The Japanese American internment Research Paper - 1

The Japanese American internment - Research Paper Example The government targeted the Japanese Americans, both aliens and residents, without ever warning them specifically. The main reason given for the internment was that the people of Japanese descent living in Hawaii, through the provision of intelligence, had aided the enemy in attacking the Pearl Harbor. In fact, two-thirds of the Japanese-Americans interned were American citizens, mostly children and young adults. Those internees who proved to be loyal to the US were released and by 1946, and all the internment camps were closed, but the psychological effects could not be undone (Steven and Bernie 2). The experience the Nisei, the second generation of the Japanese Americans, had in the internment camps led them to question their identity and citizenship. Research shows that â€Å"the camp experience was paradoxical† (Suyemoto 6). The camps were viewed as a way of enhancing the acculturation of the Japanese Americans, but the internees only interacted with their fellow Nisei. The Nisei relied on Japanese values, which included endurance during difficult situations and stoicism in the face of adversity, and this helped them to cope with the internment experience. After the release of the Nisei, they tried their best to avoid attracting any negative attention to themselves by attempting to present their identity as Americans. One Nisei has said â€Å"By trying to prove we were 110 percent American, we hoped to be accepted† (Suyemoto 6). The race-related trauma experienced during the internment prompted the Nisei to suppress their Japanese cultural heritage and instead focus on portraying American values. Subsequently, they passed on the same sentiments to their Sansei children, who passed the same to the current Gosei and Yonsei generation (Nagata 125).The impact of the race-related trauma experienced during the internment was then, transgenerational. The Sansei children often heard their parents mention the â€Å"camp† in

Portrayal of Terrorism in Film

Portrayal of Terrorism in Film Luke Costen Terrorism and the mutual influentially of the British film industry, the genre of satire Terrorism is an exceedingly ambivalent topic and one that becomes particularly ambiguous when attempting to define. When trying to comprehend the motivations of a specific terrorist organisation, one must start by considering the context of the acts of terrorism, by exploring ‘the historical, social, economic, ethnic and even psychological factors that have some influence on thought, behaviour and action.’ (Whittaker, 2012: 4) thus the notion of a universal and objective definition is virtually impossible. The dissimilarities between the United Kingdom’s and the USA’s definitions raise controversy over the evidently contextual and subjective nature of what terrorism is. ‘The use or threat, for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, of action which involves serious violence against any person or property’ (Whittaker, 2012: 3). This definition appropriately legitimises the existence of state terrorism, theoretically defining the USA as a state terrorist, due to the atrocities taking place in the Middle East over the past decade. Whilst the USA’s equivalent contrasts this idea, it states that terrorism must be surreptitious and committed by subnational groups. This essay will explore the notion of political communication, demonstrating the mutual influence between contemporary Terrorist organisations, particularly Jihadism and the satirical genre, within the British film industry. This essay will thus formulate the context of the following case study; an analysis of Four Lions (2010), a black comedy that provocatively satirises Islamic terrorism, humanising the British born anti-protagonist terrorists, exploring indoctrination, islamophobia, and police inadequacy when combating the issue of terrorism. The 7thJuly 2005 London bombings resonate throughout the text, creating a social commentary on the event and the obsession that the conservative western media have with Islamic fundamentalism, that further assist the feeling of estrangement of British born Muslims. The most important aspect in what politicises communication is not the origin of the message, instead it is the subject matter and the intentions of the message. (Denton and Woodward, 1990: 11) This defines political communication as accessible to anyone intending to make a statement about a political issue in society, emphasising that communicating politically is not exclusive to the government and the elites that control global and national politics. This therefore allows the public to convey political messages through any means possible, such as any form of media or even the body itself (the black or homosexual liberation). However this can be contested as acquiring a credible platform may require an already cemented position or political power, those who do, will find it considerably simpler to secure media coverage; hence it is far easier to express their message. (Wolfsfeld, 2011: 2) Film as well as other varying media can be seen as a process that allows an individual to reach a target audience as well as wider audience, in order to convey the intended political message, and can perhaps give some explanation to why bodies are used in extreme forms of political communication. Both acts of terrorism and the film industry can be equally seen as diverse forms of political communication, in an attempt to highlight prevalent issues in society. Respectively terrorism, specifically suicide terrorism is the most radical practice of political communication and one that is almost impossible to entirely understand. In the context of religious suicide, an unfamiliar concept in secular society is still far easier to understand then the secular suicide. The radicalised Muslim; mujahedeen will be profoundly rewarded for partaking in the holy war and, completing God’s will in destroying the infidel forces, his family will be cared for, and receive a payment for their loss a sort of life insurance. (Whittaker, 2011: 26) Although the practise of film-making in its original form is not inherently politically or artistically charged, its malleability and diversity as a creative media allow for artistic and political expression. It is the director or producers of a film text that can therefore express artistic and political visions creating an immersive form of political communication. Hunger (2008) follows Bobby Sands, an imprisoned IRA member who sees the sacrifice of his life as imperative for the gain of political objectives. Hunger seeks to alter views on IRA as in Britain intrinsically evil, viewing the group as freedom fighters searching for independence. Of course the act of terrorism in itself is evil, but issues of context tell a Janus-faced story, ultimately humanising the individuals of a considerably inferior political group.Hunger(2008) demonstrates the political methods Margret Thatcher used against the IRA prisoners, she refused to politicise the IRA members. This would, firstly define t hem as political prisoners, but more importantly humanise the individual people behind the acts of terrorism, thus accepting that their political ideologies were legitimate and subjective value systems, with historical, social and cultural contexts. Ignoring this would further alienate the IRA from the British public, rejecting any potential sense of compassion or empathy, forcing a prolonged, futile and failed attempt to reclaim their independence from the imperialist head of state. The terrorist group sacrifices their life for the progression and development of their cause; they are generally oppressed over an elongated period of time and see the act as the appropriate and imperious motives so that collective institutions are able to prosper. (Whittaker, 2011:25-26) Consequently comparisons can be drawn in the attempts to combat Jihadism and a similar rhetoricis used by the mass-media in order to strip political legitimacy. However Thatcher’s rhetoric of rejecting the political was already in place, as Jihadism, is the collective union ofIslamicbrothers and the ‘holy war against the infidel.’ (Whittaker, 2011: 47) So the context of religion is what takes centre stage, thus comparisons to similar consequences can be drawn. However religion can be politicised particularly in the form of terrorism, as political objectives exist simultaneously with religious ones. Martyrdom is highly regarded for the fundamentalist, and believes they will be rewarded for completing God’s will, whilst the terrorist organisation benefits from political gain. (Noonan, 200: 97) The British mass media seldom politicise Jihadism terrorism, in order tomaintain the public’s lack of comprehension, and detachment of the individual, preventing the public from seeing a rational person with emotions and a conscience. A stereotypical Arabian image of Islam has now become synonymous with the inimical image of world terrorism, due to the Middle Eastern origins of Jihadism. The mass-media has thus created an archetypal enemy with distinguishable ideologies, belief systems, creating the illusion that they oppose our own, and finally an image that can be applied to Asian Muslims. This has produced cultural alienation, a prominent issue in multi-cultural societies, where British born Muslims become estranged from their nationality and society, thus become easily radicalised. Attacks are unforeseeable and committed discreetly by inconspicuous people. (Whittaker, 2011: 71) Essentially the film industries main purpose within a capitalist system is to make a profit, although the British film may have more artistic and political integritythanAmerican cinema, its inherent principles are fundamentally neoliberal. These values rivalIslamicfundamentalists of Islam, and represent USA’s and the UK’s dominating force of culture imperialism within the Middle East. In the wake of the Iraq war, markets previously out of reach of American influences, were placed directly under the control of a small group of American business’ by means of government contracts. (Harvey, 2005: 7) British film can be interpreted as mutually influencing with terrorism, propagating the view that the Western economic and political ideology is culturally superior to that of the East, and the contemptible notion that it is the duty of the western world is to civilize Islam, exploiting the economic gain of neoliberalising newly occupied nations and the continuous turning of the lucrative war machine. Thus western values inhabit underlining themes in film, such as the capitalist dream, the monetisation of practically everything, commonly denouncing religion, and neglecting equal ethnic diversity. The Terrorist Act [2000] considerably increased policing power, and ‘has no such provision,’ (unlike previous counter-terrorist measures) ‘and this is its chief danger’ (McGovern, 2010: 138). Counter-terrorism is a self-explanatory process; acts are put in place increasing the policing powers in order to prevent terrorism in the process. Conversely counter-terrorism acts can be abused placing too much power in the police force, this allows for the potential on infringement on civil liberties, thus placing too much power in the inevitable inherent prejudices that some police officers may have. It is therefore possible that this could cause a detrimental effect on society forcing an insurgence of‘ home-grown’ terrorists to emerge. It is conceivable to assume that the Muslim community can become disillusioned in British society due to ‘neo-conservative counter-terrorism’ in place. (Whittaker, 2011: 77)The way that film and terrorism in fluence one another is not solely negative. Simply the inclusion of thesubject matter of terrorism in British film is a significant discourse continually evolving the views on the existing ideologies around why people commit terrorism. A film with a strong political subject matter can influence the public’s perceptions, educating the inevitable confused and fearful opinion formulated by the mass-media’s outlook. Theoretically this can be viewed as a counter-terrorist measure, in an attempt to reveal contexts of a side of the narrative rarely explored, assisting in eliminating ethnic and religious divides and the sense of estrangement found in British-born Muslims. British Film often represents terrorism contrarily to that of the mass-media, creating thought-provoking representations of theindividuals behind the terrorist acts. Through the exploration ofcultural, political and social factors, British film generallyhumanisesthe terrorist but never legitimises or validates the actual acts. Conversely it understands that for oppressed groups there is usually no alternative course of action, showing that there is always more than one side to a narrative, usually told with a level of bias, in context to one’s own political agenda. ‘the term ‘terrorist’ is value-laden, and may be rejected by groups whose members may prefer to see themselves as ‘freedom fighters’ in ‘national liberation’ or ‘resistance’ movements, (McNair, 2011: 9)The Wind that Shakes the Barley(2006) authenticates the IRA struggle against the imperial empire and following young members of the IRA and the struggles again st British imperialism. Satire is the generic form of artistic and political expression typically used as a form of political communication, expressing itself through the use of humour and wit and critiquing existing social or political issues within the public sphere. The job of the satirist is to scrutinise the ubiquitous corrupt or immoral political issues in society. Satire was patented in the form of literary work but is now seen as ‘the process of attacking by ridicule in any medium’ (Hodgart, 1969: 7). British film often represents the terrorist as the freedom fighter, politically satirising the perception of the differences between the two.Brazil(1985)satirises the bureaucratic political system and the omnipotent authoritarian government. Harry Tuttle is an alleged terrorist; he illegally repairs citizens, thus breaking the rules of the bureaucratic state. In reality Harry Tuttle is a freedom fighter, liberating individuals from the endless administrative process that is required by the government. The terrorist attack on the Danish cartoons and more recently the murders of the CharlieHebdomagazine exposed the limitations of the freedom of expression, and the fine line between political satire and the incitement of hate. ‘It is an expression of free speech, [] Among the several tests by which we measure the extent of individual freedom, the right to ridicule must be included.’ (Freedman, 2009: 164) Forcefully instigating a reaction through the crass depiction of sacred figure will inevitably provoke a response fromIslamicfundamentals. Political satire of the ‘other’ is created in relation to the increasing social tensions regarding numbers of immigration, particularly in France were the rise of the far right-wing party in France; Le Front National, and a history of banning religious signifiers such as the Burka, create an unstable and fluctuating marginalisation of an already isolated Muslim community. When combined with the increasing and hostile isla mophobic rhetoric frequently used in the mass-media, forces the estranged and isolated members of the society to seek collective acceptance and meaning in extreme fundamentalism taking out the anger on the society that rejected them. Political communication is how each politicised text interacts with each other, and practically anything can be politicised. In political communication, it is not the origin of the message that deciphers whether or not something can communicate politically but instead it is the focus and the objective of that message. Through the examples of British film as mutually influential with the actions of terrorist organisations is the idea of humanising the individual member’s image of the terrorist. Underneath the terrorists political agenda is a person with thoughts and emotions, and reading deeper into the social, historical and cultural contexts help give the public or audiences they are attempting to shock a better understanding of the motives and intentions of committing such heinous crimes. Bibliography Denton, R. E., Woodward, G. C. (1990). Political Communication in American. New York, Praeger. Freedman, L. (2009). The Offensive Art. London: Praeger. Harvey, D. (2005).A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: OUP. Hodgart, J. (1969).Satire. Hampshire: BAS Printers Limited. McGovern, M. (2010). Ignatieff, Ireland and the ‘less evil’: some problems with the lesson. In: Discourses and Practices of Terrorism – Interrogating terror. London and New York: Routledge. McNair, B. (2011). An Introduction to Political Communication. 5th ed. London and New York: Routledge. Noonan, J. (2010) Fundamentalist foundations of terrorist practice – The political logic of self-sacrifice. In: Discourses and Practices of Terrorism – Interrogating terror. London and New York: Routledge. Pollard, A. (1970). Satire: The Critical Idiom. Methuen Co Ltd: London Whittaker, D. (2012).The Terrorism Reader. 4th ed. Oxon: Routledge. Wolfsfeld, G. (2011). Making Sense of Media and Politics: Five Principles in Political Communication. Abingdon: Taylor Francis. Filmography Brazil (1985) Directed by Terry Gillingham [Film]. UK: Embassy International Pictures Four Lions (2010) Directed by Chris Morris [Film]. UK: Film4, Warp Films, Wild Bunch Hunger (2008) Directed by Steve McQueen [Film]. UK/Ireland: Film4 The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) Directed by Ken Loach [Film]. Ireland/UK: Sixteen Films, Matador Pictures, Regent Capital, UK Film Council 1

Ode To A Nightingale Essay -- English Literature

Ode To A Nightingale Choose a poem which you think could be described as a â€Å"quiet† or â€Å"reflective† poem. Show how the poet has achieved this effect and discuss to what extent you find it a suitable way of dealing with the subject matter in the poem. In your answer you must refer closely to the text and to at least two of mood; theme; sound; imagery; rhythm or any other appropriate feature. â€Å"Ode To A Nightingale† by John Keats is a poem which Keats wrote when he was dying. Due to this, the poem is extremely reflective on the things Keats considers important to him, namely life, death and his imagination. By using the nightingale to embody these aspects, Keats is effective, in my opinion, in attempting to deal with the matter at hand, and involving me in his struggle between life and death. One of the things which the nightingale represents to Keats is death. This is not surprising as he is near death and so it is influencing the way he thinks. At times Keats welcomes death and at other times is undecided, but always the nightingale is used as a representation for it. â€Å"That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:† He is talking to the nightingale here, telling it that he will go with it, into the forest. Here the nightingale signifies death and Keats is wishing to follow it, to, in effect, die. Keats uses the metaphor of fading to show his transition into death. This use of imagery emphasizes the reflective nature of Keats, and I find it a very effective way to show how he is thinking. As the nightingale represents death, Keats embraces it and sees it as the only real painless way. â€Å"I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call’d... ...other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;† Conversely, this shows life as a painful thing, from which Keats wants release. He has made his mind up as to what life is like for him and others. This contemplation shows where he is in his life and musings. It seems Keats is prepared to die, and this shows that. In conclusion, Keats makes the poem very reflective by reflecting on the meaning of life through a nightingale. For Keats, the nightingale represents, in essence, the cycle of life, and shows that death an exist along with life. The bird also represents Keats imagination, and this he also reflects on, along with the complexity of life and death. I think that Keats was very effective is achieving a reflective poem which deals with the intricacy of death and the agony of life.

Childhood Constructions

Childhood is the period of time stretching from infancy to adolescence (teenage) stage of life. Issues, theories and concepts have been put forth attempting to put some meaning to childhood. For instance the modern society perceives children as passive and surviving at the mercies of the wider society. Adults do not seek to learn anything from the children and they assume that childhood is a period meant to transform kids into dependable adults. There is a need to view childhood differently to be able to respond positively to their needs and to understand the stage as crucial in helping us understand adulthood and humanity in general. As a matter of fact, childhood experiences, plays a vital role in shaping the later stages of life. Childhood is perceived as a social structure, which determines the ideal institutions where proper childhood development would be ensured. Generally, social structures offer both opportunities one is exposed to and limitations are determined by a child’s socio-economic background and its physical endowments (Stearns, 2003). A child in ideal situation is expected to have two parents who provide everything and ensure moral uprightness. The child is given enough time to relax and has siblings. The parents are expected to provide security and facilities for play. Parents commence preparations for the infant long way before the mother delivers the kid. However, in terms of childhood development, from a historical perspective, the early American society never celebrated infancy. Childhood was characterized by missing parental care, high rate of infant mortality. There was not time for taking the kid through all the stages of growth and development. Where parents were missing due to reasons like death, young children were charged with the task of taking care of the others. However, good morals were upheld all through. Child labour was prevalent as well as early marriages. In the late 1700s and early 1800 there was growing concern on childhood. Between 1840s and 1900s socio-economic changes taking place revolutionized the ideal of child upbringing. Parents became more concerned about children; they started emphasizing on child education. A scientific aspect was incorporated in child rearing whereby child development was closely monitored. Racial concerns arose. Industrial development led to improved standards of life and reduced childhood deaths. However, some children especially of immigrant families were still in slavery. These children were poorly treated subjected to much work and not allowed to go through formal education. Some children ended up in orphanages where proper care was ensured. Other children went missing and still others would end up dying. In the twentieth century children were regarded as of economic value. They offered cheap labour earning highly needed wages in the family. There was a rising need to occupy the kids with work to discourage laxity. In the contemporary society children are perceived as of less economic value. Infact childhood is regarded as an economic liability. Children, spend more of parents’ financial resources than they contribute to the same. Young children’s perception of things in the US and the world at large has been subjected to a number of influences. Their access to information materials and gadgets like TV, video and computer exposes them to a wide field of knowledge. These triggers and stimulate a mental process that generates a diversified perception of issues to do with life. For instance, programmes on TV and videos showing modern family life would touch issues like children rights. Children acquire knowledge on family issues like the role of parents in a family, career, and family conflicts among other issues at a very tender age. It is not amazing to realize that some programmes highlighting crucial family issues like divorce, separation, child abuse appear on screen long way before the kids succumb to sleep. As a matter of fact, the media has made the children to feel like they are their own caretakers. It is worth noting that in some programmes, adult voices and perceptions have been superimposed on very young children. Romantic movie clips and actual programmes are not rare on TVs in the early evening hours. This most assuredly influences children’s perception of issues to do with sexuality, love, hate and social conflicts. In some movies, a character commits suicide, murder or causes chaos in their attempt to either express themselves or to get out of trouble. All these happenings are bound to model the character and personality of children since they are also exposed to similar circumstances in this world. No wonder cases of young snipers have been reported in the recent past in our society. The greatest challenge and risk is that parents and guardians cannot exercise full control over what their children go through and their exposure to information materials. Children can virtually access any information anywhere even if they are denied access at home. Due to social-economic problems some parents have ended up in serious conflicts. A man and his wife settle scores physically when reason fails to avail solutions for their pressing issues. This has exposed many children to utter violence and most of them perceive this world as a harsh and chaotic place and some develop aggression in their bid to conquer life’s challenges. Other end up violent when their tactics fail to work. Children face challenging and conflicting situations both at home and away from home. With increasing social-economic challenges, children of the world are exposed to situations that influence their character and personality very early. Many parents who are especially keen on child development are very anxious and rather troubled due to the deteriorating morals and social values. Evil is inculcated in children’s lie s at very early stages of child’s development and some caretakers are simply watching desperately as their children vanish in the mire of moral rottenness. Parents and guardians are increasingly concerned about the eventualities given the direction the current (modern) society has taken. For instance, drug use and abuse at childhood stages. Drug use is a commonplace thing in schools. It is a matter of great concern since a drug addicted young generation spells doom to the future of the society. Lack of sobriety among the youths would result to stagnating social-economic systems. The other nagging issue is about the dwindling interest in schooling. Children seem to pursue entertainment and quick money earners at the expense of a formal system of learning, which incorporates all aspects of human growth development. This produces a dull; dump and unrealistic clique that would lack the remotest idea of how to progressively run the socio-economic aspects of our society. Fun centers are always congested. Youngsters are pursuing fame and money (wealth) at all costs in some instances with dire consequences. The young generation seems to be dragging the entire society into Hades. Learning institutions seem to design their programmes to suit the whims of the learners this basically being a result of constant expression of fear and anxiety by parents whose children’s performance grow dismal. The fear by the parents is that the children are bound to develop disinterest in education if their performance worsens. There is an increasing desire to score high grades and join better and highly ranked higher learning institutions. Those who fail to measure up resort to entertainment parlors. A mention of physical growth, fitness or posture would cause some emotional tremor. This is an issue of great concern among Americans. High economic development rate has made many young people afford high calorific foods. Eating habits have changed and cases of obesity have been increasing day after day. However, the increasing concerns about the issue of body size, weight, posture and fitness is the reason behind the fast rate of growth of the fashion beauty and modeling industry. This raises a myriad of questions about the extent to which the children should be allowed to make decisions about their physical and emotional development. Most parents are extremely anxious about the developments that may arise during the course of growth and development of their children. Streets trodden by youngsters struggling to bear massive weight are commonplace in America. The issue of physical development among other social challenges affects a child’s self esteem. For instance, an obesed child is likely to develop low self-esteem. Poor academic performance would also have similar effects on the self-esteem of a child. Parents are especially concerned about eating habits of their children but it still remains an evasive issue since many eateries are being put up offering high calorie and very attractive foods. What leads the youngsters to such eating habits and poor dietary programmes remains a very tricky puzzle. As the parents battle with the issue of food, one would point an accusing finger at them since some abandon their duty as mothers at very early stages of child development. For instance, some due to careers quit breastfeeding a couple of days after delivery. The responsibility of feeding the child rests squarely on baby sitters, some of who might either lack crucial knowledge on proper diet or others out of defiance dump unhealthy foods into the child’s tummy. A child graduates to teenage with the same problem. Boredom is a feeling that would quite well describe the emotional orientation of most youths in our society. Every formal system seems to be a bore to the young generation. Schoolwork is boring and many are reluctant to pursue higher education. Parents are very much concerned about the amount of homework assigned to the children. On one hand the children feeling bored by the too much task given by the teachers to be tackled at home by the children; on the other hand, the parents feel that too much homework denies them control over the activities performed by their children during their time with them at home. Teachers still feel that they have an obligation to steer learning among the children to greater heights. How a compromise would be struck given the above situations remains a hard nut to crack. This concern revolves around not only the issue of homework assigned by teachers to children but also around other chores both at home and away from home. The government is on very high alert concerning issues to do with child labour. The problem is how to determine what amounts to child labour. Determining how much work a child should be given at home and elsewhere is an issue to be debated upon. With the growing enlightenment on children rights is bound to be a bone of contention. However, hiring of children to work in the manufacturing and processing industries remains out of question and punitive measures should be meted on whoever commits such a disorderly thing. A great deal of anxiety rests in the hearts of parents and guardians when an issue of special needs arises. How such children are handled matter a lot. There is a need for more schools that can handle such cases. But parents are more concerned about their welfare. Children with both physical and mental disadvantages are not easy to cater for and the number and capacity of the institutions handling such might not be adequate and this has been the essence of parental concerns. Another issue arises when a consideration is made on whether to surrender the disabled children or other children with special needs full time to such special institutions or part timely. With the busy parent schedules this becomes a big issue. Children are also exposed to traffic risks. How roads and streets are manned determines how safe or unsafe children can be on the roads. Children use roads frequently on foot either from schools or other events and occasions. Road safety for children is an issue of concern among parents. Issues range from delays in traffic snirl-ups to accidents both in public service vehicles or private cars. Though rare, parents are also afraid in case a child sneaks a car out of the homestead. Concerns about children safety do not only arise on the roads but also at home and elsewhere. Safety in the house, on the compound and away from home arouses great concern among parents. Parents strictly and keenly monitor the activities of the children whenever they are around them. At times they are concerned about the punitive measures taken by teachers against the children. Another issue about safety arises when a babysitter comes into the scene. Fear engulfs parents concerning the level of safety a babysitter would ensure on children. Babysitters might not have a deep emotional attachment to the child. Negligence by a babysitter would pose a safety risk and also physical and psychological anomalies. There is also a risk of child abductions. Parents are afraid of situations whereby after allowing their children to move around freely, they end up under the custody of strangers who later turn up demanding hefty amounts of cash before they release them. This is not uncommon with the escalating crime levels. Other concerns include infant sexual exploitation. There have been a number of cases of infant sexual exploitation in the American society. The worst is when a close relative is implicated in the vice. Children are constantly exposed to such dangers, especially with the weakening social ties and parents busy schedules which rob them of the opportunity to constantly and consistently monitor their children’s activities. Many self-confessed victims of sexual harassment have brought to our attention the looming danger. The society has almost reached a state of moral decantation. Some people seem to have lost their sense of reason. Children below five years of age have fallen victims. Other concerns that leave parents torn between issues touch the areas of toilet training. How it is conducted at that tender age determines the psychological development of the child. Some parents lose their patience when the child turns out to be a slow learner. This according to psychoanalysts tends to behavioral maladjustments later in a child’s life. This again raises the issue of whether or not the mother is the one charged with the responsibility of conducting the exercise. Babysitters are known to be harsh especially when the children are unco-operative. However some mothers subject their children to harsh toile training. Many parents are usually anxious about how fast their children learn to control their bowel movements. Another issue of paramount concern is breast-feeding. The stage of growth and development at which an infant is weaned (or stops breastfeeding) contributed a great deal to the physical and psychological development of the infant. A child who stops breastfeeding early than expected is likely to develop poorly physically and psychologically. This also tampers with the emotional attachment between the child and the mother and the child is likely to develop defiant behaviour later in life. Parents are afraid and anxious about future development of their children given their early administration of bottled foods. The changing social structures coupled with the negative publicity carried out by the media have also caused too much anxiety among parents. Family ties are weakening and many parents are opting for divorce or separation. Children are majorly the sufferers. Media never ceases to feature movies that uphold violent behaviour and crime. Infact movie stars are perceived even by youngsters, as heroes who murder many and commit the vilest things. Children have their role models in movies. Romantic movies are filled with scenes portraying hatred, jealousy, obscenity, murder, suicide and revenge. The young children are adopting the same negative traits and some are living out the characters they see in the movies. Family feuds are not rare occurrences in our society. To sum up, childhood development and child upbringing are issues that parents are very much concerned in America. Parents face numerous anxious moments in their efforts to bring up their children in the most ideal conditions and ways. Readership of publications highlighting issues concerning childhood is growing tremendously as parents battle with the challenges they encounter in control over their lives of their children. The wider society on the other hand has a major role to play in shaping the character of the young. There is a tag of war as the two scrambles for control. Parent’s concerns and anxiety is genuine and valid. Every adult in the US should feel responsible for the upbringing of the upcoming young generations. The media should be instrumental in promoting proper childhood development by designing programs that uphold acceptable childhood behaviour as well as educating all childhood social institutions on the most ideal ways of bringing up children. And the government should provide structures that promote proper childhood development. A central issue that has been raised over time is about childhood innocence. In the earlier times infants were perceived as innocent. However with the emerging issues in the society and exposure of sexual materials by the media, children are exposed to sexual issues and abuse at tender stages of growth and development. One would wonder whether children are innocent as earlier perceived or not. The society, including media should feel responsible for shaping childhood. The fashion industry should be more responsible to admit the right ages. A fairer comparison should be drawn between children and adults. Children should be enlightened on their right, and the dangers and risks they are exposed to. Much light should be she on the existing opportunities available for the children to fully exploit their talents.

Challenges of the Lgbt Population on College Campuses

Challenges of the LGBT Population on College Campuses A review of the Literature Challenges of the LGBT population on College Campuses A Review of the Literature The need for institutions of higher education to stay relevant dictates that change is necessary. For most, it will require a concerted effort to embrace diversity. Racial and ethnic diversity have historically been the most widely addressed dimensions of diversity. However, as institutions continue to advance their efforts, they create a more welcoming campus climate for all individuals and groups.A current focus of diversity efforts includes the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population. This review will look at the issues and challenges of the LGBT population on college campuses; mainly covering the need to ease the levels violence and harassment on campuses and the desire for inclusion and social justice, and suggesting strategies to address these issues. Due to the nature of the coming out process, there are fundamental challenges to learning the experiences of the LGBT population.The labels lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender as sexual identity labels present particular problems: A student may be able to articulate feelings of attraction to the same-sex, though are reluctant to adopt the label of lesbian, gay and/or bisexual (Rankin 2003). The challenges that the LGBT population face are neither new nor surprising but the need to address them is certainly relevant (Thiel, 2010). In fact, it appears that for as much progress that has been made on some campuses, there has been no progress on others.The presence of violence and harassment, as well as the desire for inclusion and justice, indicates the need for attention and research as a chilly campus climate can make for a distressing experience for LGBT students, faculty, and staff. As might be expected, LGBT students’ perceptions of the campus climate and their experiences differ from those of other members of the campus community (Rankin, 2003; Liang & Alimo, 2005). Some LGBT students feel that they are treated different because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.They have difficulty achieving their full academic potential and trouble fully participating in the campus community (Rankin, 2003; Brown, Clarke, Gortmaker, & Robinson-Keilig, 2004). In a study by Liang & Alimo (2005), students shared that they had been discriminated against, physically assaulted and harassed in residence halls, and marginalized in their classes. Physical and verbal anti-gay and lesbian harassment has been documented on all campuses where research on the LGBT population has been conducted, and these behaviors seem to be on the rise nationwide (National Lesbian and Gay Task Force, n. . ). This homonegativity affects LGBT individuals’ physical as well as psychological health (Liang & Alimo, 2005). The LGBT campus experience is at best benign and at worst hostile (Rankin, 2003). Among these challenges, Ran kin (2003) states are mental health issues, discrimination, relationship issues, and harassment/abuse. Likewise, LGBT faculty, staff, and administrators may suffer because of the same prejudices, limiting their ability to achieve their career goals and to mentor or support students.Because the LGBT population is an invisible minority, LGBT individuals may experience anxiety about who knows their sexual orientation or gender identity and who they can safely share that information with (Rankin, 2003). In addition, individuals who identify as LGBT are often at higher risk for substance abuse and suicide because of these issues and the lack of a positive support system. LGBT individuals do not share the same protections as other minorities groups in the United States.While it is no longer legal to discriminate based on race, skin color, ethnicity, disability, age, sex, or veteran’s status, it is still legal to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Relations hips may also suffer. A LGBT’s social network may ebb and flow drastically as they come out to individuals they consider â€Å"friends. † LGBT individuals may lose some friends and gain others as they come out. This could drastically change their social network.Similarly, LGBT individuals often face rejection from their families. This can manifest as a loss of financial assistance, being â€Å"kicked-out† of the home, or being completely cutting off from all communication and ties to their families. Harassment and abuse can also be a problem. LGBT individuals may face harassment in many different forms. LGBT individuals may encounter increased negative attitudes, jokes, verbal taunting, or bullying because of their sexual orientation or gender identity (National Lesbian and Gay Task Force, n. d. ).In addition, LGBT individuals may be intimidated or blackmailed by others who threaten to â€Å"out† them if they do not do something. This population may also be targets of violence. They could be targeted because they may be seen as â€Å"weaker† or less likely to either fight back or report the crime/incident (Thiel & Diehl, 2010; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, n. d. ). LGBT individuals are less likely to report these incidents because they do not want to disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity to authorities for fear of further repercussions from colleagues, friends, or family.Research shows that involvement in college life positively affects the LGBT experience (Rankin 2003). In addition, there are indications that the campus climate affects students’ social and emotional development, as well as their academic performance (National Lesbian and Gay Task Force, n. d. ). It also appears that there is much more in the way of student support on college campuses than there is faculty support. It is no surprise then, that the student experiences are somewhat better while the faculty experiences a chillie r climate (Brown et al. 2004). These findings suggest that an effective strategy for improving the campus climate for LGBT students needs to include system-wide efforts and involves promoting the acknowledgement, acceptance, and affirmation of all people. Campus diversity leaders and student affairs professionals will likely to be the most receptive, while some faculty and administrators will be more supportive than others will be (Brown et al. , 2004).Other recommendations to improve the campus climate for LGBT students include recruiting and retaining LGBT faculty, staff, and students, demonstrating institutional commitment to LGBT issues and concerns, integrating LGBT issues and concerns into the curriculum, providing educational programming on LGBT issues, and creating safe spaces for dialogue and interaction (Rankin, 2003; Liang & Alimo, 2005; University of Wisconsin Madison, 2008).Incorporating sexual orientation and gender identity topics into student, parent, faculty, and st aff orientation courses is important, as is informing parents of LGBT students about resources and services available on campus for their child (Angeli, 2009). Freshmen seminars and other first-year courses could be important venues for discussions of LGBT-related topics. Residence hall assistants (RAs) are also an important target group for training, as RAs are often a first esource for LGBT students dealing with coming out issues (Brown et al. , 2004). Other recommendations for improving student recruitment are as follows: Improve accessibility to LGBT information on college web sites (create one if there is not), attend national LGBT recruitment fairs, and work with the LGBT Campus Center to create a recruiting pamphlet on LGBT life on campus. For campuses without an LGBT Campus Center, the school should work to create one.LGBT Centers exist to reduce violence and harassment, and aid in the effort to promote inclusion and social justice (University of Wisconsin Madison, 2008). To ensure fair and equal treatment in the classroom, the main priority for faculty is to involve the students in the process of teaching/learning. With the many races, cultures, and groups that make up classes, having a continually engaged classroom is a challenging proposition at best and no one wants to feel marginalized.Additionally, when discussing current events, include LGBT issues as one of the topics, and be very clear with your students that homophobic and heterosexist comments and actions are not acceptable (Lock Haven University, 2000). Another initiative that could help support the LGBT student population while at the same time demonstrate institutional commitment to would to create â€Å"safe spaces† or â€Å"safe zones† where faculty/staff/students can choose to make their office or department a place for mentoring, peer counseling, dialogue, and interaction with LGBT students, faculty, and staff (Angeli, 2009).Faculty/staff leaders should work closely with campus diversity leaders (and the LGBT Campus Organization, if there is one) to ensure the inclusion of LGBT faculty and staff in the campus’ various recruitment efforts and to provide programs and services important to LGBT faculty and staff retention. This would include working to achieve domestic partner benefits for LGBT and other unmarried campus faculty and staff, and the creation and funding of an LGBT faculty/staff mentoring program (University of Wisconsin Madison, 2008).Such initiatives should be the combined efforts of administrative, faculty and staff representatives (University of Wisconsin Madison, 2008). Encouraging openly LGBT students, faculty, and staff to join and lead university committees and organizations without fear of repercussion is also a step in the right direction (Angeli, 2009). Campus administrators should enforce local anti-discrimination laws and policies on campus, ban discrimination in instructional materials and textbooks, and encourage th e use of materials that reflect gender diversity.Angeli (2009) reported that not all campuses have established such inclusive policies, and this leaves LGBT students without many options for repercussion when they experience discrimination. For example, hateful graffiti on campus should be removed quickly and those who did it punished appropriately. Sexual orientation and gender identity could be considered its own demographic and colleges should collect and report LGBT data in the same manner as gender, race, ethnicity, and disability data (Angeli, 2009).As more surveys and forms include questions on sexual orientation and gender identity, and, as campuses provide assurance that students’ privacy will be protected, it is likely that data that are more complete will become available. In other words, as the climate becomes â€Å"less chilly,† more students, faculty, and staff will feel more welcomed and, thus, more likely to share more about themselves (Angeli, 2009). P ositive attitudes of heterosexual peers can help to provide a campus climate that is welcoming and more supportive of the LGBT population, which may facilitate the development of a positive identity (Liang & Alimo, 2005).Heterosexuals have a large role in perpetuating this climate, as they have been the source for much of the homonegative behavior (Liang & Alimo, 2005). If the campus promotes itself an advocate for justice, it is not enough just to change a policy or to use ‘buzzwords;’ a new culture/atmosphere has to be created. Implementing such a campus-wide approach will necessitate support from top campus administrators (Rankin, 2003; Tierney, 1992).In addition, just because an anti-discrimination statement has been updated to include sexual orientation & gender identity, this does not mean inclusion, or even a consistent welcoming climate (University of Wisconsin Madison, 2008). Not seeing any progress in any of the areas discussed above is an indication that the campus has not yet integrated LGBT issues into the university’s understanding of its responsibilities to create a diverse and inclusive climate (Lock Haven University, 2000; University of Wisconsin Madison, 2008).The right thing to do is to create a more welcoming campus climate for all individuals and groups by reducing violence and harassment, and advancing social justice and inclusion efforts. All groups deserve this consideration because they matter. References Angeli, M. California Postsecondary Commission at its meeting on June 9, 2009. Access and equity for all students: Meeting the needs of LGBT students. Retrieved online on March 24, 2010 from http://www. cpec. ca. gov /completereports/2009reports/09-14. pdf Brown, R. D. , Clarke, B. Gortmaker, V. , & Robinson-Keilig, R. (2004). Assessing the campus climate for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) students using a multiple perspectives approach. Journal of College Student Development, 45(1), 8-26. Liang, C. T. H. & Alimo, C. (2005). The impact of white heterosexual students’ interactions on attitudes toward lesbian, gay and bisexual people: A longitudinal study. Journal of College Student Development, 46(3), 237-250. Lock Haven University Safe Zone. (n. d. ). Originally written by Troy Gilbert of StanfordUniversity, then modified by Martha Ann Spruill (Jan 14, 2000), then modified again for the LHU community. Retrieved online on March 24, 2010 from http://www. lhup. edu/safezone/support. html National Lesbian and Gay Task Force. (n. d. ). Retrieved March 23, 2010 from www. thetaskforce. org /issues/hate_crimes_main_page/overview. Rankin, S. R. (2003). Campus climate for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people: A national perspective. New York: The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute. www. ngltf. org Thiel, M. J. , & Diehl, S. (2010).Campus gay and lesbian issues in the new millennium. Retrieved on 3/20/2010 from http://www. gvsu. edu/allies/index. cfm ? id=80B3F0D0-A5DC-ECEE-44313D44883F471B University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. (n. d. ). Issues/concerns for the LGBTQ Population. Retrieved March 23, 2010 from http://safezone. uncc. edu/allies /ally-manual/issues. University of Wisconsin Madison Faculty Document 2056. (2008). Report of the committee on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues. Retrieved onlineMarch 23, 2010 from http://acstaff. wisc. edu/FacDoc2056LGBT-AR07. pdf

Night of the Scorpio Essay Example

Night of the Scorpio Essay Example Night of the Scorpio Paper Night of the Scorpio Paper The author in Sacrifice tries to put the reader in the perspective of the goat to make it feel more intense which takes place in the first and third stanza. In the fourth stanza, the children, blank templates, are looking on over this tableau, being programmed as though this is a normal occurrence.  The Night of the Scorpion had a lot of comparisons such as the peasants are compared to flys swarming and the shadows like giant scorpions.  The last stanza, in Sacrifice is a shock of sorts. We are not laying the foundations of a house and But another Dachau. There is so little preparation for this in the poem. Dachau is a concentration camp you would have to do research to find out what went on during the Second World War to understand what Rafat intended the audience to believe. Within Night of the Scorpion you can see panic in the fathers. As a married person I can feel what is going through the fathers thoughts. The team work that a partnership needs to survive, when one facet of the team has gone the team fall to pieces for a while, until a leader pulls the team together. This is one of the thoughts going through the fathers mind. Also there is the other thought of devotion and love for his wife. This leads him to try any thing in his power to keep the team together even thought he might be a sceptic with some of the ideas to help his wife. For something to be as vividly in Ezekiels mind as when his mother got stung it must have been quite horrific. His Mother is glad it was not her children. As a parent it always seems that there is a stronger bond between the children and their mother, as she is pleased she was bitten and not the children. It was such a frantic poem but at least it did have a happy ending.  In Sacrifice why did Taufiq Rafat go to his friends house for this ceremony? This is the question I have been looking at in my endeavour to understand the poets mentality. If I was going to a ceremony which involved such a horrific sacrifice I would turn down the invitation. Overall the poem was very disturbing and I felt like putting it down after the first stanza. The last stanza highlight exactly how I feel about the whole poem, But another Dachau.  The poems where totally opposite to each other, one showing love, panic and relief the other showing brutality, control and disgust. My favourite was the Night of the Scorpion at least it had a happy ending.

Heroic Figures of the 21st Century Steve Jobs and Julian Assange essay part 2Essay Writing Service

Heroic Figures of the 21st Century Steve Jobs and Julian Assange essay part 2Essay Writing Service Heroic Figures of the 21st Century: Steve Jobs and Julian Assange essay part 2 Heroic Figures of the 21st Century: Steve Jobs and Julian Assange essay part 2Heroic Figures of the 21st Century: Steve Jobs and Julian Assange essay part  1Another prominent figure, who is perceived by many people as a hero, is Julian Assange. Even though he is quite a controversial figure in light of his legal prosecution, his contribution to the freedom of press can hardly be underestimated because he is the founder of WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website, which published wires of many government agencies, including the US government agencies uncovering the secret information.The controversy of Julian Assange relates to the legal aspect of his work as editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. His goal was to publish the information which he presented as the true wires and which probably were but which were obtained in the illegal or, at least, questionable way, because some of the wires were top secret. In such a way, Assange’s actions were questionable from the legal point of view. His critics (Domscheit-Berg Klopp 174) argue that his actions were inappropriate and they may threaten to the national security of many states because they uncover the secret communication that involved statesmen and professionals working in government agencies. Moreover, critics (Brooke 185) also argue that one can never be certain that the information published by Assange via WikiLeaks is always true and is properly understood.On the other hand, his WikiLeaks and his attempt to make the government policy and actions as transparent as possible became an important issue in the world since many people throughout the world supported his attempt. In fact, the average people perceive his actions as the attempt to make the truth available to the public. The main achievement that made Julian Assange the heroic figure of the 21st century is the fact that he was the person, who is now well-known worldwide, who has questioned the authority of the state over sovereignty of people through the manipulation with information and public opinion. To put it more precisely, Assange and his followers question whether the government should have the authority to keep some information in secret and hide it from the public eye or probably, as Assange believes, the public has the right to have access to all the information about the government and policies it conducts. Such a position is very strong, especially, when many governments attempt to manipulate with the public opinion and just play tricks on the public.At the same time, the government of the US as well as many other government agencies of other countries of the world viewed Assange as a criminal, who violates legal norms concerning top secret information and information protection. Formally, the position of governments and government agencies is, to a significant extent, just, but from the ethical standpoint, his actions are justifiable because often government agencies, intelligence and other government bodies attempt to manipulate with the public opinion and use means and tools that are questionable from the ethical point of view. At this point, it is possible to refer to the case of the war on Iraq launched by the US on the intelligence’s assumption that Iraq owned the weapon of mass destruction and could use it against the US or its allies, while, in actuality, Iraq had no such weapon at all (Mohrman 195). The US policy makers could have been aware of this fact but they used the intelligence report as the pretext to launch the war on Iraq to reach certain economic and geopolitical goals of the US in the Gulf region. This case reveals the full extent to which activities of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange are important in the revelation of true actions of the government.In fact, many supporters of Assange view him as a person, who attempted to re-establish the sovereignty of people and the people’s control over the government and government agencies through the freedom of press. The ult imate transparency of the government agencies, if applied worldwide, could have changed the world politics and international relations. However, at the moment, Assange faces the risk of prosecution, which his supporters (Brooke 152) view as an attempt to repress him for his activities against schemes and manipulations of governments of many countries, especially the US. Therefore, in spite of the controversy of Assange as a heroic figure, he is still a person that has had a considerable impact on the global community and public in many countries of the world.At the same time, Assange is similar in a way to Jobs since he also contributed to the wider involvement of the public into the communication process through sharing important information online. However, if Assange provided the information worth sharing with the public, than Jobs did his best to provide the public with means and media to receive and share this information fast, effectively and without boundaries.Thus, Steve Job s and Julian Assange are two different but apparently heroic figures of the 20th century. On the one hand, there is a successful leader, manager and innovator Jobs, who raised information technologies and communication systems available to the public to the unparalleled level. On the other hand, there is Julian Assange, a journalist and publisher, who has attempted to make information available to all, including the information which the authorities rank as secret or even top secret. In such a way, the former provided the universal means of communication, whereas the latter offered the world the free access to the information which many governments try to hide doing their best. However, what makes them both truly heroic is that they have changed the world, to a significant extent. Jobs revolutionized the IT and communication market with Apple’s iPhone, whereas Assange has questioned the power and authority of the state to hide certain information from people questioning wheth er the state can suppress the sovereignty of people through hiding and manipulating with information.

The Best Place To Put Social Media Buttons On Your Blog

The Best Place To Put Social Media Buttons On Your Blog Have you ever wondered  where the best place to put social media buttons on your blog is? If so, youre not alone. Back when we first added  social sharing analytics  to over a year ago,  I wondered  the same thing.  There are so many small tweaks that you can make to your blog layout thatll  improve conversions and reader experience.  Surely, I thought, there has to be a set of best practices for social media buttons as well. I set out to find all the data on which best influences social sharing on our blog.  What I found may actually surprise you.  Are you ready to see how you can improve social media sharing on your on blog? If so, read on! Im going to improve my #socialmedia button placement to get more social sharing. #blogging Why Worry About Social Media Buttons? This is a common question, and the answer is a bit more complicated than it might seem at first. In 2016, social media is as important as ever.  However, there is still some debate whether or not social media buttons drive clicks. Part of the reason for that discussion likely derives from how many blogs and sites implement social media buttons ineffectively. It's not entirely fair to judge a design decision that isn't set up for success, but we also don't want to make decisions that can't be supported by accurate data. That's why it's important to make sure you get the design and placement of your buttons correct. It's not enough that your buttons simply look good, or that they are just present somewhere on your pages. They need to be placed where they're going to catch your readers attention and make it easy to share your awesome content with their followers. So Many Options, So Many Opinions By now, you've probably gathered that there's  a lot of chatter about this topic. A quick Google search reveals  this discussion at Stack Exchange, which considers whether social media buttons should be placed at the beginning or end of a blog post. Despite all of the discussion, there is little evidence to back those ideas up. Even this conversation over at Moz.com fails to provide solid evidence on the subject. It seems like we may be just guessing. Can't we do better than that? To start digging, I looked  at what some of the most common options are. I started with the question, "Where do some of the biggest sites on the web place their social media buttons?" The answer? Everywhere! Popular Placement Options For  Social Media Buttons: Top of post  - Do users share before they actually read the article? This is one of the most common placement options frequently used by sites like TechCrunch and Mashable. Left of post -  Placing social buttons to the left of the blog post makes a lot of sense, as readers follow text left to right. This is the placement that we use here at . Right of post  - This one surprised me, but it is out there. Social Media Examiner is a good example of a site with this placement. Bottom of post  - Placing social media buttons at the bottom of the post was very common, and the only place you will find social buttons on Seth Godin's blog. Is he missing out on possible shares because of this placement? In-line of post  - A growing trend is to actually   place shareable content inline with the rest of your content. We do this regularly on our blog using our   plugin. No social buttons at all  - This is a surprising and growing trend heralded by sites like the Signal v. Noise blog by Basecamp. Are they hurting their chances for viral success? We'll look into this in a minute, but for now, that's the playing field. The question still lingers- where do these sharing buttons perform the best? The answer is, admittedly, a bit hard to find (which may be why so many sites place them so seemingly haphazardly) but there are certainly some big data points that we can examine to reach a conclusion. Data Point #1: Prominence Matters More Than Placement Popular social sharing tool AddThis provides some excellent insight on this topic.   Their advice to users is as follows: Pick a prominent position: The more visible the button is the more people will bookmark and share your content, which will lead more traffic back to your site. Keep your button near the top of the page: Avoid making your readers scroll to find your sharing button. It is okay to have the button at the top and bottom of the page, but users will find it easier at the top. Place the button in close proximity to the content being shared: This helps readers understand what they are sharing. Watch out for navigation:  Be careful about placing the button too close to navigation, so users don't interact with it by accident. From these tips, we can easily conclude that prominence matters more than placement when it comes to social media buttons. With the wrong placement, readers can easily mistake social buttons as ads or other navigation. This will likely result in lower usage for the buttons. Reading through the lines, we can also see that AddThis advocates  keeping social media buttons near the top-left side of the  page- a conclusion  that  is  supported by other sources. Data Point  #2:  Users Interact With The Top Left Side The Most According to usability icon Jacob Nielson and a study that he conducted in 2006,  eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe. Readers view your page in an F-style pattern. Keep this in mind when placing social media buttons. The  top left portion is the most-viewed part of the web page.  Ã‚  More eyes go there than anywhere else. This supports the idea that left and top are best choices for social share buttons, as indicated by AddThis. Readers view your page in an F-style pattern. Keep this in mind when placing #socialmedia buttons....Data Point #3:  Too Many Social Buttons Will Make Things Worse Doug Antkowiak  makes a great point about social media buttons on the Search Engine Journal blog. He points out that too many social buttons may negatively impact  the speed of your website. This is a big red flag, as site speed has been clearly linked to better readership and SEO performance. The most valuable conclusion that we can draw from this is that we should  limit the number of social media buttons that we display to as few as possible. The risks of slowing down our site just isn't worth it. Social media buttons provide one of those situations where more is not necessarily better. The data here continues: After polling 50 of the most popular websites in the world, Webaholic.co.in  found that Facebook and Twitter were easily the most-used social media buttons on the web with Linkedin and Google+ also showing strong results. They concluded that the utility of each of those networks fluctuated quite a bit depending on the audience type for each site. This evidence is backed up by  TrackMaven's  more polarizing  conclusion  after  examining nearly 2 billion social shares. Their data concluded that the vast majority of social shares take place on the top two social networks (Twitter and Facebook). Clearly, we don't need to include all networks to make a good use of social media buttons. In this report, TrackMaven reveals that 38.6% of social shares were on Twitter. Facebook â€Å"likes† and  Ã¢â‚¬Å"shares†Ã‚  accommodated  for another 60.3%. Data Point #4:  Under-Used Social Buttons Provide Negative Social Proof Social proof  is a psychological phenomenon where people use the actions of others to guide their own behavior. In essence, it's the  psychological term for "monkey see monkey do." As one of our own writers, Julie once pointed out: â€Å"Social proof is a shortcut in the thought process. We don’t have to think. The others already did (we assume).† The reality is that social proof plays a big role in social sharing and can make a big impact on the success of social media buttons. Negative social proof diminishes the value of the social sharing button. In a now classic A/B test,  Taloon.com   (a Finland-based hardware eCommerce store) found that social media buttons were actually hurting their conversion rates. When they removed the social media buttons from their page, they recorded an 11.9% increase in CTA clickthroughs as compared to the original page. If the results surprise you, you can read more here, but social proof gives us a clear answer for this result. Because very few people actually  Ã¢â‚¬Å"like† product pages, the near zero results on social media buttons were actually providing negative social proof- preventing users from purchasing what they were perceiving as an unpopular product. As Chris Coyer points out on his CSS-Tricks blog, "low numbers can look embarrassing." Near zero results on #socialmediabuttons may actually be providing near-negative social proof....Data Point #5: Social Sharing Buttons Can Bring Traffic In one of the more complete (but not scientific) studies on the value of social sharing buttons, blogger  Joshua Benton concludes that many news organizations receive 20% of their Twitter traffic from Tweet buttons available on their page. That's actually a pretty big deal! For example, 16.3 percent of tweets to the New York Times in his tests actually came from a Twitter social media button on the site itself. For the  Wall Street Journal, the share rate was more like  20.2 percent. Not bad, huh?  Social media buttons can help traffic after all. 20.2%  of tweets to the #WallStreetJournal actually came from their Twitter share button.One point to keep in mind, however, is that Twitter recently  removed the ability for social sharing buttons to display their sharing stats  for that platform. So, while the presence of a button to tweet an article may help boost shares, publishers have lost the benefit of positive social proof that comes from having a stat counter. That makes it tougher to see how many times your posts are getting tweeted, but  if you have some technical skills, Google has a partial solution using Google Analytics. It won't let you display within your social sharing widget how may times a post was shared on Twitter, but it can at least help you know for yourself if readers are clicking your Twitter button. Data Point #6: Negative  Sentiment Against Social Sharing Buttons Is Gaining Momentum, But Why? Despite the results from the New York Times and The  Wall Street Journal, not all publications have seen the same success. UK blog  Inside GOV.UK  reported a paltry 0.2% increase in shares after adding social media buttons to their site. While buttons being placed at the bottom of the page couldn't have helped, their results are in line with conclusions developed by Luke Wroblewski, who felt that only 0.25% of Tweets were actually attributable to a social media button after analyzing more than 18 million page views. Others, like Signal v. Noise just prefer the way their site looks and loads without them and believes that if someone wants to share their content, they will find a way. To each their own, of course, but there is definitely some truth in the matter. Just a quick survey around the office concludes that  most social sharing takes place outside of the article itself, and can be attributed to a  variety  of other tools. A few  examples of this include: Buffer Chrome Extensions Other Social Browser Extensions Feedly, FlipBook, and Other RSS/Content Readers Mobile browsers Pocket And more than we can list Conclusion: Where Is The Best Place To Put Social Media Buttons On My Blog? The opinions about social sharing buttons are wide, but often not particularly deep. Reality is, that it just depends on your own blog and audience type. But, being the adventurous sort that I am, I think that we can easily answer this question (at least to find what's true in most cases). And the winner is...

Terrorism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 3

Terrorism - Essay Example Motivations and goals of terrorists vary widely. They vary from grand schemes to aims that are more distinct. The grand schemes include activities like the total remaking of a society along fundamental religious or doctrinaire ideological lines and the fulfillment of divinely inspired millenarian imperatives. The more distinct aims include unification of undivided states to the reestablishment of national homelands. Nevertheless, issue-specific causes such as animal rights, banning of abortion or other environmental concerns still motivates some terrorists. These individuals seek to apply direct pressure on the public and the government. The pressure is meant to make the legislators enact or repeal legislations that directly affect the terrorists’ particular interest. Despite the differences that exist between the different terrorist groups, the one thing that they have in common is that the actions they commit are not senseless or random. All the terrorists’ desire is for their actions to receive as much publicity as possible and aims at subjection and intimidation to attain their objectives. Hoffman argues that â€Å"Terrorists seek to impress. All the actions they perform are a play to and for a specific audience for the solicitation of the audience’s participation (Hoffman 173).’ Some like-minded individuals carry out their initiatives knowing that people will assume that they are Muslims. These individuals take advantage of the simplicity of undertaking terror attacks in order to achieve maximum damage and publicity.

Deregulation of energy Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Deregulation of energy - Research Paper Example Energy is necessary for carrying on our daily activities. Both individuals and businesses consume energy. Individuals use it at home in the form of gas for heating and electricity for lighting, providing power for the operation of washing machines, computers, televisions, radios, small appliances such as irons and blenders. Businesses use energy in some form to keep their operations going. However, manufacturing firms use energy to produce the goods they depend on in order to generate revenues. Oil and natural gas has been deregulated since the late 1970’s (Horwitz 1990). While deregulating the industry may provide benefits it may have other less favorable consequences. This paper looks at the impact of deregulation of the energy industry on consumers, producers and United States economy. The null hypothesis is that deregulation of the energy industry has resulted in increased benefits for both consumers and producers but has resulted in increasing levels of imports and therefore a negative impact on the US trade balance. This study is significant since it will indicate how various levels of deregulation in the energy industry over the years have impacted the US and Canadian economies. This research will definitely help in directing policy changes in the future. Hammond and Knott (1986) while looking at deregulation in the financial industry indicated that although theories relating to regulation do not always focus on the same types of variables, researchers indicate that many of them reproduce the same effects – once they have been initiated they are difficult to eliminate and it is almost inevitably leads to more regulation. However, Hammond and Knott (1986) indicate that these arguments do not support the trends since 1975 as there have been significant deregulations in almost every year. Deregulation in various industries such as telecommunications has

Homicide and Criminal Justice Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Homicide and Criminal Justice - Term Paper Example As noted by Fox and Jack (2001), homicide is considered excusable if death results from a mistake that cannot be described as sufficient to declare someone guilty. An example of excusable homicide is a road accident that leads to death but does not result from driver’s serious negligence. Justifiable homicide is the acceptable killing of a person (Fox & Jack, 2001). For example, a person can kill another person in self-defense or soldiers can shoot and kill members of enemy camps without committing criminal offenses. Acceptable killing is also called non-felonious homicide (Fox & Jack, 2001). On the other hand, felonious homicides – also known as criminal homicides - comprise of two broad forms of illegal killing (Fox & Jack, 2001). In this regard, as pointed out by Fox and Jack, a felonious homicide that is not premeditated is called manslaughter in most US states. The worst form of homicide called murder is a criminal act in which a person’s meditation to kill leads to the actual killing of another person (Fox & Jack, 2001). In some states, criminal homicide is classified in terms of degrees depending on circumstances under which killing takes place. A person can bear murder related responsibilities in two ways (Arafa, 2008). First, an individual can only bear criminal liability for murder if he or she intended to kill and actually killed another person. However, according to Arafa (2008), sometimes people can bear criminal responsibilities for crimes they did not commit. In this regard, a person who assists or encourages the commission of murder bears accomplice responsibility. A person can only be an accomplice in the murder case if he or she wanted the killed person to die and would bear responsibility for any other crime committed as a result of the commission of the original crime (Arafa, 2008).

Supply chain management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 7

Supply chain management - Essay Example However, such a move could not cope with increasingly seasonal demand patterns, along with short-term variations resulting from weather, political instabilities in cocoa producing nations, and aggressive marketing campaigns (Slack, Stuart, & Johnston, 2010, p.57). The intricacies in terms of processing, production and transportation, is mirrored by the multilayered makeup of the chocolate industry, whereby there are discrete product markets within the various stages in the supply chain. This then generates massive implications in terms of transportation, legal disputes based on competition laws, and unbalanced exportat requirements, especially when defining pertinent product market within the chain (Waters, 2003, p.60). For instance, the chocolate market is widely perceived to be distinct from the consumer chocolate products, which is then categorized into numerous product segments. The goal is not just to control the constancy of the chocolate products, but also to influence it, and they have made dependability as an important external aspect, when it comes to consumer service. The changes that are occurring along the chocolate supply chain are mostly driven by the developments towards branded consumerism. In this industry, public perception is focused on the responsibilities of key chocolate brands. Therefore, the companies have to contend with their level of direct publicity to social plus developmental matters in cocoa-producing nations. This shift should be based on the premise that operations management within a strategic level entails performance objectives being linked to the interests of the chocolate operation’s stakeholders (Slack, Stuart, & Johnston, 2010, p. 56). In this case, they connect to the company’s responsibility to their consumers, suppliers/famers, their shareholders, employees, as well as the wider society (Slack, Stuart, & Johnston,

Commentaries for Same Group Members' Polished Thesis Draft Essay

Commentaries for Same Group Members' Polished Thesis Draft - Essay Example Rather what can be used is how Kripal’s book and comments made in the book on the topic of discussion is related to the paper. Although several quotes have been used in the paper, but it is also important to discuss briefly the inner meaning of these quotes, these are not provided sufficiently in the paper. For instance, Atmajnanananda’s remark on Kripal’s thought has not been properly discussed in the paper. It is unsuitable to use the sentence â€Å"This paper discusses the relationship between the religious organization Soka Gakkai and Komeito, a Japanese political party†¦Ã¢â‚¬  in the beginning of the abstract. Rather the brief idea about the topic and its importance can be provided in the abstract first followed by the sentence. The in-text referencing style is not properly used in the entire paper. Also there is no proper reference or bibliography list of references at the end of the paper. In the reference list short description of books or journal papers or websites are not required. The section â€Å"Soka Gakkai and Komeito: 1970-present† is too long period. This period can be distributed into different time phases in terms of importance of Soka Gakkai and Komeito in the religious structure of the country. It has been written in the paper that â€Å"One national, 13 regional and 47 prefectural Councils on Social Affairs determine the Soka Gakkai’s endorsements†, however the importance of this determination is not clear from following

Dell in China Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Dell in China - Essay Example With this rise in production, the country's revenue will expand together with individuals buying power. One of the social changes happening in China is the role of computing and computing equipments in the social system. The case mentioned that top-level managers are becoming more and more technologically adept as they are becoming internet savvy. The country is still immature in terms of technology. This is one of the most important considerations for Dell as it also wants to employ its direct-model strategy in China through the utilization of internet technology. The patronage of internet is hampered by the government's regulation which is speculated by the people to be against them. The major strength of Dell, Inc. is its utilization of a business model which enables it to reap various benefits which are not enjoyed by its competitors. The direct business cut a significant amount of cost in the company's supply chain by eliminating the less value adding activities in the value chain. Inventories were kept low and technological breakthroughs are delivered to the customer within a week opposed to previous two months. The direct business model also enabled the company to market directly to the customer, thereby offering more customized products. Another strength of Dell's is its cost leadership strategy.

Commentaries for Same Group Members' Polished Thesis Draft Essay

Commentaries for Same Group Members' Polished Thesis Draft - Essay Example Rather what can be used is how Kripal’s book and comments made in the book on the topic of discussion is related to the paper. Although several quotes have been used in the paper, but it is also important to discuss briefly the inner meaning of these quotes, these are not provided sufficiently in the paper. For instance, Atmajnanananda’s remark on Kripal’s thought has not been properly discussed in the paper. It is unsuitable to use the sentence â€Å"This paper discusses the relationship between the religious organization Soka Gakkai and Komeito, a Japanese political party†¦Ã¢â‚¬  in the beginning of the abstract. Rather the brief idea about the topic and its importance can be provided in the abstract first followed by the sentence. The in-text referencing style is not properly used in the entire paper. Also there is no proper reference or bibliography list of references at the end of the paper. In the reference list short description of books or journal papers or websites are not required. The section â€Å"Soka Gakkai and Komeito: 1970-present† is too long period. This period can be distributed into different time phases in terms of importance of Soka Gakkai and Komeito in the religious structure of the country. It has been written in the paper that â€Å"One national, 13 regional and 47 prefectural Councils on Social Affairs determine the Soka Gakkai’s endorsements†, however the importance of this determination is not clear from following

Contemporary Management issue (Emaad) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Contemporary Management issue (Emaad) - Essay Example These rules and principles are called ethical theories. Ethics and values differ in that ethics are acquired from philosophical theories while values are acquired informally through valuing process of socialization. For something to be considered to be a value it must have the three key components; freely chosen, the prize and acted upon. Nowadays the world is considered a global market hence the term Globalization which means that business around the world is reduced into borderless units where trade moves freely from border to border. However, globalization has influenced the erosion of business ethics. The global economy can be referred to as the removal of barriers to trade and investments and the unprecedented international mobility of capital. Sustainability is the ability of a business to meet its demand and supply in present and also in future, is an important aspect for business ethics. Businesses need to use resources meaningful so as not to affect future generation needs ( Crane & Matten, 2003). The case under consideration is the case against big tobacco companies i.e. Philip Morris, Reynolds, and Liggett on the safety of their products. These companies are being accused of knowingly selling harmful products such as cigarettes which cause lung cancer to consumers. They advertise their products to the general public especially targeting the youth and hiding the fact that the products are not healthy safe. They have also hindered various meaningful researches to determine the safety of their products and failed to produce freely safe products. Thus, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) gathered evidence and filed a suit against these companies for violating the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, hence they operated as outlaw companies since 1953. The DOJ also accused the companies of putting up advertisements that showed nicotine was not an addictive substance while they controlled the addictive nature of cigarettes to capture more and more customers. At the end of the assignment the following objectives will have been achieved. A good knowledge base and understanding on the various business ethics and moral issues. The duties of businesses to consumers and the theories involved. Also, discussion of other related theories to duties of organizations to consumers. To develop an international understanding of various business concepts by knowing the various norms and ethics of business involved. Be able to ethically reason when handling business related problems. Organization Duties to Consumers: It is worldwide accepted that businesses premises around the world cannot exist without the consumers. Thus organizations have an important role in ensuring it gives its consumers better and quality goods and services. They should avoid various malpractices like wrong labeling of products, untrue advertisements that are extremely exaggerated, adulteration (that is producing inferior products), and hoarding (hiding goods to create a shortage so as to raise the commodity prices). Consumers also have a right to demand better services and quality goods. The consumers need to be protected also from various businesses malpractices. Notably organizations which take consideration on the consumers usually prosper much than those who do not (Derry et al, 1989). The consumer has the right to choose whether to purchase or not to purchase a given product before examining it. Consumer interests usually

Electronic Notice Board Software

Electronic Notice Board Software ENB project was created to modernise the classic means of communication through the pin and paperboard based communication to the more efficient and dynamic communication of general information to the students of the Bolton University. Student and faculty will get the timely information while they are walking around School office or in Labs. ENB will remind the student about the critical dates for the exams, social events, and warnings etc. It will positively affect the student behaviour towards the academic excellence and time management. ENB will decrease the rate of late assignments submission and absents among the students. ENB will decrease the workload of university management for printing and pasting the traditional paper based notice boards. ENB system will not require any additional hardware and it will be developed in the Microsoft Visual Basic .net Express Edition and Microsoft SQL server Database hence low cost of development and implementation. ENB will bring forth a positive change in the university environment. ENB project was created using the VB.NET and SQL database express editions, which are free of cost. Database is designed to ensure the efficiency of the software in the network environment. A survey was conducted on the sample of students to evaluate the potential of ENB to improve the overall communication in the campus. To ensure the successful implementation of the project the software was tested and evaluated in the campus environment. The final solution met all the basic requirements and also delivered some extra features. Further features and improvement can be added in the future. The report has the details of the ENB project from start to end, including the requirement analysis, background research, design, implementation, testing and evaluation stages. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Problem Definition During my time in university I have missed many recreational occasions and a couple of times I have missed important dates of final assignment submissions as I was miss informed about the dates. All these errors of misinformation made me realize the necessity of an electronics notice board. In the University of Bolton there are many problems, distinguish is between rumour and true information. At times dates are changed and change of plan is very poorly communicated to the students and faculty, which creates confusion. In case of an ENB students will have access to important announcements while walking around and have the benefit of being reminded several times a day. Currently university administration is using a Paper based notice board. A printed black and white poster is pasted on the notice board to announce university events. The method indeed consumes the administrative and clerical time of the university. Sometimes the change of dates is not timely announced, which provokes frustration among the students of the concerned disciplines. The ENB project was realised and envisaged based on the concept of improving the communication channels within the University campus among students and the faculty members. For example to announce the start of new semester a simple piece of paper is loosely pasted at the front door notice board of school office. Sometimes the fonts are not appropriate and the black ink prints are not very attractive and appealing to grab the real attention of the concerned students. So the students miss the critical information and often submit the final project or prepare for the final exams very close to the deadline. In my opinion irrespective of the students aptitude the fault might be at the universitys end. The ENB will effectively convey the key academic information to the students hence there will be great reduction in the late submission of the final projects and assignments. The ENB will play a powerful role at will increase the academic productive of the students. A notice board can be defined as Abulletin board(pinboard,pin boardornotice boardin British English) is a place where people can leave publicmessages [1] A Notice Board is a traditional tool for the dissemination of information in academic campuses. A traditional Notice board is made of a wooden frame with a soft central square of cork for pinning the papers of information for the students. Widespread adaptation of information technology has changed the traditional means of information dispersion. Electronic notice board is an innovative replacement for the traditional wood and cork notice boards. Due to the dynamic nature of the electronic notice board it has practical application in the corporate environment. Following are some of the case studies about the practical application of electronic notice board in both academic and corporate scenarios. Aim The project ENB aims to develop and implement application software that will disseminate the academic information in the network environment among the students and faculty members. The project ENB will open the new powerful channel of communication between university management and students. The solution will consist of a page server and client PCs as the notice boards. In the design phase I will focus on to simplifying the end user experience of using the ENB. End users will probably include members of admin staff. For the administrator it will be hassle free to upload the different formats of multimedia. There will be some quick templates to quickly upload the announcements. The ENB system first time configuration will be automatic therefore very easy. There must be server software on one end therefore the client side will automatically detect the server. In case of multiple page servers the ENB system will give options to connect. The ENB system will be Database driven hence it will take the minimal amount of network bandwidth. The ENB system will be network based therefore additional network optimization technology will be deployed to make it as fast as possible The system will be operated by Administrator and other staff to assist them in scheduling tasks for messages in the near future. Also an aim of the project is to develop the framework so that it is easy to extend in the future. Objectives The ENB system will be developed using the visual basic programming language and MS SQL SERVER database. I will focus on the following outcomes for the finished product. In order to satisfy the aim the following objectives need to be achieved: Deploying a software engineering methodology relevant to the ENB project Design a data model for ENB Design and develop an integrated system to query the data model Test and Evaluate the ENB against the requirements Minimum Requirements A prototype of an integrated framework for Electronic Notice Board system which can be informative and flexible. A prototype to input and store task commands. A prototype to input and store scheduled task commands. A prototype to input and transfer scheduled task to task command data. Enhancements A login system to provide security for the server application. View of Report of pending tasks for any date. View of Report of completed tasks for any date. Administrator prototype to add new users on database server. Administrator prototype to run client in Admin mode. Data bound schema to control scheduled tasks. Controlling the clients status active or inactive Input FIFO: First in First out. As task is set to client, it is executed straight away. Time Controlled pattern: Events are controlled by given time. Time can span to any number of minutes, hours or even days. Date Controlled pattern: Events are controlled by given Date. Time and date controlled pattern: combination of Time Controlled pattern and Date controlled pattern. Client Registration Data Primary Input Client Id, Client Name, Client Unique Id, Time of Registration, Date of Registration. Secondary Input Client State. Base Data (Client Data) Base table is basically a blueprint for all clients. (Primary Input) Record Id, Task Id, Task Command, Task Arguments (Additional input) Task in Time, Task in Date, Task State Scheduled Data It is same as Base Database. (Primary Input) Record Id, Task Id, Task Command, Task Arguments (Additional input) Task in Time, Task in Date, Task State Output For each task that is in current execution schema is grouped by registered users and are performed by clients on given time span. Scheduled tasks are placed in scheduler and on given time they are transferred to corresponding client(s) for execution. Requirements Analysis The purpose for this project is not to develop a system that can act as a notice board but to integrate and utilize data driven technology to accomplish complex tasks with ease without any additional hardware to display message. Integrated scheduling technology provides flexibility and automation. Orange valley systems are the market leader for marketing the ENB application for the business organizations Appendix WRITE IT IN END. A thorough analysis was conducted on the orange valley product. Basic idea for the ENB features was captured from the screen shots available from their website. In depth interviews were conducted with the students, friends, and the IT administrator staff. On collecting the requirement analysis data from the above research the following functional and non functional requirements were devised. Functional Requirements Add and edit tasks. Add and edit scheduled tasks. Add and remove tasks. Schedule tasks Display reports of tasks. Non Functional Requirements System must be easy to use and navigate. System should have a consistent interface. CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGIES Methodologies Communication is the lifeline of any social system. Success of any organization is directly related to the effectiveness for their communication systems. Academics are no exception for this. An effective campus communication system must be understood, credible, and practically utilized. Attributes about the campus communication In the year 1973 Mr. Anderson Jerry M presented his research papers at the Annual meeting of the Nebraska speech communication association. Title of the research papers were Improving the internal communication: A campus Quandary. Research papers were based on the formal interviews with the 90 interviewees. Each interview took 15 to 90 minutes. Interviewees were randomly selected persons of the campuses. Interviewees included the campus administrators, faculty, students, staff, alumni and trustees representing 30 post secondary institutions of different sizes. Past research data was also used to analyze the results of the research. The 1971-72 opinion research was based on an interview format designed to be open-ended to encourage respondents to call upon personal experience and ventilate feelings. The interviews unveiled the issues and anxieties regarding the campus communication. Two questions formed the basis for interviews, except in a few instances where a more structured questioning approach was necessitated to elicit more extended responses. Those two questions: From your perspective and experiences, how effective is communication on this campus? What, if anything, would you do to improve it? [2] Three general attitudes clearly emerged. The need for improved campus communication is among the most significant and pressing problems. When asked why, most answered that the functional operation of the campus was dependent upon communication effectiveness and it could be much improved, and internal effectiveness as perceived by those outside the campus would determine the level of future support. Recommendations for improvement were multiple, usually incomplete in development, and concluded with the statement that no clear solutions existed. Concern was expressed about the lack of sensitivity and attention to communication problems by those with the expertise to improve the situation and by others in positions to effect change. Opinion research drew the following conclusions. Research uncovered a strong need to improve the campus communication. Old faculty members were nostalgic about the good old days when they knew everybody in campus and always knew the important events Campus members realize the ultimate responsibility of communication lies on administration Administrator is frustrated about changing the campus communication. They dont understand the approach to the change. They themselves are confused on aligning their communication between deans and faculty. Faculty members and chairman were not happy with the unreasonable deadlines, dissemination of information in clusters, reactions to proposed policies. Communication denial and communication under load were the main concern of middle level management. Campus staff was concerned about the lack of confidence upon their colleagues due to surveillance and audit of their work. Information used to distort when passing down or up in the hierarchy of the organization. Traditional approaches were not working 20% of the sample showed their lack of interest for improving the campus communication. These were mostly the students and faculty members. Interviewees were most distrustful about the administrative communication behaviour especially lack of disclosure Solutions for improving the Campus Communication Communication had been improved using the technological advances. Providing informational announcement is on closed circuit television between classes had proven to be effective. The use of telephone answering services in offices during after hours, and as a message dissemination system for people to call and hear important recorded messages. Catalogues and bulletins and other information sources need be written with the sensitivity to readability. Departments or divisions, large institutions, should be encouraged to develop newsletters. Bulletin boards could be kept up to date and used more extensively I have chance to review the communication methods deployed by the UK universities. These are some general and specialise methods. News Kantor, Brian and Phil Lapsley Network News Transfer Protocol: A Proposed Standard for the Stream-Based Transmission of News. 1986. [3] Universities employ NNTP (network news transfer protocol) service named News as the official bulletin board. NNTP provides discussion forums for modules, programming languages and other both academic and non-academic topics. NNTP has also the application of a notice board where official announcements are posted. Students can access the news by any newsreader. Thunderbird email client and Tin are popular newsreader. Students are required to read the newsgroups on a regular basis as it is the main method of official communication between the school and students. It has been noticed in the recent years a falling trend of reading news among the university students. Email Universities provide everyone with an email account. Using email to communicate has several advantages. Email Communications are often more effective than printed direct mail. [4] Firstly email is a flexible system that by now has large amounts of web integration. Therefore people have flexibility in how to access their email account Secondly email is an accepted method of communication with people usually inspecting their email on a habitual basis and therefore messages be likely to get read. As a broader point, email is simply further widely used all-round. SIS The term SIS School Information System is used in some of the UK universities. SIS provides information on students, staff, modules, timetables, coursework and more. From the perspective of an undergraduate student, SIS provides access to the school timetables, modules information, and coursework results and is also used to facilitate the submission of electronic coursework. Module websites In most of the UK universities every module has its own WebPages. Modular group of pages can be accessed on adding codes in the official URL. These web pages typically include the outline of the module, lecture slides from each lecture, sample coursework, additional reading and information on the examination and assessment process for the module. [5] Wiki The simplest online database that could possibly work.[6] Universities have link to the WIKI. WIKI has rigorous information of how to and guides to using the facilities. The wiki provides plenty of helpful information and is frequently the first port of call for numerous students when students have a problem or desire information on the University facilities. University of Bolton has the WIKI. It also has new information that people are continuously adding. However until now nearly all of the edits have been through by staff or by a small selection of students. It has up till now to be fully embraced by undergraduate students with a small number of using it on a regular basis and barely any undergraduates contributing to it. VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) Mostly Uk Universities Library has a virtual learning environment which the universities developed in-house and launched in around 1996. Access to the environment is available through a web browser for both students and guests [7].The thought is to create a virtual campus online separated up into various buildings which house the different resources on offer. The quantity of information available varies from school to school and from module to module. For example the business school has a chat room, module information, lecture slides and past exam papers for a large number of their modules. The School of Computing however does not. This is most probably because all this information is available on the schools intranet. The VLE also provides quick access to searching Google, Oxford reference dictionary, Thesaurus.com, Institute and the library catalogue. Facebook Facebook is a social networking website analogous to MySpace. It was at first targeted at university students. The site was launched in 2004. It was primarily developed for student community of Harvard and extended to offer networks for other universities and ultimately opened membership to all and sundry in 2006. The idea is based around a series of networks, one for each university. In order to join the network one needs to use a valid email address for that institution (for instance, in order to join the University of Bolton network you require to use a @Bolton.ac.uk email address. You then have access to that networks features such as being able to view peoples profiles, joining groups and creating and replying to event invitations. Facebook is amazingly popular with students, claiming a penetration rate of 85% among US college students. Facebook also achieves very high levels of user retention. Over 50% of its user base visits the site every day [8] and on average each user view s 50 pages of the site per day. The main problem with Facebook from the perspective of the school is that is it not managed by the Institution and the Institution has no control over it. The school has no effective way to utilise Facebook to communicate with students as it does not have control over the School of Computing group on Facebook and only a minority of the staff are registered on the site. A more elemental problem is that Facebook is a social networking website intended for students and was not intended to be used for academic activities or to be utilised by academic institutions. Conclusion In the universities of UK current methods of campus communication do not seem to be engaging the students. Declining use of the News and other web based IT platform shows that students information needs are not met. Facebook is very popular but Universities have no control on it. Therefore it would appear to the Universities requirement to deal with these problems either by upgrading their existing systems or adopting a new system in order to engage students more and meet the new level of expectations of the students. CHAPTER 3 BACKGROUND RESEARCH Background Reading Software Engineering Methodologies A methodology is a structured approach to design and develop the software, hence reducing the chances of software project failure. Methodology provides a recommendation of a series of steps to be followed [9]. There are number of software development methodologies. The selection of the methodology depends on the scoop and complexity of the project. Some of the famous methodologies are Waterfall Model which is also described classical model [10]. The Spiral Model was introduced to replace the Waterfall Model [4]. The Spiral model is being criticised for its rigidity. The Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology became popular in the early 1990s due to the perceived deficiencies of the traditional waterfall approach [11]. RAD is ideal for the projects where requirements may change during or after the development.RAD has advantage on other methodologies to save the time required for development. Prototyping is another methodology in which developer builds an application from the requirements. There are two types of prototyping methodologies evolutionary prototyping and throwaway prototyping. It is important to decide in advance the selection for the type of prototyping methodology [12]. After a thorough analysis it seems that no single methodology is suitable for the ENB project. Chosen methodology will be explained in the following section. Chosen Methodology It has been decided after reviewing the common methodologies, it seems appropriate to select the Evolutionary prototyping methodology for the ENB project. RAD will be used to develop the required features of the ENB software. Using an only the approach of RAD will lead to the errors and the prototyping will allow correcting the errors. Prototyping has the four main stages. Identification of the requirements. Development of a prototype system. Review the prototype. Revisions and enhancements of the Prototype. Prototyping typing will allow the development of the certain module of the project. Even if the whole project is not developed, there will be basic system to be developed further in the future. For example server side application will be developed with all requirements of scheduling, the tasks and defining the users rights. The client application will be developed afterwards. Client application will have support for the features of the server. On the user evaluation the further features will be added on the server side. RAD will be used on each phase of the development therefore the client server applications will be developed rapidly. RAD will be used within each phase of development, so the Time Controlled pattern / Date Controlled pattern Input task will be developed rapidly. Similarly the other aspects will be developed like this and will together form the overall framework, which will develop as an evolutionary prototype. Each aspect of the system will be developed using a RAD approach and then modified, this will include the database development, the input component and the output component. The evolutionary prototype will allow for any bugs to be corrected during the development instead of detecting and correcting them during the testing phase. Tools and Applications Database Systems The system involves the use of a lot of information, some which will be needed several times and the most appropriate form of storage of this data is in a database. This will allow data to be saved from input to the system and retrieved to be used by the system. As an important aspect of this project is use of Time Control System. In this section several databases are reviewed for their suitability to this project. Microsoft Access Microsoft Access is Bundles of RDBS with the Microsoft Office. MS Access is widely spread on the windows based PCs. It is dependent on the windows environment therefore it cant be deployed on the Linux or UNIX environment. MS access has a GUI, Which facilitates creating the database tables and their relations, queries, forms and reports. MS Access is one of the best selling databases and it has a lot of support available from Microsoft and this is likely to remain so in the future [13]. MS access has disadvantages. It has data limit of 2GB. It is not ideal to use on the network. MS access has lax security measures to prevent the unauthorized access. These disadvantages would be an issue for this project as the system is likely to be accessed by a multiple users at a time and multimedia files will be run on it, it is very likely to exceed 2GB in size. There is a possible security risk of an MS Access database due to it being stored as a single file if un-trusted sources gain access to the folder it is contained in [14]. Most important drawback of MS Access is that lack of network support. ENB is totally depending on Network environment for communication which is by no means supported by MS Access. MS SQL Server MS SQL Server has been developed by Microsoft and it is their more expensive but more robust alternative to MS Access. MS SQL Server is more commonly used by businesses for small to medium sized databases. MS SQL Server is a high performance database with a bundle of functionality and it also has built in security features for LAN/WAN and web environment. There are free express versions of MS SQL Server that can be downloaded for free, however free versions offer less in functionality [15]. MS SQL Server utilizes Transact-SQL as its primary query language. MS SQL Server allows procedures to be stored within the database comparable to MS Access queries. This reduces load on the network bandwidth because only the variables are sent to the data along with the related procedures to be executed not the entire queries. This method is useful for the regular database queries. The method also protects the database from the injection attacks [16]. Sql server has the following disadvantages. It can only work on Windows environment Professional and Enterprise editions has costly license fee As far the ENB project the Enterprise edition is not required. MySQL MySQL is free open source relational database management system. MySQL is the most popular open source database due to its high performance [17]. MySQL has compatibility with any operating system including Linux, UNIX, Mac and Windows. It can also handle large amounts of data and provides security through user authorization and access privileges [18]. MySQL was designed to use on the internet, due to the high performance and very advance features MySQL is a favourite database for the desktop applications. A disadvantage of MySQL is that it is not ideal to set foreign key references [19]. PostgreSQL PostgreSQL is also an open source RDBMS, it is a platform independent database management system analogous to MySQL, however it has more advance features such as triggers. On implementing all features PostgreSQL performance is slower as compare to MySQL. PostgreSQL is the database of many high profile applications such as Skype and Hi5.com. PostgreSQL database design is more complex than MySQL. Performance of PostgreSQL is relatively slow [19]. Chosen Database Management System On reviewing the above database systems the following analysis are being concluded. Ms Access has been discarded from the selection list. It has no support for the network environment. Due to the network oriented nature of the ENB project the network performance is the core issue. Network performance cant be compromised. It will jeopardize the overall functionality of the project during the network load times. PostgreSQL has similar feature as MySQL. Both are discarded on the grounds of limited GUI support for development and maintenance. Both are not closely integrated with MS VB.Net. MS SQL server 2008 Express editions has been decided to be used as database platform for the ENB project. SQL Server 2008 Express is a correct choice for project to include Multimedia database services. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is a relational model database server produced by Microsoft. Its primary query languages are T-SQL and ANSI SQL. Due to the limited scoop of the ENB application I will use MS SQL Express Edition. Microsoft SQL Server Express is available at no cost. SQL Server Express edition relational database management system, comprises a database is limited for embedded and smaller-scale applications. Database engine is limited to receive work from a small number of users. It has several technical limitations; therefore it cant be deployed in the enterprise environment. Maximum database size of 4 GB per database. The 4 GB limit applies per database (log files excluded); but in some scenarios users can access more data through the use of multiple interconnected databases. It has the several advantages. The advantages are listed in the following lines. Its free of cost SQL server express edition has all the features required for my ENB project. SQL server express edition has Management studio. Limited support for multiple clients on LAN. SQL management studio will simplify the management and maintenance of the ENB database. Most of the IT technician and administrators are well versed with the MS SQL server. GUI tools will allow administrator to easily troubleshoot the common database issues. Main reason for selecting the SQL server is the TCP/IP pipes. TCP/IP pipes technology is very efficient on network as compare to the traditional TCP/IP packets. Programming Environments An appropriate programming environment is required for the system development. The programming tool must be capable to develop the graphical user interface to display the understandable output to the end user. In the ENB project the end user will the system administrator. It has been selected that MS SQL Server will be used to store the Database so the Programming tool must be able to interact with the MS SQL database. The chosen language should include support for object-oriented implementations. Booch (1998) stated Each object can be viewed as an independent little machine with a distinct role or responsibility [20]. Objected oriented language would allow efficient data parsing. The development in the high level programming tool is simpler than coding in the low level programming environment. Indeed high level programming tool reduces the cost of development as well the time spent on coding. Some of the programming environments are analyzed in the detail. Java Java is an object oriented programming language, developed by Sun Microsystems [21]. Java is a well accepted high-level language. ICN students study java during the firs