Article review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Article review - Essay Example Possible outcomes of the trend Stevens, Kitterlin and Tanner (14) found out that students in hospitality prefer learning by doing. As such, academic institutions offering hospitality programs would use such findings to align their curricula in line with the preferred mode of learning among the students so as to remain competitive and relevant in the market. They could provide equipment and teaching aids that propagate practical learning. Theoretical component of learning could be minimized and practical learning be incorporated more including practical internships. Students could seek to enroll in institutions geared towards practical teaching with the aim of excelling academically. Similarly, relevant authorities could seek to streamline the education system with regard to hospitality and formulate rules and regulations promoting practical skills more. Effect of the trend on the industry Aligning the teaching mode to the kinesthetic learning style of the students in hospitality woul d ensure that institutions offering hospitality programs produce practically equipped students ready for the market. These students would have gained much knowledge while learning because the mode of delivery would have been aligned with their understanding environment. More so, this adaptation would see more students enroll for hospitality programs and increase the number of successful completion of the courses being offered. The increase in supply of students could see the cost of hospitality courses decrease. This could trickle down to provide abundant supply of human resource in hospitality. On the other hand, there could be an increase in institutions offering hospitality courses to take advantage of the increased demand due to an increase in interest among prospective students. This could cause rogue institutions coming up which could eventually result in poorly equipped students. Furthermore, the influx in hospitality labor could eventually cause lack of interest in the cours e as with high supply of labor, the lower the compensation package the market would be willing to offer. Stevens, Kitterlin and Tanner (14) also note that kinesthetic learners tend to rush and pay less attention to detail. Therefore, in as much as institutions would adopt mechanisms to propagate practical learning, measures should be put in place to ensure that the quality of education does not get compromised. My position I agree with the findings of this research study. As a student, I have a preferred way of learning which if provided, then, learning becomes interesting and understanding increases. Instructors who provide such an environment have gained acceptance among their students which eventually causes improved academic performance. Practical approach, particularly in hospitality programs provides an opportunity to interact with real-life practice and therefore enhance learning. A lot of theoretical studies make little sense to students without practical application. Even w ith this knowledge, gender sensitive studies should be conducted in other institutions to solidify the findings of this study. Learning experience With the vision of furthering my studies in hospitality, I would consider institutions that offer adequate practical activities in its hospitality programs if I am to excel academically. Stevens, Kitterl

Unit 3IP Green Power Sources Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Unit 3IP Green Power Sources - Research Paper Example Inherent conversion losses that lead to energy wastage also result from the power distribution and usage (Patrick, 5). Given that the sum of energy is constant, energy conservation can be achieved by maintaining high efficiencies in the machines used during energy conversion in order to minimize the amount of energy wasted during conversion. Adaptive power control can be adopted at the user end that will substantially reduce energy wastage and loss through the use of light loads. With adaptive power control, a tremendous amount of energy can be conversed since there is an automatic monitoring and control of energy consumption by optimizing the light load efficiency. The current appliances used at home only utilizes about 20-50% of load for a significant amount of time leading to lots of energy wastage. Adaptive control ensures an optimized light load efficiency through the use of automatic switching of the appliances and devices (Patrick, 23). Fossil fuel includes oil, natural gas and coal. The combustion fossil fuel generates high amount of energy that is considered to be of high efficiency. Fossil fuel is easily available and their conversion into a usable form is simple. Coal is cheap as compared to the other energy sources and can be easily transported from one point to the other. Transportation of oil and natural gas over long distances is also easy through the use of pipelines. Coal is plentiful and is easily available in addition to its low costs of extraction and processing. A major disadvantage of fossil fuel is pollution. The processing and conversion of fossil fuel into a usable energy form releases hazardous gasses in addition to the greenhouse gasses released during their consumption. The greenhouse gasses released causes global warming and acidic rain. Oil spills in deep sea destroys the aquatic ecosystem. Oil drilling and excavation is quite

Surface State in Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.7Se1.3 Nanoflakes

Surface State in Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.7Se1.3 Nanoflakes Result of a study on the surface state in Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.7Se1.3 nanoflakes 4.1 Introduction The recent discovery of topological insulators (TIs) has provided new route for producing low-dimensional relativistic electronic states. The exotic surface states of TIs have attracted the attention of scientists because of their fascinating physical properties and applicability in spintronics and quantum computations [24-28]. The unique surface states were confirmed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) on Sb2Te3, Bi2Te3, and Bi2Se3 [29-34]. Magnetotransport studies have also provided a clear picture of the topological surface state and the  ° Berry phase shift [35, 36],which gives rise to the immunity of Dirac fermions to localization. Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3 are suitable candidates for TI studies because of their large energy gaps. Eg is approximately equal to 0.3 eV and 0.17 eV. However, the metallic bulk conduction of natural imperfections, such as vacancies or antisite defects in these materials, makes it difficult to probe surface Dirac fermions. Therefore, a high-insulating bulk state is a prerequisite for transport property studies of TIs. Substantial effort has made it possible to examine both the surface and the bulk channels either through electrical gating [36-42] or substitution doping [12-14, 42]. Recently, it was discovered that Bi2-xSbxTe3-ySey (BSTS) is a high-insulating bulk TI. BSTS exhibits a tetradymite structure, a low carrier concentration (2.3 Ãâ€" 1016 cm3), and a large bulk resistivity (8 ÃŽ © cm) because of the ordered occupation of Te/Se in the quintuple-layer unit [12, 13]. However, a reliable detection of surface quantum oscillations is difficult in BSTS flakes because of the inhomogeneous defect [12] and low surface mobility [40]. Thus, the low mobility in a bulk channel plays a crucial role in probing surface quantum oscillations. In this chapter, we report the observation of surface-dominated transport in the topological insulator BSTS nanoflakes. Shubnikov-de Hass (SdH) oscillations study on the 200-nm BSTS nanoflake indicates that the achievement of surface-dominated transport can be attributed its high surface mobility of 2602 cm2/Vs (top surface), 3657 cm2/Vs (bottom surface), and low bulk mobility of 12 cm2/V s, which is a much lower value than those reported [12-13, 40-41]. Besides, the nontrivial Dirac surface state was further confirmed by the weak anti-localization (WAL) effect and the semiconducting to metallic transport transformation as the thickness of the specimen was reduced to the thin film limit, in which a up to 90% contribution from the surface channel was estimated based on the thickness dependence of the electrical conductance and the result of the SdH oscillations. 4.2 Method BSTS single crystals nominally composed of Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.7Se1.3 were grown by melting the mixture of Bi (99.999%), Sb (99.999%), Te (99.999%), and Se (99.999%) in sealed evacuated quartz tubes. First the mixture was slowly ramped up to 750  °C at a rate of 100  °C/h and kept at 750  °C for 12 h. It was then furnace cooled to room temperature at a rate of 100  °C/h. The sample was reground and sintered again. The same procedure was repeated three times to ensure sample homogeneity. Finally, the sample was heated to 800  °C for 48 h, then cooled to 500  °C and annealed for 96 h. The crystal structures of the samples were identified using powder X-ray diffraction and refined using the General Structure Analysis System (GSAS) software package equipped with the EXPGUI interface, as shown in Figure 4.1(a). Transport measurements were conducted using a Quantum Design Physical Property Measurement System (PPMS) and six-terminal Hall bar geometric specimens. The nanoflake specimens [Figure 4.1(b)] were mechanically exfoliated and transferred to the Si3N4 (200 nm)/Si substrate. The electrodes of the nanoflake were patterned using standard e-beam lithography and thermal evaporation of Ti/Au. Figure 4.1. (a) GSAS refinement of powder X-ray data of a BSTS crystal. Red circles represent experimental results, the green line represents calculated results, the blue line indicates the difference, and the Bragg peaks of the BSTS are shown by the vertical lines, where Rp, Rwp, and à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ £2 represent the goodness factors. (b) The SEM image of a BSTS 160-nm nanoflake. 4.3 Results and discussion 4.3.1 Thickness and temperature dependence of resistance The considerable thickness dependence of electrical transport showed a transition from semiconducting to metallic behavior as the bulk content is reduced, as shown in Figure 4.2 (a). For the thick specimens, the thermal activation energies given by the Arrhenius law were 4.3 meV (140 ÃŽ ¼m), 3.5 meV (49 ÃŽ ¼m), and 2.37 meV (7 ÃŽ ¼m). The smaller activation energy of thinner specimens can be explained by the increasing contribution of surface states [12-13, 40-41]. In 140-ÃŽ ¼m BSTS, a significant deviation occurred below 20 K from the fitting to a three-dimensional variable-range hopping model (3D VRH) with Rxx is approximately exp[(T/T0)-1/4] [13], indicating the existence of a parallel metallic conduction of surface states [the inset in Figure 4.2 (a)]. According to Eq. 4.1, the total conductance G ° of a specimen with a thickness t can be formulated as G ° = Gs + à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ³bt, (4.1) where Gs is the surface sheet conductance, and ÏÆ'b is the bulk conductivity [38,42]. Gs =36.2 (e2/h) and à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ³b = 4.14 (e2/h) ÃŽ ¼m−1, which resulted from the fit of thickness dependence of conductance to Eq. 4.1. For a 200-nm nanoflake at 2 K, up to 90% of the contribution from the surface state was obtained, as shown in Figure 4.2 (b). Figure 4.2. (a) Temperature dependence of resistivity for BSTS specimens with thicknesses of 140 ÃŽ ¼m, 200 nm, 160 nm, and 80 nm. The inset shows the fit of 3D variable-range hopping to the 140-lm specimens. (b) Thickness dependence of sheet conductance; the red line is the fit with G ° = Gs + à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ³bt. The inset shows the fitting of the Arrhenius law to the 140-ÃŽ ¼m specimen. 4.3.2 Hall measurements of BSTS To understand the semiconductor-metallic transitions, we focus on the charge transport behavior (Figure 4.3) and temperature dependence Hall measurement results of 160 nm specimen (Figure 4.4). Because of that the thickness seems like to the critical in between semiconductor and metallic transition. In Figure 4.3 (a), we gives three regimes in the temperature profile, one can obtain the nanoflake specimen with 160 nm thick showing metallic behavior which contrasts to its bulk. In the regime I, the bulk conduction dominates, as the temperature decreases the resistance increased which shows a general narrow-gap semiconductor behavior this can be attributed to freezing of the impurity band carrier in the bulk [27]. The regime II reveals a typical metallic behavior signature, the resistance decreases as temperature reduced, this can be explained as reduce phonon scattering and nearly constant carrier density (shown in Figure 4.4 (a)) with a decreasing temperature. In regime III, when the temperature is lower than 10 K, a slightly increases in resistance due to the bulk carriers freeze out [28]. Hall mobility measurements provide more clearly picture to realize the thickness dependence charge transport as shown in Figure 4.4 (b). The reduction in the degree of disorder or impurity of specimens can be obtained in Figure 4.4 (b) that the mobility enhanced as thickness decreased and their different temperature dependence trends. In thinner specimens (160 and 80 nm) the mobility shows monotonically increasing as decreasing temperature, surface dominate transport should play a more important role in this manner. Figure 4.3. Temperature dependence of the normalized resistance of specimens. Figure 4.4 (a) Temperature dependence of the Hall measurement results of 160 nm thick specimen. (b) Thickness dependence of Hall mobility versus temperature curve. 4.3.3 Surface quantum oscillations (Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations) Because successive empting of Landau levels (LLs) provides the nth minima in à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚ ³Rxx, the relation of the LL index n to the Fermi surface cross-section area AF can be described using the semiclassical Onsager equation: 2 ° (n + à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ §) = AF Ä § / eB. For the Schrodinger electron case, à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ § = 0, which results in a zero Berry phase. à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ § = 1/2 indicates the case of the Dirac fermion of TIs, which results in a  ° Berry phase where the charge carrier is immune to localization. The temperature dependence of resistance for a 200-nm nanoflake shows à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚ ³Rxx as a function of 1/B after a smoothing background subtraction, as shown in Figure 4.5 (a). Two sets of oscillation periods are marked; one with a black dashed line ([(à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚ ³(1/B) = 0.041 T-1]) and the other with a blue dashed line (0.022 T-1) for the surfaces of the nanoflake specimen. The multicomponent nature of SdH oscillations originates from the Fermi-level positions of the two surfaces. If SdH oscillations are as a result of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) formed with band bending near the surface, the corresponded carrier density differs in an order of magnitude [35] compared to the Hall measurement result [n3D = 3.5 à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ´ 101 8cm-3], which is obtained from the fit to low field B ( ±1T) data (Figure 4.5 (b)). Figure 4.5 (c) shows the LL fan diagram plotted in 1/B versus nth oscillation minima in à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚ ³Rxx. The linear fit of the two-set SdH spectrum yields the intercepts of à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ § = 0.48  ± 0.3 for Surface 1 and 0.49  ± 0.02 for Surface 2, where à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ § values are closer to the theoretical value of 0.5 for ideal Dirac fermions. It is assumed that Surface 2 is the top surface because environmental contamination provides effective n-type doping [17] to the sample, which strongly influences the top surface. The specimens were closely stacked on the substrate to prevent the bottom surface from air contamination and electron-beam irradiation. Thus, the second set of SdH oscillations appears in the lower inversed field, shown in Figure 4.5 (a), which was probably from the top surface. In Figure 4.5 (c), the slope of one set of SdH oscillations provides the cross-section area of the Fermi surface [AF = 4.15 Ãâ€" 1017 m-2], and the Fermi wave number was = 0.0363 and the 2D surface carrier density was = 1.05 Ãâ€" 1012 cm-2 for the top surface (Surface 2). The second set of SdH oscillations resulted in AF = 2.32 Ãâ€" 1017 m-2 and = 0.02718 , and 0.58 Ãâ€" 1012 cm-2 for the bottom surface (Surface 1). Figure 4.5 (d) shows the fit of temperature dependence of SdH amplitudes to the Lifshitz-Kosevich (LK) theory [11, 43].The cyclotron mass mc = 0.075 me is the same as that reported [13]. Once mc is known, we can calculate the Fermi velocity and the Fermi level position to be vF = 5.6 Ãâ€" 105 m/s and EF = 134 meV above the Dirac point for the top surface and vF = 4.19 Ãâ€" 105 m/s and EF = 75 meV for the bottom surface. The high Fermi level position of the top surface is consistent with the results of environmental doping mentioned previously. Due to the multiple component nature, the Dingle temperature is difficult to extrapolate from the SdH amplitude; therefore, Eq. 4.2 is used to fit the resistance data to the LK theory , (4.2) where F is the frequency of SdH oscillations extracted from the slopes of Figure 4.5 (c), the thermal factor is , and the Dingle temperature is [11, 43]. The solid red line in Figure 4.5 (e) shows the optimal fitted results of à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ § = 0.5 and à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ´ = 1.11 Ãâ€" 10-13 s for the top surface, and à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ § = 0.35 and à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ´ = 1.56 Ãâ€" 10-13 s for the bottom surface. The fitted à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ § values are close to theoretical value of 0.5 for ideal Dirac fermions. According to the Dingle analysis, the scattering time is approximately two to three times larger than that of the bulk BSTS [13]. Mobility is a measure of scattering time; therefore, it is possible to calculate the surface mobility ÃŽ ¼s = 2602 cm2V-1s-1 and the mean free path = 62 nm for the top surface, and ÃŽ ¼s = 3657 cm2V-1s-1 and = 65 nm for the bottom surface. The surface mobility enhancement is consistent with the longer mean free path of the nontrivial topological Dirac state. The surface contribution to the total conductance (Gs/Gtot = 84.8%) was consistent with the results obtained from the thickness dependence of conductance. Take the sheet carrier density into account, n = ns + nb t [44]. The mobility of the bulk channel was 12 cm2/Vs, which is close to the total Hall mobility of the 140-ÃŽ ¼m thick BSTS specimen, 13 cm2/Vs. The low Hall mobility of bulk carriers causes less interference with the surface Dirac fermions; thus, the enhancement of the surface contribution and quantum oscillations was detected in the specimens used in this study. Figure 4.5. (a) Temperature dependence of resistance. à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚ ³Rxx is function of 1/B. n = 4, 5, and 6 are the LLs of the bottom surface; n = 6, 7, 8, and 9 are the LLs of the top surface of the 200-nm nanoflake. (b) Hall resistance versus magnetic field. The red dashed line is extended from the low B ( ±1T) fit. The inset shows the Fermi level positions of the top and bottom surfaces, respectively. BV is the bulk valance band, and BC is the conduction band. (c) The LL fan diagram plotted in 1/B versus the nth oscillation minima in the à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚ ³Rxx. (d) The fit of temperature dependence of the SdH oscillation amplitude to the LK theory. (e) à ¯Ã†â€™Ã‚ ³R versus 1/B. The black curve is the experimental data, and the red curve is the fit to LK theory. 4.3.4 Weak anti-localization effect In addition to SdH oscillations, the helical surface state was further probed using the WAL effect on the 200-nm BSTS. The WAL effect in TIs originated from the  ° Berry phase, in which the probability of backscattering was suppressed as a result of the destructive interference of time-reversed paths. The angle field dependence magnetoconductance analysis is shown in Figure 4.6 (a). The sharp cusps of the magnetoconductance in the lower field region are features of WAL. The 2D nature of Dirac fermions associated with the  ° Berry phase, which is dependent only on the perpendicular component of the applying field, was obtained by subtracting the background from the 3D bulk WAL contribution, ΔGxx(ÃŽ ¸,B) = Gxx(ÃŽ ¸,B) Gxx(90 °,B) (5), as shown in Figure 4.6 (b). Figure 4.6 (b) shows that low-angle data merge into a single universal curve [15]. The Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka (HLN) [15] model is used to calculate sheet conductance [27], as given in Eq. (3): , (4.3) where Gxx is sheet conductance, is the phase coherent length, and is the digamma function. The value for à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ¡ (-0.96) and (121 nm) were obtained for the 200-nm nanoflake. For the WAL effect in TIs, the prefactor à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ¡ was equal to -0.5 for a single surface state [40]. The complicacies of topological surface states resulted in an experimental value à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ¡ between -0.4 to -1.5 [38, 40]. In this study, the value à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ¡ = -0.96 indicated the existence of two surface states. Figure 4.6. (a) The angle field dependence magnetoconductance of the 200-nm nanoflake. The inset is a schematic diagram of the measurement. (b) ΔGxx versus the perpendicular field component (B cos ÃŽ ¸) for various angles. Low-angle data merge into a single curve (the green dashed line) fitted using the HLN model. 4.4 Conclusion In this study, dominated surface transport was observed in BSTS nanoflakes. The thickness dependence electrical transport and the SdH oscillations illustrated that the surface states in the 200-nm BSTS nanoflake contribute to nearly 90 % of the conductance. The achievement of the surface-dominated transport is mainly attributed to the high surface mobility relative to the bulk channel. The observation of SdH oscillations provides clear evidence of surface Dirac fermions. Surface-dominated transport was further confirmed by the WAL effect showing 2D nature of helical Dirac surface states. Moreover, electrical transport transforms from semiconducting to metallic behavior, and mobility was enhanced when the thickness decreased, indicating that surface states plays a crucial role in the thin film limit. The high-insulating bulk state in BSTS nanoflakes provides opportunities for future quantum computation and spintronics applications.

Toni Morrison and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese :: Biography Biographies Essays

Toni Morrison and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese In this I essay will be discussing two unique authors, Toni Morrison and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. Morrison is a Nobel Prize winning author, and Fox-Genovese, is a history professor at Harvard. Both of these women have interesting perspectives on race and gender. According to the articles I have read, Toni and Fox-Genovese claim the way people view women and minorities is wrong. In a Vibe Magazine interview, Toni claims that In a recent British nanny case, there was "complaint about the mother not being home with child...she she should have been home with her children, said some people" (Vibe 1998 p.2). Morrison states that it would be an entirely different situation, had the mother been a poor black women. A black women "should work, even if that work is taking care of somebady else's children" (Vibe 1998). This is a wrong way to look at things; "we fought a long time to have 'Women taking care of children' understood to be work. Now its understood to be something else" (Vibe 1998 p.3). According to Toni, people size up who you are by what you look like, what your name is, and by what you do. However this is only "part of who you are. When I was a little girl, a man came up to me and said, 'are you a Willis?' - referring to my mother's maiden name-'I thought so, by the way you walk.' I moved to New York and people said, 'What do you do' So you say' I'm a writer..but you that's only part of who you are" (Vibe 1998 p.3). Often people wrap their identity in what they do. This can be troublesome when your not performing to someones expectations, one might think there is some thing wrong with who they are, which is not true. The same thing applies to gender and race. It is unfair to already have a preconcieved notion about someone without checking him or her out first. Fox-Genovese claims that many articles of literature exclude certain people. Like Morrison, Fox-Genovese agrees that elite culture "denied the values and perceptions of all others and imposed itself as an absolute standard" (Fox-Genovese 1998).

A Terrible Accident

On Christmas day in the year of 2006, I got a gas scooter. I was so happy when I got it, because all the kids in my neighborhood had one. After, I ate dinner on Christmas I got dress and put some warm clothes on so I could go ride my scooter. It was a cold and windy day, but the sun was shinning really bright. So, when I got finished getting dress I went outside and got on my scooter. I was riding down the street, when this boy name Trevor started chasing me. I was going so fast it felt like I was going 90mph. When I finally got to my driveway, I was going so fast that I couldn’t stop. When I turned into my driveway I went over a hump so fast that it made the scooter turn over. When I realized it had turn over, I was on ground with the scooter laying on top of me. I was screaming for help, but nobody couldn’t hear me. About 5 minutes later, Trevor was standing over me laughing, and all I could say can you please help me because I was in so much pain. I was laying on the ground about 30 minutes until I seen a car pull up. I was so happy, because I really needed so help, so when I thought they was out the car I started screaming help again and when I looked it was my cousin Tashia trying to get the scooter off of me. When she finally got the scooter off of me she helped me into the house, because I could barely walk. When I got in the house my family was looking like what happen, and I said I felled off my scooter. My leg was so burnt that some of my skin was peeling off. I had numerous of scars on my leg and my face. My mother said I think you need to go the emergency room for your leg, but I didn’t want to be in the hospital on Christmas day. When we got to the hospital the doctor examine my leg and if he touch it hurt so bad. But the doctor said I was going to be okay, he gave me some ointment to put on it and wrapped my leg some cloth. I’m so thankful until this day that Tashia came the time she did.

Alpine Avalanche in Austria in 1999

The Avalanche in Austria that had killed more or less 31 people in February 1999 has been considered as the worst natural disaster during the past 30 years. The Alpine avalanche smashed into the Ischgl ski resort near the village of Galtuer. What is avalanche? Why it is happening?These two questions provide understanding on the natural disaster that most of us are not aware or are concerned. Snow Avalanche is the speedy downslide movement of snow ice associated with assorted debris such as rocks and vegetation (Definition and Characteristic-Avalanche). Avalanche happens when a bunch of snow becomes unstable; it then releases and speedily down slides either over an open or concerted area in an avalanche path. Its speed even reaches up to two hundred miles an hour and can wield a force strong enough to uproot or snap big trees or even destroy concrete structures. An avalanche may be preceded by an â€Å"air blast† that may also be capable of damaging buildings. Snow avalanche is a natural hazard along with rock avalanche, landslides, debris torrents that are all known as mountain slope hazards (McClung, David & Schaerer, Peter 2006, p. 14). These hazards presents serious problems for visitors and dwellers in mountainous terrain though mountain slope hazards are not as destructive as the so-called â€Å"big five† of the natural disasters such as earthquake, floods, tropical storms, drought, and volcanic eruptions. However, the Austrian avalanche in February 23, 1999 that claimed thirty-one lives mostly tourist from neighboring countries were said to be the worst alpine disaster in the world. Rescuers said aside from the 31 people dead, they rescued twenty-three of which eight were injured. Wendelin Weingartner, governor in the western province of Tyrol commented saying, â€Å"this is a catastrophe such as we have not had for centuries. † Eyewitness of the scene stated automobiles were trampled by big walls of snow or tossed like toy cars by the force of the avalanche. One house was sliced off its top floor as if by a giant razor blade. The disaster stranded up to seven hundred tourists in Galtuer but they were eventually flown out by the Austrian army to safety as well as the more or less 1000 foreign tourists. The impact of this avalanche was heavily felt in the village of Galtuer, which was reach, by the raging fast moving snow avalanche in a matter of only fifty seconds destroying seven modern buildings and burying fifty-seven people. The families of the victims were outraged as the village were supposed to be safe from the threat of avalanche. Galtuer was situated two hundred meters from the base of the mountains and is considered safe from avalanche based on the computerized stimulated test showing one in one hundred-fifty year event, would not reach the village. However, the massive built up of snow and the accumulation along the way as it slid down the mountain slope has grown so large at one hundred meters high when it trampled on the village. Investigation about what made the February 1999 Austrian avalanche so much worse than anything previously recorded revealed that from January 20 onwards series of severe storms brought warm, moist air from the Atlantic, which upon meeting with ice cold arctic air, resulted, to a record snowfalls of up to four meters. This was followed by very strong winds of up to one hundred-twenty kilometer per hour, which had increased the depth of snow on the mountains above Galtuer. David Waugh (2000) explains that as snowfalls, â€Å"it often forms two layers separated, as in sandwich, by a weaker layer† (p. 127). The warmer weather at Galtuer at the end of January caused melting and re-freezing until there was a much greater accumulation of snow. Although avalanche higher warning was given three times in the area, but it was quite impossible to predict the exact locations of avalanche with all the thousands slopes in the region. The build up of snow under a weak ground have made that very strong avalanche force that has brought enormous destruction on lives and properties. The February 1999 avalanche, which began at four in the afternoon of the twenty-third with a dry snow slab avalanche, fractured with a width of approximately four hundred meter. Scientist studying the nature of February 1999 avalanche discovered through a controlled experiment that avalanche increased in volume considerably as it moved downhill (Waugh 2000, p. 127). The scientist findings revealed that that the weight of snow that hit Galtuer was up to 400,000 tones and that the avalanche was one hundred meters in height and had traveled at the speed of three hundred kilometer per hour. The disastrous 1999 alpine avalanche has shown clearly that it is fundamental to have proper land use planning to protect mountain villages from the destructive effects of the snow avalanches. Walter J. Ammann, Stefanie Dannenmann, and Laurent Vulliet stated that proper planning of land use â€Å"requires a correct risk analysis procedure which implies the evaluation of the two essential components of risk: hazard and vulnerability† (Ammann, Dannenmann, & Vulliet 2006, p. 227). The vulnerability of Austrian structures and buildings against avalanche has been directly correlated to the impact pressure. However, the vulnerability component of avalanche risk is more difficult to assess because of the scarcity of suitable data to evaluate the effects of avalanches on people and properties. Despite of the efforts of the Austrian government to prevent the build up of snow in the mountain area, the incident that challenged the human capacity of creating safety standards against natural disasters prove to be no much against a simple actions of nature. The February 1999 avalanche in the village of Galtuer perhaps can be attributed to the human shortcomings despite of the prior efforts made to ensure the safety of everyone in the area, tourist and local people alike. Based on available literature, comprehensive studies were done on the characteristic and nature of avalanche only after the Galtuer incident happened. This suggest that the village of Galtuer which were assured of safety from the threat of avalanche were constantly in danger as studies done previously were not really sufficient to determine the true characteristic of avalanche. Besides, hazard zoning was inefficient as most of the destroyed houses were within green zoning which dangerous to the threats of avalanche. In this case, the February 1999 avalanche came as a big surprise costing lives and damages to properties. It was apparent that weather was particularly severe in the region with non-stop snowfalls over the duration of seven days accumulating up to 270cm. Local feedbacks about the weather condition estimates that strong winds, which are around eighty to ninety kilometer per hour, produced 10-20 tones of snow in an hour. The testimonies from survivors indicate that they were not at all expecting such tragedy would happen. A British survivor described the scenario as incredible and â€Å"absolutely terrifying† stating that a â€Å"huge cloud of snow† enclosed the village. In his article entitled, â€Å"Lessons Learnt from Avalanche Disasters† Alessandro Colombo stated that people ignored the warning believing that the situations were improbable. The 1999 Austrian avalanche was not a single disaster that happened that particular year as more avalanche occurred although not as disastrous as what happened in February 23 of that year. The two avalanches that successively and unexpectedly occurred have left many people dead and threats of new avalanches continues to bring fears and worries to people leaving in the area and tourist alike. The responsibility of the Austrian authorities is to make protect the safety of the people by enforcing necessary measures that will guarantee their safety. It is clear from this point that the authorities had not done enough to protect the people from the threat of the avalanche. Indeed, the Austrian authorities have been criticized for doing the evacuation earlier. Televisions and newspaper stated that that government should have taken more safety measures for the sake of the safety of the people, even at the cost of tourist business. Conclusions What happened in February 1999 in Austria is grim reminder that man cannot underestimate the forces of nature, which usually strike in an unexpected situation. The case of the sinking of Titanic during a very peaceful condition of sea is a further reminder that authorities cannot afford to be complacent about his accomplishment particularly when it comes to keeping the safety of the people. While the Austrian authorities admit shortcomings, the disaster had already claimed lives and wrought enormous destruction to properties. Although these events happened almost a decade ago, it is important that government take advance precautionary measures that will guaranty the safety of the people even at the expense of tourist industry. While Austrian mountain slopes continues to attract tourist from the around the world, the danger from the threats of avalanche remains. However, it is perhaps safe to assume that the lessons from the 1999 avalanche were already imbedded in the hearts and of the Austrian people. In other words, similar disasters may never happen again with the same magnitude of destruction both in humans and in properties. Reference List Ammann, J. ,W. Dannenmann, S. & Vulliet, L. (2006) Risk 21- Coping with Risk Due to Natural Hazards in the 21st London: Taylor and Francis Group Definition and Characteristic-Avalanche http://geosurvey. state. co. us/Default. aspx? tabid=399 Hopes fade to Find more Survivors from Austrian Avalanche (posted February 25, 1999) http://www. cnn. com/WORLD/europe/9902/25/europe. snow. 01/index. html McClung, D. & Scaerer, (2006) P. The Avalanche Handbook. USA: The Mountaineers Books Waugh, D. (2000) Geography: An Integrated Approach UK: Nelson Thornes

Spinal Tap essays

Spinal Tap essays While attempting to be nothing more than a comical spoof of the music industry, Spinal Tap was instead rocketed to cult icon status. The characters in the movie are so fully thought out that almost all rock and roll bands that became popular prior to and half a decade later than the release of the movie fit the stereotypes presented by this fictitious band that ended up being more real than any other legitimate bands of the time. The days of disco had long faded by the 1984 release of this film, and the punk scene was still for the most part underground. With the hair band scene just beginning to come to light, and rap music being confined to the street, this movie would sarcastically lay the groundwork for the sellout crowd arena rock groups of the eighties. Or as they are commonly referred to now, the hair bands. Now Spinal Tap as portrayed in the movie was in fact a metal band, but metal at that time would be called rock and roll just a few years down the road. If you look at the bands such as Poison, Twisted Sister, Ratt, Def Leopard etc... you will notice that they are in fact Spinal Tap without the punch line. On a side note the wearing women's clothes and makeup were a strange occurrence thrown in from the new wave bands that were getting club play at the time. This is actually where the term hair band came from. That fact aside you will notice that everything from personality of the band members, t o the groupies that follow them, and the inner relations of the band members themselves are just slightly exaggerated in the movie. First and foremost you have the lead singer/ guitarist that got all the recognition. In spinal tap that character is none other than David St. Hubbins, whos long blond hair and happy go lucky attitude earned him the tender hearted yet clearly conceited member of the band. If you will notice he bore a striking resemblance to the Axel Rose type of singer that became so ...