Essays on Geography

This paperwork will comprise of what I have learned about GIS by tackling the following questions: What is the technology of Geographic Information Systems? How the ESRI’s GIS products designed for environmental management? How can GIS be used to help solve the complicated physical environmental issues in the real world?
I have learned that the geographic information system technology maintain and convey information to both the community and the environment managers. The flexibility of geographic information system also permits the examination and amalgamation of numerous layers of location-based statistics plus ecological measurements. ESRI’s geographic information system environmental Continue reading...

Article Summary

The article of Baller & Richardson explains that the theory of Durkheim regarding suicide can be attributed to geographic space, social integration, and imitation (Baller & Richardson 873). The risk of suicide is high that can be based on the neighboring areas since it is man’s reflection of how he perceived the behaviour of other people that has a tendency influence his own actions. The replication of another person’s action is the powerful force that will drive another to act in a certain way. The article has shown that the hypotheses of Durkheim and Tarde are correct to a Continue reading...

Report Title

Introduction
“There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives” –Josephine Hart. The famous quote by bestseller novelist is absolutely true and this could be understood well by travelers who are adventurous. For explorers, geography is the landscape that extends up to the horizon and well even beyond it. According to Bonnett (2008), “More specifically, it is towards geography that people have turned when seeking answers to the questions, ‘How and why has the environment altered?” (p.4). Mapping is a popular activity with which people tend to associate geography more Continue reading...

Explanation 1

According to the Royal Geographic society, geography entails the study of people, places, environments and the landscapes of the earth. It, therefore, means that it is the study of the world in which people live. It helps bridge the gap between human sciences and natural sciences because it helps in explaining life through the dynamics of cultures and the environment in which the cultures are found. When landscapes and the environment are put into this context, it becomes clear that humanity and the environment coexist because it is the places and regions of the world that help in the Continue reading...

With regard to considerations of the auteur and mise en scene, I found the article “Imagining Geographies of Film” by Stuart C. Aitken and Deborah P. Dixon particularly interesting. The purpose of this article is to connect the geographic analysis of film to other disciplinary issues while also taking a look at how current theoretical constraints limit the consideration of geography. The authors successfully argue that critical perspectives on film often overlook the geographic concern; instead, the interest in geographies of film begins and ends with whether or not the geography of a particular film is realistic. One thing Continue reading...

With the advance in technologies the ability to organize or manipulate data to be more useful in everyday operational and strategic planning as become a key element for success. We can view this in one such systems recognize as the Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
This study tends to define what GIS (Geographic Information System) is and explain how GIS can be beneficial in the Health Care sector by manipulating raw data to be simulated into useful information by medical personnel’s in the Health Care Sector.
In order to understand the benefits that derive from using a Geographic Information Continue reading...

Geographical Concepts

Geography is a field of science that deals with the study of lands, the inhabitants, features and phenomena of the earth. Geography is a discipline that seeks to understand the earth together with its human and natural complexities. In a bid to understand geography, geographers divided it into two main branches; physical geography and human geography. Physical geography focuses on the features of the earth. Physical geography focuses on climates, formation of landforms, as well as animal and plant distribution. Human geography on the other hand focuses on the social cultural aspects of the earth. This branch of geography Continue reading...

Other Details

I have been assigned the task of observing a school class and presenting my reflections on the teaching. The purpose of this exercise is to decide whether I would like to teach the subject I observed and the reasons for my decision. For this purpose, I chose the Calloway Count School. I attended a high school geography class. The topic of discussion was “The Big Bang”. I sat through most of the class and present my observations here.
The teacher began the class by greeting the students and then asking them about their views of the Universe. He asked Continue reading...

Book Review

Summary of the Book Why Geography Matters
Harm de Blij is Hannah A. John, a lecturer at MSU (Michigan State University). Harm de Blij was a renowned Geography editor for 7 years, a writer of as well as commentator for PBS series, and worked as a Geography analyst of NBC News.
In the book Why Geography Matters, the author (Harm), highlights three main challenges affecting America. These include climate change, Chinese rising power, and global terrorism. Nonetheless, the author as well identifies other significant challenges facing U.S. By the use of cultural and physical geography, Harm (2007), elucidates the Continue reading...

Current Event I - Population Geography, Migration Current Event II - Cultural Geography (including religion and language), Globalization Current Event III - Political Geography, Urban Geography

Current Event I: Population Geography, Migration

Source: CNN World, The Global Public Square
Link: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/category/immigration/
The writer of this article is Kevin O’Donnell. He suggests that when people talk about migration, they discuss on pull and pull factors that drove individuals from their countries and pulls them to other countries. He acknowledges that there has been a rapid increase in the migration of children. Moreover, this article talks the factors that drive people to migrate into other countries.

Source: BMS World Mission

Continue reading...

Geography is one of the ancient earth science. The word ‘Geo’ meaning ‘Earth’ and ‘graphy’ meaning ‘to describe’ was first used by Eratosthenes, a Greek scholar in third century B.C. Geography is basically the study of the earth’s surface and associated changes and impacts associated with it. It is the study of the interactions of all physical and human phenomena and also the landforms created during these interactions. Physical geography is one of the main discipline of geographical science. It is mainly concerned with the study of the spatial patterns of weather and climate, soils and vegetation, water Continue reading...

Introduction

As a field of engineering, petroleum engineering puts much emphasis on production of hydrocarbons in form of either natural gas or crude oil. Production and exploration of these hydrocarbons is a difficult task which presents various challenges to the technologists. To handle this problem, a number of tools and softwares have been created o ensure the task is easy. Although there are many softwares that are used in this industry, some of them are more basic. These may include the ArcGIS, Goggle Earth, he Petra, excel and PHDWin. This paper discusses these softwares and the role they play in Continue reading...

Language is an important, essential and foundational human characteristic. However, the way language is shaped, spoken, its grammar and other specifics are made and expressed with various accents is based on many different factors. In this paper, we analyze how culture as a whole and two other important factors inter-related with culture including gender and geographic location influences, impacts and effects the way a person uses a language. It shall be noticed that culture and language has strong bonds so much so that language is an expression of culture. Similarly, gender through culture and independent of culture (psychologically) shows Continue reading...

Introduction

Cultural geography is the study of norms, cultural products and their variations in relation to places and spaces. This piece elaborates my interaction with cultural geography my participation in the class. In the first section, the paper presents my view of the world has changed following the study. The second section states my preconceived notions. The fourth and the last sections elaborate on the changes I have experienced, what I have learnt and what ideas about culture changed or altered during the class.

Change

The integration of cultural geography into my life has had a serious impact. Before the earth Continue reading...

Physical characteristics of South East Asia

Geography is a term that means description of the earth (Hobbs, 5). This means that every physical feature from hills to deserts to rivers makeup the geography of the place. They contribute greatly to the scenic beauty of the area. Some areas have more physical features than the others. One area that is characterized by its physical features is South East Asia. These physical features make it different other locations around the world.
Most of South Asia is located in the land hemisphere of the world. This means that it is located where the bulk of the land is ( Continue reading...

How does geography play a role in this international issue?

Geography from time immemorial has been important for examining international issues, like, for instance, the war in the Russian civil war that led to the soviets conquering Central Asia again in 1920s. Geographical distribution of different cultures and religion groups is what play a key role. Central Asia due to its locality has both positive and negative implication in international issues. Its proximity to Eurasian Great powers, make the region vulnerable to attack and also important in connecting Europe and Far East, this has made major world power to strive to dominate the region. The tendency had been witness Continue reading...

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Introduction to GIS

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is an emerging industry throughout the world. It is a tool that allows users to visualize and present data in several ways. This enables them to observe and report patterns and relationships within a given area, subject or between given variables. These patterns and relationships are generally displayed on maps, but they can also be represented on a globe, on charts and in reports. Its importance lies in its ability to bring together information from a number of different sources and ensure that specific work is carried out. Latitudes Continue reading...

1. Purpose: The Hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas hamadryas) are found in their entire geographic range of habitation prefers cliffs to sleep. But, a specific group of Hamadryas baboons in Ethiopia were found to choose doum palm trees (Hyphaene thebaica) exclusively to sleep instead of cliffs, simultaneously other bands of Hamadryas baboons were found to choose cliffs to sleep. Purpose of the study was to observe the specific band of baboons and their behaviour with another band of baboons on the basis of their day to day activities to ascertain the cause for such variation.
2. Aim: Though the characteristics Continue reading...

Geographic information system is a technology that supports science by offering problem solving capabilities using data from geographical sources (Longley et al, 16). This technology uses a software product that can be installed on machines in order to be able to analyze digital representation of the geographic world. This technology consists of a particular component that gives it the ability of constructing, analyzing and representing geographical features in digital form. It consists of components which include an interface, data output and presentation, storage and database, data verification transformation and analysis (Melnick 9) that are connected together via a network. Continue reading...

The colonially constructed entity known as Afghanistan includes various erudite disagreements that are helping its quick decrease as a maintainable unit of political economy. American and other universal neo-provincial on-screen characters in and experts of Afghanistan have inherited and received British pioneer demeanor and activities at the nation. Therefore, the individuals of Afghanistan have been subjected to provincially defined understandings of themselves, and have yet to get the social and intelligent devices important to oppose and reject the inconvenience of the other's perspective of self (Kaifi&Mujtaba 2010).
The main parts of Western compositions on Afghanistan outline the provincial experience Continue reading...

Human geography is one of the main sub fields of geography as the larger discipline. Human geography is in reality a branch of social sciences. Social sciences are involved in studying the world, studying the people in the world, cultures and communities of the world. Human geography however focuses more on the relations that human beings have in relation to their placing and spacing. Human geography has a special focus on the activities of human beings. Human geography applies more of qualitative research methodologies.
A main branch of human geography is cultural geography. This branch is very important in Continue reading...

Yoel E Stuart and Jonathan B Losos’ article “Ecological character displacement: glass half full or half empty?” looks into the past notions on Ecological Character Displacement (ECD), and how the notions changed over the years. In addition, they also did a literature review on several past and recent studies. ECD is based on the notion that sympatric species compete for scarce resources; hence, the species that natural selection should favor the species to diverge in the usage of resources and phenotype (Stuart & Losos 402). Over the years, ECD has received both acceptance and rejection from the science community; hence, Continue reading...

Issues of transport planning have been under inquiry and discourse by a multidisciplinary array of researchers while attempting to forecast, plan and model transport behaviors. Most researches are focused on the description and understanding of optimal solutions which are designed for communities using quantitative models. The problem with this approach is that quantitative models are used to describe reality. While the models used may be complex and advanced, they are still not capable of capturing the critical “human element”. This, however, is possible with more subjective qualitative methods. Qualitative methods are often overlooked because of the methodological problems and Continue reading...

Florence, or Firenze, was the seat of the Early Renaissance in Italy. However, in the Proto-renaissance period, other Italian cities were close competitors to become the center-point of artistic revolution. Florence’s emergence as the hub of art was influenced by several factors, the amalgamation of which led to the city’s rise.
Geographic dominance also greatly added to the strength that Florence has gained. The Black Death or plague had reduced the population of city by half and led to the bankruptcy of two banks during the 14th century. Believing Florence to be vulnerable Milan and Naples attempted Continue reading...

Culture, when broadly applied, is a term that can be used to describe virtually all avenues and aspects of human life. In his textbook Cultural Anthropology, Richley H. Crapo defines it as “a learned system of beliefs, feelings, and rules for living around which a group of people organize their lives; a way of life of particular society” (Crapo, 2013). Perhaps the most astounding thing about humanity is the vast diversity in culture that emerges in different groups of people. The differences in culture come from a variety of factors, the most important being geography. One important marker of Continue reading...

Since I was a kid, the earth and its features have been my interest. I could spend time on my atlas trying to study the location of various continents, as well as their countries. I was struggling to understand how the largest part of the earth could be covered with water, and how the earth could float in the middle of nowhere despite being too big and heavy. As I grew up, I realized that geography is more than just the earth and its features. It’s a whole more than that. Geography is essential for human survival. This Continue reading...

Law enforcement is one of the many occupational areas where use of technology has had a major impact. One particular application of technology in this area is a general approach called predictive policing. Predictive policing is taking data about crime from many sources, analyzing it, and then using the results of that analysis to combat future crime (Pearsall, 2010). One of the specific applications of predictive policing is a law enforcement management approach called COMPSTAT, where the actions of police are guided by computer statistics. This contrasts with older approaches to law enforcement that relied upon random patrol plans, Continue reading...

Geographic concepts are the ideas that are mainly covered in the study of geography and mainly give basis to study and research. In the article ‘Geography strikes back’ by Robert Kaplan published on the wall street journal, different concepts of Geography are evident. These include the concept of Region, Culture as well as size location and spatial interaction. This paper describes the relationship of the concepts and the course as well as their role and importance in the general study of Geography.
The issue of region is highly depicted in the article. There can never be Geography without region. Continue reading...

“National Geographic as our Sunglasses to the World: A Distorted Look at Reality:” A Critique

Sociologist Tami Miller, in his article “National Geographic as our Sunglasses to the World: A Distorted Look at Reality,” presents a critical review of Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins’ research analysis of the National Geographic magazine. He said that the two authors’ research finding about the world-renown “capitalist” organization has a “hidden racist” perspective. It portrays photographs of foreign, exotic cultures (e.g., ritual behavior, colorful symbolic dress, etc.). Miller even asked why “the National Geographic decides to pick certain photographs over others.”
I am ambivalent and do not want to toy with the idea that Miller’s answer to Continue reading...

List the three nutrient cycles present in an ecosystem.

Nutrient cycles are also called as biogeochemical cycles as they help convert the elemental form of essential minerals into biochemical form for utilization by living organisms. The three important nutrient cycles of the ecosystem are the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle and the phosphorous cycle.
Nitrogen has a vast atmospheric abundance but is not present in a useable form for many organisms. Nitrogen fixers convert nitrogen into ammonium and nitrates to be taken up by plants and passed onto animals.
Phosphorous is the integral part of the building blocks of nucleic acids, ATP and lipids that make up the Continue reading...

The 1890 Sherman Anti-trust Act is identified as the first and most critical of all U.S antitrust laws. The act, which was signed into formal law by the then president, Benjamin Harrison was named after its biggest campaigner, John Sherman, who was the Ohio Senator then. The Act explains the primary reasons why consumers are best served by a free trade, without many restrictions. The primary reasons why price fixing among sellers comes with such things as restrictions on output and geographic areas is to create a business environment that does not encourage the presence of monopolies.
According to Continue reading...

The definition of geographic experience varies subjectively from one individual to another. In an endeavor to explain what a geographic experience is, people give various events that have occurred in the recent history. In my case, the geographic experience that I have had is the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. The natural disaster, which was a result of seismic waves and sudden adjustment in the geological strata underneath the ocean, claimed many lives and property as the raging waters swept the coastal settlements. The most important reason as to why I deem the phenomenon as a geographic experience is because Continue reading...

Golf is a very popular sport in the USA and here at WKU, too. In our sports and athletics club called the “Hilltoppers” golf is a very active part of the club. In fact I saw on the club’s website that there was an article entitled “WKU Golf to Host WKU/Kenny Perry Invitational” (Oct 2012) announcing that for the first time for several years the men’s section of our club was hosting a golf tournament – the Kenny Perry Invitational at the Golf Club at Olde Stone, on October 14th to 16th.
My own interest in golf came Continue reading...

The Local Area Network (LAN) is a computer network in which the computers are connected in a small geographic area like a school, small office home office, or a group of buildings, whereas Wide Area Network (WAN) are networks for large geographical areas, and are made up of multiple LANs connected in different ways through the use of routers (Mansfield, Antonakos, 2009). For example, Internet. Even though the speed of LANs (1000mbps) is higher than the WANs (150mbps), the WANs are costlier than LANs. LAN is cost-effective as it covers a small geographic area. A WAN is built when Continue reading...

This video is compiled by Khan Academy. It talks about the functions of the Electoral College and how the voting process is conducted within the organization. According to this video, the Electoral College is bestowed with the responsibility of electing the President of the United States. It is clear from this movie that though presidents are popularly elected, the final determinant of their incumbency lies in the Electoral College. First of all, the Electoral College is composed of all senators and congressmen from all the 52 states of the United States. The total electoral votes for any given state Continue reading...

Summary of Acemoglu’s video

In this video, economist Daron Acemoglu explains why nations fail economically. He singles out “extractive” political institutions as the biggest impediment to a nation’s economic prosperity. Acemoglu defines “extractive” political institutions as those that place power in the hands of a few individuals. This scenario features unfair regulations and high market-entry barriers. These factors conjure to enrich a clique in the society, while inhibiting economic progress for the majority of the people (Acemoglu). He contrasts this with governments that have expanded democratic space by protecting property rights. Nations with such political institutions encourage entrepreneurship from their citizenry as Continue reading...

In any business organization, the part in charge for the production of services and/ or goods is referred to as operations. Despite the fact that operations function is accountable for the delivery of goods and services, it requires input and support from other functional areas of the business. In particular, operation is the heart of any business undertaking. Therefore, operations management is basically the management of processes or systems that lead to the creation of goods and services (Stevenson, 2008). The roles of operations management are performed by an operation manager.

The core role of the operations manager is Continue reading...

Understanding and Applying Human Geography

The field of human geography is a very broad endeavor, essentially focusing on the sociological, cultural and economic aspects of people’s interactions across different geographical locations. According to various researchers (Rowntree, Lewis, & Price, 2011; Rubenstein, 2010), human geography is a spin-off of physical geography with specific focus on human activities. As such, this field entails an understanding of the significance of different interactions and activities among people of different regions across the globe. For instance, firm knowledge of human geography will enable me to understand the origins of such distinct socio-cultural aspects of the human society as language Continue reading...

The world has witnessed tremendous change over the last century. The wave of industrialization and globalization existent in the world today has altered the political and socio-economic organization of the globe. The increased advancement in technology and methods of transport and communication has immensely caused life to be easier. People can easily move from place to place in a short time without having to worry about the time that will be spent accessing various venues. This has made trade and other essential components of the society to be well distributed across the globe. In addition, it is important to Continue reading...

There are skeptics who suggest that the global warming phenomenon is grossly exaggerated, turning the attention of possible government backing or funding away from the movements that are working against its possible worldwide effects (Houghton, 2007). Nevertheless, the fact that the planet is getting warmer is undeniable. NASA (Voiland, 2010) reports that the previous decade, from 2000 to 2009, is the warmest the earth ever experienced in its history. Since 1880, the time when temperature can be accurately measured, the average global temperature has increased by 0.8 degrees Celsius.
According to The Guardian (Houghton, 2007), over the recent years, Continue reading...