozyme markers (Hara et al., 1998). Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) has been proven to be a successful method in studying the population genetic structure and differentiation of many fish, such as skipjack tuna

Art History Essay

I have had to date a career in event and music management. I studied drama at Manchester Met University and then left to work in event and music management. I have had a passion for art since childhood. Over the past three years i have sought to use this enthusiasm to good effect. I focused on discovering new talent and learning about the process of creation and also the curating of exhibitions. This lead to me creating a pop up exhibition for students at Central Saint Martins in a vacant space on the Portland estate in Marylebone. I also worked in collaboration with commercial clients; Art related fashion Installations at The Saint Martin’s lane hotel alongside the Opera Gallery on Bond Street and also in New York for the Morgan’s hotel group. I started up an event management company with two other people. We parted company and i used the quite challenging period after this to rethink my ideas and what i wanted to do with my life. I read around the subject of Art History extensively during this period. I am now assisting my father in his emerging market advisory company. i have persuaded him to consider developing the cultural industries side of the business with a focus on exploring market opportunities in Africa in relation to art. I want to underpin this with increasing my academic and practical knowledge of contemporary art. In the past i have completed number of courses at Central Saint Martin’s school of arts in art politics and also an introduction into curating. In the weekly classes it gave me the basic framework and understanding of contemporary art, artists and museums. Within the curating course you learnt to build ideas on exhibition making and also gain an understanding of historical models of the past that really aided me in my professional collaborations. These courses have motivated me to this point and really cemented the idea of studying in more depth and looking at the business of Art as a career. I am currently attending Morley College and studying a short course in Japanese Prints and French art in the middle ages which are both coming to an end. I looked at the Sotheby’s course in contemporary art and it seems a natural progression from what I have done in the past and will aid to my further studies in the history of art this year and a career in the arts.

Lockheed U-2 Spy Plane

In the years immediately after World War II the US military relied on a variety of converted bombers and similar aircraft to collect strategic reconnaissance. With the rise of the Cold War, it was recognized that these aircraft were extremely vulnerable to Soviet air defense assets and as a result would be of limited use in determining Warsaw Pact intentions. As a result, it was determined that an aircraft capable of flying at 70,000 feet was needed as existing Soviet fighters and surface-to-air missiles were incapable to reaching that altitude. Proceeding under the codename Aquatone, the US Air Force issued contracts to Bell Aircraft, Fairchild, and Martin Aircraft to design a new reconnaissance aircraft capable of meeting their requirements. Learning of this, Lockheed turned to star engineer Clarence Kelly Johnson and asked his team to create a design of their own. Working in their own unit, known as the Skunk Works, Johnsons team produced a design known as the CL-282. This essentially married the fuselage of an earlier design, the F-104 Starfighter, with a large set of sailplane-like wings. Presenting the CL-282 to the USAF, Johnsons design was rejected. Despite this initial failure, the design soon received a reprieve from President Dwight D. Eisenhowers Technological Capabilities Panel. Overseen by James Killian of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and including Edwin Land from Polaroid, this committee was tasked with exploring new intelligence weapons to protect the US from attack. While they initially concluded that satellites were the ideal approach for gathering intelligence, the necessary technology was still several years away. As a result, they decided that new spy plane was needed for the near future. Enlisting the aid of Robert Amory from the Central Intelligence Agency, they visited Lockheed to discuss the design of such an aircraft. Upon meeting with Johnson they were told that such design already existed and had been rejected by the USAF. Shown the CL-282, the group was impressed and recommended to CIA head Allen Dulles that the agency should fund the aircraft. After consulting with Eisenhower, the project moved forward and Lockheed was issued a $22.5 million contract for the aircraft. Design of the U-2 As the project moved forward, the design was re-designated U-2 with the U standing for the deliberately vague utility. Powered by the Pratt Whitney J57 turbojet engine, the U-2 was designed to achieve high altitude flight with a long range. As a result, the airframe was created to be extremely light. This, along with its glider-like characteristics, makes the U-2 a difficult aircraft to fly and one with a high stall speed relative to its maximum speed. Due these issues, the U-2 is difficult to land and requires chase car with another U-2 pilot to help talk the aircraft down. In effort to save weight, Johnson originally designed the U-2 to take off from a dolly and land on a skid. This approach was later dropped in favor of landing gear in a bicycle configuration with wheels located behind the cockpit and engine. To maintain balance during takeoff, auxiliary wheels known as pogos are installed under each wing. These drop away as the aircraft leaves the runway. Due to the U-2s operational altitude, pilots wear the equivalent of a spacesuit to maintain proper oxygen and pressure levels. Early U-2s carried a variety of sensors in the nose as well as cameras in a bay aft of the cockpit. U-2: Operation History The U-2 first flew on August 1, 1955 with Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier at the controls. Testing continued and by spring 1956 the aircraft was ready for service. Reserving authorization for overflights of the Soviet Union, Eisenhower worked to reach an agreement with Nikita Khrushchev regarding aerial inspections. When this failed, he authorized the first U-2 missions that summer. Largely flying from Adana Air Base (renamed Incirlik AB on 28 February 1958) in Turkey, U-2s flown by CIA pilots entered Soviet airspace and collected invaluable intelligence. Though Soviet radar was able to track the overflights, neither their interceptors nor missiles could reach the U-2 at 70,000 ft. The success of the U-2 led the CIA and US military to press the White House for additional missions. Though Khrushchev protested the flights, he was unable to prove that the aircraft were American. Proceeding in complete secrecy, flights continued from Incirlik and forward bases in Pakistan for the next four years. On May 1, 1960, the U-2 was thrust into the public spotlight when one flown by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Sverdlovsk by a surface-to-air missile. Captured, Powers became the center of the resulting U-2 Incident which embarrassed Eisenhower and effectively ended a summit meeting in Paris. The incident led to an acceleration of spy satellite technology. Remaining a key strategic asset, U-2 overflights of Cuba in 1962 provided the photographic evidence that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the crisis, a U-2 flown by Major Rudolf Anderson, Jr. was shot down by Cuban air defenses. As surface-to-air missile technology improved, efforts were made to improve the aircraft and reduce its radar cross-section. This proved unsuccessful and work began on a new aircraft for conducting overflights of the Soviet Union. In the early 1960s, engineers also worked to develop aircraft carrier-capable variants (U-2G) to extend its range and flexibility. During the Vietnam War, U-2s were used for high-altitude reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam and flew from bases in South Vietnam and Thailand. In 1967, the aircraft was dramatically improved with the introduction of the U-2R. Approximately 40% larger than the original, the U-2R featured underwing pods and an improved range. This was joined in 1981 by a tactical reconnaissance version designated TR-1A. The introduction of this model re-started production of the aircraft to meet the USAFs needs. In the early 1990s, the U-2R fleet was upgraded to the U-2S standard which included improved engines. The U-2 has also seen service in a non-military role with NASA as the ER-2 research aircraft. Despite its advanced age, the U-2 remains in service due to its ability to perform direct flights to reconnaissance targets on short notice. Though there were efforts to retire the aircraft in 2006, it avoided this fate due to the lack of an aircraft with similar capabilities. In 2009, the USAF announced that it intended to retain the U-2 through 2014 while working to develop the unmanned RQ-4 Global Hawk as a replacement. Lockheed U-2S General Specifications Length:  63 ft.Wingspan:  103 ft.Height:  16 ft.Wing Area:  1,000 sq. ft.Empty Weight:  14,300 lbs.Loaded Weight:  40,000 lbs.Crew:  1 Lockheed U-2S Performance Specifications Power Plant:  1 Ãâ€" General Electric F118-101 turbofanRange:  6,405 milesMax Speed:  500 mphCeiling:  70,000 ft. Selected Sources FAS: U-2The CIA the U-2 Program: 1954-1974