READING PRACTICES
http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/exercises/main/reading.html
ABOUT:
Thomas Edison
Reading and Questions
Vocabulary
Sophia Fowler Gallaudet
Reading and Questions
Vocabulary
Douglas Craig
Reading and Questions
Vocabulary
John Lewis Clarke
Reading and Questions
Vocabulary
Angels of Mercy
Reading and Questions
Vocabulary
Erastus Smith
Reading and Questions
Vocabulary
Laurent Clerc
Reading and Questions
Vocabulary
William E. Hoy
Reading and Questions
Vocabulary
Juliette Low
Reading and Questions
Vocabulary
LISTENING PRACTICES
http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals-podcast-english-listening-downloads-archive.htm#P
ABOUT:
Knowledge Management A human resources manager talks about how knowledge management has changed and challenged her organisation.
Leadership Listen to a discussion on what is a good leader taking place during some staff training.
Managing Conflict Listen to some work colleagues trying to resolve a dispute.
Managing diversity Listen to a part of a radio interview with a business management expert talking about the price that some companies have to pay when they fail to address diversity-related risks
jueves, 6 de noviembre de 2008
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCE OR SOCIAL THREAT?
The polemic developed in the essay turns out to be important in the reflection about the technological encompassed world of today and stops in addition to the previous assumptions, a clear and a little fatalistic but real idea: It is not necessary to create such an intelligent machine so that it replaces the human being in his works, especially in a society as the nowadays, based on the skill and the productiveness, on the logic and not on the rationality.
The artificial Intelligence is the aptitude of a machine to think and to act as the man, but for to achieve first this it is necessary to know completely the functioning of the human thought. In the technological ambience the Artificial Intelligence is one of the areas that major cause sense of expectancy, even inside the society in general, because the search to understand the mechanisms of the intelligence has been the philosopher's stone of the work of many scientists many years and continues it being.
But even without having developed completely the artificial intelligence, already there are seen the serious social consequences that it brings with it. The technology and the reflection seem to be very divergent, but in this moment, it is necessary to appear what implications would bring the new inventions in the society and the daily life. Perhaps, the important thing is to save us from us ourselves, if actually there is of that to worry, it performs the scopes of the man and the use that him of to the technology. If they guide by the logic and not for the reason or in his shortcoming by the prejudices, the human beings can become much more dangerous.
Nevertheless, this technological advance can bring serious consequences as the unemployment, the veneration and the subjection on the part of the human being. It is not possible to deny that the artificial Intelligence would bring big advantages for the man; but also it is necessary to be realizing of his negative implications.
It is not necessary to create such an intelligent machine so that it replaces the human being in his works, especially in a society as the of nowadays, based on the skill and the productiveness, on the logic and not on the rationality. With the fact of creating a machine that is similar in our capacities physical, or even better, capable of being perfected according to the needs, it runs the risk of the displacement and the substitution from which one has come speaking.
Before them or these take the power not only in the work but in the routine character, it is necessary to act with intelligence, to think about the consequences and to be allowed to dazzle by these human creations. It is necessary to think the Robotics as the biggest expression of the technology but also as a major perfection of the pure and absolute evil.
Once the artificial intelligence has an intelligence equal or superior that of the man, obligatorily " there will arise a political and social change, in which the IA has all those of gaining if it realizes that he does not need the human beings to colonize the universe ". It sounds to science fiction but at present orbiting the satellites of communications are. In the future, the artificial intelligence that creates replies might do easily with all the human colonies out of the ground, and the human race will never be able to fight in the space it emptied on equal terms.
In brief it even stays some time, while the human thought is stopped comprising, both from the simple thing and from the complex ambience, and takes shape of a machine. But much is not absent, studies here and there they will give in the moment least thought with the point and it will begin the revolution. Only it is necessary to hope that as it usually happens, the man should be a victim of his own invention.
The artificial Intelligence is the aptitude of a machine to think and to act as the man, but for to achieve first this it is necessary to know completely the functioning of the human thought. In the technological ambience the Artificial Intelligence is one of the areas that major cause sense of expectancy, even inside the society in general, because the search to understand the mechanisms of the intelligence has been the philosopher's stone of the work of many scientists many years and continues it being.
But even without having developed completely the artificial intelligence, already there are seen the serious social consequences that it brings with it. The technology and the reflection seem to be very divergent, but in this moment, it is necessary to appear what implications would bring the new inventions in the society and the daily life. Perhaps, the important thing is to save us from us ourselves, if actually there is of that to worry, it performs the scopes of the man and the use that him of to the technology. If they guide by the logic and not for the reason or in his shortcoming by the prejudices, the human beings can become much more dangerous.
Nevertheless, this technological advance can bring serious consequences as the unemployment, the veneration and the subjection on the part of the human being. It is not possible to deny that the artificial Intelligence would bring big advantages for the man; but also it is necessary to be realizing of his negative implications.
It is not necessary to create such an intelligent machine so that it replaces the human being in his works, especially in a society as the of nowadays, based on the skill and the productiveness, on the logic and not on the rationality. With the fact of creating a machine that is similar in our capacities physical, or even better, capable of being perfected according to the needs, it runs the risk of the displacement and the substitution from which one has come speaking.
Before them or these take the power not only in the work but in the routine character, it is necessary to act with intelligence, to think about the consequences and to be allowed to dazzle by these human creations. It is necessary to think the Robotics as the biggest expression of the technology but also as a major perfection of the pure and absolute evil.
Once the artificial intelligence has an intelligence equal or superior that of the man, obligatorily " there will arise a political and social change, in which the IA has all those of gaining if it realizes that he does not need the human beings to colonize the universe ". It sounds to science fiction but at present orbiting the satellites of communications are. In the future, the artificial intelligence that creates replies might do easily with all the human colonies out of the ground, and the human race will never be able to fight in the space it emptied on equal terms.
In brief it even stays some time, while the human thought is stopped comprising, both from the simple thing and from the complex ambience, and takes shape of a machine. But much is not absent, studies here and there they will give in the moment least thought with the point and it will begin the revolution. Only it is necessary to hope that as it usually happens, the man should be a victim of his own invention.
Information taken of: http://www.monografias.com//
ADOLESCENTS CHOOSE FOR PLASTIC SURGERY
The number of 18-year-old adolescents or less who surrender to the plastic surgeries to enhance the size of breast or to get the nose fixed has multiplied in the last years, a tendency that worries the experts. Young people they are obsessed and unsatisfied with their appearance, and they don’t know the risk of practicing a plastic surgery on them. This essay argue show favor and against arguments about this issue.
Till not long ago, the plastic surgery among the adolescents was not going beyond getting the nose fixed or finishing with the acne, anything that many young people were doing in the summer vacation, on having concluded the school and before beginning the university.
But due, among other factors, to the propulsion of series of television as "Extremes Makeover” or " The Swan ", the plastic surgery begins to be perceived as slightly feasible and relatively simple to transform into princess this Cinderella that someone of them take inside. The statistics of the American Association for the Plastic Surgery indicate that the number of young people who chose for operations to enhance the size of breast trebled from 2002 to 2003, when it reached 11.326 interventions.
In addition to television series, there are other reasons to understand why the surgery is more and more popular. We live in a culture that emphasizes the competitiveness and legitimizes the personal progress as a way of extracting advantage. But this is a risky tendency and that worries many experts. Adolescents are per say, cannon meat, since they tend to be obsessed and unsatisfied with their appearance; they are too young and have no criterion to understand the implications of the surgery, especially as for the risks derived from the implants of breast.
Among them find the possibility of ruptures, the need of periodic operations to replace some materials, or the interference with the lactation or the mammographic. That's why, many doctors insist on knowing if young people are really sure that this is what they want.
Definitely some parents want to do everything for his children, from a new music center to a car or a new nose, but this is not the proper way to please their kids. More and more adolescents surrender to this procedure because his parents have happened for it and do not wish his children to inherit the nose from which in his day they resigned.
Many surgeons believe that there are procedures that normally are not adapted for the adolescents. Among them find the liposuctions and the implants of breast. The reduction of breast, nevertheless, can improve substantially the quality of life of the patients, believes this doctor, since in many occasions it is a serious impediment to practice sports activities and can give place to backaches and neck.
As for the surgery in general, the growth is amazing: the number of adolescents that came to this measurement was less than 60.000 in the year 1997 and approximately 225.000 in 2003. The report shows that the most common procedures between adolescents are the treatments against the acne, laser to be waxed, to get ready the nose, operations of ears, reduction of breast, increase of breast, modifications of the chin and liposuctions to eliminate the excess of fat in the body. On the whole in the majority of the cases, it is suitable to remember that to have ' front part ' is very important at the age of 18, but not so much to the 25.
Till not long ago, the plastic surgery among the adolescents was not going beyond getting the nose fixed or finishing with the acne, anything that many young people were doing in the summer vacation, on having concluded the school and before beginning the university.
But due, among other factors, to the propulsion of series of television as "Extremes Makeover” or " The Swan ", the plastic surgery begins to be perceived as slightly feasible and relatively simple to transform into princess this Cinderella that someone of them take inside. The statistics of the American Association for the Plastic Surgery indicate that the number of young people who chose for operations to enhance the size of breast trebled from 2002 to 2003, when it reached 11.326 interventions.
In addition to television series, there are other reasons to understand why the surgery is more and more popular. We live in a culture that emphasizes the competitiveness and legitimizes the personal progress as a way of extracting advantage. But this is a risky tendency and that worries many experts. Adolescents are per say, cannon meat, since they tend to be obsessed and unsatisfied with their appearance; they are too young and have no criterion to understand the implications of the surgery, especially as for the risks derived from the implants of breast.
Among them find the possibility of ruptures, the need of periodic operations to replace some materials, or the interference with the lactation or the mammographic. That's why, many doctors insist on knowing if young people are really sure that this is what they want.
Definitely some parents want to do everything for his children, from a new music center to a car or a new nose, but this is not the proper way to please their kids. More and more adolescents surrender to this procedure because his parents have happened for it and do not wish his children to inherit the nose from which in his day they resigned.
Many surgeons believe that there are procedures that normally are not adapted for the adolescents. Among them find the liposuctions and the implants of breast. The reduction of breast, nevertheless, can improve substantially the quality of life of the patients, believes this doctor, since in many occasions it is a serious impediment to practice sports activities and can give place to backaches and neck.
As for the surgery in general, the growth is amazing: the number of adolescents that came to this measurement was less than 60.000 in the year 1997 and approximately 225.000 in 2003. The report shows that the most common procedures between adolescents are the treatments against the acne, laser to be waxed, to get ready the nose, operations of ears, reduction of breast, increase of breast, modifications of the chin and liposuctions to eliminate the excess of fat in the body. On the whole in the majority of the cases, it is suitable to remember that to have ' front part ' is very important at the age of 18, but not so much to the 25.
lunes, 13 de octubre de 2008
THE EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION
Nowadays the conservation and the care of the environment should be an imperative, but unfortunately it is not for the big majority of the world population. The contamination of the environment is due to itself to an increasing number of accidental disasters or direct or indirectly provoked, such as black tides, spilt uncontrolled of matters pollutants to the sea; accidents in nuclear power plants, fire of oils wells, deforestation, garbage thrown indiscriminately by the people, etc. These disasters contribute to the environmental and atmospheric contamination, in addition to climatic changes and the decrease of the ozone layer.
Among the variety of effects that produces the environmental contamination we will emphasize 3 very important ones.
The first effect is caused by the atmospheric contamination or contamination of the air; it is applied in general to the alterations that have harmful effects on the health of the alive beings and the material elements. The increases in the contamination of the air have united to damage in the pulmonary function and increases in the heart attacks, harming directly persons who endure asthma and other types of pulmonary or cardiac illness. The general quality of the air has improved in last 20 years but the urban zones are still a motive of worry. The elders and the children are especially vulnerable to the effects of the contamination of the air.
The second effect is a consequence of the gas emission of greenhouse effect, which produce the warming of the Earth and the atmospheric layer. In turn this global warming, it provokes the decrease of the polar ices, and consequently the increase of the water levels in the seas, producing that big quantities of ground are absorbed by the waters and million persons are dragged by these currents.
The third and last effect is due to the economic growth or industrialization. Industrialization is synonymous of destruction of the nature (The residues of the factories contaminate the rivers, the fauna and the flora turn out to be affected by the pesticides and insecticides, the petroleum watered accidentally in the seas contaminates the waters and the marine species, the radioactive leakages of the nuclear power plants and the industrial smokes poison the air).
In a word, the man is interfering, contaminating and finishing the planet, so that his quality of predator, practiced from the most remote times of his history, has reached unimaginable levels, which lead to the planet to a situation limit and of high risk. We are still on time of taking conscience and it is necessary to act with urgency at collective and individual level if it is wanted that the Earth keeps on supporting the Humanity.
Information taken of the text: "Programa Ecológico Educativo"
Among the variety of effects that produces the environmental contamination we will emphasize 3 very important ones.
The first effect is caused by the atmospheric contamination or contamination of the air; it is applied in general to the alterations that have harmful effects on the health of the alive beings and the material elements. The increases in the contamination of the air have united to damage in the pulmonary function and increases in the heart attacks, harming directly persons who endure asthma and other types of pulmonary or cardiac illness. The general quality of the air has improved in last 20 years but the urban zones are still a motive of worry. The elders and the children are especially vulnerable to the effects of the contamination of the air.
The second effect is a consequence of the gas emission of greenhouse effect, which produce the warming of the Earth and the atmospheric layer. In turn this global warming, it provokes the decrease of the polar ices, and consequently the increase of the water levels in the seas, producing that big quantities of ground are absorbed by the waters and million persons are dragged by these currents.
The third and last effect is due to the economic growth or industrialization. Industrialization is synonymous of destruction of the nature (The residues of the factories contaminate the rivers, the fauna and the flora turn out to be affected by the pesticides and insecticides, the petroleum watered accidentally in the seas contaminates the waters and the marine species, the radioactive leakages of the nuclear power plants and the industrial smokes poison the air).
In a word, the man is interfering, contaminating and finishing the planet, so that his quality of predator, practiced from the most remote times of his history, has reached unimaginable levels, which lead to the planet to a situation limit and of high risk. We are still on time of taking conscience and it is necessary to act with urgency at collective and individual level if it is wanted that the Earth keeps on supporting the Humanity.
Information taken of the text: "Programa Ecológico Educativo"
sábado, 30 de agosto de 2008
CONTRAST-COMPARE ESSAY
ThE Ec°n°mY'S P!°NeeRs
Through the history there have been many Economics schools such as Classical or Keynesian. Principally we’ll focus in the most important personages of each one respectively. Adam Smith of the Classic School; and John Maynard Keynes of the Keynesian School, instituted it by himself. The first was a pioneering political economist, his work help to create the modern academic discipline of economics, and provided one the best-known rationales for free trade. That’s why and great more reasons, Smith is widely acknowledged as the “Father of economics”. The second personality, John Maynard Keynes was a British economist whose ideas; called Keynesian economics, had a major impact on modern economic and political theory as well as on many governments’ political policies. He is one of the fathers of modern theoretical macroeconomics. To begin, Adam Smith (June 5, 1723 – July 17, 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Smith studied moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow University of Glasgow and Oxford University. In contrast, John Maynard Keynes (5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946) received an education of elite in Eton and Cambridge, being faced towards the economy by council of his teacher, Alfred Marshall. After a brief period being employed at the administrative British service for the India, in 1909 it entered as teacher King's College of Cambridge, where it would teach economy up to his death. He revolutionized economics with his classic book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936).[1] Many economic modern theories have been strongly influenced and based on the ideas and assumptions of these two men, who dedicated his lives to the economic sciences, contributing new conceptions and schemes earlier not established and developing the bases of the economic prevailing system nowadays in many nations. Although they established the bases of what nowadays is the economy, each one focused in different topics. Adam Smith developed the Political Economic, processes of creation and distribution of wealth, the “Invisible Hand” concept and the free market in his book The Wealth Nations (1776). Smith is known for his explanation of how rational self-interest and competition, operating in a social framework depending on adherence to moral obligations, can lead to economic prosperity and well-being. He supports that the State had to abstain from intervening in the economy since if the men were acting freely in the search of his own interest; there was an “invisible hand” that was turning his efforts into benefits for all. On the other hand the essence of the Keynesian theory rests on of that the bourgeois State, in order to preserve and to consolidate the capitalist diet, must take control actively in the economic life and assure high profit to the most important capitalist monopolies. For it, in opinion of Keynes, it is necessary to found and to extend capitalist companies on account of the state budget, it is necessary to give financial help to the monopolies. Keynes understood that the bourgeois State can reduce the lay-off if there is regulated the consumption, the capital investment in the production and the level of the type of interest. The economic conceptions of Keynes appear in the base of the theory of the “guided economy”, theory spread in the capitalist world and that they have incorporated also into his arsenal, the Socialists of right hand and the revisionists. Thanks to the work and dedication of these two men to the economic sciences, the world has today a very organized economy of market, where the offer and the demand interact; furthermore the bases and contributions that supplied not only to the future economists, but also to the political futures, which are unrolled in entire nations across the whole world.
[1] Information took of web site: http://es.wikipedia.org/
video:file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Erika/Mis%20documentos/U%20javeriana
/javeriana%202007%20(1)/tecnicas/video%20paula.html
/javeriana%202007%20(1)/tecnicas/video%20paula.html
[1] Information took of web site: http://es.wikipedia.org/
By Paula A. Rodríguez M.
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)
