Techniques For Alleviating Dental Anxiety, Fear, And Phobias

This white paper focuses on techniques for alleviating dental anxiety, fear, and phobias through the use of positive interior support design and environmental distractions. Reports of Dental Anxiety in up to 74% of children and adolescents imply that anxiety is a major concern in dental offices. Pediatric dental theming vastly improved patient experience by relieving anxiety, fear, and phobias from a young age. It is also possible to have a significant positive impact on the duration of a patient’s life, as well as future generations by halting the cycle of dental avoidance through office theming. This white paper also highlights several support design products and delves into the reasons why theming in medical environments is so crucial to patient wellbeing. Anxiety, by definition, is a ‘state of apprehension resulting from the anticipation of a threatening event or situation’ (American Heritage Science Dictionary). Anxiety is differentiated from fear, as fear occurs in the presence of an observed threat, while Anxiety requires no such tangible manifestation. Anxiety may develop into a phobia; which is defined as an extreme or irrational fear or aversion, which may result in avoidance or endurance that results in significant discomfort to the individual. Dental fear, anxiety and phobias negatively effect patient care and develop from an early age. A cross-sectional study of 100 patients from the Pediatric Dentistry Clinic of the Federal University of Parana foundShow MoreRelatedDeveloping Management Skills404131 Words   |  1617 PagesThrough Work Redesign 130 Eliminating Anticipatory Stressors Through Prioritizing, Goal Setting, and Small Wins 132 Developing Resiliency 134 Physiological Resiliency 136 Psychological Resiliency 139 Social Resiliency 143 Temporary Stress-Reduction Techniques 144 SKILL ANALYSIS 147 Cases Involving Stress Management 147 The Turn of the Tide 147 The Case of the Missing Time 150 SKILL PRACTICE 155 Exercises for Long-Term and Short-Run Stress Management The Small-Wins Strategy 155 Life-Balance Analysis 156

Why Did Men Continue to Fight in Ww1 Free Essays

Why did men continue to fight in WWI? The Great War was fought between 1914 until 1918. It took the lives of millions of men and it is said to have had horrible conditions, the question still remains. Why did men continue to fight in the Great War? Was it because of their discipline in the army? Did they fight because of their friends in the army? Or were the conditions in the trenches not as bad as people say they were? This essay will argue that, even though all of these reasons were very important, the main reason men continued to fight was army discipline and comradeship. We will write a custom essay sample on Why Did Men Continue to Fight in Ww1? or any similar topic only for you Order Now Army discipline was definitely an important factor for why men continued to fight. The army aimed to keep soldiers as disciplined as possible, therefore they made severe punishments for misbehaviour. For example, if soldiers refused to walk through â€Å"no mans land† the punishment would be to be shot by a firing squad, the firing squad would be your own battalion. This would be done to increase the discipline of the rest of the battalion. They knew that if they were to disobey orders their friends and comrades would shoot them. However, around five million men served in the British army during the war; out of all these men, 3080 men were sentenced to death but only 364 were actually executed. This evidence suggests that perhaps army discipline was not the most important factor, however, 364 men might have scared most men enough to not disobey orders. The conditions of the trenches were said to be horrific and devastating, however the British army had very high standards of cleanliness and they were aware of what the soldiers needed to keep on fighting. They aimed to keep morale as high as possible and therefore provided more than sufficient amount of food, very good medical care, and tried to generally make the soldiers’ living conditions better. Efforts were made to keep the trenches cleaner; for example, rats were a big issue at the beginning of the war but as the war progressed, they were quickly eliminated from the trenches. Lice were also a problem so they fumigated, washed and ironed soldiers’ uniforms when they came out of the line. Since soldiers got taken care of, this was definitely one of the reasons they continued to fight, or at least made ighting more bearable. The men who fought in the war would often make friends in their battalions. This would definitely keep the men strong and able to fight. The soldiers did not want to let their friends down, and they all wanted to fight for their fellow soldiers. None of them wanted to die, but it was worst to die alone without their friends. They fought to keep th eir friends and themselves alive, so they could bear the war in the company of people they cared for. Sometimes, soldiers became such good friends, they went mad if their friend died, or they would continue to see each other after the war. Comradeship was a very important factor that helped them get through the war. You cannot generalize why men continued to fight. Different men fought for different things. But most men probably fought for various reasons. The fact that the conditions were not so bad probably helped men a lot, as well as being able to fight with their friends. But the fear of death by the hand of their friends was probably what drove most people to keep on fighting in the war. It probably also helped other soldiers encourage their friends to keep on fighting, and therefore army discipline and comradeship are the most important causes. How to cite Why Did Men Continue to Fight in Ww1?, Essay examples

Factors on Resource Competitive Strategies †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Factors on Resource Competitive Strategies. Answer: Introduction: Strategic development is the process in which, managers find long term directions of their organisation, set specific standards for their performance, formulate strategies to attain these objectives and execute the selected action plans with managing all external and internal circumstances. By setting targets, management finds easy to review their accomplishments. By analysing the current market situation, businesses can ultimately avoid the errors other organisations made and reconsider their strategy without any difficulty. Development of business strategies enables the managers to know about the competitive advantages and risks, which is helpful to operate business successfully. Strategic development contributes to the corporate strategy of the company, which directly controls leadership style of the companys management. This essay explains the various tools for effective strategic development within the organisation(Wirtz, et al., 2010). There are various tools for analysing internal and external environmental factors which helps developing strategy of the firm. Some of the main tools includes, PESTEL analysis, Porters Five Forces Model and SWOT analyses. PESTEL analysis: PESTEL analysis is a reliable and majorly used tool for evaluating strategic risk factors. The process of analysing firms external environment includes five stages: finding PEST issues, identifying its effects on the organisation, classifying into threats and opportunities, arranging factors on the basis of priority and taking corrective strategic actions(Song, et al., 2017). Example: Tesco is a multinational company having headquarter in United Kingdom with its stores in 12 countries. Tesco has diversified its operations in mobile, finance, hardware services, insurance and many other sectors. Study of its risk factors through PESTLE analysis will provide more information about the strategy of the firm. Political factors: These contain taxation system, stability of the market and acts of regulations of the country in which it operates. Government of many countries inspire retailers to introduce jobs for the local population because of constant financial stability. For this purpose, Tesco is creating job opportunities and diversifying its functions and products. It is resulting in increase in demand for the products and services of TESCO. Economic factors: Since economic factors are most likely to demand, leverage cost, prices and profits, company should be alert of even small changes in guidelines which may affect the accountability of finance. It is a considerable factor that, while rising internationally, UK market alone holds around 30% of the total market share of TESCO. The major reasons of its success are its two key strategies: Diversification and internationalization. Social factors: A number of social changes shifted the customers towards one stop shopping and bulk purchasing. As an impact of this, TESCO has also enlarged the amount of non-food products. The products and services claimed by the customers are influenced by their social beliefs. Food demands of the customers are continuously changing because they are considering the health issues. Tesco is constantly adopting these changes by providing organic products to consumers. Technological factors: These includes introduction and development of online shopping, facility of home delivery, and introduction of self-service points. Tesco has financed a significant amount in these areas to fulfil long term goals and operate the business functions successfully. Environmental factors: Government of many countries is increasing pressure on the organisations to pay attention towards environmental issues and to implement ways of production that are beneficial for the society. Tesco is committed to dropping its carbon footprint by 50% till 2020. Tesco is also minimizing the amount of waste production in stores by enhancing social awareness in customers. Legal factors: Government legislations and policies directly affect the performance of Tesco. For example: according to the suggestion of Food Retailing Commission, all organisations should introduce a code of practice which may result in banning current practices like changes in price without prior notice or demand for the payment form suppliers. To enable these changes, Tesco offers its consumers price deductions on the fuel purchased by them in accordance with the expenses made by them on grocery stores(Srdjevic, et al., 2012). SWOT analyses: This is a business analysing technique that an organisation can perform for its services, products, and markets while deciding the best possible way to attain growth and success. The process of SWOT analyses involves identifying the weaknesses and strength of the firm, and threats and opportunities exist in the market where it operates(Ayotunde Cheshmehzangi, 2017). Example: This example contains the SWOT analyses of Audi, a well-known international four wheeler manufacturer. Each categories of SWOT includes a list of main facts, which helps in explanation of each category. Strengths: Audi is the second largest car manufacturing corporation in the world function in more than 153 countries. The track record displays high growth in international and domestic sales. Audi has high return on assets and return on equity in comparison to its rivals. Weaknesses: Its market share less in terms of revenue, as compared to other large companies such as BMW, Ford and Daimler. There is an increase in product recall in recent years that shows bad control over product quality. High product recall also results in decreasing consumers faith in brand which may result in decrease in sales(Fujii, 2013). Opportunities: Audi has emphasized on introducing hybrid electric vehicles which may result in increase in demand. Increasing energy expenses and increase in production regulations may become the reason for increase in demand for HEV. Global legislations and environmental factors, and need to consult global resources are chief motivator for consumers in determining acceptability of HEVs(Sarsby, 2016). Threats: Recessions in US, Europe and other main markets have caused in sharp decrease in demand. Audi earns 70% of its total revenue from US and Europe. Car production companies have to bear high amount of fixed labour cost. Manufacturers capacity to reduce fixed cost is generally limited. Sales assistances of leasing functions affects Audis capability to continue its profitability and maintain its share in the market(Grath Bates, 2017). Porters Five Forces Analyses: Michael Porters five forces model measures competitiveness of the industry in which a firm operates. The five forces covers all aspect that are important to analyse the competitive factors that affect the strategic development of the firm Threat of new entrants: Capital requirement for enter into beverage industry is low and barriers to enter into market are almost none. A number of new brands are appearing in the industry with same prices and products. On the other hand, Coca-Cola have substantial market segment from a long time and good customers does not accept a new brand so quickly (Martin, 2014). Threat of Substitutes: There are a number of soft drinks available in the industry having almost same taste and flavour to Coca-Cola. Even sometimes it is not possible to find out the difference between Pepsi and Coca-Cola(Wilkinson, 2013). Bargaining power of buyers: Individual buyer is not able to pressurise profitability of Coca-Cola. But large buyers like Wal-Mart, can affect the business of the company because they make purchases in bulk quantity(D'aveni, et al., 2010). Bargaining power of suppliers: Coca- Cola generally make purchases in large amount from its suppliers and suppliers are also not differentiated or concentrated. It reflects the fact that bargaining power of suppliers is not so high that impacts the strategic development of Coca-Cola. Rivalry: The main rival of Coca-Cola is, Pepsi which also offers a range of soft drinks. Both Pepsi and Coca-Cola are leading beverages and heavily used in outdoor activities and events. There are other many brands with different flavours but none of those brands are able to reach the level of Pepsi and Coke(Tavitiyaman, et al., 2011). In order to introduce strategic development, a company can used any of the above mentioned tools or all of the tools to know about the external and internal environmental factors that affect the strength, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of the firm. The study concludes that after analysing all the factors, their effects and corrective action, it is easy to develop a strategy for effective functioning of the firm and to achieve competitiveness and growth(Nelke, 2011). References Ayotunde, D. Cheshmehzangi, A., 2017. Passive Cooling Energy Systems SWOT Analyses for Energy-use Reductions at Three Spatial Levels. Energy Procedia, Volume 105, pp. 3411-3418. D'aveni, R. A., Dagnino, G. B. Smith, K. G., 2010. The Age Of Temproary Advantage. Strategic Management Journal, 31(13), pp. 1371-1385. Fujii, T., 2013. Global Competitive Advantage Skill of Balanced Scorecard By SWOT Analysis and Strategic Map: BSC Project Management Essentials by Many Case Study of SWOT Analysis?and Strategic Map. Tennessee: Tom Publishing. Grath, J. M. Bates, B., 2017. The Little Book of Big Management Theories: ... and how to use them. 2nd ed. London: Pearson. Martin, 2014. Threat Of New Entrants | Porters Five Forces Model. [Online] Available at: https://www.cleverism.com/threat-of-new-entrants-porters-five-forces-model/ [Accessed 15 April 2018]. Nelke, M., 2011. Strategic Business Development for Information Centres and Libraries. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Sarsby, A., 2016. SWOT Analysis. s.l.:Lulu.com. Song, J., Sun, Y. Jin, L., 2017. PESTEL analysis of the development of the waste-to-energy incineration industry in China. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 80, pp. 276-289. Srdjevic, Z., Bajcetic, R. Srdjevic, B., 2012. Identifying the Criteria Set for Multicriteria Decision Making Based on SWOT/PESTLE Analysis: A Case Study of Reconstructing A Water Intake Structure. Water Resource Management, 26(12), pp. 3379-3393. Tavitiyaman, P., Qu, H. Zhang, H. Q., 2011. The impact of industry force factors on resource competitive strategies and hotel performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30(3), pp. 648-657. Wilkinson, J., 2013. Threat of Substitutes (one of Porters Five Forces). [Online] Available at: https://strategiccfo.com/threat-of-substitutes-one-of-porters-five-forces/ [Accessed 15 April 2018]. Wirtz, B. W., Schilke, O. Ullrich, S., 2010. StrategicDevelopment of Business Models: Implications of the Web 2.0 for Creating Value on the Internet. Long Range Planning, 43(2), pp. 272-290.

The Causes Of The Holocaust Essays - Racism, Antisemitism

The Causes of the Holocaust Post World War I Germany saw difficult times. Germans were searching for a reason to blame someone for their problems and extremist groups such as the Nazis provided a focus for the German people. Some historians will argue that extreme nationalism was the cause of the Holocaust because of the power of the Nazi party. While a large part of this is true, Germany's anguish after World War I sent people looking for reasons to blame someone or something for their burdens, Germany's humiliation after World War I, its dire economic situation, and antisemitism all came together to cause the Holocaust. Germany's embarrassment after losing World War I was one of the major reasons for the cause of the Holocaust. After Germany's defeat in World War I, Germans found it hard to believe they had lost the war. The Treaty of Versailles was a document that officially ended military actions against Germany (Craig 424). Germans did not like this treaty because their government would have to pay other countries for their economic losses (Allen 57). Germany also lost all of its colonies overseas. It had to give back provinces to France, Belgium, and Denmark. France got German coal mines and Gda sk, now a city in Poland, became a "free city." Poland gained most of Western Prussia and Germany's Rhineland was demilitarized, although allied troops occupied it for fifteen years after the war (Shirer 59). The Treaty also solely held Germany responsible for the War in a "war guilt" clause which greatly upset the Germans. When the German government saw the treaty, they heavily opposed i! t; however they had to accept it. Germany's new republican government ratified it in 1919. Germany's defeat in the war and the provisions in the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending the war, greatly outraged the German people. Germany had lost everything, the economy was in a decline and there was an extremely high unemployment rate. The Germans wanted to restore their nation to its former greatness (Hashoah 28). They wanted to complete this task of restoration in a very short amount of time. German citizens also started looking for a reason for their defeat. A new political party called the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazis, began its climb by bringing back old prejudices and blaming the Jews for Germany's defeat in the first World War. These were some of the factors that came together to cause the rise of Hitler's Third Reich and the slaughter of twelve million innocent people in the Holocaust. Germany's bad economy in the 1920's and 30's was a factor for the cause of the Holocaust and the Rise of the Third Reich. After the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, Germany owed other nations money for their economic losses during World War I. This made Germany very poor in the early twenties. In 1923, inflation reached its climax in Germany which made the German Mark lose its value and virtually wiped out the middle class. The German economy was so bad that cartoons were drawn depicting middle class Germans carting around their few possessions and money in wheel barrows. Middle class citizens became more susceptible to appeals from extremist groups such as the Nazis which came about in the years following World War I because they had provided a focus for Germany's problems. Less than three years after German's economy had somewhat stabilized, it went in to a severe economic depression along with the rest of the Western world in 1929. During the years of econom! ic depression the Weimar Republic, who ruled Germany from 1919 to 1933, was criticized for not being able to deal with Germany's problems effectively and efficiently. The Communist and the National Socialist Parties were supported by most of the German voters by 1933 because of Germany's economic problems (Shirer 258). Antisemitism was by far the biggest factor for the cause of the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party were behind this antisemitism campaign. When Hitler and the Nazi party gained power, they made antisemitism an official government policy. Germans were looking for a quick way out of their problems and, by listening to Hitler, they believed they found a quick way out. His reason was the Jews, and Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's economic problems and its defeat in World War I. Hitler blamed the Jews because, he said that the Jews were not German and

Cómo renovar pasaporte americano para adultos y niños

Cà ³mo renovar pasaporte americano para adultos y nià ±os Los ciudadanos estadounidenses deben renovar a tiempo su pasaporte porque necesitan estar en posesià ³n de su vlido pasaporte para viajar al extranjero y regresar a EEUU,   salvo casos muy especiales  en los que se admiten otro tipo de documentos. Adems, para viajes de Canad, Mà ©xico, Bermudas hacia EEUU es suficiente para los ciudadanos tener una Tarjeta de pasaporte (Passport Card,) siempre y cuando la entrada se realice por tierra o por mar, no por aeropuerto. Los requisitos para renovarla son los mismos pero es ms econà ³mica. En este artà ­culo se informa sobre los tres posibles casos que se dan para renovar el pasaporte americano, de quà © debe saberse antes de solicitarla y de quà © documentos pueden utilizarse para acelerar el paso en los controles migratorios. 3 casos de renovacià ³n de pasaporte americano Hay que distinguir entre tres posibles situaciones y cada persona debe seguir las reglas que le aplican segà ºn lo siguiente: cuando la persona que renueva tiene ms de 16 aà ±os y puede renovar por correo,  tanto en USA como cuando se encuentra en otro paà ­s.Cuando no se puede renovar por correo y hay que personarse para la solicitud, aà ºn cuando se tiene ms de 16 aà ±os.Los casos de nià ±os menores de 16 aà ±os, para los que aplican reglas especiales, tanto dentro de Estados Unidos como fuera. Renovacià ³n del pasaporte americano por correo Para estar capacitado para solicitar la renovacià ³n por correo es necesario cumplir todas y cada una de las siguientes condiciones: El pasaporte actual està © en buen estado y puede ser enviado con la solicitudFue emitido cuando su titular era mayor de 16 aà ±osFue emitido hace menos de 15 aà ±osEl pasaporte actual est en buen estadoEst al nombre actual de su titular o puede demostrar con un documento legal su cambio de nombre El titular del pasaporte que solicita la renovacià ³n puede encontrarse en Estados Unidos o en el extranjero. En este à ºltimo caso, verificar con la pgina del consulado porque puede haber reglas distintas segà ºn el lugar. Para solicitar la renovacià ³n debe completarse el formulario DS-82 en la computadora o a a manualmente con tinta negra y asegurarse de firmarlo. Adems, una fotografà ­a de pasaporte tomada en los à ºltimos seis meses debe unirse al documento DS-82 en el espacio habilitado para ello. En el caso de encontrarse fuera de los Estados Unidos, asegurarse de cumplir las reglas de medidas de la foto que, en muchos casos, son diferentes a las que aplican en otros lugares. Es fundamental respetar las medidas que se piden en el formulario DS-82 y que aparecen claramente indicadas. Adems del formulario DS-82 debidamente cumplimentado, firmado y con fotografà ­a deben enviarse los siguientes documentos: El pasaporte ms reciente. Se regresar ms tarde en un paquete diferente al el que se envà ­a el pasaporte nuevo.Si el nombre del titular ha cambiado, una copia certificada del certificado de matrimonio o de la orden de la corte.El pago de las correspondientes tasas. Se debe pagar con una money order o con un cheque. Nunca envà ­e dinero. Si se est en el extranjero, leer detenidamente los tipos de cheque que se admiten y tambià ©n la cantidad exacta ya que puede estar cambiada a la moneda local. Tambià ©n fijarse en el nombre exacto que debe aparecer en la parte de a quià ©n es pagadero el cheque. Se recomienda enviar por correo certificado a la direccià ³n que aparece en el formulario y que es diferente segà ºn se trate de una tramitacià ³n ordinaria o urgente, si se est en el interior de Estados Unidos.Si se est en el exterior, se envà ­a a la Embajada o al Consulado que corresponda. En cuanto al tiempo de tramitacià ³n, generalmente se tarda entre 3 y seis semanas y ms pero puede pagarse una tarifa para acelerar el proceso  si se est dentro de Estados Unidos.  Si existiera una urgencia para obtener el pasaporte, se puede acudir a una Agencia autorizada. Cuando se est en el extranjero y existe una emergencia por la que es necesario viajar a Estados Unidos, es posible contactar con una embajada o consulado, demostrar la emergencia y recibir un documento para viajar que tiene una fecha limitada en el caso de tener el pasaporte expirado. En este caso, vez que se realiza el viaje, hay que solicitar un pasaporte regular bien dentro de Estados Unidos o en el extranjero. Cundo un adulto no puede solicitar la renovacià ³n del pasaporte por correo No se puede aplicar por correo para renovar el pasaporte americano cuando no cumplen con todos y cada uno de los los requisitos seà ±alados anteriormente. Por ejemplo, cuando se ha tenido un pasaporte pero emitido como nià ±o menor de 16 aà ±os. En estos casos en los que se pide por primera vez la renovacià ³n pero como adulto es necesario presentarse en persona en una agencia u oficina autorizada, si se est dentro de Estados Unidos o en la Embajada o consulado, si se est en otro paà ­s. Un caso comà ºn en el que no se puede solicitar por correo la renovacià ³n del pasaporte americano  de un adulto es el de supuesto de robo o extravà ­o del pasaporte. Puede ser un gran dolor de cabeza y esto  es lo que hay que hacer tan pronto como uno se dà © cuenta de que no tiene el pasaporte en su poder. En estos casos,  documento a llenar es el DS-11. Renovacià ³n de pasaporte de menores Los pasaporte de nià ±os tienen reglas especiales para evitar situaciones muy desafortunadas como el secuestro de un menor.   Para evitar esos tipos de problemas los menores de 16 aà ±os tienen pasaportes por sà ³lo 5 aà ±os y deben estar presentes junto con sus padres en el momento de solicitar la renovacià ³n del pasaporte. Esto aplica tanto en Estados Unidos como cuando se est fuera del paà ­s. El gobierno es consciente de que a veces es complicado o imposible que los dos padres està ©n presentes, por eso establece reglas sobre cundo no es necesaria la presencia de los dos progenitores y tambià ©n quà © se puede hacer cuando aà ºn siendo obligatoria la vida real hace que sea imposible o muy difà ­cil. Si se tiene un nià ±o que es ciudadano estadounidense es conveniente informarse sobre documentacià ³n que pueden necesitar si viajan solos en un viaje internacional o si lo hacen con solo uno de sus padres. De informacià ³n de interà ©s antes de solicitar la renovacià ³n En algunos casos, el  no estar al dà ­a en el pago de la pensià ³n de alimentos  es causa para que se deniegue la renovacià ³n del pasaporte. Otro punto de interà ©s es que si se viaja mucho es  posible pedir un libro de pasaporte con  ms pginas  que el regular. Ahora ya no es posible pedir que se aà ±adan ms hojas pero sà ­ que se entregue un pasaporte con ms pginas que el ordinario. Simplemente, marcar esa opcià ³n al rellenar el formulario de solicitud. Verificar avance de la gestià ³n Puede verificar el estado de la tramitacià ³n en la pgina oficial del Departamento de Estado para estos fines. Documentos para acelerar el paso de control migratorio Ingresar a Estados Unidos puede ser una labor que se demora mucho tiempo. Para acelerar los pases por la frontera se han creado diferentes programas para los que se puede aplicar. Por ejemplo, si se viaja por avià ³n y se llega a un aeropuerto  Global Entry y APC  pueden resolver. Por el contrario, si el cruce es terrestre entre  Canad y USA: Nexus  es el programa al que se puede aplicar. Y, finalmente, si se trata de un cruce terrestre o marà ­timo entre Estados Unidos y Mà ©xico  SENTRI  es el programa que puede ayudar a evitar las demoras que se producen en los puentes internacionales, particularmente en los dà ­as feriados. Este es un artà ­culo informativo. No es asesorà ­a legal para ningà ºn caso concreto.

Profile of MSNBC Host Chris Matthew

Profile of MSNBC Host Chris Matthew Chris Matthews is the feisty, outspoken host of MSNBCs Hardball, a top-rated program devoted to political news and analysis.   Matthews is known for his blunt, outspoken style and tough grilling of interviewees, and for his in-depth knowledge of and love for politics. He has produced a number of acclaimed special news programs for MSNBC, including Rise of the Right in 2010, a look at the rhetoric of violence and discrimination of rightwing extremists. Political Views Chris Matthews has been accused of being both too liberal and too conservative. In truth, hes an independent thinker, not prone to political extremism. His views are colored more by his Catholic convictions than by partisanship. As a young man, Matthews was a conservative Goldwater supporter until he was attracted to the anti-war, pro-civil rights 1968 presidential campaign of fellow Irish Catholic Eugene McCarthy. Matthews has worked for four Democratic leaders, and yet, since 2001, has spoken to an array of conservative organizations. Matthews has openly stated,   Im more conservative than people think. Earlier Positions   1968-70 - Peace Corps, in Swaziland1973-74 - After knocking on 200 doors on Capitol Hill, Matthews landed a staff position with Sen. Frank Church (D-UT).1974 - Unsuccessful run for Congress from Philadelphia1974-81 - Speech-writer and advisor to Sen. Ed Muskie (D-ME) and President Jimmy Carter.1981-87 - Administrative assistant and chief spokesman for Speaker of the House Tip ONeill (D-MA). As a powerful top aide to the Speaker, Matthews honed his political skills and masterful understanding of the political process. He also made invaluable Capitol Hill contacts. Tip ONeill retired in 1987. Broadcast Newspaper Journalist: 1987 - Briefly worked for Government Research Corp, a private company.1987 - 2000 - Washington D.C. bureau chief for the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper2000 - 2002 - Nationally syndicated columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle1997 - Debut on CNBC of Hardball with Chris Matthews, later moved to MSNBC. Hardball airs daily on weekdays, and as needed for special political coverage.2002 - Debut of The Chris Matthews Show, a 30-minute weekend news and political roundtable program produced by NBC News. Honors and Publications   In addition to 17 honorary doctorates, Matthews has been awarded: David Brinkley Award for Excellence in Broadcast JournalismAbraham Lincoln Award from the Philadelphia Union LeagueThe Gold Medal Award from the Pennsylvania Society Chris Matthews has authored 4 best-selling books: Hardball: How Politics Is Played Told By One Who Knows The Game (1988) Kennedy Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America (1996) Now, Let Me Tell You what I Really Think (2001) American: Beyond Our Grandest Notion (2002) Personal Data Birth - December 17, 1945 in Nicetown, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb, to Herb Matthews, a court reporter, and Mary. The Matthews, conservative Irish Catholics, had 4 other sons, Herb, Jim, Bruce and Charlie.Education - B.A. 1967, College of the Holy Cross. Graduate work in economics, University of North Carolina.Family - Married in 1980 to Kathleen Matthews. 3 children, Michael, Thomas, Caroline.Faith - Roman Catholic Chris Matthews suffers from diabetes, and was hospitalized in fall 2006 for diabetic complications. He also survived a bout of malaria in 2002 that he likely contracted in Africa. Marriage and Family Chris Matthews has been married to Kathleen Matthews since 1980. Kathleen Matthews is an award-winning news anchor/producer who covered D.C. news, mainly for ABC, for over twenty-five years.   In late 2006, she was named Executive VP - Communications Public Affairs of Marriott International. Born in 1953 in Los Altos Hills, California, the oldest of five children, she was a 1975 honors graduate from Stanford University, where she majored in American Studies and played varsity tennis. Kathleen Matthews is active in charitable causes, sits on many non-profit boards, and with Chris, co-chairs a capital campaign for D.C. Catholic Charities. She holds 10 honorary doctorate degrees. Chris and Kathleen Matthews have three children. Their son Michael (b. 1982) is a filmmaker who graduated from Brown University in 2005. Their son Thomas (b. 1986) is an actor who has starred in American Hustle  , Joy, and HBOs  Ã‚  The Newsroom.  Their daughter, Caroline (b. 1989), who graduated from high school in 2007, has absorbed her fathers interest in Africa, and formed an AIDS awareness school club. In 2006, Caroline participated in a service project at an AIDS orphanage in Kenya, and wrote about her experience in a Newsweek magazine article. Chris Matthews brother Jim Matthews was defeated in his 2006 run as the Republican candidate for Pennsylanias Lieutenant Governor. Memorable Quotes by Chris Matthews On Press Coverage of the Iraq War It is like we are at war - we have killed 15,000 people that died over there in that war, we still get guys knocked off every couple of days, a couple more guys are killed - and yet it is not on the tube. It’s like, are we bored with the war now? Is that the new thing? We don’t cover a war guys are fighting? And I watch the news, I don’t see the war any more. It has been taken off television, and Bush must love it. Certainly Karl Rove loves the fact that the Iraq War has gotten boring for the American people. - Radio Interview with Don Imus, September 21, 2006 Advice to Aspiring Political Journalists Ive had one helluva an apprenticeship for what Im doing on television: fifteen years in politics, fifteen years writing for San Francisco newspapers. I wouldnt have any of this if I hadnt gone to Washington and gotten in the door. Thats what youve got to do: get yourself in the game. - May 16, 2004 Commencement Address to Hobart and William Smith Colleges On Liberals and Conservatives The liberals will talk about poverty, injustice, and racism, and nuclear war, and pick that part of the Christian message from Jesus, and the conservatives will find the evils of sodomy, the evils of, uh, uh, infidelity, the evils of sex of any form. It seems like the conservatives don’t like sex and they’re very focused on that and the liberals are focused on social injustice. - March 9, 2007 on MSNBCs Hardball On His 2002 Bout with Malaria The important thing, I think, is how the experience affected me. There is no adequate emotional accounting for the effect of all those flowers, plants, fruit baskets, letters and phone calls. Or for the calm joy of simply having my crazed career engines turned off for a couple of weeks. Or for the love that has flowed from Kathleen and the rest of my world. - Speech in August 2002, transcript at Peace Corps Online

Childhood Obesity as an Epidemic in America Assignment

Childhood Obesity as an Epidemic in America - Assignment Example Many parents have the habit of feeding their children with fatty and sweetly foods. They wanted to see their children in good health. Overweight is often visualized by them as the symbol of health. But in reality, it is not so. Even though parents are keen on feeding their children with food, they are not so in forcing the children to engage in some physical workouts to shed the excessive calorie intakes. Exercise plays an important role in reducing childhood obesity. Karnik & Kanekar pointed out that â€Å"Lack of playtime, little or no physical education at schools, video games and excessive TV viewing time are proposed as the major cause of the childhood obesity epidemic† (Karnik & Kanekar, p. 4). The government should implement compulsory physical education at school levels. Along with academic subjects, physical education and exercises should be made the part of the curriculum. 2. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, passes through breastfeeding to 1 in 7 infants born to HIV-infected mothers. However, in developing countries, some HIV-positive women are advised to breastfeed. Explain this advice, considering what you know about the benefits of breastfeeding.   â€Å"Even in high-income countries, breastfed babies are less likely to become ill than those given replacement foods†(HIV & Breast Feeding). However, HIV mothers are normally advised to stay away from breastfeeding to prevent the spreading of HIV. It should be noted that breastfeeding is one of the major activities which spreads HIV among infants. â€Å"Under exceptional circumstances, and after seeking expert professional advice on reducing the risk of transmission of HIV through breastfeeding, a highly informed and motivated mother might be assisted to breastfeed† (HIV & Breast Feeding). The merit of breastfeeding against the possibility of spreading HIV is taken into the  consideration while the authorities ask the HIV mothers to breastfeed their children.  

Managerial Skills Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Managerial Skills - Essay Example Managers and all other employees need to constantly plan how they will be able to communicate with their fellow managers and other employees for good communication to be able to take place in any organization. At times, it may also be important for managers and other staff members to evaluate exactly what they will need to wear to meetings and other gatherings within the work area, so as to evaluate the impact that that particular mode of dressing will eventually have on the various conversations that the individual will engage in. However, one aspect of all interpersonal communication skills not only within organizations but also among individuals outside the organization that is constantly seen to receive the least attention to is the listening aspect (Collins and Rourke, 2009). It is fairly rare to find individuals planning on how they will listen to conversations so as to be able to accurately and quickly respond to them (Wolvin, 2011), however, listening is arguably one of the k ey pieces in an individual’s interpersonal communications skill set. ... s of written communication, workers also spend about 13.3% of their time on average engaged in reading while they also spent a whooping 23% of their time speaking. However, these figures comparatively dim in light of the fact that they usually spend about 55% of their total time at work engaged in listening. Managers who clock an average of about 60% of their time listening are seen to spend even more time at work engaged in listening. While company executives spend an event higher amount of time of approximately 75% engaged in listening (Collins and Rourke, 2009). The key problem in the listening aspect of most organizations lies in the fact that individuals generally tend to get a dismal 50% of all that happens to be said to them. They also only manage to retain only about 25% of what has been said to them with after a time frame of about 48 hours (Thomas, 2007). These figures tend to portray a relatively dim image of the overall development of listening skills in organizations. Th e fundamental objectives that will be targeted by this paper will to essentially try to highlight the importance of the development of adequate listening skills. To do this, the paper will essentially cover some of the individual theoretic concepts that are found to be key in the evaluation of listening skills. The paper will also look to address my own individual action plans in relation to the development of my own listening skills as well as highlighting my achievements during the development of my own listening skills. Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 What are Listening Skills? 5 Theories of Listening Skills 6 Individual Report 8 The Application of the Theory of Attentive Listening to the Development of my Listening Skills 9 Measures of Achievement 10 The Application of the Theory

Definition aspects of empathy Essay Example for Free

Definition aspects of empathy Essay When empathy is defined cognitively, the construct of sympathy is found to be similar to a traditional measure used for studying the interpersonal sensitivity or perception of a person. This translates to a highly empathic person being skilled at decoding cues related to another’s feelings or behaviour and hence is accurate in predicting another’s feelings or behaviour. This in turn translates to the ability to infer the target individual’s thoughts, feelings and personality characteristics from a variety of verbal and non-verbal cues. Hence this definition and measurement has important applications in areas of processes involving social influences such as teacher-student, physical-patient relationships. Another definition moves beyond the understanding of another person’s emotional state or situation. It emphasises on the vicarious emotional reaction that is occur in the observer as a result of understanding the emotional state of the other individual. Here empathy is a state of emotional arousal that comes from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s affective emotional state. For example, if an individual observes another person who is sad and then feels sad themselves, then the person is experiencing empathy. This can also be translated in case the individual’s emotion is positive and the observer feels similarly positive. Empathy can be experienced over a wide range of emotions. (Randall, et al, 2001) Major Components of Empathy Although there are various definitions for empathy, it is widely accepted that there are three primary components. The components can be listed as follows: (i) an affective response to another person, often involving sharing of the person’s emotional state; (ii) a cognitive capacity to understand and take the perspective of another person; and (iii) regulation of emotion. According to Hoffman, empathy is largely involuntary response to affective emotional cues from the other person. Batson et al (1997) associate empathy with intentional role taking ability which taps into the cognitive resources. These two different aspects of empathy takes into affect depending on how empathy is triggered. Depending on the trigger the behaviour of the observer is automatically mimics the expressions of other, which is the bottom-up processing. Top-down processing happens when the observer uses his or her capacity for imaginative transposing of oneself into the thinking and the feeling of the subject. Both the aspects of empathy are involved differentially depending on the situation. (Decety, et al , 2006) Empathy and Its Use in Health Industry In the recent years, it has been found that empathetic communication enhances the therapeutic effectiveness in a clinician- patient relationship. It also helps in increasing the effectiveness of gathering information in the clinical interviewing process. In medical care, empathy improves the communication and provides several advantages. Some of these advantages are improved health for the patients, better patient compliance, reduction in risk in terms of medical legal aspects, and improved satisfaction among the clinicians. Empathy is the key element that enables better communication. Frederic Platt devised a set of key steps to effective empathy. This includes the following aspects i. Recognising the presence of strong feeling like fear, anger, grief, disappointment and other’s emotions in the clinical settings; ii. Pausing to imagine how the patient might be feeling at a particular point of time; iii. Stating the perception of the feelings of the patient. Examples of such statements are â€Å"I can imagine that must be like.. † or â€Å"It sounds like you are upset about †¦Ã¢â‚¬  iv. Legitimising the feeling of the patient; v. Respecting the patient’s effort to cope with the discomforts and issues; vi. Offering support and partnership for solving the predicaments. This could be expressed in statements such as â€Å"I am committed to work with you to†¦Ã¢â‚¬  or Let’s see how we can solve this together. † For other areas such as psychiatrists or mental health personnel, it is important to be aware of the opportunities for empathy when they arise during the interview with the patients. Here it may not be important for empathetic communication as such. The opportunity of empathy arises from the patient’s emotion. This emotion may be directly expressed or implied by the patient. When this emotion is expressed, it provides and opportunity for the physician to respond empathetically. Wendy Levinson studied the frequency of empathy opportunities with over 116 office visits to primary care and surgical physicians. In more than half of the cases, it was found that the patients presented the clues in subtle ways, not overtly. In just 38 percent of the surgical cases and in 21 percent of the primary care cases, the physicians responded to the clues. In other cases, the physicians missed the opportunity for empathy. It is usually possible to find medical clues in the fabric of the discussions about the medical problems. If the physician is busy attending to the biomedical details of diagnosis, then they are likely to miss the opportunity for empathy. Most of the times, the patients are likely to provide the opportunities again, and in some cases multiple times. Once the empathy opportunity is found by the physician, it is essential for the physician to offer a gesture or statement of empathy. The statements of empathy can be categorized into different groups. The key groups are queries, clarifications and responses. Examples of queries can be similar to the questions such as â€Å"can you tell me more about that? †, â€Å"what has this been like for you†, â€Å"how has all of this made you feel? †. Clarifications can have the following forms: â€Å"Let me see if I have got this right.. † â€Å"Tell me more about †¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I want to make sure I understood what you have said†. Responses have the following forms: â€Å"Sounds like you are .. † â€Å"I imagine that you must be.. † â€Å"I can understand, that must make you feel †¦Ã¢â‚¬  In most of the cases, the patients express agreement to the statements and confirm the feeling. In case the physician has not understood the patient’s experience exactly, then they can use Hypothesis-Test –Feedback Loop. It allows the patient to clarify their experience and also allows the physician to clarify his or her experience. This allows the physician to reinstate the empathetic statement that was missed in the earlier attempt.

Stones From The River Essays -- essays research papers

Ursula Hegi's novel, Stones From The River, exposes the reader of the persecutions of religious beliefs, a gossiping dwarf, and the people of Burgdorf, a small German town in the time of the Nazi Holocaust. The novel is set in World War I and continues through World War II. The Second World War is brought on by the hunger of power it is known as the otherness war. 'In the Third Reich otherness is a crime.';(Chadwick 2) Hitler, a Nazi leader, wants to gain control of Germany and surrounding countries. Hitler is a feared name even in our society today. We see things through the narrator's eyes. The novel has many flat characters in it. However, some characters are more developed than others are. Each character has a connection to the narrator whether he/she is a friend, a neighbor, or a bully at school. This novel is unique to Hegi because of her background. She lives in a 'suburb of 'Dusseldorf'; before she immigrates to the United States in 1965'; (Simon 1). It was unusual for her to write about this because the people who survive the holocaust never will talk about the past, they all believe in the 'tight lip' philosophy. In the novel Jews, Catholics, and Protestants become victims of the Nazis. Religious prejudices are common throughout the novel. However, Hegi portrays Catholicism as the primary faith. The author scatters many fairy tales and stories inscripted about the different types of religion throughout the text. 'Catholic water rusted Jewish cars.';(Hegi 88) However, the priest says, 'Protestant babies [are] pagan babies…and the Jewish babies [are] like Protestant babies,'; because they are not christened. (Hegi 58) In both the Jewish and Catholic religion different beliefs and celebrations bring commeraderie to the inhabitants of Burgdorf. While the Jews believe that Jesus is an exemplary man, but not God incarnate, the Catholics believe that Jesus lived and has died for our sins at the hands of the Romans. Catholics celebrate the Christ's Last Supper by receiving communion, a major sacrament in Catholicism because; communion in the Catholic Church is believed to be the body and blood of Jesus. It is believed that when one receives communion that all of one's sins will be wiped away. During the month of December the Jewish celebrate Hanukkah, while the Catholics celebrate St. Nikolaus and Christ's birth in Christmas. We celebrate his ... ...fferent than the rest provided a peaked interest to Max. He cares for her uniqueness not because she is different. Couples in today's society are always trying to change people and make them someone they are not. If one thinks they are going to change a person's personality and actions. Then they need to step back and take a good look at them maybe they are the ones who need to change. Stones From the River, is a wonderful novel. Hegi takes us through the World Wars and explains to us the affects they have on our society. Trudi in the novel takes in and helps shelter those who are hiding from the law. She believes that god put her here to help others and she does, with her gift of storytelling. If we all took the time to help one another than we should all get along. Jews, blacks, gays, and cripples are looked down upon. We are programmed to see people's flaws and to discriminate against those who have these differences. Many colleges have a diversification program that it sends all students through, but this is not solving our ignorance of race or gender. If we as a society become well educated on the horrific affects of our actions we could all live as one race, the human race.

Is Google Making Us Stupid Essay

In the article of â€Å"Is Google Making Us Stupid?†, Nicholas Carr argues that the Internet is changing the way our mind works and has some negative effects on our lives. In the article of â€Å"Is Google Making Us Stupid?†, Nicholas Carr argues that the Internet is changing the way our mind works and has some negative effects on our lives. The article begins with that the Internet is the excellent resource where we can find whatever we want for everything, and we are becoming more and more dependent on it in the field of writing, reading and so on. Afterwards, Carr claims that it has a large distraction on our mind, and we even cannot concentrate on a long reading material. As he said, technology is becoming more important than people. In the end, he also tells us that Google is trying to invent an artificial brain to replace our â€Å"slow† brains that we already have. In the article of â€Å"Is Google Making Us Stupid?†, Nicholas Carr argues that the I nternet is changing the way our mind works and has some negative effects on our lives. He views the idea that the Internet is an obstacle for individuals to think deeply, and it is rebuilding our mind and memory. As Carr said, nowadays, it is so difficult for him to focus on a long paper; instead, he always spends a lot of time on the Internet. In the past, the writers like him should stay in the library to study for several days, but now, because of the Internet, it just takes them a couple of minutes. As Marshall McLuhan, a media theorist argued that although media provided us with a huge number of information and thoughts, it also rebuilt our process of thought. A study of online research habits, done by scholars from University College London, shows that our ways of reading and thinking have a large change. From the study, it is obvious that users are using a new way to read instead of traditional sense: they often do a quick view of titles, contents pages and abstracts to get the information they want rapidly, and they seldom read the same materials twice even though they have already saved them online. According to a developmental psychologist named Maryanne Wolf, when we read on the In ternet, we have lost our ability to understand the article, imagine from the article and think deeply without distraction by ourselves. As a result, we need to train our brains to translate the words we see into the  words we understand. Carr believes that our brains are malleable. Since we had the clock, we had started to schedule our time to eat, to work, to study, to sleep and to wake up by a clock instead of our senses. As the development of the technology, our concentration is being dispersed to much media like TV, the Internet, the mobile phones, e-mails and so on. The Internet’s effect is more than the size of screen, and it seems to be more important than human. As Google declared that they wanted to make information more organized and convenient so that we can use them anytime and anywhere. Afterwards, we will â€Å"absorb† more and more resources faster and faster, and everyone will be a thinker. Indeed, Google makes our life simple. Nonetheless, Carr is suspicious of it, maintaining that we have lost a quiet area to think deeper and read dedicatedly. Finally, he considers that most people s eem to be the machine. As Kubrick’s dark prophecy said, â€Å" as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.† Response: After reading â€Å"Is Google Making Us Stupid?† , I agree with Carr about how the Internet negatively influences our lives, and I start to be worried about my future. As we know, the Internet is more and more popular in the world, especially for our millennial. As the result of the advanced development of technology, we have to do a quick read or learn something as soon as we can in order to adapt in the environment. Due to the Internet, I can find anything I want so that it is more easily to get knowledge, and I am used to devoting less time and put less effort on study. I am becoming lazy to think deeper and to do much read, in consequence, my memory seems to be worse because the technology can help me to remember things and then remind me of them. I have already realized that how much of distraction the Internet has. When I read a long article, I have the same feeling as Carr’s that I cannot be concentrated on the reading, while I like to check my phones for many ti mes or change to do other things. I spend much more time on Tweeter and Facebook, and I thought I knew everything of the world through the social media, but actually, I forgot to think of the news deeply and critically. Works Cited Carr, Nicholas. â€Å"Is Google Making Us Stupid.† 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014. 91-101. Print.

A Rose for Emily vs the Lottery

Robert Brockel Brockel1 Dr. Robert Janusko English 2 19 February 201 Foreshadowing There are many ways that a reader can be prepared for the ending of a story, â€Å"The Lottery† and â€Å"A Rose for Emily† are two very grueling short stories with a long suspense and a similar plot. The narrator’s stance in â€Å"A Rose for Emily† was first-person observer, which is defined as a single character point of view in which the narrator was is not involved with the story and the narrator’s stance in â€Å"The Lottery† was third-person anonymous which is involves a narrator that does not enter any minds.Both stances conceal the endings and both the stories use imagery and foreshadowing to prepare the reader for the ending. â€Å"A Rose for Emily† contains more direct clues but leaves you second guessing whether what is anticipated really happens. â€Å"The Lottery† is better known for concealing the entire story till the ending. Shirle y Jackson’s â€Å"The Lottery† is a very surprising story to say the least and gives an overview in the beginning of a small American town of three hundred people that have an annual ritual called â€Å"the lottery. There are significant parts of the story that adumbrate the end of the story and leave the reader in a muddle until the end. First off, in the beginning of the story, the children of the town have just finished school Brockel 2 for the summer on a beautiful June day and they are running around gathering stones to form into a pile. The anticipated ritual is performed to ensure a good harvest even though they do not remember this. One character named Warner quotes an old proverb, â€Å"Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon. Knowing how the story ends its hard to understand that people in an old American town would sacrifice one for the belief that is would give them decent fruitage for the months to come. This story would have a better affiliation with anothe r part of the world where people live in cannibalistic tribes; then it would be easier to predict the ending. Shirley Jackson leaves her audience in the dark until the ending. Tessie’s late arrival at the lottery ritual instantly sets her apart from the crowd of town people, and the Mr.Summers makes a statement to her â€Å"Thought we were going to have to get on without you† (Pg4p9). The town people have prescience about Tessie’s fate. When Mr. Summers asks whether the Watson boy will draw for him and his mother, no reason is given why Mr. Watson wouldn’t draw as all the other husbands and fathers do, which suggests that Mr. Watson may have been last year’s victim. William Faulkner’s â€Å"A Rose for Emily† is a very chilling story that opens with a brief first-person account of the funeral of Emily Grierson who is an old widow.Her father died when Emily was about thirty and she refused to accept that he was dead for three days. Mr. Grierson choked Emily’s social ability. After a life of having potential husbands rejected by her father, she spends time after his death with a newcomer, Homer Barron who is a northern laborer. Emily buys arsenic from a shop in town for no Brockel 3 possible reason, which gives her neighbors the idea that she is going to kill herself.Whether or not she is going to kill herself, the reader does not know but the fact that the narrator mentions the poison implies that someone is going to die. She then takes the life of the man whom she refuses to allow to abandon her while the house is a symbol of a shield as she is the outsider of the town and no one knows of the death until she passes away. Faulkner describes her later in the story as someone bloated and pallid with steel hair. This signifies death is close by.Her death ignited a great deal of curiosity about her reclusive individuality. After she was buried, a group of local citizens entered her house to see what remained of her life there. The door to her bedroom was locked kicking in the door they see what had been hidden for so long. Inside, among the possessions that were in Emily’s room were wedding material and the horribly decomposed corpse of Homer Barron on the bed. On the pillow beside him was the indentation of her head, and a single thread of Emily's grey hair.This could be foreshadowed by the disappearance of Homer Barron and the horrible odor that was in the air. We learn a lot about the lottery, including the elements of the tradition that have survived or have been lost. We learn about the significance of the lottery and how important it is to the villagers, particularly Old Man Warner. We also read through the entire ritual, hearing characters names and watching the men approach the box to take their slips. But Shirley Jackson never tells us what the lottery prize is until the moment the first rock is thrown at Tessie. A Rose for Emily† Is a very similar situation in the B rockel 4 sense that we learn about almost everything, how queer the life of Emily Grierson is, the struggle she went through with losing her father, and the curiosity of the citizens from the town. The things we are not aware of are concealed within her house until they kick open her upstairs bedroom door. Both narrators, with different points of view, prepare the audience for the story without giving away the ending.

Sociologists Take Historic Stand on Racism and Police Brutality

Sociologists Take Historic Stand on Racism and Police Brutality The 2014 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) took place in San Francisco on the heels of the killing of unarmed black teen, Michael Brown, at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. It also happened during a community uprising shrouded in police brutality, so many sociologists in attendance had the national crises of police brutality and racism on their minds. The ASA, however, created no official space for discussion of these issues, nor had the 109-year-old organization made any kind of public statement on them, despite the fact that the amount of published sociological research on these issues could fill a library. Frustrated by this lack of action and dialog, some attendees created a grassroots discussion group and task force to address these crises. Neda Maghbouleh, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto-Scarborough, was one of those who took the lead. Explaining why, she said, â€Å"We had a critical mass of thousands of trained sociologists within two blocks of each other at ASA- equipped to marshal history, theory, data, and hard facts toward a social crisis like Ferguson. So ten of us, complete strangers, met for thirty minutes in a hotel lobby to hash out a plan to get as many concerned sociologists as possible to contribute to, edit, and sign a document. I was committed to helping in any way possible because it’s moments like these that affirm the value of social science for society.† The document† Dr. Maghbouleh refers to is an open letter to U.S. society at-large, that was signed by over 1,800 sociologists, this author among them. The letter began by pointing out that what transpired in Ferguson was born of â€Å"deeply ingrained racial, political, social and economic inequities,† and then specifically named the conduct of policing, especially in black communities and in the context of protest, as a serious social problem. The authors and signatories  implored â€Å"law enforcement, policymakers, media, and the nation to consider decades of sociological analysis and research that can inform the necessary conversations and solutions required to address the systemic issues that the events in Ferguson have raised.† The authors pointed out that much sociological research has already established the existence of society-wide problems present in the case of Ferguson, like â€Å"a pattern of racialized policing,† historically rooted â€Å"institutionalized racism within police departments and the criminal justice system more broadly,†Ã‚  the â€Å"hyper-surveillance of black and brown youth,† and the disproportionate targeting and disrespectful treatment of black men and women by police.  These troubling phenomena foster  suspicion about people of color, create an environment in which it is impossible for people of color to trust police, which in turn undermines the ability of police to do their job: serve and protect. The authors wrote, â€Å"Instead of feeling protected by police, many African Americans are intimidated and live in daily fear that their children will face abuse, arrest, and death at the hands of police officers who may be acting on implicit biases or institutional policies based on stereotypes and assumptions of black criminality.† They then  explained that brutal police treatment of protestors is â€Å"rooted in the history of repression of African American protest movements and attitudes about blacks that often drive contemporary police practices.† In response, sociologists called for â€Å"greater attention to the conditions (e.g., joblessness and political disenfranchisement) that have contributed to the marginalization of residents† of Ferguson and other communities, and explained that â€Å"focused and sustained government and community attention on these issues is required to bring about healing and a change in the economic and political structures that have thus far ignored and left many in such areas vulnerable to police abuse.† The letter concluded with a list of demands required for â€Å"an appropriate response to the death of Michael Brown,† and to address the larger, nation-wide issue of racist police policies and practices: Immediate assurance from law enforcement authorities in Missouri and the federal government that constitutional rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of the press will be protected.A civil rights investigation into the incidents related to the death of Michael Brown and general police practices in Ferguson.The establishment of an independent committee to study and analyze the failures of the policing efforts during the week following Michael Brown’s death. Ferguson residents, including leaders of grassroots organizations, should be included on the committee throughout this process. The committee must provide a clear roadmap for resetting community-police relations in a way that grants oversight power to residents.An independent comprehensive national study of the role of implicit bias and systemic racism in policing. Federal funding should be allocated to support police departments in implementing the recommendations from the study and ongoing monitoring and public reporting of key benchmarks (e.g., use of force, arrests by race) and improvements in police practices. Legislation requiring the use of dash and body-worn cameras to record all police interactions. Data from these devices should be immediately stored in tamper-proof databases, and there should be clear procedures for public access to any such recordings.Increased transparency of public law enforcement, including independent oversight agencies with guaranteed full access to law enforcement policies and on-the-ground operations; and more streamlined, transparent and efficient procedures for the processing of complaints and FOIA requests.Federal legislation, currently being developed by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), to halt the transfer of military equipment to local police departments, and additional legislation to curtail the use of such equipment against domestic civilian populations.Establishment of a ‘Ferguson Fund’ that will support long term strategies grounded in the principles of social justice, systems reform and racial equity to bring about substantial and sustained c hange in Ferguson and other communities facing similar challenges. To learn more about the underlying issues of systemic racism and police brutality, check out The Ferguson Syllabus compiled by  Sociologists for Justice. Many of the readings included are available online.

Mentoring Program Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Mentoring Program - Research Proposal Example So, first of all, it seems necessary to define what particular outcomes we should expect from implementing an own mentoring program. One of the most significant is, I believe, developing a high performing team of professionals. Since team work is an essential part of our operations, it is important that our employees understand and accept this principle. Especially important it is because we cannot provide each with a mentor. Therefore, the first task to be accomplished while designing our mentoring program is choosing which particular people will be directly participating in the program. 2.1.1. 360 Degree Evaluation For this purpose I suggest to conduct a 360 degree evaluation: The 360 Degree Feedback System has recently experienced a wide spread among the organization wishing to improve and enhance their performance measuring systems. This particular method involves getting a feedback on an employee’s performance not only from a supervisor, as we do now, but also from four to eight peers, reports, colleagues or customers. In most cases the system also requires an employee oneself to assess own performance in an individual assessment (Heatfield, 2008). So, in addition to giving the manager an opportunity to get a wide range perspective on the employee’s performance, this system enables the supervisor to understand how the employee’s performance is viewed by others – that is to base evaluation not only on own perception, but on other’s opinions as well.

Bioremediation Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Bioremediation Questions - Essay Example In Situ bioremediation skill developing as a less expensive, more effectual option to the average pump-and-treat techniques applied to clean up aquifers and soils polluted with organic chemicals (e.g., chlorinated solvents), however, has since developed in dimension, to tackle explosives, inorganic, as well as toxic metals (e.g., Chromium).   ISB has the prospective to offer advantages like destruction of the pollutant(s), lesser risk to site workers, as well as lower equipment/operating expenses (Singh, Ajay, and Owen, 20). Oil remediation is the procedure employed to clean up oil spills. However, Oil spills threaten the fitness of beings plus are harmful to the surroundings and might be remedied in a diversity of means. The risk level plus the exact oil remediation applied depend on the dimension of the spill, the oil, the location of the spill as well as the climate where the spill takes place. The most favored technique of oil remediation, particularly in the water, is to leave it alone as well as allow it naturally disintegrates (Alexander 35). Moreover, when there is no threat of leaks influences marine wildlife or coastal areas, the wind, ocean currents, sun, as well as waves will efficiently break up as well as evaporate most types of oil. The lighter the oil the simpler it will break down as expected. Having the oil with booms as well as gathering it with skimmer gear is another technique of oil remediation for a leak in the water, apart from for the high seas. Moreover, Booms might be made of a broad array of materials plus come in a huge diversity of forms (Singh, Ajay, and Owen 25). Depending on the dimension of the leak, they might be positioned in deep water, float consistently with the water line or sit above the water line up to one meter. When the oil is contained, it is sucks out plus positioned in nearby vessels. In several cases, it

Roma Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Roma - Essay Example Early Rome was a monarchy, ruled by Etruscans kings, but after only seven of them had ruled, the Latins took power over their own city and transformed Rome into a republic. As a republic, the Rome was ruled by a group of leading citizens who began to take control of all Italy. Gradually, the Latins constructed a political organization (Senate) and designed the Roman constitution. Under the Roman constitution, the senate appointed a consul, who ruled Rome like a king, but only for a year, hence adopting notions of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Between 500 and 300 B.C. two social groups, patricians (nobles) and plebeians (commen men), evolved from the citizenry. The "Struggle of the Orders" – a struggle of legality between patricians and plebeians led to modifications of Roman constitution (History Guide). Owing to the Roman penchant for power and control, Rome was at war during most of the years as a Republic especially the three Punic Wars (264-146BC), in which Rome conquered Carthage (North Africa), Spain, France and other parts of Europe. Julius Caesur was one of the most famous citizens of Roman Empire for his rule and military campaigns (Roman Empire). Upon his death, the Roman world was divided between Marc Anthony, Octavian and Lepidus starting off a number of battles. With the battle of Actium, the Roman Republic transitioned itself into the Roman Empire ruled by Octavian. The Roman Empire was a much prosperous regime than the Roman republic with even more territorial expansion towards Western Europe and Middle East. At the peak of its power, around AD 150, Rome commanded the supreme realm ever seen in Europe at that time. Unlike the Greek empire under Alexandre, the captured nations profited from Roman rule as the Latin way of life and infrastructure building was inflicted u pon conquered societies such as Roman public baths, roads, water supplies, housing etc. Education (creation of

Barclays Bank Retail Banking Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Barclays Bank Retail Banking Strategy - Essay Example Some of these are helpful for every firm in the industry and are called opportunities, while others bring bad news for everyone and are regarded as threats. Besides these forces in the external environment, a particular firm may have internal strengths such as the skill and experience of its staff, or weaknesses such as frequent labor disputes because of lack of clearly defined polices for staff and workers. In sum the fortunes of the firm are dependent on how well its management deals with business opportunities and threats, while using the strengths of the firm to take advantage of the opportunities and minimize the effect of the threats through clever planning and strategic implementation of its vision for the company. This is what is called strategic management- or the planning and implementation to achieve its desired plans in the marketplace in the face of these internal and external forces. The legal, political, sociological, economic and other environments may pose a number o f challenges that must be overcome by the business if it is to survive and prosper in the marketplace. Barclays Bank PLC is one of the key players in the worldwide banking industry as well as in India and this paper will discuss how successfully it has managed to meet the challenges faced by the banking sector in India. II. Overview of the Banking Sector in India The major Indian banks can be classified under three categories in terms of ownership:(1) Public sector banks such as State Bank of India, the Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Canara Bank; (2) Private sector banks such as ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank; and (3) Foreign Banks such as Citibank, Barclays Bank of India and Standard Chartered Bank. By December 2008, there were 28 public sector banks, 29 private sector banks and 30 foreign banks, in addition to other regional and cooperative entities. The banking sector in India is one that is full of intense competition. Lately the banking sector, which had been hit by the worldwide 2007-2008 economic recession, has been in recovery mode and efforts are still being made to put the sector back on track. The recessionary trend saw a decrease in the percentage of consumer lending from 29.9 percent in 2007 to just 17.1 percent in 2008. The major contractions were seen in the autos, housing, personal loans and consumer durables sectors. III. Supervision and Control As in most nations of the world, the outlook on monetary policy and regulation of the financial system lies with the Central Bank. In India, this is the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In keeping with the special functions of a central banking institution, it is also the issuer of local currency as well as the manager of foreign currency reserves and regulations in India. In the same fashion, the Securities and Exchange Board of India is the regulatory body that monitors stock market transactions and compliance with the rules. India also has an Insurance Regulatory & Development Authori ty like the FDIC in the USA that is responsible for protecting the interests of the policyholders. Â   IV. The State of the Retail Banking Sector in India Retail banking has been the major hub of activity in recent years. The banks have classified their customers into three major groups- consumer, small business and corporate. It has been acknowledged that the progress of retail banking would most likely rest of four pillars: innovative offerings, distribution optimization, quality of management and shared system/back-office. Barclays has adopted an innovative strategy upon its entry into India in 2008. Banking today can be characterized by the different products that are being dealt with, such as investment banking, asset management or debt management, or by the type of customer dealing, such as Wealth Management

Review on Video Steganography Technique

Review on Video Steganography Technique Kamred Udham Singh Abstract In the era of information security, Steganography is a most secure method, used for concealing existence of secret data in any digital cover object such as image, audio, video and text files. In the last several decades broad research has been done on image steganography technique due to their easiness of data embedding and data extraction. Hide the existence of the embedded data in any digital object is the main objective of steganography. The main key factors of steganography are Undetectability, robustness and capacity of the concealed data that separate it from related techniques like cryptography and watermarking. Nowadays, video files are much more accepted because of large size and memory requirements. This paper intends to provide a survey on various video steganographic technique and covering its fundamental concepts. Keywords: Video steganography, data hiding, spatial domain, Transform domain, DWT, DCT. Introduction Today’s digital world it is very important for secret communication of any private information in safe and secure manner, it has created new challenge of information security. Here a most important question arise that which method we choose for containing its integrity and degree of security. Several methods have been proposed for addressing the issue of information security like cryptography, steganography and watermarking. In Cryptography information encrypted in such form that it becomes meaningless to eavesdroppers using any encryption algorithms such as DES but how strong is the encryption algorithm, it could be broken. Data can be easily replicated and distributed without owner’s consent due to lack of security. Watermarking modified the original data by embedding a watermark containing key information such as logo or copyright codes to protect the intellectual properties of digital content. Moreover, in some situation it was necessary to distribution of informati on without anyone detecting that the communication happened. So steganography comes arise in digital world to handle this case. Steganography technique is the art and science of invisible data communication. The word steganography originated from the Greek language and derived from two Greek words â€Å"stegos† which stands for â€Å"cover† and â€Å"grafia† which stands for â€Å"writing† [1]. Figure 1.The different disciplines of information hiding [21] Steganography developed driven by the necessity to conceal the existence of a secret data communication. Although steganography and cryptography both technique are try to protect data, but neither steganography nor cryptography alone is perfect. Consequently it is better to combine both technique together to increase the degree of security of the system [2]. Though steganography is technique for the communication being between two parties. So main concern of steganography is to conceal the existence of the data communication and protecting the hidden data against any alterations that may happen during communication such as format change or compression but integrity should be maintain. The major difference between Steganography and Cryptography is that the cryptography keeps the contents of information secret while steganography keeps the existence of information secret [3]. As video steganography is the focus of this review paper which can be viewed as an extension of image steganography. Really, video is a stream of a sequence of successive and equally time-spaced still images. So several image steganographic techniques are relevant to videos as well. Hu et al. [28],], Langelaar et al. [38], Shang [74], and Sherlyetal [76] extended various image data hiding techniques to video. Video steganographic techniques There are various applications such as intelligence agencies and military communications where video steganography can be employed [4]. Lie et al. [5], Yilmaz et al. [6] and Robie et al. [7] proposed another types of applications like video error correction during communication and for transmitting additional information without requiring more band-width [8]. Video steganography was used for hiding data in a video captured by a surveillance system was demonstrated by Zhang et al. [9]. There are various signal processing transform like DWT, FFT and DCT, any one of them can be used as video stenographic technique to hide data in the frequency domain of the cover object. Secret data can be hide either on per pixel basis or group of pixels called blocks [10]. Video steganographic techniques can classify in a number of ways. Sherly et al. [11] categorize them according to compression, compressed techniques [12, 13] and uncompressed video techniques [15]. Video steganographic techniques can also be classified on the basis of domain of embedding, these are transform domain techniques [14, 16] and spatial domain techniques [17]. Shirali-Shahreza [18] stated that video steganographic techniques can be also categorized on the basis of considering the video as a sequence of still images [17, 19]. Or utilizing the video saving format for data hiding [20]. Or finding new dimensions in the video which helps in the steganographic process [12, 15]. The fallowing figure depicts th ese possible classifications. Figure 2: Various Classification of video Steganography This paper will discuss classification based on embedded domain and cover-up all the literature related to video steganography. Bit Substitutions Methods Least Significant Bit (LSB) Bit Substitution-based steganography techniques replace the cover bit with the binary equivalent of secret data bit. The main advantages of bit substitution methods are the simple implementation and the high data hiding capacity in comparison to other techniques. Bit Substitution-based technique have many methods such as Least Significant Bit (LSB) method, Bit Plane Complexity Segmentation (BPCS) and Tri-way Pixel Value Differencing (TPVD) etc. Least significant bit (LSB) insertion is an oldest and most famous bit substitution-based approach for embedding data in a carrier file like video or image and it is capable of embedding huge secret data. Least significant bit technique operates by altering LSB bits of the cover file to conceal the secret data bit. Most of the bit substitution-based methods that exist are really inspired by the LSB technique. Data hiding technique developed to hide the secret data in definite frames of the video file and in definite position of the frame by LSB substitution using different polynomial equation. In this technique data will be hidden on the basis of stego key which is in the form of polynomial equations with different coefficients [22]. A. T. Thahab [23] proposed Digital Color Video Steganography Using YCbCr Color Space and Dynamic Least Significant Bit technique is apply to hide video data file inside the other video cover object .This techniques also found on the basis of least significant bit algorithm. Bit Plane Complexity Segmentation (BPCS) Normally the idea behind the LSB technique is to modify the least significant bits of the pixel with the binary equivalent of secret data. If more significant bits are used to hide the data then it deteriorating the quality of image. Due to this disadvantage of this technique leads to evolution of other technique which trying to overcome this disadvantage. Kawaguchi and Eason proposed Bit Plane Complexity Segmentation (BPCS) technique [24] and Chang et al. proposed Tri-Way Pixel-Value Differencing [25] .BPCS technique can be applied in the both spatial domain and transform domain [26,13] to address this problem. The basic idea of BPCS technique is to break down an image/frame into the bit planes and every bit plane treated as a slice of the image which is made up from all the bits of a definite significant location from each binary digit. Regions in the bit plane are categorized into informative and noise-like after that noise-like regions are substituted with the secret information and maintain the perceived quality. Jalab et al. [19] implemented the BPCS technique for hiding data in MPEG video format frames. This technique works in the YCbCr colour space instead of red, green and blue (RGB) components of a pixel for removing the correlation between the RGB and also decreasing the distortion produced by data embedding process. It is well-known that Human Visual System (HVS) are sensitive modifications in smooth parts than noise-like. Therefore, the BPCS method was applied for computing the complexity of every region in the cover frame. The complexity of every region of the bit plane is computed as the number of on edge transitions from 0 to 1 and 1 to 0, both vertically and horizontally. Tri-way Pixel-Value Differencing (TPVD) It is another bit substitution-based method is the Tri-way Pixel-Value Differencing (TPVD) [13] which is a modified form of the Pixel-Value Differencing method. To maintain the visual quality of cover object it is intuitive to think that data should be concealed in complex parts of the object. It hides the data in the difference of two neighbour pixels value which are classified into ranges, larger range index shows a sharp area where more secret data can be concealed and smaller range index shows a smooth area where less secret data can be concealed. In the data hiding process first partitioning the cover object image/frame into non-overlapping chunks of two neighbour pixels and its range are determined. After that number of secret data bits to be concealed is computed based on the range index. Lastly, the essential number of secret data bits is extracted from the secret data and corresponding their decimal value is used to generate a new difference and the pixel values are adjusted accordingly. This method provides high capacity and imperceptibility for human vision of the concealed secret data. Sherly et al. [11] implemented this technique to hide data in MPEG compressed videos and stated that secret data are hidden in the macro-blocks of the â€Å"I† frame with maximum scene modification and in macro-blocks of the P and B frames with maximum magnitude of motion vectors. Transform domain techniques Although Bit substitution-based methods are the simplest way for data hiding, but vulnerability is main disadvantage to any cover alteration like compression, format change, etc. This data embedding techniques can be easily cracked by an attacker. Transform domain methods are more complex than Bit substitution-based methods and try to improve the perceptual transparency and the robustness of the generated stego-objects. Any transform-domain technique contains of at least these phases, first transformed the cover object into the frequency domain, in second phase secret data is concealed in some or all of the transformed coefficients. In final phase modified coefficients are transformed back to the original form of the cover. Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) are types of transform domain. Raja et al. [27] Stated that DFT methods introduce round-off errors which do not make it ideal for data hiding applications. So du e to this reason Discrete Fourier Transform methods are not popular in steganography. But, few techniques in steganography used DFT based steganography like McKeon [28] used the 2D DFT for steganography in videos. Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) is a very popular transform and broadly used with image and video compression methods. Chae et al. [29] presented an algorithms in this field using texture masking and multidimensional lattice structure and used MPEG-2 compressed videos. Secret data and the cover video frames both are transformed using 88 Ãâ€"8 non-overlapping blocks. The secret data coefficients are quantized and then encoded by the multidimensional lattices, after that concealed into the cover frame DCT coefficients. Data hiding is adaptive to the local content of the video frame blocks. Steganographic techniques facing the challenge of improving the data embedding capacity without affecting visual quality. Large quantity of secret data can be embedding in the cover video is main objective of High bitrate techniques. A high bitrate algorithm is proposed by Yang et al. [16] which works on H.264/AVC Compressed videos. This method first convert the cover video frames to YUV colour spac e and then 1 data bit is embedded in each 4Ãâ€"4 DCT coefficient block . Strength points of this algorithm are large amount of data embedding capacity, robust to H.264 and MPEG-4 video compression techniques and also tamper resistant. Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is popular in signal processing and video/ image compression. Wavelet transform fragmented a signal into a set of basic functions called wavelets. The DWT has many advantages over DCT like providing a multi-resolution description and permitting for better modelling of Human Visual System (HVS). DWT delivers a multi-resolution analysis which analyzes the signal at diverse frequencies produce different resolutions. Temporal resolution is main advantage of DWT. It captures frequency and frame location information. At each level of transformation, a frame which is transformed with Haar wavelet transform [30] is decomposed into four bands. One of them is approximation band which represents the input frame after implementing a low pass filter and compressing it to half. Other remaining three bands are high pass filter and called detail band. High-resolution sub-bands permit simple detection of features like edges or textured parts in transform domain. DWT d oes not need to decompose the input cover object into non-overlapping 2-D blocks, which reduce the blocking artifacts. Wavelet transform produces floating point coefficients which are used to perfectly rebuild the original signal. Some video steganography techniques trusted on the integer-to-integer wavelet transform. Xu et al. [15] proposed an approach on this technique. In proposed scheme data is embedded in the motion component of video due to these two reasons first is not more affected by compression and second is HVS are not more sensitive to catch the changes in motion areas of video. The methodology of this algorithm is that, in first step motion component of video is computed from frame-by-frame basis, after that computed motion component are decomposed in two-level wavelet decomposition. In last step secret data bit are concealed into low frequency coefficients which are based on the values of coefficients. This technique maintaining the quality of video after the data embedding process. Requires a cover video with large motion component because data hiding capacity is depend on motion comp onent is the disadvantage of this algorithm. Adaptive steganographic techniques Adaptive steganography technique is a special case of the two former techniques which is also known as ‘‘Statistics-aware embedding’’ [31], ‘‘Masking’’ [32]. An adaptive technique basically implemented by studying the statistical structures of the cover object before changing with the secret data which helps to identify the best regions to embedded data [33]. Sur et al. [34] proposed an algorithm on temporal redundancy which select macro-blocks with low inter frame velocity and high prediction error as their regions-of-interest (ROI). Furthermore, the number of DCT coefficients used for data hiding is adaptively computed based on the relative stability of the prediction error block. This algorithm offers a very low data hiding capacity. Mansouri et al. [12] proposed a technique which combined the features of both spatial and temporal of the video and utilized a spatial key property. The objective of this technique is maximizing both perceptual invisibility and robustness by choosing frame regions which are perceptually unimportant. High data hiding capacity as it uses both temporal and spatial features of the cover video stream is the main advantage of this algorithm. Conclusion This paper presents a short review on video steganographic techniques and the key algorithms of video steganography. Steganography, cryptography, and watermarking technique and their differences is also discussed. An overview of steganography is presented and mainly focus on video steganography and its applications. Various video steganography techniques and classification of the existing video techniques are explained which are based on spatial domain, transform domain and other techniques. Advantages and disadvantages of these techniques are focused. Steganography techniques are mainly struggling for achieving a high data embedding rate. It is a good substitute channel for hide data in video files because it have many outstanding features such as large capacity and good imperceptibility. This paper delivers effective review on the design of a video steganographic system.

gatjay Failure of Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald :: Great Gatsby Essays

Failure of Jay Gatsby of The Great Gatsby A society naturally breaks up into various social groups over time. Members of lower statuses constantly suppose that their problems will be resolved if they gain enough wealth to reach the upper class. Many interpret the American Dream as being this passage to high social status and, once reaching that point, not having to concern about money at all. Though, the American Dream involves more than the social and economic standings of an individual. The dream involves attaining a balance between the spiritual strength and the physical strength of an individual. Jay Gatsby, of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, fails to reach his ultimate dream of love for Daisy in that he chooses to pursue it by engaging in a lifestyle of high class. Gatsby realizes that life of the high class demands wealth to become priority; wealth becomes his superficial goal overshadowing his quest for love. He establishes his necessity to acquire wealth, which allows him to be with Daisy. The social elite of Gatsby's time sacrifice morality in order to attain wealth. Tom Buchanan, a man from an "enormously wealthy" family, seems to Nick to have lost all sense of being kind (Fitzgerald 10). Nick describes Tom's physical attributes as a metaphor for his true character when remarking that Tom had a "hard mouth and a supercilious manner...arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face...always leaning aggressively forward...a cruel body...[h]is speaking voice...added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed" (Fitzgerald 11). The wealth Tom has inherited causes him to become arrogant and condescending to others, while losing his morals. Rather than becoming immoral from wealth as Tom has, Gatsby engages in criminal activ ity as his only path to being rich. His need for money had become so great that he "was in the drug business" (Fitzgerald 95). Furthermore, he lies to Nick about his past in order to cover up his criminal activity. Gatsby claims to others that he has inherited his wealth, but Nick discovers "[h]is parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people" (Fitzgerald 104). Gatsby enters a world where money takes precedence over moral integrity. Materialism has already overshadowed a portion of his spiritual side. A quest for true love is doomed for failure in the presence of immorality. Once wealth has taken priority over integrity, members of the high social class focus on immediate indulgences, rather than on long-term pleasures of life such as love.

Original Course work †Urban Myths Essay

The scream rang through the trees. Pounding footsteps thudded their way through the wood. Twigs snapped and cracked like brittle bones. She slowed down to a trot, trying to make sense of where she was. Her ears pricked. Listening for following footsteps. Realising she had been holding her breath, she gasped and air flooded her body. Only half an hour before she had been sat perfectly happy with her boyfriend. Her vision glazed over as silent drops fell to the ground, remembering how Josh had got out of the car to investigate a noise they had heard. She sank down to the bottom of the tree, as she recalled how ten minutes later, when he hadn’t returned, she had got out, only to find his pale form hanging from the tree above. Blood stained the top of the car where it had spilt from his neck, draping down over his shoulder like a carpet of scarlet. Whoever done this mustn’t be too far away. They could be watching her, waiting for her†¦ â€Å"The bodies of two teenagers have been found in Thornby Woods early this morning by a local dog walker. The bodies have been described as horrifically mutilated and the result of a brutal murder. At the moment police are investigating leads including the name â€Å"Aidan† spelt in blood on the roof of the car. Hopefully this will bring the monster to justice.† â€Å"I can’t believe something like that could happen here, it’s just so unbelievable†, said Diana. The others nodded in agreement. The four were sat around a table in their local cafà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½. There was Diana, Jack and the twins, Kerry and Kevin. The twins with their unique coppery red hair and blue startling eyes, stood out from Diana and Jack with his plain name, and fairly plain features. â€Å"You know what this sounds like†, said Jack then hesitated, â€Å"the urban legend about the guy in the car with his girlfriend†. The others looked at him. â€Å"But they’re made up stories, they would never come true†, argued Diana. The twins, who had a habit of speaking in unison, started speaking but then fell silent, as the television in the corner of the cafà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ flashed on again and more about the murders was broadcast. Later that night, Kerry was sat in the library. The essay she was trying to write was starting to give her a headache. The ticking clock, mounted on the wall, showed her it was nearly midnight. As she stifled a yawn, she pulled the books shut and gathered up her stuff. Silently, she made her way down the deserted corridors and up the stairs to her room. When she arrived she turned the key slowly in the lock, so as not to wake her roommate, Stacie. She climbed into bed and her eyes shut as her head rested on the pillow. The next morning, sunlight streamed through the windows. It was a Monday morning and everyone was trying to stay in bed as long as possible. Suddenly, the silence was broken as a scream rose from Kerry’s room. Kevin and Diana were first there. As they pushed the door open, they saw Stacie’s dead body surrounded by bloodstained sheets. Kerry was whimpering softly, slouched against the bed. Kevin noticed the mirror out of the corner of his eye. Smeared across the glass in blood-red lipstick were the words, â€Å"Bet you’re glad you didn’t turn on the light†. It was signed ‘Aidan’. Kevin rushed over to Kerry, trying to comfort her, glancing over his shoulder at Diana. She stood like a statue, a shocked expression spreading across her face. Jack came rushing into the room. â€Å"What’s happened†¦?†, he broke off. He had seen the body. The four friends sat bewildered, silently hugging each other. Kerry couldn’t concentrate. Everyone had thought it best if she went to her lessons and tried to forget about it, but she couldn’t. Her mind kept going back to that morning when she had opened her eyes. The first thing she had seen was the body. The bloody image flashed before her. Finally, after what had seemed like hours, the end of college bell rang. Kerry slowly made her way over to the cafà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ where she was going to meet Jack and Kevin. When she arrived, no one else was there, so she pulled a magazine out of her bag. As she did so, a plain envelope came with it and dropped to the floor. Curiously, she tore it open and jerked the paper out. â€Å"You’re next†, it spelt out, in carefully cut out letters from a newspaper headline. Kerry crammed the paper back in the envelope, as Jack and Kevin came through the door. â€Å"You feeling any better?† asked Jack, concerned. Kerry nodded her head and had to force a smile. â€Å"You know, this murder also sounds like an urban legend, don’t you think?† Jack continued, ignoring Kevin’s warning look. â€Å"Who do you suppose is behind it?† Drew, the class swot, came over. â€Å"Have you not heard? The police are looking for a man with the name Aidan, round about 20 years old†, he recited, sounding like a news reporter. â€Å"Why?† asked Kerry, turning her head towards Drew. â€Å"The name has been found at both the murder scenes, so it’s likely it was left by the killer† â€Å"But I don’t know anyone called Aidan†, said Kerry puzzled. â€Å"Could be an outside job, it doesn’t have to be anyone on campus. Do you know anyone that would do something that sick?† â€Å"I suppose it makes it more likely to be some lunatic,† half-whispered Kerry, but Drew had already turned away and had started telling the news to the table next to them. â€Å"Hey guys.† Their conversation was interrupted by Diana’s arrival, which was always noticeable. Her slim figure and blonde hair made her popular with the boys. She joined them at the table. â€Å"So has everyone has a nice day?† she said with a smile. The others just looked at her. Kerry looked as though she was about to cry. â€Å"Oh sorry, I forgot about this morning,† she answered cheerfully. Kerry’s chair scraped back as she got up to go. She pulled her bag onto her shoulder and left without saying a word. â€Å"What’s up with her today?† questioned Diana. â€Å"Well maybe she’s upset ‘cos one of her friends was murdered right underneath her nose and she found the body!† exclaimed Jack. Kerry had gone to the library. She couldn’t stand being in her room after what had happened. As she sat, staring at the open book infront of her, but not taking one word in, a voice called out her name. Turning sharply around, thinking it could easily be the killer, she saw, to her relief, it was Jack. â€Å"I just came to see if you were all right.† He muttered his apology for scaring her. â€Å"Yeah. I’m okay†¦ well sort of,† she smiled back. â€Å"I just thought, well Diana wasn’t exactly being sympathetic before and when you walked out, you looked upset to me. I though someone had better come after you.† He paused and looked at her, â€Å"You sure you’re all right?† Kerry looked away and sighed. â€Å"Well not exactly, I got this letter, someone must have planted it in my bag.† She handed over the letter to Jack. His eyes scanned the letter and his expression turned into that of alarm. â€Å"You really should take this to the police,† he said, his eyes piercing her own with serious anxiety. She turned her head so she wouldn’t have to stare into his hazel eyes, so caring, so tender, so†¦ â€Å"What’s the point?† her voice shuddered, â€Å"It doesn’t mean its necessarily from him. It’s probably some dumb kid playing a sick joke to upset me† â€Å"Well, if you’re sure. But come on, don’t you think you should call it a day?† Jack said, standing up and taking Kerry’s bag. â€Å"Where am I going to sleep? I mean, I don’t want to sleep in my room tonight,† she shivered. â€Å"I’m sure you can share Diana’s room. Come on we’ll go up there now.† Kerry followed Jack and together they walked up the three flights of stairs to Diana’s room. Ten minutes later, Kerry sat on the spare bed, while Jack said his good byes. Finally they were left alone. â€Å"Look I’m really sorry about before you know. I really shouldn’t have said that,† apologised Diana, humbly. â€Å"Its okay,† said Kerry smiling at her friend and laying back on the bed. A large sigh rose from her chest. She looked around the room, so much different from her own. The walls were a soft shade of purple with various famous prints dotted around. Cream curtains hung at the windows, drawn back gracefully, allowing the orange, golden sunlight to stream in. Her eyes moved around the room and stopped at the desk placed in the corner. There, lying on a pile of schoolbooks, was a newspaper, maybe a day or two old. Kerry could clearly see off-cuts and torn pages nestled on top. â€Å"Have you been working on a project?† she asked, the sarcasm stung her words. â€Å"What do you mean, project†¦?† Diana’s eyes followed her gaze. Her laugh rang through the room. â€Å"Yeah, it’s a project all right.† Kerry instantly sat up on the bed and turned to face Diana. â€Å"You†¦Ã¢â‚¬  she spat accusingly. Diana let out a jeering laugh. â€Å"I wondered how long it would take you to realise,† she half laughed, half spoke. â€Å"Realise what exactly? That you sent me that letter? How could you be so cruel?† cried Kerry, scrambling off the bed and onto her feet to face Diana. â€Å"Cruel? You don’t even know the meaning of the word, cruel!† â€Å"What†¦What precisely do you mean?† questioned Kerry, her throat tightening. â€Å"When I saw that girl and boy in the car, I though that it was you and Jack†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"You mean, you†¦you didn’t, did you?† Kerry stared in disbelief. â€Å"Yeah, I followed them, then killed them, if that’s what you’re trying to say. The stupid thing was, I didn’t realise it wasn’t Jack until he was dead. And of course the girl had to go in case she saw anything,† sneered Diana, boasting about her serial killing. She quickly strode to the door and locked it before Kerry even had a chance to move. Kerry noticed for the first time, that even though Diana was pretty, she was tall, fit and could probably easily manage to hold someone in a struggle. Kerry caught her breath and inhaled deeply. â€Å"But why did you kill them because you thought they were Jack and I? Why did you want to kill us?† Diana hesitated. â€Å"You don’t understand anything? Do you? Well†¦ I suppose we have a few minutes before I have to kill you.† Her hand rose from behind her back. The sharp point of the knife sparkled in the autumn light, sending spears of the reflected spark, dancing on the walls. With the knife poised, ready for action, she continued. â€Å"I thought I could have anyone I wanted. But I didn’t want anyone I wanted Jack.† Her eyes flashed, dangerously. The knife still held, it’s flickering gleam reflected into Kerry’s eyes, dazzling her. Kerry swallowed, her heart beating faster, yearning to escape this torture. â€Å"I wanted Jack badly,† Diana continued, walking in circles around Kerry, as though she the predator and Kerry the prey. â€Å"But, he didn’t want me, did he? Oh no, he wanted you!† she hissed. â€Å"Me?† stammered Kerry, â€Å"I didn’t know.† â€Å"Of course, you, wouldn’t, spat Diana, â€Å"so I thought, well if I can’t have him, no one can. Especially you! So I came up with a nice, simple plan to kill you both. You could rot in hell together for all I cared.† â€Å"So when you killed Stacie, you thought†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I was killing you,† Diana finished. â€Å"Yeah! Stupid mistake really, but I made up for it by making it look like it was to scare you. Funny really how urban legends can come true, isn’t it.† By now Diana was stood face to face with Kerry. â€Å"Anyway, enough talk! Now you get what’s been coming to you.† She laughed and thrust the knife down infront of her, ripping the air apart. Kerry stumbled backwards to the other side of the room. Her sweaty palms clambered at the door handle. â€Å"Looking for this?† taunted Diana holding the key out. Staring blindly around, Kerry picked up a chair and threw it at Diana. It narrowly missed her and smashed into the wall. Diana was moving forward, knowing that Kerry didn’t have anywhere to go. Only the bed stood between Kerry and her attacker. Diana drove the knife into the bed, ripping the duvet and shredding the sheets. In the commotion of feathers from the pillow, Kerry ran to the door and started banging and shouting for help. Surely someone would hear. In the meantime, Diana continued to pursue her. Kerry grabbed at anything; books, furniture, pens went flying. Some managed to hit Diana, obstructing her. Trying not to get injured by the knife, Kerry attempted to take it off Diana. Diana stood up, her eyes blazing like the fires of hell. â€Å"One thing I don’t understand,† said Kerry, trying to buy more time, â€Å"is why the name ‘Aidan’ was found at the murder scenes.† â€Å"Ever though of rearranging my name?† panted Diana, â€Å"Diana spells ‘Aidan’. No one was clever enough to guess that. It even managed to put the police off. Now stop this idle chit-chat and let me kill you, nice and slowly,† her voice cackled as she flew at Kerry, the knife close to her throat. Kerry tried to push her arm away. She couldn’t keep her off for much longer. She battled with Diana and they both lost their balance. Tumbling over Diana had the better position, holding the knife inches away from Kerry’s neck. â€Å"Goodbye Kerry†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The door to the room flew open. The surprise stopped Diana as she looked up. Jack and Kevin stood gaping in horror at the scene. Rapidly, they ran over and pulled Diana off Kerry. The knife dropped to the floor with a clang. Five policemen were standing in the entrance and with Kevin’s help, carried the screaming Diana away. Jack was left helping a very shaky Kerry to her feet. â€Å"I heard screaming,† he mumbled, â€Å"I rushed to help with Kevin.† Kerry didn’t say a word. Tears swept from her eyes, as she realised the terror was over, and she was still alive. A far away shriek disturbed the comforting silence surrounding Kerry and Jack. The wail of sirens echoed into the distance. â€Å"It’s all over now, I promise you,† Jack, holding Kerry, â€Å"I promise†