The Professor Is a Dropout by Beth Johnson

The Professor is a Dropout â€Å"The Professor is a Dropout† by Beth Johnson is about a woman who was told she was retarded and her journey of becoming Dr. Lupe Quintanilla. Lupe, a Mexican native came to America young where in school she would be deemed as un-learnable (retarded), she dropped out of school in the first grade. Lupe continued her life, marrying and eventually started a family. When her children were deemed un-learnable as well she quickly took action to ensure they didn’t endure a similar fate.A very persistent Lupe was able to enroll in college; where she earned her doctoral degree. In Chapter seven of our textbooks we focus on purpose and tone. The reason for a particular passage is called the purpose. There are three common purposes; which are to inform, persuade or entertain. Figuring out the purpose of a passage can help the reader better determine the author’s reasoning for writing. Tone is the writer’s feelings towards the subject he or she is writing about. Simply put tone is the writer’s attitude.The purpose for â€Å"The Professor is a Dropout† is to inform and the tone is determined. I really enjoyed reading this story, because it’s very inspirational. I think Lupe is and was a very determined individual who would no longer accept what people told her all of her life. After reading this story it makes me want to work harder to lead by example. I believe that everyone is a capable of doing anything as long as they put forth an honest effort. Lupe in this story is prime examples that if you work hard, never give up and believe in yourself anything is possible.

Religion-Effect of Dispossession on Aboriginals

Religion Discuss the connection between the dreaming and the land rights movement. Aboriginal spirituality is determined by the dreaming. The dreaming is a complex concept of fundamental importance to Aboriginal culture, embracing the creative era long past of the ancestral beings as well as the present and the future. The Dreaming's importance to the aboriginal people is emphasised through it providing for the obligations and responsibility of the aboriginal people, and furthermore accounting for their past, present, and future.The dispossession of land of the aboriginal people has led to various problems, including psychological and social issues experienced by communities and individuals, who in the past, have been forcibly removed from their land, their ‘home'. The Land Rights Movement is a movement targeted at recognising the issue of dispossession and progressing towards a. Thus Land Rights Movement, a movement based on the claims by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islan der peoples to repossession and compensation for white use of their lands and sacred sites, became the resolution.The motivation of this movement was ultimately base upon Aboriginal peoples reliance on a sense of spirituality connected to the land. As the movement strengthened, so too did the awareness of the effect of the dispossession, leading to an increase in the movement itself, and also enforcing the Aboriginal people’s sense of spirituality. Essentially, it becomes evident that the importance of the Dreaming was ultimately the reason for, and motivation behind the Land Rights movement. Thus it is needless to say that the Dreaming is fundamental to the Lands Rights Movement.Analyse the importance of the Dreaming for the land rights movement Land rights are of critical importance in relation to Aboriginal spirituality, because the Dreaming is inextricably connected with the land. Therefore the dispossession of Aboriginal native land is also the dispossession of Aborigina l spirituality. The link between the Dreaming, land and afterlife holds significance spiritual importance to the Aboriginal peoples as the land is the resting place for all aboriginal beings. Furthermore each Aboriginal community is connected with the land through their spiritual totems.Specific areas of Aboriginal communities’ have important spiritual meaning for those particular groups of aboriginal people-these are known as sacred sites. What’s caratagoried in ever aboriginal sacred site is the connection to the Dreaming and aboriginal mythology. There are special responsibilities attached to sacred sites such as important ceremonies like weddings and it could be a place of death for an aboriginal elder. The identity of an Aboriginal person is inextricably linked to the land and hence the land is like a mother for the people.

Analysis of T. S. Eliots East Coker

Oriental Cork of T. S. Eliot is analyzing early poetry such as The Waste Land and Alfred Prufrock's Love Song. A person is a weak soul, is tempted to be tempted, full of desire, there is no hope of redemption. When Elliott converts to Catholicism, the views of these people have not changed. Elliot still maintains the suffering of human despair, but it compensates for this belief that man has some hope through the work of Christ. January 4: T. 1948, S. Eliot died of lung emphysema in London at the age of 77, was buried in the cemetary of the village of St. Michael's Church of East Coker, his ancestors were immigrants to the American village. At the memorial monument of the Westminster Abbey there was a weak and sick Ezra Pound in Italy. Summer: Durrells and children live in a villa on Paleocastrizza on Corfu Island Her husband and children are also Mary Mollo Hadkinson. LD met Ghislaine de Boysson at a nearby hotel at Catha Aldington. Two women spent a while with Crowder, but they did not sleep or drink LD. LD visited Athens to see Austin Harrison, a friend of an architect from Cyprus. Joan and Peter Bird will visit Corfu. LD collaborates with Ernle Bradford in the Cn-TV documentary Search Ulysses Elliot imagined the old age of the poem Part 2 Oriental Cork. This is a rural time, a cycle of planting and harvesting seasons. As the East Coke countryside is also within his Eliot 's own past as his ancestral place, it also represents a historical era. In the third section of this section, he describes how the Old Country Festival looks like Elliott will leave the United States. However, when I saw that his fathers were left behind, I felt he was cheated. He wanted to teach him how their legacy grew gracefully, but when he was looking forward to getting older, he saw death - he himself and others Death of things. Therefore, he tried to reach an agreement in the dark. He knows that the words can not contain death. He advised him so that he was patient and, desiring to work hard, not to work hard. Most importantly, he noticed that he had to put himself under the care of the wounded surgeons of Christ's statue. Analysis of T. S. Eliots East Coker Oriental Cork of T. S. Eliot is analyzing early poetry such as The Waste Land and Alfred Prufrock's Love Song. A person is a weak soul, is tempted to be tempted, full of desire, there is no hope of redemption. When Elliott converts to Catholicism, the views of these people have not changed. Elliot still maintains the suffering of human despair, but it compensates for this belief that man has some hope through the work of Christ. January 4: T. 1948, S. Eliot died of lung emphysema in London at the age of 77, was buried in the cemetary of the village of St. Michael's Church of East Coker, his ancestors were immigrants to the American village. At the memorial monument of the Westminster Abbey there was a weak and sick Ezra Pound in Italy. Summer: Durrells and children live in a villa on Paleocastrizza on Corfu Island Her husband and children are also Mary Mollo Hadkinson. LD met Ghislaine de Boysson at a nearby hotel at Catha Aldington. Two women spent a while with Crowder, but they did not sleep or drink LD. LD visited Athens to see Austin Harrison, a friend of an architect from Cyprus. Joan and Peter Bird will visit Corfu. LD collaborates with Ernle Bradford in the Cn-TV documentary Search Ulysses Elliot imagined the old age of the poem Part 2 Oriental Cork. This is a rural time, a cycle of planting and harvesting seasons. As the East Coke countryside is also within his Eliot 's own past as his ancestral place, it also represents a historical era. In the third section of this section, he describes how the Old Country Festival looks like Elliott will leave the United States. However, when I saw that his fathers were left behind, I felt he was cheated. He wanted to teach him how their legacy grew gracefully, but when he was looking forward to getting older, he saw death - he himself and others Death of things. Therefore, he tried to reach an agreement in the dark. He knows that the words can not contain death. He advised him so that he was patient and, desiring to work hard, not to work hard. Most importantly, he noticed that he had to put himself under the care of the wounded surgeons of Christ's statue.

Micro hydro power design Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Micro hydro power design - Case Study Example n towards production of more environmental friendly energy as oppose to the use of oil, these includes all renewable energy sources such as wind, biomass, solar and more importantly hydro power since it is the most efficient way of producing power in large quantities without damaging the environment (U.S. Department of Energy, 2008). Water is the most abundant resource in the world and as result its energy, in the form potential energy can be dammed and utilized in production of electricity. The dam retains the water and the potential energy rises as the height above the base increases, this water is directed to a turbine by the use of penstock and after working on the turbine, it exists through the tailrace. The critical parts of the turbine includes the caps connected to a shaft, the flowing water exerts a rotary motion on the caps/blades, which causes the shaft to turn in a circular manner. This shaft connects to a generator with a core trapped in a magnet’s poles, which causes electromagnetic induction (USGS, 2008). This electricity generated is then transmitted via cabling to households or for other purposes. In summary, the flowing water and the generator forms the backbone of the hydropower. The water provides the force that turns a rotor with field windings. The windings are supplied with an excitation voltage to set up an electric field, with the rotation of the, magnetically induced current flows to the stator which is a cylindrical ring encased with another magnetic windings. The two windings are separated by about 2mm air gas (USGS, 2008). Today, hydropower systems are cable of producing power ranging from 1MG to 100MG with more possibilities of producing power in small scale with low flow parameters and micro generators. Small dams, commonly known as weirs are used to trap and retain the water, which is then directed to a turbine via piping systems, the generator that produce power for residential usage then utilizes the force. The project

Strategic Analysis and Chance to Choose Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6750 words

Strategic Analysis and Chance to Choose - Essay Example Michael Porter (1985) further proposed that organisations pursingpursuing both cost leadership and differentiation strategies have in fact no competitive edge at all. and Rather, he asserts they are in fact "'stuck in the middle"' between both cost leadership and differentiation strategies resulting inwith no clear strategy for competitive advantage. Although I have chosenWhile the two chosen organisations within my industry I feel meet the criteria for this report, one organisation following cost leadership strategy whilst and the other following differentiation strategy, I feel somewhat reluctant to agree that an organisations within today's business environment are arguably not entirely restricted by Michaels Porter's proposed strategies on competitive advantage. The two organisations chosen for this report compete within the computer aided manufacturing software industry. EdgeCAM by its name is developed and distributed directly by Pathtrace Limited and is a third generation computer aided and manufacturing software package., its counter part within competitive analysis is SolidCAM is also computer aided manufacturing (CAM) solution. Porter proposed that along with cost leadership and ... of Ccost leadership, differentiation and focus organisations strategies can achieve competitive advantage for an organisation, according to Porter. Organisations following cost leadership strategy typically involve are companiey's engaged inthat delivering their product(s) and at the lowest quality level acceptable by to buyers that will lead them to cost advantage over their competitors. Cost leadership is more about how the company can leverage its product within its market through effective ongoing cost efficiencies within the organisation, backed-up by strong management concentrating on fully utilising the company'sir resources to their fullest. In contrast, organisations following a differentiation strategy seemingly are willing to actually add costs in order to increase'add' the value through by which they differentiateing their products. that will appeal to given series of buyers within the market. This could in fact be throughSuch cost increases could be aimed at achieving superior quality or performance of the product, or less intangible items like post-after sales service. Porter's differentiation strategy in similar respects followsis similar to branding strategy in which the strategythat relies on promoting 'distinctive' brand elements of the product. (Kotler P and Keller K, Marketing Management P.296) Porters also proposed a third strategy of called focus. Thise theory behind this isholds that customers have very different products or service needs, and therefore can be grouped together to form narrow niches within the industry. These segments or groups are then targeted in a. Unlike cost and differentiation strategies the focus strategies is similar manner to the

Companies have always found it hard to balance pressing operational Essay

Companies have always found it hard to balance pressing operational concerns with long-term strategic priorities,DISCUSS - Essay Example This may be due to various reasons and mangers are often at the cross roads. Assigning priorities and making decisions becomes a challenge for the business managers when they have to decide what are the sacrifices that have to be made to get along in business. Hence, this essay focuses on the analysis of what causes the companies to compromise on their strategic plans. When a company formulates the strategy, first an internal and external environmental analysis has to be carried out. When we are planning for the future first the organization should have awareness about the internal and external environmental factors that can impact the organization. â€Å"When the environment audit is undertaken, the objective is to develop a finite list of opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses. Here the word finite list is emphasized because the job of the manager is t not make an exhaustive list of all the factors that may affect the organization. But focus should be on key environmental variables that could influence business†1. The importance of the environmental analysis is mostly realized by organizations but the depth of the analysis is often compromised. For example in Toyota corporation, there is a management concept â€Å"to go to the roots†. The meaning of this concept is that, when we are collecting information for analysis, th e information should be collected from the source or in other words from the origin. When an external environmental analysis is done with information collected from the sources and decisions are made based on such in-depth data, the applicability and durability of strategic plans are considerably increased. The information from the external environment should be used to tune up the internal environment to meet the challenges and make good of the opportunities. When an organization needs to possess a competitive advantage its focus should be internalized rather externalized. The ability of a business concern to focus on its

Critique a Paradox Market v Resources Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Critique a Paradox Market v Resources - Essay Example The focus was essentially on either the external environment of the firm or its internal capabilities of the firm define its overall competitiveness within an industry or a particular market. One perspective suggests that the markets have preferences over the resources as firms following such a perspective tend to tailor their strategies according to changes taking place in their external environment. However, on the other hand, the other perspective which emphasizes resources over the market and tend to focus on the internal capabilities of the firm. The basic argument behind the market based view of the firm level competitiveness is based on the outside in perspective. The outside in perspective basically advocates that the firms are largely driven by their external environment and all their strategies and actions are the result of external influences. What is however, important is to note that firms following such an approach are quick to adapt to the changes in their external environment and take lesser time responding to external shocks Outside In perspective also allow firms to take up the opportunities much faster than other firms and develop necessary flexibility to respond to such opportunities in the most appropriate way. It is also critical to be important to understand that a market based view also allow firms to develop abilities to anticipate the emerging changes in their target markets and allow themselves to develop strategies which potentially help them to either withstand the emerging external threats or take up opportunities. Such firms therefore tend to focus more on their customers as the key variables to decide about the potential changes to take place in the market place. (Brooks) and perform well into an environment which is more dynamic and fluid in nature. Firms following such a perspective also need to develop its ability to continuously reposition itself and if a firm has presence in many markets at the same time; it may be required to re-position it according to the market conditions prevailing in each market. Such firms, however, tend to lose sight of their distinctive competencies and rely upon less on their own individual capabilities i.e. strengths to gain the competitive advantage. As discussed above that the firms develop competencies to anticipate external environment therefore they put in place the processes for collecting market intelligence regarding their potential as well as existing competitors and customers. Such capability further allows them to integrate such information into their strategic decision making process to better position themselves into the market. (Hult and Ketchen Jr) Such inflexibility does not therefore, yield a long term competitive advantage for the firms, and they tend to be complacent by focusing on just one aspect of the competitiveness. What is also critical that the market based view can only benefit the firms if the variables

Discussion Question Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Discussion Question - Assignment Example However, given that one third of cancer cases can be traced to lifestyle, some cases can actually be prevented through adoption of healthy behavioural and dietary habits. To this end, the global health agencies have embarked on a sensetization campaign aimed at reducing cancer deaths by 8 million within a decade. Although numerous studies have been conducted to establish the real cause of cancer, none has given a definitive answer to this problem. Several factors both genetic and environmental are pointed out as likely causes. However, it is important to note that less than 9% of cancer cases are as a result of inheritance. Most cases are due to mutation of oncogenes caused by environmental elements such as cigarettes, alcohol, radiations and chemicals. In this regard, cancer is defined as a disease caused by uncontrolled growth and multiplication of body cells (Raymond, 2007). Through cell division and growth, the body is able to produce more cells needed for healthy existence. Howe ver, in some instances, the abnormal cell division and growth occurs leading to production of many cells some of which are not needed by the body. These extra cells gather to form either benign or malignant tumor. However, a benign tumor does not pose health risk because they do not move to other parts of the body. In the contrary malign tumors also known as cancerous cells multiply and damage neighboring tissues. In addition, they can separate from parent organ and spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph. With regard to cancer, diagnosis refers to the process of trying to establish whether the disease is actually cancer and its possible causes. It involves the removal of tissues from affected organs by a surgeon for examination under microscope by a pathologist. There are various types biopsy conducted on cancer suspects depending on the part of body being examined. When a needle is used to suck fluid from tumor cell, then the process is referred to as needle aspiration biopsy. Other types include excisional biopsy where the whole tissue is removed and incisional biopsy where part of the tissue is detached. After the diagnosis has been done, the process of examining its extent (staging) follow. This process is essential because it helps in determining the stage of cancer. There are four cancer stages often written in Roman numbers. Stage I imply that the tumor is small usually less than 2cm and still confined in the organ. Stage II cancer is bigger, usually 2-4 cm has not started spreading. Stage III cancer means the tumor is more than 4cm and has began spreading to the lymph nodes. Finally, stage IV means cancer has spread to other body organs Besides, staging help the physician to determine the type of tumor, check the spread, prescribe suitable treatment and predict the patient future outlook (Susan, Marsha and Margaret, 2009). Staging is preceded by clinical investigations such as surgery, blood test and medical scanning. Radiation i maging is the most common method used in staging. This can be done through Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Computerized Tomography (CT) scans. Cancer like all other diseases is associated with various general and specific complications. Among the most prevalent complications is a neurological condition called brain metastases. It is estimated that 23% of cancer patients are affected by this condition. It is brought about by the spreading of tumors from other organs to the brain. Some of its side effects

Computer Programming Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Computer Programming - Coursework Example The â€Å"implements† keyword is used by a concrete class to indicate that it implements the interface and that each method in the interface is declared with the signature specified in the interface declaration. Note that we use an interface class instead of an abstract class since there is no default implementation to inherit as would be in abstract classes. It is also noteworthy that an interface class must be declared in a file with the same name and a .java file-name extension. Should the user fail to select anything in the special features panel that is reinforced or sealable top, the default is, it is assumed that the container is not reinforced or can’t have a sealable top as appropriate. The user will only enter the exact dimensions of the desired container and that these dimensions will be within the range that the company can make. That is there is no way of checking whether the ordered dimensions can actually be

Television violence Essay Example for Free

Television violence Essay * Children watch an average of four hours of television daily. Television can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior. Unfortunately, much of todays television programming is violent. Hundreds of studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may : * Become immune or numb to the horror of violence * Gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems * Imitate the violence they observe on television * Extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness. Children who view shows in which violence is very realistic, frequently repeated or unpunished, they are more likely to imitate what they see. Children with emotional, behavioral, learning or impulse control problems may be more easily influenced by TV violence. The impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in the childs behavior or may surface years later. Young people can even be affected when the family atmosphere shows no tendency toward violence. * While TV violence is not the only cause of aggressive or violent behavior, it is clearly a significant factor. Parents can protect children from excessive TV violence in the following ways: * pay attention to the programs their children are watching and watch some with them * set limits on the amount of time they spend with the television; consider removing the TV set from the childs bedroom * point out that although the actor has not actually been hurt or killed, such violence in real life results in pain or death * refuse to let the children see shows known to be violent, and change the channel or turn off the TV set when offensive material comes on, with an explanation of what is wrong with the program * disapprove of the violent episodes in front of the children, stressing the belief that such behavior is not the best way to resolve a problem * to offset peer pressure among friends and classmates, contact other parents and agree to enforce similar rules about the length of time and type of program the children may watch * Parents can also use these measures to prevent harmful effects from television in other areas such as racial or sexual stereotyping. The amount of time children watch TV, regardless of content, should be moderated because it decreases time spent on more beneficial activities such as reading, playing with friends, and developing hobbies. If parents have serious difficulties setting limits, or have ongoing concerns about their childs behavior, they should contact a child and adolescent psychiatrist for consultation and assistance.

Authenticated Color Extended Visual Cryptography

Authenticated Color Extended Visual Cryptography Authenticated Color Extended Visual Cryptography with Perfect Reconstruction R. Sathishkumar, Gnanou Florence Sudha Abstract Visual Cryptography Scheme (VCS) is an image safeguarding scheme which encrypts the secret text based image into multiple binary images called shares, which are then transmitted to participants. These shares are then stacked over by the participants to decrypt the secret image, however with reduced quality. In Extended Visual Cryptography Scheme (EVCS), these binary shares are encoded with cover images to generate meaningful shares. In order to enhance the decoded EVCS secret image quality, Two in One Image Secret Sharing Scheme (TiOISSS) was implemented, which offers perfect retrieval of the secret image. In this proposed scheme, the TiOISSS implemented for color secret image with meaningful color shares with perfect reconstruction is proposed. This scheme uses Adaptive Halftoning technique to improve the EVCS image quality. Further, a color authenticated image and a text message are encoded in the meaningful color shares to suppress any fake shares from the intruders, thu s improving the security of the proposed scheme. Experimental results depict that the improvement in quality and security of the scheme. Index Terms Image Security, Visual Cryptography Scheme, Adaptive Halftone, Polynomial Image Secret Sharing, I. Introduction With the swift development in the networking technologies, digital data are transmitted across the world over internet. Thus, security has become a vital issue in both communication and the complex encryption gives ways to secure the information from the intruders. Image encryption has a vital role in variety of applications like telemedicine, medical image processing, military applications, etc. In the traditional way of encryption, the data will be encrypted with a security key and the decryption must be done with the same key. Hence, the security key is essential for proper decoding of the secret data. VCS is one such encryption method proposed by Naor and Shamir [1-2] to hide a secret image in the form of n noisy pictures called shares such that the secret data is retrieved by Human Visual System (HVS) by stacking the n shares. The traditional VCS is relaxed for threshold VCS in which at least any k number of shares are sufficient to decode the secret image [3-4]. The VCS has been proposed to hide the gray images by suitably halftoning it to binary images [5-7]. These schemes were proposed with noisy shares, that may invite intruders attention. R. Sathishkumar is with Department of Electronics Communication Engineering, Perunthalaivar Kamarajar Institute of Engineering and Technology (PKIET), Karaikal, India. ([emailprotected]) Gnanou Florence Sudha is with Department of Electronics Communication Engineering, Pondicherry Engineering College, Puducherry, India. ([emailprotected]) By suppressing this weakness, VCS were implemented with meaningful shares from the cover images, and is referred as Extended Visual Cryptography Scheme (EVCS) [8-9]. The VCS has further been extended for natural color images. Rijmen et al [10] proposed a VCS for color secret image with pixel expansion, in which each secret color pixel is expanded into a block of 22 color sub-pixels to generate two color shares. Huo et al [11] proposed the VCS for gray-level and color images using color decomposition and halftone technology, while retaining the advantage of traditional monochrome visual cryptography. Huo et al [12-13] proposed an improved model by using binary encoding to represent the sub-pixel blocks. In [14], Huo et al adjusted the contrast to reveal the secret image with better quality, but the noisy shares reveal the secrecy of the image. Der et al [15] proposed a color VCS with an additional authentic image, but the scheme suffers from the visual quality. Polynomial image secret sharing (PISS) was implemented with perfect decoding of secret image [16]. In [17], Sian et al implemented a Two in One Image Secret Sharing Scheme (TiOISSS) wherein the vague secret image is decoded using VCS in the 1st decoding stage and the better quality secret image is decoded using PISS using computations. Peng et al [18] improved the TiOISSS using GVCS with gray PISS values in the shares. Srividhya et al [19] improved the TiOISSS image quality by applying adaptive halftoning. However, the scheme is implemented for gray images with noisy shares. In [20], TiOISSS was implemented for meaningful shares, but the lossless recovery of the decoded image was not achieved. The existing model of TiOISSS are implemented for gray images and generates noisy shares and that may invite the intruders to insert the fake shares. In this proposed scheme, existing TiOISSS [20] is extended for natural color image with RGB color decomposition method. Further, before applying PISS algorithm, the color secret image is permuted at bit level, block level and pixel level to improve the security. This scheme generates meaningful shares based on the color cover images. Additionally, a color authentication image and a textual secret message are shared to validate the authenticity of the decoded secret image. Experimental results of the proposed scheme show that the weaknesses of the existing TiOISSS schemes are attempted, color TiOISSS are implemented with the enhanced quality and improved security. This paper is organized as follows. The VCS for gray scale and color images, TiOISSS and its related works are discussed in section II. The proposed Authenticated Color VCS is discussed in section III. The experimental results are discussed in section IV. The Quality analysis and Security analysis are discussed in section V and section VI. The conclusion is presented in section VII. II. Related Works The objective of the proposed scheme is to extend the TiOISSS for color images, with improved quality and perfect reconstruction. This section discusses the related works pertaining to existing TiOISSS and its limitations. Visual Cryptography Scheme Moni Noar and Adi Shamir implemented the visual secret sharing scheme in 1994 [1], which requires computations only in the encryption stage. The decoding of secret image is done by human visual system (HVS). In (k, n) threshold visual secret sharing scheme, n noise like shares are generated. Any k or more number of shares are required to decode the secret image. With (k-1) or lesser shares, the secret cannot be reconstructed. In basic (2, 2) VCS, every binary secret image pixel is expanded into 22 sub-pixels in the 2 number of noisy shares, as per the sub-pixel coding table shown in Fig. 1. For every white pixelof the secret image, any one out of the six sub-pixels are randomly selected for both the shares. Similarly, for every black pixel of the secret image, any one out of the six sub-pixels are randomly selected for share 1, and its compliment sub-pixels for share 2. Thus, by stacking the two shares, the white pixels are decoded with 50% gray level. However, the black pixels are reconstructed with full black sub-pixels. With the individual shares which has equal percentage of white and black pixels, the secret image information is not revealed. The share size and therefore the reconstructed image are doubled due to pixel expansion. Fig. 1 Sub-pixel coding table Adaptive Halftoning Halftoning technique is a process of converting the continuous tone image to monochrome image or binary image. The VCS is generally suited for monochrome images. Many techniques like AM halftoning, FM halftoning, etc. are available for converting the gray scale image to binary image. In [16-18], Error diffusion based on FM halftoning with is implemented. But, this results in scattered white pixels in the place of darker areas of gray image. The proposed work utilizes the Adaptive Halftoning [19] where in the dynamically determined threshold for halftoning, results in better contrast for both constantly varying images and sharp transition images. The human eye perceives the tiny dots as white and denser dots as black, in the halftoned image. A gray scale image and its halftoned image is shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 a) Continous tone b) Halftone Extended Visual Cryptography Scheme (EVCS) The shares generated in the VCS bears a noise like image. Though, it may reveal no clue about the secret image, it may however raise suspicions about the secret. In order to overcome the weakness of noise like VCS shares, they are embedded with the individual cover images, thus generating the meaningful shares. The VCS with meaningful shares are referred as Extended Visual Cryptography Scheme (EVCS). The meaningful shares depict the cover image and not the secret image. However, on overlapping the meaningful shares, the secret image is decoded. Color Visual Cryptography Scheme Conventional VCS is applicable only for binary images. For grayscale image, it is to be halftoned to binary image as discussed in section II-B. In the proposed scheme, adaptive halftoning is implemented. The color image is generally constituted by either subtractive or additive models as in Fig. 3. Fig. 3 a) Subtractive model, and b) Additive model In the subtractive model, with primary color components as cyan (C), magenta (M) and yellow (Y), the other colors can be obtained with proper mixing of CMY components. The color printer is based on subtractive model. In additive model, the desired color is achieved from proper mixing different Red (R), Green (G) and Blue (B) color components. By mixing the RGB components of equal intensity, white color can be obtained. Computer monitor is based on additive model. The secret color image can be decomposed into Red, Green and Blue frames. The individual frames will then be a gray pattern of the corresponding color components. These frames are adaptive halftoned to obtain the binary images which can be used for generation of shares in Red, Green and Blue components. By concatenating these RGB components of each shares, the corresponding color shares are obtained. Overlapping the color shares, the color secret image is decoded. Polynomial Image Secret Sharing Scheme (PISSS) PISS scheme was first implemented [16] to hide a secret image. Though, it contradicts the advantage of VCS, by involving mathematical calculations in both encrypting and decrypting stages, it offers perfect retrieval of the secret image pixels. The PISS is implemented for TiOISSS with perfect reconstruction [20]. The polynomial in equation 1, encodes the image pixels to cipher data, which is then embedded in GVCS shares. in which are the sequential k pixels of the image and P is the prime number. In the decoding phase, the Lagrange interpolation formula in equation (2) is used to derive the polynomial coefficients, By substituting the pixel position for , where, , keeping as the variable, the polynomial coefficients is derived, Further, the decoding polynomial equation can be derived by from the polynomial coefficient and the encoded image pixels in equation (3). The original secret pixel value can be retrieved from the equation (3), by substituting the image pixel position ,. A large prime number of 251, which is within the gray pixel range, can be considered for encrypting the grayscale image. TiOISSS Two in One Image Secret Sharing Scheme (TiOISSS) [18] combines the merits of both PISS to achieve perfect reconstruction VCS to decode the vague secret image by HVS. Hence, it involves two levels of encoding and decoding phases. The encoding phase starts with generating n VCS shares and n PISS shares from the same secret image, followed by replacing the black pixels of VCS shares by the gray-valued pixels of PISS shares to generate GVCS shares, which are transmitted through n users. In the decoding phase, the GVCS shares from the users are overlapped to reconstruct the vague secret image, in the 1st stage level with just HVS. This process does not require any mathematical computations. Further, Inverse PISS is applied to the gray pixels of GVCS shares to perfectly retrieve the secret image, in the 2nd stage level of decoding. III. Proposed scheme In existing TiOISSS [19], the noisy shares were generated, which make attract the intruders to create a fake shares to forge the legitimate user. In the proposed scheme, the existing TiOISSS is modified for color images. The meaningful color EVCS shares are generated by embedding a color authentication image. The RGB components of color secret image and the cover images are extracted as in Fig. 4. The modified TiOISSS is applied for each color components to generate the corresponding the color components of GVCS shares. By concatenating the RGB components, color GVCS shares are obtained. The vague color secret image and the authentication image can be decoded, in the first decoding phase. Additionally, to provide additional authenticity, a 216 bits of textual message is embedded in the two LSBs of white pixels of all GVCS shares, which are then decoded in the 2nd phase. The RGB components of color secret image and the authentication image are then retrieved by applying Inverse PISS. The stages involved in the proposed modified color TiOISSS with the generation of meaningful EVCS shares and including an authentication image are discussed in the following sections. EVCS Share generation EVCS shares are generated from the individual RGB components of the secret color image, authentication image and the cover image. The Left half of the secret image is considered for generating the left half of VCS shares (LS1 and LS2) as in Fig. 5. By considering the authentication image, the right half of VCS shares (RS1 and RS2) are generated. For each RGB components of the secret image, the following steps are followed to generate the corresponding RGB components of the VCS shares. 1.From the left half of secret image (LS), the left half of share1 (LS1) and the left half of share2 (LS2) are generated. 2.For every black pixel of the halftoned authentication image, corresponding subpixels of left half of share 2 (LS2) with one pixel modified from white to black is placed in the corresponding subpixel location of right half of share 1 (RS1). Thus, the RS1 and LS2 will decode the vague authentication image. 3.For each black pixels of RS, the corresponding sub-pixels of the right half of share 1 (RS1) with modified location of black pixels is placed in the corresponding subpixel location of right half of share 2 (RS2). 4.VCS shares are obtained by combining the left half and the right half of each shares. To overcome the weakness of noisy shares, cover images are embedded to generate the meaningful shares. Each RGB components of the VCS shares are processed as shown in Fig. 5, with the corresponding RGB components of the cover images. For every black pixel in each cover image component, the corresponding sub-pixel location of the respective VCS share component is modified such that one white pixel converted to black. The location of the converted black pixel depends on the pixel value of the secret image in the corresponding location. Thus, the EVCS shares components are generated from the VCS shares and the cover images. GEVCS Share generation The color secret image is first decomposed into RGB components and the pixels of each component are permuted in three levels to improve the security. In the proposed scheme, the 128 bit of encryption key is used as formatted in Fig. 6 is used to perform the permutation in bit level, block level and pixel level with respective 32-bit keys. The permutation order key defines the order of permutation performed which is required in reverse permutation operation. The GVCS share order defines the share order to be processed to retrieve the embedded key from the GVCS shares. The size of the textual secret message embedded in the GVCS shares is defined in the 16-bit Secret Message length. The PISS shares are generated from the permuted color secret image as detailed in section II-E. The resultant PISS values and the authentication color image pixels are embedded into the black sub-pixels are the EVCS shares. Prior to embedding these PISS values, it is truncated by a factor ÃŽÂ ±, (ÃŽÂ ± = 1, 2, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ 16). This truncated value along with its remainder in GEVCS shares will be darker near to black, providing better visual quality. Thus, the truncated permuted PISS values, the color authenticated image and the textual secret message are embedded into EVCS shares to generate the GEVCS shares as detailed in the Fig.7. Decryption of the Secret image The decoding of the secret image is done in two phases. In the first phase, the two GEVCS shares are overlapped to decode the vague color secret image. To verify its authenticity, RS1 and LS2 of the GEVCS shares are superimposed to decode the authentication image. In the second phase of decoding, the encryption keys and the secret messages are extracted from the white pixels of each GEVCS shares. The PISS values are retrieved from the GEVCS shares. Inverse PISS is applied to reconstruct the secret image and the authentication image are perfectly. The process is explained in Fig.8. IV. Experimental Results The experimental results of the proposed Authenticated Color Extended TiOISSS with perfect reconstruction are discussed in this section. This scheme is implemented for truncation factor, ÃŽÂ ± = 7 and adaptive halftoning technique is applied for VCS share generation. The 256256 sized color secret image and the 256128 sized color authentication image are considered as shown in Fig. 9(a) 9(b). The color cover images of 256256 size are shown in Fig. 9(c) 9(d). The Adaptive halftoning version of the secret image and cover images are shown in Fig. 9 (e), 9(f) 9 (g). Applying VCS over the halftoned authentication and the secret image with pixel expansion, m = 4, two VCS shares of 512512 are generated and is shown in Fig. 9 (h) 9 (i). The GVCS shares generated from VCS shares by embedding PISS values as detailed in section III-B are shown in Fig. 9 (j) 9 (k). In the first level of decoding, the two GEVCS shares are overlapped to decode the vague color secret image. To verify the authenticity, LS2 and RS1 are overlapped to reveal the vague authentication image. They are shown in Fig. 9 (l) 9 (m). In the 2nd decoding phase, by applying Inverse PISS and reverse permutation over the extracted gray pixels of the GEVCS shares, the perfect reconstruction of both the color authentication image and the color secret image is decoded as shown in Fig. 9 (n) 9 (o). V. Quality Analysis The parameters like Contrast, Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) of the Authenticated Color Extended TiOISSS are analysed. Contrast Contrast which represents the visual quality of the image, is given by the normalized difference between the mean grayness of the white secret pixels and the mean grayness of black secret pixels in the decoded image. In this scheme, contrast [20] is calculated among the group of decoded pixels valued more than the threshold, (C0) and the group of decoded pixels valued lesser than the threshold, (C1) and is given by, Contrast between the color secret image and its 1st decoded secret image for adaptive halftoning technique and between the authentication image and its 1st decoded output has been tabled in Table I for various truncation factor, ÃŽÂ ±. The contrast is improved SSIM It is a measure of resemblance between two images and it is calculated for two common sized (NÃÆ'-N) windows x and yof the two images. SSIM is given by where and are the average of y and x. and are the variance of x and y, is the covariance of x and y and are two variables to stabilize the division, L is the dynamic range of the pixel values and and by default. The SSIM between the color secret image and its 1st decoded secret image for adaptive halftoning technique and between the authentication image and its 1st decoded output has been tabled in Table I for various truncation factor, ÃŽÂ ±. The SSIM is improved resulting in increased similarity between the secret image and the decoded secret image. PSNR The Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) is a measure to estimate the image quality between two images. Based on the pixel difference between the reconstructed image and the original image, PSNR is defined as where MSE denotes Mean Squared Error and s = 255, the maximum pixel value of the image. The PSNR between the color secret image and its 1st decoded secret image for adaptive halftoning technique and between the authentication image and its 1st decoded output has been tabled in Table I for various truncation factor, ÃŽÂ ±. The PSNR is higher for lesser value of the truncation factor. TABLE I Comparison of Secret Image and 1ST PHASE DECODED Secret Image Secret image vs Decoded Secret image (1st phase) Auth image vs Decoded Auth image (1st phase) ÃŽÂ ± Contrast SSIM PSNR Contrast SSIM PSNR 1 Not possible, No Truncation Not possible, No Truncation 2 0.1324 0.2556 3 0.1314 0.2446 6.7766 0.1720 0.1260 4.3907 4 0.1330 0.2452 6.5423 0.1708 0.1498 4.1201 5 0.1322 0.2380 6.5246 0.1762 0.1769 4.1499 6 0.1319 0.2352 6.4209 0.1752 0.1950 4.0422 7 0.1318 0.2328 6.3584 0.1753 0.2082 3.9912 8 0.1325 0.2348 6.3265 0.1746 0.2217 3.9447 9 0.1320 0.2322 6.3640 0.1772 0.2277 4.0184 10 0.1317 0.2316 6.3082 0.1771 0.2351 3.9738 11 0.1313 0.2292 6.3050 0.1761 0.2378 3.9582 12 0.1312 0.2291 6.2671 0.1768 0.2444 3.9383 13 0.1311 0.2307 6.2571 0.1765 0.2476 3.9250 14 0.1307 0.2286 6.2791 0.1750 0.2436 3.9232 15 0.1302 0.2280 6.2373 0.1760 0.2510 3.8964 16 0.1312 0.2322 6.2348 0.1751 0.2528 3.8830 Table II shows the comparison of meaningful shares with the corresponding cover images, which depicts that meaningful shares offers better visual quality. TABLE II Parameter Comparison for GVCS Shares vs Cover Images, for ÃŽÂ ± = 7 Proposed Scheme GEVCS 1 GEVCS 2 Contrast 0.1239 0.1746 SSIM 0.2803 0.1807 PSNR (dB) 6.1746 6.2839 Table III shows the comparison of different halftoning techniques, which shows that the adaptive halftoning offers better visual quality. TABLE III Parameter Comparison between the Secret Image and 1st decoded Secret Image, for Different Halftoning, for ÃŽÂ ± = 7 Halftoning Technique AM Halftoning FM Halftoning Adaptive Halftoning % Improvement FM vs Adaptive Contrast 0.0947 0.0988 0.1318 33.40 SSIM 0.0755 0.1823 0.2328 27.70 PSNR (dB) 6.1453 6.2268 6.3265 1.60 VI. Security Analysis The security of the proposed scheme is discussed here with the following security aspects. Authentication image for additional security With any one of the GEVCS color shares, the hackers may generate the other counterfeit shares, such that the legitimate receiver may get a bogus secret image instead of the original secret image. To overcome this weakness, a color authentication image is encoded into the GEVCS shares. In the 1st level of decoding, the vague authentication image is reconstructed and is used to validate the genuineness of the secret image, thus enhancing the security of the scheme. Further, the perfect retrieval of the authentication image is achieved by computations, in the 2nd decoding phase. Histogram of Shares Fig. 10 shows the histogram pattern of the color GEVCS share 1, for truncation factor ÃŽÂ ± = 7. It can be observed that the pixels occupy value up to 36 (i.e. 28/ÃŽÂ ±) and at 255. By choosing different values of ÃŽÂ ±, the pixel distribution of GEVCS shares can be limited accordingly. Unlike the original secret image, where pixels are distributed over the entire range, GEVCS shares are secured with limited pixel distribution, thus enhancin

GOYA :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746, in Fuendetodos, a village in northern Spain. The family later moved to Saragossa, where Goya's father worked as a gilder. At fourteen years old, Goya was apprenticed to Jose Luzan, a local painter. Later he went to Italy to continue his study of art. On returning to Saragossa in 1771, he painted frescoes for the local cathedral. These works, done in the decorative rococo tradition, established Goya's artistic reputation. In 1773 he married Josefa Bayeu, sister of Saragossa artist Francisco Bayeu. The couple had many children, but only one--a son, Xavier--survived to adulthood.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  From 1775 to 1792 Goya painted cartoons (designs) for the royal tapestry factory in Madrid. This was the most important period in his artistic development. As a tapestry designer, Goya did his first genre paintings, or scenes from everyday life. The experience helped him become a keen observer of human behavior. He was also influenced by neoclassicism, which was gaining favor over the rococo style. Finally, his study of the works of Velazquez in the royal collection resulted in a looser, more spontaneous painting technique.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  At the same time, Goya achieved his first popular success. He became established as a portrait painter to the Spanish aristocracy. He was elected to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1780, named painter to the king in 1786, and made a court painter in 1789. A serious illness in 1792 left Goya permanently deaf. Isolated from others by his deafness, he became increasingly occupied with the fantasies and inventions of his imagination and with critical and satirical observations of mankind. He evolved a bold, free new style close to caricature. In 1799 he published the Caprichos, a series of etchings satirizing human folly and weakness. His portraits became penetrating characterizations, revealing their subjects as Goya saw them. In his religious frescoes he employed a broad, free style and an earthy realism unprecedented in religious art.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Goya served as director of painting at the Royal Academy from 1795 to 1797 and was appointed first Spanish court painter in 1799. During the Napoleonic invasion and the Spanish war of independence from 1808 to 1814, Goya served as court painter to the French. He expressed his horror of armed conflict in The Disasters of War, a series of starkly realistic etchings on the atrocities of war. They were not published until 1863, long after Goya's death.

Abscisic Acid and Stomatal Closure :: essays research papers

Abscisic Acid and Stomatal Closure Abscisic acid is a single compound unlike the auxins, gibberellins, and cytokinins. It was called "abscisin II" originally because it was thought to play a major role in abscission of fruits. Though ABA generally is thought to play mostly inhibitory roles, it has many promoting functions as well. In 1963, abscisic acid was first identified and characterized by Frederick Addicott and his associates. They were studying compounds responsible for the abscission of fruits (cotton). Two compounds were isolated and called abscisin I and abscisin II. Abscisin II is presently called abscisic acid. ABA is a naturally occurring compound in plants. It is a sesquiterpenoid (15-carbon) which is partially produced via a certain pathway (mevalonic pathway) in chloroplasts and other plastids. Because it is sythesized partially in the chloroplasts, it makes sense that biosynthesis primarily occurs in the leaves. The production of ABA is accentuated by stresses such as water loss and freezing temperatures. It is believed that biosynthesis occurs indirectly through the production of carotenoids. Carotenoids are pigments produced by the chloroplast which have 40 carbons. Breakdown of these carotenoids occurs in a complex mechanism which produces ABA. The transport of ABA can occur in both xylem and phloem tissues. It can also be translocated through paranchyma cells. The movement of abscisic acid in plants does not exhibit polarity like auxins. ABA is capable of moving both up and down the stem. The various roles of ABA are †¢ Stimulates the closure of stomata (water stress brings about an increase in ABA synthesis). †¢ Inhibits shoot growth but will not have as much affect on roots or may even promote growth of roots. †¢ Induces seeds to synthesize storage proteins. †¢ Has some effect on induction and maintanance of dormancy. (This information taken from http://www.plant-hormones.info/abscisicacid.htm) Stomatal Closure †¢ Addition of ABA to the growth medium (a mixture of vermiculite and peat moss) causes the closure of the stomates within 3 h and an increase in the Pos of the protoplasts of the aba1 plants to 50 mm s-1. †¢ Arrival of ABA in the leaves appears to signal stomatal closure as well as a change in the Pos of the plasma membranes. †¢ We hypothesize that under non-stress conditions ABA is required to maintain a population of actively functioning aquaporins at the plasma membrane.

Supply Side Keynesianism Essays -- Economics

Supply Side Keynesianism A President is measured by how well the economy did during his term in office. More specifically is whether unemployment went up or down, and did they help the economy to fight inflation. Two basic modes of thought on the subject have pervaded public policy since World War II: demand-side and supply-side economics. Demand-side economics is generally known as Keynesianism, named after the English economist John Maynard Keynes. He believed that governments should force interest rates down by printing money and lending it from the central bank at a discount. This would put more money in consumers' hands and encourage them to spend and consume more, thus creating an incentive for investment. This helped to solve some of the problems, but in the long run it is extremely inflationary, because with the increase of the money supply it becomes devalued. Keynesianism also calls for the government to spend more to try to help the economy grow. Keynesianism is a short-term solution to an economic problem and could only do so much for the economy before inflation caches up with it, and takes it into a recession. On the other hand we have supply side economics, which works on more of a long-term basis. It basically attempts to stimulate economic growth, which would reduce inflation, and raise the standard of living. Supply side proponents say that by reducing government regulations and taxation, this will stimulate more economic growth, and mar...

Language Exerts Hidden Power Essay

Language utilizes the hidden power to express, convince and influence human beings. Language can be used in different forms and styles, however, we are never fully aware of the importance of the hidden power that language can express. Language can be revealed in many different ways, which can cause different perspectives from people. In Text A, â€Å"Tversky and Kahneman (1981) demonstrated systematic reversals of preference when the same problem is presented in different ways†. It shows the effectiveness of euphemism and vagueness. The people did not appreciate the straight forward statement, it may be because of the harshness and the reality that shocks the reader. The difference in the preference of the programs shows how human beings are more likely to prefer the positive facts than the negatives; Program A had seventy-two percent preferences. This can show how language has the power to convey something disastrous, however, in a euphemism way, in which the reader will more likely to accept. However, the complicated statements, those with fractions instead of exact numbers, seem to favour the reader. This may be because the reader needs more time to process the factual information in their brains, which may have the same effect as ‘Lost in Translation’; the more your brain processes, the more details and facts are faded away. In addition, the fractions used can make the situation of the Asian disease problem seem less serious, because fractions appear to be less in number than the exact real numbers. In this particular text, power is revealed by the factual information. The difference in presenting the statement does not differ the meaning of the Asian disease problem. However, the power of manipulating and influencing the reader depend on the way the author chooses to present the factual information. The language chosen will be the power that controls the reader’s minds. Different presentations will lead to different interpretations from the readers. Therefore, writers usually use certain style of language to ensure that they can influence and convince the readers. This can represent how human beings are slightly unaware of the importance of language. We tend to ignore and skip through words easily, in which we only want to read what we believe and what we want to see. Similarly, Text B expresses that in our world we normally ignore the flaws and the little ‘holes’ in our communication in language, which also shows the lack of awareness of the importance in language. Slowly, we will tend to lose the ability to control the power that is hidden in language. The ‘Lost in Translation’ ties in with text B as well. When people start to learn a new language they normally translate the words back into their foreign language in order for them to understand the meaning of those words. However, during those translations, many details and little ‘holes’ in the language will disappear and fade away. Native language enables human beings to communicate freely and comfortably, however, it influences out thoughts when it comes to learning a new language. Those little ‘holes’ will be filled in by the influential thoughts from our native language. Therefore, though we are learning a new language, we will still be moved and differentiated by the influence of our native language. The hidden power of the influence of a certain language is strong, it ties with the culture and the tradition of the certain country. From these, we can see how ignorant human beings can be when it comes to realizing how much language influences our lives and how we interpret things. Nevertheless, the power in language can cause negative effects as well as those positives. There are so many languages spoken in our world, therefore, many people can speak more than one language. This means that those people have more than one choice of language to express themselves. This can be positive, however, negative, because there isn’t always the same ‘sayings’ in different languages. As human beings, we manage to experience many different emotions and incidents, where many of those are indescribable in language. Therefore, we can say language is powerful, however, not as powerful as our own minds. â€Å"Language should be a direct mirror of mind† though many thoughts cannot be put into words. In text C, it suggests that language plays an essential role in thinking and the interactions between people, in which the power hidden is the linguistics, philosophy and the psychology side of language. We communicate through language by expressing out what we think in our minds using words, phrases and sentences. Therefore, Noam Chenosky expresses that language is a direct mirror to our minds, which is true to some extent, however, many emotions and thoughts cannot be fully expressed by language. Language can be so powerful that it’s complicated, and those technical studies of language can contribute to an understanding of human intelligence. Human beings have not paid much attention on the hidden power of language, therefore, we only have a rare glimmerings of understanding. Though the understanding of language is limited, most people think and do things depending on what they know and what they believe, which ties in with text A strongly. When people prefer different presentations of the same statement, we can assume that they all have a different perspective, which means they have their own beliefs and knowledge over the statement. Overall, all three texts agree with Rita, Mae Brown’s statement of â€Å"Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides† to a reasonable extent. They all show the human science of language and how language is powerful in our minds. The power inside language is great, however, we have never noticed it. It influences the way we think and the way we judge certain things. Though, due to our lack of awareness of the importance of language, we do not see how it influences out perspectives and perception. However, the possible negative effect of the power in language is that due to the many different languages people may be able to speak, they may find it difficult to express their thoughts and emotions because there are so many choices.

In the country, people are forced to confront their faults and lead a more honest way of life. Consider She Stoops to Conquer in the light of this comment

Traditionally the pastoral genre celebrates the virtues of simple, unsophisticated life removed from the city. The rural countryside hosts a nostalgic population longing for a bucolic paradise where people live in peace, harmony and honesty, similar to the existence of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the fall. This depiction of idyllic rural life is presented by Goldsmith in She Stoops to Conquer, however the deception of characters throughout the play can be seen to distort this view of traditional country life. Goldsmith uses the character of Mr Hardcastle to epitomise the honest nature of country folk. Mr Hardcastle is presented as a traditional, old country squire, who is characterised as open and direct. He confesses honestly that he ‘loves everything that’s old’ and that he’s not interested in ‘vanity’. ‘Vanity’ suggests superficiality and that true character traits are omitted by ‘jewels’ and ‘ornaments’ in order to deceive those around and promote a dishonest appearance. Hardcastle associates this ‘vanity’ with the town, which is seen traditionally in pastoral literature as nefarious and corrupt compared to the simple, pragmatic country setting. It could be interpreted that Mr Hardcastle’s long life spent in the country, shown through use of the name ‘squire’ which has connotations of a rural existence, has resulted in his genuine personality, ‘to be plain with you. ’ However, Goldsmith uses asides in Hardcastle’s speech to show his anguish over the impudence of ‘such a brazen dog’, Marlow. The asides present Hardcastle’s true feelings of disgust towards the town folk which contrasts his direct speech to Marlow which remains dignified and respectful, shown through the address of ‘sir’. These asides present Hardcastle as a less direct character than originally perceived, suggesting country dwellers can be just as malicious as those from the town and subsequently, a country existence doesn’t necessarily equate to an honest way of life. Despite this, it is the rudeness of Marlow and Hastings which arouses these feelings in Hardcastle through curt demands for ‘warm punch’. This reflects a primary theme in the pastoral genre of the town corrupting the country, since Hardcastle is cordial towards his servants as Goldsmith refers to each by their first name in Hardcastle’s speech, ‘Diggory’, and Hardcastle’s rude asides are presented to be spawned from the impudence of the town characters, thus suggesting that the country promotes courteous manners meanwhile the town corrupts and faults characters. Goldsmith characterises some characters as self-deceiving and deluded, which is technically a weakness. Unlike Mr Hardcastle’s love of ‘old’, Mrs Hardcastle contrarily speaks positively of the town, commenting on its ability to ‘rub off the rust’, ‘rust’ suggests that Mrs Hardcastle finds country life dull, contrasting the excitement of ‘London’ and the ‘fashions’. Goldsmith uses references to places in London to suggest that Mrs Hardcastle is informed on ‘every tete-a-tete’, only to later reveal that ironically Mrs Hardcastle only ‘enjoy(s) London at second-hand’, through the ‘Scandalous Magazine’, which comically illuminates the fact she has never actually visited London. To enforce this irony, Goldsmith utilises some references to sinister settings in London in Marlow’s speech, ‘bred’ at ‘Tower Wharf’, which was not a fashionable area in the 18th century and was notorious for thievery which Mrs Hardcastle is ignorant to, shown by her grateful response ‘pleased to say so’. This mockery of Mrs Hardcastle presents her as a pathetic woman who has deluded herself into believing she is astute to ‘all the fashions’, which can further be interpreted as a fault in her character which remains present at the end of the play, therefore suggesting the country isn’t necessarily a utopic landscape of retribution. Furthermore, Goldsmith characterises many of the rural characters as simple and stubborn, unwilling to change routine which is mimetic of the unyielding nature of the country, therefore any faults that they may have are irreversible. In Tony’s song at the Three Pigeons pub, he toasts ‘here’s the Three Jolly Pigeons for ever’, ‘for ever’ has a sense of routine which cannot be altered, reflecting that his life will never change and his tricks and mischief will continue ‘for ever’. Consequently Goldsmith highlights the unyielding characteristic of the country which can nourish pre-existing traits in characters instead of correcting them. The ‘gentlemen’ of the town Marlow and Hastings are initially presented by Goldsmith to be sophisticated and scholarly, which was how most men of the town were perceived in the 18th century. However, it soon becomes apparent that both characters possess faults underneath the posh urban veneer. Goldsmith reveals, through Hastings, that Marlow is ‘such a trembler’ when he is around women of high status, which is ironic considering he should be able to converse easily with facets of high society to which he himself belongs. Goldsmith then augments this fault in Marlow’s character through stage directions, ‘gathering courage’, which reveals Marlow’s ‘awkward address’ as he talks to Kate. Nonetheless, through Kate’s deception Marlow is forced to amend his ‘bashful manner’. Once Marlow ‘mistook (Kate) for the barmaid’ and a woman of low status, because of her attire ‘that every lady wears in the country’, he was able to look her ‘full in the face’ and speak without hesitation, shown through Goldsmith’s use of stichomythia, and consequently overcome his faulted nature. Therefore Goldsmith shows that through the simple bucolic, country and its inhabitants, Marlow could relax and correct his imperfections, developing into a more ‘confident’ character. Furthermore, when it’s revealed to Marlow that Kate is in fact Hardcastle’s daughter, Marlow’s embarrassment which he describes as ‘worse than death’, proves to Hardcastle Marlow’s earlier impudence was ‘all a mistake’, which resolved the tension between Hardcastle and Marlow formed from Marlow’s supposed ‘brazen’ manner. Despite this, Kate’s deception of Marlow could be considered an unresolved fault especially considering a previous title of the play was Mistakes of the Night suggesting Kate’s actions were faulted ‘mistakes’, which contradicts the stereotype of rural folk being welcoming and honest. However, Kate’s deception was not malicious, which Goldsmith shows through interjections of laughter in Kate’s speech ‘ha! ha! ha! ’ The ruse ensured their romance, ‘he loves you’, which would have gone amiss due to Marlow’s ‘mauvaise honte’ and inability to communicate with upper class women. Moreover, during the denouement of the play, Kate revealed to Marlow she was ‘that very identical†¦ lady’ he first met. Therefore Kate’s deception was eventually uncovered in total honesty and thus concluded the play in a traditionally comedic and light hearted manner, with Hardcastle giving his blessing to Marlow, ‘boy, take her. ’ Similarly, Tony could be considered as the opposite of the simple, honest doric characters in the play, since he tricks Marlow and Hastings into believing his house is ‘one of the best inns in the country. Tony’s jest actually creates faults in Marlow in Hastings, since they are exploitative of Hardcastle’s good will, ‘he has taken possession of the easy chair†¦ already. ’ The use of ‘already’ shows Hardcastle’s disgust at the impudence of the two men, which was only uncovered because of their belief they were staying at an inn which they were paying for, †˜bring me my bill’, the use of the imperative in Marlow’s speech highlights his insolence towards Hardcastle. Although Tony’s jest created more faults in characters and led to Marlow’s lack of respect towards Hardcastle, Tony’s trick; like Kate’s, wasn’t vicious nor did it have any lasting effects. Clive Fuller reviewed the stage performance in Birmingham and said â€Å"there is great farce as the deception unfolds† reflecting the comedy of the situation which proves no great harm is caused. Once the ruse had been discovered, everything was settled and the characters resolved their issues, shown through the stage directions ‘joining their hands’ which represents unity in the household. Moreover, Tony’s deception of Marlow enabled Kate to pretend to be the ‘barmaid’ at the ‘inn’, which ultimately resulted in her romance with him, ‘he loves you’, thus Tony’s trick can be viewed as intending to amuse rather than destroy, suggesting the country does promote honest living. Throughout She Stoops to Conquer, Goldsmith illuminates many faults in each character, most of which are amended at the end of the play, subsequently ending the piece in a light-hearted manner and in the style of a traditional Shakespearean comedy, with which Goldsmith’s work was associated. Therefore overall, the country and its many inhabitants do often lead a more honest life and encourage other faulted characters to do the same.

Humanity Case Essay

Humanity.   Perhaps this is the only word that can explain the strange comings and goings of the man from Nazareth, called Jesus.   â€Å"The Lost Tomb of Jesus,† aired March 3, on the Discovery Channel, an amazing piece of documentary.   In the city of Jerusalem, in the midst of an apartment complex, was found a place of burial.   Perhaps the burial place of, Mary Magdalene, her son Judah, and two brothers-in-law, Simon and James.   Were these the relatives of Jesus the Christ, in the scheme of things the question seems to be irrelevant. Humanity   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Although there is great emphasis placed on the Christ, the Messiah.   Very few people seem interested at all in Jesus’ humanity.   People are offended at the thought that Jesus may have deigned to have been with a woman, much less married to a whore.   Yet this is the very story told in Hosea.   God’s unquestioning love of even, maybe most especially, one who would be unfaithful.   It seems to me of all of Jesus’ disciples, Mary is the one who ‘got it.’   Only an outcast could truly understand the message of Christ.   To be offered kindness, when only suffering has come at the hands of man, is an indescribable miracle.   How Mary must have loved this man, Jesus.   The Divine, the Christ.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Jesus’ humanity is controversial.   And I don’t know why.   If Jesus was not fully human, how could God come to know what it is to be human?   To struggle?   To be defeated?   To know unbridled joy?   To be shortsighted as man is and yet still have the ability to hope.   How God must love us for that!   Yes, ‘all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.’   Who among us is not aware of their own shortcomings?   Everyone I know.   To be human is to be all to aware of what we are not.   Was that the purpose of Jesus’ coming?   To remind each of us of our all too familiar failures?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      Many others are outraged that anyone should question the Divinity of Christ, as though questioning such a thing changes the very nature of God?   Hardly.   What question could man possibly ask that could be found to be offensive to God?   Yet, this question of Divinity versus Humanity, people seem to struggle over.   Christ is all or none.   Even those who would say Jesus was both human and God, cannot admit that Jesus could have succumbed in his humanity to be human.   And what a terrible misrepresentation.   All throughout the Bible God is represented as part of humankind.   Why would humanity be denied what most Christians’ believe to be God’s only Son.   There is of course, great misrepresentation and misunderstanding about the chronology of the canon.    That Jesus’ divinity was not even declared until 300 years after his death.   By whom?   Why man of course?   I wonder if God would be pleased with all that the ‘church’, not the body, has accomplished?   Just recently, I visited a new church and although I liked the people.   I was saddened when the pastor started talking about the ‘building’ fund.   Is this what Christianity has been reduced to?   Buildings?   What of the starving?   What of the homeless?   What of the person who has not known the kindness of a human touch, due to illness or simple isolation?   What of these?   Does God not plague us to be in touch with his light, his life, his children?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Lost Tomb of Jesus is a wonderful representation of the possibility that Jesus was all he said he was.   A miracle.   A blessing in disguise.   Both human and Divine.   Just like the rest of us.   A bit of God rests in us all at the heart of God’s highest creation, mankind.   Rejoice!   Awake!   God is among us!   Living when we thought he was dead!   Alleluia!   Jesus is Alive!

What Impacts Will the Aging Population of Germany Have on Its Economy

The objective of this research paper is to explore, analyze and survey the implications of Germany’s demographics on the country’s economy. The motivation behind this study is to add to the understanding of social-economic issues in one of the Eurozone’s heavyweights and its impact for years to come. This paper looks into Germany’s demographic trends, consumption trends, savings trends, Germany's pension policy and labor market effects.This paper draws on estimates and analyses from relevant literature, including scholarly journals and government publications to illustrate and quantify its points. Conclusions drawn from this study shows that the definitive impact of population aging on economic growth is reflected in consumption, savings, labor pool and dependency burdens. Practical implications can be surmised from this paper; policy makers, native citizens, immigrants and other stakeholders might wish to refer to this paper for an understanding and persp ective of the social phenomenon and derive solutions to problems in its sphere.However there are limitations to this research as it is done through literature review and the demographic-economic variables are not constant. Further research will be required to gather concise and quantifiable data to support its claims. Introduction Germany's aging problem is serious because during the past 30 years, German women have produced children at an average rate of less than 1. 4 babies per lifetime (Tim Colebatch, 2004). In 2009 The Federal Statistic's Office (Germany) forecast Germany's rapidly aging population was likely to decline by 20 percent to around 65 million by 2060.The drop will be accompanied by a dramatic shift in the amount of elderly people in Germany. Of the country's current 81 million inhabitants, some 20. 6 percent are now aged 65 (2011). But in 2060, assuming that fertility rate remain constant and life expectancy increase at a steady rate, that percentage will increase t o 33 percent. Following a rapid recovery from the 2008-2009 recessions, economic growth has slowed in the second half of 2011 for Germany (OECD,2012).Policy makers are faced with domestic issues interfering with mid-term growth potential, one of them namely rapid population aging. Deutsche Bundesbank published a report in April 2012 announcing that if the dampening effects of demographics can be mitigated by appropriate reform measures, it will largely be possible to maintain the current rate of potential growth of roughly 11/4% per y ear until 2020. With Europe struggling to cope with the Debt Crisis, an economic powerhouse such as Germany is under the pressure to come up with solutions and lead the union.However with its workforce fading into bottomless vacuum of tax dependents, it does not reflect well onto Germany’s financial health and strength as a sovereign nation. This paper intends to examine the situation in Germany and reach a conclusion that population aging incre ases the dependent population burden in views of both taxpayers and the nation’s budget; aggregate consumption expenditure decreases; the savings rate declines and shrinks the pool of available capital; working-age population reduces, while the labor productivity in Germany is not impacted heavily.Moreover, this paper will outline a perspective stakeholders should adopt to illustrate that as long as effective reform or measures can be implemented, the negative impact of the aging population on economic growth is likely to be minimized. Main arguments Dependency burdens Population aging increases the dependent population burden. Germany's pension system is known as the most generous pension system and public welfare. Costs of public retirement insurance are almost 12% of GDP, more than 2. times as much as the U. S. Social Security System (Axel Borsch-Supan, et al. ,2003), and it accounts for a high proportion of retirees' income. The weight of this tremendous systems is taxing on Germany's finances as well as the need for tax-payers' support. To ease the pressure of an aging population on the government budget, Germany has carried out a series of reforms. In what was called â€Å"the greatest social reform after war â€Å"by former Labor Minister Franz Liszt initiated in the spring of 2001.The main contents include reducing benefits, settling the level of premium expenditure, a pay-as-you-go pension system and developing a new type of private pension to fill the loss of welfare income. This reform, especially with measures to expand private pension types, will probably promote economic development. The Fund pension system is conducive for German government to supply a large number of retirees without increasing the load of employees and taxpayers. From a macroeconomic perspective, this series of system can help reduce the government budget pressure from an aging population.From micro-economic perspective, it can also bring higher personal income. Unfor tunately, there is a big difference between the actual implementation of Liszt reform and the government's promise. The new fund pension system in Germany is being undertaken on a relatively small scale, while the current non-accumulation fund insurance system is still in the highest flight. The final result is that, the German retirees are almost entirely likely to depend on the government. Overall, the public welfare accounted for 61% of net income after tax for families of 60 years old or above.The substantial increase in social welfare spending for the elderly in the GNP will continue to enlarge, as it is bound to limit the expanding of production, and influence the capital investment and economic efficiency, and add the burden on the national economy. Thus, with the development of population aging and extension of the average life expectancy of the aging of the population, it might be appropriate to extend the retirement age limit, in order to reduce dependent population and re latively increase the accumulation funds to expand production.Germany plans to raise the retirement age to 67 years of age, because of such considerations. But at the same time, the heavy new employment pressure requires Germany to strike a balance between extending retirement age and easing the employment pressure. Consumption The next section puts forward the argument that with the on-set of population aging, an increasing share of the elderly in the German market caused changes in its consumption structure.Overall, the consumption expenditure shows a gradual widening tendency during the aging process; however, Germany has already entered the aging society, so consumption expenditure showed a decreasing trend. This table shows the percentage of elderly family with an excess of the annuity income over expenditures. Annuity income is more than consumer spending and it increases with age. The decline in consumer spending is so significant that for about a quarter of the elderly aged 75 and above, the annuity income is more than 50% higher than consumer spending.In fact, almost all of this decline can be attributed to a decrease of food, travel and traffic expenses, the marginal utility of consumption reduction will probably decrease in the elderly, due to deteriorating health or being lonely. It is worth noticing that in Germany, food, travel and traffic expenses can hardly be offset by more health spending, because almost all health fees are covered by compulsory health insurance. (Wise, 2004) To some extent, the influence of population aging on consumption inhibited economic development.In this case, to speed up the development of older industries, government should focus on the development of travel, real estate and pension services for older people in order to promote consumption growth and the prosperity of the silver hair market. Savings The world's population is aging, accordingly, bank balances might probably stop growing. People tend to reduce their sa vings after retirement, while the younger generation are not as canny as older generations. As a result, savings rate will drop significantly (Diana Farrell, et al. , electric shavers, 2005).Because aggregate saving equals to investment (Lachlan McGregor, 2008), so if left unchecked, the slowdown of the global savings rate will reduce the amount of money available for investment and then hinder economic growth. It is not easy to find a solution. Stimulating economic growth in itself is not a solution, nor is the future productivity revolution or technological breakthroughs. To add to future global savings and financial wealth, the German government and the family need to increase their savings rate, and earn a higher return on assets. These changes involve tough choices, but it can provide a brighter future.As the elderly make up the larger proportion of the population, the total amount for investment and wealth accumulation will be reduced. The expected decline of growth rate for G ermany's financial wealth will fall to 2. 4% from 3. 8%. One thing is certain: the decline in the household savings rate can shrink the pool of available capital. Because of continuing budget deficit, government may push up interest rates and crowd out private investment. In the next few years, the rise in the cost of economic dependence will force government to implete better fiscal discipline.The only meaningful way to offset the population pressure to the upcoming global financial wealth is increasing savings rate of government and households, and a more efficient allocation of capital for the economy, thereby increasing the return. In Germany, to achieve the required rate of return, the policy makers must improve competitiveness, encourage innovation in financial sector and the economy as a whole, and raise the legal protection of investors and creditors. As for increasing the savings rate, the key to is to overcome inertia.When the enterprises automatically register their emplo yees on a voluntary savings plan rather than requiring people to become active, participation rate might increase significantly. Of course, the government can also increase the savings rate of Germany directly. Labor Pool With an increase in the proportion of the elderly population, the proportion of working-age population will accordingly decrease, which goes against German economic development (David E. Bloom, et al. , 2001). Labor force can be an effective motivation of rapid economic growth.However, a demographic draft report of the German federal government indicated that the working age population may reduce from 50 million to 26. 5 million in 2050, which is a decrease of nearly a half. According to the draft, the employment reduction would bring disastrous consequences to the economy of Germany. Moreover, it is much more difficult for older workers to adapt to the fast-paced production activities, especially in the labor-intensive production, so population aging is not conduc ive to the improvement of labor. In this case, a targeted immigration plan is very useful to enable Germany' to maintain its competitiveness.It is estimated that in order to make the employment potential of Germany remain at the level in 2004, at least 300 thousand to 500 thousand immigrants are needed annually. The appeal of that idea stems from two considerations: immigrants are relatively young, and hence their arrival reduces the average age of both the population and the labor force; and they can be expected to add more to the national product than they use up as consumers in terms of health-care, and thus to provide net support for the rising numbers of elderly dependents in the population.On closer inspection, however, there is a problem: immigrants get older, like everyone else, and a sustained policy of higher immigration has little long-term impact on either the median age or the age composition of the population. As Espenshade (1994, p. 766) noted, â€Å"immigration is a clumsy and unrealistic policy alternative to offset a shortage of domestic labor or to correct a perceived imbalance in the pensioner to worker ratio. †The effect of population aging to enhance labor productivity is negative which can be reflected on that the speed of aging workforce to accept new knowledge, science and technology is slower than that of the young. Relatively the elderly population shows a weak ability to adapt to new industries. Thus, to some extent, new product development and technological innovation are largely influenced by the aging problem. In the case of rapid scientific and technological development, and faster advancement of knowledge and increasingly keen competition, population aging has greater negative influence on labor productivity and economic growth.As for Germany, it gives priority to technology-intensive industries and to improve labor productivity mainly relies on science and technology, so the demand for mental exertion is much higher tha n physical. As a result, the negative influence of population aging on increase labor productivity is likely to be limited, on the other side, the experience of skilled older workers will have a positive effect to improve labor productivity in Germany. Conclusion Overall, it is argued in this essay that population aging in terms of the acroeconomics is not conducive to economic development, and its negative impact is mainly manifested in the above-mentioned four areas, while the elderly population do not entirely represent an economic burden as they can be profitable consumers, among them there are still some people engaged in economic activities with relatively abundant accumulation of experience and knowledge which can make up for the physical insufficiency. Thus, to some extent, these people contribute to the economic development.In fact, an effective way to mitigate the adverse effects of an aging population and labor force, is by accelerating the development of a knowledge-base d economy in high-tech industries. (i. e. to improve the level of automation in production and reduce the demand for workers' physical strength. ) We should also see that the development of the knowledge-based economy led to changes in the industrial structure and occupational structure and the increasingly high demand for workers intelligence.With the expectancy of population average life, the health status of the elderly is gradually improving, older workers will make a greater contribution than ever for economic development. Therefore, the rational development and utilization of elderly human resources, will become an important issue to mitigate the adverse impact of population aging on economic development. AppendixPercentage of Elderly in Age Group with a Ratio of Annuity Income to Consumption Expenditures in Germany [pic] Bibliography Asghar Zaidi and Malgorzata Rejniak (2010). Fiscal Policy and Sustainability in View of Crisis and Population Aging in Central and Eastern Europ ean Countries. Axel Borsch-Supan et al. (2005). aging, pension reform, and capital flows:a multi-country simulation model. Cambridge. National Bureau of Economic Research.David A. Wise (2004). Studies in the Economics of Aging. National Bureau of Economic Research. David E. Bloomet al. (2001). Economic Growth and the Demographic Transition. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research. David N. Weil (2006). Population Aging. Cambridge. National Bureau of Economic Research. Michael D. Hurd (2006). The Economics Of Individual Aging. University of New York at Stony Brook.

Comparison between Amazon.com and Borders Books Essay

Comparison between Amazon.com and Borders Books - Essay Example Another concern of the present study is the Borders Books that represents a bookstore publicly held spreading its business through a large number of stores and encountering different stages of business. Thus the current study focuses on the two different companies- Amazon.com and Borders Books- and conducts a learning on their histories, business approaches, management and marketing and how they have gone through their successes and failures and thus try to recommend some policies that might enable the companies to have better marketing conditions. History of Amazon.com and Borders Books: The Amazon.com Company was started in the year 1994 by Jeff Bezos. The origin of the company was in Washington. Bezos’ idea regarding the business was appreciated and investments were supported by Nick Hanauer who was a businessman by profession. Then the company had plans to go online and spread its business. Initially the business was not as shining as it is known to be in the present times . In the early times of its initiation, the website was not very attractively designed and hence lacked the attention of the customers. By the year 1995, a person named Tom Alburg helped the company through further investments and thus the website was designed newly which then started attracting customers. Gradually the company introduced several products and within a short span of time, the company gained huge success as well as profits (The History of Amazon.com, 2011). The history of Borders Books reflects the contribution of several stores of books that include the Borders, Waldenbooks and Brentano's. The Borders Bookstores were started by two brothers, Tom Borders and Louis Borders, in the year 1971. Initially the store was opened in Ann Arbor. Later stores were also opened in Michigan, Atlanta and Indianapolis. Their books were also sold through other booksellers. The first superstore of the company was established in the year 1985. By the year 1988, the Borders bookstores, wh ich later went online, proved to be huge success and delivered efficiently (Peterson, 2012). Business Approach, Management and Marketing of Amazon.com and Borders Books: As far as the business approaches of the two companies are concerned, it has been observed that the Amazon.com and Borders Books both had its focus on the increasing sales and the satisfaction of the customers. While Amazon.com has been found to initially struggle and later on efficiently managed success till the present times, the Borders Books have been found to initially achieve success but later the company failed to maintain its position in the market and lost to bankruptcy. It has been found that the concept of internet marketing was much more effectively understood and utilized by Amazon.com rather than by Borders Books (Volcanic, 2009). Amazon.com had its focus on the customers’ preferences and the manner in which there website could be more attractive to them. Thus initially when the company had rece ived financial assistance it focused on the design of the website that resultantly gained more customers for the company. The company was so concerned with the customers’ satisfaction that they even introduced systems to receive feedback from the customers, thus giving the customers the feeling of being significant. When the company encountered severe losses in 2001, it initiated

Citizen Kane (Movie) Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Citizen Kane ( ) - Movie Review Example but miserable person who has accomplished nothing; in fact, his political dream does not come true and at his death he cannot avoid to remember the only time in his childhood when he received true joy from riding a sled with a ‘Rosebud tag’ on it. Most critics have figured out Kane as a man who had no political ideology, but only a man guided by greed for power in the society. This seems to explain his misery despite being a rich politician at the time he finally loses his last breath. This article seeks to examine the relationship between Kane’s political ambitions and the media influence on the public that was evident during his time. Through flashbacks that cover the political life of Kane, it is noticeable that he lacks a political ideology while pursuing his political ambition, but uses the media to pursue his own personal goals. After starting a journalist firm, he employs a captivated writer, Thompson, who is proficient in writing sensitive material. He is featured on every cover page of the magazines and newspapers that Thompson produces for the public (Carringer 42). The aim of this kind of media coverage is to keep Kane a relevant political icon throughout the state by making him famous and popular among the people. The newspaper portrays him as prominent owner of newspaper producing firm, radio stations and much more wealth. He seems to bear the opinion that political success is based on personal wealth, rather than political ideology. Consequently, he does not have any public interest at heart or any political goal that would impact on the population he expects to serve. By failing to devise any politic al goal or even strategy, it is possible to regard Kane as a man who lack all the dimensions of an ideologist in his political war. Secondly, Kane is prompt to influence the minds of the people by using media power as a platform to campaign for his election. In a conversation with his mistress, Susan, he boasts on his authority to control and

Free will vs Determinism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Free will vs Determinism - Essay Example Based on his past transgression, King Laius of Thebes, the father of Oedipus, and his descendants were doomed to tragedy as predicted by Apollo’s Oracle. Thus, the tragic hero Oedipus’ fate was sealed even before his birth (Dilman 21). Laius was destined to perish at the hands of his own son, Oedipus. The king attempts to eliminate the infant son by ordering his wife Queen Jocasta to get him killed. However, his will to divert his destiny is interceded by fate through a kindly shepherd who rescues the abandoned baby. Ultimately, Oedipus is raised by the childless king of Corynth, Polybus and his queen Merope (Sophocles 36). The greater the attempts to intervene with fate, they serve only to strengthen the victory of the prophecy. Later Oedipus as a grown man comes to know from Apollo’s Delphic Oracle, that he would be the murderer of his father and would mate with his own mother. In an attempt to prevent this prediction from coming true on Polybus and Merope whom he believes to be his true parents, Oedipus leaves Corinth. It is clear that Oedipus pits his strength against the fate predicted for him by Apollo (Dilman 22). However, by leaving his foster home in Corynth to protect his parents from himself, unaware that Polybus and Merope were not his true parents, he makes the prophecy come true. Thus, while travelling to Thebes, he meets his true father Laius, while both are unaware of each others’ identities. The haughty father and the arrogant and impetuous son (Dilman 23) quarrel over whose chariot has the right of way, and Oedipus kills his father. Thus, fate works through the participants’ characters, and one part of the Oracle’s prophecy comes true. He frees the kingdom of The bes from a sphinx’s curse (Sophocles 10), is rewarded with the kingdom and married to the dowager Queen Jocasta, his biological mother, while each is unaware of the other’s identity, consequently fulfilling the entire prophecy. After