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Over several months in 2011, I developed a cheap MP3 system with a team of friends, enabling sight-impaired users to upload and listen to audio books. Initially, it was my involvement with the National Society for the Visually Impaired that was the impetus for the concept. I started by reading books to record them electronically and uploaded them onto CDs used by individuals in need of assistance. After the institute received numerous complaints about the difficulty of keeping track of and finding desired books from large collections, we first thought of Apple's "iPod shuffle" system from the perspective of capacity to store large numbers of books, portability, and the "VoiceOver" title-identification function. To keep the product affordable, we duplicated iPod components in an electrical factory in Ramallah, Palestine. Our finished product cost one-third of the price of the iPod Shuffle and allowed 10 times the storage capacity.
It was doubly meaningful achievement, because of the technical challenges and the tremendous value it added to the lives of users by allowing them to overcome their barriers to accessing, connecting, and participating in the world of their peers. However, my Palestinian community already endures limited access to electricity to support ordinary life needs, making computer-based reading programs comparatively useless. Intellectually, it presented a challenge to solve a problem, but it was the connection to my ongoing work in the Applied Research Institute in Jerusalem, a non-profit organization dedicated to solving such problems, that really gave the project meaning in terms of its the general importance of developing renewable energy technology for my community that really made the project fulfilling in terms of social benefit. In principle, it provided an ideal opportunity to approach the problem from the other end, by reducing the need for energy to complement our efforts on the sustainable energy development front.
W/Spaces) Boston University's focus on green technology and practices is one of the most appealing aspects of the institution and one of the main reasons I hope to attend the university. Developing renewable forms of energy is a concept already close to my heart from having grown up in a Palestinian community that constantly endures the difficulties, inconveniences, and consequences of limited access to electricity that is barely sufficient to
Infant Sleep Patterns People sleep nearly one third of their lives and infants sleep significantly more than adults (Franken, Kopp, Landolt, & Luthi, 2009). The function of sleep has hypothesized by different researchers; however, surprisingly there is no general consensus as to what the function and purpose of sleep actually is. It is known that sleep deprivation can have some serious consequences, especially in infants. The reason for this is that
American history that have changed the arc and path of society and culture forever. A few recent examples would include the emergence of the World Wide Web in the 1990's, social media more recently as well as the general progress made with the automobile and other modes of transportation. However, the one technological arc in the last century that has perhaps changed things more than anything else has been
interventionism from the perspective of realism vs. idealism. Realism is defined in relationship to states' national interests whereas idealism is defined in relation to the UN's Responsibility to Protect doctrine -- a doctrine heavily influenced by Western rhetoric over the past decade. By addressing the question of interventionism from this standpoint, by way of a case study of Libya and Syria, a picture of the realistic implications of "humanitarian
Although the research tools provided by the ISO 14001 framework are both qualitative and quantitative, this approach is consistent with the guidance provided by Neuman (2003) who points out that, "Both qualitative and quantitative research use several specific research techniques (e.g., survey, interview, and historical analysis), yet there is much overlap between the type of data and the style of research. Most qualitative-style researchers examine qualitative data and vice
Vedantam, 2006), Americans are more socially isolated than they were in 1985, with the number of people with whom they can confide dropping by one third, from three close confidents to two. American is viewed as a fragmented society with splinters of people growing ever more distant with regard to intimate social ties. Despite the benefits of close social connections, people report being alone, feeling alone, and suffering alone
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