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1. Louisa May Alcott was influenced to write from an early age. She was born in 1832, in Pennsylvania, but grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, a center for thinkers and writers. Her father, the social reformer Bronson Alcott, was her teacher. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were her mentors.
2. As a teenager, Alcott helped support her mother and sisters, while her father pursued unprofitable schemes for reform. Alcott was a seamstress, a governess, and a domestic servant at various times, but she kept writing. She published a poem in 1851 and a story in 1852.
3. In 1862, during the Civil War, Alcott served as a nurse in a Union hospital. As a result, she developed a severe illness from which she never fully recovered. Yet the experience had a positive effect. It provided her with the material for her popular manuscript Hospital Sketches, published in 1863.
4. Alcott wrote numerous tales from magazines during the 1860s, but she published them anonymously or under pseudonyms. In 1868-1869, she published Little Women using her own name. Little Women brought Alcott fame and, for the first time, financial security.
5. For Little Women, Alcott drew on her childhood adventures with her older sister Anna and younger sisters Elizabeth and Abigail May. The sisters became Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy in the book, with Jo as the character Alcott based on herself. Little Women and several later books for young people established Alcott's public image as the "children's friend."
6. The reputation endured until the mid-1940s, when tow book-business partners discovered that Alcott had a darker side. These partners matched Alcott with the pseudonyms she had used. They revealed that Alcott had published adult thrillers of revenge, violence, and passion.
7. The discovery led critics to re-evaluate Alcott's life and writings. Some now conclude that Alcott hid feminist messages in Little Women. The fact that Alcott openly campaigned for women's rights later in her life supports this conclusion. Alcott died in Boston in 1888.
Learn to Trade
1. Are you losing sleep over the problem of your job future? Have you thought about learning a trade? A trade generally requires manual labor and training in a specific skill, and this has many advantages. Imagine having a job that allows you to work with your hands, see immediate results, and gain financial security. What's more, you could enjoy what you do.
2. Hundreds of trades exist, so it should be fairly easy to find one that suits you. You might want to be an electrician, a plumber, or a hair stylist, to name only three. New trades keep emerging as well. The developing filed of renewable energy offers opportunities for solar or wind power technicians.
3. Some trades are undergoing labor shortages as workers retire, and this means that newly trained people are in demand. Learning some trades is possible in less time than it take to earn a four-year college degree-and at less cost.
4. Here are questions to help you start thinking about a trade. You might want to consider these in step-by-step order. Remember that a little research in a library or on the Internet can help you find answers.
8. Now you are ready to explore the ways to learn your trade. You might attend a community college or trade school or learn through an apprenticeship. Explore the possibilities for financial aid. Enjoy the process of discovering your bright future.
Who discovered that electricity and magnetism were two aspects of the same thing?
Nineteenth-century scientist Michael Faraday made several important discoveries in chemistry, but it was his work with electricity that had the greatest impact. His interest in electricity was sparked by a series of experiments conducted by Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted. In 1820, Oersted discovered a fascinating relationship between electricity and magnetism. He concluded that an electrical current running through a wire also created a magnetic field around the wire.
Faraday immediately began his own research. Several years later, he designed an experiment that wrapped two insulated wires around a large iron ring. When he sent an electrical current through one of the wires, he detected a current running in the other. The current couldn’t have passed from one wire to the other because of conduction—the insulation surrounding the wires made that impossible. Faraday suspected it had something to do with the magnetic field surrounding the first wire.
Later, Faraday made a coil of wire and placed a magnet inside it. He found that when he moved the magnet back and forth, an electrical current began flowing through the wire. The same thing happened if the magnet remained still and he moved the coil back and forth. Although Faraday wasn’t exactly sure why it was happening, he concluded that the changing magnetic field was causing the current to flow through the wires. He had just discovered electromagnetic induction.
Faraday kept experimenting, and soon he saw that a magnetic field could also have an effect on light. This discovery was the first indication that light is a form of electromagnetic energy.
About 20 years later, James Clerk Maxwell used Faraday’s groundbreaking work to write a series of mathematical equations that clearly explained electromagnetic fields and their effect on matter. Maxwell’s work connected the dots laid down by Faraday concerning light, electricity, and magnetism. In one of science’s greatest moments, Maxwell concluded from his research that light must be a form of electromagnetic energy—a discovery that opened the door to much of the scientific research that would dominate the 20th century.
field: a region in space defined by the strength and direction of a force’s influence
conduction: the transfer of heat or electrical energy through a substance
electromagnetic induction: the creation of an electrical current in a conductive substance when it’s exposed to a changing magnetic field
The electrical current that passed from one insulated wire to the other in Faraday’s experiment happened because of mutual induction. The current running through a wire creates a small, changing magnetic field around the wire. When another wire comes near enough, this changing magnetic field induces a current to flow in the second wire as well.
Nearly all the appliances in your home contain induction motors. An induction motor uses an electrical current to create a circle of changing magnetic fields that cause a rotor to spin.
How did the idea that germs cause disease come about?
Louis Pasteur, a chemist and biologist, held the belief that scientific research should aid in the development and progression of industries. When beverage manufacturing plants were having problems with liquids spoiling during the mid-1800s, Pasteur used his microscope to observe the fermentation process. When a batch was bad, he found that other microorganisms had mixed with the yeast. He showed that heating liquid to around 60°C (140°F) would kill the microorganisms and sterilize the product to prevent contamination. This heating process is known as pasteurization and is still used today to prevent bacterial growth in milk, juice, and other beverages.
Pasteur’s work with fermentation led him to research the origins of microorganisms, which he believed came out of the air. He performed a simple experiment by collecting air at different altitudes into flasks of yeast- filled liquid. The flasks had long, narrow necks that would allow air to enter but would trap dust and microorganisms. The liquid remained free of microorganisms as long as Pasteur didn’t shake the flask. Once shaken, the liquid would begin to host microorganisms and turn cloudy. This confirmed his hypothesis about where germs came from, but other scientists had to be convinced that substances couldn’t just produce germs on their own—an idea known as spontaneous generation.
With a greater understanding of the origins of germs, Pasteur set about to discover better ways to prevent diseases. He was studying chicken cholera, when he left his lab in the heat of the summer and returned to find that his cultures would no longer make the chickens sick. He grew new cultures and injected those chickens as well as a second batch. The chickens that had been previously injected with the damaged batch of cholera remained well, while the new group of birds grew sick and died. He deduced that the summer heat had made the bacilli noninfectious and learned that he could reproduce the effect by growing it in a warmer environment. He went on to create vaccines for rabies and for anthrax in sheep.
Louis Pasteur led the way for a new era of medicine, in which patients could anticipate a cure for their illnesses. His students and colleagues continued to isolate disease- causing bacteria and develop vaccines. Deeper understanding of these bacteria led to the development of antibiotics, which have had a major impact on modern medicine.
fermentation: the process in which microorganisms, especially bacteria and yeast, break down plant or animal materials
microorganisms: single-celled organisms too small to be seen by the naked eye
bacilli: rod-shaped bacteria
Edward Jenner created the first vaccine in the 1790s when he discovered that injecting patients with cowpox would immunize them from smallpox—a similar virus that could be contracted only once.
Pasteur’s work with fermentation led him to the creation of the germ theory of disease—the idea that microorganisms from outside the body can cause disease within it. It took a long time for the scientific community to accept the idea. It seemed illogical to scientists that something that couldn’t even be viewed without a microscope could cause damage to an organism as large as an animal or a human being.
“Where observation is concerned, chance favors only the prepared mind.” —Louis Pasteur
Each summer in July and August, the steady buzz of cicadas fills the air across much of the United States. Male cicadas produce this noise in order to attract mates. When dozens of cicadas buzz at once, the sound can be loud, but when millions of them are calling out at once, the sound can be nearly deafening.
Although there are thousands of different species of cicadas, they’re all members of the Cicadidae family of insects. The most common cicadas in America are in the genus Tibicen. They emerge from the ground as nymphs in July and climb into nearby trees to molt. The adult cicada leaves behind its old exoskeleton as it flies off to find a mate, and the empty shells remain clinging to tree trunks and branches.
For a few short weeks, the male cicada’s song can be heard echoing through the trees, but soon after mating, the male cicadas die. The adult females survive a bit longer in order to lay eggs in tiny slits they’ve cut into tree limbs, but then they die as well. Several weeks later, the eggs hatch and the larvae that emerge fall to the ground. They burrow deep into the soil, where they’ll live for the next few years by feeding on juices from tree roots. About three years later, they reemerge as nymphs, and the cycle continues.
Although Tibicen cicadas are more common, the Magicicada genus is the one that makes the news. They emerge in the millions—and sometimes even in the billions—every 13 or 17 years, depending on the brood. In some wooded areas, the swarms are so thick that you can quickly end up with a dozen cicadas clinging to your body. The sound can be so overwhelming that it can be difficult to hold a conversation.
Antiques dealers can use style, workmanship, and materials as clues to date a piece of furniture or a vase. It’s quite a bit more complex for scientists to assign an age to a fossil, a piece of rock, a tree limb, or even a geological event. Like an expert in antiques, a paleontologist or geologist will gather clues about an object. Then, he or she will use the information to determine the object’s age. Over the years, methods of dating have improved and allow most materials to be dated with accuracy.
Relative dating was used before a reliable method of absolute dating was discovered. It allowed scientists to determine the order of events or tell whether one object was older than another. For example, using the law of superposition—one of the principles of relative dating—a geologist knows that the oldest beds of rock form the bottom layers in a series, while the most recent are on top.
When methods of absolute dating became possible, scientists could assign an actual age to objects and events, instead of just ordering them in time. Radiometric dating, developed after radioactivity was discovered in 1896, is one of the best-known methods. It’s based on the theory that radioactive elements decay at predictable rates.
Carbon dating is frequently used to date organic remains. It’s based on the fact that there is always a specific percentage of all carbon that exists as the isotope carbon-14. Those unstable carbon-14 isotopes steadily break down and turn into nitrogen-14. Other processes ensure there is always the same percentage of carbon-14. However, when the organism dies, the percentage will not stay at its stable amount. Over a period of 5,730 years, half the carbon in a dead plant, for example, will have changed to nitrogen. This is called the half-life of carbon-14. In another 5,730 years, half the remaining carbon will have changed to nitrogen. By measuring how much carbon-14 there is in the organic material, scientists can tell how old it is.
One problem with using carbon dating is that it’s useful only to date things that are less than about 40,000 years old because carbon’s half-life isn’t very long. Other radioactive elements can be used for some types of dating, but like carbon, they also have limits.
One type of dating isn’t superior to another. In fact, scientists generally use more than one method when possible. This allows them to double-check their conclusions and be sure that they are as accurate as possible.
relative dating: ordering events or objects in time without assigning actual ages or dates
absolute dating: determining an actual age for an object or a date of occurrence for an event
radiometric dating: a method of absolute dating in which the amount of a radioactive element that remains in a material after it has begun to decay is measured Using radiometric dating, Earth has been dated at 4.5 billion years old. The planet’s oldest rocks were formed about 3.8 billion years ago, but meteorites in our solar system have been dated at 4.5 billion years old. Earth and the meteorites would have formed at the same time—with the formation of our solar system—so they should be approximately the same age. Dendrochronology is the use of a tree’s growth rings to determine the age of a tree and what the environmental conditions were like during its lifetime.
Job Corps is a major training and employment program administered by the Department of Labor. Job Corps was created to address the severe employment problems faced by socially and economically disadvantaged youth throughout the United States. Job Corps was originally established by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Current authorization and funding for the program is through the Workforce Investment Act. Job Corps is designed to assist young people that can benefit from the wide range of services offered. These services include educational/ career technical skill development, work experience, career counselling, basic health care, social skills training, and related developmental services. The unique combination of training and supportive services provided in a Job Corps program is intended to prepare every student to secure meaningful employment, pursue higher education/training, or satisfy entrance requirement for a career in the military.
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How does new knowledge change the way scientists look at old discoveries?
Trilobite fossils found at the Burgess Shale helped scientists date the other creatures found there to the Cambrian period, which lasted from 530 to 520 million years ago. This period in Earth’s history saw a phenomenal increase in the diversity and abundance of Earth’s life forms within a relatively short time. Another of Stephen Jay Gould’s debated hypotheses was that evolutionary change occurs in sudden bursts, followed by long periods of stability.
How do scientists figure out what dinosaurs looked like?
Do you know what dinosaurs look like? You’ve probably seen their images hundreds of times. Although most people could easily describe one, the truth is that no one really knows what dinosaurs looked like. The creatures that the word dinosaur bring to mind are actually the joint creations of paleontologists and artists. While they do their best to be scientifically accurate, a lot of educated guesswork is involved.
Fossils are the source of most of what is known about dinosaurs. As paleontologists unearth dinosaur bones, they must note the location of the bones in relation to one another. This information can be useful when they assemble a skeleton. It’s very rare to find all the bones of an individual dinosaur. Many are washed away by water, moved by scavengers, or damaged by bacteria or the effects of weathering. Scientists look for other dinosaurs of the same species so that they can assemble a complete skeleton.
An in-depth knowledge of animal physiology is necessary because it can give paleontologists clues about how dinosaur bones fit together. The study of other dinosaur skeletons can also provide information, though there is no guarantee that all other dinosaur skeletons have been put together correctly.
Once a complete skeleton has been created, the next step is to determine how the muscles and tendons would have filled out the body of the dinosaur. Soft-tissue generally isn’t preserved because it decays too quickly. However, soft tissues often leave microscopic marks on bones. The places where muscles were attached also leave marks. By comparing these marks to the marks on the bones of modern-day animals, paleontologists and artists can make more accurate predictions about the outward appearance of dinosaurs.
It’s impossible to know what colors the dinosaurs were, but they are usually drawn in shades of brown and green, because these colors would have provided camouflage. Making this assumption requires researching the environments where dinosaurs lived. By choosing this sort of coloration, scientists also assume that dinosaurs could see in color—otherwise color camouflage wouldn’t have protected them from one another.
Although there are new ways of learning about the appearance of dinosaurs, it’s likely that some elements of what they looked like will always remain a mystery. Filling in the details will be left to the paleontologists who study them and the imaginations of the artists who portray them.
paleontologists: scientists who study life from past geological periods
physiology: the study of the structure and makeup of organisms and how they function
In some labs, CT scans—like the kind hospitals use to do brain scans—are used on dinosaur skulls. Then, researchers use computers to create 3-D models of the insides of the skulls. This helps them figure out the size of the dinosaur’s brain and can even give them information about the animal’s sight or sense of smell.
An elephant’s trunk is muscle and its large, floppy ears are made of cartilage, a relatively soft material. This means that the skeleton of an elephant would give no indication of two of its most recognizable features.
What’s the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning?
reasoning: the process of forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences based on facts or other evidence
deduction: reasoning from the general to the specific, in which a conclusion must be true because it’s based on true statements
evidence: something that helps either prove or disprove a conclusion
theory: a statement that explains a group of facts or phenomena; most accepted theories have been repeatedly tested and can be used to make predictions about nature
hypothesis: a statement that explains a specific fact or phenomenon; a hypothesis is tested in each scientific experiment
New product development is fraught with difficulty, cost, and high rates of failure. Why do companies pursue it? Would it not be simpler to do the minimal amount of development necessary to stay in business? Or simpler still, wouldn’t it be easier to coast along with existing products? Both options would certainly be simpler, but the company would not be profitable for long. Food companies must grow to make money and survive. As John Maynard Keynes put it so succinctly in A Treatise on Money, “The engine which drives Enterprise is not Thrift, but Profit.” 1 Developing new food products is one of the major ways a food company can build profits. It is estimated that only one new product idea in 58 actually makes it through the development process and yields a successful new product. 2 Yet some companies realize a whopping 50 percent of their sales and 40 percent of their profits from products on the market five years or less, according to Robert Cooper, professor of marketing and technology management at McMaster University in Ontario. 3 Five dominant forces drive the need for new food product development:
1. Life Cycle • Nearly all products have life cycles. They enter the marketplace, flourish for a time, then die and must be replaced. A very few defy the odds and seem to stay in the market indefinitely: Kellogg ’ s Corn Flakes®, Spam®, Kool‐Aid®. But they are the exceptions.
2. Stakeholders’ Expectation of Growth and Profit • A company’ s management may adopt a policy of aggressive growth to satisfy long‐range business goals and repay investors or stakeholders. New products are seen as a way to achieve these growth goals.
3. Changing Consumers • Consumer populations may change due to immigration, demographic shifts, and a host of other means of social evolution. These changes may require the development of new products more suited to the makeup of the new marketplace.
4. Technology Advancement • New technology may enable development of new food products more suited to the lifestyles of current consumers. It may also offer increased assurances of food safety, higher food quality, or greater efficiency in production.
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12. Goodbye
1 Chantale sighed and squirmed slightly on the gray metal folding chair. No matter how she sat, there was no way to get comfortable. Her legs were practically numb from sitting for nearly two hours in the uncomfortable seats.
3 Chantale slouched again, trying to get comfortable. Just then, the heavy door at the corner of the waiting room opened and a woman with a tired face called “Jean-Louis? Violine Jean-Louis?” She mispronounced the last name, but Chantale hurriedly stood up and nudged her mother.
4 Sitting inside the small, cramped office, Chantale and Mrs. Jean-Louis waited patiently for Ms. Washington to sort through some paperwork on her desk and type for a moment at her computer. Finally, she faced them. “Tell me what I can do for you today,” she said, smiling unexpectedly. “You want to bring your son . . . Edgard, I believe . . . to the United States from Haiti. Is that correct?” she asked.
5 Mrs. Jean Louis looked at Chantale and nodded. She understood English and actually could speak it fairly well, too, but her confidence, especially in official circumstances, was lacking. She turned to Chantale and spoke in rapid French, her hand resting on her daughter’s arm.
6 “My mom wants me to tell you that Edgard is all alone. He was married but lost his wife and son in the earthquake in 2010. He has never recovered from his losses and needs to be with his family. He needs a fresh start, a new beginning. She says that Edgard is a quick learner and a hard worker, that he will be an asset to America.”
7 “I’m so sorry for your losses,” said Ms. Washington. “I remember hearing about the horrors that accompanied that earthquake.” She turned to her computer screen. “Mrs. Jean-Louis, is it correct that you immigrated to the United States in 2008, along with your husband, Georges and daughter, Chantale?” Chantale’s mother nodded, and Ms. Washington continued. “And all three of you have green cards?” she asked. Mrs. Jean-Louis nodded again, reaching for her purse.
8 Ms. Washington put up a hand. “I don’t need to see it right now,” she said kindly, “I’m just checking to see that the information I have is correct. As a green card holder, you may petition to have an unmarried son or daughter of any age immigrate to the United States and become a permanent resident. We’ll need to start by having you fill out Form I-130, Petition for an Alien Relative. We’ll need proof of your status as a permanent resident, as well as evidence of your relationship with Edgard Jean-Louis.”
9 Ms. Washington continued to go over the requirements and necessary documents needed for Edgard’s immigration. Chantale translated when necessary, but she was distracted by the look on her mother’s face. It was hope, and it was something Chantale had stopped associating with her mom years ago. When Chantale and Mrs. Jean-Louis stepped out into the sunshine half an hour later, the same look of peace was still on her face.
What are some concerns Americans have about immigration?
1. The poem “The New Colossus” is engraved on a bronze plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. It contains the famous lines “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Many people entering the United States for the first time over a century ago were greeted with these words.
2. Over the past 400 years, our nation has seen millions of immigrants. Most began to arrive from Europe and from Africa. Some were adventurers and wealthy landowners. Others came as slaves or servants. Some were high officials. As more immigrants settled here, the country came to be organized as the United States. As recently as 50 years ago, most of our immigrant population came from Europe. Today, immigrants come from almost every country in the world.
3. How do immigrants become citizens of the U.S.? Becoming a citizen takes a lot of patience. It also requires a good deal of studying and persistence. Family based immigration allows immediate relatives of U.S. citizens to get visas. Employment based visas are options for some, but visa numbers are limited by the skill set of the worker.
4. People fleeing persecution may seek asylum as refugees. This means that America is willing to offer a safe haven for a certain number of immigrants who are in danger. This number is limited to 70,000 people per year, but the number of people hoping to become American citizens is staggering. In 2011, 15.5 million immigrants were naturalized citizens. More than 13 million were legal permanent residents, and 11.1 million were unauthorized migrants.
5. Those who have held legal residence for at least five years can qualify for full citizenship. They must be at least eighteen years old. They have to show continuous residency and “good moral character,” as well as pass English language, civics, and history exams.
6. Immigrants come bringing their religious and cultural traditions with them. Some new arrivals adjust quickly, while others maintain the customs of their homelands. Immigrants can be welcomed as ready sources of labor. They can also be seen as competition for scarce jobs and the cause of lowered wages and benefits for American workers.
7. One source of controversy is the millions of migrant workers who do not have legal residency. Some Americans see offering these migrant workers a path to citizenship as a fair first move in reforming immigration laws. Others believe that when there are so many people who have waited years for a legal path to citizenship, it is not right to award those who have not followed the laws.
8. Another issue is how to handle immigrants who illegally cross the nation’s border. Should we open a path of citizenship to them? While plenty of people believe that we should give amnesty to these immigrants, there are just as many who believe we should not. Others think that we should make sure our border patrol is strong while still providing assistance to those who wish to become residents of the United States.
The security world is constantly changing, both in the context in which it has to operate, and in terms of what it can offer as a response to a wide range of threats. This is true across the world. Indeed, globalization and the impact of technology are just two trends that have seen to that. As a consequence, security has become more complicated; or, at least, the breadth of knowledge that a good security operative, at any level, needs to draw upon has been stretched.
One of the positive signs of the march of security professionalism is that there is now more research being gathered on security related issues. Scholars in universities, research institutes, companies, and professional bodies have helped to develop a global knowledge base. The good thing about security is that knowledge from around the world has relevance to a broad range of circumstances. After all, threats are often the same. Terrorist attacks take place globally, and the sorts of responses needed are often similar, if not the same. The principles of security apply across the board, though the contexts differ, and how the principles are applied needs to be adapted to meet local needs. This is where skill comes in. Skills are needed from those who assess risks and those who manage them, from senior executives to street-level protection officers.
It is a sad fact that offenders often move faster than response agencies. We know that many of those who commit crime adapt quickly; they share knowledge and experiences; doing so often gives them an edge. Just as people move themselves and their assets around the world with ease, offenders have tried to do so as well. Stopping them requires constant attention; as one famous terrorist agency once remarked, “ We only have to succeed once. ”
Being on our guard, benefiting from research findings, and following good practice are crucial. Books like this one are designed to help. The coverage of this book is broad, covering domains such as communication, protection officer functions, crime prevention, safety, information security, workplace violence, risk management, investigations, private security law, and the use of force. The book provides proven knowledge to protection officers to enable them to take on the arduous tasks of asset protection and loss prevention.
This book strives to provide a foundation for improving the skill level and efficiency of protection officers. As a basic text for achieving the Certified Protection Officer certification, this book will be studied over and over by operatives across continents. It will also serve as a research resource for those looking to develop insight into an array of security topics. The editors are to be commended for ensuring that this edition builds positively on previous ones.
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