Aspectual evaluation of IS in use Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Aspectual evaluation of IS in use - Essay Example Since it is a flash presentation, it can also be put on a website and made available to general public for their interest. Aspectual Evaluation In order to perform aspectual evaluation for this presentation, 4 subjects have been used , which are - My sister, who hate smokers, - My brother, who smokes occasionally, - My father, who is in his 50s and, - My friend, who is a chain smoker Quantitative aspect The presentation provides information to its viewer not only through text but also images and animations. The main screen of the presentation allows user to access 5 different areas which are Story, Facts, Quitting, Gallery and Credits. There is also a Home button which takes the viewer back to the main screen. Upon clicking on Story link, the story of Smokey the smoker is told and Smokey is shown smoking at different places. Upon clicking on the fact button, various facts related to smoking and how it is hazardous to the human body and the environment are shown. The Quitting button s hows information and links which are helpful to those who are considering or are in the process of quitting their smoking habit. The Gallery section present users with information in pictures with some revealing images comparing body condition of smokers and nonsmokers. All the people who were shown this presentation liked it very much. They found it easy to navigation due to simple navigation buttons on the main screen and a clearly visible Home button. My friend and my brother were particularly interested in the Gallery section, as they found the images impressive and with a clear message (University of Salford, UK, 2008). Spatial Aspect As the presentation is in Adobe Flash format, it is not only easy to view but also easy to store. The file size of the presentation is less than 1 MB. It can be easily uploaded to a website using any internet connection available today. The presentation has been kept at a low resolution so it doesn’t take up much screen space. It was equall y enjoyable on my laptop when viewed by my friend and brother, as well as on my TV when I showed it to my sister and father. Kinematic Aspect The presentation allows it viewers to get a significant amount of information related to smoking and its hazardous through a single point, so they do not have to attend different seminars or lectures. Only my sister and father were required to move to my room in order to view the presentation. Both my friend and my brother viewed it on my laptop when I took it to their respective rooms. Physical Aspect This presentation does not have significant physical Aspect. This presentation require negligible amount of energy to view and understand. In order to view the presentation, the viewer does have to double click on the presentation file to launch it. It does not put load on computer screen or any other computer resource apart from taking some computer cycles required to process the image rendering and animation. It only exists as a magnetic patte rn on a metallic platter of a disk drive in a physical world. Biotic/Organic Aspect By viewing the presentations, all four subjects went through different emotions which brought about different biological changes. When viewing Smokey’s animation all four people were really entertained by it , thus changing their feeling to happiness which was evident from their faces. Browsing through Gallery images

Interpreting different cultures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Interpreting different cultures - Essay Example meaning of this statement is that the differences that people living a certain place have makes them unique in their various ways, similar to those living in another place. When people come together they can exchange this ideas, thus learn how to treasure and value each other. According to Louis Dumont, the oneness that has to exist in the different human societies does not often require reducing the diversity to that of unity. The people living in a certain place or culture need to have a common language, which plays an essential role towards passing that culture from one generation to another. One of the things that can be critical towards ensuring the success of the different human cultures is developing an effective understanding of these cultures. This understanding is important since it helps in the preservation of those cultures for other people to learn from them. In this regard, the society needs to created special institutions in which people’s cultural differences can be understood effectively. This paper examines the importance of the differences existing in human cultures focusing on ways of understanding these cultures in the most effective way. It focuses on the views and perspectives provided by Richard Shweder’s and Geertz’s views in their â€Å"Culture Theory† and â€Å"The Interpretation of Culture† respectively. Culture, as an independent term has often been given different meanings. To some people, culture can be described as the appreciation of the different art, food, literature and music among others (Gannon & Rajnandini,  2010). To biologists and other researchers in this field; it simply means a colony of microorganisms and other kinds of bacteria that grow in a special kind of nutrient medium specially kept in a Petri dish in the laboratory. For behavioral scientists and anthropologists, culture is interpreted as the broad range of various learned human actions and other behavioral patterns. In this regard, culture is taken to

Free

Free Will Essay Vilayandur S. Ramachandran came from a distinguished family in Tamil Nadu, India, and was neuroscientist, which is a field of study encompassing the various scientific disciplines dealing with the nervous system. Ramachandrans views on the brain and how it works are discussed in his work â€Å"The New Philosophy†. In his essay he discusses the nature of consciousness, discussing the effects of certain mental states and their influence on the body and the brain. One of his main topics, however, is the Ramachandrans view of free will. He suggest that â€Å"neuroscience intersects with philosophy because the question of free will has been a philosophical problem for hundreds of years and more† (Jacobus 569). He discusses the significance of the brain imaging that shows a â€Å"readiness potential† and what it really means to have a free will. Through his essay, though, it is interesting to point out where religion and Christianity stands on the issue of free will and whether Christians are puppets under Gods command. Ramachandran poses this question about free will: â€Å"Is your brain the real one in charge, making your free will only a post-hoc rationalization; a delusion..?† When a special experiment was underway, it was discovered that when a person was told to move their finger within the next ten minutes at their own free will, their brain would kick in almost a second before the actual willingness to move the finger. This posed the original question stated above and brought on other questions as well. If this person is now shown the screen displaying the signal from the EEG scanner hooked up to your brain, they can then see their free will. They will then have three options: 1) They will experience a sudden lack of will, feeling as though the machine is controlling them, making them feel like a puppet. 2) They will refuse to have their belief of their free will to be altered but instead believe that the machine has some â€Å"paranormal precognition by which it is able to predict your movements accurately† (Ramachandran 559-60). 3) The person will reconfigure the experience in their mind, and cling to their sense of freedom, denying what their eyes have seen as evidence and maintain that â€Å"the sensation of will precedes the machines signal, not vice versa† (Ramachandran 560). The point when the brain would â€Å"kick in† before the movement is called the â€Å"readiness potential†. The â€Å"readiness potential† is what happens when there is a change in the electrical activity of the brain that occurs before the subjects conscious decision to move a muscle (medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com). Ramachandran believes that â€Å"there is an inevitable neural delay before the signal arising in one part of the brain makes its way through the rest of the brain to deliver the messagenatural selection has ensured that the subjective sensation of willing to delay deliberately to coincide not with the onset of the brain commands but with the actual execution of the command by your finger† (Ramachandran 560). Ramachandran is a firm believer in evolution, believing that the events must have some sort of evolutionary purpose. â€Å"On one hand,† he says, â€Å"this experiment shows that free will is false and cannot be causing the brain events because the events kick in a second earlier. But on the other hand, the pause must have some purpose, otherwise why would the delay have evolved† (Ramachandran 560). Though these events have a purpose, evolutionary is not the answer. In Joshua 24:15 it says â€Å"Choose for yourselves this day who you will serve, as for me and my household we will serve the LORD.† God gives mankind a choice to follow Him and so free will is a gift from God as something to be accepted. Humans have the gift of God to reject or take the free gift that He offers. If humans really are descendants of apes, then when did the gift of free will come into the evolutionary chain of todays mankind? John 7:37 says â€Å"Anyone who is thirsty may come to me.† It is an offer. Not a demanding command. Anyone who is thirsty may come to me, shows us that God does not want us to be without his living water and without him, but it is our choice whether we choose to accept Gods free gift of salvation. When studying free will in the Bible and through works of literature like Vilayandur S. Ramachandran, there will always be people on both sides of the argument. Do we have control of our own destinies or are we merely puppets in Gods giant game of the world? My personal beliefs on the subject are as I have stated in this paper: Though God has a control over the destiny of the world and each of our lives, he gives us a chance to make a decision to follow him or to ignore the free gift of his son that he has offered to us. John 3:16 it says: â€Å"For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believed in him would have eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.† Works Cited Jacobus, Lee A. A World Of Ideas. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2008. Print. The Free Dictionary. Medical Dictionary. Online source. http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/readiness+potential Bible. New Living Translation.

Enzyme Kinetics: Lactate Dehydrogenase

Enzyme Kinetics: Lactate Dehydrogenase Question: What scientific question was this part of the practical designed to address? What is the effect of heat stability on two isoforms of the enzyme lactate dehydrogenase (LDH1 and LDH5) after pre-incubation (heat inactivation) of the enzyme samples at different temperatures? Approach: Outline and explain the experimental approach that was used to address the question. In order to determine the effect of the heat inactivation on LDH1 and LDH5, a colorimetric assay was carried out using different reaction mixtures prepared with LDH1 and LDH5. 16 test tubes were prepared each with a specific volume of LDH1 or LDH5. The same concentration of substrate solution containing lactate and NAD+ was added into each of the 16 tubes except for two tubes with the blank solution. Each of the enzyme samples were pre-incubated at 37 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡, 44 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡, 50 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡, 54 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡, 58 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡, 62 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡ and 66 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡. The reaction mixtures had to be mixed, incubated for 37 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡ and allowed to cool. This gives the lactate dehydrogenase enough time to work on the substrates under an optimum temperature. The lactate dehydrogenase catalyzes a reversible reaction by converting lactate and NAD+ to pyruvate, NADH and H+ or from pyruvate to lactate. The overall effect of the enzyme is that it transfers a hydride ion from lactate to NAD+ or from NADH to pyruvate. (Zhadin N et al 2008). The NADH produced in the LDH catalysed reaction has absorption properties (wavelength) that are greater than that of NAD+ which makes it useful for this experiment. When the colour reagent is added to the reaction solutions, NADH was used to form formazon (blue) according to the principle: Lactate + NAD+ → Pyruvate + NADH + H+ NADH + Phenazine methosulphate + H+ → NAD++ Reduced phenazine methosulphate. Reduced phenazine methosulphate + Tetrazolium → Formazan + Phenazine Methosulphate.The extent to which the enzymes have been heat inactivated will be reflected on the intensity of the formazon produced. The formazon was measured at 520nm in the spectrophotometer against the blank solutions for LDH1 and LDH5. The results obtained allowed us to compare how effective the LDH1 and LDH5 is at different pre-incubation temperatures and helps us to study the heat stability of the isoenzymes. Data: In figure 1 the absorbance begins to decline after around 44  °C in both enzyme isoforms. It is evident LDH5 has a higher absorbance than LDH1 at relatively low temperatures, but at 49 °C there is an overlap between the isoenzymes and after this point LDH5 continues to have a lower absorbance reading than LDH1. This shows the enzyme is losing effectiveness at catalysing the conversion reaction at temperatures higher than 44 °C suggesting this may be the enzyme’s optimum temperature at which it is most effective. With LDH1 there is a steady decrease in the enzyme activity of around 20-30% from 44 °C to 58 °C. After 58 °C there is a sharp drop in the effectiveness of the enzyme by around 60%. The decline may be due to the active site of the enzyme being denatured with exposure to the high pre-incubation temperature. The LDH5 begins with an increasing enzyme activity from 37 °C to 44 °C and after 44 °C there is a greater drop in enzyme activity of around 80%. The sharp drop in enzyme activity occurs much quicker in LDH5 than in LDH1 (figure 2), because there is a rapid loss of effectiveness when the temperature is raised above 50 °C. LDH5 also loses function at a lower temperature compared to LDH1; it becomes inefficient at 58 °C, where the curve remains consistent with a very low enzyme activity (0.31-0.62%). In addition, the LDH1 isoform demonstrates half maximal activity at 11.4 °C greater than that of LDH5 illustrating LDH1 is more tolerant to increasing temperatures. The results have shown that LDH5 has low heat stability and becomes inefficient at a lower temperature than LDH1. Discussion/Conclusions: The lactate dehydrogenase is characterised by its isoenzymes that are tetramers. The tetramers are made up of four monomers; H4 (heart) or M4 (muscle). The monomers are formed by a polypeptide chain of amino acids which consists of an active site. When there is lactate and NAD+ present in the solution, the peptide loop in lactate dehydrogenase blocks the access to the binding site after the substrates have bound; this aids the transition state of the reaction. The difference in heat stability between the two isoenzymes in the experiment can be due to the amino acid sequence of M and H subunits. The amino acid composition of M and H subunits consist of the same amino acids, however the difference is that they have varying numbers of each amino acid. LDH1 has a greater composition of valine, aspartic acid and methionine residues in comparison to LDH5 (Goldberg E.1972).The higher the methionine content in LDH1 means there is more sulphur atoms capable of forming strong covalent disulphide bridges, which can be why LDH1 is more heat stable as more energy is required to denature the isozyme compared to LDH5. Heat inactivation of the isoenzymes can affect the protein structure of lactate dehydrogenase. To form the primary structure, the -COOH group of one amino acid combines with the -NH of another to form a peptide bond. Within proteins there are regions that are arranged into alpha helices and beta pleated sheets. The bonds that hold these together are hydrogen bonds between lone pairs of oxygen and a hydrogen atom. The alpha helix is when the polypeptide is in a spiral form allowing more hydrogen bonds to form between the residues. Similarly, the beta pleated sheet consists of polypeptide chains running parallel or anti-parallel to each other. The way the polypeptide chain is arranged allows more hydrogen bonds to be formed. The two secondary structures fold up differently to form a 3D shape. There are various bonds that holds this shape together: ionic interactions between -COOH and -NH2 groups of different amino acids, hydrogen bonds between the side chains, van der Waals forces wher e fluctuating dipole in one of the groups of the amino acid can create a dipole in another which is used to keep the folded structure together, hydrophobic and disulphide bridges. A quaternary structure is formed by interaction of several polypeptide chains/subunits (LDH1 consists of 4 H subunits). In conclusion, the heat inactivation can interfere with the different interactions between the amino acids that make up the protein structures. The heat inactivation has shown to provide enough energy to overcome some of the covalent bonds to denature the enzymes. Since LDH1 is found to have a negative charge it may be associated with many ionic interactions which needs more heat energy is needed to overcome the strong bonds, hence why it takes a greater temperature (66 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡) for LDH1 to lose enzyme activity. The strong bonds holding the LDH1 together means the enzyme is not destroyed at 60 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡ however LDH5 is destroyed which is evident by its inability to function adequately after 55 °Ãƒ Ã‚ ¡. Experiment 2: Question: What scientific question was this part of the practical designed to address? How to study the kinetic parameter of different LDH isoenzymes by finding the Vmax and Km values for LDH1 and LDH5. Approach: Outline and explain the experimental approach that was used to address the question. To study the kinetic parameters of different LDH isoenzymes, the experimental procedure and principles where exactly the same when the reaction mixtures were prepared before. However, the LDH isoenzymes were added to different concentrations of substrate solutions and the temperature was constant. A coloured complex is formed using the mechanism in the previous experiment which produces blue formazon. The absorbance of the formazon was measured using the spectrophotometer; the absorbance measured indicates the enzyme activity. The results from this experiment will help to understand the effect of varying substrate concentration has on the enzyme activity and compare this between the two isoenzymes. To determine the Vmax and Km values more accurately the Lineweaver-Burk-plot is used. Data: Table of results for LDH1 and LDH5 LDH1: LDH5: y = 6.2734x + 0.9242 y = 27.641x + 0.1673 Table of results for Vmax and Km in both isoenzymes. Discussion/Conclusions: As the substrate concentration is increased, the formation of the product will also rise but there is a point at which increasing the substrate concentration any further will become a limiting factor. The concentration at which this occurs is greater than 80mM which may decrease the enzyme activity in both LDH1 and LDH5. Since Km and Vmax is greater in LDH5 indicating the affinity of LDH5 for its substrate is much lower so a greater substrate concentration is needed to reach Vmax. The high Vmax for LDH5 means the saturated lactate dehydrogenase is converting more of the substrates into its products at high substrate concentrations. As a result LDH1 will be a more ideal isoenzyme than LDH5. In this experiment we observed the catalysis of lactate dehydrogenase from lactate to pyruvate. The pyruvate produced has the ability to enter the mitochondria, where pyruvate dehydrogenase links the glycolysis metabolic reaction to the citric acid cycle. In a process of pyruvate decarboxylation, the pyruvate is converted into acetyl-CoA, which releases energy by converting NAD+ to NADH and H+. Pyruvate has the potential to either enter the mitochondria to become acetyl-CoA or become lactate. The Cori cycle is involved in the conversion of lactate to pyruvate. When lactate is produced in the muscle, it is released into the bloodstream and transported to the liver. In the liver the lactate is first converted to pyruvate by lactate dehydrogenase and pyruvate is converted to glucose through gluconeogeneis. Lactate dehydrogenase becomes activated when there is a high concentration of its substrates, NAD+ and lactate. For instance when the skeletal muscle containing LDH5 have high demands for energy this means the large production of NADH and pyruvate from high substrate levels will not be metabolised by pyruvate dehydrogenase. The LDH5 (M form) is more specialised to convert pyruvate to lactate and ideal for anaerobic activities. Whereas the LDH1 form is more favourable for the conversion of lactate to pyruvate, LDH1 is predominantly found in the heart where there is an aerobic environment. This means despite increasing the substrate concentration, the LDH5 may not become as efficient in converting lactate to pyruvate as LDH1. The results reflect this as LDH1 has a generally greater enzyme activity with an increasing substrate solution compared to LDH5 (see table of results). In conclusion, the results obtained from the analysis of data on excel may not be highly accurate since most of the values have been rounded and it does not take into account any possible practical or human errors. Based on the charge of the two isoenzymes, a gel electrophoresis could have been done to calculate Vmax and Km. Bibliography: Goldberg E. (1972) Amino acid composition and properties of crystalline lactate dehydrogenase X from mouse testes. J. Biol. Chem. 247(7) pp 2046. Zhadin N, Gulotta M and Callender R. (2008) Probing the Role of Dynamics in Hydride Transfer Catalyzed by Lactate Dehydrogenase. Biophysical Journal. 95(4), pp 1975.

Morpheus Preview Edition :: essays research papers

Morpheus Preview Edition (421) Now....more than music: * Search for all types of media - almost anything you can imagine - music, photos, reference files, reports, documents, home movies, videos and more * Communicate via chat rooms and message boards * Share your favorite files (please ... authorized material only, as stated in our Policy Section) * Purchase MP3 audio gear and more * Find the latest news on digital media in "What's New" The Morpheus(tm) Peer-to-Peer Application: faster, better, smarter * Faster searches * Pure peer-to-peer network * Always Open connections to the Network * More simultaneous users for better search results * Self-organizing - any outages at MusicCity will have no effect on the rest of the Network * Fully encrypted to protect privacy, transmissions and unauthorized intrusions * SmartStream(tm) automatically resumes broken content streams by finding another source for the same content and monitoring the network until the requested content stream becomes available * FastStream(tm) increases the download speed of large files through the simultaneous transfer of content from multiple sources * Digital Rights Management - the Morpheus application allows content providers to deploy any legitimate third-party digital rights management technology to protect the copyrights of their digital content distributed through the MusicCity network. What is Morpheus? * A full-featured peer-to-peer file sharing application that allows users to search for all types of digital media. * A direct distribution tool that allows content developers unfettered access to consumers and customers. * A powerful search engine where you can search on metadata such as media type, category, performer, product name and more. Search results are grouped together so the same file will only be displayed once. * Embedded Microsoft media player functionality for audio and video playback.

Ebonics :: essays research papers

Ebonics, which stands for Ebony + Phonics is a new term that Linguistics use to describe Black Dialect or Black English or many of the other names that it has been given for more that 350 years.. has been in the news recently but it is definitely not a new topic. Ebonics is a "language" that is a combination of "proper English" and a combination of African languages. Because of this combination a pattern was formed on how certain words are said such as this and that, would be pronounced dis and dat. In all words the "Th." sound sounded like a "D". There was also another pattern formed such as, no tense indicated in the verb, no "r" sound and no consonant pairs. These are just some of the many patterns that were created when Africans were forced to learn the English language.History states that around 1619, during the slave trade, ships collected slaves not just from one nation but from many nations. Although they were all Africans certain areas spoke different languages. Some Africans spoke Ibo, Yoruba and Hausa. They were then separated from each other and had to travel with people whom the could not understand. Captain William Smith wrote:...There will be no more likelihood of their succeeding in a plot...The slaves then had to learn English so that they could have some form of communication with their masters. Their native language and English would be combined and they would speak African-English pidgin. As the slaves began to learn how to communicate with each other, their words would merge into one common word that they could all understand. This is one of the ways that the language became mixed with English.When the African slaves had children they talked to them in African English pidgin. The slaves taught the children both languages so that they could communicate with the slaveowners and to other slaves. As each generation went on the Africans began to speak better English but there were still word that were never spoken correctly or said in proper form.In Georgia and other southern states there were blacks who were not brought from Africa and quite a few knew how to speak standard English. Around 1858 over 400 slave from Africa were brought straight to Georgia and none of them knew a word of English.(Smitherman) Being that these two groups merged together they adapted each others language whether it was correct or incorrectOn the east coast of America, the Blacks spoke a different degree of

Insect Classifying Arthropods Virtual

Introduction to Biology Name: Julie Maxwell Classifying Arthropods Virtual lab (Week 8) Go to the following website for completion: http://www. mhhe. com/biosci/genbio/virtual_labs/BL_18/BL_18. html Upon completion of the Classifying Arthropods Virtual Lab, please answer the following questions thoroughly using complete sentences and proper grammar and spelling. Data Table | Body Sections(1,2,3, or >3)| Walking Legs (6,8 or >8)| Other Appendages| Antennae(0,2 or 4)| Claws Present? | Jaws Present? Class| Common Name| Specimen 1| | | | | | | | | Specimen 2| | | | | | | | | Specimen 3| | | | | | | | | Specimen 4| | | | | | | | Beach Hopper| Questions: 1. Many species of arachnids are predators, but have no teeth or jaws. How do they obtain nutrients from their prey? They inject venom in the prey that paralyzes them then the predators suck out the nutrients they need. 2. Arthropods are the most diverse group of animals. Describe some characteristics of arthropods that may have cont ributed to their great evolutionary success.The body segmented, the segments usually grouped in two or three rather distinct regions – making them highly mobile. * Paired segmented appendages (from which the phylum gets its name) – making them ambulate & walk easily. * Bilateral symmetry – making them relate to the environment quite easily. * A chitinous exoskeleton, which is periodically shed and renewed as the animal grows – making them resistant to shock of hard objects. * A tubular alimentary canal, with mouth and anus – accounting for good food digestion. The circulatory system an open one, the only blood vessel usually being a tubular structure dorsal to the alimentary canal with lateral openings in the abdominal region – ensures better perfusion and less chances of hemolysis due to their being highly mobile. 3. What are some advantages and disadvantages of having an exoskeleton? Advantages are, the exoskeleton provides a bony plat e of armor for support and protection of the soft internal tissues and organs. Disadvantages; it limits the possible size of the animal.Since the weight of an animal is a function of its volume, a doubling of an animal’s size increases its weight by a factor of 8. 4. Which of the five classes of arthropods is the most diverse? Explain. Insecta or Hexopoda (insects) is the most diverse class. There are about 900,000 known insect species, three times as many as all other animal species together, and thousands of new ones are described each year. They are commonly grouped in 27 to 32 orders, depending upon the classification used. The largest order is that of the beetles (Coleoptera).Next, in order of size, are the moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera); the wasps , ants , and bees (Hymenoptera); and the flies and mosquitoes (Diptera). Other major orders are the true bugs (Hemiptera); the cicadas , aphids , and scale insects (Homoptera); the grasshoppers and crickets (Orthoptera); the cockroaches (Blattodea); and the mantids (Mantodea). 5. For each of the following characteristics, indicate whether the trait is common to Phylum Arthropoda or specific to certain classes of arthropods: wings, chewing mouthparts, jointed appendages, number of legs, segmented bodies, type of respiratory structure, exoskeleton.