What are some quotes from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird that depict how Scout changes from the beginning to the end of the novel?

Early on in the novel, Scout is terrified of her reclusive neighbor, Arthur "Boo" Radley. She believes all of the false rumors about Boo and refers to him as the "malevolent phantom." In Chapter 5, Jem tells Scout and Dill about the new game that he has created. When Jem explains to them that they will be acting out Boo's life story, Scout refuses to play because she is scared of Boo. Scout says,

"He can get out at night when we're all asleep..." (Lee 25).

As the novel progresses, Scout continues to fear Boo Radley. In Chapter 8, Boo Radley covers Scout with a blanket without her knowing while she is watching Maudie's house fire. The next morning when Atticus tells Scout that Boo put the blanket over her shoulders, Scout says,

"My stomach turned to water and I nearly threw up when Jem held out the blanket and crept toward me" (Lee 45).

Following Bob Ewell's attack towards the end of the novel, Scout meets Boo for the first time and listens as Sheriff Tate explains to Atticus why he refuses to tell the community about Boo's heroics. When Atticus asks Scout if she understands, Scout says,

"Well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?" (Lee 170).

Scout's ability to perceive Boo Radley as an innocent individual displays her maturation and moral development.
In Chapter 31, Scout walks Boo Radley to his home and looks out at their neighborhood while she is standing on Boo's porch. She comments,

"Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives" (Lee 172).

At the end of the novel, Scout finally views Boo Radley as a kind, shy, and caring person.

How can the government influence allocation of resources?

Governments can take many different actions to influence the allocation of resources. Some of the most common actions include subsidies, tax incentives, or preferential credit treatment.
Subsidies are direct or indirect payments that are given to an individual, business, or industry as a form of financial support. Examples of individual subsidies include college grants, unemployment benefits, and welfare payments. Examples of business or industry subsidies include the direct payments given to farms and agribusinesses to supplement income and control the cost and supply of crops.
Tax incentives are exemptions, reductions, or refunds that are given to individuals and businesses to reduce their tax liabilities. These incentives are often designed to encourage a particular behavior or stimulate economic development. For example, the United States offers tax credits to individuals who make energy efficiency improvements to their home and tax credits to businesses that hire veterans and other target groups.
Preferential credit treatment is a phrase used to describe the special terms that some borrowers receive because they are members of a particular group. These terms may include lower interest rates, extended loan duration, limited default penalties, or relaxed repayment conditions. For example, governments sometimes offer preferential credit treatment to low-income homebuyers, entrepreneurs that want to start small businesses, and new industries that are having trouble competing in international markets.
http://www.nyu.edu/econ/user/debraj/Papers/04sig01.pdf

https://uca.edu/acre/2016/08/19/tax-incentives-and-subsidies-two-staples-of-economic-development/

Explain the terms Sharia and Halacha.

Sharia is the law that Muslims follow and that is based on the Koran and on the Hadith, which are the traditions of the Prophet. These are writings supposedly handed down from Mohammed to the people who spoke with him, so these writings encapsulate his ideas about religious law. The Sharia, while stipulating religious law, governs both religious and secular parts of life. There are different schools of Sharia, and it has also evolved over time and is practiced differently in different parts of the world.
Halacha is the religious Jewish law that comes from the Torah, or the first five books in the Bible. The word literally means "to go," as it describes the way in which Jews must go through the world and the laws they must follow. Halacha also comes from what is called the "oral Torah," or the traditions passed down through the ages and interpreted by rabbis. Some of these laws are in the Talmud, which was compiled over the centuries and is an interpretation of the Halacha by different religious authorities. Like Sharia, Halacha is interpreted differently by different communities and by different branches of Judaism. Also like Sharia, Halacha governs both secular and religious matters.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/halakhah-the-laws-of-jewish-life/

Calculus of a Single Variable, Chapter 5, 5.1, Section 5.1, Problem 82

Locate extrema and inflection points for y=(ln(x))/x :
The domain is x>0.
Extrema can only occur at critical points, or points where the first derivative is zero or fails to exist.
y=1/x*ln(x)
y'=1/x*(1/x)+(-1/x^2)lnx
y'=1/x^2(1-lnx)
Setting equal to zero we get:
1/x^2=(lnx)/x^2 ==> lnx=1 ==> x=e
For 0e it is negative, so there is a maximum at x=e and this is the only extrema.
Inflection points can only occur if the second derivative is zero:
y''=-2/(x^3)(1-lnx)+1/x^2(-1/x)
y''=-1/x^3(2-2lnx+1)=-1/x^3(3-2lnx)
So 3-2lnx=0==> lnx=3/2 ==> x=e^(3/2)~~4.482
There is an inflection point at x=e^(1.5) where the graph changes from concave down to concave up.
The graph:

Why is Crooks discriminated against, and what are some examples?

Crooks is discriminated against because he is a black man. In the 1930s, African Americans and Chinese immigrants had few rights in California, the setting of Of Mice and Men.
It is interesting that in the description of Crooks's quarters in the harness room, he has "scattered about the floor" several personal possessions, among which is "a mauled copy of the California civil code for 1905." This book is apparently an old manual that Crooks has had since his youth. It seems he has studied it often, since it has been held a great deal. It would seem, then, that Crooks has educated himself in the laws of the state so that he knows what rights he has and what rights he is denied.
Earlier in the narrative, George Milton speaks of how the disenfranchised men of his time who move from job to job alone become mean. Such meanness was displayed by the ranch workers earlier in the narrative when Candy told of the time that the boss allowed Crooks to go into the bunkhouse at Christmas and the men were given a gallon of whisky. Without any sympathy for Crooks, old Candy tells George and Lennie,

Little skinner name of Smitty took after the n****r. Done pretty good, too. The guys wouldn't let him use his feet, so the n****r got him.  If he coulda used his feet, Smitty says he woulda killed the n*****r. After that the guys went into Soledad and raised hell. (Section 2)

Later, as George plays cards, he hears a voice outside calling "Stable Buck." He then hears the voice say, "Where the hell is that G...d...n****r?" Apparently, there is something in man's nature that causes him to want to feel superior to someone else, no matter how low he may be. This desire to demean someone, along with racial bias, is likely the reason why Crooks is the victim of insults and discrimination. 

In a population of rabbits, there are 496 black rabbits and 27 white rabbits. Fur color is determined by a pair of alleles where "B" is the dominant allele which produces black fur, and "b" the recessive allele which produces white fur. The frequency of the dominant allele for B is 0.8. What is the frequency of the black fur phenotype in the population (the population is in Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium)?

Since the population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, the dominant allele displays complete dominance. This means that rabbits with black fur have a genotype of either BB or Bb. Since the numbers of both black and white rabbits are given, we can easily calculate the frequency of the black fur phenotype.
Black fur phenotype frequency = number of black rabbits/(number of black rabbits + number of white rabbits)
                                            = 496/(496 + 27)
                                            = 496/523
                                            = 0.95
The Hardy-Weinberg equation assumes that a population is infinitely large, which is not the case in this question. Therefore, the observed frequency of 0.95 may differ from the theoretical frequency. To calculate the theoretical frequency of the black fur phenotype, we simply use the frequency given for B.
Since there are only two alleles in this population, the sum of both allele frequencies equals one. To write this out mathematically: B + b = 1. Since we already know B, we must solve for b.
b = 1 – B
b = 1 – 0.8
b = 0.2
To calculate the theoretical frequency, we need to use the Hardy-Weinberg equation: B^2 + 2 Bb + b^2 = 1. As noted earlier, black rabbits will have a genotype of either BB or Bb. Therefore, we are solving the equation for B^2 + 2 Bb.
B^2 + 2 Bb + b^2 = 1
                – b^2 =  – b^2
       B^2 + 2 Bb = 1 – b^2
Since b = 0.2, the theoretical frequency of black fur will equal 1 – b^2.
Black phenotype = 1 – b^2
                        = 1 – (0.2)2
                        = 1 – 0.04
                        = 0.96
The theoretical frequency of black fur is close, but not quite equal to the observed frequency of 0.95.
https://www2.palomar.edu/anthro/synthetic/synth_2.htm

In The Odyssey books 1-2 why do the suitors avoid going to Icarius's house?

It seems that the suitors wish to avoid going to the house belonging to Penelope's father, Icarius, because they do not want him to be the one to choose which of them she would marry.  (They assume she is a widow since her husband, Odysseus, has been gone for twenty years and missing for almost ten years since the end of the Trojan War).  Telemachus says,

"Suitors plague my mother — against her will —sons of the very men who are your finest here! They'd sooner die than approach her father's houseso Icarius himself might see to his daughter's bridal, hand her to whom he likes, whoever meets his fancy."

The suitors do not want Penelope's father to be in charge of the proceedings because then he will choose her husband from among them, not her.  Perhaps they each feel that they will be unable to impress him, and if he denies them her hand, they will have little recourse.  Further, the suitors have it really good at Odysseus's house: Penelope is powerless to affect their behavior, and Telemachus is too because he is so young.  They can basically drink up all Odysseus's wine, eat up all his livestock, and so forth, and such a happy situation is not likely to meet them at Icarius's house. 

How do you critique / evaluate the book ?

At its simplest level, critiquing or evaluating a book means explaining your opinion of said book. Since I assume you'll be doing this evaluation for class, however, your critique needs to be a little more involved. It's not enough to simply say what you think of the book; you also have to explain why you've developed such an opinion, usually by using examples from the novel. This means that you have to have a good understanding of what the book is about, and this includes knowing how its important themes work within the context of the plot.
For Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many main ideas/themes that you could include in your critique. However, no matter what you thought of the book, it would probably be a good idea to discuss the theme of prejudice in your evaluation. Prejudice resurfaces time and again in Mockingbird, and is explored in many different ways. There is, of course, the exploration of racism through the Tom Robinson trial, but Lee looks at prejudice in other ways too. She examines prejudice in gender roles by depicting the unequal opportunities for men and women. Additionally, she looks at the prejudice developed within a system built on unfair class hierarchies. These are all major themes in the book and, if you're having trouble starting your critique, it would be worth using these as starting points to begin talking about not only what you think of the book, but why you think that way. 

How can I critically compare and contrast the ethical teachings of either Emmanuel Kant or Jeremy Bentham and the Catholic Church, with reference to the bioethical issue of euthanasia?

Jeremy Bentham espoused a philosophy of utilitarianism, which stated that an act should be judged as right or wrong according to whether it creates the greatest happiness. His "felicific calculus" was an algorithm to calculate the degree to which an action would result in pleasure or pain, as he believed that an action was morally right if it resulted in more pleasure than pain. With regard to euthanasia, Bentham would be in favor of a person choosing euthanasia if the process would put an end to a great deal of pain and result in the pleasure of that person (though pleasure is difficult to measure after death, it would be pleasurable for the person to imagine an end to his or her pain). Under Bentham's utilitarianism, it is the right of the individual to end his or her life.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, espouses the view that the life of each person is sacred. Therefore, ending that life voluntarily is sinful and in opposition to the laws of God (see the link below for more on the Catholic Church's policy). While many proponents of euthanasia believe the process eliminates suffering, the church nonetheless believes the practice is an intentional form of killing and is therefore against the laws of God. 
Sources:
Harrison, Ross. Bentham. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983.
Hart, H.L.A. "Bentham on Legal Rights," in Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence (second series), ed. A.W.B. Simpson (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. 171-201.
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=307

What is the setting for the story? What are two pieces of evidence that show that the time and place is important to the story?

Louise, the narrator of this novel, lives on Rass Island, and she is thirteen years old in 1941. Much of the book takes place during World War II. Both the setting of the island and the time period convey a sense of isolation that echoes Louise's feelings of loneliness, as she lives in the shadow of Caroline, her beautiful and talented twin sister.
Both twins learned piano while young, but Caroline soon emerged as the more gifted piano player and singer. This phenomenon, as well as Caroline's brush with death when she was born, has caused Louise to be frequently overlooked. Early in the novel, Louise quotes Caroline: " 'I haven't got anything to do but practise this summer, so I've decided to write a book about my life. Once you're known,' she explained carefully as though some of us were dim-witted, 'once you're famous, information like that is very valuable. If I don't get it down now, I may forget.' She said all this in that voice of hers that made me feel slightly nauseated." This quote captures the difference between the two twin sisters; Caroline feels she has a story to tell the wide world, one that the world will surely be interested in reading. In this way, Caroline expresses her ambitions that go beyond her current life on the island. Louise feels like she holds "a very minor role" in her twin's story, one that makes her feel lonely and unappreciated.
The war plays a significant role in the relationship between the twins. When the news breaks that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor, Louise takes the report hard and embarrasses herself in class. When Caroline finds her, tearful and humiliated, Louise expresses her emotions with a desire to leave the island; she says to Louise in response: " 'Well, you can't run away tonight,' she said. 'There's no ferry until tomorrow morning. You might as well come in and have supper and get warm.' " Caroline's matter-of-fact tone contrasts powerfully with the warmth and emotion of Louise's experience. As the war intensifies, the conflict between the sisters deepens as they manage their fears and stresses very differently.

Compare and contrast Ghana and Mali. In what ways were the two kingdoms similar? How were they different?

Similarities:

Both Ghana and Mali grew immensely wealthy from cross-Saharan trade, particularly the trade of gold and salt. While they did not engage in much trade themselves, they charged taxes and tribute from merchants who wished to cross their land.
Both kingdoms raised large armies that conquered neighboring areas in order to increase their territory. Conquered peoples had to in turn pay tribute to the king which enriched the royal coffers even more.
Both kingdoms had large populations based in urban areas. These cities put a large strain on the local resources which led to frequent droughts and famines when not well managed.

Differences:

While both Ghana and Mali tolerated and accepted Muslim traders from North Africa, the kings of Ghana did not convert while the rulers of Mali eventually became Muslims themselves and made it the official state religion.
Ghana had usually been ruled with a centralized form of government based out of the capital of Koumbi Saleh. Mali was more of a federation in which each tribe governed local affairs and sent a representative to the royal court.
Mali had more wealth than the Kingdom of Ghana. Ghana merely existed between sources of salt and gold. Mali, with its larger territory, had its own gold mines within its kingdom, as well as a coastline. This allowed it to grow immensely wealthy.

Ghana and Mali were two important West African kingdoms. Although they were close geographically, the two states were more different than similar.
One difference was geography. Ancient Ghana was located northwest of present-day Ghana. Mali, on the other hand, is still situated in the same area as its ancient ancestors.
The two states were not contemporaneous. Ghana thrived from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries—until its capital was destroyed by invaders from Mali in 1240. Mali reached its peak from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries.
Islam affected the two states in very different ways. Muslim raiders from the Sahara destabilized Ghana. Mali, on the other hand, became a center of Islamic culture and learning. Mali built impressive mosques, and its wonderful religious heritage is still visible in Timbuktu and Djenne.
The economies of the two kingdoms relied heavily on trade—especially gold. The salt trade was significant, too.

Ancient Ghana was a rich empire in West Africa from the seventh to the thirteenth century. It is usually referred to as the first empire in Africa. The empire traded gold and was comprised of both Muslim traders and Berber people. The modern country of Ghana is not the same place as the ancient empire of Ghana.
Then came Mali, built on the former empire of Ghana, from 1230 to the 1600s. Mali was larger than Ghana had been. Two famous names are important to know in order to learn more regarding Mali, those of Mansa Musa and Ibn Mattuta. Mansa Musa was the leader who helped to turn Mali into a rich kingdom by trading gold, salt, and copper, and he helped to make it a Muslim nation. He made a haj, or a pilgrimage to Mecca, in 1324 and brought with him gold and many of his subjects. Ibn Mattuta was an Arab traveler who chronicled much of what we now know about the ancient world and Mansa Musa. The famous ancient city of Timbuktu was in Mali and is still in existence today, in the modern country of Mali.

What are some foreshadowing scenes in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead?

To discuss foreshadowing in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the first question to be asked is whether you've read Hamlet, which Stoppard took the two characters from. It's important to point out that the play is a sort of experiment on Shakespeare's classic tragedy. Stoppard wanted to see what he could do with two characters from a play outside of the play itself. What he came up with is an absurd exploration of the meaning and function of literary works in general. If you know Hamlet, the foreshadowing doesn't really work as foreshadowing, because you know they're going to die. If you don't know Hamlet, and perhaps if you've ignored the title, you may have to look a bit closer for the foreshadowing.
From the beginning, an impending sense of some inescapable inevitability overshadows the dialogue between the two. The coin toss repeatedly landing on heads, and their futile attempts to call probability into play, suggests there is a force at work that gives them no choice. The repeated descriptions of being awoken before dawn, and the exploration of these moments as their furthest memories, gives a further sense of dark mystery. Was the man on the horse the angel of death?
The Player's arrival can be compared to the Greek chorus, in that he offers commentary on the events of the play while acting as a part of the story. He repeatedly reminds the two characters that, in plays, death is the common end, and with the play's extreme self-awareness, it isn't an intellectual stress to realize this is clearly a play.
The play continues to revisit these same few tropes: the two protagonists try to take control of something they have no power over, the Player once again tells them that tragedy ends in death, and the character dialogue and segues into scenes from the actual Hamlet reinforce the idea that the play is a piece of literature making fun of how literature works.
So, looking for foreshadowing, consider the Player's commentary on tragedy and performance, look for ways in which a sort of wrongness with the world hints at the doom they meet in the end, and at least read a summary of Shakespeare's tragedy that inspired this comedy.

Beginning Algebra With Applications, Chapter 4, 4.1, Section 4.1, Problem 50

A wire 12 ft long is cut into two pieces. Each piece is bent into the shape of a square. The perimeter of the larger square is twice the perimeter of the smaller square. Find the perimeter of the larger square.

If we let $x$ and $y$ be the perimeter of the smaller and larger square respectively, then we have

$x+y = 12 \qquad$ Equation 1

And

$y = 2x \qquad$ Equation 2

By substituting equation 1 to equation 2, we get


$
\begin{equation}
\begin{aligned}

x+ (2x) =& 12
\\
3x =& 12
\\
x =& 4

\end{aligned}
\end{equation}
$


Then, by applying back substitution,


$
\begin{equation}
\begin{aligned}

y =& 2x
\\
y =& 2(4)
\\
y =& 8

\end{aligned}
\end{equation}
$


Thus, the perimeter of the larger square is 8 ft.

Single Variable Calculus, Chapter 3, 3.1, Section 3.1, Problem 45

Suppose that the equation $c=f(x)$ represents the cost (in dollars) of producing $x$ ounces of gold from a new gold mine.



a.) State what is the meaning of the derivative $f'(x)$ and its corresponding units.



b.) What does the statement $f'(800) = 17$ mean.



c.) Do you think the values of $f'(x)$ wll increase or decrease in the short term? What about the long term? Explain.





$\quad$a.) The meaning of the derivative $f'(x)$ is the rate at which the cost is changing per ounce of gold produced.
Its unit is dollars per ounces.



$\quad$b.) $f'(800) = 17$ means that when 800 ounces of gold have been produced, the rate at which the
production cost is increasing at 17 $\displaystyle \frac{\text{dollars}}{\text{ounce}}$.



$\quad$c.) $f'(x)$ will decrease in short term suppose that the gold is abundant and the cost of production is cheap at that time.
However, $f'(x)$ will increase in the long term such that the amount of gold starts to deplete while the
demand increases.

Early in "The Gift of the Magi," the author uses imagery and repetition to make the setting reflect Della's mood. Explain why Della is in this mood.

Della is very sad because

Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result.

She wants to purchase a gift for her husband, Jim:

Something fine and rare and sterling -- something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

Della adores her husband, and she longs to buy him a present that is beautiful, something of which he can be proud, and she knows that one dollar and eighty seven cents is nowhere near enough to purchase such a gift. And yet, this was all that she could save despite trying for several months. It is for this reason that Della decides to sell her long and lovely hair to a wig maker; this gets her enough money to go and look for something wonderful for Jim. Ultimately, she buys him a gold watch chain to go with his magnificent watch, but— ironically—Jim has sold his watch in order to buy her some beautiful tortoiseshell combs for her hair.

As the story opens, Della is feeling frustrated and despondent about her state of poverty. We are told she would like to "howl" and "sob" over her lack of money. Repetition reinforces this. The narrative repeats several times how little money Della has to spend: $1.87. She knows that she has saved down to the last penny, and it is still not enough to buy her husband a gift worthy of him.
The setting reflects the financially tight circumstances Della lives in. We learn her flat costs only $8 a month (obviously this reflects pricing of more than a century ago, but it is still low even for that time). We learn that her sofa is "shabby" and that her husband's income has been been reduced by a third, from $30 to $20 a month. Della's mood is bad because, with the finances suffering, she cannot afford a decent Christmas present for her husband even though she has been saving every penny for months. She looks at her surroundings and sees shabbiness and want.   

Great products make great sales, and great sales make great products. I need two examples for both questions for discussing each response.

This post is not clear as to what the question actually is. I think it is asking for examples that help explain those two statements about products and sales.
"Great products make great sales" is emphasizing a company's choice to make high quality products in order to encourage sales. Basically, a product that the public views as long-lasting will be purchased because it is far and away better than other products out there. The car industry is a good place to start looking. Cars that repeatedly score well according to Consumer Reports or Motor Trend are cars that consistently sell well. People recognize that cars from Toyota and Honda are among the highest scoring cars in terms of safety, options, and overall value. These cars sell well because they are a quality product.
The food industry also can provide an example of great products making great sales. The hamburger chain Five Guys Burgers and Fries has been around since 1986, and by 2003, the company had more than 1,000 locations spread across 47 states and 6 Canadian provinces. They have been approved by ZAGAT every year since 2001 and repeatedly beat out other franchises for "best burger." They make a high quality product, and that quality is reflected in the sales.
The statement "great sales make great products" is similar to the first statement, but product quality is not necessarily paramount. This statement is emphasizing the effectiveness of consumers getting on the "bandwagon." Black Friday sales are a good example of this. A company can introduce a product or sell a current product at a steeply discounted rate. Consumers will purchase it simply because it is a low-cost and low-risk purchase. That product may then attain a "great product" status simply because a lot of people purchased it. The product might not be of the best quality, but it is a great product in terms of the company's bottom dollar. If it made the company a ton of money, then it is a good product. Additionally, if a company can advertise that "x" number of people have and use the product, then other people can be swayed to have confidence in that product as well. As the user base grows, confidence in the product grows as well, and the formerly middle-of-the-road product choice becomes a viable top-tier choice. This is what Android and Samsung did in order to put a major dent in Apple's cell phone sales. Samsung came along and offered a product that was debatably worse (up to opinion) than Apple, but the price was initially lower. Now, for the most part, the Samsung Galaxy products are considered some of the highest quality products in the cell phone market.
https://www.fiveguys.com/-/media/Public-Site/Files/mediafactsheet123016.ashx?la=en

What are 3 primary energy demands used in Iraq?

Energy demands in Iraq have quadrupled over the three decades (see the source from the International Energy Agency in the links below). The demand for energy per capita is 1.3 tonnes of oil equivalent. The major source of domestic energy is fossil fuels. Although gas is starting to overtake oil as the major source of power in the Middle East, the major demand in Iraq is still oil, accounting for 80% of energy demand (as compared to less than 50% of energy demand in the Middle East as a whole). Gas accounts for about 10% of energy demand in Iraq. In addition, hydropower is generated from plants in the north of Iraq. The plants have a capacity to produce less than 1.5 GW, as there are low levels of water in the upstream reservoirs. There are also constraints on the water available, as water is needed for irrigation. Therefore, constraints on water use mean very little water is available for hydropower, and only a small percentage of the energy demand in Iraq comes from hydropower.
The sector of the economy that consumes the greatest amount of oil is transport, followed by power generation and building. Energy use for transport makes up 60% of the total consumption and is mainly for road transport. There has been a steep increase in gasoline consumption as car ownership in Iraq has skyrocketed in recent years. Most of the fuel used in power generation is heavy fuel oil, and most of the energy used in building is liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). 

What political issue divided the people living along the Kansas-Missouri border?

Prior to the Civil War (the time period of Rifles for Watie), there was frequent conflict between Kansas (where Jeff is from) and Missouri. In 1821, Missouri was admitted to the United States as a state where slavery was legal. However, according to the Missouri Compromise, no future state north of the latitude that marked Missouri’s southern border could be a slave state. In 1854, the Missouri Compromise was repealed, opening Kansas to those who wanted the territory to become a future slave state. Many people from the North moved to Kansas in order to make it free. The struggle between these two groups continued throughout the Civil War. The Bushwackers from Missouri often crossed the border to attack towns where abolitionists held sway, such as Lawrence. People from Kansas, called Jayhawkers, entered Missouri to attack slave-holding families. This conflict led to Kansas becoming known as “Bleeding Kansas.” After the Civil War started in 1861, Kansas became a free state, and Missouri, though it did not legally secede and join the Confederacy, was the center for many battles, making it the third-most state fought over, after Virginia and Tennessee. It is in this conflict that the novel takes place and in which Jeff finds himself fighting on both sides.

How does the thought of his dear friend change the speaker's attitude?

Throughout the majority of the sonnet, the speaker sighs over "the lack of many a thing [he] sought" and cries about the time he feels he has wasted. He says that he does not typically cry, but he will weep over "precious friends" who have been lost to death, over loves that ended long ago, and for sights that he feels he will never see again. He grieves for things which he had previously let go, feeling the losses of such lost friends and loves and sights all over again, as though he had not already grieved in the past for these. The speaker mourns them all over again, as though each were a new, fresh loss. He seems to be caught in an unending cycle of sadness and loss and grief; the first twelve lines of the sonnet have a terribly melancholy mood. However, in the final two lines of the poem, the speaker says,

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,All losses are restored, and sorrows end. (lines 13–14)

In other words, when the speaker thinks of one particular friend, he feels that everything he has lost is restored to him, and he feels no more sorrow. This is quite a change: the speaker will not grieve his losses forever; rather, he can think of his "dear friend" and feel whole and happy. The last two lines have a much more hopeful, optimistic mood than the previous twelve.

What is superstition?

Superstition is the belief that certain events, objects, or patterns of behavior will bring about a particular result, regardless of an objective causal relationship. Superstitious belief may be cultural, religious, or based on personal, subjective experiences. Perhaps you know of some superstitions in your culture-- where I grew up, some people believe that black cats are a sign of bad luck!
An example of a cultural superstition would be something like belief in black cats causing bad luck, or that if you spill salt and fail to throw it over your shoulder, something bad will happen. Not all superstitions are so much about avoiding or remedying negative events; many are about inviting positive events into your life. Some people believe that if they carry a rabbit's foot key chain, they will have good luck.
An example of a religious superstition would be something like a "Bible-dip." Some Christian people believe that when they need advice on a particular matter, they can open a Bible to a random page and take advice from the first passage they read.
A rather famous example of personal superstition is Dennis Grossini. One day before a game, he went to a nearby restaurant, had two glasses of iced tea, and ate a tuna-fish sandwich. That day, he played especially well in his baseball game. He came to understand his luck in the game as having been caused by his actions of the morning, and for the next three months he did the same thing before every game! 
Superstitions aren't necessarily based on any verifiable cause-effect relationships, but rely on perceived experience of positive and negative consequences. 
https://www.britannica.com/topic/superstition

int 3/(2sqrt(x)(1+x)) dx Find the indefinite integral

For the given integral: int 3/(2sqrt(x)(1+x)) dx , we may apply the basic integration property: int c*f(x) dx = c int f(x) dx .
int 3/(2sqrt(x)(1+x)) dx = 3/2int 1/(sqrt(x)(1+x)) dx .
 
For the integral part, we apply u-substitution by letting:
u = sqrt(x)
We square both sides to get: u^2 = x .
Then apply implicit differentiation, we take the derivative on both sides with respect to x as:
2u du =dx .
Plug-in dx= 2u du , u =sqrt(x) and x= u^2 in the integral:
3/2int 1/(sqrt(x)(1+x)) dx =3/2int 1/(u(1+u^2)) (2u du)
Simplify by cancelling out u and 2 from top and bottom:
3/2int 1/(u(1+u^2)) (2u du) =3 int 1/(1+u^2) du
The integral part resembles the basic integration formula  for inverse tangent:
int 1/(1+u^2) du = arctan (u) +C
 then, 
3 int 1/(1+u^2)  du = 3 * arctan(u) +C
Express in terms x by plug-in  u =sqrt(x) :
3 arctan(u) +C =3 arctan(sqrt(x)) +C
Final answer:
int 3/(2sqrt(x)(1+x)) dx = 3arctan(sqrt(x))+C

sum_(n=0)^oo (x/4)^n Find the interval of convergence of the power series. (Be sure to include a check for convergence at the endpoints of the interval.)

Recall the Root test determines the limit as:
lim_(n-gtoo) |(a_n)^(1/n)|= L
 Then, we follow the conditions:
a) Llt1 then the series is absolutely convergent
b) Lgt1 then the series is divergent.
c) L=1 or does not exist  then the test is inconclusive. The series may be divergent, conditionally convergent, or absolutely convergent.
For the given series sum_(n=0)^oo (x/4)^n , we have a_n = (x/4)^n .
Applying the Root test, we set-up the limit as:
lim_(n-gtoo) |((x/4)^n )^(1/n)| =lim_(n-gtoo) |(x/4)^(n*1/n)|
                                  =lim_(n-gtoo) |(x/4)^(n/n)|
                                  =lim_(n-gtoo) |(x/4)^1|
                                 =lim_(n-gtoo) |(x/4)|
                                 =|x/4|
Applying Llt1 as the condition for absolutely convergent series, we plug-in L = |x/4| on Llt1 . The interval of convergence will be:
|x/4|lt1
-1 ltx/4lt1
Multiply each part by 4 :
(-1)*4 ltx/4*4lt1*4
-4ltxlt4
The series may converges when L =1 or |x/4|=1 . To check on this, we test for convergence at the endpoints: x=-4 and x=4 by using geometric series test.
The convergence test for the geometric series sum_(n=0)^oo a*r^n  follows the conditions:
a) If |r|lt1  or -1 ltrlt 1 then the geometric series converges to  a/(1-r) .
b) If |r|gt=1 then the geometric series diverges.
When we let x=-4 on sum_(n=0)^oo (x/4)^n , we get a series:
sum_(n=0)^oo 1*(-4/4)^n =sum_(n=0)^oo 1*(-1)^n
It shows that r=-1 and |r|= |-1|=1 which satisfies |r|gt=1 . Thus, the series diverges at the left endpoint.
When we let x=4 on sum_(n=0)^oo (x/4)^n , we get a series:
sum_(n=0)^oo 1*(4/4)^n =sum_(n=0)^oo 1*(1)^n
It shows that r=1 and |r|= |-1|=1 which satisfies |r|gt=1 . Thus, the series diverges at the right endpoint.
Conclusion:
The interval of convergence of sum_(n=0)^oo (x/4)^n is -4ltxlt4. 

Why are lysosomes called a suicidal bag?

Lysosomes are organelles that were initially thought to serve the function of dissolving cells when those cells were about to die. The enzymes within lysosomes would burst out of it, dissolving cells from within. The term was invented decades ago, prior to the discovery of their other cellular-sustaining properties.
Lysosomes get their name from the word "lysis" which refers to the decomposition of cells. Lysosomes are responsible for digesting foreign particles that enter the cell through a process known as autolysis, which is divided into heterophagy and autophagy. Heterophagy is when lysosomes digest foreign particles; autophagy is when lysosomes release digestive enzymes to dissolve the cell itself. This is done when a cell is damaged or parts of the cell no longer function.
So, yes, lysosomes do bring about the end of a cell, but only when a cell can no longer function or is damaged. The term "suicide bag" sticks probably because it is hard to forget.

You are an indentured servant coming to the United States, which colony do you choose: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Virginia?

While I cannot speak for your choice, I would definitely have to pick Pennsylvania. William Penn took steps to ensure peace with the area Indians by fairly buying their land. This ensured a fairly tranquil colony, unlike Virginia and Massachusetts. The farm land in Pennsylvania is also more fertile and the growing season is longer than in Massachusetts. Pennsylvania was known for its religious toleration—the colony is so tolerant that it is a haven for German Protestants as well as Quakers. The colony would be one of the fastest growing colonies in the New World in terms of agriculture, population, and industry; this means that I have numerous opportunities once my period of indentured servitude is over. Finally, Pennsylvania does not have the malaria problems of Virginia and Maryland. While the region would be hit with a yellow fever outbreak soon after the Revolutionary War, it was nothing compared to how disease ravaged the white population of Virginia and Maryland during the period that indentured servitude was popular.

6. You throw a golf ball at a 45 degree angle at 10 meters per second. a. How far away does it land? Assume level ground, no wind and no air resistance. b. How long does the flight take?

This question gives us the 45-degree angular velocity of a golf ball. Our first step is to split that angular vector into the ball's upwards momentum (which fights gravity) and its forward momentum (which theoretically fights air resistance, but we're ignoring that for the moment).
The upwards and forwards momentum are perpendicular, forming a right triangle with the angular momentum as its hypotenuse. 45 degrees is, fortunately, an easy number to work with. Rather than mess around with trigonometry, sines, and cosines, we can simply use common 45/45/90 isosceles right triangle ratio to determine that the sides are in a ratio of 1 : 1 : sqrt(2), and thus that the upwards and forward velocities are both 10 / sqrt(2) = 5 sqrt(2) = ~7.07 m/s.
As I previously mentioned, gravity pulls down on the ball's upward momentum. The gravitational constant on earth is 9.8 meters per second per second. That means the golf ball will take 7.07 / 9.8 = ~0.72 seconds to reach the peak of its arc, where is has zero vertical velocity, and to start accelerating back downwards. Moreover, because resistance-less ballistic arcs are symmetrical, the ball takes exactly the same amount of time to return to ground. Therefore the total flight time is ~1.44 seconds.
Once we have the total flight time, we multiply by the forward momentum of 10 m/s to find that the ball lands 14.4 meters away from the starting point.

Discuss how the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase reflects the sentiment of "elastic consciences make elastic constitutions."

The Louisiana Purchase, considered one of the most significant achievements of Thomas Jefferson's presidency, was hotly debated at the time, and some argued that Jefferson was behaving unconstitutionally in purchasing additional land in order to expand the United States. However, with the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, Jefferson not only doubled the size of the United States, he was also able to prevent the French from taking control of New Orleans, which would have offered them a good strategic position from which to potentially attack the United States or extend control over Mexico. The territory was previously held in Spanish hands before it was returned to France.
In terms of the elasticity of the constitution, it is now generally agreed that, technically, Jefferson was not breaking any rules. The Louisiana Purchase was conducted as a treaty, which a sitting president does have the power to form, and it was fully ratified by Congress. However, in taking the matter to Congress, Jefferson was concerned with the fact that although the Constitution did not forbid a President from making a monetary purchase of land, it also did not explicitly grant him that power. His political opponents also pointed this out. Jefferson believed that a President should have only those powers which were explicitly granted to him in the Constitution; as such, he felt that an amendment was necessary. However, because Jefferson was reluctant to lose the deal—which was driven by France's economic deprivation at that moment in time—he decided to go ahead and make the deal, although he felt it was currently outside of his authority. Jefferson's conscience was very much pricked by this, but he felt that, for the good of the young nation, he must become "elastic" in his conscience and his interpretation of his own powers.
The Senate supported Jefferson in his decision, with debate over ratification of the treaty lasting a mere two days, but this marked a turning point in that it raised the question of what a president was allowed to do. Was it only everything that was spelled out in the Constitution—or did silence imply consent?
You can read more about this at the link attached or in Bailey's A Diplomatic History of the American People, where the quotation originates. "Elastic consciences make elastic constitutions" is his own description of Jefferson's internal debate over the issue of the Louisiana Purchase.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-louisiana-purchase-jeffersons-constitutional-gamble

What kind of house is described in the poem "The Listeners" by Walter de la Mere?

Not much of the actual house is described, but it seems creepy. The mood and tone of the entire poem lends itself to making the reader think the house is unnerving.  
The poem's speaker gives the reader some information regarding the kind of house that is in the poem. First, the house is not in a neighborhood. Readers are told the house stands alone in a forested area.  

But only a host of phantom listeners   
   That dwelt in the lone house then 

The reader knows the house is in a forested area because of lines three and four.  

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   
   Of the forest’s ferny floor.

I picture the house being at least two stories tall. I think that for two specific reasons. The first reason is because of the following lines:


Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,   
   That goes down to the empty hall.



I'm not sure how the man on the horse can see into the dark house, but he clearly sees stairs that empty out into a hallway. The second reason I think the house is a two-story house is because we are told the house has a "turret." I have never seen a one-story house with a turret.
 
I've attached a link to a picture of a house with a turret. A turret hearkens back to old castles, and the design gained popularity again during the Victorian era. A turret will make the house look quite imposing during the day, and—I would imagine—quite foreboding at night.  

 
Lastly, the house is one of those houses that is covered in creeping vines. Readers know this because we are told the windows are "leaf-fringed."  


No head from the leaf-fringed sill 
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes. 


That means some kind of plant life is growing all around the windows. That image also gives the house the creepy feeling I spoke about at the beginning of my response because it's as if nature is taking back and enveloping the entire house.   
http://www.roofer911.com/pics/house-turret.jpg

What is the best definition of terrorism?

Since time immemorial, “terrorism” has existed but there is no single statement that clearly defines it. As Charles Tilly (2004) has aptly said, “terrorism sprawls across a wide range of human cruelties.” The term initially entered the Western consciousness in relation to state-organized violence and repression and, to describe the actions of French revolutionaries against their domestic enemies in 1793 and 1794 (Shariatmadari, 2015). During what became known as the Reign of Terror, the newly formed French government legally executed as many as 17,000 people, and it was estimated that another 23,000 were illegally executed (Jean-Baptiste and Edgeworth, 1955). In subsequent years, terrorism was a tactic used by dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. The same tactic was also adopted by non-state actors, such as the Irish Republican Army, Basque separatists, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization against government forces and the public at large.
Although there have been many attempts by scholars and policymakers to provide a universal consensus, they have been unsuccessful due to differing opinions of what constitutes terror and violence. Schmid and Jongman (1988) have counted as many as 109 different definitions. Terrorism scholar Walter Lacquer (1987) also encountered over 100 definitions and concluded that the “only general characteristic generally agreed on is that terrorism involves violence and the threat of violence.”

Jean-Baptiste, C. and Edgeworth, H. (1955). Journal of the Terror. London: Folio Society
Lacquer, W. (1987). The age of terrorism. 2nd ed. Boston: Little Brown.
Schmid A. and Jongman, A. (1988) Political terrorism: A new guide to actors, authors, concepts, databases, theories, and literature. Amsterdam: Transaction Books.
Shariatmadari, D. (2015). Is it time to stop using the word ‘terrorist’? Guardian. Retrieved on April 30, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2015/jan/27/is-it-time-to-stop-using-the-word-terrorist
Tilly, C. (2004). Terror, terrorism, terrorists. Sociological Theory. 22 (1), pp. 5-13.

Terrorism can be defined as the use of violent actions to further a goal of a group of people at the expense of the population as a whole. Terrorism is generally caused by political, religious, and socioeconomic factors.
There are several examples that can be used to support this statement. In 1914, a group of Serbian nationalists carried out a plot to kill Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. These nationalists believed that Serbians should rule Serbian people. There were many Serbians living in Austria-Hungary, and Austria-Hungary wasn’t going to give land to Serbia to satisfy the demands of these nationalists. As a result, they hoped that by killing the future emperor of Austria-Hungary their demands would be met, allowing Serbians to be ruled by Serbians.
Recently, there have been many terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists. These people believe that they are acting in the name of G—d and will be rewarded in the world to come by carrying out these attacks. There have been many terroristic attacks against Israel by Islamic radicals who believe that Muslims should rule Israel’s land. Americans have become targets because the United States has supported Israel and because the American government has actively fought the terrorist groups that exist in various parts of the world. The terrorists have responded by attacking innocent people by bombing buildings or crashing trucks into large groups of people in an attempt to accomplish their goals.
In some cases, terrorists have struck because they believed that their group or their country has been exploited by another group of people. These terrorists often are very poor and live in conditions that offer them little hope for a better future. Many people in the Middle East live in extreme poverty despite the presence of large amounts of oil in the region. By carrying out a terrorist attack, these people may be paid large sums of money. They also hope their actions will lead to the removal of foreigners whom they blame for their poverty.
http://handofreason.com/2011/featured/causes-of-terrorism

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-causes-of-terrorism-3209053

Calculus of a Single Variable, Chapter 8, 8.5, Section 8.5, Problem 30

int(sec^2(x))/(tan(x)(tan(x)+1))dx
Let's apply integral substitution: u=tan(x)
du=sec^2(x)dx
=int1/(u(u+1))du
Now let's create the partial fraction template for the integrand,
1/(u(u+1))=A/u+B/(u+1)
Multiply the above equation by the denominator,
1=A(u+1)+B(u)
1=Au+A+Bu
1=(A+B)u+A
Equating the coefficients of the like terms,
A+B=0 ------------(1)
A=1
Plug in the value of A in the equation 1,
1+B=0
=>B=-1
Plug back the values of A and B in the partial fraction template,
1/(u(u+1))=1/u+(-1)/(u+1)
=1/u-1/(u+1)
int1/(u(u+1))du=int(1/u-1/(u+1))du
Apply the sum rule,
=int1/udu-int1/(u+1)du
Use the common integral:int1/xdx=ln|x|
=ln|u|-ln|u+1|
Substitute back u=tan(x)
and add a constant C to the solution,
=ln|tan(x)|-ln|tan(x)+1|+C

lim_(x->oo)ln(x^4)/x^3 Evaluate the limit, using L’Hôpital’s Rule if necessary.

Givne to solve ,
lim_(x->oo)ln(x^4)/x^3
= lim_(x->oo) 4 ln(x)/x^3
= 4lim_(x->oo) ln(x)/x^3
as x->oo then the ln(x)/x^3 =oo/oo form
so upon applying the L 'Hopital rule we get the solution as follows,
as for the general equation it is as follows
lim_(x->a) f(x)/g(x) is = 0/0 or (+-oo)/(+-oo) then by using the L'Hopital Rule we get  the solution with the  below form.
lim_(x->a) (f'(x))/(g'(x))
 
so , now evaluating
4lim_(x->oo) ln(x)/x^3
=4lim_(x->oo) (ln(x)')/((x^3)')
= 4lim_(x->oo) (1/x)/(3x^2)
= 4lim_(x->oo) (1/(3x^3))
so on plugging the value x= oo we get
= 4(1/(3(oo)^3))
= 0

What is the central idea or theme of The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux?

Appearance versus reality is the central theme, as has been mentioned by the previous answers. Nothing is what it seems in The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom deceives Christine by claiming he is an angel sent from her deceased father when in truth he is a human man living beneath the opera, trying to claim Christine for himself. Christine appears to Raoul to be a faithless coquette when in reality she is under the Phantom's influence and terrified out of her mind.
Ambition and its costs are a smaller theme. Christine's success in the opera comes from having her voice trained by the Phantom as well as his threats to the management. However, in exchange for her success, the Phantom demands both her love and for her to dissolve her entire social life. Her own selling of her freedom can be seen as a parallel to the Faust opera the company puts on, where a man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for power and youth.

There are several major themes in The Phantom of the Opera. Perhaps the most important one is that of appearance versus reality. The very setting of the story, which is focused around the performance of opera, emphasizes this contrast. On one level, we have the theatrical illusion of singers and dancers creating a vision of stories about imaginary people, often in exotic settings. On another level, the novel goes backstage to reveal the details of how the operatic illusion is created. Erik himself is a master of illusion, including such skills as ventriloquism. His character, though, with the facial deformity that makes him appear almost death-like and the mask he wears to conceal it, suggest an uglier element of illusion, namely the way in which society conceals disability.
A second theme that drives the plot is the power of love. While the main romance is that of Raoul de Chagny's love for Christine, Erik is also motivated by his desire for her, and both his evil deeds and his eventual redemption are both motivated by that.

One of the primary themes of The Phantom of the Opera is the difference between appearance and reality, as well as what can happen when people fail to understand that difference. This is most seen in the character of Erik, the Phantom, but it applies on multiple levels even within his character. When Erik does not show his full face, he goes around masked and uses illusions to make himself seem like a "phantom." In this guise, he appears alternately terrifying—to the people at the opera house—and alluring—to his student, Christine. He seems elegant and sophisticated to others, which contrasts his dank, grim lifestyle and the harsh words with which he expresses his true feelings about humanity. Erik also uses Christine as a vehicle for illusion when he becomes her "Spirit of Music" and secretly helps her.
On the other hand, Erik is the way he is because he was rejected for his looks. He might have been a kind and loving person, but he was treated as a monster because of his appearance, and he has ultimately succumbed and become a monster himself. In this, the danger of "judging a book by its cover" is shown. Erik is, indeed, brilliant and sophisticated; what might he have been had he been treated better as a child and not shunned?

lim_(x->oo)sechx Find the limit

Given,
lim_(x->oo) sech(x)
to find the value of lim_(x->oo)sechx
we need to find the value of
lim_(x->-oo) sechx and lim_(x->+oo)sechx
so,
the value of
lim_(x->-oo)sechx is as x tends to negative infinity the sech(x) -> 0
and similarly as
lim_(x->+oo)sechx is as x tends to positive infinity the sech(x) -> 0
So,
lim_(x->-oo)sechx=lim_(x->+oo) sechx=0
the limit exits forlim_(x->oo)sechx 
and the value islim_(x->oo)sechx=0

What is Henry Dobbins' personality?

Throughout the book, Tim O’Brien offers clues to the men’s personalities through the specific items they carry as well as telling the reader what they are like and describing their actions. One thing O’Brien says of all the men is that they were haunted: “They all carried ghosts.” He largely leaves it for the reader to identify those ghosts.
Henry Dobbins appears in the stories “The Things They Carried,” “Church,” and “Style.” Much of the information is about his physical appearance and his actions; very little direct information about his personality is provided. Inferences about his personality can be drawn from the other soldiers’ nicknaming him “Good soldier Jesus.”
Three times Dobbins is described as “a big man”; all three times this is related primarily to his abilities and duties. He carried additional rations; he was a machine gunner who carried the M-60 and ammunition, totaling at least 33 pounds; and he was excluded from tunnel duty.
In regard to personality, we learn that he was “fond of canned peaches,” which were part of the extra rations, and that he drew comfort or physical warmth from “his girlfriend’s pantyhose wrapped around his neck….”
Henry seems to be a straightforward, probably unimaginative, even stolid man. In two situations, when the cynical jokester Sanders is trying to provoke a reaction, Henry does not take the bait. When Sanders and Bowker take a Vietnamese soldier’s thumb as a souvenir, Sanders says there is a moral, but Henry says he does not see it; a similar exchange is repeated later regarding Lavender’s drugs, and he dismisses Sanders’s provocation as “cute.” Because he is the machine-gunner, however, he is often responsible for considerable destruction and killing when the soldiers go into a village, which seems to be a primary source of his “ghosts.”
When the soldiers spent time with some Buddhist monks (“Church”), Dobbins says he is not religious but is drawn to the social interactions that could come with church. Drawing on his store of rations, he gives the monks peaches and candy. Saying that they should be nice to them, he also mimes washing his hands. This might be a Christian analogy to Pontius Pilate, symbolizing Dobbins’s need to rid himself of guilt for the killing he has done; however, that seems to contradict the Christ symbolism the other soldiers’ nickname generates.
The place where Dobbins’s size and ghosts seem to come together in a revealing way is in the story style. After shooting up a Vietnamese village, they find a teenage girl left alive and dancing. Later when another soldier, Azar, mocks her, Dobbins loses it. He picks Azar up, dangles him over a well, and threatens to drop him down it. Here we seem to see an expression of Dobbins’s inner torment, or ghosts, over killing the girl’s family, community, and countrymen. “Dance right,” he says to Azar, projecting onto him the contradictions over the morality of their behavior.

Henry Dobbins is presented to us as an all-round good guy, the moral exemplar of what an American soldier should be. Though the various stories that make up The Things They Carried depict the moral ambiguities of the fog of war, there's nothing especially complicated about the character of Henry Dobbins. Despite the horrors of war, he still manages to retain a strict moral code, one by which he lives his life on the front line. It's notable, for example, that he behaves respectfully towards the Vietnamese, an attitude not widely shared in Alpha Company.
That code is deeply suffused with a religious spirit, and Henry's faith insulates him, to some extent, from the chaos and bloodshed surrounding him, giving him a maturity of outlook singularly lacking in other soldiers, most notably Azar. But his faith, though mainly conventional, combines with elements of superstition, such as his belief that a pair of pantyhose will act as a talisman to ward off death.

How is Shakespeare anti-Semitic?

To explain—but never excuse—Shakespeare, it's important to understand that anti-semitism was common in Europe from well before his time up through the early part of the 20th century. That said, the most famous portrayal of anti-semitism in Shakespeare is the money-lender Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Antonio, a protagonist, illustrates Renaissance anti-semitism when he spits on Shylock. Further, Shakespeare portrays Shylock as money-hungry and unforgiving, once common stereotypes of the Jewish people. Shylock famously demands a pound of flesh in repayment of a loan, insisting on it even after he is offered a repayment amount of twice the loan. Shakespeare depicts this lack of mercy as Jewish (in those day cutting a pound of flesh could easily have been a death sentence, given the state of medicine). This stubbornness on Shylock's part leads to another famous line from the play: "the quality of mercy is not strained," with mercy depicted as a quality associated with the "superior" Christian faith.

Provide one theme from Animal Farm and three supporting quotes.

One major theme of George Orwell’s 1945 novel, Animal Farm, is that an uneducated populace is easily manipulated. Orwell believed the widespread ability to read, write, think, and speak was imperative to a healthy society. For Orwell, education is power and the best way to fight authoritarianism.
Boxer is perhaps the best example of this theme in action. Despite his best efforts to learn to read and write, he is unable to learn more than the first four letters of the alphabet. Hardworking but ignorant, Boxer is incapable of thinking for himself. When trying to recall the original precepts of Animalism, Boxer slowly determines, "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right." He then creates a slogan, “Napoleon is always right,” to absolve himself of the responsibility to think. Had Boxer been able to read, write, and think for himself, he would likely have understood the subtle machinations of the pigs before he was sold to a glue factory.
Another primary example of the importance of education is the group of sheep. The sheep cannot read or write. They cannot learn the precepts of Animalism or memorize the seven commandments. However, they easily swallow the bite-sized mantra of “four legs good, two legs bad” and become tools of Napoleon’s regime to silence opposition. Examine this passage from chapter 6 of Animal Farm, when some young pigs protest Napoleon’s decision.

The four young pigs who had protested when Napoleon abolished the Meetings raised their voices timidly, but they were promptly silenced by a tremendous growling from the dogs. Then, as usual, the sheep broke into "Four legs good, two legs bad!" and the momentary awkwardness was smoothed over.

The uneducated sheep were not only unable to oppose Napoleon’s slow take-over; they unsuspectingly became supporters of the pigs's tyranny.
Finally, the pigs themselves recognize the vital importance education plays in the maintenance of tyranny. Napoleon announces the “education of the young” is of the utmost importance and takes Bluebell and Jessie’s puppies into the loft of the barn for an education. Napoleon says that he will "make himself responsible for their education." When the pups emerge to chase Snowball from the farm, they are utterly loyal to Napoleon and serve as his muscle by enforcing his laws and threatening his opponents. The example of the dogs in Animal Farm demonstrates the power of education, even if it ends up in the wrong hands.
For Orwell, education is powerful. It can be used for good or evil. Orwell argues that a population must be educated to prevent the rise of totalitarianism.

A major theme in Animal Farm is the idea that power acts as a corrupting influence on certain individuals. Orwell demonstrates this most clearly through the pigs who begin as well-meaning leaders of the Revolution but quickly create a divide between themselves and the other animals. You can support this idea with the following quote from Chapter Three when it emerges that the pigs are getting better rations than the others, specifically in the form of milk and apples:

"We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples."

As the plot develops, Napoleon emerges as the clear leader of the pigs but only after running his rival, Snowball, off the farm in Chapter Five, following a violent display of his power. The following quote, spoken by Boxer in Chapter Five, demonstrates Napoleon's increasing power on the farm:

"Napoleon is always right."

By the final chapter of the book, the pigs' ascent to absolute power is complete. They dress differently to the others by wearing human clothes, drink alcohol and carry whips, a potent symbol of oppression. Their transformation is, perhaps, best summarised by the following quote:

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

Why do we feel chilly after swimming on a warm and windy day?

The process described here is evaporative cooling. Evaporation occurs when liquid water absorbs heat energy and becomes a gas called water vapor. This energy is called the heat of vaporization. Water molecules are held to other water molecules by hydrogen bonds and a great deal of energy must be absorbed to allow a phase change to occur from liquid to gas.
The water on a person's skin on a warm and windy day would gain heat energy from the sun. Some of the liquid water molecules would be transformed to gas. This process requires heat energy to be absorbed by the liquid water in order for it to become water vapor. Therefore, the person's body would cool off as the water evaporates from their skin. 
This is the process of evaporative cooling which helps to stabilize the body temperature of organisms on Earth. Evaporative cooling allows the temperatures of the oceans to remain fairly stable allowing life to exist.

How is the symbol of loneliness represented in "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck?

The symbol of loneliness is the clump of chrysanthemums Elisa carefully pots for the tinker to take with him. When she later sees them lying in the road, unceremoniously dumped with the pot missing, it is disheartening to her, and the reader understands the depth of her loneliness.
Elisa and Henry live a fairly isolated existence on their farm in the Salinas Valley. Even during the relatively slow period just before the harvest, Elisa and Henry go through their days separately; she busies herself in her flower garden while he attends to business matters. Elisa is described as full of energy; it is clear that she is not entirely fulfilled with her life. The windows are "hard-polished," and the "mud-mat" is clean; with "terrier fingers," Elisa dispatches any garden pests around the chrysanthemum shoots.
Even though there is little reason for the reader to think that Elisa is unhappy with Henry and their life together, it is significant that she takes an inordinate interest in gaining the tinker's admiration. She indulges him by giving him some dented pots to repair, though it is clear to the reader that she does not consider it a necessity. Only after the tinker feigns interest in her flowers does Elisa soften and give him the pots. He listens as she has pours out her heart about her expertise with the flowers, and she takes him at his word that he will deliver the plants and her instructions to his next customer.
The fact that Elisa has taken such care to pot the chrysanthemums makes the tinker's callous disregard for them all the more poignant. Elisa has reached out to make a connection: first with the tinker and then to the woman to whom he has promised to deliver them. The sight of the discarded flowers underscores Elisa's isolation as she turns back to Henry on their way into town.

Who is the protagonist in "The Signal-Man" by Charles Dickens?

The protagonist in Charles Dickens's short story "The Signal-man" is the signal-man because he is the character who comes into conflict with opposing forces and is affected in some way.
Since the train has disturbed nature with the carving of the tunnel as well as by the intrusion of the looming black machine, supernatural forces are released; moreover, these forces are too strong for the signal-man to control. For, they seek what may be retribution. This signal-man is at odds with the spirits of the area; consequently, he sees ghosts warning him of disaster. The narrator describes him in this way:

His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life.

The signal-man tells the narrator about the apparitions that have appeared to him, but to no avail. For, on the day that the narrator has arranged to visit again, he sees instead a group of officials who are conducting an investigation of the death of the signal-man. Evidently, he had been standing on the line, peering down the tunnel when a train bore down upon him. The conductor reports that he shouted, “Below there! Look out! For God’s sake, clear the way!”
Furthermore, the engineer of the train has waved his arm in warning even as he has covered his face to keep from witnessing the train strike the signal-man. The narrator notes the remarkable similarity between the driver's actions and the actions of the phantom as the signalman has earlier related. 

Hamlet takes full advantage of his "antic disposition" to insult Polonius. Discuss Polonius's response to the insult "You are a fishmonger," and how it serves to characterize Polonius.

In act 2, scene 2 Hamlet is playing up his "antic disposition" with Polonius and loving every minute of it. Polonius is a bit of a stick in the mud, without much in the way of a sense of humor. So he's the perfect foil for Hamlet's fooling. The young prince starts off by pretending that he thinks Polonius is a fishmonger. At that time, the fish-mongering trade was exclusively the preserve of the lower classes; it did not confer high social status. Polonius, as a courtier, is of the upper class, so for Hamlet to call him a fishmonger is quite an insult.
Whether Polonius feels insulted by this remark, he tries to humor Hamlet, playing along with his little game. Although Polonius suspects that Hamlet is just putting it on, he can't be absolutely sure; he must play along with him to try and establish what's really going on in that strange mind of his.
In the meantime, Polonius is puzzled as to why Hamlet should have mistaken him for a purveyor of fish. He concludes that there's only one possible explanation: Hamlet is feeling lovesick. Polonius is such a snob that the very idea of being mistaken for a member of the lower classes can only be explained by a fit of insanity. In the hierarchical world of which Polonius is such a proud member, comparisons between the upper and lower classes can only be made by those who've taken leave of their senses. To suggest otherwise is simply too horrible for Polonius to contemplate.

How was Darnay granted an acquittal?

Charles Darnay is on trial for treason. Specifically, the prosecution maintains that Charles has been engaged in treasonous correspondence with the French. This is about the most serious offense that anyone in Great Britain can be accused of; it is a capital offense that is punishable by death. For all its faults, however, the English criminal justice system is a good deal fairer than the one operating on the other side of the Channel. Unlike the tribunals of Revolutionary France, English courts of law insist on the presentation of evidence before convictions are secured.
Charles's bacon is well and truly saved by his astonishing physical resemblance to Sydney Carton, junior associate of the lead defense counsel Mr. Stryver. While cross-examining a key prosecution witness, Stryver draws the witnesses's attention to the resemblance between the two men. As a good defense attorney, Stryver has introduced more than a hint of reasonable doubt into the minds of the jury, and much to Charles's relief, it proves sufficient to secure his acquittal.

In the story Harrison Bergeron, how are George and Hazel related to Harrison?

George and Hazel are Harrison's biological parents, which is what makes the tragedy all the more upsetting. Since the reader sees the events of the short story unfold from their home, the apathy with which George and Hazel reflect on and view their son develops a sense of horror and disbelief.
Harrison, who is described at the beginning of the story as being arrested at 14 for being too "abnormal" compared to the handicapped others of the dystopian society, escapes from jail midway through the story. George and Hazel watch the news coverage of the escape, appearance, and killing of their son, but they are unable, because of their handicaps, to linger on the realities of what they are witnessing. Instead, they move beyond the murder of their son on television in mere seconds to discuss the need for Hazel to forget all sad things, and George feels the terrible shock to his brain that is administered to distract his above-average brain from thinking about what he has just seen.

George and Hazel are Harrison Bergeron's parents in Vonnegut's short story. Vonnegut writes that Hazel has normal intelligence, which means that she can only think of certain things in short bursts and does not have a long attention span. In contrast, George is above normal intelligence and is forced to wear a government-issued ear radio that continuously interrupts his thoughts by producing extremely loud sounds. George is also forced to wear a forty-seven-pound bag padlocked to his neck to suppress his above-average physical abilities. As George and his wife are watching handicapped ballerinas on their television, George begins thinking about his fourteen-year-old "abnormal son," who is currently in jail. Suddenly, Harrison Bergeron takes over the television station and declares that he is the country's emperor. After tearing his handicaps from his body, Harrison floats into the air with a beautiful ballerina and kisses her near the top of the ceiling. Unfortunately, Diana Moon Glampers shoots Harrison, and when her husband George returns to the living room with his beverage, Hazel cannot remember why she has been crying.

Sensory imagery examples in "The Pit and the Pendulum."

Edgar Allan Poe imbues "The Pit and the Pendulum" with lots of sensory imagery in hopes of providing readers with a vicarious experience of the tortures that the narrator undergoes before his eventual rescue. In doing so, Poe is meticulous in his descriptions, making sure to appeal to all five senses of the body.
Near the beginning of the story the narrator describes "the sound of the inquisitorial voices . . . merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum," an appeal to the sense of hearing.
When he thinks back on his trial, the narrator remembers a singular vision, that of "the lips of the blackrobed [sic] judges. They appeared to me white."
As the narrator awakens in his dungeon after a prolonged swoon, his sense of touch is activated by his hand falling upon "something damp and hard."
After a hard, face-first fall as he gropes about in the darkness, the narrator detects "the peculiar smell of decayed fungus" as his face rests on the ground of the dungeon where he is imprisoned.
The narrator's captors torture him by removing the pitcher of water they had initially provided and giving him a dish of "meat pungently seasoned," the description implying that he has tasted it.

In A Walk in the Woods, what is Bill Bryson's longstanding impression of the woods?

In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson spends a great deal of time meditating on the state of America's wilderness. He has many different feelings when faced with the vast woodlands of the Appalachian Trail, and it could be said that his longstanding impression of the woods is one mixed with fear, awe and admiration. At first, Bryson provides the reader with an extensive catalog of all the ways that the woods can kill a hiker. However, as he grows more familiar with the environment, the book becomes a love letter to the wilds of America, and his extensive description of the history and biology of the Appalachian wilderness exhibits his amazement and love of the region. As such, it might be most accurate to say that Bryson believes one should love the woods, but also be smart enough to maintain a healthy level of fearful respect for them. 

Calculus of a Single Variable, Chapter 8, 8.5, Section 8.5, Problem 18

For the given integral problem: int (6x)/(x^3-8)dx , we may partial fraction decomposition to expand the integrand: f(x)=(6x)/(x^3-8) .
The pattern on setting up partial fractions will depend on the factors of the denominator. For the given problem, the denominator is in a form of difference of perfect cube : x^3 -y^3 = (x-y)(x^2+xy+y^2)
Applying the special factoring on (x^3-8) , we get:
(x^3-8) =(x^3-2^3)
=(x-2)(x^2+x*2+2^2)
=(x-2)(x^2+2x+4)
For the linear factor (x-2) , we will have partial fraction: A/(x-2) .
For the quadratic factor (x^2+2x+4) , we will have partial fraction: (Bx+C)/(x^2+2x+4) .
The integrand becomes:
(6x)/(x^3-8) =A/(x-2) +(Bx+C)/(x^2+2x+4)
Multiply both side by the LCD =(x-2)(x^2+2x+4) :
((6x)/(x^3-8))*(x-2)(x^2+2x+4) =[ A/(x-2) +(Bx+C)/(x^2+2x+4)] *(x-2)(x^2+2x+4)
6x =A(x^2+2x+4) +(Bx+C)(x-2)
We apply zero-factor property on (x-2)(x^2+2x+4) to solve for values we can assign on x.
x-2 = 0 then x=2
x^2+2x+4=0 then x = -1+-sqrt(3)i
To solve for A , we plug-in x=2 :
6*2 =A(2^2+2*2+4) +(B*2+C)(2-2)
12 =A(4+4+4) +(2B+C)(0)
12 = 12A +0
12/12 = (12A)/12
A =1
To solve for C , plug-in A=1 and x=0 so that B*x becomes 0 :
6*0 =A(0^2+2*0+4) +(B*0+C)(0-2)
0 =1(0+0+4) +(0+C)(-2)
0=4 -2C
2C =4
(2C)/2=4/2
C=2
To solve for B , plug-in A=1 , C=2 , and x=1 :
6*1 =1(1^2+2*1+4) +(B*1+2)(1-2)
6 = 1+2+4 +(B+2)*(-1)
6 = 1+2+4 -B-2
6 = 5-B
6-5 =-B
1=-B
then B =-1
Plug-in A = 1 , B =-1, and C=2 , we get the partial fraction decomposition:
int (6x)/(x^3-8) dx = int [ 1/(x-2) +(-x+2)/(x^2+2x+4)] dx
=int [ 1/(x-2) -x/(x^2+2x+4)+2/(x^2+2x+4)] dx
Apply the basic integration property: int (u+-v+-w) dx = int (u) dx +- int (v) dx+- int (w) dx .
int [ 1/(x-2) -x/(x^2+2x+4)+2/(x^2+2x+4)] dx =int 1/(x-2) dx- int x/(x^2+2x+4)dx+ int 2/(x^2+2x+4) dx
For the first integral, we apply integration formula for logarithm: int 1/u du = ln|u|+C .
Let u =x-2 then du = dx
int 1/(x-2) dx =int 1/u du
= ln|u|
= ln|x-2|
For the second integral, we apply indefinite integration formula for rational function:
int x/(ax^2+bx+c) dx =1/(2a)ln|ax^2+bx+c| -b/(asqrt(4ac-b^2))arctan((2ax+b)/sqrt(4ac-b^2))
By comparing "ax^2 +bx +c " with "x^2+2x+4 ", we determine the corresponding values: a=1 , b=2 , and c=4 .
int x/(x^2+2x+4)dx=1/(2*1)ln|1x^2+2x+4| -2/(1sqrt(4*1*4-2^2))arctan((2*1x+2)/sqrt(4*1*4-2^2))
=1/2ln|x^2+2x+4|-2/sqrt(16-4)arctan((2x+2)/sqrt(16-4))
=1/2ln|x^2+2x+4|-2/sqrt(12)arctan((2x+2)/sqrt(12))
=1/2ln|x^2+2x+4|-2/(2sqrt(3))arctan((2(x+1))/(2sqrt(3)))
=1/2ln|x^2+2x+4| -1/sqrt(3)arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3))
=(ln|x^2+2x+4|)/2 -(arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3)))/sqrt(3)
Apply indefinite integration formula for rational function with a=1 , b=2 , and c=4 :
int 1/(ax^2+bx+c) dx = 2/sqrt(4ac-b^2)arctan((2ax+b)/sqrt(4ac-b^2)) +C
Then,
int 2/(x^2+2x+4) dx =2int 1/(x^2+2x+4) dx
=2*[2/sqrt(4*1*4-2^2)arctan((2*1x+2)/sqrt(4*1*4-2^2))]
= 2*[2/sqrt(16-4)arctan((2x+2)/sqrt(16-4))]
= 2*[2/(2sqrt(12))arctan((2x+2)/sqrt(12)) ]
= 2*[2/(2sqrt(3))arctan((2(x+1))/(2sqrt(3)))]
= 2*[1/sqrt(3)arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3))]
=2/sqrt(3)arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3))
=(2arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3)))/sqrt(3)
Combining the results, we get the indefinite integral as:
int (6x)/(x^3-8) dx =ln|x-2| - [(ln|x^2+2x+4|)/2 -arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3))/sqrt(3)]+(2arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3)))/sqrt(3) +C
=ln|x-2| -(ln|x^2+2x+4|)/2 +(arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3)))/sqrt(3)+(2arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3)) )/sqrt(3)+C
= (2ln|x-2|-ln|x^2+2x+4|)/2 +(arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3))+2arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3)))/sqrt(3) +C
= (ln|(x-2)^2/(x^2+2x+4)|)/2+(3arctan((x+1)/sqrt(3)))/sqrt(3) +C
= (ln|(x^2-4x+4)/(x^2+2x+4)|)/2 +sqrt(3)arctan((sqrt(3)(x+1))/3)+C
= (ln|(x^2-4x+4)/(x^2+2x+4)|)/2 +sqrt(3)arctan((xsqrt(3)+sqrt(3))/3)+C

What are some factors that influence political development in a country?

There are various factors that influence political development in a country. For the purposes of this answer, we'll identify the goal of political development as growth toward a more democratic system—we'll regard a more democratic system as a more developed one and, by extension, a less democratic system as a less developed one.
For example, in the United States, an abundance of fertile land, multiple opportunities for people to acquire land and to make a living, a willingness to support ambitious people, and an independent spirit helped the American political system grow.
There are some general factors that can be applied to each country. One factor is that the rule of law must exist. People must know what the laws are, and those laws can’t be changed just because the ruler doesn’t like the laws. People also must feel safe if they express political opinions. People must also have rights that are protected by the government. Failure to achieve this will slow political development. There also needs to be a belief that equal opportunity for all exists within the country. When people are able to take part in their government by running for office and by electing leaders, political development is more likely to occur. People must believe that their government is fair and provides opportunities for all. When these conditions exist, political development is more likely to occur.

sum_(n=1)^oo n/sqrt(n^2+1) Determine the convergence or divergence of the series.

Recall that the Divergence test follows the condition:
If lim_(n-gtoo)a_n!=0 then sum a_n diverges.
For the given series sum_(n=1)^oo n/sqrt(n^2+1) , we have a_n=n/sqrt(n^2+1)
To evaluate the a_n=n/sqrt(n^2+1) , we divide by n with the highest exponent which is n  or sqrt(n^2) . Note: n = sqrt(n^2) .
a_n=(n/n)/(sqrt(n^2+1)/sqrt(n^2))
     = 1 /sqrt((n^2+1)/n^2)
     = 1/sqrt(n^2/n^2+1/n^2)
     =1/sqrt(1+1/n^2)
Applying the divergence test, we determine the limit of the series as:
lim_(n-gtoo)a_n =lim_(n-gtoo)n/sqrt(n^2+1)
                  = lim_(n-gtoo)1/sqrt(1+1/n^2)
                =[lim_(n-gtoo)1] /[lim_(n-gtoo)sqrt(1+1/n^2)]
                = 1 / sqrt(1+ 1/oo)
                =1 / sqrt(1+0)
                =1 / sqrt(1)
                = 1/1
                =1
The lim_(n-gtoo)n/sqrt(n^2+1)=1 satisfy the condition lim_(n-gtoo)a_n!=0.
Therefore, the series sum_(n=1)^oon/sqrt(n^2+1) is a divergent series.
We can also verify with the graph of f(n) =n/sqrt(n^2+1) :

As the "n" value increases, the graph diverges.

How did the Union and Confederacy compare in terms of resources, leadership, and military strategies in the period 1861-1863? Why was that important to the outcome of the war?

Both the North and the South during the Civil War had specific advantages and disadvantages that would contribute to the eventual outcome of the war.
One advantage the Union had over the Confederacy was that the Union had a powerful central form of government that could create and enact laws to be implemented by the entire Union; this included taxes. The Confederacy had a weak central form of government with very limited powers under Confederate president Jefferson Davis. The process of taxation was left in the hands of individual southern states, which, seeking approval from their constituents, implemented very few—if any—taxes. So we see the Union had tangible assets to back their paper money and a powerful central form of government with the ability to levy and collect taxes, while the Confederacy had nothing to back their paper money with, leaving the South with relatively little buying power with foreign nations to purchase supplies and goods for their troops and an inability to levy taxes on the states because of weak central form of government.

The Union had a definite edge in terms of resources at the outset of the war. It had more food, industrial capacity, and people. It also had greater gold supplies with which to pay soldiers and buy weapons overseas. The North also had a navy with which to attack Southern ports. The South had a smaller population, and many members of this population were African slaves the South would not even consider arming until 1865. The South had farmland, but a lot of it was cultivated for cotton. The South lacked major gold supplies to pay soldiers or gain credit overseas, which was a moot point because the Confederacy lacked international recognition from Britain and France.  
The South had an advantage in military leadership. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson could not attack their home state of Virginia and stayed with the Confederacy. The Army of the Potomac had to endure the likes of George McClellan, who was overly cautious, and Ambrose Burnside, who was inept as a leader. It was only in the West that Northern generalship excelled under Ulysses Grant in the Tennessee and Vicksburg campaigns. The North did have Lincoln, who would eventually prove himself to be a better president than the South's Jefferson Davis, although he was hated by many in the North from 1861-1863.  
The South had the better strategy, at least initially. Its goal was to wear out the North and to fight a defensive war. This would have been the best strategy, as the Army of Northern Virginia was repulsed both times on Union soil in Antietam in 1862 and Gettysburg in 1863. The North, under Winfield Scott, had the better long-term strategy in the Anaconda Plan, however, which was to be a blockade of all Southern ports and for the North to control the Mississippi River. In 1863, the Union finally took over the Mississippi River with the fall of Vicksburg, and the ports were all closed with the fall of Wilmington, North Carolina in 1865. After 1863, Southern privations started to show themselves in the civilian population and on the battlefield, and more Southerners argued for peace.   

In what ways did the French and Indian War pave the way for the Revolution?

The French and Indian War was an interesting conflict where the Native Americans who had been pushed further West by the British colonists became frustrated and wanted to supplant their oppressors. They joined up with the French settlers who resided predominately in the central regions of North America and with whom they were very familiar because of their shared fur trade.
The French held the Native Americans in higher regard and treated them more as business partners than savages, and so they were natural allies. They attempted to drive out the colonists but were defeated by British forces.
Because of this, however, the British government incurred high bills after the war. To defray the expenses, they began levying taxes and fines on the colonists since they didn't want to charge their own citizens or dip into the national treasury. Additionally, in order to prevent any other issues from arising with the Native Americans, they stationed numerous troops throughout the colonies, which they forced the colonists to lodge and care for, free of charge.
These issues—taxation without representation, that constantly escalated, and the forced quartering of troops—represented a level of oppression and lack of respect that was unacceptable to the colonists. This disrespect led to them eventually declaring independence after trying to reason with Parliament for several years.

The French and Indian War helped pave the way for the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin brought forth the Albany Plan, which was meant to unite the colonies in order to help Britain in this war more efficiently. Britain, fearing a united colonial front, did not agree to the plan, thus demonstrating to the colonists that they could be quite powerful if united. During the war, British officials saw that colonial merchants regularly broke navigation acts and dodged taxes. When this was reported back in London, Parliament vowed to become stricter in enforcing laws against the colonies. Britain wanted to make the colonies pay their fair share for their protection against foreign powers and Native Americans; the colonists, on the other hand, resented these incursions into their own limited self-rule and sought ways to rebel.
During the war, the colonists demonstrated their value on the battlefield and were important to many British victories. The colonists thought that they should be rewarded, but British officers thought that the colonial militias were not a factor in the victory over France. Parliament passed the Proclamation Line of 1763, thus making land west of the Appalachians off-limits to colonists. Many colonists had already settled there, and many more had land speculation interests in this area reserved for Native Americans. The colonists resented that the Indians received something from the war, and many started to openly question why the British wanted to keep colonial holdings close to the coast where they could be monitored by London.
Finally, the aftermath of the French and Indian War made France a willing partner in anything that would allow them to get revenge on the British. At the beginning of formal hostilities in 1775, colonial diplomats started petitioning France for aid against Britain. While this would have likely happened without the French and Indian War, France's defeat in the war only made it more likely that the nation would be willing to help the colonists in their struggle.

During the French and Indian War, the British crown amassed debt that they felt they could pay off by reimposing the Navigation Acts on the colonists. After a long period of salutary neglect, the British crown began imposing taxes on finished goods through a series of acts (such as the Sugar Act) in an attempt to raise money to make up for their debts. The colonists, particularly merchants, reacted in opposition to these new duties.
In addition, the colonists had hoped in the aftermath of the war to move beyond the Appalachian Mountains in search of new land. However, after the war, the British crown began to restrict westward movement by imposing the Proclamation Line of 1763. This was the crown's attempt to placate Native Americans, including the Ottawa chief Pontiac, who protested the settlers' westward movement. The restriction on westward settlement, as well as the imposition of taxes and duties to raise money for the crown, provoked a feeling of resentment among the colonists that built toward the Revolution.

The French and Indian War helped pave the way for the American Revolutionary War. After the French and Indian War ended, the British gained a great deal of land from France east of the Mississippi River. However, the Native Americans weren’t pleased with this development because most Native American tribes were friendly with the French. Pontiac’s Rebellion sent a message that the Native Americans wouldn’t hesitate to attack the British. As a result, the British banned colonial settlement in these new lands. This angered the colonists who wanted to settle in these areas gained from France. They believed the British were trying to control them.
As the colonies became more expensive to run, in part because of the threats posed by the possibility of Native American attacks, the British wanted the colonists to help pay for the cost of running the colonies. The British passed tax laws, such as the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts, to help raise money to run the colonies. The colonists objected because they didn’t have representatives in Parliament that could speak about and vote on the proposed tax laws. The British also required that the colonists provide housing and supplies for the British soldiers who were enforcing the Proclamation of 1763. These actions made the colonists unhappy.
Eventually, there were clashes between the British soldiers and the colonists. After five colonists were killed at the Boston Massacre, some people believed a line had been crossed. After the Boston Tea Party, the British passed the Intolerable Acts to punish the colonists for destroying the tea. Eventually, there was fighting at Lexington and at Concord, with both sides suffering casualties. It was only a matter of time before the colonists would declare their independence from Great Britain.
https://www.ushistory.org/us/9.asp

How are economic and social change addressed in Hard Times? How did industrialism affect the individual during the Victorian Era in general?

Industrialism brought significant social change to England. England at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 was largely a pastoral, agrarian island. Most people lived on farms or in small villages.
The population numbered only nine million in 1812, the year of Dickens's birth. By 1854, when Dickens wrote Hard Times, it was seventeen million, and more than half the population now lived in cities and towns. Conditions around factories, where there was no zoning, were often horrible— overcrowded and with no infrastructure, so that human waste was piled in the streets and then covered in ashes. People once used to vistas of clear skies and pastures where sheep grazed now had to get used to railroads, factories belching black smoke, and other blots on the horizon.
Industrialism impacted the working class people the most. Many were displaced from farm life, where, if the work was very hard, there was much time spent outdoors and the toil had a rhythm that provided breaks. Ideally, the relationship between farm worker and lord of the manor was paternalistic, meaning the lord knew his workers personally and looked out for their welfare. This may have been more myth than reality, but it was a powerful myth of how social relations should be organized.
In Capital, Marx describes the conditions of the women and children toiling in factories for very low wages in dehumanizing environments: working incredibly long hours, as many as sixteen in a row, at the mercy of a machine that never stopped; fainting on the factory floors for exhaustion; never seeing sunlight; getting sick and weak; and often dying early.
In Hard Times, Dickens critiques industrialism and the philosophy of utilitarianism, which promotes efficiency. To Dickens, the factory, with its endless concentration on producing the maximum profit, running with ruthless efficiency, and not caring about people as more than part of a larger machine, reflects the ways society is losing out under industrialism. Factory life is dreary and repetitive, lacking any poetry or beauty. Coketown is a "triumph of fact," where the factory workers

do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow.

Dickens focuses on the damaging effects of a utilitarian education on his main characters, a form of education that to him reflects the dreary, soul-killing ethos of industrialism. Gradgrind embraces utilitarianism, insisting his own children be raised on it, of which he says:

Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!

This extreme rationality reflects the logic of the factory. His children learn nothing of poetry, nothing of the magical or the fairy tale. They do not learn to value beauty, imagination, or love. In contrast to this is the circus that comes to town, a symbol of the magical, poetical, and whimsical that the Gradgrind children are forbidden.
Not surprisingly, their utilitarian education stunts the Gradgrind children. Louisa marries for money, not love, and comes to bitterly regret this hardheaded decision, saying to her father:

"How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, O father, what have you done, with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here!”
She struck herself with both her hands upon her bosom.

Dickens also criticizes the dehumanizing effects of a factory system in which the owners and masters know nothing of the lives of their workers. People are no longer individuals in this situation, but "ants or beetle" seen as a mass. Louisa feels this when she visits Stephen Blackpool's home:

For the first time in her life, Louisa had come into one of the dwellings of the Coketown Hands; for the first time in her life, she was face to face with anything like individuality in connexion with them. She knew of their existence by hundreds and by thousands. She knew what results in work a given number of them would produce, in a given space of time. She knew them in crowds passing to and from their nests, like ants or beetles. But she knew from her reading infinitely more of the ways of toiling insects than of these toiling men and women.

Dickens dislikes the way industrialism blights the landscape and ruins the lives of working people, as well as how it sacrifices beauty, love, and poetry to profit. However, he does not support unionization or chartism, which would have extended the vote to all males (at that time only a small percentage of property-owning males and no women could vote in England), thinking both these ideas too destabilizing. He focuses instead on changing individual people's hearts, hoping that enlightening and softening the sentiments of the powerful will lead them to want to change and improve the lives of the working people. While that was overly utopian thinking on his part, his novel does nevertheless shine an important light on the abuses of industrialism. He might share views with a slightly later writer, William Morris, who wrote in "Useful Work versus Useless Toil" in 1885:

As long as the work is repulsive it will still be a burden which must be taken up daily, and even so would mar our life, even though the hours of labour were short. What we want to do is to add to our wealth without diminishing our pleasure. Nature will not finally be conquered until our work becomes a part of the pleasure of our lives.

Why do people from different races look different?

Great question! Actually, it's not so much that people from different "races" look different, but that people who look different were categorized into races. I think it's really important for people to understand the historical and social context of the idea of race in order to fully make sense of how it impacts our lives today. Because I am most familiar with racial categories in the United States, I will use this as my central frame of reference. 
Race, as it is thought of in the Western world, describes categories of physical attributes like color of eyes, skin, and hair. In some parts of the world, race is quite different. Historically, Japan has been quite ethnically and phenotypically (the way people look) homogenous, so there wasn't really much of a concept of race until Europeans and Mainland Asians began to visit. In Brazil, racial categories are far more flexible and may take into account factors like socioeconomic status and who you hang out with-- not just appearance! Comparing understandings of race from around the world should tip us off to the fact that race is a cultural phenomenon rather than a physical one.
The truth is that there is no biological reality of race. There is no one gene, or even a collection of genes, which determine that a person is White or Black or Asian. Even trying to lump people into these categories leaves a lot out of the picture. Within one "racial category" and even within one nation or city, there's a lot of variation in how people look. Let's imagine you have a bag full of jellybeans of every possible flavor and color, and I asked you to sort them into distinct categories. You could try to sort them into categories like blue, red, green, and so on-- but what about the purple jellybeans, the light blue, or the red with orange spots? You'd probably do your best to sort these with the jellybeans they look most similar to, right? Our understanding of race is the same way-- we try to sort people into groups based on how they look in comparison with stereotypes of race.
Though race is not a biological reality in the sense that there is one gene or one phenotype for how people of a certain race look, our stereotypes of race are based on actual physical characteristics. Color of skin, hair, and eyes, facial bone structure, and the texture of hair all may play a part in how we intentionally or unintentionally categorize someone. That physical categorization on its own isn't necessarily a bad thing-- humans love to categorize things, even each other! When we treat these categorizations as being fixed realities, creating a sense of "either-or," it can cause a lot of conflict about physical appearance. Even worse, historically and to this day, many people assign value to certain characteristics or associate a physical appearance with social behavior.
This is why race is a damaging social construct. The idea of race and racial categories takes the full spectrum of human appearance, our mixed bag of jellybeans, and tries to push them into a handful of boxes that leave out a lot of information. Prior to European colonialism, the idea of race wasn't very fixed. In fact, prior to and during the 16th century, most people used the term "race" to refer to people of differing nationalities. With increasing exploration and colonization of the world, race came to refer to the many different ways people looked in addition to nationality. With the international slave trade, the idea that people from a particular place look a certain way transformed into a very rigid hierarchy of phenotype as justification for human cruelty.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, explorers and scientists tried to devise a system of neat categories of race. The most popular and persistent of these systems was that devised by John Friedman Blumenbach, who argued that there was a biologically real hierarchy of humans categorized as Caucasian, Mongoloid, Malay, Negroid, and (Indigenous) American. This hierarchy was primarily based on skin color, with the lightest (European) skin being favored, and the darkest (African) skin being considered lowest. Though it was outwardly based on appearance, this hierarchy took on all sorts of connotations of physical and mental capabilities. Much of the racial oppression and human injustice caused by the international slave trade was "justified" because light-skinned Europeans genuinely believed that people of darker skin tones were not as smart and possibly couldn't even feel pain. Some people went as far as believing that it was their duty as a light-skinned person to rule over, exploit, and "shepherd" darker-skinned people. 
As for why people from different parts of the world have different appearances, it's all about adaptation! Our species, Homo sapiens, first arose in Southeast Africa around 200,000 years ago. Since then, our ancestors have been busy spreading out around the globe. Though this journey was most likely motivated by a search for food, people eventually settled in every possible habitable environment. With exposure to these many variable environments, the general appearance of a population began to shift in response to environmental pressure. Our first Homo sapiens ancestors were likely dark-skinned, but those who migrated out of the high-sun environment of Sub-Saharan Africa did not require as much melanin to be present in the skin. Skeletal features like nose shape, height, or jaw shape may be a response to the air quality and diet of a particular region. 
Today, we know that the social connotations of race aren't true. Especially as genetic evidence expands, we know that there is no real, fixed, biological basis for racial identities. However, beliefs about race are so deeply ingrained in society that it takes active and critical thinking to undo the things we have been taught (implicitly and explicitly) about race. 
http://www.raceandhistory.com/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23684745