Saturday, August 31, 2019
Reagan Revolution Through President Obama
Strayer University 2012 ââ¬ËReagan Revolution through President Obamaâ⬠Prof. Jahangir Salehi Alesia Cleveland maitland campus Introduction Will the Obama Revolution advance Americaââ¬â¢s interest Washington, March 1, 2012-Thomas Jefferson once observed, ââ¬Å"Every generation disserves a new revolution. â⬠Depleted in war and facing economic collapse, America embraced Barrack Obama as a vanguard of the revolutionary hope in 2008. Where candidate Obama had a thin substantive record to assert the claim for highest elective office in 2008, Obama has laid down numerous markers since January 2009 that deserve and should get close scrutiny through Election Day.Turning Points in History Turning points in history can mean that changes in the ways things are done in the past, sometimes for the better and other times for the worse. Two notable turning points in history were the Industrial Revolution and also World War I. These both had some political and social impacts. The I ndustrial Revolution was a time of great change and increased efficiency. No more would be goods be produced by individual means of farming and agriculture, but now by the use of machinery and factories. Technology was beginning to increase along with the food supply as well as the population.However, this increase in population would be a greatly impact the social appearance of that time. Urbanization was becoming much more widespread. Cities were becoming overwhelming crowed and there was an increase in disease as well as severe child labor. Although child labor would be reduced somewhat due to unions, the Industrial Revolution still controlled both its posture and negative results. World War I was another turning point in history. The turning point consisted in the way war fought and how it has changed due in the advances in technology that took place during this time in the 1900s.War was triggered in the Balkans were the Ottoman Empire had once maintained control industrializati on and technology had both contributed in the advances n the development of weapons. The devastatingly was the cause of millions of deaths in World War I. War was fought in trenches and they used machine guns as well as tanks and hand grenades. There was definitely a turning point in the way of war would be fought. However, the most important turning point in the war had to be the involvement of the U. S. The U. S. tried to remain neutral in the war that ended up joining Allies.Thanksââ¬â¢ to the U. S. ââ¬â¢s involvement; however, the Allies received the help needed to win the war. In conclusion we can see the revolution and wars can be lead to positive and negative. How the Aids Epidemic was shook Americaââ¬â¢s HIV/AIDS continues to take a disproportionate toll on Americans, and Unites States leaders must take action now to address the diseaseââ¬â¢s devastating effect according to a new report. ââ¬Å"(Arias) throughout history of the epidemic, HIV/AIDS has been a persi stent cause of death in African American community. Reports say that blacks have been affected by HIV/AIDS epidemic and more than half of the new disease diagnose, despite being only 13% of the United States populationâ⬠. (Arias 1) the HIV/AIDS epidemic is an extremely serious cause of death in the African American community, but its spread can be prevented with the roper treatment and life practices. Many causes have been given on how African Americans are so seriously affected by the disease. The most suggested cause of African Americans contracting the disease is through sexual practices.Some of the sexual practices include unprotected activity. The disease is not just coming from one race but all races of people. The motivation For us to go to war with Iraq and Afghanistan the Bush administration has justified its war against Iraq on the grounds: Saddam Husseinââ¬â¢s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, his links to so-called terrorist including the notorio us terror network al-Qaeda, which carried attacks on American interests and soil, and liberating Iraqis from oppression and tyranny and bring it in the fold of democracy Advocates of war in the U.S. administration claimed that Iraq had continued to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMDââ¬â¢S), and with Saddam Hussein capable of making them available to terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda, it put the U. S. at a imminent risk. The Iraq carried on to seek as well as build weapons of mass destruction further holdup by the U. S. will simply allow Saddam to build up a larger and deadly armory.The Middle East and the Muslim world in wide ranging did not together in carry of al Qaeda history. The Americans public is at the moment trained for war, willing to admit causalities as well as strongly supports the president. In the past seven years there has been immense treaty of tension to the United States and Iraq the United States have been converting demeanor. References www. dail ykos. com www. aei. org/the Reagan revolution www. iv3. newsmax. com/a/real_obama
Identifying Emerging Issues in Mobile Learning Essay
The workshop series was funded by the UKââ¬â¢s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) as part of the Emerge Community within JISCââ¬â¢s own Users and Innovation research programme. This exploration focused on identifying emerging issues for the sector arising from the increasingly likely large scale use of Smartphones, PDAs and camera phones by learners in HE and FE, both on campus and in the workplace. This was carried out through scenario generation using three different futures prediction tools in three workshops. The following issues were identified as being the most likely to appear in the future of mobile learning five years from now: the increasing use of ââ¬Ëjust in timeââ¬â¢ and ââ¬Ëas and when necessaryââ¬â¢ training. the need for always on affordable connectivity and power. increased support for an approach to teaching and learning that is more collaborative than didactic. concerns over scalability; learning communities are divided over whether there is a role for mobile devices in formal teaching, especially in large groups and lectures. oncerns over the merging of personal and vocational information and practice. The strong match between affordances of mobile devices and learning opportunities in work based and experiential learning across the board. increased peer to peer networking and collaboration. the need for design specifications for a secure online all-purpose data repository accessible by different browsers according to device at hand. Other emerging issues for mobile learning in HE and FE include both ethical and practical implications. These include cultural barriers and resistance to change amongst lecturers and associated teaching professionals. Examples are: fears for the erosion of lecturersââ¬â¢ personal time; concerns over security related to the increasing amount of information and number of images to be stored and privacy issues related to the ease with information can be captured in a range of locations. There is also the opportunity to reconsider assessment practices, recording the process of developing an assignment rather than simply marking the product. One last issue, one that is in need of urgent attention, is the need for the development by students and staff of agreed practice, establishing how mobile devices are to be used responsibly in institutions before inconsiderate use or ignorance of their potential to enhance learning results in banning a valuable learning tool. Acknowledgements The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge the contributions made by members of the Adding a Mobile Dimension to Teaching and Learning network who played a major part both in the scenario development activities at the workshops on which this paper is based and to the review of the scenarios generated. We are also grateful for the financial support from JISC via the Emerge community for this project. 1 Introduction This report details the scenarios developed in a series of discussion workshops exploring visions of how mobile technologies and devices will influence the practice of users in Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) in the future five years hence. The workshop series was funded by the UKââ¬â¢s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) as part of the Emerge Community within JISCââ¬â¢s own Users and Innovation research programme. This current exploration focuses on identifying emerging issues for the sector arising with the increasingly likely large scale use of Smartphones and mobile phones with the capability to record both video and audio by learners both on campus and in the workplace in HE and FE. These devices have become well established throughout the student community, a survey of 177 students at the University of Southampton found that 94% were regular users and owners of mobile phones (Davidson and Lutman 2007). This dovetails with data from Ofcom (2008) which shows that mobile phone ownership in the 15-24 age group of the UK population is stabilising at around 95% and students to come will be even more experienced in their use. For example, older students in schools that ostensibly ban mobile phones are now regularly being allowed to use the cameras on their ââ¬Ëphones to record special events or experiments in lessons to help them revise. What is mobile learning? The field of mobile learning has been developing fast as a research topic over the past eight years and accordingly ideas of what exactly mobile learning is have also developed. Winters (2006) noted how various groups researching mobile learning have used definitions that fall into four categories: one ââ¬â mobile learning as technocentric, where learning is seen as something that makes use of mobile devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones; two ââ¬â defined by its relationship to e-learning, where mobile learning is seen as an extension of elearning; three ââ¬â as augmenting formal education and four ââ¬â as learner centred, enabling the possibility of lifelong learning. These does not address the unique selling point of mobile learning which is closely linked to the capability of the mobile learner moving between traditionally separate contexts such as the work place and the teaching base supported by handheld technology that they can work with interactively to capture, access and store quantities of information in different multimedia formats. Thus mobile learning can be best described as ââ¬Å"the processes (both personal and public) of coming to know through exploration and conversation across multiple contexts amongst people and interactive technologiesâ⬠(Sharples, Arnedillo Sanchez, Milrad & Vavoula 2007). Mobile learning in post-compulsory education in the UK A presentation from Traxler & Sugden (2007) places the current state of mobile learning in the UK as consisting of considerable numbers of small scale trials and pilots taking place over fixed periods of time. Confirmation that the practice of using mobile technology to support learning in post-compulsory education is not yet embedded in current practice within institutions was demonstrated during the search for previous research for this paper, where no ongoing large scale uses were found. From currently available sources there is little or no indication as to the extent to which mobile devices are being used in Higher and Further Education. Findings from interviews conducted by Bird and Stubbs (2008) with mobile learning innovators in ten Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) were surprisingly consistent with most respondents reporting that they experienced or expect to experience the same kind of issues. These were mostly in the form of barriers to establishing and sustaining an m-learning innovation in a university 2 environment. Issues which dominated were: skills gaps (in IT support and especially academic staff and somewhat unexpectedly students who despite being heavy users ), lack of technical support (IT services provision), procurement and accounting policies based around PC usage, inclusion issues due to cost of devices and/or data, ethical and legal issues, quality assurance especially with respect to data ownership, sustainability (all projects were based on external funding), device limitations, standards churn, privacy and security, and lack of a ââ¬Ëkiller applicationââ¬â¢ for the context. Interviews with users trialling PDAs at the Open University (Pettit and Kukulska-Hulme, 2008) indicated that the wireless infrastructure was widely regarded as a critical factor in influencing adoption of the device. Most papers reviewed for the current investigation referred to theoretical speculation about future potential, others discussed projects outside of the UK in Europe or East Asia, however, in the remaining 20%, an impressive range of pilots with different handheld devices was described. These indicate that there is considerable potential for engaging and supporting learners via mobile technologies. These pilots point to greater use of context relevant information especially images and video in learning and to greater collaboration enabled by easily portable, handheld devices connected to the internet via wi-fi or broadband. The following examples indicate the range of activities tested and are included by sector. Higher education Lecturers have evaluated a range of devices from multi-function PDAs and Smartphones to simple texti messaging (SMS). In one of the first examples of the use of PDAââ¬â¢s in an undergraduate setting Ramsden (2005) successfully tested giving undergraduate Economics students at the University of Bristol access to VLEââ¬â¢s and course materials via internet-enabled PDAs. As well as enabling access to course resources any time, anywhere, having the PDA allowed the students to hold question and answer sessions via the online discussion board during lectures which they found this particularly helpful. The University of Birmingham has evaluated the use of PocketPC handheld computers to offer multiple mobile applications to university students in the form of a ââ¬Ëmobile learning organiserââ¬â¢. The main uses were for issues of time and course management and access to course materials. Other functions included the ability to communicate via email and instant messaging and to organise notes. The participating students made good use of the calendar and timetable facilities as well as communication tools and were keen for more content to be delivered in this manner. (Corlett et al, 2005) At London Metropolitan University the Reusable Learning Objects (RLO) Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) works on the design, development and use of learning objects many of which run on mobile phones. Smith et al (2007) discuss the motivation they have seen in students (sports science in this case) to learn via subject specific learning objects (programs) such as Flash animations of muscle groupings and movements that run on their own or loaned mobile phones. Other animated tutorials, language learning for example, include multiple choice quizzes (Tschirhart et al, 2008). In another study Cook, Pachler and Bradley (2008) found that loaning postgraduate students Nokia N91 phones to make notes and take images for upload to web based media board such as Lifeblog and tribalââ¬â¢s Mediaboard led to blurring the boundaries between study, work, and personal time and between formal and informal practice. In the Spatial Literacy in Teaching (SPLINT) CETL at the Universities of Nottingham and Leicester applications aimed at Geography students are being developed for PDAs and tablet PCs where the PDA screen is held up towards the real scene to offer additional information about that scene, ââ¬Ëaugmentingââ¬â¢ reality for the user (Priestnall and Polmear, 2007). For example, trials of a PDA application designed to teach the geomorphology of the Lake District, NW England showed that students the students learned to appreciate the power of geocontextualised visualisation to support their understanding of landscape processes (Jarvis et al, 2008). The University of Nottingham has used mobile phones and similar software to enable group blogging as a tool to support Chinese students in the process of enculturation as they get used to a new society and to enter the local community. The ââ¬Å"learners showed a obvious interest in flexibility of time and space that potentially extends ââ¬Ëantennasââ¬â¢ of the group blog to deeper insight of local culture. â⬠(Shao, Crook & Koleva, 2007). Other examples used simpler devices and text messaging. The Mobiles Enhancing Learning and Support (MELaS) project saw the University of Wolverhampton test using text messaging with first year undergraduates in five departments aiming to enhance the student learning experience. In all 27 staff successfully interacted with 938 different students through at least one of: one way (staff to learner) communication, formative assessment with feedback, and a collaborative learning discursive tool (Brett, 2008). In another study sports education students at the University of Bath reported that SMS messages to their mobile phones from faculty were found welcome in assisting them to learn time management skills and as an extension of the tutorââ¬â¢s voice beyond the traditional lecture environment. This helped to reduce the perceived psychological distance between students, their peers and tutors (Jones, Edwards & Reid, 2008). SMS messaging has been trialled in lecture theatres too. Elliman (2006) reports successfully using a system that allowed students to provide feedback by SMS on their level of comprehension during a lecture. The system displays a histogram showing understanding level which is continually updated during the lecture together with comments and question in a scrolling area of the screen. At Brunel University, first year undergraduate Information and Communications Technology (ICT) students found that revision podcasts, downloaded to their personal digital media players were popular and perceived as more effective than revising from traditional textbooks (Evans 2008). In a review of podcasting to support distance learning in the Open University, UK Minocha and Booth (2008) conclude that audio technologies such as podcasts can not only support mobile learning but also entice, motivate, inform and reinforce. Further Education Mobile technology has been used in a number of colleges as a means to bring new learning opportunities to students who might otherwise not have access to college education. Many of these projects have been funded by the Learning and Skills Council under the MoleNET initiative or by the JISC e-Learning Programme. At Pembrokeshire College, an mlearning trial project was carried out from 2005-7 to support NEET students (NEET ââ¬â not in education, employment or training) with reentry to education, training or work. Giving students access to PDAââ¬â¢s helped to engage them and improve communication with a difficult to reach group. The use of SMS messaging enabled the teachers to keep in touch with this very transient group of learners and helped identify opportunities for learning as when they occurred. (Pembrokeshire College 2007). Similar projects working with NEET learners have also been carried out at Accrington and Rossendale College, Tower Hamlets College and Weston College (MoLeNET 2008). 4 Having the capability to learn anywhere by means of handheld PDAs allowed Dewsbury College and Bishop Burton College, West Yorkshire to provide learners in outreach centres and workplace learning environments with similar access to learning resources as their peers on the main college campus (JISC 2005a). Mobile phones have also been found useful to help in location based learning. The City of Southampton College has been assisting ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) students to improve their opportunities for meaningful language interactions. Visiting locations within the city to help get to know their locality, students were asked location specific questions answered through SMS messaging and posting images to an interactive website. The project found that such techniques enhanced the studentsââ¬â¢ literacy and numeracy skills and helped to engage hard to reach learners such as those from the multiethnic Southampton community where many students have English as a second language (JISC 2005b). As in Higher Education bulk text messaging services to support managing learning have proved popular with most students. There are those for whom this sort of service is particularly useful. Derwen College (JISC, 2008a) found that their students who have varying degrees of physical disabilities and learning difficulties responded well to reminders to students for things like surgery and other appointments, dinner times and class notifications. Simple text based interaction was also used at Lakes College West Cumbria (JISC, 2008b) who piloted the use of iPod nanos to provide multiple choice revision quizzes for Construction students, many of whom have learning difficulties and struggle with paper-based revision processes. The iPod quizzes proved popular with every student in the cohort making use of the iPods during the revision period. The use of handheld devices to record or view multimedia to support learning is also proving popular. At Southwark College students are using low-priced, pocket-sized camcorders to overcome some of the technical and organisational barriers to using video in the classroom and for recording evidence of learning (JISC, 2008c). Examples included recording studentsââ¬â¢ oral presentations in English which were then used by the students for practice and reviewing with each other and Level 2 students in Art and Design recording technique demos and talking about their work to inform Level 1 students hoping to progress. Other projects, such as My Podcast at New College, Swindon (Warren, 2008), involve podcasting with lecturers creating both audio and video podcasts that students can download and play on handheld PDAââ¬â¢s or MP3 players for revision or extra support with a topic wherever they happen to be, in the workplace, at home or in college or moving between the two. Work Based Learning Both HE and FE institutions place students training for professions, whether medicine, building, teaching or hairdressing etc. in the workplace for a significant proportion of their course. Students, often at considerable distance from their teaching bases, need online access to course materials and other context specific information, to communicate with their tutors and to produce records of their progress and assignments for assessment. Mentors in the workplace need to authenticate and support this student learning. A number of pilots have been set up to test how mobile technologies can successfully be used to support students on work placements. For instance, mobile devices have been used to give instant hands on access to information that would be difficult to carry around on the job. At the James Cook University Hospital in 5 Middlesborough, 5th year medical students tested the use of PDAââ¬â¢s providing access to formulae, clinical guidelines, electronic portfolios and other web-based materials. They found portable access to these facilities useful, as was the ability for supervisors to ââ¬Ësign-offââ¬â¢ log books using their normal signatures on the PDA. (Cotterill et al, 2008). Reynolds et al (2007) found that a PDA proved to be a convenient and versatile mode of access to online education for dentistry students at Kingââ¬â¢s College, London. The 12 students were most positive about being able to make notes for individual study, to keep a diary of their commitments to teaching sessions and to having on the spot access to online support materials, particularly videos. Teaching is another profession where students need access to a wealth of information. Wishart et al (2007) found that when student teachers trialled the use of PDAââ¬â¢s in school they deemed the calendar or diary to be articularly supportive. Email was also used, primarily to maintain contact with other students and the university tutor, and the web browser was used to access information both in class and for personal reasons. Some students used spreadsheets to record pupilsââ¬â¢ attendance and grades and most, in this pilot involving 14 trainees, used the word processor to make notes from meetings and on lesson observations for essays. However, the prevailing sociocultural climate where mobile phones are often banned and PDAââ¬â¢s a rarity meant that trainees often felt uncomfortable using their device on school premises. In FE mobile technology has been used in the work place for just in time problem solving, such as through the Hairdressing Training programme developed by the University of Manchesterââ¬â¢s data centre, Mimas, and now used by 500 students at Stockport College, which offers step-by step guides to hairdressing techniques for styling, colouring and cutting (Smith, 2008) Also PDAââ¬â¢s have been found to be useful in connecting work based learners in FE who may otherwise be isolated from learning opportunities. Such devices have been used to assist apprentices in remote rural locations in Lincolnshire to give flexible learning options and to build achievement and self-esteem (Lambourne, 2008) and to provide learning and social networking opportunities to care workers in schools and nursing establishments in the Bourneville area of Birmingham (Brown, 2008). Finally, one of the largest trials of mobile technology in the workplace, currently ongoing with around a 1000 students in five universities in Yorkshire, is that being run by the Assessment of Learning in Practice Settings (ALPS) CETL1, a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning that focuses on assessment and learning in practice settings and involving nursing and allied health care practitioner trainees. Initial indications (Dearnley et al, 2008) showed that both students and lecturers were positive about a range of benefits having a PDA enables however, introducing mobile technology into the clinical setting will require a significant shift in culture and a significant level of training and support. 1 http://www. alps-cetl. ac. uk/ 6 Summary While the above mentioned projects demonstrate the range of learning activities that have been trialled in UK institutions, recent advances in the abilities of the mobile devices themselves offer the chance to deliver new services to learners that have not yet been tested. The 2009 Horizon Report notes how the adoption of novel interfaces (like the iPhone), the new ability of mobile devices to download applications and to be location aware through GPS signals, all offer new opportunities for learning. With the addition of broadband-like data connections, the boundary between what is a mobile phone and a portable computer are being ever more blurred (New Media Consortium 2009). It is in this technology context that the workshop participants came together to imagine future scenarios for the use of mobile technology in learning, drawing on their wide experiences of previous research projects and contemplating how developing mobile technologies could open up new opportunities for connecting learners and teachers. 7 Methods: Developing Future Scenarios In this project three different tools were used to support future predictions. The first used for the workshop focusing on the practice of users in Higher Education (HE) in the future five years from today was the Cognitive Foresight toolkit available from the UK Government Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (Office of Science and Technology, 2005). It was developed for strategic futures planning and provides guidance on different techniques that can be used in the different stages of developing future scenarios and the ways they can be combined. This first workshop employed driver analysis to build internally consistent future scenarios from an assessment of the way current trends and drivers are influencing the present use of mobile technologies in HE. First the workshop participants ââ¬Ëbrainstormââ¬â¢ a range of drivers for the currently observable trends. Next scenarios are produced by taking the drivers identified as having the highest importance and highest impact as orthogonal pairs of axes and visualising up to four scenarios that match the chosen combinations. This method is illustrated in the example below. More of â⬠¦ Scenario Decrease in â⬠¦ Increase in â⬠¦ Less of â⬠¦ The second used the Futures Technology Workshop method (Vavoula and Sharples, 2007) to look at future scenarios in work based learning. This is a structured method whereby people, in this case with experience in the specific area of the use of mobile technologies in education, envision and design the interactions between current and future technologies and an activity. Through a series of structured workshop sessions they collaborate to envisage future activities related to technology design, build models of the contexts of use for future technologies, act out scenarios of use for their models, re-conceive their scenarios in relation to present-day technologies, list problems with implementing the scenarios exploring the gap between current and future technology and activity. The workshop method was edited slightly within the time constraints of the day so that the structured sessions comprised: i. i. Imagineering: brainstorm on desired future learning activities. Modelling: in groups, producing models that demonstrate the envisioned activities, complete with related props. 8 iii. iv. Retrofit: developing a role play for another groupââ¬â¢s scenario using only current technologies. Futurefit Requirements: listing requirements for the future technologies that have to be in place for the scenario to be realised. The third workshop on future scenarios in Further Education (FE) followed a method devised by FutureLab, an educational thinktank aimed at transforming the way people learn that focuses on the potential offered by digital and other technologies. This method for developing scenarios uses non-specific images of people of different ages in different locations printed on cards as a stimulus to thinking. The workshop used cards such as these shown below from the Building Visions for Learning Spaces sequence of cards. The workshop participants are then asked to envision first a range of learning activities that could be happening within the image and the people involved in them, then the anticipated outcomes and the technological resources that will be needed. One of these activities is then chosen by each of the groups for fuller development into a future scenario. In each of the above three cases the workshop was set up to start with two initial keynote presentations designed to stimulate thought and discussion from recognised experts. These keynotes (found under workshops 8-10) are available from the Adding a Mobile Dimension to Teaching and Learning web site2. These were followed by a series of discussion activities informed by the futures prediction method being used and facilitated by the research team. A discussion workshop is a recognised method of collaborative knowledge construction through discussion and debate amongst peers or experts. The workshops were run as focus groups with the facilitator encouraging discussion and debate and following a qualitative, phenomenological research approach.
Friday, August 30, 2019
The Reality of the Moon Landing
During the 1960s, the Cold War and the Vietnam War were in full swing, and tensions grew internationally and nationally. People began to lose trust in the moral and ethical behavior of the government. One example of this distrust occurred following a major historical event around the same time period. With millions of people watching, a United States astronaut was televised setting foot on the moon for the first time.Some skeptics thought that the moon landing was fabricated by the U. S.ââ¬â¢s desire to beat the Soviet Union in the Space Race; however, the points made by these conspiracy theorists are mere speculation, lack solid evidence and leave more questions than answers. For example, lying about the authenticity of the landing came with too much of a risk of getting caught by other countries. Those who claim the landing never happened also stated that the moon landing was filmed on a movie set, but they do not consider that the special effects needed to create such a realist ic scene were not yet developed thoroughly enough at that time.If the moon landing was a falsehood, the lie would be an immense secret kept with great difficulty, considering the thousands of people who would be involved in the hoax. This paper will prove that the moon landing did occur, and will also disprove the opposing side. There was not enough motivation for the U. S government to stage the landing on the moon because that lie would encompass too much of a risk and likelihood of getting caught by the world. Although President Kennedy was under a lot of pressure to compete and excel in the ââ¬Å"Space Raceâ⬠with the Soviet Union, that competition only served to motivate success.American pride and support for the U. S. space program was strong and would be even further bolstered if the U. S. would be able to beat the Soviets to the moon. According to the article ââ¬Å"The Decision to Go to the Moon,â⬠by Steve Graber, he states that ââ¬Å"The decision involved much consideration before making it public, as well as enormous human efforts and expenditures to make what became Project Apollo a reality by 1969. â⬠Clearly the decision to formally challenge NASA and the world with this undertaking was not made lightly.Kennedy, at this point, was quite determined to prove that the U.S. did in fact possess the technology and the ability to lead the world into space. President Kennedy, along with NASA, was determined to get a man to the moon, and he brought the American people together and united them under the common goal of beating their enemy by the end of the decade. Enormous efforts were underway as NASA and the government began constructing their plans. The success in putting a man on the moon gave the U. S. tremendous advances in technology, scientific knowledge, and improved economic and political advantages from the use of satellites.Thus, by analyzing the motives to either fake the landing or to actually pull the landing off, the obviou s answer was that there was little incentive to fake the landing and tremendous benefits to actually landing a man on the moon. The U. S. government obtained enough motivation to complete the goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade because they would gain significant benefits and not because they desperately wanted to beat the Soviets; they also had no need to worry about the risk of getting caught since there was no need to to lie, therefore, the U. S. did land on the moon.Some conspiracy theorists believe that the moon landing was faked because motivation to ââ¬Å"beatâ⬠the Soviets to the moon was too strong to delay; however the government realized the other motivations besides beating the Soviets, so the moon landing did occur. Both the U. S. and Russia were watching each other extremely closely, waiting for the other to slip. In his article ââ¬Å"Did NASA Fake the Moon Landing,â⬠Ray Villard states that a group of citizens made a claim that â⬠Å"The United States needed to cement its world leadership during the Cold War by pretending to pull off what really was a technologically impossible stunt.â⬠But, the U. S. at this time did possess the correct technology and landing on the moon was not impossible because of the efforts put in by the technicians and scientists to create the necessary machinery. The U. S. also wanted to make their world leadership stronger, but they could not lie to achieve that goal because the Soviets were watching the U. S. and their every move during this time. If the Soviets were to find out the landing was a lie or was staged then they would easily expose the U. S. to the world.But, the Soviets did not deny the landing and accepted the fact the U. S.à landed on the moon first knowing we did actually possess the technology to go to space. This fact alone provides evidence that the government did not stage the moon landing. Even though the U. S. government did desperately want to beat the So viet Union there was no reason to lie because the U. S. knew they possessed the power and the technology to reach their goal. The government also knew that landing on the moon would bring more benefits to them, such as the advancement in science and a broader understanding of space, which would ultimately encourage them to not lie and follow through with their goal to get a man to the moon.With the support and the money from congress and the backing of the citizens, the U. S. acquired a strong determination to get to the moon first. Even though the theorists claim the motivation was wrong to land on the moon and that the government lied to the world, there is too much evidence in support of the moon landing because we did hold the advanced technology and the correct motivation; therefore the moon landing was not faked and did happen.The special effects at this time were not developed enough to stage a realistic moon landing and a film directed on Earth would not be able to fool the world, which means there would not be a reasonable way to fake the landing and the moon landing did occur. During the 1960ââ¬â¢s the science fiction genre was just emerging and the available special effects technology was not nearly as sophisticated as today. For example, if the moon landing was created using special effects the moon most likely would not look as real as needed and many people would start questioning the reality of the landing.In the article Villard goes on to state that at that time ââ¬Å"No microcomputers, digital-image processing, or 3-D animation software existed. The decade's landmark space film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, illustrates the pinnacle of special-effects capability in the 1960s. â⬠Even the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey included flaws in regards to special effects because of how underdeveloped they were at the time the movie was made. The claim is that the same director who filmed the movie was also asked to stage the moon landing.If such were th e case, one would expect that the two films should contain similarities in production value, but the two sets of footage were both quite different from one another. Additional proof that the landing was not filmed is provided in video of the astronauts walking on the moon: the moonwalk is far too complex to be faked with the available special effects. In the videos, the men are almost floating at points- a feat that would be impossible to portray with the pull of gravity on Earth.1960ââ¬â¢s America did not possess the movie making capabilities needed to create a believable moon landing on a movie set, leaving one other possibility: we actually did set foot on the moon. There are those that believe the moon landing was filmed in a large Hollywood movie set, however, this cannot be true because the movie technology was not capable of such a task and there are clear counter points for each reason the critics say the landing was filmed, such as why there are no stars; so there are st rong facts that the landing did happen.The critics claim with confidence that the scientific technology was not there to send a man to the moon but they fail to acknowledge the fact that we actually did not hold the technology to produce a realistic film of the landing. The fact of the matter was that because of the advances of top end scientists, engineers, test pilots, medical researchers, from across the country and the test flights that orbited the Earth, we were able to get a man to walk on the moon for the first time.But, despite this knowledge, according to an article from International Business Times the author states ââ¬Å"Some theorists allege that NASA officials approached Kubrick sometime in early 1968 and asked him to film ââ¬Ëfootageââ¬â¢ depicting an earth ship landing on the moon and a space traveler walking on the lunar surface. â⬠While the claim is a strong idea, the government would not lie about the landing because they knew the many benefits that wo uld come their way if they were able to land on the moon.The knowledge of what the country would gain pushed them even further to reaching their goal, as they eventually did. Theorists also say that since there was no stars in the photographs brought back, that proves Kubrick filmed the landing because there are billions of stars in space, yet not one star was in the photographs. But the landing took place during the lunar morning with the sun shining too brightly. Similar to the fact that we cannot see the stars from earth during the day, they cannot be seen while in space either: they are too bright to be captured in a picture.So the fact that there were not any stars actually helps prove the moon landing was not filmed because that gives more reality to the pictures if thought about from a scientific perspective. Even though the critics accumulated possible theories as to why they believe the landing was filmed, each can be refuted with scientific explanations, such as why there were no stars or why the flag was moving, and prove that Apollo 11 did land on the moon.If the moon landing never happened and the world was lied to, such a secret would be almost impossible to keep for this long, and therefore gives proofà that the moon landing occurred. Thousands of people would be needed to work on the staging- everyone from makeup artists to the director, and to this day not a single person ever come forward claiming the landing was a hoax or even hinted at the possibility. There were also thousands who were a part of the actual moon landing. In an article from Balance-Today. org the author states, ââ¬Å"Including the astronauts, scientists, engineers and technicians, more than 400,00 skilled workers contributed to the Apollo project. To date, not one of them even hinted that the landings were faked.â⬠Again, there was no hinting or an accidental slip that we never actually succeeded in landing on the moon and all of these people who were a part of the â â¬Å"stagedâ⬠event would gain a lot of fame if they came forward with their story. The Soviet Union would also never keep the secret if they found out. The Soviets were looking for ways to hurt the U. S. and they would not think twice before exposing us to the world if they found out the U. S. government lied. Given human nature and the drive for power, fame, money and glory, it is simply unreasonable to believe a secret this immense could be kept for this long.Considering the fact that nobody came forward and confessed that the moon landing was a lie, then one can conclude the U. S. made the first man walk on the moon. Some say that the reason nobody confessed the landing was faked, was because the government threatened and murdered people who would potentially leak the secret; however the theory of the killings cannot be true because there were too many people involved, and since nobody hinted that the landing was a lie the landing did actually occur.The theory of the govern mentââ¬â¢s ââ¬Å"murdersâ⬠is farfetched because of the fact that there were thousands who would know and would be involved in the process of not only the actual moon landing, but a ââ¬Å"stagedâ⬠occurrence as well. In the article Villard states that conspiracy theorists believe that ââ¬Å"The government scared and murdered potential tattletales, including its own astronaut heroes in a reprehensible assertion that the tragic 1967 Apollo 1 fire was rigged. â⬠However, despite the existence of treacherous and devious governments, the democracy of the United States would never allow the government to carry out such an atrocity.As was becoming more and more the norm, the citizens would ask questions, and the media, along with other countries would also become involved. Also, even though the theorists say the government caused the Apollo 1 tragedy, that theory was proven wrong. After a thorough investigation the tragedy was determined to be caused by a spark from a short circuit in a bundle of wires, quickly causing the fire to spread through the flammable materials. The impossibility was too big for everyone to believe the government could silence or murder anyone involved.There were too many people and too many benefits for a person who could claim they worked on the greatest hoax ever. Even though the theorists tried to come up with an explanation for why nobody confessed, the idea that the government killed everyone is impossible because the murders would be too obvious, which means there was no secret that needed to be kept and no need to kill people who knew, so the moon landing was real. In conclusion, there is too much concrete evidence and reasoning for the moon landing to be faked. The U. S.retained the correct motivation to get to the moon first before the Soviet Union because of the benefits that would come to them such as what the satellites could offer and the scientific discoveries they found. Pulling off the lie would help the countryââ¬â¢s growing status in the world but they would not gain much more than that besides being able to say they finally beat the Soviets in the Space Race. The moon landing being filmed on a movie set is not possible either because of the lack of the special effects technology during this time.Nothing made on Earth would look real enough to be presented to the world, especially the realistic moonwalk since there is no way to float on Earth. Unlike what the theorists claim, we did possess the scientific technology to go to space and land on the moon because NASA and the government brought in the top end scientists and engineers to accomplish the task some say was impossible. The secret, if the moon landing was faked, became to enormous to keep and the government could not murder every person without the killings resembling genocide.Since nobody ever came forward with a confession there is nobody to prove the moon landing was staged. As a result, the theories that accumulated after the moon landing cannot be possible because of the scientific evidence and the fact that there were multiple moon landings closely following the first Apollo mission which means we did possess the technology; therefore the U. S. government did not lie and the country did land the first man on the moon.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Financial development in the country of choice Essay
Financial development in the country of choice - Essay Example A non-transparency in the transactions and interactions of the main participants of the financial market persisted (Mohan, 2004b). The financial environment in these years consequentially was featured by segmented and underdeveloped financial markets and banking in these years was essentially governed by fiscal priorities rather than optimal financial management and commercial motives. Although the financial sector was kept under administrative control with the objective of preventing mismatching alignment problems caused by market exploiting motives, by the end of the 1980s it was recognised that such attempts actually had led to declining transparencies, accountabilities and efficiency seeking motives and thus had defeated the initial purpose of achieving efficiency through effective co-ordination (Reddy, 2007). Financial sector reforms became warranted with the dawning perception of the inability of the present system to achieve efficient allocation of resources (Mohan, 2006). In the remainder of this brief note, we shall briefly look at the development of the banking sector and the financial markets since the reforms. We shall mention the major reforms and briefly note their effects as observed over the course of the last 15 years or so in the degree of detail as allowed by the scope. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was nationalized as the central banking authority of the Indian economy in 19482. The Indira Gandhi Government nationalised 14 banks in 1969 and six more in 1980. Sectors like agriculture, small-scale industry, retail trading were declared as priority sectors and the banks were directed to forward 40 % of their net credits to these sectors (Datt & Sundharam, 2005). The basic Banking structure since then has remained the same. There has been a significant increase in total deposits by 32.6 times for the time period 1971 to 1991 while notably this rise
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Important phenomenon of interpersonal communication Essay
Important phenomenon of interpersonal communication - Essay Example This paper will focus on the interpersonal relationships found in business, such as between customers and companies, among co-workers, and between managers/supervisors and their subordinates. This paper provides an empirical description of the Social Exchange Theory, a theoretical explanation of the phenomenon, and a critical evaluation of the validity and utility of the theoretical explanation. There is an empirical description of the Social Exchange Theory, which begins with the concept of knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing is an important goal of interpersonal communication at organizations, because it can yield competitive advantages (Wu et al. 84). Nonetheless, organizations do not always exert adequate effort to develop mechanisms that successfully persuade employees to share knowledge (Wu et al. 84). Knowledge is precious and knowledge-sharing behavior is an example of social exchange in the workplace (Wu et al. 84). People who have the knowledge do not always feel free to s hare them, unless there are perceived benefits in doing so, which is a fundamental argument of the Social Exchange Theory. ... ndividual altruismâ⬠and ââ¬Å"a social interaction environment.â⬠The sampling came from Taiwanese high-tech industries, particularly research and development (R&D) teams. Finding showed that employeesââ¬â¢ ââ¬Å"perceived interpersonal trust,â⬠from colleagues or supervisor, was found to be positively associated with their propensity to share knowledge (91). Employeesââ¬â¢ altruism is also a trait that affected the tendency to share knowledge in the workplace and altruism also lessened the association between trust of colleagues and knowledge sharing (91). Furthermore, an ââ¬Å"organizational social interaction environmentâ⬠improves the positive association between trust of colleagues and knowledge sharing (91). Hence, trust is critical to knowledge sharing or the formation of some of the basic interpersonal relations that organizations require to become competitive. Whitener et al. explored the kinds of behavior managers may perform to build trust. Th ey used the agency and social exchange theories and proposed an exchange relationship framework that recognizes organizational, relational, and individual factors that support or restrain managerial trustworthy behavior. Their model argued for the importance of trust in creating strong and knowledge-sharing relationships. The empirical research showed that the social exchange theory is grounded on trust and from trust and expectations of benefits, positive social exchange can occur. A theoretical explanation of the phenomenon will further help understand the social exchange theory. The social exchange theory, as developed by Blau in 1964, states that an individual may seek to create an exchange relationship with others by willingly giving benefits to others first and then expecting some level of return in the future (Wu et al.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Romanticism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1
Romanticism - Essay Example I would agree with the statement that music is emotional. It could also be said that music is the most emotional of all arts. However I do not agree that music finds its ultimate style in Romanticism. Many composers, before and after the Romanticism movement, can evoke emotion as well. The Romantic style opened the doors for a broader spectrum of emotional music. It broke the standards of music of the time, allowing composers and musicians to express themselves openly. I do respect the Romantic style for that. While I have my favorites, I would not place one music style over another one. This includes the Romanticism era as well. Romanticism allowed the composer or artist the freedom to express their emotions. Instead of trying to please the audience, the artist wrote and played music for themselves. Lee Marshall explains: The only appropriate judge of the work becomes the artists himself because only the artist knows whether the work is true and the audience can only abide by Romanticismââ¬â¢s ââ¬Ëfirst law [which] is the will of the creator.ââ¬â¢ (33) The artist pours themselves into a piece of work, which in turn allows the audience to feel the artistââ¬â¢s emotion more clearly. An example would be Shubertââ¬â¢s ââ¬Å"Death and a Maidenâ⬠. This piece of music relates how Shubert feels about his impending death.
Monday, August 26, 2019
Environmental Impact of Balfour Beatty Company Term Paper
Environmental Impact of Balfour Beatty Company - Term Paper Example Considering the nature of activities carried out by this company such as infrastructure development and investment, and construction services, it contributes a lot towards environmental destruction. The three main negative environmental impacts contributed by this company include pollution, human and animal population displacement and destruction of natural habitat (COUNCIL OF EUROPE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY 2002). Pollution is the release of harmful substances to the environment which may be in different forms such as air, water, radioactive materials, soil, heat, and light. Emission of gaseous waste to the atmosphere has been caused by this company as a result of the fleet of cars owned by this company which emits carbon waste and sulfur compounds to the environment. These are as a result of the various new cars which are constantly on the roads to the construction sites. It is an estimated fact that most air pollution is caused by car emissions. Another way of increased carbon into the atmosphere by the company are the many construction plans which are distributed in the 80 countries, these industries release their waste to the atmosphere, increasing the amount of carbon dioxide. The lethal effects of carbon dioxide include the formation of smog which blocks sunlight from reaching the earthââ¬â¢s surface. This prevents the process of photosynthesis from taking place in plants, resulting in wilting. The destruction of the natural forest is a great worldwide concern as its effects lead to dire consequences (COUNCIL OF EUROPE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY 2002). Such emissions have contributed to global warming and formation of acid rain due to increased carbon levels in the atmosphere.Ã
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Evaluating Performance through Motivation and Conflict Management Essay
Evaluating Performance through Motivation and Conflict Management Discussion - Essay Example Let me first discuss about the theories of motivation applied to organizationââ¬â¢s behaviors and to employees of workplaces. Motivation is etymologically a Latin word "movere"-- to move. It is an internal drive motivating behaviors and determining direction. It is a moving force that motivates organizational behavior. Maslow's ââ¬Å"Hierarchy of Needs Theoryâ⬠point that motivation is driven by needs and of certain conditions that motivate them to exemplify these needs. This hierarchy features five major areas which start with ââ¬Å"basic needs toward more complicated and self-fulfilling needs. It includes physiological, survival, security and stability. Human beingââ¬â¢s social nature needs venue for social interaction to bolster our self-esteem and competence in order for us to develop our full potential for self-actualization. Maslow's believes that unsatisfied lowest-level need has the greatest motivating potential. Alderfer's ERG Theory is also somewhat similar to "Needs Theoryâ⬠but has only three characters which explains satisfaction and motivation.
Saturday, August 24, 2019
The developments in generation of DNA profiles Assignment
The developments in generation of DNA profiles - Assignment Example The changes occurring in the modern world make use of weapons of mass destruction exemplified by nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The advanced weaponry is likely to result into disasters of great magnitudes as typified in armed conflicts and acts of terrorism (Zietkiewicz, Witt, Daca, Zebracka-Gala, Goniewicz, Jarzab & Witt, p41, 2012). A critical issue during disaster response involving a multitude of individuals is the need to identify victims. Various catastrophic events including the World Trade Center (WTC) disaster, Asian Tsunami and the Hurricane Katrina have offered immense knowledge regarding the effectiveness of the STR and mitochondrial DNA sequence analysis on highly compromised samples (Eisenberg & Planz, p12, 2007). Human identification has made tremendous strides over the past two decades. Since the inception of forensic DNA analysis, there have been two main objectives. These are the identification of those who could be the source of biological evidence and t o exclude individuals wrongly associated with evidence. The generation of reliable genetic profiles from unknown and reference samples, systematic and objective interpretation practices as well as providing statistical assessment of the outcomes is critical to a robust DNA profiling program (Alvarez-Cubero, Saiz, Martinez-Gonzalez, Alvarez, Eisenberg, Budowle & Lorente, p229, 2012). The early evolution of forensic genetics has driven the analysis of human genetic variation, beginning more than a century ago. Specifically, with Karl Landsteinerââ¬â¢s discovery of the human ABO blood group polymorphism and his early realization that this variation could be applied in solving crimes (Jobling & Gill, p740, 2004). DNA fingerprinting using the hyper variable loci known as mini-satellites discovered in 1984 by Alec Jeffery was another classical human identification technique. The mini-satellites were detected by hybridization of probes to Southern blots of restriction enzyme digested ge nomic DNA. Although the application of DNA fingerprinting lasted for some time in paternity testing, criminal casework soon concentrated on the use of specific cloned mini-satellites called single locus probes (SLPs). These revealed only a single, highly polymorphic restriction fragment length polymorphism, hence simplifying interpretation. The amplification of DNA by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), offered an enormous increase in sensitivity. These molecular based approaches allowed small amounts of degraded DNA to be analyzed at a rapid rate (Jobling & Gill, p740, 2004). PCR-based techniques allowed the targeting of numerous genetic markers from single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to variable number of tandem repeats (VNTRs). The testing of human identity may be considered in a variety of contexts namely analysis of relationship, forensic casework, missing person investigation and mass casualty incident (MCI) victim identification (Zietkiewicz, Witt, Daca, Zebracka-Gala, Gonie wicz, Jarzab & Witt, p42, 2012). Environmental conditions of mass casualty identification usually lead to severe fragmentation, degradation and intermixing of the remains of victims. Under such conditions, conventional methods of identification that depend on physical and anthropological characteristics of the victims fail. Consequently, DNA profiling has become a gold standard for the identification of victims in mass casualties or forensic related cases.
Friday, August 23, 2019
Product Design Air Compressor Set Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words
Product Design Air Compressor Set - Essay Example This report aims at investigating such a design, keeping in hindsight the requirements of the customer. All of these components would be incorporated in the new design for the customer. The set would have a basic frame of steel with 0.5% carbon content so that the frame is not too brittle to bear the weight of the set. A steel platform would hold the three compressors (it is a multi-compressor unit), the air reservoir/tank, and the motor. A small control panel would be fitted alongside the platform, and the whole set would be enclosed in a fabric glass case. Each compressor would have an independent belt for revolution, with separately adjustable speeds, to be switched on and off on demand. The reservoir would be divided into compartments of volumes of 100 liters each, to be utilised as per the demand. The whole system would be run by a motor attached to a power supply, with a second provisional motor that can be run if desired.
Website Optimization Using Taguchi Method Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words
Website Optimization Using Taguchi Method - Essay Example In this method, different useful combinations are tested to reach a maximum benefit result. Multiple Variable Testing isolates the elements on a page and helps to find out what elements matter and which combination is the strongest (Roche). The fundamental design of the Taguchi method is to use more and more variables at a single point of time at once. Now if it is applied in ad optimization, instead of testing two web pages (each with a different headline), it can be tested 40 different versions of the pages, like different headlines, different graphics, different forms, including a testimonial or not, shifting the order of copy, whatever imagined (Wirken). Now for deciding the factors contributing the most to the objective, some complicated mathematical technique is applied by the system. Then all the factors are observed carefully and the optimized page is determined. These findings are compared with that of the old ways.The marketers earlier use the simple and unusual A/B split t esting. Two pages each with different headline is made and the test are done to discover the winner. Then by changing another thing in the matter, two different pages are again made to find out the winner. In this manner to complete all the forty elements, a lot of money, energy and time are wasted. But now Taguchi method is the solution.The logic behind using the Taguchi method to use in advertisement optimization can also be established with the fact that a lot of people are using this method. To find out this information.... In this method, different useful combinations are tested to reach a maximum benefit result. Multiple Variable Testing isolates the elements on a page and helps to find out what elements matter and which combination is the strongest (Roche). The fundamental design of the Taguchi method is to use more and more variables at a single point of time at once. Now if it is applied in ad optimization, instead of testing two web pages (each with a different headline), it can be tested 40 different versions of the pages, like different headlines, different graphics, different forms, including a testimonial or not, shifting the order of copy, whatever imagined (Wirken). Now for deciding the factors contributing the most to the objective, some complicated mathematical technique is applied by the system. Then all the factors are observed carefully and the optimized page is determined. These findings are compared with that of the old ways. The marketers earlier use the simple and unusual A/B split testing. Two pages each with different headline is made and the test are done to discover the winner. Then by changing another thing in the matter, two different pages are again made to find out the winner. In this manner to complete all the forty elements, a lot of money, energy and time are wasted. But now Taguchi method is the solution. The logic behind using the Taguchi method to use in advertisement optimization can also be established with the fact that a lot of people are using this method. To find out this information, a simple search on the Internet will give the data of the people using this method for improvement of their rankings on search engines. So if the people are willing to pay
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Posner & Petersen Essay Example for Free
Posner Petersen Essay With the advent of technology and the increasing complexity of the human machine interface, the demands on the attentional capacity of human operators in these evolving systems is very high. Broadbent (1958) was the first to propose a theory on attention; he argued that we have severe limitation on our ability to pay attention to more than one event. According to him the source of this limitation is an internal filter that accepts one message and rejects others. The view that our attention is limited comes from the presence of the cocktail party problem and air traffic controllers which are essentially attention-switching problems. Thus in our technologically advance world, where everything is a sensory experience, it is apparent that the stimulus overload in our sensory modalities may lead to diminished performance. The importance of attention to performance has been widely accepted, it is a necessary component in mental processing (Posner Petersen, 1990). In controlled laboratory experiments on dichotic listening (Cherry, 1953) which is more widely known as shadowing found that listeners could report much of what was presented to the attended ear but little if anything about the contents of the message in the unattended channel. We use our attention to choose and increase the processing of stimuli that are most significant at each moment. Directing attention to a stimulus leads to lower perceptual thresholds, faster reaction times and increased discrimination accuracy (Rorden Driver, 2001). However, the study of attention remains to be a challenge for most researchers due to its ambiguity and the difficulty in measuring it. Neurological and cognitive explanations of attention have abounded in recent years and have afforded us with a better way of understanding attention (Posner Petersen, 1990). Posner (1980) in his article devised a theory of understanding attention that gave us a deeper understanding of the human spatial attentional process in the perceptual domain. He proposed that understanding the mechanisms of orienting; detecting, locus of control and covert and overt orienting can be used in explaining how spatial attention functions. The most important of which is his differentiation of locus of control which are external and central controls, or for purposes of this study it is referred to as exogenous and endogenous processing. Exogenous processing refers to events controlling the orienting of attention outside the mechanisms or more specifically stimulus driven responses. For example when a stimulus draws the attention of the mechanism to a particular area in space the detection of other target events in that area become more likely. Meanwhile, endogenous processing is where the central mechanism alone directs the allocation of attention to a particular are in space through such means as instruction or probability of target events occurring in the appropriate area of space. Likewise, Posner also distinctly categorized orienting into overt and covert orienting. He said that being able to distinguish covert form overt orienting one must first be able to measure covert orienting without using overt head and eye movements. Previous studies on attention had focused on vision rather than other senses. The numerous studies on visual attention had based their assumptions on the localization of visual receptors and eye movement. Recently, the paradigms used to measure visual attention have also been applied to auditory attention. Researchers Spence and Driver (1994) had demonstrated in their experiments that the cuing paradigm can also be applied to auditory attention. They found that covert orienting does occur in human auditory system and that it influence localizations in the exogenous tasks and both localization and pitch discrimination in the endogenous tasks. Given the limited theories and scientific experiments on auditory attention it is of importance to replicate the said study to validate their findings and possibly explore new findings. However, in the present study, 3-dimensional audio is used to generate cues as opposed to the free-field cues used in the original experiments. Using 3-dimensional audio as opposed to free-field sound has been found to be more effective in controlling for front-back confusion, wherein the sound is identified as coming from an incorrect hemifield and given that high occurrence of this confusion can lead to localization errors thus the choice of using 3-dimensional audio (Parker, et. al. , 2004). However, early researches using 3-dimensional audio as compared to free-field sound have generated dubious results, like in a study where virtual and free-field sound was compared in terms of cues associated with movement of the head found that the front-back confusion rate for virtual sound have been double to that of the free-field (Wightman Kistler, 1989). Upon exclusion of front-back errors in the analysis, the localization errors were still greater for virtual sound. The conflicting results of auditory studies have led researcher Martin, McAnnaly and Senova (2001) to devise a system that would enable the use of virtual audio by ensuring that its quality is equivalent to that of free-field sound with respect to front-back confusion and localization errors. In contrast, it was found that non-individualized 3-dimensional audio is associated with an increase in front-back confusion, poor localization acuity and poor externalization (Begault Wenzekm 1993; Moller, et. al. , 1996, Wenzer, et. al. , 1993). Parker et al (2004) investigated the effectiveness of using virtual 3-D audio in a high workload flight simulation task. They supplemented the head-down displays with high-fidelity 3-D audio, and found that when the virtual 3-D audio was presented visual acquisition time was quicker. Furthermore they found with the virtual 3-D audio presented perceived workload was reduced and situational awareness was improved. Flanagan et al (1998) also used virtual 3-D audio in an experiment which compared an unaided search with visual and auditory search cues for targets outside the visual field. In the experiment they used both virtual audio (via headphones) and virtual visual cues (via helmet mounted display), and found that both the visual and auditory cues were effective in reducing search times for the targets. The present study would therefore make use of the system developed by Martin, McAnally and Senova (2004) to administer 3-dimensional sound using Spence and Driver (1994) experimental conditions. In order to gain a better understanding of the intricacies of the variables in this study and of how important the study of attention is, a review of the pertinent variables is presented. 1. 1 Attention System The attention system is difficult to explore, in cognition the various perceptual properties can be related to concrete perceptual systems like how perceptual illusions can be explained by the limitations of our optical system. While in the study of attention system one has to deal with it as a totally cognitive event without any physical substrate to refer to. In order to explore the properties of attention, the various components of the inner workings and cognitive processes need to be isolated; in the study of cognition, researchers can control the amount of input that the perceptual modalities process and even the physical and neurological structures of attention can be identified. Posner (1980) in his article devised a theory of understanding attention that gave us a deeper understanding of the human spatial attentional process in the perceptual domain. He proposed that understanding the mechanisms of orienting; detecting, locus of control and covert and overt orienting can be used in explaining how spatial attention functions. Orienting refers to the aligning of attention with a source of sensory input or an internal semantic structure stored in memory. Orienting can happen in an overt or covert manner. Detecting refers to the level with which the nervous system is made aware of a stimulus. It may be in a verbal or manual form. A very important distinction in the study of spatial attention is the locus of control. Posner (1980) define the process of control as either being external or central control of the orienting of attention. Other terms such as automatic vs. non-automatic and exogenous and endogenous have also been used to describe this process. Overt orienting refers to the observed head and eye movements when an organism attends to a stimulus, covert orienting refers to bodily processes that can be achieved only by the central mechanism and can be measured by experimental methods. Spatial attention has been related to overt movements of eyes, body, head and etc. but the relationship between movement and attention has been entirely unclear. A number of theories governing the degree of dependence of the attentional systems to eye movements have been postulated along the years. The common system says that attention movements are fixed to the movement of the eyes. However, the behavioral evidence suggests that attention can be shifted with the eyes fixed, this findings and together with results showing enhancement of evoked potentials (Eason, Harter White, 1969; Von Vorrhis Hillyard, 1977) and the firing rates of single cells (Bushnell, et. al. , 1978), have eliminated the idea that attention and eye movements are identical systems. The efference theory (Wurtz Mohler, 1976) proposed that attention shifts were programs for the movement of the eyes. Klein (1979) said ââ¬Å"when attention to a particular location is desired , the observer prepares to make an eye movement to that location; the oculomotor readiness, via as yet unknown feedforward pathways , has the effect of enhancing processing in or from sensory pathways dealing with information from the target locationâ⬠. In his experiments, Klein (1979) found that there are clearly conditions under which one gets no relationship between spatial attention shifts and eye movement latencies. Functional relation theory (Remington, 1978) found that under simpler testing conditions like those conducted by Klein (1979), a relationship between eye movement and spatial attention is present. He found that there is a strong tendency for attention to shift to the target position for an eye movement prior to the eye leaving the fixation point. He also found that just before and after the stimulus presentation that detection was high at both the peripheral targets. In general, the results suggest that the relationship between eye movements and attention is not as close as either a complete dependence or efference view. Kleinââ¬â¢s findings that eye movements does not influence latencies of shifts of attention and Posnerââ¬â¢s results showing that attention movements is in the opposite direction to eye movement programs, debunk the popular notion that attention can be measured through overt bodily movements. Nevertheless, the two orienting systems are not completely independent; it has been observed that attention can focus on the target prior to an eye movement even when detection signals are more probable for fixation. Posner (1980) concluded that eye movements have a functional relationship with the spatial attentional system. It seems that eye movements are programmed by an initial movement of attention to the new eye position well before the eyes actually begin to move. This presupposes the idea that even without moving, we are already using our attention system to process the target object. Further, Remington (1978) compared peripheral and central cues for eye movements in order to determine their relationship to shifts of attention. When he used a peripheral cue he found improved sensitivity in the vicinity of peripheral target after the cue and well before eye movement. When a central arrow was used to cue movement, there was no evidence of any change in sensitivity in the direction of the target until after the eye movement began. Thus, eye movement is not a reliable measure of attention shifts and in the same way overt attention cannot reliably demonstrate the mechanisms of attention, hence we turn our attention to covert attention. 1. 2 Covert Attention Posner (1980) emphasized that the study of spatial attention should focus on covert attention for it gives a better picture of how attentional systems work than overt attention which can be subjected to external influences. Overt attention is manifested through external movements and more often than not the person is aware of that behavior, hence results on overt attention may be due to various factors not related to attention. In studying covert spatial attention, Posner (1980) said that it is important to keep in mind the functions of orienting, detecting and the distinction between external and central control. Orienting is the ability of the individual to shift attention around the visual field; detecting is when the individual becomes conscious of the stimuli, external and central control identifies the process by which the individual is attending to the stimuli and overt and covert attention is the ways in which the individual process the stimuli. Thus, even before attention is directed to a target, the individual can orient his/her sensory receptors to focus on the stimuli, and when the attention has been oriented, the individual can now detect the stimulus and depending on the context with which the stimulus is presented may attend to the stimuli exogenously or endogenously. Based on Posnerââ¬â¢s influential work, it can be deduced that the study of covert attention is more important and scientifically worthwhile than overt attention, hence the number of models used to explain and study covert attention. The three models used to study the covert spatial distribution of attention has been used in experiments on visual attention but since few researches focused on auditory tasks it is presented here as it can possibly used to explain other sensory modalities. The first model says that attention can only be directed to one visual field (Kinsbourne, 1993). This in essence means that we can only attend to one thing at a time; hence we can only see one movie at one time. However, the model is too simplistic to fully define visual attention. The human vision can accurately build a spatial model of the external environment and relevant objects will compete for selection with other objects. On the other hand, this model may be used in the study of auditory domains because its spatial distribution is lesser. Sound is composed of waves that travel in the air, it is quite dispersed and thus to attend to a sound cue is much faster than attending to a visual stimuli. Moreover, as we perceived it sound does not occupy a physical space much like objects, letters, and colors etc. that are used as visual stimuli. The second model states that attention can be divided in a graded manner with the maximum performance at the focus of attention, which gradually deteriorates, with the increasing displacement of the focus. This means that the quality of our attention to a target is at the most accurate if it is within our central focus and that our perception of the target deteriorates a sit moves further away. This model is much more suited in the study of auditory performance since it takes into account the graded allocation of attention with respect to sound and distance. It is interesting to explore at what point our attention to an auditory stimuli would decrease and to which it is strongest.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Republic of Irelandââ¬â¢s Primary Care Strategy: An Analysis
Republic of Irelandââ¬â¢s Primary Care Strategy: An Analysis Primary Care Strategy Introduction ââ¬Å"Primary care is the first point of contact that people have with the health and personal social services.â⬠[1] This means that primary care must be sufficiently well developed to be able to address the most complex and diverse range of health-related challenges and problems that will manifest in healthcare service provision, and make the most of opportunities to promote health and reduce morbidity, across the general population in specific target groups. This essay will explore the Republic of Irelandââ¬â¢s primary care strategy in relation to key goals and targets, and also examine some elements of the strategy in terms of a SWOT analysis. Specific reference will be made to the role of the Specialist Public Health Nurse/Health Visitor Role. Main Body Primary Care can be defined as ââ¬Å"first contact, continuous, comprehensive, and coordinated care provided to populations undifferentiated by gender, disease, or organ system.â⬠[2] Primary care is about the provision of information, diagnosis, treatment, referral and support for the majority of people who access healthcare services for the first time, and the strategic concerns of primary are related to accessibility, provision of short and long-term care which meets the needs of the population, assessment of those needs, and coordination of services to meet those needs[3]. This has many implications for the provision of healthcare services and the management of increasingly scarce resources. However, it is evident from the literature that in most locations, primary healthcare services still have a long way to go in meeting the goals of primary healthcare itself, particularly in relation to improving integration of services and reorienting services to a person-centred model, rather than a disease-centred model. Primary healthcare is viewed as a means of reducing the use of and demand for overall healthcare services by acting as a gatekeeper for secondary healthcare, and as a means of primary prevention of healthcare problems and disease, particularly in high risk groups of the population, but there is ongoing evidence and debate within the academic literature that there are continuing issues about the lack of egalitarian access to such services and ongoing questions about the ways in which they are provided[4]. It is considered by some that the decisions which govern the design and delivery of primary care services are potentially more based on political drivers than true patient need[5]. Similarly, the gateway function of the primary care service in determining which patients have access to acute care (or secondary care) services may not be based on individual need, but on other factors, such as political, social and even personal factors, including prejudices on the part of healthcare professionals[6]. The primary care strategy, if it provides strong guidance which leads to strong leadership, and perhaps enhances management of care through the use of agreed care pathways which guide decision making, might help eradicate some of these factors. Making the person-centred care model central will also help to remove some of the barriers to egalitarian service provision[7]. However, one of the challenges of the Republic of Ireland model is the fact that two thirds of patients in primary care must pay for their care, which would mean that despite the focus on removing inequalities in access, there continue to be challenges for providing equality of acces s[8]. One of the strengths of the primary care strategy is the focus on improving interprofessional working and communications, as a means of streamlining use of services and preventing doubling up or overlap of services[9]. Improving interprofessional working at the primary care level is one thing, but the strategy also needs to ensure that the intersection between primary and secondary care is properly managed, and that patients moving from acute care settings into community settings continue to have a streamlined, person-centred model of care applied, with good continuity of care[10]. However, there is also a need for the provision of strong leadership, which supports the implementation of the changes associated with this re-orientation of primary care in Ireland, and which supports new ways of working and helps to break down the barriers between the professions[11], [12]. This is where the role of the Health Visitor can be examined in a little more detail, in relation to realising some of the goals of the Primary Care Strategy, and in addressing some of the challenges of this. It has long been the case that Health Visitors work across professional boundaries, and work closely with a range of other health professionals, because within the community, specialist and generic roles are equally required in supporting individual patient need[13]. The interprofessional interface is perhaps one of the most fundamental elements of the work of the Health Visitor, but at the same time is perhaps not given enough attention or credit in terms of the impact that Health Visitors have in the prevention of illness and public health sectors of primary healthcare[14], [15]. The Public Health focus of the primary care strategy is inherent in much of the rhetoric it contains, particularly as it expressly cites the potential for preventive strategies to reduce overall healthcare resource use[16]. It is here that the Health Visitorââ¬â¢s role perhaps has the greatest scope, and should be more strongly underlined, as this is a great resource for change. Research shows that the role of the health visitor is paramount and unparalleled, in reducing risk related behaviours, improving health outcomes, promoting healthy lifestyles and engaging in the more challenging areas of the health/social car interface[17], [18], [19]. However, there is also some evidence to suggest that nurses and, in particular, health visitors, have a key role to play in expanding and delivering the public health dimension of primary care[20]. In particular, the development of improved partnerships in health and social care may be made possible through the role of such nurses, who have the broader community knowledge as well as specialist knowledge of key areas of public health[21]. These partnerships can be developed with a focus on the quality of care provision, not just the identification of need[22], [23], [24]. However, managing the development of improved partnerships, and achieving the goals of the Strategy, is going to be challenging during the transition period, and there may be a degree of uncertainty over roles and boundaries[25]. It might be that Health Visitors are in a prime position to provide the leadership required during such a time. Conclusions and Recommendations. Below is a summary of a brief SWOT analysis of the primary care strategy and isome of its potential implications. Table 1 SWOT analysis of Primary Care (with Reference to the Republic of Ireland Primary Health Strategy[26]) This shows that while there are issues with weaknesses and threats, many of these are the kind that have been present within the primary arena for some time, and it will take good leadership, and good use of existing skills and resources, to achieve the goals of the strategy. While the primary care focus for healthcare services is laudable, there is still the overwhelming need for good resourcing, more clarity about provision, and clear guidance on how to move forward to achieve these goals. Making use of existing roles, such as that of the Health Visitor, whose work crosses the intersections of care at so many points in the primary care sector, could improve quality of care, reduce the impact of the change and transition, and also set standards for the future to increase interprofessional communication and partnership. Certainly it should not be assumed that the strategy will eradicate all the existing problems about the provision of primary care in Ireland, and those problems must still be addressed in future provision[30]. References 213615 Allen, P. (2000) Accountability for clinical governance: developing collective responsibility for quality in primary care. British Medical Journal 321: 608ââ¬â611. Barlow, J., Davis, H., McIntosh, E. et al (2007) Role of home visiting in improving parenting and health in families at risk of abuse and neglect: results of a multicentre randomised controlled trial and economic evaluation Archives of Disease in Childhood 92 229-233. Campbell, S.M., Roland, M.O., Middleton, E. and Reeves, D. (2005) Improvements in quality of clinical care in English general practice 1998-2003: longitudinal observational study. BMJ 12;331(7525):1121 Carr, S.M. (2007) Leading change in public health ââ¬â factors that inhibit and facilitate energizing the process. PrimaryHealth Care Research and Development. 8 207-215. Chavasse, J. (1998) Policy as an influence on public health nuse education in the Republic of Ireland. Journal of Advanced Nursing 28 (1) 172-177. Chavasse, J. (1995) Public Health Nursing in the Republic of Ireland. Nursing Review 14 (1) 4-8. Currie, G. and Suhomlinova, O. (2006) The Impact of Institutional Forces Upon Knowledge Sharing in the UK NHS: The Triumph of Professional Power and the Inconsistency of Policy. Public Administration 84 (1) 1-30. Department of Health and Children (2001) Primary Care: a New Direction. Available from: http://www.dohc.ie/publications/pdf/primcare.pdf?direct=1 Accessed 10-11-08. Douglas, F., van Teijlingen, E., Torrance, N. et al (2006) Promoting physical activity inprimary care settings: health visitorsââ¬â¢ and practice nursesââ¬â¢ views and experiences. Journal of Advanced Nursing 55 (2) 159-168. Dunnion, M.E. Kelly, B. (2005) From the emergency department to home Journal of Clinical Nursing 14 776-785. Ewles, L. (2005). Key Topics in Public Health. London. Churchill Livingstone. Jackson, C., Coe, A., Cheater, F.M. and Wroe, S. (2007) Specialist health visitor-led weight management intervention in primary care: exploratory evaluation Journal of Advanced Nursing 58 (1) 23-34. Lordan, G. (2007) What determines a patientââ¬â¢s treatment? Evidence from out of hours primary care co-op data in the Republic of Ireland. Health Care Management and Science 10 283-292. McGregor, P., Nolan, A., Nolan, B. and Oââ¬â¢Neill, C. (2007) A comparison of GP visiting in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. ESRI Working Ppaper Avaialble from www.esri.ie Accessed 10-11-08. McMurray, R. and Chester, F. (2003) Partnerships for health: expanding the public health nursing role within PCTs. Primary Health Care Research and Development4 57-65. Masterson, A. (2002) Cross-boundary working: a macro-political analysis of the impact on professional roles. Journal of Clinical Nursing 11 331-339. Mitchell, P.S., Schaad, D.C, Odegard, P.S. Ballweg, R.A. (2006) Working across the boundaries of health professions disciplines in education, research and service: the University of Washington experience. Academic Medicine 81 (10) 891-896. Oââ¬â¢Dowd, A. (2005) Uncertainty over reorganisation is destabilising primary care. BMJ331 1164 Price, B. (2006) Exploring person-centred care. Nursing Standard 20 (50) 49-56. Rummery, K. and Coleman, A. (2001) Primary health and social care services in the UK: progress towards partnership? Social Science Medicine 56 (8) 1773-1782 Stanley, D., Reed, J. Brown, S. (1999) Older people, care management and interprofessional practice. Journal of Interprofessional Care 13 (3) 229-237. Starfield, B. (1994) Is primary care essential The Lancet 344 1129-1133. Thomas, P., Graffy, J., Wallace, P. (2006) How Primary Care Networks Can Help Integrate Academic and Service Initiatives in Primary Care Annals of Family Medicine 4:235-239. Vernon, S., Ross, F. Gould, M.A. (2000) Assessment of older people: politics and practice in primary care. Journal of Advanced Nursing 31 (2) 282-287. Watkins, D., Edwards, J. Gastrell, P. eds. (2003). Community Health Nursing: Frameworks for Practice. 2nd ed. p.35. London, Baillià ¨re Tindall. 1 Footnotes [1] Department of Health and Children (2001) p 7. [2] Starfield, B. (1994) [3] Starfield (ibid) [4] Vernon, S., Ross, F. Gould, M.A. (2000) [5] Vernon (ibid) [6] Starfield (ibid). [7] Price, B. (2006) [8] McGregor, P., Nolan, A., Nolan, B. and Oââ¬â¢Neill, C. (2007) [9] Stanley, D., Reed, J. Brown, S. (1999) [10] Dunnion, M.E. Kelly, B. (2005) [11] Carr, S.M. (2007) [12] Currie, G. and Suhomlinova, O. (2006) [13] Watkins, D., Edwards, J. Gastrell, P. eds. (2003). [14] Ewles, L. (2005). [15] Jackson, C., Coe, A., Cheater, F.M. and Wroe, S. (2007) [16] Department of Health and Children (ibid). [17] Barlow, J., Davis, H., McIntosh, E. et al (2007) [18] McMurray, R. and Chester, F. (2003) [19] Douglas, F., van Teijlingen, E., Torrance, N. et al (2006) [20] McMurray (ibid) [21] McMurray (ibid) [22] Allen, P. (2000) [23] Campbell, S.M., Roland, M.O., Middleton, E. and Reeves, D. (2005) [24] Rummery, K. and Coleman, A. (2001) [25] Oââ¬â¢Dowd, A. (2005) [26] Department of Health and Children (ibid). [27] Masterson, A. (2002) [28] Mitchell, P.S., Schaad, D.C, Odegard, P.S. Ballweg, R.A. (2006). [29] Thomas, P., Graffy, J., Wallace, P. (2006) [30] Lordan, G. (2007)
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Post Enlightenment European Culture: Metropolis (1927)
Post Enlightenment European Culture: Metropolis (1927) Final Paper: Metropolis (a 1927 German film) 14210568 Many people are used to the image as a way to receive information, through the film is the story. Film is not just the life of entertainment, as a media form, is presented in conjunction with a lot of culture produced by an art type images. The film ââ¬Å"Metropolisâ⬠is a significant German silent science-fiction film released in 1927 by Fritz Lang. It able to represent and portray the culture, political and social ideologies in Germany during that time. Since the remarkable work of ââ¬Å"Metropolisâ⬠, it is regarded as one of timeless classics that withstand the test of time. The film ââ¬Å"Metropolisâ⬠explicitly demonstrated different aspects of European culture since the Enlightenment, including the working class culture, totalitarian culture and the worship of technology. First of all, the relation between the working class and the bourgeoisie is revealed. In the film, the city was vertically separated into two spaces clearly, implying the differences of lifestyle between the working class and the capitalists, by sharply contrast of spatial distribution and configuration. The film opens by showing the city of the workers which is below the ground. Workers who wearing monotonous uniforms have to work day and night as a machine in the factories where are completely dark. Conversely, there is an entirely subversive life on the ground. It is the world of the bourgeoisie which is a thriving metropolis. It is a magnificent, gigantic city with gleaming skyscrapers linked by aerial highways, suspension bridges, and bustling street. People live in comfort and plenty, with huge stadiums and pleasure gardens. These effusive and energetic images show the life of the bourgeoisie are full of technology and possibilities. Also, the presence of the sentence ââ¬Å"As deep as lay the workersââ¬â¢ city below the earth, so high above it towered the complex named the ââ¬ËClub of the Sons,ââ¬â¢ with its lecture hallsâ⬠in the film also revealed the mirroring yet opposite environments in which the labor and the capitalists live in. Such high distinction emphasizes the social relationship of bourgeoisie and proletarians, and the rulers and the exploited. Working people are seen as a labor force, and usually regarded as passive victims of laissez faire as well as the capitalism (Thompson, p.3). For the purpose of working for the chosen elite Joh Federsen, the ruler of Metropolis, they are the masses of nameless workers who have to labor in an industrial complex to accomplish repetitive and dull tasks, and just served as a cog in a machine or a tool or production without emotional expression and communication, in order to sustain Metropolis. It seems that the film ââ¬Å"Metropolisâ⬠portrays the working class culture which workers are always in alienation, and squeezed and exploited by the rulers, in particular their labor forces, by comparing the lives of workers to capitalists. Besides, the pictures drawn in the movie indicates that the workers has class-consciousness (Thompson, p.1). For instance, Freder is not accepted by the workers when he attempting to integrate into the working class since the workers recognize him as Joh Fredersenââ¬â¢s son. Apart from the working class culture, totalitarian cultures are also demonstrated in ââ¬Å"Metropolisâ⬠. Totalitarian movement and government are characterized by aiming at total domination and resting on mass support (Arendt, p.351). Totalitarian regimes seek to hold the total authority over the society and dominate all aspects of public and private life wherever possible. In the film, Metropolis is ruled by wealthy industrialists (capitalists), led by Joh Fredersen, a king in a suit, also the commander-in-chief. Joh Fredersen is the ââ¬Å"headâ⬠of the city, is to give commands to the machine systems (i.e. the workers), in order to keep the city runs. He is the leader of the ââ¬Å"elitesâ⬠who holding most of the resources and managing the working class. However, underground-dwelling workers have to toil constantly to operate the machines, and they have no choice. The workers were only the ââ¬Å"handâ⬠of the city, just like robots, ââ¬Å"one command, one a ctionâ⬠. They are not be respected and cared by the ruler; instead, they are just considered as the means of production. For example, when Freder told his father about the industrial accident that resulted in death of workers, Joh Fredersen first seen to be no response and tried to ignore him, and later he said the workers should belong to the depth where it was not they belonged to. It seems that no actions should be taken since Fredersen think those workers are just the tool operating the machine system. On the other hand, the workers did not have complaints and actions against the commander, even still continued to work as before as nothing was happened. It reveals that the working class is living worthless, and is dominated to work for serving the capitalists. Metropolis is obviously a totalitarian regime as the working class is managed by Fredersen, and they have been isolated and ignored. Furthermore, the worship of technology and science and its relation with the bourgeoisie are also reflected in the movie. ââ¬Å"Capitalism is the first mode of production in world history to institutionalize self-sustaining economic growth.â⬠(Habermas, p. 247) It leads to an extremely fast rate of economic growth, which can increase living conditions and lead to a more prosperous country, therefore, legitimacy of the state can also be provided. And technology and science is the dominating force in the capitalist society. Metropolis is obviously a kind of capitalist society. In the film, there are lots of tall skyscrapers touching one another with roadway fingers and buzzed about by airplanes and blimps, in particular the Tower of Babel, and thus it is technology-driven. In order to enhancing the economic growth, the leader of Metropolis as well as the capitalists will emphasize work as an important force; technology plays a major part of the society in sustaining the city. The refore, no longer is work part of the subsystem of the society, work becomes the driving force in the society. For example, when the grievances of the workers broken out, with strike, revolt and revolution, the Metropolis has to face the suffering from the attack of underground water. It seems that there will be the collapse of the society when the action of work, the dominating force in the capitalist society and is prompted by the bourgeoisie who are profit-seeking, is not functioning. The machine system used to sustain the city is fail as the strike of the workers. On the other hand, Fredersen also cannot build, control or monitor the city without technological power and the work-flow of information supported by technology.He has to depend on technology for his control of Metropolis. It seems that technology and science become the ideology of Metropolis, the capitalist society, to maintain the city operates. For the movie ââ¬Å"Metropolisâ⬠, the scene showing the two clocks vertically strike me most. The bottom clock counts off the time in ten hour increments for the workers, while the upper clock uses a 24-hour system, for managers, engineers and administrators. I think these two clock is about the interpretation of time, reflecting the two social classes which is the working class and the capitalists, also implying work is the driven force of the society. This scene is fully illustrated the working class culture. The clock emphasizes the control of time over the workers. Just as a machine is always under the control of an external influence, the worker is controlled by the system of Metropolis. They just know they should work day by day, and denied the rhythms of daylight and night. Unlike the capitalists on the ground, their lives is work, no other things. For them, time is not important and even meaningless. The exploitation of the workers, and as the passive victims of capital ism are the significant characteristics of the working class culture. To conclude, different aspects of European culture since the Enlightenment are demonstrated by the film ââ¬Å"Metropolisâ⬠. Not only that, the movie also represent and reveal the current working condition of labors in the certain extent. In some workplace, especially in the developing countries with cheap labors, workers are much easier in alienation, only working relationship and exploitation but no meaningful communication and mutual care between them and the capitalists. Same as the film portrayed, no one will leave their sphere. No one thinks about how the other half lives. No one is curious. The interaction becomes less important, and many of the social and cultural attributes of society fall apart. This is an unhealthy social phenomenon that should be aware and addressed.
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