About Sallie martin Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

About Sallie martin - Essay Example She was absorbed in a nearby Hospital while pursuing her desires in gospel in her off hours. She had heard of Thomas A. Dorsey that had electrifying gospel then in Chicago church culture that saw her arranged an audition. However, Sallie’s down-home style initially was at odds with Thomas A Dorsey’s fledging movement but later in 1927 joined the Dorsey Trio despite her serious misgivings about her unrefined style characterized with groaning and whooping besides a great deal of physical movement besides being unable to read music (Young 1997). Martin made her debut with his team in Ebenezer Church and in 1933 produced her first solo that instantly connected her with fans. She opened a music store that accrued a lot of profits leading to an adversarial and respectful relationship with Dorsey as they each inter-depended. Following the saturation of Dorsey songs in Chicago, she traveled to Cleveland in 1933 where she organized a chorus setting similar teams in South and Midwest. Martin and Dorsey became the co-founders, and organizers of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and choruses serving as the vice-president till her death. She went solo in 1940 and teamed up with Ruth Jones, a young pianist. Martin together with gospel composer Kenneth Morris teamed up in 1940 with financial backer Rev. Clarence H. Cobb forming Martin and Morris, Inc. publishing company, the biggest of kind in America and performed with Ruth and arranger Roberta Martin. Sallie formed the Sallie Martin Singers with Roberta Martin, Eugene Smith and Willie Webb, the first female group in gospel history. Martin traveled the Gospel concert circuit as a soloist in conjunction with her singer team that stayed up to mid-1950s. Martin contributed greatly taking the leading role in the French production of ‘Gospel Caravan in Paris in 1979. Her hits were â€Å"Just A Closer Walk with Thee† and â€Å"God Put A Rainbow in the Clouds† and â€Å"He’ll Wash You Whiter Than Snow.† She was an

Change Model Essay Example for Free

Change Model Essay The aim of this essay is to critically analyse the background of the Qantas and its decision to launch Jetstar on May 2004 that operated around 800 flights a week across network of 14 destinations within Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Secondly, this essay will evaluate how Data Collection Feedback Cycle change model is used to gather major information and to critically analyse it. Thirdly, this essay will critically evaluate the background of Qantas and Virgin Blue and will also highlight various reasons that eventually led the Qantas group for the launch of the Jetstar. Fourthly, this essay will also critically analyse the revenue and profit performance of Qantas prior the introduction of Jetstar i.e. 2002. Fifthly, it will continue to critically evaluate the trend in Qantas and Virgin Blue in 2003. Then the sixth paragraph will also critically evaluate the trend in Qantas after the launch of Jetstar. Lastly, the essay will also look into the annual reports of the year 2005-2009 and critically analyse the significant value added by the Jetstar to the Qantas group; and will critically analyse whether the executive decision of Qantas to launch Jetstar in order to retain the 60% domestic aviation market from its competitors has been a strategic success or not. This paragraph will critically analyse the change management information gathered to launch Jetstar low cost airline in May 2004 by using the Data Collection Feedback Cycle change model. Nadler (1977) as cited in Cumming and Worley (2009:122) highlights that the Data Collection Feedback model consists of five phases that are (1) planning to collect data, (2) collecting data, (3) analysing data, (4) feeding back data and (5) following up on the data collected. In planning to Gather information to justify change Nadler (1977) argues that primary methods such as, direct interviews with CEO and key change agents, observing and identifying the need for change and the use of un obstructive measure as sampling technique, force field analysis and scatter diagrams, could be used to gather major information. In contrast Danaher have used various published data to trace the evolution of the Jetstar strategy of its initial position, to its efforts to attain price competitiveness and service parity, followed by its highly focused, cost-effective service delivery strategy. Based on it they have developed a hierarchical model with parameters estimated at the  individual level. This allows us to study not only how service design and pricing initiatives shift the perceived performance of Jetstar relative to its competitors but also how the airline can move market preferences toward areas in which it has competitive advantage. After done with the planning of the collection of data from competitors performance on its revenue, sales profits, passenger numbers and market share in 2002, 2003 and 2004 against Qantas key performance indicators for the same period between 2002, 2003 and 2004 from the Annual Reports of both Virgin Blue and Qantas domestic operations. Nadler (1977), after the data has been collected data they are analysed using the qualitative change data such as directors report, World Business Briefing /Australia: Airline Profit(2004).The reminder of this essay will critically analyse the data collected from secondary sources such as Annual Reports, newspaper articles and journal articles to analysis the data sourced to evaluate what would be the most effective change to be implemented by Qantas in responding to Virgin Blue competition the Australian aviation domestic sectors. This paragraph will evaluate the basic background of Qantas and Virgin Blue and will also highlight various reasons that eventually led the Qantas group for the launch of the Jetstar. After the deregulation of Australian aviation market there were several airline companies entering the market however the most significant entrance was of low fare airlines Impulse in June and Virgin Blue in August 2000. The arrival of Impulse Airlines and Virgin Blue doubled the number of players and dramatically challenged the stable duopoly of Qantas (after its merger with Australian Airlines) and Ansett, setting off a vicious price war (Traca, D., 2004). However, Impulse facing a major trouble in the cash flow agreed on May 1, 2001 to hand over its operations to its biggest rival, Qantas Airways. As per the deal Impulse stopped its passenger service under its own name on May 14 and leased 21 aircraft as well as cabin crews and pilots to Qantas. The deal led the stock of Qantas heaved by 26% closing at $3.40 per share giving Qantas a significantly stronger position in the Australian market (Gaylord, 2001). Qantas, Australia’s leading domestic and international carries launched a budget airline called Jetstar in May 2004 (Qantas annual report, 2004). With Jetstar Qantas’s aim was to cover the low fare segment of the aviation  industry, which came into existence in the year 2000 with its competitor, Virgin Blue. Virgin had been successfully eating up QANTAS market share by attacking it from below as a no frills provider. In 2001 the collapse of Ansett in domestic market, led Qantas to lease extra flights, add hundreds of special flights in order to help stranded travellers due to Ansett crisis. At the time Qantas flew more than 50,000 former Ansett passengers for free and other 65,000 on heavily discounted fares. Due to this Qantas was able to deliver a profit before tax of $631m and net profit after tax of $428 million at the end of 2002, 30 June, despite of the fact that the world’s aviation market was suffering from â€Å"constant shock syndrome†, due to the September 11 attack followed by bombings in Bali, the war in Iraq and of course the devastating outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Qantas annual report, 2003). The shutdown of Ansett also highly benefitted Virgin Blue, since the event provided a wide opportunity for Virgin Blue to grow rapidly and become Australia’s second leading domestic carrier. In 2000 it started with only one route (Brisbane to Sydney) with two aircrafts and a team of just 200 people. In 2001, with the opportunity to widen its market segment, 14 new routes were launched (virginaustralia – history). The aim of this paragraph is to highlight how Qantas and Virgin Blue became the only two players in the Australian domestic aviation market in 2002. It will also look in to the key financial indicators of both the companies so that a comparison could be drawn out. In 2002 there were only two companies that survived the fare war of 2000-2001. One of them was Qantas that gained 80% of the domestic market share following Ansetts cessation. Whereas, the number of international passenger declined by 11% which makes an average decline of about 25% in global aviation market (Traca, D., 2004). In the same year Qantas domestic carried 1485 million passengers making a RPK of $2034 million and the ASK of $2503 million (Traffic and capacity statistics, 2002). Qantas announced its financial results for the year ended 30th June 2002. As per the financial result the company had $631 million of profit before tax, a net profit after tax of $million, revenue of $ 10,968.8 million and earnings per share of 29.1 cents (Qantas annual report, 2002). The other survivor of the fare war, Virgin Blue managed to emerge as second Australian Domestic carrier, covering of about 20% of the domestic market  (Traca, D., 2004). Due to its strategic low operating cost and soaring market share, it was able to achieve net profit before tax of $34.8 million and revenue of $388.3 million. In this year the airline carried 3.2 million passengers, its traffic as measured by RPK’S was 3169 million, capacity measured by ASK’S was 3898 million (Virgin Blue annual report, 2004). In March 2002 Patrick Corporation, the premier port cargo handler, bought 50% of the airline. This change made Godfrey, chief executive of Virgin Blue confident about the enlargeme nt of the domestic operation and also expansion into the international market with service to South Pacific (Traca, D., 2004). This paragraph critically analyses the key financial indicators of the Qantas and the Virgin Blue of the year 2003. It will also highlight how Virgin Blue concentrating only of the leisure domestic market was slowly overcoming the market share of Qantas. In 2003 Qantas domestic carried 1768 million passengers making a RPK of $2262 million and the ASK of $2683 million (Traffic and capacity statistics, 2003). Qantas announced its financial results for the year ended 30th June 2003. As per the financial result the company had $502.3 million of profit before tax, a net profit after tax of $343.5 million, revenue of $11,374.9 million and earnings per share of 20 cents (Qantas annual report 2003). Speaking of announcements, in the Annual General Meeting held on 16th October 2003 it was announced that â€Å"the airline is investigating the establishment of separate domestic low cost airline to service the leisure market in Australia† (Preliminary monthly traffic and capacity statistics, July 2003).In this same year Virgin Blue carried 6.8 million passengers, its traffic as measured by RPK’S was 7194 million, capacity measured by ASK’S was 9078 million. Taking advantage of the fact that Virgin Blue had no other competitor serving the price sensitive market of Australia, it earned revenue of $914.6 million, compared to previous year the revenue earned up roared by 135.5% and the number of passengers carried also increased by 107% (Virgin Blue annual report, 2003). This paragraph will critically analyse the launch of Jetstar in May 2004 and the changes that it brought in the key financial indicators of Qantas and as well as of Virgin Blue. Following the announcement made in 2003 Annual  General Meeting Qantas Introduced Jetstar in May 2004. In the first year Jetstar alone carried 273,000 passengers. Prior Jetstar Qantas already had Qantas Domestic and Qantas Link serving domestic passengers. With these three Qantas in total carried 1973 million passengers. Compared to 2003/04 the number increased by 9.4% (Traffic and capacity statistics, 2004). In the same year Total Domestic (Qantas, Qantas Link and Jetstar) traffic was measured in Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPKs) of $2451 million while capacity, measured in Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs) increased to $3021 million (Traffic and capacity statistics, 2004). On 19 August 2004, Qantas announced its financial results for the year ended 30 June 2004. In the announcement it was stated that the company had achieved a profit before tax of $964.6 million and a net profit after tax of $648.4 million. Similarly, $11.4 billion of revenue, earning per share of 35.7 cents (Qantas annual report, 2004/05). Despite increasing domestic competition during the year Virgin Blue continued to show strong growth and profitability. During the year Virgin Blue carried over 10million (m) passengers, an increase of 53% compared to previous year. Doubling its passenger number the third time in a row in this same year it welcomed its 20 millionth passenger. Its revenue for the 2004 financial year was $1362.3million which is 49% more than the previous year. In the same year profit before tax was up by 45% to 226.2million and a Net Profit After Tax of 158.5million (Virgin blue annual report, 2004). Till March 31, 2004 Virgin Blue had 44 Boeing Net Generation 737 – 700 737 -800 aircraft out of which 36 were leased and 8 were owned. However, during the year the fleet was increased by 15 aircrafts. Since the day of establishment Virgin Blue was committed to keep its cost base low and they are continuously working through it so that they could consistently provide their customers with low fares travel. Their cost per ASK for the financial year 2004 was 8.16 cents whereas a year before it was 8.48 cents. A decrease of 3.5% put the company on a good front in terms of scale and productivity (Virgin blue annual report 2004). The Australian discount airline Virgin Blue, has won 30% of the market from Qantas, the national carrier, which will introduce a low-fare airline, Jetstar. Fare surcharges are being imposed by both groups as fuel pri ces rise (Shaw, 2004). Jetstars initially offered $48 for Melbourne to Hobart route and from $54 for Sydney to the resorts south of Brisbane. The price was similar  to what the price Virgin Blue was offering at the same period. All Jetstar flights offered one class of travel, with unreserved seating. In contrast Virgin Blue offered assigned seating and baggage connections to final destinations (Henly, 2004). This paragraph critically analyse the key indicators for Qantas and Virgin Blue for launching Jetstar in May 2004. It is very clear with the annual report that Jetstar has been profitable ever since it was launched in the year 2004 (Jetstar Media centre). However, the road wasn’t quiet smooth in the initial years. From its launch Jetstar was exclusively using a â€Å"low price† message in its communication, but it was lagging way behind Virgin Blue in terms of quality. The Jetstar overall quality disadvantage was greater at 22.3% (6.02 versus 7.75) (Danaher et.al, 2011. pp. 586 -594, Fig 3). Jetstar was already appealing on the price front, and then it addressed its deficit in quality and tackled that by focusing on some specific sub attributes (not disclosed by the company) that provided Jetstar a good opportunity to overcome the point of difference with Virgin Blue. Then the price perception of Jetstar relative to Virgin Blue dramatically improved from 6.9% deficit in March 2008 to 2.5% deficit in only 3months i.e. 7.42 versus 7.62 (Danaher et.al, 2011. pp. 586 -594, Fig 3). Since the establishment the main concern as a parent company for Qantas Group was that whether Jetstar would financially be profitable in its own right. Hence, it did by earning revenue of $1.020 billion, $1.414 billion, and $1.605 billion in the year 2007, 2008, and 2009 respectively. It was 7%, 10%, 12% of Qantas group revenue respectively (Qantas annual report, 2009). Similarly, in the same order the profit earned was $79 million, $104 million and $118 million (Danaher et.al, 2011. pp. 586 -594, Table 2). Similarly, speaking of market share of Jetstar, it has increased by 29% from the year 2008-2009. Earlier with the perceived mediocre price competitiveness and low quality it was in a poor position as compared to Virgin Blue, whereas, with the necessary remedies taken within the 1st quarter of 2008 it was in position almost equal to Virgin Blue in terms of covering the large proportion of the target market. Jetstar Market Share of Domestic Australian Leisure Air Travel was 14% in the first quarter of 2008, with the changes made the market share increased to 14.6% and it gradually kept on increasing and it had 18.1% of market share in March 2009. Further, with the increase in profit it improved its perceptual position, whereas,  Virgin Blue has remained relativ ely stationary. In conclusion if we are to pay close attention to the domestic growth strategies of the country’s largest airline company; Qantas, its decision of launching Jetstar seems be a successful strategic decision. It was matter of concern that the Virgin Blue an airline company focusing on the price sensitive market would whether survive the competition with 82 year old veteran airline company. However, with its striking approach of low fare Virgin Blue today covers 35% market share of the domestic aviation sector. By critically evaluating the financial indicators of both companies for the year 2002-2004 and also following the series of events, it becomes quiet clear that though Virgin Blue had started small it managed to cover 20% of the target market in 2002. In further years concentrating only in the no frill travel it was able to hold the 30% of the market share, which became a matter of concern for Qantas because though it was making more profits then Virgin Blue it was losing it domestic market grip, therefore, led to the launch of Jetstar. However, even after the Launch of Jetstar Qantas performance was not like it was expected because in the year 2004 Qantas domestically carried only 2061 million passengers which were only 88 million more than the last year. However, with the necessary major changes (not disclosed by the company) Jetstar alone was able to regain the market share of 18.1% by March 2009. REFERENCE LIST Gaylord, B. (2001). Qantas to Absorb Competitor As Fare War Takes a Victim. The New York Times; Business Day. 11Shaw, J. (2004). World Business Briefing /Australia: Airline Profit. The New York Times; Business Day. Henly, G, S. (2004). Travel Advisory; New Offshot of Qantas Offers Lower Fares. The New York Times; Travel Danaher. J. P., Roberts. H. J., Roberts. K., Simpson. A. (2011). Applying a Dynamic Model of Consumer Choice to Guide Brand Development at Jetstar Airways. Marketing Science, 30(4), 586 – 594. Doi: 10.1287/mksc.1100.0619 Traca. D., (2004). Virgin Blue Fighting With National Champion. INSEAD, 5179. Traffic and Capacity Statistics. Retrieved from: http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/investors-traffic-statistics/global/en Jetstar Media Centre. Retrieved from: http://www.jetstar.com/mediacentre/facts-and-stats/jetstar-group Nadler, D. (1977). cited in Cumming and Worley (2009). Organization development change, 9th edition, South- Western Cengage Learning. Qantas annual report (2002). Retrieved from http://www.qantas.com.au/infodetail/about/investors/2002AnnualReport.pdf Qantas annual report (2003). Retrieved from http://www.qantas.com.au/infodetail/about/investors/2003AnnualReport.pdf Qantas annual report (2004). Retrieved from http://www.qantas.com.au/infodetail/about/investors/2004AnnualReport.pdf Virgin Blue annual report (2004). Retrieved from http://www.virginaustralia.com/cs/groups/internetcontent/@wc/documents/webcontent/~edisp/annual-rpt-2004-a3.pdf

An Analysis of Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood by Richard Rodri

An Analysis of Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood by Richard Rodriguez Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood by Richard Rodriguez is an essay that shows his readers a part of life that many have never experienced. Rodriguez uses this essay to show how he fights through his childhood to understand English. Speaking clear English will help him to fit in to society. He faces society while forfeiting his happy home life, to try to become a typical English-speaking student.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As a young child, Rodriguez finds comfort and safety in his noisy home full of Spanish sounds. Spanish, is his family's' intimate language that comforts Rodriguez by surrounding him in a web built by the family love and security which is conveyed using the Spanish language. "I recognize you as someone close, like no one outside. You belong with us, in the family, Ricardo.? When the nuns came to the Rodriquez?s house one Saturday morning, the nuns informed the parents that it would be best if they spoke English. Torn with a new since of confusion, his home is turned upside down. His sacred family language, now banished from the home, transforms his web into isolation from his parents. "There was a new silence in the home.? Rodriguez is resentful that it is quiet at the dinner table, or that he can't communicate with his parents about his day as clearly as before. He is heartbroken when he overhears his mother and father speaking Spanish together but suddenly stop w hen they see Rodriguez. Thi...

Leadership and vision for future

The role of leadership in organization is really great. Success of company mostly depends on qualities of leader. A good leader is more than half of success. Much of literature on organizational change and leadership emphasizes the notion of selling an inspirational and aspirational vision to those at every level in the organization. Let’s try to examine the difficulties, which can face the leader when trying to sell an inspirational and aspirational vision for the future, taking into account that a vision needs to appeal to and be understood by people at every level of the organization. Leadership as a concept of classical management is ability to influence activity of individuals and groups of people in order to motivate them working for achievement of aims. Organization, which is successful, is different from other organizations mainly because it has more dynamic and effective management.   Successful organization is, first of all, a strategic vision for future, whereas leadership supposes vision of future and ability to propagate it as well as motivate people. So, we can see that an effective leadership and effective inspirational and aspirational vision for the future depends on skillful motivation of workers. Without any doubt, motivation should be different for different levels of workers. Vision – is the fourth component of â€Å"diamond leadership†. Leader combines both words of vision – external and internal (Heifitz, R., p.112). Components of vision are creativity and strategy. There is no magic in this process: it is quite difficult, sometimes wearisome process of collecting and analyzing of information. A person, who forms vision of company, is not a magician – he is a thoughtful strategist, who is able to risk. Vision is one of zones of leader’s intelligence, which demands constant development and perfection. To tell with other words, vision is a â€Å"description of the future that is attractive because it expresses the possibility of realizing values that are important to people† (Charles Pfeffer, p.2) Let’s see, what are the main problems and difficulties, leaders face during implementing of vision for the future in the companies. Model of future is not attractive (or it is difficult to understand). First of all, a leader should create an attractive vision of future. He has to work out a strategic plan, which will indicate the main stages of development. What is also very important, the vision should not be different of strategic aims of company. The vision should show, which values will be achieved during implementation process. All workers should realize importance of working together and should understand the aims of company. Moreover, they have to understand and to share your vision. Don’t forget that people are different and you have to work with them depending on their skills, abilities and status. A good model is like a house made of cards – each card should occupy its position; when one card will fall down, it ruins the whole building. The same problem is in the company: all the workers should understand the aims of organization and its vision for the future. When a worker doesn’t understand the aim, he will not work effectively. Insufficient communication with workers. A good leader develops vision for the future by speaking. A good base for effective work is trust and good relations. When a leader explained to all workers, what he expects from them, he has to be opened for everybody to check results of fulfillment. You should be more open to the workers. The effective communication favors solving different kinds of problems before they become more serious. Paola Gamonal notes that you should â€Å"raise the comfort level, make sure they know questions are always OK, your door is always (or at predictable intervals) open, and be willing to look at drafts and give feedback† (Paola Gamonal, p.3) Bad motivation. Actually, I suppose that this is the most important problem when trying to sell an inspirational and aspirational vision for the future. I think that motivation, ability to develop your qualities, ability to be responsible, readiness to make all efforts to achieve aims of company – all these qualities already are present in people; management cannot give those qualities to people. So, a good manager/leader is obliged to help people to realize and develop all those human qualities. A leader should be able to create such conditions in organization and to use such methods of work to help people to achieve their own aims only in case they make efforts in achievement of aims of organization. Even from economical point of view, people are considered as extremely expensive working resource, so they should be used with maximum effectiveness. For example, when a person gets a new job, he tries to make all efforts to develop himself from the best side. When he doesn’t receive possibility to feel himself necessary, an independent worker, he becomes disappointed in his work. As a consequence, he doesn’t focus attention on quality of work, and doesn’t work effectively for achievement of main aims of his company. This is also one of mistakes, which should be avoided. So, a good leader should estimate potential possibilities of a worker, giving him a chance to realize himself. In such a way, a leader should understand importance of ideal work for each definite worker. Such ‘ideal work’ should have: a) integrity (it means, it should bring to some definite result); b) should be considered as important and which has to be fulfilled (John P Kottler, p.115); c) should give possibility to worker to take decisions, necessary for its fulfillment (i.e. there should be a kind of autonomy, but within definite limits), – or group autonomy; d) should provide double-side connection with worker, should be estimated depending of effectiveness of his work and should bring to him fair remuneration. When you plan work in accordance with these principles, it provides a worker with internal satisfaction. It is very effective motivating factor, because it stimulates qualitative fulfillment of work and stimulates a worker to fulfill more difficult work, which leads to increase of effectiveness in particular and increase of effectiveness of work in the whole company as well. So, summarizing my position, a good leader should be able to provide his organization with effective model of vision for the future. The future of company depends on effective vision. There are some difficulties leader should take into account during selling an inspirational and aspirational vision for the future, which depend on external and internal factors. Those factors include communication with workers, bad or insufficient motivation; inability to explain the vision for the future, to determine main factors and ideas of success, presenting attractive vision, to explain that important aims can be realized, to declare new possibilities. Leaders also face difficulties in speaking in ways that engage workers, to understand what is your audience and react accordingly (people are different and you should be aware that methods, which work for top managerial, doesn’t work for executives, etc). Focusing attention on those difficulties will allow you avoiding a number of problems and will help you company to be more effective. Works Cited: 1.Leadership, Vision and Shared-mental Modeling by Ch. Pfeffer 2.   Vision – Or, Who's Looking Out The Windshield? by P. Gamonal (c) Ravenwerks Website 2003 3.Leadership Without Easy Answers, by Heifitz, R., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994 4.Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail in Harvard Business Review by John P Kottler, Business Classics: Fifteen Key Concepts for Managerial Success. Harvard Business School Publishing Crop 1998   

Functions of Emotions Essay

By definition, emotions are short-lived phenomena in the psychological and physiological systems of rational beings that represent modes of adaptation to the dynamism of the internal and external environment (Fiske, Gilbert & Lindzey, 2010). Emotions are responsible for psychologically altering the attention and shifting behaviors in response to changing demands. They are therefore very instrumental in not only defining inter-personal relationships but also the lives of rational beings (Lewis, Haviland-Jones & Barret, 2008). In this research paper, the author seeks to explain and describe the social functions of emotions in a relationship. I will first identify the emotions that relate to relationships and then proceed to explain the functions they play. Examples of emotions that apply to relationships Emotions are complex and intricately related. There has been confusion in the usage of terms between emotions and feelings while the two are not synonymous. The word â€Å"Feelings† can be used to describe the sensitivity to emotions or morals. In other words, feeling is the passion or sensation of emotions and is therefore a component of emotion (Fiske, Gilbert & Lindzey, 2010). Each emotion leads to the exhibition of a corresponding set of behaviors, both in the movement of the body (emotional expression through skeletal muscles) and in other responses that do not include physical movements. In the context of relationships, very many emotions apply. To every emotion there is an opposite. Examples of emotions which are applicable in the development of interpersonal relationships include love and passion which are contradicted by hatred and disgust and happiness which is contradicted by the emotion of sadness. Pride as an emotion plays a significant role in the development of relationships between parents and their children, between lovers and also between casual acquaintances (Lewis, Haviland-Jones & Barret, 2008). Jealousy, gratefulness and empathy also play a major role in relationships. Emotions and the Capacity to communicate and influence people Emotions are communicated through verbal statements and non-verbal statements including facial expressions, postures or gestures. Most expressions of emotions have a direct and automatic effect on other people, and more so if these emotions are communicated non-verbally. The human conscience is programmed to naturally decode emotions in the action of other people (Fussell, 2002). Therefore, how well a person expresses his or her emotions goes a long way in determining how well other people understand him. People will usually respond to facial expressions and other gestures. Being able to effectively communicate one’s emotions so that they are representative of the feelings held inside plays a major role in either strengthening or weakening the relationship bonds between people. A person who relays his feelings (through emotions) genuinely is less likely to be misunderstood and is therefore more likely to get positive responses to his demands or requirements (Fussell, 2002). Take for example a person whose face lights up upon seeing another person. Such will definitely be interpreted as a reaction to the emotion of love or passion. Upon decoding this, the targeted party is also likely to develop affection for the other person. Strong relationships are founded on how genuinely people communicate their emotions (Knobloch & Solomon, 2003). Emotions are also useful in influencing the actions of others. Disappointment, for example in a parent for his or her underperforming child can trigger the urge to work harder in school so as to please the parent (Dunsmorea, Bensona & Bradburna, 2006). However, constant disappointment in people despite their exhibited desire to improve damages relationships as it induces guilt and shame. In other words, positive emotions most of the time build a relationship and negative emotions like anger, fear, sadness and disappointment will tend to destroy a relationship. Emotions negatively or positively impact on how people process information. They comprise an integral part of interpersonal communication and therefore define how people negotiate with other people or groups (Perlman, 2007). It is the relational problems an individual faces which give rise to emotions and emotions therefore become important in relationships as they define the way the individual navigates though the challenges that arise in the process of relating to other people. Emotions as a motivating factor The human psychological and physiological faculties are pre-programmed to automatically obey or respond to emotions (Fiske, Gilbert & Lindzey, 2010). Emotions on their part prepare and motivate people to act in a specific manner. For example, the emotion of love will prompt its bearer to show the person he or she is in love with the actions which will illustrate his or her passion. Perhaps love is the most instrumental emotion in relationships. It is love which makes people to be concerned with the welfare of other people in their environment and triggers responsible behavior that ensures the society moves towards a state in which the welfare of everyone within that specific society is protected (Perlman, 2007). Another example of emotions playing a part in relationship building is in the way they trigger actions which signify goodwill (Ryff & Singer, 2001). If a person sees his neighbor’s toddler moving towards danger, say in the path of traffic, he or she will feel obliged, through the action of the emotion of fear, to save it. The neighbor whose child has been rescued from imminent danger will be very appreciative of the other person, and through this appreciation their interpersonal relationship will become more cordial. Alternatively, when a person acts in a manner likely to suggest that he or she does not care much about the welfare of the people next to him or her, the relationship between him or her and those people suffers a setback. Emotions empower people to overcome obstacles in their environment and therefore end up defining the way a person reacts on the backdrop of specific circumstances. This ends up defining how a person relates to other people (Ryff & Singer, 2001). For example, before sitting an oral interview, a person will be overcome with the emotion of anxiety. He or she will then be obliged through automatic adaptation to prepare extensively to beat his or her fear. When the time comes, he or she will have garnered sufficient confidence and his or her response to questions presented is likely to be mature, clear and expressive. If this be the case, the interviewing panel is likely to feel attracted to the candidate and will most likely hire him or her to fill the vacancy. A new relationship then begins and will continue to grow based on the candidate’s continued state of emotional competence and capacity to adapt to new challenges. Adaptive functions of emotions within relationships Emotions provide an individual with the capacity to adaptively respond and cope with particular circumstances or situations. Every person is unique in his or her own way, and these fundamental differences in personality have characterized the human species since the beginning (Knobloch & Solomon, 2003). To forge and to maintain relationships, people need to tolerate this diversity, and emotional responses enable us to do so. For example, my friend, spouse or work colleague who looks depressed may be battling a certain stressing issue. If I take the time to encourage or cheer them up, I will have strengthened the bond between us. Emotions, through this adaptive function regulate the social interaction of people. By correctly identifying the emotions other people are feeling through their body language and facial expressions, an individual may be motivated to either move towards them or keep his or her distance (Oatley, Keltner & Jenkins, 2006). This way, relationships are strengthened, formed or damaged to some degree. Through the evolutionary process, members of the human species have learnt to express their emotions through art, poetry and literature to give more meaning to the sense of being human, and it is the celebration of this color or spice that enables people to live cordially with one another. The self-validating role of emotions Who people really are is, to a large extent, derived from their emotions (Fiske, Gilbert & Lindzey, 2010). Emotions are always valid even though they are not necessarily facts, and they therefore give a person the intuition to feel whether something may be right or wrong. The intensity of emotions expressed determines the probability of an individual’s needs being met. For example, a person who strongly feels the need to establish serious relationships with others is more likely to have healthy and objective relationships (Oatley, Keltner & Jenkins, 2006). People who decrease the intensity of their emotions are less likely to be taken seriously, and therefore their relationships are more likely to be weak. Emotions also function to put a limit to relationships and the levels of social interaction by virtue of their being self-validating (Lewis, Haviland-Jones & Barret, 2008). Take an example of a person who feels uneasy about attending a certain social event due to the feeling that something will go wrong. Nevertheless, he or she attends the event, and somewhere down the line, he or she disagrees with another person in attendance and decides to leave. Such a person will most likely develop the tendency to strictly follow their emotions while making decisions in other aspects of everyday life, including relationships. An example of this scenario is when an individual abstains from forming a relationship with another person in their social environment because of the feeling that he or she may not be a nice person, even though this may be totally wrong (Ryff & Singer, 2001). Conclusion In this paper, my objective was to explain and describe the function of emotions in relationships. I began by identifying various emotions which directly impact on relationships. Such emotions include love, hate, pride, jealousy, passion and fear. Secondly, I explained the role emotions play in communication. The ways in which emotions are communicated are verbal statements and non-verbal gestures including facial expressions, gestures or any other type of body language. Communication is a very essential part in the foundation of a relationship, and the role emotions play in communication therefore becomes defining in relationships (Fussell, 2002). I also discussed the function of emotions in adapting to the various challenges that occur regularly in relationships as well as how emotions inhibit people from forming or maintaining relationships based on intuition. In conclusion, emotions, besides adding color and spice to the art living greatly determine how people understand each other and therefore how they relate in the society. References Dunsmorea, J. C. , Bensona, M. J. & Bradburna, I. S. (2006). â€Å"Functions of Emotions for Parent Child Relationships within Dynamic Contexts: Introduction to the Special Issue. † Research in Human Development, 3(1) pp 1-5. Fiske, S. T. , Gilbert, D. T. , & Lindzey, G. (2010). Handbook of Social Psychology Volume Two. 5th Ed. John Wiley and Sons. Fussell, S. R. (2002). The Verbal Communication of Emotions: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Lewis, M. , Haviland-Jones, J. M. , & Barrett, L. F. (2008) Handbook of emotions. 3rd Ed. Guilford Press.

The #1 Critical, Fundamental Strategy of ACT Reading

The #1 Critical, Fundamental Strategy of ACT Reading SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips You only need to know one fundamental rule to do well on ACT Reading, and it’s not all that complicated. That rule is this: There’s only one correct answer choice for every question, and the other three answers can be eliminated based on definitively incorrect elements. In other words, the questions on the ACT Reading section are NOT subjective in any way! In this article, I’ll go through the types of incorrect answers you’ll see on the ACT Reading section and how to ruthlessly eliminate them so you’re only left with one solid winning choice. The Reasons Behind the Rule As we all know, the ACT is a standardized test.This means that the more people challenge the answers to the questions, the less validity it has as a measurement of student ability. The answers to all questions, even in areas that are usually more subjective like reading, have to be unambiguous.The only way to accomplish this is to restate something from the passage. Therefore, every answer must be DIRECTLY and CLEARLY supported by the text.If there’s no direct evidence, it’s not the correct answer.Otherwise, the ACT would encounter challenges to its questions, weakening its credibility.Once you get into the realm of literary interpretation, standardization breaks down. There are just too many ways of interpreting texts. This means you shouldn't make any assumptions on the test. What the passage says is what it means; even for inference questions, you can always find concrete evidence in the text for your answers.Now let’s take a look at the types of answers you should learn to eliminate. Types of Incorrect Answer Choices on the ACT Reading Section Incorrect answer choices on the ACT Reading section will fall into one of four categories. Once you do a fewpractice questions, you’ll be able to identify which answers fall into which problem areas. Category 1: Irrelevant This is an answer choice that has no evidence whatsoever in the passage - it’s just stuck in there amongst more realistic answers. Here's a sample question to show you what I mean: According to the passage, Cho would have determined that volunteers had experienced a placebo effect if which of the following procedures had created increased activity in the visual cortex of the brain? A. Flashing a light in front of themB. Stimulating one of their vision-related acupointsC. Having them read an eye-examination chartD. Stimulating a place that was not a visual acupoint In the passage, it states that "To eliminate the possibility of a placebo effect, Cho also stimulated a nonacupoint, in the big toe." The correct answer in this case is clearly D based on the passage. An example of an irrelevant answer choice would be C, "Having them read an eye-examination chart", because nowhere in the passage is the reading of an eye-examination chart mentioned as a part of the experiment. Why is this a dangerous option? Some test-takers are unaware that the passage doesn’t need to directly contradict an answer choice to make the choice wrong.Students might see an irrelevant answer choice and think it could be right because they missed something or the passage didn’t say it WASN'T true. Irrelevant answers are pretty common across the board, but they usually show up more in detail questions where students might think they just missed the part of the passage with evidence for the irrelevant answer. If a choice seems totally random, don’t assume the ACT wouldn’t put an obviously incorrect answer on the test. They would and they do, so don’t get fooled! After you read this article you're gonna have 20/20 vision on the ACT. Figuratively speaking. Category 2: Opposite This is an answer choice that is the exact opposite of what’s stated in the passage. Take this question as an example: Information in the second paragraph reveals that the family's response to the grandfather's error with the crutches is to: A. find a workable remedy for itB. lay the blame on the narratorC. praise him for more successful projectsD. fix what wasn't wrong in the first place In the passage, the narrator uses crutches that were constructed by his grandfather, but his grandfather forgets to put rubber tips on them so he keeps falling. The family's response is to simply "buy the rubber tips and put them on the crutches". The opposite answer out of the choices given is D, "fix what wasn't wrong in the first place", because the actual solution is to fix what WAS wrong. The correct answer is A, "find a workable remedy for it". Why is this a dangerous option? The ACT is counting on people rushing and not reading carefully enough.If the answer choice uses the same words that are in the passage, it’s easy to make a silly mistake and choose it because you missed a â€Å"not† (or, in this case, a "n't") in there. You'll often see opposite answers in detail questions because these questions are the most straigtforward, so most people don't focus too much on them. Read the questions carefully to avoid falling into this trap, and check your answers at the end of the section! Category 3: Concept Jumble This is an answer choice that incorporates concepts from the text but does so in a slightly confused order or relationship so that they don’t actually make sense as an answer to the question. Let's use this question as an example: The word miracle in line 52 refers most specifically to the way in which: A. brain function disorders are cured.B. unique handicaps are compensated for.C. different areas of the brain work together.D. the creative potential of disease is revealed. Here's the sentence from the passage that includes line 52: "The miracle is how they all cooperate, are integrated together, in the creation of a self." In the context of the passage, "they" refers to different areas of the brain; therefore, for this question, C is the correct answer. An example of a concept jumble answer would be D, "the creative potential of disease is revealed". This is because the main point of the passage is the fact that certain diseases reveal the creative potential of the brain to rewire itself. Even though D doesn't make sense as an answer to this specific question, it is still a concept that is discussed in the passage. Why is this a dangerous option? Much like opposite answer choices, concept jumble answer choices count on you rushing and not reading carefully enough. You might remember something being mentioned in the text and go with an answer that contains that same concept but not read closely enough to realize the answer doesn’t actually make sense. These types of answer choices are common on big picture questions that ask about the main points of passages. This is when it's easiest to confuse you because the answer has to cover broader themes or connect complex ideas. Again, read carefully! Don’t make assumptions, and be sure you know exactly what the question is asking before jumping to conclusions about the answer. Brains be crazy. Don't let yours run wild on the ACT. Category 4: Plausible interpretation This is an answer choice that offers a reasonable interpretation of the passage but is not evidenced directly in the text. We'll use this question as an example: The main function of lines 64-66 in terms of the eighth paragraph as a whole is to: A. give a sense of proportion to the numbers provided earlier in the paragraph.B. point out the limitations of the evidence provided by the Iowa scientists.C. supplement the paragraph's description of the comets with additional details about their size and capacity.D. provide readers with a sense of how old the planet really is. These lines read "That may not seem like much, but when talking about a planet billions of years old, it adds up." This refers to a statement earlier in the paragraph that comets bombarding the Earth's atmosphere would produce enough water vapor to add an inch of water to the planet's surface every 10,000 years. The real answer to this question is A because lines 64-66 serve mainly to put the earlier numbers in perspective. An example of a plausible interpretation answer would be D, "provide readers with a sense of how old the planet really is". The sentence does give a sense of how old the planet really is, so that could plausibly be its purpose in the paragraph. However, if you read closely, answer choice A is much more logical as a rationale for the placement of the sentence. Why is this a dangerous option? This is probably the MOST dangerous type of wrong answer choice for students who aren't prepared for the ACT.If you’re looking at a passage on the test the same way you would look at something you’re reading in English class, it's easy to get trapped by an answer that’s plausible but not objectively true. These options are especially problematic (and prevalent) with inference and function questions, because you are being asked to look beyond the literal details of the text. In these cases, remember that you will never have to look so far beyond what's written that there's nothing in the text that directly supports your answer. Again, don’t choose any answer that doesn’t have concrete support in the passage. Even if it could be correct, if you don’t see the evidence you need to eliminate it. The Fundamental Rule in Action Let’s work on identifying and eliminating wrong answer choices for a real ACT Reading question. Here’s the question: When the narrator refers to the cosmonaut as "a man without a country" (lines 83-84), she is most likely directly referring to the: A. cosmonaut's feeling that he is now a citizen of space, not the former Soviet Union.B. cosmonaut's unrealized expectation that he will be treated like a hero.C. political transformation that occurred while the cosmonaut was in space.D. sixteen months that the cosmonaut spent in orbit around Earth. And here’s the section of the passage you’ll need to refer to: I nod or laugh on cue, while I try to read upside-down a story in the would-be journalist’s newspaper that has caught my eye. It is about the Russian space station and the cosmonaut who had been up in orbit during the takeover attempt and ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union. After sixteen long months, they are bringing the capsule back. While the train carries me back to my current home and away from my former, I keep thinking about that poor cosmonaut coming back to find his whole world changed, to find himself a man without a country - at least without the country he left behind. L8r, h8rs Step 1: Figure Out What the Question Is Asking We know the answer is related to a specific detail in the text based on the phrase "directly referring to" in the question, and we're given the line number, so we can find it pretty easily.The question could be rephrased to read â€Å"What fact from the passage does the phrase ‘a man without a country’ refer to?† Our goal is to find a direct connection in the passage between a fact stated by the narrator and her description of the cosmonaut. Step 2: Read the Lines Referenced in the Question Here's the sentence containing the "man without a country" line: While the train carries me back to my current home and away from my former, I keep thinking about that poor cosmonaut coming back to find his whole world changed, to find himself a man without a country - at least without the country he left behind. Just reading those lines doesn’t quite give us the information we need.We have to read the whole paragraph - there must be something before that sentence that explains why the narrator says what she says about the cosmonaut. Based on the rest of the paragraph, it seems like what triggered the â€Å"man without a country† line was the fact that the cosmonaut’s home country, the Soviet Union, was dissolved while he was in space. The article the narrator reads is about "the Russian space station and the cosmonaut who had been up in orbit during the takeover attempt and ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union." (bolding added for emphasis) The end of the lines referenced in this question, "at least without the country he left behind," really brings this point home.The phrase referenced in the question ("man without a country") could ONLY be referring to the political changes between the Soviet Union as the cosmonaut knew it before he left and the country he will find when he arrives home. Step 3: Go Through the Answer Choices, and See Which One Sticks! Choice A:cosmonaut's feeling that he is now a citizen of space, not the former Soviet Union This is an example of a plausible interpretation answer choice. It would be reasonable to infer that the cosmonaut could have this feeling after being in space for so long, butnowhere in the passage is this feeling referenced. No matter how tempted you are to pick these types of choices, remind yourself that nothing short of concrete evidence should be enough to sell you on an answer choice. Cross it out! Choice B:cosmonaut's unrealized expectation that he will be treated like a hero This is an example of an irrelevant answer choice. This has nothing to do with anything in referenced in the passage about the cosmonaut.Don’t let answers like this trick you - even if you think this is a possible scenario, you can’t make any assumptions on the ACT. Cross it out! Choice C:political transformation that occurred while the cosmonaut was in space This answer choice looks good. We can find direct evidence in the paragraph above for this answer.We know that the cosmonaut â€Å"had been up in orbit during the takeover attempt and ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union.† This is what is being referenced in the line cited in the question.The cosmonaut is coming back to â€Å"find his whole world changed† in a political sense. Keep this one! Choice D:sixteen months that the cosmonaut spent in orbit around Earth This is an example of a concept jumble answer choice. Yes, the cosmonaut did spend sixteen months in space. This is directly stated in the passage (which is what makes this answer different from a completely irrelevant choice). However, the fact about him spending sixteen months in space doesn’t answer the question that’s being asked.The concepts of the cosmonaut being â€Å"a man without a country† and the length of his time in space are not meaningfully linked by the author of the passage. Cross it out! Ok, looks like we’re bubbling in C! This process might not take as long on the test, but it’s helpful to walk through it and see the steps so you can understand exactly why all three incorrect answers can be eliminated. Once you accumlate enough practice, eliminating wrong answers will seem second-nature! Summary The fundamental rule of ACT reading is that three out of four answer choices can always be eliminated! The types of wrong answers you’ll see include: Irrelevant answer choices Opposite answer choices Concept jumble answer choices Plausible interpretation answer choices Every question you see on the ACT Reading section can be answered correctly by eliminating these types of answer choices until you are left with the one option that is evidenced directly in the text. Remember that, and you’ll ace this test! What's Next? Need more tips for ACT Reading? Take a look at these articles on how to read passages, how to answer vocabulary in context questions, and how to avoid running out of time. You should also check out this article on what's tested on the ACT Reading section and this one on the four types of passages you'll see. Now that you have all this great insight into the ACT Reading section,take a practice test to hone your skills even more! Want to improve your ACT score by 4 points? Check out our best-in-class online ACT prep program. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your ACT score by 4 points or more. Our program is entirely online, and it customizes what you study to your strengths and weaknesses. If you liked this Reading lesson, you'll love our program.Along with more detailed lessons, you'll get thousands ofpractice problems organized by individual skills so you learn most effectively. We'll also give you a step-by-step program to follow so you'll never be confused about what to study next. Check out our 5-day free trial:

How to Motivate Your Characters

How to Motivate Your Characters How to Motivate Your Characters How to Motivate Your Characters By Mark Nichol You are like unto a god, because you have the omnipotence to create literary characters. But as we all know from watching Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility. This is the greatest of yours: Before you endow your creations with any other attributes, they must have motivations. Just as actors need to determine what it is their characters want in each scene of a play or a movie, book or short story characters must have one or more needs that drive them at all times. And, in the same way that actors do not necessarily explicitly express their characters’ desires, though they are the origin of all that the characters do, you must convey the compulsions of your characters not in exposition but in behavior. Actors often invent back stories for their characters autobiographical information they never share with anyone that helps them comprehend the people they portray. Benefit from their example: Examine the lives of your characters, and understand how they got to be the way they are now. That is what propels them to say and do the things they do in your story. Speaking of autobiography, the easiest way to create a character, of course, is to pattern it on yourself. But it doesn’t take a great leap of effort to produce a personality that is much different than yours. A character need not share the same desires (and fears) you do, but you can apply them to the character’s own drives. He or she doesn’t have to have the same ethnic and socioeconomic background, the same family dynamics, or the same educational and professional experiences, but you can draw on those elements of your life to develop someone who is quite distinct from you. Your main character is the foundation of your story, and his or her motivations are the cement in that foundation that bind that person together, so you must develop the motivations before you do anything else even before you formulate the plot of the story the character inhabits. That may seem counterintuitive, but follow the foundation metaphor: The plot the character inhabits is the house, the place in which everything takes place. But what happens results from what the character does. Only after you decide what your character wants, what your character needs, what your character must have or he or she will die physically or psychologically only then should you discover how he or she is going to go about getting it, and what ramifications that will have for the wider world and the other people who inhabit it. And notice I haven’t said anything about the character’s appearance, personality, or habits. Motivation drives each of those aspects to some extent, too, so motivation comes first. I’ll get to the trappings another time. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Fiction Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Incorrect Pronunciations That You Should AvoidTime Words: Era, Epoch, and Eon40 Synonyms for Praise

Top 5 Secret Habits of Successful People

Top 5 Secret Habits of Successful People If you’re striving to become successful but find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place, then these habits of successful people may be something you want to emulate. There is no scientific formula for achieving success, but if you develop these habits and make them part of your daily routine, you will drastically increase your chances.This infographic will highlight the 5 key habits of successful people that you can apply to your daily life:Â  Source: [lifehack.org]

The right decision Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The right decision - Research Paper Example However, the experiences of teenage life despite its bitterness have imbued me with right concepts perhaps at a later stage. The most vital advantage evolved from the past failures includes my acquired ability to make a self assessment. Today I am well acquainted with the possible ups and downs of life, and can easily envisage the outcome of each personal decision I would make. To begin with, my decision flawed for the first time as I dropped my studies. After I finished my high school, I joined a college for further studies with half-assed ideas of a career life. Since I did not have a proper goal or strategy, I could not pursue my studies well. I was in a hurry to get involved in some sorts of business activities though my situation was not very favorable. It was not because I wanted to win bread for my family, but just thought of proving my mettle in front of my friends and relatives at a very younger stage. Obviously, the academic life was of little relevance to me for I found no relevant things taught in my classes. Subsequently, I quit the studies just after the first semester, thinking that I would better seek some jobs that best fitted my age and interest. As far as the education of my home land is concerned, since the founding of the UAE in 1971, section 17 of the constitution ensures free education at all levels and mandatory primary education. The UAE constitution emphasizes on the significance of education in the overall development of the nation. In addition to free education, all associated requirements including books, uniforms, transportation, and all study equipments are free for students. Education is one of the most important areas of governmental concern that frequently undergoes several policy improvements. The concerned authorities of education include The Ministry of Education and Youth (MOEY) and The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MOHESR). In fact, I cannot blame anyone for my discontinued study. Despite all the ab ove said viable social conditions, I suspended my studies; and that eventually resulted in my getting humiliated by my employer. Soon after my retrieval from college I got employed in a regional bank where I was the youngest among all employees. In addition, I was the individual paid least; and that soon became the part of my identity in my workplace. I spent two years working for the bank expecting better chances in future. Although I requested the manager for increment, he did not heed genuine concern to my need. He said that I did not have sufficient educational qualifications for a better pay or promotion. To add to my grief, I found my friends in better positions earning handsome salaries from their employers. This was indeed the turning point in my life because I decided to leave the job with intent to resume my studies. I was well convinced of the significance of a university degree for the first time in my life. As a result of my sincere effort, I got a scholarship to study in USA. This is the most rewarding challenge I would get because I have been very much curious about visiting the States since my schooldays. Now I have got the chance to visit and stay there until I complete my studies. I am confident that the new academic environment in the States would offer me better educational aspirations. At this juncture, it is important to evaluate the characteristics of the

Literacy and ESOL Theories and Frameworks Essay - 1

Literacy and ESOL Theories and Frameworks - Essay Example those delivered by literacy and numeracy curricula, which following advancement of technology have extended from being preserved in the classroom setting to being part of everyday discourse. Literacy and numeracy have been attributed to practical application of knowledge and skills for tasks that are undertaken everyday and for effective participation in places of work and in civic life, though their destinations are not clear. ESOL therefore is mainly delivered to adults studying in adult communities, in order to improve their written reading and spoken English skills. ESOL, numeracy and literacy share a number of established features, which include methods and tools for assessment of skills standards and subjects, and a national assessment system. This assessment is important and provides an access to other subjects in the curriculum, as well as providing a wide social context participation. Criticisms are focused on the narrow scope in terms of its methods of testing and curriculu m. Therefore, like in any language, there are four basic skills in ESOL, which are classified into two, productive and receptive skills. Reading is a receptive skill and will be discussed in relation to ESOL (Spratt et al 2006). According to Davies, and Pearse (2000), any teaching process involves understanding how the students learn, and from the cognitive to the behaviorist view, it can be generalized that teaching provides students with a chance of connecting with the teacher’s content, a way through which the teacher gets to know the conceptions and what the students have learned through tests. The teacher is able to support the understanding of the students also using various concepts such as using charts to make the knowledge structure clear and can use other learning strategies that are cooperative to improve the social aspect. Teaching can also incorporate learning that is based on problems to familiarize the learning environment to the real world. An ESOL lesson therefore

Conclusion and Recommendations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Conclusion and Recommendations - Essay Example This essay analyzes that the curriculum must be revised in such a way that less importance is given for punishments and more care is given for personal counseling with those students who drop out from their studies. The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, has to say that children from a rich financial background often tend to continue their studies, but the worst hit is the poor because they are bound up by their family responsibilities. This essay demonstrates that In a survey conducted to find out the reforms that have been brought out to enhance the drop out children in terms of readmission into schools and colleges, the following thing was seemed to be made 1. Incentive programs- which will strengthen the link between the student’s school life and life out of the campus. This also includes special offers to those students whose behavior stands well in and out the school. 2. The reward system will focus on encouraging students to pay more interest on studies. 3. The school should make academic programs meaning full and bring the students for more participation. And the schools should maintain certain policies to maintain a balance between the student’s life in and out the school. 4. Parents should be informed immediately and if needed they should be asked and informed about their children’s activities. Even a small indifferent action should be informed immediately to the parents. As society pl ays a major role in shaping the character of a child.

The Importance of the Price Elasticity of Demand Research Paper

The Importance of the Price Elasticity of Demand - Research Paper Example On the other hand, Fair Trade is a controlled certification method where there are conditions set on agricultural commodities production. The goods of Fair Trade that are produced according to the criteria followed in the trade are warranted a small price above the price of the world market. The main important part of this Trade is the products’ market in the countries that are developed. The main purpose of this study is to look into factors that mainly affect Fair Trade coffee demand and work out the coffees’ price elasticity of demand. This research is mainly aiming in giving answers why many purchasers may buy products of Fair Trade at higher prices than the substitutes of Fair trade goods. In addition, there is price elasticity of demands impacts on retail revenues mentioned in this paper. The findings obtained from this study showed that Fair Trade demands of coffee depend on various functional features like brand, price, taste and locations of sales. According to the theoretical models that are founded on the complementary utility, conclusions that arise are that price elasticity of demand mainly depends on the Fair Trade and regular coffee price differences and the demands of Fair trade coffee shares in comparison to the consumption of the whole coffee (Giovannucci, 105). Price elasticity of demand measures products quantity responsiveness to changes of the products price. It is referred to as the own price demand elasticity for a product sometimes. Many theories provided have concepts of consumers aiming to make best use of their personal utility. It would be unreasonable if a customer is likely prepared to spend more on the Fair Trade goods than for the Fair Trade good substitute if they have the same quality (Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, 1). Many people using this product have interests on the conditions used in producing the Fair Trade goods even though there may be no effect on the standard product quality. Fair Trade coffee is described a product that has innovations, whereby making the process of production to be good increases the product quality in a slight way. Many consumers, who are aware of the product and like it, are willing to spend more on the product quality that has been improved. In addition, consumers may be gr ouped separately. Some consumers will take a product due to their characteristics and others due to the price of the product. Prices of these products are supposed to vary in different point of sales except there are features that permit the sellers to price the products differently. The location effects depend with the mobility of the consumers and if they buy all their products in one locality. There are various reasons that may lead to the Fair Trade coffee demand (Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, 1). The reasons may be the flavor, the brand, quality, price and convenience of the coffee may affect the decisions used while purchasing the product. Another factor that may affect the decision of purchasing is the origin of the coffee. There are negative values in the price elasticity of demand for products, this is there would be demand in a certain commodity if the price is low. In Fair Trade coffee, the price elasticity of demand is important in various ways (Riley, 1). Retailers may discriminate prices among customers if there is a low price elasticity of demand. In a case where the demand is not elastic, there will be a less demand decrease to be suffered by the producers, even if the coffee prices are high. According to Giovannucci (161), this theory concludes that if there is a small Fair Trade Coffee price elasticity of demand, there will be great revenue obtained from the product sales even if there is an increase in the

Leadership Philosphy Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Leadership Philosphy - Personal Statement Example The motivational theories helped a lot in running the business successfully from the very beginning of my professional career. The knowledge and understanding of such managerial and leadership concepts were the only assets I had. Motivation emerges with the feeling to improve the surroundings. An effective leader must know that motivation is the key to improve the group’s performance and the chances of success. Motivation, however, is not easy. It requires continuous performance appraisal and strong communication skills. This is the point from where effective leadership enters. The motivational techniques that I adopted were the comments of the customers on the comment cards. Those feedbacks were then analyzed to measure the performance of the team and helped in realizing the weaknesses which needed proper attention and techniques to be resolved. This experience leads me to think over the charisma concept. The believers of this concept assume that the charisma is God gifted an d the influence of charismatics is because of the powers bestowed by God to those leaders (Conger & Kanungo, 1998). However, my leadership experience clearly directs towards continuous efforts and application of managerial and leadership concepts (like motivational theories etc.) to be an effective and successful leader.

News Perspective Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

News Perspective - Essay Example This is the reason why online newscasts can have a better chance of placing the advertisements as and where they are required as compared to a television newscast. The marketing perspective within this online newscast served its purpose because I was able to view the advertisement for a period of 30 seconds before I could reach the exact content of the newscast. It made sense to me that the online newscast placed its advertisement right before the actual content of the newscast. The sources used in the news stories were deemed as both appropriate and credible. The sources deployed have actually brought quite a good amount of credibility and authenticity to the whole process. This is because the newscasts were seen as a form of research which exhibited true value for the advertisers and marketers. They were able to project their stories in a manner which was deemed as most fitting under the changing marketing dynamics. They believed that these newscasts could bring forward credible sources that shall make the audience perceive them as truthful at all times. It is indeed a much positive aspect related with the sources because these are viewed as credible and trustworthy. When one concerns the basis towards the television and the online form of newscasts, the onus always falls upon their source genuineness because it aims to resolve the ambiguities that exist within the relevant fore. Hence it is important to validate the sources present within the online news casts because these keep on changing from time to time. There is good enough evidence that these newscasts might have been tampered so as to attain some hidden agendas, which might be accomplished through these newscasts. The element of biasness was evident within the broadcast since one aspect was being portrayed while the other was found missing. This meant that one perspective was taking the

Leadership Philosphy Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Leadership Philosphy - Personal Statement Example The motivational theories helped a lot in running the business successfully from the very beginning of my professional career. The knowledge and understanding of such managerial and leadership concepts were the only assets I had. Motivation emerges with the feeling to improve the surroundings. An effective leader must know that motivation is the key to improve the group’s performance and the chances of success. Motivation, however, is not easy. It requires continuous performance appraisal and strong communication skills. This is the point from where effective leadership enters. The motivational techniques that I adopted were the comments of the customers on the comment cards. Those feedbacks were then analyzed to measure the performance of the team and helped in realizing the weaknesses which needed proper attention and techniques to be resolved. This experience leads me to think over the charisma concept. The believers of this concept assume that the charisma is God gifted an d the influence of charismatics is because of the powers bestowed by God to those leaders (Conger & Kanungo, 1998). However, my leadership experience clearly directs towards continuous efforts and application of managerial and leadership concepts (like motivational theories etc.) to be an effective and successful leader.

Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Analysis - Essay Example On the other hand, the Semite is described as a type of leach upon all that is good which the Aryan establishes. If an Aryan explores new lands, develops industry and establishes an organized peace, the Semite will soon follow seeking to get gain through some nefarious scheme or plan. A theme that is visited several times in the article is the subtle nature of the Semite. The author describes them as incapable of establishing anything in an honest manner, so they live by subtle infiltration of established societies and governments. The author describes an invasion of the Semites as not one of military might, but of one cloaked in the secrecy of financial transactions and governmental intrigue. The Semite is described as one who employs â€Å"wily tricks† to accomplish his ultimate goal, namely the overthrow of the noble Aryan so that the Semite can rule over the lovers of virtue. The final point of this reading is to show that the Semite is especially adept at mercantile trade and finance, so these areas are to be regarded with caution and mistrust by the Aryan. Drumont reiterates that the Semite is incapable of invention, so his source of power will come by controlling the worlds of trade and finance. These crafty people must not be trusted because their goal is to overthrow the race that rightly deserves to rule, namely, the Aryans.

Robust Face-Name Graph Matching Essay Example for Free

Robust Face-Name Graph Matching Essay 1. Login In this module is going to explain the Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification designing and how we did the face detection and recognition in this project. The images will explain about the facial fetching details. After that admin going to login with the details which needed for the login page. 2. Detection In this module we are going to detect the face of the movie characters. In this module we are using the emgu cv library we must install the emgu cv library. After installing the emgu cv lib in our project we need to add reference with the name emgu.cv, emgu.cv.util, emgu.cv.ui. When you will complete the references you will get the emgu controls in the toolbox. 3. Recognition In this module we are going to recognize the face of the movie characters which is we previously stored on the face database. We just found that the give the real name of it. This is going to be done here. Here we are using the With the help of these eigenObjectRecognizer we are going to recognize the face. Chellangess In This Methodology :- 1. We detect the face in minute this is a big challenge for us because exiting system take more time for detection. 2. More challenging problem due to the huge variation in the appearance of each character. 3. It is increase speed of matching character and identify the character. Objectivies :- The Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification designing and how we did the face detection and recognition in this project. In this project we present two schemes of global face-name matching based framework for robust character identification. It is use in movies, video, cartoons. Problem Analysis :- 1. It is difficult to Complex character changes are handled by simultaneously graph partition and graph matching. 2. Many character are not easily matching and identification face in movies. 3. It is hard to be increase speed of matching character and identify the character. Existing Work :- This project is used to detect the face of movie characters and recognize the characters in minute process and the existing system are taking the too much time to detect the face. But this one we can do it in a minute process. Proposed Work :- In this Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification is used to detect the face of movie characters and the Proposed system is taking the minimum time to detect the face. In this One we can do it in a minute process. Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification Jitao Sang, Changsheng Xu, Senior Member, IEEE Abstract—Automatic face identification of characters in movies has drawn significant research interests and led to many interesting applications. It is a challenging problem due to the huge variation in the appearance of each character. Although existing methods demonstrate promising results in clean environment, the performances are limited in complex movie scenes due to the noises generated during the face tracking and face clustering process. In this paper we present two schemes of global face-name matching based framework for robust character identification. The contributions of this work include: 1) A noise insensitive character relationship representation is incorporated. 2) We introduce an edit operation based graph matching algorithm. 3) Complex character changes are handled by simultaneously graph partition and graph matching. 4) Beyond existing character identification approaches, we further perform an in-depth sensitivity analysis by introducing two types of simulated noises. The proposed schemes demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on movie character identification in various genres of movies. Index Terms—Character identification, graph matching, graph partition, graph edit, sensitivity analysis. Fig. 1. Examples of character identification from movie â€Å"Notting Hill†. I. INTRODUCTION A. Objective and Motivation The proliferation of movie and TV provides large amount of digital video data. This has led to the requirement of efficient and effective techniques for video content understanding and organization. Automatic video annotation is one of such key techniques. In this paper our focus is on annotating characters in the movie and TVs, which is called movie character identification [1]. The objective is to identify the faces of the characters in the video and label them with the corresponding names in the cast. The textual cues, like cast lists, scripts, subtitles and closed captions are usually exploited. Fig.1 shows an example in our experiments. In a movie, characters are the focus center of interests for the audience. Their occurrences provide lots of clues about the movie structure and content. Automatic character identification is essential for semantic movie index and retrieval [2], [3], scene segmentation [4], summarization [5] and other applications [6]. Copyright (c) 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to use this material for any other purposes must be obtained from the IEEE by sending a request to pubs [emailprotected] ieee.org. This work was supported in part by the National Program on Key Basic Research Project (973 Program, Project No. 2012CB316304) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 90920303, 61003161). J. Sang and C. Xu (corresponding author) are with the National Lab of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; and also with the China- Singapore Institute of Digital Media, Singapore, 119613 Character identification, though very intuitive to humans, is a tremendously challenging task in computer vision. The reason is four-fold: 1) Weakly supervised textual cues [7]. There are ambiguity problem in establishing the correspondence between names and faces: ambiguity can arise from a reaction shot where the person speaking may not be shown in the frames 1; ambiguity can also arise in partially labeled frames when there are multiple speakers in the same scene 2. 2) Face identification in videos is more difficult than that in images [8]. Low resolution, occlusion, no rigid deformations, large motion, complex background and other uncontrolled conditions make the results of face detection and tracking unreliable. In movies, the situation is even worse. This brings inevitable noises to the character identification. 3) The same character appears quite differently during the movie [3]. There may be huge pose, expression and illumination variation, wearing, clothing, even makeup and hairstyle changes. Moreover, characters in some movies go through different age stages, e.g., from youth to the old age. Sometimes, there will even be different actors playing different ages of the same character. 4) The determination for the number of identical faces is not trivial [2]. Due to the remarkable intra-class variance, the same character name will correspond to faces of huge variant appearances. It will be unreasonable to set the number of identical faces just according to the number of characters in the cast. Our study is motivated by these challenges and aims to find solutions for a robust framework for movie character identification. B. Related Work The crux of the character identification problem is to exploit the relations between videos and the associated texts in order 1 I.e., the name in the subtitle/closed caption finds no corresponding faces in the video. 2 I.e., multiple names in the subtitle/closed caption correspond to multiple faces in the video. Fig. 2. Framework of scheme 1: Face-name graph matching with #cluster pre specified to label the faces of characters with names. It has similarities to identifying faces in news videos [9], [10], [11]. However, in news videos, candidate names for the faces are available from the simultaneously appearing captions or local transcripts. While in TV and movies, the names of characters are seldom directly shown in the subtitle or closed caption, and script screenplay containing character names has no time stamps to align to the video. According to the utilized textual cues, we roughly divide the existing movie character identification methods into three categories. 1) Category 1: Cast list based: These methods only utilize the case list textual resource. In the â€Å"cast list discovery† problem [12], [13], faces are clustered by appearance and faces of a particular character are expected to be collected in a few pure clusters. Names for the clusters are then manually selected from the cast list. Ramanan et al. proposed to manually label an initial set of face clu sters and further cluster the rest face instances based on clothing within scenes [14]. In [15], the authors have addressed the problem of finding particular characters by building a model/classifier of the character’s appearance from user-provided training data. An interesting work combining character identification with web image retrieval is proposed in [17]. The character names in the cast are used as queries to search face images and constitute gallery set. The probe face tracks in the movie are then identified as one of the characters by multi-task joint sparse representation and classification. Recently, metric learning is introduced into character identification in uncontrolled videos [16]. Cast-specific metrics are adapted to the people appearing in a particular video in an unsupervised manner. The clustering as well as identification performance are demonstrated to be improved. These cast list based methods are easy for understanding and implementation. However, without other textual cues, they either need manual labeling or guarantee no robust clustering and classification performance due to the large intra-class variances. 2) Category 2: Subtitle or Closed caption, Local matching based: Subtitle and closed caption provide time-stamped dialogues, which can be exploited for alignment to the video frames. Effingham et al. [18], [3] proposed to combine the film script with the subtitle for local face-name matching. Time-stamped name annotation and face exemplars are generated. The rest of the faces were then classified into these exemplars for identification. They further extended their work in [19], by replacing the nearest neighbor classifier by multiple kernel learning for features combination. In the new framework, non-frontal faces are handled and the coverage is extended. Researchers from University of Pennsylvania utilized the readily available time-stamped resource, the closed captions, which is demonstrated more reliable than OCR-based subtitles [20], [7]. They investigated on the ambiguity issues in the local alignment between video, screenplay and closed captions. A partially-supervised multiclass classification problem is formulated. Recently, they attempted to address the character identification problem without the use of screenplay [21]. The reference cues in the closed captions are employed as multiple instance constraints and face tracks grouping as well as face-name association are solved in a convex formulation. The local matching based methods require the time-stamped information, which is either extracted by OCR (i.e., subtitle) or unavailable for the majority of movies and TV series (i.e., closed caption). Besides, the ambiguous and partial annotation makes local matching based methods more sensitive to the face detection and tracking noises. 3) Category 3: Script/Screenplay, Global matching based: Global matching based methods open the possibility of character identification without OCR-based subtitle or closed caption. Since it is not easy to get local name cues, the task of character identification is formulated as a global matching problem in [2], [22], [4]. Our method belongs to this category and can be considered as an extension to Zhang’s work [2]. In movies, the names of characters seldom directly appear in the subtitle, while the movie script which contains character names has no time information. Without the local time information, the task of character identification is formulated as a global matching problem between the faces detected from the video and the names extracted from the movie script. Compared with local matching, global statistics are used for name-face association, which enhances the robustness of the algorithms. Our work differs from the existing research in threefold: Regarding the fact that characters may show various appearances, the representation of character is often affected Fig. 3. Framework of scheme 2: Face-name graph matching without #cluster pre-specified. by the noise introduced by face tracking, face clustering and scene segmentation. Although extensive research efforts have been concentrated on character identification and many applications have been proposed, little work has focused on improving the robustness. We have observed in our investigations that some statistic properties are preserved in spite of these noises. Based on that, we propose a novel representation for character relationship and introduce a name-face matching method which can accommodate a certain noise. Face track clustering serves as an important step in movie character identification. In most of the existing methods some cues are utilized to determine the number of target clusters prior to face clustering, e.g., in [2], the number of clusters is the same as the number of distinct speakers appearing in the script. While this seems convinced at first glance, it is rigid and even deteriorating the clustering results sometimes. In this paper, we loose the restriction of one face cluster corresponding to one character name. Face track clustering and face-name matching are jointly optimized and conducted in a unique framework. Sensitivity analysis is common in financial applications, risk analysis, signal processing and any area where models are developed [23], [24]. Good modeling practice requires that the modeler provides an evaluation of the confidence in the model, for example, assessing the uncertainties associated with the modeling process and with the outcome of the model itself. For movie character identification, sensitivity analysis offers valid tools for characterizing the robustness to noises for a model. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no efforts directed at the sensitivity analysis for movie character identification. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by introducing two types of simulated noises. A preliminary version of this work was introduced by [1]. We provide additional algorithmic and computational details, and extend the framework considering no pre-specification for the number of face clusters. Improved performance as well as robustness are demonstrated in movies wit h large character appearance changes. C. Overview of Our Approach In this paper, we propose a global face-name graph matching based framework for robust movie character identification. Two schemes are considered. There are connections as well as differences between them. Regarding the connections, firstly, the proposed two schemes both belong to the global matching based category, where external script resources are utilized. Secondly, to improve the robustness, the ordinal graph is employed for face and name graph representation and a novel graph matching algorithm called Error Correcting Graph Matching (ECGM) is introduced. Regarding the differences, scheme 1 sets the number of clusters when performing face clustering (e.g., K-means, spectral clustering). The face graph is restricted to have identical number of vertexes with the name graph. While, in scheme 2, no cluster number is required and face tracks are clustered based on their intrinsic data structure (e.g., mean shift, affinity propagation). Moreover, as shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3, scheme 2 has an additional module of graph partition compared with scheme 1. From this perspective, scheme 2 can be seen as an extension to scheme 1. m1) Scheme 1: The proposed framework for scheme 1 is shown in Fig.2. It is similar to the framework of [2]. Face tracks are clustered using constrained K-means, where the number of clusters is set as the number of distinct speakers. Co-occurrence of names in script and face clusters in video constitutes the corresponding face graph and name graph. We modify the traditional global matching framework by using ordinal graphs for robust representation and introducing an ECGM-based graph matching method. For face and name graph construction, we propose to represent the character co-occurrence in rank ordinal level [25], which scores thestrength of the relationships in a rank order from the weakest to strongest. Rank order data carry no numerical meaning and thus are less sensitive to the noises. The affinity graph used in the traditional global matching is interval measures of the co-occurrence relationship between characters. While continuous measures of the strength of relationship holds complete information, it is highly sensitive to noises. For name-face graph matching, we utilize the ECGM algorithm. In ECGM, the difference between two graphs is measured by edit distance which is a sequence of graph edit operations. The optimal match is achieved with the least edit distance. According to the noise analysis, we define appropriate graph edit operations and adapt the distance functions to obtain improved name-face matching performance. 2) Scheme 2: The proposed framework for scheme 2 is shown in Fig.3. It has two differences from scheme 1 in Fig.2. First, no cluster number is required for the face tracks clustering step. Second, since the face graph and name graph may have different number of vertexes, a graph partition component is added before ordinal graph representation. The basic premise behind the scheme 2 is that appearances of the same character vary significantly and it is difficult to group them in a unique cluster. Take the movie â€Å"TheCurious Case of Benjamin Button† for example. The hero and heroine go through a long time period from their childhood, youth, middle-age to the old-age. The intra-class variance is even larger than the inter-class variance. In this case, simply enforcing the number of face clusters as the numberof characters will disturb the clustering process. Instead of grouping face tracks of the same character into one cluster, face tracks from different characters may be grouped together. In scheme 2, we utilize affinity propagation for the face tracks clustering. With each sample as the potential center of clusters, the face tracks are recursively clustered through appearance-based similarity transmit and propagation. High cluster purity with large number of clusters is expected. Since one character name may correspond to several face clusters, graph partition is introduced before graph matching. Which face clusters should be further grouped (i.e., divided into th e same subgraph) is determined by whether the partitioned face graph achieves an optimal graph matching with the name graph. Actually, face clustering is divided into two steps: coarse clustering by appearance and further modification by script. Moreover, face clustering and graph matching are optimized simultaneously, which improve the robustness against errors and noises. In general, the scheme 2 has two advantages over the scheme 1. (a) For scheme 2, no cluster number is required in advance and face tracks are clustered based on their intrinsic data structure. Therefore, the scheme 2 provides certain robustness to the intra-class variance, which is very common in movies where characters change appearance significantly or go through a long time period. (b) Regarding that movie cast cannot include pedestrians whose face is detected and added into the face track, restricting the number of face tracks clusters the same as that of name from movie cast will deteriorate the clustering process. In addition, there is some chance that movie cast does not cover all the characters. In this case, pre-specification for the face clusters is risky: face tracks from different characters will be mixed together and graph matching tends to fail. 3) Sensitivity Analysis: Sensitivity analysis plays an important role in characterizing the uncertainties associated with a model. To explicitly analyze the algorithm’s sensitivity to noises, two types of noises, coverage noise and intensity noise, are introduced. Based on that, we perform sensitivity analysis by investigating the performance of name-face matching with respect to the simulated noises.