Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Theseus and Athens Essay Sample free essay sample

The metropolis of Athens ascribes its name harmonizing to fabulous traditional knowledge to Athena. the Goddess. and that it was founded by Sais. a indigen of Egypt. It is besides known that it was Theseus. boy of King Aegeus. who was responsible for doing the metropolis into a existent land. Harmonizing to Plutarch: â€Å"Theseus suppressed offense and brought the indigens of Attica together into the first democracy. He saved the Athenian kids from the Minotaur. but his kidnap of the queen of the Amazons brought problem. and he ended his yearss in shame. † â€Å"The figures of myth are peculiarly of import in the self definition of the metropolis and its apprehension of the universe. because myths concern the distant yesteryear and can be retold in different ways. harmonizing to the illustrations that the society needs to pull from them. † ( Mills. 1 ) Athenian literature has plentifulness of it. The myth environing the birth of Theseus has different versions. We will write a custom essay sample on Theseus and Athens Essay Sample or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Theseus is considered as the great fabulous hero of Athens. Harmonizing to one version Poseidon. God of the sea. was his male parent and Aethra. girl of Pittheus. his female parent. However. more frequently Theseus’ male parent was known to be the Athenian male monarch Aegeus. Harmonizing to this version King Aegeus. the swayer of Athens wanted a boy who would be the inheritor to the throne. He hence went to the prophet at Delphi for advice. The prophet advised Aegeus to forbear from intercourse with all adult females outside Athens. It besides told him non to worry and sent him back to Athens with the direction non to unbrace his vino tegument until he returned place. On his manner back he visited his friend Pittheus in Troezan to confer with him. as he was considered to be a wise adult male and the words of the prophet seemed equivocal to Aegeus. Pittheus understood the significance of the prophet. and he deceived Aegeus. He got him rummy and so made him to lie with his gir l Aethra. who conceived that really dark. Aegeus. when he came to cognize that Aethra was pregnant through him set a blade and a brace of places under a big stone. He so gave her instructions that if she gave birth to a boy who could raise up the stone. the blade and places would be his. She was so to direct their boy to Athinais but she had to maintain this a secret from all. as he was frightened that if his brother Pallas’s 50 boies came to cognize about his boy. his son’s life may be in danger. Aethra gave birth to Theseus. though Pittheus claimed that he was Poseidon’s boy as mythology says that Aethra after holding made love with Aegeus went to Poseidon that really dark and ballad with him. Theseus was therefore raised in his maternal grandfather’s house at Troezan and he grew up to be a chap of huge bravery and intelligence. When Theseus came of age his female parent took him to the stone and told him about his male parent. Theseus could raise up the stone easy and taking the blade and the p laces he set off for Athens. It was customary to sail. but Theseus decided that he would travel on pes. On his manner Theseus encountered many brigands. These work forces were strong persons who had great strength and staying power. and they used these God given gifts inhuman treatment on others. They took great pride in bring downing hurt on others who were lame. Heracless had killed many of them and those who were afraid to meet him maintain out of his manner and when Hercules had no brigands to run and kill and the land of Greece appeared really peaceable Hercules had left Greece and had gone to Lydia. but when he was at that place no more. the brigands one time once more took to offense. Theseus knew all about these felons as Pittheus had told him about these brigands who waited on the roads to rob and kill their victims. therefore Theseus thought that it would be cowardly to take the ship and so he planned to travel by pes to bravely run into these brigands. He was charged with bravery and strength and wanted to follow in the footfalls of his cousin Hercules. He besides wanted to baptise his father’s blade with evil blood so that he might turn out to the universe his ain bravery and hence he started his journey as he had planned. The really first brigand he met was Peripethetes. or the Club- Bearer. as he was known. He killed him and from so onwards he used Periphetes’ nine as his ain arm. Next. met Sinnis. who was called the Pine-bender. because this was the manner he killed his victims. Theseus killed him the same manner without flexing the pines in any unreal mode. Therefore he demonstrated his natural power. The 3rd evil animal he killed was the Sow of Crommyon. She was really old and fierce. She was really a adult female robber who got this name because she was really foul and soiled and barbarian. Theseus being brave and brave hunted her out and killed her for Theseus believed that all brave work forces should run out the immorality and kill it. After killing the Sow of Crommyon. he met Sciron of Megera. Sciron of Megera was a well-known ill-famed robber who killed many travellers on the high manner near the seashore. He would command his victims to rinse his pess and while they were making so. h e would kick them down the drop. Theseus threw Sciron into the sea from the same drop. He so met Cercyon at Eleusis in a wrestle lucifer and killed him. Last of all before making Athens he killed Procrustes. He stretched Procrustes on the same bed of anguish. which he used for his victims. Therefore he made all the brigands suffer in similar mode as they did to their victims. Theseus arrived in Athens. his father’s metropolis and found it in pandemonium. It was divided into cabals. His male parent had married Medea who had fled fom Corinth and utilizing her socery she had promised to give Aegeus a boy. When Theseus arrieved at Athens Medea understood who he was and recognizing that her influence would now acquire over. planned to poison him. Thus she spoke ailment of him to Aegeus and influenced Aegeus to poison the immature adult male at a feast which would be given in his award. Theseus did non state his male parent who he was. preferring that his male parent discover for himself who he was. Now at the feast Theseus casually pulled out his blade. Aegeus acknowledging it stopped Theseus from imbibing the poisoned vino therefore salvaging his boy. Medea recognizing her influence was over fled back to Corinth. Aegeus. after oppugning his ain boy let it be known to the Athenians that Theseus was the inheritor to the throne. and as intelligence of his courage on his manner to Athens had already preceded him. the people of Athens were pleased to hold such an inheritor to the throne. Now when Aegeus’ brother Pallas and his boies heard about Theseus they openly revolted against Aegeus. and attacked him but Theseus rapidly defeated them killing many of them. Athenas and his staying boies fled from at that place. Now that Theseus was settled at Athens as its prince. he set out to salvage its people from all that were terrorising them. First of wholly he went to Marathon. to kill the immense bull. which was a menace to its dwellers. Theseus captured this bull and brought it back to demo it to its dwellers. Subsequently. he took the bull to Delphi. where he made of it a forfeit to Apollo. Very shortly. after his feat with the bull. aggregators from Crete came to take the seven misss and seven male childs. as Athens was required to direct them every nine old ages. Minos was king of Knossos in Crete. Many old ages ago. Aegeus had killed Androgeos. Minos’ boy. out of green-eyed monster because Androgeous had won all the events at the Penathenaic ( â€Å"All-Athenian† ) games and Aegeus was frightened that he would replace him as male monarch. so he had him killed. Minos attacked Athens to revenge the decease of his boy. and portion of the pact that ended this war was an understanding. This understanding was a testimonial. which had to be paid for the slaying of Androgeeus. the eldest boy of the King Minos of Crete. The Gods had punished the Athenians by directing down dearth. drouth and pestilence upon them. The prophet had said that the problems of the Athenians would stop merely if they appeased Minos. Minos instantly asked for the seven misss and the seven male childs to be send to Crete as a testimonial. There was much discontent among the Athenians as every Athenian who had a adolescent girl or boy had to take part in the draw which would make up ones mind who would be send as a testimonial. As Aegeus was non take parting in the draw there was a batch of unhappy grouching against Aegeus. Theseus therefore offered himself as one of the victims ; he declined to be in the lottery. The Athenians admired the bravery of Theseus and nil Aegeus would state or make could alter Theseus’s head. Theseus promised to kill the Minotaur. Aegus this clip kept white canvass on board the ship with the sole bid that the black canvass which were ever used on ship were to be changed to white if Theseus managed to kill the Minotaur. â€Å"A considerable part of the myth of Theseus is devoted to his image as a young person on the brink of manhood. person who has yet to turn out himself as a her o. but the decease of his male parent makes him the male monarch of Athens. † ( Atkins. 113 ) When the ship arrived at Crete. Ariadne. the girl of King Minos. fell in love Theseus the minute she saw him. She gave him a ball of threading to tag his trail through the Labyrinth where the Minotaur lived. Theseus entered the Libyrinth with the ball of twine. found the Minotaur and killed it. Then he and all the other sureties managed to get away from Crete in the same ship that brought them. Ariadne accompanied them. On their manner they stopped at the island of Naxos. where Theseus abandoned Ariadne. go forthing her asleep at that place. He did this as Minerva had appeared to him in a dream and she warned him that Ariadne was betrothed to Bacchus. the wine-god. ( One can see in Italy the famed statue of Ariadne siting on the tiger of Bacchus. one of the finest pieces of sculpture in Italy. made by Danneker ) When the ship came in sight of Athens. Aegeus. who was on the sentinel saw the ship with black canvass. for everyone in their felicity of holding killed the Minotaur. forgot to replace the black canvass with the white canvass. When Aegeus saw the black canvass. he was grieved that bhis boy was no more and in his heartache he jumped off the drop and died. Theseus was really sad to larn of his father’s decease and that excessively on his history. He now became the King. His first measure was to garner the dwellers of Attica as one metropolis. He settled their differences and brought peace under one cardinal authorities. Earlier they were all spread out into cabals. The hapless readily accepted the new signifier of authorities and the rich were promised the terminal of monarchy and the debut of democracy for he said that the male monarch would now be no more than the commanding officer in head and the defender of the jurisprudence. All local tribunals were abolished and Athens was made the lone place of the authorities. and as promised he gave up his kingly powers. Harmonizing to Aristotle. Theseus was the first male monarch to organize a democracy. In order to happen out the hereafter of his new political program. which he put to pattern. he traveled to Delphi to confer with the prophet. The prophet gave him the reply: â€Å"Many are the metropoliss which will stop by and be spun out of your ain. Therefore do non despair ; the float will traverse the violent ocean. † He enlarged his metropolis by ask foring aliens to come and populate at that place. giving them the same civil rights as the citizens of the metropolis. Further he divided all the citizens into three groups. each group had their ain responsibilities and privileges. They were the husbandmans. the craftsmen. and the Lords. The husbandmans were the wealthy of the society. whereas the craftsmen were more in figure and the Lords had the prestigiousness. The Lords were in charge of the jurisprudence. the choice of the Judgess and the faith. Theseus therefore saw that there was a balance among the different groups in Athens. All this goes to demo that Theseus was the true laminitis of Athens the metropolis. He is a semi-historical figure. Athenians believed that Theseus was responsible for the fusion of the Athenian province. Earlier where there had been independent small towns of cabals. now it was as the Athenians called synoikismos or brooding together and they celebrated it ; at least in the 4th century and may be even earlier with a national vacation called the Synoikia. They justly attributed the beginnings of Athenian democracy to Theseus. Several folks were united and Attica became one province with Athens as its capital. In order to observe this juncture he instituted the festival of Panathenaea. This festival was in award of Minerva. It was different from other Grecian festivals for its main characteristic was a grave emanation in which the sacred robe of Minerva known as the Peplus was carried to the Panthenon. where it was suspended before the statue of the goddess. Choice virgins belonging to the noblest households of Athens embroidered this sacred robe. Both work forces and adult females participated in this emanation. The immature adult females carried baskets on their caputs. These baskets contained the sacred utensils. bars and all other things needed for the forfeits. Old work forces had olive foliages in their weaponries whereas the immature work forces carried weaponries. The fusion of Attika. nevertheless. was a gradual procedure. and Theseus’ function here and in the beginning of democracy can besides be understood as political myth. Theseus besides instituted the Isthmian Games. in award of Poseidon. after which he set out sailing the Black Sea. to see the land of the Amazons. These lustful adult females. when Theseus and his crewmans came in sight. brought them nowadayss of welcome. Theseus invited their queen. Antiope. to come aboard. and one time he had her. he set canvas at one time with Antiope. The war between Athens and the Amazons started. The Amazons traveled by land and after a really long journey they arrived at Athens. A bloody war was fought which finally ended in a draw. A peace pact was drawn and the Amazons left Athens. but many Gravess of the Amazons in Athens prove that this war took topographic point. Therefore Theseus renowned for his bravery and intellegence was a legendary hero of antediluvian Athens. His make bolding feats inspired his countrymen for coevalss. and made him a favourite of poets and dramatists and the stating â€Å"Not without Theseus! † became an emblem of Athenian wisdom and courage. The ruin of Theseus started with his friendly relationship with Perithous. Perithious wanted Theseus to befriend him and so he stole some cowss from around Marathon. Theseus went after him but when the two warriors met. they had no desire to contend and became friends and brothers in weaponries. When Perithous got married. Theseus attended the matrimony banquet. where some of the centaurs got drunk. Theseus joined Perithous and his people in trailing the centaurs out of the part. When Theseues was 50 old ages old. he went with Perithous to the temple of Diana at Sparta. where they saw Helen dancing. Helen was merely 12 old ages old so. She was excessively immature for matrimony but they abducted her. Though they were chased by armed work forces they managed to get away with her. They so agreed to swear to luck as to who should maintain her provided the victor would assist the other to win a bride for himself. As fortune would hold it Theseus won. and he sent Helen to his female paren t in Aphidane. and went with Perithous to Epirus to steal the girl of the male monarch. Pluto the male monarch had a Canis familiaris by the name of Cerberus. Pluto had proclaimed that anyone who wanted to get married his girl had first to contend his girl. When Pluto came to understand that they had no purpose of courting his girl but had come instead to nobble her. Pluto threw Theseus into prison and had Cerberus tear Perithous into pieces. Now all this piece when Theseus was absent from Athens. Menestheus. one of the Lords of Athens. began to stir up problem in Athens. He told the Lords that Theseus had removed the power they had in Athens and that they were now moving like his slaves in the metropolis. and to the hapless he said that Theseus was non a true Athenian and was merely giving them the psychotic belief of autonomy while in world he was governing over them. In the interim Helen’s brothers had reached Athens in hunt of Helen. The Athenians replied that they had no thought where Helen was. at this Castor and Pollux. Helen’s brothers decided to occupy the metropolis. Menestheus got the Athenians to welcome the Spartans as their wrangle was with Theseus and non with them. The brothers found out that Helen was with Theseus’s female parent. they rescued her and captured his female parent to be her retainer. Theseus was Pluto’s captive for a long clip. It happened that Hercules was going in Epirus and he visited Pluto. Pluto casually told him all about Theseus. Hercules was horrified and asked Pluto to let go of Theseus. Pluto therefore released Theseus. When Theseus returned to Athens. everything had changed and he realized that he would non be able to acquire back his kingship. Therefore he retired to Scyros where he died subsequently. Menestheus was king so and the Athenians did non care about Theseus’ decease. but the prophet at Delphi commanded that Theseus’ castanetss be brought back to Athens and an honest entombment be given to Theseus. The Athenians were non able to make so at that clip as the Scyros was hostile towards them. It was old ages subsequently when Cimon captured Scyros that he saw an bird of Jove clawing the land and it came to his head to delve at that place and hunt for the castanetss of Theseus. He found a casket of a adult male more than ordi nary size. and a bronze spearhead and blade. He took these on board his ship back to Athens. The Athenians were greatly delighted that at length the remains of Theseus were brought back. that their laminitis had come back. He was buried in the center of Athens and his grave is considered as a sanctuary particularly for the hapless for he remembered as a defender of the weak and the hapless. Plants Cited:

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Oil and Gas How Both Affect the Economy essays

Oil and Gas How Both Affect the Economy essays The economy is affected by many factors that determine if it is strong or weak. These factors have to do with buyers consuming goods and services and at what rate they do this. Do the goods and services that are consumed by people created wealth, jobs and a better overall economy for a country. Throughout history some economies have evolved faster and stronger than others. Policies that the government places on industry, technology and the environment can all affect the prosperity of an economy. Of the factors that affect economic growth the industry of Oil and gas is one that holds a stronghold in the world's and America's economy today. When evaluating the economic growth factor of economy and specifically oil and gas on must consider the following questions: What relationship does the factor have with the whole economy? How does this factor affect economic growth Is the factor a cause or effect of economic growth? what would the economy be like if there were significant problems with this factor? What relation does a central bank have to this factor? I will answer each of these questions in respect to how economy is affected by oil and gas. The economy in the United States today is greatly affected by oil and gas. When there are large reserves and an increase of active drills in respect to oil, the economy seems to receive a boost. This is because prices for such things like gas and oil fall and people are able to consume more gas at a lower price. There is more supply and prices fall, therefore people save money on gas and can consume other items in the economy. People working in these industries have more job openings and more jobs filled, therefore creating a lower unemployment rate and a higher national per capita income. The need for substitutes are not there so, consumers will consume oil and gas at a growing rate. Since, people use oil and gas for so many different things like heating there homes, driving...

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Developing An Authentic Productive Assessment Dissertation

Developing An Authentic Productive Assessment - Dissertation Example The paper tells that giving the students a feeling of pride in their work, like the mini diorama by displaying it for all to see and appreciate during a special occasion helps in the development of their self-esteem. Not to encourage external motivation, such an act provides internal satisfaction more because they would realize that their hard work and creativity becomes all worth it at the end. The fact that I scored mostly average to above average in this assessment validates my ideas of how a good authentic assessment should be. I am aware that the tasks develop a whole range of skills not only in literacy but in work habits, creativity, and planning. It also promotes communication and collaboration among the students as they share with each other their own ideas, thereby learning from each other. However, I must not be complacent because there is still much work to be done in the pursuit of an excellent authentic learning assessment. Going for further knowledge and information beyond what is available from the texts themselves and the insights of the students is another wonderful suggestion from one of my peers, as it develops research skills in the students. Thus far, I am glad that I was able to modify what could be a traditional assessment task to a more authentic one by giving the students opportunities to construct their own knowledge and communicate it to the whole class. I am sure that in doing so, I shall be able to engage the students’ interest in the task, and the positive experiences will heighten their learning.

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

International Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 7

International Business - Essay Example ote that the financial markets do not often work best when they are left alone and as such there shall be some intervention by the government in the form of regulations. This argument becomes more pertinent in the wake of current financial crisis which many believe is a direct result of a de-regulated and highly independent financial system. The globalization of finance therefore is something which is now considered as something which may not be entirely good for the national and international economies. There can be many reasons that have culminated into the present crisis and as such governments tackled this issue more swiftly. However, question still remains as to why such episodes of extreme crisis happened despite the fact that financial system was considered as safe and sound before the emergence of the crisis. Most apparent reason for the financial crisis was labeled as the sub-prime mortgage crisis which resulted into defaults by the sub-prime borrowers on their mortgage obligations with the financial institutions. The process of securitization further added the fuel to this whole drama because most of the financial institutions, through their special purpose vehicles, securitized their mortgage portfolios and tied the cash flows received from their subprime mortgage portfolio with that of the securitized securities. This mismatching of the cash flows therefore resulted into the credit crunch and extension of credit to private sector therefore was reduced causing the credit crunch and started the chain reaction for the current financial crisis. What is also significant to understand that the craze of securitization increased a lot as many countries started to use this process in potentially more speculative dimensions? The spreading of the securitization however, made this process more complicated and as such very few had the capability to understand as to how the process of securitization is interconnected with each other across the markets and what can

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Growth and Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Growth and Development - Essay Example Thus, it is a period when young people are out of their adolescence but are yet to attain the adult title. The age span for emerging adulthood ranges from 18 to 25 though this may be extended up to the age of 29. During this period, most young people are always struggling to put various components of their lives in order so that they can achieve the status of being referred to as adults. This paper will be a discussion of various issues as pertains to emerging adulthood. According to Arnett, 2004, â€Å"during Emerging Adulthood, young people are in the process of developing the capacities, skills and qualities of character deemed by their cultures as necessary for completing the transition to adulthood†. As such, it is an important period of life since most people going through it have the same aspirations. As a result, all of them have the same characteristics. Insatiability is one common characteristic that people in the emerging adulthood phase of life have. This is showca sed with the tendency of changing life plans. People between the ages of 18 to 29 can be observed to constantly change partners, jobs and even residences. This is because they often feel that they have to do much more than they have already achieved. This in turn gives them an aspect of insatiability. Identity exploration is another characteristic that most people in the Emerging Adulthood stage of life have. ... Along the same line, emerging adults will always delay responsibilities so that they can focus on themselves. Most of them tend to avoid marriage and parenting so that they can have all their time and resources to themselves. Self focus is what seems to be the most important thing to them at during this time (Arnett, 2004). Feeling caught up in between is another characteristic common with emerging adults. This is due to the fact that most of them feel that they are more independent and mature than when they were adolescents t at t same time feel that they are not fully accomplished to be referred to as adults. Lastly, most people in the above age bracket always have a very optimistic view of the future with the belief that they will accomplish all that they have set out to do and eventually become what they would want to be (Arnett, 2004). These are the characteristics that most people in this phase of life irrespective of culture and financial capability have. Generally, the period of emerging adulthood is different from the adolescent and early adulthood phase due to the fact that the reality of emerging responsibility finally begins to dawn on these individuals. During adolescence, people are not responsible of their actions but simply do what will be acceptable in the eyes of their peers. They do not fear rebellion and do not listen to what their parents say. Their decisions are dependent on how their peers will judge them and the aspect of being financially independent does not bother them. They are minors and still live at their parent’s home and are experiencing the physical changes of puberty but people in the emerging adulthood phase have already reached full reproduction maturity. On the other hand, adulthood is characterized by

Friday, November 15, 2019

K-degree-l-diversity Anonymity Model

K-degree-l-diversity Anonymity Model Abstract Privacy is one of the major concerns when publishing or sharing social network data for social science research and business analysis. Recently, researchers have developed privacy models similar to k-anonymity to prevent node reidentification through structure information. However, even when these privacy models are enforced, an attacker may still be able to infer one’s private information if a group of nodes largely share the same sensitive labels (i.e., attributes). In other words, the label-node relationship is not well protected by pure structure anonymization methods. Furthermore, existing approaches, which rely on edge editing or node clustering, may significantly alter key graph properties. In this paper, k-degree-l-diversity anonymity model that considers the protection of structural information as well as sensitive labels of individuals. A novel anonymization methodology based on adding noise nodes has proposed. New algorithm by adding noise nodes into the original gr aph with the consideration of introducing the least distortion to graph properties. Most importantly, completed the rigorous analysis of the theoretical bounds on the number of noise nodes added and their impacts on an important graph property. Extensive experiments used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed technique. Introduction The complexity of current software systems and uncertainty in their environments has led the software engineering community to look for inspiration in diverse related fields (e.g., robotics, artificial intelligence, control theory, and biology) for new ways to design and manage systems and services. This endeavor, the capability of the system to adjust its behavior in response to the environment in the form of self-adaptation has become one of the most promising research directions. The â€Å"self† prefix indicates that the systems decide autonomously (i.e., without or with minimal interference) how to adapt or organize to accommodate changes in their contexts and environments. While some self-adaptive system may be able to function without any human intervention, guidance in the form of higher-level objectives (e.g., through policies) is useful and realized in many systems. The landscapes of software engineering domains and computing environments are constantly evolving. In p articular, software has become the bricks and mortar of many complex systems (i.e., a system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibits one or more properties (behaviors among the possible properties) not obvious from the properties of the individual parts). The hallmarks of such complex or ultra-large-scale (ULS) systems are self-adaptation, selforganization, and emergence. Engineers in general, and software engineers in particular, design systems according to requirements and specifications and are not accustomed to regulating requirements and orchestrating emergent properties. Ottino argues that the landscape is bubbling with activity and engineers should be at the center of these developments and contribute new theories and tools. In order for the evolution of software engineering techniques to keep up with these ever-changing landscapes, software engineers must innovate in the realm of building, running, and managing software systems. Software-intensive systems m ust be able to adapt more easily to their ever-changing surroundings and be flexible, fault-tolerant, robust, resilient, available, configurable, secure, and selfhealing. Ideally, and necessarily for sufficiently large systems, these adaptations must happen autonomously. The research community that has formed around self-adaptive systems has already generated many encouraging results, helping to establish self-adaptive systems as a significant, interdisciplinary, and active research field. Self-adaptive systems have been studied within the different research areas of software engineering, including requirements engineering, software architecture, middleware, and component-based development; however, most of these initiatives have been isolated. Other research communities that have also investigated self-adaptation and feedback from their own perspectives are even more diverse: control theory, control engineering, artificial intelligence, mobile and autonomous robots, multi-agent systems, fault-tolerant computing, dependable computing, distributed systems, autonomic computing, self-managing systems, autonomic communications, adaptable user interfaces, biology, distributed artificial intelligence, machine learning, economic and financial systems, business and military strategic planning, sensor networks, or pervasive and ubiquitous computing. Over the past decade several self-adaptation-related application areas and technologies have grown in importance. It is important to emphasize that in all these initiatives software has become the common element. That enables the provision of self-adaptability. Thus, it is imperative to investigate systematic software engineering approaches for developing self-adaptive systems, which are—ideally—applicable across multiple domains. Self-adaptive systems can be characterized by how they operate or how they are analyzed, and by multiple dimensions of properties including centralized and decentralized, top-down and bottom-up, feedback latency (slow vs. fast), or environment uncertainty (low vs. high). A top-down self-adaptive system is often centralized and operates with the guidance of a central controller or policy, assesses its own behavior in the current surroundings, and adapts itself if the monitoring and analysis warrants it. Such a system often operates with an explicit internal representation of itself and its global goals. By analyzing the components of a top-down self-adaptive system, one can compose and deduce the behavior of the whole system. In contrast, a cooperative self-adaptive system or self-organizing system is often decentralized, operates without a central authority, and is typically composed bottom-up of a large number of components that interact locally according to simple rules. The global behavior of the system emerges from these local interactions. It is difficult to deduce properties of the global system by analyzing only the local properties of its parts. Such systems do not necessarily use internal representations of global properties or goals; they are often inspired by biological or sociological phenomena. Most engineered and nature-inspired self-adaptive systems fall somewhere between these two extreme poles of self-adaptive system types. In practice, the line between these types is rather blurred and compromises will often lead to an engineering approach incorporating techniques from both of these two extreme poles. For example, ULS systems embody both top-down and bottom-up self-adaptive characteristics (e.g., the Web is basically decentralized as a global system, but local sub-webs are highly centralized or se rver farms are both centralized and decentralized). Building self-adaptive software systems cost-effectively and in a predictable manner is a major engineering challenge. New theories are needed to accommodate, in a systematic engineering manner, traditional top-down approaches and bottom-up approaches. A promising starting point to meet these challenges is to mine suitable theories and techniques from control engineering and nature and to apply those when designing and reasoning about self-adaptive software systems. Control engineering emphasizes feedback loops, elevating them to firstclass entities. In this paper we argue that feedback loops are also essential for understanding all types of self-adaptive systems. Over the years, the discipline of software engineering strongly emphasized the static architecture of a system and, to a certain extent, neglected the dynamic aspects. In contrast, control engineering emphasized the dynamic feedback loops embedded in a system and its envi ronment and neglected the static architecture. A notable exception is the seminal paper by Magee and Kramer on dynamic structure in software architecture, which formed the foundation for many subsequent research projects. However, while these research projects realized feedback systems, the actual feedback loops were hidden or abstracted. Engineering Self-Adaptive Systems through Feedback Loops 51 Feedback loops have been recognized as important factors in software process management and improvement or software evolution. For example, the feedback loops at every stage in Royce’s waterfall model or the risk feedback loop in Boehm’s spiral model are well known. Lehman’s work on software evolution showed that â€Å"the software process constitutes a multilevel, multiloop feedback system and must be treated as such if major progress in its planning, control, and improvement is to be achieved.† Therefore, any attempt to make parts of this â€Å"multiloop feed back system† self-adaptive necessarily also has to consider feedback loops. With the proliferation of self-adaptive software systems, it is imperative to develop theories, methods and tools around feedback loops. Mining the rich experiences and theories from control engineering as well as taking inspiration from nature and biology where we can find systems that adapt in rather complex ways, and then adapting and applying the findings to software-intensive selfadaptive systems is a most worthwhile and promising avenue of research. In the remainder of this paper, we therefore investigate feedback loops as a key aspect of engineering self-adaptive systems. Outlines basic principles of feedback loops and demonstrates their importance and potential benefits for understanding self-adaptive systems. Control engineering and biologically inspired approaches for self-adaptation. We present selected challenges for the software engineering community in general and the SEAMScommunity in pa rticular for engineering self-adaptive computing systems. Existing system In Existing system forced by the recognition of the need for a finer grain and more personalized privacy in data publication of social networks. In this paper we implement privacy protection scheme that not only prevents the disclosure of the disclosure of selected features in users profiles and also for identity of users. The features of her profile she wishes to conceal by an individual user can select. The users are nodes and features are labels in social networks are modeled as graphs. The Labels are denoted either as non-sensitive or sensitive. In Existing system the background knowledge an adversary may possess, as sensitive information that has to be protected in both node and labels To allow for graph data to be published in a form such that an adversary who possesses information about a nodes neighborhood cannot safely infer its identity and its sensitive labels in this we present privacy protection algorithms that. The goals of these algorithms transform the original graph into a graph in which nodes are sufficiently indistinguishable in these algorithms are designed. While losing as little information and while preserving as much utility as possible. The algorithms preserve the original graphs structure and properties that’s why we evaluate empirically the extent to which. In Existing system that our solution is, efficient, scalable and effective and while offering stronger privacy guarantees than those in previous research. Proposed system k-degree anonymity with l-diversity to prevent not only the reidentification of individual nodes but also the revelation of a sensitive attribute associated with each node. If the k-degree-l-diversity constraint satisfies create KDLD graph. A KDLD graph protects two aspects of each user when an attacker uses degree information to attack A novel graph construction technique which makes use of noise nodes to preserve utilities of the original graph. Two key properties are considered: Add as few noise edges as possible. Change the distance between nodes as less as possible. The noise edges/nodes added should connect nodes that are close with respect to the social distance. There exist a large number of low degree vertices in the graph which could be used to hide added noise nodes from being re-identified. By carefully inserting noise nodes, some graph properties could be better preserved than a pure edge-editing method. MODULES Data Collection. Reduce Node Degree. Add Node Degree. Add Noise Node. 1. DATA COLLECTION In this module the employee data is collected. Each employee has unique Id, Name and Sensitive Label Salary. Each employee links with number of other employee. Based on the employee data construct the Social Network Graph: a social network graph is a four tuple G(V, E, ÏÆ', ÃŽ » ), where V is a set of vertices, and each vertex represents a node in the social network. is the set of edges between vertices, ÏÆ' is a set of labels that vertices have maps vertices to their labels. 2. REDUCE NODE DEGREE For any node whose degree is larger than its target degree in Pnew, decreasing its degree to the target degree by making using of noise nodes. 3. ADD NODE DEGREE For any node whose degree is smaller than its target degree in Pnew, increasing its degree to the target degree by making using of noise nodes. For each vertex u in G which needs to increase its degree, to make its degree reach the target degree. First check whether there exists a node v within two hops of u, and v also needs to increase its degree. Connect n with v. Since v is within two hops of u, connecting v with n will not change the distance between u and v. After this step, if n’s degree is bigger than the minimum degree in Pnew but does not appear in Pnew, recursively deleting the last created link until the degree of n equals to a degree in Pnew. Otherwise, leave n for processing and continue adding noise to u if u:d 4. ADD NOISE NODE In this module the noise node will added to the original data set. After that adding noise node add new degree for that noise node. For any noise node, if its degree does not appear in Pnew, some adjustment can happen to make it has a degree in Pnew. Then, the noise nodes are added into the same degree groups in Pnew. Conclusions In this paper, k-degree-l-diversity model has implemented for privacy preserving social network data publishing. Implementation of both distinct l-diversity and recursive (c, l)-diversity also happened. In order to achieve the requirement of k-degree-l-diversity, a noise node adding algorithm to construct a new graph from the original graph with the constraint of introducing fewer distortions to the original graph. Rigorous analysis of the theoretical bounds on the number of noise nodes added and their impacts on an important graph property. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the noise node adding algorithms can achieve a better result than the previous work using edge editing only. It is an interesting direction to study clever algorithms which can reduce the number of noise nodes if the noise nodes contribute to both anonymization and diversity. Another interesting direction is to consider how to implement this protection model in a distributed environment, where diffe rent publishers publish their data independently and their data are overlapping. In a distributed environment, although the data published by each publisher satisfy certain privacy requirements, an attacker can still break user’s privacy by combining the data published by different publishers together. Protocols should be designed to help these publishers publish a unified data together to guarantee the privacy. Future Enhancement: Privacy is one of the major concerns when publishing or sharing social network data for social science research and business analysis. The label-node relationship is not well protected by pure structure anonymization methods. k-degree-l-diversity anonymity model that considers the protection of structural information as well as sensitive labels of individuals. Adding noise nodes into the original graph with the consideration of introducing the least distortion to graph properties.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Principal Agent Theory Essay

There are many settings in which one economic actor (the principal) delegates authority and/or responsibilities to an agent to act on his behalf. The primary reason for doing so is that the agent has an advantage in terms of expertise or information. This informational advantage, or information asymmetry, poses a problem for the principal—how can the principal be sure that the agent has in fact acted in her best interests? Can a contract be written deï ¬ ning incentives in such a way that the principal can be assured that the agent is taking just the action that she would take, had she the information available to the agent? Solving this problem is a matter of some concern for patients dealing with their doctors, clients dealing with their lawyers, etc. It is also a crucial concern for business ï ¬ rms dealing with their employees. Especially in the twenty-ï ¬ rst century, employees are often hired precisely because they have information available that is unavailable to the managers of a ï ¬ rm, who changes or implements new ways of work (Innovation), making sure that employee expertise is put to work in the interest of the ï ¬ rm can make the difference between success and bankruptcy–as illustrated by the performance of Google Corporation and their success. Principal-Agent Theory The key common aspect of all those contracting settings is that the information gap between the principal and the agent has some fundamental implications for the design of the bilateral contract they sign. In order to reach an efficient use of economic resources, this contract must elicit the agent ´s private information. This can only be done by giving up some information rent to the privately informed agent. Generally, this rent is costly to the principal. This cost or payment is what is known as Monitoring Cost, on which the Principal can limit divergences from his interest by establishing appropriate incentives for the agent and by incurring monitoring costs designed to limit the aberrant activities of the agent (Jensen, 1976, pg. 5). And just like in any other trade, the Principal is giving something in exchange of the actions and decisions of the Agent; we can say that the Monitoring Cost is an action with its own reaction:Bonding Cost. This is the Welfare the Agent is willing to take, on behalf of the Principal, to limit or restrict his own actions, therefore reducing the deviation from the Principal’s interests. These costs guarantee that the Agent will not take certain actions which would harm the principal or to ensure that the principal will be compensated if he does take such actions (Jensen, 1976, pg. 5). Nevertheless there will always be some divergence between the agent’s decisions and those decisions which would maximize the welfare of the principal. The equivalent of the reduction in welfare experienced by the principal as a result of this divergence is what we refer as the Residual Loss (Jensen, 1976, pg. 5). But as said on the beginning, this deal is because of a lack of information or expertise of the Principal in comparison with the Agent. This lead us to the Asymmetrical relationship. Asymmetrical relationship refers to the fact that the Agent may have more information than the Principal, leading to the fact that the Principal may not know to what degree are the actions of the Agent in the Principal’s own interests. Given the self-interest of the Agent, he may or may have not behaved as agreed (Eisenhardt, 1989, 61). Information is asymmetric because the agent, of course, knows which decision he is going to make (Spremann, 1987, pg. 4). This Asymmetrical relationship leads into a field of risk and uncertainty represented by the dilemma of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection. Moral hazard is a situation where the behavior of one party may change to the detriment of another after the transaction has taken place. A party makes a decision about how much risk to take (Agent), while another party bears the costs if things go badly (Principal), and the party insulated from risk behaves differently than how it would if it were fully exposed to the risk. According to contract theory, moral hazard results from a situation in which a hidden action occurs. Bengt Holmstrà ¶m (1979) said this: It has long been recognized that a problem of moral hazard may arise when individuals engage in risk sharing under conditions such that their privately taken actions affect the probability distribution of the outcome. The non-observability of the agent’s action may then prevent an efficient resolution of this conflict of interest since a contract can never stipulate which action should be taken by the agent. In a moral hazard context, the random output aggregates the agent’s effort and the realization of pure luck. However, the principal can only design a contract based on the agent’s observable performance. Through this contract, the principal wants to induce, at a reasonable cost, a good action of the agent despite the impossibility to condition directly the agent’s reward on his action. In general, the non-observability of the agent’s effort affects the cost of implementing a given action. Moral hazard can be divided into two types when it involves asymmetric information (or lack of verifiability) of the outcome of a random event: Ex-Ante Moral and Ex-Post Moral. An ex-ante moral hazard is a change in behavior prior to the outcome of the random event, whereas ex-post involves behavior after the outcome. For example, in the case of a health insurance company insuring an individual during a specific time-period, the final health of the individual can be thought of as the outcome. The individual taking greater risks during the period would be ex-ante moral hazard whereas lying about a fictitious health problem to defraud the insurance company would be ex-post moral hazard. However, there is a second type of informational asymmetry which can also characterize principal-agent relationships. Adverse selection, anti-selection, or negative selection is a term used in economics, insurance, risk management, and statistics. It refers to a market process in which undesired results occur when buyers and sellers have. This is where the agent possesses some information prior to choosing an action which, if known by the principal, would influence the choice of action he would like the agent to make. The agent is then required to pass some message to the principal which depends on the ‘private information’ he has. Since the chosen effort, outcome and payoff to the agent may all depend on the message he transmits, the agent may have an incentive to misrepresent his information. The design of the contract will then have to take account of this problem of ‘adverse selection’. It is important to stress that, as adverse selection, moral hazard would not be an issue if the principal and the agent had the same objective function. Crucial to the agency cost arising under moral hazard is the conflict between the principal and the agent over which action should be carried out. Managing Innovation. First of all we have to define what is innovation. An Innovation is a new idea, which may be a recombination of old ideas, a scheme that challenges the present order, a formula, or a unique approach which is perceived as new by the individuals involved (Zaltman, Duncan, and Holbek 1973; Rogers 1982). As long as the idea is perceived as new to the people involved, it is an â€Å"innovation,† even though it may appear to others to be an â€Å"imitation† of something that exists elsewhere. Included in this definition are both technical innovations (new technologies, products, and services) and administrative innovations (new procedures, policies, and organizational forms). Even though innovation is always progress, it does not mean that can fit on everyone or that everyone will be happy applying it, and more because it involves changes. When we are talking about innovation in an enterprise, managers have to deal with 4 problems. This problems are reflected in a variety of questions the CEOs often raised (Van de Ven 1982).: 1. How can a large organization develop and maintain a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship? 2. What are the critical factors in successfully launching new organizations, joint ventures with other firms, or innovative projects within large organizations over time? 3. How can a manager achieve balance between inexorable pressures for specialization and proliferation of tasks, and escalating costs of achieving coordination, cooperation, and resolving conflicts? From these questions we can find three of four different factors that related to the Principal-Agent Theory, as Google did and we will explain it, to succeed in the implementation of innovation.First, there is the human problem of managing attention, second, the process problem is managing ideas into good currency so that innovative ideas are implemented and institutionalized, and finally there is the structural problem of managing part-whole relationships, which emerges from the proliferation of ideas, people and transactions as an innovation develops over time. It is often said that an innovative idea without a champion gets nowhere. People develop, carry, react to, and modify ideas. People apply different skills, energy levels and frames of reference (interpretive schemas) to ideas as a result of their backgrounds, experiences, and activities that occupy their attention. People become attached to ideas over time through a social-political process of pushing and riding their ideas into good currency, much like Donald Schon (1971) describes.Schon also states that what characteristically precipitates change in public policy is a disruptive event which threatens the social system. Here is where the Principal enters, because he needs the new ideas, so he makes a deal (contract) with the Agent to get those ideas. He (Agent) needs to respect and fulfil the contract previously made, incurring the bonding costs, so think or adapt ideas. In some way, the Principal or the contract is the pressure who makes the Agent work. A more realistic view of innovation should begin with an appreciation of the physiological limitations of human beings to pay attention to non routine issues, and their corresponding inertial forces in organizational life (Van de Ven and Hudson 1985). This make us think on the psychological aspect of the human being. You can implement innovation in your company or to your life (or someone else), it will be a new thing and our attention will be all focused on it. But when exposed over time to a set of stimuli that deteriorate very gradually, people do not perceive the gradual changes- they unconsciously adapt to the worsening conditions. Suddenly we lose our focus on the innovation and we just keep doing the same routine without even thinking why. Organizational structures and systems serve to sort attention. They focus efforts in prescribed areas and blind people to other issues by influencing perceptions, values, and beliefs. Janis (1985) states that only the vigilance pattern generally leads to decisions that meet the main criteria for sound decision making. Vigilance involves an extended search and assimilation of information, and a careful appraisal of alternatives before a choice is made. Here is where the Leader enters, setting the way where all efforts should go to. Most of the times, these directions go around the customers needs or wishes, and the manager materialize them into the new goals, ideas or direction of the innovation.In Principal- Agent language, here is where we can find the monitoring cost, the Principal pay attention into the actions of the Agent and corrects if necessary, in case that the actions of the Agent go in a different direction as they had stipulate on the contract. Proliferation of ideas, people, and transactions over time is a pervasive but little understood characteristic of the innovation process, and with it come complexity and interdependence – and the basic structural problem of managing part- whole relations. Transactions are â€Å"deals† or exchanges which tie people together within an institutional context. The relationship between the Principal and the Agent is a deal, a transaction. As the Principal wants a result but can not produce it by himself, puts him in the position of a transaction. The prevailing approach for handling this complexity and interdependence is to divide the labor among specialists (Agents) who are best qualified to perform unique tasks and then to integrate the specialized parts to recreate the whole. The objective, of course, is to develop synergy in managing complexity and interdependence with a deal design where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, where both of them obtained what they were looking for. In search of that correct synergy, John R. Commons (1951), argued that transactions are dynamic and go through three temporal stages: negotiations, agreements, and administration. The deal between Principal- Agent has to be very flexible to succeed this, without being vague and confusing. Following Ashby’s (1956) principle of requisite variety, learning is enhanced when a similar degree of complexity in the environment is built into the organizational unit. This principle is a reflection of the fact that both parts are dependant of the other (the main reason of the Principal- Agent relationship) but also a reflection of the need of being in the same ground of information, or at least on the same conditions of it (if not, there would be no deal and no need of each other). With this point and Management of Attention, the Principal can avoid and solve the problems and risk of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection. Google case Talking about innovation and implementation, we can see Google. Google is the place to work according to Fortune magazine, which listed the top 50 companies to work for. Google appears as a top contender for most features, including unusual perks, cafeterias, health cover and work environment. Even Management guru Gary Hamel praised Google in his book The Future of Management, stating that more companies should adopt their system. The system ensures that interesting ideas—even those that aren’t obvious fits for Google’s capabilities or core business model—receive some degree of attention. Their management have 3 statements and the base of all of it: First, set and communicate clear criteria for how you make funding decisions. Make sure those criteria include quantitative elements (how big could the market be) and qualitative elements (how passionate are we about this). Second, create an â€Å"ideal† innovation portfolio that blends core improvements and new growth businesses. Finally, consciously seek ideas that provide â€Å"unique† diversification by using a new channel, reaching a new customer, or creating a new revenue stream. Every developer has 20% of their time to work on any project they want, free time if you want to see it like that, but they have also to fulfil some goals, achievements and chores. they have freedom, but still, have some responsibilities that have to accomplish. Developers have to report to their managers that they had finished all of those chores. As long as they keep doing that, the deal or transaction still valid. About those 20% of free time, everything the developers creates, is property of the company, and still have to be approved by his manager, but have a complete freedom of the way of working and develop it. In exchange of that intellectual currency, Google give their employees not only their salary, but also a lot of benefits and rewards. For example Google offers include 100% health care coverage and onsite childcare facilities, also a rule at Google is that no staff member should ever be further away than 100 feet from a source of food. That doesn’t mean that they only have access to vending machines with junk food, or that the cafeterias give out quick, easy and grease-laden meals. Chefs of the highest calibre prepare range of meals, with unique variations on everyday meals. Macaroni and cheese, for instance, comes with wild mushrooms and truffles. In Google we see that the Principal-Agent and Innovation Management concepts and ideas applied. First of all, we have to begin with the need of the Principal, the motor of the transaction. Google needs to keep on the market via innovations and new products. To fulfil those needs, Google hires new development engineers, the Agents, to create those innovations. As Bonding Cost, Google offers the engineers a payroll and to take care of their life needs, such as health, food and, in some cases, housing as an equivalent of their intellectual currency. There is no way to eliminate the Residual Loss, but in Google they try to have the smallest one. They know they are asking a lot, but give a lot as well. As an example of that, Google tries to increase the welfare of their agents at all time more than any other company in the world, by giving them a greater payroll (incentive or Bonding cost) as exchange of actions, decisions and innovations that favors both parts. We can see here the vigilance that the Principal has over his Agent, the Principal does not have a total control over the Agent, but gives him some chores to do to keep him on track and to keep his ideas flowing. This vigilance or monitoring is what we can see as Monitoring Cost. Talking about Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection, Principal and Agent are always on the same track and in a lot of communication, making their bond flexible and healthy. As we said earlier, when both Principal and Agent have the same objective function, Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection, are not an issue. Great part of their success is because they understood for who are they working for: themselves. Google hires young people, not only because their potential and innovative ideas, but also because young people are the greatest part or their market. Young people working and developing tools for young people. Who understands better their needs as themselves! Conclusion Innovation is the goal of every enterprise and person in this world: we were born to improve in any moment. And even though, it is very difficult to create it or implement it. Thankfully, the Principal-Agent help us understand how some part of the human relationships work and how we can keep a healthy staff and also to remunerate them truly. Also it is important to denote that is impossible to know at all the time what the Agent is doing or going to do, but if you create the correct synergy, and set goals that will benefit both parts, the risk of a bad decision and therefore, the vigilance, can be almost eliminated and an ambience of trust is built. Something that surprise me it’s the fact that being in the same situation for a long time doesn’t helps the Innovation, when normally one thinks that this will create experience and knowledge enough to know how to change the method or create a new one to make it better. Bibliography Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort; 2001;The Theory of Incentives:The Principal-Agent Model. Merton H. Miller; Kevin Rock;1985; Dividend Policy under Asymmetric Information; The Journal of Finance, Vol. 40, No. 4. (Sep., 1985), pp. 1031-1051. Ray Rees; 1985; THE THEORY OF PRINCIPAL AND AGENT:PART 2; Bulletin of Economic Research 37:2;1985. Andrew H. Van de Ven; 1986; Central Problems in the Management of Innovation; Management Science, Vol. 32, No. 5, Organization Design (May, 1986), pp. 590-607. Michael C. Jensen,William H. Meckling; 1976; Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure. Kathleen M. Eisenhardt; 1989; Agency Theory: An Assessment and Review. Klaus Spremann; 1987; Agency Theory, Information, and Incentives; pp. 3-38. Bengt Holmstrom; 1979; Moral Hazard and Observability; The Bell Journal of Economics, Vol. 10, No. 1, (Spring, 1979), pp. 74-91. Zaltman G., Duncan R., Holbek J; 1973; Innovations and Organizations. Rogers E.; 1982; Diffusion of Innovations. Schon D.;1971; Beyond the Stable State. Janis I., Groupthink; 1982; â€Å"Sources of Error in Strategic Decision Making,† in J. Pennings (ed.), Strategic Decision Making in Complex Organizations, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1985. Commons J.;1951; The Economics of Collection Action. Ashby W. R.; 1956; An Introduction to Cybernetics.

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Mental Health

One of the many challenges that human service professionals e.g. social workers, counselors, and other professional helpers encounter in the practice of their profession is the need to understand the cultural, language, social and economic problems of people and their families in order to extend appropriate and effective services to people especially those who belong to the minority groups. Any human services worker is bound to meet countless people with diversified culture. Regardless of whether they are Asians, Hispanics, Europeans, or African-Americans, it is the duty of human service professionals to extend their social services without any regard to the persons’ culture or social status.   Everyone deserves to be treated equally.   Although we may hear stories about the existence of discrimination, we could not attest if such is true or untrue or if social services were denied due to the person’s race, sexual orientation, disability or the color of their skins. If we are in a profession to assist people in coping with unemployment, substance abuse, disability, social problems, child abuse, and spousal abuse among others, our main concern must be in the exercise of our profession and take into consideration our professional ethics and most importantly the welfare of those who are in need of our services.   After all, we are all humans in need of basic services.   We only differ in our beliefs and cultural background. Culture The expansion of our diverse cultural growth is due to the civil rights movement that began in the 1950s, in which African Americans, women, gays and lesbians, people with disabilities and other minority groups alerted the country to their distinct identities and long histories of oppression.[1]   The other is the growing number of new immigrants to this country who bring with them unique cultural, language, religious, and political backgrounds as a result of the internal displacement within their own countries, torture, political oppression, and extreme poverty.[2] These days, people of various races are everywhere.   They could be our next door neighbors, seatmates, friends, co-workers, patients, or chatmates in the internet. Culture is the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization which identify the members of a culture group while distinguishing those of another group.[3]   For me, culture is our identity.   It is what we take with us and what sets our community or race apart from other groups.   It may be unique or common, rational or irrational, acceptable or unacceptable but it is something that we have learned, shared and valued. Challenges of Human Service Professionals In other families and in most communities, people speak a language, attend religious or traditional ceremonies, adhere to some beliefs, participate in rituals, strictly observe the intake of foods that are acceptable in their religion and wear costumes that identify their culture.   I grew up with a set of culture handed down by my parents and I had my share of painful experience brought about by my race. When I begin my human services practice and meet people with diversified culture, I know that my personal beliefs and culture may either be similar or different from their own beliefs and cultural practices.   One of the major problems that human service professionals like me would encounter is the language differences as some immigrants could not speak the English language. Although there may be interpreters who are willing to assist us as we conduct interviews and accommodate the needs of our diverse clients, there is nothing more comfortable than being able to speak in a language that both my clients and I can speak and understand well.   Since there are many languages as there are so much non-English speaking immigrants, a lot of human service professionals may find it difficult to learn a foreign knowledge especially when there are piles of cases, reports, and advocacies to work on.   In addition, it takes years of constant practice before one can be fluent enough to speak and understand a native speaker. Although professionals have good intentions in doing what is best for their clients, some African American families look at professionals who provide parent education and support in their homes as taking on roles such as child’s aunt or mother’s sister.[4]   When clients resent the providers’ support, trust is no longer built and they may tend to reject any future support or would no longer seek any professional services. A problem in accepting and understanding the risk factors for the immigrant children and their families is another challenge for the human service professionals.   Sleeping arrangements where children sleep in the same bed or same room as their parents may seem inappropriate in regard to some emotional health and safety issues but typical in terms of custom and nurturance as this risk factor for the majority may be an expression of closeness of kin for the immigrant families. [5] A lot of human service professionals may not be trusted due to the suspicions and fear of the Latinos and some Asian people that they would be deported since a lot of them entered the country illegally, are overstaying in the host country and have not acquired an immigrant status [6]. Personal Discrimination Personally, I feel that discrimination towards another person may be influenced by the negative or painful experience that one has suffered from in the past.   For instance, if an African American child was sexually abused by a white American, she may have a personal hated and would resent having a close relationship with white Americans.   The hated and negative feelings may only be healed when proper intervention is provided.   Hence, without the involvement of any professional help e.g. counseling, discrimination towards a specific race or gender will always remain. In the practice of my profession, I must be fair to any person regardless of their culture, language, gender, religion, political background and economic status.   When I was young, I became a victim of physical abuse by my classmates and schoolmates due to my race.   As a result of this experience, it could be possible that I would be bias towards people who are abusive due to the negative experiences that I had experienced in the past or I would be a good advocate to those who are in a similar predicament.   For me, discrimination cannot be totally eliminated.   It could only be prevented. I believe that my deliberate or unintentional practice of discrimination would be prevented if I will examine my own cultural background, become aware of my personal bias and when I am given the proper intervention and the appropriate training so I could accept any person in his or her totality.   Before I become a certified human service provider, I need to understand people’s differences in the areas of tradition, values, family systems, sexual orientations, and spiritual beliefs, and I must be culturally competent to deliver culturally competent services. In addition to being culturally competent, I must be sensitive and tolerant to cultural diversity and have a wider scope of awareness of how my clients’ experience their uniqueness and deal with their differences and similarities as one of the mission of the human service professionals is to enhance people’s well being, meet their basic needs and to empower those who are victims of oppression, discrimination, injustice and poverty. Conclusion Human service professionals will always encounter new situations and various clients in the practice of their profession.   They also play a great role in providing intervention, economic and social services and linkages in education and training, health, housing and employment.   In order to fully address the diverse needs of individuals and families, the human service workers must be culturally competent and open to diversity. BIBLIOGRAPHY Boyd-Franklin, Nancy. Black Families in Therapy: Understanding the African American Experience 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 2003), p.58. Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition. â€Å"Culture and Language Learning† (2008): 1.   University of Minnesota. Available from http://www.carla.umn.edu/culture/definitions.html Diala, Chamberlain C., Muntaner, Carles, Walrath, Christine, Nickerson, Kim, LaVeist, Thomas, & Leaf, Phil. (2001). â€Å"Racial differences in attitudes toward professional mental health care and in the use of services†. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 91, no. 5 (2001): 805-807.   Available from http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1446685&blobtype=pdf National Association of Social Workers. â€Å"Diversity and Cultural Competence† (2006): 1. Available from http://www.socialworkers.org/pressroom/features/issue/diversity.asp Woolfolk, Tara & Unger, Donald. â€Å"Perceptions of African American mothers involved in Parents as Teachers†. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the National Council on Family Relations Orlando, Florida, November 2004. [1]. National Association of Social Workers. â€Å"Diversity and Cultural Competence† (2006): Available from http://www.socialworkers.org/pressroom/features/issue/diversity.asp. p.1. [2]. Ibid. p.1. [3]. Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition. â€Å"Culture and Language Learning† (2008).   University of Minnesota. Available from http://www.carla.umn.edu/culture/definitions.html. p.1 [4]. Tara Woolfolk & Donald Unger. â€Å"Perceptions of African American mothers involved in Parents as Teachers.†Ã‚   Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the National Council on Family Relations, Orlando, Florida. November 2004.       [5]   Nancy Boyd-Franklin. Black Families in Therapy: Understanding the African American Experience 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 2003), p.58. [6]. Chamberlain C. Diala, Carles Muntaner, Christine Walrath, Kim Nickerson, Thomas LaVeist, and Phil Leaf, â€Å"Racial/Ethnic Differences in Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Mental Health Services† American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 91, no. 5 (2001): 805-807. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1446685&blobtype=pdf.         

Friday, November 8, 2019

102 Cause and Effect Professor Ramos Blog

102 Cause and Effect Creating Structure Quick Write What monster theory can help us better understand prejudice? What one do you see as connected to it? Why does this matter? Images The Real Black Death Bang, Bang, My Baby Shot Me Down The 21st Century Werewolf Monster What’s Kraken? The Beauty and The Gill Man Creating Structure People have been writing causal analyses for centuries. Here is the title page of Edward Jenner’s 1798 publication,  An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae. His research led to the vaccine for small pox. An Inquiry Into the Causes and Effects of the Variolà ¦ Vaccinà ¦, Or Cow Pox. 1798 By Edward Jenner Small pox has been all but eradicated by modern medicine. By the careful study of small pox focusing on the causes and effects, he was able to develop a vaccine to save human life. Understanding Causal Relationships Causality: the relationship of cause and effect You should identify the types of causal relationships on your charts (you might use different types of arrows, different colors, or simply labels to show what kind of cause is being mapped). Necessary Cause: any factor that must be in place for something to occur. Sufficient Cause: is a condition that always produces the effect in question. Precipitating Cause: the proverbial straw that breaks a camel’s back. Proximate Cause: nearby and often easy to spot. Remote Cause: may act at some distance from an event but be closely tied to it. Reciprocal Cause: you have a reciprocal situation when a cause leads to an effect that, in turn, strengthens the cause. Contributing Factors: add to the causes to bring about the effect. Why is society so fascinated with serial killers? Why College Students Aren’t Voting What is the question   you are exploring? Use why, how, and what if to come up with your question. Why do we have some many school shootings? Why did Harvey Weinstein get away with it for so long? The Survival Of The Slasher Film 1. Emphasizing Causes Cause asks: Why did X happen? Why does X happen? Why will X happen? Example: Why did Ed Gein kill those women? Cause 1 – ____________________________ Cause 2 – ____________________________ Cause 3 – ____________________________ Produced: Event – ______________________________ 2. Emphasizing Effects Effect asks: What did X produce? What does X produce? What will X produce? Example: What impact did Ed Gein have in pop culture? or What is the lasting impact of Ed Gein? Event – _______________________________ Produced: Effect 1 – ______________________________ Effect 2 – ______________________________ Effect 3 – ______________________________ 3. Causal Chain Cause Effect 1 Effect 2 Effect 3 Example: Ed Gein Psycho novel Psycho movie Slasher Films Silence of the Lambs Developing your Essay Present a reasonable thesis statement. Make it logical Make it supportable Don’t use absolutes, instead use may be a contributing factor main reason Limit your discussion to recent and major causes or effects. Organize your essay clearly. Use one of the formats above Convince your reader that a causal relationship exists by showing how the relationship works. Use specific details and examples to show the relationship.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

Latinos in Entertainment & The Portrayal of a Culture essays

Latinos in Entertainment & The Portrayal of a Culture essays Today, more than ever, mass media communications play a vital role in informing the daily decisions that shape our lives. Similarly, opinion polls and images that are broadcast persistently over the airways increasingly influence the public policies and programs that govern our nation. The entertainment industry is a closed industry with few opportunities to gain access. Many who manage an entrance do so by taking internships at studios, networks and production companies, etc. These opportunities are given to young adults known to persons already within the industry usually to their acquaintances, family and friends. Since there are few Latinos in the industry, the opportunities given to them are rare. When viewing the images seen on the screen, people write about what they know. Since there is only a sprinkling of Latino writers being produced, the Latino image with a Latino perspective is rarely seen. Instead what you see is non-Latinos' ideas of what a Latino is. Often this im age comes from the negative stereotypes writers have seen in film and TV, or the news, or from Latinos they know, most of whom are their waiters, maids, gardeners or nannies. As Latinos are the largest and fastest growing minority in our nation, they represent a significant proportion of the viewership of these media outlets. Correspondingly, their self-perceptions and interactions with the media should play an important role in determining how the media are governed and how Latinos can demand accountability from those who regulate them. There are to be definite distinctions in how Latinos are portrayed or even publicized in our U.S. media. When we look at America today many may coin the term Hyphenated America: land of Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, German-Americans, African-Americans, and Mexican-Americans. The hyphenated identity has deep roots in American racial and ethnic history. This is the context in which Latinos must be conside...

Sunday, November 3, 2019

My Inner Struggle with English Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

My Inner Struggle with English - Essay Example Watching their movie, I used to think that I will be able to speak English very easily. Although I did not understand all the words that Stallone or Schwarzenegger said, I used to get an idea of what they were saying. It was much later when I came to know that I was going to the US, and was required to speak English, that I realized that my favorite stars did not actually say much in the movies. It was their guns and hands that did most of the talking, and not their tongue. I started thinking that if I had chosen to watch maybe the romantic movies or the dramatic movies, I would have learned English more easily. At least, my travel to the United States would have been smooth. I realized that just listening to someone speak a language cannot make you fluent in that language. With this discouraging realization, I landed in the United States. It was not that my English was bad, but it was not good either. I could manage to speak in broken English. I could read and write quite nicely. Bu t when it came to speaking, I used to choke. I realized that the fear of being laughed at or being ridiculed hampered my efforts to speak in English. My friends and relatives in the US were unaware of my inner struggle with English. I conversed with them in my regional language so the question of my inability of speaking good English never really came up in front of them. However, it was bothering me a lot. I knew that in some time, I will join the college, mix with people and will have to speak in English without the aid of my own language. I decided to hone my English speaking skills. The very next day, I bought a book that promised to teach how to speak fluent English. To avoid my family members from knowing my dilemma, I used to go to a nearby coffee shop, order whatever I saw in the pictures that were stuck on the wall, grab a corner table and immerse in the book. This became my regular habit. I used to go to the coffee shop at early hours to avoid a rush of customers. It used to be deserted at early hours and that provided me with the silence and peaceful environment that was necessary to concentrate on my ‘study.’ This went on regularly for some days. I became sort of familiar with the waitresses and the cashier at the coffee shop. However, I kept my conversation limited to a ‘hello’ and a ‘thank you.’ Things were going fine until I became aware of a pair of eyes watching me intently for the past few days. I realized that one of the waitresses was keeping an eye on me since the past few days. She was in her late forties, with a plump physique and blonde hair. From the way she was treated by her colleagues, I could tell that she was working there for a long time and had gained a respectable position. Even though she was just ahead waitress, she had an authoritative attitude and her authority was accepted by others. I got to know that her name was Jennifer.  Ã‚  

Friday, November 1, 2019

Bloodstain analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Bloodstain analysis - Essay Example On that fateful Tuesday night, on March 14th, 1995, they seemed to be enjoying themselves while having drinks at a local bar. Bonnie had left office at 7.15pm to meet with Warren; they kept drinking while at the bar until 11.09pm. Their house was situated just four miles away, and this was good since they were drunk. Thirty minutes after leaving the bar, Warren made a call to 911 (Mann, 2010). On the recording, Warren is frantic; he can be clearly heard in the background yelling as the dispatcher contacts the paramedics. Even though Warren is panicking, he tells the dispatcher that his wife had shot herself. Warren notifies the dispatcher that his wife is turning blue; he is instructed to begin CPR. Warren obeys the instructor, and this is confirmed as he can be heard breathing into his wife’s mouth. After another call, he tells the dispatcher that his wife had shot herself in the throat and that she is still breathing. By the time the law enforcement and the paramedics arrived at the premise, Bonnie Horinek had already died. She was lying on their matrimonial bed, dressed in a pink nightgown that clearly shown that she had been shot in the chest. Warren was busy trying to resuscitate his wife by performing CPR. The paramedics informed him that she had already died, but he could not stop. He could not heed any of their instructions, and this led them to drag him ou t of the room (Mann, 2010). The crime scene had two different weapons placed on the bed as observed and recorded by the police. A twelve gauge Winchester shotgun was placed at the edge of the bed, and a thirty-eight caliber revolver was placed next to Bonnie. The house had no signs of a break-in, and this meant that no one else was at the house. The police observed two scenarios; the husband killed his wife in one of his drunken outbursts or either she had killed herself. From the beginning, Warren claimed that his wife shot herself. As the investigations continued,