The form and function of Concept Store Literature review

The form and function of Concept Store - Literature review Example The subsequent section provides a detailed overview of concept stores, thus giving insight into the inception of this retail store concept and the principal features that characterize it. This chapter also covers the factors that contribute to the widespread adoption of concept stores in the fashion sector, under the key drivers section. Other factors addressed under this literary analysis segment include the format of a conventional concept store, the potential size and popular locations of these retail stores, as well as, the distribution hierarchy adopted by most concept stores. The latter section provides information on strategic function, design or architectural form of a concept store, and the overall language concept of this category of stores. The concluding part of the literature review chapter identifies research gaps that exist in study information available on concept stores, their design and overall operation. The physical environment of a store is one of the principal issues that retailers are supposed to take into account when launching a business venture. This is because it plays a significant role in affecting consumers’ decision to purchase and experience the entire shopping experience. Management of a store’ retail setting, therefore, affects both parties with the store owners’ enjoying increased revenues from enhanced customer loyalty, and shoppers gaining pleasure from the ambient shopping environs. Referred to as â€Å"atmospherics† the concept of managing the physical environs of a store was initially proposed by Kotler (1973). In this case, management of the atmosphere of a store is delineated as concerted effort to conceptualize a design that evokes certain emotions, which increase purchasing probability. Stimuli spurred by in-store setting directly correlates with the amount of pleasure that customers derive from shopping at the store. Ambient aspects related to the physical background of a store usually

Graphic Design Essay Example for Free

Graphic Design Essay Everyone knows the feeling of walking around and seeing something on the floor that catches their eye, usually it is nothing but trash with creative designs and coloring, but why are people so curious to see what it is anyway? Because the graphic designers for that company did their job correctly. Graphic design is the art of getting a message out to a targeted audience through various forms of artwork. Everyone worldwide, businesses and the average person use graphic designing skills every day. Every shirt with a design, logo or message was the work of graphic designers. Another example of graphic design is Myspace.com, a social network. Users on Myspace.com can edit profiles such as adding designs, changing color schemes, and several applications such as games, and music applications. That is one way people use graphic design from day to day. Graphic designers are a key component in any business or company worldwide. A company or business can only do so well without advertising and innovation. For example, you would not go into a store and view three different boxes of televisions and all it said on every single one was television on it without any designs or color. Companies hire innovative graphic designers to get a specific message across to an audience. Graphic designers consider cognitive, cultural, physical and social factors in planning and executing designs for the targeted audience. (U.S.) Graphic designers are very valuable to companies and can make or break a company. A products message to the targeted audience might be very weak and vague with poor graphic design. A product can be great with the right color schemes and attractive designs. Graphic designers generate unique images for their company or client which will be seen on their products as a logo, design, or advertisement. They also design company billboards, product labels, with not only by using images, but also using creative writing as well. Designers make the company because they have to make a design or logo that will compete with dozens of competitors selling the same product or service (Stone). The advertising industry benefits the most from graphic designers by making sure the product or service is understandable and clear. Graphic design is nothing new it has been around forever. Historians believe the earliest manuscripts were created anywhere from four hundred A.D. to six hundred A.D. Illuminated manuscripts are manuscripts that has text which is complemented by decorated boarders and images or illustrations. Graphic design is the combination of computer animations and graphics mixed with drawings to create art, logos, advertising (Graphic). Graphic design focuses on visual communication and presentation of products, businesses, website, or projects. Graphic design enhances transfer of knowledge and makes everything a lot easier to comprehend and understand the purpose or message the company or client are trying to convey back to the consumer or audience. It is a form of visual communication through a combination of art and technology (Bean). Graphic design did not become as popular until the twenty-first century where it became digital and where computers became accessible. With the internet becoming such a great tool to communicate with others visually and through writing worldwide, advertising became a lot easier and graphic designers were in demand. Graphic design is one of the most flexible jobs in the market place. Twenty-five hundred jobs are created each year nearly sixty percent are self-employed. There is also a good job outlook through 2014 (Graphic). Every company, business, or general public use some sort of graphic design in their everyday life. As new technology arises the demand for graphic designers is rapidly increasing. Graphic design is expected to grow faster than average jobs, thirteen percent over ten years spanning from 2008 to 2015. This definitely makes competition fierce but also a promising future. According to the Bureau of Labor and statistics, about 261,000 graphic designers were employed in the year 2000 (U.S). By 2008 there were two-hundred and eighty-six thousand graphic designers (College). Graphic designers that want to have the best chance to land a job should have experience in website design and animation. Of twenty-five thousand graphic designers who try to enter the workforce, only sixty percent last the first two years, and only thirty percent remain in the field for five years (Everything). The graphic design job market will keep growing as long as advertising and computers play an important role in everyday life. Graphic design is a trait you must learn and have a talent or desire to be creative. The majorities of graphic designers have a four year degree in art design and have an understanding of the business world and production. Seventy percent of graphic designers go to college. Many artists turn to graphic design during their younger part of their life and then after go back to art. Professional graphic designers must be able to assemble a working portfolio to approach companies (Everything). A graphic design portfolio is a representation of the owner and all their skills in graphic design. This is similar to a rà ©sumà © except this is specifically to see the designers art work. Graphic designers should have a bachelors degree in design and take various liberal arts courses that focus on history, writing, psychology, sociology, foreign language and cultural studies. Graphic designers should also get a good understanding of how marketing, business and production affect their field of work. Designers should have experience using programs such as InDesign, Quark Express, Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Now there are also over one hundred accredited schools with graphic design programs to further your studies. The accredited schools also help designers deal with the lifestyle that comes with being a graphic designer. The salaries of graphic designers differ between small and large businesses.With all the schooling, graphic designers must accomplish their income ranges from twenty-three thousand to one hundred thousand a year, nearly sixty percent of designers are self-employed (College). According to statistics shown by occupational employment statistics, the least salary a graphic designer receives is twenty-four thousand, the average salary is forty-seven thousand and highest salaries top off at one hundred thousand or more (Graphic). With a small business, it makes making money harder because only local customers know of it. By using the designing skills, small businesses are able to expand and use their talents and abilities to advertise on the internet and throughout the street. Salaries all depend on how well the company does. A dedicated and talented designer could make millions and a designer who does not care could make nothing. Graphic designers must be able to work with a variety of media restrictions such as font size, specific colors and designs. Graphic designers are also met with financial restrictions as well (Everything). Graphic designers must be innovative from the start to impress their clients or company that they are doing business for. Graphic designers start off by preparing sketches of what their perspective is of the owners’ message to a targeted audience. Graphic designers use various forms of art designs, fonts, color schemes, and it even comes down to the type of paper they use as the layout. Graphic designers also use the aid of computer software for animation, sound, lighting and three-dimensional designs. Graphic designers also use various graphs in their projects and of course get approval for any information or artwork that isnt theirs. After they have a rough draft of what they think the owner or businesss message is trying convey they submit it to the art or creative director for review. Graphic designers that work for large advertising, publishing, or design firms usually work a regular forty hour week. Graphic designers that are self-employed or work for small firms have an unstable working environment. Self-employed graphic designers adjust their schedules to accommodate their clients’ schedules and deadlines. Graphic designers that get paid by the project are under a lot pressure because they have to try to keep current clients as well as finding new ones to keep a steady flow of income. Graphic designers’ style of art might be wanted one season and the next season no one might want it. Graphic design affects every single person every day. Today we see graphic design out in the world through billboards, clothing, logos, labels, and products (Bean). The take out menus, car covers, programs, and websites are the basic examples of how graphic design affects peoples everyday life. That is what will usually make or break a deal at a store. The way the product is presented, advertised, even if the actual product is not that great the way its presented will determine if a consumer will purchase it or not. Consumers also dress and present themselves in a way that will make them distinct or stand out from others. Everyone uses some sort of art to design a certain style that they like or appreciate. People also dress with caution to give the right message to the targeted audience. For example, wearing a Raiders jersey gives the message that the owner of the jersey likes the Raiders or the players name that is printed on the jersey. Italso gives the message that they like football. By using graphic designing on clothing, it gives people personality and style. Without the different logos or graphics on a clothing, everyone would look boring and the same every day. The variety of all the graphic designers’ talents and ideas make the clothing styles unique. Unique styles are what brings in the consumers with similar interests. Some styles are so unique that they are worth a lot of money and some are just basic styles that are not as expensive. An important aspect to creating clothing is to know what type of consumers the company is trying to reach out too. Making sure that there is a large amount of people or if the design is popular at time is key to making money. In conclusion, graphic designing is important to society because everything made or seen is made from graphic design. It adds personality to products and people. Dedicating your time and talent into projects makes the job of graphic designing worthwhile. Making advertisements for companies is an important job because it helps the company gain business and it reflects the artwork. Advertising has been around for a long time and it keeps improving with the new technology. Graphic designing is used to communicate the message that the producers want to go out. There could be as many designers as there are businesses. Designers seem to have the easy job, but in reality they have pressure and deadlines to meet. Not anyone off the street can make millions, but a dedicated designer that goes through the education requirements will be successful in life. That person will most likely be able to own their own small or large business. Owning a business will have the greatest incoming salary and the best outlook. Graphic designing in the best because it makes everything have a unique part of it. All products are unique with their own logo, label or artwork. The more unique the product is, the more people want to know more about it. Graphic designing creates style which can speak for itself. The better the graphic is, the more popularity it gets. As the main component to a company, graphic designing is the most important role. Without it, the world would be dull and there would be no competition for the best products or the best artwork. Next time a product is looked at, people should comment on the graphic design that mostly persuades them to purchasing the item.

We Should NOT Raise the Minimum Wage Essay -- Minimum Wage Essays

What would be so bad about raising minimum wage? Before other states jump on the $15 minimum-wage bandwagon, they might want to look at what's happening in Massachusetts — one of two states with a $10-an-hour minimum wage. Massachusetts increased the minimum wage from $8 to $9 at the start of 2015 and to $10 on the first day of 2016. The state is now mired in its longest stretch of net job losses since the recession in both the retail and the leisure and hospitality sectors, Labor Department data show. Raising the minimum will end up hurting Americans more than helping them. The people that are for raising minimum wage are people who believe that increasing minimum wage can help those people who are unskilled and need an income they can live on. Yet, raising minimum wage would do the opposite and make employers have to fire people who earn minimum wage, because they can't afford the higher wages. People need to realize that increasing the minimum wage would hurt people more than help them. In the end increasing minimum wage would result in some people being let go, for the reason, businesses can't afford paying them minimum wage anymore. The people, who are for raising the minimum wage, are people who think that the reason for poverty is because of the minimum wage not being high enough. The first standard minimum wage is formed under the "Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the nationwide minimum wage was designed to lift millions of American workers out of poverty and to stimulate the economy"(Wittner). Today the people that are in favor of raising minimum wage believe that there should be another "Fair Labor Standards Act" to raise the national minimum wage to ten dollars and seventy-fo... ...e, but in the end it is up to the states and government to increase minimum wage across the U.S. So just think about what would be the best option for our country, and support that choice because the argument for increasing minimum wage has been going on for a long time and will keep going on into the future. Works Cited "American Enterprise Institute." Why We Shouldn't Raise the Minimum Wage. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014. "Bill Gates: Raising Minimum Wage Can Destroy Jobs." The Foundry Conservative Policy News from The Heritage Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014. Stern, Andy, and Carl Camden. "Why We Need to Raise the Minimum Wage." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 10 Mar. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. Wittner, Lawrence. "The Minimum Wage Should Be Raised." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 Nov. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.

Impact of M-Commerce in Job Market

The advent of wireless and mobile technology has created both new opportunities and new challenges for the business community. In its present state, M-Commerce can be viewed as an extension of conventional, Internet-based E-Commerce, which adds a different mode of network and accommodates different end users’ characteristics. However, if the predictions stating that mobile and wireless computing will dominate the Internet industry in the future materialize, the E-Commerce and M-Commerce could become a singular blended entity. M-Commerce, as defined by Muller and Veerse, stands for conducting commercial transactions via a â€Å"mobile† telecommunications network using a communication, information, and payment (CIP) device such as a mobile phone or a palmtop unit. In a broader sense, M-Commerce can simply be defined as exchanging products, ideas and services between mobile users and providers. This paper will also give an overview of the characteristics of M-Commerce. We discuss the basic characteristics of M-Commerce that have the potential to influence the basic marketing orientation of both sellers and buyers, and, above all, alter the general dynamics of the market. There are many definitions of m-commerce with differing emphases. Keen and Mackintosh define m-commerce as the extension of electronic commerce from wired to wireless computers and telecommunications, and from fixed locations to anytime, anywhere, and anyone. when something is mobile it means that its primary usage environment is a mobile one. On the other hand, mobility in itself and mobile technology is not necessarily a value; the freedom created and supported with the technology is the key issue. Durlacher define m-commerce as â€Å"any transaction with a monetary value that is conducted via a mobile telecommunication network†. The focus in this definition lies on the exchange of products and services that is associated with a monetary value. They specifically list any kind of service that can be provided by the mobile device, thus expanding the mere commercial character through communicative and informative services. A mobile device is a small smart device. It can be a mobile phone, a communicator or a PDA. It communicates and transfers data (convenience). It is used only by its owner (personalization). It can provide information anytime, anywhere (ubiquity). Capturing the concept of mobility, a user can be contacted anywhere (reachability). A mobile device can provide users? locations (localization). Knowledge of users? precise geographical location allows customized, relevant content to be delivered to them when and where they need it. It can also be used to connect to the Internet (instant connectivity). Ubiquitous interactivity (figure 1) is what makes mobile devices unique. Wireless devices enable users to send, receive, and act on information in real-time, independent of their location. The western mobile and remote workforce is growing, driven by both business necessity and technological innovation. One explanation for increased work mobility is the emergence of service industry as a dominating occupation in the post-industrial society. Service work is often performed, where the customer is, and thus making many services mobile. It is not like manufacturing work; which takes place where the machinery is located. Another factor is the increased cooperation in and between organizations. Some forms of cooperation can take place remotely, but people still need to meet physically. A third important factor for increased mobility is the extensive adoption of mobile technologies. Mobile technologies enable people to be mobile and yet accessible. As people have become accessible independent of place, new ways of working have emerged in many organizations. To describe the mobile worker, new concepts have been coined. Mobile commerce may impact both mobile workers and their enterprises in the following dimensions. Location: The post-industrial workers work at various locations: in their office, at clients? office, at colleagues? office, in the train, hotel rooms, etc. We can thus imagine that during this extensive geographical movement, mobile workers are often away form the â€Å"benevolent dictator†, their desktop computers, which contain most of the information they need and impose rigid constraints on how and where they can be used. With m-commerce the user is put in the centre of information and communication. Information comes to the user instead of the user looking for it. This makes mobile workers able to receive actionable and useful information on demand at the moment of relevance and regardless of their location and extensive movement. Sales reps are examples of workers who are constantly on the road while their effectiveness depends to a large extent on their ability to have immediate access to account information, current prices, order status and market conditions. The importance of immediate access to information by salespeople is well recognized in the personnel selling literature. Salespeople? effectiveness can be enhanced by providing them with market research information and encouraging them to unitize information. With vast amount of relevant information about client’s orders, roduct’s profitability, promotions at their fingertips regardless of their locations, sales reps can adjust their call schedule to adequately target those customers with the highest potential at the right time. Additionally, receiving time-sensitive alerts about customers? latest orders, industry indicators and competitors? actions, may enable sales reps to tailor their sales messages to a specific customer, adapt to opportunities that arise during the sale call and overcome objections. Indeed, many empirical studies find a strong effect of adaptive selling on salesperson performance. Furthermore, M-commerce can enable mobile workers to use more efficiently their dead time. This time generally occurs between tasks and between meetings, in which workers usually have little control over the resources available to them. For instance, pharmaceutical sales reps often visit doctors to provide them with information on what is available as order brochures on products in which the doctor is interested. Frequently the doctor is not available and the representative wants to find a nearby alternative contact. If there is no alternative contact to visit, then the time for waiting for the doctor to become available may turn to be dead time for the sales representative. With m-commerce, the sales reps can turn this dead time into a productive one by performing non-selling tasks such as completing and sending expense reports to their company, preparing invoices or writing and sending thanks letters to customers. These reduce the time that sales reps have to spend in the office to perform routine tasks and thus allow them to spend more time selling. Indeed, McGraw Hill’s study of 239 salespeople across 198 different companies reveals that salespeople spend on the average about 25% of their time waiting for interviews with clients and travelling. Using dead time more efficiently may occur in a variety of locations (i. e. trains, airports, airplanes, hotels rooms, office buildings, etc). Additionally, mobile workers spend considerable portion of their time on the road, Awareness of their geographical position by the network can allow relevant support and alerts be sent to theme. Examples of such alerts are â€Å"there is a traffic jam two kilometers ahead, use the alternative highway†, â€Å"there is a restaurant offering 10% discount in avenue X â€Å", I have a breakdown, in nowhere, send me a tow truck†, †your client X is in the avenue ahead to you †. Interaction: Asynchronous communications enabled by emails has made co-workers interactions with others more flexible. However, asynchronous communication inevitably creates time lag. Until a receiver of an email actually goes to his computer and read the email, the communication does not come into effect in practice. Moreover, email communication requires a computer and software, which are mostly fixed to a certain location such as an office and home. M-commerce may enhance interaction among distributed workers and others by enabling them to have access to corporate resources, send and receive emails regardless of their location. For instance journalists on the move are often faced with situations in which they have to report events on topics on which they are not fully profound with. Also reporting is often conducted away from editorial staff and radio TV / station’s resources. In such a case M-commerce can provide support to journalists by enabling them, irrespective of their locations, to connect to their TV/Radio station’s intranet. The system can then provide them with the list of resources available on the topic they want to cover together with contact details of colleague who have expertise in such topics. The journalists can then either use the available resources to get an understanding of the topic or elect to contact their colleagues for more interaction. Additionally, ubiquitous access to e-mails and corporate data by mobile workers may enable them to make themselves readily available to address customer problems and questions. Reducing the time it takes to deal with a client’s concern or difficulty may have a positive impact on customer orientation, the degree to which the seller is perceived by the buyer to put customer’s need first. Indeed, customer orientation is a key enabler of buyer-seller relationship developments. Operations: we are witnessing the emergence of new forms of organization, in particular virtual Corporations. Virtual corporations could not exist without an effective information exchange and efficient coordination of the members. This applies also to other management initiatives such as project team or task force. But it is sometimes challenging for corporations to ensure fast coordination among co-workers while they are on the move even if they introduced Internet technologies such as email in their work practices. M-commerce can act as the â€Å"glue† among distributed members, by connecting them more tightly regardless of their locations. This may for instance make it possible for marketing managers to use real time data flowing from the field to evaluate the results of promotions and new product introductions more rapidly and communicate their reactions (i. e. promotions) to the field force. Manufacturing may also use real time field information to reduce overproduction and the incidence of stale products. Additionally, Top executives often need information on market and competitors issues before they make big decisions. Real time information flowing from the field would enable executives to make decisions based on accurate information, which may enhance the quality of their decisions. Indeed the best source for top executives with regard to both market and competition watch is the field force. Conclusion Thus we have discussed about M-Commerce and the challenges that they impose on workers while on the move. We have also explored how m-commerce with its unique attributes can provide mobile workers with more freedom and support through minimizing non-productive time, enhancing interaction with other members and improving the quality of decisions. It is worth mentioning that m-commerce may result in some consequences that workers may not welcome. Perhaps the most immediate drawback of extensive use of mobile technologies by workers is the problem of â€Å"interaction overload†. Anytime and anywhere connectivity may becomes everywhere/all-the-time connectivity; which may result in the danger of users becoming â€Å"too connected†. But in the other hand, access to information at the point of relevance may make it possible for mobile worker to work smarter and to minimize their unproductive time, which may enhance their life / work balance.

Why Companies Engage in Corporate Social Responsibility

Buss. Ethics Why do companies engage in corporate social responsibility? ~ Companies engage in CSR in order to maintain a business on track to do the right thing. However, there's three reasons that keeps a business engage with CSR. Pragmatic, where the term â€Å"use power or loose it† is used , this mean that if businesses are not responsible certain advantages could be taken away. Ethical reason, is when businesses have a responsability to behave ethically, this mean that executives' duty is to care about multiple stakeholders. The last reason is the strategic one, which is based identifying activities that can harm the business. . Do you believe that employees are more attracted and committed to socially responsible companies? Why or why not? Are you? Why or why not? ~Yes i truly believe so because they will be certain that the company stays on task and ethically manages situations. However, they will have in mind that they are working in an ethical environment and that th ey must work hard to keep it up that way. I know i will certainly be attracted more attracted to these companies because first of all, The social responsible environment will motivates me to do a good job. 3.A number of organizations have robust sustainability sections on their internet sites. Pick two and highlight what they are doing regarding sustainability, as well as compare and contrast. Interface Global: http://www. interfaceglobal. com/Sustainability ~ This organization has considerable resolutions on 3 key areas; They are, +reducing footprint +designing and manufacturing innovative products with less enviromental and social impacts. +creating a culture with engaged employees with a share vision of sustainable businesses. †¢ Wal-Mart: http://walmartstores. om/Sustainability/ ~ This organization is trying to make customers save money and help ensure a better world for generations to come. In order to do so they've set three aspirational sustainability goals: +To be suppl ied 100% by renewable energy+To create zero waste +To sell products that sustain people and the environment Overall, both organization have something in common, which is trying to maintain a sustainable business and a good environment. 4. Read the Merck and River Blindness case. What is River Blindness and who are the stakeholders in the Merck case. The River Blindness case is a disease that is cause by parasitic worms that live in the small black flies that breed in the rivver of the countries if middle east, Africa, and LAtin America. When a person is bitten by one of these blaack flies, the larvae of the worm can entern the person's body, reproduce and spread out causin the person itchiness and blindness. ~ The stackeholders for Merck are individual with disease, horses, Merck, and Merck scientists 5. Explain why socially responsible business is good business.Social Responsible business is good business because Being socially responsible creates goodwill and a positive image for the business. Trust and a good reputation are some of the company’s most valuable assets. In fact, without these, a business can't function. These important assets can be encourage by being socially responsible. However, it is crucial the right socially responsible program is plan for the business. When used properly, it will open up a countless of new relationships and opportunities. It will grow success and the company’s culture. It will become a culture that the company's staff and the whole community will believe in.

Essay on Women in Science and Technology

Essay on Women in Science and Technology Essay on Women in Science and Technology Essay on Women in Science and TechnologyThe era of globalization and rapid technological development has changed people’s lives dramatically. Science and technology play an extremely important role in the contemporary society. Government in developed and developing countries recognize the importance of the development of ST sphere. The roles of men and women have changed dramatically in the contemporary society.   Women have got more freedom to express themselves and take active part in the development of technologies, despite the fact that there are still problems in this sphere.   As stated in the report   by the United Nations(2011) called   Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation, : â€Å"There is also need for recognition of the importance of applying a â€Å"gender lens† to STI for development. Indeed, STI policies and programmes will not be effective, equitable and sustainable unless the gender lens is applied so as to reflect the ai ms, concerns, situation and abilities of both women and men† (11). People realize the gender equality is one of the components of healthy society and true development is impossible without it.   Only understanding of contribution women can make to the development of science and technology can bring positive impact on the development of this sphere.At the present moment all over the world, with small exceptions, women take an active social role and demonstrate their abilities in a lot of spheres. Nowadays women are active in good production industry, natural-resources management, educational sphere, community management. Women occupy different positions in these spheres and professions in the spheres mentioned above are mostly considered to be female ones . Big percentage of women work in the medical industry, as well. In the developing countries women are also often involved in agricultural sphere and take part in the production of food, selling it and farming.   In additi on, most of women have additional burden, such as home work and care about the members of the family.  Despite the growing temps of technological development and   popularity of feminism, women   do not still possess equal position in the society.   â€Å"Although women and girls make up approximately 50 per cent of the global population, they have access to much less than half of the resources in terms of technology, financing, land, training and education, and information† (Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation, 12). A lot specialists believe that true progress and development are not possible without women’s active participation in these processes.   The gender lens would be an essential contribution to the development of STI sphere and would enable people to meet the global changes.   â€Å"UNESCO figures reveal that in 121 countries with available data, women comprise 29 percent of   researchers but there were big disparities among regions. For example, in Latin America and the Caribbean, 46 percent of researchers are female and Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, Paraguay and Venezuela have achieved gender parity. In Asia, women constitute only 18 percent of researchers overall. India and Japan have 13 percent female researchers and South Korea has 15 percent. In Africa women comprised about 33 percent of researchers† (UNESCO 2009). These numbers show that women’s participation in STI is very low.   Even in the countries with comparatively high rates, women’s participation does not make even 50 per cent.   These results show that gender inequality still exists in this sphere and it is necessary to pay scrupulous attention to this problem. The Baltic countries show the best results in this sphere. Women’s engagement in STI is comparatively high and is often higher than 50 percents. Among such countries are Lithuania (68.3  %), Estonia, Estonia (63.9%),   Bulgaria (63.8  %), and Latvia (63.2  %) (Human Resources in Science and Technology). The experience of these countries can become a valuable help for other countries which want to establish gender equality in the sphere of science and technology.The history shows a lot of examples of great input made by women to the development of STI. It is hard to overestimate the role of women in the development of different sphere. Scientific and industrial field, as well as other technological industries are influenced and dominated by men. Despite the fact that there are women who have played an important role in the development of STI industry, their names are rarely mentioned.   For example, Ada Byron King, the daughter of the famous Lord Byron, became the first computer programmer. She also was a prominent mathematician. Unfortunately, her name is rarely mentioned in the history of the development of the computer industry and when people speak about this sphere they remember the names of famous male specialis ts. Earlier history also contains data about the famous female specialists in science and technology, but their names are even less remembered than Ada Byron King’s name. Hypatia, a Egyptian mathematician who lived in 400s made great contribution to the development of science. Maria Gaetana Agnesi made a great contribution to the science by her work in differential calculus in 1700s. Sofia Kovalevskaya worked in 1800s in Russia. Her contribution to the development of astronomy and mathematics is hard to overestimate. From recent history, it is worth to mention Grace Hopper, a PhD in mathematics. She became one of leaders on the field of software development and made a great contribution to the development of new programming techniques. â€Å"A true visionary, Dr. Hopper received many awards for her work, including ironically the Data Processing Management Associations Man-of-the-Year award† (Abrams). Grace Hopper became the first to recognize possible profits people could have from the use of computers and she did a lot to put her ideas into practice. She realized that making the computers easier in use would increase their popularity among ordinary people. In this way she made her contribution to the computer revolution and made computers more available.   This case illustrates not only women’s ability to achieve high results in the sphere of science and technologies. It also demonstrates the way female brain works. In contrast to men, who think about complicated schemas and complex technologies, women take into account the sphere of application and use technology more available for people. â€Å"Recent research has found that men are seduced by the technology itself. They tend to get into the faster-race-car syndrome, bragging about the size of their discs or the speed of their microprocessors. Women tend to take a more practical approach. They generally think that machines are meant to be used, and dont really care about whats insi de the box. They just want it to work, and to get things done† (Abrams).In the interesting study performed by the Center for Children and Technology specialists tried to find the difference between male and female approaches to technological advances. The participants of the experiment, both – men and women – were asked to described the perfect machine of the future. Results showed that machines proposed by men were designed in order to get their owners to expand control and to become more powerful. The machines designed by women had an intention to help people and to make their life easier.These differences in approaches to technological innovations show basic difference between male and female approaches in life. Men want to expand their influence and women are ready to adapt technologies and make their use easier and more comfortable for people. That is the reason men are more likely to invent new things and women are more likely to improve things which alread y exist. This division does not make men superior to women nor vice versa. It means that men and women possess different types of knowledge and skills and best results can be achieved in their combination. Until present moment women were underestimated in the computer industry. Little female IT specialists took part in the development of the hardware and software. â€Å"On the business side, a recent US Department of Labor study reports that women are not successfully moving beyond mid-management boundaries in this industry in fact, theres been only a 3% gain in the past 10 years â€Å" (Abrams).   Women are not presented in major CEOs and in the biggest companies which produce computers.The National Assessments on Gender and STI report states that women still have worse access to information and technologies in comparison to men.   Women’s role in the technological development is still badly defined. Technological resources are scantly used to support women’s ac tivities and occupation. In addition, the percentage of women in science and technology is very low (Gender Equality in the Knowledge Society).   â€Å"Women remain severely under-represented in engineering, physics and computer science - less than 30% in most countries – while the numbers of women working in these fields are also declining† (Gender Equality in the Knowledge Society).   In addition, women have less access to different resources, which would help them to take leadership position and have active influence on social processes. Women usually have lower access to finances, property, education and technology. This is very true from the developing countries, but in the   developed counties this tendency is also actual.   This can be explained by several reasons. Generally, women who try to enter technology profession experience same difficulties as women trying to enter other fields.   These difficulties include gender prejudgments, lack of female role models, difficulties in brining into line professional and personal responsibilities.     Gender prejudgments assume common belief that women have less talents and inclinations when it comes to technologies and science.  Ã‚   In addition, economic status and political power also play an important role in female parity in science and technology. Men occupy high position in the society and politics and have access to the distribution of resources. They influence the distribution of social roles, as well, and, naturally, they try to save status quo with male dominance in different spheres, and science and technology are not an exception. What is notable, women in the countries with good health care and childcare have more chances to enter the sphere of science and technology. In addition, countries where gender equality is considered to be the necessary component of the healthy society women also have more chances for normal self-expression in different fields.  Ã‚   Gende r equality usually assumes â€Å"the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men† (OSAGI, 2001).   This equality should result in â€Å"equal conditions for realizing their full human rights and for contributing to, and benefiting from, economic, social, cultural and political development† (ILO, 2007). This equality assumes not only shared duties, but also equal access to resources and participation in their distribution.   Nowadays, access to property is not enough for the equality .In the era of information, access to information can be even more important than access to property. Property distribution is important but it will not resolve the problem completely till women do not have equal access to information and technological resources.The problems with gender inequality and lack of professional opportunities for women in STI sphere are especially evident in the developing countries. There are different steps which may help to resolve the problem. Informational policy is very important. Giving men and women necessary information concerning the problem can help to resolve it. Education should become another strong factor which influences the distribution of social roles and positions. It is necessary to make sure that women in the developing countries have equal with men access to quality education.   Boys and girls have usually equal access to primary and secondary education, but the situation changes when it comes to higher education. Some changes in the curriculum would be useful to help girls and women to get more information about the STI sphere and create necessary conditions for their further employment in this sphere. In a lot of developing countries women have less access to higher education and it is necessary to   put all possible effort to change the situation for better. As mentioned above, good healthcare and mother care become those factors which help to create better career opportunities for women . So, the development of healthcare and mother care systems will also contribute to the creating of better career opportunities for women.Better informing and collecting precise statistics data can also make a contribution to the development of gender equality in science and technology. Information and statistical data will show areas where the problems still exist and specialists will have an opportunity to pay more attention to these spheres. After distinguishing problematic zones, it will be possible to find out possible reasons of low female participation and think about possible means to resolve these problems.   Popularization of the women who make an important contribution to STI would also help to reduce the gender gap in this sphere.   Mass media can help to pursue this goal.Women play an important role in a lot of spheres in   the contemporary society. They make great contribution to the development and improvement of life in a lot of spheres. Unfortunately, science and technology are the spheres where women do not have equal possibilities with men. There are a lot of possible explanations of this inequality, but gender bios, prejudices and unequal distribution of resources are among the main ones. Gender inequality in STI is more common in the developing countries. There are different ways to deal with the problem. Proper monitoring, proper informing and creating necessary work conditions should improve the situation in this field.   Gender equality and normal work conditions for both, men and women are the characteristics of any normal society and it is necessary to pay attention to the problem of gender inequality in science and technology because this can be beneficial for the development of these spheres.

A Crash Course in the Branches of Linguistics

A Crash Course in the Branches of Linguistics Dont confuse a linguist with a polyglot (someone whos able to speak many different languages) or with a language maven or SNOOT (a self-appointed authority on usage). A linguist is a specialist in the field of linguistics. So then, what is linguistics? Simply defined, linguistics is the scientific study of language. Though various types of language studies (including grammar and rhetoric) can be traced back over 2,500 years, the era of modern linguistics is barely two centuries old. Kicked off by the late-18th-century discovery that many European and Asian languages descended from a common tongue (Proto-Indo-European), modern linguistics was reshaped, first, by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and more recently by Noam Chomsky (born 1928) and others. But theres a bit more to it than that. Multiple Perspectives on Linguistics Lets consider a few expanded definitions of linguistics. Everyone will agree that linguistics is concerned with the lexical and grammatical categories of individual languages, with differences between one type of language and another, and with historical relations within families of languages.(Peter Matthews, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford University Press, 2005)Linguistics can be defined as the systematic inquiry into human language- into its structures and uses and the relationship between them, as well as into its development through history and its acquisition by children and adults. The scope of linguistics includes both language structure (and its underlying grammatical competence) and language use (and its underlying communicative competence).(Edward Finegan, Language: Its Structure and Use, 6th ed. Wadsworth, 2012)Linguistics is concerned with human language as a universal and recognizable part of the human behaviour and of the human faculties, perhaps one of the most essential to human life as we know it, and one of the most far-reaching of human capabilities in relation to the whole span of mankind’s achievements.(Robert Henry Robins, General Linguistics: An Introductory Survey, 4th ed. Longmans, 1989) There is often considerable tension in linguistics departments between those who study linguistic knowledge as an abstract computational system, ultimately embedded in the human brain, and those who are more concerned with language as a social system played out in human interactional patterns and networks of beliefs. . . . Although most theoretical linguists are reasonable types, they are sometimes accused of seeing human language as purely a formal, abstract system, and of marginalizing the importance of sociolinguistic research.(Christopher J. Hall, An Introduction to Language and Linguistics: Breaking the Language Spell. Continuum, 2005) The tension that Hall refers to in this last passage is reflected, in part, by the many different types of linguistic studies that exist today. Branches of Linguistics Like most academic disciplines, linguistics has been divided into numerous overlapping subfields- a stew of alien and undigestible terms, as Randy Allen Harris characterized them in his 1993 book The Linguistics Wars (Oxford University Press). Using the sentence Fideau chased the cat as an example, Allen offered this crash course in the major branches of linguistics. (Follow the links to learn more about these subfields.) Phonetics concerns the acoustic waveform itself, the systematic disruptions of air molecules that occur whenever someone utters the expression.Phonology concerns the elements of that waveform which recognizably punctuate the sonic flow- consonants, vowels, and syllables, represented on this page by letters.Morphology concerns the words and meaningful subwords constructed out of the phonological elements- that Fideau is a noun, naming some mongrel, that chase is a verb signifying a specific action which calls for both a chaser and a chasee, that -ed is a suffix indicating past action, and so on.Syntax concerns the arrangement of those morphological elements into phrases and sentences- that chased the cat is a verb phrase, that the cat is its noun phrase (the chasee), that Fideau is another noun phrase (the chaser), that the whole thing is a sentence.Semantics concerns the proposition expressed by that sentence- in particular, that it is true if and only if some mutt named Fideau has c hased some definite cat. Though handy, Harriss list of linguistic subfields is far from comprehensive. In fact, some of the most innovative work in contemporary language studies is being carried out in even more specialized branches, some of which hardly existed 30 or 40 years ago. Here, without the assistance of Fideau, is a sample of those specialized branches: applied linguistics, cognitive linguistics, contact linguistics, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, forensic linguistics, graphology, historical linguistics, language acquisition, lexicology, linguistic anthropology, neurolinguistics, paralinguistics, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and stylistics. Is That All There Is? Certainly not. For both the scholar and the general reader, many fine books on linguistics and its subfields are available. But if asked to recommend a single text that is at once knowledgeable, accessible, and thoroughly enjoyable, plump for The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 3rd ed., by David Crystal (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Just be warned: Crystals book may turn you into a budding linguist.

7 Editing Pet Peeves

7 Editing Pet Peeves 7 Editing Pet Peeves 7 Editing Pet Peeves By Mark Nichol We all have our editorial idiosyncrasies. Here are seven words, phrases, or other subjects that make me peevish: 1. â€Å"Beg the Question† If you see this phrase in print, it’s likely to mean â€Å"to bring up an obvious question,† as in â€Å"That begs the question of how we are going to balance the budget† or â€Å"to prompt a question in response to something,† as in â€Å"The new evidence begs the question of whether the defendant was guilty after all.† To beg the question, however, originally meant to make a statement that assumes that the proposition in question is true; an example is â€Å"Most scholars discount Smith’s theories because they don’t agree with him.† This original definition, however, is being overwhelmed by the new senses described above. They are so ubiquitous that they are coming to be accepted as valid, but such acceptance dilutes the value of the pure meaning. It’s best not to use the phrase at all. 2. â€Å"I could care less.† Perhaps I care about this too much, because it doesn’t come up often, but more than never is too much. The correct expression is â€Å"I couldn’t care less,† meaning, â€Å"The degree to which I care is the least possible amount.† Some people argue that â€Å"I could care less† is a way of shrugging an issue off by implying that the minimal extent to which one is concerned about it could be diminished even further. My opinion: It’s a mishearing of the correct form, and those who write it the wrong way are writing it the wrong way. 3. Different When I read a sentence like â€Å"Seventeen different languages are spoken by students at the school,† my first thought is, â€Å"As opposed to seventeen identical languages?† In other words, different is redundant to the statement of plurality. Different is the default. 4. Latin Latin abbreviations such as i.e. and e.g. are valid, but they’re often misused or at least punctuated incorrectly (or not at all), and â€Å"for example† and â€Å"that is† serve just as well. The same goes for the Latin for â€Å"and so on†: etc. which, by the way, is redundant not only to the foregoing abbreviations but also to â€Å"such as† and â€Å"et al.† (â€Å"and others†), which, outside of a bibliography, is simply not necessary. And why use ergo when you can write thus? A good proportion of English vocabulary derives from Latin, but I advocate minimizing direct borrowing. 5. Nonprofit I abhor the use of nonprofit as a stand-alone noun, and I find I must append the word organization to that word, converting it into an adjective: â€Å"nonprofit organization.† The same opposition applies to multinationals; I favor â€Å"multinational corporations.† 6. Quality I once worked for a publication whose editor in chief banned the word quality alone when â€Å"high quality† is meant, as in â€Å"This is a quality publication.† It was an oddly specific prohibition from a person who wouldn’t be expected to bother with such specific usage, but I agreed with her then, and I do now; I never use the term in isolation in that context. 7. Scare Quotes Quotation marks used as the written equivalent of wiggled-finger air quotes are usually unnecessary. They’re especially so in conjunction with so-called in fact, they’re redundant in that case: â€Å"So-called notification laws require businesses to notify customers when certain unencrypted customer data is improperly accessed.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Using "a" and "an" Before WordsUsed To vs. Use ToDealing With A Character's Internal Thoughts

Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 31

Business - Essay Example It is evident that a lot of companies are planning to or offering telecommuting services to their employees. Drastic weather conditions are among factors that are pushing companies to offer telecommuting. Employees in Washington saved the government a large sum of money by working from home during official snow days. This is according to research done by Global Workplace Analytics. According to Lister, â€Å"Telecommuting is the only way companies will know how to build work places and design work practices and decide what technology is needed for support† (Tugend). Today, telecommuting is not limited to one sector of the population but men, women, young, old, parents, and non parents all participate. The article states that individuals who work from home tend to be more productive and put in more working hours. It is however important for an employee to combine both working at home and from the office, since working from home alone my affect promotion chances. Telecommuting has grown drastically and a lot of individual are full time employees working from home. On average, the article states that the number of Americans working outside the office is as high as thirty percent of the population (Tugend). Telecommuting is helping companies reduce office spaces but still a large number of individuals would prefer to combine both working at home and from the office. The second article â€Å"Working Productively as a Telecommuter† outlines tips on how to become a successful telecommuter. For a lot of people, the idea of telecommuting is working from the comfort of your home in pajamas without the rush of the office. The article however states that this is not a healthy notion and is destined to failure for any individual telecommuting. Even if working from home an individual needs to take is serious. One should be focused and work hard just as if he was his own boss (Garone). The article gives tips on how to be successful in telecommuting. For first time

Age And Acquisition Of English As A Foreign Language Essay

Age And Acquisition Of English As A Foreign Language - Essay Example The ‘age factor’ has at all times been one of the chief issues in terms of research and investigations focused on the acquisition of second/foreign language. Nonetheless, the crucial point has now shifted from investigating the question of whether there exists a crucial phase, as observed during the 1970s and 80s, to the suitable time to begin education in L2. Such a trend is mainly applicable in foreign language acquisition perspectives across Europe and visibly apparent in countries like Spain where the age of instruction for teaching English was significantly reduced from 11 years of age to 8 years by the Reforma. It is hence, highly likely that advance improvements might press forward the starting age for learning a foreign language to age 6. Although these changes fail to consider the conclusions from current research, they do, however, replicate the common fear regarding the significance of languages, particularly English, in our every day lives. This book review i s, as a result, of supreme significance to teachers as well as students of English as a second/foreign language. It accumulates certain chosen contributions in two parts. The first part deals with "Theoretical Issues" discussed in three chapters which present a general idea about the role of age in learning languages. Chapter 1 in part 1 titled â€Å"Critical Period or General Age Factor(s)† written by David Singleton provides a methodical introduction to the CPH Critical Period Hypothesis as well as the theory of CP Critical Period.

Nagarjuna's Concept of Emptiness versus Buddhist Philosophical Essay

Nagarjuna's Concept of Emptiness versus Buddhist Philosophical Teaching - Essay Example The beliefs of emptiness is not just an ultimate error but the foundation for attachments that humans have, besides this, it is responsible for the adhering to and development of numerous prejudices. On the other hand, Buddhist philosophical teaching has narrations which are a style of representing a topic and not its theme; this is the core of Buddhist art. The representation becomes a narrative when its representation unfolds as a chain of events or at times it becomes a story that consists of various episodes; the representation revolves around an action that progress into time and later into space. Nagarjuna's concept of emptiness has the notion of intrinsic and independent existence that is often incompatible with causation because causation signifies contingency and dependence; therefore, something that poses independence is usually immutable and self-enclosed. Everything is composed of events that are dependently related and have phenomena that are continuous interacting with an essence that is not fixed or immutable hence they have a relation that is constantly changing. Both occasions and possessions are bare and do not possess permanent essence, realities that are intrinsic or an absolute being that make them afford impartiality. Infirmity takes place when there is grasping of autonomous existence; this eventually leads to a series of actions that are destructive, sufferings, and reactions. In addition to this, the theory of Nagarjuna emptiness has profound ethical and psychological implications (Olson, 45). For instance, ideologies responsible for dividing humanity come from the tendency of people to perceive things to be inherently divided and disconnected; this misconception brings about the belief that the divisions are essentially independent and self-existent. On the other hand, Buddhism narration involved ancient classics and the story and all related action unfolds out of disclosure; they often evolve from a chain of stories that are not linke d together. Discourse and introduction of the story initiates moral in the story and supports it, same applies to the other story and the other except for the case of visual narration which is somewhat different. In visual narration, moral is deducted but does not come at the beginning of the narration; likewise, it has the discourse technique but it is not on the ground to take off. The narrator is required to be precise when selecting episodes that are able to reveal the whole story; moreover, the narrator has to know how to portray actors, represent spaces in the story and shape the time during which the story unfolds (Edelglass, 602). Literary narratives have stories that manipulate time and space; for instance, in a sentence that talks about two people who met in France after five years and they both had grown beards has time and space appearing in the narrative body. It is said that in one of his first sermons, the Buddha made a prescription of a middle path between the charac ters of self indulgence and self mortification, stating that there had to be a balance between the two. Nagarjuna, who came in a later period, made a citation of the same but while this was the case, he went even further by stating that there was a middle way between existence and non-existence and also between what is permanent and what is not. According to this philosopher, the development of ignorance among individuals tends to be the source of all the suffering that they

Diversity and Human Resource Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Diversity and Human Resource - Essay Example The challenge to remain competitive in the current global markets has forced many organizations to change their views on managing the diversity of their workforce. Not only is the diversification of the workforce unavoidable but it has also become essential to tap into the competitive market of talent in the world today for any organization to remain competitive. (Cross, 1994, 110-114) The main reason why diversity should be seen as different function rather than part of human resource is because The definition of diversity among people can be generally defined as the differences between people, physical and psychological. This includes all demographic and cultural differences like age, gender, race, culture, religion, ethnicity, disabilities, personal beliefs, family structure and lifestyle, paying little attention to work skills. (Morrison, 1992, 42-48) This is however not in any way comprehensive, as diversity among people is practically limitless and is constantly evolving with time and the global environment. Outstanding differences are obvious like race and age but some can be difficult to identify especially perceived differences, which vary based on experiences and relationships like lifestyle and personality. (Ellis, 1994, 79-110) Valuing diversity is an important element in organisations today and managing diversity is vital for success. ... Why is diversity becoming an important issue Previously, the diversity of an organization's workforce has mainly been due to legal compliance as in many countries, there are laws against discrimination. However, globalization of the world markets including the employment market is causing dramatic change in the way businesses are run. (Ellis, 1994, 79-110) Globalizations means new open markets with new customers which requires products or services that are suited for these markets. It also means new type of employment market which is extremely diverse. Limiting factors like geography are becoming less an issue as technology advances in travel and communication makes the world increasingly accessible. Diversity is becoming an unavoidable issue that must be addressed if the organization is to successfully adapt to these changes. Organizational goals of diversity today include creation of positive organizational culture and deriving economic value from diversity (Hellriegel 1999 ). In recent years, the field of Human Resource Management has moved to consider not only micro but also macro relationships. The micro focus, evolving from industrial psychology, emphasized human resource policies and their influence on individuals. This focus was concerned exclusively with such outcomes as job satisfaction and employee participation. The macro focus shifts the level of analysis from the individual to the organization. Diversity Orientation: Configurational View Diversity becomes significant organizational objective and diversity management becomes particularly salient because of the natural tendency toward homogeneity in

Case Study On Hurricane Floyd Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

On Hurricane Floyd - Case Study Example The strength of this hurricane however has been recorded as the largest and strongest hurricanes to have ever hit the Atlantic. The reason for opting for hurricane Floyd for this particular case study is the intensity with which it pounded the Bahama Islands and moved into New England subsequently while damaging North Carolina and Florida on the way. Furthermore, it was also the cause for heavy floods and devastating storms which have led to several lives being lost. What originated as a mere tropical wave, turned into something so sinister that even the level of preparedness that had been taken care of in order to mitigate the effects of the hurricane, was not enough. While it crossed the Bahamas it remained under a category 5 status on the Saffir-Simpson scale, giving the meteorology department not much to alert the citizens about. Furthermore, it even weakened to a category 3 status with the winds ranging between 120 mph. thus the forecast that was broadcast regarding the tropical wave when it was out at sea was merely average as compared to the forecasts in the last decade. Only a fraction of the islands of the Bahamas received heavy winds for a small period of time and thus people were not aware that something bad could have struck, due to lack of common warning because of the varying wind pressure. Mitigation is the process of lessening the impact of an impending disaster in order to minimize its effects and cause the least amount of trouble and trauma to the people, possible. Not much could have been done in order to mitigate or lessen the impact of this hurricane except for keeping an eye on its movement and the meteorology department keeping a check on the wind speeds and directions of movement of the hurricane. People were informed well in time in order to leave their homes and as the President had declared emergency, it was the maximum that could have been done. Preparedness on the other hand refers to the measures that are

Eye of the Albatross Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Eye of the Albatross - Assignment Example A sharp contrast also exists between the perception of sea usage by the Albatross and the Humans. While the Albatross uses the sea as their lifetime habitat, obtain food and shelter from the seas and oceans, the human usage of the sea is quite different. They use the seas to obtain gifts, though piracy, where they capture and terrorize other humans in order to achieve their goals, goals to enrich themselves from the properties and at the expense of others (Mancke, 225). While the Humans perceive the Albatross, as a burden to them, similarly is the Amelia’s perception of human, as a burden to the albatross, they capture them and other sea birds, and then slaughter them for food, sports, or feathers. Any interaction of Humans and the Albatross is of a destructive nature, where the humans capture and kills the birds while taking their eggs, thus threatening their survival. Humans use the hooking lines to capture and kill the Albatrosses for their food. The perception of the sea d iffers between the Albatrosses and the Humans, in that Humans perceive the sea as a trash bin where they can dispose all their wastes. This in turn affects the life of the sea birds by polluting their habitats and eventually causing them inhabitable and poisonous. This further risks the lives of the sea birds and threatens their survival (Safina, 151). While the Albatrosses uses the sea to survive and thrive, owing to it being their habitable environment, Human have always perceived and used the seas and the oceans as a territory through which to exercise their power, eventually controlling the other humans. The Europeans used the sea and the oceans to exercise their powers and eventually colonized the Africans and the Asians (Mancke, 227). The comparison between Amelia and the human perception of the sea is that both utilize it for one goal, surviving and thriving. The proletarians, the poor, and the peasants engage in sea activities to seek for food and other means of survival. Th is is however different from the other group of humans; the politicians, the diplomats and the military who uses the sea and oceans as a platform to obtain dominance over the others. The relationship between humans with each other and Albatrosses with each other sharply defers. While the relationship between the Albatrosses is that of support and assistance, the human relationship is that of master-servant, with the powerful and the well off dominating over their subordinates. The perception on the importance of seas and oceans differs between the Albatrosses and humans. While the albatrosses views the seas and the oceans as the only source of livelihood, with the dry land being used for procreation only, to humans the reverse is true (Lewis, 192). Human perceives the mass of dry land as the most important of the two, since this is where he lives and undertakes all his life activities. To human, the seas, and oceans, if anything, serves to supplement the source of livelihood that ma n has, the land. No wonder therefore, humans have always tried to reduce the size of seas and oceans by increasing the masses of dry land. While the entire Albatrosses population lives and co-exists in the seas and oceans, only a few of the human population lives or even depends on the sea for their livelihoods (Lewis, 212). The few humans that depend on the seas and oce

Case Study On Hurricane Floyd Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

On Hurricane Floyd - Case Study Example The strength of this hurricane however has been recorded as the largest and strongest hurricanes to have ever hit the Atlantic. The reason for opting for hurricane Floyd for this particular case study is the intensity with which it pounded the Bahama Islands and moved into New England subsequently while damaging North Carolina and Florida on the way. Furthermore, it was also the cause for heavy floods and devastating storms which have led to several lives being lost. What originated as a mere tropical wave, turned into something so sinister that even the level of preparedness that had been taken care of in order to mitigate the effects of the hurricane, was not enough. While it crossed the Bahamas it remained under a category 5 status on the Saffir-Simpson scale, giving the meteorology department not much to alert the citizens about. Furthermore, it even weakened to a category 3 status with the winds ranging between 120 mph. thus the forecast that was broadcast regarding the tropical wave when it was out at sea was merely average as compared to the forecasts in the last decade. Only a fraction of the islands of the Bahamas received heavy winds for a small period of time and thus people were not aware that something bad could have struck, due to lack of common warning because of the varying wind pressure. Mitigation is the process of lessening the impact of an impending disaster in order to minimize its effects and cause the least amount of trouble and trauma to the people, possible. Not much could have been done in order to mitigate or lessen the impact of this hurricane except for keeping an eye on its movement and the meteorology department keeping a check on the wind speeds and directions of movement of the hurricane. People were informed well in time in order to leave their homes and as the President had declared emergency, it was the maximum that could have been done. Preparedness on the other hand refers to the measures that are

Athens State Information Systems and Information Technology Research Paper

Athens State Information Systems and Information Technology - Research Paper Example Student Advising Module is an element that is provided by Athens State University through Banner. SAM is the students’ official plan of the study which gives students chances to view courses according to year. It also allows the students to view unofficial transcripts, degree plans, as well as grades from the courses, completed recently. SAM’s applicability is the matter to the accurateness of the academic history of students as well as the programs that are installed in SAM. It allows the students to receive the updated transcripts regarding the raises as well as promotions after completing the degrees or courses. This means that the students get information directly from the instructor posts the grades. The degree planner offers students guarantee for coursework pertinent to degree plan as well as the updated grade for expected graduation. SunGard Banner has utilized by the Athens State University. It has helped the University in analyzing, measure as well as improves academic programs and student victory projects. This is an automated self-service software package that connects the whole institution. Banner provides, as well as grades from the courses, s, account information, and needs of course material and individual information control ability to students of Athens States University. This system assists the students who in few years ago had to travel to the institution in order to get and fill the forms, and move from one campus to another in order to finish the required tasks.  

Ideology vs. united church of Canada’s advertisement Essay Example for Free

Ideology vs. united church of Canada’s advertisement Essay Ideology is a ‘Representation’ of the Imaginary Relationship of Individuals to their Real Conditions of Existence Louis Althusser, 1970 Many companies use advertisement as their way of attracting customers. They tend to create ideological perspective within their advertisements to show their stand on the society’s standards. Most of the time, advertisements are made for women. If men and babies’ needs were advertised, women are still part of it. It shows that in the ideology of the society, women are the determiner or the decision-maker of what should be use as a necessity or luxury. This is what advertisement for, it radicalize the essence of what is important and necessary. Advertising is significant because, in consumer capitalism, individuals depend on it for meanings a source of social information embedded in commodities that mediate interpersonal relations and personal identity. Advertising should therefore be conceived as an important institution in the consumer society because it produces patterned systems of meaning which play a key role in individual socialization and social reproduction. However, in the context of ideology and advertisement as a whole, advertisements are made because we want to prove something or we want to impose a law on a certain aspect of the society. Through this, we could be able to spread our ideas and perspectives towards different issues and arguments that exist in the society today. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze a certain advertisement in connection to the Ideological State Apparatus of Louis Althusser to determine its meaning and rationalization. The chosen advertisement is a child advertisement. The advertisement showed a picture of a baby with a medical wristband stating â€Å"WARNING: some re-assembly of priorities and beliefs may be required. † This advertisement suggests that parenthood is not an easy thing. As parents, people tend to view life more seriously. Once a baby is born, everything will change not according to plan but according to responsibility. Wandercafe. ca stated in the advertisement that â€Å"parenthood changes everything – including how you view the world. † Most often, this scenario happens if the baby is a wanted child because if it is not, parents tend to disregard their responsibility towards their children especially the fathers. Nevertheless, being a parent is a gift from God as we all know. In the perspective of the society and our culture, we view parenthood as a form of required responsibility. Once a child is born, we need to settle our priorities as based on the needs of the child and would not focus on our necessities and luxuries. In poor families, even if the parents could not eat, as long as their child has its milk, problem would not exist. This situation shows that parents can do everything and anything just to make their child safe and healthy. This is what the advertisement is trying to impose – parenthood is an obligation that should be taken into consideration because it requires re-assemble of priorities and beliefs. In the perspective of ideology and advertisement, this advertisement can be said as part of the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA). According to Louis Althusser (1970), an Ideological State Apparatus is a certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institution. Because the advertisement came from the people of the United Church of Canada, it can be said as a religious Ideological State Apparatus. He also stated that the distinction of ISAs from (Repressive) State Apparatus is that the Repressive State Apparatus functions ‘by violence’, whereas the ideology State Apparatus function ‘by ideology’. This is the fact that the (Repressive) State Apparatus functions massively and predominantly by repression (including physical repression), while functioning secondarily by ideology. (There is no such thing as a purely repressive apparatus.)†¦ In the same way, but inversely, it is essential to say that for their part the Ideological State Apparatuses function massively and predominantly by ideology, but they also function secondarily by repression, even if ultimately, but only ultimately, this is very attenuated and concealed, even symbolic. (Althusser 1970) Advertisement has different impact to society and its institutions such as education, culture, and religion. In the chosen advertisement, these three factors exist as they give contribution to the perspective and ideology of the ad. It was seen through different aspects and reasons. In the institution of education, this advertisement educate people especially parents to become aware with their responsibilities and obligations towards their child or children because it was the most important thing that should be taken into account. When it comes to culture, it shows the stand of the society when it comes to parenthood because this is part of the culture – parents should abide by the rule of the law that they should love their children for they have conceived them. In the religious institution or the church, this advertisement shows what is right in opposition to evil. Church stated that parents should do their obligations not by their choice but by the rule of the church because it was the teaching of God. In the pre-capitalist historical period which I have examined extremely broadly, it is absolutely clear that there was one dominant Ideological State Apparatus, the Church, which concentrated within it not only religious functions, but also educational ones, and a large proportion of the functions of communications and ‘culture’. It is no accident that all ideological struggle, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, starting with the first shocks of the Reformation, was concentrated in an anti-clerical and anti-religious struggle; rather this is a function precisely of the dominant position of the religious Ideological State Apparatus. (Althusser 1970) In the chosen advertisement, Church is dominant and ‘repressive’ in some angle because it tried to impose a law or a rule. It was shown in the medical wristband of the baby. Using the word â€Å"warning† is an implication of notice that there must be an action to consider. The ideology of the advertisement is actually true when it comes to responsibilities of the parents but the Church overpowers the parents on what they should do and act. Though it was just a simple warning, capitalism can be seen based on its attack and point of justification. As a whole, the advertisement means more than what it wanted to say. The ideology of the church can be said as a form of repression or simply a justification of what is true as based on the standard of the society. Advertisement has different meanings based on the perceiver. It was the audience’s obligation to perceive the advertisement on their own context and ideology. Ideology is innate for all of us. It should not be taken for granted because it is an armor of our thinking, rights, and stand towards the rules and laws of the society. Culture, education, and church are underlying institutions that we need to consider in analyzing a certain advertisement because these factors are the most important aspects of humanity whether we oppose or consider their specificities from the past, present, and future civilization. Works Cited Althousser, Louis. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. La Pensee, 1970. 27 November 2007 http://www. marxists. org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology. htm Wandercafe. ca. baby. 27 November 2007 www. wandercafe. ca Harms, John and Kellner, Douglas. â€Å"Toward A Critical Theory of Advertising. † Illumination. (n. d. ) 27 November 2007 http://www. uta. edu/huma/illuminations/kell6. htm.

Changes In The Concepts Of Childhood

Changes In The Concepts Of Childhood Discuss how childhood has changed since the 19th century. How do concepts from this period continue to influence current attitudes to childhood? What is childhood Childhood, the early years of a persons life, between birth to about 8 years, is also considered most beautiful, most meaningful and most important part of life for a human being. The importance of childhood can be understood by observing the fact that though many scientists have different theories to define the process of human development they all agree on the importance of childhood and experiences in that time having a profound affect on an individuals life. Many researches have been made on the process of human development and tough there are many proposed theories the actual difference between them is about how complex the relation really is between the stages and not what the stages really are. The differences are intrinsic not extrinsic. They all agree that childhood is a time when a person is moving from concrete to abstract thought. Man did learn sciences such as astrology, numerology, mathematics etc but the concept of schooling was deficient. People only knew as much as was required to trade and earn a living. A study conducted on child development concluded that in the year 1750 about 33 percent of infants and new born babies were left on doorsteps or social care homes by parents. (Archard, 1993)Poor children were also made to work in land mines and other industries by their parents to earn a living. Efforts to eradicate child labor have been made over centuries by the responsible government bodies in different countries and social welfare organizations in the world. But it seems that despite the changing perceptions towards childhood, statistical data proves otherwise. The commencement of specific child development theories and acknowledgment of these theories only date back to some 200 years ago, in the 17th and 18th century. An acclaimed name, in this regard is of Professor Malcolm W. Watson. (Heywood, 2001)He researched on Human Development and formed theories that are still studied and followed. Results of his findings emphasized on six major theories by different people in different times. These theories focus on different stages man goes through from infancy to adulthood. Details of how environment and other factors affect childhood are also underscored. The theories encompass effects and behavioral changes in man and what we opine about our own selves, be it scientists, researchers or a common man. Psychodynamic theory-Sigmund Freud. (James, 2004)This theory says that human psychology can be broken down in to three separate parts. These are namely the id, the ego and the superego. Id is the childish part of our personality and its driving force is food, warmth and appreciation and the sexual drive. This side of every being is then balanced by the other two parts i.e. ego and superego. The superego is contradictory to id. It is that part of human personality which enables us to control one self. Through this one acts in a socially acceptable manner. The ego is some where in the middle of these two extremes. Most of our troubles arise from balancing between the id and the superego. Oedipus complex is another very important entity of Freuds theory. This stage is when the child develops feelings for his opposite sex parents. Boys wish to take place of their father and be the head of the family and act as a husband to their mother but at the same time they respect their father and fear that if they cross limits they will have to bare the consequences. Psychosocial theory by Erik Erickson (Kehily, 2003)He coined the famous phrase Identity Crisis. His personality theory had 8 stages from infancy to old age. These were 1. Hope, 2. Will, 3. Purpose, 4. Competence, 5. Fidelity, 6. Love, 7. Caring, 8. Wisdom. Erik was the first to bring forth the notion that development is spread over our entire lives and not just childhood. Integrated Attachment theory- John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth: This theory originated in the early years of 1950s and was a joint effort by John Bowlby, specialist in child psychiatry and a psychologist, Mary Ainsworth. The concept is based on relationships and connections developed in the yearly years of our life. Also real life issues in a childs life pertaining to loss and separations with which he had emotional ties are emphasized upon in the theory. Social Learning theory by Albert Bandura: This theory was a modified version of the traditional learning theories. It says that learning is the same in infants, children, adults and even animals. Albert says that all respond to stimulus. Cognitive Mediation theory- Lev Vygotsky: Supporting many other major theorists, Vygotsky opines that learning comes first and paves way for development. According to his theory, a child learns through other individuals around him i.e. parents, teachers, siblings and other children. He says that developing thoughts and new skills is based on people in the environment we live in and our interaction with them. Cognitive developmental theory- Jean Piaget: Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist says that children learn by building their own cognitive worlds. He believed that individuals go through four stages of understanding. All of these are age related. Sensorimotor stage: This is from birth to two years of age. In this first stage, infants coordinate the senses of seeing and hearing with physical and motoric experiences to understand. Thus, the name sensorimotor. Preoperational stage: It goes on from two years of age to seven years. Children at this stage start relating the world and their surroundings with words and images. They go beyond the sensory experiences in this stage. Concrete Operational Stage: This third stage lasts from 7 years to eleven years. Children can perform operations, and logical reasoning replaces intuitive thought as long as reasoning can be applied to specific or concrete examples. For instance, concrete operational thinkers cannot imagine the steps necessary to complete algebraic equation, which is too abstract for thinking at this stage of development. (Mayall, 1994) Formal Operational Stage: The final stage is from 11 to 15 years. Children move further from concrete thoughts to abstracts and logical thinking. As a part of abstractive thinking they create hypothetical ideal circumstances and then compare their own life with these standards, deducing a satisfactory conclusion. In a nutshell, childhood is the time when we are understanding simple operations in order to be able to understand and master complex tasks in future. We need to identify the environment around us and use language to make connections to objects and the world in general. If this basic understanding is faulty, the future would certainly hold a lot more surprises, and many of them would be unwelcome. Only when a child fully understands the world around is he really able to grasp abstract concepts and use logic to reach meaningful conclusions in future. Having now understood what childhood is all about, how a human mind is developing, in stages, to understand the world it is introduced to and how important this part of life is in your life and mine, let us now take a look into how childhood has been different for people in the past century and the present. Childhood in the 18th century Compared to Childhood in the 19th century To begin with, the treatment of children with utmost care, especially in their earliest years, is a fairly recent notion. Before the 18th century, child mortality rate was so high that people had a lot of children of whom only a few actually survived. Parents could not afford to get too emotionally attached to children until they crossed a threshold age where chances of survival became greater than chances of death. In France, during the 17th century, between 20%-50% of infants died in their first year. (5) (Wyness, 2000) Zelizer, in his book, Pricing The Priceless Child, tells us how in the middle ages, Spanish children when they died could be buried anywhere on the premises, rather like a cat or dog, often, their bodies were sewn together into sacks and put inside common graves.In early Arabian cultures, the birth of a female child was considered a burden, it was mourned upon and in cases the infant was buried alive. Religion played a vital role in controlling erratic human behaviors and in both the east and the west, the religious institution was the first to recognize the rights of children and honorable dealings with them. The following table describes how religion basd institutions have provided childhood care facilities in the African continent. (Linda, 1984) With time and with the slow but steady spread of education, the world started becoming a different place altogether, especially in respect of the rights of children, and that happened mostly during the 18th and 19th centuries. We have, as the human species, come to realize that childhood is not just a biological phase in life. It holds much more meaning; it gives birth to a social being that embodies the belief system of on an entire populace at a point in time. Parents attitudes toward child bearing and rearing have undergone drastic reconstruction in modern times. 19th Century Concepts: In the 19th century children did not have a significant importance. No formal education and learning took place inside homes. Mothers generally did not have the awareness to spend time with their children and nurture them. A father in every home has been the breadwinner since times immemorial but women in the 19th century also joined the earning league. Till the early 19th century children were used to earn a living and a study shows that more than fifty percent of factory workers were children under the age of eleven years in northern parts of the world. They were made to work hard and perform hazardous jobs such as cleaning up narrow chimneys and going down cramped tunnels owing to their small size. Most historians would agree that children in present day world are much better off than the children in past centuries. But they continue to debate the extent to which childhood has changed since the 19th century and how the adults approach to childhood and dealing with children has altered. As such, children in past centuries worked with their parents from a very small age. But it was the industrial revolution of the 19th century which actually caused the inception of child labour. Researchers in the field of human development take one of two stances when explaining early childhood. They hold either an essentialist view (which considers childhood a commonalty that is no different in any part of the world, more a biological state than anything deeper). The other view to childhood, the constructionist view pictures childhood as being different in different cultures and different times. A child in Japan would be fundamentally different than a child in Britain. The children of one count ry would also be much different at different times. We can just take a look at the children around us and see the difference between our childhood and theirs to grasp the importance of the constructionist view. Cross cultural differences in childhood and its perception by elders is linked to the societies sense of a childs autonomy. It was considered an a vital aspect of Western cultures (Holland, 1992)but was not so prominent in eastern ones. While western mothers emphasized on teaching their child personal values and their rights at , each part of their lives, Japanese and Pakistani mothers have always emphasized more on differential treatment of elders and good mannerism (Gittens, 1998)The difference, as we see it plainly today, is that Japanese children display greater sensitivity and self discipline while American children are more confident and expressive. However, it has long been a subject of argument between researchers that irrespective of the vast differences in child rearing strategies across many cultures the fundamental importance of parenthood comes out in the form of warmth and acceptance against rejection and neglect (Jenks, 1996)However whether eastern cultures have been m ore histile toward the child in the past or western cultures have been more so is a matter of debate. While western cultures have displayed a generally strict attitude toward the childrearing and the lack of acknowledgement to their a childs own autonomy, eastern cultures on the other hand believe that strictness, control and and even corporal punishment are but ways to shw a child how much a prent cares. While the Chienese may consider American parents less caring for their childrens development of important social virtues, the American parent may consider Chinese as totally autorotarian and irrational (Higgonet, 1998)However, another psychological argument presented by Scientists says that in such collectivistic cultural arrangements as the Chinese, Japanese or Indian, authoritarian and restrictive parenting practices are necessary for maintaining harmoniously stable society . Literature on childhood from different cultures across the world have shown two main stream belief systems, the concept of childhood as Dionysian and Apollonian (Jenks, 1996)The Dionysian belief, taking from the greek mythological figure Dionysus (Prince of wine, nature and revelry) assumes that every child is born with evil or corruption in its nature imbued in their conscience. The Apollonian child is considers, from nature, the very image of beauty, poetry, sunshine and light. This is the belief that is prevalent today in the 21st century but did not exist in earlier centuries. While 19th century children were treated rather like animals. The industrial revolutions laid the foundations for the market for low paid child labour. IN textile factories, they worked as many as twelve hours a day. As education crept into the masses the parliament began passing laws to curtail child labour, but the first effective rule, emforced with the help of factory inspectors, came about in 1833. Education was not considered a necessity for every child and the responsibility of the state as late as 1870 and even then the poorest members of society could not afford school fee which were abolished in 1891. Victorian children were used to beatings and in extreme circumstances, poor children were forced to wear a cap which said dunce meaning a stupid person. Children dressed like adults, were supposed to act like adults and were treated in both love and hate as adults. The extent of neglect towards children can be seen by the fact that the first public park for children was build as late as 1859 in the city of Manchester. To us then, the hundreds of complex laws that protect children from evils makes utmost sense. Sexual and physical abuse, pornography, beatings and even simple neglect are considered crimes against childhood. Special laws for the special treatment of children are now in place to ensure that children are treated with delicate care. It seems that parental affection is not much of an instinct but only a reflection of what parents consider to be their duties toward their off spring. (Higgonet, 1998) It is a fact that parents in our world today can exercise less power over their children than in the past because a part of child rearing is controlled by the state (Donzalot, 1980). However these regulations have been brought into action to curtail the misuse of parental authority over children. Good parents can still be good parents, in fact, outside interference in maters such as family etiquettes, a childs eating, dressing, sleeping and entertainment habits and the setting of acceptable beahvorial standards is considered a breach of the parents right. The state usually only intervenes when it fears that the child is being ill treated or when it believes that the child is not well brought up and would be a danger to those around him or her. John Hood Willams (1990) points out that childrens lives are controlled by their families in quite a array of ways. Their social spaces are strictly defined, their times are set by elders, their clothes and haircut is subject to the parents ima ge of decency or acceptability. Parents even provide rules to be followed when eating, walking, talking and even standing in a crowd. Children are the most vulnerable to corporal punishment or all other members in the human society (Kline, 1993) However, 19th century and present day childhood is vastly different. Todays world is quite different than in the past century. Science and technology have rocketed human understanding of life many times over. Though the industrial revolution laid the foundations of all the progress we have seen in the past two hundred years, the greatest speed in the development of sciences and discovery has been hosted by the past 60 -70 years. Increasingly, the world has accepted that it is a global arena and not one divided by geographical boundaries. Cross cultural knowledge exchange has lead to a different populace which is ready to take on aspects of other societies almost readily. The media and internet have, without a trace of doubt, the greatest importance in the life of the modern child. Children are not only aware of fashion, trends and coursework, they are also aware of their rights and that 911 can save them from a parents physical or emotional abuse. At the same time that the present ce ntury is a blessing on children, it should also be brought into account that the 20th and 21st centuries have made childhood much more prone to corruption than previous centuries. To begin with, our environment is in a state of alarm, pollution and the green house effect have starting melting glaciers. Sea levels continue to rise and natural calamities have begun to affect humans in ever increasing ways. While countries emphasize on becoming wealthier and more powerful, they continue to expand their industrial and technological horizons but do not place due importance to the physical and mental development of a child. Physical activity (especially sport) for children has become an endangered species while computers and mobile phones have taken their place as a childs entertainment activity. Life has become fast and so much so that we enjoy and prefer fast food even if it delivers extremely low nutrition value and high cholesterol levels. Drug and sex abuse of children seems to be ri sing steadily, despite the existing laws to regulate such unacceptable actions. Terrorism, radical thought and the spirit of revolution among youth have made childhood an age where there should actually be more protection and concern from parents and the state. A childs cognitive and socioemotional development is therefore at the forefront of modern worlds strategies to rear better children. Cross cultural psychological studies have discovered that there are many ways in which cultural factors help in developing a sound child who would later develop into a socially acceptable person. The organization of physical and social setup in a surrounding, dictated by culture has a profound affect on the childs mannerism and activities. Prevalent social values, customs and norms provide a medium to evaluate his own acceptability or conformity in a society. Parental beliefs and practices, which have been molded by culture play a mediating role in a childs understanding of the world in which he/she lives. Contemporary societies use the schooling system, also built around their own cultural value, to imbed certain levels of acceptability criteria in the minds of children. (Gittens, 1998) For the broad minded modern child, many pieces of information, the instance of sexual information, is quite important in order to be able to perform in an agreeable way. It has already been shown by research that romantic ideals pave way for women coming to terms with their sexual drives and experiences .(Woodhead, 2003)At the same time boys, who hardly share romantic ideals with their parents tend to take on their masculine audacity to deal with love and sexual involvement .This finally leads to a pattern of married life (seen among the general populace) where women hardly get to the emotional closeness they expect to receive from their husbands .