How can I summarize Junot Diaz's The Dreamer?

Junot Diaz's essay The Dreamer is about Diaz's mother's desire to get an education as a young girl.
 
Diaz uses the first part of the essay to describe his mother. He mentions that she now lives in a nice house in New Jersey and enjoys feeding the squirrels in her backyard. In contrast to that, though, he also describes the way she grew up poor and even refers to her as "the kind of Dominican girl who was destined never to get off the mountain or out of the campo" (Diaz). 
 
He then recounts the way his grandmother expected his mother to work on the family's farm indefinitely unless, of course, she got married. When caring for the field hands, though, his mother realized that she wanted to become a nurse. However, she had no education and her mother did not support the idea of her obtaining one. 
 
That said, a few months later, Trujillo, the country's dictator at the time, mandated that all children under 15 be educated. If parents didn't obey the law, they could face imprisonment, but Diaz's grandmother didn't seem to care. So, in a last ditch effort, Diaz's mother drank water from a puddle in order to make herself sick.
 
Her family was planning on moving further up into the hills for seasonal work and eventually they decided they weren't going to wait for her to get better, so they left without her. As soon as her family left, Diaz's mother ran to the schoolhouse and reported her own mother. At one point, the grandmother tried to take the girl out of school and back into the hills but the police put her in handcuffs and Diaz's mother remained free to get her education. 
 
Diaz ends the essay informing the readers that his mother was never actually able to become a nurse because they immigrated to the United States and she was never able to learn English, despite trying very hard.
 
However, he then states that he currently works as a professional writer and attributes all of his success to her. He says he believes that, "who I am as an artist, everything that I've ever written, was possible because a seven-year-old girl up in the hills of Azua knelt before a puddle, found courage in herself and drank" (Diaz).
 
He goes on to conclude the essay, saying that he thinks of his mother's courage whenever he needs inspiration or faces hardship in his art. 

What is the dramatic importance of the coat episode in Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw?

The coat in Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw serves as a plot device. It gives Captain Bluntschli an excuse to revisit Raina to return the coat without explicitly stating that he has a romantic interest in her.       

The plot device of Raina putting a picture of herself in the pocket of the coat serves as a way for Shaw to make fun of the way romantic tokens are handled in melodrama. While in a melodrama or sensation novel, such a love token would have been pivotal in both plot development and relationship development, as the romantic Raina hopes, the pragmatic Captain Bluntschli doesn't even notice its presence. 

The photograph does, however, serve to make Raina's father aware of the relationship, because he has found the photograph and is curious about why it is inscribed:

Raina, to her Chocolate Cream Soldier: a Souvenir.

Thus familial pressure and discovery prompt Captain Bluntschli to admit that he loves Raina and move the plot towards its resolution of a happy marriage between him and Raina. 

Was the killing of Julius Caesar moral or not moral?

This is a major debate throughout the play. Brutus fears that Caesar will become king, which would destroy the republic of Rome and turn it into a monarchy. It is a possibility: Mark Antony offers Caesar the crown three times in front of a cheering crowd, and Casca claims that the people would praise Caesar even if he “had stabbed their mothers.”

Brutus spends much of Julius Caesar convincing himself to kill his friend. He worries about whether power would corrupt Caesar: “He would be crown'd: / How that might change his nature, there's the question.” Perhaps making him king would “put a sting in him.” Brutus decides that killing Caesar is not personal: “Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers ... / We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar.”

At Caesar’s funeral, Brutus and Antony give speeches that support and condemn Caesar’s murder. Brutus announces that he cared for Caesar: “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” He killed him for the Roman people, not for himself. (The other conspirators do not seem to have such noble motives.)

Antony argues that Caesar was a dear friend, to him and the people of Rome. Caesar refused the crown the three times it was offered, a sign that he wasn’t as ambitious as Brutus claimed. Caesar also donated money to every Roman citizen in his will, again demonstrating that maybe he was a more salutary than dangerous to the Roman people.

Even if Caesar did aim for the throne, there is also the question as to whether it is moral to conspire to murder one’s friend for political purposes. Antony emphasizes Brutus’s personal betrayal of Caesar:

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all…

Unfortunately for Brutus, Caesar is not simply an idea. He is a man. When the conspirators stabbed him, Caesar had not yet taken the throne or been corrupted by it. Brutus is tormented by guilt, and Rome is eventually ruled by a series of emperors. Perhaps he was on the right side of history by aiming for a more equal society, but Brutus as well as the republic of Rome could not live with the decision that Brutus made.

How to find the minimum value of a function f(x)=x^2-5 ?

Find the minimum value of f(x)=x^2-5:

(1) If you have calculus, the minimum can only occur at a critical point of the function. Since this is a polynomial the function is continuous and differentiable everywhere, so we find where the first derivative is zero:

2x=0 ==> x=0. Since f(0)=-5 the minimum is -5 and occurs at x=0.

(2) If you do not have calculus, you can proceed numerically/algebraically, or graphically:

(a) The graph of the function is a parabola. Since the leading coefficient is positive, the parabola opens up and has a minimum at the vertex. There are multiple ways to identify the vertex; one way is if the function is written in standard form take `x=(-b)/(2a) ` ; since b=0 we have x=0 as the x-coordinate of the vertex, f(0)=-5 so the minimum is -5 at x=0.

(b) Numerically, see that `x^2>=0 ==> x^2-5>=-5 ` with equality at x=0.

The graph:

If the answer to the Sphinx's riddle is not just man but Oedipus himself, may the answer to Oedipus's question "Who am I?" pertain not only to...

The answer that Oedipus gives to the Sphinx is indeed a universal one. All humans start out as babies completely dependent upon their elders for their very survival, mature and develop strength and independence, and then age and become more feeble, reduced again to the state of dependence. 

This generic account of humanity is even more pertinent to Oedipus than to most people. As an infant, he was condemned to be exposed on a mountain and his feet pierced. Through the kindness of a servant, he was placed in a loving and nurturing household and grew into a strong and powerful man. After he blinds himself, he is instantly reduced again to a state of dependency. 

This cycle of human life applies to all of us to a degree, as does our having some special relationships with our parents that form us. The notion of a curse suggests that we are brought into a world in which much of our fate is determined by things external to us. Sophocles seems to be suggesting that we cannot escape our fate no matter how much we struggle. Oedipus only finds peace in another play by Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, after he has embraced his fate and seen how even his curse can be turned to something beneficial. 

What is textual evidence of censorship/ book banning in Fahrenheit 451?

In the opening paragraph, the narrator describes Montag's joy in burning books: 

He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning. 

In his first conversation with Clarisse, she asks Montag if he's ever read any of the books he's burned. He laughs and replies, "That's against the law!" He goes on, saying, "It's fine work. Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn 'em to ashes, then burn the ashes. That's our official slogan." 

In a later conversation with Beatty, Montag expresses how the firemen would feel if they had books and if someone burned those books. Beatty responds that they have no books and then asks Montag if he has some. Montag says "No" and then he "gazed beyond them to the wall with the typed lists of a million forbidden books." 

Montag is particularly affected by the woman who chooses to burn with her books. In describing the traumatic event to Millie, he bluntly says, "We burned a thousand books. We burned a woman." After this, Montag becomes more and more curious about books. 

In a later discussion, Beatty notes that if a fireman does dare to take a book, the firemen give him twenty-four hours to satisfy his curiosity and then burn the book. If he doesn't, the firemen will come and burn it for him. 

There are many other references to the practice of book banning and burning in this novel. Look at discussion between Montag and Faber, Montag and Beatty, and other descriptions in which the narrator describes how the society is oppressed. 

Why are cells and cell processes important to humans and the environment?

According to the cell theory, cell is the basic unit of life and all living things are composed of cells. Cells are capable of carrying out all the life processes, though maybe not as complex as higher organisms. All of our bodily functions are carried out by cells. Human beings are complex organisms and require complex systems (such as circulatory, respiratory, reproductive, etc.) to carry out the tasks required for maintenance and growth of human body. Each of these complex systems is composed of organs, which are made up of tissues, which in themselves are made up of cells performing similar functions. Think about our nervous system, which is made up (ultimately) of nerve cells. Cells are also important for our environment. An example is the process of cellular respiration, during which cells break down glucose and generate carbon dioxide and ATP molecules. Through this process, cells generate carbon dioxide, which is a necessary ingredient of photosynthesis (the process which produces food and oxygen for us). Carbon dioxide also causes greenhouse effect and ensure the warm temperature on Earth. 

A number of other examples can also be thought of.

Hope this helps.