Play dough activity Essay

I DISCUSSED WITH MY MANAGER THAT I WAS GOING TO CARRY OUT A PLAY ACTIVITY. THE PROJECT I HAVE CHOSEN TO DO IS THE MAKING OF PLAY DOUGH. I HAVE CHOSEN THIS ACTIVITY BECAUSE I FEEL THIS IS A GREAT PASTIME AND A GREAT EXPERIENCE BETWEEN ME AND THE CHILDREN. I SAY THIS BECAUSE THE CHILDREN CAN ACTUALLY TAKE PART IN THE MAKING OF THE PRODUCT. I THINK THIS ACTIVITY WILL HELP THEM TO LEARN ABOUT COLOURS, SHAPES†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. MY MANAGER CONFIRMED THE ACTIVITY AND SHE WAS REALLY PLEASED WITH IDEA AND SHE ALSO THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE A GREAT LEARNING EXPERIENCE FOR THE CHILDREN. I  ALREADY HAVE A RECIPE ON HOW TO DO PLAY DOUGH, BUT MY MANAGER CONFIRMED ONE MORE TIME ALL THE INGREDIENTS: FLOUR, FOOD COLOURING, SALT, OIL AND WATER. I MAKE THE PLAY DOUGH ACTIVITY WITH FOUR MONTESSORI CHILDREN. THE FIRST THING I DID IT WAS TO GET ALL MY MATERIALS READY: SMALL BASIN, LARGE SPOON, FLOUR, SALT, OIL, WATER, PAINT, SHAPE CUTTERS, ROLLING PIN. IN THIS ACTIVITY CHILDREN CAN DEVELOP MOTOR SKILLS -USING PLAY DOUGH HELPS A CHILD PRACTICE USING CERTAIN PHYSICAL SKILLS WITH THE HANDS WHEN THEY MANIPULATE THE DOUGH WITH THEIR FINGERS. CHILDREN CAN PRACTICE SKILLS SUCH AS PINCHING, SQUEEZING OR POKING WHILE THEY  PLAY WITH THE DOUGH. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT-USING PLAY DOUGH HELPS A CHILD PRACTICE USING IMAGINATION AND OTHER COGNITIVE ABILITIES SUCH IMITATION, SYMBOLISM AND PROBLEM SOLVING. THIS HELPS THE CHILD LEARN MORE ABOUT HIS ENVIRONMENT AS HE MAKES AND MIMICS EVERYDAY OBJECTS WITH THE PLAY DOUGH. EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT-USING PLAY DOUGH MAY HELP A CHILD TO CALM DOWN WHEN FRUSTRATED OR ANGRY. HOLDING AND SQUEEZING THE PLAY DOUGH CAN PRODUCE A CALMING EFFECT ON THE CHILD AND IS USEFUL FOR TEACHING ANGER MANAGEMENT SKILLS. ADDITIONALLY, CHILDREN MAY FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE EXPRESSING THEMSELVES  IN OTHER WAYS WHILE THEIR HANDS ARE BUSY. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT-USING PLAY DOUGH MAY HELP A CHILD DEVELOP SOCIAL SKILLS AS SHE PLAYS ALONG WITH OTHER CHILDREN WITH THE DOUGH. ADDITIONALLY, MAKING PLAY DOUGH IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR A CHILD TO PRACTICE COOPERATION AND SHARING WITH A CAREGIVER. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT. USING PLAY DOUGH MAY HELP A CHILD TO DEVELOP MOTOR SKILLS NEEDED FOR WRITING AND DRAWING. LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT. BECAUSE OF THE INTERACTIVE NATURE OF PLAY DOUGH USE, CHILDREN NEED TO LISTEN, UNDERSTAND THE COMMUNICATION OF OTHERS, SPEAK, AND  PRACTICE THEIR ORAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS AS THEY MOLD AND MANIPULATE THEIR PLAY DOUGH CONSTRUCTIONS. SCIENCE UNDERSTANDINGS. THE TACTILE EXPERIENCE OF MANIPULATING PLAY DOUGH HELPS CHILDREN DEVELOP A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW MATTER CHANGES (PHYSICS) AND ENCOURAGES THEM TO USE SCIENTIFIC THINKING AS THEY OBSERVE CHANGES, MAKE PREDICTIONS, AND TALK THROUGH DIFFERENCES IN THE MATERIALS THEY ARE USING. MATHEMATICS CONCEPTS. MIXING UP A NEW BATCH OF PLAY DOUGH WITH ADULTS IS ONE WAY IN WHICH PLAY DOUGH ENGAGES CHILDREN IN MATHEMATICAL LEARNING AS THEY MEASURE AND COUNT RECIPE INGREDIENTS. DISCUSSIONS ABOUT SHAPE, RELATIVE SIZE (GREATER THAN, EQUAL TO, OR LESS THAN), HEIGHT, LENGTH, AND WEIGHT PROVIDE ADDITIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHILDREN TO DEVELOP MATHEMATICAL UNDERSTANDINGS. LITERACY LEARNING. WHEN PAPER AND WRITING UTENSILS ARE ADDED TO THE PLAY DOUGH AREA, CHILDREN CAN MAKE SIGNS, LABELS, AND CREATE STORIES RELATED TO THEIR PLAY EFFORTS. EXPLORING AND THINKING- CHILDREN USED THEIR SENSES, THEIR MINDS AND THEIR BODIES TO FIND OUT ABOUT AND MAKE SENSE OF WHAT THEY SEE. THEY USED THE IMAGINATION TO CREATE NEW SHAPE OR DIFFERENT MONSTERS FROM PLAY DOUGH; THEY  ARE IMITATING IN SPECIAL THE MOTHERS IN THE KITCHEN WHEN ARE COOKING; ARE MAKING GESTURES AS ADULTS ;ARE PLAYING AND TALKING ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE. IDENTITY AND BELONGINGS-CHILDREN BUILD RESPECTFUL RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS; THEY EXPRESS THEIR OWN IDEAS, PREFERENCES AND NEEDS, AND HAVE THESE RESPONDED TO WITH RESPECT AND CONSISTENCY; THEY FEEL THAT THEY HAVE A PLACE AND A RIGHT TO BELONG TO THE GROUP; WELL-BEING-IN THE PLAY ACTIVITY CHILDREN WERE HAPPY AND PLAYFUL; THEY WERE INTERACTING TO EACH OTHER; THE GROUP ACTIVITY MAKE THEM FEEL COMFORTABLE AND CONTENTS. COMMUNICATION-CHILDREN USED A RANGE OF BODY MOVEMENTS, FACIAL EXPRESSIONS, AND EARLY VOCALISATIONS TO SHOW FEELINGS AND SHARE INFORMATION; THEY INTERACT WITH OTHER CHILDREN BY LISTENING, DISCUSSING AND TAKING TURNS IN CONVERSATION; CHILDREN USED LANGUAGE WITH CONFIDENCE AND COMPETENCE FOR GIVING AND RECEIVING INFORMATION, THEY ASKED QUESTIONS AND REQUEST TOO. THROUGH THIS ACTIVITY I FOUND THE CHILDREN HAD GREAT FUN. CHILDREN WERE VERY EXCITED ABOUT THE FACT THAT THEY WERE GOING TO HELP ME MAKE THE PLAY DOUGH. THEY WERE FULL OF ALL DIFFERENT QUESTIONS. OVER ALL I FELT THE ACTIVITY WENT VERY WELL

Is Advertising Good for the Economy Essay

Nowadays, in business world, advertising is considered a powerful tool for competition. Consumers can get useful information from advertisements and can choose products which best suits them according to their needs. Advertising play a significant role in the US economy it assists American economy to function smoothly. Furthermore, it keeps prices low and helps the entry of new organizations in domestic and global market depends on the organization’s business. Advertising especially in the US, is considered as an economic work horse which has performed colossal feats with little credit. However, the work horse often pocks his nose in places where he is not supposed to. Unfortunately, according to O’Connor, â€Å"Unless product meanings change in the populations, advertisers continue to associate the same values with the same products†. (O’Connor, 1996) At present, the US market has become a highly mobile consumer-centric society. In this speedy market everyday millions of dollars exchange through internet and by other sources. The American economy has been conquered by retail and service business industry, and in both industries ads play a fundamental role in boosting their products and services demand. In this regard, any retailing or service business industry if desired to get succeed, both must advertise their product for consumers about product quality, cost and some useful information. In this context, outdoor signs have experienced as the most rapid communicative and cost effective tool. In the year 2004, the economy of Missouri generated approximately 108 billions dollars. According to a research conducted by Davidson revealed the facts that in the year 2004, the aggregate economic activity produced by ads, which includes direct expenditure, goods provider spending and inter-organization activity generated approximately twenty percent of the nation’s 548 billion dollar economic activity and also provided around 429,700 jobs, or fifteen percent of the nation’s workforce of 2. 9 million. Interestingly, the study also showed that the total income earned from the advertising industry was about 108 billion dollars that had a direct link with 54 billion dollars sale. In the same year, around 429,654 individuals got jobs through advertising and positively affected Missouri’s economy in a healthy way. Moreover, 94257, jobs were generated in sales department in various organizations which was the outcome of excessive adverting in all sorts of media. Furthermore, the idea of outdoor signs in America gained so much popularity and in this regard both sate and federal state declared signage as a secure, fast and easy way for advertisement. The study also disclosed that the ads simulated additional buys by providing significant and useful information to a wide range of consumers in the household and businesses, which was also a crucial factor in the market economy. (Davidson, 2005) Due to severe business competition among most of the business organizations in the US, an overwhelming growth of adverting agencies has been observed. Advertising agencies list have showed a constant growth over the past few decades, other than agencies contributed the honor in former years, none have offered substantial or handsome national ads or print campaigns. In spite of a collective ten percent growth in billings from 1. 781 billion dollars in 2004 to 1. 963 billion dollars in 2005 a huge number of ads agencies received a decreased in accounts also declined in cash flow and profitability. According to a study conducted by insider’s reporters from Universal Mc Cann showed that, advertising expenses increased by 4. 5 percent in the year 2005 as compare to 2004 figures. Interestingly, during that rising period black ad agencies did not contribute to country’s economy as much amount as predicted. (Advertising agencies, 2006) A study conducted by The Direct Marketing Association showed that, in New York, in the year 2005, different organizations spent around 161 billion dollars on direct marketing. When this investment measured against total New York income this also had a direct relation with the advertising expenses of that period. Entirely, direct marketing share was 10. 3 percent of the total US Gross Domestic Product in 2005. (Growth Trends Continue, 2005) In the past decade, a tremendous growth has been seen in online advertisement In this regard, two different images marked the way of efficient online advertising which included: direct response or brand building. Due to the abundance availability of computers online advertisement has become a yardstick for consumers. Advertising especially in the US, developed in reply to a huge expansion in markets. For example, product manufacturers and service sellers attempts to reach ever growing customers throughout the nation. In this context, many organizations have adopted technological equipment, better management and so on to meet not only the desired quality of the customers but also provide products on time. According to a research conducted by Molinari and Turino in 2006: o Expenses on ads are positively correlated with Gross Domestic Product. o Both consumption and investment has a direct relation with ads expenditures. o The organization’s ads positively impact on family demand of good. As a whole, it connotes that ads positively impacts the aggregate utilization of the economy as if it were an exogenic demand shock. o At state level advertisers contribute a multitude of taxes which normally includes, property tax, state income tax so forth. (Molinari and Turino, 2006) â€Å"The latest e Marketer estimates put total US Internet ad spending at $16. 4 billion this year, a 30. 8% gain over last year’s $12. 5 billion. The prime engine behind such strong growth is Google, whose US online advertising revenues are expected to be more than $4 billion (after subtracting traffic acquisition costs paid to network partners). † (Hallerman, 2006). Outstanding results of advertising will continue to come in the last months of 2007; with aggregate US online ad spending reaches at the end of this year around 19. 5 billion dollars. Nonetheless, this will be because of overall US economic weaknesses, in the United States real Gross Domestic Product growth is likely to down from over 3 percent in the year 2006 to around two percent in 2007. It is interesting to note that, in spite of the fact that the United States economy is considered a soft economy, growth in online advertisement will continue to rise by 17. 5 percent in the next year. Merrill Lynch a media analyst Lauren Rich Fine said on Friday, December 1, as reported by Media Post, 2. 6 percent expenditure on aggregate ads for 2007 is not astonishing, and can be devoted as a more muted economic in the following year. Furthermore, as Steve Fredericks, the president and CEO of TNS Media Intelligence, said e Marketer in early December, â€Å"We see GDP remaining sluggish at least through the first half of 2007†. (Hallerman, 2006) The year 2008, the United States Gross Domestic Product is expected to get closer to three percent. Online advertisements will also bounce with a 22. 1 percent significant increase as compare to 2007. This is also expecting that, due to the fact that political races primarily depended on internet communication, with the 2008 election, ads will share a significant amount on overall country’s economy. Besides, 2008 summer Olympics will also play a tremendous role in advertisement investing. (Hallerman, 2006). A study conducted by Direct Marketing Today (DMA), the study primarily reported the top line outcomes from the DMA insight econometric model of the United States direct marketing activities for the state as a whole, the Business to consumer (B2C), Business to Business (B2B), the most important direct marketing media, and for the economy’s of around 50 organizations group. Some study’s interesting findings are: Continue Growth By the year 2009, it is estimated that the sales driven by direct marketing will grow by 6. 4 percent, which will be 5. 3 percent up if compare to 1999 to 2004 figures. Jobs DM- driven employment is forecasted to grow by two percent per annum throughout 2009. The report also showed that, in the year 2005, direct marketing expenses directly supported 10. 6 million jobs. That was not only included direct marketers but also other employees whose requirement were needed to fulfill increased orders produced by direct marketing. High Return on Investment In 2005, an investment of dollar 1 in direct marketing ad expenses returned, on average 11. 49 incremented incomes across all organizations. Important Part of the Advertising Mix â€Å"Direct marketing advertising expenditures accounted for 47. 9% of total advertising in 2004, up from 46. 9% in 1999†. (Growth Trends Continue, 2005) Conclusion In today’s world of complex business, in order to survive in a severe competition market both domestic and international organizations paying a large amount of their product cost in shape of advertisement. Certainly, virtually all types of business even those not perceived as major marketers rely on advertising for their economic well-being. As discussed above, no body can deny the statement that, in the US ads play a vital role in boosting up the nation’s economy. Thousands of individuals every year get jobs through internet, newspapers, billboards and TV ads, consequently, decreasing unemployment ratio of the country. Throughout it has also been observed that, expenditures on ads have a direct link with the US total sale of each year. In this regard, ads share a fairly large amount in the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Certainly, through advertising almost all consumers come to know about product cost its specific features and most importantly ad gives a consumer an open right to discriminate between two identical products and buy the good one. References Advertising agencies: (June, 2006), A sluggish economy, reduced margins, and institutional racism are delivering severe blows to black ad agencies. Black Enterprise, Davidson Jim, (2005), Davidson & Company for The Advertising Coalition Growth Trends Continue for Direct Marketing, (September 29, 2005) http://www. the-dma.org/cgi/disppressrelease? article=704 Accessed, July 27, 2007 Hallerman David, (DECEMBER 6, 2006)Internet Advertising Will Weather a Sluggish Economy, Growth in Internet ad spending will slow next year before rebounding in 2008. http://www. emarketer. com/Article. aspx? id=1004345 Accessed, July 27, 2007 Molinari Benedetto, Turino Francesco, (May 31, 2006), The role of Advertising in the Aggregate Economy: the Working-Spending Cycle O’Connor Gina Colarelli, (1996), Translating Values into Product Wants, Journal of Advertising Research, Volume: 36. Issue: 6. Page Number: 90+.

Inequality & It’s Characteristics

The perspective I have chosen is the social-conflict theory. The social-conflict paradigm is a framework for building theory that envisions society as an arena of inequality generating conflict and social change. This type of analysis focuses on the inequalities within our society and the conflict that they cause between the advantaged and the disadvantaged. The first characteristic is inequality. This refers to the unequal distribution of money, gender, class, and age. People who embrace the social-conflict perspective believe that gender, race, and class should not lead to favored treatment. An example of this would be single mothers who are living below the poverty line. This group of people is likely to remain at least as large as it is now at the present time and/or become larger in the coming decade. Many of these women do not have marketable job skills and few means to attain them due to their lack of finances. The second characteristic is social class conflict. Social class is often defined as the amount of education, income, and status people have. As we know, attaining education is one of the most effective avenues for ensuring employment and an increase in income, which adds up to higher status or social class. Single mothers most often do not have the income in order to pursue higher education. This renders them the title or designation of being one of the lower class groups in our society. If this remains to be status quo, then there is little hope for these single mothers living below the poverty line. The third characteristic is social change. The inequalities and conflict of social class is leading towards a social change. The federal and provincial governments have implemented different types of financial assistance for single mothers living below the poverty line. The government has made it easier for these women to apply for student loans so that they may pursue higher education and job skills. As well, grants have been made available to assist with the financial burden. The government has provided tax relief for lower income families and subsidized day care. In response to the outcries of single mothers and other advocates, the federal government now has a Women's Equality Minister. Canada also has a group called the â€Å"Women's Economic Network† that helps and supports single mothers in getting out of poverty. Analyzing this issue with the social-conflict paradigm has helped myself in understanding that there are inequalities in all aspects of society. When some inequalities are exposed and absolved, there are other ones following close behind. As society evolves, more inequalities are found and dealt with. This type of analysis has also helped me to see that there are resolutions to this problem of poverty with single mothers. It is a grim reality in Canada, but analyzing it from the social-conflict perspective shows that there ways in which we can rectify the problems surrounding this issue.

Problem in your local community Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Problem in your local community - Essay Example According to traditional settings and history, the man usually stands as the breadwinners of the family. He works hard to earn money in order to support his family from outside work. The woman on the other hand is the caretaker of the family. She stays at home to take care of household chores, take care of the children, and to support the men. However, in modern times, there is a split in gender roles as more women are increasingly becoming breadwinners of their families, providing the majority of household income and needs. Gender roles grow closer by the day as we now have more and more stay-at-home dads taking care of the children while their wives go to work. Every society has a mechanism that allows for variations in the gender roles or sexuality of their members. This allows males to perform female chore while the men perform masculine chores. In the olden tradition, this was berdache, where a male who did not have strengths, skills and expertise equaled to his fellow male counterparts played the female gender roles while the strong men went to work. In modern societies, there is little or no emphasis on genders roles. In fact, they advocate for empowerment of women and education of the girl child. Hence the slogan, what a man can do a woman can do better. This shows just how open the society is to free participation of gender roles for both sexes. Men can work in jobs that were traditionally feminists, such as hairdressing and beauty therapy, while the women can also perform functions that traditionally were for the men, e.g. leadership and administration. Both sexes are equal and can perform each other’s roles as competently a s possible (Fausto-Sterling 19). The success of this development angles around the various feminists movements that took place across the world championing for the equal rights of women within the society. In fact, governments and other ruling

The USSR's Voracity for Power Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The USSR's Voracity for Power - Essay Example The two powers distrusted each other. America resented Joseph Stalin’s dictatorship and communism in the USSR. The USSR, also referred to as the Soviet Union also distrusted America for not accepting them into the international community. They were also unhappy with America’s delay to participate in the World War II, leading to the death of many Russians. Therefore, even though the Soviet Union and the United States fought during the Word War II as allies, they had only joined hands to fight a common enemy, the Nazi Germany. The major cause of the Cold War was the move by the Soviet Union to try and gain power and influence in East European countries. After the World War II ended, the Soviet Union separated itself from the Western allies. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin initiated aggressive policies in order to gain influence in east European countries. The United States intervened to stop the Soviet Union’s expansion, and this resulted in the Cold War. Afte r Stalin’s death, the Soviet Union was taken over by Khrushchev and later by Brezhnev. These leaders implemented various foreign policies. This discussion explores the Soviet Union’s voracity for power and influence as the chief cause of the Cold War, and the impact of Khrushchev’s and Brezhnev’s foreign policies. Origination of the Cold War Before World War II began, the United States and the Soviet Union had several differences. Firstly, the two nations supported different types of governments. The United States supported democracy while the Soviet Union favoured communism. There were also economic differences whereby the United States supported world free trade. However, the Soviet Union was against international trade as the Russians felt it would bring in influences from the west that would threaten their dictatorial system. Moreover, when Europe was weakened in World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States were the most influential powers and each of them wanted to control the other. When the World War II ended, the distrust between the Soviet Union and the United States was heightened by the domination of the USSR in Eastern Europe and the confrontational and domineering attitude of the United States to international matters, as well as their possession of an atomic bomb (Painter, 1999: 15). The Soviet Union had gained considerable influence in Eastern Europe even before World War II ended. The Red Army was in control of some parts of Eastern Europe by 1944. The Soviet Union also obtained the control of eastern Germany and obtained a new border line with Poland at the Yalta Conference in 1945. Towards the end of the war in 1945, the Soviet Union actively dominated the eastern European control and influenced the elections to ensure communist domination in their governments. Moreover, communists in these countries took charge of the most significant ministries of Military and Defence. The Soviet Union also influenced Wes tern Europe’s post-war elections in countries like France and Italy in 1946 (Phillips, 2001: 123). Stalin consolidated the Soviet authority in east European countries and used the Soviet Union’

Case Vignettes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Case Vignettes - Essay Example He refers to these states as sort of frenzied; when he finally gets out of the rut he’s been in and gets back on track. He says that they will occur for days at a time and are always followed by a crash, in which he becomes suicidal and bed-ridden. Jessica is 28 and she is a new mother. While her pregnancy was a life-altering experience and challenge, the steadfast support of her husband and family made sure she was able to handle the experience without losing her sanity. Jessica reports welcoming the responsibility of mother-hood, but since giving birth 3 months earlier has started to feel increasingly hopeless and guilty about her situation. When asked to describe the guilt she was experiencing she was not able to identify a specific example of something she was guilty, instead indicating that it was more of an abstract pervading sensation. While her husband attributes her feelings to the stress of adapting to motherhood, she has begun to fear that the depression will last forever and it’s actually a change in perspective. Ashley has is 6 years old. She began the first grade a number of months back and from the beginning has had difficulty relating to other students. At times she will remove herself from the other students in the class and refuse to interact. Other times she will lash out physically and verbally at the other students. Her progress throughout the year has shown a steady decrease. The teacher, Mr. Wilson, sent a letter home with Ashley asking to speak with her parents in a conference. After receiving no response, he phoned Ashley’s parents and relayed to them Ashley behavior. Ashley’s mother informed Mr. Wilson that their family is going to have to move into a homeless shelter soon. He also discovered that Ashley’s mother is not able to read. Paul is a 9 year old third grade student. He has shown a talent for sports, and last semester won the school’s track meet for his age bracket. He is very popular at recess, but has

Banyan Tree Case Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Banyan Tree Case Study - Essay Example That said, these factors are important, but the main factor which contributes to Banyan Tree's success is the way that they treat their employees. Banyan Tree allows its employees to vary service delivery according to the local customs and practices, and this gives the employees investment and ownership in the company. The same goes for the fact that employees are able to be creative with bed decoration. Staff welfare is paramount to the company – they provide luxurious amenities, as well as prosaic, but necessary, amenities, such as child care facilities. Therefore, the employees have ownership, in that they really care about the facilities. This fits in with the concept of shared vision. A shared vision is one in which the leader, and all the followers, have the same vision for the company. Every person cares about this vision, and everybody has the desire to carry out this vision. Every member of the organization has the same vision, therefore will be truly committed to mak e the vision happen (Senge, 1990, p. 206). What Banyan Tree is doing right is that it has created the shared vision by acknowledging the strengths of the employees. This acknowledgment of each individual member is a powerful factor in creating a shared vision. Having a shared vision enables the employees to know that they own a piece of this vision, and that they are a part of the vision (Senge, 1990, p. 212). ... After all, a resort with all the amenities possible, but a disengaged and disinterested staff will ruin this resort. 2. Can Banyan Tree maintain its unique positioning in an increasingly overcrowded resort market? The communication strategy and brand positioning for the company focuses around high end clientele. They offer luxurious amenities, such as private pools, jacuzzi and spa treatment rooms. Their villas are individualized to the clientele. Their accommodations are private and intimate, which sets them apart from their rivals, who do not offer the same accommodations. Moreover, they are unique in that they emphasize their environmentally friendly designs. They are socially responsible in everything they do, from procurement to hiring natives for their positions. As for their marketing, they advertise in high-end travel magazines and cultivated relationships with travel editors and writers. They have also chosen to work with only agents which specialize in high-end travel arran gement with wealthy customers. Banyan Tree can maintain its brand and its positioning, because they are apparently the only resort which has the amenities which are offered there. For instance, they have total privacy for their guests. Guests may skinny dip in their private pool and hot tubs if they want to, because it is totally private and secluded. They emphasize this in their marketing materials, so this is a big plus and it sets them apart from their competitors. Wirtz (2009) states that the competitors in the market, Hilton and Shangri-La, do not offer the same privacy that Banyan offers. Moreover, as indicated in other areas of this essay, Banyan is unique in that it gives ownership to its employees, in

Autism in Qatar Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Autism in Qatar - Term Paper Example Despite various governments not heeding this noble advice, the effect of such ignorance presents easily foreseeable outcomes. Such inclusion is no doubt one of the many reasons through which poverty and social disruptions can be endured, in addition to reducing the burden of disability to the society. The arising question then is â€Å"can inclusion of the people with disability in various aspects of the society contribute to their empowerment and hence reduced level of depependence in Qatar.† Like many other nations in the Middle East and the world at large, the problem of autism in Qatar has attracted substantial attention. Autism, like other forms of disabilities has been touted to ramifications on both the social and economic aspects of various countries across the globe. Their non-inclusion in day to day activities, more especially social and economic activities has been found to not only have negative consequences on the affected individuals but also on the families as well as the community. Baron-Cohen & Bolton (1993) found that integration and accommodation of people with disabilities into the work force are a critical way of public expenditure reduction, reduction of cost incurred by the families, and also ensuring that the ASD affected persons are able to engage in productive work. Formulation of policies and plans that integrate persons with disabilities into each and every aspects of social and economic life, ranging from education, vocational rehabilitation a s well as employment will no doubt offer immense benefits to both that affected individuals and the society at large (Bertrand et al., 2001). The recent past has seen more and more people getting diagnosed with ASD and consequently extreme emphasis is being placed on their social inclusion and involvement in aspects of social and economic life. Sadly, in various nations, Qatar inclusive, the disabled persons among them the disabled, are

Target comapny Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Target comapny - Research Paper Example This when compared to other competitors of Target Corp, shows that the company has performed good considering the intense competition within the retail industry from the likes of giants like Walmart. Walmart reported a profit of $15,355 million in 2011, Costco reported $1,462 million in 2011 while Best Buy Co reported 1,277 million in year ending 2011. Target Corporation tends to operate efficiently within the retail industry. The company, like many of its adversaries, values its inventory on the basis of Retail Inventory Method. Under this method, the inventory is measured and reported at the Last in First Out (LIFO) method whereby a cost-to-retail ratio is applied to inventory grouping’s ending value. The inventory is further reported at the lower of the LIFO cost or the market value. Target Corporation has gradually increased its revenue with the years passing by. The reported revenue in 2011 was 69,865 million – which was 3.5% more than the previous year revenue. The year 2011 also showed Target Corporation reporting its highest EBIT and Net earnings in the last five years, $5,322 million & $2,929 million

Group Development within Apollo 13 Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Group Development within Apollo 13 - Movie Review Example Lastly and in many cases, most important, would be the stage of performance, or performing. This would be the stage at which individuals within the group would truly come together as one and be able to effectively execute that which they would wish to do so. From a cinematic standpoint, the movie to consider for this exercise would be the Ron Howard directed 'Apollo 13'. Based upon the events that occurred for the Apollo 13 crew that almost did not return home from their mission, the three primary characters are as follows: Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert. With formation, the final group of men on the mission would be re-formed together, after the discovery of the potential illness of one of the original men selected for the crew. With Lovell and Haise, they would have already been through the forming process together and as such, would have grown more accustomed to one another, than they necessarily would have been with the new addition of Jack Swigert. The storming phase would be most apparent between Swigert and Hase, with Lovell serving as the intermediary.

Brazilian Literature Essay Example for Free

Brazilian Literature Essay For a long duration, Dom Casmurro, Machado de Assis’s novel has moved its readers to opening a debate on if Santiago’s wife, Capitolina, had been faithful to Santiago. The narrator was believed to have loved his wife since their childhood. His mother, who later passed on had wanted the narrator to become a priest thus avoid getting married to his girlfriend. They later got married but later starts to suspect the wife of an affair with Escobar, a close buddy of his. Escobar later on perishes in an accident and the narrator’s wife got a baby boy, Ezekiel. The conflict of the narrator reaches climax as the people around him indicates that the born child resembles Escobar. The narrator is left sad with this as he accuses his wife of infidelity and longs for revenge while on the other hand trying to prevent himself. The supposed infidelity of the narrators wife is not the main issue, but the most debated issue in this novel is the manner in which reader is positioned by the novel in asking or deciding the himself question or just his version of the issue. In order to respond to such questions, one is expected to view the events in the novel in order to take position. The whole narration comes out from the narrators view point as he converts the subjectivity into mere fiction. In the novel, the reader of the novel is enticed by the narrator, Casmurro into his confidence as well as being manipulated to condemn Capitu, his wife. This makes the reader perceive him as a person who took the responsibility of his wife’s death and the other reprehensible behaviors of the life he lived there after (Joaquim, Maria). There are several clues in the presumed eyewitness’s account of truthfulness. But closely looking at the clues given by the narrator leaves one to finalize that the narrator is living a lie and the way in which the desire he expresses in trying to fill in the central existence of his, fails since the fact of the life he is living is in a lacunae which he is not in a position to have it in the story of his life. Casmurro, right from start, portrays himself as the figure with authority in the story and starts to manipulate the audience. The insight into Casmurros personal traits is portrayed in the first chapter as in â€Å"DO titulo† (the title) he tries to link to audience with the way in which he got his nickname Dom Casmurro. He goes ahead to inform the reader not to find the meaning of the word Casmurro in the dictionary, however, he indicates that it implies tight-lipped person who is withdrawn within himself. On the other hand, the name is a old fashioned Portuguese word defined by the dictionary as obstinate, bull-headed or fearful, withdrawn, aloof, dour and gloomy(Scott). The narrator is believed to have gotten his nick name from a young gentleman within his neighborhood who was feeling being insulted by Casmurro. This name, Dom Casmurro was given to the narrator during one of his journeys by train to Engenho Novo. On the way, he met the young man who was reading some poems for him. Tired, Casmurro fell asleep even without getting what the young man was reading for him in his poems. The following day, the man whop felt ignored stated calling the narrator ‘Dom Casmurro’. Because of the narrator’s humble nature, Dom was used in a belittling manner. The entire neighborhood saw the name Casmurro as being fitting to him so much that it got stuck. Casmurro makes the nickname the title of his story after giving it definition for the audience as well as discrediting it with a lot of humor. He goes ahead to portray himself as a real gentleman and an honest man. Looking at the meaning of the name in the dictionary leaves on to start questioning the truthfulness of the narrator (Assis and Gledson 246). The narrator, who just refers to himself as Dom Casmurro, is reluctant in identifying his true identity. The audience only learns later on that Casmurro’s real name is Bento Santiago. The narrator does not want to assume this identity but prefers to remain just as Dom Casmurro. He later tries to recall all the happenings of his earlier life hoping to go on with reorganizing his life the way it used to be. As he gives introduction of his memoirs, he talks of some recollections which he refers to as charming and sweet. As the narrator promises to provide a faithful narration of his earlier life, he also posses the expectations of having the reader taking his story as true but not consider issue outside the meaning of his narration. The question the reader is left asking himself or herself is whether he or she can believe whatever the narrator is saying. With this said it is clear that Casmurro wants to relinquish the influence of the story as well as leaving the whole story in the reader’s hands. He does this by inviting the audience to have the gaps in the story filled. But the reader is left with little chance to do so since he is making sure that the reader adopts to his views and ignores the questions out side this. But the reader can condone the narrator’s behaviors if he decides to expose them. In trying to tell the story from his own point of view, the narrator wants to create a link of trust as well as establish confidence with the audience. But he has indicated to the reader a number of his fault as well as discounting the sternness with unwarranted explanations for behaving in that manner. Casmurro comes out to be unable to keep the needed control over the audience in the chapter. In order to fill in this gaps the reader, can do so by taking the case of the narrator has been in long defense of himself. By misleading the reader in the initial narration, Casmurro conflates Bento Santiago with Dom Casmurro. The narrator is sufficient distinct from bento Santiago and needs to be another character. As in the events which follow this, the narrator used the name Casmurro as the persona in the narrative to give picture of his life and allow him to relinquish the responsibilities that could be associated with Santiago wants life. The real truth of the story lies in the gaps left for the reader to fill which appears to be the responsibilities of the reader, thus the reader has to choose the role to play. The name Casmurro does not appear as the most suitable title for this story since it does not flow with the ideas of the story. The slum This is a novel which takes one back to the history of a naturalistic movement of Brazil, in which the major characters are slum residents in the Botafogo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro which contributed to a great part of the social problems experienced in the society. This kind of live has disordered the slums growth and development for many years. One of the main characters, Joao Romao arrives in a scene of the slum yarning for money and more power. This indicates how the powerful have concentrated resources to them selves forgetting the poor ones in the slum. The rich and powerful society of Brazilian as alienated from the Brazilian culture leaving the poor to struggle on their own. Many people, in the initial setting are exposed to the harsh slum live. The rich are depicted as being greedy merchants who like associating them selves with the Portuguese (Joaquim 254). The roles of the women in the slum include being submissive family heads, prostitutes, subjects to the rich and objects. There is a lot of racism exhibited considering the way the blacks are treated by the Portuguese and the Italians. Bertoleza, a slave grocer living in the ghetto, represents the many people fighting to make survival. She sells ox baits and fried fish. She is a symbol of the many slum dwellers who are in their situation because of being black which is seen as the cost of working all day long for the masters. She works hard despite the low wages she raises from her job. Development in the slum is indicated when she intents to use some of the money she earns to purchase an earth strip for expansion of her business and built a house for herself as she is tired of the informal house she lives in the centre of the Rio de Janeiro slum. The slum people have created a social macrocosm. Very early in the morning the slum live starts, the residents open not their eyes but their infinity of doors and allied windows. The characters exhibited to in the slum as fighting, working, copulating, singing or even singing. The slum comes out as a place where the blacks as well as the mulattos are ever engaged in scrambles with the Portuguese and Italian in order to move up from the bottom line of the social food chain. This indicates a live that lack social pathologies, violence, sordid betrayals, illicit sexual relationships, lesbians and homosexuals as well as cheap prostitution business, illicit liquor, increased drug abuse and small organized crimes associated with increasing juvenile delinquency. The Portuguese civilians in the slum represented by Jeronimo and his wife find a group of people represented by Rita Baiana and Firmino who are the poor residents of the slum in the normal slum social groups. The story of the slum is also concerned with the love affair of Romao, a land owner in the slum who gives out everything as well as his Brazilian wife in order to win a white lady and those of his land tenants ending up destroying several lives including those of spitfire Rita Bahiana and Jeronimo and his own too. He had risen from being a proprietor of a small business to a slum dog lord. This represents the urban discontent, is portrayed to have its people having some personal traits which exhibit rampant materialism as well as souls which are restlessly shaped and influenced by great ambition and desire to gain power and immediacy. The social vices exhibited in the slum are as a result of the poverty associated with the slum which has driven its people to desire for more than what the society they are living in can offer. These are exhibited as the characters of most slum dwellers who survive at any opportunity, given the chance to find their breakthrough. The people with money in this society have taken the advantage of the situation to get cheap sexual satisfaction from the Poor’s wives. The near by neighborhood of Portuguese is seen as being rich one. The interaction of the Portuguese with the slum dwellers starts is believed to bring some changes to the slum. It is due to this that the slum dwellers start to have closer relationships with the Portuguese who employ them in better jobs. Others get into personal relationships or even marriage with the Portuguese attracting better packs for their lives as the presence of the Portuguese increases in the slum. They start get interest of developing the slum into a better environment where they would invest. Some developments are portrayed when some of the rich slum people like Romao establishes a quarry and goes ahead to in invite Jeronimo to help in its management. With so much rivalry developing in the slum due to hatred and envy of some Brazilian getting associated with the Portuguese, the slum is burned down at some point. Later on, it is built up with some improvement in the building structure by the middle class society thus eliminating the initial state of poverty and disorganization experienced by the slum dwellers before. This changes the former kind of live style that the slum dwellers had adapted. As the intermingling of the Brazilians with the Portuguese increase, the level and standard of living went up. The former slum dwellers started to live in better houses. The number of marriages between the two societies increased and more investments were started in the former slum area which had developed into better residential area. After the slum is burnt and some new houses are developed by the middle class, most of the vices exhibited initial by the slum society are not any more. The cases of illicit sexual relationships, fights and poor housing are replaced by a society which has burning desire for development, as the middle class society starts to put their interest for investment which turns the once unhealthy society into a meaningful livelihood suitable for human settlement. Other characters exhibited by the Brazilian slum live include the people’s despair, the slum excitement, and the perfumes. The dwellers of the slum always have the ever burning desire to live the lives of the neighborhood which is full of luxury. The slum itself is perceived as an organic unit, with all sorts of live present there. After the development, the slum starts to fills with urban college students and artists who also contribute to its gentrification. The slum life was initially portrayed as full of sadness and tragedy as seen in its naturalism but with these developments some sense of lively hoods have started to be seen. Another major development of the slum is the manner of ownership that is shown before and after the burning and housing of the land. Initially, the bigger percentage of the slum land was owned by some few individuals such as the slum lord, Joao Pomao who is seen as one of the big hypocrites and who exhibited a lot of control over the slum many landless. After the recreation of new houses most of the land was owned by several middle class people. Work Cited Caldwell, Hellen. The Brazilian Othello of Machado de Assis. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1953. Joaquim, Maria. Machado de Assis. Dom Casmurro, Berkeley: University of California Press. 1953. Scott, Infanger. Living a Lie: the Silence of Truth in Dom Casmuro, Vanderbilt University, 2002, viewed on 13 July 2009 from http://www. umassd. edu/cas/portuguese/lyinginportuguese-texts/scott-livingalie. doc Assis, Machado and Gledson, Joao. Dom Casmurro. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 246.

German Political Theory Essay Example for Free

German Political Theory Essay The early German philosophers have been some of the most controversial and well-acclaimed philosophers in the history of political theory. Individuals such as Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jurgen Habermas have revolutionized the mechanisms of the world of human beings with their daring thoughts and radical insights. It is through their critical thought about the things they observe around them that they have created a new way by which society has been able to move on through the years. One of the more critical aspects of German philosophy is the fact that it is highly diverse. The ideologies and principles, although supposedly based on a single culture, that have come from the different German philosophers are varied to such a point that at times they even counter each other in terms of drive and argument. Simply put, this means that there is no one theory regarding family, society, and government that generated by the popular German philosophers. The progression of theories dealing with the family, society, and government, the interaction that exists between these three, and the implications of these interactions have not bee additive or geared towards aggregation in German philosophy. German philosophy and German political theory has been an assortment of personal criticisms and associations, personal recommendations and personal assertions which were based on observations and solid evidence. Although it has not been an effort towards creating one single vantage point regarding society, German philosophy has been a regulatory force of society. Thus the fact that there are theories disagreeing with one another was highly adaptive to the creative and analytical spirit of the philosophers. The uniqueness of German theorists as compared to other theorists lies in the one characteristic that is shared by their different theories. This is the fact that German theories go to the heart of the matter. They are primarily concerned with controversial issues that are sometimes taken for granted by others. This means that they question what they observe. They question the moral, political, and economic sanctions they themselves grew up with. By changing the way people view and understand their society, German theory has been a main mover of history. How did German philosophers like Kant and Nietzsche conceive of their theories? It was simply through an observation of society and through critical analysis of the dynamics of the interactions of the different factors contributing to society’s continuation. It was through a belief and confidence that their ideas regarding certain issues were indeed more correct and more reflective of society than the theories regarding society and politics that were present during their own time. I will try to accomplish in this paper a description of my own theories regarding family, society, and government as well as the impact these three have on each other. I will include, at certain points, some of the major theories by the more popular German philosophers. However, this will not be an analysis of their theories. This will be a look into my own theories, a conception of my own German political theory, which will be strengthened by arguments from Kant, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Nietzsche, and Habermas – some of which I will agree to and some of which I will disagree to. My own definitions and perceived importance of the three concepts will also be discussed as these will form the base of my theories regarding their interactions with each other. The Family It is said that the family is the basic unit of society. This is a basic fact that is taught to everyone early on in their lives. My paper will, therefore, start off on this basic unit and will build on from here. A majority of the theories and works by the German philosophers fail to mention the family. If the family has been mentioned, it has most often been placed in the backwaters of what the philosophers considered more pressing matters such as society and the ruling class. (Poster, 1978) Definition The family is characterized as a group of individuals that are related to each other through one or a combination of the following features: a) living with each other in the same residence; b) having come from the same blood line; c) having an affinity with one another beyond that found in friends and even more so than that found between mere acquaintances and complete strangers. In today’s society, I don’t think it is appropriate to define the family using its traditional nuclear model – a model having a father, mother, and children in the picture. There are many families today that function without a complete combination of these individuals. Also, there are many cultures that regard a family to be more than just a group of individuals brought together on account of their consanguinity. One could consider, for example, that a group of unrelated individuals who have taken care and love one as more of a true family than the individuals linked directly to that individual through biology. Also, there are many instances of broken families and families with unconventional pairings of figureheads. There are families that exist without the presence of a father or a mother. There are groups considered as families regardless of the fact that the supposed father is no longer the biological father of the children. Same sex marriages with or without children are also considered families despite the traditional view of what a family used to be. It is my belief, therefore, that a family is created as a product of the coming together of individuals with common or parallel goals, who reside together in the same place, and who more frequently have positive regard rather than negative regard for one another. The family is not a unit of society that is to be disregarded as having a small role in the interplay of the various factors of society and government. Its importance and functions are critical in the continuation of the individual, of society, and of the government. Theory on its Importance Despite the fact that almost all the German philosophers have discussed society and government in relation to the individual, I believe the family is a more critical unit to the individual. In fact, the family may have a greater impact on society and government as opposed to the individual. This is not to say that the individual plays a small role as opposed to the family. What I wish to point out, rather, is that the non-consideration of the family has led to a deficit in what most of the German philosophers have conceptualized as the successful as well as faulty mechanisms behind the individual, society, and government. The family can be considered as an individual’s sanctuary from the world. By this, I mean that the family can give a person a feeling of safety, love, and positive regard. It works to encourage the individual and to foster for that individual a sense of trust and acceptance. As Hegel (2001) described it, a family is comprised of members and not individual persons. This indicates the unifying feature of a family. However, these positive regard and functions of this unit for an individual is not met in all families. There are many families with a history of violence and abuse. There are others that simply have feelings of apathy. I believe that in these cases, the individual creates for himself or herself a new family unit, one that I previously defined to have foundations not on biology and consanguinity but rather on other more spiritual and moral factors. However, when we are given the two cases of families – one fostering a positive atmosphere and one fostering a negative or neutral atmosphere for the individual – I stand firm in thinking that both have equal importance in the creation of the individual. It is the family that first affects the individual’s physical, psychological, emotional, and moral development. It is also the family that influences the direction of this growth. This is seen most clearly when we see that the family is in charge of the education of the children that are members of its structure. (Hegel, 2001) Yes, the individual has his or her own say in the way his or her life moves but which one of us can say that we have not been to a great degree relying on our families? And because we are dependent on our families, our families can dictate the decisions we make for ourselves, decisions which add up to create the type of people we are now. Also, it is undeniable that we are more likely to adapt for ourselves the principles and behavior exhibited by our family members. This is why most family members usually resemble each other with regards to likes, dislikes, and tendencies in behavior. The importance of the family to society and to the government will be discussed in the succeeding sections. Suffice it to say at this point that, indeed, as an independent unit of society, the family has important roles to play in an individual’s life. These roles are not merely based on its nurturing qualities but also on the control the family has on an individual’s personality, character, and life. However, it should be noted that the family’s success is in its eventual dissolution as children continue on to create families of their own. (Hegel, 2001) I think that Hegel is right with regards to dissolution being a necessary step in the family process. However, I also believe that this dissolution is only physical. Younger members merely begin to live in different houses in order to form new family units. This does not mean, however, that the family has ceased in its functions in the individual’s life. It still exists as a support system, a guide, and a source of love and nurture. Society The next concept has been touched on and included in the theories of the major German philosophers. Society, by itself, has been dissected and analyzed. Its functions, systems, and importance have been stated, restated, and renewed throughout the history of German political theory. Either way, it is clear that a great many of the concerns and issues faced by an individual come from a larger scale than that of his family. Definition Society is a group of individuals joined together by common interests and who may or may not be identified by similar cultural beliefs and traditions. This means that different ethnic groups may form a society. It is not necessary for society to be based on a single culture. What I mean by this is that a German, an American, and a Pole could just as easily form a single society despite the fact that their cultures of origin are different. A concrete example would be American society. America is a melting pot of cultures. Despite the great number of ethnic groups represented in America, however, all these individuals still belong to one distinct society – the American society. Society is not necessarily linked to nationhood. It can even be used to refer to the entirety of humanity. Depending on the use of the term, society can refer to both a specific group of people and also to all peoples the world over. I believe, however, that society has characteristics that help identify it. These include: 1) membership and a criteria for membership 2) an organizational structure 3) social interaction and behavior By this I mean that a particular society is exclusive. There are only a specific set of individuals who can be allowed to partake of the benefits of belonging to a given society. Because of the very fact that society is comprised of many individuals, there is a need for a basic skeletal structure by which to base its functioning. Also, a society is empty and unable to function without allowing its members to interact with each other. There is a need for the members to be able to interact either directly or indirectly in order for society to continue on its processes. The success of these processes is dependent on the quality of the interaction between the different members of society.

Development of Cryptography Studies

Development of Cryptography Studies 0.1 Abstract This report is an overview of some structures that have heavily influence the course and study of Cryptography the last decades. Initially, we will analyse the structure of some important ciphers such as DES, 3DES and AES by underlying some dark and complicated points and emphasizing the critical  functions called S-boxes. We will then expand of some basic attributes of these block ciphers, for example the running time of them and their hardware and software performance. Finally, we will focus on a highly important aspect of these cryptosystems, security by exploring some of the most significant attacks that have been discovered against them. The paper is concluded with a presentation of the most important results of our investigation. 1 Introduction Cryptography has a very rich history, rooted back in the ancient years. Even Greeks of classical times have demonstrated understanding of ciphers, with the example of Herodotus to be the most well known, who tattooed a message to his slave head on a slaves shaved head and hide it under his regrown hair. Before the modern era, cryptography had an absolute target the achievement of confidentiality of a message. The most crucial years for cryptography were undoubtedly the last century. The decisive step was an investigation of Claude Shannon, the father of information security. In his seminar at 1949, Shannon analysed and illustrated block ciphers and suggest that, if they are combined with some operations that can provide the whole cipher with permutation and substitution, they should be a reasonable option. A block cipher, is an encryption scheme that belongs in the branch of Cryptography that is called symmetric-key Cryptography. This name is justified by the fact that the parties th at are involved in the communication through the cipher use the same secret key. Later designed as iterated product ciphers, block ciphers are deterministic algorithms that operate on fixed length groups of bits, called blocks. The major attribute for a block cipher is that the length of the input, called plaintext, and the length of the output, called ciphertext, is always the same. They take as an input a key of k-bits length and the this key is expanded to many different keys following a sequence of operations, the so called round keys. Typically, a block cipher is built by iteration, using a function called round function. In every round, the round function takes as an input the corresponding message and the round key and produces a new outcome which is oriented to be used in the next round. The final round will produce the ciphertext. Block ciphers have been widely used and dramatically influence the new era of humanity, and more importantly for commercial reasons in industry a nd banking. There is a remarkable variety of examples from block ciphers, although for the rest of this paper we will focus on the most famous examples that dominated the whole area of symmetric-key Cryptography in the new era. These are called DES, 3DES, AES. Blowfish has also attracted the attention since there isnt still any known vulnerability but it will remain outside of the scope of this report. 2 Analysis and Description 2.1 Data Encryption Standard (DES) Nowadays, DES is considered to be insecure, but it had a huge impact in the development of the symmetric-key cryptography for many decades after its invention. It has been designed back in 1976, when the government of the United States realized the overwhelming necessity of an algorithm that could effectively protect government data and safely used for buying products from the international markets. The most interesting difference of DES with its predecessor, Lucifer, which has been designed by Horst Fiestel, is that the key length and the block length has been reduced significantly. Nevertheless, the key length, especially, was from the time that DES was published, under heavy criticism and was actually badly broken in 1997 with the so-called exhaustive search attack. That means that a machine was able to search all the possible keys and find the correct one. DES has a very rich history of attacks and we will examine some of these attacks in more detail later in this paper. The core idea behind DES is the so-called Feistel Network, where a block cipher can built up with the use of some arbitrary functions f0,f1,fd : {0,1}n → {0,1}n. There is a wide variety of block ciphers that have a similar construction, although AES has a completely different construction. The critical point in these kinds of constructions is the structure of these functions, which can vary significantly. Abstractly speaking, the main target is to construct an invertible function F : {0,1}2n → {0,1}2n in order to able to decrypt the ciphertext. DES is basically a 16-round Fiestel network. More specifically, the input is exactly 64 bits, so R0 and L0 are 32 bits each. Obviously, from the diagram above, in every the half of the bits remains unchanged. The other half comes with a sequence of operations. Initially, as specified by the protocol, a permutation of the whole input takes place, followed by a 16-round Fiestel Network. Each function f0,f1,f16 : {0,1}16 → {0 ,1}16 that is used at each round is computed by using the corresponding subkey, fi(x) = F(ki,x) ,in order to make the decryption circuit feasible and manageable from a hardware perspective of view. This subkey is produced by the main key, in the following way: 56 bits are selected from the 64 bits that contains the key, the 56 bits are divided into two 28 bit halves and each half is treated afterwards separately. In every round, both halves are rotated form the left to the right by one or two bits and then 48 bits are selected, 24 from the left and 24 from the right to build the corresponding subkey. After these 16 rounds of the Fiestel network, there is one more permutation before the final output is computed. The following image describes the construction of the fi function. Initially, the input of 32-bits replicates 48-bits with some simple calculations and then the result is XOR with the 48-bits subkey. The 48-bits are splitted to 8 blocks of 6 bits and passed to the S-boxes. This is the most critical point of a block cipher and bad implementation of S-boxes can easily compromise security. A S-box is a function {0,1}6 → {0,1}4 and acts like a look-up table. The selection of these tables is of vital importance and has been a controversial matter for many years. It has been proved that linear S-boxes is definitely not an option. Even a partly linear S-box can run under some kind of attacks. After the implementation of all the S-boxes, a last permutation that maps the 32-bits around, takes place. The decryption circuit follows exactly the inverse procedure. Obviously, the encryption and decryption circuit are almost identical as the only actual difference is the order that the f1,f2,,fd functions are applied. This fact made DES very attractive to hardware developers because they had to implement just one algorithm for both procedures. 2.2 Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES) As already mentioned, DES has been proved to be vulnerable under certain types of attacks so significant has been made in order to improve the security of DES. For this reason, DES has been replaced by 3DES, which was published in 1998 To begin with, let E : KXM → M be a block cipher and lets define the function 3E : K3 → M as 3E((k1,k2,k3),m) = E(k1,D(k2,E(k3,m))), where D denotes the decryption algorithm. Actually, there are three encryption steps. The main question that arises here is why the middle one is a decryption algorithm and not and encryption algorithm. The answer is simple; this would have lead to the implementation of a single DES, beacause the first and the second DES operations cancel out. will cancel the other. Obviously, the key-size, as it was intended, has been increased to 168-bits, as each of the keys is 56-bits. There are three options for keys; in the first key options all the keys are independent, in the second option k1andk2 are independent and k3 = k1 and in the third all three key are identical, k1 = k2 = k3. The third option is no longer recommended by the NIST( National Institute of Standards and Technology), the first key option is the strongest with a total number of 168 key bits as mentioned above, and the second option is stronger that simply implementing DES twice. 2.3 Why not double DES? 3DES is considered to be a secure block cipher. Nevertheless, a normal question is why 2DES in not an option, as it may not seem easy to beak by brute force with a key-length space 2112. A 2DES can be defined in the following way; 2E(k1,k2),m) = E(k1,E(k2,m)) with a key length 112 bits. This construction turns out to be completely insecure and the reason for this is the meet-in-the-middle attack. Basically, if an attacker has at his disposal an actual message and the corresponding ciphertext, which will be of the same length, he will try to find a pair of key (k1,k2) that E(k1,E(k2,M)) = C. If we apply at both parts of this equation the decryption algorithm, then we get the get E(k2,M) = D(k1,C). So, the attacker will try to figure out which is the appropriate pair of key in order to map the message M and ciphertext C at the same point this also justifies the name of the attack meet-in-themiddle. The attack is structured in two steps: Firstly, the attacker has to build up a table wi th all the 2112 keys and the corresponding encryptions and then sort this list, and secondly, for all possible key that belongs to {0,1}56, he calculates D(k,C) and he looks for a match at the previous table. Whenever he finds the first match, his goal has been achieved. The running time of this attack is 256log(256) + 256log(256) < 263, time that is much smaller than the time that is necessary for brute force attack. 2.4 Advanced Encryption Standard(AES) It is widely acceptable AES has been adopted by the U.S. government and nowadays is used worldwide. As DES was proved insecure and 3DES quite slow, the demand for a more effective encryption scheme grew rapidly and at 1997 NIST requested a new proposal. After some investigation, NIST chose Rijndael as AES at 2000, a cipher that was designed in Belgium. AES, unlikely to its predecessor, its not a Feistel Network. In contrast, it is called a substitution-permutation network because both actions of permutation and substitution take place. AES has a fixed block size of 128-bits, although the key length can vary, 128,192 or 256 bits. Additionally, in every round of AES all bits change while in every round of DES half of the bits remain unchanged. Generally, a substitution permutation networks initial input is operated with an XOR with the corresponding round subkey, then goes through a substitution layer where there are some blocks, configured depending on what the substitution table says and finally a permutation layer follows where all bits are permuted. This procedure is repeated many times until the final outcome is produced. All steps of a substitution permutation network must be reversible in order to be able to decrypt. Specifically for AES, the 128-bits, which are equal to 16-bytes, are handled with the help of a 4X4 matrix with ten repeated rounds to follow. Each element of this matrix is one byte. Each byte comes under the XOR operation with the corresponding round subkey, and then a function is applied in every round that consists of three steps: (1) The Sub-Bytes step, according to which all bytes are replaced with other coming from a look-up table, named Rijndael S-box. This S-box is associated with the Galois Field(28) which is considered to have goo properties. This is a critical operation for the overall structure, as it provides AES with non-linearity. (2) The Shift-Rows step, where the last three rows of the current state are moved some certain positions to the left while the first row remains stable and (3) the Mix-Columns step, where all the bytes of each column of the current state are combined under a linear transformation. The last two steps provide AES with diffusion, a vital property for a secure cipher according to which if we change one bit of the plaintext then almost half of the bits o f the ciphertext will change. It is also considerable that the step Mix-Columns is omitted at the last round of AES. Each subkey is produced by the main key with some kind of expansion similar to the DES. The key expansion is introduced with a number of operations named rotate, Rcon, and S-box and then follows an inner loop in key schedule before the final subkey is produced. 3 Comparison and Attacks 3.1 Running time A real concern about which algorithm is appropriate, especially for commercial use, is the effectiveness and its running time. In general, the larger the block size is, the faster is the algorithm, obviously because larger amount of data is encrypted in one round of operations. Similarly, the smaller the key size is, the faster is the encryption algorithm, because the less key bits are involved in the operations and thus the complexity of them is reduced. A series of experiments have taken place to verify which of the famous encryption algorithms, AES,DES,3DES. Most of these experiments implement these encryption algorithms in Java, although there are some others that used C, most of them at a machine of Pentium 2 or Pentium 4. At most of these experiments, the fastest of these algorithms has been proved to be DES, followed by AES and finally from the 3DES, as it is three times slower than DES. It obviously doesnt make sense to examine the running time of these block ciphers in compl ete isolation with the security that they provide although it is definitely a factor that must be taken into consideration. 3.2 Software and Hardware Implementation Another important aspect that must be examined is the performance of these block ciphers in combination with the available hardware. Again, a lot of study has been carried out and provide us with some clear evidence. In compact architecture, 3DES, DES and AES have displayed very similar performance. In contrast, in high-speed architecture, AES is considered to be almost 4-times than the 3DES and DES. This is happening due to a variety of reasons, amongst them there is no hardware support for DES in modern CPUs, when from the other side there is for AES in increasingly many CPUs, including most targeting servers; hence hardware DES is oà ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å¾oaded to a distant IC, when AES is often in-core. Additionally, DES is often used in CBC mode which makes parallelization inevitable and processed in advance during encryption when AES is mainly used in CTR mode where the possibility of parallelization is available. Finally, DES, and its expansion 3DES is much slower in software than AES, obviously because it was designed back at 1976 before the 8086 processor was designed and uses a lot of bit operations that are not implemented suà ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã†â€™ciently in a processor with a word oriented instruction set. 3.3 Attacks on DES and 3DES As already mentioned earlier at this paper, 2DES has been collapsed from the meet-in-the-middle-attack. Simultaneously, DES, despite its contribution to the overall development of cryptography, has also been defeated by a quite popular attack named exhaustive search. Exhaustive search means that the attacker will search the whole key space and he will find the appropriate, which is unique, in suà ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã†â€™cient amount of time. There are some cases, even in the real world where the attacker can obtain some pairs (mi,ci), where m denotes a message and c the corresponding ciphertext. Under this small requirement, DES was badly broken. To be specific, a company named RSA, back at 1997 announced a problem with the name DES challenge. The company announced six ciphertexts and in parallel announced the first three actual messages and asked for the scientific community to search for the key and use it to obtain the other messages. The same year of the request the challenge had been solved. To go further, the rapid hardware  development was able to create a machine that find the key and solve the problem, equivalently crack DES, within less than one day at the year 1999 with exhaustive search, leading to the assumption that 56-bits length block ciphers should not be used any more. As DES is one of the most famous and controversial block ciphers, it is not entirely surprising that there is a variety of attacks developed against DES, some of them even faster than exhaustive search. Back at 1998, Kocher and Jun demonstrated a very innovative idea by making a side channel attack, introducing a new era for cryptography. Side channels attacks extract information from the physical implementation of the cipher. This type of attack was specifically against smart cards, and is based in power measurement. They actually measured precisely the running time of the smart cards and analysed the diagrams that they obtain from this measurement. In this way, they were able to learn wa s much time was consumed by in each operation from the smart card and find exactly the key. Nowadays, even smart cards are equipped with mechanisms that dont reveal any information of the power consumption there is an attack called differential power analysis, which can steal the secret key after running a lot of time the smart card. It should me mentioned that these attacks are quite general and not for smart cards. In addition, there is another type of a quite highly surprising class of attacks called fault attacks. In this occasion, the attacker can cause a malfunction to a mechanism, lets say to a smart card, for example by warming it up. If he manage to cause and recognise an error at the last round of DES he will be able to discover the secret key. The last attack that we would like to point out is the so called linear cryptanalysis. This is a generic attack and was introduced by Matsui at 1993 and is one of the most realistic, sophisticated and quick attacks on the DES. His a ttacks, and generally in linear cryptanalysis, one tries to find probalistic linear relations between the plaintext, the ciphertext and the secret key. He starts by examining linear relations at the S-boxes of one round and if he succeeds, he will use the to find out linear relations in one-round and then finally them iteratively to find multi-round relations. These relations from round to round are not independent. By combining all these linear relations, the attacker should be able to retrive the secret key. Matsui attack used 244 known plaintexts to find 13 bits of the secret key with a high probability . A similar method was applied to find another 13 bits and then for the remaining 30-bits he applied exhaustive search, he applied exhaustive search, reducing significantly the time that the initial exhaustive search demands. Today, linear cryptanalysis is considered to be, with some improvements, one of the most powerful attacks on DES. Although DES is considered to be faultless and no specific technical vulnerabilities has been found, a high level of linearity at the fifth box of DES has created the possibility for someone to generate this type of attack. Most of the previously referred attacks can also be implemented against 3DES, as the two block ciphers are obviously, highly related. To begin with, an exhaustive search is not suà ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã†â€™cient any more as the key space, if we use three totally independent keys, is huge, especially if we take into consideration the computational power that a strong mahine can demonstrate nowadays. The meet-in-the middle-attack can be applied in a very similar mode, as the attacker can still create a sorted table with the first implementation of DES between one element of the table and the implementation of twice the DES at the opposite direction. The time needed for this attack is 2112, which is considered to be a high level of security, as nowadays a satisfactory level of security against a certain attack is approximately 290, although is still faster in comparison with exhaustive search. Lately, a new attack against block ciphers has been displayed, mainly intended against 3DES and Blowfish and exploits well known kind of vulnerabilities like collision and birthday attacks. Since this is currently under examination and was published only this year, we are not going to expand more. Overall, till today there is not a known and widely acceptable attack that cracks 3DES in a reasonable amount of time. 3.4 Attacks on AES Rijndael has outplayed all other candidates suggested for the AES and so has been analysed quite a bit the last decade. A lot of attacks have been introduced although none of them has hurt AESs security significantly. To begin with, there is a lot of analysis around the meet-in-the-middle attack and some possible improvements of it over the last five years. Gilbert and Minier have proved a very interesting distinguishing property for the first four rounds of AES with the following proposition; lets consider a set of 256 plaintexts where the entry a11 takes all byte values between 0 and 255 exactly once over a given set of plaintexts and all other entries are equal to a constant. If we encrypt this set with three rounds of AES then the function that maps a11 to C11 is determind by 9 fixed 1-byte parameters. C11 denotes the byte values at row i, column j. This proposition was used by them to implement the same idea of the meet-in-the-middle attack. Some further investigation have shown that the number of the parameters, and specifically for 13 or 14 bytes, and this is able to be reduced so the number of the required plaintexts will be minimized. Another famous class of attacks are called cache attacks. Cache is a small part of high speed memory and it aims to keep the CPU as much busy as possible. The catch parameters influence the running time of an algorithm. Specifically, when an element of a data array is called, then we have two possible outcomes. Id the element lies n the cache memory,then the access is instant. In a different situation, the element must be accessed from the main memory. This operation will be executed in significantly different running times and reveal valuable information. We can separate this class of attacks into three families; cold start misses, which arise for the first reference of the data, capacity misses which the magnitude of the element is bigger than the size o the cache and the conflict misses, which may happen in the case of accessing recently accessed data. 4 Conclusion In this paper we examined the structure of popular block ciphers that heavily influenced the development of Cryptography, like DES,3DES and AES and we have compared them in means of running time and software and hardware implementation. We have also considered some basic attacks that have been applied on these cryptosystems. We come to the conclusion that AES is the most safe and practical block ciphers, and this is justified by the fact that is has been chosen for encryption at a series of important applications nowadays. IS it estimated that AES will fully replace 3DES until 2030. There is not any doubt that AES is the most practical and convenient cipher from a hardware and running time perspective. Nevertheless, further investigation must definitely be carried out to ensure the the safety of AES, especially under the increasing enhancement of the technological means, is guaranteed. Finally, the attack Sweet32 is a newly invented attack and must carefully be examined, mainly becau se it is really compromise 3DES security, countermeasures must be taken DES will fully replaced by AES. 5 References [1] Dan Boneh and Victor Shoup, A Graduate Course of Cryptography, August 2015. [2] Diaa Salama Abd Elminaam,Hatem Mohamed Abdual Kader and Mohiy Mohamed Hadhoud, Evaluating The Performance of Symmetric Encryption Algorithms, Higher Technological Institute 10th of Ramadan City, Egypt, (Received Feb. 16, 2009; revised and accepted May 12, 2009) [3] Aamer Nadeem, Dr M. Younus Javed, A Performance Comparison of Data Encryption Algorithms, Department of Computer Engineering, College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Rawalpindi, Pakistan. [4] Akashi Satoh and Sumio Morioka, Hardware-Focused Performance Comparison for the Standard Block Ciphers AES, Camellia, and Triple-DES, Tokyo Research Laboratory IBM Japan Ltd. [5] Huseyin Demirci, Ihsan TaskÄ ±n, Mustafa Coban, and Adnan Baysal, Improved Meet-in-the-Middle Attacks on AES, 2011. [6] Daniel J. Bernstein, Cache-timing attacks on AES, Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science (M/C 249) The University of Illinois at Chicago, 2005. [7] Eran Tromer, Dag Arne Osvik and Adi Shamir, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 32 Vassar Street, G682, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA and Laboratory for Cryptologic Algorithms, Station 14,  ´Ecole Polytechnique F ´ed ´erale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland Received 20 July 2007 and revised 25 June 2009. [8] Anne Canteaut, C ´edric Lauradoux and Andr ´e Seznec, Understanding cache attacks, April 2006. [9] Johannes Blomer and Volker Krummel, Analysis of countermeasures against access driven cache attacks on AES, Faculty of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mathematics University of Paderborn, Germany 2009. [10] Hamdan.O.Alanazi, B.B.Zaidan, A.A.Zaidan, Hamid A.Jalab, M.Shabbir and Y. Al-Nabhani, New Comparative Study Between DES, 3DES and AES within Nine Factors, Journal of Computing, Volume 2, Issue 3, March 2010. [11] Henri Gi lbert and Thomas Peyrin, Super-Sbox Cryptanalysis:Improved Attacks for AES-like Permutations, Orange Labs, France [12] Elisabeth Oswald, Stefan Mangard, Norbert Pramstaller and Vincent Rijmen, Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communciations (IAIK), Austria, 2005. [13] Kai Schramm, Gregor Leander, Patrick Felke and Christof Paar, A Collision-Attack on AES Combining Side Channel and Differential Attack, Horst Gortz Institute for IT Security, Germany 2005. [14] Alex Biryukov and Dmitry Khovratovich, Related-Key Cryptanalysis of the Full AES-192 and AES-256, University of Luxembourg 2011. [15] A Chosen-Plaintext Linear Attack on DES, Lars R. Knudsen and John Erik Mathiassen Department of Informatics, University of Bergen, N5020 Bergen, Norway, 2000. [16] Jawahar Thakur and Nagesh Kumar, DES, AES and Blowfish: Symmetric Key Cryptography, Algorithms Simulation Based Performance Analysis, International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering Website: www.ije tae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 1, Issue 2, December 2011) [17] Stefan Tillich and Christoph Herbst, Attacking State-of-the-Art Software Countermeasures A Case Study for AES, Institute for Applied Information Processing and Communications, Inffeldgasse 16a, A-8010 Graz, Austria

How does Miller use Alfieri to inspire Sympathy for Eddie? Essay

How does Miller use Alfieri to inspire Sympathy for Eddie? How successful is he? In his play â€Å"A View from the Bridge†, Arthur Miller intends us to feel sympathy towards the protagonist, Eddie Carbone. Miller wants the audience to view Eddie positively, however Eddie displays negative personality traits like aggression, violence and over-protectiveness therefore there is a conflict between how Miller wants us to feel, that Eddie is a tragic hero, and how he actually does behave. The narrator Alfieri is deployed to often defend or explain Eddie’s actions. After Eddie has shown a negative characteristic, Alfieri is deployed to get the audience back on Eddie’s side. Without Alfieri, the audience would dislike Eddie and would immediately reject him. The audience’s views towards Eddie are constantly shifting throughout the play. Miller, like many playwrights, was influenced by Greek theatre. Alfieri’s role is similar to the way the chorus operated in Greek tragedy because he comments on the action throughout the play. Our first impressions of Alfieri are positive. In the ancillary text, he is described as, â€Å"a lawyer in his fifties† which suggests that he is an educated and mature man. Alfieri is well dressed in a suit and is very well mannered. It is extremely important that the audience likes and trusts Alfieri if he is to influence the audience’s views of Eddie during the play. This is why Alfieri is dressed smartly and looks experienced right at the beginning of the play. He speaks directly to the audience in an approachable and friendly way using the personal pronoun â€Å"you† which shows that he is trying to build a rapport with the audience right from the start of the play. Alfieri is articulate a... ...e is an element of contradiction to Alfieri’s final words because he believes that it is wise to compromise and yet he loves Eddie who refused to. This shows that it is not possible to have a fixed view on Eddie throughout the whole play. Miller uses Alfieri to constantly shift the audience’s view of Eddie by deploying Alfieri every time Eddie shows a negative trait. I think Alfieri finally does inspire sympathy for Eddie although some people may not sympathise with him but completely dislike him because of his negative behaviour. This is Miller’s intention throughout the play because of his use of Alfieri. I do not sympathise with Eddie but i pity him because he knew no better and he was a product of his cultural background. Eddie was not fully equipped for the predicament he faced and his limited intellect led to a tragic event at the end of the play.

A Modern Version of Shakespeares Play, Henry V Essay -- Henry IV Henr

A Modern Version of Shakespeare's Play, Henry V The play Henry V, currently being staged at the University of Alberta student theatre, exemplifies an innovative manner of bringing the historic play into the modern era of technology. Set in the form of two multinational corporations: England and France, the play details the metaphoric battle for the market share from the two companies. Set in the current era circa 2002, the props and set for the play incorporate several technological innovations of the twenty first century. The workers for the corporation mirror the class system of the nobility, clergy and commoners in the play. The members of the clergy and nobility are analogous to the advisors, high-level executives, and members of the board of directors while the King fills the role of the Chief Executive Officer. The commoners and peasants are other employees of the firm such as the clerical staff and other related permissions. Their wardrobe is reflected accordingly the high-level business people wear suits of the finest calibre and the lower level workers wear attire that is considerably less formal. It was in this way that the audience is able to discern the respective classes from each other. This illustration of class distinction was most clearly portrayed in Act four Scene one where Henry changes into less formal wear as he goes down to the lunchroom and begins to converse with the publicists and other commoners that frequent the company's cafeteria. It is here within his masquerade th at he learns the morale of the workers and their attitude towards their executives. The entity of the chorus, which serves as the narrator of the play, still holds true to that function as a camera crew and news reporte... ...ing something that they had either experienced or had a family member experience. As a result, it caused them to identify with the play. The manner in which this play has been configured such that it is drawing on the predatory and imperialistic tendencies displayed by multinational conglomerates provides a way for today's audience to identify with the plight of the characters and their realm. Works Cited Shakespeare, William. Henry V. The Norton Shakespeare Based on the Oxford Edition: Histories. Eds. Greenblatt, Stephen et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 736-793. Works Consulted Ganz, Arthur. "Henry V In New York". Shakespeare Quarterly 35:4 (1984): 470-471 Speaight, Robert. "Shakespeare in Performance". Shakespeare Quarterly 36:5 (1985): 534-540. Stokes, Swell. "The Oliviers". Theatre Arts 29:12 (1945): 711-718.

Faulkner Vs McCarthy Essay -- essays research papers

McCarthy vs Faulkner   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Though Cormac McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses and William Faulkner’s The Unvanquished are completely different, their style and plot techniques share more similarities than differences. All The Pretty Horses and The Unvanquished both depict the importance of honor in a persons life, whether it be honor through vengeance, honoring family, or honoring the tradition of woman, these two novels teach that honor can create a stronger person.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Vengeance plays an important role in both books. â€Å"At first Granny had not wanted to be dead either but now she had begun to be reconciled. We unwrapped it from the jagged square of stained faded gray cloth and fastened it to the board. ‘Now she can lay good and quiet,’ Ringo said.† (Page 184) Bayard and Ringo would be considered cowards and shunned from their plantation if they had not gone out to hunt down Grumby. Killing the murderer was the only type of justice served and accepted in society back then. John Grady Cole felt a great load of pressure on himself for Blevins’ death, and he knew it would be everlasting if he did not avenge Blevins’ death. John sets out with a passion to kill the captain and regain the horses, but realizes that the captain will have a tougher time staying alive and John let’s him go. This relieves the tension that Blevins’ death caused.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Honor towards family plays one of the most important roles in The U...

Environmental Ethics Essay

Environmental ethics falls under the discipline of environmental philosophy that studies how human beings relate to their natural environment. This is a wide study that involves a variety of other disciplines such as those that study human relationships, economics, the earth’s structure and biology especially ecology. Human beings being the most superior of all the living things on earth have an ethical obligation to the environment concerning the earth, air, water, other organisms and the human population, both the present and the future generation. Environmental ethics brigs up a variety of issues concerning what, when, how and why we should consider this area of study. Aspects arising include the environment’s moral value, how sustainable are the policies on environmental protection, and how do these apply to the developing nations, and what policies should be put in place to ensure that the environment is safe guarded for the future generation, among others. This topic has been studied by many philosophers through the years, but it only came to be recognized as an independent discipline in 1970, due to awareness of effects of increasing human knowledge on the environment. Growing economics and populations, new technologies and development of industries all have had various adverse effects on nature, although aimed at improving life. The works of Rachael Carson, Paul Ehrlich, Aldo Leopold, among others brought about ethical concerns about the environment. Under environmental ethics, human beings have a duty towards the environment, on protection and conservation as well as having a quality life for themselves. In this context, contentious issues arise as to why we should be concerned about the environment. Should it be for us, the living human beings, the future generation, or for the environment itself regardless of our own benefits? Different personalities offer different answers to this question, hence different views have come up on environmental ethics. The issues of environmental ethics is of growing concern to the government and other institution including United Nations which have come up with incentives to people to value and appreciate nature. Earth Day which is held annually (first held in 1970) continues to create awareness and sensitize people on the value of the environment and why it should be protected. The Moral Standing We cannot handle ethics without reference to moral philosophy, which is concerned with individual behaviors and conducts. the moral standing depends on what is considered ‘right’ or ‘good’ and ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ by an individual or a society. For instance, different societies have different views on areas like land and animal ownership, rights of the future generation, and many more. Personal conduct with respect to environmental ethics defines how people should interact with nature, regarding its exploitation and conservation. The moral standing of the ethical issues on environment are wholly placed on human beings as they are the only living things who can reason and decide on moral issues. Many of the environmental concerns revolve around man and how these affect him, thus the responsibility of environmental ethics should be solely man’s. Responsibility to the environment implies that we are aware of this task, we are able to do it, we are at liberty to do it or not, and carrying out of the task has an effect to others existing in the environment. This means that we know the damage we can cause to the environment, the effects of this damage and the prevention or solutions to these problems. This gives us a moral significance in environmental ethics, and gives us a central role. The moral standing therefore means we have the moral obligation towards nature and the capability to carry out this responsibility. When we consider environmental ethics, then, look at issues such as: †¢ Should we care about nature for itself while it’s people who really â€Å"matter†?  That is if not for human beings benefit; why else should we conserve the environment? And if depleting the natural resources is necessary for life improvement, why not exhaust it? †¢ Is the loss of biodiversity, destruction of scenic geographical features for human benefit such as in agriculture so harmful to man? Where is the need to conserve a species while it has no chance of survival in the near future due to changes in earth’s patterns? †¢ Is it right for a person to own land, it being a natural resource among others, or is it morally wrong?  Is it fair that 5% of the human population use 30% of natural resources, while in other less countries the population suffers due to lack of the basic resources such as food and clean water? Do these resources exist for the benefit of a few or should they be left free for use by all? †¢ Is it possible for human beings to improve nature, seeing how man seems to have no control over nature when it comes to events such as natural calamities? †¢ Do recent developments in technology relieve us of our duty of protecting the environment? For instance, does biotechnology with potential to create new species, or bring back an extinct species, relieve us of the duty to conserve the biodiversity? Or alternative sources of fuel give us a right to deplete the natural fuel reserve? †¢ Should we let nature take its course as it always has or try and preserve it without assurance that this is of any benefit, or that this only hinders the course of nature? Is there any way that nature can take care of itself without our hand, like self renewal? The main issue surrounding environmental ethics today is the activist movements on environmental protection that focus people on the wrong issues, that is the moral standing is more emotional than factual or logical. The following are essential in discussing environmental ethics and policies. Western Religion and Culture It has been viewed by some philosophers that the Western religion has adversely affected the environment as it teaches that human beings have dominion over the earth and subdue it. Others view this as a command to take care of nature as we have been left in charge. The command given in the bible to the first man â€Å"be fruitful and fill the earth† (Genesis 1:28, Holy Bible KJV) raises the question of population control, is it ethical for the sake of the environment or is it a direct defiance of God’s command? To address this sensitive topic, religion should be understood in context. At the time of the command there was only one man on earth, so he was required to ‘fill’ it, but now the earth is already ‘filled’. Is it logical to still apply the very same principles now as they did then? The culture of a people defines how they relate to and use the environment. Many of the historic events that shape the western culture have had a huge impact on the environment. Events such as the industrial revolution, technological advances and the modern culture have affected the environment. Culture can easily adapt to changing environments, as well as cause permanent change to different environments. The environment is very wide and continuous, while cultural practices are defined by the environment. Therefore it is ethical to put environment before culture, and change current lifestyles towards more nature friendly practices. The future generation Most of the damage to the environment is more likely to affect the future human population. This therefore calls on the currently living humans to consider the rights of those who are not yet born. We might not know exactly what that generation will require but we are well aware of the basic needs of living beings; food shelter and basic health. Based on these we can have a model of what the environment should offer the future human beings. Therefore it is our moral obligation to them to utilize nature as much as we need to but ensure that we do not deny them the enjoyment of the same. Animals Other animals should be considered when addressing environmental ethics, since they are sentient beings, that is are capable of feeling. Although animals come after humans, they have rights and should be considered according to what they are interested in, such as feeding, living in their natural habitat, and allowed their existence. Controversy about animal rights arises in what animals exactly should we grant rights to. For instance, are insects or other smaller animals in this category? Is it right to use animals for laboratory research for medical and other studies to better our lives? The simple answer to this question is that unless it is extremely necessary, animals should not be put at risk or in adverse conditions. The harm to animals should be justified and be limited to a certain allowable level. Ecofeminism Women are seen to be closer and more in touch with nature; this is claimed by feminists concerned with the environment (Cochrane, 2007). This is because of their ability to give life, and the fact that the earth is considered female (Shiva, 1993). Thus this gives them a better understanding of nature and how to coexist in harmony. Val Plumwood, an ecofeminist believe, that feminism should go hand in hand with environmentalism as both women and the environment are under the same oppression. Another feminist argues that the problem is in trying to justify this kind of oppression thus allowing such subordination. When considering environmental ethics and policies, the domination over women and nature is a critical issue that requires attention. Economics and Ecology Economics and ecology usually appear as counter forces. Economy involves trying to allocate the limited resources while ecology looks out to protect these resources. The ever growing human population has placed great pressure on nature and thus their distribution is highly competitive. Market forces have added more pressure to natural resources and their exploitation. Rapid growth of industries has contributed to environmental deterioration. The cost-benefit considers questions like; if nuclear power makes electricity cheaper, should this field be ventured? What is the cost of preserving a forest compared to the cost of exporting timber? These raise challenges when setting up policies on the environment because of the question of cost versus the benefit of environmental ethics. Technology Technology has had a huge impact on human life as well as on the environment. The effects of technology are both beneficial and adverse. The medical, agricultural, communication and energy industries rely heavily on technology to better human life. Technology has the power to destroy nature as well as replenish it. The technological advances that are most potentially harmful include nuclear technology that is able to annihilate nature and biotechnology which has the potential to alter the natural species boundaries. Since all technologies come with potential risks along with their benefits, ethical consideration must be made with regards to the environment. Conclusion  In studying environmental ethics, the first thing is to ask the question ‘what should be done about the current environmental situation and how should it be done? ’ The other consideration is the importance of individual natural resources and how much effort and cost we should dedicate to protecting such. This should be based on facts and not feelings, like and dislikes. It is important that policies be based on an integrated system that has in mind all the components of nature, as well as involvement of the government, institutions and other countries.