Tuesday, November 26, 2019

What is Art for

What is Art for? I dont believe there is a right or wrong answer to that question. I have heard on a couple of occasions that art is, good for nothing, I have also heard that art can express emotions that you are not willing to show with words. I believe that quote, a picture can say one thousand words backs that statement up. Personally, I do not hate art but I can also say that art really does not do anything for me anymore. Through personal experience, when I was younger I had liked to draw. In elementary school, I loved to go to art class. I drew a lot of things. My mother keeps all of my drawings. I mainly liked to draw cartoons. I was able to look at a picture off of a magazine (that I enjoyed to read) and draw that same picture. Sometimes it came out looking good but there were times where it did not look good. In my art class in elementary school, my art teacher introduced me to more than just drawing cartoons. He had me draw my hand without tracing over it like most people do. We made pottery and I remember drawing a replica of a tree. I have not drawn a picture in a long time. I might doodle here and there, but nothing serious. I may draw when I am bored and have nothing else to do. That is rare now-a-days because now I am always doing sometime. If I am not at school I am at work. If I am not at work I am doing school work. Then I have basketball practice. I really do not have time anymore to draw anymore because I am always doing something.

Friday, November 22, 2019

Top 7 Apps to Make You Fluent in English [Guest Post]

Top 7 Apps to Make You Fluent in English [Guest Post] Learning English can be as fun as it can be frustrating and sometimes, even dull. With so many apps out there for your every need, why not let an app make the whole process of learning a language more fun for you? With these apps, you’ll have the ultimate convenience of selecting the things you want to learn and have self-paced lessons. Just pop out your phone anywhere, even while waiting in a long queue, open the app, and start learning. It’s that simple. But, how to choose an English-learning app that’s actually effective and not all glitter? Well, you don’t have to worry about that, since I have curated a list of the top 7 apps that would help you and make you more fluent in English, whether you are just a beginner or someone looking to sharpen their English skills further: 1- Duolingo Downloads 6,717,296 Rating 4.7/5 Duolingo, a free language learning platform (with no hidden costs), has a catalog of over 20 languages including English. As soon as you’ll open the app, you’ll be transported into a world full of fun graphics and bright colors. Each lesson consists of speaking, listening, translation and multiple choice challenges, and you can instantly see where you went wrong with the in-lesson Grading. The app will adapt to your proficiency level as well as your time and set daily goals accordingly giving you a tailored experience. But what makes it so popular and effective? The app has combined language learning with addictive gamification through its bite-sized lessons, where you get awarded points for correct answers, and lose ‘Hearts’ for every incorrect answer while racing against the clock. 2- Memrise Downloads 1,153,288 Rating 4.7/5 Memrise focuses on vocabulary building and grammar through repetition and creating vivid sensory memories. The app follows the same gamification format with a tailored experience catering to your preferences as Duolingo but has other exciting features such as chatbots, and over 30,000 native speaker videos. You get to learn from the locals and work on your pronunciation and context through various videos and audios. The free version has over 200 language combinations, and the learn and review feature. While the pro version that costs a pocket-friendly $4.90 each month has more features such as Grammarbot, Video mode, and difficult words mode etc. In addition to this, Memrise has a thriving community of over 35 million users where users share audio, usage, etymologies, mnemonics etc, and help each other learn. The app also has an offline mode making your learning experience more convenient. 3 busuu Downloads 227,739 Rating 4.3/5 Busuu has a community of 80 million members and language lessons for 12 languages including English. The platform claims to teach you to speak a language in 10 minutes a day. The app is designed to fulfill all your English learning needs and comes with features such as placement test to help you start from the right difficulty level, a study plan, flash cards, certifications, help from natives, grammar exercises, vocabulary builder, accent training, full courses (over 150 Units per language), travel course, and the offline mode. Taking a more ‘human’ approach, the app allows you to converse with the native speakers to understand the nuances of the English language. That way youll be able to sharpen your skills and speak English almost as a native speaker.   To avail all these app features, you’ll have to go premium which has 4 plans ranging from $6/ month for a 24-month plan to $11/month for a 3-month plan. 4 Rosetta Stone Downloads 181,732 Rating 4.5/5 Instead of giving you a list of words to memorize, Rosetta Stone follows a unique approach to teaching English by connecting words with sights and sounds. The whole Rosetta journey puts an emphasis on learners to learn English intuitively, rather than through translation. To ensure that you learn to think and express yourself in English confidently, the app has features such as practicing to pronounce words and reading stories aloud with TruAccent, a speech recognition technology, studying grammar and vocabulary through seeing, hearing, speaking, reading, and writing only in English, preparing you for real-life conversations by having actual conversations with native tutors and chat with other learners. Some other features of the app are Downloadable Lessons, Phrasebook a guidebook to perfectly pronouncing key expressions, audio companion, and stories. You can either choose plans that come with tutor ranging from $18/month for 24 months to $52/month for 3 months or the more pocket-friendly but without tutor plans ranging from $11/month for 24 months to $18/month for 3 months. 5 Mondly Downloads 116,362 Rating 4.7/5 Mondly focuses on teaching language through a more conversational style. You can choose between three levels beginner, intermediate and advanced. The lesson starts with a simple conversation between two native speakers and teaches basic English words through it which you’ll then use to build sentences and phrases through various quizzes. This will be followed up by you reconstructing the conversation with your voice. The app uses technology like Speech Recognition and Spaced Repetition Algorithms to make the lessons more effective. Further, the lessons are divided into categories such as Daily Lesson, Grammar, Travel, and Introductions, etc, so, you can pick your lesson according to your needs. The other features of the app are verb conjugations, advanced statistics, the leaderboard, and adaptive learning where the app adapts to your way of learning. While many features can be accessed for free, to unlock all the content which includes 1000 lessons and conversations, 5000 words and phrases, and 365 lessons each year, you’ll have to upgrade to a premium account which has 3 plans ranging between $12 for one month to $5/month for 12 months. 6 HelloTalk Downloads 89,749 Rating 4.4/5 HelloTalk has an active worldwide community of over 10 million people. It is different from the other mentioned apps as it is based on ‘communication, not curriculum’. To put it simply, through HelloTalk, you can learn by chatting. The app matches you with people whose need match yours and connects you with native speakers of other languages (which includes English) and you can learn English by conversing with your ‘partners’ through texts, audio and voice messages as well as free audio and video calls. You can also post a ‘moment’ where you can share an update or post a question about language, culture or travel for native speakers to see and comment on. Therefore, through HelloTalk, not only can you learn a new language but also get to know a new culture through a native. The app also has learning features which include language translation, transliteration, grammar correction, text to voice, and voice recognition to improve your writing and speaking skills. 7 Beelinguapp Downloads 26,312 Rating 4.8/5 What better (and more interesting) way to learn English than through stories? This is the idea that Beelinguaapp is based on, it lets you read and listen to stories in different languages side by side. So, you can read the text and hear audio in English, and use the text and audio in your language for reference. You can choose between children’s stories, short stories, fairy tales, novels and more! The audiobooks and the Karaoke style animation reader will make learning English simpler and more fun. You can learn at your own pace while choosing the genre and learning level according to your preferences. Wrapping Up With these 7 apps, you’ll find learning English much more fun and even addictive. There’s an app for everyone, whether you are looking for fun games or learning through chatting, you can try them out, and pick the one that caters to your needs the most. While learning English, you might find your mind wandering, which would ultimately lead you to stare at your books for hours without absorbing anything. So, to help you further, I have a blog on the 21 Best Productivity Apps That Every Student Must Have which will help you not only be productive but also utilize your study sessions to the most! Author: Abhyank Srine Abhyank Srinet holds a Masters in Management degree from ESCP Europe has an engineering degree with a specialization in Instrumentation Control. His interest in the digital landscape motivated him to create an online start-up for Masters in Management application consulting (MiM-Insider.com), focused on spreading quality information about the MiM degree performing application consulting services for clients. He is the chief consultant of the company and takes care of Business Development and Digital Marketing side of the company. He is very passionate about writing and marketing.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Organizational Theory Design and Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Organizational Theory Design and Change - Essay Example The corporate staff is limited and there is a chief executive officer who governs the business. Functional departments work under the supervision of functional line managers. Functional structure accommodates specialists who can make rational decisions in their respective specialty areas. However, managers may be biased and work for their departments’ interests instead of the organization as a whole. As compared to the functional structure, the multidivisional structure is quite integrated and differentiated, both vertically and horizontally. In the multidivisional structure, there are operating divisions. Each of the operating divisions holds its own business. It is the responsibility of the top corporate officer to assign specific works to specific division managers on daily basis. These works include business strategy and related operations. The multidivisional structure enables corporations to expand operations. Units work with one another in harmony. However, units may oc casionally compete with one another because of the scarcity of resources like finance. Sometimes, it becomes cumbersome for separate units to coordinate with one another. In functional structure, the products vary in form, type and complexity, thus making the control difficult to achieve.

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Dietary Intake, Gender and Activity Factors Influenced on BMI Essay

Dietary Intake, Gender and Activity Factors Influenced on BMI - Essay Example Nevertheless, overweight is most importantly attributable to excess intake of energy, which lead to not only a positive energy balance but also an accumulation of body fats (Moore, 2000). Also, a sedentary lifestyle is the other factors that can contribute to a gain in weight. BMI is a reliable and easily obtainable indicator of relative body size. At most times, BMI is directly associated with LDL and total cholesterol plasma concentrations. However, an inverse relationship has been reported between BMI and HDL-cholesterol (McNamara et al. 1992). On the other hand, the effect of gender on the association between blood lipid constraint and BMI has not been evidently recognized because most of the studies that have been conducted in this area are hardly consistent. Participating in physical activities is commonly used as a valuable way of preventing a number of health risks that are especially caused by heavyweight across all genders (Eaton and Eaton, 2003). There are a number of reports that have indicated that youth and children spend most of their leisure time in sedentary engagements such as playing video games or watching television (Moore, 2000). Mounting evidence reveals that sedentary behaviors, which are characterized by lack of physical activities, are attributed to increased risk of physical problems Sedentary behaviors have been proved to, be associated with physical activities, eating habits, and obesity when correlation designs are used (Gortmaker et al., 1996). Although these designs are valuable in determining associations between variables, experimental designs that entail the manipulation of sedentary behaviors are important in determining the causal impact of sedentary habits on energy consumption (Robinson, 1999).  

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Variables Essay Example for Free

Variables Essay Problem recognition, info search, evaluation, purchase, post purchase role of marketing in these: 1. Geographic: dividing market into different geographical units Groups: nations, regions, states, municipalities, cities, neighbourhoods Eg customizing hotels and rooms to suit the location (beach vs city). 2. Demographic: dividing the market into groups based on demographic variables *consumer needs, wants and usage rates often vary closely with demographic variables Groups: age and life-cycle stage, gender, income, family size, income, occupation, education, religion, nationality Eg different products and appeals to different target:; gender for clothes; income for luxury goods. 3. Psychographic: dividing the market into groups based on social class, lifestyle or personality characteristics Groups: socioeconomic status, lifestyle, psychological/ personality traits, values Eg socioeconomic status has strong effect on preferences in cars, clothing, home furnishings, leisure activities, reading habits. 4. Behavioural: divide market into groups based on consumers’ knowledge of, attitude towards, uses for and responses to a product Groups: purchase occasions, benefits sought, user status, usage rate, loyalty status, buyer-readiness, attitude towards product Eg knowledge of product that affects the attitude towards it, way they use it, their responses to it  Markets consist of buyers, and buyers differ in one or more ways. They may differ in their wants, resources, locations, buying attitudes and buying practices.† (Kotler et al. 2007, pg.345) List and describe in detail the four major variables used for segmenting markets. For each of the four major variables list and describe three groups within that variable. Provide examples of your choice to illustrate your answer.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Gene Therapy Essay -- Genetic Engineering

Gene Therapy Parents can now pick a kid’s sex and screen for genetic illness. Will they someday select brains and beauty too? In the ever- advancing technological world, scientists discover new and efficient ways to advance society each and every single day. Imagine being able to choose your child’s body type, or personality, or IQ. It is not as farfetched as it sounds. It’s a process called â€Å"Gene Therapy†, and is being perfected right now. This process rules out any unknown’s in childbirth. It will not only allow us to determine the child’s sex, but also his future. In natural child conception, the mother provides the the two X chromosomes and the father provides the X and Y chromosomes. The balance of genetic make up is determined by the father since he is the only one that has the diversity of genes. With all this, the genetic combinations are completely random, allowing much room for fault. With science controlling the joining of such chromosomes, many of the fatal or physically impairing infant diseases will disappear. Scientist’ say they can pick out disease causing genes in the pre-natal stage before they grow. Controlling infant disease is only one aspect of the new technology. Determining a child’s sex is also under discussion. As a very controversial topic, determining a child’s sex will also reflect on society’s views of gender rolls in the world today. Many societies value men over women immensely, so will this reflect on the diversity...

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Hephaestus Made Up Story Essay

â€Å"Where am I?† asked Hephaestus, confused and hurt. â€Å"Why you’re on Lemnos Island, you took quite a hit. I’m guessing you did something to make Zeus distraught, am I right?† said Thetis, a Nereid nymph. And suddenly Hephaestus remembered it all. Seeing his mother, Hera, all tied up and Zeus madder than ever. As he began to go through all the emotions again he carefully disdained all of the bad thoughts and put an indifferent face on; there was no reason to scare his new friend away. â€Å"Something like that,† he barely replied. â€Å"Well, I’m sure you’re very crippled. I shall take you to the Sintian Men; they will be responsible of you, for now. Okay, Hephaestus?† said Thetis. There was no response. â€Å"Poor kid,† mumbled Thetis as she took him to the Sintian Men. The following day Hephaestus woke up in an unfamiliar place, full of unfamiliar people. â€Å"Who are you? What do you want?† Hephaestus entreated. â€Å"We are the Sintian Men, we mean no harm. We’re here to help you.† said one of the men. And from that point on the Sintian Men and Hephaestus became very close good pals. Hephaestus soon started to become very well known around the island, and everyone wanted to meet him. He was a celebrity, crippled but famous. I never had this much attention, he thought. I practically know everyone here, like my own heaven. And then with a whim he saw Aerdna, for the first time. A million of questions rushed to his head: who is she? Where is she from? Has she always been here? I need to get to know her. Shy and formidable Hephaestus quickly retreated and went home. There he made a plan, with guile included. He decided to woo her. Hephaestus, the god that had the special gift of building fine arts, gently made a beautiful scallop shell. He planned to give it to Aerdna as a token of his love. She gladly accepted it, for she too had feelings for him. Now, at this time, Aphrodite was about to get thrown out of the heavens. â€Å"I can’t go! I’ll do anything!† she pleaded to Zeus. Zeus just laughed and replied, â€Å"You must marry the son of my wife: Hephaestus. He is located on Lemnos Island. But, good luck with that. For I see he has found himself another woman.† Hephaestus with another woman? I don’t believe so. This won’t do. She thought to herself. When I see it, I’ll believe it. So, Aphrodite made a trip to Lemnos Island and found out that what Zeus said was true. â€Å"I am appalled! I shall change all of this, I will keep my spot as the goddess of beauty if it’s the last thing I do!† yelled Aphrodite. Quickly and cleverly, Aphrodite made a plan. She would lure Aerdna into a cave and kill her right then and there. Then she will go to Hephaestus and demand his hand in marriage. But, as we all know, not everything always goes as planned. Aphrodite successfully lured her prey into the cave but as soon as Aerdna caught the gist of what was happening she tried to run away. In the end, Aerdna turned into the scallop shell Hephaestus gave her; which later on would become a sign of Aphrodite. Aphrodite and Hephaestus later then got married. Aphrodite remained being a goddess and Hephaestus never really figured out what happened with his one true love.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Gender and Student’s Grades Essay

I decided to choose to do my project on if the gender of the teacher reflects what the student gets in the class. I am interested in this because I feel that a male teacher, for me, does a better job teaching. They have a stronger personality and are louder which keeps you listening. I chose to do this project because I am interested in seeing how the average student feels compared to how I feel. In order to collect my data, I will test a total of 10 classes, 2 classes from the following subjects; Algebra 2 regular, Chemistry Honors, IB History, Media Arts, and English 10 Honors. One class will be from a male teacher and the other from a female teacher. I will the split the classes into two groups male and female. In the two groups I will categorize the 5 classes into what the student got in the class. There will be 5 categories A, B, C, D, and F. Since I only want 5 columns I will round the A-‘s, B-‘s, C-‘s, and D-‘s to a regular letter grade. As well as the A+’s, B+’s, C+’s and D+’s to a regular letter grade. After obtaining all the data, I will begin to compare and analyze the data. First, I will do a simple process by finding the mean, median, and mode of the two groups. Since my data is in letter grades I will have to change the letters to a GPA. For example an A would be a 4, also since I am rounding the A-‘s to A’s an A- would also be a 4. Finding the mean, median and mode will show what the average grades are in the male and female classes. That data can be compared easily to show what grades are getting in which gender class. Another simple mathematical process is making a histogram. Each category (A, B, C, D, and F) will have two bars coming from it, one male and one female. This can show how many of the each letter grade is coming from each gender. It will visually show what gender is getting what grades in the classes. The last mathematical procedure I will be doing is a Chi-squared table which will be my sophisticated process. This will be my most accurate calculation to show if gender of the teacher is dependent on the grade the student gets in class. I am going to make  ·this table by splitting the date into two columns, male and female, and then by the grade the student got in the class. When making the histogram for one of my simple processes I added all the A’s together from the male classes then all the B’s and so forth. I did this for the female classes as well. For the graph my x-axis is the grade, y-axis is the number of students in the column. There are two bars coming up from each grade group to show the comparison between male and female. Calculating the Chi-squared of this data will be my last process. To find the Chi-squared I had to make a table with all the grades in it and which gender it was for. I then had to find the expected value, an example of this was multiplying the total number from the male column and the A column then dividing that by the total of grades overall. After getting the observed and expected tables I subtracted the observed from the expected then square rooted this then divided it by the expected. I did this for each column. Then the numbers were added together to get a chi-squared of 4.88. I used the rejection inequality given a significance level of 5%. To find the p-value I put my calculations into my graphing calculator to get a p-value of 0.363. I then found the degrees of freedom by subtracting the rows by the columns. This was able let me know which significance level to use which is 9.488. Since the chi-squared was false, you accept the null. Some of the errors I saw in my project were the classes I chose, Mrs. Mel and Mr. Nichols were an IB History class. An IB History class is a higher knowledge class, all of the students in these two classes got either an A or a B. Since everyone had higher grades this made an error in my project because two of my classes did not have three of the letter grades. This skewed my grades toward higher GPA’s. I should have chosen a class that had more variety in grades. Another thing that made an error in my project was when I did the mean, median, and mode I rounded the grades. For instance a B- would be a B and a B+ would be a B. Rounding these grades made the variety not as big. Since students work well with different teachers another way to do this project which would give me more accurate data would be to compare a student who switched teachers between the two semesters from a male to a female. This would have showed more how a certain student acts with different genders rather than how a group of students acts. In conclusion, it shows that the gender of the teacher and the grade the students gets in that class are independent. The x ² calc was less than the critical value. The results I saw were similar to what I thought would happen. All though the calculations were not as accurate as I would have liked them to be and the conclusion is very vague to what I thought would have happened. This does change how I feel about gender affecting the student because I felt like the male was more of an effective teacher than a female but the calculations show the female is more effective.

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Euclid of Alexandria and His Contributions to Geometry

Euclid of Alexandria and His Contributions to Geometry Euclid of Alexandria lived in 365-300 BC (approximately). Mathematicians usually refer to him simply as Euclid, but hes sometimes called Euclid of Alexandria to avoid confusion with the Green Socratic philosopher Euclid of Megara. Euclid of Alexandria is considered to be the Father of Geometry. Very little is known about Euclids life except that he taught in Alexandria, Egypt. He may have become educated at Platos Academy in Athens, or possibly from some of Platos students. He is an important historical figure because all of the rules we use in Geometry today are based on the writings of Euclid, specifically The Elements. The Elements includes the following Volumes: Volumes 1-6: Plane GeometryVolumes 7-9: Number TheoryVolume 10: Eudoxus Theory of Irrational NumbersVolumes 11-13: Solid Geometry The first edition of the Elements was actually printed in 1482 in a very logical, coherent framework. More than one thousand editions have been printed throughout the decades. Schools only stopped using the Elements in the early 1900s, some were still using it in the early 1980s, however, the theories continue to be those that we use today. Euclids book the Elements also contains the beginnings of number theory. The Euclidean algorithm, which is often referred to as Euclids algorithm, is used to determine the greatest common divisor (gcd) of two integers. It is one of the oldest algorithms known and was included in Euclids Elements. Euclids algorithm does not require factoring. Euclid also discusses perfect numbers, infinite prime numbers, and Mersenne primes (the Euclid-Euler theorem). The concepts presented in The Elements werent all original. Many of them had been proposed by earlier mathematicians. Possibly the greatest value of Euclids writings is that they present the ideas as a comprehensive, well-organized reference. The principals are supported by mathematical proofs, which geometry students learn even to this day. Main Contributions He is famous for his treatise on geometry: The Elements. The Elements makes Euclid one of if not the most famous mathematics teacher. The knowledge in the Elements has been the foundation for teachers of mathematics for over 2000 years Geometry tutorials wouldnt be possible without the work of Euclid. Famous Quote:  There is no royal road to geometry. In addition to his brilliant contributions to linear and planar geometry, Euclid wrote about number theory, rigor, perspective, conical geometry, and spherical geometry. Recommended Read Remarkable Mathematicians: The author of this book  profiles 60 famous mathematicians who were born between 1700 and 1910 and provides insight into their remarkable lives and their contributions to the field of math. This text is organized chronologically and provides interesting information about the details of the mathematicians lives. Euclidean Geometry vs Non-Euclidean Geometry At the time, and for many centuries, Euclids work was simply called geometry because it was assumed to be the only possible method of describing space and the position of figures. In the 19th century, other types of geometry were described. Now, Euclids work is called Euclidean geometry to distinguish it from the other methods. Edited by Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

5 Slang Words That May Never Be Legit

5 Slang Words That May Never Be Legit 5 Slang Words That May Never Be Legit 5 Slang Words That May Never Be Legit By Mark Nichol OK, like, OMG, I’m totally not bagging on you for tweeting or FBing or blogging these words, but they are so bogus in formal writing. LOL 1. Amirite This trendy favorite of commenters on pop-culture Web sites, meant to suggest a glibly tossed â€Å"Am I right?† I figured that out after initially wondering what the heck uh-mere-uh-tee meant has about as much chance of making it into the dictionary as fuhgeddaboudit. Save it for the fanboys you can do better than that. 2. Craptastic/craptacular These mash-ups of, respectively, crap and fantastic and crap and spectacular first cropped up in snarky online lambasting of overhyped pop-culture phenomena in the 1990s. I chuckled the first couple of times I came across them, but though they are ideal terms for assuming a sarcastic tone, they are best used in moderation and are not, and perhaps will never become, mainstream expressions of derision. Safer alternatives for general publication include absurd, laughable, ludicrous, preposterous, ridiculous, and risible. 3. Genius Out of seemingly nowhere, online correspondents began to use this as a short form of ingenious, as in â€Å"That’s such a genius move.† It has not acquired legitimacy, and in other than jocular usage, you don’t have to be a genius to avoid it. 4. Ginormous This collision of gigantic and enormous, dating from the 1990s, is a vivid term, but it is superfluous, considering that humongous, which also seemed to appear spontaneously in casual usage when it came on the scene in the 1960s, has already acquired a respectability the newer term as yet lacks. Plenty of words meaning â€Å"extremely large† exist: colossal, gargantuan, gigantic, immense, mammoth, massive, monstrous, prodigious, titanic, and vast, for starters. None of them has the neologistic cachet of ginormous, but the latter is for now only suitable in informal writing. 5. A Slang Word That Isn’t The adjective cliche, used in place of cliched, as in â€Å"That’s so cliche,† was originally on this list, until I looked it up and discovered, to my surprise, that it is a legitimate variant. Its sudden recent vogue lured me into thinking it was being misused in an affected manner much like the adjective genius (see above) is. It’s correct, but you’re welcome to use one of many synonyms, like hackneyed or trite. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Compared "to" or Compared "with"?Homogeneous vs. HeterogeneousComment, Suggestion, and Feedback

Sunday, November 3, 2019

Yellow fever. Development of vaccine Research Paper

Yellow fever. Development of vaccine - Research Paper Example Yellow fever has been a cause of life threatening epidemics throughout the last few hundreds of years of human civilization. It is believed to have originated in Africa and transported to the western hemisphere through the slave trade with the first reported outbreak being in Yucatan in 1648.The ensuing years reported a number of outbreaks in the Americas and Europe. 2 The disease remained an enigma though Cuban Carlos Finlay suggested the mosquito Culex cubensis which is now called Aedes aegypti to be responsible for the spread of the disease. 3 His multiple attempts however could not prove the theory and it was not until the end of the 19th century that the mystery surrounding the enigmatic disease was unlocked by Surgeon Walter Reed of the United States Army. The work done by Reed and his colleagues found that the mosquito Aedes aegypti was critical in the dissemination of the disease and a filterable agent found in the patients' blood was the cause of the disease. A rapid eradica tion campaign against the mosquito vector followed the discovery and in 1918 a Yellow Fever Commission funded by the Rockfeller foundation was established for the purpose. The eradication drive though effective in curbing the disease in most part could not eradicate the disease completely the possible explanation for which did not come until the 1930s when new techniques were used to study the yellow fever virus. It then became known that the disease was a zoonosis with the natural reservoir of the virus being non-human primates and jungle dwelling sylvatic mosquito species. The disease transmission follows a pattern where a range of vectors transmit the virus from infected monkeys to humans resulting in sporadic cases of the disease. These cases when comes in contact with larger human populations in urban dwellings where it is transmitted by A. aegypti from man to man results in the possibility of an epidemic. 2 Yellow fever is an infectious disease which causes damage of many organs due to severe bleeding. One of the clinical symptoms that give the disease its name is jaundice. The acute phase symptoms that develop following the incubation of the virus in the body for three to six days include fever, nausea, muscle pain with headache, backache, loss of appetite and shivers. Following initial remission some patients enter a severe toxic phase with the return of high fever. Various organs including the kidney and liver are affected. Bleeding occur from nose, mouth, eyes and stomach which also appears in vomit and faeces. 5 There is no treatment specified for yellow fever except for supportive care for fever and dehydration and antibiotics for associated bacterial infections. Vaccines Development of vaccine An important breakthrough that identified Reed's filterable agent to be a virus came from the work done by Adrain Stokes and his collaborators in 1927 which showed monkeys could be infected with materials from yellow fever patients. The isolated virus was called the Asibi strain after the patient who provided the blood sample. 6 Yellow fever virus was identified to be a relatively small virus which readily lost infectivity but stabilized with proteins. 7 Yellow fever in the present classification is grouped under flavivirus (flavus in Latin meaning yellow) group along with more than 80 viruses seen in arthropod vectors. 8 Max Theiler in 1930 discovered a more convenient way of propagating the virus in mouse brain and developed a test for measuring protective antibodies in them. This led to the development of an important tool for epidemiological and diagnostic studies. 9 Theiler and his collaborators discovered the 17D variant when passaging the Asibi strain of the virus in cell cultures. 10 This would eventually become the basis for the first ever yellow fever vaccine responsible for saving innumerable lives and Nobel Prize for Theiler in 1951. Another live attenuated vaccine called the French Neurotropic Vaccine was developed from a different strain of virus isolated in 1927 in