Perspectives on the Book of Job Essay -- The Book of Job Essays

  Ã‚      The Book of Job is one of the three books in the Hebrew bible whose genre is described as wisdom literature.1   Certainly the Book of Job satisfies the literary conventions that qualify a biblical book for such status. 2   Yet Job may be associated with wisdom in a much more literal sense.   The Book of Job attempts to deal with a problematic question that confronts suffering humanity: why do bad things happen to good people?   The variety and vehemence of commentators' contemporary responses to this chapter of the Bible is testament to the continued relevance of the Book of Job's wisdom thousands of years after it was written.   Although the commentators examined herein arrive at differing and sometimes conflicting conclusions after reading the story of "the holy Arab"3, none are left indifferent.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The first commentator under consideration is Martin Buber in an excerpt from his Darko shel miqra'4.   Buber draws an apt parallel between the Book of Job and the proceedings in a court of law, casting God as judge and Job as prosecution.   In Buber's legal parallel, Job demands what in an earthly court of law would amount to due process, or a fair trial.   And yet, even as Buber confers the legitimacy of a court of law on Job's complaints, Buber suggests that Job knew his appeal was "suppressed from the start."5   Buber cites Job: "Though I am right, my mouth will condemn me!"6   By highlighting the justness of Job's claims and the non-existent chance of a divine finding in Job's favour, Buber stresses how human justice and divine justice diverge.   This difference is highlighted further by discussion of how Job is made to suffer hinnam, or gratuitously, from both God and Job's perspective.7   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Rather than condem... ...sterton, G. K..   "Introduction to The Book of Job."   The Hebrew Bible In Literary Criticism.   Ed. and Comp. Alex Preminger and Edward L. Greenstein.   New York: Ungar, 1986.   449-50. Frick, Frank S..   A Journey Through The Hewbrew Scriptures.   New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1995. Hey, Tony and Patrick Walters.   Einstein's Mirror.   Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Jung, C. G..   Answer to Job. The Hebrew Bible In Literary Criticism.   Ed. and Comp. Alex Preminger and Edward L. Greenstein.   New York: Ungar, 1986.   454-5. Kroll, Paul. â€Å"The Trial of Job†. Grace Communion: International. Grace Communion International, 2013. 26 February 2015. Renà © de Chateaubriand, Franà §ois.   The Beauties of Christianity.   The Hebrew Bible In Literary Criticism.   Ed. and Comp. Alex Preminger and Edward L. Greenstein.   New York: Ungar, 1986.   445.

Free Essays - Tough Times in The Shipping News :: Shipping News

Tough Times in The Shipping News People in society tend to face many challenges that occur in their lives. Some of these challenges can affect people's lives in a positive way or a negative way. If they face their challenges in the negative way, they will suffer for a long time. Having confidence in themselves is considered the best way to overcome the suffering they have in their lives. In the novel, The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx, Quoyle deals with many difficult challenges along his life journey by suffering from bad childhood experiences which led him to have a low self confidence, falling in love with the wrong person that made his life miserable, and raising his two children on his own without getting any support from his wife. Quoyle experiences a lack of self confidence during his life journey that makes him think wrong of himself. He has never seen one happy day in his life since the day he was born. One of the main experiences he had to go through was his childhood. Quoyle was not treated as a son by his family since he was a child. He believed that he had been given to the wrong family. "Until he was fourteen he cherished the idea that he had been given to the wrong family, that somewhere his real people, saddled with the changeling of the Quoyles, longed for him." (Proulx, Pg 2). This shows how Quoyle's confidence started dropping since he was a little boy. In most times, Quoyle's father would always put him down on anything he says or does. This issue is considered one of the reasons for causing low self confidence in Quoyle. For instance, Quoyle's father is knows as an aggressive parent that only cares about himself and his satisfaction when he forces Quoyle to swim without teachin g him or fearing about his life. This statement is proven when it is said in the novel, "Quoyle feared water, could not swim. Again and again the father had broken his clenched grip and thrown him into pools, brooks, lakes, and surf." (Proulx, Pg 2). This quote indicates how bad a father can be treating his son in a horrible way where his son is close to death.

Expert Systems and Artificial Intelligence

Expert Systems are computer programs that are derived from a branch of computer science research called Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI's scientific goal is to understand intelligence by building computer programs that exhibit intelligent behavior. It is concerned with the concepts and methods of symbolic inference, or reasoning, by a computer, and how the knowledge used to make those inferences will be represented inside the machine. Of course, the term intelligence covers many cognitive skills, including the ability to solve problems, learn, and understand language; AI addresses all of those. But most progress to date in AI has been made in the area of problem solving — concepts and methods for building programs that reason about problems rather than calculate a solution. AI programs that achieve expert-level competence in solving problems in task areas by bringing to bear a body of knowledge about specific tasks are called knowledge-based or expert systems. Often, the term expert systems is reserved for programs whose knowledge base contains the knowledge used by human experts, in contrast to knowledge gathered from textbooks or non-experts. More often than not, the two terms, expert systems (ES) and knowledge-based systems (KBS), are used synonymously. Taken together, they represent the most widespread type of AI application. The area of human intellectual endeavor to be captured in an expert system is called the task domain. Task refers to some goal-oriented, problem-solving activity. Domain refers to the area within which the task is being performed. Typical tasks are diagnosis, planning, scheduling, configuration and design. An example of a task domain is aircraft crew scheduling, discussed in Chapter 2. Building an expert system is known as knowledge engineering and its practitioners are called knowledge engineers. The knowledge engineer must make sure that the computer has all the knowledge needed to solve a problem. The knowledge engineer must choose one or more forms in which to represent the required knowledge as symbol patterns in the memory of the computer — that is, he (or she) must choose a knowledge representation. He must also ensure that the computer can use the knowledge efficiently by selecting from a handful of reasoning methods. The practice of knowledge engineering is described later. We first describe the components of expert systems. The Building Blocks of Expert Systems Every expert system consists of two principal parts: the knowledge base; and the reasoning, or inference, engine. The knowledge base of expert systems contains both factual and heuristic knowledge. Factual knowledge is that knowledge of the task domain that is widely shared, typically found in textbooks or journals, and commonly agreed upon by those knowledgeable in the particular field. Heuristic knowledge is the less rigorous, more experiential, more judgmental knowledge of performance. In contrast to factual knowledge, heuristic knowledge is rarely discussed, and is largely individualistic. It is the knowledge of good practice, good judgment, and plausible reasoning in the field. It is the knowledge that underlies the â€Å"art of good guessing. † Knowledge representation formalizes and organizes the knowledge. One widely used representation is the production rule, or simply rule. A rule consists of an IF part and a THEN part (also called a condition and an action). The IF part lists a set of conditions in some logical combination. The piece of knowledge represented by the production rule is relevant to the line of reasoning being developed if the IF part of the rule is satisfied; consequently, the THEN part can be concluded, or its problem-solving action taken. Expert systems whose knowledge is represented in rule form are called rule-based systems. Another widely used representation, called the unit (also known as frame, schema, or list structure) is based upon a more passive view of knowledge. The unit is an assemblage of associated symbolic knowledge about an entity to be represented. Typically, a unit consists of a list of properties of the entity and associated values for those properties. Since every task domain consists of many entities that stand in various relations, the properties can also be used to specify relations, and the values of these properties are the names of other units that are linked according to the relations. One unit can also represent knowledge that is a â€Å"special case† of another unit, or some units can be â€Å"parts of† another unit. The problem-solving model, or paradigm, organizes and controls the steps taken to solve the problem. One common but powerful paradigm involves chaining of IF-THEN rules to form a line of reasoning. If the chaining starts from a set of conditions and moves toward some conclusion, the method is called forward chaining. If the conclusion is known (for example, a goal to be achieved) but the path to that conclusion is not known, then reasoning backwards is called for, and the method is backward chaining. These problem-solving methods are built into program modules called inference engines or inference procedures that manipulate and use knowledge in the knowledge base to form a line of reasoning. The knowledge base an expert uses is what he learned at school, from colleagues, and from years of experience. Presumably the more experience he has, the larger his store of knowledge. Knowledge allows him to interpret the information in his databases to advantage in diagnosis, design, and analysis. Though an expert system consists primarily of a knowledge base and an inference engine, a couple of other features are worth mentioning: reasoning with uncertainty, and explanation of the line of reasoning. Knowledge is almost always incomplete and uncertain. To deal with uncertain knowledge, a rule may have associated with it a confidence factor or a weight. The set of methods for using uncertain knowledge in combination with uncertain data in the reasoning process is called reasoning with uncertainty. An important subclass of methods for reasoning with uncertainty is called â€Å"fuzzy logic,† and the systems that use them are known as â€Å"fuzzy systems. † Because an expert system uses uncertain or heuristic knowledge (as we humans do) its credibility is often in question (as is the case with humans). When an answer to a problem is questionable, we tend to want to know the rationale. If the rationale seems plausible, we tend to believe the answer. So it is with expert systems. Most expert systems have the ability to answer questions of the form: â€Å"Why is the answer X? † Explanations can be generated by tracing the line of reasoning used by the inference engine (Feigenbaum, McCorduck et al. 1988). The most important ingredient in any expert system is knowledge. The power of expert systems resides in the specific, high-quality knowledge they contain about task domains. AI researchers will continue to explore and add to the current repertoire of knowledge representation and reasoning methods. But in knowledge resides the power. Because of the importance of knowledge in expert systems and because the current knowledge acquisition method is slow and tedious, much of the future of expert systems depends on breaking the knowledge acquisition bottleneck and in codifying and representing a large knowledge infrastructure.

Market Growth of Imported Wine in China

Market Growth of Imported Wine in China By Yuki Mabuchi Brief Introduction With rapid growth of Chinese GDP over the past few years, China is now the world's fastest growing wine consumption market and yet still has huge potential as a market growth. Since Wine drinking is considered a healthier alternative to spirits and somewhat trendy, red wine is particularly popular in China. However, 90% of the wine consumed in China is still produced locally, and it is marketed as low price wines.Therefore, it is impossible for imported wines to compete with Chinese wines on the price. Each imported wine company are challenged to find their differentiation and own marketing tools. Even though market percentage for imported wines is 10%, the prospects for continued growth are huge because of the rapid increase in wealth and increasing urbanization of the population. The main topic for my research is to analyze market growth of imported wines in China followed by Chinese WTO regulations.The rese arch estimates the impact of market growth according to import tariff rate which declined to 14% since China joined WTO. In addition, all imported wines are subject to a range of additional taxes, duties or fees, such as liquor tax, education tax, value-added taxes and consumption taxes. These taxes, duties and fees are taken into account in the analysis which estimates the impact of a tariff reduction on the retail price of imported wines in China.The research will show statistic analysis of imported wine market from different countries different point of view. Furthermore, the research will concentrate to a specific country such as Australia and New Zealand. In the past five years, Australia has been gradually gaining market share of bottled wines from traditional market leaders including France, Italy and Spain. However, since a zero tariff has been applied to Australia’s neighbor country New Zealand, going forward with Australian wine industry will face challenges.The cas e study will demonstrate the challenges posed by import tariffs on the Australian wines sector by comparing New Zealand wine market in China. Outline Arrangement of every section; I. Introduction * Explain why this topic is interesting which is to study market structure of imported wines from different countries and their competition and challenges for having tariffs and taxes in China. * Explain how I will distribute this research which will include statistics of imported wine products or company in China and graph of market growth.II. Literature review * Development of imported wine market since China joined WT? ?. WTO Regulatory Overview 1. Import Tariff on wine 2. Import duty and taxes 3. Labeling Regulations 4. Intellectual Property IV. Market Overview 1. China wine market size 2. Consumer profiles 3. Distribution Channels * Economic analysis of how import duties affect price on the imported wine. * Statistic analysis by different country’s wine distribution V. Australia n wine VS New Zealand wine * Introduction of Australian and New Zealand wine Statistic analysis on both market in China * The impact of trade size after zero tariff on New Zealand * Challenge of Australian wine VI. Conclusion * Prediction of market growth for imported wine in the future. * Challenge of future achievement and fight between local produced Schedule of my thesis Plan to finish in 4 months period * December/January – Find as many materials as possible and group all the materials by section and take memos * January / February – Write thesis * March / April – Finalize thesis w = 1 * ROMAN Iith supervisor

Educational Tour Essay

Educational Tour gives us ideas likewise opportunities to visit prestigious agencies that may help us visualize what we are learning at school. This activity helps us develop our personality since social graces and etiquette are learned too by experience. Moreover, important to every student since it is a part of our learning process to acquire more knowledge through actual exposure to the different agencies. Narrative Report: On July 4,2013 ,the faculty of World Citi Colleges held an educational tour for the Bachelor of Science and Tourism Management students. The locations are the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Resort World Manila and Island Cove. July 4, 2013, the day when I have to wake up early because it should be a big No for rush and the call time is 6:00 to 6:30. I have to commute to go to our school. It is around 5:00 in the morning when I left my house and started to wait a jeep in waiting area going to Cubao. Sadly, I wait for 15 minutes just to ride in a jeep. When I rode a jeep, I paid going to Anonas and dropped to our school. When I got there, I saw my classmates and we went to Bus no. 3. While waiting for others, I and my classmates sit in the vacant sit . We started to travel around 7:00 but of course we pray first for a safe trip. After the pray, here it goes! We already started talking, laughing, picture taking and of course we cooperate in our tour guide to answer some questions and he gives some rules. We arrived at Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). Our tour guide in CCP gives us knowledge about the history of the Cultural Center of the Philippines and about some Arts that in the place who made it and why he/she made it. I recognized some of my classmates didn’t listening to our tour guide while some of us listening. He showed us the theater. He said, â€Å"I didn’t showed this to some groups but because you’re listening I will show you the theater. † We were in at a dark place and I saw the theater. It’s so big! It’s my first time to see a big theater. After that, we continued the tour again and of course we take pictures. After the CCP, we went again to our bus. We arrived at the Resort World but before we go out on a bus, a tour guide in Resort World showed and gave us some of the rules. We gave our member information to get a member card. He said that only 29 students will get the member card on a day of our tour. Luckily, I got it. After that, we toured in the resort world. Actually, that’s my first time to go to a luxury mall. We entered to a theater and then they showed us the rooms in hotel. We played games in Game zoo. They gave us a Game zoo Card for free play. After we played, we bought our lunch in Mc Donald. Then, we went back to our bus and ate the lunch while moving the bus going to Island Cove. We arrived at Island Cove which was our last destination. We walked in a bridge. There, we have a seminar with other branch of World Citi Colleges – Caloocan, Antipolo and Cubao. The seminar started. I learned many things about Tourism and of course being a tourist guide. After the seminar, we toured around the island cove. We saw a swimming pool and some slides. Too bad, we didn’t know that we can bring some clothes so we can swim. Because of that, we just took some pictures and toured the place. When we got tired, we went back to our bus. I and my classmates were talking, laughing, and taking pictures. Then all my classmates were got in the bus so we were going back to school. We left the Island Cove around 5:00 pm and arrived at the school at 8:00 pm because of the traffic. I got home safely around 9:00. The tour for me is great! I learn many things that I will I hope we have a tour again in a great place and an educational.

Case Study based assessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Case Study based assessment - Essay Example The combined impact of recession and intensified competition as a result of European de-regulation led to important shifts in business strategy with contrasting implications for its staff, an approach that has, with some modifications, continued until the present day. BA has realized that the competition in the airline industry is growing as the globalization and privatization policies have opened the limits of sky widely and international air carriers started to intrude into the territories of BA. As a result of that, BA decided to adopt the merger policies to strengthen their business prospects. In November 2009, BA reached an agreement with Iberia and both the companies decided to merge together to form a single company. The merger between BA and Iberia resulted in the creation of world’s third-largest airline in terms of annual revenue. The merger was confirmed in April 2010 and it is expected that it will take effect from the end of this year. â€Å"Iberia Airlines appoi nts its chairman, Antonio Vazquez Romero as the new chairman of International Airlines Group (IAG), the new company formed under the merger agreement between Iberia and British Airways (Goldstone, 2010) ‘Employee relations’ in BA is a much debated topic in UK now. Many people believe that BA could have improved their relations with the employees and sustain its identity as a national icon, even amidst stiff competition. Many contextual factors affected the employee relations in BA. Moreover, the employee relations in BA have made lot of impacts in the UK employment sector also. This paper critically analyses the above aspect with the help of the case study provided about British Airways. If employee relations is understood as an arena in which the contest between the pursuit of a market society and the defence of the principles of moral economy is played out, then it is impossible to separate market from nonmarket relations, economy

Analysis of Brutish You Have to Hand it to the Neanderthals after All Research Paper

Analysis of Brutish You Have to Hand it to the Neanderthals after All - Research Paper Example On the contrary, the findings make it more probable that the Neanderthals made the paintings. The article also posits that the wrong dating resulted because scientists dated the paintings using the calcium carbonate layer, which is now believed to have accumulated on the artistic paintings years after the paintings had been made. This paper is an analysis of the article â€Å"Brutish? You have to hand it to the Neanderthals after all† authored by David Keys and featured in The Independent. The paper will also scrutinize additional research related to the articles content as well as dating of Palaeolithic cave painting in Europe. The paper will also try to establish the credibility of Keys' article and application of the research findings. Making use of a process referred to as uranium-series disequilibrium, the group that was led by Pike measured the radioactive decomposition of uranium and dated hand stencils and disks in El Castillo cave in Northern Spain. The paintings had been made by using the mouth to blow paint on the wall. The artistic paintings were found to be least 40,800 years old making them the oldest form of art in Europe. These results have ignited the debate on who is responsible for the cave paintings found in Spain and France. Previously, the paintings were attributed to modern humans but research acknowledges that modern man had not invaded Europe 41,000 years ago. At this period, Neanderthals inhabited Europe, which suggests that they could be responsible for these artistic paintings (Keys, 2012). Chauvet Cave paintings in central France were previously recognized as the world's oldest cave art paintings. The Chauvet cave paintings were dated 39,000 years old. However, the Chauvet cave dating is still controversial since it relies on radiocarbon dating making use of charcoal pigments. Archaeologists have put forward that dating based on charcoal pigments is unreliable since the pigments are susceptible to contamination by other forms of carbon, which would affect dating results. Additionally, using charcoal pigments could be erroneous in that the period when the fire was lit might not coincide with the time the painting was made (Keys, 2012; Pettitt and Pike, 2007). I selected this article due to its relevance to our understanding of the past and  human history particularly the interactions between the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Primordial cave paintings lend a hand in connecting the modern man to the past species. Understanding the activities of the Neanderthal is crucial since he was the immediate ancestor of Homo sapiens, the modern man. Understanding Neanderthal would thus enhance a better understanding of the development of the art of painting. Additionally the findings suggest that the Neanderthals could have been the inventors of cave painting but passed the art to Homo sapiens. Evidence shows that modern humans first appeared in Northern Spain about 41,500 years ago, as successors of the Neanderth als. These findings are contrary to current perceptions that the Homo sapiens instigated artistic painting and that Neanderthals did not practice cave painting (Zilh?ao, 2007; Keys, 2012). Another important aspect roused by these findings is that the interaction between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals coul