British Television Essay

Soap opera is the most popular genre of television programming across the globe and has been the leading favourite of British television for the past forty-six years. The trend evolved from the radio soap operas of the 1930s and 1940s, surfacing first in the United States and later spreading across the world. It attracted large audiences consisting mainly of female listeners and with the growing popularity of television it soon became firmly rooted on the screen. The long running Coronation Street was the first British soap opera to make a significant impact on UK drama in 1960s. Its aim was to target mainly working class people in creating a microcosm of the working world we live in, focusing on realism as opposed to the escapism forms of the American soaps. In order to conclude on whether the dominance of this genre is beneficial or detrimental to the future welfare of British drama, I’m going to study the pros and cons of soap opera as a form of British Television. Over the years soap operas have been continuously praised and condemned by the general public and despite of its popularity the genre continues to carry the connotation of a degraded cultural form of television drama. There is the common belief that soap operas are for those with simple tastes and limited capacities, for the content and style of them are unable to truly challenge the viewers in the same way that the more serious single drama can. However, it is a known fact that soap opera is the most complex narrative form of all television drama requiring prior knowledge from its audience. David Buckingham (Public Secrets: ‘EastEnder’s’ and its Audience) mentions the mental demands that soap operas require from a viewer focusing on the ability to recall past events when cued, to look into the future and speculate about forth coming events and to use the multi-plot narrative for ‘lateral reference’. Hence although the content may not be truly challenging it would be wrong to say that soap operas require nothing from their audiences for it is a general assumption that the average viewer is a ‘fan’ of the show. Yet, it has been labelled as little more than â€Å"chewing gum for the eyes† (Richard Kilborn in Television Soaps), a harmful and corrupting product of broadcasting that feeds the soap viewers’ addictions with the so-called mindless forms of entertainment they offer. Issues of ‘influence over audience’ and the affects that the content may have on its viewers cause much controversy. There is the belief that as an active audience we are in control and therefore choose whether we watch something more challenging or something that we can watch unfold in front of us, no questions required. For this reason we also have the ability to see what’s real and what isn’t, and yet, we have the concern of â€Å"cultivation differential†, where the viewer begins to accept the values portrayed in the soap operas as their own, or more so than the values of the world we live in. We must ask ourselves then whether soap operas are an accurate portrait of life today and with regards to this, how harmful can the programmes be if the audience begins to take the soap’s values as their own? British soaps are watched for their realism having become our â€Å"virtual communities, doing more to break down social and class boundaries than any government leader could ever do† (Mal Young, BBC Television’s head of drama series). They cover a diverse range of issues, in particular domestic, from storylines of health, relationships, business and family, to the ever so popular murder and death. Based, for the most part, on problems experienced within personal relationships and family life the content of the soap is fundamentally humanised, and thus we find the lifestyles led on screen are not so different from our own. They attempt to represent the realities of a working class life and confront many of the problems faced in our society, exploring all the different possibilities and affects of such struggles but never claiming to offer a single solution. The realism of these soaps is emphasised more so by the reasonably slow pace at which the narrative is allowed to progress appearing more or less to be ‘unravelling’ in real time. Viewers can often identify with the stereotype characters of the drama series that become almost existent to them. However, there are much bigger dramas in our world than domestic murder and by resorting to melodrama it’s as if we are choosing a more safe and cosy view of society. So, should our soap operas be more demanding of their audiences, and should they be tackling greater issues becoming more like the golden ages of television when the programmes were revolutionary, making an impact on the viewers? I would argue that times have changed and soap operas, whether focusing on realism or glamorous escapism, are a form of harmless therapy for viewers to turn to, becoming a part of that world and forgetting theirs. It is in single drama that we look to be challenged and if soaps began to address the more serious issues, encouraging us to question and think then I feel the need for single drama would soon disappear. It’s not so much the form or content of soap operas that may be detrimental to future welfare of British drama, but the way is dominates our television schedules. The real danger is that other forms of drama with perhaps more important/ meaningful messages may be overlooked and that is where we may lose revolutionary television. It’s alarming how many hours of soaps and docu-soaps (reality programmes) are â€Å"choking up vast swathes of airtime like pondweed† (Adam Sweeting: Soap Springs Eternal: Guardian website). The former values of Lord Reith seem almost non-existent, for the once precious airtime to show variety is now seen as a mere tool for audience shares. The domination of this phenomenon has led television companies to believe that the somewhat cheap and open ended formats of soap operas are a much safer option than striving to make new original programmes with a challenging voice. â€Å"The soaps do what they do well, but that doesn’t mean that should be the only form of drama on T. V, or that they should be the only sources of good, interesting actors† (Christine Geraghty ). Soap operas are beneficial in that they tackle the smaller issues in our society leaving room for other forms of drama to make greater impacts with more challenging storylines, confronting the greater political issues like terrorism and racism. The fact that soap operas are continuous and avoid narrative closure would make it more difficult, I believe, to create a strong drama series about a deeply serious and ongoing issue. They are good at showing the domestic issues that many encounter and should rest at that. What is destructive to the welfare of British drama is that television companies are now avoiding more challenging storylines and forms of drama with the fear that they will lose money. Soap operas can easily recover but a single drama either works or ‘flops’. I feel that a balance is needed in that we have our intake of soap operas but there are so many crowding our television airtime that any more would be a waste and hinder other forms of more serious drama. I find myself also questioning the continuity of its popularity, for if there are too many soap operas then we see the same issues occurring again and again. The interest may soon die as we seek for more challenging material and thus, the necessity for a balance is vital, in having airtime for escaping into another world, realistic or not, without having to think to much, and having time for the more serious programmes where we are left questioning.

Edgar Degas Research

Edgar Degas was both a man and an artist of contradictions. The French artist, paint err, and sculptor Edgar Degas was born on July 19, 1834 in Paris, France. Degas died September 27, 1917 in Paris, France. Degas is associated historically with the Impressionists because of his concentration on scenes of contemporary life and he never painted outdoors and rarely depicted landscape and also his desire to capture the transitory moment. Degas surpassed other impressionists in compositional sense; his use of vibrant expressive color became his primary concern in his late works. Degas was one of the first to understand and creatively use the new pictorial possibilities offered by photography and Japanese prints. With that being said, in describing the physical characteristics of one of Degas’s most famous still life paintings, was titled â€Å"Woman with Chrysanthemums†, painted in the year 1865. The medium used was oil on canvas and the scale was 29†x 361/2†. The subject is a female figure depicted sitting at the right side of a table with a bouquet of flowers in the center and also a glass pitcher of water with gloves placed beside the glass pitcher. The painting is objective, and it is because the huge bouquet of flowers opens the viewer’s eye and draws one into the still life painting dominating almost overshadowing the figure. As an artist Degas utilized several major elements of art in his still life famous painting, â€Å"Woman with Chrysanthemums†, therefore, one of the major elements utilized was use Lines. Degas utilized lines in his painting of the table and the open window at the right side of the painting. A second element of art utilized in this painting was the use Color. Degas uses bright spots of color in the bouquet, yellow, red, and specifically white, mostly the general coloring of the painting was subdued, with shades of brown being the predominate coloring. Degas utilized a third element of art being Space. Degas captured the look of Japanese prints and influenced Degas’s painting, as Japanese also is the shallowness of the space, accented by the flowered wallpaper to the left of the picture. A fourth major element utilized in Degas’s â€Å"Woman with Chrysanthemums† described is use Mass. The artist utilized mass with the fullness of the massive bouquet of flowers. Degas utilized the element of texture brilliantly in his rendering of the colorful bouquet of mums. In describing how Degas organized the elements with the principles of design, firstly, unity and variety is utilized with the consistency of color throughout the painting. The mass bouquet of flowers dominates the center, the flowered wall paper behind the table and the flowers that are seen through the open window on the right of the painting. Utilizing another one of the elements of art and principles of design, Degas utilized Balance in this particular painting. Degas placed the woman figure at the far right where she occupies less than a third of the composition, her body cut in half by the picture’s edge. The mass of flowers dominates the center, and the glass pitcher and the lady’s gloves casually tossed on the table, help to balance the composition, which in turn acts as a visual foil to the figure. Emphasis is utilized in the painting as Degas captured the visual appearance, an impression of the inner mood of the woman staring off in to space, her cheek resting on her hand, looking as though she is lost in reflection and unaware of the encroaching bouquet of Chrysanthemums. Directional Forces utilized are using the implied lines for the viewer’s eye to follow the beautiful colors throughout the painting. Also, another way the artist utilized elements with the principles would be through Contrast. The difference between the artist’s use of light and dark throughout his painting. In describing how Degas organized the elements with the principles of design, Repetition and Rhythm with the vivid colors of the flowers flow through and gives the composition unity. Moving along describing the organized elements with the principles of design, scale and proportion, in which the figure of the woman compared to the enormous still life. Degas was influenced by the Impressionist during his time, and also he had formed some friendships. Most importantly Edgar Degas was highly influenced by the Japanese prints and photography. He also carried over the Japanese influence and used the symbolic flower of Japan, once known as The Land of Chrysanthemums in his paintings. Furthermore, Degas created many daring compositional innovations. His study of Japanese prints led him to experiment with unusual visual lines and asymmetrical compositions. His subjects would often seem cropped at the edges, or seemed to appear to be accidental cutoff views and off-centered subjects, as in Woman with Chrysanthemums. Moreover, Degas’s content and meaning of the selection was the woman in the painting staring off into space, her cheek resting on her hand, lost in deep thought unaware of the dominating bouquet of Chrysanthemums. In conclusion, Edgar Degas’s painting of â€Å"Woman with Chrysanthemums† was chosen because of its unusual and unique composition. Also, the unusually unbalanced painting made curiosity prevail. The asymmetrical principle of design and accidental cutoff views were intriguing as to why Edgar Degas painted as he once did long ago. Personally liking Chrysanthemums and beautiful bouquets of flowers made the painting easy to choose for the essay. Edgar Degas truly was both a man and an artist of contradictions.

ICT Mathematics Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

ICT Mathematics Project - Essay Example Averages The mean, median and mode are the measures to determine the central tendency of test data. As the data sets are not grouped the mean is achieved through summing all values (x) of the test data and dividing by the total number of values (n) i.e. 500. Similarly the median for ungrouped data is estimated by finding the middle value of the test data when arranged in ascending order. Mode for ungrouped data is found by spotting out the most occurring value of the data set. In this case, mode for house is 146, while that for car is 0. Table 1 Mean, Median and Mode of Raw Datasets House Car Mean 354.174 276481.878 Median 359 217174 Mode 146 0 Using mode we can know which value mostly contributes in the mean value estimated. Standard Deviation and Variation Mean, median and mode give limited information about the data. E.g. two data sets having the same mean may be broadly apart in their value from one another. So, the measures of Standard Deviation (s) and Variation (v) were used t o estimate how far each value of the dataset is from the mean of the dataset. The high standard deviation and variance values of the car data indicates the wide spread of data from the mean. The relatively smaller standard deviation and variance value of the house indicates that the data lies relatively close on either sides of the mean as compared to the car. As the data sets are ungrouped, the formula used for estimating standard deviation was: Squaring the value of standard deviation gives us the Variation. Table 2 Variance and Standard Deviation of Raw Datasets House (in 10,000rmb) Car Variance 39872.45172 69623323280 Standard Deviation 199.6808747 263862.3188 Standard Deviation and Variance is used to understand what a normal value is for a data set. For example, using the mean value of House from Table 1 (i.e. 354) and considering the above table, the value of 199 indicates that all data values that generate SD value as 199 are normal values. Any value outside this range is co nsidered as an outlier i.e. House value is either too low or too high. Range and IQR The mean, median, mode, standard deviation and variance are not able to indicate the spread of the data. So, Range and IQR are two measures of spread. Through range of house and car, we would know the difference of the lowest and highest values. In case we wish to know the median of the middle 50% of data, we would use the Interquartile Range. This specialized version of range would tell us the difference of the middle values of the first and third halves (25th and 75th percentile) of the data that is arranged in ascending order. Table 3 gives the range and IQR of the datasets. Table 3 Range and IQR of Raw Datasets    House Car Range 689 998897 Q1 180 72017.5 Q3 515 339674.75 IQR 335 267657.25 The value of Range of car tells us the difference of the lowest and highest value of the entire data set. IQR, on the other hand, provides us with the range of only the middle 50% subset of the dataset. Diff erence of the two measures from Standard Deviation is that as SD considers all data points, so the effect of any outlier data points is accounted for as well while estimating the mean which is undesirable. With range the spread estimated is intended to include the outlier data points. With IQR, as only the middle points of data portions are considered, the extreme or outlier data points are ignored, unlike the standard deviation. Scatter Plot of Raw

Credibility of Media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Credibility of Media - Essay Example Media credibility is the condition of believability or acceptance of its truthfulness or untruthfulness from the point of view of its audience (Starcks and Salwen, 2009), and may be expressed as a level or percentage of acceptance as in number of respondents answering in the affirmative or negative. For purposes of this paper and to enable an adventure into the pros and cons of the thesis statement, media shall be deemed to enjoy some reasonable acceptance by its publics, given that it has enjoyed public viewing since time unknown. Hence, the question: Is media becoming less and less credible? Recently, CBS News released the results of a survey by Pew Research Center for the People and the Press of people’s perception of media taken sometime in 2009 (CBSNews, 2009). The survey indicated that nearly two-thirds of Americans think that the news stories that they read, hear and watch are frequently inaccurate (CBSNews, 2009). The Center described these results as the highest level of skepticism ever recorded since 1985 when the first study was conducted. Other studies such as this would be presented in this paper to provide a wide-angle picture of the issue of credibility in media. It is the purpose of this paper to take this closer look at media in its most common forms and analyse critically the trend it is taking insofar as its acceptability to the public is concerned. The paper shall present secondary information to support its thesis regarding this media direction and provide some observations and conclusions that may add insight and value the literature available on the matter. Media Credibility What is media and what does it mean to most people? The concept of media traces back to the times old as far back as Aristotle. History is abundant in treatment of the development of media as it captures the essence of life in what is to be known as civilization. Man always looked for vehicles that would translate his ideas and values. In the early times, these representations could be found in the primitive expressions etched in stones and later, as the medium developed, in the traditional media. The theories varied but generally focused on source, message and audience type, and the issue has been the audience’s trust as a result of the audience’s knowing what is true (Stacks and Salwen, 2009). Media, then, according to Mayo and Nohria (2005), pertained largely to its use mostly by advertisers as communication vehicles for

Write introduction about skydivers and paratroopers and various laws Essay

Write introduction about skydivers and paratroopers and various laws of conservation that work in this case - Essay Example The laws of conservation are applicable in this technique because of the transfer of energy to other parts of the body. One should place their feet together, bend their knees, and tip over to a chosen side just as the ground is touched. Through this, the weight of the fall does not concentrate on the feet, rather it spreads throughout the body. Momentum gained during a fall depends on mass and velocity. The longer the time taken to land, the lesser the impact, and in consequence, bending knees is an effort to elongate the period of the force of impact. A longer period of impact scientifically means that the effects of the impact are transferred and reduced. If a paratrooper or skydiver hits the ground with legs unfolded, he/she may break a bone or suffer worse injuries because of the sudden impact of force (Mei-Dan & Carmont, 2012). If the knees are bent, and one moves towards either side, the force of impact happens in a longer period, which is less deleterious to the person landing. In physics, the term conservation means that there is no loss in energy, only that it is transferred through objects without net change in the energy. It is necessary to roll as much as possible to ensure that the energy is tolerably transferred in the process of landing. Apart from mild and serious injury, poor landing causes unnecessary embarrassment to a paratrooper or a skydiver. For this reason, there are diverse safety measure that skydivers and paratroopers must take to ensure successful landing. It is necessary to understand basic factors such as terrain, wind direction, an oscillation of the paratrooper or skydiver. These factors often vary and no matter the intensity of training given (Orlick, 2014), without proper information on natural factors, landing may be catastrophic. Injuries are common on the ankles, but necessary security measures must also be taken to protect the torso,

Write a report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Write a report - Essay Example Quality needs to go upstream because of the shared responsibility of every player in the supply chain. Deming’s TQM philosophy encompasses not just the visible aspects of the sales process but also the unseen tasks that contribute towards the quality of a product. The traditional method of quality control was laborious and unproductive because it slowed down output and was also very unreliable at getting rid off defective products. The new way of thinking is to locate defective products earlier in the supply chain, which saves valuable time and resources. Increasing quality upstream only works to a point. Quality needs to be located all throughout the supply except with an emphasis upstream. Rework can not only be expensive for a firm, but it can demoralize employees because their efforts are seen to go to waste. Communication between top management and workers is crucial to ensure that rework is only used when it is vital to the objectives of the organization. Crown Audio has recognized the effect that rework can have on employees, and so the company has attempted to make everyone throughout the organization focus on producing high quality products, and if products need to be reworked, then employees are informed about

Management of Processes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Management of Processes - Essay Example However, the pressure of globalization and foreign competition had a big impact on the revenues of these companies (Emmons, Garry 2006). Lack of vision, corporate bureaucracy, bloated product lines or overcapacity, and lack of proper business management process started pulling down the sales of the American auto majors. Where the American auto companies lost, The Japanese auto major - Toyota - gained. Toyota acquired a significant market share by exporting attractive, low-cost, fuel-efficient vehicles to America. The Japanese auto giant achieved this by focusing on refreshing their products and having the flexibility in their factories. It stressed on the importance of lean manufacturing process and evolved the Toyota Production System (TPS). The company prefers to customize existing systems and equipment rather than installing the latest fancy technology. Their plants are in a state of continual improvement and repurposing, with input from everybody. Toyota uses technology not only in the manufacturing process, but also in engineering and designing. The objective of the 14 Principles of the Toyota Way is to base management decisions on a philosophical sense of purpose and think long term, to have a process for solving problems, to add value to the organization by developing its people, and to recognize that continuously solving root problems drives organizational learning (Liker, J. 2004). Behind Toyota's assembly line are sophisticated information systems supporting and enabling the business processes that help the automaker eliminate waste, limit inventory buildup and continually improve production. The main idea behind this business process management [BPM] is to blend machine-to-machine and human-to-machine connections to improve efficiency. What drives Toyota is its presumption of imperfection. The management encourages its work force to design and implement processes that help in getting it right the first time by reducing errors. It stress on continuous improvement and a pervasive lack of complacency with whatever was accomplished yesterday. B200 - Understanding Business: Processes Business organizations are considered as complex assemblies of interrelated sets of activities in which inputs are converted into outputs. This section helps us understand how business organizations apply the systems theory to perform their activities. It focuses on the importance of processes, and the resources that are needed for organizational success. Business management is now a systematic, methodical process that guarantees efficiency and effectiveness. Dr. Fahad Al Mekrad has discussed this topic at length in one of his works (B200 - Understanding Business: Processes). Transformation Process Model Organizations perform as systems and all parts the organization are operations. Organizations can either be 'closed or 'open' systems. Closed systems are completely self-supporting, while open systems interact with their environment. Open systems receive inputs from their environment, convert these inputs into outputs, and discharge their outputs into their environment. All operations are based on this input-transformation-output model. Competing on Capabilities The building blocks of corporate strategy are not products and markets, but

Costs of benefits Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Costs of benefits - Essay Example This paper gives an analysis of the results obtained from StopNShop Today Inc especially on the competitiveness of its benefits package and the benefits it accrues from the package. As much as it is of a necessity for any organization to conform its benefits package to the prevailing ones within the economy it operates, it is also ethical that organizations make their packages more attractive and above their competitors so as to retain the best of human resource within the market (Barnow et al, 2013). The review report from StopNShop Today Inc study review of its packages reveals an interesting trend within the organization. More weight is given to wages and salaries as in forms the core of the organization’s incentive to its employees. This is followed by the total costs incurred on benefits to the employees with the rest given very little weight. Of more interest is the allocation to retirement and the savings that come with it. It is the least area over which the company allocates its resources. The trend within the U.S economy is of greater interest and explains further the recent decision by major organizations to review their benefits packages (Barnow et al, 2013). As of the year 2004 towards the year 2008, the general of cost allocation to benefits and remunerations was on a declining slope which gives a reflection of the economic times during such periods. Between the year 2008 and 2010 there was a steady increase in the general allocation of resources to benefits and remunerations. Such an action reveals that the companies were experiencing economic boom and thus could easily afford to increase the allocation of their resources to benefits. The general trend in the statistics available at the U.S Bureau of Statistics shows that most organizations do allocate between 40% and 47% of their resources towards the benefits of their employees with the percentage allocated to

Marcel Duchamp and Dada Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Marcel Duchamp and Dada - Article Example The paper "Marcel Duchamp and Dada" discusses dada movement and Marcel Duchamp. What Duchamp hoped to accomplish artistically with ready-mades was to literally call into the question the clichà © that beauty rests entirely within the eye of he who beholds it. Another ready-made of interest was a work that consisted of a bicycle wheel mounted upside down on a kitchen stool titled simply â€Å"Bicycle Wheel.† The very fact that such an exhibit would lead to questioning whether this qualifies as art at all. Question such as those were the primary component that drove Dadaists and it was such a Such were the questions raised by the concepts of Dadaism; this was an innovative step that even today, nearly a century later, the same questions are still capable of being raised. Duchamp and the Dada movement had the purpose of art being viewed from an intellectual perspective as well as a purely visual one; the idea was to confront traditional ideas about the truth and nature of aesthe ticism. Duchamp further defied the traditions of aesthetics and the nature of what qualifies as art with what may be his most famous Dadaist work ever, â€Å"L.H.O.O.Q.†. This takes the iconic image of Leonard Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, perhaps the epitome for most people of the concept of what a work of art is, and transforms it by committing the anti-art act of graffiti upon it in the form of a drawn mustache across the La Giaconda’s enigmatic smile. While the immediate reaction might be that such an act is intended to mock Leonardo himself. and the Mona Lisa specifically. From a Dadaist perspective, however, "L.H.O.O.Q." isn't even intended to an indictment of the work of art that it apparently slanders, but is designed to be a larger attack against such things as how society positions art, as well as how art can exist in a society that has also produced such atrocities of the human condition. A deeper insight into what Duchamp may be saying could be society needs to be more vociferous in their acceptance of artworks that aren't conventionally beautiful. To take this idea to its logical conclusion, of course, would to say that "L.H.O.O.Q" also asks society to look at itself more closely in determining what is beautiful and what is ugly. Dada's confrontational techniques consistently ask the viewer to look more closely as how the works of Duchamp might be appealing even if they are not conventionally compelling. Despite what contemporary society may appear to say, this question is hardly answered to satisfaction. In recent decades, the ideal of beauty has shifted to include any number of unconventional concepts of beauty. Duchamp and the Dada movement asked that the intellectual element of an artwork reach as high a level of importance of visual beauty of it. One fan of art may look at the Mona Lisa's beauty marred by a mustache as distasteful, but that criticism is not just acceptable to the Dadaists but vital. Art should not be judged exclusively on the basis of aesthetics, but from an intellectual perspective as well that takes into consideration such things as the socio-political value the work of art has. What kind of comment does it make on the world that has shaped the artist who created, as well as the opini ons that viewers engage when they critique it. Judging a work of art simply through its visual merits result in a self-imposed limitation on the enjoyment and experience that is possible. Equally true would it be limiting to confuse art with beauty and beauty with art. Ponder this quote from Duchamp himself, "Art may

How does amount of CO2 vary in the places with a high amount of cars Lab Report

How does amount of CO2 vary in the places with a high amount of cars comparing to the fields - Lab Report Example The components of the fields determine the level of consumption that the field uses of the component while the cars release it. Cars release a substantial amount of the carbon dioxide the world environment suffers from (Mintzer. p.202). The study is developed to detail these studies and aid in understanding their effects on the environment. How does the amount of carbon dioxide vary in the places with a high amount of cars comparing to the fields? This question provides a more general approach to the study. A more direct question would include a coverage that includes the activities in an environment and the effect that they have on the volume of carbon dioxide. The question would consider the effect that the presence of cars in an environment would have creating a difference between the amounts of carbon dioxide in the two places. That is the fields and places with many cars. Based on these, the research question therefore would be: What effects does the level of activity in the environment have on the amount of carbon dioxide in relation to the presence of cars and their absence in a field? Places with cars have high carbon dioxide volumes while fields have low carbon dioxide volumes. Considering the volumes that cars emit in carbon dioxide, one discovers that chances prove high that places with many cars have a high carbon dioxide content compared to fields. The study aims at proving this hypothesis. The variables include two aspects that are the amount of carbon dioxide and the place or environment that is between a place with a high amount of cars and fields, which have a small amount of cars. In the study, the level of carbon dioxide provides the dependent variable whose volume depends on the environment and the activity in it in relation to cars. This means the environment is the independent variable. To understand further the effect that

Assess the view that the positions of men Essay Example for Free

Assess the view that the positions of men Essay Over the past few decades the roles of men and women have changed drastically. These changes occur throughout society, within a family or in a relationship. In the past, the most common relationship between the two genders would have been very different, with the men being viewed as more masculine and of higher authority, whereas the women of a society would have been viewed to have a stay at home role, where they would look after children and participate in household chores. During the 1900’s women were seen a minority, where the slightest amount of freedom would have been frowned upon. Nonetheless over the years, as we have developed, so have the different role for both genders, this now consists of sharing jobs equally in a household and around a workplace. The most obvious change within a family would be the amount of work the couple share, both in the household and outside of it. Since the 1960, where the civil rights act was released, it detailed that women were now able to work and should be offered equal opportunities as men, whereas in the past that would have been forbidden. Due to this seismic change, women are now able to provide for themselves, which in the past would have been extremely difficult as they would have essentially been dependent on their partner’s income. Gershuny, a famous sociologist, said that women who work full time would do less of the domestic labour jobs around the house. However statistics show this is incorrect. Women who work full time tend to still do 73% of the household chores, leavening only 27% to the men, who may or may not work full time. An equally significant aspect of this change would be the commercialisation of society today. Commercialisation of society is defined as the new technologies that have been introduced into today’s world in order to allow basic household chores, which would have takes several hours to do, to be completed within a few hours. The commercialisation of basic household necessities means that couples still have time to work and spend time with each other. For women, supermarket food products; means they don’t have to spend hours cooking and preparing food for the family. This would also mean, washing clothes now has become much easier due to the washing machine appliance. Due to this significant improvement, the hours of domestic labour on a woman has decreased a great deal. In spite of this, the commercialisation of products wouldn’t apply to everyone. Working class families or women would be able to afford such expensive items, however this doesn’t quite apply to poorer women; and hence they would suffer with longer hours of household chores. This also doesn’t take into account who uses these appliances; women still load and unload the dishwasher, or wash clothes. Despite having these appliances, it doesn’t necessarily mean these jobs are equally shared; the majority of women still complete them. Consequently, men and women are now becoming more equal when it comes to making decisions as a family. In the past men were off more authority and hence they were the ones that made the more important decisions. Stephen Edgell did a study in 1980 which showed that very important decisions were usually taken by men, important decisions were usually taken jointly however rarely by the wife alone, and lastly less important decisions were usually made by the wife alone. This has changed considerably over the years since the decisions are now shared equally. Pooling (where the couple have access to income and joint responsibility) has increased from 19% to 50%; on the other hand, allowance system (where men give their wives and allowance as a weekly budget) has decreased significantly from 36% to 12%. This shows a clear indication of how the roles have changed, although the increase for pooling was very little, we can judge that eventually role will get even. Moreover, we can see from the past that men and women were given gender scripts. Men were seen to be masculine and of higher standard thus they would work. This was often referred to as the instrumental role, where men were the providers. Women were viewed as having a role solely in the house where they would do household chores. This was often referred to as the expressive role, where women were the homemakers. Nonetheless this can be argued with the concept of homosexual couples. For example within a lesbian couple, they wouldn’t have suited gender scripts and hence would have to negotiate roles equally. Also the idea that now a day’s men aren’t the only providers within a family, women also work and hence can provide for themselves as well as their family. Having considered those points, there are many things to suggest things still need a lot of time in order to improve and become slightly equal. A concept that could argue the progress over the years would be the idea of dual burden which explains the roles women take upon themselves, or in other words are expected to take. Many feminists believe women are now doing two shifts, one at work which is paid work, and eventually returning home to do unpaid work. They believe men benefit from both works, as they receive a steady income as well as a clean house. Some also claim that women do three shifts, also called the triple shift. This is described as emotional work which is role which is usually related to women. Women have an extra unpaid shift where they return home to take care of the rest of the family, also called as the ‘labour of love’. Subsequently, it seems convincing to me that although roles have changed over the years, the change itself is very little because the roles within a family still aren’t as equal. Despite having the same job opportunities, the job of domestic labour in a household are far from equal. Nonetheless I believe roles will eventually change one day where they will be close to equal. However I think roles will never be fully equal.

Analysis Of The Korean War History Essay

Analysis Of The Korean War History Essay The KoreanWar was a military action between north and South Korea for the unifying of the Korean peninsula; both countries have had different ideological agenda under western and eastern ideological power. The republic of Korea (South Korea) was supported by the united nation, NATO, and the USA on the other hand, the democratic people republic of Korea (North Korea) was supported by china and the Soviet Union. The Korean War was a war of west versus the east different philosophy and consideration, but fought far from the major superpower mainland. A war considered as an embarrassment for the international community, many lives were harvested and it did started and ended with accomplishing nothing from the unifying. The Korean peninsula was occupied by the Japaneses for almost 35 years under an iron fest till the defeat of the Japanese in the World War II in 1945. Korean conflict, With Japan on the tremble to surrender, it was necessary for the superpowers to agree upon a future Asian policy that can both assure security for superpower nations and spread principles and influence over strategic zones in the pacific. After the Hiroshima atomic bomb Japan was completely under the US influence which made the soviet deliberate the advantage of occupying Korea, which in adjacent to the communist alley china.At the Potsdam conference, the USA, made plans to invade the Japanese mainland and they have been more than happy to leave Manchuria and Korea to the Soviet Union. But now with war actually coming to sudden end , US urgently reassessed its future interest in Asia and came rapidly to a decision that America must share with the USSR the occupation of Korea (Jeremy Isaacs Taylor Downing, 2008), therefore both soviet union and the USA agreed to secure the Korean peninsula by dividing it to north and south using the 38th parallel, and that the USSR shall occupy the n orth next to it ally china and the US the south, Korea polarized as the two power blocs north and south (Jeremy Isaacs Taylor Downing, 2008). Each countries started to execute the viewpoint systems of their dominate as a consequence in the south foremost nationalist and members of the anti Japanese resistance had formed a provisional government but at least half of them were communist therefore US and the UN called for a free election in which USSR and the communist party disapproved it and boycotted , US government preferred to support a conservative group that was made up of professionals and those educated in America or by American missionaries (Jeremy Isaacs Taylor Downing, 2008). The American had their nominee, Rhee, whom considered a significant assets since he was educated in America and was not tented by the relationship with the Japanese but he was tenaciously against the communist. On the other hand the USSR had, Kim, who opposed the Japanese and participated with the red Armey in the WWII, he was known for viciously putting down all opposition to communist rule. As a result Rhee and his party won the election pole against the communist in the south which escalated the tension between the two Koreas at that time the 38th parallel became an official political border between the south and the north, the communist and the capitalist. As tense increased both sides of the Korean peninsula made major infiltration across the border, in the south communist activist were arrested and imprisoned furthermore in the north anti-communist where put down. Accordingly USSR and US tactically withdrawals from their military zones at the front line leaving only advisors. In China, Mao Ze Dong, have successes in winning the civil war and forming a communist Chinese republic. Maos reviled that the west and America are chines biggest nightmare mentioning the years of humiliation china faced under the last dyne sty of Chinese empire and the colonelcies era of china. The Chinese soviet friendship relation lunched then a new chapter in the cold war I Asia leaving US provoking danger through this relation specially after the soviet successes into breaking the atomic monopoly of the USA, as quoted by Charles Murphy , president Truman special counsel in his respond to the scenarios that might goes, what I read scared me so much that the next day I did not go to the office at all , I sat at home and read this memo over and over wondering what in the world to do about it (Jeremy Isaacs Taylor Downing, 2008). The war, The purpose of unifying Korea was the essential passionate for both Korean leaders; however Kim was more greatly obsessive about it because of the corrupted Rhee government and non-match able military experience. Kremlin was always anxious for the US response also Stalin sought after to respect the mutual treaty with the US, however the crises in Berlin plus to the communist victory in china along with the equivalence atomic power of the US-Soviet stimulated a new calculation that the US response will be carefully measured, Mao Ze Dong, responded to this permission that US would not start a third war over such a small territory (Jeremy Isaacs Taylor Downing, 2008) . June, 25, 1950 an astonishing attack from the North Korean military into the South Korean border, the unmatchable soviet tank and military equipments forced the South Korean forces to withdraw fast for not being able to meet the confront. Immediately the US and the UN requested the international community to condemn the attack and appealed for sending troops into South Korea a demand which challenged by protest from the soviet and Chinese behave. The absence of the soviet from the UN meeting allowed the call to pass. Kim, Mao, and Stalin were surprised from the response of the USA to fight over a small area. However the American did not see it this way, they distinguish a threat for their national security and international order also they predict a prevail of the communist ideology which they had to stop, President Truman quoted we are fighting for our national security and our survival (Jeremy Isaacs Taylor Downing, 2008). June, 28, 1950 after three days from the beginning of the invasion North Korean army entered Seoul, the US army first battalion under the command of general MacArthur landed in Osan tackling the Korean army whom equipped with soviet tools, the first American in the cold war to confront a communist directly were small members unit deployed in the hills near the Korean town Osan (Jeremy Isaacs Taylor Downing, 2008), they admit defeat which was a disaster news to Washington whom ordered general Mac Arthur to send larger troops and start an air strike and navy bombardments. In the first military confrontation of the cold war, solders of the most powerful nation on earth had been humiliated by the soviet equipped troops from a tiny country (Jeremy Isaacs Taylor Downing, 2008), the only success for the UN-US forces were by air strike however kim troops contunied to push the allied forces to the southern corner around a city of Pusan. September, 1950 massive bombardement by the US navy ehich lead north Korean army to trumple, the situation turned in fevaor of the UN-US.rhee and general MacArthur decided to librate the capital seoul first after that they can marsh towards the 38th paraelle . in few weeks both Rhee and the general aimed to re-unite korea quating we have not got this far to stop where the fight began (Jeremy Isaacs Taylor Downing, 2008). October, 1950 US troops crossed the 38th paraelle and advanced into communist territory, pyonyang falls the only communist capital ever to fall to the west in cold war (Jeremy Isaacs Taylor Downing, 2008),as a result china determine to help north korea. November, 1950 chinese lunched full scal asult against US-UN troops, USA wanted to avoid full confortation with china and they also did not want to inviate stailn to the war.therefore they withdrawls to the 38th paraelle line. War tragedy For the two superpowers shows of power ability and military thousands of US and chines solders were sacrificed , both north and south korea lost up to a million in death soldiers and civilians. Koreans economy were disastress and te result is what.

Budgeting Slack Kills All Benefits Of Budgeting Accounting Essay

Budgeting Slack Kills All Benefits Of Budgeting Accounting Essay In an organization when a manager is responsible for planning incomes and expenses for the a future period, they can plan income very low and expenses very high so that this amounts gets approved by senior management. The Manager basically does this thing to be sure of meeting the budget with a very low income goal, the manager should be able to achieve it and go over it. With a very high expense Budget the manager should be able to easily keep actual expenses within the Budget. If this happens the managers performance in the coming year will look very good, as it doesnt really give management any idea of what the coming year will actually look like because its not realistic. And it doesnt show the actual evaluation of the managers performance. So this is known as the Budgetary Slack. In other words the surplus that arises when managers preparing a Budget overestimates costs or underestimates revenues. Most organizations would want to eliminate budget slack but some managers may be motivated to create it to improve their performance evaluations. After realising the meaning and concept of budgetary slack then it points out the key questions like why, for what etc. for the occurrence of this concept. First of all coming to the reality check of why this phenomena is happening, it is evident that it happens due to the fraud action of the concerned manager, that is misrepresentation of the facts and figures in the budgetary report. With a budgetary slack the manager is capable enough to achieve if its showing a very low income target and by exaggerating a high expense budget he is able to hide the actual expense within the budget. thus even though a managers performance in the coming year may look good, the truth is the budget is not showing the original forecasts upon which major decisions should be taken. Mostly companies major decisions and strategies are based on their budgets to a great extent, even factors like firms growth,development,etc. Causes Of Budgetary Slack :- Budgetary Participation :- Agency theory had been used to explain budgetary participation. Magee (1980) explained that the anticipated payoff to principals was increased with access to information held by agents before preparing the budget. By participating in the budget preparation process, the agent gives the principals an opportunity to access information which allows agent to communicate or reveal some of their private information that may be incorporated into the standards or budgets, against which their performance would be evaluated (Magee, 1980;Baiman, 1982; Baiman Evans, 1983).The agents sometimes doesn,t reveal all the information which would lead to budgets with incorporated. Budgetary participation was the means by which subordinate managers influence plans and share in the decision making process with their superiors on matters that affect their areas of responsibility (Milani, 1975;Brownell, 1982a, 1982b). Budget Emphasis :- As Managers are under pressure to achieve there budgeted goals ,in this case there is a chance they would create budgeting slack. This pressure, applied from supervisors was budget emphasis. When the achievements of budgeted goals were emphasized, the normal tendency was to incorporate slack into the firms budgets. The main reason for subordinate managers efforts to build slack in their budgets was to increase their payoff chances. If subordinate managers perceived their rewards as dependent on budget attainment, they would tend to build slack into their budgets through the participation process. Therefore, budget emphasis in performance evaluation may encourage budgetary slack. Information Asymmetry :- Another factor that influences the budgetary slack building behaviour r is the degree of information asymmetry. Information asymmetry arises when the subordinate managers possess private information regarding divisions productivity, effort level, and resource requirements that is not available to the central management. This private information can be used by the subordinates to maximize their self-interest especially when the central management cannot observe the subordinate actions. Subordinates have incentives to misrepresent their private information in order to set easy to achieve budget targets . NEGATIVE SIDE OF BUDGETARY SLACK :- Even though there are positives and negatives for budgetary slack, the negative effects outweigh positive effects .Some of the negative effects are the following:- 1)During good years managers tend to depend on budgetary slack and at bad years these managers tend to convert budgetary slack to profit. That is if a manager behind the profit for the year, the manager will rely on the budgetary slack built into the budget to make the profit goal anyway. But if manager is ahead of profit for the year then the manager will use up the additional money left in the budget because of the budgetary slack built into at the beginning of the year. Thus the managers will rarely, if ever exceed the goals although they will almost always meet their goals but the meeting of the goals will not be real since the goals are not real due to budgetary slack. 2) A deliberately understated sales budget might have serious consequences in planning other activities. For instance, production might be too low; the advertising program and distribution expense budgets may be planned incorrectly; the cash flow plans might be inaccurate. WAYS TO PREVENT BUDGETARY SLACK:- Evaluation system:- Organizations can reduce budgetary slack when they stop using budget as a negative evaluative tool. For instance, instead of criticizing subordinates every time a budgeted target is not achieved, if the subordinates are allowed some discretion to exceed costs when unavoidable, there will be a lesser tendency to create budgetary slack (Smith et al, 2008, p. 460). Truth- inducing pay scheme:- A problem occurs in participative budgeting when a subordinate has private information about factors that influence his or her performance and the pay scheme is budget or standard- based. The employee has an advantage to keep away this information from superiors so that a relatively easy standard is set, thereby creating slack. To eliminate this problem, research proposes a truth- inducing pay scheme to motivate subordinates to accurately communicate private information and maximize performance, thereby reducing budgetary slack (Waller, 2002). Budgetary Participation :-Is an ideal budgetary process. Most companies deviate from this ideal budgetary process. Typically top managers initiate the budget process by issuing broad guidelines in terms of overall target profits or sales. Lower level managers are desired to prepare budgets that meet those targets. The difficulty is that the target set by top managers may be unrealistically high or may allow too much slack. If the budgets are too high and employees know they are unrealistic, motivation will suffer. If the targets allow too much slack, waste will occur. And unfortunately top management is often not in a position to know whether the targets they have set are appropriate. Admittedly, however, a pure self imposed budgeting system is not without limitations. It may lack sufficient strategic direction and lower level managers may be tempted to build into their budgets a great deal of budgetary slack. Nevertheless, because of the motivational advantages of self imposed budgets, top managers should be cautious about setting inflexible budgets. Zero-Based Budgeting:- The problem of budgetary slack is particularly acute when the prior years budget is used as the starting point for preparing the current budget.   This is called incremental budgeting. It is presumed that established levels from previous budgets are an acceptable baseline, and changes are made based on new information.   This usually means that budgeted amounts are incrementally increased.   The alternative to incremental budgeting is called zero-based budgeting. With zero-based budgeting, each expenditure taxes and fees.   This gives rise to considerable frustration in trying to control spending.   Some governmental leaders push for zero-based budgeting concepts in an attempt to filter necessary services from those that simply evolve under the incremental budgeting process. CONCLUSION:- Sometimes the slack creation increases if a tight budget is applied and the manager is expected to incur budget overruns .In othercase if managers are permitted to participate actively in the budgeting process then the chances of slack is to reduce in further stages. Truth inducing schemes also play an important role in reducing budgetary slack. Individuals are assumed to be motivated by their self-interest; therefore, managers will not always act in the best interest of the management. Because the actions that may benefit the management might not be beneficial for mangers self interest. The main issue here is how to align the managers interest with the managements interests. Some actions that the management can take in this case are, firstly to pay the manager a fixed salary if he takes the right action and impose a penalty if he contravenes. Another step could be to induce a compensation plan that links compensation with the mangers performance. These actions are expected to provide subordinate/managers with an incentive to communicate truthfully, thereby reduce budgetary slack.

My Growth as a Writer Essay -- Personal Reflection

I have never liked writing; I always thought it was a waste of time. It was a great therapy but I never found academic writing to be useful just tedious. Only ever writing when I had too made it harder for my writing skills to grow or improve in any way. I have not taken an English class since the 10th grade, even then I never gave it much effort, just doing what I had to so I could pass the class. Then I jump in to College English 1010, I feel like I do well in all other subjects but this one. English is my worst nightmare. However in 8th grade I had an inspiring teacher, Ms. Moe. She told us to write whatever we felt on paper, to create stories from our lives, to write from our souls. Of course all of my stories were morbid with sinister events, but well written. (Maybe because I would spend all the time I could with her, so I would revise and revise until it was perfect- well at least for an 8th grader.) Writing My Past as a Writer was a great way to remind me why writing was alright. This paper was a little easier to write because it was my story. I had to revise it a bit and add some more background to what I was writing in the class, such as my Johnathn story (there are more of them too). As to let the reader know why Ms. Moe called me ‘disturbed’, but that was not hard. I’m sure Ms. Geary was a little concerned after reading this, wondering if she needed to report that I’m unstable or a threat to others, but no I just enjoy writing things that get my dark side out (Iâ €™m stable now, I promise). Getting a perfect score the first time, I still revised it and added things I thought would make it even better to read. Peer reviewing with Russell was great because he had some great insight in how to portray my reputation. Havi... ...one on the topic, so going back to try and find almost every source I have ever read was a little daunting, but I found most of them. I wanted to thank Ms. Geary for reminding me how much writing can do for me. It helped me realize that writing isn’t so horrible but it is just hard work. My writing skills have improved due to this class and all Ms. Geary had taught me. She made class fun with her inflections and just the way she says everything, her personality definitely showed through. I looked forward to class but never the homework. Finally after reading over my final drafts of: My Past as a Writer, Problematic Essay and my Exploratory Research Paper I realize that I have dramatically improved my writing skills in every draft thanks to revisions and some positive criticism for Ms. Geary. I think I am now ready to take on the next step in the English world.

Allegory is a story that works on two levels. Essay -- English Literat

Allegory is a story that works on two levels. "Mature readers appreciate the powerful satire on communism gone wrong, while for younger readers it is a hilarious fable of the farmyard."-Animal Farm As explained in the quote above, Animal Farm is a story that works on two levels. One level is simple, and the other one is the more complex and sophisticated. I would like to explain these levels in this essay. But first, I would like to clearly explain what the word allegory means by giving some examples from well-known fables. One of the best examples is the Little Red Riding Hood. I imagine that most of the people in this world knows about this fable. This story is translated in to many languages, in many different countries in the world. Any ways, the point is that what characteristics of allegory does this story mention? Well, most of the characters in this story represent a particular type of a human personality. For example, the wolf in this story is not just a wolf. As you can see by reading this story, the wolf tries to eat the girl by disguising in to her grandmother. This is clearly explaining what kind of a personality this wolf is representing. He represents a criminal who could trick you and swindle you. The girl represents an innocent person, who can be tricked easily. But at the end it comes out to be that the girl was not just innocent. So, now you can see that the technique of allegory is used in many stories without even knowing. The simpler level of the Animal Farm, is a humorous fable with animals. "For younger readers it is a hilarious fable of the farmyard."-Animal Farm If you do not read this book carefully, this book is just a humorous fable with talking animals in it. When... ...It signifies how a country can easily corrupt under a tyrant leader. Without even the people knowing, a terrible leader can easily control the country. By reading this book, we can see that we should try to save our own country by our own hands. We should not depend on the government, and we should not 100percent believe what the media says. The citizen of the country needs to keep their eyes wide opened. You never know if the truth is being told. Did the Russian people know what was going on? Did they THINK they knew what was going on? We should never forget what happened to Russia by reading this book, Animal Farm. You never know when it will be for YOU to stand up and go against the tyrant leader. So, please do not forget about Animal Farm and the Russian revolution. Even though you think that this will not happen to you, it might happen You never know.

Gender Roles in Latin American Societies Essay example -- Female Male

Gender Roles in Latin American Societies The idea that a woman’s job is to be a wife and mother is old-fashioned, but not completely out of style. Though these roles require a great deal of talent, resilience, patience, love, and strength, to name a few, they are often underestimated or depicted as simple. Especially in modern times, many women in the United States who stay home to raise a family are viewed as anti-feminists, whereas women in Latin America are not criticized for similar actions. In recent decades, more Latin American women have started to break the mold, daring to be both sexy, and successful in the workforce, while remaining pillars of domestic life. Latin American society places a great deal of importance on the family as a support network; it is not uncommon for several generations to reside in the same house. This emphasis is called familismo, and the mother in the family is usually the most important figure. She â€Å"is seen as the primary nurturer and caregiver in the family†¦[and] plays a critical role in preservation of the family as a unit, as well as in...

Ken Wilber

The man who, for many years, has been acknowledged by colleagues as the leading theoretician of consciousness and transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, was born in 1948 in Oklahoma City, to two devoted parents. Wilber's intellect has been hailed as truly extraordinary in its penetrating, synthesizing, and discriminative capacities. His knowledge of psychology, philosophy, sociology, comparative religion, mysticism, anthropology, and even â€Å"hard† sciences such as biochemistry and physics is virtually encyclopedic, but, most importantly, he has personal experience with the states and levels of consciousness about which he writes.Although he certainly should not be viewed as only an intellectual, his affinity for the mental and spiritual realms, as opposed to the bodily and emotional realms, is clear. Likewise, although his passion is greater for transpersonal than prepersonal and personal stages of development, he has nonetheless consistently emphasized the dire need to reco gnize and embrace a full-spectrum view of consciousness and humanity's place therein.Life and Major WorksWilber grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. His father was an air force officer. As a youth, he was absorbed in the world of natural sciences, biology, chemistry and mathematics. Referring to his late high-school and early college days, Wilber notes, â€Å"My mental youth was an idyll of precision and accuracy, a fortress of the clear and evident.† (Wilber 58) His encounter with the Tao-te-Ching changed everything: â€Å"It was as if I were being exposed, for the very first time, to an entirely new and drastically different world -a world beyond the sensical, a world outside of science, and therefore a world quite beyond myself.† (Wilber 58)From here on, the investigation of the world beyond the personal self yet accessible to human consciousness became a passion that involved not just Wilber's intellect but his entire being. Beginning in his early twenties and continuing to this day, he has taken up training in various contemplative practices such as Zen and Dzogchen (a form of Tibetan Buddhism) that would enable him to walk the terrain he charts in his writings.Wilber dropped out of graduate studies in biochemistry to devote himself fulltime to the pursuit of his research and writing about consciousness. His first major book, The Spectrum of Consciousness written in 1977, was a synthesis of Western psychological theories and therapies with Eastern spiritual disciplines. From this time onward, Wilber supported himself by his own writings, living outside of institutional affiliations and commitments, free to develop and express his own ideas, free to live a lifestyle of contemplation and writing. To balance mental and spiritual work with embodied living, he at times engaged in manual labor, such as working in gas stations (Wilber 88).Several books and over a hundred journal articles soon appeared. The Atman Project 1980 set forth a vastly expanded fr amework for human development from infancy to adulthood and beyond into transpersonal stages described by diverse contemplative disciplines. Up from Eden (1981b) presented a detailed map of the evolution of the human mind and consciousness within this framework. The popular No Boundary (1981a), explains Wilber's early ideas in a highly readable style, while some of his more technical works such as Eye to Eye: The Questfor the New Paradigm for the New Paradigm (1990a) discuss the epistemological bases of knowing in the various sciences and how these could be expanded to accommodate the fun spectrum of consciousness.Wilber's ideas, larger than life and expressed through a powerful and often sharply critical writing style, have left few readers neutral or indifferent. Over the years he has engaged in lively debates with people who have taken issue with his controversial ideas, including other prominent theorists in transpersonal psychology. Most of these debates were carried on in the pages of journals and in his most recent books. Few of his colleagues in transpersonal and consciousness studies have met him in person. To their chagrin, Wilber guards his privacy carefully and rarely makes an appearance in public.He initially accepted invitations to teach, lecture, and give interviews but then quickly pulled back from such activity, as he felt thrown off center by the attention and admiration from his audiences. Regarding this experience, Wilber said in an interview, â€Å"What you get are a lot of people telling you how great you are. Within a short time, you start believing them, and then you're headed for disaster. I simply did not feel competent to appear in public as a teacher† (Schwartz 186). Getting Wilber to agree even to an interview is not easy. Yet when he does give his time, he gives generously, and to his small circle of close friends. Wilber is known as a devoted friend who can be warm, charming, and funny (Schwartz 204).Wilber's first marriag e to his best friend Amy Wagner in 1972 lasted for nine years, after which they parted ways amicably. Two years later Wilber met and married Treya Killam. One week after the wedding, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The next five years were spent battling a relentless cancer that eventually claimed her life. During those five years Wilber set aside most of his writing and devoted himself full-time to nurturing Treya and, eventually, to helping her to die. Grace and Grit (1991), which appeared two years after her death, provides a moving account of the emotional and spiritual struggles and transformations in both Wilber and Treya during those trying years.The long hiatus in Wilber's writing ended in 1995 with the publication of the first volume of a planned three-volume series, Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution (SES) (1995b). This 800 page volume was soon followed by two shorter companion works, A Guide to Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995a) and A Brief Hist ory of Everything (1996). A new chapter had just begun in Wilber's writing career. Up to this point, the emphasis had been largely on the upward movement of evolution, but in SES the upward movement is balanced by the movement downward: Spirit ascending to higher unities is at the same time Spirit descending to embrace and integrate the manifold of phenomena. By Wilber's own estimation SES is his first mature work. It offers an integral vision that encompasses practically everything humans have ever sought to know or be.Wilber’s IdeasTranspersonal TheoryKen Wilber has been the most influential theorist in transpersonal psychology. Wilber's developmental model in The Atman Project has the advantage of meshing with developmental psychology and extending it to transpersonal growth. Wilber says that people move through three life stages: pre-personal, personal, and transpersonal growth. The pre-personal stage begins at birth, before a personality is developed.From birth to adoles cence the task is to build a personality. In the personal stage the individual's task is to use the personality in work, relationships, and mature life in the world. In the transpersonal stage, usually beginning in adult life, the person begins to move beyond the external world and explore the inner reaches of the self and spiritual realities. The ultimate purpose is to attain the state of oneness or unity with the consciousness of the universe. Wilber contends that the growth toward these levels of being is a natural movement of the self, an inward arc in contrast to the outward arc that relates to the external world.The Spectrum of DevelopmentDevelopment, for Wilber, extends from inanimate matter and primitive life forms through the developmental stages of human consciousness to its farthest reaches as manifested by the mystics and sages of various Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. The stages leading to mature adulthood are familiar enough. They have been charted by theori sts such as Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, Lawrence Kohlberg, and various psychoanalysts. Wilber draws especially from Piaget for the un-foldment of the cognitive and mental capacities and integrates these with the dynamic theories of object-relations psychoanalysis.Wilber identifies four transpersonal stages beyond mature adulthood: psychic, subtle, causal, and ultimate. Through these stages the sense of self or identity becomes more and more flexible and inclusive as self-centrism or narcissism continues to decrease, until at the highest stages of transpersonal development even the subtlest and most inclusive self-structurations are transcended in a sense of identity and connectedness that embraces all.At each stage things can go wrong, and so there is a spectrum of pathology corresponding to the spectrum of development all the way up to the highest transpersonal stages. Wilber discusses treatment modalities for each pathology and calls attention to the importance of correctly discern ing levels of pathology for example pre-personal or transpersonal so that appropriate treatment can be chosen. For example, he argues that meditation may not be suitable for borderline and other pre-personal pathologies, whereas for an existential depression or â€Å"dark night of the soul† that may occur in the lower transpersonal stages meditation may be a successful method of treatment.The charting of transpersonal development is undoubtedly Wilber's most controversial project. It implies that human development is open ended and that some individuals are â€Å"farther along† in development than other people, or that at any given time some people, and perhaps some cultures, have a more encompassing sense of self and a greater capacity for integrating the spectrum of consciousness than others. A number of cultural anthropologists, feminists, and ecophilosophers have criticized Wilber's theory in this regard. Certainly, the idea of development beyond â€Å"the average well-adjusted† is not new; it was celebrated in Maslow's notion of the self-actualizer. But in proposing developmental stages beyond self-actualization, Wilber is venturing into ever more rarified realms of human experience where the stakes are set high yet evidence is hard to come by.Nevertheless, it seems fair to say that Wilber's transpersonal stages have opened up the horizon far beyond anything conceived in Western scientific psychology. This horizon had been there all along, of course, and through the centuries it was explored by the mystics and seers whose anecdotal accounts, couched in religious symbolism and interpretations, only helped to shroud it in impenetrable mystery. For consciousness researchers, Wilber offers a greatly expanded paradigm of scientific inquiry. For those on a spiritual quest, he provides a map for the road.The Three Eyes of KnowingThe paradigm of consciousness research has been too narrowly modeled after the empirical sciences, argues Wilber. It can be significantly expanded once we realize that the eye of flesh, that is, our senses aided by laboratory instruments, is just one of the possible ways in which knowledge is gathered. We also have the eye of reason that understands the meaning of text, cultural symbols, and mathematical equations as well as the meaning of the data the eye of flesh observes. Beyond reason, says Wilber, there is the eye of contemplation that intuits directly the nature of reality and of the meanings deciphered by the eye of reason.The Pre/Trans FallacyAnother important concept of Wilber's that helps clear up misunderstandings regarding the transpersonal domain is what he calls the â€Å"pre/trans fallacy.† This is the failure to distinguish between primitive phenomena of early developmental stages, on the one hand, and insights and experiences that transcend the egoic mode of rational consciousness, on the other. Both types of phenomena are, in their own ways, â€Å"nonrational† an d â€Å"nonegoic,† and this is why they can appear similar or even identical. But phenomena of the first type are â€Å"prerational† or â€Å"preegoic,† whereas phenomena of the second type are â€Å"transrational† or â€Å"transegoic.†The pre/trans fallacy can occur in two ways. In the first, â€Å"trans† is reduced to â€Å"pre.† Freud's interpretation of the â€Å"oceanic feeling† associated with mystical experience as an irrational, regressive urge to return to the womb is a classic example of such a reduction. In general, the dismissal of all spiritual insights as regressive exemplifies the reductionist form of the pre/trans fallacy. In the second form of the fallacy, â€Å"pre† is elevated to â€Å"trans.† The elevationist form of the pre/trans fallacy is evident in the various ways in which prerational experience and modes of expression are promoted in the name of higher personal growth.Wilber's discussion of the pre/trans fallacy may well be one of his most useful practical contributions to the growing numbers of people searching for a spiritual path or engaging in some form of contemplative practice (Schwartz 260). Often the spiritual search masks primitive longings rooted in early developmental deprivations. On the other hand, sometimes an apparent psychotic break signals a major spiritual breakthrough. An insight into the pre/trans fallacy helps spiritual questers as well as therapists to be more discerning of the nature of the beast they are dealing with.Holism: Restoring Connectedness in the WorldIn his more recent writings, Wilber has articulated his philosophy of holism. To be truly holistic, the vision of a whole must include everything, including itself. But more important, it must integrate and connect all that it embraces. So the issue is not holism versus atomism, but fractured ness versus connectedness. Furthermore, the solution cannot be a matter of articulating the bes t and most holistic position, for this still leaves out the person proposing or accepting the position. Rather, what is required is a transformation of consciousness within the person, within all of us that shifts the viewpoint from the exterior increasingly to the interior and on to a superior view that is ever more inclusive and connected.Wilber has sounded a powerful call for us to awaken to the evolutionary process taking place within us, within the universe, not in some distant future but right now (Puhakka 152). This evolution is fundamentally open and creative and therefore, at every turn, incomplete and uncertain. We live in systems within systems, contexts within contexts, of indefinitely expanding structures of experiences, meanings, and relationships. These systems are constantly sliding and the contexts shifting, says Wilber.The vision of an open universe unfolding and enfolded upwards and downwards without end effectively removes all bases for certainty and completeness . For many people, the postmodern quicksand world spells despair and a sense of being lost in the ever-shifting contexts that claim power of determination over meaning and values and render human lives pointless and empty.The absolutizing of context is an unfortunate, even if unintended, legacy of much of postmodern thought. Wilber sees the emphasis on context as being appropriate but not going deep enough: We must recognize that the contexts themselves are shifting and evolving, along with everything else. The evolution, we are a part of excludes nothing, not even the contexts that bound our understanding and awareness. Evolution is the journey of the universe toward self-awareness, now through human consciousness that is becoming increasingly aware of its own contexts.ConclusionKen Wilber is a controversial figure among the late-twentieth-century thinkers on culture and consciousness. The evolution of consciousness is Wilber's main concern. He finds all of the major sciences, phil osophies, and spiritual traditions, both Eastern and Western, relevant to this concern, for they exemplify the process of evolution even as they shed light on it. The light is always partial, however, and how to fit the partial truths together is, for Wilber, the supreme puzzle. A superb synthesizer with ability to absorb and integrate large amounts of information across various disciplines, he sketches the contours of a panoramic vision of evolution as an unfolding of Spirit through matter, life, and mind.Works CitedEngler J. Therapeutic aims in psychotherapy and meditation: Developmental stages in the representation of self. Boston: Shambhala, 1986.Puhakka K. Restoring connectedness in the Kosmos: A healing tale of a deeper order. Humanistic Psychologist, 23 (1995): 373-391.Schwartz T. The full spectrum: Common Boundary. Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1995.Wilber K. The spectrum of consciousness. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 1977.Wilber K. The Atman project. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books. 1980.Wil ber K. No boundary. Boston: Shambhala, 1981.Wilber K. Odyssey. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 22(1) (1982): 57-90.Wilber K. A sociable God. New York: New Press, 1983.

Technology and Science

Does science and technology always have a positive effect on society? Technology and society refers to cyclical co-dependence, co-influence, co-production of technology and society upon the other. This synergistic relationship occurred from the dawn of humankind, with the invention of simple tools and continues into modern technologies such as the printing press and computers. The academic discipline studying the impacts of science, technology, and society and vice versa is called (and can be found at) Science and technology studies. Science is â€Å"knowledge attained through study or practice,† or â€Å"knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method and concerned with the physical world.† Science is a branch of knowledge or study dealing with the body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws.Technology, when thought of is what man has created (â€Å" tech† means craft). Technology can govern what is said about art or applied sciences. Technology affects our society because technology is all around us. It is what allows us to advance forward through our eras. Primitive technology could be considered hammers made by Neanderthals. Science is very different from technology. Science is not what we can create, but is more focused on our world and how it functions.Learning how a bird flies is science, but mimicking a bird through aviation would be technology. Science is about gathering knowledge through a systematic perspective and creating theories and laws to prove what we have learned. Science IS our world and that is how it affects the world.Science affects society in many ways it can benefit or make the society to devastate as in when the nuclear or atom bomb were invented they were not was not meant to harm the society but during the world war 2 cities known as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were totally destroyed so science should be accompanied with humanity because if science without humanity is useless the biggest example is global warming, the automobiles were meant to make travelling easy not to harm the environment so science does affect the society but it depends on us that if we take it in a positive way or in a way to devastation of the society Science has resulted in major advances in medicine, which has resulted in increased life expectancy, lower birth mortality rates, and treatments for illnesses that were previously terminal resulting in increased population size.Competition for a place as a  functional member of society is increased, as well as the competition with other societies to increase the capital to support a large society and fuel a progressive economy. Also, science provides us with a sense that there is â€Å"proof†, or factual evidence for the otherwise unexplained. Science and technology has created many new machines for example machine gun, tanks , smoke gas and many mor e which helped nations to fight and win the war without having to loss many solders due to planes travel faster and carry heavy bomb loads. Technology made transportation easier and faster for better transportation for goods and services.Science has also made life easier building elevators and developing of internal steel skeletons to bear weight of buildings and many more building to make life easier for the people to live. Science had taken traditional and modern ideas. The first human to step on the moon. Another better controversy highlights the growing rift between traditional and modern ideas. Science and technology has done a lot for the society which is beneficial but at times it does affect the society in a negative way. Science and technology has a great affection on the society because today’s society runs on science and technology.Science and technology are on our figure tips because known life of young people runs on science and technology mobile computer and oth er new invention has bought the world to a greater standard. From my point of view science and technology has a positive effect on our society. Because of today’s generation can’t lie a single day without phones and internet which clearly show how important technology is for our society.

Macbeth and Integrity Essay

There are seeds of self-destruction buried in all of us that will bare only misfortune if allowed to grow. Macbeth’s guilty path to his des Integrity is define as many things, value, honor, morality, and so on. These principles are the gears that run society. Integrity is one’s identity and to maintain it one must not violate it. Those who are guided solely by their individual ambition will ultimately become a victim of fate leading to the imminent corruption of value, honor, and principles of society. In the words of Henry Thoreau â€Å"There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself. † Macbeth’s value of his own life is evident in his thoughts â€Å"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player. † His strife for power guided the events that determined the downfall of his life. His values in life were no longer present and his integrity had collapsed beyond repair, so he vowed to continue with his strife for power knowing that the end of his life was inevitable. Some would question why Macbeth would continue on with his careless strife for power, but when someone has hit â€Å"rock-bottom† they do not think logically. No person was ever honored for what they received. Honor is rewarded for what a person gives. Macbeth was honored by many in the beginning of the story, but this honor was superficial. History has proven that you cannot simply cheat your way to being honored, you must earn it. When you cheat, you lose sight of what is important in your life and Macbeth was a cheater of extreme proportions. When Macbeth heard that his wife had passed he did not care for her, instead he worried more about upcoming threats involving his power â€Å"She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. † Ultimately karma prevailed and Macbeth’s inventible downfall was nearing. The foundation of leadership is undoubtedly integrity. Without it, success is not possible. One that gains power or leads without integrity is bound to collapse. Macbeth is a prime example of this. Macbeth uses murder to cheat his way to power. Murder is like potato chips you cannot stop eating after one chip, you continue to eat due to impulse. After several murders Macbeth realizes that his collapse is inevitable, but in his mind he has gone too far to retreat. His life is now nothing more than a slow burning fire waiting to be put out. Creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! † Integrity is one’s identity; inner image. Integrity is not conditional is does not simply change like weather. Macbeth never reached true greatness this is because true greatness is never achieved by cheating you must earn it. To be successful one must be an embodiment of integrity and all its components.

School Uniforms Persuasive Essay

In public and private schools, students are constantly being judged on what they wear and how they look. These judgments influence students to pick on others and induce bullying. If schools make uniforms mandatory, this cause of bullying would be eliminated, thus reducing the number of bullying incidents. Therefore, school uniforms should be required for all students because they will reduce bullying, relieve stress and make school a safer place. People are judged on what they say, where they go, and what they believe, but the main form of judgment is due to appearance.With one look, we make inferences on the economic status and background of other people. It is no secret that less fortunate people generally do not have as nice clothing as those who are wealthy. But is the difference in one’s clothing a worthy reason for them to be treated differently? The answer is no, yet it still occurs each and every day for students who are without uniforms. Children should not be treated differently just because their parents are unable to buy them trendier clothes.With the implementation of school uniforms, students can focus more on learning and building social connections based on interests and beliefs and not their societal status. School uniforms are the most effective way to eliminate social and economic differences among students. Because society is incredibly materialistic and money is a power issue, the judgments that are made on how someone appears become a main cause of bullying. Mandatory school uniforms would eliminate this problem and allow students to be judged on personality, not just what they wear.Bullying in general is malevolent; it is not only an unnecessary barrier to learning, but has the potential to make students’ lives unbearable. This sort of torment may not be terminated, but it would surely be reduced with mandatory uniforms. With the new HIB (harassment, intimidation and bullying) laws that Governor Chris Christie passed in New Jersey, and the studies that signify the increased number of bullying incidents within the past few years, bullying has become a larger problem than ever.Along with bullying, theft and gang activity can be reduced by wearing uniforms. In many areas, gangs are identified and encouraged through their clothing. Without the knowledge of who is in what gang, violence will be reduced and the school will be safer. If society insists on doing everything it can to prevent the mistreatment of other students, school uniforms should be made mandatory. There are other benefits of wearing uniforms as well.First, students’ lives would be much easier and less stressful. A great amount of time is usually spent on choosing and worrying about outfits. If students were refunded this time, they could have more time for other daily requirements such as homework. Some students, especially girls, stress about what they are going to wear every day and how they are going to look compared to everyone e lse. School uniforms will eliminate this unnecessary cause of stress.Having uniforms would not only eliminate stress put on students, but stress and pressure put on their parents as well. Some parents just cannot afford the in-style clothing items that other parents can provide. Every parent yearns for their children to fit in and be happy. As hard as they try to accommodate this for their young ones, some parents find this task impossible to accomplish. It must kill a parent to see their child mistreated or bullied because of something they could not provide for them.Adversaries to this argument may dispute being able to choose what to wear is the student’s prerogative and is what allows them to express their individuality, but is what students wear what makes them individuals? What happened to individuality being based on personality, positive attributes and passion? It is not clothes that make us unique. Wearing hand-me-downs because that is all that a family can afford fo r their child does not allow them to express themselves; it is not what makes them an individual and it certainly does not reflect who they are inside.What it does do is make that unfortunate child self conscious and ashamed. Many present conflicts within school systems can be easily solved or at least minimized with school uniforms. They can aid the prosperity of our schools and students, so why not take advantage of this simple answer to our problems? Action needs to be taken to make uniforms mandatory. They reduce the insecurities felt by children as well as their parents. Uniforms allow students to shine and excel for who they really are and not for whom they appear to be.

Agile Software Development Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Agile Software Development - Research Paper Example Agile accelerates the development process while maintaining the flexibility of adjusting to changing requirements through iterative development (Dingsoyr et al., 2010, p. 33). This report gives an overview of agile method of software development. It presents a brief technical comparison with the traditional, non-iterative waterfall model, the intent and guiding principles for agile methods, the people involved its advantages and disadvantages, two common agile methodologies and lastly the future of agile. 2. Agile vs. Waterfall In contrast to the traditional non-incremental models such as waterfall, agile does not have distinct phases of capturing requirements, forming architecture and design, development, testing and incorporating feedback as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 Waterfall Model In agile all these phases are meshed up as can be seen in Figure 2. The intent is to develop a feature set in a way the customer wants. A release of the system is built on the initial requirements wit h respect to the features set provided by the customer, the miniature system is then tested by the customer, requirements are revised and readjusted into the release and then the new system release based on some other remaining features is built. Hence, there is only one similarity present between the traditional non-iterative waterfall model and agile model which is with regards to the testing phase. Agile model has a distinct testing phase as well which is a common process in all of the iterations. Generally, the testing phase comprises of two categories of testing; unit testing done from developer’s perspective and acceptance testing carried out from customer’s perspective. ... The difference lies in the fact that in agile, the developers and the customers are in close communication with each other while in waterfall, the case is different. In waterfall, the testing is done as per the set of requirements and design details initially put together in form of documents in the initial phases of the software cycle. Customer involvement is limited to merely the requirements capturing phase. Any change of requirements on part of customer is not guaranteed to be incorporated in the system. Therefore, agile provides a worthwhile alternative to the heavy-weight document-driven software development methodologies such as waterfall. 3. Agile vs. Rapid Application Development Agile is an incremental model similar to Rapid application development (RAD) model (Linger & Fisher, 2004, p. 180). Figure 3 shows the RAD process. In RAD, initial set of requirements are used to design a prototype for customers to test. The prototype helps customers in realizing the system requirem ents as mostly the customers are unaware of what they want. Figure 3 Rapid Application Development In agile, the underlying model is the same as RAD except that the delivery is made in form of releases that contain a subset of features. Unlike prototypes in RAD, these releases are supposed to be complete miniature software fulfilling a portion of the feature set. The customer defines a set of features and provides a brief detail of how the system must offer these features. A release based on a subset of the features is built within a specified interval and is tested for acceptance by the customer. Any changes requested are adjusted through constant cooperation with the

Business Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words - 1

Business Plan - Essay Example The business analysis section of the business plan gives emphasis on the details of the restaurant that is going to be set up in London. It highlights the products and services that are to be served and offered to the customers in London. Hence, an overall blueprint of the business is provided in this section. King’s Cross Delite will be a multi-cuisine restaurant in London, whose main aim is to provide delicious and healthy foods to the customers. The restaurant will be established near King’s Cross railway station. The reason for choosing such a position is that it is the most populous and attractive place in London, where thousands of passengers come to the city and leave the city every day. The passenger includes students, office goers, tourists and businessmen. A multi-cuisine restaurant in such a place will not only attract customers but also increase the number of customers daily. The restaurant will have a new theme, which is not tried by any other restaurant in London. The customers, who will be visiting the restaurant, will get the feeling that they are inside a sea. The watery background will be provided in order to present a calm and comfortable climate for the customers while consuming their food. It not only creates a clear ambience but it will also give a feeling of having food under water. The water will have several fishes, not large one, but small and familiar ones along with water plants and insects. If the business plan is recognized to be feasible for developing the restaurant business, King’s Cross Delite will be inaugurated in January 2016. Less than a year time will be required to build the structure of the restaurant and kitchen. The most important part of the restaurant will be its kitchen; it is an open-kitchen, which will allow the customers to see how the dishes are prepared and whether the chefs are maintaining a

Three questions about the different type of editing Essay

Three questions about the different type of editing - Essay Example The film is without a proper plot and only contains a series of images. The author puts to use abstract imagery in an effort to make the viewer less nervous. This kills the role of plot and dialogue (Charmaz, 2000). To improve the relevance of his film, the producer applies dreamlike logic. The concept was popular with the duo’s previous films. Producers use unlimited imagination to direct images in the film. Un Chien Andalou images are crude with little professionalism, but audiences still find them fascinating. People continue to immortalize the eye-slicing image of Un Chien Andalou. The flow of images and use of space interferes with the aspect of sight in the film; watching the images becomes more dreadful for the audience. The production entailed disturbing and strange imagery. It is easy to see the audience shocked and disgusted as they view images landing on their minds with a thud. The daring nature applied in this film continues to remain one of the strongest even whe n compared to modern films from Hollywood and other production companies. The film deviates from the usual production shots that give characters symbols and impulses. The use of space invokes the power to provoke which makes it unique when it comes to cinematography. In my opinion, the use of space in this film gave room for the producers to present events that occurred between 1967 and 1977. Positives from the image include presenting an idea forethought and applicable in the subsequent generations within the industry.