Micro-structure and Mechanical Properties Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Micro-structure and Mechanical Properties - Essay Example The metallic bonds ensure enhances the strength of the metals. Metals exhibit different levels of strength especially when they are subjected to heat. Mechanical properties of ceramics. The thermal properties of ceramics, on the other hand, are normally determined by the type of bonding present and the number of existing bonds in the ceramic material. The bonds found in ceramic materials are covalent bonds. The toughness of ceramics decreases with increase in temperature as the bonds become weaker. This is because the bond is weakened by the vibrating atoms due to heat and vice versa. Ceramics show a number of optical characteristics such as transparency, translucency, and color which are dependent on the visible light interaction with pigments. The presence of light increases its brittleness significantly. Mechanical properties of polymers. Polymers show different levels of strength particularly tensile strength and flexural strength. Unreinforced polymers normally have a tensile st rength of 10-100Mpa. Polymers also have different levels of elongation which is the change that occurs on the shape of the polymer as a result of stretching due to change in temperature.The change in microstructure makes Polymers have different values of the modulus. Polymers lose their toughness when subjected to high temperatures and become brittle when subjected to sub zero temperatures. This is as a result of the strengthening of the covalent bonds between molecules. To enhance strength polymers should be subjected to low temperatures.

To Think for Yourself Essay Example for Free

To Think for Yourself Essay Henry David Thoreaus, Walden, is a novel focused completely around the idea of self-reliance. In the novel, Thoreau goes even more in depth into this idea, focusing a passage on the specific idea of experiencing your life solely for yourself, not through the ideas or beliefs of anyone else. He states, No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof(1616). He fully believes that a person cannot live their life based on hear say. He believes that if you have not seen or experienced something yourself to prove that it is indeed true, you are living your life based on false pretenses missing out on not only some of the greatest aspects of life, but of forming your own self. Seeing this overpowering influence of the media and others in todays society on me, as Thoreau would, this is a belief my mother has instilled in me since the day I was born. She has always told me, If you didnt see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, or feel it for yourself, then you have no idea if it is true. Overcoming the large influence of our elders, as well as the media in this generation, means stepping out against the norm and experiencing life on our own terms, in order to learn just how much more the world has to offer than someone elses beliefs. Thoreau persuades his readers by providing us with several examples of times he has proven his belief to be true. He uses this example to mock a common belief of his towns people when he states, What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow,  mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields (1616). Thoreau could not have chosen a better way to define other peoples opinions than as a mere smoke of opinion because that is exactly what it is. There is clearly no such thing as a fertilizing rain, but if Thoreau did not have the untrustworthy stance he had, he would have believed this fantasy just as everyone else did. Everyone in life, especially our elders, is going to have a different opinion on just about everything there is to have an opinion on. However, what they say to be true from their time may not be true today. Thoreau provides us with the example of the elders of his time not being smart enough to find fuel, while fuel had already become the largest source of heat for his time because someone decided to go against the norm and try it (1616). Therefore this was once again a statement easily proven false with a little effort. In Thoreaus passage, it is nearly impossible to ignore his brute stance on only trusting your own experiences and opinions over any one elses. He gives an even better example why he believes this so passionately when he states, One farmer says to me, You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw materials of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle. (1616). In this quote, Thoreau even uses a sense of humor effectively proving his point, as well as showing his readers it is not just elders that are not to be trusted, it is everyone. He is clearly mocking this man, for the man blatantly contradicts himself by not even realizing the animal he is using for such hard labor, survives off of nothing but vegetables. Thoreau proves the valuable point; how can a person trust what people tell them when it is this easily proven wrong? He wants us to see this is only a few of the many things that others could swear to be true, only to be proved false by a little thought from a different perspective or experience. Reading this passage and seeing Thoreaus passionate belief has brought many prevalent concerns about todays society to mind. Being influenced by what others tell you to be true, based of off their beliefs, is still as big of an issue today as Thoreau believed it to be in this passage. There is not one person alive, whether it was in ancient history or today, that has not been persuaded in some way to follow a certain crowd or believe a certain thing just because it is the popular belief or simply what that individual believes to be true. Not only one of the greatest influences, but at times one of the greatest issues on society, will always be the media. All it takes is one meager talk show host to make a statement, whether about a celebrity, government official, or religion, for the entire world to believe it to be true, proof or no proof. It is a shame how many magazines or television shows support their business by selling magazines or episodes implying or hinting at something to be true even if it isnt. A prime example of this is the US Weekly, People, Ok!, Cosmopolitan, etc. magazines, that exists solely based on gossip and popular trends, yet this is what most of the world, especially young adults, choose to read for entertainment or advise. The phrase, All it takes is one rumor, true or not is prevalent now more than ever. People today do not take the time Thoreau is saying is necessary to find out if something is really true or not. A lot of the time, they simply just do not even care. That one rumor is all they need to hear for it to spread like wildfire. Not only can this ruin the victim of the rumors life, it alters the way the believers look at life. How are people supposed to think for themselves and develop their own identity when the world is telling them exactly whom they should be and what they should believe, no questions asked? All it takes is a little courage and a small amount of time to go against the norm to see if something is true in your opinion or just in everyone elses. As Thoreau says, What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can (1616). In his time, there was no overpowering media as there is today so I am referring to his old people as our media today and I know from many experiences, in the grand scheme of things, it is completely worth it to find out that you can. In conclusion, Thoreaus unwavering outlook on the need to prove what others have to say to be true before blindly trusting them is still very necessary today, if not more. There are going to be times when listening to others is the better judgment, especially in the case of safety, however, relying solely on others to tell you how to live your life or view others based on gossip is a different story. If you constantly follow what others tell you to do and not to do, you will never develop your own sense of the world and the people in it through your own mistakes and perspective. You will merely be walking through life in someone elses shoes. Works Cited Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. _The Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 1_. Ed. George McMichael. 10th ed. New York: Pearson, 2011. 1193-1310. Print.

The Politics of Obesity Essay -- Overweight Health Eating Habits Essay

The Politics of Obesity A March, 2005 headline on CNN.com brought deeply disturbing news to the American public: â€Å"Report: Obesity will reverse life expectancy gains.† For the past 200 years, life expectancy steadily increased thanks to medical advances such as the discovery of antibiotics and vaccines, but this upward trend is no longer guaranteed. Childhood obesity has already reduced the average life expectancy between four and nine months. â€Å"[T]oday’s generation will have shorter and less healthy lives than their parents for the first time in modern history,† warned S. Jay Olshansky, the University of Illinois researcher and author of the study (1). In 2004, the US Center for Disease Control found that at least 66% of adults were overweight or obese—double the percentage in 1980—and that more than 1/6 th of kids ages 2-19 were overweight. Type II diabetes, usually caused by an unhealthy lifestyle rather than genetics, has increased as a side effect of obesity and heart disease is also on the rise. In short, obesity is a national epidemic. Accusatory fingers have been flying, each pointing to different possible causes for our tubby younger generation and their similarly overweight parents. Some blame video games that keep kids inside and sedentary and some see the shift toward desk jobs as the reason. Others claim that our car culture based on cheap gas is the culprit. Still others fault the fat-laden fast food, soda, and junk food that Americans consume by the ton. To be sure, these cultural phenomena are interconnected and no one cause can be blamed entirely, but one tiny acronym stands demurely behind this last category of diet-related causes: HFCS. High fructose corn syrup, the favorite food additive of Coke, ... ...ne wants to experience the pain and frustration of obesity, and surely we wish to protect our children from starting out life unhealthy and overweight. As consumers but more importantly as citizens, we must be informed about the HFCS and obesity for our children’s sake, and US agricultural and nutritional policy must reflect our concerns. Sources Cited: http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/diet.fitness/03/16/obesity.longevity.ap/ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/18/FDGS24VKMH1.DTL Michael Pollan. â€Å"The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity.† The New York Times Magazine. Oct 12, 2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8003-2003Mar10?language=printer http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/79/4/537 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15234599&dopt=Abstract

Emotional Intelligence and Everyday Behavior Essay

On this article the author establishes the relationship between emotional intelligence and college students. It’s very notorious that the author’s focused the research based on measuring the Big Five personality traits (Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism) and related to behaviors, this is because the intellectual measures and the ability to express knowledge don’t give us a complete overview of the person. As the author said: â€Å"The goal of the present study is to assess the criterion validity of EI, and hence the social significance or external utility of EI by relating the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT, 2002a) to selected scales from the College Student Life Space Scale (CSLSS, Brackett, 2001)†. Another fundamental point of this article was to present the genders’ differences and which of the scores on the scale are more representative on each one. Even though the participants as the author expressed were recruited from introductory courses and received course credit for their involvement in the study, the participants were part of a larger study that examined the relation between the Big Five personality traits and the Life Space. There were a 330 total of participants all between 17 and 20 years which 241 of them were female and the 89 left were males. (M.A. Brackett et al., Personality and Individual Differences (2004). The participants were asked for permission to acquire their SAT scores and college grade points average from the university; student’s been not brilliant but can be considered as a standard class. For measuring the results the scales were organized according to three broad content areas: healthy versus unhealthy behavior, general leisure and academic activities and interpersonal relations. In order to mean the gender differences on both scales analyses were conducted separately. Mayer et al. (1998) said that some question formats are items that first, require minimal interpretations on the part of the participant, and that the answers are definite and potentially verifiable. The same was as Shaffer, Saunders & Owens (1986) explained that â€Å"such question formats also minimize social desirability response bias†. For improving the data collection I would have had the same sample size for both genders, and have evaluated them both ways: first, by a whole population and them examine the results by gender, this is to understand how any of the gender impact on the whole group. Brackett & Mayer (2003), Ciarrochi et al. (2001), Mayer et al. (1999), Mayer et al. (2002a), Roberts et al. (2001), Salovey et al. (2001) found that scores on tests are related to but mostly independent of verbal intelligence, the Big Five, and empathy (rs

Logical Processor and Reactive Stimulator Essay

When I took the test I came out with Logical Processor and Reactive Simulator. Both of my styles were even so not one outweighed the other. I had to laugh when I actually completed the test. It all comes in hand with my current additional duties at work. I am a union steward and when it comes to this job I initially use Reactive Simulator. When I first get a grievance, my initial reaction is to get to the meeting immediately so that I can hurry up and fry the other individual because I need immediate results. Well it doesn’t work like that. I have 15 days from the time that I receive my case to get all of my facts together; do research within the contract laws to see which ones were violated. It really helps when I have a griever that has a good case they could win. As a steward I have to fight for the griever whether or not they are correct. Sometimes being a Reactive simulator causes me to get into confrontations. I immediately react to different situations, always on the defense. With this style it causes me to not hear other individual’s side of the story, because in my eyes if you are wrong than that’s how I am going keep the situation until I am proven otherwise. My communication is a little misunderstood by my co-workers. I am not a really compassionate person so I don’t take personal issues into consideration. I can sometimes come off harsh, but I really think that I am misunderstood by others. My Logical Processor can also balance me out. When I have a task or a major project, I will do my research on it. I am not going to say that I am a know-it-all, but if I have to prove something to my supervisor, I will go to the regulations and prove her wrong, not intentionally. If it takes me all day to find the answer to an issue, than I will use the whole day, as long as I am correct. I am a individual that hates change and if I can keep something the same by proving that they are doing something illegal, then so be it. Both the Logical Processor and the Reactive Simulator makes my Strategic pattern a performer. One of those attributes is that I want results to be quickly achieved. The results have to have a good outcome with it. I like to get the job done, I do not like to take the shortcut, nor do I like the think out of the box approach!