Business Plan Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Business Plan - Research Paper Example Balance Sheet Basic Template 9.0 Current date: 9.1 Future Dates: 10.0 C: Income Statement Basic Template: 10.0 Marketing current budget revenues: 10.1 Operations current budget expenses: 10.2 Administrative and cost of capital current budget expenses: 11.0 D. ... h interactions with individuals working in the fields in which each child is interested can we encourage and advise each student on what is necessary in school and in life to achieve their goals. Through early interaction we can gain the trust of the students, families and volunteers so to work together to defuse any destructive habits. While working with those individuals in their fields of interest these students will become proteges of these individuals for several years, eventually becoming interns as they get older and closer to their completing course work in that field. Knowledge and Dreams is a program that is in direct response to the growing number of young people falling through the cracks in school and failing to plan for their future. The goal of this program is to offer tutoring of course study and dream development and internship to the youth of the intercity. This program will entangle education before and after adulthood providing professional experience in both area s. The focus is different for every age group although the message is the same, to empower each of them with the knowledge needed to make better decisions for their future. Knowledge and Dreams will focus primarily on intercity youth of all ages. According to the National dropout prevention center â€Å"There are a multitude of youth programs available, but many are inaccessible to inner-city and rural youth (2012, para 2).† Knowledge and Dreams will partner a professional to every group of five who is interested in his/her field of study. These partnerships will last the length of the Childs stay in the program. This program will also provide tutors for these students for each grade level and subject where help is needed. During that time weekly planned activities to strengthen the

Roll of thunder, hear my cry Essay Example for Free

Roll of thunder, hear my cry Essay The first characters name to be mention in the whole story is Little Mans and that is because Cassie is addressing him as he is slowing down the group of people who are on their way to school in their best clothes on their first day of this term. My first impression of him which I got from the second paragraph was that he didnt like getting anything dirty at all, and tried his best to see it that way and that he was also looking forward to his first day of school, which was the opposite to the others. He gave me the impression of the direct opposite of a young boy, as I would have thought he wouldnt have wanted to go to school or stay clean. Mildred Taylor introduces Little Man in another different way because he is described while Cassie is observing him, as if she is writing down exactly what she is seeing at the time whereas Christopher-Johns description is more like an aside to what is happening. The portrait of Little Man is built up gradually as you read about his interactions with the other characters and this builds up layers of details to give the reader on big picture of him. The other character that is mentioned throughout the first chapter who you dont actually meet until the end is Mama, and even thought there is no description of her I immediately got the impression that she was in charge of the children and their lives as she was mentioned as a threat at first and then as a person to turn to when Cassie and Little Man have the episode about the books. The only real information that is given about Mama is just before she is encountered, and it is a description of her hair and nothing else which leaves the rest up to the readers imagination. Mildred Taylor also succeeds in accomplishing a little background to the story as she describes the history of the Logan land and the land around it which gives the story a setting. This is important as this establishes the basic facts about who owns what and how the local area operates and differentiates between black and white people. The author sets the story straight generally about how everyones lives interact with each others, including how people make money and how the children are educated. She also shows the importance of family life because the children are all interacting with each other and they are always mentioning Mama and I think these two facts will come into play greatly at the end of the story. Mildred Taylor also gives the reader information about the situation in history at the time including the Logan land but more importantly how black people and white people have got a long in the past which I think will give the reader some background about why certain people act in certain ways and why somethings have come to be. Mildred Taylor also slips in little pieces of information along the way about how each character reacts with each other and gives the author and overall feel of how they are now as if suggesting that they wont be like this later on in the story. The first chapter is written very cleverly because it combines character introductions, background information and little pieces of information to make this chapter and the rest of the story piece together and I think Mildred Taylor has made it very successful in getting all this information across to the reader. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Mildred Taylor section.

The Task And Responsibility Of Front Office Workers Tourism Essay

The Task And Responsibility Of Front Office Workers Tourism Essay Front office is the main part for hotels. The popularity and how famous is the hotel are also depends to the hotel front office system because for a hotel customers are important and even with the presence of customer only the management can run the business. Moreover, front office people are the one who greet and give first impression to the customers. So, the way they greet customer can lead the hotels to have more customers. Front office are the one who also promote room and beverage sales such as type of room and packages available. 1.2 THE TASK AND RESPONSIBILITY; 1.2.1 THE RESPOSIBILITYS OF FRONT OFFICE MANAGER The front office manager is the one responsible for any good or bad things happened in the front desk, this includes the staff routine, staff training and all type of communication. The front office manager should also be available to work any shifts. Moreover, if there are any problem in the front office department, he should be ready to settle it off. The front office manager should also be a good leadership for the staffs. The front office manager is also the one who responsible for all the VIP and guess concerns. 1.2.2 THE RESPONSIBILITYS OF FRONT OFFICE ASSISTANT MANAGER The front office assistant manager is the one who need to update all the profit and problems to the manager. Moreover, the assistant manager is the one who assist manager in the front desk routines and management. He will help the manager with all the basic needs such as the front desk staff schedule, and then take care the desk when the manager not around. He should also able to solve the customers problem with fast act before the issue goes to the manager. The assistant manager is the one who responsible for all the meetings between the staffs too. Should assign the staffs with the routine. And if theres any emergency should take early act and make sure things are under control. 1.2.3 THE RESPONSIBILITYS OF FRONT OFFICE REPRESENTATIVE These peoples usually represent the front office such as if theres any problem the staffs, these people will see 1st before it goes to the supervisor. 1.2.4 THE RESPONSIBILITYS OF FRONT OFFICE NIGHT AUDITOR The night audit team responsible of the hotels daily activities such as they will be handling the front desk at night. Moreover, they also need to prepared the record of the day for all the room occupied and more. They also need to submit off the account for the particular day. They also need to verify the room charges, banquet charges and other charges correctly in order to provide the hotel data correctly. So, a night auditor plays important roles in a front desk. 1.2.5 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A CASHIER A cashier is the one who handle money in front desk hotel. The cashier should and responsible for all the money act. The cashier will collect money from the guest during check in or check out. They generally operate a cash in a adding machine. The cashier should be very careful and responsible with the cash they handle to prevent any unwanted act. Usually, the cashiers work shift depends to the hotel procedures whereby a normal office hours duty. 1.2.6 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF RESERVATIONIST The reservationist would be handling the front office department in handling the reservation calls. So, this people is the one who pick calls for customer reservation. If theres a call from outside customer to booked a hotel, the hotel reservationist will take their booking and explain about the hotel procedure to the customer. They, are the one who arranged rooms or even any meetings arrangement for the customer if theres such a booking. They, should also create a good mannerism when speak to the customer in the phone because there are representing the hotel and should make the guest to came down to booked this hotels rooms. Usually, this department working shifts is also depends to the hotel rules. They, should also be a good language speaker. 1.2.7 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A TELEPHONE OPERATORS A telephone operator usually in the front desk with attending calls from outsides, such as if a customer needs to know room availability the telephone operators will transfer the line to interior department. So, a telephone operator should also be a good English speaker to attract the guess. Usually, their working shift time will be bit more different then others and its depends to the hotel procedures. The hotel department should appoint a right person to work here who is more responsible because they are the one who answers the calls whenever theres incoming call and should answer it within two three rings. 1.3 CONCLUSION So, front office is really a very important for a hotels. If, a hotel need to run in successfully the front office department is the major cause. Moreover, front office department are the main receiver of a guess, so a the very 1st satisfaction of a guess is after the way they are treat and its obviously the front office people. So, a good business for a hotel is all depend to the front office so the department heads should take good care of this front desk. 2.0 QUESTION 2 Front office staffs must have certain skills to attract guests during the first impression. Write about Front Office staff skill in guest relations? 2.1 INTRODUCTION The front office staff must have a good working skill to communicate or attract the guest. For a hotel a business can run up to level if the staff are in proper system, what we can mean here is about the skill and the ability to speak and communicate by the staff to the guest. It is really important for the staff to have a special skill to attract the staffs because not all the staffs can communicate well here and interact with guest in the proper term, so they need to have this special skill to have a qualify working skill. For a newly appointed staff usually the management will give them 1week training session, so the supervisor or the in charge person will give the training to the staffs. Most of the hotels will give them a certificate to prove they are well trained but then certain hotel doesnt do this. Even some of the hotels give money to the staff for that 1week working training. During the staff in training week, they will be given working hour shift that is from 9a.m 5pm. 2.1 FRONT OFFICE STAFF SKILL 2.1.1 GOOD COMMUNICATION A staff who works in the front office department should have the ability to speak very well. It is because the guest who going to check in to stay in the hotel not only going to be a local resident but then from worldwide, so the staff should have the ability to speak well language. Moreover, if the particular staff can speak multi language it will be more great full because there will be multinational language guest with different mother tongue. So, when the staff can communicate this way it will be easier for the guest from foreigners to communicate. 2.1.2 APPEARANCE Those staff who works at the front desk should have a good appearance. They should be neat in hair wise, the uniform they wear should be neat. All this are important because the guest who check in need to have a good look about the hotel in appreance wise so with such a good appreance, the guest will have respect for the hotel and the board. If, the particular person is tidy with poor appreance and with long hair and so on the guest who check in will have bad manner about the department and speak bad about it to others of his or her friends and give a bad reward to the hotel. 2.1.3 GOOD LISTENING SKILL The staff should have a good listening skill too. This is because usually front office will be very grandly and one or two noisiness so by having good listening they can overcome it and comfortable with the environment. It also show the support of us to the guest and we can get know what is expected from us by the guest or the superior. The staff can also resolve any problems which occur between the guest. Moreover, they need to have good hearing because when updating any guest data shouldnt have any error or else they might be in severe problem. To be a good listener the staff and the workers all should have good eye contact with the person whom we are talking. Either than that, they shouldnt interrupt when the speaker is speaking or else we might not get what they are all talking about and going to cause us problem because the guest cant keep on repeating the same thing to us so, we shouldnt interrupt but then listen to them with patient and calm. Nextly, the receiver should also s tand or seat in proper way because we need to respect the guest. 2.1.4 POSTURE Posture also can be defined same as the standing positioning, but in this wise the staff should always face the guest. For example, the receptionist will stand half away bend and talking hardly all shouldnt be practice as it can lower the hotel prestige. 2.1.5 EXPRESSION The staff working at front office should always have a good face expression. Whenever, the guest check-in or check-out or even when the guest are standing nearby, the staff should greet them with a smile or even some wish such as good evening and so on. So, by doing this the hotels prestige will get higher and at the same time the guest feel good about it. 2.1.6 GOOD EYE CONTACT The staff should also have a good eye contact with the guest. When a person talks to us, we should greet them back nicely in speaking wise and also by a good eye contact so that the particular persons know that we are hearing to their conversation. If let say theres no any eye contact, the person will think that we are not listening to them. So, all the staff should be train with having a good eye contact. 2.3 CONCLUSION So by overall, all the staff should have good working skill moreover for those who works in front desk as the need to deal with the guest every day. For a cashier, this type of skill will be very important because they will be handling cash every day and if any error occur they will be the one to blame. So, the staff should practice those skills in their daily routine to prevent from any problems.

Redstorm Rising Book Report :: essays research papers

Red Storm Rising is a book about the Soviet Union and Russia's attempt to overtake the Atlantic so they can launch an offensive against the United States of America and maybe other NATO countries such as England and Germany.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The story begins in 1980 at a very productive but old, Soviet oil refinery in Nizhnevartovsk. The refinery is blown up by Islamic terrorists that hope to be 'heard' by their God Allah by commiting this violent action. The devestation of the refinery leads Russia into chaos with a much smaller supply of oil. The story escalates as the Russian army makes a push on Iraq to gain control over the precious oil fields to setup refineries and also an attack on Iceland. Conquering Iceland is an important step because this allows the Russians to reach farther into the Atlantic and possibly into North America with their aircraft. The Russian's greed for land control is immense and they are desperate for more resources and materials to manage more war campaigns. The Soviet Union soon decides that to gain ultimate power, Russian military must first cripple NATO and start the worst non-nuclear war imaginable.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This book is unique because the story is told through many different character's points of view. Tom Clancy tells the story through eyes of NATO and Russian naval captains who command both surface and underwater boats. Most of the character's actions would seem reasonable at war time, making the story realistic. Almost every chapter in the book takes place in a different location during the war, on both the Russian and NATO fronts of battle.

AltaPointe Health Systems Company Essay

Define a value chain and the significance of the center of gravity. Please also provide an example of a value chain from your place of work or from a company that you have researched. A value chain is a set of activities that are associated together that start with raw materials from suppliers, then goes to a set of activities in which are involved in marketing a certain product, and then ends with providers developing the final properties to the vital purchaser. Value chains can usually be split into two parts: upstream and downstream. The upstream deals where the company begins, how it develops, and what it produces. Then, downstream starts with where the goods, for example, are being transported and how it distributes to suppliers. A company’s center of gravity is the most important part of the company and what the essential proficiencies are. It is usually where the company began, according to Galbraith. It is also where the company stands the strongest. In other words, whatever may be there strongest suit is what the company’s center of gravity is. My company that I work for, AltaPointe Health Systems, can be used as an example of a value chain. AltaPointe Health Systems is a community based company that provides services of mental health to consumers that are struggling mentally and/or patients that are struggling with substance abuse issues. We have two hospital facilities (for adults and children), many residential homes, and also outpatient services. Since the primary focus of a value chain is to study the company of value-creating events, AltaPointe’s surfaces around one primary vision and that is psychiatry. Our value chain starts with having patients who come in (voluntary or involuntary) who are mentally ill or abusing substances. They tell us what is going on and our psychiatrists make an analysis based on their assumption of the patient’s sickness. They decide whether or not our facility is right for them (especially if they come in voluntary). Our doctors and nurses have daily activities with them; whether it is group sessions or one-on-one with the  social worker and doctor, decide what is causing their problems, and make a decision on what is the best way to treat them. The patients then stay for however long it takes to get the patient stable and on the correct medications, and then send them onto our outpatient facilities where they will see a doctor once a month. In this case, our materials that we need to carry on our facilities would be: beds, medications, and supplies for nurses and staff. Activities that are involved in keeping our services are: having mentally ill patients that need psychiatric help and pay to come see us. Without them, we would not be a company. As far as distributors getting the final goods: in our case, it would be our patients getting better and having our name talked about in an extremely good way to the community and other communities near us. If we have happy patients, we will have a successful business that keeps running. Our CEO also works with Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa, which is another psychiatric inpatient facility. Businesses like these, are what helps us to stay open and help one another out. In what ways may a corporation’s structure and culture be internal strengths or weaknesses? Look at your organization, and analyze its structural and cultural strengths and weaknesses. How can the weaknesses be improved? There are three basic types of organizational structures. They are simple structures, functional structures, and divisional structures. Simple structures don’t have any product categories and is designed for small organizations. Functional structures are for medium-sized companies that have several products. Lastly, divisional structures are for large companies that have many product lines in different industries. A corporation’s structure can be a company’s strength and/or their weakness. If the correct structure is developed correctly, then the business can grow and thrive like it should. If the wrong structure is built, then the company could have problems operating correctly. A corporation’s structure has to get its strength from the foundation, because without the foundation you don’t have anything to build on. Based on these three structures is how you want to choose your foundation for the company/business. However, if you do choose the wrong structure, then the business could fall apart because people will not know what their accurate role is within the organization. It is almost  as if everyone would get confused on what they should be doing. Corporate culture is where the beliefs, expectations of a company, and values come together within members of the organization and is passed on from one group of employees to another. A strength of culture could be the organization’s ability to relate with one another and able to get along and be civil with other employees. It is also to have the respect of values that the CEO and other leadership members have for the company. Weaknesses would be the exact opposite. If employees do not understand what the culture is for the company or do not show respect to it, it could make a company fall really fast. Employees are a huge part of a company and without them, you have absolutely nothing. They have to have the ability and want to have respect for others and the management team. For the company I work for, our organizational structure would be a simple structure, because it is a small organization. Our internal strengths would include having the right management. I believe we have top workers that are our chief officers and are able to make excellent decisions. They are always on top of the issues that need to be worked out and help manage the Board of Directors meetings. Our foundation has always been a good one and they keep our company running in good condition at all times. Our biggest structural weakness is our employees not knowing where they stand within the company. Our top managers have difficulty with relating to our other employees whom are not in top management. We have so many employees that work within the hospitals that include: nurses, behavioral aides, security, etc., and our chief officers or hospital administrators do not take the time to try to see if they have any needs or concerns within the company. This is where our company starts making mistakes. This could be an easy fix by making sure our managers take the time to speak with them. They need to start having meetings with other employees and ask what their ideas are and what needs to be improved. As far as cultural strengths, ours is following expectations. Our employees might not like it sometimes, but they know what our CEO expects out of them. They know they cannot call in sick every time something goes wrong and they know their number one priority is the patients’ needs. Our cultural weakness is definitely communication and feedback. If something  goes wrong within one of our hospitals, it is because there was a lack of communication or someone did not speak up when they needed to. This is when the patients start getting ill and irritated. It is completely unnecessary. If our employees would care a little more about what maybe could go wrong, and communicate more than what they are doing, everything would be a lot different.

Maurice Sendak the Author

Maurice Bernard Sendak, an award winning writer and illustrator was born on June 10, 1928 in Brooklyn, New York to Philip Sendak and Sadie Schindler, Polish immigrants from small Jewish villages outside Warsaw who came to the United States before World War I. Sendak, the youngest child, along with his sister Natalie, and brother Jack grew up in a poor section of Brooklyn.Sendak was sickly in his early years. He suffered from measles, double pneumonia, and scarlet fever between the ages of two and four and was barely allowed outside to play. He spent a great deal of his childhood at home. To pass the time, he drew pictures and read comic books. His father was a wonderful storyteller, and Maurice grew up enjoying his father's imaginative tales and gaining a lifelong appreciation for books.His sister gave him his first book, Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. As a young adult, he liked great adventure stories such as Typee and Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Other favorites were Bret Harte's short story, The Luck of Roaring Camp and Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses.Young Sendak didn't like school much. He was obese, sometimes stammered and wasn't good at sports but excelled in his art classes. At home, he and his brother Jack made up their own storybooks by combining newspaper photographs or comic strip segments with drawings they made of family members. Maurice and his brother both inherited their father’s storytelling gift.At age twelve, Sendak with his family saw Walt Disney’s Fantasia, which had influenced him to become a cartoonist. They also went to the local movie houses and occasionally his older sister would take him to Manhattan to see movies at the Roxy or Radio City Music Hall. The 1930s films, including Busby Berkeley musicals and Laurel and Hardy comedies, had a profound influence on some of his illustrations.The World War II influenced Sendak's view of the world as a dark and frightening place. His relatives died in the Holocaust; Natalie's fiancà © was killed and Jack was stationed in the Pacific. Sendak spent the war years in high school, working on the school yearbook, literary magazine, and newspaper. While still in high school, he began his work as illustrator for All-American Comics, drawing background details for the Mutt and Jeff comic strip. At nineteen, he illustrated for his high school biology teacher's book, Atomics for the Millions published in 1947.In 1948, Sendak and his brother Jack, created models for six wooden mechanical toys in the style of German eighteenth-century lever-operated toys. He did the painting and carving, Jack engineered the toys, and Natalie sewed the costumes. The boys took the models to the F.A.O. Schwartz, a famous toy store in New York, where the prototypes were admired. They got turned down because the toys were considered too expensive to produce but the window-display director was impressed with Sendak's talent and hired him as a window dresser.He continued working there for four years while taking night classes at the New York Art Student’s League. He took classes in oil painting, life drawing, and composition. He also spent time in the children's book department studying the great nineteenth-century illustrators such as George Cruikshank, Walter Crane, and Randolph Caldecott as well as the new postwar European illustrators, Hans Fischer, Felix Hoffmann, and Alois Carigiet.While at Schwartz, Sendak met Ursula Nordstrom, the children's book editor at Harper and Brothers.   He was offered to illustrate his first book, Marcel Ayme's The Wonderful Farm (1951) that he did when he was twenty-three.   Nordstrom arranged Sendak’s first great success as the illustrator for. Ruth Krauss’s award winning A Hole Is to Dig (1952). Sendak quit his full time job at Schwartz,move into an apartment in Greenwich Village, and become a freelance illustrator.By the early 1960s, Sendak had become one of the most expressive and interesting illustrators inthe business. The publication of his book, Where the Wild Things are in 1963 brought him internationalacclaim and a place among the world's great illustrators, though the book's portrayals of fanged monstersconcerned critics saying that the book was too scary for sensitive children.Just as Sendak was gaining success, tragedy struck. In 1967, he learned that his mother had developed cancer, he suffered a major coronary attack, and his beloved dog Jenny died. In spite of his troubles, he completed In the Night Kitchen in 1970, which generated more controversy for presenting pictures of a young boy innocently prancing naked through the story. This book regularly appears on the American Library Association's list of frequently challenged and banned books.Twenty years later, with We're all in the Dumps with Jack and Guy (1993), Sendak delivered another jolt. This time the troubling storyline revolved around a kidnapped black baby and two white homeless men . Some critics argued that the illustrations were nightmarish and too strong. Some people felt that his stories were too dark and disturbing for children. But the majority view was that Sendak, through his work, had pioneered a completely new way of writing and illustrating for, and about, children.Over the years he has produced a number of beloved classics, both as a writer and as an illustrator. His works also cover a broad range, not only in subject matter, but also in style and tone, from nursery rhyme stories, like Hector The Protector and As I Went Over The Water, to concept books, like Alligators All Around Us and the marvelous Chicken Soup With Rice. As an illustrator, his projects have included Else Holmelund Minarik's Little Bear, the Newbery winners Wheel on the School and The House of Sixty Fathers with Meindert DeJong, and illustrations of works by Herman Melville (Pierre) and George MacDonald (Light Princess and Golden Key).In 1980, Sendak began to develop productions of opera and ballet for stage and television. He produced an animated TV production based on his work entitled Really Rosie, featuring Carole King, which was broadcast in 1975. He also designs sets and costumes, and even writes librettos. He was invited to design the sets and costumes for the Houston Grand Opera's production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. This began a long collaboration, which included several works such as Sergei Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges and Leos Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Los Angeles County Music Center's 1990 production of Mozart’s Idomeneo, the award-winning Pacific Northwest Ballet production of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker and Humperdinck’s Hansel And Gretel.In the 1990's, Sendak approached playwright Tony Kushner to write a new English version of the Czech composer Hans Krà ¡sa’s children's opera â€Å"Brundibar†. Kushner wrote the text for Sendak's illustrated book of the same name, publi shed in 2003. The book was named one of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Illustrated Books of that year. In 2003, Chicago Opera Theatre produced Sendak and Kushner's adaptation of Brundibar. In 2005 Berkeley Reparatory Theatre, in collaboration with Yale Reparatory Theater and Broadway's New Victory Theater, produced a substantially reworked version of the Sendak-Kushner adaptation.Sendak, who’s been called â€Å"the Picasso of children's books†, has illustrated or written and illustrated over 90 books since 1951 and have garnered so many awards. He received the 1964 Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are and the Hans Christian Andersen International Medal in 1970 for his body of children's book illustration. He was the recipient of the American Book Award in 1982 for Outside Over There. He also received in 1983 the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his contributions to children's literature. In 1996, President Bill Clinton honored Sendak with the National Medal of Arts. In 2003, Maurice Sendak and Austrian author Christine Noestlinger shared the first Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature given by the Swedish government.Sendak, now seventy-eight, has been a major force in the evolution of children's literature. He is considered by many critics and scholars to be the first artist to deal openly with the emotions of children in his drawings both in books and on the stage, in his opera and ballet sets and costumes. This abilityto accurately depict raw emotion is what makes him so appealing to children.ReferencesKennedy, E. The Artistry and Influence of Maurice Sendak. Your Guide to Children’s Books. RetrievedOctober 1, 2006 from http://childrensbooks.about.com/cs/authorsillustrato/a/sendakartistry.htmMaurice Sendak. Encyclopedia Britannica (2006). Retrieved September  29, 2006, from Britannica ConciseEncyclopedia: http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9378228/Maurice-SendakMaurice Sendak.Maurice Sendak. Encyclopedia of World Biography (2005). Retrieved September 25, 2006, fromhttp://www.bookrags.com/biography/maurice-sendak/Mitchell, G. Biography of Maurice Sendak. Meet the Writers. Retrieved September 25, 2006, from  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?z=y&cid=90225

Analyse the film Titanic Research Paper Example

Analyse the film Titanic Research Paper Example Analyse the film Titanic Paper Analyse the film Titanic Paper Essay Topic: Film In this assignment I intend to analyse the film Titanic in light of the statement A tale of forbidden love and courage in the face of disaster that triumphs as a true masterpiece. On April 10th 1912 the White Star Line luxury cruiser Titanic set sail. The Titanic was the largest ship of its day and was deemed at the time to be unsinkable due to its 16 watertight chambers. The first few days went by uneventful. Then the unthinkable happened and just days into its maiden voyage the Titanic hit an iceberg causing it to subside to the bed of the Atlantic just 3 hours after it had hit the obstacle. Consequent investigations suggested that the Titanic was traveling too fast in the icy conditions and was warned several times about the icebergs that lay ahead but nevertheless continued at its optimum speed. The film incorporates a fictional love story with the historical sinking of the ship. Cameron uses the love story between Jack, a third class passenger and Rose, who is traveling in first class to access all the areas of the ship to show the wide divide of the classes. Cameron uses the universal theme of forbidden love to get the audience attached to the characters to make the ultimate sinking more unbearable and to show the audience the emotion of such a catastrophe. I wanted the audience to cry for Titanic. Which means to cry for any lost soul in their hour of untimely death Camerons attitude to producing the film was of the highest standard. He wanted everything to be as authentic as possible. He wanted a film that could be entirely believable and would truly reflect upon what happened on the fateful journey. I want to be able to say to an audience, without the slightest pang of guilt: This is real. This is what happened. Exactly like this. He brings the tale into the modern day with a wrap-around story, with a much senior Rose as the storyteller. Cameron used every piece of new technology at his disposal to produce the film. His use of computer generated imagery was the best of its time, even the people who used the imaging every day could not tell the difference between the real people and the generated ones. James Cameron uses the theme of forbidden love to make the audience connect emotionally with the characters so that we can experience the true terror of the sinking. Cameron also uses this theme to access all areas of the ship. In this story the theme of forbidden love seems impossible because of two aspects; firstly Rose is traveling first class whereas Jack is a third class passenger and secondly Rose is already engaged to Cal. When we, as the audience, first meet Jack, he is deep into a game of poker. His clothes and mannerisms give us clues as to his background and his finances. He seems to be a likeable, happy-go-lucky character that lives on the edge of his seat, taking things as they come to him. In contrast Rose is first seen vacating a luxurious coach. Her first words are it doesnt look any bigger than the Mauritania. This suggests that she is snobbish, regarding herself to be superior to anyone else. Her character seems the opposite of Jacks. The voice-over from the senior Rose tells us that she was unhappy on the outside I was everything that a well brought up girl should be but on the inside I was screaming. We can conclude from this that Rose was not a typical first-class women of her time. She is a more modern character. The first time that the two characters meet is at the stern of the ship. During this scene Rose is seen, from a panning shot, to be running towards the aforementioned location. She has her hair down and is wearing a revealing red dress. This symbolizes Rose struggling to break free from the clutches of the demanding first class society, meaning that she doesnt like the characteristics of the way she and the first-class are living and she is unsure of what she wants to do and if she should marry Cal, her fiancà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½. Consequently we see Rose precariously balanced on the wrong side of the railings, looking likely to jump off the back of the ship. Jack persuades her not to and holds out his hand to pull her in. We are then shown a close up of their hands with romantic music in the background, because this is the first time that Jack and Rose touch each other. Subsequently we see close-ups of the characters faces showing an instant emotional connection between them. In a following scene Jack is having dinner in the first-class section of the ship. From a point-of-view shot we see how intimidating the foreign atmosphere of the first-class must have been to him. A low-angle shot is used to look up at the colossal dome, which dwarfs Jack and makes him look vulnerable. During the dinner we hear music from a violin that creates a soothing atmosphere. The scene is shot in artificial soft light, which gives the impression of a romantic and warm setting. Close-ups on Rose and Jacks faces show feelings and emotion for each other. The party scene is a complete contrast to the dinner. The Irish music creates an up-beat atmosphere and the scene has an enjoyable theme to it. The scene is shot in a duller light than the dinner scene; this creates a less inviting and colder environment. Throughout the scene we are shown close-ups of various characters faces to show the enjoyment in which they are experiencing. The most important close-up of the scene is when we see Jack and Rose swinging while holding hands because this not only shows the enjoyment of the occasion but also the enjoyment of each others company. Cameron uses the topic of courage in the face of disaster to take the audience through the final part of Titanics history. He uses it to move us through Titanics last actions and ultimately the sinking. Cameron uses various scenes to build up the terror of the disaster. In one scene we see water cascading down the corridors; this shows the audience the power of the water. Another scene used to show this is when the glass dome shatters. During the final scenes when the ship is sinking we are shown people falling from the raised end of the boat; this creates an atmosphere of terror and panic. When the ship finally submerges, all we can see is masses of people screaming and splashing; Cameron shows us this to illustrate how many people went into the water and consequently how many perished. In contrast to the noise we here during the scene mentioned last, in the scene where one lifeboat goes back, the only thing we here is the water and someone shouting to survivors. During this scene we can observe the amount of dead bodies floating in the water; this produces a solemn atmosphere. These scenes create a terrifying environment that Cameron uses to show the amount of courage that is subs equently shown by some characters. The third-class passengers are shown to be courageous during the sinking. This is portrayed in scenes like the one where a young boy asks his mother what is happening and she replies we are just waiting dear, when theyve finished putting the first class people into the boats then theyll be starting with us and were going to be all ready arent we? In contrast the first-class are exposed as being cowardly, for example when told that half the people on the ship are going to die Cal replies not the better half. This shows that not only where the first-class cowardly they were also egocentric. Rose is one of the few courageous first-class passengers. During the scene where she is on her way to rescue Jack, strobe lighting is used to create the effect of the power failing. Blue light is also used to manufacture the effect of the water being cold, both of these help to set the scene and make it frightening. This frightening atmosphere shows the audience the extent of Roses courage to go back for Jack. The ships crew on a whole are perceived to be brave during the disaster, none more so than the band, who played on through all the panic, trying to calm the passengers down. The Captain traditionally went down with his ship and the Titanic was no exception. Captain E. J. Smith, who was on his last voyage, is shown to be valiant as he locks himself in the bridge of the ship and prepares to die. During this part of the film we are shown people who are preparing to go down with the ship. Music from the band on the ship produces a poignant mood. After the ship has been submerged Jack and Rose are seen to be swimming towards a section of wood. Jack shows courage by letting Rose stay on the floating object, while staying in the water himself. Later on in this scene make-up is used to create the effect of icicles in the characters hair, this is to show the audience how cold the water is. Also the dialogue is spoken in such a way as to make us think the characters are shivering which creates a similar effect. The courage shown by the various characters manipulates the audience into feeling emotionally attached to them, which makes the final scenes even more tragic and distressing. Is Titanic a cinematic masterpiece? To answer this question we need to look at what the film achieved, not only financially, but also technologically. I mentioned in my introduction about Camerons use of computer-generated imagery. Titanic set down the standard for other films to follow in this area, making groundbreaking technological advances. Camerons use of flashbacks helped link the past to the present to make the story more relevant to the audience. He used actual footage of the wreck, which meant him taking several long journeys down to the bottom of the Atlantic to film, to show us what it looks like now and he used fade-ins to show us what it looked like in its prime. The fact that this film cost $200million to produce, making it the most expensive film ever made at the time, shows how much commitment Cameron and the associated film companies made to the production. The expense was worth it as they began to see the profit rolling in as the movie hit the screens, with many of the audience going back to see it several times. This made it one of the most successful films ever, one that could challenge classic films such as Gone with the Wind as the most popular movie of all time. Titanic received record numbers of VHS sales with 15-20 million sold in the first week. I conclude that Titanic is a cinematic masterpiece. I believe that the time, effort and money that was put into the film was justified and that the final outcome is one of the greatest motion pictures ever produced. It wasnt just the cinema audiences that liked the film, it also excited the media, who gave it encouraging and complimentary reviews. I admire the film because the special effects are still, even in todays high standards, deemed to be among the best ever created, even though most of them were designed not to be noticed. I think the film was and is successful because of its combination of storylines; it has a love story but it also has action in the sinking, these are two factors that are hard to combine but when merged correctly produce dazzling results. Both parts of the film, the action and the romance, are essential in making this movie a hit with the modern cinema audiences. Titanic became a landmark film, one that other filmmakers could use as the standard that they had to work to, a standard that has rarely been breached since.

Comparison Between Novel And Film Version Of Lord Of The Flies Essays

Comparison Between Novel And Film Version Of Lord Of The Flies Essays Comparison Between Novel and Film Version of "Lord of the Flies" Raja Kundu Many novels are so successful that producers can't wait to adapt the story into a film. The majority of times, however, the original novel is much stronger than the movie because it is able to capture the emotions of each character, all the symbols and meaningful events. Due to the novel's flexibility, readers are able to extend the use of their imagination. Similarly, this was the case with William Golding's masterpiece, "The Lord of the Flies." Overall, the novel is far superior to the film because it has thorough descriptions of a character's feelings and depictions of symbolic meaning concerning the objects and important happenings. First of all, the movie version of the classic, "The Lord of the Flies," seems to be lacking in detail involving the characters. Mainly due to the limited length of the movie, a character's role and his feeling are non existent. In the novel, readers can clearly notice how Piggy feels and that he is being treated as an "Outsider" but, in the film version it restricts the audience's comprehension of Piggy's emotions. Similarly, other characters such as Simon and Roger are so unclear in the movie that they may puzzle viewers because the movie fails to distinguish their role. The cinema is unsuccessful in establishing Simon as a "Christ" figure and Roger's murderous nature. On the other hand, the novel installs all these ideas and allows the reader to use their creativity. Therefore, due to the film's inability to give audiences more information about the characters, their role and their emotions, the novel is much more informative. Secondly, the novel is capable of giving readers more insight into the story with the use of symbols and hidden meanings. The novel is able to do this because it depicts important underlying messages and critical incidents. For instance, Piggy's glasses represent civilization, reality and reason but once they are destroyed it demonstrates that the boys aren't finding reason in their actions and civilization is becoming a thing of the past. Another meaningful symbol is the dead parachutist because this suggests that some of the boys have evil within themselves and those boys are gradually becoming the "Beast." The boys are steadily turning devilish and savage like but they don't realize the consequences of their actions. One particular event which plays a significant role in the novel is Simon's death. Simon's annihilation implies that the boys have tipped the boundaries of civilization to such an extent that they can no longer recognize each other and they are killing viciously, like savages. In the novel, all these symbols and events assist in the developing of the plot but in the film version they are all very vague and leaves more to be desired. In conclusion, details involving the characters and meanings related to objects and events are the decisive factors which make the novel considerably better than the film. In addition, leaving out several aspects of the novel also limits the viewer's appreciation for the story. As long as novels continue to flourish, producers and directors will proceed to make them into movies but they should include essential elements of the story so, they too, can be successful. No wonder the novel generated more interest than the film!

Strategic Planning Process in Public Administration Essay

Strategic Planning Process in Public Administration - Essay Example Public administration encompasses reconciliation of in-built conflicts between democratic governance and administrative bureaucracy. Bureaucracies stay identical with managerial approaches established on uniform procedures, hierarchical structures and formalization that remain anonymously carried out. Management based bureaucratic strategies include planning, coordinating, controlling, directing and organizing. Public administration also involves behavior based democratic practices embraced from various fields such as sociology and remains utilized within the framework of accountability in democracy. Most notably, the field has considerably changed since the 1930s to incorporate social equity as an integral part of the government’s mission. In overall, public administration entails the formation and implementation of government or public policies. Public administration faces various complications, issues or barriers to the realization of efficient strategic planning process. A unifying set of principles remain absent in guiding practitioners while past practices remain insufficient in meeting the 21st century challenges. Hence, the intellectual framework needed to drive forward contemporary public administration as a discipline remains a necessity. It would be difficult to change laws and their cumulative effects also generate perverse outcomes. It becomes complicated to avoid rigidities accumulated over time in relation to rules, norms and laws while conserving the merit of law regimes in strategic public administration planning. Similarly, the field of public administration lags behind changes occurring in today’s practice. The internal systems of public organizations have low tolerance for risks thus making them to resist change or adapt slowly. Hence, many reforms have not brought about change leaving traditional approaches to restate themselves over time (Bourgon, 2011). The growth of non-governmental service delivery approaches such as loans , transfers, grants, tax credit and insurance comprise today’s bulk government spending. However, these approaches create a gap between service delivery and decisions on funding in the traditional accountability framework since public resources become allocated to organizations and individuals thought as could produce anticipated results. In this regard, this situation should be mitigated through the establishment of new accountability measures capable of producing desired results. The government lags behind in acting as the principal instrument in providing tangible and direct public services. As a result, complex public results cannot be achieved since public services in the present day remain increasingly intermediate, intangible and indirect. A high level of interdependence and wide dispersion of power remain increasingly uncertain in the presence of networked societies and global economy thereby adding onto the government’s responsibilities of addressing public is sues (Holmberg & Rothstein, 2012). Research activities on public administration add significance to the field’s theoretical base and literature regardless of methodologies used. This follows the fact that public administration as an applied discipline supports various research traditions. However, difference of opinions and conflict continues to exist between practitioners and scholars over the applicability and relevancy of the varying epistemic or research approaches in strategic planning. This raises questions as to whether public administration exists as a political, gendered or social construct or if reality could be an objective occurrence when undertaking strategic planning process (Riccucci, 2010). Open and

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

Lean - Essay Example The lean system puts together equipments, labor, and material that are the fundamentals of production, in a perfect manner to minimize cost and maximize profit. Labor requirement is reduced as utilization of human resource both skilled and unskilled is maximized. The model allows productivity as machines are utilized to the maximum while the less productive one are disposed. This reduces delivery and production time as well as increasing the quality of the services and goods produced. It also provides an opportunity for continuous improvement as the equipment wear out and become less productive, and is replaced with efficient ones putting into consideration the technological advancement. Return on assets is increases significantly with lean manufacturing systems. Lean production involves a traffic flow of materials and labor that is smooth thus allowing insertion of conveyors, buffer stock, and balance automation. The flexibility of the model ensures the business keep pace with the market and accommodates changes in customer preference. Review of the system helps to do a competitive analysis and examination of technologies. The importance of lean manufacturing is very crucial in business strategies to increase productivity, increase efficiency, maximizing profit and increasing capital

Pathophysiology and Current Management Practices Case Study

Pathophysiology and Current Management Practices - Case Study Example This paper outlines three differential diagnoses for a case, their respective pathophysiology and current management practices for those diagnoses. The case diagnosed in this paper is about a 62-year-old man who collapsed at a shopping center at about 10:30 am after feeling extremely dizzy. The man who is also living alone had experienced an episode of falling from stairs eight months ago without any major injury. Although the man is awake and sitting on the ground, he shows signs of drowsiness and disoriented and has difficulty in talking. The man insists on going home even though his eyes suddenly move upwards and in a few seconds he begins a seizure. The key symptoms, in this case, are drowsiness, difficulty in talking, dizziness, difficulty in talking and seizure. The history such as episodes of falling, age, time of the incident and the fact he lives alone are also crucial and important information in obtaining accurate differential diagnoses. The brain metabolism relies primari ly on glucose to supply the energy necessary for metabolism. When levels in blood drop below certain levels normally 0.55nm, subtle reduction in the mental effects of the brain occurs and results in the impairment of judgment resulting in symptoms like seizures. Small quantities of glucose can be derived from the stored glycogen within the astrocytes; however, a brain is dependent to the greater extent on the continual supply of glucose from the blood. Glucose from the blood diffuse into the interstitial cells, then into the central nervous system (CNS) and finally into the neurons. Within the CNS, energy is required for synthesis of signals and conveyance of information to the muscles. This explains the emergence of symptoms such as drowsiness, difficulty in talking, dizziness, and seizure. Generally lack of enough glucose supply to the brain would result in confusion and in severe cases, it is preceded with dizziness and drowsiness, seizure and finally, the patient can go into a c oma.

Online Travel Industry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Online Travel Industry - Essay Example In the US and Europe, the leading online travel intermediaries have taken market share from their offline counterparts. At the same time, an increase in direct sales through travel supplier's own websites has also affected the traditional agency business. The need to balance direct and indirect channels, demand for lower cost distribution and the growth in popularity of comparison shopping are all factors driving the business model for travel specific search engines globally. It is interesting to note that the online travel market is divided into two segments: leisure/unmanaged business travel and managed business travel (also known as corporate travel). The online booking behavior of unmanaged business travelers is indistinguishable from leisure travelers. Employees of the millions of small- and medium-sized corporations use the same websites as leisure travelers to book their business travel. Thus these two groups of buyers are treated as one customer segment. Study Method: It is a quantitative research based on online consumer surveys, executive surveys and market forecast models to provide essential analysis of consumer trends and marketing best practices, including customer segmentation and cross-selling strategies. Study Findings: The needs of travelers vary widely from one generation segment to another although many travel marketers are unable to plan for the specific promotional strategies to meet the distinct needs of the different generations. Among the biggest generational differences in online behavior are: Young Travelers are an online agency's best friend: Consumers of age group 18-24 spend more time on agency sites than any other generations and they have attraction for the flashy marketing campaigns of online agencies. 77% of 18-24 year old travelers use more than one agency sites. The average traveler in this age group will visit 1.7 agency sites, the highest of any generational segment. From the above graph we can clearly observe that there is an increasing trend of the younger travelers for visiting online travel agencies than the older ones. Seniors prefer booking directly: Seniors (65+) overwhelmingly favor bookings flights and hotels directly on supplier sites that offer low-rate guarantees and other perks Nearly 80% of the flights booked online by this generation are made at carrier sites, and 68% of hotel bookings are placed directly at chain sites, compared to lows of 72% and 58% for 25-34 years old Baby Boomers have an appetite for content: Baby Boomers (45-64) view the travel contents online for comparison when in-market for a trip. 40% of the content viewed is at online travel agencies, giving aggregators an advantage in influencing this segment as they research online. Study Implication: The travel companies must do the effective market research to improve online strategies to profit from this growing channel and increase the substantial share of the travel revenue. Personal Reflection: Online Travel marketers should develop contents, services, and promotions targeting specific age groups that will be ideally positioned to manage their online distribution strategies

Project proposal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Project proposal - Essay Example â€Å"In the hospitality field, not only are business transactions of the utmost importance, but so are concerns for public health and safety.† Due to the importance of practicing hospitality ethics, teaching of ethic philosophies should start right from the school. Even if philosophical lectures alone will not make students virtuous, however, they can help them think more clearly about day-to-day ethical problems with which they will be confronted in their future careers as ethical challenges remain a daily occurrence in the hospitality industry â€Å"The hospitality industry offers many examples of situations that can damage individual integrity and responsibility. One instance would be a manager's willingness to continue daily operations and preserve his job even as the resort is polluting the local environment.† Ethics should therefore extend beyond the hotel building to include the welfare of the society. â€Å"By focusing on you, your business, your products and services, your prices and your delivery, you can overcome the status quo and that is just plain good and ethical business practices.† To this end, business managers such as hotel managers should make hospitality ethics an all-inclusive concept that caters for areas such as prices, service delivery and manners. Research Rationale The way of doing business all over the world is fast changing. This change is seen more especially in the way businesses attract customers. Years past, competition in the hospitality industry for customers used to focus on who had the best facility and products. Today, the means of attracting customers seem to center more on marketing than product. As far as the hospitality industry is concerned, one of the best ways to market a business like a hotel is to embark on the massive application of hospitality ethics. Perhaps the reason why hospitality ethics seem to be receiving so much attention among customers in the hospitality industry is that ethics ar e founded based on human philosophies and theories. According to the World Lingo, â€Å"Hospitality theories and norms are derived through a critical analysis of hospitality practices, processes, and relationships; in various cultures and traditions; and throughout history. Ultimately, hospitality theories are applied, and put to practice in commercial and non-commercial settings.† This is to say that practicing simple ethics is so important to the customer that, the little gestures shown to him, can make him come back to the hotel – a real marketing strategy. Unlike before, the customer is now very conscious about how he is treated in which hotel. It is therefore not surprising that some customers select certain hotels even when they have the same facilities as other hotels and yet have expensive prices. This research seeks to examine the power of hospitality ethics on e customers of world class hotels. As a relation, there shall be critical analysis to find out if th e practice of hospitality ethics itself even has the power to raising a hotel to a world class status. This is research is achievable and because of the several avenues available to the researcher to access information from hotel users. There are also several theories that will guide the researcher in

Humanity and Global Warming Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Humanity and Global Warming - Essay Example Evidence indicates humanity's direct impact on this trend in the latter half of this century, according to the 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who base this claim on meteorological and oceanographic models. When these models - which are projected from geologic evidence of the Earth's natural history of climate change - are compared with the reality of today's climate, the difference bears a direct correlation to human output of carbon dioxide. The fossil fuels humans burn through transportation, household heating, and as a power source in general emit carbon dioxide, which in turn accumulate in the upper atmosphere and serve as a blanket by retaining solar heat. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are currently at their highest peak in the last 650,000 years (Fitzpatrick). This blanketing action is commonly referred to as the "Greenhouse effect" and is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Solar energy creates both the weather and climate, as well as warming the surface. The planet in turn reflects this heat back into outer space. The collection of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases in the atmosphere act like window panes on a green house, allowing the energy to enter, but then retaining a significant portion of the energy which allows the planet to remain at a comfortable average of 60F. The natural emission of greenhouse gases by humans has historically been counterbalanced by plant respiration and organic decomposition at a ratio of 10:1. Since the industrial revolution, however, human output of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have all grown exponentially. Compounding the problem of rising greenhouse gases, increased farming production, mining, industrial pollution, and landfills have resulted in massive deforestation, thereby sign ificantly decreasing the method by which carbon dioxide is converted back into oxygen ("Climate"). Scientists have suspected a connection between human activity and global warming since the early 1920's, yet little conclusive evidence has been observable until the 1970's, when people grew concerned that the drought in the African Sahel was slowly being encroached by the Sahara. In 1975, Jule Charney (a climate modeler) proposed that the Sahel land, which had been largely cleared of vegetation for various reasons, now contained a large amount of exposed clay, which reflected a greater amount of heat, thereby effecting the wind and rain patterns of the region. By 1988, scientists had gathered enough evidence to confirm that cleared land not only warms more than forested land, but the rise in temperature makes it all the more difficult for vegetation to return. Human activity can therefore effect the climate through small changes to an environment's balance, which sets off a progression of effects that alter the environment completely (Weart, "Biosphere"). Today, there are numerous signs of global warming: warming ocean water is altering wind patterns (which combined with the evidence of cleared land warming results in massive droughts), since the melting polar ice masses shift precipitation further away from traditional regions ("Current Science"). Natural weather disasters have increased in

Online Travel Industry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Online Travel Industry - Essay Example In the US and Europe, the leading online travel intermediaries have taken market share from their offline counterparts. At the same time, an increase in direct sales through travel supplier's own websites has also affected the traditional agency business. The need to balance direct and indirect channels, demand for lower cost distribution and the growth in popularity of comparison shopping are all factors driving the business model for travel specific search engines globally. It is interesting to note that the online travel market is divided into two segments: leisure/unmanaged business travel and managed business travel (also known as corporate travel). The online booking behavior of unmanaged business travelers is indistinguishable from leisure travelers. Employees of the millions of small- and medium-sized corporations use the same websites as leisure travelers to book their business travel. Thus these two groups of buyers are treated as one customer segment. Study Method: It is a quantitative research based on online consumer surveys, executive surveys and market forecast models to provide essential analysis of consumer trends and marketing best practices, including customer segmentation and cross-selling strategies. Study Findings: The needs of travelers vary widely from one generation segment to another although many travel marketers are unable to plan for the specific promotional strategies to meet the distinct needs of the different generations. Among the biggest generational differences in online behavior are: Young Travelers are an online agency's best friend: Consumers of age group 18-24 spend more time on agency sites than any other generations and they have attraction for the flashy marketing campaigns of online agencies. 77% of 18-24 year old travelers use more than one agency sites. The average traveler in this age group will visit 1.7 agency sites, the highest of any generational segment. From the above graph we can clearly observe that there is an increasing trend of the younger travelers for visiting online travel agencies than the older ones. Seniors prefer booking directly: Seniors (65+) overwhelmingly favor bookings flights and hotels directly on supplier sites that offer low-rate guarantees and other perks Nearly 80% of the flights booked online by this generation are made at carrier sites, and 68% of hotel bookings are placed directly at chain sites, compared to lows of 72% and 58% for 25-34 years old Baby Boomers have an appetite for content: Baby Boomers (45-64) view the travel contents online for comparison when in-market for a trip. 40% of the content viewed is at online travel agencies, giving aggregators an advantage in influencing this segment as they research online. Study Implication: The travel companies must do the effective market research to improve online strategies to profit from this growing channel and increase the substantial share of the travel revenue. Personal Reflection: Online Travel marketers should develop contents, services, and promotions targeting specific age groups that will be ideally positioned to manage their online distribution strategies

Humanity and Global Warming Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Humanity and Global Warming - Essay Example Evidence indicates humanity's direct impact on this trend in the latter half of this century, according to the 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who base this claim on meteorological and oceanographic models. When these models - which are projected from geologic evidence of the Earth's natural history of climate change - are compared with the reality of today's climate, the difference bears a direct correlation to human output of carbon dioxide. The fossil fuels humans burn through transportation, household heating, and as a power source in general emit carbon dioxide, which in turn accumulate in the upper atmosphere and serve as a blanket by retaining solar heat. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are currently at their highest peak in the last 650,000 years (Fitzpatrick). This blanketing action is commonly referred to as the "Greenhouse effect" and is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Solar energy creates both the weather and climate, as well as warming the surface. The planet in turn reflects this heat back into outer space. The collection of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases in the atmosphere act like window panes on a green house, allowing the energy to enter, but then retaining a significant portion of the energy which allows the planet to remain at a comfortable average of 60F. The natural emission of greenhouse gases by humans has historically been counterbalanced by plant respiration and organic decomposition at a ratio of 10:1. Since the industrial revolution, however, human output of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have all grown exponentially. Compounding the problem of rising greenhouse gases, increased farming production, mining, industrial pollution, and landfills have resulted in massive deforestation, thereby sign ificantly decreasing the method by which carbon dioxide is converted back into oxygen ("Climate"). Scientists have suspected a connection between human activity and global warming since the early 1920's, yet little conclusive evidence has been observable until the 1970's, when people grew concerned that the drought in the African Sahel was slowly being encroached by the Sahara. In 1975, Jule Charney (a climate modeler) proposed that the Sahel land, which had been largely cleared of vegetation for various reasons, now contained a large amount of exposed clay, which reflected a greater amount of heat, thereby effecting the wind and rain patterns of the region. By 1988, scientists had gathered enough evidence to confirm that cleared land not only warms more than forested land, but the rise in temperature makes it all the more difficult for vegetation to return. Human activity can therefore effect the climate through small changes to an environment's balance, which sets off a progression of effects that alter the environment completely (Weart, "Biosphere"). Today, there are numerous signs of global warming: warming ocean water is altering wind patterns (which combined with the evidence of cleared land warming results in massive droughts), since the melting polar ice masses shift precipitation further away from traditional regions ("Current Science"). Natural weather disasters have increased in

Portfolio Analysis Essay Example for Free

Portfolio Analysis Essay In the investment world there are many investment options to choose from, one of there investment option is the mutual fund .a mutual fund is an investment where the investors pool resources together which are then invested in securities, fixed interest stocks and money market instruments like derivatives.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The mutual funds is a professionally managed by fund managed whose sole purpose is to ensure that the returns on the invested assets are maximized to the benefits of the individual investors.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The performance of the mutual fund can be calculated by fund managers whose sole purpose is to ensure that the returns on the invested assets are maximized to the benefit of the individual investors   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The performance of the mutual fund can be calculated on a daily basis by taking the current market value of the fund and dividing it with the number of securities in the fund1 Mutual funds are usually open end company governed by the investments company act (1940) in the U. S.A Mutual funds are suitable for those high net worth individuals who are either too busy to deal personally with their investments or those investors who don’t have the investment know-how. Investors in mutual funds should have investment objectives for the mid term to long term so as to reap maximum benefits.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Some of the mutual finds include stock money market funds, hybrid funds and bond funds In the following discussion we are going to discuss dominion funds which are registered in the Guernsey   in the channel islands which is an off share country.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The dominion funds are divided in to 2 the chic fund and the x-fund. Dominion funds The company Domination Company is an investment fund management firm that is registered in the Guernsey in the Channel Islands with branch a in Switzerland.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The dominion brand is a sophisticated innovative and elegant. These attributes are in line with the business principles of the company.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The dominion fund is developed to meet the ever changing demands of the intelligent investors of today who include professional investors.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   These investors demand extra performance and excellent service from the fund manager and that is why the dominion brand was created to deliver excellent service and returns.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   To achieve this level of standards the company has companies two dominion distribution management limited branches in Guernsey and a dominion risk management S.A based in Switzerland. Funds traded The funds managed by dominion company are the x funds and chic funds Chic funds The structure of this fund is that it has the currency class of 3 major currencies (US $ EURO â‚ ¬ GBP  £) which are combined to form the fund. The fund itself is an 80% index portfolio and 20% active port folio.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   These funds managed by dominion chic fund limited which invests in diversified stock of luxury goods and services companies recognized the world over.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Apart from being available in 3 currencies an investing in luxury goods companies the funds also offer weekly prices and redemptions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The objective of this fund is the long-term capital appreciation. This is achieved by the division of the fund in to 2 passive investment –range between 80-100% of all assets invested depending on the stylish structure developed by the investment manager(blackrock merill lynch investment manager) and dominion company. The investment manager is required to manage the basic index in this investment as prescribed. Active investment- forms up to 20% and its objective is to increase the returns and volatility reduction. The active investment is also used to invest in those newly listed companies and in new luxury goods. Assets invested There is no single definition of luxury goods and service and hence the company has luxury to mean.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Those strong market brands with high innovativeness ability to chart price and supply easily forecasted growth and top class. It can also mean products and service of those companies with management, with track records.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The assets in chic fund are in the following sectors with the following geographical distribution Sector distribution  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   geographical distribution Beverages and food- 17.38%  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Europe-45.95% Accessories- 9.35%  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   asia-13.55% Apparel- 7%  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   USA -40.53% Watch, jewellery and optics- 8.04% Transport- 1% Leisure and hotels- 5.56% Sports 9.27% Retail- 3.52% Tech-18.76% Cosmetic-9.33% (http://www.dominion-funds.com/english/chic/investorsentassets.aspx) x- funds were created to utilize the returns generated by the available market based securities over the cost of sourcing funds e.g. through bank loans. The x fund have been designed to minimize the risk assonated with return of based securities and specifically for the risk and professional investors keen on getting a risk hedged investment well above average in the log term. Fund structure The fund is managed by dominion PCC limited which is a protected call company, formed in Guernsey and regulated by Guernsey financial service. Commission. It is an open ended in investment fund.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The fund is a 2 currency (euroâ‚ ¬ and US $) each containing 6 fund. The fund has 3 leveraged options. (Low to medium risk x 0) (medium risk x1) (and aggressive higher risk x 2) with 2 types of assets prudential and Norwich union with- profits funds. It also is priced weekly with monthly redemptions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   X-funds innovative investments combines with profit funds with complex credit lending thus minimizing debt usage risks in the market and at the some time the market and at the same time maximizing returns over the long term. Nature of assets Dominion x-funds are invested in the best and extensive with –profits funds. The reason why dominion has invested in there funds is that of proven unsurpassed. Past performance and their consistency which makes them reliable. In any case anyway there with profits are provided by the blue chip financial institutions in Europe.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The with profits fund that dominion x- fund invests in has the following characteristics which makes them depend able for maximum returns to the investors. with profit funds are accessed only through an insurane e policy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One of the lalyout out features of an with profit fund is that its well founded with a long investment account that even go beyond a century. They usually involve a relatively stable portfolio that includes stocks bonds property and cash. This means that with profit funds give a level of return that barely flutualesover time. It stable level of return means that the risk involved with this port folio is low.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The other reason why dominion x-fund invests in the with profit funds only over the medium to long term is because when invested only in the short periods they are usually affected by the risk of market value reduction.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   They should only be invested in the medium to long-term in order to achieve maximum capacity gains and ensure stable returns.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The assets that the dominion x- fund invests in are the generic with profits, prudential international and Norwich union international funds PCC Protected cell company – open end company- that falls under the Guernsey’s companies law ( 1994) amended and protected cell companies ordinance 1997 amended. PCC as benefits which are; Funds assets fuly utilized by fund investors alone.

Comparison Between Wimax And HSDPA

Comparison Between Wimax And HSDPA ABSTRACT: The future of wireless networks lies in the coexistence of multiple access network technologies. This paper deals with two data oriented access networks, the worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) and the high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA). HSDPA and Mobile WiMAX are two different high speed mobile technologies with distinctive backgrounds. WiMAX is based on OFDM as HSDPA is based on CDMA. INTRODUCTION: The objective of this paper is to provide a techno-economic comparison of two wireless broadband technologies, Mobile WiMAX and HSDPA. The comparison is divided into two parts. The first part is a general overview and comparison of the two technology standards. The second part describes the different releases of WiMAX and HSDPA and the market opportunities. What is WiMAX? WiMAX is the new term for IEEE 802.16 STANDARD. It is based on the wireless MAN technology. It is a communication technology that works with the radio spectrum to transmit tens of MB/sec in bandwidth between different devices like laptops. The two stimulating forces of present internet are the wireless and the broadband. The WiMAX standard joins the two high speed broadband internet access over a single wireless connection. As WiMAX can be used for long distance purposes it is a very effective way to solve the last mile problem. WiMAX would operate similar to a Wi-Fi but at higher speeds, large distance and for more number of users. WiMAX has the capability to provide service in areas which are difficult for wired infrastructure to reach and has the ability to overcome the limitations of the traditional wired infrastructure. It will provide wireless broadband access to the buildings, either to existing wired networks or in the rural areas. It can also be connected to the WLAN hotspots to the internet. Some of the characteristics of Mobile WiMAX are: Scalability: Mobile WiMAX has been framed in such a way that it is able to work in different channel BWs ranging from 1.25 to 20 MHz. High Data Rates: when Maximum Input Maximum Output (MIMO) 2*2 is used and DL: UL is in the ratio of 1:0 and 0:1 respectively, in a 10 MHz channel high data rates can theoretically support peak download data rates up to 63Mb/s per sector and peak upload data rates up to 28 Mb/s per sector. Mobility: Seamless handoff which is less than 50ms latency and Quality of Service (QoS): QoS measures for WiMAX include availability of service, throughput of data, jitter and the rate of error. WHAT IS HSDPA? High speed Downlink packet access (HSDPA) is a packet based data service feature of the WCDMA standard. In the WCDMA downlink, the data transmission is up to 8-10 Megabits/sec over a bandwidth of 5MHZ. It is sometimes referred to as a 3.5G technology. HSDPA is an advancement of the WCDMA standard which is created to increase the data rate by a factor of 5 or more. HSDPA improves on W-CDMA by using different techniques for modulation and coding. It defines a new WCDMA called high-speed downlink shared channel (HS-DSCH). That channel performs contrastingly from other channels and helps to fasten the downlink speeds. HS-DSCH is used only for the downlink communication of the mobile. That means that data is sent from the source to the phone. It isnt possible to send data from the phone to a source using HSDPA. The channel is shared between all users which lets the radio signals to be used most effectively for the fastest downloads. Multimedia: From the technical point of view the choice between voice communications in VoIP/WiMAX or WCDMA/HSDPA is a matter of taste. But not in economic terms WCDMA traffic is much costlier than VoIP traffic. For transmitting multimedia data both technologies have practically the same capacities. Both WiMAX and HSDPA have traffic prioritizing and Quality of Service. Security: The security service in a WiMAX is used by an operator to gain benefits from this service as there is always a chance of theft of service in connections, bandwidth and so on. Hence the security service is divided into two parts namely the encryption and the authentication/key derivation. WiMAX supports modern cryptographic algorithms. In HSDPA, Users are authorized by their SIM (or R-UIM) cards. HSDPA does not provide any additional security functions. Typical of all CDMA standards, data encoding for various users works better than any cryptographic algorithm, but doesnt work if an interrupter somehow gets its channels code (like special agents) or is in a base station. Whereas, in WiMAX the base station is strongly protected from management attacks and as the system is organized strongly a certificate based security is easy to deploy and is advisable. Bandwidth: When HSDPA and WiMAX are at same distance from a base station, the gain in HSDPA vs. WiMAX is not clear yet. One of the main reasons for this is WiMAX doesnt have many frequency ranges. But if HSDPA, being an evolutional step in the development of WCDMA, is getting close to the threshold of spectral efficiency, while WiMAX has many likely ways of progression such as new modulation schemes (as well combined with the old ones),MIMO(multiple-input-multiple output)and new frequency ranges (ranging from 10GHz to 66GHz). Modulation: With the use of a robust modulation scheme at long ranges with high spectral efficiency WiMAX gives tremendous throughput and also bears multipath fading. WiMAX base station interchanges throughput for range and this is allowed by the dynamic adaptive modulation. HSDPA supports 16 QAM and QPSK modulation whereas WiMAX supports QPSK, 16 QAM and 64 QAM. This implies that Mobile WiMAX supports higher order modulation than HSDPA. With 64 QAM 6 bits can be carried per symbol and thus higher data rates can be achieved.

Cyrano de Bergerac1 Essay -- Essays Papers

Cyrano de Bergerac1 The story of Cyrano de Bergerac is about a tragic love triangle it has effectively been told using a number of techniques including the Themes that arise, the Atmosphere of the film, and the Characters in the film. Love, passion, friendship, hate, jealously loyalty and death are all universal themes that arise in the film. The Themes are twisted around the characters almost like obstacles in the sense that the characters must overcome their own inner fears and accomplish the issues and challenges that they face. In Cyrano de Bergerac a lot of the themes revolve around himself and Roxanne. Cyrano's deep love for Roxanne and her love for Christian is the major theme in the film, then there is Cyrano writing poetic letters to Roxanne about Christians love for her, but deep down Cyrano is actually expressing his own feelings. He feels more comfortable writing his emotions than he does expressing them in person because he is ashamed of his oversized nose. The themes help to tell the story by presenting some conflict creating entertainment making the viewer keen to see what happens next. The Atmosphere adds to the feeling of the film, being set in a village in France with cobblestone streets and beautiful old buildings that reflect the period dress and protocol. This then creates a wonderful backdrop for love, romance, intrigue and tragedy. The setting gives the characters an area to move around in which allows them the freedom to interact with e...

Samson, Gregory, and the Herdsmen in Romeo and Juliet and Caius Marius

Samson, Gregory, and the Herdsmen in Romeo and Juliet and Caius Marius Throughout Shakespeare’s plays, there are minor characters that often occur for only one scene. These characters have a short dialogue which seems rather meaningless to the play; however, these dialogues usually foreshadow or summarize events and themes of the play. Although they have little effect on the movement of the play, they give insight into the underlying themes of the play. Comparing these minor characters and their scenes in three different versions of Romeo and Juliet (the Shakepeare edition, the Garrick edition, and Otway’s adaptation, Caius Marius) show the differences in the focus of each version. In the Shakepeare and Garrick versions, the minor characters are Samson and Gregory who appear as the play opens. In Otway’s version, the minor characters are the herdsmen in Act IV. Samson and Gregory in the Shakespeare Edition Samson and Gregory appear in Act I, Scene I of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Their playful dialogue sets the tone of the play and addresses one of its key issues, that of the feuding families. This feud leads to the fighting which takes place throughout the play, the first of which is begun by Samson and Gregory, servingmen of Capulet. In the play, most everyone has accepted the fighting between the Monatgues and Capulets, even Romeo battles, but some see the problems with the fighting while others merely fight blindly. Although Samson and Gregory both start the first brawl of the play, the two characters display the aforementioned difference of opinions on fighting. The first to speak, Samson, sees the fighting as something that he must do and he brags about his skill as a tyrant. He begins by saying, "On my word,... ...light key themes of the play. The Shakespeare version highlights the feud as a source of turmoil and distress. The Garrick, by omitting many passages, emphasizes the fighting instead of the reasoning behind the feud. The Otway, on the other hand, focuses on political strife and reflects the Exclusion Crisis and the threat of civil war in England at the time by reflecting these ideas in the feud. These small, but key passages, are important tools for gaining insight into the themes of the plays. Works Cited Canfield, J. Douglas. "Thomas Otway." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. Paula R. Backsheider. vol 80. Rochester: The Gale Group, 1989. Hedgcock, Frank A. A Cosmopolitan Actor: David Carrick and His French Friends. Buffield and Company, 1912. Wallace, John M. "Otway’s Caius Marius and the Exclusion Crisis." Modern Philology. 85 (1998): 363-372.

Schoolhouse or Home School

What do George Washington and the Hanson brothers have in common? Do you give up? Well, the answer is that both of them were educated in their homes. Queen Elizabeth, Thomas Edison, and Theodore Roosevelt were also educated at home. According to the Home Education Research Institute, 1.5 million students are staying home for class today. This number is five times more than ten years ago (Kantrow and Wingert 66). This trend leads to many questions. Does home school education work? Do students receive a proper education? How does a home school student†s education compare to that of public school student? Does home schooling isolate a child socially? These questions are concerns of parents, educators, and politicians alike. The future of America rests on the academic and social education of our youth, and home school education should be considered as an effective alternative to public school education. In the past, parents mainly chose to educate their children at home because of religious preference. These parents viewed the public school system as a source of negative influence on children. Violence, sex, drugs, and peer pressure were influences these parents sought to avoid. However, today parents have other reasons for home school education, which primarily all point to a lackluster public school system. Other reasons include a desire to build a strong family closeness, safety, and a handful of parents chose home school for their children because of special needs such as disabilities or special talents. However, no matter how good the reasons, the home school education system must prove to be an acceptable alternative to public schools. There are many advantages to giving a student a home school education. First, parents can make direct decisions concerning what their children are taught. According to the Home School Statistics and Reports in 1997, written by founder and President Dr. Brian D. Ray, seventy-one percent of the parents who educate their children hand pick the curriculum from a variety of books, videos, and educational manuals. Another twenty-three percent order entire cirriculum packages (Ray 14). With the technology of today, parents have an unlimited source for information via the Internet, which can be easily integrated in home school education. The study also shows the education level of the parent supervising and administering the curriculum has little or no effect on the quality of education received by a student. Home-educated students whose parents did not have college degrees scored equally high on tests compared to students whose parents had college degrees(Ray 56). In addition to students† own parents teaching them, groups are formed among home school families. These groups allow students to be taught a variety of subjects by different parents that have a better understanding of subjects such as algebra, chemistry, and biology. These groups also take field trips, participate in sports, and do volunteer projects together. Another advantage of home schooling is the quality of education received by the student. How do home school students compare with public school students? This is a very important question to answer, but the answer can never be a concrete one. However all of the research I did shows that students educated in their homes have an equal or higher level of academic skills compared to the public school students. In the 1997 and 1998 ACT test scores, home school students averaged a score of 23; meanwhile the public school students averaged a score of 21(Farris 8). Also, on nationally standardized achievement exams home students again outscored public school students by at least thirty percentile points(Ray 7). While these numbers can†t truly reflect the comparison, an equal percentage of students from both groups seek college education(Ray 9). The government on all levels faces problems concerning the public school system. Funding for schools tops the problem list; local school boards and city governments are continuously fighting for tax proposals, meanwhile students in the schools suffer because of poor facilities and low salaries for teachers. The cost for taxpayers to send one student to a public school for one year is approximately $5325, while a home school student costs a parent $546 per year (Ray 11). Could an increase in home schools cut taxes? Could the money allotted for education now be used more effectively if there were fewer students? Maybe or maybe not, but if fewer students were in public schools, the chances of giving the public school student a better educational environment would increase. Many people who oppose home school programs claim interactions with other children at school are vital to their education. However, this argument usually does not work because parents who home school do not want to release their children into the negative influences that infect the public school system. After an interview with Beverly Decateau, a mother who taught her children at home for over seven years; I found that home school students participate in equally as many or more activities than public school students do. Her children and many others she knew of were active in church groups, Four-H groups, sports teams, and dance squads. All of these activities can be considered social interactions. I don†t believe the public school system has a responsibility to socialize students; that job belongs to parents. In a public school system, some students can be pinpointed and teased, and these images can damage children for life. Despite the several advantages of the home school system, many people still oppose home schooling. Home school students may not miss interactions with other students, but they will miss the experience. Certain experiences at school are considered an important part of the American way of life. Public school students will never forget experiencing homeroom parties, pep rallies, and finding classes on the first day of high school. Can a home school student†s experience compare? Probably not, but to what importance these experiences play in the education and socialization skills of a student depends on each individual student. Home school education can cause problems among children and parents. Children who have parents constantly looking over their shoulders may have difficulty breaking away from home to attend college or enter the workplace. Children might also have trouble respecting their own parent as an educator, and this lack of respect may have a negative effect on the student†s education. In order for home school education to work, the parents must be willing to sacrifice time and patience above and beyond the average parents. The parents must also be willing to give up their own careers for the future of their children. Furthermore, not all children can be successful home school students. The children must be able to make friends in informal settings, and see home school education as a way of exploring different avenues of learning. Not everyone can educate their children at home, but the more students who can receive a solid education at home would improve the education given to students at public schools. Fewer students would lead to smaller classrooms where higher paid teachers could give more attention to public school students. Funds and taxes could be used more effectively because there would be fewer students to accommodate. In the future we should support home school programs and public school education to interact with each other for the benefit of all students. Regardless of where the education of America†s youth takes place, it is vital that parents have a major role in the education of their children in order to build strong families and a strong America.

How to Adapt Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” for Film

The two existing adaptations of Herman Melville’s short story â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener,† released in 1970 and 2001, show two legitimate interpretations of this dense, strange story. The 1970 version, starring John McEnrey as Bartleby, elects to prioritize the drabness of Bartleby’s laconic take on life in its color palette and generally dreary atmosphere. The more recent adaptation, starring Crispin Glover in the titular role, is more comic and, in the parlance of our times, â€Å"screwball† in its portrayal of office life.Such an interpretation seems closer to the text for me: while Melville’s story is profoundly sad, this sadness is not a uniform, blanketing affect, falling like Joyce’s snow over the living and the dead, but the failure of even comedy to overcome the characters’ alienation from themselves and each other. Melville’s tale is strange, and as such it calls for a strange adaptation to make it fit on the silver screen. What continues to be amiss in these adaptations is that Melville’s story is about misunderstanding Bartleby, yet both adaptations aim to understand Bartleby.The pathos of the tale, which in its literary form instantiates itself in the relationship between the reader and the text, is lost when a film version purports to offer mimetic verity. The reader of â€Å"Bartleby† is made to feel that she has missed something, that there is some clue to the secret of Bartleby and â€Å"Bartleby† that has been overlooked and which would resolve the pervading feeling of dislocation. In a crude sense, Bartleby represents the very incapacity of language to say what it means to say–that it always says too much and too little, and that even a simple mantra like â€Å"I prefer not to† can become opaque if we look too closely.Any interpretation of â€Å"Bartleby† will fall into this trap to some extent, of offering a definition of what is essentially n ebulous. To circumvent this problem, I propose the same tactic that Melville employs in his framing of â€Å"Bartleby. † Rather than focusing on the titular character, the film should focus on the story’s narrator, the lawyer who will become Bartleby’s boss. After all, what we learn from reading this story is that a name does not tell us who someone is, but misdirects us into the illusion of knowledge.The word â€Å"Bartleby† remains an enigma, and the attached epithet–†the Scrivener†Ã¢â‚¬â€œfurther obscures the â€Å"real† Bartleby that this story invites us to seek. Bartleby’s job as a scrivener is seemingly the least interesting, unique, or existentially relevant fact to know about him, and yet this is what we are misled by the title into defining him by. The narrator, on the other hand, is unnamed throughout. While Bartleby is anomic in the existential sense, he does at least have a name.The narrator, who generally fit s in well with the boring injustice of his socio-economic position, is anomic in that he does not have a name. If â€Å"Bartleby† is in some way a cultural critique, and it is hard not to think so, then this is the man who we should focus on to make him claim a name for himself. Bartleby’s name gives the reader and and people around him a false sense of knowledge of him, as does his identification as â€Å"scrivener†Ã¢â‚¬â€œas if a rote task could actually define him. The weapon of naming should be turned back on the class who is entitled to wield it.Giving a name to the narrator is not the solution to this problem, as that would repress the whole issue of the name. Instead, the film should be framed as an implicit challenge to the narrator to find his name and reveal it, to pick a fixed location in the world of words where he can be found and confronted. (This is similar to the protocol of protesters who ask for police badge numbers so that there is accountabil ity for police actions. ) This need not be an overtly or clumsily militant film.The demand that the narrator name himself cannot be proclaimed literally by the film without adding an additional interlocutor, perhaps the filmmaker as documentarian, and this would only redouble the economy of the shield of namelessness. This would almost be worse, since it would decenter the mechanism of namelessness from the dominant class–where it can at least be located to some extent in the sole nameless character of the narrator–and make it into a roving weapon for all parties vying for power. Rather, we should remember that film can function without gimmickry as a demand for characters to name themselves.The characters in Little Miss Sunshine are all suffering from disparate types of personal flux and the film comes to a conclusion when they are able to define themselves through their relationship as a family. What we have here are actually two forms of social policing that need to be clearly articulated for the purposes of effective translation between literature and film. Literature operates in the domain of words, and so its dominant procedure is naming; film operates in the domain of image (as well as sound, but the eye is the vastly dominant organ for human perception) and its dominant procedure is the gaze.So while Melville’s text puts pressure on the narrator to reveal his name if he truly wants to be Bartleby’s comrade, rather than his patron, we need to switch methods for film adaptation and focus the gaze on the narrator. Simply by looking at him we pose the film question analogous to revealing his name. Appropriately enough, an excellent example of this technique can be found in the television show The Office. The character Michael Scott, a low level manager played by Steve Carell, is shown to be a buffoon just by showing him.With different editing–removing his gaffes, inappropriate pauses and laughter, and the apathetic and un inspired responses of the employees he manages–he could appear to be confident and in control. The persistence of looking determines the difference in social perception. I would support using a camera technique similar to that of The Office in which camera movement between characters often supplants cuts so as to give the effect of the camera belonging to a person in the room.This technique would not be used quite as aggressively as on The Office–characters in my version of â€Å"Bartleby† would not look or speak directly into the camera, nor would there be out of sequence cuts to characters’ interviews or commentary. A mobile camera, both moving between characters during dialogue, and following characters when they are walking, would help to prevent this from becoming a visually boring adaptation (a dangerous temptation for a movie about people stuck inside doing repetitive labor).At the same time, this camera technique would also reveal that this place and this job are boring. Cuts to close-ups obscure the alienation of the figure in his office landscape and falsely re-face persons who professional context de-faces. Coupling this camera technique with the above mentioned preference for showing the narrator and ignoring Bartleby would add an extra layer of visual intrigue, even suspense, as Bartleby would only appear sporadically, incidentally, contingent on his relevance to other characters.Although I would not want to entirely mimic the cinematography of The Office, one thematic element that informs both the style of the television show and my production of â€Å"Bartleby† is the camera as confessional. The demand for a name as the opening for confession creates a stylistic tension: on the one hand, to depict a figure against its ground asks for a wide angle shot that minimizes the proportion of character to environment; on the other hand, the visual poetics of the confession work best when the face of the individual is hi ghly legible.This legibility is one of the oldest criteria of the confession. Without being able to read the face, the veracity of the confession is uncertain; it might be a feint. So when the narrator is interacting with other characters, we would use a wide shot that would pan between them as they took turns speaking, catching Bartleby almost by accident in the marginal, in-between-space, that happens to exist within the zone of the camera’s movement. When the narrator is agonizing over his problematic relationship with Bartleby, the job of the camera is to listen closely and to watch him closely.The internal monologue, the narration as heard/read by the reader, would be performed as spoken monologues that provide dramatic action during the actionless life of the narrator–as he walks the streets of New York or sits at his desk. To reinforce Bartleby’s marginalization, these internal monologues (in Melville’s text) could be performed in Bartleby’s presence to emphasize his non- or quasi-existence. As far as color palette, a unified scheme would help to portray â€Å"Bartleby† as a story about analyzing a single form of consciousness, and hence not guided by the mimetics of realism.Heavy monochromaticism through tinting the film stock is a bit too heavy handed. I think a very light use of a gray-scale filter would be beneficial, but to really capture the horror of â€Å"Bartleby† the muted light and gray-scale lifestyle should be immanent in the mise en scene and costuming. By dressing all the characters and their surroundings in similar colors their alienation is made apparent by the absurdity of them all appearing like chameleons in a colorless environment.Turkey, Ginger Nut, and Nippers, Bartleby’s co-workers, have powerful distinguishing traits that Melville comically exaggerates, and these caricatured personalities appear best against an equally caricatured ground. With everything draped in unending gray, small colorful details could easily mark the personality of these character–as well as marking how ludicrous it is to think that personhood can be signified by the single note characteristics that Melville uses to mark these apart.The soundscape of this film would take after the blurred, mechanically processed effects of Jacques Tati’s Playtime. This would help to take the magic out of Bartleby’s somewhat famous mantra, â€Å"I would prefer not to. † Nothing would be worse than for a fetishist of Melville to be waiting breathlessly for the story’s catch phrase, to construe this refusal of everything (including refusal) as a catchphrase. The narrator does not truly pay attention to Bartleby when he first begins to defer activity because this deferral is virtually unthinkable.In the manner of the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, refusal to participate in capitalism almost conceptually impossible for the narrator to process. Bartleby’s proclamatio n originates almost entirely out of mind, sight, and hearing. But as the narrator is forced to notice that work is not being done, he and the directionality of the microphones close in on the source of the trouble. Bartleby is saying something very strange: he would prefer not to.In giving attention to Bartleby’s speech it is important to register his words as they occur to/within the consciousness of the narrator. The audio is not supposed to suddenly begin listening to Bartleby as if he is a messianic figure (as he has been construed in the past) but to take note that his deferral has become a (troubling) object of thought for the narrator. The narrator’s responses would always be louder than Bartleby’s words, except when he is repeating them to himself later, fitfully.