Assignment2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Assignment2 - Essay Example Just when you think you have yourself figured out you learn something new. Though no matter what a piece of paper with a bunch of numbers on it tells you, how someone really acts cannot be deflected on a piece of paper. When setting up the game, it took a little bit of time to figure out how exactly to execute the game in a way that it would cover the vast verities of personalities that are spread among my group of friends. Sure, we have all played games together before, but not for the purpose of analyzing the way that my friends’ personalities fit into the way that they strategically play a game. So, I decided to take a normal card game, and add a twist to it. Phase 10 is a simple card game where the players go around in a circle and pick up and discard cards and the hope to complete the phase that is required before another player goes out. It is usually a game played with several individuals competing together, but instead, I broke my friends up into groups. Since there we re 5 friends, one player had to play alone, leaving them at a disadvantage from the beginning. So I chose the friend who scored the highest in the assertive category, to test their true assertiveness. Each group received the same amount of cards as each other and played the game as usual. Though, the team who came in last had to choose another player to eliminate. If the single player was eliminated, the team who won would have to divide and play individually. Now, within the game there are skip cards, which allows a player to skip the next team, but what I allowed was the person who held the skip card could strategically skip which team they would like. This allows them to have some control of who has the ability to go out of cards first. I knew what I was going into this expecting, the assertive person would do what they needed to win, and the people who saw the world as unfair would surly rant and rave as they lose the game, the equalitarian would feel guilty causing another play er to lose, and the person with the high introspective score would over analyze the game a little too much. I myself did not participate in the game. I did not want to skew the results, and boy am I glad that I did not play. The game started out as I had expected, but quickly the tables had turned. I might as well have thrown the personality test out the window, because when it came down to it, everyone was assertive. There was this competitive nature that came out in everyone and people where in the game to win it. I know that people do not like to lose, but it really surprised me how into the game people really had gotten. Usually when we play games together people are slightly competitive, but maybe it was because I was an outsider observing I had the chance to really see how things were. My friends who scored the lowest on the assertiveness section defiantly outshined the assertiveness of the friend who scored the highest. There wasn’t one person who thought of the game a s treating them unfairly, or the world around them for that matter during the time the game was played. There were also people who I figured would over analyze the game and really think about everything that was going on and try to figure out others strategies, but that was not the case either. Everyone was so focused on winning that they paid more attention to what they needed to do, rather than focusing on what everyone else was doing. So, I knew that the

Statistics Term Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Statistics Term Paper - Essay Example Interpretation of data and results is one fundamental concern of using statistics in the fields of business and economics. One important statistical tool that for many years has become proven to help businessmen and economists is the analysis of variance (ANOVA). Analysis of variance is a significant component of inferential statistics and it tries to measure the difference between two or more independent groups or variables. In this paper, the proponent tries to discuss ANOVA as a significant statistical tool for business and economics especially in inferential statistics and in tests of difference for three or more independent groups, variables or data. Analysis and interpretation of data are important roles associated with inferential statistics. This statistics has different statistical tools or test for the analysis of interval, ratio, nominal and ordinal data. For making inferences from or conclusions on larger groups or populations, or even in generalizing information gathered in one or more samples, inferential statistics has been proven effective in doing so. The goodness of samples is very important to consider in order so as to ensure effectiveness of inferential statistics. In addition, sampling techniques or procedures are necessary or of great importance prior to the use of inferential statistical tools. In reality, the only way to find what specific tool in inferential statistics is necessary for any research problems or studies depends on the nature of data. It is in this reason that inferential statistics is subdivided into two groups: parametric and non-parametric tests. Non-parametric tests are tests that do not require normal distribution and they utilize both nominal and ordinal data (Bajpai 678). One could say that the distribution is not normal when the value of skewness is either positive or negative. Skewness is positive when the mean is greater than the median and

Reduse Reuse Recycle Essay Example for Free

Reduse Reuse Recycle Essay All non-head material must be phrasal. This is a theoretical rather than an empirical argument! (1) *the that book Determiners dont seem to be phrasal. Determiners are HEADS. There can only be one of them in an NP (not true cross-linguistically). If there can be only one head within a phrase and all other material is supposed to be phrasal, then we face a problem here!! Possible solution: determiner is not inside the NP, but it heads its own phrasal projection (Abney 1987). 5 (2) Old view DP Hypothesis N O. k. This is a theory What about the empirical evidence? Is there any? 6 (I) Distributional properties of determiners (e. g. the behaviour of genitive (possessive) NPs) Free genitive (of-genitive) a. the roof of the building b. the hat of the man standing over there the free genitive uses the preposition of to mark the possessive relation between the two NPs. Construct or s-genitive a. the buildings roof b. [the man standing over there]s hat c. * [the man]s standing over there hat s is not a suffix! It is in complementary distribution with determiners: 7 theres the hat (cf. the hat of the man standing over there) Unlike the of-genitive, the s-genitive doesnt allow both nouns to have a determiner. Determiners like s and the are instances of the same thing! DP possessor NPA possessed DPI DP2 hat man standing over there (carnte 2002:146) 9 According to the old view, in which determiners were specifiers of NP, there is no way to generate s as a determiner and to also have the possessor NP preceding it: the man standing over there s 10 (II) Movement (Longobardi 1994, 1996) a. La mia casa  © bella. the my house is beautiful b. Casa mia  © bella. c. *La casa mia  © bella. d. *Casa la mia  © bella. The Category Article Articles: although they lack descriptive content, they contribute to the interpretation of the DP. Articles or determiners play a role in the referential properties of the DP: the choice of the definite article in association with an N indicates that we are dealing with entities (e. g. cat on the one hand, milk on the other) which are not mentioned for the first time. The definite determiner signals that the referents of the DPs are already accessible in the discourse, we know which cat and which milk we are talking about. By using the indefinite article in (8) we introduce a novel cat into the discourse: A cat was eating crisps under the table. 13 For some researchers the article is a grammatical category which in some languages gramaticalises the semantico- pragmatic notion of definiteness (e. g. Lyons 1999). Consider the following examples: a. The cat ran quickly after the mouse. b. Someone left the cat on my doorstep this morning. c. The cat was chosen by his wife. (10) a. A cat ran quickly after the mouse. b. Someone left a cat on my doorstep this morning. c. A cat was chosen by his wife.

Measurement Take Off Works Techniques

Measurement Take Off Works Techniques 1. A new trainee Quantity Surveyor has been provided for you by your Senior Quantity Surveyor and asks you to train him and get his assistant for your work. Now you are planning to give him measurement take off works. Before giving, instruct him by demonstrating the different ways of using measurement in your day to day work and explain how the technique differs according to situations on a construction project. (P1.1) BUDGET If we are going to start our work, first we need to know about the client’s budget. So the first step of a construction is client went to an architect and he/ she gives hoe much of land the client have and what type of building the client need and what are the functional going to happen in that building in future. So the architect will gathered the client’s information’s and the architect will produce some of the design in his mind. So this time is the budget will become a valuable thing. The architect needs to know about the client’s budget. So this times the client and architect coming to the QUANTITY SURVEYOR. This time the QS get the designs and he will calculate the estimated budget or cost to that designs. Than the client can check these designs and the costs of the project and he/she can decide which design will suitable for his/her budget. Like these situations we need to ask the client’s budget and we need to consider about the cost making process. COST CHECKING The next step is cost checking. Sometimes the budget of the client will higher than our estimated cost and sometimes lowers than our cost. So the cost checking will very useful in this situation. In this case if the budget of the project is higher than clients budget we can give some ideas to the client. For an example we can deduct one room or the size of the room. So the cost can change. Sometimes the budget of the client will higher than our cost. In these cases we can give some ideas about the additional works like we can put a roof top garden or add a bathroom for the visitors separately. BOQ (Bill of Quantity) Starting of an extend, foremans QS will need to plan BOQ with faultless estimation and assessing and afterward embed costs into the delicate archive which is given by private or open QS. There are two sorts of agreement record which are bump entirety contract and BOQ contract. Knot entirety contract is the agreement record involves a BOQ without amounts. Thus, the QS will need to do his own particular estimation focused around the drawings and afterward turn out with faultless amounts. BOQ contract implies the agreement archive involve BOQ with amounts. Along these lines, the QS simply need to do estimating for those archives. INTERIM VALUATION Interim valuation method is the like a installment system. We can give some installment paying methods to the client. For example we can ask little much of amount before the site clearance and after finishes of the we ask little much of amount for the foundation process. QS Will plan between time costing to customers QS so that the builder can learn of his money related position and make fitting move made when vital. Builders QS is in charge of caring for the money related enthusiasm of the foreman and work in conjunction with private practice on the planning of between time installments. FINAL ACCOUNT QS Will collecting information for the last record from the begin of the agreement to guarantee that it will be finished in all its perspectives and to give the foreman his legitimate qualification under the agreement. TASK 3 3. Since one of your colleagues is going on a sudden leave, you have to take over one of his urgent work. He has been preparing a Bill of Quantities (BOQ) for a hotel project and now it is half way done. Now, you are requested to go through the BOQ, proof read it, make necessary modification make it ready to issue for the tender invitation on day after tomorrow. Even though BOQ is prepared and priced by the Quantity Surveying professionals, it is referred in different stages of the project by several parties such as, design (Consultant), production (Contractor) Maintenance (Facilities Management). Therefore, you have to modify the final BOQ in a way of understandable by all the parties involved. Assess the relationship between measurement such parties. (P1.2) THE DESIGN TEAM At its easiest level, configuration is a situated of arrangements and the procedure by which those arrangements are accomplished. Mechanical configuration is a fundamental piece of the more extensive thought of designing that brings a set of aptitudes, information and understanding to the creation and generation of valuable workmanship effects. Designing configuration learning is regularly implanted in people and hierarchical forms. That outline might be ordered into two sorts: radical and incremental. Radical outline may be considered a completely new idea, outlined sans preparation, starting from the earliest stage . By differentiation, incremental, or ordinary configuration, which is much more regular, takes up a large portion of the configuration time of architects and designing divisions. Typical outline includes delivering new or adjusted relics through the synthesis of off-the-rack innovations, and also minor progressions to existing advances. Outline is a multi-level and various leveled movement. While a few components of the outline process may be performed simultaneously, in different cases specialized demands imply that one thing isnt possible before an alternate. In the outline of complex items, for example, real designing builds, there have a tendency to be expansive quantities of moderate designing configuration assignments. One of the inquiries creators always face is whether measured, discrete segments might be planned autonomously of one another or whether interface instability and unpredictability mean that sub-frameworks need to be planned simultaneously and in connection to one another. Seclusion infers that suppliers will have the capacity to impart normal data and concentrate on their specific regions, as in the machine business where framework integrators, for example, Dell Machines, require not plan or make any of the part parts. For this situation, item architectures are partitioned into semi-autonomous modules which can later be connected to to make the machine framework. In different cases the degree for seclusion is more obliged due to the many-sided quality and iterative nature of the interfaces between segments. At the point when compelling, configuration can achieve a coupling between specialized conceivable outcomes and business sector requests and opportunities. For sure, different advancement studies have demonstrated that outline is regularly a key segment in deciding intensity. In assembling, a significant part of the quality included is presently spotted in outline rather than on the manufacturing plant floor. Configuration is accordingly critical, yet there are few investigations of execution estimation in building situations, and configuration exercises are seldom and inadequately measured. The point of execution estimation is to evaluate the adequacy of designing configuration practices and outline administration inside firms, or systems of firms (counting suppliers and clients) with a perspective to change. Execution estimation is the m ethodology of evaluating the proficiency and adequacy of activity . It typically includes the gathering of individual measures of execution and their mix into an execution estimation framework. A late overview of execution estimation among UK firms demonstrated that few firms have deliberate methodologies to execution estimation, however that formal frameworks were more significant than the typical casual routines ordinarily depended upon. Execution appraisal in assembling has generally centered on account, assembling, and 7 hierarchical estimations. Generally few measures really include outline and planners PRODUCTION TEAM A planner, structural and mechanical architects, a development foreman and many subcontractors, they all look the development process from their own particular perspective. As opposed to transitory nature of task groups, the business has some long and settled in customs. While each one venture is diverse, each undertaking is approached conservatively in methodology terms. Actually, there is no procedure see in average development task, while the undertaking is seen at the same time as autonomous venture stages and diverse performing artists with no regular objective. Focused offering is additionally profoundly established in development custom. The most minimal bidder gets the contract. The builder creates the item which is then reviewed. The task is incrementally acknowledged or rejected focused around conformance to specialized speculation. Different measures of execution which identify with the methodology itself are disregarded or in any event doled out to a removed optional posi tion of significance. In this circumstance the industry cannot keep doing what they have continuously improved and expect results. It need to also new process arranged methodologies to progress their operations. The procedure administration ideal model, concurring to which organizations ought to concentrate on and be sorted out around various center business forms, has been perceive to give critical focal points as far as enhanced hierarchical execution . TASK 4 4. since there are not enough drawing details on Services, your Senior Quantity Surveyor directs you to allow a provisional sum of Rs. 4,500,000.00 for the installment of Services. Explain the terms Prime Cost (PC) and Provisional Sums (PS) and elaborate on their usage. (P3.4) Add a provisional sum for the services bill as mentioned above in the BOQ you have prepared. PROVISIONAL SUM Produced similarly as New Class items above but are for work which cannot be accurately measured at the time of preparing the BOQ.This situation can happen due to incomplete information about the proposed work or in case whereby the extent of work cannot be fully determined until the work is completed. Such work will be subjected to re measurement after the work has been carried out. A temporary entirety is a remittance, generally evaluated by the expense specialist that is embedded into delicate archives for a particular component of the works that is not yet characterized in enough detail at tenderness to cost. This, together with a short depiction, permits tenderness to apply stamp up and participation costs inside their general delicate value and make remittance for the work in the agreement program. An illustration of a circumstance where a temporary aggregate may be suitable is when work is needed underneath a current structure, where the ground conditions cant be dead set until the current structure is obliterated and the ground opened up. Temporary totals could be characterized or unclear: Characterized temporary totals are considered to have been represented inside the builders value and system. In actuality the builder is taking the hazard that their evaluation will be sufficient. Vague temporary totals are not represented in the foremans value and system. This implies that the customer is taking the danger for the works and the builder may be qualified for an expansion of time and extra installments. Temporary totals are accommodated in diverse routes in distinctive manifestations of agreement, and a few types of agreement might be a bit unclear about how temporary entireties ought to be taken care of, specifically in regards to conformity to the system. Temporary totals put either the foreman or the customer at danger of startling expenses or deferrals. Concurring the expense of such work or expansions of time that may be guaranteed can bring about pressure between the builder and customer. Hence, they ought to just be utilized if all else fails, they ought not be a simple fall-back position for experts (who are not bearing any of the danger) when outlines are inadequate or data is hard to get. EXAMPLE:- Weaknesses might be a typical temporary thing. In the event that the builder experiences weaknesses at the structuring level in the framing tray which need to be uncovered out and refilled with granular sub base material before the way is constructed, they can summon the temporary things without expecting to arrange an agreement variety. In the event that no weaknesses are experienced then you get charged nothing whatsoever. PRIME COST NOMINATED CONTRACTORS In the construction process of a project the contractor is the main responsible person in the site. Sometimes the contactor will fix some SUB-CONTRACTORS to do some kind of works. But the sub contractor also works under the contractor in the selected site. Sometimes the client will recommend some parties to do some works. Some times that person is well known person for the client. This type of the person called nominated contractor. EMAMPLE:- THE CLIENT WILL APPOINT A SUB CONTRACTOR FOR DOING THE DOOR AND WIDOWS. BECAUSE THE CLIENT KNOW THE SUB CONTRACTORS. BECAUSE THE SUB CONTRACTOR WORKED BEFORE THE CLIENT’S BROTHERS HOUSE FOR FIXXING THE DOORS AND WINDOWS. THEY ARE VERY GOOD WORKERS TOO. SO THE CLIENT WILL RECOMMEND THIS PERSON TO DO THE DOOR WORK IN HIS HOUSE ALSO†¦ THE MAIN CONTRACTOR ALSO AGREED WITH THAT.BUT THE SALLARY FOR THE SUB-CONTRACTOR WILL CONTROL BY THE MAIN CONTRACTOR. THAT MEANS THE SUB CONTRACTOR ALSO CONTROLLED BY THE MAIN CONTRACTOR IN THE SELECTED SITE. So the sub contractor nominated by the client. But the sub contractors need to work under the main contractor for this project. TASK 5 5. Several forms of Bills of Quantities Contract Documents are used in Construction Industry. a. Analyze the different forms of BOQ and Contract Documents (P4.1) b. Determine the correct form of contract documentation for this project (P4.2) There are different styles of bills of quantities as follows: Trade Bill of Quantities Elemental Bill of Quantities Provisional Bill of Quantities Non-Specified Bill of Quantities Specified Bill of Quantities Builder’s Bill Operational Bill of Quantities ELEMENT BOQ The most widely recognized organization for a BOQ is an essential bill. Components of measured works are organized into arrangement that is clear and straightforward and cost at a settled cost contract (protuberance whole). The BQ might be disconnected effortlessly and rapidly with estimation and descriptions effectively assembled in the natural configuration. Under every component, the request of works for the most part takes after development succession e.g. site readiness lives up to expectations, waste works, earthworks, arrangement layer works, base layer works, surface layer works, and arranging works. TRADE BOQ The customary bill of amounts is orchestrated in exchange request. The request of exchange is regularly in the same request as the detail. Separated from being masterminded in exchange request, each one exchange has the office for every portrayal to be evaluated and totaled to give the aggregate expense of each one exchange. The aggregate exchange expense is then exchanged to a general synopsis to get the aggregate task cost. To have the capacity to allude to any segment in the bill of amounts, every depiction is given a different and unique reference. It is additionally typical practice for each one page to be numbered and named with the venture name and exchange. Provisional Bill of Quantities A bill of amounts containing temporary amounts and issued to tenders on the premise that the charged amounts will be balanced amid development where they vary from the genuine amounts, it is regularly utilized where the drawings and determination cant be settled before calling tenders Non-Specified Bill of Quantities As the name intimates, this archive contains just the things of work and their amounts as a standalone report differentiated from the particulars reports of these works. Specified Bill of Quantities The details are consolidated with the bill of amounts as preface notes and the bill of amounts portrayal. The amounts dont ordinarily structure piece of the agreement yet introductions and depictions are a piece of the agreement. It is Similar to the customary BOQ yet has the expansion of a short kind of particular included with each of the separated materials and work for every particular exchange. Additionally at the start of the Specification Bill are statements blanketing such things as: Notice to tenders General states of agreement Builder’s Bill This technique is utilized by manufacturers to get a fast guide or plan cost. It is focused around the value for every square meter (m2) of comparable sorts of work finished by the developer and is utilized primarily as a part of the Domestic Housing field. A comparative system utilizing the solid shape premise that is the cubic meter (m3) substance of the building is utilized for the Commercial and Industrial field. It must be accentuated that this system for computing is utilized absolutely as an aide or plan cost by the manufacturer. Operational Bill of Quantities Are a tendering archive for evaluating expenses arranged by engineers that depicts a development extend as far as the operations (which incorporate work and plant) required fabricating it. ADVANTAGES Differentiates the expenses of work, materials and plant along these lines empowering expense control Builds the exactness of assessing. Expenses could be identified with elements that specifically focus them, for example, general plant use. Permits the reuse of data made in assessing for venture administration. Empowers better estimation of variety in works. DISADVANTAGES Cumbersome and immoderate to create so expanding the work of the builders estimators. Profoundly changes the assessing methodology. Does not fit in with current contracts as to work variety. It needs machines to permit quick control of the information: this did not exist when it was initially proposed. The configuration group in charge of making the operational bill requires not be extremely acquainted with the construct capability issues as they influence the development process.

Pro-Anorexia Websites Essay -- Eating Disorders Pro-ana Internet

Pro-Anorexia Websites Cyberspace, something that was once considered a fad, has developed into a tool that allows people struggling with anorexia to potentially find a sanctuary from the regulatory systems in popular culture that are applied to women’s bodies. Cyberspace provides an alternative space for women with eating disorders or body issues. The space created by cyberspace is potentially safer for women to meet because it allows anonymity while simultaneously being part of a community that the built environment is unable to provide. The components that make up pro-anorexia websites are usually considered abnormal, repugnant, or deviant within popular culture, because popular culture does not accept the way anorexics interpret images of the body. This popular view of people with anorexia does not allow anorexics to function as an accepted part of public space or popular culture. The paradox of pro-anorexia websites serving as a sanctuary space for anorexics is that cyberspace is a public space. Since the pro-anorexia websites are public they not only serve as a sanctuary for women, but also act as a metaphor for the anorexic body. The anorexic body is a site of struggle and resistance, which is also true for the pro-anorexia website which is constantly threatened with being shut down because it is in opposition of the popular view of the body. In this paper, I explore the type of space that pro-anorexia websites create through the analysis of the components that most of these websites contain, such as, a warning page, definitions of eating disorders, discussion boards, ana doctrines, and â€Å"thinspiration† galleries. Pro-anorexia, also known as pro-ana, websites are a genre of websites ... ...s into the anorexic psyche and body. The websites are sites of contradictions, much like the anorexic psyche and body. They allow non-sufferers a new perspective on eating disorders, but also reveal some of the mixed messages presented everyday in popular culture. Works Cited â€Å"Ambrosia Refusal.† Home page. 06 December 2003. . â€Å"Ana’s Journal.† Home page. 08 December 2003. . â€Å"An Ana World.† Home page. 06 December 2003. . â€Å"The Anorexic Files.† Home page. 06 December 2003. . â€Å"House-of-Sins.† Home page. 06 December 2003. . â€Å"Rain Baby.† Home page. 06 December 2003. .

career goal :: essays research papers

It has been my craving in every aspect of life to do things differently, chart my own path and tread in to uncharted territory. Nine years back, this what made me join a course in bachelor of marine engineering at MERI, the only institute in India exclusively offering such a course. Idea of venturing in to high sees, braving the storms with only handful of resources and almost completely cut off from out side world made adrenaline pumping in to my veins. All this along with opportunity to get exposure to highly sophisticated systems on board ships, which was fodder for my technical bent of mind seemed perfect for my adventure seeking personality. Through out my career progression I have made such decisions like joining LNG shipping pool of my company and seeking extra professional qualification of eligibility to sail on diesel engine driven as well as turbine driven ships Looking back after nine years, I could not feel more assured that at that time, I made the right choice. My unusual combination of experiences sets me worlds apart from not only a normal engineer but also from a marine engineer at similar position. Working for a big shipping company, exclusively on international assignments in high tech, capital intensive and rising LNG industry is the kind of job I had envisioned at the time of finishing my graduation. I could not have come here without that choice I made back then. As suited to my challenge seeking nature I foresee my own career moving in the direction of handling higher responsibilities in the core business, initially from an advisory perspective (i.e. consulting) and ultimately from a leadership role within a manufacturing entity, preferably a start-up venture. With Asia, especially India rising on global corporate battlefield I want to be where global language and intercultural/personal skills make the difference, where technological know-how supports innovative ideas. This is where I can make my best contribution. In short, I want to be where the action and the challenges are. Thus the reasons why I want to go back to university and do a MBA to get myself a thorough business background to understand not only my career experiences but other students as well and put them in to business context and have a holistic view of the organization. The knowledge I will gain should help facilitate a career change. After extensive work in high tech LNG shipping industry, I want to transfer to shore based industry.

“Exchanging Our Country Marks” by Michael Gomez Essay

In Exchanging Our Country Marks, Michael Gomez brings together various strands of the historical record in a stunning fusion that points the way to a definitive history of American Slavery. In this fusion of history, anthropology, and sociology, Gomez has made expert use of primary sources, including newspapers ads for runaway slaves in colonial America. Slave runaway accounts from newspapers are combined with personal diaries, church records, and former slave narratives to provide a firsthand account of the African and African-American experiences during the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. With this mastery of sources, Gomez challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about slavery– for example, that â€Å"the new condition of slavery superseded all others† (48)– and he advances intriguing new speculations about the development of a collective African-American identity. In Gomez’s words: â€Å"It is a study of their efforts to move from eth nicity to race as a basis for such an identity, a movement best understood when the impact of both internal and external forces upon social relations within this community is examined†(4). According to Gomez this identity emerged out of a mixture of African identities. Throughout his study Gomez illustrates how Africans transferred their unique culture and heritage to the New World. He uncovers the harshness of the Middle Passage, and describes how some enslaved Africans attempted suicide, some successfully. Africans did not embrace the institution of slavery, and many chose to run away. The millions of Africans brought to America would not have thought of themselves as African; they were Asante, Yoruba, or Igbo, their lives and characters defined by village or nation. Gomez devoted a chapter to Muslims that had a religious identity connecting them to Arabia and Palestine rather than their native land. The Muslims brought with them a different idea about themselves and their world. As Gomez noted, the societies of West Africa also had their own histories. These the societies changed during the four centuries of the slave trade operation. Slave traders arrived at a part icular point in their history. There arrival influenced their history; it did not create it. Gomez provides an understanding of what happened in West Africa before, during, and after the slave trade. Gomez opens his book with Denmark Vesey’s 1822 â€Å"experiment† in building a multi-ethnic community displaced Africans in Charleston, South Carolina. Vesey tried to replace ethnic diversity of African peoples with a united movement of Africans in America based on the Bible. â€Å"We must unite together as the Santo Domingo people did†, Vesey told his followers, who nonetheless still organized themselves by ethnicity, with an Igbo column and Gullah column (3). Vesey’s uprising failed, but not his experiment. The African peoples came to define themselves along racial, rather than ethnic lines, though they would continue to transmit stories of their own ethnic cultures to their children. Just as Europeans immigrants came out of specific historical and social contexts, the Africans had individual social, religious, and historical identities. Gomez encourages a re-examination of African-American history by suggesting how different communities of Africans resp onded and transferred their unique culture and heritage to the New World and also shows how particular African societies and cultures continue to shape our society. For example, the Kissi of Sierre Leone lived in rural villages, with out a strong governing state. They formed secret associations that acted as loose governing forces over their dispersed rural settlements. In their society women were autonomous, performing most of the society’s agricultural work. The Kissi came to America with no desire for political power. The Akan, on the other hand, had a highly organized political society. For centuries, they had dominated the gold and kola nut trades. After being conquered by the Asante in the eighteenth century the Akan succumbed to the slave trade, entering America not only experienced with centralized power but also politically insecure after the long-standing Asante threat. Members of the Kissi and Akan came to America with profoundly different outlooks on life. Gomez examines both the African communities from which these people came and the specific places in North America to which they were taken. The ethnicity of Africans brought to Virginia, to South Carolina, or to Louisiana shaped the African American communities on those areas much more than did the nature of their work or other factors. The Bambara and Malinke people from the Senegambia region who were transported to colonial South Carolina and  French Louisiana brought with them their technological skill in growing rice. The first slave ships to reach Louisiana, in 1719, brought both African slaves and African rice seeds. By the end of the century, however a greater proportion of African brought to Louisiana were Yoruba, Fon, or Ewe. These people Gomez argues, synthesized the complex Yoruba region into â€Å"hoodoo,† which Gomez neither romanticizes nor belittles. Besides ethnicity and race, Africans religion had a significant impact on African American culture and survived the psychological intrusion of American Christianity. Gomez is convincing in his accounts of Islam and Christianity. Islam, Gomez suggests, â€Å"may have influenced African -American culture in ways herefore unimagined† (82). Gomez’s goal is to find out how these different peoples and societies influenced their world. Muslims brought to America carried a feeling of cultural supremacy and a connection with the wider world- a mixed identity that separated them from other Africans. But this separation from other Africans, which amounted to a transcendence of ethnic category, allowed the Muslims to develop bonds of community with other Africans more easily than Africans who still identified with their own ethnic cultures. Gomez argues that Muslims were more apt to enter Georgia, South Carolina, and Louisiana than the Chesapeake, perhaps numbering in the thousands . Muslims, Gomez argues, also made significant efforts to practice and preserve their religion. Evidence for this claim includes praying beads found in slave cabins, the construction of churches facing east, and names found in runaway ads and slave registers. Gomez explains how the ring shout and the relationship of water baptism were important African elements that survived in the black church. For example the â€Å"shout was an indication of social rank and ancestral identification†(270), and â€Å"baptism was a means by which the community grew closer,† whether â€Å"salt water or county born†(273). Both were â€Å"important vehicles in both conversion and movement towards reconceptualization, resistance and defiance†(274). The ring shout was not simply a transitional tool for creating racial identity. For Igbo, the ring shout had a particular social purpose, that is, to preserve community identity. Gomez relates the tendency of Igbo slaves in America to commit  suicide with folklore about flying back to Africa, or disappearing. The ring ceremony in Aliica was a way to solidify community identity and to bring the living into communion with ancestors. The Igbo in America simply adapted it to their new setting. As the nineteenth century progressed blacks embraced Christianity but the â€Å"liturgy was Africanized†(279). Also, blacks preferred the Baptist denomination because it was decentralized and democratic. Just as some Africans would use the ring shout as a metaphysical return to the homeland and others as a means to forge a new community in America, Africans and African -Americans had different recollections of the slave trade that had caused their dislocation. Gomez analyzes two sets of traditions. In one set, Africans were tricked onto slave ships by Europeans offering them red cloth. But in another tale, King Buzzard, an African king, was condemned to travel alone through the world as a buzzard for betraying his own and other people into slavery. The significance of this tale for Gomez’s argument lies in its transformation of historical fact. When Africans enslaved other Africans, they did not view themselves as betraying their own people. They would have regarded the mselves as Aro or Asante or Wolof selling Igbo or Akan or Manlike. Folktales like the one about King Buzzard, created in America to explain the origins of African slaves, gave to these different people a common origin on the distant continent. The Africans’ change from the self-awareness of ethnicity to that of race emerged from a common servitude, white attitudes, and â€Å"an internal dialogue†(242). Association and location figured importantly as blacks in the Deep South, living in close proximity to one another, resisted creolization, in contrast to Upper South blacks, a minority in close proximity to a white majority. Conversion to Christianity, a slow process, was helped along by incorporating familiar African practices such as the ring shout, water baptism, and funeral rites. Conversion, however, separated converts form the unconverted. By 1830, when Gomez concludes his book, African-Americans were divided by rival visions, one a future partnership in North America, the other a past â€Å"as close to the bosom of Africa as they could get†(292). This book contains numerous firsthand accounts detailing the social transformation of African-American culture in the New World. Gomez’s argument is convincing; he succeeds in uncovering how ethnicity and race affected the African American community in the colonial and antebellum South. His work is carefully organized, with many landmarks for the reader. Exchanging Our Country Marks is well balanced and written; it is a significant contribution to the African experience in American.