Reform Attempts of Farmers and Workers

Life in the late nineteenth and in the early twentieth century in the United States was rough for the average person because of the poor conditions and inability to get ahead of debts and poverty. Two major groups that suffered the most were labor workers and farmers. For the workers in factories, the industrial expansion of the nation brought many changes to the workplace. These changes made life as a labor worker more dangerous and less profitable. Farmers also faced many problems such as high railroad rates and high loan interest rates. Both groups searched for ways to band together with people in similar situations to help resolve some of the problems. After many failing attempts, a movement called Progressivism caused many changes and greatly improved life for farmers, labor workers, and many other groups of the early 20th century. In the late nineteenth century, people flooded to cities to fill the positions of factory workers. Some of the people were farmers who had grown tired of constant debt and looked to the city for economic gain. Others were immigrants from other countries who left their homeland behind to find a better life. Many of these people had nowhere to go, so they followed their first instinct and moved to the cities to find work. This flood of people caused a huge surplus of labor workers, thus resulting in unsafe work conditions and low wages for those with jobs. The dawn of the factory reduced the need for skilled workers, making the tasks easy enough for a small child to perform. With this idea, factory owners hired women and children to operate their machines and paid them even less then the underpaid men. Obviously these people could not live like this, so they began to form unions in an attempt to fix some of the problems in the work place. The first major attempt at a large union to crack down on some of the problems which faced workers was The Knights of Labor. Membership was open to a very wide range including almost all workers and women. Their leaders fought for a shorter workday and removal of children from the workplace. A second attempt called the American Federation of Labor restricted membership to skilled workers. Their goals were to improve wages, numbers of hours in a workday, and working conditions. One of the most famous strikes was the Pullman Strike which involved the American Railway Union and Pullman Company workers. It was sparked by a twenty-five percent wage cut to employees. This strike consisting of a few thousand workers caused a halt in trains from Chicago to the west coast. These responses to the problems of the workplace not only expressed their discontent, but also forced their employers into changes in administration. A second group that had large problems in the early 20th century were farm owners. One major problem was the rates charged by the railroad to farmers. Since farmers depended so greatly on the railroad, railroads companies could charge almost whatever they wanted. The result was widespread debt and poverty for farmers. Other uncontrollable factors such as bad weather and overproduction hurt farming as well. The first major attempt to organize to urge changes in the nation was called the Nation Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry. This organization attempted to teach smaller farmers techniques to make their fields more productive. After farm prices plummeted as result of a depression, the organization began to work politically to help control farm prices. As result many states placed strict restrictions on railroads to regulate rates and operations. The courts put a stop to the legislation and sent the railroad prices back up. The second attempt was the farmers alliance which setup stores and other facilities for their fellow farming members to use. This partially removed the ‘middleman' from stealing a portion of the profits. Although this was more widespread than the Grange, the system was too strong to allow these alliance groups. A movement known as Populism, which urged changes to aid farmers, formed. Many of the views of the populist movement were adopted by the more popular and successful reform movement known as Progressivism. In the early years of the 20th century, a powerful reform movement called Progressivism swept the country. Its leaders were college professors, ministers, journalists, physicians and social workers. Their goal was to improve conditions for all Americans. They wanted to make the political system more egalitarian. They also wanted to make the nation's economic system more democratic. They felt that the people who owned the nations resources, should share some of their wealth with the less fortunate. The movement appealed to farmers, small businessmen, women and laborers. They were alarmed by the growing use of court rulings to halt strikes. In 1890, for example, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act. Its purpose was to punish big business corporations that combined to prevent competition. Yet more and more it was being used as a weapon against unions. The Progressives were unhappy about the use of federal troops and state militia against strikers. They were outraged by inhuman conditions in factories and mines. The Progressives and the AFL pressured state governments for laws to protect wage earners. Almost all states passed laws forbidding the employment of children under 14 years old. Many states also set a lower maximum work week for their employees. One program designed to help farmers and labor workers was the ICC or Interstate Commerce Commission, which struck down on railroad companies and their unfair practices. This greatly helped farmers earn the proper wages for their crops. Today, despite the decline in members, organized labor in the United States remains strong and conditions of America's labor force have steadily improved. The length of the work day has been shortened. Many agreements between employers and wage earners now call for less than 40 hours of work a week. Most agreements have generous â€Å"fringe† benefits. These include insurance, pensions and health care plans. As the number of union members has decreased as a percentage of the total work force, unions have responded by broadening their organizing efforts to include employees of federal, state and local governments as well as other professionals. Organizers have also waged long campaigns to unionize and win better conditions for such diverse groups as public school teachers and seasonal farm workers. As the work force has changed, so have some of the labor-management issues. Unions now want laws to strengthen their right to strike by prohibiting companies from hiring permanent replacements for striking workers. Employers want the right to test workers for drug use. Many workers are fighting for the right to take unpaid leave when they have babies or when a family member is ill and needs extensive care. And, as the unemployment rate has climbed there is growing belief that the government should help create jobs through public works programs, job training programs and tax credits for employers in areas of high unemployment.

Adoption of New Innovations Essay

Consumers go through five stages in the process of adopting a new product: 1. Awareness: The consumer becomes aware of the new product, but lacks information about it. 2. Interest: The consumer seeks information about the new product. 3. Evaluation: The consumer considers whether trying the new product makes sense. 4. Trial: The consumer tries the new product on a small scale to improve his or her estimate its value. 5. Adoption: The consumer decides to make full and regular use of new product. This model suggests that the new-product marketer should think about how to help consumers move through these stages. Individual differences in Innovativeness People differ greatly in their readiness to try new products. In each product area, there are â€Å"consumption pioneers† and early adopters. Other individuals adopt new products much later. Time of Adoption of New Innovations The five adopters groups have differing values. Innovators are venturesome—they try new ideas at some risk. Early adopters are guided by respect—they are opinion leaders in their communities and adopt new ideas early but carefully. The early majority is deliberate—although they rarely are leaders, they adopt new ideas before average person. The late majority is skeptical—they adopt an innovation only after a majority of people have tried it. Finally, laggards are tradition bound—they are suspicious of changes and adopt the innovation only when it has become something of a tradition itself. This adopter classification suggests that an innovating firm should research the characteristics of innovators and early adopters and should direct marketing efforts toward them. In general, innovators tend to be relatively younger, better educated, and higher in income than later adopters and non-adopters.

How American Hisotry X Relates to Political Science Text Think American Government

Lisa _______________ Professor _______________ Political Science 02 Due April 3, 2013 SUMMARY American History X was written by David McKenna and directed by Tony Kaye. Starring Edward Norton as Derek Vinyard, the film was released in 1998. The main idea of the film is the social and political issues of racism. It is a story of how a family is affected by one son’s view of the history of race roles in America, his life within the neo Nazi culture, and finally, after resigning himself to such a lifestyle due to prison reformation, his attempt to pull his younger brother from the same way of violent life.Ultimately, it is a story of the cycles of hate surrounding racism. The film is shown in non-linear narrative where events are given out of chronological order. When going back in time, the audience is given black and white film whereas the present is portrayed in color. Danny Vinyard, is given an assignment to write an essay on the incarceration of the main character, his older brother, Derek. The essay was to entail what led up to the incarceration and how his family was affected. The verbal reflection of his essay is when the audience is shown the film presented in black and white.Also during the verbal reflection, we find out that Derek was incarcerated for the murder of 2 Black thieves who were trying to steal the truck left to him by his late father who was killed by, not without intent of the writer, a Black man a few years prior. With that, the storyline is set up so that we know why Derek and Danny have turned to a life of neo Nazism and why Derek was given a 3 year sentence for going overboard in killing the thieves: the brothers have been affected by the criminality of the Black culture.The essay assigned to Danny, which was due the following day, was an assignment given by Danny’s Black principal after his Jewish teacher reported a questionable essay to him entitled My Mein Kampft. In the 24 hours in which the essay is being written, and narrated to the viewers, we learn the entire story of the brothers’ journeys from average kids, through neo Nazism and back, only to learn their lesson too late when Danny is fatally struck down by a former Black recipient of his race hatred, essay still in hand.American History X correlates to the discussions of the class as well as various points of the class textbook, Think American Government. The film backs up two class discussions thus far in the semester: Khalil Muhammad’s theory on Black criminality in America in addition to Bryan Stevenson’s ideas on the stigma of mass incarceration attached to the Black culture in America.The film also touches on political issues from the text, such as: immigration, the first amendment to The United States Constitution, and Hate-Crimes Legislation. Khalil Muhammad: The timeline of the film literally goes back 24 hours; flashes back 3 years; and historically traces back to both 1863 and 1865 when, respectively, the Ema ncipation Proclamation was signed (proclaiming slaves in Confederate territory to be free forever) and when the first Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was organized.Some may even argue that the story goes back to the beginning of slavery in the United States colonies because those were the first racist acts of early America and upon which America was formed. Khalil Muhammad, a current day Black historian, might argue that the plot of this film traces back to the moment when, in 1865, following the Civil War, European immigrants were given opportunities by the government to stray from their acts of criminality but recently freed Black people were not.Instead, as Muhammad asserts in a Bill Moyers interview, as well as his book, Condemnation of Blackness, Black people were sent to ghetto housing to sort their criminality out on their own, whereas White European immigrants were given social welfare and job opportunities because they were, as Muhammad states, thought of as â€Å"children of Americans who need our help†, but Blacks were thought of as â€Å"naturally morally inferior and had propensity to harm people or steal†.American History X mimics this way of American ideology when Derek preaches, â€Å"We're so hung up on this notion that we have some obligation to help the struggling Black man, you know. Cut him some slack until he can overcome these historical injustices. It's crap. I mean, Christ, Lincoln freed the slaves, like, what- 130 years ago? How long does it take to get your act together? † If Derek had read Damnation of Blackness, he would understand Muhammad’s theory that it has been 130 years (from the end of Civil War to the making of the film) of a race in America that has ontinued to be downtrodden and imprisoned through actions such as Black Codes, Stop and Frisk policy, and the â€Å"invention of the criminal justice system as a repressive tool to keep black people in their place†. That is a hard battle to win. Derek migh t also understand how he fits into Muhammad’s theory that the European race has ideologies of an institutionalized Black race when Derek complains, â€Å"One in every three Black males is in some phase of the correctional system. Is that a coincidence or do these people have, you know, like a racial commitment to crime? † Bryan Stevenson:Not only does such a statement back up Muhammad’s theory about American ideologies, but it also touches on Bryan Stevenson’s argument. In Stevenson’s interview conducted by Bill Moyer, Stevenson states that in order to change the notion that the Black man is a criminal, we must understand the history from where it stems, and we must care about human rights and dignity while we remember that all of our survival â€Å"is tied to the survival of everyone. That our visions of technology, design, entertainment and creativity have to be married with the visions of humanity, compassion and justice†.Derek’s r ant about Black males in the correctional system oozes with Stevenson’s idea that the power of criminality identity among Black culture ultimately came from how American government and Europeans have stigmatized the Black race. In the scene where Derek finds himself in his prison cell begging African American Principal Sweeney to help him, it is not until Sweeney replies, â€Å"Has anything you’ve done made your life better? † that Derek sees the light and begins to make a change toward a life outside neo Nazism. This is a perfect example of the power of identity which is Stevenson’s underlying idea to his theory.Immigration: The writers of American History X touch on the illegal immigration topic as does the text, Think American Government, in chapter 1. The textbook says that, â€Å"critics (of illegal immigrants) charge that undocumented workers drive down wage rates for American citizens† (15). In the film there is a scene in which Derek gives a lecture to his neo Nazi peers on the subject of illegal immigrants to pump them up to terrorize a neighborhood store that has been taken over by a Korean owner who replaced the American workers with 0 illegal immigrants: â€Å"It’s about the hardworking Americans falling through the cracks and getting the shaft because their government cares more about the constitutional rights of†¦Ã¢â‚¬  illegal immigrants. However, the textbook lends a contrasting thought stating â€Å"advocates contend that the United States benefits from†¦ illegal immigration. They argue that undocumented workers take jobs that citizens do not want and that they pay more taxes than they receive in government services† (15). It is also worth noting the difference in illegal immigrant statistics from when the film was released in 1998 until now.According to the U. S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) â€Å"2,830,000 illegal immigrants resided in California in 2011 compared to 2. 5 million in 2000. † In the same scene, Derek states, â€Å"There’s over 2 million illegal immigrants bedding down in (California) tonight†¦ $400 million just to lock up a bunch of illegal immigrant criminals†¦Ã¢â‚¬  In an article by BakersfieldNow. com on May 25, 2011, it was estimated, using data from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from 2010, that California now spends $1 billion on illegal immigrant prisoners compared to the time the movie was released. irst amendment & Hate-Crimes Legislation: Another point worth noting, from when the movie was released in 1998 until now, is hate-crime laws. Within the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution added in 1791, Amendment 1 states, â€Å"Congress shall make no law†¦ abridging the freedom of speech†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (363). Although the first amendment protects freedom of speech, it is not legal to use freedom of expression during an act of hate crime. The textbook states â€Å"in recent years, many states have adopted hate-crimes legislation, enhancing penalties for persons convicted of crimes motivated by bias† (69).Interestingly, Obama signed a bill in 2009 which was rooted by two hate-crimes of 1998, the year American History X was released, but it was before the movie that the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 came into effect. According to USA Today, in an article published October 28, 2009 and entitled â€Å"Obama Signs Hate-crimes Law Rooted in Crimes of 1998†, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act expanded the existing Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 and mandated that it is against the law to attack any person â€Å"based on sexual orientation or gender, in ddition to race, color, religion or national origin†. Matthew Shepard was a gay teenager beat by two Wyoming men in October of 1998, after which he was tied to a fence where he died. In June of the same year, James B yrd Jr. , an African American man, was chained to a truck by three white men in Texas and dragged to his death. Notably, as the text explains increased penalties are given for those charged with hate-crimes, Derek only received 3 years for his hate-crime in the film.In conclusion, I would recommend the film to anyone interested in wanting to broaden their horizons on the race wars in America. I thought it was prudent that Derek verbally gave the stereotypical views of hate mongers in America, but it would be interesting to see how Khalil Muhammad and Bryan Stevenson might add their theories to the dialogs of the Jewish teacher or the Black principal to show America a way of thinking that I believe is not in the public eye as much as it should be. Perhaps a film should come our way from those two aforementioned?

Stem Cell research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Stem Cell - Research Paper Example After facts are viewed, an honest opinion can be formed. Viewing facts can involve going over pros and cons regarding stem cell research. What exactly are stem cells? Stem cells are known as â€Å"mother cells†, these mother cells can be classified into two different groups. The groups are separated into adult and fetal cells. The main factor that separates stem cells from other cells is their ability to rejuvenate and renew. (Arce, S., Mosqueda, M., Gaona, H., Mas, M., Cortes, M., & Rios, M. 2007) Since the cells are able to renew, it is obvious as to why these cells are of much importance and highly researched. Cells that are able to rejuvenate are said to be able to help cure many cancers, diseases and deformities. The use of stem cells can result in breakthrough medicines that scientist have been longing for. Stem cell research is very extensive and costly. The research is costly in ways other than funding. There are several different laws, religious, and bio ethical views that allow for stem cell research to be so controversial. When it comes to stem cell research, there are many ethical costs associated with stem cell research. The ethics associated with stem cell research allow for the research to be one of the most controversial types of research out there. This is especially so when dealing with embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can be found in many different areas. The embryonic cells are found in the umbilical cord, placenta, and embryo. In order to obtain these embryonic stem cells, the donor is required to give full consent and must agree to give up the cells for research. This sounds so simple but this is one of the main factors that raise controversy. It is a fact that in order to obtain embryonic cells, there is no way to obtain the cells without destroying the embryo. (Kollmann 2010) Destroying the embryo, results in death to the unborn fetus. The destruction of the human embryo for research means that the research of the embryo nic cells is conducted at the cost of a destroyed embryo. There are laws in place against this and many religious views strongly oppose this. Many places do not allow research of embryonic cells, since the cells are obtained through abortion. Only areas that are pro abortion allow embryonic stem cells for research. Benefits to the research must outweigh the risks. Many argue that the research and use of the stem cells does not outweigh the risks. The popularity of embryonic cells is favored over adult cells. This is so since the embryonic cells are able to virtually be reproduced into any cell of the body. (Johnson, Williams 2008) Since the cells are able to reproduce they can eliminate certain diseases and cancers by allowing the body to grow new cells and eliminate the bad cells. This is why many are in such favor of stem cell research. Those in power also take a stand in either favor of stem cell research. President Bush made an announcement during his American presidency that st ated, â€Å"funding would be granted to further explore embryonic stem cell research’. (Johnson, Williams 2008) Many opposed this but the funding opened up many doors that allowed the stem cells to be used in new ways. Besides destroying human embryo to study stem cells, there are other cons that run against bio ethics and religious morals. When many think of stem cell research they think of cloning. Cloning is the ability to reproduce a copy of

Integration Management (HSBC and Oman International Bank (OIB) Merge) Essay

Integration Management (HSBC and Oman International Bank (OIB) Merge) - Essay Example Unable to procure more deposits and gain asset improvement and growth, OIB was ill-equipped to sustain a strong competitive presence domestically and internationally. Synergies of the merger include better marketing prowess, how to utilise market research studies to create more customer-centric and relevant services, streamlining of the banking service model to include more electronic banking elements, and decentralisation of business practices to generate more innovative solutions supported by HSBC’s very strong economic portfolio to make changes necessary to adjust to changing market conditions. It is through the merger that the previous business entity Oman International Bank will be able to effectively compete with domestic financial institutions and prepare the organisation for building a global competitive presence. TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.0 Introduction......................................................................................................... ..... 2.0 The rationale for the merger – defining the problem............................................... 2.1 Government and institutional problems....................................................... 3.0 Achieving synergies through the merger – solutions to the problem....................... 4.0 Conclusion................................................................................................................ ... side of the more obvious strategic intentions of the merger related to improving the financial portfolio of HBSC and OIB, it is anticipated that this merger will lead to a variety of significant synergies that will make the new entity, HSBC Bank Oman SAOG, more competitive in the Middle East. As a conglomerate whole, HSBC Holdings Plc earned total revenues of 75.6 billion USD in 2012, sustaining an asset valuation of 2.69 trillion USD (HSBC 2012), making HSBC the largest bank in the world in terms of revenues and total liquidity. HSBC is also the sixth largest publicly traded business in the globe as reported by Forbes Magazine in 2012, even larger than Royal Dutch Shell and Berkshire Hathaway (Forbes 2013). HSBC now owns 51 percent, a majority holding, of OIB (AME Info 2012). Established in 1984, Oman International Bank, a bank maintaining 82 different branches in Oman and four branches in Pakistan and India, maintained total assets of 703.7 million rial (the official currency of Om an) in 2011 (GBCM 2011). Until the merger with HSBC, Oman International Bank (OIB) was 100 percent owned by the Omani government. Unfortunately, OIB was the only bank operating in Oman that experienced a net loss in net income of 9.2 percent whilst other banks in the sector, including Ahli Bank and Bank Sohar experienced net income growth of 28.8 percent and 14.8 percent respectively (GBCM 2011). Because of this inability to improve net income growth, the merger between OIB and HSBC represented a significant opportunity to improve the bank’s financial position and liquidity. This merger between HSBC and OIB was only approved in June of 2012, making the merged entity now known as HSBC Bank Oman in the earliest development stages of the alliance. As such, there is limited published

A novel reporter for translational recoding by the Foot-and-mouth Essay

A novel reporter for translational recoding by the Foot-and-mouth disease 2A peptide - Essay Example From this research, it is clear that the primary long-term goal of the project is to determine interactions of release factors specifically needed for the 2A reaction. The method for determining this is genetical to isolate mutations within genes responsible for encoding release factors in the yeast cell that pause the 2A response. Upon synthesis of ubiquitin as part of a polyprotein, it is removed from polyprotein by specific cytosolic proteinases, indicating a new N-terminus to the remainder of the protein. Arginine shows clearly that this protein is degraded urgently as soon as it is degraded. It follows that the stability of an Ade2p portion of the protein depends on the activeness of 2A peptide. The white color of the yeast generates a color-based selection for mutants. This paper makes a conclusion that the larger part of the work undertaken was successful despite, not accomplishing the initial goal of the underlying project. Demonstration of the gap repair process of the PCR and underlying in vivo worked for SUP45. Because of the frequent time constraints, I was incapable of continuing to the massive part of the screen for the sup45 mutants as outlined in the project description. The prevailing project never alters, and the entire work undertook in line with the underlying scope of the initial aim. Nevertheless, the existing work departed described within the original proposal with the choosing yeast strains with the underlying suitable features was fundamental

Strategic and tactical marketing objectives Essay

Strategic and tactical marketing objectives - Essay Example There are considerable differences between strategic marketing and tactical marketing. Strategic marketing usually involves the planning portion of achieving a marketing objective which relies on research information on target customers. Tactical marketing is the actual application (processes) which are implemented in the hopes of achieving positive marketing results. In the hospitality industry, especially hotel marketing, both strategic and tactical marketing contribute to how the hotel performs in areas of the marketing mix. This report applies the activities involved in strategic and tactical marketing and applies them to a hypothetical resort in the Swiss Alps that provides services for wealthy guests. The marketing objective is to increase its market base by 20 percent in one year and target newlyweds from European nations. In order to achieve this goal, it will be necessary to create distinguished promotional materials which are suitable for mass market cultural beliefs and al so the beliefs of newlywed couples. Marriage is a day of celebration and, for this particular niche market, should extend well beyond the actual ceremony and be a part of their entire vacation package during this celebratory period. â€Å"Strategic marketing involves determining what the target market wants and the types of messages that resonate with that audience† (Brockington, 2009, p.1). Gaining this information about potential customers begins with conducting research, either in the form of interviews, focus groups, or surveys.

Liberal Studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Liberal Studies - Essay Example this context, Banham’s (79) view towards morality parallel’s the Christian view regarding obedience to God’s commands, according to which the Christians obey God’s commands because God commands them and not because of fear of punishment in hell or for the sake of rewards in heaven after death. Hence the rationale is one does the right thing because he/she recognizes him/herself has a reason to do and not out of feelings. For most Americans, being successful is all about raising an being part of a loving family, about contributing something meaningful to their society and about maintaining healthy relationships with friends and colleagues. The worthwhile contribution may be local in scope, as in volunteering to assist school, charity or neighborhood church. Or it may involve wide social or political stage i.e. including national or even global movements like those trying to reduce world poverty, fighting the HIV pandemic or seeking greater equality for politically, socially or economically underprivileged groups. It is a fact that people have different views on success because our individual life experiences and genetic make-up combine to make our individual objectives unique. But in a broad sense, success is the same for all of us. To me, a successful life is a journey I choose along the path to fulfillment of my unique genetic ability as a human being (Scott, 26). Moral confusion is present today in the United States and it continues to escalate under Obama administration which widely supports the incongruous political combination of publicly funded gay marriage and abortion. The moral confusion undermines every of life in the United States, from uncouth local politicians to foreign policy to the teenagers whose social media accounts, which they can easily access, divulge bracing vulgarity and materialism. Without proper guidance, this generation of young people is putting their future in danger, posting all manners of rubbish on the web. The drift

Two variables Speech or Presentation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Two variables - Speech or Presentation Example Thus, we expect that our inequality will have the symbol ≠¤ or ≠¥ If our boundary line would be a dashed line instead, then we would have used the symbols After obtaining the equation of the boundary line, we will choose a test pint that will be true when substituted in the equation. This test point must exist within the required region for the values to be true. We chose the origin (0, 0) In order to find the maximum number of TVs that will also be carried, we substitute 60 in the inequality to find the maximum number possible that will satisfy the inequality. hence,substituting 60 for x, In order to find the maximum number of refrigerators that will also be carried, we substitute 200 in the inequality to find the maximum number possible that will satisfy the inequality. Hence, substituting 200 for y, Since 130 is not divisible by 3, we have to get a number closest to 130 that is divisible by 3. The number is 126. In order to obtain 126 on the left hand side of the inequality, we must adjust the number of TVs. We thus introduce a linear

Building High Performance Team In A Minute Essay Example for Free

Building High Performance Team In A Minute Essay When working with a group or a company, the most expected mantra recited is â€Å"be a team player† in order contribute for the organization’s accomplishment of all its goals and objectives. To quote, â€Å"Someone may be great at his or her job, maybe even the best there ever was. But what counts at work is the organization’s success, not personal success. After all, if your organization fails, it does not matter how great you were; you are just as unemployed as everyone else† (Johnson, Kantner Kikora, 1990). This is why Kenneth Blanchard decided to jack up his One Minute Manager book series by coming up with something that will focus on teamwork, which is The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams (1990, revised 2000). With Eunice Parisi-Carew, Blanchard tackles in this book the in-depth dynamics of team structure and the most rewarding interactions of each team members. Blanchard hopes that, by reading the book, participants of these work groups will gain a clearer understanding of how their teams may function at optimal levels. As a prominent author, speaker and business consultant, Kenneth Blanchard is often described as one of the most insightful, powerful and compassionate gurus in the business world. Blanchard is chairman of Blanchard Training and Development Inc., a management consulting and training company which he founded in 1979. He co-authored four books in the One Minute Manager series that collectively sold more than nine million copies and have been translated into more than 20 languages. Also, he has regularly appeared on popular television news and business programs in the US and has been featured in leading magazines such as Time and US News. This is why if somebody has enough expertise on how teams can be made effective, Blanchard has definitely the authority to discuss how teams work to become high performing and achieve excellence for the organization. Noted for his leadership approach that promotes self-esteem and self worth through a clear and structured approach to making people accountable for their behavior, Blanchard emphasized that â€Å"people who feel good about themselves produce good results — and appeal is based on applying techniques that take only one minute to apply†. What’s most relevant in e One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams (2000) is that the authors presented seven characteristics of the perform model that identified the desired behaviors of an effective team:  · Purpose. Team members are clear about what the teams work is and why it is important.  · Empowerment. Members are confident about the teams ability to overcome obstacles and to realize its vision.  · Relationship and communication. The team is committed to open communication, and members feel that they can state their opinions, thoughts and feelings without fear.  · Flexibility. Members are flexible and perform different tasks and maintenance functions as needed.  · Optimal productivity. High-performing teams produce significant results, due to a commitment to high standards and quality results.  · Recognition and appreciation. Individual and team accomplishments are frequently recognized by the team leader as well as team members by celebrating milestones, accomplishments and events.  · Morale. Members are enthusiastic about the teams work, and each person feels pride in being a team member (p. 9-16). At 106 pages, this book is not a heavy read and filled with fictionalized dialogue to establish concrete examples. Also, this book interestingly explains the developmental stages a team goes through on their quest in becoming â€Å"high-performing† and â€Å"self-directed.† Emphasizing on the group dynamics, the authors easily described how an effective leader or â€Å"educator† can help steer the team that will empower individual members to contribute their creative ideas and talents to attain the common goal: accomplishing the team’s mission. In the work environment, teams materialize to focus on tasks or solve problems that are beyond the capacity of one individual. With this type of set-up that allow creative and innovative juices to flow through the constant sharing of information,   people could appropriate division of labor among the members of the team can lead to more effective, more efficient and less stressful workplace. Their high levels of performance with regards to quantity, quality, and timeliness of work results can contribute to their sense of satisfaction, addressing a psychological and motivational need. With incessant exposure to each other, team members and their superiors could ascertain whether they have a team that can continue working together with synergy or their togetherness poses a detrimental effect on their output and interrelationships. Thus, with the help of this book, managers, leaders and even parents can make most of their teams to have a wider perspective of the processes and a detailed coverage of the activities that occur and address what needs to be improved in their respective organizations.

Improving Structure and Links for User Navigation Session

Improving Structure and Links for User Navigation Session Improving Structure and Links for Analysis of User Navigation Sessions Bhagyashri Biranje, Priti Harpale, Dushyant Singh, Meenal Jadhav, Sindhu M.R. ABSTRACT In this paper, we are designing a well-structured website to facilitate effective user navigation to relink webpages to improve navigability using user navigation data. We will completely reorganized new structure of a website, which can be highly unpredictable. It will also illustrate how to improve a website without introducing substantial changes. Here specifically, we are using a data mining algorithm to improve the user navigation on a website while minimizing alterations to its current structure. We will also test the model on large synthetic data sets to demonstrate that it scales up very well. Key words: Website design, user navigation, web mining, data mining algorithm. Corresponding Authors: Meenal Jadhav, Sindhu M.R. INTRODUCTION Nowadays, the more use of internet provides people more knowledge and information in detail. Number of users of internet is increasing day by day. For a user finding desired information is not always easy. Therefore, designing effective websites is not easy. Even though there are high profile websites, if they are unable to view the desired information, then users will ignore these websites. Ratings will be down. Less numbers of users will be the visitors [1]. There are so many examples of user navigation. The restaurant services such as making reservations, processing orders, and delivering meals generally requires waiters to input customer information and then transmit orders to the kitchen for menu preparation. When the customer pays the bill, the amount due is calculated by the cashier. Although this procedure is simple, it may significantly increase the waiters’ workload and even cause errors in menu ordering or in prioritizing customers, especially when the number of customers suddenly increases during busy hours, which can serious degrade overall service quality. Websites are having difficulties in searching and locating the target pages, because of poor website design. To design a website, developers should understand how to construct a website, which is different from previous website structure. This will be useful in such cases where users were unable to search or locate the desired information. So, to avoid such problems is not easy while creating a website. Because web developers may or may not have proper understanding of user’s preferences and they organize pages on their own preferences of their own judgments. Therefore to fulfill the user’s need, the webpages should be organized in such a way that it should be match with user’s preferences [2]. The success of any organization of web site will be determined largely by how well site’s information architecture matches users’ expectations. A logical, consistently named site organization allows users to make successful predictions about where to find things. Various methods of organizing and displaying information permit users to extend their knowledge from familiar pages to unfamiliar ones. If a developer misleads users with a structure that is neither logical nor predictable, or constantly uses different or ambiguous terms to describe site features, users will be frustrated by the difficulties of getting around and understanding what you have to offer [3]. Developer don’t want user’s mental model of web site to look like fig.1. Fig.1 Confusing links are made by a developer. Don’t make such a confusing web of links. Designers aren’t the only ones who make models of sites. Users try to imagine the site structure as well, and successful information architecture will help the user build a firm and predictable mental model of your site [3]. EXISTING SYSTEM If existing site has more than a few dozen pages, your users will expect web search options to find content in the site. In a larger site, with maybe hundreds or thousands of pages of content, web search is the only efficient means to locate particular content pages or to find all pages that mention a keyword or search phrase. For example, as with popular books at the library or the hit songs on iTunes, content usage on large web sites is a classic â€Å"long-tail† phenomenon [3]: a few items get 80 percent of the attention, and the rest get dramatically less traffic. As the user’s needs get more specific than a browser interface can handle, search engines are the means to find content out there in the long tail where it might otherwise remain undiscovered (fig. 2). Fig.2 The â€Å"long tail† of web search. Large sites are just too large to depend solely on browsing. Heavily used pages are likely to appear on browsing menus pages. Website Structure: In this project, the website structure consists of three components: layout templates, URL patterns, and linkage structure. Layout Template Most web pages consist of HTML elements like table, menu, button, image, and input box. The layout of a web page describes what HTML elements are included in the page, as well as how these elements are visually distributed in page rendering. Essentially, a page layout is represented by a so called DOM (Document Object Model) tree. In this project, a layout template is considered as a group of pages which have very similar layouts (DOM trees) [3]. In a website, pages are generated based on distinguishable templates according to their functions. That is to say, visually similar pages usually have same function. In this way, user can easily identify a page’s function at a glance. (b) (c) Fig. 3 Typical layout templates from the ASP.NET Forums [3]. Following are several typical layout templates identified from the ASP.NET Forums [3]. Their functions are to show a) a list of discussion thread, b) a list of thread posts, and c) user profile, respectively. They are designed to show: a) a list of discussion thread, b) a list of thread posts, and c) user profile, respectively. URL Pattern A URL pattern is a generalization of a group of URLs sharing similar syntactic format. In general, a URL pattern can be represented with a regular expression.Following we show some example URL patterns discovered, again,from the ASP.NET Forums [2]. List-of-thread pages ^http://forums.asp.net/d+.aspx$ ^http://forums.asp.net/d+.aspx?PageIndex=d+forumoptions=d+:d+:d+::$ List-of-post pages ^http://forums.asp.net/t/d+.aspx$ ^http://forums.asp.net/t/d+.aspx?PageIndex=d+$ ^http://forums.asp.net/p/d+/d+.aspx$ ^http://forums.asp.net/ThreadNavigation.aspx?PostID=d+NavType=(Previous|Next)$ User profile pages ^http://forums.asp.net/user/Profile.aspx?UserID=d+$ ^http://forums.asp.net/members/[^/?]*$ Itis noticed that one layout templates can have more than one related URL pattern. For example,a bookseller website usually designs one template to show a list of books,andprovidesdifferent query parameters to generate such a list. Various query parameters in this scenario will lead to different URL patterns, but the search results are shown with the same template. Another common case is duplicate pages, i.e., pages with the same content (and very likely the same layout)but different URLs [3]. Link Structure Based on the layout templates and URL patterns, we can construct a directed graph to represent the website organization structure. That is, each layout template is considered as a node in a graph, and two nodes are linked if there are hyperlinks between the pages belonging to the two nodes. The link direction is the same as the related hyperlinks.And each link is characterized with the URL pattern of the corresponding hyperlink URLs. Again, it should be noticed thatthere could be multiple links from one node to another if the corresponding hyperlinks have more than one URL pattern. Fig. 2 gives an illustrative example ofthe sub-graph constructed based on the layout templates and URL patterns above. Fig.4 An illustrative sub link-graph for the ASP.NET Forums [3]. PROPOSED SYSTEM In our proposed system, we have two main modules- Client and Server. 1] Module 1: Client Fig.5 Client Client has two functions: Browse Website Submit User Experience User or client used to browse the website. The client browses the website. The information of user such as history, time of visiting website, links etc. is known as user’s experience. It is then submitted to server. 2] Module 2: Server Fig.6 Server We are using tomcat apache as a Server. Client and Server are connected through network using Servlet. Server is used to store activity log of all user’s based on session in the database. Using Data Mining algorithm this database, website can be restructured to provide better, easier and faster interfaces. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE Fig. 7 Architecture In this architecture, there are two modules, client and server. Client browses the website and submits its experience to the server. Then data is stored into the database. Data mining algorithm is applied to get improved website structure. It improves a website rather than reorganizes it hence is suitable for website maintenance on a progressive basis. This model is very effective to real-world websites. It optimally solves large-sized problems in a few seconds in most cases on a desktop. Data Mining Algorithm: The Data mining algorithm we are using is K-Means. The Algorithm K-means (Mac Queen, 1967) is one of the simplest unsupervised learning algorithms that solve the well known clustering problem. The procedure follows a simple and easy way to classify a given data set through a certain number of clusters (assume k clusters) fixed a priority [4, 5]. The algorithm is composed of the following steps: 1. Place K points into the space represented by the objects that are being clustered. These points represent initial group centroids. 2. Assign each object to the group that has the closest centroid. 3. When all objects have been assigned, recalculate the positions of the K centroids. 4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until the centroids no longer move. This produces a separation of the objects into groups from which the metric to be minimized can be calculated. CONCLUSION This model is useful for static websites and not suitable for websites that purely uses dynamic pages or have volatile contents. Using Data mining algorithm we will improve the navigation effectiveness of a website with minimal changes to its current structure. It will improve a website rather than reorganizes it. Most complex web sites share aspects of all three types of information structures. Site hierarchy is created largely with standard navigational links within the site, but topical links embedded within the content create a web like mesh of associative links that transcends the usual navigation and site structure. Except in sites that rigorously enforce a sequence of pages, users are likely to traverse your site in a free-form web like manner, jumping across regions in the information architecture, just as they would skip through chapters in a reference book. So, it will be the clearer and more concrete our site organization is, the easier it is for users to jump freely from place to place without feeling lost (fig. 7). Fig.8 Optimized path [3] We will structure sites as hierarchies, but users seldom use them that way. A clear information structure allows the user to move freely and confidently through our site. References [1] Min Chen and Young U. Ryu,† Facilitating Effective User Navigation through Website Structure Improvement†, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Vol. 25, No. 3, March 2013. [2] G. N. Shinde and Inamdar S.A.,† Web Data Mining Using An Intelligent Information System Design†, G. N. Shinde,Inamdar S.A, Int. J. Comp. Tech. Appl., Vol 2 (2), 280-283. [3] Patric J Lynch and Sarah Horton, â€Å"Website Style Guide 3rd Edition† [4] J. B. MacQueen (1967): Some Methods for classification and Analysis of Multivariate Observations, Proceedings of 5-th Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1:281-297 [5] Brian T. Luke: â€Å"K-Means Clustering†

Regeneration Schemes in Detroit Michigan

Regeneration Schemes in Detroit Michigan As a result of increased mobility, cities are constantly changing. People move in from towns and rural areas and become concentrated in urban ones and then the pattern reverses and the move is from the urban to the rural, creating semi-cities. This growth of the suburbs has seen the decline of the urban core. As a result, the urban dynamic is no longer one of expansion, but of shrinkage. An example of the suburban movement can be seen in the Shrinking Cities in the USA where the suburban population increased by 12% in the period from 1970 to 1977 whereas the central city population decreased by 4.6% (Holcomb and Beauregard, 1981). This has lead to a change in the cities, where the suburbs of the middle-class and jobs (factories/offices) are key elements and the inner cities have been abandoned (Sassen, 1991). The drastic changes in cities caused by shrinking presents not only an economic and social, but also a cultural challenge. Shrinking cities oppose the image of the boomtown- a b ig city characterised by constant economic and demographic growth. The American Dream of prosperity for all meant that cities like Detroit and New Orleans grew to be vibrant, bustling cities but as a result of two totally different issues- one economic and one a natural disaster- they became shrinking cities which have had to find ways of regenerating. Detroit, Michigan developed from 1900 as the centre of the global auto industry. In 1930, it was the fourth largest city in the United States and grew to a population of 1.8 million by 1950. Its fortunes turned after World War II and by the end of 1950s, the movement to the suburbs had already begun. From 1950 to 2000, Detroits population plummeted, as factory after factory closed and its economic condition steadily worsened. As white-collar employment moved to the suburbs along with large parts of the citys middle class, office buildings, retail corridors in downtown and elsewhere were neglected and abandoned. The remaining population was poorer, and more highly dependent on public services that the city could no longer afford to provide. One of the main reasons for shrinkage is the de-industrialisation process where factories move to other destinations where production costs are cheaper and/or global economic factors that have a devastating effect on one industry i.e. the car indus try. The exodus of mainly white inhabitants into the suburbs was a cause of the decay of Detroits inner city. Next the automotive factories and shopping malls began to follow the people beyond the citys administrative borders. Detroit has become a byword for economic decline and urban decay. By 2000, the city had shrunk to 950,000 residents, while the surrounding suburban population grew to nearly 4 million. Today, Detroits population is around 800,000, less than half its 1950 population. Over 40 square miles is made up of vacant land, and between 30,000 and 50,000 buildings sit empty. Almost one-third of the land is empty or unused and nearly 80,000 homes are vacant. Unemployment in Detroit stands at 28 % and compared against USAs 100 largest metropolitan regions, Detroit finishes last. The image above is an aerial view of a mostly vacant neighborhood in downtown Detroit. It illustrates the loss of social fabric and the consequent issue of safety associated with an abandoned neighborhood. When a population shrinks, the decline is not evenly spread across the city, causing more problems- Detroits tagline is Murder City of the World. Without sufficient concentrations of people, not only is the provision of normal municipal services extremely expensive, but urban life itself begins to break down. There are not enough customers to support the neighborhood stores and services, or even to provide a sense of community. Empty streets become unsafe and abandoned buildings become haunts for drug dealers and other criminals. (Rybeczynski 1995 pp36-44) Whilst Detroit shrank as a result of economic forces, New Orleans contraction was caused almost entirely by Hurricane Katrina. In August 2005 80% of the city was flooded, with some parts under 15 feet (4.5m) of water. More than half of its residents left the city as a result of the storm. Most of the major roads travelling into and out of the city were damaged. As of October 2006, the population of New Orleans had dropped by almost 60% from 455,000 people pre-storm to 187,500 post-storm. Hurricane Katrina hit the most underprivileged members of society who inhabited the most susceptible areas-these areas were populated by poor African Americans. (Griffith M. 2006). The storm and its aftermath devastated tens of thousands of already struggling people. But three years later it is growing rapidly and has become one of the countrys fastest growing cities. Its population is up 8.2% in the 12 months that ended July 1, 2008, gaining 23,740 people to 311,853, according to the US Census Burea u, 2008. So how has New Orleans managed to overcome its devastating problems and turn itself into a modern day boom town? Why has it taken Detroit so much longer to come to terms with its problems? Urban shrinkage is a fairly normal global phenomenon (Oswalt quoted in Detroit is Not Alone, Dec. 10, 2003 Collins L.). Oswalt does not see shrinkage as a harmful thing. In reality, he sees the shrunken city as an empty canvas for planners, architects and artists to develop innovative and improved ways of living. Detroit is not better or worse than other places, says Oswalt. Its just different. The question is not whether Detroit is a shrinking city or a city in decline. The fact is that it will be a far smaller city, in terms of population, than in the past. If Detroit could manage to boost its economy, there is still a fundamental issue -it is just too big for itself. Detroit has to change because it simply cant manage as it is. The city grew to accommodate two million people, not the 800,000 that live there today. Can a smaller Detroit become a stronger, healthier, and more sustainable Detroit? Detroit has far more land than it needs to accommodate its people. It needs to look at its land uses to create smaller, better functioning, more sustainable and interconnected liveable communities (AIA Report 2008). A new compact development pattern based on an urban core and a network of urban villages linked by roads and roadways will not only allow for more efficient and cost effective delivery of public services, but will encourage public transportation, provide opportunities for diverse, mixed income communities, and create long term environmental benefit by reducing vehicle use and fostering transit and land use efficiency. In other words it needs to right size. Schematic representation of future urban form concept for Detroit (AIAs R/UDAT (Regional and Urban Design Assistance Team) Katz and Bradley writing in the New Republic 2009 suggest that the new Detroit might be a patchwork of newly dense neighborhoods, large and small urban gardens, art installations, and old factories transformed into adventure parks. The Detroit River waterfront area is already being restored and a land bank has been established where the authorities commission vacant and derelict properties and start clearing the land. They can then decide what to do with it- a small park, handing it over to a resident or community group for tending, redevelopment or just green space. Detroit already has hundreds of community gardens and a growing number of small agricultural operations. When the centre depopulates, nature enters the city and replaces the people. This combination of natural and artificial ecology gave me the idea of Urban Ecologya city is an organism rather than a machine. (Park K. 2005). These urban agriculture schemes will employ thousands of residents, as well as improve their health. By increasing consumption of locally produced food the Citys carbon footprint is reduced and existing food processors and distributors in Detroit gain additional business opportunities. Detroit needs to fill the jobs gap by educating and empowering all the diverse groups. It needs to create jobs that all residents can access-these urban farms would help. New Orleans started its regeneration in full view of the world. The disaster affected the locals but the nation, as a whole, were on trial to get the rebuilding programme right .The city received help from Federal and State governments as well as thousands of volunteers who wanted to see the city emerge stronger and better. Approximately $109 billion was allocated towards the recovery, with housing a priority-without housing for returning families, workers, and new temporary workers then businesses would close and the economy would worsen. The Regional Transport Authority provided free transport. There was a worldwide thrust to get New Orleans city quickly rebuilt. It worked, as was stated earlier; it has become one of the countrys fastest growing cities. The storm was devastating but it didnt destroy the citys strong musical heart: musicians returned and the music scene- essential to New Orleans identity- is on the road to recovery. Relief efforts started to help New Orleans musicia ns after the storm. The New Orleans Musicians Clinic began a Foundation to help musicians replace their instruments and return to their homes. After the initial crisis passed, its efforts centred on giving musical instruments to schools for the next generation of musicians. In fact the Sweet Home New Orleans Foundation raised more than $2 million to help musicians. The American dream was once again awoken in New Orleans- working together to achieve a better, richer, and happier city for its people. Race is an issue in both cities-both have a highly segregated community living in a concentrated area. Detroit needs to create a sustainable community where all the community value the land, work towards finding economic opportunities that are environmentally responsible and socially just, and create viable, healthy communities that are shared by all people, of all economic levels and racial or ethnic backgrounds. In 1955, during its famous period of being the Motor City, the car company, General Motors, arrogantly influenced the city governing body to have the citys tramlines torn up. Their logic was that the workers earned enough to buy cars and enough money to use them to travel. Today, there is hardly any local public transport-this has to be a priority. The people of Detroit want their city to be alive again. Many initiatives and projects have started and new investment has begun to flow into the centre of downtown and there are signs of a slow recovery. Initiatives include: Back a Bike- encouraging and enthusing the young to use cycles for transport and leisure, Cass Corridor Neighbourhood Development Corporation where community partnerships work together to acquire abandoned buildings and renovate them. The Earthworks Urban Farm uses volunteers to educate Detroit school children in science, nutrition and biodiversity through organic farming. Detroit Summer is another highly successful scheme where students from the University of Michigan and volunteers from both inside and outside of Detroit work on rejuvenating parks, designing art works, poetry workshops and progressive hip hop events- the sounds of Motown returning! There is a Motown Museum in the original Hitsville USA studio on West Grand Boulevard, but the city hasnt really built on its famous musical past. The Denver Film Centre is one of many groups that offer regular filmmaking classes and workshops-Detroit itself has been used many times as a location for Hollywood films. Maybe if Detroit had been savaged by a hurricane and submerged by a voracious flood then maybe the rest of the USA and the world would help and support it? Can it ever return to being a city once the living proof of the American dreams? Compared to New Orleans, Detroit has received minimal government aid-$18.4 billion. The local government continues to argue over its fate and there is no cohesive policy that unites all. To date the energy and financial commitment needed to help grasp any vision of urbanity is sorely lacking. The city is fragmented and if its allowed to die, then it would be an American nightmare. Bibliography AIAs R/UDAT (Regional and Urban Design Assistance Team) 2008 Collins L., Detroit is Not Alone http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=5718 Griffith M., Hurricane Katrina: The Catastrophe that Uncovered Americas Race and Class Issues, Tulane University Graduate Paper, 2006 Holcomb and Beauregarde, Revitalising Cities, Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers, 1981 Katz B., Bradley J., The Detroit Project, A plan for solving Americas greatest urban disaster, 2009 Liu, Fellowes, Mabanta, Katrina Index: Tracking Variables of Post-Katrina Recovery, Washington Brookings Institution. 2006. Oswalt P. et al, The Shrinking City Volume 2,Hatje Cantz Publishers 2006 Oswalt P. et al, The Shrinking City Volume 2,Hatje Cantz Publishers 2006 Park K. et al Urban Ecology: Detroit and Beyond MAP Book Publishers 2005 Richardson J. Whats Needed for Post-Hurricane Recovery, Washington: The Financial Services Roundtable, 2006 Rybezynzski W. Downsizing To Make Cities Work Better, Make Smaller, The Atlantic Monthly (October 1995 Washington DC) pp36-40 Rybezynski W. City Life Diane Publishing Company 1995 Sassen S. The Global City Princeton University Press 1991 US Census Bureau www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/013960.html

Human Cloning Should Not be Permitted Essay -- Argumentative Persuasiv

     Ã‚   According to Richard Seed, "cloning is inevitable.   If I don't do it, someone else will.   There's no way you can stop science" (qtd. in Kadrey 2001). Depending on one's personal opinion about cloning, human cloning in particular, a quote such as that will most likely either anger a reader or excite them.   Human cloning is one of the hottest topics for debate in society today-the lines are very strictly drawn between those in favor of continuing cloning research and those who are staunchly opposed to it.   Meanwhile, despite public opinion, science trudges on behind closed doors working to clone the first human.  This paper will first provide a thorough, but brief, introduction into the topic of cloning itself, including its history and its mechanisms; then, through a series of carefully thought out points, it will illustrate why human cloning should not be allowed to continue at this point in time. Part A.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The "origins" of cloning are vague and variant from source to source.   It has been suggested that cloning began in 1952 when a team of geneticists removed a nucleus from an embryonic frog cell and placed it into an egg cell from which the nucleus had been removed.   To the amazement of the scientists, a frog was hatched from the egg cell with the embryonic nucleus.   The research was furthered in 1975 when embryologist John Gurdon of Britain attempted to do the same thing with an adult cell.   While his research was not fruitful, it started the ball rolling for later cloning attempts. Research with embryonic cells continued into the 1980s and led to the creation of cloned cows and sheep (Reilly 2000).   Finally, in 1997, scientists were able to take an older cell, that of an adult sheep, and successfully creat... ...."  Ã‚   CNN Online.  Ã‚   29 August 2000:   n. pag.  Ã‚   Online. http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/08/29/pope.cloning/index.html  Ã‚   12 April 2001. Reed, Susan.  Ã‚   "My Sister, My Clone."  Ã‚   Time Magazine.  Ã‚   19 February 2001:   51. Reilly, Philip R.  Ã‚   Abraham Lincoln's DNA and Other Adventures in Genetics.  Ã‚   Cold Spring Harbor, New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2000. Thomas, Cathy Booth.  Ã‚   "Copydog, Copycat."  Ã‚   Time Magazine.  Ã‚   19 February 2001:   57. "Vatican leads chorus objecting to human cloning."  Ã‚   CNN Online.  Ã‚   18 April 2000:   n. pag.  Ã‚   Online. http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/08/18/vatican.cloning/index.html  Ã‚  Ã‚   12 April 2001. Whitehouse, David, Ph.D.  Ã‚   "Cloning humans: Can it really be done?"  Ã‚   BBC News.  Ã‚   9 March 2001:   n. pag. Online.  Ã‚   http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1211000/1211136.stm  Ã‚   12 April 2001.

G.C.S.E English and English Literature Coursework Poetry Assignment Ess

G.C.S.E English and English Literature Coursework Poetry Assignment We have been set the task to compare the ways in which the poems I have studied deal with the passing of time. The three poems are â€Å"To his Coy Mistress†, â€Å"Ozymandias† and â€Å"To the Virgins to Make Much of Time†. All three of the poems clearly deal with the passing of time in different ways. â€Å"To his Coy Mistress† is about a man telling a woman that if he had all the time in the world, he would spend it with her. In the â€Å"To the Virgins to Make Much of Time† a man is trying to persuade a woman to make much of her youth with the time she is given. â€Å"Ozymandias† is about time in a different way by saying no tyranny can beat time like the statue in the poem. This poem is different to â€Å"To his Coy Mistress† and â€Å"To the Virgins to Make Much of Time†. It’s not about love or anything else to do with the other poems but the passing of time. In the â€Å"To his Coy Mistress† by Andrew Marvell the poet wants to persuade his coy mistress to have a fiscal relationship with him. Marvell splits the poem into three different stanzas, each one with a different purpose. The first stanza is an introduction, Marvell speaks about what he wants to do with the Mistress, he speaks about time, and how it is not on their side. The second stanza introduces that time is their enemy; he uses fear in this section to try and persuade her. And in the final section he changes the person in which he writes in he now talks about 'we', he speaks about how when the couple are together they can tackle the problem of time. This is very well thought out because it is clear what he wants, he splits up the stanzas effectively and makes the whole picture clear in your head, and this is a... ...o are about someone who has most of hers yet to come. However they use different tactics to show the passage of time to the reader, and explore how time lasts as long as a person does. The poets both use day tones to help them convey this, they are day the time that has or will pass. In Ozymandias the day is for something that was once hugely impressive but over time has deteriorated into nothing, whilst in the other two poems the mourning is for something that over time to come will lapse into nothingness – person’s life. I thought that â€Å"Ozymandias† was the most appealing. I think this because it’s different to the other two poems and sometimes different is better. It shows use that even if something is hugely impressive, over time it will deteriorate into nothing. I think it shows this in a very effective way and could appeal to many different people.

Macro and Micro Environmental Factors Essay

There are many other products to choose in the soft drink market include Pepsi Co product , the different is those products are cheaper than Gatorade * In order to attract more customers, Gatorade has improved its product quality and spent lots of money on advertising. -Selling products Gatorade mostly is the imported product so most distributor afraid that they can’t sell Gatorade because of Gatorade price * Gatorade has increased the supplier’s commission. -Publics: The customers in the last 1 year with the developing of VN economic has begun to care about their health lately. Many sport center, fitness club, etc†¦ has been opened in the last 15 years. * The big, potential market for energy beverage drink such as Gatorade to grow. As the result, Pepsi has built up many small, convenient store around those places. * Advertising and promoting trough sport events. Gatorade is also focus on McKinsey’s structure include: structure, strategy, and skill, staff, and style, system and share value. + Style: Gatorade is one of the company which have style. It helps Pepsi too adopted to changes so it can reach and fix it quickly. + Strategy: Improve the sport drink market in VN * Improve both product quality and price * Has an production line in VN with cheap resources and good materials but still guarantee the quality. So as to compete, Pepsi has advertised its product a lot and had various surveys to research what their consumer’s needs and produce healthy products are. Macro environment -Political : VN has been the 150th member of WTO so it has attracted many big investors all over the world. The government has supported many enterprises and business investments by changing to the international law, this has led to more active business action which the consumers can approach to the local products and costumers can have more choice within all the global products too. * Pepsi Co considered about importing more Gatorade in each trip to reduce to price and earn more revenue or adding no more product. -Technology: Consumers now mostly pay all the products by credit, master or visa card which allows company to narrow the distance between producer and buyer. > It invests not only in one country but open up many branches all over the world and there must be decision whether to use capital for hiring staff, advertising the product, etc†¦. or not – Economics environment: The average income of a Vietnamese is affected by inflation and economic ciao. So, the number of selling product s are also decrease. Pepsi has made a decision to having more and more promotion, and held lots of social event to refresh the consumer’s comments about the company to set up a good new one. Environment: The environment issue in VN is becoming more and more serious. This problem is can’t be avoid in developing country. It’s the result of industrialize and modernization. To reduce pollution government has set up a law in order to protect the environment. Even though, Vietnamese’s awareness isn’t as high as other country but the law has been enforced a great punishment to those who pollute the environment. * This make Pepsi spent lots of money in buy new green-facilities , and providing the idea of protecting the nvironment to not only their staff but also their customers. Both help to protect the environment and stil l promote Pepsi good fame. Bargaining Power of Supplier: the soft drink market in VN and foreign isn’t the exclusive market. Bargaining Power of Consumers: * Industries facing powerful buyers: Distributors have the power to negotiate with the company on price, product quality, as well as marketing policy. * Industries facing weak buyers : have little impact on the market, Each buyers will buy the products with different purposes. Some bought to sell, others for political purpose . Numbers of require products is too much for the producer to still keeping it product quality. So that, the pressure is heavy too Threat of entry: Gatorade has many competitors. Competition from substitutes: Gatorade should be change product when customer want and need, also price and quality. Competition between firms: Gatorade have many competitor in Vietnam. Gatorade should always pay attention to your competitors.

Animal Physiology

Our knowledge of the action of caffeine on the respiratory system has resulted mainly from studies on the effect of the drug on the rate and rhythm of respiration, alveoli and total ventilation of the lungs, and on the volume of gas exchanged between the organism and its environment. Edsall and Means (1), Grabfield and Means (2), Higgins and Means (3), Lohr (4), Schmidt and Harer (5), Smith (6), Fsungming (7).There seems to be a general agreement among these investi- gators that caffeine stimulates the respiratory center resulting in an increase in the rate of respiration and an increase in the oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide elimination. This in- crease in the gaseous exchange may not be entirely due to stimulation of the respiratory center, but to some other factor such as an increase in the basal metabolism.Owing to the fact that practically all of the previous experiments were conducted on mammals, which have the highest developed nervous system of any group of animals, and in order to throw more light on the fundamental effect of the drug on physiological processes, it was thought desirable to study the effect of caffeine on the oxygen consumption of lower organisms.For this purpose it was found advantageous to use young individuals (3 to 4 inches in length) of a fresh water fish, Erimyson sucetta oblongus, Mitchell (identifled by Dr. T. H. Langlois, University Museum, University of Michigan) and bull frog tadpoles, Rana catesbiana. These ani- mals remain rather quiet when not disturbed, thus the error in 1 Contribution from Battle Creek College. 5960 FLOYD J. BRINLEY oxygen consumption due to bodily activity of the animals is reduced to a minimum but not completely eliminated. M

Philosophy metaphysics Essay

In order to clearly answer the first question, it is important first to answer the question – â€Å"what is the soul for Aristotle† and as such give an account of how he views substance and separability. Aristotle posits in de Anima that the soul is the substance in the sense which corresponds to the definitive formula of a thing’s essence. That means that it is â€Å"’the essential whatness’’ of a body of the character just assigned. (Book II, 412b). As such, the soul is the essence of being and the essence of being is its substance. By being, Aristotle refers to the thing itself while by essence he refers to the primary essence of the thing itself wherein one is treated as the subject in its own right i. e. the good itself is treated as the essence of the good. It can be deduced then, using hypothetical syllogism that if soul is the essence of a being and the essence of being is its substance, then the soul is the substance of a being. He argued further that whatever is has a being, whatever has a being has a substance – this as the grounding of his epistemology. Hence, whatever is has a substance. This implies then that being is identical to substance. If such is the case, then using the principle of excluded middle, being is also identical to soul. Now, let us elucidate the concept of separability. Aristotle first distinguished the difference between the body and the soul. The body as he stated corresponds to what exists in potentiality, it being the subject or matter of a possible actuality. Soul, on the other hand, is a substance (actuality) in the sense of the form of a natural body having life potentially within it; it is the actuality of the body. Aristotle, Book II, 421b) As he delineates the dissimilarity between the body and soul, one should not be mislead in regarding the two as separate entities. They are at some point seems to be separate for in the former we are talking about a corporeal body in its spatio-temporal existence while in the latter we are talking of an incorporeal body transcending in the spatio-temporal world. However, their separability in terms of space and time does not mean they are separate as whole – that is an entity having life. As Aristotle argues â€Å"the soul is inseparable from its body, or at any rate that certain parts of it are (if it has parts) for the actuality of some of them is nothing but the actualities of their bodily parts†. (Aristotle, Book II, 413a). He argues further that â€Å"body cannot be the actuality of the soul; it is the soul which is the actuality of a certain kind of body. Hence the soul cannot be without a body, while it cannot be a body; it is not a body but something relative to a body. That is why it is in a body and a body of a definite kind†. (Book I, 421a). It can be deduced then that soul and the body are inseparable with each other. It is because the essence of both their existence lies in the interdependency of their telos – the soul actualizing the potential life in the body while the body providing an entity for the soul to actualize itself in the material world. Since the soul is the actuality of natural body, then naturally it would have certain functions which it can actualize. Aristotle has identified these functions to be the following: (1. ) powers of self-nutrition or the nutritive function; (2. powers of sensation which includes the sensory and appetitive function; (3. ) the power of movement and rest or the locomotive function and (4. ) the power of thinking. With these functions, he posited a psychic power of hierarchy. He claimed that of the psychic powers mentioned above, some kinds of beings posses all of these, some possess less than all while others posses only one. As such, evidently, the plants possess the p ower of self-nutrition wherein they can grow up or down and increase or decrease in all direction as long they can find nutrients in the soil. It is through their own means that they continue tolive. Even though the plants possess only one function of the soul, it is a great wonder how they continuously subsist on their own. Next is the power of sensation, which is possessed by all animals. All animals possessed the power of sensation because they all have the primary form of sense, which is touch. Aristotle defended and further elaborated this notion in de Anima. To wit: if any order of living things has the sensory, it must also have the appetitive; for appetite is the genus of which desire, passion, and wish are the species; now all animals have one sense at least, viz. ouch, and whatever has a sense has the capacity for pleasure and pain and therefore has pleasant and painful objects present to it, and wherever these are present, there is desire, for desire is just appetition of what is pleasant. (BookII, 414b) From the arguments stated above, it can be evidently inferred not just how Aristotle proven that all animals possess at least one sense, the touch, but also how he sci entifically deduced that all animals by virtue of their sensory function, possess appetitive function, too. From all these animals, there are some which possessed the power of locomotion, advancing them to a higher stratum. These are animals which can execute any kind of movements together with the capacity to halt such movement. Lastly, the human beings possessed all of the above-mentioned functions placing them on the top of the hierarchy. They posses the power of thinking, which is the essential feature of the human beings and which separates them apart from all other species. Analyzing the theoretical framework Aristotle succumbed to, it can be construed then that for him every being has a soul. This is evidently manifested in his attempt to prove the groundings of his epistemology extending his claim to the psychic hierarchy wherein he posited that every kind of living thing – any entity for that matter possesses certain function/s of the soul It should be put in mind, however, that even Aristotle posited the different functions of the soul; they are in essence, inseparable. An example of this is the function of nutrition (by eating) which human beings in particular do in order to properly and clearly think. The latter being also a function of the soul. Evidently, every function of the soul is interconnected with each other especially in the case of the Homo sapiens, who possessed all the enumerated functions of the soul. Aristotle notions of intellect can be rooted in his conception of knowledge – in his epistemology. It is from his conception of knowledge arises his other assertions on how he views the world. It is common sensical then to claim that his conception of the mind or any other things transcending from their spatio-temporal existence, his metaphysics, is grounded on his epistemology. As such, it is with utmost importance to first answer how Aristotle regards the nature of knowledge and how does one able to acquire knowledge so as to provide an answer on his notion of intellect. Knowledge for him can only be found within the material world – that is things, which are intelligible by senses. It is then through our experience with this objects in their spatio-temporal existence that we come to know them. He mentioned the processes of how we can arrive to know these objects – by perception, discrimination and thinking. By perception here, I mean the process of how our senses operate to recognize things in the material word. Discrimination then comes simultaneous with perception in order to give a concrete description of the thing being perceived. In example, upon the perception of a certain plant, we can able to distinguish its structure and other ontical features as the mind started to categorized. As a corollary, we arrived at the conclusion that what we perceived is indeed a plant. From there, we judged that what we perceived is indeed a plant and hence, arriving in the state of thinking. It can be deduced then that through thinking, one can able to comprehend the ontical features of an object and by virtue one’s reason, its primary essence. By primary essence, I mean the telos or the end itself of a thing. Since reason for Aristotle is innate in human beings so is intellect. It is because for Aristotle, reason is an essential property of the mind – that is of the intellect. If that is the case, then reason for Aristotle is relatively tantamount to the intellect. Husserl, on the other hand regarded the process of intuition as the first level of cognition wherein the objects are grasp in its original thru experience. This is also the case when one is cognizing objects of mere representations which includes but not limited to pictorial intuitions and any means of symbolic indications. To wit, experiencing is consciousness that intuits something and values it to be actual; experiencing is intrinsically characterized as consciousness of the natural object in question and of it as the original: there is consciousness of the original as being there â€Å"in person. The same thing can be expressed by saying that objects would be nothing at all for the cognizing subject if they did not â€Å"appear† to him, if he had of them no â€Å"phenomenon. † Here, therefore, â€Å"phenomenon† signifies a certain content that intrinsically inhabits the intuitive consciousness in question and is the substrate for its actuality valuation. (Husserl, p. 3) It is only but logical to infer that experience plays a vital role in the cognition of a certain object. As such, it is only upon experience, can one theorized and moved to a higher level of cognition. A thing must first be intuited before one can theorize about them. And after theorizing, comes the process of reflection. Evidently, both Aristotle and Husserl believed in the value of experience in which the former calls perception and the latter intuition. From these processes arises higher forms of cognition wherein the end result for Aristotle is thinking through the use of reason while for Husserl, it is pure reflection as a result of phenomenology. It is then with utmost importance to first clarify, what does Husserl meant by intellect and Ego. As such, in what process does a person uses his intellect. Furthermore, what is the difference of reflection from pure reflection and of the empirical Ego to the transcendental Ego? Also, one should answer the question â€Å"what is phenomenology? † and â€Å"why it is only through this process one can arrive at pure reflection? † For Husserl, intellect is identical with consciousness as Ego is identical to Self. As such, when one speaks of intellect, one is referring to consciousness and vice-versa. Such is also the case with the Ego and the Self. Reflection is the process wherein one is looking not towards the act of reflection itself but rather in the direction of the objects one is conscious of. As such, one is absorbed in reflecting how these objects exist rather than asking how they come into being or essentially, enquiring on their primordial existence. If the consciousness is moving towards this kind of reflection, then the Ego is only in his/her ontical (empirical) status. Pure reflection, on the other hand, is the process wherein the consciousness is reflecting his consciousness – that is the act of reflection per se. This is the case wherein the Ego transcends from his ontical stage by describing the events i. e. relating, referring, combining, et al in his consciousness. And this can only be done thru the process of phenomenology. What is phenomenology then? Phenomenology is defined as the science of consciousness. (Husserl, p. 5) It is the process of describing the things and events themselves in their primordial sense through the use of phenomenological reduction. Phenomenological reduction then is the process wherein one suspends his/her preconceived notion of things in order to objectively describe the objects and events as what it appears to them. It only thru this process that we can arrive at pure reflection because this is the only method wherein objects and events are describe as themselves without concurring to any established principle or assumption. Evidently, Aristotle’s notion of intellect and Husserl’s notion of Ego posited the strength of mind in general – transcending from space and time. If that is the case, then the conception of a person is not only confined within the physical realm – that is he can do things beyond the limit of his physical existence in his journey to unravel the primordial existence of objects and any discipline for that matter. However, what sets them apart from each other is their notion on how one can really grasp the ontological state of an object or in the words of Kant –their intentionality. Aristotle believed that one can only know the ontological state of a thing by referring to its primary essence, its telos as the context clue in able to grasp the object’s primary essence. For Husserl, on the other hand, it is only through the use of phenomenological method can one comprehend the ontological state of objects. In Being and Time, Heidegger attempted to know the meaning of a Being – that is the Dasein, by starting to ask and redefine the fundamental question of â€Å"What is a Being? † He further continued this method by asking the ontological question of Being – that only a being can know his Being because he is consciousness to his Being by his being. His starting point is the fact that a being is a Being-in-the-World. He is a being situated in this world. As such, it is only him who can know his being by virtue of his ontic-ontological character. If that is the case, then it is only him who can determine his possibilities by virtue of being a spatio-temporal entity. Since no other entities can determine his possibilities as a being conscious of his existence, then the Dasein solely can ascertain his existentiall. It can be deduced then that the task of Dasein is to transcend to his existentiell in order to arrive at his ontological status. He can only do this by maximizing his possibilities to know himself thru the things which are ready-at-hand – things which can help him to reveal his being to him. It should be kept in mind that this process of knowing the Dasein does not go in hermeneutic circles rather on a back and forth condition Dasein as a spatio-temporal entity is facing a hard time to know his being because there is a tendency that he might be too absorb in his world or fall. Yet what Heidegger wants to emphasize is that he as a Dasein should not conceive his being as a spatio-temporal entity an encumbrance to his Being. It is because it is only through this world he can have his possibilities. This separates him from other entities and makes him a Dasein. Evidently, Heidegger’s notion of Dasein greatly gives importance to the relationship of the Being and the world which is also apparent in Aristotle notion of intellect and Husserl’s notion of Ego. However, what separates the former from the latter is that it focused on providing an answer on how one can transcend to his facticity in order to ontologically know his Being. The latter, on the other hand, focuses in discovering the essence and the ontological existence of the objects in the material world. Transcendental phenomenology is defined in general as the study of essence. It designates two things: a new kind of descriptive method which made a breakthrough in philosophy at the turn of the century, and an a priori science derived from it; a science which is intended to supply the basic instrument for a rigorously scientific philosophy and, in its consequent application, to make possible a methodical reform of all the sciences. (Husserl, p. 15) Essentially, transcendental phenomenology then is a description of phenomena. Husserl, then, laid down the method to achieve the objective of reforming all the sciences. The first step is the use of phenomenological epoche or reduction or bracketing wherein one suspends or take away all his/her biases and prejudices in order to â€Å"objectively describe† a phenomena. By doing this, we can arrive at a universal description of a phenomena. This will be followed by the compare and contrast method which one will have to undertake in order to arrive at the pure data of things. It appears then that by suspending one’s judgment and undergoing the intersubjectivity test, we can arrive at the â€Å"pure data of things†. In relation to this, Husserl claims that this method should be followed by all sciences in order to answer their primordial condition. It is held that sciences cannot escape their dogmas because it fails to question how they come to be. What they are just doing is a mere adaptation of established principles proven in the past to be true. Since these established principles were proven in the past to be true, scientists or people who work in the sciences do not make any attempt to further verify the truthfulness of their established principles – that is how and why is it the case that such principles were held to be true. For indisputably, things cannot just come into being without any rationalization, scientific explanation for that matter. Sciences have constructed ready-made answers to all things – their nature, existence, feature, et al; grounded on the preconceived notion that sciences have already provided sufficient answers to the primitiveness of these objects. While sciences are busy in explaining these things [the ready-made answers], they failed to realized that they were not able to arrived at the Isness of these objects, on how they come into being. However, since the sciences had already deceived the people, that in the past, it already provided sufficient answers to the primordial existence of things, it appears then they are seemingly contented and satisfied by what the sciences have achieved. This is what phenomenology wants to deconstruct – it wanted to create a paradigm shift by destroying the â€Å"tradition† institutionalized by science and overcoming relativism and subjectivism by the use of phenomenological reduction. From these, one can arrive at the pure data of consciousness. It is in this sense, that phenomenology becomes transcendental. Phenomenology is different from descriptive psychology because it draws upon pure reflection exclusively, and pure reflection excludes, as such, every type of external experience and therefore precludes any co positing of objects alien to consciousness. (Husserl, p. 7) Descriptive psychology then does not depend upon pure reflection exclusively; it needs psychological experiencing which would result to the reflection of the external experience. As such, consciousness itself becomes something transcendent, becomes an event in that spatial world which appears, by virtue of consciousness, to be transcendent. (Husserl, p. 7) It can be inferred then that phenomenology focuses solely on the consciousness per se of a being making it the science of consciousness while descriptive psychology focuses on the consciousness of a being in his psychic experiences. Transcendental idealism states that â€Å"everything intuited in space and time, and therefore all objects of any experience possible to us, are nothing but appearances, that is, mere representations which, in the manner in which they are represented, as extended beings or as series of alterations, have no independent existence outside our thoughts. † (Kant, p. 1) As such, it posits that one cannot have the knowledge of the realm beyond the empirical – that is one cannot experience objects outside space and time. It is because the mind as Kant argues having certain constraints [in reference to space and time] – can only grasp the noesis of the object but not its noumena – the object’s intentionality. It can be inferred then that transcendental idealism’s fundamental assertions lies on two grounds: first, objects by themselves exudes intentionality; and secondly, we can never know their intentionality [or noumena] because our mind can only grasp the noesis or what is appearing to us. Phenomenology believes on Kant’s first claim that indeed objects have their own intentionality but vies the second assertion. As such, its emergence as a domain of study in philosophy is grounded on its thrust to prove that indeed the mind can know the noumena of objects. Phenomenology believes that this can be done using eidetic reductionism proving to all that the mind can transcend beyond the physical realm – beyond space and time. Essentially, all the philosophies which were tackled in this paper seek to explain and interpret the world – including the objects within it and the beings living in it; from the primordial existence of things up to the authentication of one’s Being.

Cult and cult leader Essay

Cult† is a term used to describe certain religious groups outside of the mainstream of Western religion. A cut leader is non-Christian but has roots in Christianity while denying what he considered its essential teaching or can be one who follows an altogether different religious structure, one foreign and alien to the prevalent religious communities . in the in the case of the latter cults represent a force of religious innovation within a culture. In most cases that innovation comes about by the transplantation of a religion from a different culture by the immigration of some of its members and leaders. Others described cults as groups which hypnotized or brainwashed recruits, destroyed their ability to make rational judgments and turned them into slaves of the group’s leader, as by the above definition Healter was cult leader since he practiced and allowed some of these practices which are associated with cult leaders ; Members swear total allegiance to an all-powerful leader who they believe to be the Messiah, rational thought is discouraged or forbidden, the cult’s recruitment techniques are often deceptive, the cult weakens the follower psychologically by making him or her depend upon the group to solve his or her problems, the cults manipulate guilt to their advantage, the cult leader makes all the career and life decision of the members, cults exist only for their own material survival and make false promises to work to improve society, cult members often work fulltime for the group for little or no pay, cults are apocalyptic and believe themselves to be the remn ant who will survive the soon-approaching end of the world. There are many things condick david crashed with the gorverment on appointment post also on issues facing religion. Reference: 1. Elmer Clark’s pioneering survey of the Small Sects in America (1949) . .

The John F. Kennedy years were often described as Camelot Term Paper

The John F. Kennedy years were often described as Camelot - Term Paper Example It is difficult to define President Kennedy. He was a man with a hidden past, and one who kept his life in strict compartments. He had spent much of his youth seriously ill, and even throughout his Presidency hid the constant pain he felt, so that even those who were closest to him were unaware of it1. As a man he w as easily bored, loved excitement and was charming to all those he dealt with. Whatever decisions he made he was able to back up through rhetoric and charm regardless of whether the choice that had been taken had been the correct one2. There were many events throughout Kennedy’s short presidency including riots over the admission of Negros into University, the Cuban Missile Crisis, civil rights movements, the Vietnam War, as well as countless other incidents3. The manner in which Kennedy handled these incidents and the depiction of him in later literature and film have led to the years of John F. Kennedy’s presidency have often been called the Camelot years, referring to an idealized time, analogous to the years of King Arthur. Under this analogy, Kennedy is thought of as a hero, promising peace to the United State including the complete withdrawal from the Vietnam War. This never happened because of the assassination of Kennedy in 1953. How realistic is this view of Kennedy? Was he a hero, giving the United States a few golden years, or does this view ignore many of the facts of Kennedy’s presidency? This essay examines some of the key aspects of Kennedy’s presidency, including his opinions and decisions concerning the Vietnam War, the way he was as a leader, how he appeared in public compared to his own staff and his personality. It is proposed that the concept of the ‘Camelot years’ of Kennedy’s presidency was brought about by opinions and theories following his assassination, and perhaps by the fact that he was assassinated, but that this description of his term bears little resemblance either to t he man himself, or the events that occurred throughout his time as President. The Vietnam War Kennedy is often seen as a peace bringer and a hero because of his strong desire to bring about the end of the Vietnam War. This image was first advanced by the film JFK produced by Oliver Stone4. Stone forwarded the idea that Kennedy had the intention of ending the Vietnam War, but that this plan was prevented by his assignation in 1963. The image that Kennedy puts forward is one of a lone hero, and has grown in popular opinion since the film’s release5. Yet, considering him a hero in this respect is not entirely accurate. While it is true that in 1963 he strongly desired to end the war, the actions in the first two years of his presidency were not to this end. When he first took office, the war had been occurring for some time, and the position of the United States was poor and on the verge of collapse. Under his leadership, the war was escalated in 1961 and 1962 with the level of violence being increased6.He was responsible for substantially raising the level of aggression with such acts as ordering a squadron from the United States Air Force to become involved directly in combat operations7. As a consequence, he moved the focus from being warfare that was backed by the United State to direct armed attack8. Indeed, although Kennedy’s military advisors put forward predictions that the increases in violence would eventually lead to a military victory within Vietnam, and allow the United States to withdraw their forces, Kennedy himself never fully supported the idea of withdrawal9. The opinion that Kennedy planned to end the Vietnam War was not the only thesis that has been proposed by supporters of Kennedy. Some have proposed that he planned not only the complete with