My Life According to Erik Erikson Essay

Allow me to relay to everyone the stages I went through in my life based on â€Å"Erik Erikson’s Developmental Theory† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). Here, I will mention the developmental milestones and successes that I experienced: The first stage is known as â€Å"Infancy† which begins from â€Å"birth to eighteen months† wherein according to Erik Erikson, is the stage where an individual’s crisis will be on â€Å"trust vs. mistrust† (Wagner, 2009, p. 1). During this stage, I believe I have succeeded and learned to trust because of the person who constantly took care of me (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). My mother, for sure, has always been there for me: providing me with all the essential things I need like food, water, milk, clothing, shelter, etcetera; making sure that I am free from harm & diseases; and ensuring that she is there no matter what happens (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). Through instincts, this made me realize that I will be okay and that the world or environment is a safe one, thus, I learned to trust (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). The second stage which is technically referred to as â€Å"early childhood† covers â€Å"eighteen months to three years† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). The crisis that an individual is faced with during this stage is known as â€Å"autonomy vs. shame† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). Here, I have to â€Å"defecate† alone; my mommy no longer has to buy diapers for me because I can already tell her when I need to â€Å"defecate† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). Learning this task made me realize that I already have self-control and since I am already courageous enough to defecate alone, I have also conquered â€Å"shame†; I know I am already capable of doing something and that boosted my self-esteem thus I achieved â€Å"autonomy† instead of â€Å"shame† (or being ashamed) (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). The third stage is from â€Å"three to five years† or the â€Å"play age† wherein a person’s â€Å"ego development outcome† would either be â€Å"initiative† or â€Å"guilt† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). Here, I have imagined that â€Å"Barney, Baby Bop, and BJ† would come along and play with me; I have learned so many things with them including some of the big â€Å"Why† questions I had (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). Through role playing, I have also learned that there are some who are not like me; there are boys and there are also girls (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). I have somehow realized that one is made for a purpose, for instance boys are supposed to act like this while girls, the other way around (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). Such role playing made me take the initiative to carry out my â€Å"natural desires† which is why I have conquered â€Å"unnecessary† guilt (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). The fourth stage is the â€Å"school age† which is from â€Å"six to twelve years old† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). Here, one has to develop the strengths known as â€Å"method and competence† because the crisis that an individual faces during this stage is â€Å"industry vs. inferiority† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). During this stage, I have learned that I can no longer just go to my parents when I have dilemmas; I have to find a way and be â€Å"competent† in order for my peers not to make me feel â€Å"inferior† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). I developed a sense of industry during this phase because I kept on learning and I was always willing to do anything just to learn/acquire new skills which was one of the reasons why I always have excellent grades, thus I have conquered â€Å"inferiority† early on (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). The fifth stage is known as â€Å"adolescence† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). I have acquired the strengths known as â€Å"devotion and fidelity† during my adolescent years (12 – 18 years), that’s why I have managed to go through the crisis â€Å"identity vs. role confusion† with ease (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). Friends played a large role in this stage of my life since I discovered who I am as an individual through my interactions with them; I came to know what makes me weak, as well as, what I can do to pick myself up etcetera. I have been successful in discovering my identity, thus, I did not experience â€Å"role confusion† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). The sixth stage is from 18 to 35 years old which is technically referred to as â€Å"young adulthood† wherein the dilemma one has to face is â€Å"intimacy and solidarity vs. isolation† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). Fortunately, I have experienced love already; it has been a â€Å"reciprocally fulfilling† one which is why I have not felt â€Å"isolation† (Newman, 2009, pp. 16 – 40). The seventh and eighth stages are phases wherein the crises to be faced are generativity vs. stagnation and integrity vs. despair, respectively (Syque, 2009, n.p.). I would gladly relay my experiences on this to everyone; however, I have not yet reached these stages.

Government Functions Essay

In the economic system of any country, the government is the authority governing the day to day transactions and dealings between individuals whether private or public. Other functions are enforcement of rules and regulations, overseeing the making and execution of contracts and setting of standards to be followed. To do this, resources are required hence collection of taxes. The functions aside, the government itself owns firms within the economy hence a player. The role played by the state/government has been under close support and criticism simultaneously. In some countries, the government’s role is welcome whilst in others it detested. The main object of government in both scenarios though is the allocation of scarce resources and creating an environment suitable for such resources to be exploited. This is achieved through ensuring that law and order is maintained. External costs incurred by businesses that are not factored in the business transactions are also taken into account by the government. This is in order to protect them from exploitation which may otherwise lead to bankruptcy and collapse. The government’s role shouldn’t be solely that of creation of a good environment for business via maintenance of law and order. Rather, it should go beyond this by being a key player in the economy. Law and order though facilitates stability as well as reduces corruption hence encouraging investment. Using the opportunity cost principle, the uses to which scarce resources can be put are many and the real costs are those which are forgone. These are incurred in cases where corruption is existent. Examples of such costs according to Sowell include delay in performance of certain economic activities given an unviable corrupt economic environment this results to non-development of basic infrastructure that would have been used to carry out the economic activity. In turn, planned investments do not occur hence existing output levels are not increased due to lack of expansion. The final results are normally unemployment accompanied by brain drain as the environment is similarly not viable to work in. Simply put, higher corruption levels are accompanied by low economic growths and low per capita incomes. Other effects of corruption are discrimination in the employment sector and profiling of workers. Contributing to slow economic growth are also long bureaucratic processes. All these contribute to driving away investors. Corruption doesn’t necessarily come in the form of direct bribes. It may also be in the form of nepotism and tribalism which is currently prevalent in most countries. The law being a set of rules and principles that are used in the day to day running of a country ought to have the following characteristics;- reliability; uniformity in application i. e. they must portray a sense of fairness and equality; rigidity i. e. they should not change from time to time. Rigidity brings about stability. Countries with laws that have these characteristics are prone to boost investor confidence as well as encouraging skilled labor to immigrate into the country in search of job opportunities. Such skilled labor may not have been available locally. This set of rules and principles should be impartial but discriminatory at the same time. The discriminatory aspect of some laws has at times proven to boost economic growth. However the statement holds only when the discriminating facet is known by the parties involved well in advance. If the discriminating nature of the law is known, the economic environment will be more stable as compared to where the justice system is discriminatory in interpretation and application of the law. The law may be discriminatory on the basis of aspects such as religion and race. However, if the economy grows, the growth will be felt across the board and not just by those for whom the law discriminates. Even though some laws have discriminatory aspects, they should not in any way allow for the exploitation of one by another nor allow for the interference of one’s activities by another with malicious intentions. A country’s economy is majorly dependent on the existence of a government. Nonetheless, this dependability also takes into consideration the government’s effectiveness in law enforcement. Geographically, some regions within the same country will have laws being more enforced than others. However, extra costs incurred by businesses in ensuring that goods and services reach the consumers are always transferred to the same consumers. This reduces demand due to high prices. Property Rights On property rights, focus should be placed not just on the owners of such but more so on the general effect the existence and exercise of such rights has on the economy. The exercise of property rights may result to economic effects which impact negatively on the populace as there maybe no single individual to blame. As a result, property rights should be closely monitored but even more emphasis ought to be placed on automatic self-monitoring by individuals as a solution. The mere fact that the property rights do exist creates a sense of self-monitoring on the individual which is more effective and less costly as compared to government monitoring. This self-productivity results to increased productivity and lower commodity prices as there is less wastage. However, negligence may also result on the part of the property owners and class stratification. However, given that property rights do have a greater economic efficiency, the general population will have higher living standards when the economic growth that results trickles down. However, restrictions such as setting of minimum standards and creation of Boards to oversee the use of certain property should be put in place. These will help prevent exploitation. Stringent laws need also be put into place by governments and respective authorities. In creation and application of restrictions to property rights, one has to have in mind that property rights do have intentions and effects. Economic incentives by the government do play a big role and such rights need to be looked at from the economic angle i. e. the incentives that are brought about by them. One should also ask what the effects of changing them or completely doing without them are. Social order is a function of existence of laws, government institutions to ensure the maintenance of law and order and acknowledgement of such by the citizens. The degree of social order differs from one country to another as well as from one individual to another. It is the existence or inexistence of a social order and its level that determines how business dealings are conducted between individuals. Social order should be upheld in all aspects of government. This may in turn extend to the rest of the community hence doing away with corruption thus bringing down transaction costs. If the social order is inexistent or at a low level, enterprises tend to be small scale. This translates to lower production and by the economies of scale, the end user experiences higher prices. A good social order thus attracts investment. The government can boost this by encouraging honesty within its administration, indirectly supporting or detesting cultures that are pro-honesty. The same can also be achieved via school curricula. Another factor that can either undermine or develop the social order are the nature of a country’s law. However, the market has a way of creating its own social order. External costs and benefits do exist in business and they occur outside the parties that are part to an actual transaction. These are however not accounted for in the market place and it is for this reason that the government has to come in to make decisions regarding external costs and benefits via legislation and regulations. Some benefits are indivisible. They are either a whole or nothing at all. To decide any aspect about them is thus better left to government. External costs on their part are felt either directly or indirectly by individuals. The individuals thus decide basing on how the external costs impact them and their activities. In countries with popularly elected governments, most of the decisions made by are not put into much economic consideration. Focus is actually mainly placed on making the people happy and not necessarily on economic improvement. Most of such decisions are political and not economically beneficial to the country. CHAPTER 18: GOVERNMENT FINANCE Like any other enterprise whether profit making or non-profit making, resources are needed to enable a business e a continuing venture. On the part of the government, its spending aspect if a factor of revenue collection. Revenue is raised via tax collection. How this tax is collected greatly affects how much will in effect be collected as it impacts on the citizen’s view on taxation policies. Any change in taxation policy by the government will automatically result in behavioral change by the tax payer in terms of expenditure and savings. This change is however in no scale predictable and may go at length to affect the performance of the economy at large. No rule can be said to be applied by government to predict this change. The net tax paid by an individual is a factor of the number of taxes that are applicable on a said person and their position economically. Value Added Tax (VAT) takes a bigger share from the poor than it does from the rich as spending on consumer goods makes up a greater percentage of the poor person’s budget whilst saving or re-investment makes up a greater percentage of the rich’s budget. However, tax paid by individuals is a mixture of both regressive and progressive taxes. However, the official legal indicator of incidence of tax does not necessarily show who bears the incidence of tax. Before a government makes decisions on whether or not to increase a particular tax, factors to be considered are how the tax is collected. This determines whether the tax is being felt by the individual or not. Increasing or decreasing the tax may thus not necessarily result to behavioral change by the consumer. One way through which government raises income is through sale of bonds. It is this level of sale of government bonds that determines the national debt. The impact the national debt will have on the economy is a dependent on what percentage it is of the country’s GDP. However, both GDP and national debt increase over time as a result of increased population size. The vice versa is also true. Sale of bonds is considered a future investment by the government and who bears the cost of the national debt is worth considering i. e. whether it is the government or the tax payer. To the government, accrued interest over time is one cost. This interest may affect investor confidence both in the short and long term. As bonds are sold and re-sold over time, their interest rate has to be increased lest they lose their value. This however lowers investor confidence in the long run. The rise in government interest rates may bring about a ripple effect increase on other interest rates as investors look for money with which to purchase the bonds. Influence of government may however make product prices independent of their costs despite the above ripple effect they may have at the same time. In an economy, there always are unmet needs which the government must satisfy. However resource distribution by government takes into account not the maximization of their use but rather merely re-distribution. It is this that explains why government may undertake projects that are not economically profitable or necessary as well as why some public utilities are offered at prices which are way below their actual market value or at no value at all. Spending by the government is mainly a factor of whether or not there is the need to spend whilst the principles behind such spending are outlined by the law. Through its expenditure, the government is able to influence the economy’s net purchasing power. Increased government spending implies more money will be in the economy thus leaving more at the hands of households for spending on other commodities other than those for which the government has already paid for. Costs as a result of government spending can either be to the government or the economy. It should be clear who is bearing the cost and the nature of the cost. As utility varies from individual to individual, the desire to purchase due to price disparity can thus be controlled via price controls or subsidies. The latter have however proven more fruitful than the former since subsidies transfer the total cost of an item to the entire population rather than letting a single individual to incur it. Here the cost is thus on the economy, not the government. From this, one can deduce that government finance comes in to bring a solution to the price-utility problem by creating an even bigger problem or rather shifting the cost from the government to the economy. The pattern of government expenditure is majorly a political function. Projects that prove politically building are more likely to be undertaken. Any government has got its obligations and current and future expenditure make up the government’s obligations regarding expenditure. Future obligations may seem not that costly until it reaches a point where they must be incurred. Their costs are accounted for but not incurred until the need arises. Incentives can be either political or economical. Incentives such as government pensions are majorly dependent on the size of the working and the retired population. A good balance enables pension payment. On the private side however, payment of insurance benefits is dependent on the currently existing subscribers to the insurance. CHAPTER 20: INTERNATIONAL TRADE Some have argued that in international trade, while one country gains, another loses. But both parties should be gaining in a way otherwise there wouldn’t be a reason to trade. A country may gain via for example economic growth. This has been the general effect of international trade. However, terms used in international trade such as trade deficit and surplus do not necessarily reflect a country’s economic wellness. To determine this, one has to look past the figures involved in international trade. A country may have quite a number of reasons why it should or should not engage itself in international trade. Reasons for however outweigh those against. Those for include absolute advantage, comparative advantage and economies of scale. In terms of absolute advantage, one country can produce particular commodities at prices cheaper than those of another or products of a higher quality. This may encourage it to pursue international trade. As for comparative advantage, the opportunity cost of one country A to produce a certain commodity at the expense of another is much lower than that of country B. Comparative advantage is thus all about efficiency of one country as compared to another. The costs forgone in producing a product should be lower and income generated from the production line opted for ought to be higher hence making them economically viable. The returns should also be in surplus enough for the country to purchase the commodity it forgo to produce. In terms of economies of scale, some ventures are viable only if there is enough market to consume the output. Such markets can be created through exports of commodities hence maximizing advantages brought about due to economies of scale or large scale production. Apart from enabling countries to achieve economies of scale, international trade also facilitates countries to fully utilize their comparative and absolute advantages. However, economies of scale have also resulted in the downfall of some infant industries where protectionist policies are inexistent. In as much as many countries may engage in international trade, some succeed whilst others do not. Reasons for the downfall of others may be the restrictions that exist in International Trade. These include emphasis that has been placed on efficiency of the production process. Another effect of such restrictions are collapse of domestic industries where protectionism does not exist. However international trade itself brings about government interference with trade due to policies such as protectionism while it may result to creation of monopolistic markets and unfair competition finally. Arguments for International Trade restrictions Different arguments have been put forward for international trade to have restrictions. The high wage fallacy argues that commodities produced by highly paid workers cannot compete with those produced by low paid ones. This does not hold since the argument does not distinguish between wage rates and labor costs and between labor costs and total costs. Wage rates may therefore be higher yet the total costs are lower due to economies of scale hence higher profits. Restrictions may also exist so as to save jobs domestically. However, just as free trade results to growth in the economies of all countries engaged simultaneously so do trade restrictions result to reduced economic growth or even reversed economic growth. Restricting trade thus does not result in increased employment. Rather, there will be less spending in the economy. The infant industry argument posits that local developing industries ought to be given time to grow to a level at which they can compete with other industries. However, survival of an industry is not a factor of its growth in terms of production and sales. Political muscle plays a key role in determining the fate of an industry. The National defense argument tries to explain why countries opt to have suppliers of things that are essential for their own national survival lest the external supplier turn enemy. Examples of such commodities are ammunition. Last on the list of reasons for protectionism is the dumping argument which is however restricted given the uncertainties of determining production costs. Here economies of scale may come into play and a supplier selling his/her commodities at lower prices abroad may actually be mistaken for dumping. These restrictions to trade may come in the form of tariffs which are taxes on imports and aim to raise their prices. The restrictions may also be in the form of import quotas which bring about uneven competition beside achieving the same objective of raising import prices. CHAPTER 21: INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS OF WEALTH International wealth transfers may take the forms of either direct or indirect foreign investments or remittances from citizens whose domicile is abroad. Rich countries always tend to invest in fellow rich counties due to fear of not getting a return on their investment if done in a poor country. Political and economic stability, corruption levels, level of honesty amongst the country’s populace as well as movement of capital within a said country’s economy are factors affecting the decision of whether to or not to invest. International trade takes into account only goods exchanged between countries leaving behind service output. It is for this that International trade has to be at a balance despite the fact that measures used in international trade may not be true reflectors of the trade. An economy that has concentrated in service production rather than goods will tend to export more services and import more commodities. The decision of whether a trade deficit is harmful or not is best done by comparing the deficit with the performance of the whole economy. As a result, the Balance of Payment measure is a better reflector of international trade than the Balance of Payments. Economic transactions are not zero-sum activities where only the buyer and the seller gain, rather it is a wealth creator to both the parties directly involved and to the â€Å"spectators. † Immigration and emigration which are key factors in international trade result to knowledge transfer, new ideas and businesses being created, job creation amongst others. However, on the dark side of the same are diseases, brain drain, increase in crime, collapsing economies and terrorism. Imperialism which implies the domination and exploitation of one country by another is also a means of wealth transfer. However, international investments have been argued to be equal to imperial looting as the subject country loses more than it gains. This explains the class strata of first, second and third world countries. Ceteris paribus, imperialism is more of a moral than an economic argument. Foreign aid, which entails wealth transfer from richer to poorer countries or from one government to another, may or may not be used for intended purposes. The use of foreign aid in government investments has more often than not resulted to mismanagement due to corruption. Some foreign aid comes with strings attached in the form of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). Such aid has proven to deter rather than encourage development. World over, the inexistence of a body to oversee the giving of aid to poorer countries has resulted to exploitation of the recipient. Aid may be in the form of cash grants or goods and services to the recipient country. However, the under-utilization of most of the resources in the recipient country is what leads it to have a need for foreign aid. CHAPTER 23: MYTHS ABOUT MARKETS The name â€Å"market† in itself is a myth as a market is viewed as a thing rather than the people in the market themselves who are engaging in business activity. This has led to rigidity of the market. In a market, variation of prices from one seller to another is always notable. This, economists would say defy the laws of supply and demand but in actual sense they do not. Rather, supply and demand should be looked at from the point of view of different consumers. Each consumer will have a different of demand and supply curve intersections due to utility. Prices in the market ought to be ‘affordable’ and ‘reasonable’ is a notion that is not realistic. It implies that prices should be independent of the market forces of demand and supply as well as production cost but should instead favor the purchasing power of the consumer. The third myth about markets is that some firms may tend to sell their products at below normal prices so as to drive away competition. This myth has not been proven though hence is not that realistic. Fourth is the issue of branding. Despite its advantages of making suppliers and manufacturers to emphasize on quality, the products being sold are more or less the same. What will actually be different is the pricing products or services with brand names that are widely known will definitely cost or charge more. A business, no matter how small is linked to the economy as a whole. Te role different enterprises play in the economy is a factor of whether they are classified as profit and loss or as non-profit making enterprises. However, there exist differences between the two in that profit and loss organizations will always tend to emphasize on quality in order to maximize profits whilst in non-profit making organizations, the customers themselves will not be in a position to emphasize on quality since they are already paying far less than the true value of the commodity or service they are getting. It is the nature of the organization that finally determines what name will be given to the extra amounts remaining after costs as well as how it will be used. In some its called profit whilst in others it is revenue. The ‘Trickle down theory|; is more of a political than an economic theory. The theory posits that those opposed to equality in resource distribution tend to believe that resources should be bestowed on the rich so that it may in effect trickle down to the rest of the populace. The theory is a myth since economically one has to spend first so as to make an income. This spending comes in the form of say purchase of goods and services for sale as well as payments made for their delivery. The economic reality is thus exactly the opposite of the ‘Trickle Down effect. † CHAPTER 24: NON-ECONOMIC VALUES Economics is not a value in itself. Rather it compares values. The market on its part is a reflector of the people’s attitudes and actions as well as beliefs. The issue of the market with respect to moral and social values arises when the market is looked at from the angle of the impact it has on such issues. The society’s moral standards will determine how transactions are conducted in the market. Non-economic values in the market tend to introduce morality into business by defining words such as greed alongside maximization of profit for example and others. These non-economic values however put aside economic concepts like the laws of demand and supply that are used in price determination. These non-economic values are also one-sided since they tend to lean on the consumer’s side mostly whilst forgoing the seller’s side. However, greed cannot be termed to be a product of any particular economic system. Rather it is an intricate trait in all humans and which all have to cope with. The difference however comes with regard to how this greed manifests itself in the different economic systems and how it is controlled. The term greed is however neither adequate or fair in explaining the desire of the seller to make as much profit as possible out of the buyer nor the wish of the buyer to purchase the product with the highest quality at the lowest price. Greed is thus a two way concept which only looks at who is on the gaining end. Exploitation is another term that crops up whenever non-market values are mentioned. It can simply be said to be that which is beyond the acceptable as per the society’s moral standards. Exploitation is thus based on emotion and not the facts existing on the real world. The disparity between greed and exploitation comes in that whilst the former occurs in almost all types of economic systems, exploitation mostly occurs in monopolistic markets where no free competition exists and the buyer has no wide choice of commodities given the factor of the sole supplier. To regulate the above, the government may put in place regulations such as trade barriers, tariffs and quotas as well as value added tax or corporate taxes. Taxation by the government may however be considered as both greed and exploitation. Greed since even the poorest of persons in the economy pays taxes whether in the form of VAT or income tax and exploitation as the government enjoys a monopoly of taxing the people yet one may argue that the quality of services is not guaranteed. The market however takes into consideration many factors before pricing decisions are made. At times the employer for instance may be at the receiving end when the employee has a greater bargaining power or where the demand for services he/she can render is higher than what the market can supply. Here, both greed and exploitation come into play. In as much as governments try to control or maintain at a low the levels of exploitation and greed, the measures put in place might actually serve to make even worse the life of the consumers in cases where exploitation and greed did not exist before. The principle of fairness when looked at from the non-market values point of view carries with it two assumptions. First is that all individuals are playing by the same rules and secondly that all players have the same potential. However, these two may not hold as different individuals have different desires, priorities and thus derive different levels of utility from the same activity, commodity or service. Fairness doe not have a specific definition hence it is majorly those in power who are left to define what is and what is not fair. However, vested interests may underlie the making of such decision. Some groups may also be completely ignored in deciding what fairness is. Economics being majorly concerned with the distribution of resources and values tends to critic â€Å"unmet needs† of the society. Here, the decision of whether a government should carry out a project or not is a function of what has to be sacrificed in order to satisfy the unmet need. However, the existence or identification of an unmet need is not a justification of it to be met. CHAPTER 25: PARTING THOUGHTS The economic concepts and principles cannot all be listed given the imaginative nature of the human mind. However, in as much as new concepts and principles are being developed whilst older ones continue to be refined and refuted, the bottom line should be that they all ought to divorce from emotions which vary from human being to human being. Rather there ought to be basic concepts and principles that are followed by both new and old economic ideas. The above fallacies ought to carry precision in the use of words as well as clarity in order to ensure their true or intended ideology is achieved. A common feature of most economic fallacies is that they focus on the initial consequences of particular policies and not the long term effects of the same. Confusion thus results as focus is placed not on the benefits or effects of policies but rather on the objectives of such policies. The importance of economic principles supersedes their use in only economic factors. If keenly looked at, most things do have economic aspects in which economic principles ca be applied. Instead of focusing on the objectives of goals, of main concern should be the activities that will be pursued t achieve such goals, what the particular legislation or goal encourages and discourages, the regulations that will follow the attainment of the goal, the long term effects of activities aimed towards attaining the goal. Last but not least, we ought to look at similar goals that were attained in the past and the impact they had. In as much as economics carries many fallacies, a distinction should be made between what is practical and what is indeed a fallacy.

The broader impact of DSP in the economic Research Paper

The broader impact of DSP in the economic - Research Paper Example I. INTRODUCTION Digital signal processing (DSP) is duly considered to be an arithmetical treatment of an information signal, which tends to alter or enhance it in certain specific ways. It is usually characterized by way of representation of discrete frequency, discrete time or any other discrete domain signals with the help of a sequence of symbols, numbers or processing of these signals in a uniformed manner. DSP is widely applied in various fields, which specifically include speech along with audio signal processing, radar and sonar processing, spectral estimation, sensor array processing, digital image processing and systems control along with various other operations/applications. This component can be very well related with that of development in the overall context of technological landscape. With the inclusion of this particular component i.e. DSP in the technological aspect, integration to a whole new level is attained at large [14]. With this concern, this research report w ill highlight all those significant factors that are associated with the broader impacts of DSP in a social, global along with economic context. ... III. THE IMPACT OF DSP IN AN ECONOMIC CONTEXT In relation to economic viewpoint, it can be affirmed that DSP has been able to create all round diversity in the overall economic context. Analyzing the relevance of DSP in an economic standpoint eventually helps in identifying its broad interrelations relating to economic integration. DSP is applied in varied fields, which directly or indirectly impose considerable impact upon the economic conditions at large. The broad areas in which it is applied include consumer applications and biomedical fields. In this regard, the various aspects of consumer applications comprise digitalized televisions, cellular phones, digital cameras and internet enabled mobile phones among others. On the other hand, the aspects of biomedical fields encompass patient monitoring, ECG Analysis and X-Ray storage/enhancement among other various fields. The utilization of DSP in all these broader areas can be viewed to provide variable grounds for the development of economic conditions. Specially mentioning, this particular technology also leads towards mass expansion in technological domain, which eventually resulted in fulfilling different economic objectives. Besides, the component has been able to create superior level of economic integration in terms of supporting the most booming industries in the world such as information technology. Also, DSP is highly recognized for providing solutions to various departments including engineering, sales operations and finance among others (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, â€Å"The Broader Impact of DSP in a Global, Economic and Social Context†). Its utilization in all these departments ultimately imposes extensive impact especially upon the economic

Kernel Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Kernel - Essay Example omposed of four basic elements which include; a scheduler which functions to sharing and processing time of various computer processes; a supervisor which grants permission to every process as it is scheduled; interrupt handler for handling of requests from computer hard disk components and memory manager for allocating system space Kernel’s services. Most five popular distributions of Kernel Linux include; Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian and Linux Mint. Subsequently, there are numerous shell distributions that are available for kernel, among this include, sh, bash and tcsh. (Bovet & Cesati, 2005) For every command that has been entered in the shell, the fork mechanism searches the computer’s directories using the search path within the computer’s PATH location, after which it is loaded and executed. For fast command entry, bash shell has three features, history, filename completion and aliases. The alias feature shortens lengthy commands, for instance When using several commands in bash, it is essential that alias definitions be made permanent so that the user’s source file will be executed by all login shells. This requires one to replace alias definitions in $HOME/.bash_alias with

Chinas Inflation and related factors Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Chinas Inflation and related factors - Essay Example Moreover, it focuses on the measures utilized by the Federal Reserve to tackle inflation. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of price stability within the Chinese economy with specific concern to the fluctuating CPI (Consumer price index). The article talks about persistent inflation in China. The models and theories used in this article are: 1. Demand-Pull Inflation 2. Price Level connection with Real GDP 3. Business Cycle 4. Monetary Policy 5. Price stability 6. Consumer Price Index Points Highlighted from the Newspaper Article but inflation accelerated to a nearly three-year high in March, (GDP figure is better than expected) GDP figure is better than expected tightening monetary policy, consumer price index rose 5.4 per cent from a year China's producer price index, CPI fell 0.2 per cent China's anti-inflation policies were effective. necessary to maintain price stability inflation almost always falls in the month after the Lunar What is Inflation and Why Inflation increa sed in China? What Does Inflation Mean? The rate at general level of prices of items and services rises. The subsequent fall in purchasing power is also result in inflation. Central banks try to stop the severe inflation, along with the severe deflation, in order to keep the excessive raising of prices to minimum. Economists distinguish between the two types of inflation: Demand-Pull Inflation and Cost-Push Inflation. (Defining Inflation )Both types of inflation may cause an increase in the economical price level within the economy. Demand-pull inflation may result when aggregate demand for goods and services in the economy rise at a rapid space than an economy's productive capacity. This is shown in the figure below The excess demand is the reason for consistent inflation in the economy. Moreover, experts also attribute China inescapable inflationary spiral to US dollar pegging as long as China Yuan keeps pegged to the U.S. dollar, it will rise. This is because the American economy is weakening where as the China economy is strengthening (What is the real reason behind Chinese inflation, 2011) China therefore needs to control Yuan appreciation (China Inflation cause concern in Business News , 2011) During the peak periods of business cycle when China’s economy is experiencing growth in real GDP, employment will naturally increase, and unemployment decrease would decrease, this is because the businesses would seek workers to produce a higher output to fulfill demand needs. If the real GDP grows better this can cause price inflation as firms would be forced to fight against one another for generally increasing scarce workers. This is in contrast during the trough periods of the business cycle where the economy is experiencing declines in the real GDP, and unemployment rates becomes high. GDP = (Total dollar value of goods and services that are changing hands) MINUS (Inflation) GDP can grow, even when there is inflation GDP is: Yes, GDP (Gross Domestic Pr oduct) can even grow, when there is inflation. But for such to happen (theoretically) more goods and services would actually need to be exchanged, rather than having the same prices for the same amount of goods and services. One of the reasons that the China’s Economy is able to claim that GDP ( Gross Domestic Pro

Integrating Interactive Multimedia and Web Applications in Teaching Essay

Integrating Interactive Multimedia and Web Applications in Teaching - Essay Example The significance of investigating this integration remains, however, considering that listening now is the cornerstone of language acquisition (Krashen et al., 1994) and a fundamental activity in L2 acquisition process (Dunkel, 1991a; Krashen, 1982; Rost, 1993). Likewise, studies indicate that the social dynamics of listening have gained more significance in the study and use of LC for L2 (Lynch, 1988; Rost, 1990; Rubin, 1994). Increasingly, more emphasis is now being given to the processes of interaction and meaning-negotiation while focus shifts away from listening as a mental process internal to the listener (Doughty, 1991; Dunkel, 1991b; Pica, Young, & Doughty, 1987; Robinson, 1991). Researchers are also refining their understanding of the key differences and similarities between reading and listening (Canale, 1984; Hoven, 1991; Lund, 1991; Swaffar & Bacon, 1993). For all the above reasons and more, a model designed to facilitate such integration process is being proposed. In a nutshell, the model suggests an integration process based upon theoretical, pedagogical, and technical grounds accompanied by a user-centered approach for software design. It is argued that this model might lead to a successful integration of interactive Web applications for teaching listening comprehension. The model components will be discussed respectively. Toward a Constructivist Approach Two contradictory views of the most common theoretical frameworks of contemporary CALL exist. Felix (2002) claims that a quick look at the literature in language learning and technology will reveal that there is a move away from the static transmission models of knowledge and skill acquisition, which are instructivist vs. constructivist, tending towards more contextualized, authentic, and meaningful tasks in language learning. These three characteristics are underscored in three recent approaches in language learning and technology: the collaborative learning approach, the problem solving approach, and the constructivist approach. This study will adopt the definition of constructivism which believes that human knowledge is constructed and learners construct their own experience and understanding through assimilating current experience with previous internalized knowledge. Moreover, learning is seen as a collaborative, autonomous, socially negotiated process, which takes place when su pported by a rich environment (Ruschoff & Ritter, 2001). Pachler (2002), however, claims that traditional behaviorist modes, which I believe depends partly on transmission models (i.e., repetition in listening/speaking), are still very common in the world of CALL. The breaking of learning tasks into small manageable steps to drill and

Literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 6

Literature - Essay Example Burke argues that in `Daddy’ Sylvie Plath proves otherwise. Security, or authority, as defined by Plath is an authoritarian state which is expressed in fascist and militaristic domination. Accordingly, Plath’s father is a Nazi soldier while she is a helpless Jew. This analogy depicts security at its most extreme but, as Plath proves, it can be escaped. Security can be escaped as it is a state of mind. In order for oppression/security to occur, the oppressed has to accept it. Plath’s rejection of her `father,’ and of his control establishes that escape from security is possible if the oppressed reject it. This is the manner in which Burke interprets Plath’s poem and, as earlier mentioned, it is an extremely interesting interpretation. Ramzani, a professor of English Literature, argues that several of Plath’s poems, and most especially `Daddy,’ are elegies, or poems of mourning. Ramzani acknowledges that her interpretation of Plath’s poem, `Daddy,’ will create a great deal of controversy for one simple reason. This reason is that, literary critics define elegies as poems of love in which a dead person is both honored and remembered. They are, in the tradition of poetic genres, among the most beautiful and, quite often, the most romantic. To suggest, therefore, the Plath’s `Daddy’ is an elegy, as were many of Milton’s and Shelley’s appears, therefore, to be based on a misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the characteristics of the elegiac genre. This criticism would only hold true if Plath were writing in the same era and tradition as Milton or Shelley but the fact that has to be taken into account is that she is a post-modern poet. In other words, the de finition and style of the elegy has changed. It is still a poem of communication with the dead and a poem of morning but, rather than express love, it can express rage. This is

Has zero-based budgeting gone out of fashion Dissertation

Has zero-based budgeting gone out of fashion - Dissertation Example Aside from allowing the organisational leaders to come up with a detailed information presented in each of the proposed budget plan, the use of zero-based budgeting is effective in terms of reducing bureaucratic ambiguity, inefficiencies, or duplication in budgeting. Likewise, the use of this method promotes communication among the budget decision makers. The use of zero-based budgeting method in the UK industries has lost its fame for the reasons that the use of this method is time-consuming, triggers the development of resistance-to-change, and is very costly. Even though zero-based budgeting is no longer applicable when managing the short-term budget in companies throughout the United Kingdom, the method of zero-based budgeting can still be used when making more important long-term busines investment. Table of Contents Executive Summary †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 2 Table of Contents †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 3 I. ... 9 II. Literature Review †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 11 a. Brief Overview with Regards to What Zero-Based Budgeting Is †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 11 b. Stories behind the Success and Failure of Zero-Based Budgeting †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 14 c. Advantages and Disadvantages of Using the Zero-Based Budgeting †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 17 c.1 Advantages of Zero-Based Budgeting †¦.. 17 c.2 Disadvantages of Zero-Based Budgeting . 22 d. Comparison between the Advantages and Disadvantages of Zero-Based Budgeting and Activity-Based Budgeting †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 24 III. Research Methodology †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã ¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 30 a. Primary Research Method †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 30 b. Research Survey Questionnaire Design †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 33 c. Target Population, Sample Size, and Research Venue †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 34 d. Research Evaluation Method †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 35 e. Ethical Considerations when Conducting a Primary and Secondary Research Study †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 36 IV. Research Findings and Analysis †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. 38 V. Conclusion and Future Study Recommendations †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 50 Appendix I – Quantitative and Qualitative Research Survey Questionnaire ............................................... 52 Appendix II – Quantitative Research Survey Results .................... 53 Appendix III – Summary o f Demographic Data Results †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. 54 Appendix IV – Qualitative Research Survey Results ..................... 55 References †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 57 - 61 Chapter I – Introduction Zero-based budgeting has been one of the most researched and talked about

CDC children observation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

CDC children observation - Assignment Example The second child is Kate, a girl aged 3 years. She is also an active child. Her favorite activity is playing with dolls. As noted the boy is very keen on detail. He plays with his toy car alone at a corner of the playfield. He does not interact with other kids except in situations when they come to him. He seems friendly whenever another child spoke to him. However, he concentrates on the playing with his toy car. At one occasion, he seems to observe something unusual with one of the wheels. He takes up a screwdriver and tries to untighten the screw so that he can remove the wheel. However, he is unable to do it. He seeks help from the caretaker who quickly untightens the screw for him. The boy seems convinced that the wheel has a problem. He looks carefully all around. He notices each detail and observes that the plastic when is cracked. He does not replace the when since there seems to be no replacement. He takes his toy car to the store. I also observed the girl several times. She seemed to enjoy the company of other children. In fact, I did not see her alone at any time. She was always with friends. The girl loves dolls and has several of them. She takes motherly care for them. I observed her trying to feed one of the dolls, soothed it and also lay it to sleep. Along with other girls, she tries to talk to them, assuming that they can hear. She is also quick to cry whenever she is offended by one of her friends. The toys that children use in the center are gender specific. For example, boys are seen to be playing with toy cars. The toy cars are characteristic of male children and are thus male gendered. However, there are also a small number of girls attracted to toy cars. On the other hand, girls are interested in playing mother roles. All of the girls have dolls. Also, I did not see any boy with a doll. Children at the center are always quarreling over toys and playing space. The staff members try to resolve all the

Realism as a Method to Depict Immediacy Unexpectedness and Wonder in Essay

Realism as a Method to Depict Immediacy Unexpectedness and Wonder in Berninis Apollo and Daphne and Poussins Et in Arcadia Ego - Essay Example It’s that disruption of stasis that I felt the night my ex dropped the â€Å"we need to talk† line on me. It’s cliche and immature to dwell on emotional turmoil, yet that night my roommate got an earful of conversations and complaints. Before turning in for the night, he left me with that old as time adage that has passed through nearly every broken heart. â€Å"You can’t understand happiness without feeling pain,† he told me, and as cliche as the phrase is, it is still something I hold to be true. As I studied Apollo and Daphne1 and Et in Arcadia Ego2, I couldn’t help but wonder if Gian Bernini and Nicolas Poussin were attempting to express the same heartache that is so central to this human condition we share. Beyond the longing gaze in Apollo’s eyes and the lamenting stare of the shepherd’s face, what drew me to this question were not the works themselves, but the emotions I felt because of the works. To capture these emotion s, Bernini and Poussin incorporated a novel technique of using realism as a means to achieve the awe-inspiring effect so common to Baroque visual culture. In his 1998 book Italian Baroque Sculpture, Boucher highlights the fact that awe-inspiring effects such as â€Å"immediacy and mimicry, and the unexpected and the surprising were all prized by Baroque artists†3. ... It is for this reason that it became one of the most important aims of Italian Baroque sculpture to represent ‘flesh as flesh’†¦Ã¢â‚¬ 4 . While this quote focuses on sculpture, this emphasis on a realistic style was central to all Baroque visual culture. Combining realistic figures with the shocking imagery of a woman turning into a tree or a forgotten tomb in the middle of a field created these desired effects. Because realism is necessary for the effects of immediacy, unexpectedness, and wonder, realism was essential to Baroque visual culture and was skillfully incorporated into the works Apollo and Daphne and Et in Arcadia Ego. The most obvious effect in Bernini’s sculpture is one that is highly associated with Baroque visual culture: immediacy. In his article â€Å"The Element of Motion in Baroque Art and Music†, William Flemming describes this increased feeling of immediacy in Baroque culture by saying, â€Å"The Baroque period brought about a q uickening of the pulse of human affairs. It was an age of movement, activity, exploration. Time is of utmost importance. The mechanical clock becomes the dominant symbol of this period and performs the unique function of translating the movements of time into spatial dimensions.† If one is to follow this symbolism to Bernini’s sculpture, then Daphne’s extended arm is minutes away from striking twelve: an obvious symbol of the immediacy felt in the scene. This sculpture is not a still life; this is the peak of action in a moment that will define the lives of these two gods forever. To simply depict this scene with a realistic style would completely miss the specter of a woman turning into a tree, yet to completely focus on the tree would be to ignore the metamorphosis. This is where Bernini’s true genius is

Library System Essay Example for Free

Library System Essay Bulua National High School is a leader high school in legislative District 1, located at Barangay Bulua, Cagayan de Oro City which was governed and funded with the Barangay Officials spearheaded by Pedro P. Legaspi. It was in 1970 when the secondary education, Bulua Barrio High School came to an open with two sections in the First year level and the Second year level was opened on the following year until the 4-year high school level was completed. The school was temporarily located at the compound of Bulua Elementary School campus in which they called as squatters. They did not have their permanent classrooms to be used. Sometimes classes were being held under the shades of the Mango and Butterfly trees. They also conduct night classes just to accommodate working students from the neighboring Barangays. Each enrollee was still entitled to pay 10.00 pesos for the freshmen, 15.00 pesos for the sophomores, 20.00 pesos for the juniors and 25.00 pesos for the seniors every month. The fees were received by the hands of the Barangay treasurer. The school was facilitated with 10 teachers and 1 school in-charge only. It was then in 1985 that BBHS became the PILOT SCHOOL of the 1989 Secondary Education Curriculum headed by its school principal Mrs. Enriqueta C. Pabelic. Year after, BBHS became Bulua National High School (BNHS) which was funded already direct from the National Level under the late President Cory Aquino’s administration. Presently, BNHS is located in its owned 1.4 hectare approximately lot donated by the late Congressman Pedro Oloy Roa through the joint effort of Barangay Chairman Pedro P. Legaspi and the late DECS – Division P.E Supervisor, Mr. Bernabe Pabellic for its lot acquisition. Introduction The Library Hub is a program by the Department of Education aiming to address the lack of public libraries across the countries by setting up the library hubs. Library Hub is a novel and unique structure in the Philippines educational system, whereby an infrastructure and new reading materials made possible through collaborative partnerships with stakeholders are provided to public school students for free. To date, DepEd has set up about 50 Library Hubs in a very short span of time throughout the country. These Hubs will be servicing thousands of public schools. Books were placed in plastics. The Library Hubs are housed in existing buildings with an area of at least 250 to 300 square meters. A Library Hub is run by a librarian, library clerk, and utility staff and functions as a book warehouse for public schools in a given district. Each Hub lends books to its designated schools, which in turn lend the books to their students. The provision of reading books for free in the hub is not only for public schools but ALS, SPED, barangay centers, etc. It also serves as a â€Å"wholesale† library exclusively servicing elementary/secondary schools within a division. The hubs operate warehouse style, compared to the traditional public library setupinstead of books being individually placed on shelves; they are stored in plastic bins for storage. These bins would then be checked out and brought by teachers and administrators of public schools to their respective public schools, to be returned after twenty-five days. While at the school, these books can be borrowedor even brought homeby the students until the books are to be returned to the hub. Launched in 2003 by then undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz, the project has now set up library hubs in 32 school divisions all over the country, for a total of around 145 hubs built since 2004. The hubs are financed by both the public and private sector, with major donors having the option to name the hubs whichever way they like. 1. Background of the study The use of computers and various programs are being developed for that certain desire to be done in a short period of time. Manual System for a Library Hub is quite a difficult task to perform. It takes a long period of time in locating and monitoring the availability of the books and can have the tendencies of missing files. That’s why we created this Computerized Library Hub System in order to solve that problem. Our Computerized Library Hub System is a program that is use to update the information about a certain record of books. It allows adding book information immediately and it only takes minutes to search a specific book. It lessens the possibility of missing files unlike the manual system. This system can be able to monitor automatically where, when or who borrowed a book. It also gives more accuracy in processing any transactions. Besides of that, it can help a librarian to work much easier and faster than a manual system. 2. Statement of the Research Problem * A licensed librarian is one of the major concerned problem of Bulua National High School Library Hub. Since they have a what they called â€Å"Acting Librarian† who was also a full time teacher in the school. It takes a long period of time for her to organized the books especially in putting accession number in it and log it in her module. Another concerned is that the books in the library hub has not been arranged in dewey decimal classification which is the main reason why the personnel in-charge and the students has the difficulty in locating the book and to check its availability. * There’s a possibility that the library hub may encounter following problems such loss of records, repetition of data entry and other important details about the books and the one who borrow the book. * How do they record the books? The students will fill a borrower’s card before they can get the book they want to borrow. Then afterwards the in-charge will log the list of the book that has been used or borrowed in the end of the day in the manual notebook. Unfortunately there are times that the in-charge can’t be able to log or record the borrowed books in the manual notebook. * How do the students know if the books are still available? Knowing that the school don’t have a Dewey Decimal Classification in their books, students have difficulties in searching the specific book and it takes too long for them to wait for the librarian to check unto the logbook whether the book is still available or being borrowed. 3. Statement of Objectives 3.1General Objectives This project aims to propose and develop a well-structured and computerized library hub system to help the library hub’s transactions easier, more effective and efficient. 3.2Specific Objectives * To lessen the burden of the user in handling the day by day transactions. * To lessen the possibility of missing files. * To make the process of updating the books efficient and can be done in a short period of time.

Recent developments in health and social care policy Essay Example for Free

Recent developments in health and social care policy Essay This essay will evaluate recent developments within Health and Social care policy. It will focus on the development of charges within the NHS, the ideology behind it and its impact on women, different ethnicities and those living in poverty. It will then go on to analyse the differences in formation and adaption of this policy from devolved governments in Wales and Scotland. Before the start of the ‘welfare state’ in 1948, the majority of Health and Social care services were subsidised by benevolent donations to voluntary hospitals, or through service users paying for their own care. This is due to the ideology of the time being that of the government not being responsible for the nation and that people were to stand on their own two feet and support themselves. However, following the massive devastation to the country, both physically and mentally, following WWII, the government’s ideology changed. The labour government in power at the time felt that the nation’s welfare was their responsibility and so the ‘welfare state’ was born. Everyone was entitled to free NHS health care and there was no criteria or eligibility attached. In 1952 the first charges had been introduced in an effort to fund the rapid growth of costs incurred by the NHS, people now had to pay for prescriptions, dentures and spectacles. This move was due to the government’s ideology slowly changing to one of paying for yourself if you can afford to do so, and eligibility and criteria was attached to certain services. If you did not meet the requirements you had to pay. During the 1980s, under the Conservative governance of Margaret Thatcher, the ideology had gone full circle and was back to that of non-dependence of the ‘Welfare State’ and the responsibility of the nation lay with the individual, not the government. It was a time of taking away universalism with a residual attitude. As a result of this shift in attitude present charges were increased and new charges were introduced as a means to reduce public spending (Thornes, 2000:97). Eligibility, criteria and targeting meant that only those most vulnerable were able to access Health and Social care services for free. In 2013 the present ideology is similar to that of 1952. The Conservative, Liberal Democrat coalition government maintain the ideology of taking away universalism and standing on your own two feet. They feel that in having charges for NHS services the stigma attached to welfare will be reduced and individuals will feel that they deserve the service they are accessing (Thorne, 2000:97). The government also feel that it will prevent the abuse of free services by discouraging people from using Health and social care services which they are not in need of. This is evident with the proposal for those that visit AE to be charged ? 10 as a means to prevent unnecessary use of the service. AE specialist believe that 30% 40% of visits are unnecessary and that in having a ? 10 charge upon arrival, which is fully refunded should the condition warrant AE attention, will significantly reduce the amount of people taking up vital resources (Campbel, 2014). This charge is set to reduce unnecessary visits and waiting times to those who are in actual need of emergency care, however experts feel that they will ‘penalise poorer patients’. Dr Helen Stokes-Lampard, a spokeswoman for the Royal College of GPs has said that Charging patients for the use of emergency departments would put us on the slippery slope towards the Americanisation of healthcare, where only those who can afford to get it get the care and attention they need, (Campbel, 2014). Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the BMA, said: The majority of GPs and hospital doctors are committed to an NHS that delivers care on the basis of need and not the ability to pay. In this survey, two thirds of GPs state they are against [charges] for using AE services †¦ it runs the risk of deterring vulnerable patients who genuinely need help from seeking treatment at a time when many people, from all backgrounds, are struggling financially. (Campbel, 2014). This shows that the government is not promoting equality and that services will only be available to those that can afford them. Another charge which is proving to be detrimental is that of the 2011 charge for care during pregnancy and childbirth to migrant women. This policy has had a negative impact on both those giving and receiving care. Migrant women are not attending appointments or are running away from hospitals as a result of being unable to pay thousands of pounds for treatment, this puts both mother and baby at risk of complications which are not detected in early pregnancy, which is evident in a newspaper article from December 2013 highlighting the negative impact of the policy in which midwives are warning us that the fees are endangering migrant women (Taylor, 2013). Susan Bewley, a professor of complex obstetrics at Kings College London agrees that charging migrant  women for NHS antenatal care is putting pregnant women in danger (Taylor, 2013). The policy is written in very complicated language which means that eligibility and criteria is very hard for migrant women and professionals to understand and is resulting in some pregnant women being declined treatment and care due to misinterpretation. This goes against the core values of midwifery. In an article in the Nursing Times, David Foster wrote about the 6 Cs of Health and Social care and how they are essential for the NHS to deliver fair, consistent care to those who require it ( Foster, 2012:12). In declining care to migrant women, midwives are not only ignoring the core values of midwifery, they are putting lives at risk and failing to fulfil basic Human rights and are not promoting equality. In March 2011 the department of health published the NHS constitution, which sets out the core principles of the NHS. One principle which is in contradiction to the charges placed on pregnant women is that â€Å"We have a responsibility to maximise the benefits we obtain from NHS resources, ensuring they are distributed fairly to those most in need. Nobody should be discriminated or disadvantaged and everyone should be treated with equal respect and importance† (NHS choices, 2013). Care, compassion, courage, communication, commitment and competency are values which should be predominant within midwifery, however in adhering to the 2011 policy midwives are failing to maintain the 6Cs. Communication is a big issue as the policy is open to misinterpretation and so compassion and care are also lacking within the sector as midwives are refusing care to women (Taylor, 2013). The commitment to provide the best possible care to all pregnant women is being compromised as some midwives have been quoted as feeling like ‘Immigration officers’ and so their roles are under question (Taylor, 2013). In another article in the Nursing Times by Maria Flynn, she explains that organisational culture, policy and politics can exert a damaging influence on caring values (Flynn, 2013:12) which supports the negative impact the charges are having within the midwifery profession. After the Francis report was published, following the incidents within the Mid Staffordshire hospital, it was found that nurses and midwives felt frustrated at not being able to fulfil their role correctly as a result of the restrictions put in place by policies and that the compassion deficit is more likely to be down to political ideology driving health policies then shortcomings in caring values . After extensive research I have been unable  to find any positive impacts on both service users and providers with regard to the implementation of charges within the NHS. According to an article from the BBC news Scotland the department of health claim that charges were introduced to ‘plug gaps in funding’ and that the fees raised around ? 450 million a year, which is the salaries of 18,000 nurses or 3,500 hospital consultants (BBC news Scotland, 2011). However it is apparent that the fees are not being spent on employing more staff as Laura Donnelly, health correspondent for the Telegraph reports. There is currently a shortage of 20,000 nurses within the NHS and an investigation into 14 hospitals with unusually high death rates highlights the common factor as inadequate staffing levels (Donnelly, 2014). On 1 April 2011 prescription charges were abolished in Scotland. BBC news Scotland reports that â€Å"The Scottish Greens said it believed there should be equal access to the NHS and that meant free access to everyone at the point of use, including free prescription. (BBC news Scotland, 2011). Daniel Martin, of the Mail online, described it as â€Å"the latest example of ‘medical apartheid’, where the devolved nations enjoy better health services despite paying far less tax per head† (martin, 2011). The ideology of the devolved Scottish government is one of universalism and in helping the majority of the population of Scotland who are living in deprived conditions. The English government still fund Scotland using the Barnett formula: (Martin, 2011). Policies are developed in Scotland by the Scottish parliament, which is made up of 129 public servants who are politically impartial, and the Scottish government. The Scottish parliament debate matters of importance (which are devolved), such as health care, then vote on legislation holding the Scottish government to account. The Scottish government decide how the country is run and implement laws passed by parliament. This is very different to the English way of developing policies as that involves all parties agreeing to what is proposed and is a fair way of ensuring the policy is fit for purpose. With the abolishment of  prescription charges the Scottish parliament looked at the savings it would make to families living in poverty and the health benefits to those who could not afford to pay for drugs (Explanatory notes, 2005). However it did not recognise the cost it would have on the health of people suffering with cancer. Due to drug companies charging large amounts for certain cancer drugs, as a result of eradicating prescription charges, the SNHS cannot afford to purchase these drugs and so cancer sufferers are having to either go without or move to England, where the drugs are available. Maureen fleming, 63, faces the dilemma of raising the ? 10,000 needed for a 3 month supply of the cancer drug she needs or to move to England. Scottish labour leader Johan Lamont said the Scottish NHSs ? 7. 2 million bill for paracetamol prescriptions would pay for 200 patients to get cetuximab for a year. She said: In the First Ministers Scotland, if you have a headache your prescription is free. If you have cancer, your prescription can cost ? 3000 a month. (Gardham, 2013). In conclusion it is evident when looking at fees in the English and Scottish NHS that there are positives and negatives to both countries. England may have a lot of criteria and eligibility in order for prescriptions to be free to those who need it, however in having fees in place the NHS in England is able to purchase expensive drugs which are not available to people living in Scotland where prescriptions are free to all. It is apparent that there should be some compromise between both policies in order for those in genuine need to access the care they require.

Importance of Community Health Workers

Importance of Community Health Workers DEFINING THE PROBLEM Community Health Workers have been used in several countries dating back about 60 years ago, to address the gap experienced by the underserved members of these communities, with issues of access to health care. More importantly in Low and middle-income countries, Community Health Workers have particularly been helpful in reducing the impact of the shortage of skilled health workers. Community Health Workers can make valuable contributions to healthcare especially in the delivery of basic health care; however, across countries and individual programs there are varying and inconsistently established approaches on how they are recruited, trained, monitored, incentivized, as well as the roles and activities they perform. The lack of a standard structure globally and in CMMB countries creates several divisions of Community Health Workers, which may lead to poor monitoring, increased attrition, poor planning, budgeting and sustainable financing. The Effect on Women and Children Several programs have reported a high attrition rate which has led to the breakdown of the programs and is mostly due to problems with how these Programmes are structured or maintained. The initial purpose for which the CHW was set up was to link the communities with the formal health system, if the system fails, the underserved especially the vulnerable populations (women and children), in absence of quality health care are at risk of poorer health outcomes. BACKGROUND. Community health workers are adjunct health workers with a myriad of appellations across countries. According to WHO, they should be members of the community, selected by the community, trained and work within the community, answerable to the community, they should be supported by the health system but not necessary being a part of it, and have a shorter course of training than other professional workers. Although they function more at the peripheral of the health system, and their duties widely vary across countries and programs, their roles in the delivery of basic health care can not be overemphasized. In some countries, they also perform the role of record keeping. Over the years, the use of CHWs has gained prominence, with several countries adopting the trend to mitigate the growing proportion of infectious diseases and a shortage of health workers, migrating for green pasture, however, not all CHW programs follow the WHOs definition of CHW. In CMMB countries, the approach is also different across the in the individual countries. RECRUITMENT, TRAINING, AND INCENTIVES In Peru, the Ministry of health has specific regulations on how the CHWs program should be structured. CHWs in Peru are usually volunteers, they could receive incentives but they do not have contracts or salaries. They are appointed by the community organization at the general assembly or the social grassroots organization to which the community health agent belongs. There is variation in the duration of training the CHWs to receive in Peru. In South Sudan, there are no specific regulations in terms of services, CHW could receive incentives and could also be employed. They are trained in Basic health care service for 6 months whereas, in Zambia, the Implementing partners have different policies for training, recruitment, remuneration, and incentives for CHWs. Programs funded and managed by implementing partners are typically on contracts of two-to-five year but their remuneration and incentives vary across programs. The training also varies between 2-11 weeks depending on if it is af filiated with government health facility or an NGO and the Ministry of healths CHW handbook, 2005 is used as a guideline. ROLES AND ACTIVITIES Several kinds of literature have grouped the CHWs as being either generalist or specialist in the way they are trained or work. Generalist perform a wide range of functions while the specialist has a program specific focus. In the CMMB countries, the CHWs are more generalist than they are a specialist or obscured in between. They are generally involved in implementing promotive and preventive health activities especially in providing family planning and immunization. In south Sudan, CHWs perform addition roles of supporting primary health care units as health staff to clerk patients and also work in the pharmacy. They follow up pregnant women receiving ART while in Zambia, CHWS, also provide basic curative services and refer cases if complicated, they performfollow-up care including home visits for patients with TB, AIDS, pregnant and postnatal mothers, tracing for malnourished children. Most literature about CHWs and what they do, agree that they are important in improving access to care especially in areas where they are most needed. However, it is important to consider the local context where the CHW program will operate(culture, language, social norms, and values etc.) for the program to excel. The mode of selection of the CHWs, duration of training as well as the roles the CHWs would be performing should also be considered and possibly be unified across programs. In order to extrinsically motivate CHWs, it is important to also Incentivize them and a mechanism for monitoring and evaluating their activities would help assess problems in the program and health care delivery. APPROACHES AND METHODOLOGIES In order to encourage behavioral change and improve the quality of health care using CHWs, CMMB will be focusing on theses 3 approaches which have been applied in public health and have improved health outcomes: Positive deviance approach, Integrated community case management approach and make me a change agent approach. Positive Deviance: This is an approach based on the belief that unusual behavioral practices in communities among few members of the community who are called the positive deviants, help them find a better solution to problems and improve their outcomes compared other members of the same community that share similar exposures and resources, but poorer outcomes. The positive deviance is based on the principles that: (Pascale, Sternin, Sternin ,2010) Communities possess the solutions and expertise to solve their own problems. Communities are self-organizing and possess the human resources with necessary assets to solve community problems. communities have a Collective intelligence which is evenly distributed and is not dependent on the leadership of a community alone or in external experts.This collective intelligence is what the approach aim to draw out and capitalize on to solve community problems. The bedrock of the approach is sustainability. The community is encouraged to observe and develop sustainable solutions based on observed positive deviants within the community. Practicing encourages behavior change. This approach has been used successfully in communities in the management of malnutrition and has contributed immensely to reducing the burden of malnutrition in communities where it is being practiced. The community health and families after an observation made by a positive deviant inquiry, practice better ways to cook their food with a particular interest in quality, feeding, and hygiene when managing malnourished children using local resources and technologies. It is a proactive measure; harnessing the strength, knowledge, human resources locally available within the community to solve their community health problems. This approach ensures fast, sustainable, affordable, culturally acceptable solutions to solve community health problems and it also encourages local participation. Integrated community case management: This approach was adopted by WHO and UNICEF. The ICCM has been piloted in many underserved countries, where there is a major gap in access to care. The aim is to bring health care closer to the doorstep of these population and strategically increasing coverage of treatment using Community health workers who are appropriately trained, supervised and monitored. The CHWs are adequately supported with medical supplies. They are trained to identify, promptly and correctly manage or refer cases of common community diseases like malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea and malnutrition in children under 5 years. ICCM uses interventions that are evidence based and it focuses on diagnosis, the community health workers are trained to make a quick diagnosis using portable diagnostic tools and appropriate treatment. common interventions used are antibiotics for dysentery and pneumonia, ORT for diarrheal diseases, antimalaria for malaria, nutritional rehabilitation for malnutrition. The approach employs the use of CHWs who are members of the community and perform their duties either from their homes or selected community building, which is easily accessible to members of the community. Using CHWs from the community encourages trust and sustainability. Make me a change agent: To effectively improve the quality of health by encouraging behavior change, this approach which is used multi-sectorally will help the CHWs to become an effective change agent by developing their skills of effective communication, showing empathy, individual counseling. It also teaches the approach of using their individual testimonies and storytelling ability to encourage health behavioral change. CHWs after acquiring skills from health training, have to effectively communicate their training to the community which is critically important in encouraging the patient to adhere to treatment and adopt preventive health behaviors. The CHWs are engaged in several activities that include role playing to help them understand the importance of respecting patient, good communication, active listening during conversations. There are several barriers that mitigate against behavioral change, the ability to circumvent these barriers would help the CHWs reach their target population and help them make them make the right behavior change. In order to effectively do this, the CHWs needs to be able to put themselves in the perspective of their audience, sharing their experiences which help foster a personal relationship and makes the change easier to communicate. The approach also emphasizes the importance of storytelling and the use of individual testimonies to promote a particular health behavior by changing preformed misperceptions about the particular health behavior. The testimonials offer the audience the chance to appreciate changes made by someone else who is not different from them, who has had a positive result. These approach as a skill for encouraging behavioral change is easily remembered, the audience can relate to the story and have a pictural understanding of what the change is about. Moreso, it can be a source of external motivation to encourage change. INTERVENTIONS: The growing adoption of community health workers as part of the health system as a means to reach the underserved communities is met with the need to understand how to implement a sustainable CHW program in different countries across different programs. As field workers in underserved communities, we would also be employing the services of the CHWs in executing our goals. An effective process for managing (recruitment, training, supervision and support, Incentives) community health workers will help sustain the program. RECRUITMENT: Recruiting community health workers is dependent on the proposed health need they are supposed to meet. Some ministries of health have an established protocol for recruiting health workers. It is important to note that to sustain the program, several papers as well as WHO has suggested that community health workers should be selected by and from the community they are to work in. However, the primary criteria in selecting CHWs is that they should be members of the community they serve. This to harness the establish connections within the individual members of the community and the individual interest of the health worker towards the community. The recruitment process may require the use of different social structures or organization within the communities like the clinics, community-based organizations e.g market women association, religious organizations, the ruling council, other CHWs etc. as sources of referral for the appointment of community members into several CHWs position. Recruitment should be formal, individuals should follow a process of recommendation, interview, and screening. General characteristics of CHWs vary across countries and programs. Literacy is an important criterion for recruiting a CHW. Although not all programs require their CHWs to have any form of education, most programs require a primary level of education while some require a higher level of education. The least literacy level should be required; however, the higher the level of education the more preferable the CHW. The gender of the CHW should meet the cultural norm especially in places where there are limited interactions between males and females. The age of CHWs differ across programs but ranges from 20 45years. Finally, marriage status is an encouraging criterion for selection. CHWs with a married status are more likely to remain in the society for a longer period of time than those that are single. TRAINING The Success and quality of a CHWs program also depend on the process of training and continuous assessment of training. Training program varies across programs which depend on the length, depth, element, approach and authority. In some countries, a manual for training of CHWs have been developed; where necessary, it should be employed. The length of training varies across programs and it is based on the services the community health worker would be rendering. It could be from days to weeks to years; however, it is important to space the training so that the CHW can have time in between training to have an in-depth review of the material. A process of a continuous training after the initial training can help improve the performance of CHWs through supervision and adding additional knowledge to the CHW. The use of an interactive, skilled based setting that encourages participation should be employed as a style for training considering the varying educational background among the CHWs. The training material could be categorized into three major topics: skilled- based knowledge, relevant health knowledge, and research implementation knowledge. Training authority may vary, although WHO prefers the government of the countries to be involved in the training but more experienced CHWs, nurses and doctors can be part of the training team. SUPERVISION AND SUPPORT Long term sustainability of health programs involves active supervision and mentorship of the CHWs.The supervisors also provide support to CHWs. In most cases, the supervisor will be provided by the programs main authority. They are usually of different professional backgrounds but have an understanding of the program, the roles of the CHWs and the aim of the program. They evaluate the performance of the CHWs, define their roles and expectations and also answer questions raised by the CHWs. The frequency of supervision which is variable across programs depends on the target goal of the program, the available funds e.tc. Supervision as a general term could be practice in different styles and approaches. Group supervision involves a group of CHWs with a supervisor and has been implemented in many programs. Community supervision is another approach for CHWs. The innovative approach involves communitys participation by providing feedback and guidance to CHWs and their supervisors. Other methods that can be used are the peer supervision, clinical mentoring and mobile electronic devices. It is also important to note that the supervisors also needs to be actively supported by the programs main authority by providing material support e.g medical supplies, transportation etc. supporting the supervisors will help them perform their functions regularly. INCENTIVES The incentives for CHWs is one of the most controversial topics but it plays a significant role as it has been shown to be associated with CHWs performance, motivation and retention. many studies have debated on how compensations should be structured for the most effective way to incentivize CHWs. There are two categories of CHWs: the Volunteers and Full-time employees. Some countries have a process for how the community health workers should be paid based on the type of appointment and who employs them. CHWs employed by the government on a full-time basis are on paid salaries while most, especially the volunteers are given either monetary or non-monetary incentive; however, it is important to recognize that an opportunity for career advancement in this field can be an incentive. Full-time CHWS are comparatively rare to the part-time CHWs because of the financial implication on programs. A small amount of incentive is more commonly implemented in community-based programs. common monetary incentives are small monetary compensation for their time and transportation subsidies. How much monetary incentive is enough is unknown but it is important to give the CHWs some monetary incentives. The non-monetary incentive is also common. CHWs could get meals during training, bicycles for transportation, umbrellas etc. like the monetary incentive, there are no rules on how the authorities should incentivize their CHWs, or what item will effectively attract CHWs and motivate them. ROLES AND ACTIVITIES IN MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH The CHWs globally have been very effective in improving maternal and child health as well as reducing mortality especially in low-income countries. Their function varies across countries and programs; while in some countries, it is just preventive, in others it also involves diagnosis and treatment. The table below highlights how and areas where CHWs can work effectively to promote maternal and child health. PREVENTION DIAGNOSIS TREATMENT OBSTETRIC CARE Anemia *Nutrition Supplement, *Routine Haematinics Nutrition Supplement HIV *HIV Counseling *Distribution of condom Routine Followup on PMTCT Malaria *Distribution of Insecticide-treated net *Prevent therapy with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine Rapid Diagnostic kit Antimalaria Obstetric Care Routine Tetanus toxiod Routine ANC Visit Post partum care PPH *Breast feeding counselling *Distribution of misoprostol at home births. GYNAECOLOGICAL CARE Family planning *Use of contraceptive PEDIATRIC CARE Diarrhea *Health education on handwashing, food preparation and packaging ORS Zinc supplement Malaria *Distribution of Insecticide-treated net Rapid Diagnostic kit Anitmalaria Antipyretics Pneumonia Antibiotics Malnutrition *Breast feeding Education *Growth monitoring Nutrition supplement Routine Immunization of Children INFECTIOUS DISEASES Tuberculosis Direct observation of tuberculosis treatment CHWs roles and activites are not limited to the above, there are also actively involved in diseases surveillance, home visits, record keeping, community health education, monitoring people with chronic diseases e.g hypertension , diabeties. INTEGRATION INTO CMMB PROJECTS AND PROGRAMS References: Pascale, Sternin, Sternin. (2010) The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the Worlds Toughest Problems. Harvard Business Press. Print.

Robert Aldrich :: essays papers

Robert Aldrich Robert Aldrich Robert Aldrich was born into an extremely wealthy family. He became an assistant director in Hollywood, working in the 1945 - 1952 period with many directors. A notably high percentage of these were in the extreme left: Jean Renoir, Lewis Milestone, Robert Rossen, Joseph Losey, Charles Chaplin. Kiss Me Deadly Kiss Me Deadly (1955) is Aldrich's most remarkable film. Aldrich began directing in 1953, and by then, the film noir cycle had run its course as a Hollywood phenomenon, peaking in the years 1942 - 1951. However, film noirs were still being made steadily through the 1950's, and many of these works were classics of the cycle. There is a remarkably detailed visual analysis of the film in "Kiss Me Deadly: Evidence of a Style" by Alain Silver, in Film Noir Reader (1996), edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini. The remarks below are simply intended to point out a few more things about this film, one of the most complex and creative of all film noirs. 3D Camera Tec hnique The staging in Kiss Me Deadly shows a three dimensional quality. Partly this is due to depth of field. Many scenes keep in focus far into the rear of the scene. This is a technique associated in Hollywood with Orson Welles. Aldrich is often considered to be a Welles disciple. There are other techniques that aid in the film's 3D quality: 1) The showing of an irregular wall along one side of the shot. When Mike Hammer's car pulls up to a gas station near the beginning of the film, we see the entire front of the gas station along the right side of the shot. The gas station facade is by no means smooth; it contains many projections. All of these are fully lit up. The gas station is shot as if it were an elaborate piece of sculpture, like one of Louise Nevelson's friezes. As the camera moves past it, it emphasizes the station's complex 3D qualities. The projections on the station all are "rectilinear": they are "box" like, with flat, perpendicular walls. A shot with even greater depth of field shows Mike Hammer knocking on a door in the Angel's Flight neighborhood. Behind him we see first a long narrow alleyway, then a huge depth of field showing a Los Angeles city scape.

A Comparison of Hamlet’s Gertrude and Ophelia Essay -- William Shakes

A Comparison of Hamlet’s Gertrude and Ophelia      Ã‚  Ã‚   Queen Gertrude and Ophelia, the main female characters in Shakespeare’s dramatic tragedy Hamlet, have a variety of personal qualities and experiences in common. This essay, with the help of literary critics, will explore this commonality. In the Introduction to Twentieth Century Interpretations of Hamlet, David Bevington enlightens the reader regarding the similarities between Gertrude and Ophelia as the hero sees them: Yet to Hamlet, Ophelia is no better than another Gertrude: both are tender of heart but submissive to the will of importunate men, and so are forced into uncharacteristic vices. Both would be other than what they are, and both receive Hamlet’s exhortations to begin repentance by abstaining from pleasure. â€Å"Get thee to a nunnery†; â€Å"Assume a virtue if you have it not.† (9) As Bevington says, both Gertrude and Ophelia are â€Å"tender of heart,† motivated by love and a desire for quiet familial harmony among the members of their courtly society in Elsinore. At the first social function in the play, Gertrude is motivated out of love for her son to advise: Dear Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust. (1.2) Likewise does she ask that the prince remain with the family: â€Å"Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet, / I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.† Later, when the hero’s supposed â€Å"madness† is the big concern, Gertrude lovingly sides with her husband in the analysis of her son’s condition: â€Å"I doubt it is no other but the main, / His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.† Later she confides her family... ...NJ: Hayden Book Co., Inc., 1973. Jorgensen, Paul A. â€Å"Hamlet.† William Shakespeare: the Tragedies. Boston: Twayne Publ., 1985. N. pag. http://www.freehomepages.com/hamlet/other/jorg-hamlet.html Kermode, Frank. â€Å"Hamlet.† The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1974. Pennington, Michael. â€Å"Ophelia: Madness Her Only Safe Haven.† Readings on Hamlet. Ed. Don Nardo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999. Rpt. from â€Å"Hamlet†: A User’s Guide. New York: Limelight Editions, 1996. Pitt, Angela. â€Å"Women in Shakespeare’s Tragedies.† Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Rpt. from Shakespeare’s Women. N.p.: n.p., 1981. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html