Far from the madding crowd Essay

1. Chronicle the relationship between Bathsheba Everdene and one of the three men (Oak, Boldwood or Troy) in her life. Who was the most to blame for the difficulties encountered in the course of their relationship? (One or both? ) I will begin by giving an account on the relationship between Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak. After completing this I will come to a conclusion on who was most to blame for the difficulties encountered in the course of their relationship. When Farmer Oak and Bathsheba first encounter in the book, Oak sees a carriage with Bathsheba sitting on top, the carriage is full with furniture. This lady interests Oak and as the carriage is about to leave he â€Å"followed the vehicle to the turnpike gate some way beyond the bottom of the hill, where the object of his contemplation now halted for the payment of the toll. † It is noticeable that Oak is interested in this woman but the scene unfolds as Bathsheba refuses to pay the turnpike keeper the two pence he would like. â€Å"Let the young woman pass,† is what Gabriel said as he draws near and hands the keeper the money. This meeting introduces the two characters to the reader for the first time, but they do not know that they will both play an important part in each other’s lives. Not long after the meeting, Gabriel sees Bathsheba from a â€Å"birds eye view†, this is when he realises that he feels something towards Bathsheba. â€Å"Having for some time known the want of a satisfactory form to fill an increasing void within him, his position moreover affording the widest scope for his fancy, he painted her a beauty. † This is the moment when Oak sees Bathsheba riding a horse on her back in a way she would not have if she knew she were being watched. Bathsheba does not know that Oak is watching. This is when Oak knows that he is in love with her. As she rides back he approaches her and brings up the fact he saw her earlier, this makes her blush as she apprehended that he had seen her. Oak has became so in love with her that he would wait for her to come past the hedge every day, he â€Å"had reached a peak of existence he never could have anticipated a short time before. † Oak chooses to marry Bathsheba but he is mislead by Bathsheba’s aunt told him that she has many sweethearts already. Bathsheba finds him to tell him that the statement was not true. This leads him to think that she wants to marry him and tells her that his is doing well in life and that Bathsheba may have her own piano. â€Å"Would hate to be thought men’s property in that way,† is Bathsheba’s reply, meaning she likes the idea of marriage but does not like the outcome of all the responsibility afterwards. Also Bathsheba is not totally stunned by Gabriel’s property and is not impressed by the idea of having a â€Å"little piano. † Later on in the book, after Oak hears that Boldwood has proposed to Bathsheba she asks Oak to deny all rumours about her getting married but Oak refuses. He goes on to say he will give her his point of view about her actions. Oak re-approaches her and she decides to take serious measures. â€Å"I cannot allow any man to – to criticize my private conduct! † â€Å"Nor will I for a minute. So you’ll please leave the farm at the end of the week! † As soon as Bathsheba dismisses Oak she once again needs him as the sheep are in trouble and will die unless Oak can help them. Bathsheba knows the sheep are at stake so even though she was reluctant to call back Oak at first she does so. At first he does not want to come back as Bathsheba was impolite in the way she asked for him to stay, but in the end he does. Gabriel then realises that Bathsheba may need him more than he thought, as she does not no how to run a farm properly, this gives Gabriel the thought that he may be able to have a relationship with her. Gabriel’s chances of a relationship with Bathsheba are ruined when Troy arrives in the book. Oak warns Bathsheba that she should not get involved with him, but she is already in love and does not take any concern to what is being said. Bathsheba later goes off to Bath with Troy where Oak believes she is going to turn down Troy but instead they come back as a married couple. Oak still loves Bathsheba though and shows her his devotion to her one night when a storm is brewing; he helps save the hayricks while Troy and the rest of the village are drunk. After accounting the relationship between Bathsheba and Oak, I will now who was the most to blame for the difficulties encountered in the course of the relationship. I cannot see how Gabriel Oak was the most to blame for the difficulties encountered in the course of all the mens relationships with Bathsheba. I believe that it is a combination of both Boldwood’s and Troy’s. This is because if Boldwood was not so desperate for love he would have realised that the valentines card Bathsheba sent him was simply as a prank, â€Å"What fun it would be to send it to that silly old Boldwood. † Instead Boldwood takes this seriously as he searches for love, he continuously approaches Bathsheba saying that he is in love with her, and that they should get married, â€Å"My life does not belong to me any more, Miss Everdene, but to you. I’ve come to propose marriage to you. † I believe that if Boldwood had accepted the fact that the card was actually only sent as a prank, then he would never have asked Bathsheba to marry him. Therefore some of the difficulties encountered would never have happened. I also believe Troy has a part to blame in the difficulties encountered, as his flirtatious ways and seduction techniques begins to make Bathsheba fall in love with him. Troy only likes Bathsheba as she happens to be a very pretty lady, he would never have treated a women he did not find attractive in this manner. This is shown in the way he speaks to her upon their first encounter â€Å"Thank you for letting me see such a beautiful face! † Before Bathsheba and Troy get married he tells Bathsheba how he has seen a women far more beautiful than her, this is only an attempt to make sure he marries her. Again if Troys trickery and flirtatious ways were not to have happened some of the difficulties would never have happened. I cannot see how Gabriel was to blame for any of the difficulties, as when Bathsheba was with either Boldwood or Troy he simple let whatever to carry on, he did not get in the way. This is because he thought that aslong as Bathsheba was happy with the man she was with, then that would make him happy, even though he would not be able to be with her. So to conclude I believe that both Troy and Boldwood are to blame for the difficulties encountered in the course of Bathsheba’s relationship with all three of the men.

Critical Analysis “The School of Athens” Essay

In this painting, you see around 60 Greek philosophers arranged in a very large hall. The philosophers are talking to each other, discussing theories or mathematical queries. It symbolizes philosophic thinking and the search for truth. On the wall you can see paintings and statues. He has used contour lines with domes and actual line with figures. Personalities are arranged like actors in a tired architectural setting, Raphael has represented distinguished Greek philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle (the central figures) Socrates and Euclid. Composition has been ordered brilliantly, clearly revealing his outstanding ability. The placing of each figure and each group combine to produce perfect harmony, order and balance, and, even though some sixty figures are used in the composition, there is no crowding. Therefore painting is asymmetrical. The main focal point of the painting is on Plato and Aristotle. The painting has more emphasis on these two philosophers than the others because they are centered in the middle of the composition and they are the only two standing in front of hall entrance with sky surrounding them. Raphael has demonstrated tone in this painting. An example of this is were the light beaming through the windows and creating darkness on the ceiling of the domes. This gives the painting a three-dimensional effect. Also demonstrates line and a range of different colors but mostly primary and secondary, matching perfectly to each figure and object. The themes he is exploring are philosophic thinking buy Greek Philosophers, who are expressing their theories and beliefs to one another. What this work means to me is, that Raphael had great respect for the Greek scholars and philosophers and admired there teaching and beliefs. Read Also:  What is Critical Thinking Essay The intention on the artist was to express social views as it looks as if the scholars are socialising to one another and sharing their thinkings. This could also come under a political interpretation as they might be expressing their political views. I think the great Greek philosophersAristotle and Plato have influenced this artist because he may of shared many of their beliefs and respect their  great intellect. I also think he is influenced by them because they are centered in the middle of the composition. I find this painting extremely well executed it looks very realistic and the artist puts an amazing amount of detail with every object drawn. I find the painting to be a successful piece of work, the composition is well organised, artist has produced perfect harmony and balance. It expresses many art techniques, such as tone, line, chiaroscuro, shade and perspective. This art would have been well acknowledged at the time, as the paintings shows great thinkers and represents time of knowledge. This is what the Renaissance was about a passion for knowledge and skill. During the Renaissance people had an interest in classical antiquity, it centered around man, his earthly environment and his visual world. The human figure, the landscape, the treatment of deep space, and realistic representation was important. The painting shows this.

List of All U.S. Colleges to Offer a Health Policy and Administration Major

Health policy and administration is a major that blends elements from many different fields. In general, it includes elements of the health sciences, business administration, and liberal arts. Students with a degree in health policy and administration are prepared to work in healthcare without being a direct caregiver. While health policy and administration may seem like an obscure major to students who haven’t heard of it before, it is actually a very common offering at large universities, state schools, and tech institutes. If it sounds like something you may be interested in pursuing, don’t miss the rest of this post where we discuss how to get into a health policy and administration program and exactly where you can these programs on offer. Health policy and administration is a growing field due to the expansion of private healthcare facilities and an increase in the aging population. As the need for quality and affordable short and long-term care facilities grow, so too does the need for people to manage them. Students who major in health policy and administration don’t just manage healthcare facilities, though. They also become health analysts, healthcare program administrators, and candidates for higher degrees in health law or public health. Health policy is a secure and often lucrative field. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2018, the median salary for a health service manager was $99,730. The same report also projected jobs in this field to increase 20% by 2026, a rate nearly three times the national average for all occupations. Health policy and administration is really a combination of many fields, so developing a well-rounded application that highlights a few specific traits and skills will be your best bet. To get on the right track, you should think about the following tips. Take a Well-Rounded Course Load with Some Challenging Classes. Because this field isn’t highly specialized, you’ll need to show your academic skills across all subject areas. Take the hardest classes that you’re capable of succeeding in and be sure to enroll in some AP classes if possible. AP Statistics or AP Macroeconomics would be particularly helpful classes, and doing well in them might even mean placing out of lower level prerequisites in the health policy and administration program. Get Involved in Healthcare or Service Extracurriculars. You can use extracurriculars as a way to reinforce your interest in the field of health policy by pursuing activities that involve healthcare or service to the community. Getting an internship or job at a care facility or volunteering at local food banks are smart choices to highlight your dedication to giving back. Build a Strong Admissions Team. Getting ready for college applications is a process, and it’s one that you shouldn’t go through alone. You should build a supportive and experienced team to help you out along the way. You may want to consider a program like the Early Advising Program , which pairs high school ninth and tenth graders with successful students at top-30 schools to provide current high schoolers with advice on everything from selecting classes and extracurriculars to setting and achieving long-term goals. Estimating your chance of getting into a college is not easy in today’s competitive environment. Thankfully, with our state-of-the-art software and data, we can analyze your academic and extracurricular profile and estimate your chances. Our profile analysis tool can also help you identify the improvement you need to make to enter your dream school. American International College | AIC Austin Peay State University | APSU C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University | LIU Post California Baptist University | CBU California State University Channel Islands | CSU Channel Islands California State University, Dominguez Hills | CSUDH California State University, East Bay | CSU East Bay California State University, Fresno | CSU Fresno California State University, Fullerton | CSU Fullerton California State University, Long Beach | Long Beach State California State University, Sacramento | Sacramento State Central Christian College of Kansas Central Washington University | CWU Charleston Southern University | CSU Coastal Carolina University | Coastal Concordia University Wisconsin | CUW Delaware State University | Del State East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania | ESU Eastern Florida State College | EFSC Eastern Washington University | EWU Farmingdale State College | SUNY Farmingdale Fayetteville State University | FSU Florida State College at Jacksonville | FSCJ Grand Valley State University | GVSU Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis | IUPUI Indiana University Kokomo | IU Kokomo Indiana University of Pennsylvania | IUP Indiana University Southeast | IU Southeast Lake Washington Institute of Technology | LWTech Lincoln College of New England | LCNE Louisiana Tech University | La. Tech Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences | MCPHS Metropolitan State University of Denver | MSU Denver Middle Tennessee State University | MTSU Millersville University of Pennsylvania | MU Minnesota State University Moorhead | MSUM Montana State University–Northern | MSU–Northern New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology | New Mexico Tech North Carolina State University | NC State Northeastern State University | NSU Northwest Florida State College | NWFSC Oklahoma State University–Oklahoma City | OSU–OKC Pennsylvania College of Technology | Penn Tech Pennsylvania State University | PSU Robert Morris University | RMU (Pennsylvania) Rutgers University–New Brunswick | Rutgers Saginaw Valley State University | SVSU Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College | SMWC Sam Houston State University | SHSU Southeast Missouri State University | SEMO Southern Connecticut State University | SCSU Southern Illinois University Carbondale | SIU Southern New Hampshire University | SNHU Southern University at New Orleans | SUNO Southwest Minnesota State University | SMSU Southwestern Oklahoma State University | SWOSU St. Joseph’s College (New York) | SJC State University of New York at Canton | SUNY Canton State University of New York at Cortland | SUNY Cortland State University of New York at Delhi | SUNY Delhi State University of New York at Old Westbury | SUNY Old Westbury State University of New York at Potsdam | SUNY Potsdam Tennessee Wesleyan University | TWU The College at Brockport, State University of New York | SUNY Brockport The State University of New York at Buffalo | SUNY Buffalo The State University of New York Polytechnic Institute | SUNY Poly University of California, Berkeley | UC Berkeley University of California, Irvine | UC Irvine University of California, Merced | UC Merced University of California, Riverside | UC Riverside University of California, San Diego | UCSD University of Central Florida | UCF University of Colorado Denver | CU Denver University of Hawaii at Hilo | UH Hilo University of Hawaii at Manoa | UH Manoa University of Hawaii–West Oahu | UHWO University of Houston–Downtown | UHD University of Illinois at Chicago | UIC University of Louisiana at Lafayette | UL Lafayette University of Louisiana at Monroe | ULM University of Maine at Farmington | UMF University of Mary Hardin–Baylor | UMHB University of Maryland University College | UMUC University of Maryland, Baltimore County | UMBC University of Maryland, College Park | Maryland University of Massachusetts Amherst | UMass Amherst University of Michigan–Dearborn | UM-D University of Michigan–Flint | UofM-Flint University of Minnesota Crookston | UMC University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | Minnesota University of Mississippi | Ole Miss University of Missouri–Kansas City | UMKC University of Nebraska–Lincoln | UNL University of Nevada, Las Vegas | UNLV University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | UNC University of North Carolina at Charlotte | UNC Charlotte University of North Carolina at Wilmington | UNC Wilmington University of Northwestern Ohio | UNOH University of South Carolina Beaufort | USCB University of South Carolina Upstate | USC Upstate University of South Florida St. Petersburg | USFSP University of Southern Indiana | USI University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) University of Texas at Austin | UT Austin University of Texas at El Paso | UTEP University of Texas at San Antonio | UTSA University of Wisconsin–Green Bay | UW–Green Bay University of Wisconsin–La Crosse | UW–La Crosse University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee | UWM Washington University in St. Louis | WashU With so many options to choose from, creating your final college list may seem a little intimidating. Start by considering your personal priorities. Think about things like location, class size, campus resources, and cost to help narrow down the field. Then look at admissions statistics and the incoming class profile to consider how your test scores and GPA stack up. For more help, consider the Applications program , which exists to help you optimize your application and ensure that you’re supported through every step of the way. You can trust us to help you gain the tools you’ll need to attend your dream school. What Does it Cost to Attend Carleton College? There are many factors that go into choosing a college, including majors offered, location, campus life, and quality of education (to name just a few). However, there is one factor that seems to loom above the rest: price. When comparing the published prices of colleges, the enormity of your decision quickly becomes apparent. While the list price of a top-notch institution such as Carleton College can be a shock, the truth is that most students do not pay that price.When comparing colleges, students are better served by looking at the net cost as opposed to the list price. Net cost provides a more accurate representation of the real cost of college, as it factors in government aid (federal, state, and local), financial aid, and merit scholarships—these are all subtracted from a college’s list price. Keep reading to learn more about the real cost of attending Carleton College, as well as to gain insight into other financial factors affecting Carleton students. The list price of tuition, room, and board at Carleton College is $66,490 for both in- and out-of-state students. The majority of students will not pay full price, however, when all is said and done. The average student paying full price at Carleton comes from a family with an income greater than $175,000 a year, or is not in the top 30% of the accepted class. The average cost of Carleton College for a student who doesn’t qualify for financial aid is $66,371—roughly the published price. The average student attending Carleton pays approximately $10,000 less than list price, as the average net cost with financial aid is $55,719. The amount of financial aid varies by student, with the student’s family income being a determining factor. Below is the average cost of Carleton College based on family income: Estimating your chance of getting into a college is not easy in today’s competitive environment. Thankfully, with our state-of-the-art software and data, we can analyze your academic and extracurricular profile and estimate your chances. Our profile analysis tool can also help you identify the improvement you need to make to enter your dream school. Merit aid is a scholarship given to students for accomplishments both in and out of the classroom. Merit aid net price is the published price of college minus any awarded merit scholarships. 6.3% of students at Carleton College without the need for financial aid receive merit aid, with the average amount being $119. Out of a pool of over 1,000 schools, Carleton College ranked 896th in merit aid generosity, according to our research. Many students in the U.S. take out student loans to pay for college, and students at Carleton are no exception. 70% of matriculated students have a student loan with the average federal student loan per undergraduate student being $2,885 across all four years. As you would expect from an excellent institution like Carleton College, the graduation rate is high—91% of students graduate within six years. Carleton also returns on the time and money invested there, as the average salary of a student 10 years after graduation is $54,200. Northfield, Minnesota, home of Carleton College, has a cost of living index of 111.8—making it 11.8% more expensive than both the average city in Minnesota (106.3), as well as the country as a whole (100). Carleton College believes students are members of a community, and being on campus is important to foster that community. Because of this, 96% of students live on campus . Each year, a limited number of seniors—the number varies depending on the college’s occupancy—are allowed to take the â€Å" Northfield Option † and live off campus. Students taking the Northfield Option will find the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment is $780 a month, while two bedrooms go for $990. Students should be prepared for some fluctuation in these prices due to factors such as apartment size, condition, and proximity to campus. The minimum wage in Minnesota is $9.86 an hour, but students can expect to make more than this at a part-time job in one of Northfield’s thriving restaurants. The average server in Northfield earns $11.86 an hour while bartenders earn $11.65 per hour. One way to help cover the expense of attending Carleton College is by participating in their community-based work program —Carleton’s version of a work-study program. Building a bridge between the local community and the college, students participating in the community-based work program are given off-campus jobs in the interest of the community. Northfield students can also participate in the Northfield Reads and Counts Program . In this program, qualifying federal work-study students give one-on-one support to Northfield public school students in need of extra. Students in search of a simple part-time job will find that the vibrant downtown offers numerous retail and restaurant positions. Part-time jobs are an excellent way for students to pay for the day-to-day expenses they incur and help prevent accruing extra debt while pursuing their degree. College is a big expense—costing a lot of time and money—but our College Application Program can help you save both. Work one-on-one with one of our advisors to find out your odds of being accepted into Carleton College and get help managing the numerous deadlines and to-dos of the application process. Our College Application Program also gains you access to our Finances Tool, allowing you to get a clear idea of the cost of college and develop a sound strategy for covering the bill.

Music history report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Music history report - Essay Example One of the most remarkable and influential eras in the history of music is the Classical period. The Classical period, though brief compared to other musical eras, it has contributed much in the history of musical development. Symphonies, sonatas, and string quartets of the three great composers of the Viennese School (Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig Van Beethoven) were among the notable developments that happened in the Classical period. Also, other remarkable composers included minor composers such as Mozart’s father, several of J.S. Bach’s sons, Johann Hummel, Muzio Clementi, Friedrich Kuhlau, and many others (Moss). The melodies of the Classical era were more compact and diatonic in nature, thus making it an era of strict and restrained music. Notably, there was less structure in the harmony of the compositions, as well. It used the tonic, dominant, and subdominant chords, which gave the compositions its really classical nature. Conspicuously , during this period, diatonic harmony was more common than chromatic. Composers mainly used chords in triadic form and occasionally used seventh chords in their compositions (â€Å"The Classical Era†).

Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 2

Marketing - Essay Example outside of the marketing function impact upon marketing efforts. The report, takes the help of Sam’s Tailor, a fashion retailer in the Hong Kong market, to apply relevant methods of market analyses to the company’s marketing mix in order to determine the relationship between external market factors and other business units like finance, human resources and production, and their role in enforcing marketing efforts. ... The report will attempt to investigate all the above factors in relation to a fashion retailer in the Hong Kong retail market. It has to be noted that since the report is based on analysis of a fabricated situation in said market, whilst relevant background information is provided on the chosen company, an assumptive format will be employed when applying theory to the situation(s) explored. I.1 The organisation, Sam’s Tailors: Known as a tourist’s must visit enterprise, whether the tourist is a celebrity or a common person visiting Hong Kong, Sam’s tailors has earned a great reputation since its establishment in 1957 for providing high quality tailored suits for men and women. The company operates on the core traditions of quality and value for money. Their concept of the 24 hour suit has traditionally drawn many famous names like Bill Clinton, and Michael Palin, who in fact had a suit made within 24 hours whilst he was shooting his BBC travel documentary, Ã¢â‚¬Ë œAround the World in 80 Days’ (www.samstailor.biz; http://www.time.com/time/asia/2004/boa/boa_body_tailor.html). The current owner, Manu Melwani, son of the founder Sam Melwani, is very particular about maintaining strong relationships with past and present customers, as he thoroughly believes that a good tailor needs to know a lot about his customers. He travels extensively to Europe and America, where the majority of his clientele are, in order to understand more of their daily habits, personalities and public opinions about them to create suits tailor made for their image. The core competencies are the amount of research that goes into studying the behaviours of a considerably small but elite customer base, and a small corporate structure

Positioning Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Positioning - Term Paper Example Thus, it can be said that positioning is the way to stimulate customers’ awareness regarding a brand and place a rich, exclusive, and beneficial insight for the brand in the mind of people (Oxford University Press, 2011). Why Organizations Opt for Market Positioning A successful organization must be aligned closely with the target customer segments in the existing markets as well as in the emerging markets. Organizations which can forecast the market tendencies and form positioning strategies accordingly possess the best prospect for long-term success. The prime reason for an organization to call for market positioning is to achieve competitive advantage by creating a favorable base of rivalry. Through positioning organizations can encourage customers’ awareness and belief regarding a brand and make a clear understanding about the benefits and worth they will get for purchasing the brand. Thus, companies can create competitive advantage over the competitors through effe ctive implications of positioning strategies (Njuguna, 2009). The other reason for market positioning is that, it can help to differentiate the product by communicating some unique benefits over the similar products served by competitors. Thus, other competitors and people will view the product as innovative assisting the organization to express itself as unique and dissimilar from other organizations. Subsequently, the organization shall attain higher competitive advantages through brand recognition. Therefore, the objective to attain competitive advantages over the rivals can be termed as one of the major and core reasons for organizations to implement this strategic alliance (Sengupta, 2005). Successful Market Positioning Market positioning denotes how customers consider a product and its contribution in contrast to other products. For making a successful positioning there is need to recognize the way for changing customers’ awareness through improving, strengthening, or p rotecting the position of organization in the market. Market positioning must be addressed appropriately because it is the only method to stabilize the misconception produced by ineffective communication channels. A complete message given in right time and in right place is a beneficial way for successful positioning of an organization (Perreault & McCarthy, 2006). Positioning in organization begins with product. Positioning becomes much vital when two or more brands in market look similar to each other. For instance, several customers believe that there is little difference in the LED television models of different brands. While, Sony wants to generate awareness in the mind of customers to consider that their LED television provide clear, lively and detail picture compared to other brands by their unique ‘X-Reality pro Engine’ (Sony Electronics Inc, 2011). On the other hand, Samsung wants to position their LED televisions with the features of innovative picture quality , consumer of lesser electricity and equipped with internet connectivity features by their unique ‘Backlight Technology’ and higher processor speed (Samsung, 2011). Communication ensures to create a positive image about a brand in customers’ mind. Positioning must be combined with the activities of market segmentation because it lets for more laborious tactic which

Explain with recent examples from recent years in the UK, the main Essay

Explain with recent examples from recent years in the UK, the main reasons why a government taxes it's citizens - Essay Example It is also tasked with creating job opportunities for both the learned and the informal sector. In order to achieve these, the government levies taxes on its citizens to help perform its duties effectively and efficiently. The essay shall explore the various reasons as to why governments levy taxes and give examples. Taxes are compulsory and anyone caught for not complying is charged with tax evasion. There are several reasons as to why governments levy taxes. They include catering for the government expenditure. The mandate of the Government is to take care of all its citizens. This is because they have to create facilities, pay workers wages and also provide necessities for each citizen. It incurs many expenses in carrying out its daily activities since there are many projects the government undertakes such as international trade. For example, when the United Kingdom hosted the Olympic Games a few years ago, the government spent millions of pounds in building new stadiums and refurbishing the older ones. They also spent money on new facilities and infrastructure. Another reason for taxation is to bolster the economy to prevent it from market failure and shield its citizens from externalities. The recent Global financial crisis hit most countries all over the world. The United Kingdom and the other countries within the European Union were also affected. Many people lost their jobs, homes, businesses and their sources of livelihood. The financial crisis was a revelation, in that it made the government realize that the economy was vulnerable and took measures to ensure that it does not happen again. Externalities are the third party effects that arise from the production and consumption of goods and services whose consumption offers no form of compensation. They affect people indirectly since they occur outside the economy. Externalities affect individuals who are not directly

MIS Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

MIS Project - Essay Example To achieve this mission, Lib Cafe will commit to several philosophies, i.e. the clients will be the employer, the product is the most important thing, and to keep the store’s employees happy to provide the best service. In addition, the store will avoid greed and opportunism. Objectives Lib Cafe has several objectives that they seek to achieve. These are: 1. Turn ordinary physical shelves available in our homes into a virtual/online/digital shelf that can be accessed from anywhere. 2. Provide fast and economic way of delivering products and services to customers for entertainment and educational purposes at reduced/competitive prices using latest/advanced technologies available, today. Market Analysis The Middle Eastern market is an expanding market, yet, as a niche market, it is underserved. It is expected that the market will grow from 100 million potential in 2012 to approximately 15 million in 2020. Ardent book readers also spend approximately $100 billion dollars every ye ar with at least 30% of this now being spent online (Carey 22). One reason why the Middle Eastern consumer is overlooked is that the majority of information sources relied on by marketers does not adequately represent the population (Carey 22). However, as a marketer, this group needs to be recognized as a good opportunity and connecting to them in their early years, especially, could reap dividends in the future. Competitive Analysis Lib Cafe faces competition from various competitors such as traditional brick and mortar bookstores, textbook exchange sites, online retailers, online auction sites, comparison sites for book prices, and content specific sites for textbooks. These include Barnes & Noble, Bigwords.com, Efollet.com, Haif.com, JourneyEd.com, TextbooksX.com, Collegeclub.com, Ecampus.com, Ebay.com, Lazystudents.com, among others (Mercer 32). Strategy Lib Cafe’s potential market is around 100 million clients who are live in the Middle East and North Africa. For the se cond phase of this project, the plan is to focus the marketing efforts on a subset market that has its location in the Middle East (Mercer 44). The plan is also to expand to other markets using a phased approach, which will focus on a new region every year with North Africa and Eastern Europe as the next target. Sales Direct download – for purchased items (does not qualify for resale). Online Access to Company’s Cloud – for purchased (qualify for resale), rented or subscribed items. Shipped – physical product available for shipping (optional at higher costs). Products and Services Lib Cafe seeks to offer a unique content, service, and product blend to its clients, which other companies do not offer online. Lib Cafe also seeks to aggregate content, services, products, and participants to come up with a client-to-client retail website and market place. This will target 100 million potential users. Financials According to the requirements and opportunities t hat Lib Cafe has come up with, in their business plan, the financial projections are as follows: Ensure that the company exceeds an increase of 1.5 times in profits and revenue by year three. Make a report on its profits in month 9 of operations Ensure that there are exceptional revenues and sales by the end of year two. Lib Cafe needs a seed investment and later

Wall Street Journal Executive Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Wall Street Journal Executive Summary - Essay Example This lending has brought a new life to Ms. Mathews’ family business and also to her bank. â€Å"For a lot of the big regional banks, the future is a return to the past, â€Å"says Eric Wasserstrom, an analyst at Guggenheim Securities LLC. ’’It’s more like their traditional lending, more balanced† (Sterngold Web). After the recession, some businessmen and lawmakers, said banks were not playing their part in economic growth, although they received a lot of funds from the government. Banks increased their lending across the country in the second quarter of 2012.since then they have increased their lending. However, not all banks accelerated their lending. Some local banks increased their lending to businesses earlier than the national banks in past recession period. The volume of commercial and industrial loans at the major street banks is larger in dollar terms than at regional lenders, although the loans only make a small amount of their total share. For example, Bank of American Corp. made $233.6 billion in loans in 2014 which was 26.5 percent of its total and Citigroup Inc. 6.4 percent of its total. Large banks are mostly concentrating on giving the other types of loans; smaller banks put much emphasis on loaning business persons. KeyBank, for instance, increased its commercial and industrial loan by 12.3 percent in 2014, taking a lion share among its peers in 2014. Fifth Third Bancorp increased its bank loan by 4 percent last year and PNC Financial Services grew hers by 10 percent. KeyBank is established in 12 states, from Maine to Alaska. In July it announced that it had agreed to own Pacific Crest Securities, a technology focussed investment bank. The stock price for KeyCorp, the holding company which consists almost entirely of the banking operation has out competed most of its competitors. During the recession of 2008 and 2009, KeyBank just like the other banks was affected by the economic crisis. It

Native American Religions Essay Example for Free

Native American Religions Essay Native American Religions happen to be one of the oldest and most enduring forms of religion. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups. Native Americans arrived on the North American Continent fifth-teen thousand to twenty thousand years ago. Native Americans have literally sources that exist from only the last four hundred years even though Native American life covers perhaps twenty thousand years. Over three hundred tribes have been recognized by the United States government. Native Americans are the only known ethnic group in the United States requiring a federal permit to practice their religion. In the state of Virginia, Native Americans face a unique problem. Virginia has no federally recognized tribes. Native American Religions have also been known as American Indians, Amerindians, Amerinds, Aboriginal, Indians, Indigenous, Original Americans, Red Indians, or Red Men. Native Americans religions are polytheistic. Native American Religions are remarkably free of priesthood. Native Americans are very personal in that they encourage Page 2 individuals to contact the spirit world alone. Native Americans believe that many levels of Gods and Spirits exist in the universe. They think of the High God or Great Spirits as a personal God. They believe in the Supreme Being in a manner found in many basic religions. Native religions have some of the qualities of monotheism, polytheism, and monism. Native American has been exposed to Christian eschatology for more than four hundred years. The influence of Christianity has been so strong that today most Native Americans are Christians. They are interested in the day-to-day life among the multiple spirits found in the world. Native Americans have a reverent attitude toward the land, trees, rivers, and mountains. Native Americans who practiced agriculture revere the soil, plants, and tree. Hunting was an important part of life within many Native American Cultures. The hunter would pray to the spirit of the animal before the hunt. Hunting was a religious pursuit in which the hunters saw the animal as a fellow creature, with a similar spirit. After all hunting’s one would ask the animal for forgiveness. They would basically perform a taboo. A religious action that enables people to avoid doing things that would offend the spirits of nature and the ancestors. This was one of the ways the Native American would protect themselves from possible danger from the spirit world. Another widely observed taboo is the avoidance of the dead. Taboo concerning about Page 3 the dead led Native Americans to be greatly concerned about their final resting places. There is no heaven for those who have been righteous and no hell for those who have been wicked. Native Americans often seek to control the forces of spirit world with ceremonies. The purpose of their ceremonies, rituals, songs, and dances is not necessarily worship. They are a mean of renewing the partnership between humans and the spirit world. Long hours of dancing in this atmosphere prepare the participants for contact with the spirit world. Holy week is also celebrated a song and dance. Native Americans often gain special powers by seeking visions that may place them in connection with the spirit world. Visions are sought by Native Americans at other times in life. The spirit may appear after a period of fasting and prayer, or sometimes without any preparation. The Sweat Lodge is probably the most important Native Ritual. The sweat lodge usually occurs before and after every other major ritual like the Sundance and Vision Quest. It is also a stand alone ritual meaning that it occurs whenever it is needed. Its original purpose was to cleanse or purify individuals. Mother sweat lodge essentially translates in to returning to the womb. The Sun Dance last from four to eight days starting at the sunset of the final day of preparation and ending at sunset. It showed continuity between life and death regeneration. It shows that there is no true end to life, but a cycle of symbolic and true deaths and rebirths. All of nature is intertwined and dependent on one another. This gives an equal ground to everything on the Earth. The sun dance was a significant part of the Crow Indian peoples Page 4 spirituality. It was a spiritual retreat in which a large number of participants would fast, pray and dance for a period of days. They asked for answers to events going on in their lives. Traditional Native Americans seem to believe in two souls, neither of which is considered immortal. One soul is the life, or the breath, that accompanies the body. The other soul is known as the free soul. One of the most common elements of Native American Religions is the use of tobacco and the sacred pipe in religious ceremonies. Tobacco was originally grown and used only for religious purposes by Native Americans. The tobacco used in religious ceremonies is stronger than the tobacco used in cigarettes. The ritual tobacco is occasionally smoked in rolled from corn husks. Most Native American tribes had traditional gender roles. Men hunted, traded and made war, while women gathered plants, cared for the young and the elderly. Women ever had the task of making weapons and tools, they took care of the roofs of their homes and often helped their men hunt buffalos. Many Native American people believed in the unusual power of a woman at these times in life. During a women menstruation she was kept away from ordinary society. Native Americans today have a special relationship with the United States of America. In conclusion, Native Americans can be found as nations, tribes, or bands of Native Americans who have sovereignty or independence from the government of the United Statesry society. Like other religions, Native American belief systems include many sacred Page 5 narratives. Such spiritual stories are deeply based in Nature and are rich with the symbolism of seasons, weather, plants, earth, water, sky and fire. The idea of an all powerful Great Spirit, a connection to the Earth, diverse creation narratives and collective memories of ancient ancestors are common. Traditional worship practices are often a part of tribal gatherings with dance, rhythm, songs and trance.

Frida Kahlo and Niki de Saint Phalle Comparison

Frida Kahlo and Niki de Saint Phalle Comparison Introduction Emotional sufferings are part of humans life. People are overwhelmed by them leading to desperation or even to the acting out of these emotions in a destructive way. Finding a way to cope with these emotions is important. This could be done by various means playing music, doing sports and especially by doing art. I choose the research question: How do Frida Kahlo and Niki de Saint Phalle cope with their emotional sufferings by doing art? because of two reasons. First of all, I researched artists who dealt with their emotions artistically. I became especially interested in Frida Kahlo an artist of Mexican origin as I am partly Mexican and thus can connect to her. Niki de Saint Phalle has been well-known to me as I have been in France for one year and heard about her famous shooting paintings. Secondly, I started to develop paintings resulting from emotional sufferings myself and became interested in the connection of emotions and their artistic expression. Once I went to a vernissage organized by the Malwerkstatt of the Asklepios Klinik in Gà ¶ttingen. There I saw some paintings done by mentally hurt women who paint regularly. In the following weeks I spent some time in the Malwerkstatt interviewing them about their process of doing art, related feelings and resulting paintings. I became interested in their way of seeing art as a transformation of negative feelings into a piece of art. Doing art has a positive impact on their well-being. However, they cannot fully transform their sufferings into an expressive piece of art. Frida Kahlo, Niki de Saint Phalle and the interviewed mentally hurt women realized the possibility of doing art as a constructive way to express their emotional sufferings. Frida Kahlo and Niki de Saint Phalle cope with their emotional sufferings to the last extent; going on stage not hiding any more but extricate themselves from expectations. The resulting creation can be seen as a mirror reflecting their inner-self which might be shocking and disapproving. The courage to create is one of the basic principles to start with. In order to cope with the sufferings fully the step these great artists did is essential. Freeing yourself not thinking about assessment anymore giving your sufferings an artistic voice will eventually be constructive and surely improve your emotional state. The focus will be on the analysis and interpretation of the selected artworks in relation to the emotional sufferings expressed through it. Additionally, the transformation into a piece of art will be pointed out. Frida Kahlo ´s expression through paintings, especially self-portraits; stand in contrast to the three-dimensional artwork and shooting paintings done by Niki de Saint Phalle. One painting done by a mentally hurt woman will be taken into account for the analysis. Taking into consideration these two artists I aim to show their different artistic expressions, the creation of innovative, unconventional and evocative art. Frida Kahlo Frida is the only example in the history of art of an artist who tore open her chest and heart to reveal the biological truth of her feelings. The only woman who has expressed in her works an art of the feelings, functions, and creative power of women said her husband Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Frida Kahlo, an artist of Mexican-German origin, was born in Mexico in 1907.In her life she suffered from physical and emotional pain mainly due to a serious bus accident at the age of 18 that left her with lifelong incapacitating illnesses and a disintegrating body.The metal bar of the bus skewed her body causing her spinal column and pelvis to break. Because of the destroyed uterus Frida could not give birth leading to desperation and loneliness, expressed in her self-portrait Henry Ford Hospital. The physical pain she suffered from this incident marked a turning point in her perception of art. In bed-ridden she started to paint as an expression of her traumatic experiences. She recorded her emotional state in paint. During 1946 up to 1950 she underwent eight operations on her spin. Consequently, she confronted herself with thoughts about her own death visible in the painting The Dream. The impact of the spinal trauma on her continuous sufferings is shown in her self-portrait entit led The Broken column. The coping of her sufferings by painting was the way to improve her well-being or even to keep her alive. Frida Kahlo transformed her emotions into a piece of art which tells her feelings honestly and open. Especially in her lifetime she was one of the rare artists who were not afraid of expressing their emotions through art in such a heartbreaking and shocking way. Her style is dramatic and original. Frida mostly created self-portraits: I paint self-portraits because I am the person I know best. I paint my own reality.Some of Frida ´s self-portraits show her crying, broken up and even bleeding. Frida had the courage to show her body, nude and sick. Her emotions were transformed into a painting, as they were; she wore her heart on canvas. The Broken Column is a self-portrait of Frida Kahlo that shows her sufferings. It is like a X-ray picture from her broken spinal column. The ground color is a tone of yellow, brown and orange. In the foreground she is standing upright; paralyzed like a statue. Her nude body is shown from the hips upwards. Probably, she is not yet ready to expose herself completely nude as she covers the pubic area by holding a white blanket. However, it seems as if in one moment the blanket might fly away because she does not hold it strongly. The torso is split vertically into exactly two mirrored parts. Therefore, the middle part is symmetrical. Frida ´s spinal column is replaced with a broken column which as an ancient element refers back to her bus accident: the source of never ending pain.The spinal column makes it possible to stand upright and indicates self-confidence. It is of psychological and physical importance. Because of the broken column Frida should have lost stability. However, this is prevented by the steel corset. It is in form of a grid like prison bars which keeps the body together but at the same time imprisons her. Similar to the imprisonment by society values and the restricted freedom of movement.Although, being broken she keeps her attitude upright. The head is shifted to the right and supported by the column. By her visible right ear it seems as if she wants to hear something. Her facial expression is lifeless and sad. She is gazing and tears come out of the eyes that express her emotion of pain. The mouth is closed and the lips are slightly pressed together. The hair is loose which stands in contrast to the bounded body. Like in acupuncture the metallic nails of different sizes stick from all directions into her body, face and right side of the blanket.I know that in colloquial Spanish being nailed means estar calvada. In the figurative sense it stands for being cheated on. The nails go back to the relationship with her husband Diego Rivera and coul d refer to his infidelity.In the background a barren desert is shown which is broken up like her infertile body. The atmosphere conveyed by the desert reinforces her pain and loneliness. The horizon cuts the throat like the column divides the body. Frida is alone in the dry and rocky brownish landscape that stands in contrast to her wet tears. The painting has a great impact on me. While taking a look at it for the first time I was overwhelmed and my body was tense. I had the impression of sharing the physical pain. This is because of the openness and brutality done to her body. By this painting Frida shows two sides. Her inner-self; broken, bleeding and her appearance hiding the pain by her upright posture and lifeless face mask. To me Frida ´s strong personality is well shown. I admire her for the courage to depict the pain in such an impressive way as to expose her vulnerability. The painting The Dream shows Frida lying in a wooden bed which floats in the clouds. A yellow blanket covers her body and two pillows are under her head. She is comfortable and has fallen into a deep sleep like the Sleeping Beauty. Her facial expression is calm and without any preoccupations she seems to be lost in her dream. Roots are spreading from the bed end over the whole bed and reaching up to the face having small leaves. A wooden board is fixed on top of the bed. On there a white papier mache skeleton lies like Frida Kahlo. The skeleton holds a bunch of flowers and firecracker are all over his body and legs. This painting shows her willingness to confront with the hardest reality: the end of her human existence. Frida painted her own death as she underwent many serious operations leading to the confrontation of death each time.Frida expresses her death to the maximum by imagining herself as a skeleton.To some this might be extremely shocking to portray oneself already dead. Imagining your own death would be the last thing. To explain why Frida was able to paint her death one can look back to her Mexican origin. She was very much involved in Mexican traditions which includes the celebration of Dia de los Muertos. On this day the welcoming of the dead is celebrated in a colourful way. This shows the fearless attitude Mexicans have towards death. As I am of Mexican origin the connection to the Mexican culture is visible. Personally, I am not shocked because the skeleton does not look in a scary way. He rather seems to be smiling. Additionally, the luminescent and intense yellow coloured blanket makes me think of the power of light. Moreover, the blanket protects Frida ´s body from the thorny branches. However, it seems as if the peaceful tranquillity of the dream can easily be interrupted. Only a spark is necessary to ignite the firecrackers. The painting would turn from a static to a dynamic one. On the right bottom corner the formation of darker clouds might indicate a weather change. Another interpretation could be that the background is meant symbolically. Frida is in heaven where she has gained the freedom from emotional sufferings. The painting Henry Ford Hospital shows Frida lying naked and hemorrhaging up in bed. Her body is twisted with the legs bent and turned to the right side. She covers her pubic bone. The white blanket is partly covered with her blood. Her left hand is close to the thumb and she holds strings which are connected to different symbols. The red cords vein-like ribbonsare connected to six images that symbolize the source of pain and the impact they had on her fertility. The orchid symbolizes her femininity. As it is not integrated in her body the capability of giving birth is not given to her due to the accident. The snail represents the slowness of the miscarriage and is related to her sensation of passing time. In the left corner a machine can be seen which stand for the painful miscarriage due to the technical part of it. In contrast to the bed shown in The Dream this bed seems to be rudimentary and it stands on brown soil. The bed frame is inscribed: on the length side Henry Ford Hospital Detroit and on the narrow side Julio de 1932 F. K.In the background industrial facilities are shown. In combination with the blue greyish sky the depicted grief, desperation and loneliness is stressed.The depiction of these industrial facilities in Detroit could be connected to her bus accident as it was the modern technique being responsible for the accident to occur. This painting is related to the emotion of grief and loneliness after her first miscarriage in the Henry Ford Hospital. The longing to have an own child was obsessive. She was desperately waiting for the baby. Thus the miscarriage hit her very hard. The loss led to a serious depression. In this painting Frida depicts a powerful and coherent statement of inner and outer maternal fracture, loss, and agony. I think that the torture she had to face is clearly expressed trough this painting by her posture and blood. Frida writhes in pain. At first, I was confused why the bed is not in hospital but in a landscape without plants. Like in the Broken Column a brownish and dry landscape is shown on which no plants grow. I think that it stands for her incapability of giving birth. The bars of the bed can be related to the grid visible in the Broken Column. Frida is imprisoned in hospital where she cannot escape from pain. The symbols matched to Frida make me think of a mind-map.However, everything shown cannot be understood at first glance. The symbols can be seen as a puzzle Frida gives to the viewer. A story is to be discovered. Niki de Saint Phalle Niki de Saint Phalle was born in France, Neuilly-Sur-Seine, in 1930. She was a French mixed-media artist and sculptor. Brought up in a conservative family and educated in monastery school Niki was confronted with the strict values held by society. The domestic position of wives was one of the main values that Niki rejected. However, she married young and gave birth to children. When she realized that she led a conventional life an inner conflict arose. Moreover, she had a trauma due to her being abused by her father. An aggression against men developed. Consequently, she had a nervous breakdown and got a treatment in hospital.Like Frida Kahlo she started to express her emotional state right after a serious health problem. After she had left her family behind her main focus became art.Niki de Saint Phalle joined the artist group called Nouveau Realistes in 1960. In the following, Niki created the assemblage Portrait of my lover.In 1961 she created her first shooting paintings which ma de her well known around the world. They were an open door for the recognition of her art works on an international level. Niki de Saint Phalle Portrait of my lover, created in 1961 shows a target, black tie and white shirt attached to a black board. Instead of a man ´s head a target is placed at which the visitors could throw arrows. On the black painted canvas a tie and a men ´s shirt is glued on. The shirt is covered with black droplets. Niki admired Jackson Pollock and could have been influenced by his actions paintings.Therefore, she might have applied great force by throwing the paint on the shirt. The throwing of the arrows is representative for the step to independence. The special feature of this artwork lies in the changed meaning of well-known objects to symbolize a human. Pieces of art created out of ready for use objects are called Ready-Made.By this artwork she has was able to find A fertile outlet for her ferocious rage toward men -and the dominant masculine art establishment via the creative expression of violence. Niki de Saint Phalle ´s performed the creation of her shooting paintings in public. All over the world shooting actions took place. One of these actions is depicted in the above shown photograph. She shocked society by her performance.She shot at a relief with paint so that all the paint spilled out and the painting was bleeding. Her way of doing art by shooting was new as it went against the traditional. The aggressive acts were meant symbolically. By shooting she released herself from the standards, gained in a solid-middle class home and monastery school. The artist secreted plastic bags filled with paint behind paintings, and sculptures; the bags burst when the works were shot by a gun held by Niki.By the act of destruction Niki created a new painting. The dispersion of color plays a role in the spontaneous effect. It seems as if the painting is bleeding. By her shooting paintings she went on stage and showed to public that it is time for action. Not only to let her aggressions out she shot at the painting but as well to make the public aware of the brutal reality at that time.Wars and conflicts were the current issue. The shootings symbolize the power of killing. She acted in an aggressive way towards her pieces of art in the same way as society did with her and their opponents.The sacrificial death of the painting should be a warning to society. Analysis Frida Kahlo expressed her emotional sufferings comprehensibly through self-portraits. One can refer back to the sources of her pain. She portrayed herself as the victim of pain. The background supports the emotion. Niki de Saint Phalle expressed her emotional sufferings in a completely different way. Rather than painting she made use of the role oppressor-victim by performing art. She was not the one suffering from pain but a women standing up fighting back in spite of society values. Niki wanted to be in the role of the aggressor not of the suppressed one. By shooting at it she seems like a beautiful Amazon. This was new for that time to see a women holding a gun in their hands and not being the calm and carrying household woman. Niki violated the traditional role of women. Furthermore, she freed herself from this role she did not to fit in. Niki shot with self-confidence, fearlessness and strength at the painting showing her superiority. She killed the painting but at the same time gave birth to a new one. Death and rebirth are connected in a way that her expression became constructive instead of destructive. Trying to reach public by performing the shooting on a larger scale meaning on inter national shooting session shows the great step she did to make an appeal to others. Killing the painting was her way to get her aggression out.Finally, she reached to overcome and cope with her emotional sufferings by shooting and even more I became addicted to shooting like one becomes addicted to a drug. Blood appears in both of the artistic expressions either in painting as blood droplet out of a wound or as the painting being hurt and bleeding. I was impressed by their courage to go that far in art as to show their own nude and sick body or acting violently by shooting. It is incredible as to what extent they had success. While researching and taking a look at their biographies I realized that both had a male artist who helped them to express. They were usually people who were right in society having a certain influence as a famous painter: Diego Rivera and Jean Tinguely. By expressing art they went on stage not hiding their feelings anymore but choosing a direct confrontation with these. They do not want or can escape any longer. I became interested in the fact that if other people not being artists can cope with their emotional sufferings by doing art. To get an answer I went to the Malwerksatt in the Asklepios Klinikum in Gà ¶ttingen, Germany where mentally hurt women do art once per week for about two hours. I interviewed them about their feelings, experiences with art and took a look at their artworks. Eve Kaboth is in charge of the Malwerkstatt and provides assistance in case of help but does not assess them in any way. This is especially important as it guarantees a free working atmosphere. The women having experienced loss, betrayal and suppression are trying to do art as to improve their well-being. Negative emotions are released leaving them relieved and happy. As to their paintings they mostly do them subconsciously without having a clear idea in mind but which will develop during the process. I took a look at one painting showing clowns covered by coloured oil pastels smashed on the paper. Usually they are afraid of portraying humans. They represent some kind of colourful dream world. A composition of colours in which the forms, lines and objects do not play a significant role. While painting they are relaxed and enjoy it. This painting seems as if the woman is still hiding like the clowns shown in the picture. By this painting it is clear that she is not yet ready to go on stage. The impression I got is that they have not fully overcome the imprisonment by society and confronted themselves with their sufferings. Thus the step of showing everything openly, provocatively in order to fully cope with them is not yet reached. Niki de Saint Phalle and Frida Kahlo, in contrast to the mentally hurt women, reached the highest point they could possibly reach by their expression. Doing art was not restricted by society anymore. Art is an expressive source the artists Niki de Saint Phalle and Frida Kahlo realized. With their moving art they freed themselves but not only this. They went a step further by breaking society values. Frida Kahlo drew herself bleeding, open and naked. Especially at that time when artists were not supposed to express themselves in the painting as if they were the subject. Taking this into consideration one can see parallels to Niki as she was the first woman not being a victim but the aggressor. They realized that emotional sufferings can trigger creativity and be seen as a genesis source of new expressive art. But this is not at all easy to undergo. It requires courage and the refusal to run away from the inner self, unconscious and the unknown. Conclusion To answer the research question How do Frida Kahlo and Niki de Saint Phalle cope with their emotional sufferings by doing art? I came to the conclusion that both, Frida Kahlo and Niki de Saint Phalle cope with their emotional sufferings by doing art in a different way. Frida Kahlo documented her emotional sufferings by painting, especially self-portraits. The extension of her is Niki de Saint Phalle whose action was art. She created shooting paintings. Emotional sufferings can be beneficial and reinforce a development (out of a crisis new things are created). Without having these experiences and the related emotional sufferings this new expression of art would not have been created. Therefore emotional sufferings can be seen from positive point of view. Creativity, then, can in part be thought of as the capacity to express the demonic constructively. This is what all great artists do. Is there a limit to cope with emotional sufferings by doing art? When is it said not to be ethical? On the one hand the shooting paintings helped Niki to cope with her sufferings but on the other hand she shocked society by her performance. But sometimes it can be good to draw people ´s attention to an issue by shocking them. I think that as long as no humans, animals and ethical principles are hurt by the art process it is legitimate. Bibliography Primary Source: Interview with mentally hurt women and the leader of the workshop. August-October 2009. Asklepios Fachklinikum Gà ¶ttingen in Germany. Secondary Sources: Books: Bauer, Claudia. Frida Kahlo. Mà ¼nchen: Prestel Verlag, 2005. Becker, Monika. Starke Weiblichkeit entfesseln. Niki de Saint Phalle. Berlin: List Taschenbuchverlag, 2005. Diamond, Stephen A. Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic. New York: State University of New York Press, 1999. Herrera, Hayden. Frida Kahlo.Malerin der Schmerzen-Rebellin gegen das Unabà ¤nderliche. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1988. Prignitz-Poda, Helga. Frida Kahlo. Die Malerin und ihr Werk. Mà ¼nchen: Schirmer/Mosel Verlag, 2003. Schrà ¶der, Stefanie. Ein starkes verwundetes Herz Niki de Saint Phalle. Ein Kà ¼nstlerleben.Freiburg: Herde Verlag, 2002. Seemann, Annette von. Ich habe mich in eine Heilige verwandelt. Frida Kahlo.Mà ¼nchen: List Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002. Journals: Goldsmith, Marlene. Abjection and Psychic Deadness In The Paintings of Frida Kahlo. The Psychoanalytical Review Vol.92, No. 6, December 2004. 729-758p. Websites: Brown, Amy. Frida Kahlo an amazing woman. http://www.amybrown.net/women/frida.html Frida by Kahlo. http://www.fbuch.com/fridaby.htm Niki ´s official website. http://www.nikidesaintphalle.com Tate Liverpool Educators ´Pack. http://www.tate.org.uk

Life :: essays research papers

THE STORY OF LIFE Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they Were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a Lesson, or to help you figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be (possibly your roommate, neighbor, worker, long-lost friend, lover, or even a complete stranger), but when you lock eyes with them, you know at that very moment they will affect your life in some profound way. And sometimes things happen to you that may seem horrible, painful, and unfair at first, but in reflection you find that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential, strength, willpower, or heart. Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness, and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, whatever they may be, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. It would be safe and comfortable, but dull and utterly pointless. The people you meet who affect your life, and the success and downfalls you experience, help to create who you are and who you become. Even the bad experiences can be learned from. In fact, they are probably the most poignant and important ones. If someone hurts you, betrays you, or breaks your heart, forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious when you open your heart. If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because in a way, they are teaching you to love and how to open your heart and eyes to things. Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from those moments everything that you possibly can for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people that you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Let yourself fall in love, break free, and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for

Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever :: essays research papers

Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever Marburg hemorrhagic fever is a rare, severe type of hemorrhagic fever that affects both humans and non-human primates. Marburg is the first member of the family Filoviridae (or "thread" viruses), which also includes the Ebola virus. Like Ebola, Marburg is an enveloped, single-stranded, unsegmented, negative-sense RNA virus. It has the same characteristic filamentous (thread-like) structure, can appear shaped like a U, a 6, or spiraled like a snail; and can sometimes be branched. The Marburg virus is identical to Ebola in form and structure; however, it is genically distinct from Ebola (meaning that it stimulates the production of different antibodies). Marburg virions are 80 nm (nanometers) in diameter and average approximately 800 nm in length, although length can vary up to 14,000 nm. The four species of Ebola virus are the only other known members of the filoviridae family. As with Ebola, the exact procedure of Marburg is unknown. However, virion surface spikes are made solely of large glycoprotein (compound consisting of carbohydrates and protein). It is assumed that, as with other negative-strand RNA viruses, these surface spikes bind to receptors on the host cell and act as a â€Å"go-between† entry into susceptible cells. Viral replication takes place in the cytoplasm, and envelopment is the result of budding preformed by nucleocapsids (viral protein coat and nucleic acid). Ultimately, the virus involves the liver, lymphoid organs, and kidneys. Marburg virus was first recognized in 1967, when outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany and in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia). A total of 37 people became ill; they included laboratory workers as well as several medical personnel and family members who had cared for them. The first people infected had been exposed to African green monkeys or their tissues. In Marburg, the monkeys had been imported for research and to prepare polio vaccine. Recorded cases of the disease are rare, and have appeared in only a few locations. While the 1967 outbreak occurred in Europe, the disease agent had arrived with imported monkeys from Uganda. No other case was recorded until 1975, when an Australian traveler most likely exposed in Zimbabwe became ill in Johannesburg, South Africa and passed the virus to his traveling companion and a nurse. The year 1980 saw two other cases, one in Western Kenya not far from the Ugandan source of the monkeys implicated in the 1967 outbreak.

Ancient Egyptian Culture :: Egypt Ancient World Culture

Somewhere around 1375 years before the birth of Christ, an Egyptian pharaoh publicly changed his name. That change signalled a return to long-standing tradition, a hallmark of Egyptian culture that flourished for more than three thousand years peacefully in the rich Nile River valley. The king had been called Tutankhaton. The last portion of his name, aton, was the name for the sun-god, which, in the years before the king's reign, had achieved preeminence among the competing deities in Egyptian religious tradition. The king changed his name to the one by which he is known today -- TUTANKHAMEN or, more popularly, King Tut -- and ended the brief experiment in monotheism in favor of the older religion with its promise of an afterlife. And what an afterlife the pharaoh would have! Embalmed in order to endure the elements of disintegration, richly attired to attest to his fabulous earthly wealth, magnificently housed to remind all on-lookers of the towering greatness of the entombed human -- the pharaoh lived on in perpetual association with the stone structures that rose portentously out of the hot, barren sands of the desert so close to the life-giving, greening Nile. And the solemn bearing of these great structures reminds people today of the human hope for immortality and the way an entire culture fashioned a collective immortality in astonishing stone. Here was a culture that would persist, just as its pharaohs would live on in their silent palaces. More interesting, perhaps, is the collective underwriting of the PYRAMIDS. No fewer than 70,000 workers would have been needed to lug limestone blocks from desert miles away to the building sites. Yet there is little evidence that the pharaohs had to coerce their subjects to leave their fields and families in order to build a monument whose completion any single worker would certainly never see.

Sartre’s Criticisms on Human Essence in the Light of Aristotle’s Philosophy

Our ability to engage in abstraction is, indubitably, a unique gift endowed to our human cognition. And the reason for such a telling contention is near to being self-evident: i. e. , only human persons have the ability to see through otherwise distinct and separate entities, a unifying concept that reveals these things’ common nature, if not their defining essence. To this end, it is necessary to point that our human intellect’s preponderance to abstracting the essences is another facet of human cognition. This is because knowing, akin to seeing, affords us an immediate grasp of reality’s nature and purpose; for by the mere experience of something, say a table, we almost instantly furnish ourselves with a working concept about the thing’s essence – i. e. , we ‘know’ what a table is, what is it for. Thus, it makes sense to say that abstracting essences form part and parcel of both the intuitive and inductive process of a person’s ability to know reality. Our understanding of the concept of essence draws chiefly from the scheme provided by the Greek metaphysics. And herein it would insightful to take cue from Aristotle’s ‘hylemorphic’ framework. According to Aristotle, anything that exists – say, a tree or a dog – is constituted of both an existence and an essence; i. e. , all things both have material and formal constitutions. On the one hand, existence pertains to the act of being, or the facticity of a thing. For example, that table is being actual right when one sees it. On the other hand, essence pertains to the nature of a certain thing. It is that which makes a thing to be what it is; an abstracted concept which makes us see the connection between the entities that we are perceiving (say, a table) and the other things (say, a classroom filled with tables) belonging to the same genre or species (Lavine 71). Essence thus defines the nature of a certain thing or describes the aspect proper to the same. If we proceed with this line of argumentation, we can go on to claim that one can apply the concept of essence to pertain to reality of human persons. From here, we can move to identify conspicuous aspects which may be deemed ‘proper to human persons’, so as to glean what we may call â€Å"human essence† – i. e. , that a person is an existing being, that he shows characteristic elements proper to animals, but that he possess a faculty of intellect and freewill proper to him and him alone. In the ultimate analysis, one can say that the essence defining a human person lies in framing him as a living creature that shares certain characteristic traits of animals, but is endowed nevertheless with the unique faculty of intellect and freewill. Key to this process, it must be argued, is describing the determinate aspects of his very existence. To be sure, we may still identify a good number of characteristic elements that could equally describe what it means to be human person. And surely, we cannot stop at construing fundamental animality and rationality as aspects that sufficiently capture the â€Å"whatness† of humanity; for the reasoned construction of human essences does not entail that we have completely circumscribed the total reality of human persons. That having said, Jean Paul Sartre believes that humanity has no fixed essence. In other words, he believes that humanity cannot be framed within the parameters of determinateness or the limits we impose by construing human essences. At the very least, Sartre contends that we cannot define the contours of what it means to be a person because our freedom determines the unique manner of our very existence. J. Sartre’s contention fundamentally draws from his concept of absolute human freedom. A thinker who belongs to the erstwhile group of philosophers known as Existentialists, Sartre’s philosophy puts higher premium than most on appreciating human existence as a concrete and perpetual striving for one’s own becoming (Marias 436). This means that, for Sartre, we as human persons must constantly appreciate the fact we exist, more than the fact that we have an essence to frame our subsequent courses of actions. Sartre believes that â€Å"we are necessarily free†, and that the burden of â€Å"making† our own human essence lies in the choices that we make (Marias 440). Put in layman’s terms, Sartre believes that our freedom is absolute, and that, even more importantly, the choices we make determine the kind of person that we are. In a way, Sartre reverses the logic of human essence – i. e. , human actions does not flow from one’s own essence; instead, human essence is molded by the actions that we as persons commit to doing. For such reason, and as mentioned earlier, Sartre believes that humanity has no fixed essence. And insofar as the concrete form of our human essence takes cue only from the activities which human persons do, Sartre rests his case on the plain assumption that one’s life cannot be placed within any restricting concepts of essence, for any reason whatsoever (Marias 440-441). There are reasons to think, however, that Sartre may have framed human freedom quite radically and that his wholesale denial of an identifiable human essence may have been taken quite drastically. To this end, strains of Aristotle’s philosophy may be helpful in shedding light into some of the oversights Sartre may have committed in denying the tenability of human essence on account of absolute freedom. Firstly, it may be insightful to be reminded of the fact that Aristotle understands human essence as an aspect of life that does not effectively restrict human capacity to determine one’s path according to the sets of actions a person may willingly opt for. Human essence merely speaks of the kind or quality of existence which is construable from and identifiable in a certain thing (Lavine 71). It merely serves to help man appreciate what kind of creature he is by way of categories and definitions. Conversely, the concept of human essence does not, in any whatsoever, imply an absolute determination of human reality according to these set of classification or categorization. An example may help further situate the conundrum: when someone thinks of man as essentially a spiritual being – i. e. , the capacity for spiritual relations with God belongs properly to the characteristic trait of humanity – one does not rule out the possibility of not believing in God all together. Instead, one merely makes a statement about the humanity’s general preponderance to worshipping a deity, notwithstanding personal choice to dissent. The same goes true for human essence. Sartre thinks that humanity has not a fixed essence on account of a human freedom that determines a resulting human nature. Unfortunately for Sartre, human essence and human freedom are not mutually exclusive. In fact, a person’s freedom is only affirmed, if not accentuated by the fact that the human essence is defined by a tacit acknowledgement of man’s of basic rationality and capacity for freewill. Secondly, Sartre’s contention that human persons have no fixed essence is certainly difficult to argue precisely because human freedom is really not absolute and that humanity’s basic essence does not depend on human choice but on what nature has fundamentally given. Two aspects come into play with in this particular rebuttal. In the first place, Sartre may have taken human freedom quite radically in arguing that it our capacity to determine ourselves must be taken in absolute terms – i. e. , we can do whatever we wish; besides, we are the ones determining our resulting essence in the process. This, unfortunately, is untenable. For instance, if I, born as a human person, were to choose living like a dog, I would probably find certain dog-like activities incongruent with my natural bodily processes. I would find it difficult to bark, let alone walk in a four-legged manner; as these are not consistent with how was I born and raised. The point in contention here lies in arguing that human freedom, contrary to Sartre’s arguments, cannot be taken as an absolute determinant of human nature. On the contrary one may find it difficult to deliberately deviate from the demands of our basic human essence. Such difficulty should bring us more into an appreciation of our human nature not really as an aspect dependent on human choice, but an aspect that is made perfect by the choices that we make. Herein Aristotle’s teleological philosophy appears to take shape. According to Aristotle, essence precedes actions, or essence precedes existence; and that the perfection of all actions comes when they fulfill the essence in question (Marias 74). For instance, when a person uses critical thinking before making a judgment, such an act can be considered as a perfection of the man’s nature as a rational entity. The point in contention here lies in arguing that we cannot really do away with human nature. On the contrary, our actions must run consistent with it; for only when we act according to our nature can our actions be perfected according to our essence. By way of conclusion, I wish to end with a thought that dismisses Sartre’s contention – i. . , that humanity cannot find a common essence proper to himself and himself alone – on account of its patent inability to take into account the true state of human affairs. In the discussions that were developed, it was learned that Sartre’s refutation of human essence stems from his belief that human freedom is absolute, and that human persons are the ones molding their respective essences. However, there are surely good reasons to think that this p hilosophical stances does not hold water. First, it has been argued that the concept of human essence does not in any way defeat the reality of human freedom. Human nature and human freedom, it was argued, are not mutually exclusive. Second, Sartre appears to have neglected the fact that human freedom cannot be equated with the capacity to do what one wishes, regardless of what nature has already given. There is no such thing as an absolute freedom. And in the final analysis, we have to admit that we are bound by a certain essence, no matter how hard try to deviate from it.

Ethics in Animal Research

In terms of ethics, the main issue in animal testing is simply that many experimental animals suffer in ways which are unnatural to them. Through the use of genetic manipulation, obese mice , diabetic mice, and mice with Huntington’s disease can be created. Surgical experiments can be performed on larger animals – such as pigs, sheep, and dogs, as â€Å"practice† for human surgery. Normally, such things would not happen to these animals. Any suffering they might experience during such experiments is entirely the making of the researcher – and often these animals are purpose-bred and would not even exist if it were not for the research. These animals have been bred by us, for our use, and suffer on our behalf. As humans—the dominant species on the planet—we can treat animals in any way we choose, and do with them what we please. The question is, is it moral, or ethical, to treat them in ways which cause suffering – even if it is to our benefit? To some opponents of animal experimentation there are no benefits which justify the use of animals; others believe that animal experimentation is acceptable providing that suffering to the animals is minimized. Still others oppose animal testing selectively on the basis of the purpose of the tests, believing that animal experimentation for the advancement of medical science is acceptable, but cosmetic testing is not, for example. Are Animal Tests Reliable? Opponents of animal experimentation point to the obvious differences between humans and other animals as proof that animal research is not reliable. However, while it’s true that humans respond differently to certain substances than do other animal species (arsenic is not toxic to sheep, for example, and chocolate is toxic to dogs), there are many more similarities than there are differences – and toxicology differences don’t negate the validity of genetic studies, for example. Another pressing issue is one which was first voiced in 1655 by Edmund O’Meara, a physiologist, who said, â€Å"the miserable torture of vivisection places the body in an unnatural state. If an experimental animal is in pain, or suffers in any way, during an experiment, might that not call into question the accuracy of any results gained in the research? And if this is the case, doesn’t this further question the ethics of animal research? After all, using animals in this way is even more abhorrent if the accuracy of the results is in any doubt at all. The ability to achieve reliable, reproducible results is a cornerstone of the scientific method, and it is crucial that animal testing is able achieve those results A Matter of Practicality The majority of the most important advances in medical history in the twentieth century were made using animals as test subjects. It is doubtful whether many of these would have been achieved if animals were not available for use by medical researchers. There are alternatives to animal research (these will be examined in the next article in this series), but in many cases they are simply not acceptable substitutes for a living, breathing organism. The Institute for Laboratory Animal Research of the U. S.  National Academy of Sciences agrees that even the most sophisticated computer modeling is currently unable to successfully model the molecular and cellular interactions that occur in even the least complex of live organisms, particularly in an environmental context. Medical science is in agreement, for the most part, that the use of animals in medical research is a practical necessity. Both the United States and the British governments , among many others, support the use of animals in research, provided that suffering of experimental animals is minimized.

Gun Control Persuasive Essay

I. It’s late at night and you’re in bed. You hear a loud crashing noise coming from another room and it jolts you awake. You hear things being rustled and quiet whispers. You begin to panic and look around for something to protect yourself with. Nothing. Because you live in Ferguson and tried to purchase a gun to protect you from the coming storm of the Grand Jury decision that was to be released but found that the government banned the sale of guns a couple days before. II. [Ferguson Gun Shop video] III. OpinionGun Control is stripping away your right to protect yourself via the 2nd Amendment which states â€Å"a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.† I believe todays gun control laws are preventing us from doing so in a fashion that adequately protects us from today’s threats. There is a huge need for the public voice in this issue instead of it being left to our ineffective, corporation bought politicians. Read more: How does federalism protect against tyranny essay Body I. To better understand why the language of the 2nd amendment was used in such a way at to regarding arming individuals and maintaining militias, it’s necessary to understand the history of the people who wrote it. A foundation of political thought during the Revolutionary period was the well justified concern about political corruption and governmental tyranny. The right to bear arms was a potential check against tyranny. According to Sandra Alters in her book Gun Control: Restricting Rights or Protecting People, â€Å"without guns in the hands of the early patriots, the fledgling republic might have quickly turned tyrannical, disarmed the people at will.† II. [Ron Paul video] III. The argument made that gun control prevents violence is not a strong one. Guns don’t kill people: people kill people. Regulations controlling the sale of guns to a person do little to stop a criminal whose intent is to commit a crime. A gun doesn’t make a person kill someone committing a  robbery, their intent does. They could easily substitute the gun for a knife and have the same outcome. Mark Tushnet, a professor at Harvard Law School, is quoted in Sanford Levinson’s article noting, â€Å"that event like the recent mass murder at Virginia Tech would have immediately generated responses that 1. Effective gun control laws would have prevented the tragedy and 2. That if students or administrators been armed, instead of afflicted with a ‘gun free’ campus (save, of course, criminals), they could have effectively limited the carnage.† (Truth is whether gun control laws were effective here or not, a violent criminal act here was committed. Seems like gun control laws did not prevent it but rather impeded the possibility of the violence being stopped sooner. IV. We are given the right to bear arms so we should be able to adequately arm ourselves in a fashion that best protects us from today’s modern-day threats. There has already been an attack on U.S. soil lest we forget 9/11. The Boston Marathon bombing, the terrorists running through neighborhoods hiding in perhaps your backyard. The government officials who do not listen to the public voice, militarizing the police force, decides what we can or cannot own. We have seen a lot lately of police brutality, Ferguson MO, and here at home in Cleveland OH, L.A. riots over Rodney King. These examples of civil unrest and governmental backlash are unnerving to me and should be to you. With Uncle Sam flexing its political muscle in Ferguson to disarm the people, is that not a sign of governmental tyranny? De Facto Martial law? How do you protect yourself if in fact one day, and perhaps sooner than you think, there is a new Revolution we face. The government is failing to listen to the people, America is not popular in the world, and there is an underground movement already started against the government. Gun Control is the government’s way to hide the dissarment of the American people and cloak it in the name of violence prevention. Don’t believe that your government would ever turn on you? Neither did Japanese Americans the night after Pearl Harbor when they were rounded up and forced into governmental camps. Conclusion. I. I implore you to exercise your 2nd Amendment right and to support organizations like the NRA. Research the politicians you elect and see where they stand on this very important issue. Don’t be blinded by the rhetoric propaganda the government and media spews to the public sheep. One day your  life, liberties and freedom may very well rely on it, just like it did 300+ years ago. II. [Gun Control shortvid] Works Cited Alters, Sandra M. Gun Control: Restricting Rights or Protecting People? Detroit: Gale, 2007. Kentlink. Web. 15.Oct.2014. Wright, Stephen E. â€Å"Gun Control Laws Will Not Save Lives† Guns and Crime. Ed. Chrisitine Watkins. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2012. At Issue .Rpt. â€Å"Anti-Gun Group Common Sense Gun Laws and Real Common Sense.† StephenEWright.com. 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 31.Oct.2014. Levinson, Sanford.†Guns and the Constitution: A Complex Relationship.†Reviews in American History. Volume 36.1(2008) Electronic Journal Center.Web.15.Oct.2014 Doeden, Matt. Gun Control: Preventing Violence or Crushing Constitutional Rights? Minneapolis, MN.: Twenty-First Century Books, 2012. OhioLinks. 15.Oct.2014

Information Literacy †What does it mean?

The 21st century has been defined as the â€Å"Information Age† due to the fact that there has been an overwhelming amount of â€Å"information output and information sources.†Ã‚   (ACRL, 2006, p. 1)   In a report released in 1989 by the American Library Association’s Presidential Committee on Information Literacy stated that, â€Å"No other change in American society has offered greater challenges than the emergence of the Information Age.† (Association of College & Research Libraries, 1989, n.a).   In order to combat the growing need for students to adapt to this age of information, professionals began working towards providing an educational environment that focuses on information literacy. To define Information literacy and narrow it down to one specific interpretation would be impossible, as it has been defined in a variety of ways since 1970.   To offer a broad definition, the American College of Research Libraries defines it as, â€Å"the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze and use information.   (ACRL, 2006, p. 1) Christina Bruce, has also defined information literacy as â€Å"the overarching literacy essential for 21st century living.†Ã‚   (Bruce, 2004, p. 2) A number of professionals continue to develop strategies and policies that will enhance the area of information literacy and enable educators to assist students as they take advantage of the information and communication avenues available to them.   (Bruce, 2004, p. 2) Christina Doyle was the first to introduce the Delphi technique into the realm of information literacy, in her 1992 study where a national panel of experts from the National Forum of Information Literacy conducted a study that took a deeper look into the National Education Goals.   (Doyle, 1994, p. 21) This technique was used to reach an agreement among professionals that â€Å"information Literacy is the ability to access, evaluate and use information from a variety of sources.†Ã‚   (Doyle 1992).   The outcome of this study defined the framework to show the critical nature of information literacy and the importance of working to create an information society. (Doyle, 1994, p. 21) The goals established by this committee lead to â€Å"successful education and employment for all Americans.†Ã‚   (Doyle, 1994, p. 21) Since 1980, a variety of information literacy skill models have been developed by educators, national and state organizations and national associations dedicated to information literacy.   These models are designed to support student educators as they attempt to integrate information into their classrooms, assist school librarians as they attempt to provide leadership in the school system, and to assist professionals as they attempt to stay in tune with technology advancements.   (Stripling, 1999, p. 54)   These models provide educators the means to teach students a series of processes and steps to follow as they evaluate and process information.   (Bruce, 2004, p. 3) Perhaps one of the most popular models is the Eisenberg and Berkowitz Big6 model.   Eisenberg and Berkowitz define their approach as, â€Å"a systematic approach to information and problem solving.†Ã‚   (Eisenberg & Berkowitz, 1990, p. 1)   They also believe that through the model’s evolution that it has developed two additional definitions – â€Å"2) six broad skill areas are necessary for successful information problem solving. Students need to develop a range of competencies within each skill area. 3) a complete library and information skills curriculum are necessary.   Often referred to as a scope and sequence the Big Six Skills offers a systematic alternative to traditional K-12 frameworks that focus on location and access skills.†Ã‚   (Eisenberg & Berkowitz, 1990, p. 1)     Ã‚  Ã‚  This approach has been widely accepted and implemented by many schools. Another model used to shape the way that students obtain and evaluate information is the Stripling and Potts Research Process Model.   It was originally developed in 1988 and was widely accepted â€Å"because it provided a guide through each state of creating a research paper.†Ã‚   (Reidling & Eisenberg, 2002, p. 7)   Stripling and Pitts suggest that students follow a 10 step research process within a outline that shows the student how information literacy skills build upon each other.  Ã‚   (Reidling & Eisenberg, 2002, p. 7) Research continues to progress in the area of information literacy, as information and technology continue to advance.   Education requires a learning model that is based upon the foundation of the real world – a model that is active and incorporated with reality, rather than separated.   (Association of College & Research Libraries, 1989, n.a).   For this reason, information literacy is a means of personal empowerment. It allows people to verify or refute expert opinion, and to become independent seekers of truth. (Association of College & Research Libraries, 1989). But how much information is too much? In business, Herbert E. Meyer, who has served as an editor for Fortune magazine and as vice-chairman of the National Intelligence Council, describes in his 1988 book, Real World Intelligence (2), the astonishment and growing distress of executives who `are discovering that the only thing as difficult and dangerous as managing a large enterprise with too little information is managing one with too much` (Meyer, 1987 p.29).   Meyer does, however, go on to stress that companies should focus and rely on public sources that are available to them for a great deal of their information.   (Meyer, 1987 p.36). It is important that a focus is placed upon differentiating between information literacy and information technology.   Information technology skills â€Å"enable an individual to use computers, software applications, databases, and other technologies to achieve a wide variety of academic, work-related, and personal goals.†Ã‚   (American Library Association, 2000, p. 3) Information literacy is, â€Å"a set of abilities requiring people to ‘recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the needed information.†Ã‚   (American Library Association, 2000, p. 2)   Information literacy consists of more than searching through library reference materials – it’s a goal for learners and does not consist of just one technique or method.   (Gilton, 1994) The traditional way of library research is being abandoned as our society turns to the Internet for electronic resources.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"Increased access to technology has altered the way that students study, while the variety of electronic information resources has widened the potential resource base for all students.† (Orr, Appleton, & Wallin, 2001, p. 457) Approximately 75% of schools today have internet access and it is quickly becoming an important teaching tool in the educational classroom. (German & Bartolo, 2001, p. 1)   Multiple studies have been done showing the impact that the Internet is having on students.   It has been shown that 20 % of the college students do not make any judgment about the quality or reliability of the information that they obtain from the Internet or other sources. (Zabel, 2004, p. na) With the onset of the Internet and the challenge it has posed on the information literacy curriculum, professional organizations are partnering with educators to work with students in educational systems of all levels.   Austin Peay State University’s Woodward Library was one of 23 universities that created a program to assist students to â€Å"evaluate information available on the World Wide Web.†Ã‚   (Austin Peay State University Quick News, 2001, p. na) This venture supporting the tactics of Information Literacy was supported by the Association of College and Research Libraries and funded through the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant.   (Austin Peay State University Quick News, 2001, p. na) In an effort to support the importance of Information Literacy, efforts are being made to create evaluation tools for both students and educators to enable both to use the internet as an effective resource.  Ã‚   Project 2061, a project sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has been created to reinforce the methods of information literacy in the area of science and mathematics.   (German & Bartolo, 2001, p. 1) Information literacy is challenged by the constantly changing environment of the Information Age.   The challenge of education is to continue to develop â€Å"creative and rational thinkers who can solve problems and who can be reflective.†Ã‚   (Doyle, 1994, p. 44)   The Big6 approach to information problem solving is still the most widely used model to reinforce and teach information literacy, as approximately 84,000 teachers have been trained in the program. (Serim, 2002, p. na) Both national and international organizations are reacting to the digital age and the implications on education by designing effective intervention programs and methods.   (Serim, 2002, p. na) Though there is a great deal of work yet to be done, the foundation and practices of information literacy provide an environment where students can strive to meet the challenge. References Acrl. (2006, August 28). Association of College and Research Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/acrlinfolit/infolitoverview/introtoinfolit/introinfolit.htm#what Ala. (2000). Information Literacy Competency Standards (Publication). Chicago, IL: Association of College and Research Libraries. American Library Association. (2000). Information Literacy Competency Standards (Publication). Chicago, IL: Association of College and Research Libraries. Austin Peay State University Quick News. (2001, July 30). APSU works on information literacy. Austin Peay State University Quick News. Retrieved from http://www.apsu.edu/quicknews/2001/0730/literacy.htm Bruce, C. S. (2004). Information Literacy as a Catalyst for Educational Change (Rep.). Yeppoon, Queensland: Queensland University of Technology. Chisholm, M. (1989). Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report (Rep.). Washington, D.C.: Association of College and Research Libraries American Library Association. Doyle, C. S. (1994). Information Literacy in an Information Society: A Concept for the Information Age. Syracuse, New York: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology. Eisenberg, M. B., & Berkowitz, R. E. (1990). Information problem-solving: the big six skills approach to library & information skills instruction. Norwood, New Jersey: Alex Publishing Corporation. German, L., & Bartolo, L. M. (2001). Science and Information Literacy on the Internet: Using the Standards Created by the Association of College and Research Libraries and Project 2061 to Create a Science Web Page Evaluation Tool (Rep.). Denver, Colorado: Association of College and Research Libraries. Gilton, D. L. (1994). A World of Difference: Preparing for Information Literacy Instruction for Diverse Groups. MultiCultural Review, 3, 54-62. Orr, D., Appleton, M.,   & Wallin, M. (2001). Information literacy and flexible delivery: Creating a conceptual framework and model. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 27, 457-463. Reidling, A. M., & Eisenberg, M. (2002). Learning to Learn: A Guide to Becoming Information Literate (Teens the Library Series). New York, New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. Serim, F. (2002, May/June 10). The Importance of Contemporary Literacy in the Digital Age: A Response to Digital Transformation: A Framework for Information Communication Technologies (ICT) Literacy. The Big6: Information Skills for Student Achievement. Retrieved from http://www.big6.com/showarticle.php?id=157 Stripling, B. K. (1999). Learning and Libraries in an Information Age: principles and practice. Englewood, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited. Zabel, D. (2004). A Reaction to †Information Literacy and Higher Education. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 30, 17-21.