For every new topic you write about please post at least one comment on someone else's post. I will comment on what you have done on Wednesday 28th May...;-)
"The Pope opens to aliens" This is the incredible news that from the Vatican flies from here to there... What do u think? Not about the Pope ( that's another story) but about the aliens. Do they really exist? Do they really come to earth? Are they among us? What they look like ? grey ? green? two head-something plus various extensions like quasi legs and quasi arms ? Do they speak English ?
I read an article related to the global warming question. I think this is an important problem that everyone of us should take into account. The article I read is about the likely causes of the global warming problem, and the most important thing that is pointed out is that the first cause is the human presence rather than other possible external causes such as a changing of solar forcing. Many data have been collected and many several mathemathical models of global warming have been done: they all reveal that temperatures at the tropopause zone and in stratosphere has raised up more than they would have without the presence of men.It's been calculated that temperature near the Earth's surface increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the hundred years ending in 2005, except in the Antarctica. The two most important problems men created are greenhouse effect and the depletion of the ozone layer. These problems caused a series of incidental effects such as melting of glaciers, the increased frequency of the intense tropical cyclones and also the risk of extremely warm summer conditions regionally, such as the 2003 European heat wave. Current simulations have been compared to other analysises based on paleoclimate data and it has been seen that most of problems showed up after the upcoming of the Industrial age, and exspecially in last 20 years. However there are still many discrepancies beetween data and theorical considerations, scientist are trying to understand what the most important causes of the problem are in order to keep the situation under control. I'm going to post other considerations about this topic!
What is the worst idea in history? We have just read a blog entry from "world have your say" blog.
It's amazing: reality TV has come second only to the atom bomb! This according to a poll, but the comments on it show many different opinions. Religious and political matters are the most mentioned as worst ideas. After that, we could find atomic weapons (and war, in general), reality TV and going on there are many funny topics. For example, some of the funniest are: - automated telephone answering systems: "for irritation press one"; - examinations - multi-tasking while driving - Limos…don’t wonder who’s inside, it’ll only be a nobody on an 21st. - Fish on the bottom yogurt ... and last but not least, Britney Spears and Margaret Thatcher!!
We have read a discussion on different opinions about abortion. We both agree that the decision of abortion doesn't have to be up to the mother, even father has equal voice. In Italy abortion is legal up to the 24th week and it is the same in the most of the countries. more populated countries like china, encourages for abortion if they have more than one child. In some countries it is illegal to abort the pregnancy. In Italy many people decide to abort because they believe that can't manage to raise up. in India it is legal to abort if they have more then two, or for any medical problems. Emanuele and Chaitanya
we are going to talk about religion since we have just been in a blog titled: when did faith become a four letter word?...
the main topic was about how religion is viewed by non believer people who say religion is a negative thing because they say that religion is the most responsible causes of conflicts. people on this blog, instead, answered to this accuse, saying that people are responsible of their actions and we can't just use the religion as a excuse of what they have done.....
people on that blog, of course, have a point...but we guess we also have to consider that the history of our planet was caved in blooded in the name of religion....
In a previous lesson a group of us (included me) have read an article about books became films. I have read some books and then I have watched the related films and at all times these films were disappointing. For example I have read the book “The Da Vinci Code”, a great riveting book in my opinion, but I was bored to death during the film. Another example is “In her shoes” wrote by Jennifer Weiner; I love deeply this writer, but I hate the film because it is disconnected. And now my question: I have read the book “Marley & Me” and this book has moved me; in your opinion I have to watch the film? Did you watch a good film based on a book?
Well… to tell you all the truth, I really don’t think that aliens are among us…. something just like MIB! But reading just a little about astronomy, about our universe, and, simply, just having a look at the sky…..well, it’s so wide, so deep, there are so many galaxies, so many solar systems… … so, do you really think that it’s so impossible that somewhere up there, faraway from us, there is some kind of life? Well, I don’t think it’s so impossible! …….But I haven’t got the slightest idea of what they look like!!! Maybe they are just bacterium! … and, on the other hand…. All that space, an no one up there! It would be a waste!
Well, I think that it isn’t easy to “convert” a good book into a good film! I have never read “Marley & me”, so I’m not able to tell you if the film is as good as the book! But I can tell you that often the films aren’t as good as the books. For instance when I was 9 I read “The never ending story”….. the book was really good, but the film, compared with the book, was…..poor! It disappointed me! Many things missed and so on…… well, it happens in many chances! …… but there are also some examples of good films based on a book, for instance “Dances with wolves”, where the locations of the film were simply great, or “Fried green tomatoes at the Whistle Stop cafe”. Bye!
There are many things we can talk about…. But it’s quite different to talk about a topic with your friends and to post it on a blog: some topics are suited for a blog, others sound too “private” ….. well, it isn’t easy to find a good and interesting topic for a blog! For instance last week, in front of the cafe vending machine, we talked about travels. I’d like to go to New Zealand…. Maybe because it’s on the other side of the world, so far from here! But also because I think that it’s a wonderful place! There are some friends of mine who live there…. Well, I have known them for over two years and…..only via internet!.....And all of them tell me that it’s really good. I’ve read something about New Zealand and I like it! I’d like to see Auckland, Wellington, but also North Cape and its lighthouse, the orchards of Napier, Rotorua and its thermal springs, the Moeraki Boulders near Dunedin and also an All Blacks match!…. Well, the list is very long!
So, coming back to travels….. do you like to travel? Where do you like to go and why? What do you like to visit there? And do you know anyone there?
Dear Vanessa, Why don’t you try to see the film before reading the book? Maybe it seems a banal advice but I think that while you are reading a book you display in your mind the setting, the characters etc... so when you see the film you are disappointed because you don’t find same “images”. In fact I disillusioned when I watched “The name of the Rose” after reading the book, too. Instead I saw the film “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” at the cinema in 2005: now I’m reading the book and I’m enjoying it. In fact even if I know the plot I find more details reading the book instead to have the usual “cuts” from the book’s story. Therefore the choice is between the our mind’s adaptation to images of the seen film or their substitution with different ones. Bye!
WHY DOES LIFE EXIST ON EARTH? (DO YOU THINK ITS GODS CREATION???)
Earth is unique in the Solar System as being the only planet which is able to support life in all its forms: from basic living micro-organisms to highly sophisticated and intelligent human beings. There are many reasons why this happens.
REASON ONE: Earth has a breathable atmosphere. Oxygen is the gas that is required for the life of most creatures. This is present in Earth's atmosphere, along with nitrogen, and in water, along with hydrogen. Oxygen is constantly put into the atmosphere by plants and trees. Fortunately, Earth's atmosphere does not contain much carbon dioxide, a poisonous gas which makes up most of the atmosphere of planets like Venus and Mars. In densely-populated areas, carbon dioxide is more present. This is because cars and factories produce it. This causes the air to be polluted. The Earth's atmosphere is kept on the planet by its pull of gravity. Mars and Mercury are too small to keep atmosphere. As a result, Mercury has no atmosphere, and Mars' atmosphere is very thin, containing gases which have not managed to escape into space yet. Earth's atmosphere is thick enough to prevent poisonous rays of radiation from getting through it (this is what has happened on Mars).
REASON TWO: Earth has a suitable climate. This is caused by the moderate amount of carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere, which is constantly refreshed whenever there is a volcanic eruption. The temperature on Earth does not go from one extreme to the other either. Mercury can be anything from 200°c below freezing to 375°c above. At 375°c, water would only exist as a gas, and the planet would be completely dry. Venus has a surface temperature of 480°c, which would be much too hot for anybody to live in. Mars, although it can reach 25°c, can be as cold as -140°c, a temperature which would freeze blood and water. The other planets are colder still.
REASON THREE: Earth has water! Water is believed to be the most important chemical necessary for life. It contains the oxygen needed for life. Other liquids contain poisonous elements. Water doesn't burn skin (like liquids containing acids do), it is drinkable, and it allows life-providing molecules to move around easily. Other moons in the Solar System, such as Europa, a moon of Jupiter, are believed to have oceans of water under its icy surface. Scientists believe that, if they could find traces of water on Mars, the possibility of life existing on that planet would be greatly increased. Water on Earth can be found anywhere, in its three states. It can be frozen, taking the form of ice. It can be liquid, seen in seas and oceans and lakes. It can also be a gas, seen as clouds in atmosphere.
REASON FOUR: All planets receive light from the Sun, but no planet uses it as usefully as Earth. Trees and plants on the planet produce oxygen through a process called photosynthesis. Plants need the Sun to grow. Look at plants in windows and notice how they usually seem to grow towards the Sun. Try growing a plant in a dark room and in a light room. Notice which one grows quicker. The one which has grown quickest is the one which also produces more oxygen. It is believed that if we were able to get a plant to grow on another planet, such as Mars, it would begin putting oxygen into the planet's atmosphere and increase the possibility of life. Saturn's moon, Titan, has an atmosphere containing mainly nitrogen. If this moon was to possess oxygen too in its atmosphere, by a plant photosynthesising on it, it could have a similar atmosphere to Earth.
Basically, Earth has life on it because of the Sun. It is in the perfect position in the Solar System. It receives just the right amount of heat from the Sun, and enough light for plants to photosynthesise.This process of photosythensis puts oxygen into the atmosphere. Humans need oxygen to breathe and to live.
SO GUYS NATURE HAS GIVEN US BEAUTIFUL WEATHER TO LIVE AND LEED BEAUTIFUL LIFE,
Both are true from different viewpoints... Its true that the film might be different from the book. In film, we want the Hero/Heroine will be untouched and at the end of the film, the hero/heroine will win. In contrast, there are some movies, the hero/heroine will die , but there will be some evidence and must have some ideology. A film consumes huge money from the Producer's pocket, and this producer usually wants some profit for this huge investment.
Always we want some refreshment and recreation from a movie and if possible, some knowledge. But every time we don't hope knowledge from the film. But a reader usually gains some knowledge and fewer refreshment. So, the producer imposes the 'Director' to make a sequence of the 'film and spot'to make profit.
Will you invest this huge amount without any profit? Yes, sometimes you will invest!!! but where??? There are some films that is the mirror-face of one nation's life or one group of peoples' life style, life-struggles , the liberation-war , or for the deprived population who are suppressed by from a giant power. I can give one example: have you seen the poster or watch the film on Vietnam war. If we take a practical picture from one nations' lifestyle or mentioned above; these type of films are called 'Art-Film'. These films usually follow the history or a reference book. The producer wants no profit in terms of money. Are you thinking that the producer don't want any profit. Of course, why not(?)
Everytime we don't want money... There are two types of motivating factors for human being. One is Intrinsic rewards and another Extrinsic rewards or motivating factors. In some cases, the intrinsic motivating factors dominate the extrinsic rewards... may be no need to explain the extrinsic motivating factors and intrinsic motivating factors...
I have seen one director & producer writes on his movie - "There is nothing knowledge-full information in this movie, this movie is only for laugh, as the laugh tries to increase your life length...." but the director follows a book written by him also.
Usually we want the hero will win in fairing squad, but in books it usually not true....
My brain is not enough to judge everything well. If you have different idea, frankly write against me...some comments will help my English lesson practice, at least and at last.
I agree with you when you said that the choice of an interesting topic for a blog isn't easy....but in any case you proposed and interesting and wide topic to talk about....
to travel... if you check the definition of the word "travel" you could find differnt solutions, but for me the most proper is "To advance or proceed"... in fact I think that every trips enables us to be more complete...giving a "bag of experiences"...
For that I like to travel....
Unfortunately, at the moment I didn't visit a lot of places ... but I woult like to visit a lot of places...
In particular I would like to visit India and South-America, for the colors that I could find there....but also some small islands or mountains to have contact with the nature (the Andes could be actractive for me!)...
Hi, I want to speak about the use of a gun in the U.S.A. In this Country, you can move around with your gun. It’s free! Every year, 30.000 persons die for a shoot and in the USA there are the greatest number of citizens with a gun. In these days, it’s happened a curios event; a car dealership has offered a free handgun with every vehicle sold. Customers can choose between a $250 credit at a gun shop or a $250 petrol card. Since the start of the offer, sales have quadrupled. Except one guy from Canada and one old guy, all customers have chosen a credit for a gun. The dealer is Mr. Muller and his shop is in Butler, Missouri. He has said the promotion was inspired by recent comments from Barack Obama. The democratic nominee said about people in the Midwest: “you’ve got to have compassion for them because they’re clinging to their guns and their Bibles”. Mr. Muller found that quite offensive so he thought this promotion. What do you think about?
“In the jungle of the construction site” title the Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper, with respect to the dangers and not compliance of the safety rule in construction site. Despite the law provide for sanction, Italian labours work in unsafe conditions without safeguard; this thing has been lead to various accidents, sometimes also fatal. What do you think about this situations? Why the businessman and the building contractors don’t have interest for the problem (Is the production deadline more important of the human life)?
@Manuela Too late… I have read the book same months ago and the release date for this film is the 25 December 2008. It will be for the next time…
@Riccardo It’s challenging thinking that we aren’t alone. I don’t believe that they are green with long arms or feelers, but the science shows us that nothing is impossible. “Are they among us?” Oh my God! I don’t know! Is, maybe, my neighbor an alien??? “Do they speak English?” Why they speak English and I don’t??!! I’m joking, obviously, but I’m too tired and the other topics are too serious, please Luisa forgive me…
Sarkozy suggests cap on fuel tax http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7421198.stm
Sarkozy have noticed that oil price is too high and damage the economy. The French president has suggested that the EU should consider capping value added tax on. "If the barrel continues to rise, must we maintain a VAT rate that is proportional to the price in the same conditions?" French consumers pay almost 20% VAT on the price of oil, I don’t know how much we pay in Italy but yesterday I pay nearly 1,50 euro for a litre of diesel oil! I know that in Italy we still pay taxes for military mission that are finished. Fishermen of Spain and France are protesting as an high price of the barrel affect directly their business. Fishermen in Portugal and Belgium are planning to protest. In the UK, some 300 lorry drivers are protesting too. "The question of taxes comes up very often but still we have doubts if it is the best way to react in these cases," she told Reuters. I think that the problem is that there are some assets that you must buy, regardless of the price, in order to live. Gas oil (or fuel) is one of them.
@Vanessa about films drawn on a book I read “Intervista con il vampiro” and “il collezionista d’ossa” and seen the relative films. I was really disappointed. I think that you can’t summaries a long book in a 1 hour and 30 minutes film. For this reason the probability, that some of the characteristic you enjoy in the book has been cut, is very high! I think that you need an entire TV series to tell a good story drawn on a book. When I was a teenager, I read the manga “First of the north start” and watched the cartoon TV series and I liked both with a little preference for the cartoon. I don’t know why a manga can have a TV series while a book must be pleased with less than a 2 hour film, but it is really a pity.
I think it is not easy to represent a story of a book in a film. There is a primary reason, that is the peculiarity with which the book is able to describe the plot. Every fact is told in a particular manner, with the goal to provoke in the reader the same sensation as he would be into the scene. This doesn’t happen in a film, but it doesn’t mean that any film which story is taken from its correspondent book necessarily is not a good film, not nearly. If a film is well-doing, maybe it could be good in the same manner of the book, even better than the latter. For example, a story as “Harry Potter”, or as “The Lord of the Rings” that are fantasy stories, can take advantage through their film representation, because the images, the sounds give the idea better of which is happening. So, is not true that the story of book can’t never transfer itself into a film because it is impossible to summarize the whole story inside the movie. They may be interpreted as two different ways to tell a story with two different approaches and point of views.
I agree with Giulio when he said that it is impossible to summarize the whole story inside a movie...
In my opinion, writing a book and creating a movie use two differce approches and "tools" for telling a story....the first use the immagination of all the readers to create the charcters and setting images...the second use only the director immagination to give us images....and selon me the distance between these approcches is very wide...
If you prefere to use your immagination problably you will prefere to read the book than watch the movie....in any case you have to remember that are different points of view..
About movies drawn on a book I think we can't compare movies and books.I mean a book let your imagination free, the author give you some or many (depend on the style of an author) details about the story and the reader could imagine the context of the story: the greater your imagination the more detailed the story is. But watching a movie our imagination is underutilized because the movie suggest us the point of view of the director,I mean how the producer had imagined the location the character appearance.. I read many years ago "The lord of the ring" before watching the movie, the story is fill of particular it is a very detail description and let the reader imagine even the little house of the Hobbit.When i saw the movie I was surprise to see the ivillage and the hobbit as I imagined before even if many part of the book were note represented on the movie,maybe the fact that the movie reflect what we imagined before let us consider it a good movie!
I think it is a really interesting topic! We must consider that maybe more than half of all the films produced are based on novels. So I think that we cannot tell all this cinema is inferior compared to literature. In case, I think we can classify these films into two groups: - those films that try to repeat the success of a book, with directors that only try to put down in images the stories; - those that, starting from a story narrated in a novel, develop some new ideas and use the power of images to give additional meaning to the narrative and additional emotions to the spectator. There are some good films even in the first class, for example “The lord or rings”. But some true masterpieces are in the second one: “The birds” by Hitchcock, for instance, or “A Clockwork Orange”, “Shining” or “Dr. Strangelove” by Stanley Kubrick, or “Apocalypse now” by Martin Scorsese. It’s not a chance that all this films are most popular than the novels from which they are drawn. For instance, the novel “A clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess is in my opinion a great book, but Kubrick’s film is immortal and it gives a more complete sense to the story by eliminating the last chapter of the book, the edifying one, that Burgess was probably forced to add by his editor. Do you think this rough classification is somehow realistic?
hi everybody(... and sorry luisa for my delay...) I also read on the internet that recently the Vatican has admitted the probability of live forms on the universe other than humans. There are some interesting points which come along with this statement by the astronomer-theologist Funes, chief of vatican astronomers:
-this "progressive" view from vatican hierarchy accomodates with dogmas and faith in God as creator and saviour of the world
-aliens too were created by God and can benefit from God's mercy. This does not imply that they are sinners too and must be redempted because they migth not have been decayed as humanity did.
-for this and other scientific issues, like big bang once opposed to creationism, the bible has not to be intended as a science book, and the scientific vision of the world can conciliate with the religious one, provided that cristians keep to believe we are not product of casuality but sons of a good creator.
By the way, once I heard that the Virgin Mary claimed to appear at Medjougorie stated that man was alone in the universe and there was no place for aliens, as the earth was the center of creation and of God's redemption project. Apart from noticing that these two declarations seem to contradict themselves (coming the latter from a better placed observer) I would like to point out as often two forms of superstition does not go very well together. But I'm still waiting from some alien demostrating me that nobody appeared at Medjougorie :)
Personally I believe to the possibility of other live forms in the universe, and the idea of humanity alone in the darkness of the universe make me very sad and concerned for our responsibility. We still don't know if the universe is finite or not, and even what it's shape is, but surely it's big enough for plenty of planets like the Earth! The point here is if these live forms will ever come in contact with us... someone says they are observing us and waiting us to become more civilizated to reveal themselves, because they want not to interfere with our development. Often we take theeir superior civilization for granted, as I did in my last sentence. I'm sure this has a strong psicological explanation...
I joined a Seminar entitled "General principles of writing of a scientific article" presented by prof. Marcello Braglia, Professor of Industrial Plant and President of degree course in Engineering Management organized by Department of Mechanical, Nuclear and Production Engineering. In this section I will try to summarize the seminar, I think it will be helpful for current students to write a article in international journal.
First of all, I am writing what are the general contents of a paper ( here paper means journal article. A paper must have the followings: (1) Title, 2)Abstract,(3)Introduction, (4)Methodology,(5)Experimental results,(6)Conclusion(7)References and (8)Acknowledgment (optional).
I have dropped another thing, selecting the keywords, and how you will select the keywords. You should choose keywords within 3 to 7, based on the paper instructions. When you decide to write a paper, first you will write your ideas and experimental results on plain paper. You must not choose the specific journal first. If you write all the experimental results on a plain paper, then you will start writing the introduction. Introduction means some general ideas related to your experiments and there must be a sequence of information that you put down for the experiments. When you write the introduction, you must should keep the questions in your mind and ask these questions several times and find out the answer by yourself from the introduction. The questions are- (1)is it dearly presented? (2)should the text be considered or expanded?(3) can you suggest ways of shortening the paper without detracting from its value?
Now comes to the point of methodology or experimental setup. In this section you will present your experimental set ups, e.g. a machine that you used for your experiment or the field where you worked for this experiment and what were the procedures to operate the machine or how/why you select/manage the field for this kind of research with very clear sentences. remember, you must declare the parameters that you used for this experiments. here also some questions to answer by yourself. (1)is this a new and original contribution? (2) are there any errors of fact or logic? (3)Do you consider any part of the paper would be better presented in appendices?
Experimental results: In this section you will present your database and the corresponding results with the help of some mathematical tools, graphics, figures, charts etc. If it is an original contribution, then you can compare your result with other related experiments. If it is not, then you will must consider articles presented past of you. For scientific paper, you should preserve all the database in your memory storage device upto its completion of publication. If you submit a paper in a journal, sometimes they will recall you to change the shape, size etc, the the database will help you to re- constract and to make some answers. Here 2 questions- (1) are the examples illustrates and tables all necessary and acceptable? (2) does the paper approximately complete the performance of proposed methodology with those found in the published literatures?
Conclusion includes the findings in brief from your experiment, scope for future works and opening new problems for future work.
References: For every sentence or sometimes for words you should draw the reference if you take the data or if you copy from other paper or books. Usually we take the references from journals, books, newspapers, websites, scientific reports, press release, handbooks or reference books, reference charts. For every document you must present the references. In case of book, name of the author(s), name of the book, sometimes name of chapter, name of publisher, edition, year and at last pages, e.g., pp 129-132. Same for journals, but you should change the name of journal, volume, issue , year etc. In case of website, you must copy the web address and with date of search.
In my future mail I will write about the abstract. I have no time just now, I have to go out for English class. Take care everybody...cheers
Dear Alessio, I think that the free use of guns in the U.S.A. is wrong because in this way people feel authorized to do justice by itself. Moreover this problem is very important because youths often bring guns or other arms at school and in some case what is only a “joke” becomes a tragedy. The business venture of Mr. Muller is only a demonstration of the American situation and I think that the politicians should give more attention to what they said. In Italy also the Northern League’s leader has recently promoted the use of rifles but we can’t demand more security and justice if everyone can go around armed: every dispute can become a duel just in Far West…
As you know, I was there and also to me it has been interesting…in particular remembering us to write short and easy sentences to better explain our work…
Thank you again….I am waiting for the second “episode” about abstract!!! Bye Bye Barbara V.
in my opinion, oil price growth is a complex problem to analyze because our system is too much dependent on oil ...in fact, if you consider long commutes or industry in general…you can see that all our business are related to oil…
I don’t know which is the strategy to follow in small and medium term to contain the probable crisis, for instance the use or not of fuel tax cap…but we necessary have to find a solution for the long term….
I think that the World has to do a quality “jump” starting from West zone… considering that countries, such as India and China are growing…..and considering that we have to leave them the oil for their development…
To try to open my mind, in this period I am reading some interesting books about the problem….for instance I am reading a book that analyze the contribution of alternative sources of energy in order to reduce the dependence on oil…and the only think that I can say is that we have really to work a lot first of all to understand in depth the problem….
The main reason of the increasing of fuel price at the pump is the growth of the oil cost at the cask. It is near to $ 130. I think that the only solution is to reduce as much as possible the reliance on the oil, through an increasingly use of other kind of energy, like gas, methane and (in a more long term future) hydrogen. Just in this last period we have attended to an increasing proposition from the automobile houses in term of cars with different types of engines (especially gas, methane). Of course this does not represent the solution to the problem, but it could be an important action in order to resolve a current and so relevant question.
Have you heard the idea of using renewable energy? The population of the world is increasing at a geometric rate; at present total population of the world exceeds the number 6 billion. And everybody consumes some sources of power by any means. One day will come, when we have not the source of electricity, natural gas, oils etc for our consumption. So, we must have to find out new sources from this day, and scientists are searching for these...
Renewable energy effectively uses natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat, which may be naturally replenished. Renewable energy technologies range from solar power, wind power, hydroelectricity/micro hydro, biomass and biofuels for transportation.
In this section, I will write only about water power. Have you seen the cyclone in Mianmar? or the tide in the nearest sea of Pisa. Then think once, is the tide of sea has any power to do something? At least they have the power to destroy a city. Recalling this power, we can easily use the water power in machining of brittle, fragile and some sorts of artificial materials efficiently and economically. Water jet machining, or abrasive water jet machining, when some abrasive materials are impregnated in water solution, can be used for machining purposed to make the monuments and big statue. The water is injected at a very high pressure, usually more than 3000 bar (3000 times of atmospheric pressure)with the help of a very fine nozzle (usually diameter range 3 to 9 mm, but nozzle tip is less than 1 mm).
Early applications were limited to the cutting of fiberglass and corrugated board due to primitive equipment available: the development of newer technologies and improved equipment such as automatic jet sensors and quick acting valves have made possible many new applications for the process.
Do you want to see a movie where both British English and American English both are present? If you say 'Yes', then you must go to shop and buy Notting Hill. The plot of this movie is the life of a simple bookshop owner changes when he meets the most famous film star in the world. Main actor is Hugh Grant by the name William Thacker and actress Julia Roberts, by the name Anna Scott. The Director of this movie is Roger Michell and afterall this movie was nominated for 3 Golden Globes and another 12 wins.
Ohh, I have not said another thing. In this movie, you will find an interesting character named Spike, actor was Rhys Ifans.
I think you must see this movie. But I will stop here describing the last scene. Afterwards, William consults his friends on his decision, leading him to realize that he has just made the biggest mistake of his life. He and his friends search for Anna, racing across London in Max's car. They reach Anna's press conference before she leaves for the United States, and Will successfully persuades her to stay in England with him. Anna and Will get married, with the film concluding with a shot of Will and a pregnant Anna sitting on a park bench in Notting Hill.
I think you have posted a very interesting topic. Even if the US are in some way very different and far from Europe, what happens inside their borders is relevant for everyone in the world. First of all, it must be said that the US are not just a big country with only one culture, but there are huge differences among the states, especially between the eastern and the western regions or between the north and the south. Focusing on the weapons problem, as Obama said, this is mainly frequent in the mid-west and, I would add, in the metropolitan areas of the big cities (even on the east coast). In this latter case, weapons are generally owned by criminals and therefore could in some way "related" to social problems which create big differences between men living near to each other. I agree this is a big simplification of the real problem, but I didnt want to talk about that and I just wrote this to highlight the differences from the situation in mid-west. In these states, in fact, many ordinary families, which live in ordinary house, near ordinary people have guns, rifles and so on and they absolutely think they need these. They say it is their right and they need weapons to feel safe and to live without fear of the others. That's the terrible logic on which these opinions are based. Simplifying once more the question (but we're on a blog, arent we?), we can say people think that other people are mainly evil and therefore need weapons to be ready to defend them selves.
I think many of you have watched "Bowling a Columbine" which is, in my opinion, one of the best document on the US weapon problem. I found this "film" very hard and shocking, but at the same time, it helped me to get into the guns owners minds. I found incredible that there is the "Gun Owners of America" (http://www.gunowners.org/) and the "National Rifle Association" (http://www.nra.org/)(one of the last president was Charlton Heston), and maybe there are hundreds more like these. People of these associations have strong ideas and ethic opinions supporting the principle that anyone should be free to have and use his gun (or rifle) for his own safety. When people make a "bad use" of weapons, for example, killing people just for fun in a school or in a shopping centre, they just say that this can happen but for God's sake, not so often and for this reason it is not necessary to cancel the right of owning guns. Would you consider driving a car illegal just because there is an accident with death people once a week? This is their opinion and they would not move from it. During the debates after one of the last shooting in a school (I think it was in the Illinois University), the Gun Owners of America said that the problem was not that the guy, who killed I dont know how many people, had a gun, but that the other students didnt. They said if the students had weapons, there could be someone who could shot this guy. So they manipulated the tragedy to convince the whole country that there should be no "free gun" zones, otherwise such episodes will always happen. I remembered I read all these news rubbing my eyes and asking myself, is this possible??
First, what is meant by 'global warming?' An increase in the earth's atmospheric and oceanic temperatures widely predicted to occur due to an increase in the greenhouse effect resulting especially from pollution like radiation and emission of nuclear atoms.
I have selected and read the topic posted by Emanuele.Its an excellent topic and I think its an existing problem for our world. Do you know the reasons why the temperature is increasing? Here Emanuele has defined only one cause of global warming, greenhouse effect, and he has shown the temperature increse per year is approximately 1.33 ± 0.32 °F or about 0.50°C. If we add other effects such as emission of carbon mono-oxide and carbon di oxide, and the radiation of high atomic weight atoms, we find the athe temperate increses near about 0.70°C per year. If this situation continues, after 100 years, the world will be a hot-box or just like an oven during the summar season.
He also has noticed about detoreoration of the ozone layer which protects the ultra violet radiation from the sun and the perforating of the troposphere and stratosphere layers. If this situation continues, ultarviolet ray, X-ray, gamma-ray will reach on our surface of globe, the result will be so dangerous for human being.
Do you know the dangerous effects of ultra violet rays, X-rays and gamma rays? These rays are very much harmful for human being, as well as for animal plannet. Skin irritation, skin cancer results from this rays.
Let we think another situation... If the temperature increases, the ices stored in two opposite poles, will melt day by day, and the water lavel will increase. The result of this increment will increase the level of sea water, and land will be affected by the increased water, named flood.
Its the time to save our globe for future genaration. There is an evidance that radiation ejected fron the nuclear plants and plants used for producing chemical weapon. We so have to minimise the radiation effects, as well as impose a control on green house effect and there must be a simulation among all soucese of global warming.
Then, think again... it's our world...who will live there?
In my opinion, the topic you proposed is very interesting and it could open to a big range of considerations...
Almost every day, we hear about accidents in the working environment. I think that this comes from two different aspects.
1-SITUATION IN ITALY.... I think that this situation describes very well the actual work conditions in Italy, where rules exist but very often are not properly applied.
The contribution comes in part from the employers approach and in part from the workers. I don't want to generalize and I will try to explain what I mean.
Some employers, in order to save money apply rules like a safety lower boundary to achieve without do the best that they can...the italian law enables this interpretation but in my opinion is not the right way ....for instance in the pubblic school courses on safety or on fires are organized only for few workers (e.g. one caretaker for school..) as indicated in the law but it is not enough if a fire appens in a school...
Otherwise some workers are undisciplined...they have the possibility to use personal safety devices, such as work shoes or glasses, given them by the employers but they don't do that...this is an other signficant problem in my opinion...
In addition actually we have a lot of foreigners working in construction sites...the most part are from Africa or East-Europe countries...and unfortunately they accept to work with less safety conditions than Italians.....and accidens necessarily increase....
2-BUILD A SAFETY CULTURE.... I think that media stress in work accidents in order to underline the problem and to try to push people toward a safety culture..it is just about an educational approach of media...
I think that this discussion is open...and there are more words to spend .... bye Barbara V.
The travels are my second love, after the computers ;-)
I thinks that go to the other side of the world is strange in our mind but it's normal when we are there. Four years ago I went in Australia and before my travel I checked and recorded the toilet water to compare the turning movement of the water in our hemisphere with the turning movement on the other side of the world... I know, I am crazy but I have watched the Simpson's episode (who has watched it understands me....). Clearly, I'd like visit all the world included New Zealand, maybe one day we could meet there!!! The travels for me are downtimes but also chances to learn; so I'm agree with Barbara when she says "I think that every trips enables us to be more complete...giving a "bag of experiences" ". When I am in a foreign country I try to live as the local people, for example I eat at 5pm in England or at 10pm in Spain in order to understand customs and traditions in each country. From each trip I bring something: feelings, passions, colors, etc.; but this is another story...
I think the topic introduced by Alessio is a really interesting and living one, and I completely agree with what Manuela and Riccardo wrote. About Charlton Heston that, as Riccardo said, in his last years of life was the president of the "National Rifle Association", I want to say also that is really sad to discover how people can change their opinions during their life. Heston, when he was younger, had supported the presidential campaign of JF Kennedy, marched with ML King for civil rights, and, after the shooting of Bob Kennedy, had even issued a statement calling for support of President Johnson's Gun's Control Act in 1969! Yet this is missing the point. I want to underline that weapons are not only an American problem. Just one week ago, in a little village few kilometers far from my home, a man, an entrepreneur, shot and killed a thief who had entered his house. Someone can say: "Nothing bad! Nobody obliged him to steal, and he knew the danger!" OK, in my opinion human life has a too high value, and I cannot agree with similar statements! But there's more. The thief was going down the stairs and was going to exit the house. The entrepreneur shot at his back six bullets. I can justify a similar behavior if one find an unknown man approaching his children with bad intentions or similar, but not in this case. Anyway, the second day politicians hastened to defend the killer (even because the victim was a stranger, from Albania) and the priest of the village said about the entrepreneur: "He's a really good and faithful guy". I don't want to judge anyone, but is it possible for a priest to tell this? Good and faithful? So even in Italy, where it's highly more difficult to obtain a gun than in the USA, such events can happen. A world without weapons would surely be a better world, but I don't think this will ever happen.
Well, I think travels are a good (or maybe the best) way to learn something from the world. By travelling you may get in touch with people of different culture, language and habits, and try to see what you have in common with them and what you have not.
I personally think that when you are abroad you should try to adopt the local lifestile as much as possible... I mean, this is the difference between a "traveller" and a "tourist", isn't it?
For istance, when I was 12, I went in Morocco with my parents and with a small group of other Italian people. It was September, and it was very hot. So, almost everyone looked continuously for bars or kiosks selling ice-drinks... and no one was interested in having a hot cup (at about 50 °C) of mint-tea, as (maybe those crazy?) locals were used to. After about two unbearable days I decided to try... Ok, it was hard to do, but - after that - I didn't suffer from the heat for the rest of the day... so, locals were not so crazy...
Unfortunately, Italians are famous for this kind of things... when we are abroad we usually look for pasta, parmigiano, spaghetti and pizza... and when we taste one of them we say: "We really cook it better..." I think this is very funny (and quite stupid)... what do you think?
I would like to give my opinion about the global warming question (Emanuele and Mithu explained their opinion about the same problem). I think it's a very complex problem, it's not that easy to say "the first cause is the human presence". The global warming is connected with carbon dioxide emissions and pollution: the analysis of this kind of problems requires hard researches and investigations. For example, It would be better to have an evaluation of environmental impact of innovative technologies, in comparison with conventional ones. And I spoke about the well-to-wheels approach in a past comment; I'll give you only a short example: emissions from battery-fed vehicles may be considered null in urban environment, but emissions issued for electricity production must be taken into account. So we don't know the greenhouse effect (and therefore the carbon dioxide emissions); we know only that it causes a series of incidental other effects like melting of glaciers, the increased frequency of the tropical cyclones, and the depletion of the ozone layer too. So how can we discuss about global warming ? We can only give a short description of the effects, but the reason of global warming is unknow. So the question is: How can you solve a problem without knowing all details ? Probably we need to improve our technology without mathematical models or complex physical investigations, but only with our common sense. For example we can introduce bio-fuel or natural gas like a primary energy source, electric vehicles fed by electrochimical accumulator, electric hybrid vehicles, hydrogen fed vehicles... In conclusion, all these solution can help us to improve our life. I don't know if they can solve the problem of global warming, but the most important thing is introducing them in short time !
This topic is one of the most interesting but at the same time it seems to me that is very hard to write about this in a blog. However, Barbara did it and I agree with many things she wrote, therefore I'm going to begin from what she said. First of all I have to say, even if I repeat things already written, that job injuries and job deaths are really some of the biggest problems in our society. Every day people die while they are at work and not always these accidents are reported in the national news. During the last months, this problem has gained much more popularity than before and many newspapers and tv programs have begun to write or talk about this. I agree with Barbara when she says that this is an (unusual) occasion in which the italian media are in some way positively influencing the people culture abot the safety problem, letting them know something which was quite completely hidden some months before. But is this be enough? Of course it is not. In my opinion there are three big elements related to this issue which, all of them, must be taken into account to tackle and hopefully solve this problem.
First of all, starting from what Barbara said: there is the people awareness of the problem. The media play an important role, but even the education must do its job. We have the face problem immediatelly when we begin to work and the companies and the public enterprises must teach the people everything about the risk of getting injured and the protection features to be used. I think that good steps have been done toward this direction especially during the last years. Of course that's not enough, and maybe it won't never be, but many companies (especially the big ones) have internal courses of job safety and there are clear information about this in risking enironments.
Toghether with the awareness of the problem, efficient laws must be operative in order to force the companies, which don't "feel" this as a real problem, to do everything necessary to tackle the safety problem. And here the first problmes arise... In Italy we have laws (or rules) and, as always, they are not completely and everywhere applied. Criminals (let me talk about them in this way) who own companies and don't care about people lifes but only about money are forced by laws to protect their emloyees, but they can do whatever they want because in many cases no one would control them. If they are unlucky we will just read something in the newspapers...
It is sad to say, but for many people in our society everything is based on money. Money are their only objective in life. If we want them to follow the rules about job safety we have to teach them that they would lose money if they don't follow them. Job injuries are, for many companies one of the biggest economical problem.
During the preparation of my Bachelor of Science thesis, I've studied some books about ergonomics and job injuries. Many studies proved that in the US many companies have decied to do more than what laws and rules say about safety because they have realised thay can save a lot of a money having less people injured.
I have to quit, as Barbara said, the problem is complex and there are many other words to say, but Luisa wants a coffee (she just said that...)
Sarkozy suggest cap on fuel tax. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7421198.stm
At last someone have decided to cap the rise of the oil price. But the decrease of the fossil fuel capacity is the real alert!!!! The cut of the fuel tax could be only a momentary solution to re-balance the situation; in particular to help the workers that use fuel daily like Fishermen because the problem affect directly their business. I think that to ride out the matter, the energetical approach to the problem has to change!!! Not only looking for other type of enegy (like renewables energy) but also with a strong energy saving (public transport and energetical building efficency). I hope people become aware of this situation and change style of life: this is the only way to solve the enegetical trouble.
you have posted a very interesting topic. I think that the Seminar entitled "General principles of writing of a scientific article" was very important for learn to write a scientific article.
In you post, you have shown very good the course contents.
Now, I'm following a scientific english course presented by Prof. Adrian Wallwork. This course is called "Writing Scientific Articles in English".
In this course I learn to write an article in a correct form, reduce the number of mistakes and it help me to write clearly, concisely and relevantly.
I have already learned much rules and concept, as a order words. In a scientific article every sentence must be composed of Subject + Verb + Direct Object + Indirect Object.
In your post, you don't talk about the abstract. Abstract is very important in a paper and is necessary in the most of time. It's a little summary, where you find information about the researcher's work.
Certainly you will write about "abstract" in your next post.
Here we are, my English course is drawing to an end. As I have to write something into the blog, I want to spend some words to tell you my impression about the course.
I think Professor Lucia Panichi give us a big opportunity to improve our way to communicate in English.
She let us much time for speaking English together and this is not usual in our school course, maybe for the number of the students or maybe for the time limit.
I usually read English scientific books or whatever on the web while speak English is less usual in everyday life.
I also think that watching English movies is a nice and simple way to expose our self to the sound of the English/American English mother tongue and moreover it is a passive way to widen our vocabulary . Last but not least this course gave me also the opportunity to meet new friends.
What ever else do I say? It couldn't have been better
When Luisa asked me to write a paragraph about what I like, I thought to write about "Friendship". Wikipedia defines "Friendship" by co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more beings. While Wikipedia definition did not satisfy me, I got impressed by Aristotle's definition. Simply, he says that Friendship is an essential component to have a good life. He justifies his meaning of friendship by, that friends will provide the conditions to be successful. Somehow I agree with Aristotle, but I disagree with him when friends start to provide DOB.:) I just cannot imagine my life without my friends. Also, I observe other forms of friendships like friendships between parents and their sons, between a brother and his sister, and between a person and his life partner. I believe that, true friends are those who give true advices and encouragement to progress in everyday of life. Unfortunately, our lifestyle beats are going faster and faster, circles of friends becoming smaller and smaller. Long hours of setting behind a computer led to what is called online or internet-friendship. Although internet friendship offers an easy way to make friends from all over the world, it detains internet-friends in a virtual world. At the end, I recommend everyone -even myself- to have many friends and few foes. BYE BYE GUYS...:)
I write this post in response to the one from Andrea, in which he talks about travelling.
You said that, when Italians go abroad, they want to eat only italian dishes, and are disappointed when they discover that they prefer "pasta, parmigiano, spaghetti and pizza" over the local dishes. I think that this behaviour is common, and you don't have to be surprised. I think the same happens for any person who travels to another country. They prefer their dishes simply because that is what they are accustomed to! For example, travelling to another country, you would find different cooking styles, that can completely change the taste of a food you eat every day. And you could easly be even not able to recognize it, or you may simply don't like it!
I said I will write about the abstract writing. I was so busy for my exam and other related works. I am sorry, as I had not continued.. You are absolutely true, abstract is the main part of a scientific paper, and from the abstract part, usually we learn about what the writer wants to say in his/her paper. We can say easily, the abstract writing is easy and follows some rules to write it. But, in practical, its very tough to write as you have you write the concise form of your whole writing and you should remember that after reading this part, one should get a brief idea about your work. As for example, I am showing a style: "This research work was carried out with the view of investigating the effects of minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) on the cutting performance of AISI 1040 steel, in terms of chip formation mode, tool wear, and machined surface roughness as compared to completely dry and wet machining. In this study, the minimum quantity lubrication was provided with a spray of air and cutting oil. However, compared to the dry and wet machining, MQL machining performed much better, mainly due to substantial reduction in cutting zone temperature enabling favorable chip formation and chip-tool interaction. It also provides substantial reduction in tool wear, which enhanced the tool life, and surface roughness. Furthermore, it provides environment friendliness and improves the machinability characteristics." Ref: Mithu.M.A. H., et. al.
Just see the abstract, first a brief sentence relater to topic of the paper and research. 2nd sentence says about the methodology used in the process or research, and later the experimental results outcome from investigating and comparing with others. The last part is similar to the conclusion what was the findings of that project. Then think, is not a complex thing to concise a 8-10 page paper into 8 to 10 lines only???? I have missed, another word, when you submit a paper in a specific journal, you must read the requirements of the corresponding journal and the writers guidelines (Authors guideline). Some journals have the restriction to write abstract within 150-200 words, some have more. So when you plan to write abstract, better, you will write within 200 words... then you will modify this according to journal requirement.
You should be very careful when you sent a paper for publication, you read the paper several times and search for the errors; whenever you find an error, put a red mark and correct it on paper, then you will correct it on soft copy, and save a copy in your hard drive.
1. Statement of objectives and goals of the research; 2. Methodology used; 3. results/conclusions;
• Generally everyone have great difficulty writing a good abstract. Everyone writes abstracts all the time but not a good one. Abstracts are not Introductions
Follow these tips • What is it that you want to do? • What did you do? • How did you do it? • What results did you get? • What are you conclusions? • What are the implications of your results to the discipline? • Do not write about what you want to more than 3 lines or write a background in the abstract. Abstract are summaries and must be brief, pithy and exact. • Write in the language you want to write in NOT in your mother tongue. If you do, you will be doing triple translation when it is translated into Bengal and at that point it will probably lose half of the original meaning.
A good abstract: • Is concise, readable, and quantitative. • Is in complete sentences; • Is in the same order as they occur in report • Provides logical connections ( or transitions) between the information included; • Describes the objectives, methods, results, and conclusions. • Oftentimes uses passive verbs to downplay the author and emphasize the information.
DOES NOT
• Add any new information, but simply summaries the report; • Contain full bibliographic references; • Include internal headings; parenthetical citations of items listed in the reference section, diagrams or other illustrations; • Repeat information in title; • Include background information, a literature review, and detailed description of methods; • Include reference to other literatures; • A common mistake is that abstract summarizes only the first chapter (introduction) and says nothing about the content of other chapters
Its a big writing, and you will be bored. Si I will stop here.. See you when we pass the roads /streets or somewhere suddenly... best of luck, cheers
I am going home (Bangladesh), and I will come back (if I'm alive till then, by God)at the end of August (in this year, not others). If you want to write me, please drop the letter in bin named mithuipe@yahoo.com. Its the real dustbin, and sometimes I look for letters from there before cleaning the bin. Be sure, I will put a soft letter to your bin just like skin of banana (peel, banaba peel). Have nice days and enjoy your holidays and summer vacation. I want to express gratitude to L. Panichi as she has given a chance to express ourselves through her media and we were friends in our class room. Thanks Panichi...
I have been working in tertiary education and foreign language teaching for over 16 years. My professional areas of interest are Language Awareness, Tandem learning, Learner Counselling, Cross Cultural communication and language learning in multimedia environnments including Second Life.
51 comments:
"The Pope opens to aliens"
This is the incredible news that from the Vatican flies from here to there...
What do u think?
Not about the Pope ( that's another story) but about the aliens.
Do they really exist?
Do they really come to earth?
Are they among us?
What they look like ? grey ? green?
two head-something plus various extensions like quasi legs and quasi arms ?
Do they speak English ?
Hello everyoone,
I read an article related to the global warming question. I think this is an important problem that everyone of us should take into account.
The article I read is about the likely causes of the global warming problem, and the most important thing that is pointed out is that the first cause is the human presence rather than other possible external causes such as a changing of solar forcing. Many data have been collected and many several mathemathical models of global warming have been done: they all reveal that temperatures at the tropopause zone and in stratosphere has raised up more than they would have without the presence of men.It's been calculated that temperature near the Earth's surface increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the hundred years ending in 2005, except in the Antarctica.
The two most important problems men created are greenhouse effect and the depletion of the ozone layer. These problems caused a series of incidental effects such as melting of glaciers, the increased frequency of the intense tropical cyclones and also the risk of extremely warm summer conditions regionally, such as the 2003 European heat wave.
Current simulations have been compared to other analysises based on paleoclimate data and it has been seen that most of problems showed up after the upcoming of the Industrial age, and exspecially in last 20 years.
However there are still many discrepancies beetween data and theorical considerations, scientist are trying to understand what the most important causes of the problem are in order to keep the situation under control.
I'm going to post other considerations about this topic!
Bye bye
Hi everyone!
What is the worst idea in history?
We have just read a blog entry from "world have your say" blog.
It's amazing: reality TV has come second only to the atom bomb! This according to a poll, but the comments on it show many different opinions. Religious and political matters are the most mentioned as worst ideas. After that, we could find atomic weapons (and war, in general), reality TV and going on there are many funny topics. For example, some of the funniest are:
- automated telephone answering systems: "for irritation press one";
- examinations
- multi-tasking while driving
- Limos…don’t wonder who’s inside, it’ll only be a nobody on an 21st.
- Fish on the bottom yogurt
... and last but not least, Britney Spears and Margaret Thatcher!!
Daniele & Giovanni
We have read a discussion on different opinions about abortion.
We both agree that the decision of abortion doesn't have to be up to the mother, even father has equal voice. In Italy abortion is legal up to the 24th week and it is the same in the most of the countries.
more populated countries like china, encourages for abortion if they have more than one child. In some countries it is illegal to abort the pregnancy. In Italy many people decide to abort because they believe that can't manage to raise up. in India it is legal to abort if they have more then two, or for any medical problems. Emanuele and Chaitanya
hello everybody
we are going to talk about religion since we have just been in a blog titled: when did faith become a four letter word?...
the main topic was about how religion is viewed by non believer people who say religion is a negative thing because they say that religion is the most responsible causes of conflicts. people on this blog, instead, answered to this accuse, saying that people are responsible of their actions and we can't just use the religion as a excuse of what they have done.....
people on that blog, of course, have a point...but we guess we also have to consider that the history of our planet was caved in blooded in the name of religion....
In a previous lesson a group of us (included me) have read an article about books became films.
I have read some books and then I have watched the related films and at all times these films were disappointing.
For example I have read the book “The Da Vinci Code”, a great riveting book in my opinion, but I was bored to death during the film.
Another example is “In her shoes” wrote by Jennifer Weiner; I love deeply this writer, but I hate the film because it is disconnected.
And now my question: I have read the book “Marley & Me” and this book has moved me; in your opinion I have to watch the film?
Did you watch a good film based on a book?
Sorry, I’ve forgotten to write
@ Riccardo DG
Well… to tell you all the truth, I really don’t think that aliens are among us…. something just like MIB!
But reading just a little about astronomy, about our universe, and, simply, just having a look at the sky…..well, it’s so wide, so deep, there are so many galaxies, so many solar systems… … so, do you really think that it’s so impossible that somewhere up there, faraway from us, there is some kind of life? Well, I don’t think it’s so impossible!
…….But I haven’t got the slightest idea of what they look like!!! Maybe they are just bacterium!
… and, on the other hand…. All that space, an no one up there! It would be a waste!
Bye!
elisa
@ Vanessa
Well, I think that it isn’t easy to “convert” a good book into a good film!
I have never read “Marley & me”, so I’m not able to tell you if the film is as good as the book!
But I can tell you that often the films aren’t as good as the books. For instance when I was 9 I read “The never ending story”….. the book was really good, but the film, compared with the book, was…..poor! It disappointed me! Many things missed and so on…… well, it happens in many chances!
…… but there are also some examples of good films based on a book, for instance “Dances with wolves”, where the locations of the film were simply great, or “Fried green tomatoes at the Whistle Stop cafe”.
Bye!
elisa
There are many things we can talk about…. But it’s quite different to talk about a topic with your friends and to post it on a blog: some topics are suited for a blog, others sound too “private” ….. well, it isn’t easy to find a good and interesting topic for a blog!
For instance last week, in front of the cafe vending machine, we talked about travels.
I’d like to go to New Zealand…. Maybe because it’s on the other side of the world, so far from here! But also because I think that it’s a wonderful place! There are some friends of mine who live there…. Well, I have known them for over two years and…..only via internet!.....And all of them tell me that it’s really good.
I’ve read something about New Zealand and I like it! I’d like to see Auckland, Wellington, but also North Cape and its lighthouse, the orchards of Napier, Rotorua and its thermal springs, the Moeraki Boulders near Dunedin and also an All Blacks match!…. Well, the list is very long!
So, coming back to travels….. do you like to travel? Where do you like to go and why? What do you like to visit there? And do you know anyone there?
Bye!
elisa
Dear Vanessa,
Why don’t you try to see the film before reading the book?
Maybe it seems a banal advice but I think that while you are reading a book you display in your mind the setting, the characters etc... so when you see the film you are disappointed because you don’t find same “images”. In fact I disillusioned when I watched “The name of the Rose” after reading the book, too. Instead I saw the film “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” at the cinema in 2005: now I’m reading the book and I’m enjoying it. In fact even if I know the plot I find more details reading the book instead to have the usual “cuts” from the book’s story. Therefore the choice is between the our mind’s adaptation to images of the seen film or their substitution with different ones.
Bye!
WHY DOES LIFE EXIST ON EARTH? (DO YOU THINK ITS GODS CREATION???)
Earth is unique in the Solar System as being the only planet which is able to support life in all its forms: from basic living micro-organisms to highly sophisticated and intelligent human beings. There are many reasons why this happens.
REASON ONE:
Earth has a breathable atmosphere. Oxygen is the gas that is required for the life of most creatures. This is present in Earth's atmosphere, along with nitrogen, and in water, along with hydrogen. Oxygen is constantly put into the atmosphere by plants and trees. Fortunately, Earth's atmosphere does not contain much carbon dioxide, a poisonous gas which makes up most of the atmosphere of planets like Venus and Mars. In densely-populated areas, carbon dioxide is more present. This is because cars and factories produce it. This causes the air to be polluted. The Earth's atmosphere is kept on the planet by its pull of gravity. Mars and Mercury are too small to keep atmosphere. As a result, Mercury has no atmosphere, and Mars' atmosphere is very thin, containing gases which have not managed to escape into space yet. Earth's atmosphere is thick enough to prevent poisonous rays of radiation from getting through it (this is what has happened on Mars).
REASON TWO:
Earth has a suitable climate. This is caused by the moderate amount of carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere, which is constantly refreshed whenever there is a volcanic eruption. The temperature on Earth does not go from one extreme to the other either. Mercury can be anything from 200°c below freezing to 375°c above. At 375°c, water would only exist as a gas, and the planet would be completely dry. Venus has a surface temperature of 480°c, which would be much too hot for anybody to live in. Mars, although it can reach 25°c, can be as cold as -140°c, a temperature which would freeze blood and water. The other planets are colder still.
REASON THREE:
Earth has water! Water is believed to be the most important chemical necessary for life. It contains the oxygen needed for life. Other liquids contain poisonous elements. Water doesn't burn skin (like liquids containing acids do), it is drinkable, and it allows life-providing molecules to move around easily. Other moons in the Solar System, such as Europa, a moon of Jupiter, are believed to have oceans of water under its icy surface. Scientists believe that, if they could find traces of water on Mars, the possibility of life existing on that planet would be greatly increased. Water on Earth can be found anywhere, in its three states. It can be frozen, taking the form of ice. It can be liquid, seen in seas and oceans and lakes. It can also be a gas, seen as clouds in atmosphere.
REASON FOUR:
All planets receive light from the Sun, but no planet uses it as usefully as Earth. Trees and plants on the planet produce oxygen through a process called photosynthesis. Plants need the Sun to grow. Look at plants in windows and notice how they usually seem to grow towards the Sun. Try growing a plant in a dark room and in a light room. Notice which one grows quicker. The one which has grown quickest is the one which also produces more oxygen. It is believed that if we were able to get a plant to grow on another planet, such as Mars, it would begin putting oxygen into the planet's atmosphere and increase the possibility of life. Saturn's moon, Titan, has an atmosphere containing mainly nitrogen. If this moon was to possess oxygen too in its atmosphere, by a plant photosynthesising on it, it could have a similar atmosphere to Earth.
Basically, Earth has life on it because of the Sun. It is in the perfect position in the Solar System. It receives just the right amount of heat from the Sun, and enough light for plants to photosynthesise.This process of photosythensis puts oxygen into the atmosphere. Humans need oxygen to breathe and to live.
SO GUYS NATURE HAS GIVEN US BEAUTIFUL WEATHER TO LIVE AND LEED BEAUTIFUL LIFE,
KEEP CLEAN AND GREEN
Ref: Reading Books and Film
Dear Vanessa and Manuela,
Both are true from different viewpoints... Its true that the film might be different from the book. In film, we want the Hero/Heroine will be untouched and at the end of the film, the hero/heroine will win. In contrast, there are some movies, the hero/heroine will die , but there will be some evidence and must have some ideology. A film consumes huge money from the Producer's pocket, and this producer usually wants some profit for this huge investment.
Always we want some refreshment and recreation from a movie and if possible, some knowledge. But every time we don't hope knowledge from the film. But a reader usually gains some knowledge and fewer refreshment. So, the producer imposes the 'Director' to make a sequence of the 'film and spot'to make profit.
Will you invest this huge amount without any profit? Yes, sometimes you will invest!!! but where??? There are some films that is the mirror-face of one nation's life or one group of peoples' life style, life-struggles , the liberation-war , or for the deprived population who are suppressed by from a giant power. I can give one example: have you seen the poster or watch the film on Vietnam war. If we take a practical picture from one nations' lifestyle or mentioned above; these type of films are called 'Art-Film'. These films usually follow the history or a reference book. The producer wants no profit in terms of money. Are you thinking that the producer don't want any profit. Of course, why not(?)
Everytime we don't want money... There are two types of motivating factors for human being. One is Intrinsic rewards and another Extrinsic rewards or motivating factors. In some cases, the intrinsic motivating factors dominate the extrinsic rewards... may be no need to explain the extrinsic motivating factors and intrinsic motivating factors...
I have seen one director & producer writes on his movie - "There is nothing knowledge-full information in this movie, this movie is only for laugh, as the laugh tries to increase your life length...." but the director follows a book written by him also.
Usually we want the hero will win in fairing squad, but in books it usually not true....
My brain is not enough to judge everything well. If you have different idea, frankly write against me...some comments will help my English lesson practice, at least and at last.
Ciao...
Mithu, DIMNP, PISA
@Elisa
I agree with you when you said that the choice of an interesting topic for a blog isn't easy....but in any case you proposed and interesting and wide topic to talk about....
to travel...
if you check the definition of the word "travel" you could find differnt solutions, but for me the most proper is "To advance or proceed"... in fact I think that every trips enables us to be more complete...giving a "bag of experiences"...
For that I like to travel....
Unfortunately, at the moment I didn't visit a lot of places ... but I woult like to visit a lot of places...
In particular I would like to visit India and South-America, for the colors that I could find there....but also some small islands or mountains to have contact with the nature (the Andes could be actractive for me!)...
bye bye
Barbara V.
Hi,
I want to speak about the use of a gun in the U.S.A.
In this Country, you can move around with your gun. It’s free!
Every year, 30.000 persons die for a shoot and in the USA there are the greatest number of citizens with a gun.
In these days, it’s happened a curios event; a car dealership has offered a free handgun with every vehicle sold.
Customers can choose between a $250 credit at a gun shop or a $250 petrol card.
Since the start of the offer, sales have quadrupled.
Except one guy from Canada and one old guy, all customers have chosen a credit for a gun.
The dealer is Mr. Muller and his shop is in Butler, Missouri. He has said the promotion was inspired by recent comments from Barack Obama.
The democratic nominee said about people in the Midwest: “you’ve got to have compassion for them because they’re clinging to their guns and their Bibles”.
Mr. Muller found that quite offensive so he thought this promotion.
What do you think about?
Bye,
Alessio
“In the jungle of the construction site” title the Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper, with respect to the dangers and not compliance of the safety rule in construction site.
Despite the law provide for sanction, Italian labours work in unsafe conditions without safeguard; this thing has been lead to various accidents, sometimes also fatal.
What do you think about this situations? Why the businessman and the building contractors don’t have interest for the problem (Is the production deadline more important of the human life)?
@Manuela
Too late… I have read the book same months ago and the release date for this film is the 25 December 2008. It will be for the next time…
@Riccardo
It’s challenging thinking that we aren’t alone. I don’t believe that they are green with long arms or feelers, but the science shows us that nothing is impossible.
“Are they among us?” Oh my God! I don’t know! Is, maybe, my neighbor an alien???
“Do they speak English?” Why they speak English and I don’t??!!
I’m joking, obviously, but I’m too tired and the other topics are too serious, please Luisa forgive me…
Sarkozy suggests cap on fuel tax
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7421198.stm
Sarkozy have noticed that oil price is too high and damage the economy.
The French president has suggested that the EU should consider capping value added tax on.
"If the barrel continues to rise, must we maintain a VAT rate that is proportional to the price in the same conditions?"
French consumers pay almost 20% VAT on the price of oil, I don’t know how much we pay in Italy but yesterday I pay nearly 1,50 euro for a litre of diesel oil!
I know that in Italy we still pay taxes for military mission that are finished.
Fishermen of Spain and France are protesting as an high price of the barrel affect directly their business. Fishermen in Portugal and Belgium are planning to protest. In the UK, some 300 lorry drivers are protesting too. "The question of taxes comes up very often but still we have doubts if it is the best way to react in these cases," she told Reuters.
I think that the problem is that there are some assets that you must buy, regardless of the price, in order to live. Gas oil (or fuel) is one of them.
@Vanessa about films drawn on a book
I read “Intervista con il vampiro” and “il collezionista d’ossa” and seen the relative films. I was really disappointed. I think that you can’t summaries a long book in a 1 hour and 30 minutes film. For this reason the probability, that some of the characteristic you enjoy in the book has been cut, is very high! I think that you need an entire TV series to tell a good story drawn on a book. When I was a teenager, I read the manga “First of the north start” and watched the cartoon TV series and I liked both with a little preference for the cartoon. I don’t know why a manga can have a TV series while a book must be pleased with less than a 2 hour film, but it is really a pity.
About films drawn on a book
I think it is not easy to represent a story of a book in a film. There is a primary reason, that is the peculiarity with which the book is able to describe the plot. Every fact is told in a particular manner, with the goal to provoke in the reader the same sensation as he would be into the scene. This doesn’t happen in a film, but it doesn’t mean that any film which story is taken from its correspondent book necessarily is not a good film, not nearly. If a film is well-doing, maybe it could be good in the same manner of the book, even better than the latter. For example, a story as “Harry Potter”, or as “The Lord of the Rings” that are fantasy stories, can take advantage through their film representation, because the images, the sounds give the idea better of which is happening.
So, is not true that the story of book can’t never transfer itself into a film because it is impossible to summarize the whole story inside the movie. They may be interpreted as two different ways to tell a story with two different approaches and point of views.
About films drawn on a book
I agree with Giulio when he said that it is impossible to summarize the whole story inside a movie...
In my opinion, writing a book and creating a movie use two differce approches and "tools" for telling a story....the first use the immagination of all the readers to create the charcters and setting images...the second use only the director immagination to give us images....and selon me the distance between these approcches is very wide...
If you prefere to use your immagination problably you will prefere to read the book than watch the movie....in any case you have to remember that are different points of view..
bye
Barbara V.
About movies drawn on a book
I think we can't compare movies and books.I mean a book let your imagination free, the author give you some or many (depend on the style of an author) details about the story and the reader could imagine the context of the story: the greater your imagination the more detailed the story is.
But watching a movie our imagination is underutilized because the movie suggest us the point of view of the director,I mean how the producer had imagined the location the character appearance..
I read many years ago "The lord of the ring" before watching the movie, the story is fill of particular it is a very detail description and let the reader imagine even the little house of the Hobbit.When i saw the movie I was surprise to see the ivillage and the hobbit as I imagined before even if many part of the book were note represented on the movie,maybe the fact that the movie reflect what we imagined before let us consider it a good movie!
About movies ad novels
I think it is a really interesting topic!
We must consider that maybe more than half of all the films produced are based on novels. So I think that we cannot tell all this cinema is inferior compared to literature. In case, I think we can classify these films into two groups:
- those films that try to repeat the success of a book, with directors that only try to put down in images the stories;
- those that, starting from a story narrated in a novel, develop some new ideas and use the power of images to give additional meaning to the narrative and additional emotions to the spectator.
There are some good films even in the first class, for example “The lord or rings”. But some true masterpieces are in the second one: “The birds” by Hitchcock, for instance, or “A Clockwork Orange”, “Shining” or “Dr. Strangelove” by Stanley Kubrick, or “Apocalypse now” by Martin Scorsese. It’s not a chance that all this films are most popular than the novels from which they are drawn.
For instance, the novel “A clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess is in my opinion a great book, but Kubrick’s film is immortal and it gives a more complete sense to the story by eliminating the last chapter of the book, the edifying one, that Burgess was probably forced to add by his editor.
Do you think this rough classification is somehow realistic?
Glad to see you have all been so busy ;-)
We will discuss your posts tomorrow in class.
@riccardo dg
hi everybody(... and sorry luisa for my delay...)
I also read on the internet that recently the Vatican has admitted the probability of live forms on the universe other than humans. There are some interesting points which come along with this statement by the astronomer-theologist Funes, chief of vatican astronomers:
-this "progressive" view from vatican hierarchy accomodates with dogmas and faith in God as creator and saviour of the world
-aliens too were created by God and can benefit from God's mercy. This does not imply that they are sinners too and must be redempted because they migth not have been decayed as humanity did.
-for this and other scientific issues, like big bang once opposed to creationism, the bible has not to be intended as a science book, and the scientific vision of the world can conciliate with the religious one, provided that cristians keep to believe we are not product of casuality but sons of a good creator.
By the way, once I heard that the Virgin Mary claimed to appear at Medjougorie stated that man was alone in the universe and there was no place for aliens, as the earth was the center of creation and of God's redemption project. Apart from noticing that these two declarations seem to contradict themselves (coming the latter from a better placed observer) I would like to point out as often two forms of superstition does not go very well together. But I'm still waiting from some alien demostrating me that nobody appeared at Medjougorie :)
Personally I believe to the possibility of other live forms in the universe, and the idea of humanity alone in the darkness of the universe make me very sad and concerned for our responsibility. We still don't know if the universe is finite or not, and even what it's shape is, but surely it's big enough for plenty of planets like the Earth!
The point here is if these live forms will ever come in contact with us... someone says they are observing us and waiting us to become more civilizated to reveal themselves, because they want not to interfere with our development. Often we take theeir superior civilization for granted, as I did in my last sentence. I'm sure this has a strong psicological explanation...
Hi Everybody,
I joined a Seminar entitled "General principles of writing of a scientific article" presented by prof. Marcello Braglia, Professor of Industrial Plant and President of degree course in Engineering Management organized by Department of Mechanical, Nuclear and Production Engineering. In this section I will try to summarize the seminar, I think it will be helpful for current students to write a article in international journal.
First of all, I am writing what are the general contents of a paper ( here paper means journal article. A paper must have the followings: (1) Title, 2)Abstract,(3)Introduction, (4)Methodology,(5)Experimental results,(6)Conclusion(7)References and (8)Acknowledgment (optional).
I have dropped another thing, selecting the keywords, and how you will select the keywords. You should choose keywords within 3 to 7, based on the paper instructions. When you decide to write a paper, first you will write your ideas and experimental results on plain paper. You must not choose the specific journal first. If you write all the experimental results on a plain paper, then you will start writing the introduction. Introduction means some general ideas related to your experiments and there must be a sequence of information that you put down for the experiments. When you write the introduction, you must should keep the questions in your mind and ask these questions several times and find out the answer by yourself from the introduction. The questions are- (1)is it dearly presented? (2)should the text be considered or expanded?(3) can you suggest ways of shortening the paper without detracting from its value?
Now comes to the point of methodology or experimental setup. In this section you will present your experimental set ups, e.g. a machine that you used for your experiment or the field where you worked for this experiment and what were the procedures to operate the machine or how/why you select/manage the field for this kind of research with very clear sentences. remember, you must declare the parameters that you used for this experiments. here also some questions to answer by yourself. (1)is this a new and original contribution? (2) are there any errors of fact or logic? (3)Do you consider any part of the paper would be better presented in appendices?
Experimental results: In this section you will present your database and the corresponding results with the help of some mathematical tools, graphics, figures, charts etc. If it is an original contribution, then you can compare your result with other related experiments. If it is not, then you will must consider articles presented past of you. For scientific paper, you should preserve all the database in your memory storage device upto its completion of publication. If you submit a paper in a journal, sometimes they will recall you to change the shape, size etc, the the database will help you to re- constract and to make some answers. Here 2 questions- (1) are the examples illustrates and tables all necessary and acceptable? (2) does the paper approximately complete the performance of proposed methodology with those found in the published literatures?
Conclusion includes the findings in brief from your experiment, scope for future works and opening new problems for future work.
References: For every sentence or sometimes for words you should draw the reference if you take the data or if you copy from other paper or books. Usually we take the references from journals, books, newspapers, websites, scientific reports, press release, handbooks or reference books, reference charts. For every document you must present the references. In case of book, name of the author(s), name of the book, sometimes name of chapter, name of publisher, edition, year and at last pages, e.g., pp 129-132. Same for journals, but you should change the name of journal, volume, issue , year etc. In case of website, you must copy the web address and with date of search.
In my future mail I will write about the abstract. I have no time just now, I have to go out for English class. Take care everybody...cheers
Dear Alessio,
I think that the free use of guns in the U.S.A. is wrong because in this way people feel authorized to do justice by itself. Moreover this problem is very important because youths often bring guns or other arms at school and in some case what is only a “joke” becomes a tragedy.
The business venture of Mr. Muller is only a demonstration of the American situation and I think that the politicians should give more attention to what they said. In Italy also the Northern League’s leader has recently promoted the use of rifles but we can’t demand more security and justice if everyone can go around armed: every dispute can become a duel just in Far West…
@Mithu
Thank you Mithu for the seminary’s summary…
As you know, I was there and also to me it has been interesting…in particular remembering us to write short and easy sentences to better explain our work…
Thank you again….I am waiting for the second “episode” about abstract!!!
Bye Bye
Barbara V.
@Laguna
About “Sarkozy suggests cap on fuel tax”
in my opinion, oil price growth is a complex problem to analyze because our system is too much dependent on oil ...in fact, if you consider long commutes or industry in general…you can see that all our business are related to oil…
I don’t know which is the strategy to follow in small and medium term to contain the probable crisis, for instance the use or not of fuel tax cap…but we necessary have to find a solution for the long term….
I think that the World has to do a quality “jump” starting from West zone… considering that countries, such as India and China are growing…..and considering that we have to leave them the oil for their development…
To try to open my mind, in this period I am reading some interesting books about the problem….for instance I am reading a book that analyze the contribution of alternative sources of energy in order to reduce the dependence on oil…and the only think that I can say is that we have really to work a lot first of all to understand in depth the problem….
Barbara V.
About “cap fuel tax”
The main reason of the increasing of fuel price at the pump is the growth of the oil cost at the cask. It is near to $ 130.
I think that the only solution is to reduce as much as possible the reliance on the oil, through an increasingly use of other kind of energy, like gas, methane and (in a more long term future) hydrogen. Just in this last period we have attended to an increasing proposition from the automobile houses in term of cars with different types of engines (especially gas, methane). Of course this does not represent the solution to the problem, but it could be an important action in order to resolve a current and so relevant question.
Have you heard the idea of using renewable energy? The population of the world is increasing at a geometric rate; at present total population of the world exceeds the number 6 billion. And everybody consumes some sources of power by any means. One day will come, when we have not the source of electricity, natural gas, oils etc for our consumption. So, we must have to find out new sources from this day, and scientists are searching for these...
Renewable energy effectively uses natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat, which may be naturally replenished. Renewable energy technologies range from solar power, wind power, hydroelectricity/micro hydro, biomass and biofuels for transportation.
In this section, I will write only about water power. Have you seen the cyclone in Mianmar? or the tide in the nearest sea of Pisa. Then think once, is the tide of sea has any power to do something? At least they have the power to destroy a city. Recalling this power, we can easily use the water power in machining of brittle, fragile and some sorts of artificial materials efficiently and economically. Water jet machining, or abrasive water jet machining, when some abrasive materials are impregnated in water solution, can be used for machining purposed to make the monuments and big statue. The water is injected at a very high pressure, usually more than 3000 bar (3000 times of atmospheric pressure)with the help of a very fine nozzle (usually diameter range 3 to 9 mm, but nozzle tip is less than 1 mm).
Early applications were limited to the cutting of fiberglass and corrugated board due to primitive equipment available: the development of newer technologies and improved equipment such as automatic jet sensors and quick acting valves have made possible many new applications for the process.
'NOTTING HILL'
Do you want to see a movie where both British English and American English both are present? If you say 'Yes', then you must go to shop and buy Notting Hill.
The plot of this movie is the life of a simple bookshop owner changes when he meets the most famous film star in the world. Main actor is Hugh Grant by the name William Thacker and actress Julia Roberts, by the name Anna Scott. The Director of this movie is Roger Michell and afterall this movie was nominated for 3 Golden Globes and another 12 wins.
Ohh, I have not said another thing. In this movie, you will find an interesting character named Spike, actor was Rhys Ifans.
I think you must see this movie. But I will stop here describing the last scene. Afterwards, William consults his friends on his decision, leading him to realize that he has just made the biggest mistake of his life. He and his friends search for Anna, racing across London in Max's car. They reach Anna's press conference before she leaves for the United States, and Will successfully persuades her to stay in England with him. Anna and Will get married, with the film concluding with a shot of Will and a pregnant Anna sitting on a park bench in Notting Hill.
..........M. A. H. Mithu...........
@ Alessio
I think you have posted a very interesting topic. Even if the US are in some way very different and far from Europe, what happens inside their borders is relevant for everyone in the world.
First of all, it must be said that the US are not just a big country with only one culture, but there are huge differences among the states, especially between the eastern and the western regions or between the north and the south. Focusing on the weapons problem, as Obama said, this is mainly frequent in the mid-west and, I would add, in the metropolitan areas of the big cities (even on the east coast). In this latter case, weapons are generally owned by criminals and therefore could in some way "related" to social problems which create big differences between men living near to each other. I agree this is a big simplification of the real problem, but I didnt want to talk about that and I just wrote this to highlight the differences from the situation in mid-west. In these states, in fact, many ordinary families, which live in ordinary house, near ordinary people have guns, rifles and so on and they absolutely think they need these. They say it is their right and they need weapons to feel safe and to live without fear of the others. That's the terrible logic on which these opinions are based. Simplifying once more the question (but we're on a blog, arent we?), we can say people think that other people are mainly evil and therefore need weapons to be ready to defend them selves.
I think many of you have watched "Bowling a Columbine" which is, in my opinion, one of the best document on the US weapon problem. I found this "film" very hard and shocking, but at the same time, it helped me to get into the guns owners minds. I found incredible that there is the "Gun Owners of America" (http://www.gunowners.org/) and the "National Rifle Association" (http://www.nra.org/)(one of the last president was Charlton Heston), and maybe there are hundreds more like these. People of these associations have strong ideas and ethic opinions supporting the principle that anyone should be free to have and use his gun (or rifle) for his own safety. When people make a "bad use" of weapons, for example, killing people just for fun in a school or in a shopping centre, they just say that this can happen but for God's sake, not so often and for this reason it is not necessary to cancel the right of owning guns. Would you consider driving a car illegal just because there is an accident with death people once a week? This is their opinion and they would not move from it.
During the debates after one of the last shooting in a school (I think it was in the Illinois University), the Gun Owners of America said that the problem was not that the guy, who killed I dont know how many people, had a gun, but that the other students didnt. They said if the students had weapons, there could be someone who could shot this guy. So they manipulated the tragedy to convince the whole country that there should be no "free gun" zones, otherwise such episodes will always happen.
I remembered I read all these news rubbing my eyes and asking myself, is this possible??
Topic: Global Warming
First, what is meant by 'global warming?' An increase in the earth's atmospheric and oceanic temperatures widely predicted to occur due to an increase in the greenhouse effect resulting especially from pollution like radiation and emission of nuclear atoms.
I have selected and read the topic posted by Emanuele.Its an excellent topic and I think its an existing problem for our world. Do you know the reasons why the temperature is increasing? Here Emanuele has defined only one cause of global warming, greenhouse effect, and he has shown the temperature increse per year is approximately 1.33 ± 0.32 °F or about 0.50°C. If we add other effects such as emission of carbon mono-oxide and carbon di oxide, and the radiation of high atomic weight atoms, we find the athe temperate increses near about 0.70°C per year. If this situation continues, after 100 years, the world will be a hot-box or just like an oven during the summar season.
He also has noticed about detoreoration of the ozone layer which protects the ultra violet radiation from the sun and the perforating of the troposphere and stratosphere layers. If this situation continues, ultarviolet ray, X-ray, gamma-ray will reach on our surface of globe, the result will be so dangerous for human being.
Do you know the dangerous effects of ultra violet rays, X-rays and gamma rays? These rays are very much harmful for human being, as well as for animal plannet. Skin irritation, skin cancer results from this rays.
Let we think another situation... If the temperature increases, the ices stored in two opposite poles, will melt day by day, and the water lavel will increase. The result of this increment will increase the level of sea water, and land will be affected by the increased water, named flood.
Its the time to save our globe for future genaration. There is an evidance that radiation ejected fron the nuclear plants and plants used for producing chemical weapon. We so have to minimise the radiation effects, as well as impose a control on green house effect and there must be a simulation among all soucese of global warming.
Then, think again... it's our world...who will live there?
---M. A. H. Mithu--06/06/2008-----
@Ciro
about safety in working environment,
In my opinion, the topic you proposed is very interesting and it could open to a big range of considerations...
Almost every day, we hear about accidents in the working environment. I think that this comes from two different aspects.
1-SITUATION IN ITALY....
I think that this situation describes very well the actual work conditions in Italy, where rules exist but very often are not properly applied.
The contribution comes in part from the employers approach and in part from the workers.
I don't want to generalize and I will try to explain what I mean.
Some employers, in order to save money apply rules like a safety lower boundary to achieve without do the best that they can...the italian law enables this interpretation but in my opinion is not the right way ....for instance in the pubblic school courses on safety or on fires are organized only for few workers (e.g. one caretaker for school..) as indicated in the law but it is not enough if a fire appens in a school...
Otherwise some workers are undisciplined...they have the possibility to use personal safety devices, such as work shoes or glasses, given them by the employers but they don't do that...this is an other signficant problem in my opinion...
In addition actually we have a lot of foreigners working in construction sites...the most part are from Africa or East-Europe countries...and unfortunately they accept to work with less safety conditions than Italians.....and accidens necessarily increase....
2-BUILD A SAFETY CULTURE....
I think that media stress in work accidents in order to underline the problem and to try to push people toward a safety culture..it is just about an educational approach of media...
I think that this discussion is open...and there are more words to spend ....
bye
Barbara V.
Travel
@elisa & Barbara
The travels are my second love, after the computers ;-)
I thinks that go to the other side of the world is strange in our mind but it's normal when we are there.
Four years ago I went in Australia and before my travel I checked and recorded the toilet water to compare the turning movement of the water in our hemisphere with the turning movement on the other side of the world... I know, I am crazy but I have watched the Simpson's episode (who has watched it understands me....).
Clearly, I'd like visit all the world included New Zealand, maybe one day we could meet there!!!
The travels for me are downtimes but also chances to learn; so I'm agree with Barbara when she says "I think that every trips enables us to be more complete...giving a "bag of experiences" ".
When I am in a foreign country I try to live as the local people, for example I eat at 5pm in England or at 10pm in Spain in order to understand customs and traditions in each country.
From each trip I bring something: feelings, passions, colors, etc.; but this is another story...
Vanessa
About weapons and safety
I think the topic introduced by Alessio is a really interesting and living one, and I completely agree with what Manuela and Riccardo wrote. About Charlton Heston that, as Riccardo said, in his last years of life was the president of the "National Rifle Association", I want to say also that is really sad to discover how people can change their opinions during their life. Heston, when he was younger, had supported the presidential campaign of JF Kennedy, marched with ML King for civil rights, and, after the shooting of Bob Kennedy, had even issued a statement calling for support of President Johnson's Gun's Control Act in 1969! Yet this is missing the point.
I want to underline that weapons are not only an American problem. Just one week ago, in a little village few kilometers far from my home, a man, an entrepreneur, shot and killed a thief who had entered his house. Someone can say: "Nothing bad! Nobody obliged him to steal, and he knew the danger!" OK, in my opinion human life has a too high value, and I cannot agree with similar statements!
But there's more. The thief was going down the stairs and was going to exit the house. The entrepreneur shot at his back six bullets. I can justify a similar behavior if one find an unknown man approaching his children with bad intentions or similar, but not in this case. Anyway, the second day politicians hastened to defend the killer (even because the victim was a stranger, from Albania) and the priest of the village said about the entrepreneur: "He's a really good and faithful guy". I don't want to judge anyone, but is it possible for a priest to tell this? Good and faithful?
So even in Italy, where it's highly more difficult to obtain a gun than in the USA, such events can happen. A world without weapons would surely be a better world, but I don't think this will ever happen.
@Elisa, about travels
Well, I think travels are a good (or maybe the best) way to learn something from the world. By travelling you may get in touch with people of different culture, language and habits, and try to see what you have in common with them and what you have not.
I personally think that when you are abroad you should try to adopt the local lifestile as much as possible... I mean, this is the difference between a "traveller" and a "tourist", isn't it?
For istance, when I was 12, I went in Morocco with my parents and with a small group of other Italian people. It was September, and it was very hot. So, almost everyone looked continuously for bars or kiosks selling ice-drinks... and no one was interested in having a hot cup (at about 50 °C) of mint-tea, as (maybe those crazy?) locals were used to. After about two unbearable days I decided to try... Ok, it was hard to do, but - after that - I didn't suffer from the heat for the rest of the day... so, locals were not so crazy...
Unfortunately, Italians are famous for this kind of things... when we are abroad we usually look for pasta, parmigiano, spaghetti and pizza... and when we taste one of them we say: "We really cook it better..." I think this is very funny (and quite stupid)... what do you think?
I would like to give my opinion about the global warming question (Emanuele and Mithu explained their opinion about the same problem). I think it's a very complex problem, it's not that easy to say "the first cause is the human presence". The global warming is connected with carbon dioxide emissions and pollution: the analysis of this kind of problems requires hard researches and investigations. For example, It would be better to have an evaluation of environmental impact of innovative technologies, in comparison with conventional ones. And I spoke about the well-to-wheels approach in a past comment;
I'll give you only a short example: emissions from battery-fed vehicles may be considered null in urban environment, but emissions issued for electricity production must be taken into account. So we don't know the greenhouse effect (and therefore the carbon dioxide emissions); we know only that it causes a series of incidental other effects like melting of glaciers, the increased frequency of the tropical cyclones, and the depletion of the ozone layer too. So how can we discuss about global warming ? We can only give a short description of the effects, but the reason of global warming is unknow. So the question is: How can you solve a problem without knowing all details ? Probably we need to improve our technology without mathematical models or complex physical investigations, but only
with our common sense. For example we can introduce bio-fuel or natural gas like a primary energy
source, electric vehicles fed by electrochimical accumulator, electric hybrid vehicles, hydrogen fed vehicles... In conclusion, all these solution can help us to improve our life. I don't know if they can solve the problem of global warming, but the most important thing is introducing them in short time !
@ Ciro and Barbara
about safety in working environments
This topic is one of the most interesting but at the same time it seems to me that is very hard to write about this in a blog. However, Barbara did it and I agree with many things she wrote, therefore I'm going to begin from what she said.
First of all I have to say, even if I repeat things already written, that job injuries and job deaths are really some of the biggest problems in our society. Every day people die while they are at work and not always these accidents are reported in the national news. During the last months, this problem has gained much more popularity than before and many newspapers and tv programs have begun to write or talk about this. I agree with Barbara when she says that this is an (unusual) occasion in which the italian media are in some way positively influencing the people culture abot the safety problem, letting them know something which was quite completely hidden some months before. But is this be enough? Of course it is not.
In my opinion there are three big elements related to this issue which, all of them, must be taken into account to tackle and hopefully solve this problem.
First of all, starting from what Barbara said: there is the people awareness of the problem. The media play an important role, but even the education must do its job. We have the face problem immediatelly when we begin to work and the companies and the public enterprises must teach the people everything about the risk of getting injured and the protection features to be used. I think that good steps have been done toward this direction especially during the last years. Of course that's not enough, and maybe it won't never be, but many companies (especially the big ones) have internal courses of job safety and there are clear information about this in risking enironments.
Toghether with the awareness of the problem, efficient laws must be operative in order to force the companies, which don't "feel" this as a real problem, to do everything necessary to tackle the safety problem. And here the first problmes arise... In Italy we have laws (or rules) and, as always, they are not completely and everywhere applied. Criminals (let me talk about them in this way) who own companies and don't care about people lifes but only about money are forced by laws to protect their emloyees, but they can do whatever they want because in many cases no one would control them. If they are unlucky we will just read something in the newspapers...
It is sad to say, but for many people in our society everything is based on money. Money are their only objective in life. If we want them to follow the rules about job safety we have to teach them that they would lose money if they don't follow them. Job injuries are, for many companies one of the biggest economical problem.
During the preparation of my Bachelor of Science thesis, I've studied some books about ergonomics and job injuries. Many studies proved that in the US many companies have decied to do more than what laws and rules say about safety because they have realised thay can save a lot of a money having less people injured.
I have to quit, as Barbara said, the problem is complex and there are many other words to say, but Luisa wants a coffee (she just said that...)
Bye
Sarkozy suggest cap on fuel tax.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7421198.stm
At last someone have decided to cap the rise of the oil price.
But the decrease of the fossil fuel capacity is the real alert!!!!
The cut of the fuel tax could be only a momentary solution to re-balance the situation; in particular to help the workers that use fuel daily like Fishermen because the problem affect directly their business.
I think that to ride out the matter, the energetical approach to the problem has to change!!!
Not only looking for other type of enegy (like renewables energy) but also with a strong energy saving (public transport and energetical building efficency).
I hope people become aware of this situation and change style of life: this is the only way to solve the enegetical trouble.
@ Mithu
Hi,
you have posted a very interesting topic. I think that the Seminar entitled "General principles of writing of a scientific article" was very important for learn to write a scientific article.
In you post, you have shown very good the course contents.
Now, I'm following a scientific english course presented by Prof. Adrian Wallwork. This course is called "Writing Scientific Articles in English".
In this course I learn to write an article in a correct form, reduce the number of mistakes and it help me to write clearly, concisely and relevantly.
I have already learned much rules and concept, as a order words. In a scientific article every sentence must be composed of Subject + Verb + Direct Object + Indirect Object.
In your post, you don't talk about the abstract. Abstract is very important in a paper and is necessary in the most of time. It's a little summary, where you find information about the researcher's work.
Certainly you will write about "abstract" in your next post.
Bye,
Alessio
Special thanks to.........
Here we are, my English course is drawing to an end.
As I have to write something into the blog, I want to spend some words to tell you
my impression about the course.
I think Professor Lucia Panichi give us a big opportunity to improve our way to communicate in English.
She let us much time for speaking English together and this is not usual in our school course,
maybe for the number of the students or maybe for the time limit.
I usually read English scientific books or whatever on the web while speak English is less usual in everyday life.
I also think that watching English movies is a nice and simple way to expose our self to the sound of the English/American English mother tongue and moreover it is a passive way to widen our vocabulary .
Last but not least this course gave me also the opportunity to meet new friends.
What ever else do I say?
It couldn't have been better
Bye Bye
Daniele
When Luisa asked me to write a paragraph about what I like, I thought to write about "Friendship".
Wikipedia defines "Friendship" by co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more beings.
While Wikipedia definition did not satisfy me, I got impressed by Aristotle's definition.
Simply, he says that Friendship is an essential component to have a good life. He justifies his meaning of friendship by, that friends will provide the conditions to be successful.
Somehow I agree with Aristotle, but I disagree with him when friends start to provide DOB.:)
I just cannot imagine my life without my friends.
Also, I observe other forms of friendships like friendships between parents and their sons, between a brother and his sister, and between a person and his life partner.
I believe that, true friends are those who give true advices and encouragement to progress in everyday of life.
Unfortunately, our lifestyle beats are going faster and faster, circles of friends becoming smaller and smaller.
Long hours of setting behind a computer led to what is called online or internet-friendship. Although internet friendship offers an easy way to make friends from all over the world, it detains internet-friends in a virtual world. At the end, I recommend everyone -even myself- to have many friends and few foes.
BYE BYE GUYS...:)
Ahmed Farouk
I write this post in response to the one from Andrea, in which he talks about travelling.
You said that, when Italians go abroad, they want to eat only italian dishes, and are disappointed when they discover that they prefer "pasta, parmigiano, spaghetti and pizza" over the local dishes. I think that this behaviour is common, and you don't have to be surprised. I think the same happens for any person who travels to another country. They prefer their dishes simply because that is what they are accustomed to!
For example, travelling to another country, you would find different cooking styles, that can completely change the taste of a food you eat every day. And you could easly be even not able to recognize it, or you may simply don't like it!
Bye!
Giovanni
Dear S. Allesio,
I said I will write about the abstract writing. I was so busy for my exam and other related works. I am sorry, as I had not continued..
You are absolutely true, abstract is the main part of a scientific paper, and from the abstract part, usually we learn about what the writer wants to say in his/her paper. We can say easily, the abstract writing is easy and follows some rules to write it.
But, in practical, its very tough to write as you have you write the concise form of your whole writing and you should remember that after reading this part, one should get a brief idea about your work. As for example, I am showing a style: "This research work was carried out with the view of investigating the effects of minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) on the cutting performance of AISI 1040 steel, in terms of chip formation mode, tool wear, and machined surface roughness as compared to completely dry and wet machining. In this study, the minimum quantity lubrication was provided with a spray of air and cutting oil. However, compared to the
dry and wet machining, MQL machining performed much better, mainly due to substantial reduction in cutting zone temperature enabling favorable chip formation and chip-tool interaction. It also provides substantial reduction in tool wear, which enhanced the tool life, and surface roughness. Furthermore, it provides environment friendliness and improves the machinability characteristics." Ref: Mithu.M.A. H., et. al.
Just see the abstract, first a brief sentence relater to topic of the paper and research. 2nd sentence says about the methodology used in the process or research, and later the experimental results outcome from investigating and comparing with others. The last part is similar to the conclusion what was the findings of that project. Then think, is not a complex thing to concise a 8-10 page paper into 8 to 10 lines only????
I have missed, another word, when you submit a paper in a specific journal, you must read the requirements of the corresponding journal and the writers guidelines (Authors guideline). Some journals have the restriction to write abstract within 150-200 words, some have more. So when you plan to write abstract, better, you will write within 200 words... then you will modify this according to journal requirement.
You should be very careful when you sent a paper for publication, you read the paper several times and search for the errors; whenever you find an error, put a red mark and correct it on paper, then you will correct it on soft copy, and save a copy in your hard drive.
OTHER NAMES FOR THE ABSTRACT
1. Summery
2. Condensation
3. Précis
4. Abridgement
5. Synopsis
STRUCTURES OF AN ABSTRACT
A useful structure for an abstract is as follows:
1. Statement of objectives and goals of the research;
2. Methodology used;
3. results/conclusions;
• Generally everyone have great difficulty writing a good abstract. Everyone writes abstracts all the time but not a good one. Abstracts are not Introductions
Follow these tips
• What is it that you want to do?
• What did you do?
• How did you do it?
• What results did you get?
• What are you conclusions?
• What are the implications of your results to the discipline?
• Do not write about what you want to more than 3 lines or write a background in the abstract. Abstract are summaries and must be brief, pithy and exact.
• Write in the language you want to write in NOT in your mother tongue. If you do, you will be doing triple translation when it is translated into Bengal and at that point it will probably lose half of the original meaning.
A good abstract:
• Is concise, readable, and quantitative.
• Is in complete sentences;
• Is in the same order as they occur in report
• Provides logical connections ( or transitions) between the information included;
• Describes the objectives, methods, results, and conclusions.
• Oftentimes uses passive verbs to downplay the author and emphasize the information.
DOES NOT
• Add any new information, but simply summaries the report;
• Contain full bibliographic references;
• Include internal headings; parenthetical citations of items listed in the reference section, diagrams or other illustrations;
• Repeat information in title;
• Include background information, a literature review, and detailed description of methods;
• Include reference to other literatures;
• A common mistake is that abstract summarizes only the first chapter (introduction) and says nothing about the content of other chapters
Its a big writing, and you will be bored. Si I will stop here.. See you when we pass the roads /streets or somewhere suddenly...
best of luck, cheers
Dear Friends,
I am going home (Bangladesh), and I will come back (if I'm alive till then, by God)at the end of August (in this year, not others). If you want to write me, please drop the letter in bin named mithuipe@yahoo.com. Its the real dustbin, and sometimes I look for letters from there before cleaning the bin. Be sure, I will put a soft letter to your bin just like skin of banana (peel, banaba peel). Have nice days and enjoy your holidays and summer vacation.
I want to express gratitude to L. Panichi as she has given a chance to express ourselves through her media and we were friends in our class room. Thanks Panichi...
Bye everybody, see you soon
Dear Mithu, Dear All,
Thank you for your kind words. I am glad you enjoyed this space we created,
Have a safe and happy summer wherever you all may be.
Luisa
Post a Comment