Earthquakes in GCC countries Essay Example for Free

Earthquakes in GCC countries Essay An Earthquake known also as tremor is resulted from a sudden release of energy ,which takes place in the earths crust, which then creates seismic waves. They are vibrations triggered by movement of rocks that have been strained (deformed) beyond their elastic limit. This activity called seismicity or seismism of an area refers to type , size and frequency over a time period. Earthquakes are measured using many instruments ( up to atleast 20 different types of measures) seismometers and the richter scale are most common and known, and ranges from 1. hich is the smallest to 9. 0, typically the highest possible value of any earthquake . They occur along faults, faults are fractures in the lithosphere caused by regions of rock rubbing against each other and become displaced. Earthquake terms: Seismic waves: These spread out towards all directions when the fault ruptures. Focus: The location from where the seismic waves are released. Epicenter: The point directly above the focus, on the earths surface. Earthquake damage depends on a number of factors such as: Distance from epicenter Magnitude of the earthquake Type of building construction (materials etc) Time of day Population around epicenter and other damages. Earthquakes forecasting Scientists have not been so successful in finding ways to make short term predictions as they seem to be very unpredictable however a lot of research and effort has been put into this in hope of finding a reliable system or device for short term earthquake environments scientists can make accounts of reasonable forecasts of where and how large an earthquake might be. In GCC: In the United Arab Emirates over the years a few minor earthquakes have taken lace, as assumed earlier this is no longer safe from this natural disaster. Especially with neighboring countries having major earthquakes such as Iran, which now has raised many questions as to if there is only a matter of time till when UAE faces one. GCC are now being monitored by several groups from United states of America and local groups also in the IJAE. Every year some earthquake tremors are felt due to the ones that have occurred in Iran and these vary in magnitude. Iran sits on multiple fault lines because of which the country faces earthquakes nearly everyday. n the 20th century itself, earthquakes have taken 126,000 lives according to the Encyclopedia Iranica. Sharjah residents of the Madam area situated on the Dubai-Fujairah road experienced a moderate intensity earthquake(3. 1)of Jus a few seconds,which sent panic waves across the residents forcing them to come out in the open when things stared moving inside their homes and business however no losses or deaths were resulted. This was a 1st time that the area noticed an earthquake generated locally. The last earthquake experienced by the region was on the 8th of May last year when 5. 5 magnitude earthquake hit the northern emirates 67 kms from Fujairah in the seas of the Gulf of Oman. Seismologists say, the UAE is located close to the Major Earthquake Zone and also has 3 local fault zones located at Wadi Ham,near Dibba, and between Bidyah and Jebel Sahal. Plates and Fault lines in the Region: A UAE based geologist suggests that Iran-style earthquakes are very unlikely to occur in the IJAE, because the tremore felt in the I-JAE are not caused by the same factors as those in Iran. Dr. Fowler suggested that in the area where maximum amount of aterial is being pushed aside,right at the edge of the plate is where most earthquakes occur,hence Iran. He also added that stresses become weaker and weaker the further they get from the egde,so Dubai is a much safer location where ther isnt any direct tectonic stress effects,ruling out the possibility of bigger earthquakes. Stresses are transmitted and that builds up to a bigger quake however before the build up there are lots of smaller quakes, there is no particular reason for the stresses to build up to a bigger quake though. Kuwaiti seismologist Dr. Faryal Bu Rabee has warned that a major earthquake is imminent in Iran which would have disastrous effects on the Gulf Arab states. He suggested that the epicenter would be in the Kerman area of South Iran, located north of the UAE. The last earthquake which magnitude earthquake on the 24th of November ,2005. Dr Fowler based her calculation on historic and scientific factors adding that the earthquake magnitudes could go up to 8 on the Richter scale. She also said that such earthquakes can result in a Tsunami which other scientists do not agree with,according to them a tsunami in he gulf is very unlikely because it is not deep enough. The Sea of oman which borders Iran opens into the larger n vast Arabian Sea where tsunamis have been recorded in the past. The last earthquake to rock the region was a 5. 9 February 08 quake, which was 10kms deep and located at about 250 kms frm Dubai Abu Dhabi. She also said any earthquake that occurs in the southern region of Iran frm the Zagros Mountains to the Makran Coast will have an effect on the Gulf Arab states. On Nov 28 1945, an 8. 1 magnitude quake had hit the Arabian Sea resulting in a tsunami that reached as far as Pakistan and India. Tsunami Hawaii-Based researcher George Pararas studied the Makran quake and tsunami,which caused 13metre waves of the Markan coast and 11 metre waves on the Gujrat India Coast killing 4000 people off the Makran coast. Fowler concluded by saying earthquake activity is not frequent in the country and it would definately take much longer to identify the trends on the Seismic activity in the region as compared to other regions that are more earthquake prone. However I-JAES close proximity to Iran which sits on multiple fault lines means that most the earthquakes felt there will also be felt in the IJAE.

Coppolas Adaptation of Bram Stokers Dracula Essay -- Movie Film comp

Coppola's Adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula      Ã‚   The legendary creature Dracula has mesmerized readers and viewers for nearly a century. In Bram Stoker's masterpiece, Dracula, the infamous monster affects each reader in a different way. Some find the greatest fear to be the sacrilegious nature of his bloodsucking attacks, while others find themselves most afraid of Dracula's shadow-like omnipresent nature. The fascination with Dracula has assimilated into all parts of society. Dracula can now be seen selling breakfast cereals, making appearances on Sesame Street, and on the silver screen. Countless film adaptations of Stoker's original novel have been undertaken by the some of the most skilled directors in Hollywood including, Francis Ford Coppola who completed a film adaptation of Dracula in 1993.    In creating his film, Coppola strived to create a film that remained true to Stoker's original creation. In fact, he insisted upon calling the movie Bram Stoker's Dracula, but in reality the movie fell well short of his lofty goals. Coppola realized the complexity of Dracula's character and hoped to combine all of the irresistible qualities that have made him legendary. Coppola however, became too attached to the loving seductive nature of Dracula and neglected the monster's horror. Stoker's original novel centers on the fear Dracula creates and the omnipotent nature of his existence. Dracula only directly appears in the novel a few places. The majority of his existence occurs on a sub textual level, which starkly contrasts the most recent film version.    In Coppola's film, Dracula has a very active and visual role in almost every scene. It is quite understandable the temptation Coppola had of showing Dracula a... ... it is not. The movie is simply a vehicle for making money and is not truly a retelling of the original Dracula. The story is not Stoker's and is merely Coppola's representation of what he feels Dracula means to people in the twentieth century. The film has certain aspects of fear but falls drastically short of the fear that exists in Stoker's classic story. The movie will simply be added to the long list of films that have attempted to recapture the magical horror of Stoker's novel but have fallen drastically short.    Works Cited    Holte, James Craig. Dracula in the Dark: The Dracula Film Adaptations. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1997. Stoker, Bram. Dracula. New York: Signet, 1992. Bram Stoker's Dracula. Screenplay by James V. Hart. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Perf. Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves. Columbia Tristar, 1992.

JPMorgan Chase Essay

JPMorgan Chase is one of the oldest and most respected banks in the United States. However, during the summer of 2012 Chase announced trading losses and bad investment decisions that resulted in a loss of approximately $5.8 billion. Not only did they report this substantial loss they admitted to falsifying their first quarter reports, were they where attempting to conceal the massive loss. Three months prior to this event JPMorgan Chase was viewed as the top American bank. The first question to be discussed in this paper will be what actions can Administrative Agencies such the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and or the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) take to prevent high risk gambles in securities/banking which are one of the main cornerstones of this country’s economy. According to the SEC, their â€Å"main mission is to protect investors, to maintain fair, orderly, efficient markets and facilitate capital formation† (www.sec.gov) One of the ways that SEC does this is by requiring public companies to disclose meaningful financial information to the public to help the public decide which companies will be the best to invest in. In response to the JPMorgan Chase revelation SEC Chairperson Mary Shapiro told the Senate Banking Committee that â€Å"her agency’s investigation is limited, because the trades happened in divisions of the banking giant that are not subject to SEC regulation†. She also stated that â€Å"we (the SEC) did not have any direct oversight or knowledge of the transactions†. In addition to the above statements Ms. Shapiro stated that â€Å"the SEC’s investigation would target the appropriateness and completeness of the entity’s (JPMorgan Chase) financial reporting and other public disclosure s† (Liberto, 2012). Next I will discuss the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) main purpose as well as some of its other responsibilities. The Commodity and Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC)  main purpose is to regulate commodity futures and options markets. Its goals include the promotion of competitive and efficient futures markets and the protection of investors against manipulation, abusive trade practices and fraud (www.sec.gov). Gary Gensler, chairman of the CFTC told the Senate Banking Committee that â€Å"he couldn’t provide specific information about the investigation, but he did say that he first learned about the questionable trades from press reports. He also stated that the CFTC does not have regulators on the ground to look at bank trades yet. Chairman Gensler also told the Banking Committee that currently, the American public is not protected in that way (e.g. having regulators looking at the trades as they happen) (Liberto, 2012). Regulators have been struggling for months trying to figure out who should be included in a new crackdown on swaps and derivatives. Swaps and derivatives are complex financial bets derived from other financial products. Gensler made it clear that once the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms are fully implemented it will be illegal for JPMorgan Chase to make the kinds of trades that resulted in the $5.8 billion loss. He also clarified that Dodd-Frank allows for trades made to hedge against â€Å"individual and aggregate positions† – not to guard against future economic losses, as the JPMorgan trades have been described (Liberto, 2012). Next I will cover the elements of a valid contract, as well as discuss how consumers and banks each have a duty of god faith and fair dealing in the banking relationship â€Å"A contract is a legally enforceable promise or set of promises. If the promise is broken, the person to whom the promise was mad – the promise – has certain legal rights against the person who made the promise – the promisor† (Bagley, 2012). There are 4 basic elements to a contract and they are: 1) offer and acceptance, 2) consideration, 3) both parties must have the capacity to enter into a contract, 4) the contract must have a legal purpose. â€Å"The offer is a manifestation of willingness to enter into a bargain that justifies another person in understanding that his or her assent will conclude the bargain† (Bagley, 2012). Acceptance indicates the receiving person’s willingness to enter into the agreement proposed in the offer (Bagley, 2012). Consideration is something of value that is provided by both parties (Bagley, 2012). Lastly, a valid contract requires that both parties have the capacity to enter into the agreement (Bagley, 2012. Next I will discuss the duty of god faith and fair dealing  in the consumer/banking relationship. Prior to 1929, Massachusetts expressly provided that good faith was applicable to all contracts. In 1929, the Supreme Judicial Court, in addressing a breach of contract claim under an option agreement for the purchase of stock in an oil-producing leasehold, expressly stated, for the first time, that there was an obligation of good faith and fair dealing in all contracts. The court emphasized that a business contract â€Å"is to be interpreted as a business transaction entered into by practical men to accomplish an honest and straightforward end†. Beginning in 1936, the duty of good faith was defined as a covenant â€Å"that neither party shall do anything which will have the effect of destroying or injuring the right of the other party to receive the fruits of the contract†. This â€Å"fruits† articulation of the duty of good faith remains intact today and is regularly quoted as the operative standard (Weigand, 2013). The next topic is to compare and contrast the differences between intentional and negligent tort actions. There are several types of intentional torts and they are: torts against persons, intentional torts that involve personal property, and intentional torts with regard to economic interest and business relationships. There are also several types of negligent torts. Two of which are: duty to rescue and duty to invitees. Intentional torts against consist of battery, assault, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, and invasion of privacy. The key word in all of these intentional torts is intent or purpose to cause harm to another. Intentional torts against property include trespass of land, nuisance, conversion, and trespass to personal property. Intent and purpose are also why these are considered intentional. The key difference between these two torts is that one is against people and the other is a misuse of another’s property. An individual has to purpose commit these acts. Negligent torts consist of different types of duties. Duty is when a person with a legal duty to another is required to act, reasonably, under the circumstances to avoid harming the other person. Some examples of this are duty to rescue and duty to invitees. Duties are basically an obligation that one person is legally bound to perform for another. In comparing the two types of torts we find that intentional torts are torts that people commit against other people. Negligence also others but it is a failure to perform that causes the injury or unjust action. An  example of this comparison is the intentional tort of battery and failure to perform the duty to rescue. When I commit battery I cause harm to another, when I fail to perform the duty to rescue the other individual also suffers harm but it is because I failed to act. In contrast intentional torts are actions committed against another and negligence is when I fail to take action on another. Next I will discuss the tort action of â€Å"interference with contractual relations and participating in a breach of fiduciary duty†. Interference with contractual relations protects the right to enjoy the benefits of legal ly binding agreements. It provides a remedy when the defendant intentionally induces another person to breach a contract with a plaintiff. Interference with contractual relations requires intent to interfere. The existence of a contract is the difference between tortuous interference and the more difficult to prove tortuous interference with prospective contractual relations. The most famous case of tortuous interference was Pennzoil v Texaco which occurred in 1983 (Bagley, 2013). Similarly a defendant who knowingly participates in, or induces a breach of fiduciary duty by another commits the tort of participation in a breach of fiduciary duty. Lastly, I believe that if god grounds exist for the interference, such as exists in the JPMorgan Chase case then I should be able to prevail in the tort action. Lastly, I will cover how banks protect the software that allows for online transactions. Most banks protect the customers who participate in online transactions through what is called the Online Banking Guarantee. This protection covers your banking and personal information. It is the banks responsibility to ensure the customers protection while the customer engages in online transactions. In most if not all case the customer is 100% covered in the case of theft of funds. One of main defenses for software protection is through complex encryption systems. Another deterrent is simply the vast amount of software that is available for online banking. So between the wide array of software and encryption systems online banking transaction are relatively safe. In this paper I have covered several topics and they are as follows: What actions Administrative Agency’s take to be effective in preventing high-risk gambles in securities and banking, the elements of a valid contract and the duty of good faith and fair dealing between banks and consumers, comparing and contrasting intentional and negligent torts, the tort action of  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Interference with contractual relations and participating in a breach of fiduciary duty, and lastly, how banks protect the software that they use for online banking. References Bagley, C. (2013). Managers and the Legal Environment: Strategies for the 21st Century, 7th Edition. Mason: South-Western, Cengage Learning. Liberto, J. (2012) CNN Money. (n.d.). Retrieved March 1, 2013, from http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/22/news/economy/jp-morgan-senate/index.htm U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. (n.d.). Retrieved March 1, 2013, from U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission: http://www.cftc.gov/index.htm U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (n.d.). Retrieved March 1, 2013, from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: http://www.sec.gov/ Weigand, T. (2013) . The Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealng in Commercial Contracts in Massachusetts, Massachusetts Law Review. Retrieved 10Sep13

Big Problems with Massive Open Online Courses

Massive  Open Online Courses (commonly known as MOOCs) are free, publicly-available classes with high enrollment. With MOOCs, you can enroll in a course at no cost, do as much work as you please, and learn just about anything from computer science to transcendental poetry. Platforms like EdX, Coursera, and Udacity bring together colleges and professors that want to contribute to the field of open education. The Atlantic called MOOCs the single most important experiment in higher education and theres no doubt that they are changing the way we learn. However, not everything in the world of open education is going well. As MOOCs have become more popular, their problems have become more pronounced. Hello†¦Is Anybody Out There? One of the biggest problems with MOOCs is their impersonal nature. In many cases, thousands of students enroll in a single section with a single instructor. Sometimes the instructor is only a facilitator rather than the course creator, and other times the instructor is absent altogether. Assignments designed to be interactive such as group discussions can reinforce the impersonal nature of these large courses. Its hard enough for a class of 30 to get to know each other, forget learning the names of your 500 peers. For some subjects, particularly those that are math and science heavy, this isnt a major problem. But, arts and humanities course traditionally rely on in-depth discussion and debate. Learners often feel that they are missing something when they study in isolation. A Student Without Feedback In traditional classrooms, the point of instructor feedback isnt just to rank students. Ideally, students are able to learn from feedback and catch future mistakes. Unfortunately, in-depth feedback simply isnt possible in most MOOCs. Many instructors teach unpaid and even the most generous simply arent capable of correcting hundreds or thousands of papers a week. In some cases, MOOCs provide automatic feedback in the form of quizzes or interactives. However, without a mentor, some students find themselves repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Few Make it to the Finish Line MOOCS: Many will try but few will pass. Those high enrollment numbers may be deceiving. When enrollment is nothing more than a few mouse clicks, getting a class of 1000 can be simple. People find out through social media, blog posts, or internet surfing and enroll in just a couple minutes. But, they soon fall behind or forget to log in to the course from the beginning. In many cases, this isnt a negative. It gives the student the chance to try out a subject without risk and allows access to materials for those that may not be willing to make a larger time commitment. However, for some students, the low completion rate means that they just werent able to stay on top of the work. The self-motivated, work-as-you-please atmosphere doesnt work for everyone. Some students thrive in a more structured environment with set deadlines and in-person motivation. Forget About the Fancy Paper Currently, theres no way to earn a degree by taking MOOCs. There has been a lot of talk about awarding credit for MOOC completion, but little action has been taken. Although there are a few ways to earn college credit, its best to think about MOOCs as a way to enrich your life or further your education without receiving formal recognition. Academia is About the Money - At Least a Little Open education has offered many benefits to students. But, some worry about the negative repercussions to teachers. In many cases, professors are developing and teaching MOOCs (as well as providing e-textbooks) for free. While professorial pay has never been particularly high, instructors used to be able to count on making a supplemental income from research, textbook writing, and additional teaching assignments. When professors become expected to do more for free, one of two things will happen: colleges will need to adjust salaries accordingly or many of the most talented academics will find work elsewhere. Students benefit when they learn from the best and brightest, so this is a concern that will increasingly affect everyone in the academic sphere.