Logic and perception to knowledge Essay

Knowledge is a theoretical or practical understanding of information, in a particular subject. In order to obtain this understanding; one may use the various processes. Perception and logic are both tools for acquiring knowledge. Without the invaluable tools of logic and perception, in many cases, the conclusions, understandings, interpretations and lessons gained through knowledge may be unattainable. Perception is defined as a mental consciousness, a way of intuitive understanding, regarding, or interpreting knowledge. Perception is broken down into two methods, subjective and objective. From this, we can see the value of perception as it creates a connection from information to knowledge. Humans use perception to interpret knowledge from one’s individual perspective using emotion, and opinion. Perception is crucial for determining an individual’s knowledge of the subject at hand. Perception allows for various interpretations of a piece of information as each individual has different insights on a single subject. This is valuable in the world of obtaining knowledge as it creates contradictions between individual’s perceptions which leads to further exploration within a subject and thus bringing out all perceivable conclusions from the subject. For example, in the world of business, people meet and discuss a topic and draw conclusions as each party perceives the idea at hand. This is essential for proving knowledge and portraying the concept to others and thus exploiting the importance and value of perception to knowledge. Logic is defined a way of thinking or explaining something and enables one to take information and employ it as useful knowledge. From the definition itself, we can see the link from logic to knowledge as it has great value in understanding information. Logical thought is broken down into two methods; induction and deduction. The base of deductive logic is comprised of part A, B, and C. Fundamentally; all information processed trough deductive logic goes through this process. If A and B are true, then C must be true. For example, if two pieces of information are presented, A: All people are mortal, and B: I am a human, and this is processed through logical deduction, one can determine that C: I am mortal. This process is employed through more complex information; however it is extremely important and valuable in creating knowledge from information. The other form of logic is induction. Induction is comprised of simple methodology, but it often creates a degree of uncertainty. New knowledge through induction is created by taking past events and occurrences and creating new knowledge. For example if every time I walk through Middle Inglis, no body is ever there, I can, using inductive logic deduce that no one lives there. I have taken past occurrences and processed them through logic and determined new information. Logically, I have determined that in order to create or realize new knowledge using facts and information, one must employ the various tools to do so. As, new knowledge is constantly desired, the value and use of perception and logic is ubiquitous.

Look Back in Anger Themes

Major Themes The Angry Young Man Osborne's play was the first to explore the theme of the â€Å"Angry Young Man. † This term describes a generation of post-World War II artists and working class men who generally ascribed to leftist, sometimes anarchist, politics and social views. According to cultural critics, these young men were not a part of any organized movement but were, instead, individuals angry at a post-Victorian Britain that refused to acknowledge their social and class alienation. Jimmy Porter is often considered to be literature's seminal example of the angry young man.Jimmy is angry at the social and political structures that he believes has kept him from achieving his dreams and aspirations. He directs this anger towards his friends and, most notably, his wife Alison. The Kitchen Sink Drama Kitchen Sink drama is a term used to denote plays that rely on realism to explore domestic social relations. Realism, in British theater, was first experimented with in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by such playwrights as George Bernard Shaw. This genre attempted to capture the lives of the British upper class in a way that realistically reflected the ordinary drama of ruling class British society. Related article: Eric Bartels My Problem With Her AngerAccording to many critics, by the mid-twentieth century the genre of realism had become tired and unimaginative. Osborne's play returned imagination to the Realist genre by capturing the anger and immediacy of post-war youth culture and the alienation that resulted in the British working classes. Look Back in Anger  was able to comment on a range of domestic social dilemmas in this time period. Most importantly, it was able to capture, through the character of Jimmy Porter, the anger of this generation that festered just below the surface of elite British culture.Loss of Childhood A theme that impacts the characters of Jimmy and Alison Porter is the idea of a lost childhood. Osborne uses specific examples — the death of Jimmy's father when Jimmy was only ten, and how he was forced to watch the physical and mental demise of the man — to demonstrate the way in which Jimmy is forced to deal with suffering from an ear ly age. Alison's loss of childhood is best seen in the way that she was forced to grow up too fast by marrying Jimmy. Her youth is wasted in the anger and abuse that her husband levels upon her.Osborne suggests that a generation of British youth has experienced this same loss of childhood innocence. Osborne uses the examples of World War, the development of the atomic bomb, and the decline of the British Empire to show how an entire culture has lost the innocence that other generations were able to maintain. Real Life In the play, Jimmy Porter is consumed with the desire to live a more real and full life. He compares this burning desire to the empty actions and attitudes of others. At first, he generalizes this emptiness by criticizing the lax writing and opinions of those in the newspapers.He then turns his angry gaze to those around him and close to him, Alison, Helena, and Cliff. Osborne's argument in the play for a real life is one in which men are allowed to feel a full range o f emotions. The most real of these emotions is anger and Jimmy believes that this anger is his way of truly living. This idea was unique in British theater during the play's original run. Osborne argued in essays and criticisms that, until his play, British theater had subsumed the emotions of characters rendering them less realistic. Jimmy's desire for a real life is an attempt to restore raw emotion to the theater. Sloth in British CultureJimmy Porter compares his quest for a more vibrant and emotional life to the slothfulness of the world around him. It is important to note that Jimmy does not see the world around him as dead, but merely asleep in some fundamental way. This is a fine line that Osborne walks throughout the play. Jimmy never argues that there is a nihilism within British culture. Instead, he sees a kind of slothfulness of character. His anger is an attempt to awaken those around him from this cultural sleep. This slothfulness of emotion is best seen in the relation ship between Alison and Cliff. Alison describes her relationship with Cliff as â€Å"comfortable. They are physically and emotionally affectionate with each other, but neither seems to want to take their passion to another level of intimacy. In this way, their relationship is lazy. They cannot awaken enough passion to consummate their affair. Jimmy seems to subconsciously understand this, which is the reason he is not jealous of their affection towards one another. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire The character of Colonel Redfern, Alison's father, represents the decline of and nostalgia for the British Empire. The Colonel had been stationed for many years in India, a symbol of Britain's imperial reach into the world.The Edwardian age which corresponded to Britain's height of power, had been the happiest of his life. His nostalgia is representative of the denial that Osborne sees in the psyche of the British people. The world has moved on into an American age, he argues, and the people of the nation cannot understand why they are no longer the world's greatest power. Masculinity in Art Osborne has been accused by critics of misogynistic views in his plays. Many point to Look Back in Anger  as the chief example. These critics accuse Osborne of glorifying young male anger and cruelty towards women and homosexuals.This is seen in the play in specific examples in which Jimmy Porter emotionally distresses Alison, his wife, and delivers a grisly monologue in which he wishes for Alison's mother's death. Osborne, however, asserts that he is attempting to restore a vision of true masculinity into a twentieth century culture that he sees as becoming increasingly feminized. This feminization is seen in the way that British culture shows an â€Å"indifference to anything but immediate, personal suffering. † This causes deadness within which Jimmy's visceral anger and masculine emotion is retaliation against.

Music theatre history Essay

Miss Saigon is the tenth-longest running Broadway Musical in music theatre history, according to Hernandez (2009). Such was its success that it has toured all over the world since its opening day in April 1991 (Broadway Musical Home n. d. ). The plot of the play is simple enough, a Marine fell in love with a young Vietnamese call girl while in Vietnam, serving in the Vietnam war (Music Theatre International n. d. ). He fathers her child but does not discover it until a few years later when he has another family from coming back to America (Music Theatre International n. d. ). In the play, he was forced to choose between his legal wife and the woman he loves (Music Theatre International n. d. ). The composer of the songs in the musical is Claude-Michel Schonberg, the lyricists are Alain Boubil and Richard Maltby Jr. and the librettists are Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boubil (Broadway Musical Home n. d. ). My experience Over a decade ago, I was fortunate enough to watch a production of Miss Saigon on Broadway with the original casts. These casts were: Hinton Battle, Barry K. Bernal, Liz Callaway, Kam Cheng, Willy Falk, Jonathan Pryce, Lea Salonga. I understand that Salonga and Pryce are Olivier and Tony award winners for their performances as Kim (the Vietnamese girl) and the Engineer (the pimp) for this musical. Back then, I was so overwhelmed by the production. I thought the cast was fantastic; Salonga was so good, so very convincing as Kim. She had such a powerful voice, constant and unwavering, so pleasant to listen to. I was perhaps 10 or 11 when I saw that original production on Broadway, and it was an amazing experience. At the time, I could not fully comprehend the seriousness of the issues being tackled in the script. I just knew I liked listening to the songs and I bought a CD to remember the play. When I was vacationing in Houston, Texas last February, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to see Miss Saigon again. I do not quite remember the Broadway actors who have played it, and to be honest, I have did not pay close attention, I simply wanted to see the reproduction of that Broadway play I remember from long ago. A quick search on Google tells me that this reproduction played at The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts was directed by Bruce Lumpkin. Kim, is played by Melinda Chua, Chris (the Marine) is played by Eric Kunze and Joseph Anthony plays the Engineer (BWW News Desk 2010). Having listened to the original cast’s CD of the play, the new cast fell short of the vocal prowess I have come to love. As such, I was underwhelmed by the casting and their singing despite their respective accomplishments in their craft. Salonga was just too strong a performer for me and her voice was perfect, in my opinion. The songs â€Å"Sun and Moon† and â€Å"Last Night of the World† did not have the certain charm they used to have with that reproduction’s performance. What I am thankful for for this reviewing is that I fully understand now what Miss Saigon is all about. I remember the story from memory and I knew it had a tragic ending. However, this second watching of the film helped open my eyes to the grave issues involved in the play. First, it talked about the horrors that war can do, especially to the innocent. Kim was orphaned because of the war and being an orphan forced her to work in a night club where all sorts of horror can be imagined. A third world country like Vietnam, would not miss the chance to serve the enemy for some good money. One particular scene that was intriguing for me was during the opening acts when the girls at the night club were competing to be Miss Saigon, the winner will be auctioned off to a Marine and the winner of such contest begged the Marine she was auctioned to to take her back to America, where she can live a better life. The Marine there refused. It shows how America is such the dream land for the third world country people. America that was their enemy in the war, who was killing their men in its continuous search for imperialism. Kim, in that night club met Chris, another Marine. Kim and Chris spent the night together, Chris was touched by the innocence of Kim and he tried to give her money so she can get away from the night club. Kim did not accept the money, even for her fee for spending a night with Chris. She was a virgin and she did not accept the money because, essentially she liked the experience and perhaps because she was developing feelings for Chris. Basically, Kim and Chris fell in love but Chris had to leave but before leaving he promised Kim that he will come back and marry her. This of course, did not happen because of a series of events that thwarted their love. Chris married another woman and before the play ended, he was forced to choose between Kim and his wife, he chose his wife. Kim committed suicide and such was the ending to this wonderful musical play. Such love story was poignant, evoking feelings of melancholy. References: BWW News Desk. (2010). TUTS Announces Their MISS SAIGON Cast, Show Opens 2/9. BroadwayWorld. com – Dallas. Retrieved 21 July 2010 from http://dallas.broadwayworld. com/article/TUTS_Announces_Their_MISS_SAIGON_Cast_Show_Opens_29_20100115 Broadway Musical Home. (n. d. ). Miss Saigon. Retrieved 21 July 2010 from http://www. broadwaymusicalhome. com/shows/misssaigon. htm Hernandez, E. (2009). Long Runs on Broadway. Playbill. com. Retrieved 21 July 2010 from http://www. playbill. com/celebritybuzz/article/75222-Long-Runs-on-Broadway Music Theater International. (n. d. ). Miss Saigon. Retrieved 21 July 2010 from http://www. mtishows. com/show_detail. asp? showid=000156

Identify and Explain foreign subsidiary transactions and how Essay

Identify and Explain foreign subsidiary transactions and how determination of functional currency affects group profit for Qantas - Essay Example 2) Maintenance and overhauling cost of each subsidiary is shown in their financial statement as opposed to financial statement of parents. Each subsidiary is likely to incur this cost based on their need for maintenance. This is also based on the underlying principle of matching concept whereby each subsidiary (JETSAR) recognizes the revenue it earns from freight and air passengers it is necessary to match the maintenance cost incurred against the revenue earned. Qantas Ltd cannot undertake the transaction as this would result in bearing expenses for revenue that has not been earned by the parent company. 3) External segment tours and travel revenue of Jetstar would be recorded in the subsidiaries books of account (Qantas, 2010). This is the revenue that does not contain any inter group transaction (that are automatically eliminated in the consolidated statements) but rather pertains to sales made to external customers (Hodge, 2009). This segment is not targeted by Qantas Limited and revenue arises as a result of operations conducted by Jetstar Pacific. The business reason for this transaction not being undertaken by Qantas Ltd is that Jetstar is essentially targeting its flight at different routes in order to maximize cost saving for the entire group such as undertaking the route to New Zealand. The revenue principally arises as a result of operations undertaken by Jetstar and thus are recorded in subsidiaries books. The functional currency is defined as the currency of the primary economic environment in which the entity operates (Hodge, 2009). If the functional currency of the subsidiary of Qantas Limited is Australian dollar (AUD) then the subsidiaries financial statements would involve the statement of Assets and liabilities, revenue and income in the Australian dollar only. If the subsidiary has a functional currency other than the Australian dollar for example the American dollar

Healthy people discussion Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Healthy people discussion - Coursework Example Generally, the HP 2020 is focused at attaining longer lives that is free of avoidable diseases while maintaining high quality health (Fielding, Kumanyika & Manderscheid, 2013). The HP 2010 strengths include processes that are data driven, measurable objectives and targets, and diversity in its usage. However the HP 2020 was different in wording as a result of diversity of organizations and individuals. This is evident in the determinant framework, electronic and ecological approach utilized. This means that the HP 2020 was more focused in developing objectives addressing the link between health status and the above factors (Fielding et al., 2013). The goals have changed in order to improve the lives and health quality offered to individuals. The changes in HP 2020 were influenced by different societal aspects. For instance, the HP 220 was focused on the ability to coordinate tribal, state, national and local attributes. The other societal issue that influenced change in the HP 2020 is the increase of population of people from different races. Improving the health utility highly influenced the changes in the

The War on Drugs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The War on Drugs - Essay Example r on Drugs is a combined effort at the prohibition and stoppage of drugs into the United States, involving various military operations, financial expenditures, and propaganda initiatives to change the social attitude regarding the acceptability of drug consumption. Such programs include the renowned Just Say No campaign, most familiar from the 1980s, which involved teaching children the dangers of drug use (Rogers & Blackstone, 2003). Further, as part of the international initiative to halt drug trafficking in the U.S., the military implemented Operation Just Cause which involved the 1989 invasion of Panama due to alleged reports that Panamas leadership was heavily responsible for drug movements into the United States (Rogers & Blackstone). However, outside of the activities being conducted every year by the government to prevent drug use, it is important to identify that despite these high financial expenditures, drug use and drug-related problems continue to escalate in the U.S. One sociological professional argues that the War on Drugs campaign has provided illegal drugs with heavier, however unintended, marketing and promotion, allowing society to become far too knowledgeable about drug movements thus they are more apt to consume them (Henslin, 2003). Engraining the existence of drugs, according to the author, into the social consciousness is what is believed to be the reason as to why drug use continues to climb domestically. Of course, Henslins viewpoint on the War on Drugs only represents a singular opinion, however statistics illustrate that drug convictions related to the movement and consumption of illegal substances has risen by nearly 20% since 2001 (Rogers & Blackstone). This should raise the question in the minds of the American populace as to whether these state and federal billions are being spent appropriately, as it appears that the War on Drugs is not making any significant impact on drug trafficking and consumption. Further, it is estimated

Economic growth in China and its impact on American economy Essay - 1

Economic growth in China and its impact on American economy - Essay Example The developed nations have understood that after the implementation of the quota free regime, the Republic of China has captured and secured major share of the industrial and production activities. The Golden Age of the China started soon after its amalgamation with World Trade Organization. The membership of World trade Organization has been of economic and industrial benefits for the country. Secondly, the normalization of the Communist China’s diplomatic relationship with United States, have further boosted the momentum of Chinese economic activities. These two events are important because they signify the recognition of Chinese economy by United States and the world economic community as an equal partner. Since its membership, the country has become an important member of the world economic community and plays an important role in the global economy. The partnership with WTO has increased the scope of China’s market for international trade and investment, and has opened up the World economy for unrestricted China’s exports. Economic analysts have viewed the so far progress positively, and considered it as a positive force for China’s economic development, however others believed that the competition of foreign imports and foreign enterprises in China might destroy important domestic enterprises in China’s agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors. WTO membership will hasten the relative decline of the agricultural sector and the relative rise of service sectors dealing with financial services and telecommunication. Secondly, the state sector will decline relatively to the non-state sectors and efficiency in Chinese enterprises will increase with foreign competition when tariffs are lowered and foreign firms can enter the Chinese market. Although the concerns of the analysts have come up to be true, however the Chinese government’s investment friendly policy and availability of local, cheap and skilled labor

Japans Cultural Analysis through Hofstedes Dimensions Term Paper

Japans Cultural Analysis through Hofstedes Dimensions - Term Paper Example However, Japanese are still less hierarchical than their Asian counterparts and believe in joint decision making to some extent (Geert Hofstede n.d). Individualism/collectivism: this dimension measures the extent of â€Å"I† or â€Å"We† prevailing in the society. In Japan, collectivism is at a high which characterizes harmony, coordination, group efforts, consensus and mutual sharing. Japanese are, however, less collectivist than Chinese. Masculinity/femininity: this dimension tells about quality vs. quantity of life preferred by people in a society. Japan depicts a very high score of 95 which means Japanese are highly masculine- they prefer success, ambitions, competition, and excellence over coordination, consensus, care and overall quality of life (Geert Hofstede n.d). Uncertainty avoidance: future is unknown. Uncertainty avoidance measures whether people in a society try to bind it or let it happen the way it is supposed to. Japan is one of the nations having the highest score of uncertainty avoidance. Japanese tend to control the future through planning, precautions, and regulations and are always wary of the unknown. They study and analyze risk factors in great detail before commencing upon anything. Long-term/short-term orientation: it is a time-based point-of-view towards the achievement of goals and results. Japanese score 80 here which means they are long-term oriented and invest heavily in real-estate and properties to secure their future. They believe in virtues, steadiness of results over time and generations serving the society at large. Canada, unlike Japan, is a country with lower PDI score which means inequalities in power distribution are perceived lesser than that of Japan’s. People respect the status and authority and accept the distribution (Geert Hofstede n.d). Canadians are relaxed when ambiguities and uncertainties are talked of. They suit their laws and regulations with the situations and do not panic; unlike Japanese who always carry a detailed list of rules and risks before doing anything.

Cold War Politics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Cold War Politics - Essay Example Calling war a ‘savage human behavior’ the general reiterates the importance of establishing an effective security policy; a term that obviously cannot be used interchangeably with a ‘war policy’. It should be noted that a security policy does not necessarily act as a cause of war. In fact, war is decided by the quality of interaction between nations and their eagerness to reach an agreement. (p. 209) General Marshall makes allusions to the World War II to elaborate upon this aspect however, the most interesting point remains that he describes the institution of war from the perspective of Germany and Japan only; the very nations that constituted the opposing side of the Second World War. He states that war is the doctrine of Japan and Germany; the people, who he believes have given a lot of thought to this. Though, his speech was meant to shed light on the lessons that the United States learned as a result of the Second World War, however, comically enough the first half of the speech sounds more or less like an attack on the central powers; the side that not only suffered a humiliating defeat in the great war but were also heavily penalized. Though, the penalty is nothing compared to the number of lives that were lost but stigmatizing an entire nation does nothing to help either. General Marshall seeks to get approval to shape their military strategy and security policy as a mode of protecting America and its citizens from aggressive nations such as Germany and Japan. He makes several statements that not only implicate Japan and Germany as the sole perpetrators of war but also portrays America as a helpless nation. This aspect of Marshall’s speech depicts that the history of war is in fact framed by its victors that largely portray themselves as the innocent party.

The Road, Cormac Mccarthy Essay Example for Free

The Road, Cormac Mccarthy Essay The Road by Cormac McCarthy Rotted corpses. Landscapes devastated by fire. Abandoned towns and houses. In the post-apocalyptical novel, The Road, Cormac McCarthy explores the perseverance of a man and his son to survive in an obliterated world. He demonstrates that in spite of devastating conditions and dismal surroundings, goodness prevails over evil and an inherent goodness is present in humanity and the â€Å"good guy† no matter how dire the circumstances. Most importantly, the goodness portrayed, comes out of love. The man and the boy in this story are never named because the represent general humanity. If people , humans are provided with a reason to do the right thing, love, children, family, they will do whatever it takes. A parent will do completely unreasonable things to help, save their children out of love. He really doesn’t care what he has to do to keep his son alive – he would (and in fact did) murder a man for posing a threat to his son’s life. In page 76 of the book, the father tells the boy: â€Å"You wanted to know what the bad guys looked like. Now you know. It may happen again. My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you. Do you understand? † The lives of the man and the boy truly are worst-case scenarios. How many times have we wondered at one point or another in our lives if we’d be willing to take a bullet to the head or kill someone for our families’ or loved ones’ sake? These characters have been placed in that exact situation. They live in a post-apocalyptic world where human beings have been stripped to their core and have been driven to extremes by their innate need to survive, and they are no exception. The father is carrying out all those â€Å"what ifs† – he is doing what he must to keep his son safe. Truly, the only thing that keeps them going is their love for one another. â€Å"A symbol of the goodness in human perseverance and hope is the fire that the father assures his son they carry. As a good guy, the man and the boy carry the fire internally, meaning that they strive to live under all circumstances. † â€Å"The man does not consider acting violently in defense of his sons survival evil. Yet, what makes this choice more praiseworthy than the choices of the people who kill and even cannibalize others in order to survive? † Truck event: The difference between the father’s actions and the actions of the other people mentioned is that the father committed murder to preserve his son’s life, something he holds dear. This is a just cause. However, the violent acts committed by the aforementioned people were generally for self gain. Violence begets violence e. g. canibbals continue their blood thirsty ventures vs the dads violence restores peace and ends the violence. Son is a symbol of goodness, father sees him as christ figure†¦. the boy cannot agree with his father that the right thing to do is to refuse to help others who are in dire need, especially when they have not shown any evidence of being dangerous. Son sees dad as selfish (e. g. alues his sons life) while son himself is selfless†¦ the father does not trust any other individual they see or meet. Only his son extends his humbling trust in others, offering to help Ely and the thief without first determining whether their intentions are malicious. the boy does not understand the need to hurt others in any circumstances, even when they may pose a danger to his own survival or have already hurt him. For example, the boy pleads for his father to spare the thief and, even more, to help him. End Event Father Dies: Thesis:

Social networking phenomenon in e-business

Social networking phenomenon in e-business Abstract Nowadays the social networking with its gradual growth has affected the image that we have about the web dramatically. In the following paper some issues about social networking are discussed. In particular, a critical exploration of the social networking phenomenon is presented and an evaluation of the impact on e-commerce and e-business is discussed. Furthermore some possible applications that concern opportunities, benefits and risks are given. A synthesis of the above provides a summary of conclusions that can be drawn and recommendations that can be made as well. Introduction Everyday practice shows that Social Networks popularity is increased day by day. If facebook were country it would be the worlds 4th largest after China, India and USA having over 250.000 users. Many companies have realized this phenomenon and have already started to reform their marketing policy in order to benefit from the Social Networking growth. Many professionals from music artists to business enterprises advertise themselves in social networking web sites via uploading some of their new songs, images or videos. It is obvious that Social networking has a direct impact in e-business. In order to provide an evaluation of the social networking impact on e-business, we are starting our attempt from word-of-mouth marketplaces or overstock auctions or reputation systems. Reputation Systems like Amazon or e-bay is an online marketplace that augments traditional auctions with a social networking component (Christo Wilson 2008). Furthermore some social networks applications have several critical factors that we should consider (benefits, risks, opportunities). Our research demonstrates that the gradual growth of social networking has several benefits and several risks. In particular recent surveys have shown high levels of fraud in online markets (Bhattacharjee, Goe 2005). Some of the most important malicious aspect of social networking is ballot stuffing, bad mouthing and data theft which will be described in detail in the third sector of this paper. On the other side as it was previously mentioned social networking has several benefits. Customers have lost trust in traditional sales, marketing and service or Customer Relationship Management and this plays a pivotal role in increasing of positive impact of social networking in e-business. Many people have changed their buying culture and have orientated in online reputation systems such as e-bay and Amazon that have direct relation with social networking aspects. In a few words this paper provides an overview of the social networking phenomenon evaluates its direct impact in e-business and e-commerce and presents some opportunities benefits and risks that are included. Social networking as phenomenon Social Networking is a phenomenon that has affected the whole Web and many aspects of our lives dramatically. Social networking web sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Friendster etc. provide the ability to their member/users to create their personal profiles where they can share some information, brief CVs or personal photos. Thus they have the ability to search for their old acquaintances or familiars. Furthermore they can upload or trade with other users photos, comments or videos. In fig.1 a profile sample is provided. Human beings used to create groups that consisted of people with whom they shared common interests. It was therefore expected that these networks will quickly transported to the online world. Social networks are created for many reasons and for different publics. Despite their differences the social networks are concerned with the following concepts: Profiles Each member creates and maintains an online profile that contains information regarding individual interests, skills or any part of his personal status. For example some people provide their CV in order to find a (new/better) job Connections -Social networks enable their members to keep connections with each other chat trade images, comments and in general keep in touch via the Web (Boyd, Ellison 2007). Even though the gradual growth of social networking is something recent it is not something new as a concept. Forums, chat rooms, blogs and creations of personal web sites (even though are not something new) are also functions regarding by social networking aspects. Several sites that contained the social networking element appeared in the start of new millennium. The gradual social networking expansion is a part of a wider online phenomenon named Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is a dynamic wide web platform in which several users are enabled to interact with each other without having specialized knowledge in computer systems or network issues. Evaluation of Social Networking impact on e-commerce and e-business The social networking phenomenon has undoubtedly a direct impact on e-business. Several benefits and risks could affect (negatively or positively) e-business. Some benefits could derive from contacts between professionals, ranging from finding the right expertise to identifying cross-organization sales opportunities. Whats more many professionals are eager to create an internal reputation, and to explore career prospects. Personal contacts between the workers could help job satisfaction and the maintenance and development of the local community could help in rapidly professionals resolution. Sharing of information and communication, a priority and challenge for many companies, could improve (Blackwell 2009). One more Social Networking aspect that should be considered in order to provide a deeper evaluation of the Social Networking impact in e-business is the one introduced Overstock in Auctions. Overstock Auctions is an e-commerce website that combines traditional auctions with a social networking component. However, samplings of user feedback shows that transactions between partners connected on the social network result in significantly higher user satisfaction. Official research also shows that Overstocks business ratings have big degree of accuracy, in that they have a strong correlation with user satisfaction after their transaction. According with official research it has investigated that a big percentage users of Overstock Auctions have friends common to both their business as well as personal networks. That means that we have the trust element that plays a pivotal role in marketing. Unfortunately, traditional marketing users are often unable to locate their desired merchandise in their social network. Edelman Trust Barometer mentioned that the most reliable information source about an enterprise is a person like me'. The survey relates that in the U.S., trust in a p erson like me increased from 20% in 2003 to 68% today. Thats why they prefer to buy any suggested product from a friend over a perfect stranger. Academic researchers have observed that 6% of users have 100% of their personal contacts involved in the business networks, which demonstrate that users have either only dealing with their social acquaintances, business partners or guests to participate in the personal network their friends (Wilson, Boe 2008). The next topic that we will discuss concern Word-of-mouth marketing. The companies that have only traditional marketing methods and not Social Network element are in crisis with low productivity and benefits as a result of TV and Radio advertisement saturation. On the other side companies like Amazon, Google and Hotmail succeed with virtually no marketing based solely on word of mouth. Word-of- mouth is the best predictor of business growth because it contains the trust element that plays pivotal role in e-business (Pedro Domingos 2005). Possible applications, opportunities, benefits and risks The following section provides some possible applications focusing on opportunities benefits and risks. Opportunities There are several opportunities of using social network applications such as sharing information and media with peers, finding an audience for creative works, helping young people keep in contact with peers or allowing young people to develop new contacts and friendships with each other. In businesses the importance of internal social software use is increased daily. Given that the next generation of employees will use the social software as the main medium of communication, the companies must bridge generation gaps and boundaries via the supporting of this communication method with its use in workplaces. Despite the difficulties the benefits are still huge. At first a high user percentage is directors or company representatives indicating that Social Networking Software has a wide range of potential customers or active users. Secondly by bringing this social software tool in the company, the relevant elements regarding the contacts, interests and activities of the workers are available and archive-able from the company by providing new resources and new abilities for human resources comprehension. In case these tools are not provided by the company the employees have the right to seek social software tools such as facebook etc. Benefits There are undoubtedly several possible business benefits of the gradual growth of social networking applications. At first within social network sites the employees are able to keep in touch with their colleagues. Unfortunately the percentage of distant colleagues and in general distant working relationships is increasing day by day. So it is obvious that we draw attention to the necessity of awareness increasing and contact between distant partners via the social network tools. Within several companies keeping touch and maintaining relationship in an organization is a critical factor for an successful career. Thus the social network tools help the companies to maintain or improve their productivity independently from their employees distance. Another beneficial social network application is the user support regarding the exploring and learning about the new employees and the team members. This endeavor makes the searching of colleagues with special skills or discovering of past experiences in activities that could be useful for new projects easier. Organization-based social networks could also help the professionals to approach work (or non work) issues of common interest something that improves the communication between people who interact for the first time (Joan Morris DiMicco 2007). Risks Social networking has several risks except from benefits such as bullying, abuse and exploitation of young people, too much time (distraction) spend on the computer / internet addiction, ballot stuffing or bad mouthing Ballot Stuffing A seller manages to make fake transactions via the positive ratings after collusion with other buyers. So Ballot Stuffing has as a result the inflating a sellers reputation.( Bhattacharjee, Goel, 2005) Bad Mouthing On the other hand a group of buyers may be conspiring (it could be after a collusion with a rival vendor) to deliberately give negative feedback to a particular vendor and hence less reputation. This is known as bad mouthing. ( Bhattacharjee, Goel, 2005) Malicious goals Some people tend to create fake profiles to bully, lie cheat and steal. Even though there are several benefits in communication via social network applications such as keeping touch and relationship management there is also always the potential to receive negative, insulting or unsuitable comments. In several interviews several social networking users mentioned that the rude culture of some users was a common disadvantage. There was only a small percentage that disagreed with the term disadvantage. Unlike in the real world according to the new users opinion the social network sites have not social limitations or boundaries. This means that users could behave in whatever way they want without limitations via posting rude or abusive messages. However in worst cases the rude culture of some users transact into malicious culture indicating that many users use fake profiles in order to insidiously steal data or money. I.e. A user might give his credit card password in order to buy something from an advantageous market. Thus a malicious user having the credit card password is enabled to steal money. (Davies, Cranston 2008). Distraction In an organization a social networking software installation should undoubtedly offer several benefits and tremendous power to factors regarding the productivity and profits. However Surveys have found that social networking may be a distraction to workers. In particular it was found that 8% of the work time (30 minutes in 8-hour work-time) concern with social non-working activities. I.e. even though sending of personal photos among employees could provide some indirect benefit to a company, it could also be a distracter for the employees with bad impacts to productivity and profits. Synthesis As it was mentioned Social Networking as concept is not something new. It is exist from the internet creation since 20 years. In fact Social networking is part of a wider Internet phenomenon named Web 2.0 indicating the recent Social Network event is its gradual growth due to Web 2.0 creation. Although companies are aware of the marketing and PR opportunities, using social networking software in a given company or organization is still in relatively early stage .Our main concern in this research paper is the emphasis on the need for transaction costs for a word-of-mouth system to work well and in order to avoid phenomenon such as ballot stuffing or bad mouthing . Not only is the transaction costs important for an word of mouth system to function well, the reputation of earned premiums to the seller should be associated with the transaction costs It should also be reported that not only enterprises but all of us have to protect ourselves from malicious users via permanent information. Conclusion Our study provided an overview regarding the Social Networking Phenomenon. It has also provided an evaluation of the impact of social Networking on e-business. In the stage of our evaluation we discuss about overstock Auctions. Overstock Auctions is a kind of an e-commerce website that makes a strong combination between traditional auctions and the social networking component. We have also discussed about reputation systems. The research has shown that Social Networking has both benefits and risks. Some of the risks that could be lurking are the excessive use of social network applications in workplaces, i.e the use of facebook in workplace from an employee for non business reasons. Other risks that are involved are ballot staffing and bad mouthing in reputation systems. Ballot stuffing is the creation of fake fame after collusion between the reputation System company and fake buyers. Unlike bad mouthing is the defamation of the reputation system company via fake unhappy customers .S ome benefits that could be shown are the improvement of customer support in a company. A complicated problem for a company could be solved by finding an expert or locate implicit knowledge via a social network application. In particular a questioner could contact via a Social Network Site with an expert who has solved a similar problem in the past and find a solution to their problem. This paper also provides the trust component that plays pivotal role in e-commerce. Customers have lost their trust to the traditional marketing methods. The social networks enables the customer to interact with a person like him in order to get the appropriate information for any product. Thus even though the majority of users perform few transactions with their virtual friends on social network, many sampling feedbacks showed that transactions between companies representatives and customers have increased the user satisfaction degree. Also a conclusion has been drawn that Overstocks business ratings are accurate, in that they have a strong correlation with user satisfaction after their transaction. Thus a valid conclusion would be that there exists a necessity of transaction costs for a well functioning reputation system References Bhattacharjee, R. Goel, A., 2005. Avoiding ballot stuffing in ebay-like reputation systems. In Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Economics of peer-to-peer systems. p. 137. Blackwell, J. et al., 2009. Design and adoption of social collaboration software within businesses. In Proceedings of the 27th international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. pp. 2759-2762. Boyd, d. m., Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, DiMicco, J. et al., 2008. Motivations for social networking at work. In Proceedings of the ACM 2008 conference on Computer supported cooperative work. pp. 711-720. DiMicco, J.M. Millen, D.R., 2007. Identity management: Multiple presentations of self in Facebook. In Proceedings of the 2007 international ACM conference on Supporting group work. pp. 383-386. Domingos, P., 2005. Mining social networks for viral marketing. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 20(1), 80-82. Goad, R and Mooney, T, The impact of Social Networking in the UK (Hitwise Experian, 2007), Swamynathan, G. et al., 2008. Do social networks improve e-commerce?: a study on social marketplaces. In Proceedings of the first workshop on Online social networks. pp. 1-6. Withers, K, Young People and Social Networking Sites: Briefing to guide policy responses Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR, 2007).

Concepts of Information Security: Politics and Technology

Concepts of Information Security: Politics and Technology The nothing to hide argument has become a very important debate recently. Now, nearly everything we do leaves an electronic trace which along with data mining, can be used to see what we are doing, and even predict our behaviour. With the recently passed Investigatory Powers Act 2016 in the UK (HM Government, 2016), 48 different agencies will have access to communication data, bulk personal data and other information with the purpose of increasing our national security. The acts main aim is to increase security against acts of terrorism, but this comes at the cost of peoples privacy. The most common argument in favour of mass surveillance is that if you have nothing to hide you should have nothing to fear, and if you are acting in an illegal manner than you deserve to be punished, and having this surveillance is there to protect us and our country. Whereas conventional armys movement can be tracked using radar, satellites and drones, terrorists dont have a navy or air force, making this means of gathering information about an attacker irrelevant. Another potential means of gathering information would be inside information, whether it be an informant or someone managing to infiltrate the organisation. However, unlike organised crime, a terrorist attack has the potential to take many lives, and it only takes one successful attack to do so, meaning one successful attack is one too many. Government surveillance can therefore be argued as the best way of protecting a nation as it means conversations can be followed and behaviours can be predicted. (Doyle, 2011). Daniel Solove has said that between the advances in technology and the government surveillance, that there are similarities with George Orwells 1984, and although not as extreme as in the book, it is still possible to track people even if they are just walking around the corner. Along with data mining of information which could be thought of as trivial, the government are predicting whether a person is a terrorist based off purchase histories along with other personal information. Whilst this sounds like it could be useful, what happens when someone is misidentified as a terrorist and added to a no-fly list or arrested? (Doyle, 2011). The European Union has also stated the surveillance on this scale is illegal, and that only targeted information gathering I justified, but with the UK leaving the EU, this will not be a problem for them soon, and will join China and Russia in being a mass surveillance state (Agerholm, 2016). Overall I feel that mass surveillance is not necessary, with targeted surveillance being adequate, and with the lack of a response from the public when this law was first announced, it has shown the government that they can get away with it, and sets a precedent going forward, making me ask the question, When does it stop? When will they have enough information? As much as George Orwells 1984 was a work of fiction, I feel like we are slowly moving in that direction, and if we get there, will there be a way back? Assira CAPTCHA The Asirra CAPTCHA was proposed at ACM CCS 2007 and works by showing the user 12 pictures of cats and dogs, with the user having to select the cat images and none of the dog images. A human can do this within 30 seconds 99.6% of the time, whereas algorithms find it much harder to differentiate between cats and dogs. Basing image classification off colour features gives a 56.9% accuracy, giving an overall probability of 0.2% to solve an Assira CAPTCHA. Assira has a database of over 3,000,000 images of cats and dogs which continues to grow. 13,000 images were collected by having a script which was left to run overnight, that would refresh and download the 12 images from the Assira research page. The images were manually classified into 3 classes of cat, dog and other. A support vector machine(SVM) classifier was used due to having the ability to extract linear combination of features, its predictive power and its scalability. 5-fold cross-validation was used to measure the accuracy of the SVM classifier, with 4 partitions used for training and the last one used to validate the results. The SVM classifier was trained on a combination of colour and texture features. Both the colour and the texture features estimate whether the picture is a cat or dog. An average of the colour and texture features is taken, with a weighting of 1/3 to colour and 2/3 to texture. Images of cats were mapped to the value of 1.0 and dogs to -1.0, meaning if the average returned a positive value, the SVM classifier would predict the image to be of a cat, whilst a negative number would result in a dog. This system resulted in a classifier with 82.7% accuracy, giving a 10.3% probability of breaking the Assira CAPTCHA, which despite being a lot lower than a human, was more than 50 times more successful than the predicted 0.2% for machine vision attacks. Using a token bucket system will greatly help to improve the robustness of the Assira CAPTCHA. Given that a human has a 99.6% success rate, giving a total of 3 attempts before having to complete 2 successful Assira CAPTCHAs greatly reduces the chance of it being broken via machine vision, without reducing the usability for a human too significantly. (Golle, 2008) Impact of Artificial Gummy Fingers on Fingerprint Systems Biometrics is a form of single factor authentication used to identify someone. Fingerprints are one of the most common forms of biometric authentication, with them being used for PCs, smart cards and portable devices. Silicone fingers as well as inked fingerprints on paper where tested before the experiment, finding that all capacitive sensors and some optical sensors rejected the silicone finger, and the inked paper was accepted on one of the systems. A fingerprint system captures data from the finger via a sensing device, extracts features from the data and encrypts it, then stores this information as a template with some personal information. When someone then uses the system, the scan is compared to the database of stored finger data and outputs an acceptance results if there is a matching template. The sensor detects the difference between ridges and valleys of the fingerprint, with optical sensors detecting the difference in reflection, whilst a capacitive sensor detects the difference in capacitance. There are several different attacks that can be performed against a fingerprint system including a criminal forcing the live finger to be used on the scanner, an attack against the authentication system with an unregistered finger, the use of a severed fingertip, a genetic clone of the registered finger or an artificial clone of the finger. To make an artificial finger an impression must first be made of the live finger. The impression of the fingerprint is a mirror reflection of the live finger, meaning the impression can be used as a mould to make the artificial finger. It can also be done by capturing the image of a residual fingerprint with a digital microscope and then making a mould to make the artificial finger which is made from gelatine. Both types of gummy fingers were accepted by the 11 different fingerprint systems used in the experiment, with varying probabilities between 67% and 100%. The number of samples was too small in this experiment to compare the different types of fingerprint systems, but there is enough evidence to show that gummy fingers can bypass this type of biometric security. (Matsumoto, T., Matsumoto, H., Yamada, K. and Hoshino, S, 2002) The best way to improve security would be multi-factor authentication. A finger print falls under the something I am category, so taking something from the something I own category, such as a key fob or card, along with the something I know category, such as a password means that if one of these protective measures is compromised, there are still two other factors an attacker must take into consideration before being able to access the information they are trying to acquire. FREAK SSL/TLS Vulnerability The Factoring RSA Export Keys (FREAK) vulnerability in Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and its successor Transport Layer Security (TLS) was discovered in March 2015 by Karthikeyan Bhargavan and his research team. TLS and SSL are protocols which were designed for secure data transfer between a client and a server through authentication, encryption and integrity. (Muscat, I. 2016), (Caballero, J., Bodden, E. and Athanasopoulos, E. 2016). The vulnerability allows for a man-in-the-middle attack through an implementation error. The vulnerability was due to a US law which restricted RSA public key sizes to 512 bytes. SSL and TLS used ciphersuites with weak keys which were marked eligible for export. If a client is tryhing to connect to a trusted server, the man-in-the-middle attacker can replace the ciphersuite with an RSA_EXPORT ciphersuite of the message sent from the client to the server. The server then responds, and again, the attacker replaces the ciphersuite with an RSA ciphersuite which gets forwarded to the client. The server then sends a strong, 2048 bits, RSA public key which the client receives. The server then sends a ServerKeyExchange message with a weak, 512-bit RSA public key. The client responds with its ClientKeyExchange, ClientCSS and ClientFinished message, which the attacker can use to find the private key. The attacker can then decrypt the pre-master secret from the Client-KeyExchange. The attacker then sends a ServerFinished message to complete the handshake. This works because of a bug in a state machine composition, the message is not rejected and is silently accepted, and the servers strong public key is replaced with the weak public key in the ServerKeyExchange. (Beurdouche, B., Bhargavan, K., et al. 2015). In order to protect against this attack, server administrators would have to remove all RSA export cipher suites from their accepted cipher suite collection. Installing a browser that doesnt support RSA export cipher suites is the best way for clients to protect themselves against FREAK attacks. (Caballero, J., Bodden, E. and Athanasopoulos, E. 2016). DDoS Attacks Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are relatively simple, but can be extremely powerful. They are the most advanced form of DoS attacks. They work via packet streams from different sources. The attacks make use of large numbers of coordinated hosts to overrun a critical resource of the target. Depending on the scale of the attack, or the measures put in place to prevent such an attack, the victim could suffer damages from system shutdown, to total loss of service. They are so strong due to not trying to break the system hey are attacking, meaning traditional security mechanisms arent effective, instead causing damage through lethal traffic. When performing an attack, the attacker must select agents to perform the attack. The machines need to have a vulnerability that allows the attacker to gain access with enough resources for the attack. Then the attack must find vulnerabilities in the security of the agents machines to put in the malicious code. The attacker then communicates with handlers to see what agents are running and when to upgrade them. After all of this is done, the attack can commence. There are several different types of DDoS attacks, some of which include: Flood attacks send large amounts of IP traffic to a victim, congesting the bandwidth of the system. Depending on the volume of packets sent, the target can experience reduced system speeds, to crashing the system. Amplification attacks exploit the broadcast IP address found on most routers to amplify and reflect the attack, sending messages to a broadcast IP address. The router sends the packets to all the IP addresses within the broadcast address range. A reflector attack requires a set of predetermined reflectors. These can simply be scattered on the internet. The reflected packets are normal with a legitimate source and cannot be filtered. Protocol exploit attacks use a specific feature or implementation bug of some protocol on the victims system to consume excess resources. Malformed packet attacks use incorrectly formed IP packets and are sent to the victim to crash the system. There are two classifications for DDoS defence. The first one is based on activity deployed. Intrusion prevention aims to stop the attack from being launched in the first place. Intrusion detection means a host computer and network can guard themselves against being a source of an attack as well as being a victim. Intrusion tolerance and mitigation accepts that it is not possible to fully prevent or stop DDoS attacks, so aims to minimise the damage caused by them. Intrusion response identifies the attack sources and blocks its traffic. The second classification splits the DDoS defence into three categories. Most systems designed to fight DDoS attacks have been designed for the victim network as they suffer the greatest impact of an attack. Intermediate network defence is more effective, as they can handle the attack traffic easily and trace back to the attackers. Source network mechanisms aim to stop attacks before they enter the internet. (Douligeris, C. and Mitrokotsa, A. 2004) Wireless networks are easier to attack than wired networks, with DoS attacks by scrambling the bands of frequency that are used. The best way of defending both bandwidth depletion attacks and resource depletion attacks is to design a defence mechanism that detects and responds to the attack. A proposed technique to defending the attacks is the use of a flow monitoring table at each node. By monitoring the previous sending rates with the current rate, they can detect an attack if both rates become the same, in which case the packets from those nodes are discarded. (Arunmozhi, S.A. and Venkataramani, Y. 2011) Bibliography Agerholm, H. (2016) Snoopers charter dealt blow after EUs highest court rules indiscriminate government retention of emails is illegal. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/snoopers-charter-eu-court-ruling-illegal-investigatory-powers-act-emails-david-davis-a7488041.html (Accessed: 22 December 2016). Arunmozhi, S.A. and Venkataramani, Y. (2011) DDoS attack and defense scheme in wireless ad hoc networks, International Journal of Network Security Its Applications, 3(3), pp. 182-187. doi: 10.5121/ijnsa.2011.3312. Beurdouche, B., Bhargavan, K., Delignat-Lavaud, A., Fournet, C., Kohlweiss, M., Pironti, A., Strub, P.-Y. and Zinzindohoue, J.K. (2015) A messy state of the union: Taming the composite state machines of TLS, 2015 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, . doi: 10.1109/sp.2015.39. Caballero, J., Bodden, E. and Athanasopoulos, E. (2016) Engineering secure software and systems: 8th international symposium, ESSoS .. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=j6vWCwAAQBAJpg=PA125dq=FREAK+SSL/TLS+Vulnerabilityhl=ensa=Xved=0ahUKEwjlkuXEr8TRAhWhKMAKHQWMBjMQ6AEIOjAB#v=onepageq=FREAK%20SSL%2FTLS%20Vulnerabilityf=false (Accessed: 15 January 2017). Douligeris, C. and Mitrokotsa, A. (2004) DDoS attacks and defense mechanisms: Classification and state-of-the-art, Computer Networks, 44(5), pp. 643-666. doi: 10.1016/j.comnet.2003.10.003. Doyle, T. (2011) Daniel J. Solove, nothing to hide: The false tradeoff between privacy and security, The Journal of Value Inquiry, 46(1), pp. 107-112. doi: 10.1007/s10790-011-9303-z. Golle, P. (2008) Machine learning attacks against the Asirra CAPTCHA, Proceedings of the 15th ACM conference on Computer and communications security CCS 08, . doi: 10.1145/1455770.1455838. Investigatory Powers Act 2016 2016, c. Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/25/pdfs/ukpga_20160025_en.pdf (Accessed: 22 December 2016). Matsumoto, T., Matsumoto, H., Yamada, K. and Hoshino, S. (2002) Impact of artificial gummy fingers on fingerprint systems, , pp. 275-289. doi: 10.1117/12.462719. Muscat, I. (2016) Web vulnerabilities: Identifying patterns and remedies, Network Security, 2016(2), pp. 5-10. doi: 10.1016/s1353-4858(16)30016-2.

Pearls Life Without Shame in Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter

Pearl's Life Without Shame in The Scarlet Letter Neither Hester's love for Authur Dimmesdale nor her need for atonement of her sins were the primary reasons why Hester remained in Boston. However, Hester mainly lived out her punishment to set an example for Pearl of what she should not become. Hester Prynne's life had been a continuous series of disappointments and shame. Because she cared for her daughter, Pearl, Hester treated her punishment more as a means of teaching Pearl a respectable lifestyle than a means of confronting her vices. Hester experienced on three occasions of heart shaking blows, which most would only encounter once in a lifetime. Marrying Roger Chillingworth was Hester Prynne's first documented mistake. She even went as far to call it her most significant sin, despite the array she had to choose from. Not only had Hester married Roger Chillingworth when she did not even love him, she also was partly responsible for bring so much pain on her true love, Authur Dimmesdale. When Chillingworth derived that the Reverend Dimmesdale was Hester's partner in shattering the purity of their marriage, he made it his duty to obtain revenge by torturing Dimmesdale: This unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself, for seven years, to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analyzed and gloated over. The scarlet letter burned on Hester Prynne's bosom. Here was another ruin, the responsibility of which came partly home to her. (116) Hester could not escape her evil husband nor her liability in augmenting Authur's anguish. Secondly, Hester's adultery was the most prominent sin in the eyes of ... ...er. Hester proved, like she had before, that she was fallible. She momentarily lost sight of Pearl's lesson. However, Reverend Dimmesdale was a martyr, losing his life at the time when Hester's desires for a new setting were at their peak and thus bringing back her primitive motive. The conclusion in Chapter Twenty-four proved that Hester's decision was the best for Pearl, which was all she had wanted. "Pearl was not only alive, but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother" (177). Pearl was successful after her outcast childhood, free from the mistakes Hester had made and able to be true to everyone around her. Pearl was a better person because her mother was brave enough to keep them there in the fire and teach her daughter how to lead a life without shame. Works Cited: Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Company Watch - BSkyB :: Business and Management Studies

Company Watch - BSkyB COMPANY WATCH The company that I have chosen that is in the Ftse 100 is BSkyB and the rival company to BSkyB that I have chosen is Cable & Wireless (C & W). I will be monitoring these companies over four weeks and recording and analysing their share prices as well as the Ftse 100. I will be using The Times newspaper to obtain share prices and business information regarding the companies and the Ftse. HISTORY OF BSKYB In 1989 Sky introduced satellite television to the UK with four channels. By 1990 sky reached one million homes and merged with British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) to form BSkyB. In 1991 Sky and BSB streamline their channels into five separate channels. Between 1992 and 1993 BSkyB secures exclusive rights to live FA Premier League football coverage and Sky Multi-Channels launch with a package of 14 channels at basic subscription level. In 1994 five more channels are introduced and Sky announces  £13 million investment in British films including a major output deal with British Screen. Also in 1994 17% of BSkyB is floated on the UK and US Stock Exchanges. By 1995 BSkyB enters the FTSE 100 index, six more channels are added and subscribers exceed five million. In 1996 BSkyB secure a contract for FA Premier league football until 2001 season. In 1998 Sky digital launches offering 140 channels. More than 100,000 decoders are sold in the first 30 days. In 1999 BSkyB enters the list of world's top 250 companies. Also Sky digital is the fastest growing digital platform in Europe acquiring over 1.2 million subscribers in just 10 months and free set top digital box offer increases subscribers. In 2000 Sky receives Gold Award for outstanding contribution to television at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards and digital subscribers grow to 3 million. In 2001 BSkyB reaches its target of 5 million subscribers and switches off its analogue signal, BSkyB also launch Sky +, Europe's first fully integrated personal television recorder. By now in 2002 Sky digital now reaches 5.7 million households which is a quarter of all British homes and has a target of 7 million digital subscribers by the end of 2003. For the first time, more people are watching multichannel television than the five traditional public service channels. HOW BSKYB HAS FARED OVER 4 WEEK PERIOD Articles Concerning BSkyB Over this period the main articles for BSkyB in the news were that Dawn Airey will become the managing director of BskyB, being paid  £1 million a year. Dawn Airey formerly work as the Channel Five chief executive but was seemingly joining the ITV network but was snatched

Documentation of Billing System Essay

Brief description of the proposed thesis topic The word ‘billing’ can refer to both the total amount of goods and the act of counting them. Others take a billing to insure the number of items ordered matches the actual number of items counted physically. Statement of the Objectives General Objective The general objective is to create a computerized billing system for J&S Oyster Restaurant. Specific Objectives The following are the specific objectives of the study that will determine the deliverables: * To present an accurate computation on the bill charged to the customers. * To produce a print out on every sales on a daily weekly monthly basis. * To secure records on the database. * To procure a more accurate orders eliminating errors done manually. * To facilitate a faster transactions in billing the customers. Significance of the proposed thesis topic or justification This study was made to make the work easier, faster and more accurate in terms of billing. The proposed system was developed and implemented to lessen the work of management of the company. It provides more accurate and reliable records of billing (day, week and month). Review of Related Literature and Studies Ritchie, Marshall and Eardley (1998) mentioned that by providing a suitable support environment, office automation system are intended to benefit the knowledge workers in two days: Direct benefits are better control over work, due to less division of labor and fewer non-productive activities such as filling, record keeping and updating. Another benefit would be indirect benefits, are less quantifiable, and may enrich the organization through long-term profitability and growth. These benefits can be less dependency on other department for support with copying printing and similar activities, less need for procedures and control to monitor work flow between departments, increased individual job satisfaction due to greater personal effectiveness in carrying out the range of tasks, greater customer satisfaction, due to better information production and a more timely service, increase competitiveness of an organization through the improved use of its information resource and its ability to respond to business pressures on opportunities. IT applications have changed the nature of the workplace. Tasks ranging from taking orders to analyzing business plans are done using computers rather than paper and pencil. Where people once relied done wherever and whenever it is most convenient. Alter (2001) cited that using telecommunications technology as a substitute for travel is one part of a trend of bringing the work to the workers rather than the workers to the work. In the same general vein, the phrase †any place any time† increasingly summaries the customer’s expectation that business will provide what the customers wants, when and where the customer’s wants it. With the fast and ever changing technology, communication plays a vital role in any business as this will allow its client and the company to interact at an instant. Greater connectivity supports the continuing convergence of computing and communication whereby communication capabilities have become essentials to many systems, and computing capabilities have become essential to communication systems. Consider the way sales people at many firms use touch-one telephones to obtain pricing information and enter orders. In these systems, the telephone becomes a data entry terminal for an information system. (Alter 2001) Since the endeavor will use SMS technology in providing the automated inquiry service, population over the texting market will undeniably needed. Olive (June 16,2004) in his article said the, the Philippines was cited recently as Asia’s leader in short message service by CommunicAsia 2004, an annual telecommunication and broadcasting held recently in Singapore. He further stated that there are already 25 million mobile subscribers. This phenomenal growth can also be equated to the affordable and accessible mobile service. At this time, SMS has become more popular and is not limited to personal usage; different sectors of the population are now using this technology to gain competitive edge in information technology. Nowadays, the use of SMS technology great helps us in our daily lives, most of the time we communicate with others through SMS. The proposed system allows the use of SMS technology for notification feature that sends message to the MIS head when a computer peripheral is altered.

Death of Salesman Analysis Essay

Women assume various roles in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Mainly we find them in the home, or the â€Å"workplace†. For us, they serve as windows to observe and formulate an opinion of the main character, Willy Loman and his boys Happy and Biff. For reference, the women include, Linda Loman (Willy’s wife) the boy’s childhood and current girls/women, â€Å"The Woman† (Willy’s mistress), and Jenny (Charley’s secretary). Notably, there are several aspects that unify these women. First, they are subordinate to the men; second, they are emotionally or materially dependent; third, the men are mutually dependent on the women for emotional or physical needs; and fourth, they serve as male ego supporters. Moreover, the women are portrayed as weak. Granted, societal views of women’s roles have drastically changed over the past seven decades, the women’s characters in Death of Salesman have not. Miller skillfully navigates us through the past and present in order to capture a complete image of Willy’s life. I will attempt to do the same with Linda Loman. I selected her because of her distinctive propensity to be overly protective of Willy. My intention is not to understate the relevance of the other women. Yet, my focus on Linda is based on my opinion that she is the central female figure and best ambassador to reveal Willy’s dynamic nature. Willy: â€Å"You’re my foundation and support, Linda.† (1216) We are introduced to Linda in the present. For the time and even for today, she is the ideal American wife. Caring, nurturing, supportive, and loyal to her husband and children. Yet, today, one may say overly supportive. A captive of the time period, she is limited; and therefore, emotionally and financially dependent on her husband. While here, we are able to feel her comforting and sheltering nature. She selflessly protects Willy from his insecure thoughts, his children, and acknowledging his financial failures. Yet, she cannot guard him from his depression and suicidal attempts and ideations. The scene opens with Willy prematurely returning from a sales trip. He is explaining to Linda that he could not maintain mental focus and that the car kept veering off onto the shoulder of the road. As we will come to know, she is well aware that Willy’s mental status is declining. She deflects the blame by saying, â€Å"Oh. Maybe it was the steering again. I don’t think Angelo knows the Studebaker.† (1213) Willy accepts responsibility, â€Å"No, it’s me†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (1214) Nonetheless, she continues to divert the cause by saying, â€Å"Maybe it’s your glasses†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (1214) Her well-intended effort to be supportive is unfortunately enabling Willy’s serious â€Å"nervous breakdown† to be ignored. In the literary sense, it is an example of situational irony. Her intention to be helpful is not actually helping. For us, it is in this moment with Linda, that we immediately realize that Willy is undergoing serious internal and exter nal stress. It is manifesting into depression, mumbling, mental and physical wandering, and severe depression. It will proliferate throughout the play, and tragically, be the cause of his final decision. During their conversation we are also introduced to the adult boys, Biff and Happy. Linda informs Willy that the boys are both sleeping, and that, â€Å"Happy took Biff on a date tonight.† (1214) The report automatically generates interest in Willy. Which, we can translate to mean, Willy is in favor of his boys being in the company of women. As the conversation continues we are made aware of the tension that exists between Willy and his oldest son, Biff. As well, Linda let’s us know that Willy has a temper. She tells him, â€Å"You shouldn’t have criticized him, Willy, especially after he just got off the train. You mustn’t lose your temper with him.† (1215) For me, his temper is validated by his response, â€Å"When the hell did I lose my temper?† (1215) Typically, a non-temperamental person would not respond in that manner. As they continue on the topic of Biff, we get the first glimpse of Willy’s contradictory nature. At one moment Willy says, â€Å"Biff is a lazy bum!† (1215) While in a follow up comment he says, â€Å"Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world a young man with such—personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about Biff—he’s not lazy.† (1215) Well, which is it? Is Biff lazy, or not? Willy’s contradictory tendency will be further exemplified. I find a touch of comical irony, when prior to going to the kitchen, for a glass of milk, he asks, â€Å"Why am I always being contradicted? (1215) While in the kitchen, we go back in time with Linda and Willy. We see that her support of Willy has endured the test of time, as have his inconsistencies. The younger Linda asks, â€Å"Did you sell anything?† (1224) At first Willy says, â€Å"I did five hundred gross in Providence and seven hundred gross in Boston.† (1224) Linda wants to tabulate his commission so she retrieves a pencil and paper from her apron pocket. She â€Å"number-crunches† and replies, â€Å"Two hundred—my God! Two hundred and twelve dollars!† (1225) Once he realizes that there will be an expectation to produce that money, he back-peddles and says, â€Å"Well, I didn’t figure it yet, but†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (1225) She is persistent, â€Å"How much did you do?† Then a more realistic figure emerges, â€Å"Well, I—I did—about a hundred and eighty gross in Providence. Well, no—it came to—roughly two hundred gross on the whole trip.† (1225) As easily as Linda can do the math, so can we. Willy’s original report claims approximately 1,200 gross. When realistically his entire trip probably netted 200 gross. If we are inclined to believe that estimate as honest, he has overinflated his sales by six times the actual amount. After realizing that the actual commission amount is not enough to cover the monthly expenses, a dialogue ensues that reveals another incongruence and his insecurity. Willy states, â€Å"Oh, I’ll knock them dead next week. I’ll go to Hartford. I’m very well liked in Hartford. You know, the trouble is Linda, people don’t seem to take to me.† (1225) Again, in the same sentence he contradicts himself. I think we can all relate to feeling â€Å"less than† at some point in our lives. Since, I know I can, his previous and following statement elicits empathy on my part. He claims that people are laughing at him when he goes to his sales calls. He doesn’t know the reason, he is just aware. Linda’s perpetual support of Willy continues, â€Å"Oh, don’t be foolish† and â€Å"Why? Why would they laugh at you? Don’t talk that way, Willy†. (1225) She continues to console him and coddles his fragile ego by replying, â€Å"But you’re doing wonderful, dear. You’re making seventy to a hundred dollars a week.† (1225) There is something to admire about her positive outlook. Willy continues to share his feelings about his diminished sense of self-worth. This time, it comes from his critique of his physical image, â€Å"I’m fat. I’m very foolish to look at, Linda. I didn’t tell you, but Christmas time I happened to be calling on F.H. Stewarts, and a salesman I know, as I was going in to see the buyer, I heard him say something about—walrus. And I—I cracked him right across the face. I won’t take that. I simply will not take that. But they do laugh at me. I know that†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (1226) I would like to draw your attention to the opening scene where Linda cautions Willy about his temper. We are now in the past, and we have a tangible example of Willy’s temper. In this case, it has even erupted into violence. Linda doesn’t even bat an eye when he tells her that he hit someone. Instead, she is the constant pillar that supports his ego, â€Å"Willy, darling, you’re the handsomest man in the worl d—† (1226) Really, Linda? I can’t imagine my husband telling me he hit someone and not be compelled to probe him further about the incident. Through Willy’s reminiscent daydreams, we hear the laughter of a woman, who will later be revealed as â€Å"The Woman†, his mistress. (1226) Willy has just added another criteria to analyze him against. He is unfaithful to his committed and loving wife. Until now, I could sympathize with Willy’s insecurities, even understand his need to overinflate his earnings and maybe even relate to his temper. But, positioned against my own moral standards, I don’t care for a womanizer. Nor would I make an exception if the roles were reversed. He pulls away from the memory and declares, â€Å"You’re the best there is, Linda, you’re a pal, you know that?Ã'  On the road—on the road I want to grab you sometimes and just kiss the life outa you.† (1226) Anyone who understands simple psychology realizes that it is guilt that moves him to profess affection for his wife. Yet, a key term he uses provides insight to how he actually views her, â€Å" you’re a pal†. These words cannot be misconstrued to mean: I love you, you mean the world to me, and I can’t wait to rush home to you. As a matter of fact, he retreats into his memories and we spend time with â€Å"The Woman†. In this brief moment we can conclude that his mistress provides an outlet when he’s on the road, she fuels his ego, and she suits his purpose by being able to send him directly into the buyers. In return, he fulfills her material need for stockings. (1227) Back from his memory of â€Å"The Woman†, we are still in the past where he is remembering a scene of Linda mending her stockings. He commands her to throw them away. Although we already know Biff and Happy from their own earlier dialogues and Willy’s memories (which I did not address), it is here that Linda provides insight into younger Biff. She tells Willy that Biff must return a football that he stole from the school, and that he is also too rough with the neighborhood girls. (1227) Willy is annoyed with Biff and he explodes at Linda when she urges him to do something about Biff’s behavior. (1228). It is important to know, all of Willy’s past memories and mumblings have occurred while he went down to the kitchen for that glass of milk. Finally, we arrive at the kitchen, in the present. This part does not include Linda. Yet, I find it important to include because this exchange contains a missed opportunity. Not that there weren’t several others. Happy comes down to check on Willy. He finds his father mumbling, and out of concern and sadness, Happy tells him that he will financially provide for the rest of Willy’s life. In expressing his frustration with Happy’s claim to â€Å"retire† him for life, Willy makes an explicit cry for help, â€Å"You’ll retire me for life on seventy goddam dollars a week? And your women and your car and your apartment, and you’ll retire me for life! Christ’s sake, I couldn’t get past Yonkers today! Where are you guys, where are you? The woods are burning! I can’t drive a car!† (1228) And there it is! A desperate, agonizing plea for attention, ‘Where are you guys? The woods are burning!’. He realizes his condition, he is begging to be acknowledged, begging for attention, and begging for help! He feels alone in his suffering. I could imagine his desperation, and we would not be human if we too did not feel his pain. The neighbor, Charley enters, and Happy is sent away. In the interest of focusing on Linda, we will fast forward through this part. Yet, during Charley’s visit and through Willy’s memories, we meet an influential character in Willy’s life (his successful brother Ben). Charley leaves after a heated round of cards. Yet, we remain in the kitchen while Willy heads outside. Linda comes looking for Willy in the kitchen. Both boys come down to discuss their father’s apparent troubling condition. Instead of addressing it, she scolds them both for being judgmental of their father. Happy transfers his anger onto Biff and blames his father’s condition on Biff’s failures. This scene foreshadows the underlying trouble between Biff and his father. Linda asks Biff, â€Å"Why are you so hateful to each other? Why is that?† (1235) Biff is reluctant to admit that he is resentful towards his father. She cautions that one day the boys will try to come home and there will be strangers in the house. Biff replies, â€Å"What are you talking about? You’re not even sixty, Mom.† She reminds him that his father is not doing well and goes on to say, â€Å"Biff, dear, if you don’t have any feeling for him, then you can’t have any feeling for me.† (1235) This is an endearing symbol that all families are interconnected, and we each play an integral role. In a passionate plea she proclaims, â€Å"You can’t just come to see me, because I love him.† She goes on to acknowledge Willy’s character flaw, â€Å"I know he’s not easy to get along with—nobody knows that better than me—but†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (1235) Willy enters the kitchen and he is delighted to see Biff. His erratic behavior is puzzling, and Biff asks, â€Å"What the hell is the matter with him?† Linda defends Willy, as if from a physical threat, â€Å"Don’t—don’t go near him!† Out of disgust, Biff snaps, â€Å"Stop making excuses for him! He always, always wiped the floor with you. Never had an ounce of respect for you.† (1235) This is a loaded, emotional and hurtful comment. But, we will easily unpack why Biff feels that his father has not cherished his mother. Another scene, that does not directly involve Linda, is a mandatory addition. Nearing the end, we come to know that the younger Biff caught his father with â€Å"The Woman† in a hotel, while his father was on a business trip. (1267) The experience grants Biff a moment of clarity, it also permanently shatters his image of his father. Ultimately, she is the measure that Biff judges his father by. In that hotel room, the reality of his father’s pretentious persona crystallizes. He calls him a liar, and a fake. (1268) We will come to understand that this pivotal moment created a fissure that could never be filled. Inevitably, it altered the chain of events in Biff and Willy’s lives, not to mention Linda’s. They remain distant from that moment forward. Poor Linda is never directly told about the affair, which is the sole reason of why Biff resents his father, and the ultimate reason that has caused Willy to be so depressed. The most important detail I have saved for last. As I first claimed, I found Linda to be the most important woman that brings Willy into perspective for us. Early on, Linda confesses to her boys that Willy has deliberately smashed the car on two separate occasions, (1237) and that she has found a hose in the basement that he intended to connect to a gas line. Just prior she delivers a very heartfelt command to her boys. For us, Linda sums Willy up, â€Å"Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.† (1236) There we have it, Willy has attempted suicide and continues to be tormented with his ideations. Unfortunately, his final suicide attempt is successful. What a strange word, ‘successful’ can be when used to describe death by suicide. But, in Willy’s mind, through death he could attain financial success, make a lasting impression with his sons (mainly Biff) another form of success to Willy, leave 20K for Linda (huge success), and have everyone acknowledge him with a big â€Å"send off† (success in the form of recognition). As we know, in the end, it did not play out that way. The few people in attendance did not view his death as a success. What he left behind was pain.

Law Revision Kit Certified Public Accountants Essay

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. This publication may not be lent, resold, hired or otherwise disposed of by any way of trade without the prior written consent of the copyright owner. Â © THE REGISTERED TRUSTEES STRATHMORE EDUCATION TRUST 1992 INSTRUCTIONS FOR STUDENTS This study guide is intended to assist Distance Learning students in their independent studies. The course has been broken down into eight lessons each of which should be considered as approximately one week of study for a full time student. Solve the reinforcement problems verifying your answer with the suggested solution contained at the back of the distance learning pack. When the lesson is completed, repeat the same procedure for each of the following lessons. At the end of lessons 2, 4, 6 and 8 there is a comprehensive assignment that you should complete and submit for marking to the Distance Learning administrator. SUBMISSION PROCEDURE 1.After you have completed a comprehensive assignment clearly identify each question and number your pages. 2.If you do not understand a portion of the course content or an assignment question indicate this in your answer so that your marker can respond to your problem areas. Be as specific as possible. 3.Arrange the order of your pages by question number and fix them securely to the data sheet provided. Adequate postage must be affixed to the envelope. 4.While waiting for your assignment to be marked and returned to you, continue to work through the next two lessons and the corresponding reinforcement problems and comprehensive assignment. On the completion of the last comprehensive assignment, a two-week period of revision should be carried out of the whole course using the material in the revision section of the study pack. At the completion of this period, the final Mock Examination paper should be completed under examination conditions. This should be sent to the Distance Learning Administrator to arrive in Nairobi at least five weeks before the date of your sitting the KASNEB Examinations. This paper will be marked and posted back to you within two weeks of receipt by the Distance Learning Administrator. ACKNOWLEDGMENT We gratefully acknowledge permission to quote from the past examination papers of the following bodies: Kenya Accountants and Secretaries National Examination Board (KASNEB); Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA); Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Inclusion of Special Needs Children in Regular Classrooms Essay

Bobby, a young boy, is diagnosed with autism at age 3. At age 5 his parents attempt to place him into the kindergarten class in their school district. The school district wanted to immediately put Bobby into a special education classroom that is made up of entirely special needs children of all different disorders. Knowing that Bobby was prone to tantrums and uneasy with things unfamiliar to him, his parents wanted Bobby placed into a regular classroom with normally functioning students but with extra help from perhaps an extra aide or teacher. The school district decided to accommodate Bobby’s parents’ wishes and placed Bobby into a regular kindergarten classroom with a one-on-one aide who would also assist a few other children in the class when needed. This type of classroom is an inclusion classroom, meaning normally developing students are placed in the same class as special needs children so they can all learn from each other. It is not always easy for special need s children to adjust to an inclusion classroom at first, but they then usually become a successful environment. In the beginning of the school year Bobby had frequent outbursts when told to move from one activity onto another. These outbursts disturbed the classroom and Bobby’s classmates. Sometimes Bobby would scream and cry â€Å"NO!† when forced to relinquish a toy or supply to another student to teach him to share. Other times he wouldcry because he did not understand that every turn could not be his turn during games. Transition times were always a problem, because Bobby did not comprehend the concept of finishing one activity and moving onto the next. He just did not understand that the previous activity would still be there to do at another time or place. However, after a period of time and observing the â€Å"normal† students in his classroom, Bobby began to have fewer and shorter outbursts and began to understand simple concepts like finishing coloring and moving onto learning his alphabet. Many parents argue that having special needs children in the classroom with their normal children will hinder everyone’s learning and cause disruptions and distractions. However, inclusion classrooms help to teach sensitivity to normal students and proper interaction with society to special needs students. Inclusion in the scholastic environment benefits both the disabled student and the non-disabled student in obtaining better life skills. By  including all students as much as possible in general or regular education classes all students can learn to work cooperatively, work with different kinds of people, and how to help people in tasks. â€Å"As J.W. Whitworth, the Department of Education Chair of Texas, notes, ‘†¦the goal of inclusion in schools is to create a world, in which all people are knowledgeable about and supportive of all other people,'† (3). Every child in a public school system is required to receive a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) (Public Law 102-119). For higher-functioning children with special needs FAPE means being included in a regular classroom. Despite many arguments that special needs children are a hindrance to education in inclusion classrooms, the benefits of inclusive teaching outweigh the negative aspects. Any specialneeds child who is capable of functioning with some assistance in a mainstream classroom should be afforded that opportunity. No high functioning special needs student should be forced to remain in a classroom full of students that are lower functioning than them, therefore slowing down their education. Of the many benefits aspects for children placed in inclusion classrooms, there is none more important than the academic benefits. According to the Journal of Early Intervention, in a study of parents and teachers of inclusion classroom students, children with developmental disabilities placed in inclusion classrooms make great improvements in language, cognitive and motor development that are above their peers in special education classrooms (52). One way that students benefit is by learning skills of independence. Special needs students learn to depend on themselves first and then ask for help when they really need it. In the inclusive setting there won’t be as much of an opportunity for teachers or aids to assist all of the students. In a study conducted by Johns Hopkins University (Success For All) it was determined that in an inclusion setting â€Å"assessments showed improved reading performance for all students, the most dramatic improvements occurred among the lowest achievers.† (Stout, 2001). By placing the special needs students in with the general education students, all students are provided with better resources in the classroom. Aside from providing children with academic benefits, inclusion also provides children with a better understanding and respect for diversity. Being in a setting with many different types of students with different needs and abilities provides students with a way to learn about differences and how they can help others. In the â€Å"Success For All†study, results showed that the children involved had â€Å"a reduced fear of human differences accompanied by increased comfort and awareness† (Stout, 2001). If children are separated in the school because of their developmental differences then they will never truly learn that it is acceptable to be a unique individual. According to the Early Childhood Research Quarterly â€Å"typically developing children from inclusive classrooms [give] significantly higher acceptance ratings to hypothetical peers with disabilities than children from setting that do not include children with disabilities† (Hestenes, Carroll, 231). The idea that it is acceptable to be different should become common knowledge to all students. With that knowledge, students can make the future a better place for everyone. One tangible problem that could be avoided in the future if children are given exposure to disabled children are that people will not be turned down for jobs by non-accepting employers who do not understand the capabilities of some disabled workers. Another major benefit that students can gain from being in an inclusion classroom is a heightened self-concept. Larry Daniel and Debra King, writers for the Journal of Educational Outreach believe that â€Å"it is generally agreed that children who have learning problems and/or those who are behaviorally impaired often develop a poor self-concept† (Volume 91, Issue 2, 67).One way that students can gain a better self-concept is by learning that all students have strengths and weaknesses in the classroom and that needing help is acceptable. Special needs students will see general education students asking the teachers and the aids for help and they will realize that everyone needs help at some point (Daniel, King, 68). If a child who is viewed as â€Å"smart† asks a teacher how toread a certain passage, a learning disabled child will feel more comfortable with also asking for help with reading. Sometimes when a teacher starts children off with activities where they can no t fail, it can build a better self-concept (Daniel, King, 68). For example, a teacher could start off a lesson with a creative activity  such as drawing what one feels a story is about. Children cannot fail at this activity because it is all based upon their personal feelings. When a child feels good about an activity at which they succeeded, it builds the foundation for the belief that they can succeed at anything if they try. One way to build a child’s self-concept that is easy and helpful to the teacher is by assigning small tasks around the room. Some such tasks could be watering plants, passing out paper, or running small errands. Assigning special tasks makes them feel important and enhances self-esteem. (Daniel, King, 68) The way that a teacher talks to a child may either strengthen or weaken a child’s self-esteem. When a teacher uses many negative words and speaks loudly to a child in front of classmates that child may feel as if everyone will then make fun of him or her. This in turn makes the child feel poorly and lowers confidence. Wording phrases in a positive way can help to get the message across to the student effectively and mannerly (Daniel, King, 69). The child’s enhanced self respect can lead to many new friendships. Also, a refined self-concept develops feelings of empowerment in children. This new feeling can keep up self-confidence and allow the children to be less afraid to try new things. Through the many studies, laws, and the support of the government, inclusion has had a very beneficial effect on society as a whole. Students are learning at a younger age to accept people for who they are while learning reading and writing. They are learningthat everyone is different but everyone is still â€Å"special† and should be accepted for being themselves. As they grow older inclusion stays beneficial by creating better self-esteem in the students. Ultimately, inclusion is benefiting society more and more every day, creating better and more educated people around the world. Works Cited Whitworth, J. W. â€Å"A Model for Inclusive Teacher Preparation.† Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education 1 (1999). Retrieved April 18. 2007, from http://www.ed.wright.edu:16080/~prenick/JournalArchives/Winter-1999/whitworth.html. Peck, C .A., Carlson, P., and Helmstetter, E. â€Å"Parent and Teacher Perceptions of Outcomes for Typically Developing Children Enrolled in Integrated Early Childhood Programs: A Statewide Survey.† Journal of Early Intervention (1992): 53-63. Stout, Katie. â€Å"Special Education Inclusion.† Educational Issues Series: Wisconsin Education Association (2007). 18 Apr. 2007 . Hestenes, L. L. & Carroll, D. E. (2000) The play interactions of young children with and without disabilities: individual and environmental influences, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15,229-246. Daniels, Larry G., and Debra A. King. Journal of Educational Outreach 91 (1997): 67-81. 18 Apr. 2007.