Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan Essay Example for Free

Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan Essay Why Did The Soviet Union Invade Afghanistan In 1979? YourFirstName YourLastName University title Why Did the Soviet Union Invade Afghanistan in 1979? The Afghanistan cold war leading up to a decade invasion of the country by the Soviet Union is a quite a debatable event. This paper will seek to provide answers to many unanswered question such as the rationale used in recommending the Soviet Unions military involvement in Afghanistans internal political wrangles, the presumed benefits as a result of this invasion, as well as the fact that other alternatives than military action were not given enough consideration. Afghanistan as more peaceful under its leadership style of a King as the head of state supported by the Prime Minister, but things started going sour during the reign of King Mohammed Zahir Shah and his cousin Prime Minister Mohammad Daoud Khan (Daryl, 2010). There was a misunderstanding between those directly in power and those indirectly in power. The political party in power at that time which was based on Marxism ideologies, Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistans (PDPA), was faced with internal bickering among its leaders. This eventually lead to a division in the party into two rivaling factions, with one faction calling itself Khalq under the eadership of Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin while the second faction was lead by Babrak Karmal and Najibulallan and reterred to itselt as Flag which in Islamic is Parcham. The actions of the Soviet Union were thought, by the initiators, to be supported by the people, especially the supporters of Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistans. However, it turned out the opposite was true, in that the people were not happy as evidenced throughout the various demonstrations that were held in the country, especially in Kabul, the capital. The demonstrations continued for quite ome time until the authorities, President Dauods government, felt threatened and started employing unorthodox means to do away with the demonstrations. Repressions were imposed on the supporters of Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistans with some of its key member s such as Mir Khyber being killed. This infuriated the demonstrators and gave them reason to push on with their demands thorough street demonstrations rebuking the Dauods regime. This further gave a more threatened government room to expunge its long arm of the law towards the culprits by arresting them. The peoples power had its way in mid 1978 when President Dauod, together with his family members, was overthrown and executed. This event gave an opportunity to the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistans Masses faction lead by Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin to ascend to power as President and Deputy President of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The period when these events took place is referred to as the Saur Revolution. The internal conflicts inside the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistans intensified between the two splitter faction. One was now in power, the other faction found it difficult to remain relevant as the script was repeated, as was in Dauodss case, here the members of the opposition were forced into exile and some were executed. The new government was supported by the Soviet Union as evidenced in the new reforms introduced which were a replica of the soviet style. Some of the changes introduced were marriage laws and reforms in the land sector, which sparked further controversy given the country was traditionaly Islamic and that a majority of the wealthy class was opposed to the land reforms. This was the genesis of the operation Taraki Out TO. The rebellion was uncontrollable and grew more powerful, hence, instability in government began to arise. In the end, as result of this, followed the demise of President Taraki following a shootout between the government forces and the Rebels in the palace, the presidents official residence. The deputy president took over power thereafter and was also faced with the same challenges (Daryl, 2010). Before turning to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, many questions are lingering than answers. What was the rationale used in recommending the Soviet Unions military involvement in Afghanistans internal political wrangles? What were the presumed benefits as a result of this invasion? Could there have been another alternative other than military that was probably ignored? If yes, then what was the alternative? What were the reasons for not perusing the alternative? Who were the chief architects of the military option? Who authorized the military invasion? And most importantly, why did the union invade Afghanistan? To begin with, Just as a tradition in any superpower, it is mostly likely that the Soviet Union sent its troops into Afghanistan without having exhausted all the other avenues at their disposal. One remains to wonder why did the USSR decide with such speed and in a very short time period, to enter with full orce by dispatching its top notch security men and women, including the Guards Airborne Division and the 40th Army into a country facing internal political challenges. Was this a punishment to Amins government, a communist in the making? Yes, this could be a reaction to Amins interaction with the United States (Galeotti, 2012). The Red Army was all over the place. In one day, as approximated, about fifty thousand Soviet soldiers had taken cover on Afghanistans soil. This was an intervention meant to quell the growing hostility between the government and the pposition and the basis for this was a mere treaty signed allowing the Union to offers military support. Again, the question here is, was the military support sought, and if yes over what? Was this a genuine intervention or was the decision to deploy troops made out of fear for the unknown? It is hard to believe that this was a mere intervention to assist the Afghan regime due to the instance of trying to kill President Amin by poisoning him. It is said the USSR had good relations with Afghanistan as was evident during the forty year reign of King Zahir Shah from 1933 to 1973, four decades uninterrupted. The invader to be is believed to have provided military assistance including training of the Afghan soldiers and issuance of loans, so the fact that the Soviet Union felt invested in the nation is clear. A strong possibility is that the USSR could have felt uneasy with the country shifting allegiance to America, and thus saw a threat to her interests in Afghanistan. After killing Amin it was Karmal Babrak who was installed. This is reason enough to cement the school of thought that the USSR had other hidden agendas in their deployment of the army, outside of suppressing resistance to the government in power. Another reason to believe the existence of a hidden mission in the invasion is that, as traditionally practiced, the commander of the USSR, Brezhnev was conspicuously missing in action as he was thought to be ailing. Those who acted, especially the Troika comprised of Yuri Vladimirovich as the leader of KGB, Fyodorovich Ustinov who was the then Defense Minister, and Andrei Gromkyo who was in charge of the foreign affairs docket, were against the move. Though the trio is believed to have requested the army intervention, leaked government information absolve them of any blame as it is claimed they opposed it. One Andropov is quated to have Sayed, Comrades, I have considered all these issues in depth and arrived at the conclusion that we must consider very very seriously the question of whose cause we will be supporting if we deploy forces into Afghanistan. Therefore I believe that we can suppress a revolution in Afghanistan only with the aid of our bayonet, and that is for us entirely inadmissible. We cannot take such a risk. (Sullivan, 2011). Firstly, one major reason for USSR invasion was the U. S military presence in the Persian Gulf. Although it was as a result of U. Ss diplomats being taken hostage, thus forcing for rescue mission, he impression was made to the Kremlin administration that Washington was positioning itself to take over Afghanistan, hence need to for a quick capture of the country by the Soviet Union arose (Sullivan, 2011). Secondly, the cause for invasion was the vague interpretation of the Iranian political happenings, or revolution, where its leader had been overthrown and subsequently replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini, who was a radical Muslim, a faction the Kremlin government feared to its last tooth. This meant a quick action to avert the religious conflict spreading into Afghanistan, their territory. Thirdly, the Kremlin invaded Kabul due to the belief in the pro socialism Brezhnev doctrines which stated that socialism, once on the verge to take root anywhere, could not fail. Thus Afghanistan was no different. There was need to protect socialism from failing in a friendly nation. This explains the geopolitical angle of the move. Fourthly, there is the treaty of cooperation and good neighborliness between the USSR and Afghanistan, which allowed the Soviet Union to enter the country at a time of war. The invasion resulted in deaths of persons, including the countrys leaders, citizens, and soldiers in huge number. The invasion also resulted in creating more instability, and a decade long war. By USSR invading Kabul, it meant capture of another territory of great importance. A country where socialism would take place and the capture of the water catchment area of Persian Gulf which had been a target of USSR for a long time (Amstatz, 2012). As a result of the invasion the Politburos importance was revealed, in regard to decision making and an individual accountability. Different player have come out to claim they were the ones behind the military invasion, given the head commander at that time was ill. The war caused loss of property and other valuable belongings, for instance, the palace was destroyed and converted into the headquarters of 40th army. This meant a new region had to spend a lot of money in building the presidents residence (Daryl, 2010). The Soviet-Afghan war lead to the rise of the worlds largest group of refugees as scores of people were displaced with other moving into neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran. Another impact was employment opportunity for Soviet citizens, as they were taken into Afghanistan to teach in the new universities and polytechnics hat were built. The construction industry was also boosted. Finally the war had impact on the USSRs military budget. This is because a lot of money was used during the entire period in buying more arsenals as the Soviet Union was alone fighting a combination of US and China supported rebels. There were challenges encountered throughout the ten year period. They included harsh rebellion from the local rebels, the MuhiJiran, who were backed by the US and China. They killed large numbers of Soviet soldiers. Also, the Soviet Army had a hard time penetrating into Afghanistan and selling the policies. Communist ideas did not always sit well with Muslims, whom did not want certain traditions changed. There was also the problem of route location for Soviet forces. The displaced persons found it troublesome moving from one place to the next during that difficult period (Galeotti, 2012). The exact reasons for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan are not clear but several important facts clearly played a role in the decision making that took place. Afghanistan had a long lasting relationship with the USSR and the Soviet Union most likely felt like they were protecting an investment. The regime change that was occurring within the nation may not have been the most popular with the populace but it was a communist party taking the reigns, thus according to the Brezhnev Doctrine could not be allowed to fail. The invasion was also made easier by the existence of a cooperation treaty between the two nations which allowed the Soviet Union to move its troops into the region if Afghanistan required assistance in a war. With major fghting breaking out in regions across the country, this could be easily used by the USSR as an excuse to move into the area and assert the type of regime they approved of.

Natural Language Processing Scope English Language Essay

Natural Language Processing Scope English Language Essay Abstract: The challenging sphere of natural language processing has been a major concern in the field of computer science and artificial intelligence since the late 40s. It encompasses the next strive forward in artificial intelligence to make computers and human interface more flexible and human understandable. Various methods were adopted since its inscription like machine translation, speech recognition, e-teaching, auto tutor etc. Researchers saw it as a likely bridge between human spoken language and computers which used programming languages and binary codes. As mentioned earlier, it is still a challenging task of making a computer to understand human natural language as such. Hence, further enhancements and techniques will foster the demanding yet fruitful and futuristic computational trends. Keywords: NLP Natural Language Processing, Semantic, Syntactic, Lexical, Phonology, MT Machine Translation Introduction: The computational scheme has evolved from basic set of instructions in the form of binary codes to mnemonic instruction codes to programming languages that have prevailed intensively during the later part of twentieth century. Along that evolution came the inspirational research on making the computer understand natural human language and interact with the humans in short applying natural language processing to normal computer usage and beyond. Natural language processing can be defined as a theoretical approach enclosing analysis and manipulation of natural language texts usually spoken by humans. This is done at various levels of linguistic analysis in order to attain a human-like approach to processing of tasks and other problems. It must be noted that NLP is not a single defined standard system but a collection of numerous language processing techniques and methods. Also, in view of facilitating the user and standing true to the name, texts must be of natural language usage and not a set of selected texts that could be used for processing. Because, the later approach would certainly forgo the real meaning of natural language processing. In any NLP system, various levels of linguistic analysis of the text are performed. This is done because humans usually breakup linguistic texts into various levels and then process or understand the language. Human-like approach and processing in the NLP systems are considered as an integral part of AI. The applications of NLP are versatile and are currently being researched and implemented in fields like military science, security systems, virtual reality simulation, medicine and regular computer science and artificial intelligence. The techniques and approaches that have been used or researched so far form the basic platform of NLP. Some of them are based on classification of natural linguistic phonology, morphology, lexical variations, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic levels. Some of the notable works done in this field are: Machine Translation Weaver and Booth (1946) Syntactic Structures Chomsky (1957) Case grammar Fillmore Semantic Networks Quillain Conceptual Dependency Schank Augmented Transition Networks Woods Functional Grammar Kay Also that there have been famous prototypes developed to highlight the impact of particular techniques and principles. They are: ELIZA Weizenbaum SHRDLU Winograd PARRY LUNAR Woods The scope of the article revolves around the evolution of NLP and its implementation in security systems. Methods: Strata of natural language processing: The optimal descriptive way of putting forward the actions that are going on in natural language processing system is through the strata of natural language processing. During the early days of natural language processing, it was held that the different data of natural language processing followed a sequential pattern. But current Psycholinguistic researches have revealed that the system follows rather a synchronic pattern. This is because humans use all of the strata of language processing and they dont follow a sequential pattern. For this reason, in order to achieve high efficiency of NLP system more strata of language processing must be adopted. This stratum deals with the interpretation of speech sounds within and across words. There are three types of rules that are typically used: 1) Phonetic rules for sounds within words 2) Phonemic rules for variations of pronunciation when words are spoken together 3) Prosodic rules for fluctuation in stress and intonation across a sentence. Morphology This strata deal with the componential nature of words, which are composed of morphemes the smallest units of meaning. For example, the word postproduction can be morphologically analyzed into three separate morphemes: the prefix post, the root product and the suffix tion. Since the meaning of each morpheme remains the same across words, humans break down an unknown word into its constituent morphemes in order to understand its meaning. In the same way, an NLP system recognizes the meaning given by each morpheme in order to achieve and interpret meaning. Lexical Both the humans and NLP systems at this stratum, interpret the meaning of individual words. Several types of processing contribute to word-level understanding the first of these being assignment of a single part-of-speech tag to each word. In this processing, words that can function as more than one part-of-speech are assigned the most probable part-of speech tag based on the context in which they occur. Moreover at the lexical stratum, those words that have only one possible sense or meaning can be replaced by a semantic representation of that meaning. The nature of the representation varies according to the semantic theory utilized in the NLP system. One can notice that, a single lexical unit is split into its more basic properties. If there is a set of semantic primitives used across all words, these simplified lexical representations make it possible to unify meaning across words and to produce complex interpretations, much the same as humans do. Syntactic The concept of analysing the sentence by looking into the grammatical composition of a sentence and its dependency is used here. This needs both grammar and a parser. The output achieved here is a representation of the sentence that gives the structural dependency relationships between the words. The efficiency of a parser depends on the different grammars used. Not all NLP applications require a full parse of sentences, therefore the remaining challenges in parsing of prepositional phrase attachment and conjunction scoping no longer stymie those applications for which phrasal and clausal dependencies are sufficient. Syntax conveys meaning in most languages because order and dependency contribute to meaning. For example the two sentences: I smoked a cigarette. and The cigarette smoked me. differ only in terms of syntax, but convey contrasting meanings. Semantic This is the strata at which most people think meaning is determined, however, as we can see in the above defining of the stratum, it is all the levels that contribute to meaning. Semantic processing determines the possible meanings of a sentence by focusing on the interactions among word-level meanings in the sentence. This level of processing can include the semantic disambiguation of words with multiple senses; in an analogous way to how syntactic disambiguation of words that can function as multiple parts-of-speech is accomplished at the syntactic level. Semantic disambiguation permits one and only one sense of polysemous words to be selected and included in the semantic representation of the sentence. For example, amongst other meanings, file as a noun can mean either a folder for storing papers, or a tool to shape ones fingernails, or a line of individuals in a queue. If information from the rest of the sentence were required for the disambiguation, the semantic, not the lexical level, would do the disambiguation. A wide range of methods can be implemented to accomplish the disambiguation, some which require information as to the frequency with which each sense occurs in a particular corpus of interest, or in general usage, some which require consideration of the local context, and others which utilize pragmatic knowledge of the domain of the document. Discourse While syntax and semantics work with sentence-length units, the discourse level of NLP works with units of text longer than a sentence. That is, it does not interpret multisentence texts as just concatenated sentences, each of which can be interpreted singly. Rather, discourse focuses on the properties of the text as a whole that convey meaning by making connections between component sentences. Several types of discourse processing can occur at this level, two of the most common being anaphora resolution and discourse/text structure recognition. Anaphora resolution is the replacing of words such as pronouns, which are semantically vacant, with the appropriate entity to which they refer (30). Discourse/text structure recognition determines the functions of sentences in the text, which, in turn, adds to the meaningful representation of the text. For example, newspaper articles can be deconstructed into discourse components such as: Lead, Main Story, Previous Events, Evaluation, Attributed Quotes, and Expectation. Pragmatic This level is concerned with the purposeful use of language in situations and utilizes context over and above the contents of the text for understanding The goal is to explain how extra meaning is read into texts without actually being encoded in them. This requires much world knowledge, including the understanding of intentions, plans, and goals. Some NLP applications may utilize knowledge bases and inferencing modules. For example, the following two sentences require resolution of the anaphoric term they, but this resolution requires pragmatic or world knowledge. Natural Language processing in textual information retrieval As the reader has probably already deduced, the complexity associated with natural language is especially key when retrieving textual information [Baeza-Yates, 1999] to satisfy a users information needs. This is why in Textual Information Retrieval, NLP techniques are often used [Allan, 2000] both for facilitating descriptions of document content and for presenting the users query, all with the aim of comparing both descriptions and presenting the user the documents that best satisfy their information needs. In other words, a textual information retrieval system carries out the following tasks in response to a users query: Indexing the collection of documents: in this phase, NLP techniques are applied to generate an index containing document descriptions. Normally each document is described through a set of terms that, in theory, best represents its content. When a user formulates a query, the system analyses it, and if necessary, transforms it with the hope of representing the users information needs in the same way as the document content is represented. The system compares the description of each document with that of the query, and presents the user with those documents whose descriptions are closest to the query description. The results are usually listed in order of relevancy, that is, by the level of similarity between the document and query descriptions. C:UsershpDesktopUntitled.bmp The architecture of an information retrieval system As of now there are no NLP techniques that allow us to extract a documents or querys meaning without any mistakes. In fact, the scientific community is divided on the procedure to follow in reaching this goal. In the following section we will explain the functions and peculiarities of the two key approaches to natural language processing: a statistical approach and a linguistic focus. Both proposals differ considerably, even though in practice natural language processing systems use a mixed approach, combining techniques from both focuses. CONCLUSION: Despite the useful universal aspect of programming languages, these languages are still understood only by very few people, unlike the natural languages which are understood by all. The ability to turn natural into programming languages will eventually decrease the gap between very few and all, and open the benefits of computer programming to a larger number of users. In this paper, we showed how current state of-the-art techniques in natural language processing can allow us to devise a system for natural language programming that addresses both the descriptive and procedural programming paradigms. The output of the system consists of automatically generated program skeletons, which were shown to help non-expert programmers in their task of describing algorithms in a programmatic way. As it turns out, advances in natural language processing helped the task of natural language programming. But we believe that natural language processing could also benefit from natural language programming. The process of deriving computer programs starting with a natural language text implies a plethora of sophisticated language processing tools such as syntactic parsers, clause detectors, argument structure identifiers, semantic analyzers, methods for co reference resolution, and so forth which can be effectively put at work and evaluated within the framework of natural language programming. We thus see natural language programming as a potential large scale end-user (or rather, end computer) application of text processing tools, which puts forward challenges for the natural language processing community and could eventually trigger advances in this field.

Impact of foreign aid on the economic growth of Nigeria

Impact of foreign aid on the economic growth of Nigeria Foreign aid can be simply put to be a flow of assistance which can take the form of funds, infrastructure, trade openness from high income countries to low income countries. The debate till date has been centred around the significance of this aid on the economic growth of these countries. To a large extent, several researches have shown a positive impact of foreign aid on the economic growth of LDCs with the exception of a few factors which may affect this positive impact on growth, while some others have shown a negative impact on economic growth of these LDCs. According to Burnside and Dollar (1997), the positive impact of foreign aid on growth in LDCs is subject to the country having good fiscal, monetary and trade policies, thus, the introduction of economic policies into their economic equation. This was included, to see if aid was allocated to these countries in favour of good policies. Durbarry et al (1998) argue that an important limitation of much of this literature is the incompleteness of the underlying growth models, according to them, irrespective of the fact that Burnside and Dollar were among the first to take into account economic policies, they have not been able to examine the impact of aid in general including only aggregate savings and investment variables. Most of these researches have based the framework of their research on the neoclassical growth model such as the Solow growth model and the Ramsey-cass-koopmans growth model which suggests that poor countries should have a high return to capital and a fast growth rate in transition to the steady state ( Burnside and Dollar, 1997). According to Chenery and Strout (1966), in the case of a country seeking a transformation of its existing economy and hoping not to rely on more advanced countries (i.e. foreign aid), such a country must be able to meet the necessary demands for her rapid growth from either her own resources or from her net exports. The case of foreign aid and economic growth has proven to be a continuous learning process, in that, while some studies base their findings on macroeconomic factors such as economic policies, others have recommended the use of human well being factors such as infant mortality, literacy, life expectancy and employment level ( Burnside and Dollar 1997; Fayissa and El-Kaissy 1999). While the results of Durbarry et al (1998) supports the results of Burnside and Dollar (1997) which shows foreign aid to have a positive impact on growth where there is a good macroeconomic policy environment, but with some exceptions which were based on income level, levels of aid allocation and geographical location. According to him, aid has been tested econometrically based on a macro and micro level, the results of some these tests by some researchers show that aid works at the micro level while at the macro level the results as ambiguous ( Durbarry et al, 1998). So far, most research have dwelt on macroeconomic factors as well as physical factors which in their opinions either shows that growth is fostered positively by aid or negatively by aid. One interesting contribution to the subject matter in question is the contribution by Douglas C. Dacy, which looked at foreign aid and economic growth from a totally different point of view, his paper aimed showing the possibility of an aid receiving country having its post-aid growth rate to be lower than it would have been in a situation of not receiving aid under certain conditions. According to Dacy (1975), his paper viewed the subject of foreign aid and economic growth with respect to consumption on the side of the government as well as domestic savings. Contrary to other researches, Dacy in his paper viewed foreign aid as a substitute for domestic savings, saying that there would not be an increase in total savings by the full amount of foreign savings. Thus, LDCs will increase consumption as well as investment if foreign aid is made available. Papanek (1973) in his paper, studied the relationship between aid, savings, foreign investment and growth in thirty-four LDCs for the 1950s and fifty-one LDCs for the 1960s, applying cross-country regression analysis. Treating each of these components as separate explanatory variables, he found out that over a third of GDP growth is explained b y domestic savings and foreign inflows. Also the effect foreign aid has relative to other variables is considerably higher, his results also suggests no inverse relationship between aid and foreign private investment as well as showing a non-correlation between growth and factors such as; exports, education, country size or per capita income. Unlike Chenery and Strouts result which showed that Countrys size and per capita income has a positive relationship with growth, Papaneks result did not show such positive relationship as said earlier. This is because Papaneks work had savings as one of the independent variables and this was seen to be si gnificantly correlated with per capita income. Concluding his paper, Papanek (1973), suggests from his results that foreign aid is distributed disproportionately to LDCs experiencing low savings rates as well as severe balance of payments problems. And that this disproportionate aid has a more positive effect on growth than domestic savings and other sources of foreign inflows. Chenery and Strouts results are criticised by Papanek as not being very stable and also in his results, foreign source of inflows are not disaggregated compared to the results of Papanek. Papanek (1973) and Burnside Dollar (2000) share similar opinions on the allocation of foreign aid to low income countries. As Papanek is of the view that foreign aid is disproportionately distributed to low income countries who are experiencing low savings rate. While Burnside and Dollar is of the view that though this is allocated to low income countries, it is also influenced by population, i.e. aid donors tend to allocate more aid to smaller countries in size within the Low Income Countries, and also there are variables that reflect their own strategies. Generally speaking, from researches done so far, it is evident that foreign aid has a positive relationship (or impact) on economic growth in LDCs. But this could show a different result when the countries are sampled individually, such that, though aid may be positively related to economic growth based on some macroeconomic factors, it may also a negative relationship influenced by some other factors. According to Levy (1988), his paper aimed at showing some level of quantitative evidence on the impact of foreign aid on economic growth. This he showed using a sample of 22 Low Income Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with the exception of a few African countries which to him had their level of development similar to that of middle income countries. Using time series data for his analysis, Levy found two important things; which is a positively significant relationship between aid, investment and economic growth in Africa. The second important finding is that there is a significant contribution by fixed capital formation to the rate of economic growth. Although the exclusion of some African countries which he classified as similar to middle income countries from his analysis seems questionable, Levys contribution to the subject matter is very significant. According to Burnside and Dollar (1997), most researches such as that of Levy (1988) and a few others who made an attempt to measure the impact of aid on domestic savings, investment and growth in developing countries, have had results which faced several econometric difficulties. Taking another close look at the work of Dacy (1975) which questioned the desirability of aid, according to him, even if aid is used in a way that contributes to a decline in the long term growth rate, it will almost always be true that the capital stock income and consumption will be higher at the end of the period of aid, and for a number of years afterward, than it would have been without aid. To this end he agrees with Papanek (1973) view which argues that the inverse relationship shown in most statistical research between domestic savings and foreign aid might be greatly misleading. This view is due to Papaneks objections from his observations from previous studies, thus, Papaneks results which show that there is a positive relationship between aid and economic growth as well as aid having an inverse relationship with domestic savings is largely accepted by Dacy. Durbarry et al (1998) in their paper made reference to the work of Hadjimicheal et al (1995) as being a more advanced piece of research compared to most of the researches before it. This is because of their effort to show the potential secondary effect of foreign aid such as the Dutch Disease as well as other policy related variables that are speculated to have an effect on growth. Ekanayake and chatrna (2010) in their paper, criticised the work of Karras (2006) which concluded that there is a positive statistically significant and permanent impact of foreign aid on economic growth. In which they gave a statistical analysis by per person result as well as the growth rate of real GDP per capita, but in all this, they did not take into consideration the effect of policies. According to the research carried out by Ekanayake and Chatrna (2010), their results showed mixed effects of foreign aid on economic growth in LDCs, their research was carried out using annual data on a group of 85 developing countries cutting across continents. The models that were specified in their work were estimated using panel least squares estimation method. Malik (2008) described the poverty of people in the poorest African Countries to be on the increase despite the many years of development assistance. According to him, there has remained a stagnant or declining real per capita income since the 1960s, thus the disturbing question is why could these countries not break the poverty trap despite receiving large inflows of foreign aid?. This question he sought to answer using the co-integration analysis for six poorest African Countries, the results from this analysis showed the existence of a long run relationship between real GDP, aid and investment as a percentage of GP and trade openness. But showing the effect of foreign aid on growth, the result indicated a long run negative relationship for most of these countries. Easterly (2003) went ahead in his paper to discuss the historical research on the relationship between foreign aid and Economic growth. This he did, citing the work of Burnside and Dollar as being an early research that was widely accepted by the World Bank and economies of the world, and thus, created the platform for further research. According to Easterly (2003), data availability was one of the main limitations to having a conclusive and reasonable literature on the subject matter i.e. foreign aid and economic growth in the 1960s and onwards, as well as the reasonable arguments on the specific factors and ways through which foreign aid can affect growth. In his paper, Easterly (2003) cited the paper by Boone (1996) as being noted for its aim to address the issues of reverse causality through the introduction of political factors that determine aid, and thus, using them as instruments in addressing these problems. He also discussed the paper by Burnside and Dollar (2000) as being well known for addressing the disbelief shown by Boone and also the lack of agreement from previous studies. In another paper by Papanek (1972) titled The Effect of Aid and other Resource Transfers on Savings and Growth in Less Developed Countries, he analysed the recent challenge to past assumptions with respect to aid, savings and growth, where he termed some past literatures as Revisionists. His concern is based on their argument that the contribution to economic growth by foreign aid is little or insignificant, in which a number of factors were taken into consideration to support this claim. He went further to expand their argument saying Aid may ease the lot of the recipient countrys citizens by permitting higher consumption which is considered desirable if the analysts humanitarian instincts outweigh his Calvinist conviction that people should struggle for their economic salvation, but does little for growth (Papanek, 1972). Amongst these, are other literatures done by several researchers in which different methods were implemented such as the Autoregressive Distributed lag (ARDL) model used by Gounder (2001), in which his results showed a positive relationship between foreign aid and economic growth in Fiji. There has been other literatures that have also tried to show this relationship in individual countries, some have found a positive relationship but a long- run negative relationship using the Co-integration and error correction analysis, while others found a co-integration between saving rate, real gross domestic product and aid therefore showing a long-run positive effects (Murty et al, 1994; Nyoni, 1998). Taking a closer look at the problem of causality which Boone tried to address, Dacy (1975) concurs that the issue of causality is a tough knot to tie. He also suggests that the debate on if foreign aid contributes largely to economic growth is one that cannot be fully decided, as there would be a need to take into consideration the response of individuals as well as groups. Such consideration includes checking if these individuals or groups behave in a certain way where there is an increase in aid compared to where there is no aid. From the above literatures and many more, it is obvious that the issue of foreign aid and its impact on economic growth is inconclusive and is also a continuous learning process. Depending on the different types of data and methodology used in previous studies, several results have been achieved; some depict positive and significant relationship while others indicate negative long-run relationships based on different factors. This paper in the next section would be using time series data and applying the Ordinary Least Squares method (OLS) as well as the co-integration method to see what impact foreign aid has on the economic growth of Nigeria. Section 3. Data and Methodology In testing for the impact of foreign aid on the economic growth of Nigeria, I am using annual time series data which has its period from 1960 2009 and which is gotten from World Bank World Development Indicators. Thus, the focus of this analysis is on Nigeria as a developing country and a recipient of aid from advanced countries which are known as donors. Due to the limited availability of data with respect to the proposed variables, the observations are 49 running from 1960-2009. The table below shows the variables that are included in this study as well as the source they were gotten from: Table 1: Variable Unit source Gross Domestic product Growth Rate World Bank Foreign Direct Investment Percentage of GDP World Bank Trade(Openness; exports plus imports as a percentage of GDP Percentage of GDP World Bank Population Growth Per Cent (%) World Bank Net ODA per capita Current US$ World Bank Most of my variables were gotten from the work of Ekanayake and Chatrna (2010), where he used things like investment as proxy for growth rate of capital stock and also population growth as proxy for labour force. This study also uses population growth as a proxy for labour force as well as including trade to represent openness which as shown in the table above is made up of exports plus imports as a percentage of GDP. Net ODA per capita is a proxy for aid alongside Foreign Direct Investment, as earlier said, this study would be adopting the use of Ordinary Least Squares method (OLS) for its analysis. To ensure that the study is academically robust, I will also be employing the use of co-integration tests, to check the long run relationship between Foreign aid and Economic growth in Nigeria.

Is Technology Changing Culture? Essay -- Technology

Do it yourself (DIY) is a term used to describe building, modifying, or repairing of something without the aid of experts or professionals. The phrase "do it yourself" came into common usage in the 1950s in reference to home improvement projects which people might choose to complete independently. In recent years, the term DIY has taken on a broader meaning that covers a wide range of skill sets. DIY is associated with the international alternative rock, punk rock, and indie rock music scenes; indymedia networks, pirate radio stations, and the zine community. In this context, DIY is related to the Arts and Crafts movement, in that it offers an alternative to modern consumer culture's emphasis on relying on others to satisfy needs. The abbreviation DIY is also widely used in the military as a way to teach commanders (hence how from this YouTube videoclip) or other types of units to take responsibility, so that they'd be able to do things themselves just as a preparation for their own future.The dynamic association among culture and technology means that technologies furthermore change the cultures that use them regularly. Presumably, this alteration in culture is better for at least the predictable future, or there would be no motive to use the new technology, that constantly d evelops. However, humans have a tendency to concentrate on the short-term benefits without thinking about the long-term penalties. Whether the failure to foresee how technologies will ‘move’ culture is the outcome of a biological inclination to overlook the long term problems or the inability to comprehend and predict all thinkable consequences is arguable. [1] Sometimes technologies result in cultural modifications that become non-efficient in the long run.... ...e and Technology." Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. . 3. "Â ." Acton Institute. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. . 4. "UnderstandingSociety." : Technology and Culture. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. . 5. "Technological Determinism." Technological Determinism. Web. 17 May 2012. . 6. "Talcott Parsons." Talcott Parsons. Web. 17 May 2012. . "Terra Nova." : Culture vs Technology. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. . "Home." Gapingvoid. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. .

Seeking a Self Satisfying Career Essay -- Teaching Teachers Education

Seeking a Self Satisfying Career Teachers are not normally viewed as being professionals. I do not believe that the teaching profession receives enough respect. I believe that teachers have one of the most important jobs because they have the future of the world in their hands. Before I decided that I wanted to teach, I knew how important being a teacher really is. Some of the most memorable people that have made a difference in my life were teachers. They listened when I had a problem, they taught me how to be a better person and they helped me through many difficult academic subjects. I hope to have a positive impact on the lives of my future students just like the special teachers I had in my own life. In my opinion, this is why the teaching profession is as important as or more important than any other profession. The purpose of an education is to make one self sufficient, responsible and be able to support themselves in the world. I attend college part time and work full time. There are some days that the stress of having so much to do and not enough time to do everything makes me feel like quitting. Then, I remember the goal that I am working toward and it inspires me to continue, because an education is a very important thing to have. The job that I have now is not self satisfying. It does not challenge me to use the knowledge that I have acquired in my classes. Everyday that I am at work, I think to myself â€Å"I will not be here forever†, that if I keep working hard and keep myself motivated to continue on it will be worth it in the end, one day I will be able to teach. When I become a teacher, there are several things I hope to accomplish. The biggest accomplishment is becoming a teach... ... If they work hard and follow their dreams, they can accomplish anything. When I finish at Concord College and receive my degree, I hope to start teaching as soon as possible. I will probably have to do some substitute teaching before I am lucky enough to receive a full time position. After I receive a full time position, I plan to receive a Master’s Degree. If everything goes as I have planned, I will take night classes during the school year and full time during the summer. I know that the more I better myself through school, the more money I will earn. I do not plan of getting rich from teaching that is not the reason I want to teach. I want to be able to live comfortably, but being a teacher is more important that money. People have always told me if I set my mind to something, I can do it. I hope this is true, because I truly hope to become a teacher.

Organizational Effectiveness

Organizational Effectiveness â€Å"Researchers analyzing what CEOs and managers do have pointed to control, innovation, and efficiency as the three most important processes managers use to assess and measure how effective they, and their organizations, are at creating value (L. Galambos, 1988)†. Control is essential over the external and internal environment by knowing what the demand for a business is. A tool to help make these decisions with control is to conduct a trend analysis. An analysis will reveal patterns be it internal or external of an organization.To identify current patterns along with the status of the organization managers are able to determine how to restructure the business in or to produce product or services in the most efficient way possible. This may include adding additional skills, technologies, or current assets to the current workforce anything that will produce the best output of an organization in the most efficient way. An organization must be inno vative when introducing their product or services to the market.This may require management to demand radical changes to the organization by improving or changing processes, advertising, and just acquire the capability to adjust to any environment the organization has to confront be it internal or external. An organization does not need to use the three methods to assess and measure organizations effectiveness it would depend on what needs attention, but it is always good for an organization to know the health of their organization pertaining to the three measures. Table 1 (Jones. , 2010) L-3 communications. Revenue: Over $5 bil. Employees: Over 10,000 Fortune 1000, Fortune 500, Russell 3000 Industry: Aerospace & Defense , Consumer Electronics , Consumer Goods , Manufacturing SIC Codes: 3663 NAICS Codes: 334220 L-3 is a prime contractor in Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C3ISR) systems, aircraft modernization and maintenance, and nati onal security solutions. L-3 is also a leading provider of a broad range of electronic systems used on military and commercial platforms.Our customers include the U. S. Department of Defense and its prime contractors, U. S. Government intelligence agencies, the U. S. Department of Homeland Security, U. S. Department of State, U. S. Department of Justice, allied foreign governments, domestic and foreign commercial customers and select other U. S. federal, state and local government agencies (Company Profile, 2013)†. Currently L-3’s concern is to operate in an efficient manner to maintain and increase their target market.L-3’s similar companies are Raytheon Company, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, and The Boeing Company. They are giants in their field and are companies that are veterans to the profession. With a majority of veteran companies, the challenges are similar with L-3 the continually changing environment. Example: the changing t echnology, changing target markets causes the reluctance of change in the internal cultures of these large companies and L-3 is not immune to this challenge.The best approach to use for L-3 is the metrics that would help improve organizational effectiveness. This is the internal system approach see [ Table 1 (Jones. , 2010) ]. This method includes improving the communication process between the levels of management. Elevate problems in a timely manner to upper management. The internal health of the company is beneficial information ( be it negative or positive) quickens decision-making process which in turn allows the organization to continue with planed processes.One of the main issues to correct is the workforce to shift into using new tools, processes, and just looking at the organizations requirements differently for the organization is changing, nothing is consistent with change. This constant change without training causes decrease in motivation, create conflicts and certainly prevents L-3’s output to its’ market, and in the end a delay in output to the market does disrupts the external environments. Thus, processes need to be re-evaluated and restructured.Replacing the aging tools with current tools results in a streamline and automates processes. â€Å"The Benefits of Process Automation: Improved Efficiency. Many business processes span systems, departments, or even external business partners. Manual effort, poor hand-offs between departments or partners, and the general inability to monitor overall progress results is a significant waste for most processes. Process automation eliminates or significantly reduces these problems with a resultant reduction in labor hours, time span, and increased throughput.Increased Productivity. By automating processes that are currently being implemented manually, individuals can work more efficiently and can take on new or additional workloads. Process automation allows us to rise to the challenge of be ing asked to do more with less. Shorter Cycle Times. Time is money. By automating processes, they are kept moving, hand-offs are facilitated, consistency is assured, and cycle times to complete the process are shortened. Getting the product or service to the end user or to market quicker can result in significant financial benefits.Consistent Process Implementation. Consistency comes from having a documented process that is understood and followed every time. Process automation makes the process easy to understand and enforces adherence to the process steps. This eliminates missed steps often found in manual processes, resulting in consistent, reliable measures that assist in making decisions and implementing process improvements. Corporate Governance and Compliance. Process compliance, regulatory compliance, and corporate governance are ever increasing in importance.Organizations must demonstrate consistency and show that effective controls and business monitors are in place to ens ure processes are sound and will provide financial accountability, visibility, and reduce risk and fraud. Process automation can help your company with compliance issues surrounding regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Combined Code for Corporate Governance, Bilanz Reform, and more. Noncompliance or lack of adequate controls can cost your company big-time.Process automation ensures your processes are followed as they are laid out. Ability to Quickly Implement Change. Another benefit of automated process is that the reliable, consistent information provided can enable you to recognize the need for change or improvement quickly and then be able to make that change and put it into effect in a faster and more controlled manner than you could with a manual process. The ability to change quickly provides an important business advantage. Improved Customer Service andSatisfaction. Customers are much more satisfied when they receive timely, top quality products and services. Process auto mation enables you to build consistency into your products and services, facilitate continuous improvement, and get the product or service to your customer faster. Happy customers are repeat customers. Reduced Costs and Improved Profits. All of the above benefits result in direct bottom-line results of reduced costs, ability to take on more work, and improved profitability.All things any company is seeking (A. Moudry, 2013)†. To establish organizational effectiveness, management L-3 needs to focus on structuring their workforce, internal employee management systems, and the organization and abilities (including the organizational culture) to the plan. This is a crucial point to any strategy and engagement from all involved dictates whether organizational effectiveness, management is a success. References: A. Moudry, J. (2013, March 16). Real Benefits of Automated Processes.Retrieved from NEXTGENPINEW. COM: http://www. nextgenpinews. com/files/Real%20Benefits%20of%20Automated%2 0Processes. pdf Company Profile. (2013, March 14). Retrieved from L-3: http://www. l-3com. com/about-l-3/company-profile. html Jones. , G. R. (2010). The Organization and Its Environment. In G. R. Jones. , Organizational Theory, Design, and Change, Sixth Edition. Prentice Hall. Copyright  © 2010 by Pearson Education, Inc. L. Galambos. (1988). â€Å"What Have CEO’s Been Doing? †. Journal of Economic History, 18, 243–258.

Education in Chinese Philosophy Essay

There were several salient schools of philosophy that arose during early years of the development of Chinese civilization. The era was subject to not only political fragmentation and excessive warfare, but also the birth of unique intellectual foundations as well. Confucius rallied together a school of thought that underscored the utmost importance of humanism and virtue. Han Fei and the legalist movement advocated for a centralized, domineering government that subordinated all citizens to absolute obedience. Taoism insisted on a spontaneous, free-spirited, and laissez-faire approach to life. These three prominent philosophies of the time were very different. For instance, they all placed radically different values on education. In particular, Confucianism promoted intellectual pursuit for both the individual and the populace, whereas Legalism and Taoism had a diverging attitude that was strongly against education. The Confucian ideology is the only one of the aforementioned schools to place a heavy emphasis on intellectual cultivation for both personal purposes and for the sake of a virtuous government. The philosophy looks down on those with faith in intuition and natural understanding, which is a notion that is present in Taoism. They believe that genuine understanding derives primarily from studying a subject; it does not necessarily come to someone spontaneously. Confucius supposedly said, â€Å"By nature men are alike. Through practice they have become far apart† (Analects 17:2, Chan 29). He outlines that men are inherently good for the most part, but interaction with the surrounding environment can significantly mold their values. The influences of external forces are not always for the better and people will often need guidance. Thus, through the practice of education, one can cultivate a strong sense of moral intellect and reinforce virtue. Of the possible areas of study, Confucianism places the most emphasis on morality. One of his most prominent followers, Mencius, frequently underscored the importance of education on the individual level. He stressed that human nature is extremely malleable and that if people are â€Å"comfortably lodged they will become like animals† (Book of Mencius 3A:4, Chan 69). Mencius goes to greater lengths than most Confucians to highlight the detrimental effects of the lack of proper schooling on a person. Without teaching in the realm of ethics and morals, he believes that one will inevitably stoop to the nature of an â€Å"animal†. He saw much more idealized benefits of education than other Confucian thinkers. Xunzi, Mencius’ naturalist counterpart, argued that the intrinsic nature of humans is flawed and â€Å"goodness is the result of activity† (The Hsun Tzu part 3, Chan 128). Even though Xunzi sees humanity as inherently flawed, it is universal in the Confucian philosophy that â€Å"activity†, or education and conscience thought, brings forth the â€Å"goodness† of an individual. However, Confucius believed that â€Å"in education there should be no class distinction† (Analects 15:38, Chan 44). A selection of individuals does not necessarily claim intellectual superiority over the rest of the populace. All people should have equal access to moral and intellectual cultivation. With this mindset, the school aims to create a virtuous society. Although he advocates for the widespread promotion of learned humanism and wisdom, he believes that it begins with the ruler. He insists that as a leader, â€Å"if you desire what is good, the people will be good. The character of a ruler is like wind and that of the people is like grass. In whatever direction the wind blows, the grass always bends† (Analects 12:19, Chan 40). A society will garner the benefits of education through the education of a ruler, as they will â€Å"bend† in whatever direction the leader so chooses to â€Å"blow†. â€Å"Good† nature is maintained through fundamental teachings. If the ruler is â€Å"good† and virtuous with the help of such education, the citizens will adapt and imitate. Thus, in the Confucian school of thought, education becomes an imperative as the nature of the populace essentially rests in it. Conversely, the Legalists took a radical stance against all forms of education for both the individual and the masses. Scholars were considered enemies of the state and almost all forms of literature were targeted for elimination. In their ideal society, there were no books, as only â€Å"the laws serve as teachings† (The Han Fei Tzu, Chan 260). Their motives derived from the notion that educating the populace would consequently lead to the people speaking out against the government. Laws are the only means of subduing citizens. Han Fei believed that there was â€Å"no room for private conceptions of right and wrong† (Ebrey 52). If the people developed their own sense of rationality, they would inevitably voice their opinion, creating weakness and disorder. It is far better for the population to be submissive in order to ensure the efficiency and prosperity of the state. The Legalists retort the Confucian idea that the education cultivates humanity and righteousness by asserting it is impossible to â€Å"expect that every ruler must be equal to Confucius and that all people in the world are equal to his followers† (The Han Fei Tzu, Chan 258). On an individual level, human beings are selfish and shortsighted by nature. Thus, it is impossible to mend the flaws of humanity permanently through education. In their eyes, Confucius is illustrating an unrealistic utopian society. Even with education, only few will reach the enlightened state that Confucius has attained. Moreover, the wisdom of the so-called intellectuals derives from â€Å"unfathomable doctrines that are difficult even for men of highest intelligence to understand† (The Han Fei Tzu, Chan 259). Han Fei asks, if such â€Å"wisdom† is â€Å"difficult† for men of a higher intellectual order to understand, how is it logical that the uneducated masses will be able to decipher and apply the lessons? It will be a wasted effort to try to correct the community through â€Å"doctrines†. The Legalists firmly believe that only a strong obedience to law can correct the behavior of society. Education only leads to a deviance from an orderly government. Furthermore, the school of thought argues, â€Å"when urgent matters have not been accomplished, efforts should not be directed towards things that can wait† (The Han Fei Tzu, Chan 259). When the agriculture, shelter, and safety of the people have not been attended to, there is absolutely no point in educating. The energy should be directed towards satisfying the inherent needs of the populace above all else. Basic needs must be attended to before teaching can occur. Confucianism disagrees with the legalists on almost all fronts when it comes to education. The Legalists share the same anti-education sentiments as the Taoists do, but for different reasons. The Taoist movement was also highly against intellectual development, as they believe it interfered with genuinely experiencing life. They perceived knowledge through experience as much more valuable than something that can be extracted from a lecture or a book. As the Tao Te Ching outlines, â€Å"the wise are not learned, and the learned are not wise† (Tao-Te Ching 20, Chan 149). The â€Å"learned† refer to the educated who essentially take abstract ideas and divide them up, ultimately becoming even more confused and disorganized than they were previously. The â€Å"wise† become so through experiencing life untarnished by such outside influence. The mystical poet Han-Shan compared an intellectual and his knowledge to â€Å"the words of a blind man describing the sun† (Han-Shan, Red Pine poem 283). He accentuates that artificial intelligence gained through books does not align with people’s experience with the world. Learned knowledge hinders a greater understanding and perception of our surroundings. As the Taoist writer Chuang-tse worded it, a scholar â€Å"is restricted by is own learning† (Chuang-tse, 24). A general concept of Taoism is that scholarly intellect only leaves one with a finite sense of understanding. They reach a wall in which analysis is of no further help and the deeper and broader matters of life are not attainable. In a sense, this philosophy is similar to that of the Legalists. They both believe that education hinders the populace, but in different manners. The Legalists believe in interferes with the order of the government and well being of the general population, whereas the Taoists see it as inhibiting understanding on a more individual level. However, in terms of governance from a Taoist perspective, Lao Tzu preaches to â€Å"administer the empire by engaging in no activity† (Tao-Te Ching 57, Chan 166). With respect to education, he is simply saying not to enforce it on the population. They will become prosperous in their own right. Things will appear less disoriented, vicious, and confusing with a laissez-faire style of government that does not force education upon the people. Again, this school of thought is in stark contrast with that of Confucianism. The Taoists are parallel with the Legalists with respect to education, there is just differing motivation behind their rationale. All three schools, Confucianism, Legalism, and Taoism, all possess unique perspective on the relevance of education on both the individual and government level. Perhaps Confucius starkly contrasts with the other two the greatest, as he is the only one to adamantly support teaching. Confucianism firmly believes that education cultivates morality and virtue on the individual level. Also, if an individual (the leader) is humane and virtuous, it will trickle down to the rest of the population and they will follow suit. Thus, education is of the utmost importance, as it is the primary tool used to guide humanity. Both the Legalists and the Taoists are resolutely apposed to education, but with unique motives. Han Fei and his followers believe that learning disrupts the order of society, and thus affecting the welfare of the individual. Taoism argues that learning hinders the individual’s experience of life and ultimately inhibits one from a greater understanding. Therefore, the government should not be involved with educating the general population either, otherwise it will breed mass disorientation and confusion. Education was a controversial issue in the intellectual foundations of Chinese civilization, as all three primary schools of thought had contrasting opinions on it with regards to its affect on the welfare of people.