Nobel Prize History - How the First Nobel Prizes Were Awarded

Nobel Prize History - How the First Nobel Prizes Were Awarded A pacifist at heart and an inventor by nature, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. However, the invention that he thought would end all wars was seen by many others as an extremely deadly product. In 1888, when Alfreds brother Ludvig died, a French newspaper mistakenly ran an obituary for Alfred which called him the merchant of death. Not wanting to go down in history with such a horrible epitaph, Nobel created a will that soon shocked his relatives and established the now famous Nobel Prizes. Who was Alfred Nobel? Why did Nobels will make establishing the prizes so difficult? Alfred Nobel Alfred Nobel was born on October 21, 1833, in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1842, when Alfred was nine years old, his mother (Andrietta Ahlsell) and brothers (Robert and Ludvig) moved to St. Petersburg, Russia to join Alfreds father (Immanuel), who had moved there five years earlier. The following year, Alfreds younger brother, Emil, was born. Immanuel Nobel, an architect, builder, and inventor, opened a machine shop in St. Petersburg and was soon very successful with contracts from the Russian government to build defense weapons. Because of his fathers success, Alfred was tutored at home until the age of 16. Yet, many consider Alfred Nobel a mostly self-educated man. Besides being a trained chemist, Alfred was an avid reader of literature and was fluent in English, German, French, Swedish, and Russian. Alfred also spent two years traveling. He spent much of this time working in a laboratory in Paris but also traveled to the United States. Upon his return, Alfred worked in his fathers factory. He worked there until his father went bankrupt in 1859. Alfred soon began experimenting with nitroglycerine, creating his first explosions in early summer 1862. In only a year (October 1863), Alfred received a Swedish patent for his percussion detonator - the Nobel lighter. Having moved back to Sweden to help his father with an invention, Alfred established a small factory at Helenborg near Stockholm to manufacture nitroglycerine. Unfortunately, nitroglycerine is a very difficult and dangerous material to handle. In 1864, Alfreds factory blew up - killing several people, including Alfreds younger brother, Emil. The explosion did not slow down Alfred, and within only a month, he organized other factories to manufacture nitroglycerine. In 1867, Alfred invented a new and safer-to-handle explosive - dynamite. Though Alfred became famous for his invention of dynamite, many people did not intimately know Alfred Nobel. He was a quiet man who did not like a lot of pretense or show. He had very few friends and never married. And though he recognized the destructive power of dynamite, Alfred believed it was a harbinger of peace. Alfred told Bertha von Suttner, an advocate for world peace, My factories may make an end of war sooner than your congresses. The day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops. * Unfortunately, Alfred did not see peace in his time. Alfred Nobel, chemist and inventor, died alone on December 10, 1896, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. After several funeral services were held and Alfred Nobels body was cremated, the will was opened. Everyone was shocked. The Will Alfred Nobel had written several wills during his lifetime, but the last one was dated November 27, 1895 - a little over a year before he died. Nobels last will left approximately 94 percent of his worth to the establishment of five prizes (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace) to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. Though Nobel had proposed a very grandiose plan for the prizes in his will, there were a great many problems with the will. Relatives of Alfred Nobel were so shocked that many wanted the will contested.The format of the will had formal defects which could have caused the will to be contested in France.It was unclear which country Alfred had his legal residence. He was a Swedish citizen until age nine, but after that he had lived in Russia, France, and Italy without becoming a citizen. Nobel had been making plans for a final home for himself in Sweden when he died. The location of residency would determine what countrys laws would govern the will and the estate. If determined to be France, the will could have been contested and French taxes would have been taken.Because Nobel had wanted the Norwegian Storting (parliament) to choose the peace prize winner, many charged Nobel with a lack of patriotism.The fund that was to implement the prizes did not yet exist and would have to be created.The organizations that Nobel named in his will to award the prizes had not been asked to take on these duties prior to No bels death. Also, there was no plan to compensate these organizations for their work on the prizes. The will did not state what should be done if no prize winners for a year were found. Because of the incompleteness and other obstacles presented by Alfreds will, it took five years of hurdles before the Nobel Foundation could be established and the first prizes awarded. The First Nobel Prizes On the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobels death, December 10, 1901, the first set of Nobel Prizes were awarded. Chemistry: Jacobus H. vant HoffPhysics: Wilhelm C. Rà ¶ntgenPhysiology or Medicine: Emil A. von BehringLiterature: Rene F. A. Sully PrudhommePeace: Jean H. Dunant and Frà ©dà ©ric Passy * As quoted in W. Odelberg (ed.), Nobel: The Man His Prizes (New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company, Inc., 1972) 12. Bibliography Axelrod, Alan and Charles Phillips. What Everyone Should Know About the 20th Century. Holbrook, Massachusetts: Adams Media Corporation, 1998. Odelberg, W. (ed.). Nobel: The Man His Prizes. New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company, Inc., 1972. Official Website of the Nobel Foundation. Retrieved April 20, 2000 from the World Wide Web: nobel.se

Culture differences in business relations (report based on case study) Essay

Culture differences in business relations (report based on case study) - Essay Example Both Africa and China can be categorized as collectivist cultures and hence they tend to depend on groups for decision making. However as compared to China, African culture is highly masculine in terms of behavior. They display typical male attributes such as independence, and values inherent in males such as aggressive goal behavior, material possessions, and assertiveness are given precedence over feminine traits such as social relevance and welfare of others. China on the other hand, has a medium feminity culture and value relationships more, which is perceived by the Africans as a sign of weakness. Both Africa and China differ greatly in terms of their attitudes towards management of conflicts within organizations. Since China is a more feminine cultural attributes, more emphasis is given on relationships and almost all business decisions are centered on maintaining and sustaining cordial business relations. China tends to avoid conflicts and use authority and indirect influence in dealing with conflicts. They tend to avoid bringing problems out in the open and strive to resolve them privately. Africans on the other hand implement a direct approach to resolve conflicts, by using rational methods and communication to arrive at a common consensus or agreement. The various challenges encountered by people from different cultural backgrounds include communication problems, problems in amicable resolution of conflicts, problems in achieving a common consensus due to differences in risk taking abilities and attitudes, etc. These cultural differences inherent in people prevent them from understanding others and at times lead to misinterpretation of the thoughts or ideas being communicated (BÃ ¼hrig and Thije, 2006; Gudykunst, 2003). Furthermore the cultural difference in attitudes plays a key role in the manner in which a given task is executed and determines the success / failure of the

Big Data is a relative topic for most industries Research Paper

Big Data is a relative topic for most industries - Research Paper Example Such is the importance of getting valuable and timely insight nowadays that the exploitation of big data is considered a crucial component in the chances of success of a firm (Lynch, 2008). Investment in big data however does come with significant risks which participants must account for. A recent report published by Transparency Market Research indicates that the global big data market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 40.5% from the years 2012 to 2018 (PR Newswire, 2014a; 2014b). Seemingly great news on the outset, it does have some important connotations. Given the affordable rates of internet subscriptions, service providers do not necessarily have the cash to invest in their network bandwidth. This creates the possibility of speed deficiencies, network overload and collapse as the upsurge in the availability of big data will not be matched by requisite bandwidth to support it. Without the necessary ancillary services present, revenues of the big data industry could be affected. Moreover, the big data industry is warm towards new entrants. Hadoop, the open source software utilized by major market players such as IBM and Oracle, is available for free for use by other parties as well (Sonderegger, 2014). This proposes a great competitive risk to current players in the market, especially with corporations such as Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn and eBay all applying this technology nowadays as well (Sonderegger, 2014). This could also give impetus to the industry giants to acquire patents to secure their place in the market by squeezing out competition. Halting technological innovations and breakthroughs will be an important repercussion of this type of action. The emergence of cyber crime poses a great threat to the progress of the big data industry. Customers should have complete faith in the ability of companies dealing in big

Offshore oil in gulf of mexico Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Offshore oil in gulf of mexico - Essay Example The original location of the oil industry was off the Louisianan coast. Though at first the production was negligible, it rose steadily such that in the 90’s it was producing around 25% of the world’s gas. The transformation of the offshore oil industry off the Mexican Gulf can be attributed to technological transformations and brisk entrepreneurship. The inventiveness turned the rather deserted Louisiana into a hub of prospering activity in terms of oil production. The industry at first got workers from around Louisiana but later workers came from all over the United States. It can be said that currently Louisiana is a major contributor to the United States’ economy. Consequently, people getting attracted to it were the expectations. After the Second World War, the veterans who came back home too part in the challenge of mining oil from the ocean floor. They were successful and the developing technology is continuously motivating their outcome as improvements to their system are made daily. The offshore mining industry now boasts over 4000 oil platforms that are active and pumping the petroleum to land (Fitzgerald 82). Offshore drilling for oil is quite challenging. Though the mechanism is mostly the same, the fact that this is being carried out miles away from the land makes it unique. The mechanism gets complicated when the sea floor is thousands of feet below sea level. In offshore drilling, artificial platforms have to be built for the drilling purpose. To highlight how complicated the process is, it is imperative to have an insight into the process of drilling in details. The artificial platform, for example, created to provide support for drilling is usually unstable due to water currents and the winds (Lloyd 45). In order to drill effectively in a non stable position, a drilling template is required. It is placed accurately by use of GPS and then a shallow hole is dug where it is cemented to the sea bed. That in place, the accuracy of the drilling is ensured without being hindered by the motion of the platform. A blowout preventer is installed too to prevent any gas from seeping out on the seabed and contaminating the water, just like in onshore mining. The rigs in this case have to be economized; there are movable rigs that are used solely for exploration because they are less expensive than the permanent ones placed after the oil deposits have been found. The whole offshore process is based on low cost production with a maximized profit but with utmost concern being environmental safety. However, environment safety in cases of offshore oil drilling has raised a lot of controversies (Fitzgerald 82). Though the oil mining along the Mexican gulf is economically beneficial, it significantly contributes to environmental degradation. Several critics have pointed out that off shore mining is not only dangerous but also risky. The industry has set up several safety policies but they are highly doubtable considering the explosions and oil rig accidents. For instance, in 2010, there was an explosion in one of the rigs that killed eleven people and left oil gushing at an estimated five thousand barrels per day. This oil spill with such intensity outdid its income by the damage it caused on the fisheries (Lloyd 45). The environment is the foremost thing that should be consider when taking part in any entrepreneurial activity. The question that has

Ethics in an Academic Environment Essay Example for Free

Ethics in an Academic Environment Essay Teachers hold the power and responsibility for building the foundations of intellectually and morally great minds. Since people spend a large chunk of their class and their entire formative years in school, their position and contact with young children and adolescents allows they shape and mold what these young people’s potentials and capabilities. Teachers have the opportunity to influence and inspire the future generations. As such, it is imperative that teachers become rightful role models of ethics for their students. Karl Menninger believed that â€Å"What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches† (cited in Hunter, 2006). Menninger’s statement stress that teachers should always be a good ethical example for their students to look up to and learn from. A teacher must show tact, tolerance and morally-charge decision-making; he or she has to refrain from preferring one student over the other and from demonstrating disrespect or irritation for any of his or her students (Hunter, 2006). In a nutshell, for a teacher to be an ethical one, he or she has to always depict professionalism. Teacher professionalism manifests as both an internal, personal practice and an explicit expression. Professionalism starts from the inside. A teacher needs to make a fundamental commitment to teaching and to all the people that his or her teaching will touch (Phelps, 2003). This commitment is actualized by a teacher’s shown competency in his or her field and his or her capacity for following the teachers’ manual or code of ethics. It is essential that teachers recognize that their accountability should lie first, foremost and only with the students they teach. Therefore, a teacher shows his or her professionalism in how he or she prepares and plans how he or she could impart knowledge to the students in best way possible. Apart from making sure students understand what he or she is teaching to them now will have a high, enduring quality and will have more than just academic significance to students’ lives. To motivate and help them give their best effort every single day and to every single student, Phelps (2003) believes that teachers ought to accept and embrace all the challenges and hardships the journey of educating and aiding the youth’s learning may possess. In doing so, teaching is elevated to more than just a job for teachers but a calling. Professionalism requires teachers to invest themselves physically, mentally and emotionally in the process of the student’s education. This act allows teachers to make personal connections with students. Personal connections, relationships and bonds with one’s students are generally positive and helpful qualities. However, heavy emotional investments can also pave the way for the loss of professionalism, for which personal sentiments were invested in the first place. Emotional investments and personal connections can destroy professionalism and lead to a bending of the credibility of teacher-student ethics when they become the main object of teacher-student relationships instead of one of its reinforcements. When a teacher forms personal opinions or connections with one or a few particular students, it leads to a closeness or familiarity that can affect a teacher’s ethical conduct and professionalism. Examples would be developing a romantic relationship with a student or creating a hierarchy of student’s value based on a personal favoritism. Apart from creating partialities in favor of a student, personal opinions could further cloud a teacher’s judgment and create bias against a student or certain students. In both aspects, the founding of personal opinion can seriously hamper a teacher’s potential to be at his or her most professional best. Teachers are therefore reminded to abide by the code of ethics and ensure the protection of the rights of students, each and every single student (University of Iowa [UI], 2008). Teachers are encouraged to build rapport and make students comfortable in their presence enough for the students to liberally and honestly participate and contribute to class discussions. However, teachers are responsible for ensuring that there is still a professional boundary between them and student to prevent their relationship from getting too casual (UI, 2008). Teachers should instill and model fairness for all students of all racial, ethnical and economic background. Overall, ethics between teachers and students depend on the level of professionalism the teacher has. Teachers’ positions or social roles emphasize respect for one’s profession and the people they encounter. Teachers should direct all of their efforts and prioritize above all how they have contributed to students’ learning and development. References Hunter, D. (2006, Oct. 18). Teacher’s ethics. Articles Base. Retrieved March 13, 2009 from http://www. articlesbase. com/article-marketing-articles/teachers-ethics-64131. html Phelps, P. (2003). Teacher Professionalism. In Find Articles. Retrieved March 13, 2009 from http://findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_qa4009/is_200310/ai_n9335958 University of Iowa. (2008). The importance of teacher ethics. Retrieved March 13, 2009 from http://www. education. uiowa. edu/resources/tep/eportfolio/07e170folder/Ethics. htm

Practice Of The Motivational Interviewing Approach Social Work Essay

Practice Of The Motivational Interviewing Approach Social Work Essay Critically analyse your practice of the Motivational Interviewing approach with specific reference to your classroom learning and work placement On reflection I have learnt a great deal about the MI approach, putting the classroom learning into practice, then reviewing my performance on the DVD has been a fundamental part of my learning process. Although being familiar with many of the techniques, which are similar to skills I already possess, the actual approach was new to me. In brief MI allows a normally client lead Person Centred Approach to have direction by allowing clients to recognise their ambivalence acknowledging that change is possible and cultivating their innate forces to make necessary changes that are acceptable to them. I have recognised that for myself Im going to need to practice, review and hone my techniques awareness with implementing this model. It is emphasised with MI that the spirit of the approach is conceivably more important than techniques used . I feel the only real way to describe this phenomena is to acknowledge that the spirit would be how the therapist presents themselves the way that he/she utilises the techniques. With MI it is the clients responsibility to resolve their ambivalence finding intrinsic motivation to change problematic behaviours, not the therapists to impose or suggest change. The counselling approach is generally a soft, quiet eliciting style, which places importance on the working relationship being a partnership. The extreme contrast to MI would be confrontational approaches, which may attempt to break a clients denial through authoritative derogatory shaming approaches stripping away individuals defences and rebuilding their identities with societies or groups philosophies . The therapeutic approach of a pure Person Centred counselling model essentially relies upon the three core conditions of Congruence, Empathy and Unconditional Positive regard these conditions contribute to the presence of the Counsellor influencing the relationship formed with the client. With addiction treatment settings where time constraints are prevalent Motivational Interviewing can allow more structure direction being applied to the normally client lead Person Centred Approach. By developing discrepancy between client beliefs and problematic behaviours direction can be achieved. According to   when discrepancy becomes large enough and change seems important, a search for possible methods for change is initiated (p. 11). I have already integrated some use of MI into my practice however, Im aware at times my agencies policies and procedures are in conflict with the MI spirit. Recently, I have had to check my own incentives in using MI, making sure Im not implementing it as a form of manipulation to move clients into adherence with agencies policies, which would blemish the spirit of the MI approach. The compatibility of the MI approach in my place of work is questionable in some areas. Our treatment modality is a 12 step abstinent based approach, which immediately arises two conflicts with the MI spirit. Firstly, not all clients may wish total abstinence and those who do may wish to achieve it in some way that is not 12 step orientated. It is agency policy that all clients attend 12 step fellowship meetings every evening during their treatment duration. In our treatment setting the MI approach has proven to be useful in several areas when clients initially arrive in treatment anxiety levels are high if not addressed can lead to dropout. Application of MI here can help the client focus on the influencing factors that motivated them to contemplate treatment in the first place. In addition, MI is acknowledged a beneficial approach to use with angry clients especially the principals of rolling with resistance and the expression of empathy . Although the clients have attended our treatment facility for a variety of reasons, it is difficult to place them all in one bracket concerning the stages of change model. Taking into account their alcohol / drug use the vast majority would be in either contemplation or active change. Some clients may display signs of resistance to change around other areas of their life which may include being in a relationship with a partner who is still active in addictive behaviour. Many clients also have difficulty with assertiveness, which is going to be necessary to develop for them to help maintain addiction free lifestyles. It is a process of change for clients conversely many of these distinct essentials are met with varying degrees of resistance by individual clients. The first example Im going to use is a male client of 42 years of age who has been dependent upon substances for twenty years. He displays high levels of interest in the abstinent approach registering high using a Likert assessment tool to gauge his Willingness, Ability Readiness regarding an abstinent way of life. With reference to his substance use, I would assess him to be in the action stage of Prochaska and DiCliemente The stages of change (see appendix A). He has a partner who still is a substance user; he displays high levels of resistance to changing this area of his life and feels that he will be able to change her view on substance taking once he returns home after the completion of his treatment. I have been affirming the client consistently with the changes he has made to his behaviour whilst in treatment and with permission from him, pointing how his changes are in line with the 12 step abstinent based approach. What Im trying to achieve is too reinforce his belief in himself about this particular approach. By doing this I feel that there are inconsistencies further developing between his two cognitions I want to remain substance free, yet I want to go home to my partner who is a substance user. As he is now beginning to question his own thinking, I can see that the cognitive dissonance is beginning to have an effect Im hoping he will seek to alter the risky dissonant cognition by remaining in Bournemouth to attend aftercare. A client we recently had at our facility who presented for cannabis use, and admitted his main motivation for being in treatment was to avoid going to prison displayed resistant behaviours towards the treatment modality. His resistance would manifest in ways of walking out of group therapy, getting up and walking around whilst clients were presenting personal assignments generally showing no respect for what other clients were trying to achieve. The application of MI in this instance was quite difficult as a direct approach in line with agency policy and procedures needed to take place first. We had tried on several occasions not to take too much notice of the unacceptable behaviours he presented which could be considered rolling with resistance, however eventually had to enforce an ultimatum. In circumstances like this I found it very difficult almost impossible to remain in a totally pure orientated spirit of MI. To say that I have mastered the concepts principles of MI would be a significant over estimation. I have furthered my knowledge of the contributing elements of MI which included the stages of change model, the techniques used to work with ambivalence resistance. Most importantly, I have learnt above all else MI is about allowing the client to be the expert and for me to be mindful of the type of language that I use. The spirit of MI I have no real problem with other than perhaps on occasions avoiding the expert trap generally I do present myself within the spirit of this model. The application of this particular model Im using at work in a tentative way, in other words Im applying it in certain situations where perhaps I feel confident to use it. An example of this would be, when clients seem to be making rash decisions to leave treatment or are displaying ambivalence about an abstinent approach. After reviewing the DVD it is clear to me that I lack confidence in the application of the MI approach. I do however feel though that practice and reviewing my practice can only help with me developing my implementation of this approach. I feel that I need to be more mindful of the language I use whilst working with clients. As it became apparent to me whilst reviewing the DVD that I can without realising fall into traps. An example of this would be at the end of the session I asked my client if I could give him something to take away. On reflection, I could have asked him how he felt he could assess his decision on getting a shed. My future development is going to involve applying reviewing my practice, what I have started to look for at my work setting in my own practice and that of my work colleagues is to identify what clearly is not MI. Some observations I have acknowledged not only with this approach are the ethical conflicts that can arise between benevolence autonomy . On reflection, the example I used earlier on in this assignment with a male client whose partner remains in active addiction. His autonomy was to return home after treatment completion my interest or benevolence is with the safety of the client. As a professional, I know it would be risky for him to return home to someone who remains actively taking illicit drugs. The question is do I then use MI as a way to manipulate the client? My answer is yes of course I do. Questionably is this really in the pure spirit of the approach? Appendix A The Stages of Change Intervention process using the Stages of Change model Source; Adapted from the work of Prochaska and DiCliemente

Computer Viruses and their Effects on the Computer :: Computers Software Technology Essays

Computer Viruses and their Effects on the Computer In our health-conscious society, viruses of any type are an enemy. Computer viruses are especially pernicious. They can and do strike any unprotected computer system, with results that range from merely annoying to the disastrous, time-consuming and expensive loss of software and data. And with corporations increasingly using computers for enterprise-wide, business-critical computing, the costs of virus-induced down-time are growing along with the threat from viruses themselves. Concern is justified - but unbridled paranoia is not. Just as proper diet, exercise and preventative health care can add years to your life, prudent and cost-effective anti-virus strategies can minimize your exposure to computer viruses. Because Symantec is the world's largest supplier of anti-virus technology, we are uniquely able to offer comprehensive virus protection options and service plans. As an introduction, we offer this white paper series. In concise text, graphs and illustrations, we will give you a overview of: A history of computer viruses Who writes viruses - and how they can reach you The early warning symptoms of virus infection The real numbers behind the growth of viruses and their costs How viruses work - and how virus protection can stop them Anti-virus tools from Symantec for enterprise-wide, multi-platform, state-of-the-art protection What, Exactly, Is A Computer Virus? A computer virus is a program designed to replicate and spread, generally with the victim being oblivious to its existence. Computer viruses spread by attaching themselves to other programs (e.g., word processors or spreadsheets application files) or to the boot sector of a disk. When an infected file is activated - or executed - or when the computer is started from an infected disk, the virus itself is also executed. Often, it lurks in computer memory, waiting to infect the next program that is activated, or the next disk that is accessed. What makes viruses dangerous is their ability to perform an event. While some events are benign (e.g. displaying a message on a certain date) and others annoying (e.g., slowing performance or altering the screen display), some viruses can be catastrophic by damaging files, destroying data and crashing systems. How Do Infections Spread? Viruses come from a variety of sources. Because a virus is software code, it can be transmitted along with any legitimate software that enters your environment: In a 1991 study of major U.S. and Canadian computer users by the market research firm Dataquest for the National Computer Security Association, most users blamed an infected diskette (87 percent).