FATAL VOYAGE Essays - Indianapolis, Indiana, USS Indianapolis, McVay

FATAL VOYAGE The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis by Dan Kurzman 8 September 2000 The United States Navy's core values are based on Honor, Courage, and Commitment. These three basic principles have laid the foundation for the continued success of the Navy and has enabled us to meet and conquer every new challenge. Honor - true faith and allegiance; conducting ourselves in the highest ethical manner in all relationships with peers, superiors, and subordinates. Abide by an uncompromising code of integrity, taking responsibility for our actions and keeping our word. Courage - support and defend; make decisions in the best interest of the Navy and the nation, without regard to personal consequences. Be loyal to our nation, ensuring the resources entrusted to us are used in an honest, careful, and efficient way. Commitment - obey the orders; demand respect up and down the chain of command. Show respect to all people without regard to race, religion, or gender. Be committed to positive change and constant improvement. Fatal Voyage displayed countless examples of all of the above principles. From the Commanding Officer of the USS Indianapolis (Captain McVay), to the Japanese I-58 Commander (Hashimoto), and both of their crews, these core values were exemplified with pride and professionalism. Commander Hashimoto demonstrated honor throughout the book. He served his Emperor with true faith and allegiance. He and his crew dedicated themselves to their mission even when a majority of them new that the fight would soon be over and not in the favor of the Japanese. Captain McVay, a very proud man from a long history of Navy tradition, showed immense honor after his ship was sunk. From a floating crate, Captain McVay sat looking around at the surviving members of his crew. These people were no longer merely members of his crew, but they were now a part of him. He felt their agony, he felt their deaths, and he felt their spirit. It was no longer a matter of being the Captain of a ship, but a matter of survival. His knew role was keeping the remaining members of his crew alive and giving them hope. After being found guilty by court-martial, Captain McVay quietly accepted the courts decision. He sacrificed his honor to help ease the pain and suffering of 880 families. Although there were many people that could have been blamed for this tragic incident, Captain McVay displayed honor by holding himself accountable both professionally and personally. All of the members of the USS Indianapolis demonstrated courage by risking their lives to save the lives of others without regard to personal consequence. Many crew members supported the weight of other crew members who were injured or who were unable to find life jackets before abandoning ship. The survivors, whose mission was transformed from search and destroy to survival of the fittest under extreme conditions in shark infested water, displayed the ultimate courage. They challenged each other to survive. The Japanese military, on the brink of extinction, took drastic measures in courage. Japanese crew members, without hesitation, volunteered for suicide missions. They did this to please their Emperor and their godly ancestors. 2 These volunteers were used as human torpedoes. Although Hashimoto did not agree with this strategy, he obeyed orders. This display of courage was thought to have brought everlasting glory and fortune. Members of the USS Indianapolis exhibited the highest degrees of moral character. They worked together as a team to stay alive as a team taking turns supporting the injured and encouraging the weak. They were committed to life, theirs as well as those around them. After being without water for four days, Dr. Hayes the ship's surgeon, found a pint of water in a raft that was dropped down by the rescuers. Without thinking about his own injuries and wants, he ensured that each man was given their fair share of the water. Not once did Dr. Hayes worry about himself. He was committed to doing whatever he could to comfort those Sailors in need. Captain McVay demonstrated commitment by taking responsibility for the sinking of his ship and the death of 880 men. He was committed to the Navy and committed to the men under his command throughout his career. 3

Short term sensory store Essays

Short term sensory store Essays Short term sensory store Paper Short term sensory store Paper Sensory Memory preserves information in its original sensory form for a brief time, usually only a fraction of a second. Sensory memory allows the sensation of a visual pattern, sound or touch to linger for a brief moment after the sensory stimulation is over. In the case of vision, people really perceive an afterimage rather than the actual stimulus. Short-term Memory is a limited capacity store than can maintain unrehearsed information for about 20 to 30 seconds. In contrast, information stored in long-term memory may last weeks, months or years. Actually, you can maintain information in your short-term memory for longer than 30 seconds. How? Primarily, by engaging in rehearsal the process of verbalizing or thinking about the informationwithout rehearsal, information in short-term memory quickly decays with the passage of time. You can increase the capacity of your short-term memory by combining stimuli into larger, possibly higher-order, units called chunks. A chunk is a group of familiar stimuli stored as a single unit. The two key characteristics that originally defined short-term memory small capacity and short storage duration are still present in the concept of working memory. In certain models (Wickens (1992) being one such model), perceptual processes are conceptually separated into two stages: a short term sensory store (STSS) and perception. What these two stages have in common is the role of filtering out unnecessary information. Short Term Sensory Store (STSS) The STSS is a temporary storage mechanism associated with each sensory channel (i.e. the organs of the body responsible for touch, sight, smell, taste and hearing tactile system, eyes, nose, tongue and ears). For example, when you close your eyes an image remains in front of your (closed) eyes for a short period of time. This is referred to as iconic storage (echoic storage would be the same process of temporary storage associated with hearing). The STSS has a number of important characteristics which enable researchers to determine what constitutes temporary early processing versus deeper level processing. Firstly, the STSS is pre-attentive. This means that no conscious attention is required for something to be stored in an STSS, rather the signal/stimulus is stored in a particular STSS automatically. Secondly, the STSS is veridical. This means that the signal/stimulus is preserved in the STSS with all the physical attributes of the actual signal/stimulus. The STSS retains an exact replica of the physical attributes of the signal/stimulus. Finally, the STSS is short duration. The contents of the STSS using decay quite rapidly. The the case of iconic storage, the physical attributes of the stimulus usually decay after approximately one second, while in echoic storage the physical attributes of the signal/stimulus usually decay after approximately three seconds, and kineasthetic storage lasts approximately eight seconds. The STSS is important in cognitive ergonomics because it draws attention to the presence and the limitations of the temporary storage capacity of our sensory organs. Firstly, we must note that our sensory organs retain some memory of the signal/stimulus that enables us to perceive it without actually paying attention to it . Secondly, we must note that that each of the STSS have time-related constraints, and these constraints differ according to the sensory channel. For example, we are able to perceive visual cues from our environment even when we are not directing our conscious attention to those cues, provided that the visual cue enters the iconic storage mechanism and provided that the time interval is relatively short (approximately one second). For the most part though the STSS enables us to retain something of the signal/stimulus to allow further processing (or discarding). Perceptual Encoding Once a signal/stimulus has passed into the STSS it may be processed at progressively higher centres within the central nervous system. One theory contends that once information makes contact with a unique neural node that has previously been learned, is stored or is innate, then this information is perceived. Perception is an early information processing stage that is essentially involved with the recognition of a signal/stimuli and putting it into a category. Theorists and researchers have noted that there are different categories of perception. Absolute Judgement refers to the perceptual classification of a signal/stimulus into a particular categorical level (as is typical in absolute judgement task). This is characterised by people being asked to determine the loudness of a tone, the size of a crowd, or the smoothness of a surface. In such perception tasks, people are required to determine a single attribute. Detection is the simplest form of perception, which in essence is asking the question: is the signal/stimulus/target present or not? Pattern recognition, on the other hand is a more complex task that requires a person to perceive at least two dimensions in order to match a particular stimulus to a category. In the case of pattern recognition there is a great deal of interplay between perception and memory (long term memory in particular). Each of the combinations of the dimensions (usually referred to as features) must be compared to existing categorisations within long term memory. For example, the letters A a A a aA all fall into the category of a single alphabetic letter, despite their (slightly) different appearance. We are able to recognise the pattern and assign these letters to the same category. Finally, analogue perception is the continual perceptual categorisation of a dynamic signal/stimulus. Such perception is required when driving a car, when looking at an action movie or just walking across the street. It is important to note that perception requires some element of conscious attention in order to function. In this way, we are able to separate the roles of STSS and perceptual encoding, even although both processes are involved with the acquisition and filtering of information for higher order cognitive processing. The role of perceptual encoding in cognitive ergonomics is important for a number of reasons. Understanding when people are able to perceive a signal or not is important for many absolute judgement tasks. Whether a Doctor can see a small fracture on an X-ray, whether a security guard can detect a near invisible intruder on security monitor, or whether a quality assurance officer can see the small fault in a beer bottle top or all examples of real-world absolute judgement tasks that can benefit from our understanding of the mechanisms of absolute judgement perception. Pattern recognition can be applied to even more contexts than absolute judgement perception. Our understanding of pattern recognition has been applied to the problems of recognition of pictures, symbols (including letters or the alphabet and numbers) and icons. The large numbers of icons and pictorial symbols in computer software, on microwave ovens, on cellular phone displays and even motor vehicle dashboards demonstrates how prolific pattern recognition is within modern technological society. As these symbols are used more in society, so we are able to develop memory traces that enable us to recognise similar symbols in different situations. However, when we encounter unfamiliar symbols we can become confused and in some cases reluctant to continue.

Hamlet - Deliverer of Denmark Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hamlet - Deliverer of Denmark - Essay Example So who is really the hero and who is the villain in this play? This is the indeterminacy that one faces with in this play. The Ghost in the play causes Hamlet a great deal of problem and difficulty. If he is coming from the purgatory, why is he shrieking for retribution? Why does his speech sound as if it is coming from hell? No one knows the answer because no one knows Hamlet’s father except through his own eyes. On the contrary Claudius is a strong and healthy man. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Claudius – the King. His people have no problems with him and he seems to be conducting the affairs of the state with competence. His wife is happy with him and so are his courtiers. There is absolutely no one theme that can be called the central theme of the play and thus, as many as possible interpretations and themes can be derived from it, each proving itself to be as important as the other. Moreover, the elimination of a single theme from under the classification of ‘major themes’; results in the complete avoidance of an important aspect of the play. Hamlet is a tragedy of imagination and thus it is in clear opposition of the classical ideal of a tragedy. It is a tragedy of character rather than a tragedy of plot, which according to the classics was the most important part of a tragedy. This paper is going to explore the possibilities of Hamlet taking an early action in the play and is going to be based on pure assumption of the aftermath. In the very first instance when Hamlet loses his normalcy and confronts his uncle, who is now the King, is after he has witnessed the ghost. Hence, towards the end of act I, he is in dilemma. He has learnt not only about his father’s murder but also of the possible adultery of his mother. He absorbs this fact within himself, hiding it from even Horatio. He starts to play the madman. Hamlet could have entered the very first scene with a dagger in his hand directed towards Claudius. Had t hat been the case, the play could have taken a totally new interpretation of the character. He would have been accused of murder and thrown out of Denmark. But instead he internalizes his feelings and vents them in the form of soliloquy: Let me not think on't,--Frailty, thy name is woman!-- A little month; or ere those shoes were old With which she followed my poor father's body Like Niobe, all tears;--why she, even she,-- O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd longer,--married with mine uncle, My father's brother; but no more like my father Than I to Hercules: within a month; (I.i) After witnessing the ghost and convincing himself that his uncle was involved in the murder based on his prior suspicion, he starts his quest to murder his uncle. Hamlet’s hamartia or the tragic flaw lies in his secrecy. He continues to carry out his plan without sharing it with his dearest friend. This is what causes the delay. At the end of act III scene iii, Hamlet ha s a perfect chance to kill his uncle, but there is a problem; Claudius is praying. Hamlet is afraid that if he attempts to kill him at this point in time, he would rather send him to heaven! He believes that killing him now would be "hire and salary, not revenge!" When Hamlet confronts his mother in her bedroom, where Polonius is hiding behind the tapestry, Hamlet wishes that it was Claudius in his place. Had it been the case, he could have been spared the guilt of