The importance of the achievements of Mesopotamian Society Essay Example for Free

The importance of the achievements of Mesopotamian Society Essay Through the development of writing, mathematics, metalworking, detailed law codes, and the wheel, Mesopotamians have shown their ingenuity with many different achievements. The world as we know it could not survive without writing. I am writing right now in order to do this paper, and the economy and so much of our lives is dependent on writing. Although it goes hand-in-hand with writing, mathematics is also a very important achievement of the Mesopotamians. Mesopotamians based their math system on sixty, but it is just as important and influential regardless. Metal work is another great achievement of the Mesopotamians; it improved warfare, made better tools, and is very important in life today also. Law codes, although mostly used as a guideline, helped to keep the peace and gave a true sense of authority and respect for the king. The wheel was one of the most influential inventions of all time, despite its simplistic origins as a potters wheel and then later a solid way of pulling a cart easier. Writing is by far the most important achievement of Mesopotamian society. Developing from writing on clay envelopes as a way of keeping business records, writing was first used as a counting method. Later on, Sumerians, who were the first to develop a writing system, realized that it would be easier to simply write these notes on clay rather than on the round envelope. The writing system that began to emerge is called Cuneiform and pushing a reed into a clay tablet produced these Cuneiform symbols. However, before the Cuneiform we know today developed, pictograms were used to represent several different sounds or words. These pictograms gradually became more abstract over time, and developed into a system of triangular shapes and lines. Writing promoted a persons social status, if you knew how to read and write you were someone. The choicest profession in Mesopotamia was to be a scribe, as almost no common people knew how to write, and even kings usually did not know how to write. With writing and the writing profession, schools began to develop to teach their pupils to become scribes. Most scribes worked either for the government or worked as the town scribe. Writing is extremely important today. It has been used in as simplistic things such as writing journals, to much bigger things, such as declaring independence from a mother country. The clearest way of describing the importance of writing is to show that definable history begins with the  development of writing. Mathematics, used mainly for business transactions, arguably changed the world as much as writing did. The Sumerians were also the peoples to develop mathematics. Their math system was based on the number sixty, and this is where we get the sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour. This system of mathematics allowed the peoples of Mesopotamia to do everyday things such as the area of a room or how old a person was. The Sumerian system greatly improved trade, especially while using the barter system. It allowed Mesopotamians to put a value on goods so that it was possible to know the difference between the value of a sheep and a bag of grain, or the difference between the value of a pound of bronze and a pound of clay. The development of mathematics lead to great advancements in architecture as well. Planning and executing the construction of a building required a great deal of math in order to calculate wall size, shape, angle, etc. Today, mathematics is also very important. Students spend years studying the different methods of math to be able to apply it to their everyday lives. Math and numbers are used everywhere everyday from telling someone your phone number to calculating your percent profit at the end of a busy week. Another important advancement of Mesopotamians is their work with metals. Mesopotamians began to branch out from stone tools and use metals such as copper and bronze. This branching out and grasping a new material lead to widespread specialization of work. Blacksmithing became a known occupation, and allowed for the mass producing of metal weaponry (In the ancient near eastern sense). Metal weaponry became the basis for whether or not you would win the war. If you were still using wooden weapons, a city-state that had copper weaponry could wipe you out or defeat you fairly quickly. The same would be true if you were a city-state that was using copper weapons and an enemy using bronze weapons attacked you. The enemy would either destroy or capture your city-state with a fair amount of ease. Metalworkings and trading were not only important to the daily lives of Mesopotamians for tools and such, but for more than a thousand years they were the definitive factor in warfare. With the development for such weaponry, governments had to institute law codes to help to keep the control and the peace amongst their city-state or empire. The most famous of these law codes, though not the only one found, is the Law Code of Hammurabi, the ruler of Babylonia from about 1792 B.C.E to about 1750 B.C.E. This law code has hundreds of laws dealing with simple matters of contracts and other ordinary functions to laws regarding thievery, murder, and mal practice. Hammurabis code, although used as mainly a guideline for Babylonian judges, was presented to the people of Babylonia as a direct command from the Gods indicating that these were the proper behaviors. This caused the peoples to want to follow the laws even more, because they believed that the Gods would curse them if they did not obey. These punishments, however, had different punishments for different classes, showing the different levels of respect that the government had for its people. Most of these laws, however, dealt with criminals in a very strict, eye-for-an-eye, vengeful manner. Law is very important today because it continues to try and keep the peace on the streets and in our country by making people realize that there are consequences to their actions. This is a great achievement for Mesopotamians because it shows their realization that there must be order in the kingdom for the kingdom to survive, and that there also needs to be obedience and distribution of work for a kingdom to advance in status. The wheel is also one of the greatest achievements of Mesopotamians, because it allowed for faster travel, more efficient warfare, and also lead to thousands upon thousands of inventions in the future. The wheel began as part of a potters wheel for making pots, and then gradually the idea began to emerge to use a rolling something, the wheel, for easier ways to pull something in a cart. Before, sleds were used to drag stuff along, but this method was very tedious and slow because it created a lot of friction against the ground. The wheel was then used as a solid circle attached with an axle to a cart that pulled soldiers to and from places during a battle. A dependable, yet slow moving, donkey-like creature often pulled this cart. The idea for spokes in the wheels did not emerge until later, but it allowed for the cart to become a chariot and be pulled by a horse quickly around battlefields. With the initiation of horse-drawn chariots, warfare improved  by allowing soldiers to fight from their chariots, thus decreasing their chance of injury. The improvements of warfare, and the allowance that the development of the wheel has had on technological advances over time are the reasons that the wheel was such an important achievement of the Mesopotamians. The achievements and firsts of Mesopotamian society are great and numerous. These achievements have paved the way for outstanding advancements in technology that allow us to live the lives we live today and to do the things that we are so accustomed to doing, such as typing this paper using this computer with a spinning hard disk a writing system.

Revealing One’s Personality Online :: Blogs

Revealing One’s Personality Online The Internet has changed the way we communicate. The difference between communication online and communication in â€Å"real life† is that when you are online, people cannot see you, and therefore have no idea who you actually are. So, people often feel a greater sense of freedom and anonymity, which allows them to reveal either who they truly are, or who they want to be. People often reveal their personalities differently online than in real life. The personalities formed in this free environment play an important role online. In â€Å"Psychology of Weblogs,† Grohol states that people use blogs because they enjoy hearing about other people living their lives; they especially enjoy strong or unique personalities. Grohol stated, â€Å"what’s the purposes of the thousands of small, individually-run sites? One word - personality† (Grohol). Communication over the Internet is based on trust. When you hold a conversation with someone online, the person on the other end of the conversation really has no idea if you are who you say you are, and you also have no way of knowing if they are who they say they are. This situation of questionable identity can occur even when you are talking with friends. I am sure many of us have played this game by chatting on someone else’s instant messenger, all the while letting the other person assume we were someone else. The same thing can happen in chat rooms or even on blogs. Bloggers are free to recreate their personality in the virtual community. This situation gives people the perfect opportunity to change the way they portray themselves to others. It is their chance to be someone else. In â€Å"The Good, the Bad, and the Internet,† Globus supports the idea that alternative personalities are used online by stating, â€Å"In cyberspace, looks don’t count. You can also choose to share only the things about yourself that you consider flattering. You can also adopt new behaviors or even a whole new identity.† (Globus) McLaren continues by stating, â€Å"You can’t ever really know if they are who they say they are.† (Globus) After all, 24 percent of teenagers who were questioned about using different Internet communication tools admitted to pretending to be someone else while online (Globus). After all, if you met someone online, would you really want to tell them about your lesser characteristics?

Oracle

How is the IKEA operations design different from that of most furniture retail operations? IKEA is known as one of the world’s largest furniture retailer that focuses highly on cost control, operational process and product development. IKEA differentiates itself from most furniture retailers by offering a wide range of well designed array of home furniture at very attractive prices that remain affordable to a large group of diverse customers. There are some unique features of IKEA as compared to most furniture retail stores (IKEA, 2012) Self – Service’ (minimal service or influence from sales person) Details of all products are made ubiquitous in the showroom thus making sales assistance unnecessary which this in return helps to reduce the hiring cost of labor. Layout of Products (product exposure) Ikea stores are designed in a one-way ‘walk-through layout’ that requires customers to be exposed to the entire products which is unlike from most furnitu re retail stores where by customers may choose to go directly to the section they preferred.Hence, the flow allows increased efficiency from entering the showroom, selecting of products to lastly making payments. Furniture Most of Ikea products are self – assembled products, this helps to reduce the costs of shipping as higher volume of bulk packaging can be done. Unlike most furniture retail stores where free delivery and assembly is given, additional charges apply if fixing of product is required by the customers. Lastly, four dimensions of operations (Volume, Variety, Variation and Visibility) will be used to determine the differences between IKEA operations to that of most furniture retail stores.High Volume – IKEA’s operations are of very large scale, major land space and huge car parks are developed to cater to all customers, everything about the design of IKEA’s operations encourages high volume of throughput as compared to most furniture retail st ores (IKEA, 2012). High Variety of product but Low Variety of service – The variety of products showcase in IKEA is much more than most furniture retail stores, from small items such as kitchen appliances to large items such as tables.However, as far as the variety of service is concerned it is relatively narrow. Most products are self – assembled and there is no sales person to provide any service to the customers, leaving themselves to figure out and make their own decision for the purchase. High Variation on demand – Public holidays and weekends usually attracts more crowded as compared to normal week days, hence result in high variation.However, there will not be any difficulty of getting part-time staff into IKEA during the peak period as the operations in IKEA are well designed. Unlike most retail store which require staff with specific expertise that requires time to hire. Low Visibility – Customer contact is high in certain extend, but overall it is lower than most furniture retail stores considering most of the things are done (‘self-service’) solely by the customers from the start till it reaches the point of payment where it is also a standardized process by IKEA.This ultimately reduces the costs of the transaction as far as IKEA is concerned. What do you think might be the major problems in running an operation like IKEA? Having such huge variety and high volume of product being transacted, it may be tough for them to manage the inventory for all items. Shipping of high volume bulk items may take time and IKEA may face stock-out period, hence their operations planning has to be done and calculated accurately.As all sales are done on ‘self-serviced’ manner, it may not create a great shopping experience as compared to most retail stores where sales person are able to cater a more specific and unique first-hand experience to all customers to create loyalty. Lastly, IKEA being the largest furniture retailer require a lot of natural material such as wood, which may harm the global environment (IKEA, 2012). Reference IKEA (2012) Our Vision and Business Idea. Available at: http://www. ikea. com/ms/en_SG/about_ikea/the_ikea_way/our_business_idea/index. html (Accessed 29 January 2013)

Functions with the T-Distribution in Excel

Microsoft’s Excel is useful in performing basic calculations in statistics. Sometimes it is helpful to know all of the functions that are available to work with a particular topic. Here we will consider the functions in Excel that are related to the Student’s t-distribution. In addition to doing direct calculations with the t-distribution, Excel can also calculate confidence intervals and perform hypothesis tests. Functions Concerning the T-Distribution There are several functions in Excel that work directly with the t-distribution. Given a value along the t-distribution, the following functions all return the proportion of the distribution that is in the specified tail. A proportion in the tail can also be interpreted as a probability. These tail probabilities can be used for p-values in hypothesis tests. The T.DIST function returns the left tail of Student’s t-distribution. This function can also be used to obtain the y-value for any point along the density curve.The T.DIST.RT function returns the right tail of Student’s t-distribution.The T.DIST.2T function returns both tails of Student’s t-distribution. These functions all have similar arguments. These arguments are, in order: The value x, which denotes where along the x axis we are along the distributionThe number of degrees of freedom.The T.DIST function has a third argument , which allows us to choose between a cumulative distribution (by entering a 1) or not (by entering a 0). If we enter a 1, then this function will return a p-value. If we enter a 0 then this function will return the y-value of the density curve for the given x. Inverse Functions All of the functions T.DIST, T.DIST.RT and T.DIST.2T share a common property. We see how all of these functions start with a value along the t-distribution and then return a proportion. There are occasions when we would like to reverse this process. We start with a proportion and wish to know the value of t that corresponds to this proportion. In this case we use the appropriate inverse function in Excel. The function T.INV returns the left tailed inverse of Student’s T-distribution.The function T.INV.2T returns the two tailed inverse of Student’s T-distribution. There are two arguments for each of these functions. The first is the probability or proportion of the distribution. The second is the number of degrees of freedom for the particular distribution that we are curious about. Example of T.INV We will see an example of both the T.INV and the T.INV.2T functions. Suppose we are working with a t-distribution with 12 degrees of freedom. If we want to know the point along the distribution that accounts for 10% of the area under the curve to the left of this point, then we enter T.INV(0.1,12) into an empty cell. Excel returns the value -1.356. If instead we use the T.INV.2T function, we see that entering T.INV.2T(0.1,12) will return the value 1.782. This means that 10% of the area under the graph of the distribution function is to the left of -1.782 and to the right of 1.782. In general, by the symmetry of the t-distribution, for a probability P and degrees of freedom d we have T.INV.2T(P, d) ABS(T.INV(P/2,d), where ABS is the absolute value function in Excel. Confidence Intervals One of the topics on inferential statistics involves estimation of a population parameter. This estimate takes the form of a confidence interval. For example the estimate of a population mean is a sample mean. The estimate also possesses a margin of error, which Excel will calculate. For this margin of error we must use the CONFIDENCE.T function. Excel’s documentation says that the function CONFIDENCE.T is said to return the confidence interval using Student’s t-distribution. This function does return the margin of error. The arguments for this function are, in the order that they must be entered: Alpha – this is the level of significance. Alpha is also 1 – C, where C denotes the confidence level. For example, if we want 95% confidence, then we must enter 0.05 for alpha.Standard deviation – this is the sample standard deviation from our data set.Sample size. The formula that Excel uses for this calculation is: M t*s/ √n Here M is for margin, t* is the critical value that corresponds to the level of confidence, s is the sample standard deviation and n is the sample size. Example of Confidence Interval Suppose that we have a simple random sample of 16 cookies and we weigh them. We find that their mean weight is 3 grams with a standard deviation of 0.25 grams. What is a 90% confidence interval for the mean weight of all cookies of this brand? Here we simply type the following into an empty cell: CONFIDENCE.T(0.1,0.25,16) Excel returns 0.109565647. This is the margin of error. We subtract and also add this to our sample mean, and so our confidence interval is 2.89 grams to 3.11 grams. Tests of Significance Excel will also perform hypothesis tests that are related to the t-distribution. The function T.TEST returns the p-value for several different tests of significance. The arguments for the T.TEST function are: Array 1, which gives the first   set of sample data.Array 2, which gives the second set of sample dataTails, in which we can enter either 1 or 2.Type - 1 denotes a paired t-test, 2 a two-sample test with the same population variance, and 3 a two-sample test with different population variances.