In Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, what are some examples of and quotes relating to the theme illusion versus reality?

In Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman constantly indulges in illusions rather than face reality. For example, he imagines that his son, Biff, can become a successful salesman if Biff only applies himself. In Act One, Willy says of Biff, "I’ll see him in the morning; I’ll have a nice talk with him. I’ll get him a job selling. He could be big in no time." Willy ignores the reality about Biff, which is that he is happier and more successful as a farmer in the west; instead, Willy clings stubbornly to the idea that the proverbial tomorrow will bring a new and brighter future for Biff that involves his going into sales, the field in which Willy works. 

Part of Willy's illusion is that he lives in the past. He is constantly caught up in remembering days gone by; for example, in Act One, he recalls telling Biff and Happy when they were younger that he wouldn't travel anymore. He says, "Tell you a secret, boys. Don’t breathe it to a soul. Someday I’ll have my own business, and I’ll never have to leave home any more." What he told his sons in this reverie never came true, but Willy keeps revisiting the past in an attempt to protect his illusions and dreams. 

Happy, Willy's younger son, is torn between indulging in illusions like Willy and being more realistic like Biff. Happy literally tries to present the appearance of being happy at all times. He tells his brother Biff in Act One:

"Sometimes I sit in my apartment — all alone. And I think of the rent I’m paying. And it’s crazy. But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, and plenty of women. And still, goddammit, I’m lonely."

Happy is a relentless womanizer, and he has the illusion that if he only gets to climb one more rung and become a merchandising manager that he'll be happy, but he also senses that, despite climbing up the corporate ladder and dating a lot of women, he feels alienated and lonely. Happy vacillates between the illusion of happiness that will be created from success in business and the reality that he hates his life and might want to join Biff out west. 

Willy's biggest illusion is that he and his sons will reach success just by being liked by others. He tells his brother Ben in Act Two, "It’s who you know and the smile on your face! It’s contacts, Ben, contacts!" Although Willy spends years trying to get others to like him, no one attends his funeral save his family. It's clear that the principles by which he's conducted his life have also been an illusion—not reality.

What are natural treatments for diverticular disease?

Introduction

Almost one-half of all Americans older than age sixty years develop
diverticulosis: small, bulging pouches (diverticula) in the colon. In most cases,
these diverticula do not cause any discomfort. However, in perhaps 15 percent of
people with diverticulosis, diverticula may become inflamed or infected. The
result is a condition called diverticulitis. Symptoms of diverticulitis include
pain, nausea, and sometimes fever.

It is thought that the main cause of diverticulosis is the relatively low-fiber
diet consumed in developed countries. Fiber is critical to digestion because
it softens stools and makes them pass through the bowel more easily. Factors that
cause diverticulitis include increased pressure in the bowel from straining to
pass a hard stool, defects in the colon wall, and chronic constipation. The
conventional treatment of diverticulitis includes dietary changes and
antibiotics, and sometimes surgery.

Proposed Natural Treatments

Fiber supplements have shown promise for both preventing and treating
diverticulosis
and diverticulitis. Studies suggest (but do not prove) that
diets high in fiber and low in total fat and red meat may help prevent
diverticular disease. Furthermore, high fiber consumption may help prevent
diverticulitis from developing in people with diverticulosis. However, this has
not been proven, and the results of the scant published controlled trials on the
topic have been inconsistent.

Common fiber supplements used to treat the condition include psyllium, glucomannan, and methylcellulose. However, the use of fiber supplements during an active bout of diverticulitis is not advisable, because the colon needs to rest.

Contrary to some reports, there is no evidence that obesity or
consumption of caffeine or alcohol increases the risk of diverticular disease.
However, high levels of physical activity may reduce the risk of developing the
condition.

Bibliography

Aldoori, W., and M. Ryan-Harshman. “Preventing Diverticular Disease: Review of Recent Evidence on High-Fibre Diets.” Canadian Family Physician 48 (2002): 1632-1637.

Feldman, Mark, Lawrence S. Friedman, and Lawrence J. Brandt, eds. Sleisenger and Fordtran’s Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, Management. New ed. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Saunders/Elsevier, 2010.

Murray, C. D., and A. V. Emmanuel. “Medical Management of Diverticular Disease.” Best Practice and Research: Clinical Gastroenterology 16 (2002): 611-620.

Ornstein, M. H., et al. “Are Fibre Supplements Really Necessary in Diverticular Disease of the Colon?” British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Edition) 25 (1981): 1353-1356.

Smits, B. J., A. M. Whitehead, and P. Prescott. “Lactulose in the Treatment of Symptomatic Diverticular Disease: A Comparative Study with High-Fibre Diet.” British Journal of Clinical Practice 44 (1990): 314-318.

Explain, using a diagram, what would happen in the market for car tires if at the same time there was an increase in the prices of rubber used in...

In order to make a diagram for this question, refer to the link below.  You will need to have price on the vertical axis and quantity on the horizontal axis.  The demand curve will have a negative slope and the supply curve will have a positive slope.  In the scenario presented in this question, your demand curve will move to the right when the price of cars drops and your supply curve will move to the left when the price of rubber increases.  These two changes will both cause the price of car tires to rise, but we do not know whether the quantity will rise, fall, or remain unchanged.

When the price of rubber rises, the supply of car tires will drop.  This is because rubber is one of the major inputs for car tires.  When the price of an input rises, the supply of the good falls.  This is represented by a movement of the supply curve to the left.  You can see this in the interactive graph in this link.

When the price of cars falls, the demand for car tires will rise.  When the price of cars drops, people will buy more cars.  This will mean more tires are needed and the demand will rise.  This is shown by a movement of the demand curve to the right as shown in the interactive graph in this link.

Both of these factors will cause prices to rise.  However, we do not know what will happen to the quantity.  If the supply decreases much more than the demand increases, quantity will fall.  If the increase in demand is greater than the drop in supply, quantity will rise.  If they are almost equal, the quantity will not change much, if at all.

How do the actions of Tybalt impact the eventual tragic ending of Romeo and Juliet?

Tybalt's execution of Mercutio is pivotal to the tragic ending of Romeo and Juliet.

In Act III, Scene 1, a fiery Mercutio meets and argues with an equally explosive Tybalt, who encounters hostility from Mercutio immediately. For, when Tybalt says he will have a word with him, Mercutio provokes him by replying, "make it a word and a blow." The ensuing argument then becomes further inflamed by the arrival of Romeo, who in his euphoric happiness seeks to ameliorate things. He declares to Tybalt that he now loves him, but without providing a reason for this change of heart first. When an already riled Mercutio hears Romeo, he accuses his friend of "vile submission" and draws his sword. 

Tempers flare and aggressive action escalates. Still, Romeo tries to stop the others by reminding them of the Prince's having forbidden "bandying in Verona streets./Hold, Tybalt, good Mercutio!" But, Tybalt reaches with his sword under Romeo's arm and stabs Mercutio.

This murderous act against Mercutio by Tybalt enrages Romeo so much that he then slays Tybalt in retaliation. This sets in motion the circumstances and actions of both Romeo and Juliet that bring about their tragic ends:

• Because he has killed Tybalt, Romeo is banished.


• Believing that Juliet grieves so much over Tybalt's death, her parents decide that she should marry Paris. This decision leads Juliet to seek help from Friar Laurence, who gives her a potion which makes her seem dead in order to stall any actions by the Capulets, so that Romeo can come and "bear thee [her] hence to Mantua" (4.2.).


• Away from Verona in Mantua, Romeo is told mistakenly that Juliet has died; desperate, he purchases poison and rushes to the Capulet tomb. There he encounters Paris and slays him.


• Romeo finds Juliet, who he believes is dead. 


• Romeo drinks the poison.


• Juliet comes out of her drug-induced state and asks Friar Laurence where Romeo is because she remembers their plan. But Friar Laurence, who has just discovered Paris's and Romeo's bodies, becomes frightened as he hears the approach of the guards. He tells her that Romeo "there lies dead,/And Paris, too" (5.3). He offers to put her safely in a convent, but first "go, good Juliet, I dare no longer stay" (5.3). The nervous Friar Laurence flees.


• Left alone, Juliet goes over to Romeo's dead body. She hears the watchman. In despair, she snatches Romeo's dagger and kills herself.

Analyze in detail the collapses of Rome (200-600 CE).

Before I answer this, I do want to offer a caveat. The decline of the Roman empire is a subject that has been the cause of some historiographical controversy — historians themselves do not agree about the correct methods and ways to analyze and explain the decline of the Roman empire. What I offer is a received account although it is not the only account that exists. (There are dozens, if not scores, more!) Some even question if Rome fell; however, since your question assumes that it did, indeed, decline, we'll take that as our starting point. 

You also ask about the collapses of Rome until 600 CE. I'm not sure whether the plural is a typo or whether you're referring to multiple collapses. If it's the latter, I address that at the very end.

Also, the standard date for the 'fall' of Rome is 476 CE when the German prince Odovacar deposed the last of the Roman emperors, Romulus Augustulus. From that date onwards the Roman empire effectively ceased to exist except as a collection of many kingdoms and fiefdoms (many of which fought against one another rendering the former Roman empire a battleground of sorts, something which probably only served to usher in the so-called 'Dark Ages' even faster).

The only way to take ca 600 CE as the date of the collapse is to regard Justinian I, the Byzantine emperor who constructer the Hagia Sophia, as the last of the Romans. There is some credence to this. Although he was part of the 'Roman east,' he did attempt to regain some of the 'Roman west'. His generals even successfully battled the Ostrogoths and the Vandals. However, it would be inaccurate to consider his successors to be part of 'Rome'. Especially since the Byzantine empire flourished for almost a thousand years after western Rome fell.

According to the 18th century historian, Edward Gibbon, Rome fell because of persistent invasion from barbarians. Gibbon felt that the adoption of Christianity had somehow 'emasculated' Rome and left it open to more 'virile' conquerers — indeed, the period between 200 CE and 600 CE was marked by incursions from the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Huns, and Vandals. This was undoubtedly destabilizing for Rome and was one of the contributing factors for its decline. However, it's not at all obvious that Christianity was responsible for this. Gibbon's explanation also ignores other important factors.

One extremely significant event was the battle of Hadrianople in 378 CE. At this battle,  the emperor Valens and around 10000 of his soldiers were killed in a single day by the Goths. This allowed the gradual invasion of Rome by external forces and culminated in the deposition of Romulus Augustulus. 

All the warfare, combined with natural disasters such as a plague, had also decimated Rome's population and consequently left it weakened.

Around 300 CE and following, there was also a great economic depression because of problems with the slave trade. Rome may have had superior agricultural technology, but in the absence of labor to take care of this technology, it just felt to disuse, which only aided the economic depression.

Oppressive taxation also crippled Rome and undoubtedly let to its decline.

All of these factors can be tied into the growth of a corrupt political system.

So, repeated invasions and the decline in population that went with it, as well as natural disasters, economic depression, and corrupt politics all eventually led to the collapse of Rome.

Now, if you think that there were collapses, perhaps you're referring to various conquests of the city by invading forces — it was the Visigoths in 410 CE and the Vandals in 455 CE. 

This is too complex a topic for a short answer to do it full justice. That's why there are several books on the subject! Here are two recent ones:

Ward-Perkins, Bryan (2005) The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation. Oxford University Press.

Heather, Peter (2005) The Fall of the Roman Empire. Macmillan.

What is xenotransplantation?

Indications and Procedures

The transplantation of organs from human donors to human recipients has been established practice in medicine since the first successful kidney transplant was performed in 1954. Its applications have been limited, however, for two major reasons. First, the demand for human-donated organs always exceeds the supply. Second, the human body naturally rejects transplants. When the immune system recognizes compounds on the surfaces of cells from any source that is “not self,” a chain reaction begins. Antibodies attack foreign proteins and mark them for destruction by white blood cells. Enzymes attack the walls of blood vessels in a transplanted organ, destroying it within hours. To prevent rejection, transplant recipients must take immunosuppressive drugs for months or years. Blocking their immune response, however, makes transplant patients susceptible to infections, some of which can be deadly.

Xenotransplantation—the transfer of cells, tissues, or organs from nonhuman animal donors to human recipients for therapeutic purposes—might solve both of these problems. A large supply of organs can, in theory, be farmed in animals such as pigs. Also, theoretically, organs can be tailor-made to prevent rejection. Genetic engineering
techniques should be able to replace animal proteins and sugars on the surfaces of cells with human ones, thus creating an organ that the recipient’s immune system is tricked into accepting as “self.”

This genetic engineering is accomplished by transferring genes from humans to animals specially bred and farmed to serve as organ donors. To achieve this, a fertilized egg is removed from the uterus of a female donor animal. Next, human protein-coding genes are inserted into the nucleus of the fertilized egg. Finally, the egg is returned to the animal’s uterus and allowed to develop normally. If the human genetic material is preserved and activated, then the cells of the animal that develops from the egg will manufacture human proteins on the surfaces of its cells.

Uses and Complications

One concern about xenotransplantation is that new diseases might be introduced into humans from other animals. All animals carry endogenous viruses
that are part of their genetic makeup. Endogenous viruses are harmless in their natural hosts, but they can prove deadly when they cross from one species to another. For example, the Hong Kong flu virus lay harmlessly in waterbirds for many years. It then struck chickens and caused massive deaths on poultry farms, and now it infects and sometimes kills people. How the virus migrated to humans remains unknown. Also, diseases can be minor in some animals but major in humans. The herpesvirus B is one example. It gives monkeys mild cold sores but causes fatal encephalitis in people. The concern is that a virus imported into the human population through xenotransplantation might subsequently spread through other means, such as blood, air, water, or
food.

Issues of morality, ethics, and religion also arise. Although the genetic makeup of other primates most closely matches that of humans, many people believe that using apes and monkeys as organ donors would be morally unacceptable. One answer to such objections is to use animals that are routinely raised and slaughtered for food. Pigs are easy to breed and care for, and they produce large litters. Their size and weight are similar to humans. Few people object to killing pigs. Much xenotransplantation research involves the development of pigs as potential organ donors. If pig cells can be induced to display human proteins on their surfaces, then the human body will, in theory, accept organs donated from them.

Animals used as transplant donors could not come from ordinary farms because the possibility of transferring infections would be too great. The animals would need to be raised in germ-free medical facilities. Animal rights advocates condemn organ farms as cruel. Despite such objections, public opinion supports further research on xenotransplantation. In a 1998 survey sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation, nearly two-thirds of respondents judged xenotransplantation an acceptable alternative to human donor transplants.

Perspective and Prospects

Xenotransplantation is not a new idea. In 1906, with no knowledge of the immune system, French surgeon Mathieu Jaboulay transplanted a kidney from a pig and a liver from a goat to human patients, both of whom died. In 1964, Thomas Starzl at the University of Pittsburgh transplanted baboon kidneys into two humans. Both patients died from infections accompanied by kidney failure. That same year, a chimpanzee-to-human transplant fared a little better. The patient lived for nine months before the kidney failed.

In 1984, a child the press called “Baby Fae” was born prematurely with a severely malformed heart. She could not live long without a transplant. No human heart small enough was available, so surgeons at Loma Linda University in California gave Baby Fae the heart of a baboon. The operation went well, but Fae died of organ rejection and infection after the surgery.

In 1992, two liver transplants from baboons were attempted. The livers functioned well, but the patients died from infections. That same year, two women received livers from pigs. The transplants were not meant to be permanent but were intended as “bridges” until human donors could be found. In both women, the livers functioned well, but one woman died before a human organ could be located.

In 1995, British scientists succeeded in transplanting pig hearts into monkeys. Half the monkeys survived for forty days, but long-term survival was not achieved, and attempts to transplant whole organs declined after that. Instead, researchers turned to cell transplants. Since 1995, brain cells from pigs have been used with some success in the experimental treatment of people with Parkinson’s disease. In 2002, researchers in Virginia announced that they had successfully bred pigs lacking a specific sugar molecule on their cell surfaces known to trigger the rejection response in humans. Xenotransplantation advocates hope that this and similar developments will spur further progress in the field.

Bibliography

Brynie, Faith Hickman. 101 Questions About Your Immune System You Felt Defenseless to Answer . . . Until Now. Brookfield, Conn.: Twenty-first Century Books, 2000.

Cooper, David K. C., and Robert P. Lanza. Xeno: The Promise of Transplanting Animal Organs into Humans. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Fovargue, Sara. Xenotransplantation and Risk: Regulating a Developing Biotechnology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Munson, Ronald. Raising the Dead: Organ Transplants, Ethics, and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

"Organ Transplantation." MedlinePlus, May 23, 2013.

Schicktanz, Silke, et al. Teaching Ethics in Organ Transplantation and Tissue Donation. Akron, Ohio: University of Akron Press, 2011.

Tramper, Johannes, and Yang Zhu. Modern Biotechnology: Panacea or New Pandora's Box? Wageningen, the Netherlands: Wageningen Academic Publishers, 2011.

"Xenotransplantation." US Food and Drug Administration, Feb. 4, 2010.

Why is the hens' rebellion significant? a. It is an allegorical reference to the rebellion Stalin faced from wealthy peasant farmers, and it...

The hens' rebellion is significant because it shows the deteriorating situation of the farm. Napoleon is getting greedier and more powerful. The lives of the "lower" animals suffer as a result. When the hens rebel, this suggests that Napoleon's regime has become as bad as the situation under Mr. Jones. So, the original rebellion has resulted in a return to oppressive conditions. Some would argue that in the novel, or with the historical allegory with Russia, the situation has gotten worse. 

This event in the novel is an allegory of a similar mutiny during the Stalinist regime. With Stalin's first five-year plan, he ordered peasants to give up crops and livestock to sell internationally. Some peasants rebelled, choosing to burn their crops and kill their livestock rather than turn them over. Eighty-two percent of the population were peasants so the design of collectivization was to unite and industrialize that large group. So, "B" is the most logical answer. The hens' rebellion is an allegory of the rebellion of peasant farmers. And it does show how Napoleon has become more like Jones with each passing day. It would be more appropriate to say that it was daring and dangerous for the hens and/or peasants to rebel. Calling such a rebellion "foolish" implies it was illogical or stupid to do so. But the rebellion was a logical response to oppression. So, it was logical but dangerous.