Document analysis Declaration of the Rights of Women, 1791 Assignment

Document analysis Declaration of the Rights of Women, 1791 - Assignment Example It shows what she had to undergo and it is a shame and betrayal for the country. b. We always have to remember this article talks about what happened in 1791, so they way that men think is different than today. The women being talked about in the article seem to be so poor and less empowered compared to the modern woman. As the writer said "Marriage is the tomb of trust and love." Women needed to have more rights in the marriages. At that time women, who were married were taken as a source of impunity while those who were unmarried had feeble inheritance rights. a. This article by Olympe de Gouges was written at a time when women were generally taken to be inferior to men. Men had total dominance over the women and it was the word of the men that ruled in all contexts. Even in the marriage life, men were seen to be powerful than the women. The men were the ones who dictated how the marriages went about. In this historical context, the property that was accumulated during the course of the marriage belonged to the men (Halsall para 4). It was the men who decided how the property was shared. Men determined who inherited what property. In an attempt to correct this Olympe de Goupe came up with women right declaration is order to be able to challenge the declaration of the rights of men. She wanted to push the idea that women were not inferior to men and whatever rights the men had, women were supposed to have the rights too. This, nonetheless, did not go well with the majority who believed that women were not equal to men. b. Olympe de Goupe also wanted to ensure that the marginalized women like the widows were given their rights. This is why she says that â€Å"I would like a law which would assist widows and young girls deceived by false promises of a man to whom they are attached to† (Halsall para 5). This, she say in an attempt to empower the women by advocating for their

The Absolute War

The Absolute War In order to understand why absolute war does not occur in reality, the absolute war should be defined in the first place. It should be underlined that absolute war differs from total war. Total war involved the total subordination of politics to the war effort, an idea Clausewitz emphatically rejected, and the assumption that total victory or total defeat were the only options. Total war involved no suspension of the effects of time and space, on the other hand Clausewitzs concept of the absolute did.[1] The word absolute refers to purity and extremes in that sense. Before explaining Clausewitzs conception of absolute war, his military as well as intellectual and historical background should be kept in mind. The context of Clausewitzs ideas which covers the transition from the enlightenment to the German movement that was hostile to it should be recognized. In Berlin Institute for Young Officers, he learnt that the theory had to be concrete and circumstantial, encompass that formed the reality, and be closely linked to historical experience.[2] He was also influenced by the theoretical ideal that has to reflect the relationship between the parts of war and the whole, and be necessarily grounded in the nature of things. The primacy of the major battle, aided by a massive concentration of forces and aggressive conduct, and aiming at the total overthrow of the enemy reflected the impact of the Napoleonic experience.[3] In 1827, while composing On War, Clausewitzs line of thought underwent a radical change of direction. He transformed but did not ab andon his old military outlook, and developed completely new theoretical devices. The origins and nature of Clausewitzs new theoretical framework have remained a mystery, and as a result the exact nature of the transformation in his thought has not been entirely clear. This explains why Clausewitzs ideas could be interpreted so differently by successive generations.[4] Clausewitz wanted to do more than merely writing for next generations, or Prussian army, he wanted to search for the absolute, the very nature, or the regulative idea of things.[5] He put emphasis on the role of the theory that it is its duty to give the place to the absolute form of war and to use that form as a general point of direction, it had to reflect the relationship between the parts of war and the whole, and to be found in the nature of things. He regarded absolute war as ideal in the philosophical sense, as a regulative idea which gives unity and objectivity to diverse phenomena, an idea like that of perfect beauty in art which may never be attained but constantly approximated.[6] According to Clausewitz, the definition of war is: War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.[7] After defining, he then deductively argued from this definition to essential features to conclude how one should behave to realize its will. Therefore, from the definition, it can be understood that the violence, or physical force is the means, and the compulsory compliance of the adversary to our will is the ultimate end. To this end, the violence is pushed to its utmost bounds, since one side dictates law to its adversary, there occurs a kind of reciprocal action, leading to an extreme, which is first reciprocal action [8]. To compel the enemy to our will, the enemy must be placed in a situation so that he would sacrifice which is demanded. This situation can be disarming the enemy, threatening him with it, or overthrow of him. As long as the enemy is not defeated, there is always possibility that he may dictate to the other side. Therefore, it is the second reciprocal action leading to second extreme.[9] If one wants to defeat the adversary, he must proportionate his efforts to the others powers of resistance by increasing the means as much as possible, however the adversary would do the same and meet him in a new mutual enhancement, therefore there would occur the third reciprocal action leading to the third extreme.[10] The absolute war can also be understood as a war, in which all available force is concentrated into a single, instantaneous blow.[11] From this logic, it can be argued that there can be no middle ground between the state of peace and the absolute war, the two extremes where force remains wholly unused or wholly and immediately used in order to make the adversary defenceless. However, in reality, the conduct of war engages the incremental use of force.[12] The discrepancy between the absolute and real wars is due to the two basic factors. Firstly, the real war is dictated by the time and space. Actual military means are spatially distributed; therefore they can be employed in some period of time, but not instantaneously. Also, the real war is affected by the friction, which refers to the obstacles to the efficient usage of force that the real world imposes, and it is caused by the chance, and uncertainty, physical exertion and danger.[13] Moreover, for constraining the absoluteness of war, Clausewitz introduced the effect of politics on wars. According to him, all characteristics of war are influenced by politics, and this influence is not part of the nature of war. On the contrary, the influence of politics is an external force which works against the true essence of war, harnesses it to its needs, and modifies the imperatives which it imposes in the process.[14] It is due to the fact that when the political influence on the war is admitted, one may be willing to wage minimal are closely linked to the character and scope of the political objectives. These wars may consist threatening the enemy, with negotiations held in reserve.[15] Therefore, the politics convert the destructive element of war into a mere instrument, in other words, the conception that war is a mere continuation of policy by other means.[16] To introduce the Trinitarian nature of war, Clausewitz, first of all, wrote that warfare was a complex combination of passion, chance and reason. War is partly a matter of great passion, of hatred, danger, exertion. To the extent that war was an extension of politics, it was a rational, purposive activity aimed at altering the behaviour of an opponent. War, according to Clausewitz, was also the realm of chance. This combination makes war a paradoxical trinity. [17] In short, war is composed of three elements: first, primitive violence, hatred, and hostility, which should be regarded as a blind natural force; second, the play of chance and probability within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and third, its subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone.[18] The relations among these elements are fluid and tense. As warfare moves towards its absolute nature, the passion increases and the rational direction of war becomes more problematic. As the violence becomes more complete, untramelled, and absolute -since the pure concept requires, war would drive policy out of office and it would rule by the laws of its own nature. As the goals of war expand and the stakes increase, warfare would tend to move towards to the absolute form. This tendency towards absolute war would increase the tensions between the constitutive elements of the trinity, threatening to displace reason.[19] However, by arguing that the war is the extension of politics, Clausewitz asserted the rational direction of war as a whole. Similarly, as long as war is a political activity, it is fought for a purpose. It is neither the result of unreasoning passion, nor the result of mistakes. Besides, to explain the fact that although politics is artificial element to the nature of war, the real war may still come close to the absolute war. From Clausewitzs writings, it can be understood that state policy determines the main lines along which war is to move. This is the correct order of things, since the policy does not demand anything against the nature of war. If the political tensions carry very powerful character, and if adequate material means are given, the political aim may disappear behind, or rather coincide with, the military aim of disarming the enemy. In such case, real war approaches to absolute war. [20] He argued that this type of warfare would appear again and again in the age of nationalism.[21] On the other hand, this does not necessarily mean Clausewitz argued in favour of the absolute war, but rather he supported limited war. His conception of war became more durable, and more sophisticated after seeing Napoleons defeats at Russia in 1812, at Leipzig i n 1813 and finally at Waterloo in June 1815. This conception became regarded as a political act, and as an act which is and should be limited.[22] To argue in favour of why limited wars happen in reality, Liddell Hart raised Clausewitzs conception of absolute war to the level of an infallible religious dogma.[23] In this critic, it may be argued that Hart did not carefully read Clausewitz, however at this point I would only like to give Harts point of view on war. Harts definition of strategy was designed to reemphasize the subordination of the conduct of war to political objective. He believed that since Napoleon, the definition of strategy had expanded to the point where it was controlled completely by the military, the situation which created the dominance of the false objective.[24] Therefore, he redefined strategy as the distribution and transmission of military means to fulfil the needs of policy making it more clearly dependent upon political decisions while leaving its execution in the hands of the military.[25] Since the objective of war is to change the enemys will, Hart concluded that the strategy should not accept s eeking decision in battle as a guiding principle, the situation in which the enemys power of resistance is likely to be greatest, but it should be attacking to the vulnerable points in the enemys armour where defeat would destroy his moral and physical capacity to resist. In other word, it is a strategy of paralysation thorough dislocation rather than annihilation thorough attrition.[26] Moreover, Hart also criticized Clausewitzs argument that locates overthrow of the enemy as the aim of the war. Hart argued that the complete overthrow of the adversarys forces and the occupation of the opponents territory may be necessary to his success, but it is not compulsory to ones achievement. The object is fulfilled if the enemy can be convinced that he cannot conquer.[27] In order to illustrate this logic, the nuclear age and the deterrence theory based on the assumption that when one state does cost-benefit analysis before engaging to any aggression, and in this case since one state owns nuclear capability, it would deter other states from creating or getting involved to aggression, can be used.[28] The nuclear weapons and limited war are incompatible with each other since an unlimited war with nuclear weapons would mean mutually suicide. Therefore, the states need to establish adequate forces to defend themselves. Hart criticized the common assumption that the world faces a choice between the extremes of total war and total peace, but he urged a more limited approach to war.[29] Therefore, it can be understood that if wars are likely to occur, the limitation of their destructiveness is in every states interest. Similarly, although it is always irrational to fight nuclear war, and it may not be irrational to risk nuclear war, not all wars are nuclear wars, even in the nuclear age.[30] Nor nuclear war is instrument of policy, neither are nuclear weapons. These nuclear weapons are to be used only to prevent wars, not to fight wars. The purpose of the development of the doctrine of limited war in the 1950s was to restore policy control over the use of violence.[31] From these arguments, it can be understood that states may sometimes choose limited war, in order not to start or create possibility of engagement to any nuclear wars, but to keep their power over the use of force. It can be therefore further argued that while engaging to wars, states keep their political aims limited, so that they can keep their weapons conventional and limited. For instance, in 1950, during the Korean War, the US General MacArthur was in favour of nuclear weapons against North Korea. However, American policy makers decided on diplomatic and political utility in nuclear weapons rather than military utility.[32] Therefore, when the US intervened in Korea, it used conventional and limited military means to defend the South Korea. Meanwhile, when the allied powers came at the border of Yalu River, China got involved to the conflict to support North Korea. These two states, namely the US and China fought with limited scope and conventional weapons, therefore this example shows that states sometimes prefer to keep their force limited due to the political influence. Apart from these, the bargaining theory which assumes the wars with bargained settlements developed by Alastair Smith and Allan C. Stam approaches to Clausewitzs limited wars, or wars in reality. Since the bargaining theory is in realm of game theory, I will not speak of it in details. However, since one of the key feature of the theory is much more related to Clausewitzs limited wars, I will use it as an instance as an illustration. One of the features of the model is that as nations fight battles and capture forts from each other, both nations learn common information about the nature of warfare between them. As long as more and more information is revealed, the beliefs of nations converge. Therefore, wars are fought until either one side decisively defeats the other or until beliefs of each side unite sufficiently so that they can agree to a settlement.[33] Bibliography Gat, Azar. 1989. The Origins of Military Thought: From Enlightenment to Clausewitz. New York: Oxford University Press Earle, Edward Mead. 1973. Makers of Modern Strategy. Princeton: Princeton University Press Howard, Michael. 1983. Clausewitz. New York: Oxford University Press Bassford, http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/Bassford/Cworks/Works.htm, 8 July 2008 Gat, 1989, p.167 Gat, p.199 Gat, p.199 Edward Earle, p.94 Edward Earle, p.103 Clausewitz, p.101 Clausewitz, p.103 Clausewitz, p.104 Clausewitz, p.105 Stone, p.31 Stone, p.32 Stone, p.32 Gat, p.221 Howard, p.39 Clausewitz, p.119 Roxborough, p.625 Roxborough, p.625 Roxborough, p.626 Earle, p. 106 Earle, p.106 Cornish, p. 217 Larson, p.70 Larson, p.71 Larson, p.71 Larson, p.71 Larson, p.72 Kibaroglu, p.4 Larson, p.72 Moody, p.419 Moody, p.429 Dingman, p.56 Smith and Stam, p.787

Three Strikes And Youre Out Law Essay -- essays research papers

Three Strikes You're Out Law We have all heard of the newest anti-crime law, the "Three strikes and you’re out" law. It wasn’t easy getting this law from the bill stage in Sacramento to the law stage, because it is not a criminal friendly law. Meaning that this law’s purpose is to bring pain, suffering, and intimidation to criminals. Our state government was basically ran by the Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, now mayor of San Francisco. Brown had the power to choose who sat on what committee in the house, and using this he could terminate any bill he did not agree with. And with this attitude it took a lot of patients and perseverance by the people trying to pass this bill. But how did the bill become a bill? I will answer this question with help of the Kimber Reynolds story. Monday, June 29, 1992 in Fresno, California a young woman was brutally murdered outside The Daily Planet, a restaurant patronized by the local young people. The girl was visiting home for the summer after being in the Los Angeles area attending school. Her and a friend were getting into their car when two guys on a motorcycle rode up next to Kimber Reynolds blocking her in, taking her purse, and beating her into submission. The story made the 11 o’clock news only minutes after her father had gone to bed. When police ran a background check on the two suspected men, Joeseph Micheal Davis and Douglas Walker, both men had recently been released on parole with multiple offenses on their records. Unfortunately Davis was never brought in because when police were attempting to arrest him he began firing, wounding unsuspecting police officers and ultimately being killed. Douglas Walker was convicted of accessory to murder. Mike Reynolds, Kimber’s father, went on the radio on a local radio show called the Ray Appleton Show, KMJ 580. There he would discuss his outrage about how he was sick of repeat offenders being locked up only to be released after a fraction of the sentence was completed. He swore to the people listening that he was going to do something about the problem, even if it takes him forever. Listening to that show was Fresno Assemblyman Bill Jones (R). He was interested in the issue and arranged a meeting with Mike. They discussed ideas about how they could solve this problem. With that in mind Mike used some connections and g... ...victions. There were repeated warnings about the cost to implement the new law, but few have addressed the other side of the equation and the savings to the state, in lives and in dollars. Had our 1993 crime rate continued unaffected over these past few years, nearly 815,000 additional crimes would have been committed in California, including 217,000+ violent crimes. We would have suffered more than 4,000 homicide victims; 6000+ women would have been victims of rape. Also the savings in dollars is between $5.8 billion and $15.5 billion since the enactment of the "Three Strikes" law. There has been swift and dramatic impact on crime since the enactment of the "Three Strikes" law. The crime rate has dropped more than 30%. But there are other factors that play a part in this reduction like crime prevention, and community policing. However there has been a significant drop in the crime rate. Also the predictions about cost, over populating and others have not come true. With all of the opposition out there trying to tear this law down I believe that California can not afford to do without this law because it is saving our state money and lives.

Functional Life Skills Approach

1. Educating children with special and/or behavioral needs effectively demands respect for individuals and for individuality. Not all persons with special needs have the same needs. The students come from a variety of backgrounds, demonstrate a variety of talents, strengths, and weaknesses, and must be assessed and worked with on an individual basis. Children with special needs should also be educated alongside their average-needs counterparts, to the benefit of both. When children with average needs are exposed to children with special needs, an atmosphere of tolerance, awareness, and compassion will be more likely to permeate the school environment. Children with special needs also benefit from integration, except in exceptional circumstances when behavioral problems require some degree of separation. Finally, children with special needs require patience and long-term attention. Ideally, children with special needs will work with the same team of specialists for a long period of time. 2. The most important issues to keep in mind when implementing a Functional Life Skills Curriculum Approach include attention to individuality. While the program principles: communication, personal management, social skills, career skills, and applied academics remain stable, these core principles will need to be addressed differently for each child. Moreover, the children's' needs will change over time and it is important for educators to adapt and to notice when their needs or abilities are changing and adapt the curriculum accordingly. 3. Family Support is ideally integral to the educational process. However, in many cases family support is insufficient or lacking entirely. Family support offers educators a wealth of information about each child. The child's background, his or her behaviors at home, and other crucial information can be gleaned only from parents and others who spend a lot of time with the child. The home environment might also offer educators clues as to which programs, services, or practices to offer the child. 4. Outside agencies, organizations, and the private sector have an impact on special education and on the educational process in general. School funding is often inadequate to meet the needs of exceptional students. At those times, educators need to become aware of external options and introduce those to the parents and the students.

Referent and Expert Power

CNUR 833 Week 9 discussion question Summary Outline: Leadership Read the following chapter : Robbins, S. P. , Coulter, M. & Langton, M. (2009). Management (9th Canadian ed. ). Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall. Chapter 12 Review Week 9 Presentation (Found in Course Materials under Weekly Presentations) Focus on the following elements: 1. How leaders and managers differ. LEADERS †¢ Develop vision and long term objectives, plans strategy and tactics †¢ Exhibits leading Beauvoir. Acts to bring change in others congruent with long term objectives †¢ Innovates for the entire organization †¢ Asks what and why to change standard practice †¢ creates vision and meaning for the organization †¢ uses transformational influence: induces change in values, attitudes, behaviour using personal examples and expertise †¢ uses empowering strategies to make followers internalize values †¢ status quo challenger and change creator MANAGERS engages in day to day care taker activities, maintain and allocate resources †¢ exhibits supervisory behaviour : acts to make others maintain standard job behaviour †¢ administers subsystems within organizations †¢ asks how and when to engage in standard practice †¢ uses transactional influence: induces compliance in manifest behaviour using rewards, sanctions and formal authority †¢ relies on control strategies to get thing done by subordinates †¢ status quo supporter and stabilizer 2. How various theories improve our understanding of leadership? Trait theories- early research unable to find the difference leaders from non- leaders †¢ Later research on the leadership process identified 7 traits associated with successful leadership- drive, the desire to lead, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, intelligence, job-relevant knowledge, and extraversion †¢ Behavioural theories identified 3 leadership styles- 1. autocratic style- centralized authority, low participation 2. democratic style-involvement, high participation, feedback 3. laissez-faire style- hands -off management Leader behaviour Research findings mixed results- †¢ no specific style was consistently better for producing better performance †¢ employees were more satisfied under a democratic leader than an autocratic leader 4. How managers use power and trust to enhance leadership. For manager to lead, manger should have the leadership skill to empower and influence the team or individual to achieve organizational goals by building trust and using power effectively. There are 5 sources of leader power identified: POWER 1. Legitimate power and authority are the same. Leader in position power also likely to have reward and coercive power 2. Coercive power-leaders have the ability to punish or control e. g. employee’s suspension and demotion or assign unpleasant or desirable work to the workers. Followers react to the power out of fear and consequences for not compliance 3. Reward power- give positive benefits and rewards including anything that another person values e. g. money, favourable performance appraisals, promotions, interesting work assignments, friendly colleagues, and preferred work shifts or sales territories. . Expert power- influence based on expertise, special skills, or knowledge. Managers depend on employees’ expert to achieve the organization’s goals due to jobs have become more specialized. 5. Referent power-based on desirable resources or personal traits. Develop out of admiration of another and a desire to be like that person by modelling behaviour and attitudes after the individual DEVELOPING TRUST AND CR EDIBILITY TRUST include 5 dimensions 1. integrity- honesty and truthfulness 2. competence- technical and interpersonal knowledge and skills 3. onsistency- reliability, predictability, and good judgement in handling situation 4. loyalty- willingness to protect a person, physically and emotionally 5. openness- willingness to share ideas and information freely †¢ Honesty is the most important characteristic of admired leader †¢ Credible leaders are competent and inspiring †¢ Able to communicate effectively their confidence and competence and inspiration †¢ Trust and integrity are interrelated and interchangeable Post your views one the 2 discussion questions in the discussion threads. . Describe the differences between a transactional leader and a transformational leader. †¢ Transactional leaders is more of management leadership style by telling what they wanted the employees to do and give clear structure and expectation to their followers what is expected and required to do the job with full responsibility †¢ Reward for success of compliances and effort and punishment for failure to motivate employees to achieve short term goal and not long-term goal by increase their performance or productivity. Followers are expected to do the job as an order whether or not there are resources or capability to do it. Employees obey to do the assignment by negotiating a contract with benefits and incentive. †¢ This leadership style has least interest in changing the working environment and ineffective in promoting job satisfaction. Transformation leadership †¢ Defined as charismatic leaders of change agents who have confidence and belief in themselves by developing vision and putting their passion and energy to take care of their subordinates to success. with clear vision and direction leaders will be able to inspire their followers to buy into it in order achieve their common goal for the organization †¢ Some of the characteristics of transformation leader are enthusiasm, active and good listener, visible, build trust, persistent, keep up the momentum by motivating and rallying their followers, show followers their behaviours and attitudes the way every ones else should behave, commitment, celebrate with success, †¢ This type of leadership enables the leaders to transform organization as they are people oriented and success comes first. Transformational Leaders also tend to see the big picture, but not the details, which could cause failure and also their followers are kept going and may also cause them to give up. References: Robbins, S. P. , Coulter, M. & Langton, M. (2009). Management (9th Canadian ed. ). Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall. Transformation Leadership. Retrieved on 15-3-2010 from http://changingminds. org/disciplines/leadership/styles/transformational_leadership. htm 2. What types of power are available in your current nursing situation? Which types do you use most often and why? The types of powers most often used by nurses are expert power and referent power. This is because nurses have expert power as they possess skill and knowledge; professional specialized in nursing care that is relevant to the job or tasks. Public and patients look up on nurses for quality of care and health knowledge for their expertise. Thus nurses have the power to influence patients as well as team members by exhibiting trust, honesty, credibility, accountability and integrity. Nurses also have referent power being admired by patient, staff and students. Therefore those who admire nurses with referent power will be over power by the nurses and attempt to model behaviour and attitudes after them. This is because the followers believe the leader posses the quality that they would like to possess. Transactional Leadership 72 rate or flag this page By Edi Kurnik [pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic] [pic]A – Z of Leadership †¢ A – Z of Leadership How To Improve Your Leadership Skills By Using The Same Secrets Great Leaders Like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Alexander The Great Used To Inspire, Motivate and Persuade Virtually Anyone†¦ Related Hubs Leadership Styles †¢ Quotes on Leadership [pic][pic] [pic][pic][pic]Transactional Leadership Leadership style plays a crucial role in the development of an organization. Transactional leadership is of the leadership style that is often used by many companies. Transactional leadership believes that punishment and reward motivate people. This leadership also assumes that when people agree to do a particular assignment, a part of that agreement is that they give up all authority to their boss. The leader holds control and power over the subordinates. The main goal of the employee is to obey the orders of their managers. The idea is that when a subordinate takes up a job, he or she agrees to obey their manager totally. The ‘transaction' is the money or any other award that the company pays to its subordinates for their compliance and effort. The relationship between the subordinate and the leader becomes transactional. In transactional leadership the leader has the right to punish his or her subordinates if their performance is not according to the predetermined standard. Transactional leadership makes clear that what is equired and expected from their subordinates. It also mentions that subordinates will get award if they follow the orders seriously. Sometimes punishments are not mentioned but they are understood. In the early stages of transactional leadership, subordinate is in the process of negotiating the contract. The contract specifies fixed salary and the benefits that will be given to the subordinate. Rewards are g iven to subordinates for applied effort. Some organization use incentives to encourage their subordinates for greater productivity. Transactional leadership is a way of increasing the performance of its subordinates by giving them rewards. Transactional leadership is also called as ‘true leadership style as it focuses on short term goals instead of long term goals. In Transactional leadership, when the leader assigns work to its subordinates, then it is the responsibility of the subordinate to see that the assigned task is finished on time. If the assigned task is not completed on time or if something then punishment is given for their failure. But if they accomplish the task in time then the subordinates are given reward for successfully completing the task. Subordinates are also given award and praised for exceeding expectations. A subordinate whose performance is below expectation is punished and some action is taken to increase his or her performance. Transactional leadership has more of a ‘telling style'. Transactional leadership is based on the fact that reward or punishment is dependent on the performance. Even though researchers have highlighted its limitations, transactional leadership is still used by many employers. More and more companies are adopting transactional leadership to increase the performance of its employees. This approach is prevalent in real workplace. The main limitation of this leadership is that it assumes that people are largely motivated by simple rewards. Under transactional leadership, employees can't do much to improve job satisfaction. Transaction leadership has been ineffective in providing skilled employees to their organization. This style of leadership is least interested in changing the work environment. Experts do not recommend this approach. Transactional leadership focuses more on management of punishments and rewards. [pic]Rate it:   up   down Transactional Leadership Disciplines ; Leadership ; Leadership styles ; Transactional Leadership Assumptions | Style | Discussion  | See also Assumptions People are motivated by reward and punishment. Social systems work best with a clear chain of command. When people have agreed to do a job, a part of the deal is that they cede all authority to their manager. The prime purpose of a subordinate is to do what their manager tells them to do. Style The transactional leader works through creating clear structures whereby it is clear what is required of their subordinates, and the rewards that they get for following orders. Punishments are not always mentioned, but they are also well-understood and formal systems of discipline are usually in place. The early stage of Transactional Leadership is in negotiating the contract whereby the subordinate is given a salary and other benefits, and the company (and by implication the subordinate's manager) gets authority over the subordinate. When the Transactional Leader allocates work to a subordinate, they are considered to be fully responsible for it, whether or not they have the resources or capability to carry it out. When things go wrong, then the subordinate is considered to be personally at fault, and is punished for their failure (just as they are rewarded for succeeding). The transactional leader often uses management by exception, working on the principle that if something is operating to defined (and hence expected) performance then it does not need attention. Exceptions to expectation require praise and reward for exceeding expectation, whilst some kind of corrective action is applied for performance below expectation. Whereas Transformational Leadership has more of a ‘selling' style, Transactional Leadership, once the contract is in place, takes a ‘telling' style. Discussion Transactional leadership is based in contingency, in that reward or punishment is contingent upon performance. Despite much research that highlights its limitations, Transactional Leadership is still a popular approach with many managers. Indeed, in the Leadership vs. Management spectrum, it is very much towards the management end of the scale. The main limitation is the assumption of ‘rational man', a person who is largely motivated by money and simple reward, and hence whose behavior is predictable. The underlying psychology is Behaviorism, including the Classical Conditioning of Pavlov and Skinner's Operant Conditioning. These theories are largely based on controlled laboratory experiments (often with animals) and ignore complex emotional factors and social values. In practice, there is sufficient truth in Behaviorism to sustain Transactional approaches. This is reinforced by the supply-and-demand situation of much employment, coupled with the effects of deeper needs, as in Maslow's Hierarchy. When the demand for a skill outstrips the supply, then Transactional Leadership often is insufficient, and other approaches are more effective. See also Exchange principle, Transformational Leadership Transformational Leadership Disciplines > Leadership > Leadership styles > Transformational Leadership Assumptions | Style | Discussion  | See also Assumptions People will follow a person who inspires them. A person with vision and passion can achieve great things. The way to get things done is by injecting enthusiasm and energy. Style Working for a Transformational Leader can be a wonderful and uplifting experience. They put passion and energy into everything. They care about you and want you to succeed. Developing the vision Transformational Leadership starts with the development of a vision, a view of the future that will excite and convert potential followers. This vision may be developed by the leader, by the senior team or may emerge from a broad series of discussions. The important factor is the leader buys into it, hook, line and sinker. Selling the vision The next step, which in fact never stops, is to constantly sell the vision. This takes energy and commitment, as few people will immediately buy into a radical vision, and some will join the show much more slowly than others. The Transformational Leader thus takes every opportunity and will use whatever works to convince others to climb on board the bandwagon. In order to create followers, the Transformational Leader has to be very careful in creating trust, and their personal integrity is a critical part of the package that they are selling. In effect, they are selling themselves as well as the vision. Finding the way forwards In parallel with the selling activity is seeking the way forward. Some Transformational Leaders know the way, and simply want others to follow them. Others do not have a ready strategy, but will happily lead the exploration of possible routes to the promised land. The route forwards may not be obvious and may not be plotted in details, but with a clear vision, the direction will always be known. Thus finding the way forward can be an ongoing process of course correction, and the Transformational Leader will accept that there will be failures and blind canyons along the way. As long as they feel progress is being made, they will be happy. Leading the charge The final stage is to remain up-front and central during the action. Transformational Leaders are always visible and will stand up to be counted rather than hide behind their troops. They show by their attitudes and actions how everyone else should behave. They also make continued efforts to motivate and rally their followers, constantly doing the rounds, listening, soothing and enthusing. It is their unswerving commitment as much as anything else that keeps people going, particularly through the darker times when some may question whether the vision can ever be achieved. If the people do not believe that they can succeed, then their efforts will flag. The Transformational Leader seeks to infect and reinfect their followers with a high level of commitment to the vision. One of the methods the Transformational Leader uses to sustain motivation is in the use of ceremonies, rituals and other cultural symbolism. Small changes get big hurrahs, pumping up their significance as indicators of real progress. Overall, they balance their attention between action that creates progress and the mental state of their followers. Perhaps more than other approaches, they are people-oriented and believe that success comes first and last through deep and sustained commitment. Discussion Whilst the Transformational Leader seeks overtly to transform the organization, there is also a tacit promise to followers that they also will be transformed in some way, perhaps to be more like this amazing leader. In some respects, then, the followers are the product of the transformation. Transformational Leaders are often charismatic, but are not as narcissistic as pure Charismatic Leaders, who succeed through a belief in themselves rather than a belief in others. One of the traps of Transformational Leadership is that passion and confidence can easily be mistaken for truth and reality. Whilst it is true that great things have been achieved through enthusiastic leadership, it is also true that many passionate people have led the charge right over the cliff and into a bottomless chasm. Just because someone believes they are right, it does not mean they are right. Paradoxically, the energy that gets people going can also cause them to give up. Transformational Leaders often have large amounts of enthusiasm which, if relentlessly applied, can wear out their followers. Transformational Leaders also tend to see the big picture, but not the details, where the devil often lurks. If they do not have people to take care of this level of information, then they are usually doomed to fail. Finally, Transformational Leaders, by definition, seek to transform. When the organization does not need transforming and people are happy as they are, then such a leader will be frustrated. Like wartime leaders, however, given the right situation they come into their own and can be personally responsible for saving entire companies. See also Appeal principle, Bonding principle, Confidence principle, Pull, The Leadership Challenge Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectation. New York: Free Press. Bass, B. M. (1990). From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, (Winter): 19-31. Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row

In Retrospect essays

In Retrospect essays Robert McNamara In Retrospect Random House New York, 1995 Vietnam had long since been a place of controversy, and where our government focused its fear of communism for many years. Throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administrations the government maintained that the war between the Communist north and the south can only be won by the South Vietnamese, and that our military cannot win it for them. It stressed that the fall of South Vietnam to communism would threaten the rest of the western world. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, wrote In Retrospect because he wanted to Put Vietnam in context,(xx). McNamara wanted to explain why the mistakes of Vietnam were made, not to justify them, but to help the American public understand them. He relies not only upon his memories, but upon People have often called Vietnam, McNamaras war, because he made it his responsibility. As he learned more and more about south Vietnam, he became well acquainted with its leader Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem portrayed himself as a man who shared our western values. Though as our government would soon realize he was not the man we had hoped for. Diem needed to be removed from power, he was becoming more and more unpopular with his people. The Kennedy Administration seemed split on how democratic Diem really was. His conflicts between the Buddhists and Catholics were becoming more outrageous than ever. The administration supported a generals coup to get Diem out of power. Diem and his brother Nhu were both assassinated during this coup. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy, himself, was also assassinated on the streets of Dallas. McNamara poses many questions as to whether the war would have continued on the same route had Kennedy not been killed. McNamara feels that had Kennedy lived he would have pulled us out of ...

The 6 Hardest Interview Questions of 2016

The 6 Hardest Interview Questions of 2016 According to the Five O’Clock Club, the days of â€Å"So, do you have any questions for us?† are over. Interviewers are getting much more devious in the questions they’re asking candidates to get them thinking outside the box. Sometimes tough interview questions can mean a higher job satisfaction rating later on. Here are some of the hardest interview questions from 2015 and what you might expect in 2016: 1. â€Å"How much would you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?†Questions like this are designed to see how quickly and well you think on your feet. Will you go the long road and try to estimate how many windows there are in all of Seattle? Or fire back a fixed price per window or per hour? Either way, be sure to explain your thought process to your interviewer, as that’s what your interviewer is most interested in hearing.SEE ALSO:  How Would You Answer This Crazy Interview Question?2. â€Å"Explain a database to your eight-year-old neph ew.†This is a Google standby to see if you can translate tech speak into normal-person speak. Especially if you’ll be interacting with clients, it’s crucial to be able to explain what you do in plain English. Keep it short and sweet and clear.3. â€Å"What did you have for breakfast?†This is a double punch of catching you off-guard and seeing whether you’ll fit in. If it’s a granola crowd and you had bacon-wrapped sausages for breakfast, you might be in trouble. The best strategy is just to be yourself. It’s better to fit in somewhere else than work in a climate that doesn’t suit you.4. â€Å"Describe the color yellow to someone who is blind.†How creative are you? Are you sensitive? Able to express the abstract and think outside the box? This is a test of your wits and your insight, but if you train yourself to look at things from multiple angles, you’ll be better prepared for this kind of question.5. â€Å"If you sat down at your desk and found 1,000 emails in your inbox but you could answer only 300 of them, how would you choose?†What are your priorities? How do you triage under fire? Are you organized? Do you have the right sense of what’s important to the company? The best answer is usually that you’d prioritize emails from your biggest client, your boss, or anything super-important or time-sensitive. Everything else can wait.6. â€Å"Tell me about a time when you had a disagreement with your manager. How was it resolved?†This is actually a classic question, but always a good one to prepare for. Don’t bad-mouth anyone, least of all your former boss. Simple  give a bit of context, keep your cool, and breeze past it to show that you’re not afraid of conflict, and  you’re able to be mature and keep on moving forward.

Functionalism Functionalist Perspective and Theory

Functionalism Functionalist Perspective and Theory The functionalist perspective, also called functionalism, is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology. It has its origins in the works of Emile Durkheim, who was especially interested in how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable. As such, it is a theory that focuses on the macro-level of social structure, rather than the micro-level of everyday life. Notable theorists include Herbert Spencer,  Talcott Parsons, and Robert K. Merton. Emile Durkheim The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or creative consciousness. The Division of Labour (1893) Theory Overview Functionalism interprets each part of society in terms of how it contributes to the stability of the whole society. Society is more than the sum of its parts; rather, each part of society is functional for the stability of the whole. Durkheim actually envisioned society as an organism, and just like within an organism, each component plays a necessary part, but none can function alone, and one experiences a crisis or fails, other parts must adapt to fill the void in some way. Within functionalist theory, the different parts of society are primarily composed of social institutions, each of which is designed to fill different needs, and each of which has particular consequences for the form and shape of society. The parts all depend on each other. The core institutions defined by sociology and which are important to understanding for this theory include family, government, economy, media, education, and religion. According to functionalism, an institution only exists because it serves a vital role in the functioning of society. If it no longer serves a role, an institution will die away. When new needs evolve or emerge, new institutions will be created to meet them. Lets consider the relationships between and functions of some core institutions. In most societies, the government, or state, provides education for the children of the family, which in turn pays taxes on which the state depends to keep itself running. The family is dependent upon the school to help children grow up to have good jobs so that they can raise and support their own families. In the process, the children become law-abiding, taxpaying citizens, who in turn support the state. From the functionalist perspective, if all goes well, the parts of society produce order, stability, and productivity. If all does not go well, the parts of society then must adapt to produce new forms of order, stability, and productivity. Functionalism emphasizes the consensus and order that exist in society, focusing on social stability and shared public values. From this perspective, disorganization in the system, such as deviant behavior, leads to change because societal components must adjust to achieve stability. When one part of the system is not working or is dysfunctional, it affects all other parts and creates social problems, which leads to social change. Functionalist Perspective in American Sociology The functionalist perspective achieved its greatest popularity among American sociologists in the 1940s and 50s. While European functionalists originally focused on explaining the inner workings of social order, American functionalists focused on discovering the functions of human behavior. Among these American functionalist sociologists is Robert K. Merton, who divided human functions into two types: manifest functions, which are intentional and obvious, and latent functions, which are unintentional and not obvious. The manifest function of attending a church or synagogue, for instance, is to worship as part of a religious community, but its latent function may be to help members learn to discern personal from institutional values. With common sense, manifest functions become easily apparent. Yet this is not necessarily the case for latent functions, which often demand a sociological approach to be revealed. Antonio Gramsci. Hulton Archive/Getty Images Critiques of the Theory Functionalism has been critiqued by many sociologists for its neglect of the often negative implications of social order. Some critics, like Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci, claim that the perspective justifies the status quo and the process of cultural hegemony which maintains it. Functionalism does not encourage people to take an active role in changing their social environment, even when doing so may benefit them. Instead, functionalism sees agitating for social change as undesirable because the various parts of society will compensate in a seemingly  natural way  for any problems that may arise. Updated  by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.

Risk and return Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Risk and return - Essay Example Risk and return are two inversely correlated concepts. A person or a corporation that is risk adverse will not take chances. Lower risk lead to lower returns and higher risk leads to higher returns. The general rule of higher risk leading to higher returns is not set in stone. One of the problems with higher risk is that it can lead to financial catastrophes. For example imagine a person that invests in a penny stock. Penny stocks are considered the most risky of all types of investments. The person decided to invest in penny stock X because he wanted the possibility of earning a higher return. Due to the risk associated with penny stocks the stock ended up defaulting due to the fact that the company went out of business. In this particular case instead of obtaining a higher return the investor ended up losing all his money. 2. Return on investment can be defined as a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments (Investopedia, 2011). The formula to calculate return on investment is (Gain from investment –cost of investment) / cost of investment. Companies are always looking to maximize their return on investment. Corporations able to obtain above normal returns on investment are more profitable than the competition. Return on investment can be manipulated when determining projects by changing the expected return of the company. For example a company may establish new financial policy of only accepting projects that achieve a return on investment of 10%. ... The firm lost approximately $15,000 from this project. To me this experienced proved that higher risk can lead to operating losses. 4. The concept of higher risk leading to higher profits is real and in my personal experience it has paid off dividend. When I took my first finance course the professor gave the class a stock market simulation project. I like the project so much that I decided to turn the project into a reality. I opened up an investment account with Scottrade. I invested $2000 to build up a portfolio of stocks. The portfolio was composed of about six stocks including several blue chip stocks and a penny stock. The penny stock was VTSS. I invested about $350 in the VTSS penny stock. After two months the penny stock when up from $0.35 to over $1.50 cents. I made over $1000 dollars from the purchase of the stock. When the class ended I decided to cash out my portfolio. I utilized the earnings from my portfolio to purchase a 1994 Eclipse automobile for my sister. 5. In the corporate world companies have to take risk in order to obtain a return. A risk that a lot of multinational companies are faced with is the decision to penetrate new marketplaces. There are regions in the world that are susceptible to huge risk such as the Middle East. In the Middle East the risks associated with terrorism are very high especially for American companies. Taking chances is a part of the business process. Even when a company has a successful product line the constant changes in the marketplace forces companies to take risk such as introducing new products into the marketplace 6. People take risk in their regular everyday life without even realizing they are doing it. For example a person

Environmental Ethics in Business Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Environmental Ethics in Business - Assignment Example The flora and fauna are getting extinct at a fast pace and the new strains of germs and diseases are spreading around the world. Climate change is demanding new and unhealthy adjustments with nature. The natural resource base is getting narrowed. The options for rural livelihoods are narrowing down. The springs are no more cheerful and life is becoming sad and gloomy. The direct result of this situation is poverty, death, and disease. The whole world on an equitable basis has a right over the wholesome environmental conditions. In order to respectfully live and enjoy in this world, every human being has equal title to the natural resources including clean air, clean water, and clean environment. Infringing on the environmental rights by the USA and its businesses around the world is not acceptable. By not ratifying the Kyoto protocol the President Bush of USA has not admitted the universality of equal human rights around the world. An environment is not at all a country specific. ... All other countries where the USA businesses are located have to ensure compliance with the international and local standards on the environment. Any business concern found not compliant must be penalized properly. Any let up in this connection can further harm the global environment. The 25% share of USA in CO2 emissions is really an alarming proportion. The excuse or the argument of President Bush does not hold good. The unemployment generated in the USA by CO2 reduction by 2015 is not tenable. The industries have to be harnessed. Mere profit-making should not be their main aim. The USA has to look at its meager population as compared to the whole world. Local consumption of goods in the USA does not warrant sustained growth in the USA. Even the oil reserves accumulated from the Iraq war cannot for sure guarantee the sustained GDP growth for the USA. The CO2 emissions from China and India are equally bad. But this argument taken by the USA does not suit the world's largest and most sophisticated technology-based economy of the USA. Japan and Canada have equal responsibility. However, the USA has to take the lead.

Leadership and Management of Strategic Change of Qatar Airways Assignment

Leadership and Management of Strategic Change of Qatar Airways - Assignment Example The author of the essay "Leadership and Management of Strategic Change of Qatar Airways" tells that change can happen anywhere at any time because it is usually an uninvited guest in many situations. This makes strategic change management a tough job for the top management in any organization. The most important factor driving organizations to change is the uncertainty persisting in the economic sector, worldwide. Another important factor is the turbulences in the market because current markets are very much vulnerable for changes and the global markets are susceptible to frequent changes. Another major cause for changes is the rise in the expectations, needs and demands of the customers. They always look for better products with better benefits for better life. Consequently, the rate of entry of new comers is quiet high a factor that increases the competitiveness in corresponding fields (Wootton, Horne and Wootton, 2010, p.89). This insists organizations to come up with more competi tive products so as to fully achieve the competitive advantage. The business tie-ups and acquisitions also will lead to changes in the strategy of both organizations. Budget pressures will induce changes in companies. Alterations in the vision and mission of the organization will also lead to changes in the organization’s strategy. All the PESTEL factors, i.e. political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, environmental and legal factors have impact on bringing about a change in the strategy of organization.

Analysis of Business Environment for Coca-Cola Company Research Paper

Analysis of Business Environment for Coca-Cola Company - Research Paper Example The company currently estimates the average drink sales per day at about 1.8 billion with more than 500 brands by 2011, four of which are the world’s top-five sparkling brands. Coca-Cola is one of the only trademarks with the universal presence and became a billion dollar brand in 2010. It has sponsored the biggest sporting events in the world, the Olympic Games and the FIFA world cup for more than 80 years (The Coca-Cola Company, 2012, par.2). The Company has undertaken many social responsibility initiatives including the Haiti Hope Project in 2010 which aimed at developing a sustainable mango industry in Haiti. The company attributes its business success to five main factors which are unique and recognized brand , quality, marketing, global availability and ongoing innovation. This paper will explore the business environment in which Coca-Cola Company operates focusing on among other things its SWOT, competitiveness and value chain. Assessment of the General Environment The general environment consists of the external factors which affect any business. These factors are dynamic and range from Demographic, Economic, Political/legal, Socio-cultural, Technological and Global. All these affect the business of Coca-Cola Company in one way or the other, but two of the most important factors for the Coca-Cola would be the economic and technological factors. The behavior of economies of the countries in which the company transacts business has a great influence on the performance of company products in those countries. Rise in inflation and interest rates trends increases operating costs and reduces production within the industry as well as affecting demand for beverages sold in those markets. When the countries face trade deficits or surpluses, it has an impact on the exchange rate which may be favorable or unfavorable thus increasing or reducing costs of raw materials and products because of increases or decreases in the value of exports/imports. The com pany’s products in those markets are affected accordingly. Economies facing budget deficits, as opposed to surpluses, may increase taxes in order to make up for the deficits, again impacting on Coke’s business in terms of increased business costs. Increase in rates of consumption may favor the uptake of beverages sold by Coca-Cola, but increase in savings by the populace will be detrimental to the company’s business. Changes in GDP levels, as well as business cycles are additional aspects that have an influence on the industry and business in which the company operates under the economic factor. Technologically, industry as well as firm benefits and/or vulnerabilities would be associated with taking or failing to take advantage of new generational purpose technologies, research and development, converging technologies and process architectures as part of the aspects of technology. In addressing business environment, competition is a key element that always comes to mind. The five forces of competition that are employed to establish the position of the company relative to its competitors in the industry as given by Porter are potential of new entrants, bargaining power of

Ethical Hacking the three shades White Hat, Black Hat, Gray Hat Research Paper

Ethical Hacking the three shades White Hat, Black Hat, Gray Hat - Research Paper Example 2010; Snyder, 2006; Mahmood et al., 2010; Smith et al., 2002; Pashel, 2006; Raether, 2008) II. Introduction Hacking has become the stuff of national security talk in the US and other countries recently, with the proliferation of news with regard to accusations that China is leading a concerted effort to hack into very critical systems owned by the US government as well as private enterprises around the world. Some of the most recent reports tie the concerted hacking efforts to the Chinese military, indicating that not only is the hacking sanctioned by government, but is being done with its active support, with the intent to gain from the vast intelligence that can be had from the hacking exercises. This recent spate of news has put hacking in a bad light. Clearly this kind of hacking is unethical, because of the intent to gain from illegally breaking into global information systems, and without the permission of the system owners. From the point of view of international law, this is unethical and clearly criminal (Sanger, Barboza and Perlroth, 2013; Navarro, 2013; Olson, 2012). On the other hand it is worthwhile to note that ethical hacking is offered as a course in some universities, as in the case of a course offering in Northumbria University, entitled Ethical Hacking for Computer Security Bsc. It is an honors course. The goal of the course is to be able to produce ethical hackers who are adept at penetrating into systems with the use of tools to hack into them, so that the weaknesses and flaws of those systems may be identified and strengthened/addressed appropriately (Northumbria University, 2010). This testifies to many things, among them being that ethical hacking is a mainstream, legitimate activity, rather than something that can be deemed as criminal. The intent here is to bolster security rather than to breach systems with malice and with an intent to commit crimes. This is reflected as much in the Oxford Dictionary definition of the term, which also underlines the growing importance of ethical hacking and ethical hackers to be able to make systems more secure (Oxford University Press, 2013). That ethical and unethical hacking both exist, as typified by the two contrasting examples above, is further reflected in the way these two types of hacking are immortalized in the literature, via the contrasting designation of black hat hacking representing the practice of unethical and criminal hacking, and white hat hacking, or ethical hacking. There is also gray hat hacking, which, as the term connotes, is part ethical and part unethical. This latter term also denotes a hacker who has had experience with doing hacking on both sides of the fence. The arguments against hacking in general point to the aspect of the debate with regard to whether hacking has any place at all in legal society. This line of thinking says that all hacking is potentially illegal. Those in favor of ethical hacking, on the other hand, admit as much, but then posi ts the example of the locksmith. If one is locked into a house, for instance, because one lost the keys to the door, then it makes sense to call a locksmith to create new

Dyadic partner Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Dyadic partner - Essay Example When he is confused, he would also tug at his hair. He wears bright colored shirts like red, blue or green, when he is happy. But when he is excited about something and wants to share it with others, he sits upright and looks at other person’s eye. The body language of my partner is therefore vital means of communicating his mood. Whenever he comes in bright tee-shirt, I am much relaxed because I know that when he is happy, he works better with higher productive outcome! When I see him sitting upright on his chair, I know that he has some good news. But my worries are heightened when I see him tugging at his hair or find him looking away rather than talking to me. As I know that these behavior indicate his discomfort with the issue or his doubts which he is wary of sharing. At these times, I pick up the topic or issue that he is passionate about. When he gets involved and comfortable, I broach the subject of which he is wary about. This way, I am able to know his problem and resolve it so that he can focus on his

Ethical Hacking the three shades White Hat, Black Hat, Gray Hat Research Paper

Ethical Hacking the three shades White Hat, Black Hat, Gray Hat - Research Paper Example 2010; Snyder, 2006; Mahmood et al., 2010; Smith et al., 2002; Pashel, 2006; Raether, 2008) II. Introduction Hacking has become the stuff of national security talk in the US and other countries recently, with the proliferation of news with regard to accusations that China is leading a concerted effort to hack into very critical systems owned by the US government as well as private enterprises around the world. Some of the most recent reports tie the concerted hacking efforts to the Chinese military, indicating that not only is the hacking sanctioned by government, but is being done with its active support, with the intent to gain from the vast intelligence that can be had from the hacking exercises. This recent spate of news has put hacking in a bad light. Clearly this kind of hacking is unethical, because of the intent to gain from illegally breaking into global information systems, and without the permission of the system owners. From the point of view of international law, this is unethical and clearly criminal (Sanger, Barboza and Perlroth, 2013; Navarro, 2013; Olson, 2012). On the other hand it is worthwhile to note that ethical hacking is offered as a course in some universities, as in the case of a course offering in Northumbria University, entitled Ethical Hacking for Computer Security Bsc. It is an honors course. The goal of the course is to be able to produce ethical hackers who are adept at penetrating into systems with the use of tools to hack into them, so that the weaknesses and flaws of those systems may be identified and strengthened/addressed appropriately (Northumbria University, 2010). This testifies to many things, among them being that ethical hacking is a mainstream, legitimate activity, rather than something that can be deemed as criminal. The intent here is to bolster security rather than to breach systems with malice and with an intent to commit crimes. This is reflected as much in the Oxford Dictionary definition of the term, which also underlines the growing importance of ethical hacking and ethical hackers to be able to make systems more secure (Oxford University Press, 2013). That ethical and unethical hacking both exist, as typified by the two contrasting examples above, is further reflected in the way these two types of hacking are immortalized in the literature, via the contrasting designation of black hat hacking representing the practice of unethical and criminal hacking, and white hat hacking, or ethical hacking. There is also gray hat hacking, which, as the term connotes, is part ethical and part unethical. This latter term also denotes a hacker who has had experience with doing hacking on both sides of the fence. The arguments against hacking in general point to the aspect of the debate with regard to whether hacking has any place at all in legal society. This line of thinking says that all hacking is potentially illegal. Those in favor of ethical hacking, on the other hand, admit as much, but then posi ts the example of the locksmith. If one is locked into a house, for instance, because one lost the keys to the door, then it makes sense to call a locksmith to create new

Intercontinental Railway System - Amrak Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Intercontinental Railway System - Amrak - Essay Example As an intercontinental railway system, it serves New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Sacramento, Baltimore, Albany-Rensselaer, San Diego, New Haven, Wilmington, Nelwark, Seattle, Portland, Irvine, BWI Airport, Providence, Milwaukee, Emeryville, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Boston, and Bakersfield. Thus, it caters the needs of 30.2 million people in America. Owing the expediency and high demand of its services, the company invested for projects to enhance their services and sustain the railway network (Vromans, Dekker, & Kroon, 2006). With the magnitude of services accorded to the public, it facilitated the interconnection of cities populated with diverse and multicultural communities. Amrak became instrumental too in cultural exchanges, in bridging people-to-people relations and intercultural immersion via travels, tourism, migration, and opportunities in other states which drive the influx of people from one place to another point of destination (Gapinski & T uckman, 1978). Experts opined that the contribution of this railway in shaping socio-cultural development and economic expansion in North America is more appreciable than in Europe. The railway was partly author of industrialization as this was the major transportation of business sector to-and-fro the mainland. This compelled the company to coordinate with all states served for its security as a matter of policy and as measures for public welfare. Legal coordination and networking to all states was an indispensable corporate strategy to accord passenger’s security. As a business, the railway is also one of the leading companies that are dependent on the consumption of energy and thus, also confront the challenges in the utilization of oil and gas amid call for ecological protection and regulation of pollution emission. Although it contributed much for economic advancement because it raked high revenue but there is a need to reevaluate and optimize the company’s expend itures because it has oddly spent $ 3.95 billion in 2011 when it only earned $ 2.71 billion in its operation (Dunn et, al., 1997). Cash flows need to be regulated in such measure that will not devalue the services and sacrifice its operations amid escalating cost in the market. With these stark realities, the company remained subject to the corporation, transportation, insurance, and security policies of the states served and by United States of America. If the policies are not liberally construed to also assist the condition of the company, then unsupportive policies will negatively impact to Amtrak’s operational activities, thus, may constrain its business relations with its passengers and cargo customers. Perl and Dunn (1997) pointed that Amtrak, as a quasi-public and profit –oriented corporation had some internal flaws since it dissociated itself from America's private railroads and from trust-fund financial scheme that could subsidize public transport. Perl and Du nn (1997) criticized its over dependency on political patrons and labor union for protection against executive budget cuts, thus, bleeding its operational cost too much by running the railway system with expensive contracts and services against its revenue. Although the company has undertaken serious

Emotion Recognition From Text-a Survey

Emotion Recognition From Text-a Survey Ms. Pallavi D. Phalke , Dr. Emmanuel M. ABSTRACT Emotion is a very important facet of human behaviour which affect on the way people interact in the society. In recent year many methods on human emotions recognition have been published such as recognizing emotion from facial expression and gestures, speech and by written text. This paper focuses on classification of emotion expressed by the online text, based on predefined list of emotion. The collection of dataset is the basic step, which is collected from the various sources like daily used sentences, user status from various social networking websites such as  facebook and twitter. Using this data set we target only on the keywords that show human emotions. The targeted keywords are extracted from the dataset and translated into the format which can be processed by the classifier to finally generate the Predicting model which is further compared by the test dataset to give the emotions in the input sentences or documents. Keywords— Affective Computing, Classification, Document Categorization, Emotion Detections. INTRODUCTION Recently much research is going on in emotion recognition domain. Recognition of emotions is very useful to human-machine communication. Many kinds of the communication system can react properly for the humans emotional actions by applying emotion recognition techniques on them. These systems include dialogue system, automatic answering system and robot. The recognition of emotion has been implemented in many kinds of media, such as image, speech, facial expressions, signal, textual data, and so on. Text is the most popular and main tool for the human to convey messages, communicate thoughts and express inclination. Textual data make it possible for people to exchange opinions, ideas, and emotions using text only. Therefore the research for recognizing from the textual data is valuable. Keyword-based approach to the proposed system since the keyword-based approach shows high recognizing accuracy for emotional keywords. Interaction between humans and computers has been increased with increase in development of information technology. Recognizing emotion in text from document or sentences is the first step in realizing this new advanced communication which includes communication of information such as how the writer/speaker feels about the fact or how they want the reader/listener to feel. Analyzing text, detecting emotions is useful for many purposes, which includes identifying what emotion a newspaper headline is trying to evoke, identifying users emotion from their statuses of different social networking sites, devising dialogue systems that respond appropriately to different emotional states of the user and identifying blogs that express specific emotions towards the topic of interest. List of emotions and words that are indicative of each emotion is likely to be useful in identifying emotions in text because, many times different emotions are expressed by different words. For example cry and glo omy are indicative of sadness, boiling and shout are indicative of anger, yummy and delightful indicate the emotion of joy. To capture emotion from text document we require the classification which aims at presume the emotion conveyed by the documents based on predefined lists of emotion, such as Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust, Sad and Surprise. This emotion recognition approach is mainly focused on two main tasks. 1) The test data that is text document collected from any news articles, user statuses from different social networking sites etc. required for understanding the emotions evoked by words. This is because a different word arouses different emotions comprehended from our day to day experiences. For this purpose, need is to enhanced dictionary with emotion word from ISEAR, WorldNet Affect to improve in result. 2) Need for text normalization to handle negation, since the scope of words is larger in this scenario, the usage of words and their diverted form is large too. So these problems need to be solved properly. The next part of this paper is organised as follows: Section II discusses a survey of emotion detection from text, Section III describes different algorithms on different datasets for emotion recognition, Section IV briefly compares proposed work followed by experimental study with result in section V and Section V concludes the paper. THE SURVEY OF EMOTION DETECTION FROM TEXTS Definitions about emotion, its categories, and their influences have been an important research issue long before computers emerged, so that the emotional state of a person may be inferred under different situations. In its most common formulation, the emotion detection from text problem is reduced to finding the relations between specific input texts and the actual emotions that drives the author to type/write in such styles. Intuitively, finding the relations usually relies on specific surface texts that are included in the input texts, and other deeper inferences that will be formally discussed below. Once the relations can be determined, they can be generalized to predict others’ emotions from their articles, or even single sentences. At the first glance, it does not seem to involve so many difficulties. In real life, different people tend to use similar phrases (i.e. â€Å"Oh yes!†) to express similar feelings (i.e. joy) under similar circumstances (i.e. achieving a goal); even they native languages are different, the mapping of such phrases from each language may be obvious. More formally, the emotion detection from text problem can be formulated as follows: Let E be the set of all emotions, A be the set of all authors, and let T be the set of all possible representations of emotion-expressing texts. Let r be a function to reflect emotion e of author a from text t, i.e., r: A Ãâ€" T → E and the function r would be the answer to our problem. The central problem of emotion detection systems lies in that, though the definitions of E and T may be straightforward from the macroscopic view, the definitions of individual element, even subsets in both sets of E and T would be rather confusing. On one hand, for the set T, new elements may add in as the languages are constantly evolving. On the other hand, currently there are no standard classifications of â€Å"all human emotions† due to the complex nature of human minds, and any emotion classifications can only be seen as â€Å"labels† annotated afterwards for different purposes. As a result, before seeking the relation function r, all related research firstly define the classification system of emotion classifications, defining the number of emotions. Secondly, after finding the relation function r or equivalent mechanisms, they still need to be revised over time to adopt changes in the set T. In the following subsections, we will present a classification of emotion detection methods proposed in the literature, based on how detection are made. Although they can all be classified into content-based approaches from the point of view of information retrieval, their problem formulation differs from each other: 1. Keyword-based detection: Emotions are detected based on the related set(s) of keywords found in the input text; 2. Learning-based detection: Emotions are detected based on previous training result with respect to specific statistic learning methods; 3. Hybrid detection: Emotions are detected based on the combination of detected keyword, learned patterns, and other supplementary information; Besides these emotion detection methods that infer emotions at sentence level, there has been work done also on detection from online blogs or articles [1][2]. For example, though each sentence in a blog article may indicate different emotions, the article as a whole may tend to indicate specific ones, as the overall syntactic and semantic data could strengthen particular emotion(s). However, this paper focuses on detection methods with respect to single sentences, because this is the foundation of full text detection. A. KEYWORD-BASED METHODS Keyword-based methods are the most intuitive ways to detect textual emotions. To approximate the set T, since all the names of emotions (emotion labels) are also meaningful texts, these names themselves may serve as elements in both sets of E and T. Similarly, those words with the same meanings of the emotion labels can also indicate the same emotions. The keywords of emotion labels constitute the subset EL in set T, where EL also classifies all the elements in E. The set EL is constructed and utilized based on the assumption of keyword independence, and basically ignores the possibilities of using different types of keywords simultaneously to express complicated emotions. Keyword-based emotion detection serves as the starting point of textual emotion recognition. Once the set EL of emotion labels (and related words) is constructed, it can be used exhaustively to examine if a sentence contains any emotions. However, while detecting emotions based on related keywords is very straightforward and easy to use, the key to increase accuracy falls to two of the pre-processing methods, which are sentence parsing to extract keywords, and the construction of emotional keyword dictionary. Parsers utilized in emotion detection are almost ready-made software packages, whereas their corresponding theories may differ from dependency grammar to theta role assignments. On the other hand, constructing emotional keyword dictionary would be naval to other fields [3]. As this dictionary collects not only the keywords, but also the relations among them, this dictionary usually exists in the form of thesaurus, or even ontology, to contain relations more than similar and opposite ones. Semi-automatic construction of EL based on WorldNet-like dictionaries is proposed in [4] and [5]. As was observed in [6], keyword-based emotion detection methods have three limitations described below. 1) AMBIGUITY IN KEYWORD Though using emotion keywords is a straightforward way to detect associated emotions, the meanings of keywords could be multiple and vague. Except those words standing for emotion labels themselves, most words could change their meanings according to different usages and contexts. It is not feasible to include all possible combinations into the set EL. Moreover, even the minimum set of emotion labels (without all their synonyms) could have different emotions in some extreme cases such as ironic or cynical sentences. 2) INCAPABILITY OF RECOGNIZING SENTENCES WITHOUT KEYWORDS As Keyword-based approach is totally based on the set of emotion keywords, sentences without any keywords would imply like they don’t contain any emotions at all, which is obviously wrong. 3) LACK OF LINGUISTIC DATA Syntax structures and semantics also affect on expressed emotions. For example, â€Å"He laughed at me â€Å"and â€Å"I laughed at him† would suggest different emotions from the first person’s point of view. Therefore, ignoring linguistic information also create a problem to keyword-based methods. B. LEARNING-BASED METHODS Researchers using learning-based methods attempt to formulate the problem differently. The original problem that determining emotions from input texts has become how to classify the input texts into different emotions. Unlike keyword-based detection methods, learning-based methods try to detect emotions based on a previously trained classifier, which apply various theories of machine learning such as support vector machines [7] and conditional random fields [8], to determine which emotion category should the input text belongs. However, comparing the satisfactory results in multimodal emotion detection [9], the results of detection from texts drop considerably. The reasons are addressed below: 1) DIFFICULTIES IN DETERMINING EMOTION INDICATORS The first problem is, though learning-based methods can automatically determine the probabilities between features and emotions, learning-based methods still need keywords, but just in the form of features. The most intuitive features may be emoticons, which can be seen as author’s emotion annotations in the texts. The cascading problems would be the same as those in keyword-based methods. 2) OVER-SIMPLIFIED EMOTION CATEGORIES Nevertheless, lacking of efficient features other than emotion keywords, most learning-based methods can only classify sentences into two categories, which are positive and negative. Although the number of emotion labels depends on the emotion model applied, we would expect to refine more categories in practical systems. C. HYBRID METHODS Since keyword-based methods with thesaurus and naà ¯ve learning-based methods could not acquire satisfactory results, some systems use a hybrid approach by combining both or adding different components, which help to improve accuracy and refine the categories. The most significant hybrid system so far is the work of Wu, Chuang and Lin [6], which utilizes a rule-based approach to extract semantics related to specific emotions, and Chinese lexicon ontology to extract attributes. These semantics and attributes are then associated with emotions in the form of emotion association rules. As a result, these emotion association rules, replacing original emotion keywords, serve as the training features of their learning module based on separable mixture models. Their method outperforms previous approaches, but categories of emotions are still limited. D. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS As described in this section, much research has been done over the past several years, utilizing linguistics, machine learning, information retrieval, and other theories to detect emotions. Their experiments show that, computers can distinguish emotions from texts like humans, although in a coarse way. However, all methods have certain limitations, as described in the previous subsections, and they lack context analysis to refine emotion categories with existing emotion models, where much work has been done to put them computationalized in the domain of believable agents. On the other hand, applications of affective computing would expect more refined results of emotion detection to further interact with users. Therefore, developing a more advanced architecture based on integrating current approaches and psychological theories would be in a pressing need. III. ALGORITHMS USED IN EMOTION RECOGNITION A brief summary of the various works for emotion recognition discussed in this paper are presented in Table1. Table 1: Results and feature-set comparison of algorithms IV.EMOTION RECOGNITION IN SOCIAL COMMUNICATION The block diagram of the emotion recognition system studied in this paper is depicted in Figure 1.It contains three main modules: Affective communication unit, Data Aggregator, Emotion Recognition Engine and recognized emotion class as an output. Figure 1 : Block diagram of emotion recognition system for Affective communication AFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION UNIT Affective Communication Unit is nothing but the users account in any social networking site (tweeter or facebook). This system take input from these two social networking sites. DATA AGGREGATOR Data Aggregator collects user tweets and status from tweeter and facebook. These tweets/status serve as an input to Emotion Recognition Engine. EMOTION RECOGNITION ENGINE Emotion Recognition Engine including Bayesian Network classifier categorizes incoming data into 3 types of emotions: happiness, sadness, and neutral, because this system mainly focuses on finding stress level of user. It is broken up into 2 major phase: Training Phase and Testing Phase. Training phase consist of five important parts: The Training Dataset, Keyword Extraction, Keyword conversion, Training Model and Predicting Model. Before it generate the predicting model or file, training phase get the training dataset from which it extracted the keyword from the emotion training date, and convert the keyword using keyword conversion into the format that can be processed by the classifier in the Training Model. Testing phase which is also called predicting phase consist of Testing dataset, Keyword extraction, Keyword conversion and predict model. The testing phase extract the Keyword from the given sentence, which was the input from the keyboard and then translate the keyword (word of natural language) using the Keyword conversion into the format that can be processed and then we compare it with a predicting file in predict module and finally gives the output as appropriate emotion expressed by the text. VI.CONCLUSION The proposed system is able to recognize the happy and sad state of a person from his tweets posted on tweeter from his mobile. The experimental results Shows that the we get better accuracy using Naive Bayes classifier than that of Support Vector Machine. VII. REFERENCES [1] 2. Tim M.H. Li, Michael Chau, Paul W.C. Wong, and Paul S.F. YipA Hybrid System for Online Detection of Emotional Distress PAISI 2012, LNCS 7299 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012M, 73–80. [2] Abbasi, A., Chen, H., Thoms, S., Fu, T.: â€Å"Affect Analysis of Web Forums and Blogs Using Correlation Ensembles.† IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (2008) ,1168–1180. [3] T. Wilson, J. Wiebe, and R. Hwa, â€Å"Just how mad are you? Finding strong and weak opinion clauses,† Proc. 21st Conference of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence Jul. 2007, 761-769. [4] D. B. Bracewell, â€Å"Semi-Automatic Creation of an Emotion Dictionary Using WordNet and its Evaluation,† Proc. IEEE conference on Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems, IEEE Press, Sep. 2008, 21-24. [5] J. Yang, D. B. Bracewell, F. Ren, and S. Kuroiwa, â€Å"The Creation of a Chinese Emotion Ontology Based on HowNet†, Engineering Letters, Feb. 2008,166-171. [6] C.-H. Wu, Z.-J. Chuang, and Y.-C. Lin, â€Å"Emotion Recognition from Text Using Semantic Labels and Separable Mixture Models,† ACM Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing Jun. 2006, 165-183. [7] Z. Teng, F. Ren, and S. Kuroiwa, â€Å"Recognition of Emotion with SVMs,† in Lecture Notes of Artificial Intelligence Eds.Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, 2006,701-710 . [8] C. Yang, K. H.-Y. Lin, and H.-H. Chen, â€Å"Emotion classification using web blog corpora,† Proc. IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence. IEEE Computer Society, Nov. 2007, 275-278. [9] C. M. Lee, S. S. Narayanan, and R. Pieraccini, Combining Acoustic and Language Information for Emotion Recognition, Proc. 7th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP 02), 2002, 873-876. [10]http://www.affectivesciences.org/reserachmaterial [11] http://www.weka.net.nz/

Air Resistance on a Fan Car :: science

Air Resistance on a Fan Car Problem: When a large fan is blowing air against the fan car at three different speeds (high, medium, and low), then will the overall speed be lowered? Materials:  · Fan car (K’NEX pieces, small, battery-powered fan, wheels with tires)  · AA batteries  · Large 3-speed fan  · Timer  · Masking tape Process: 1. Load two AA batteries into the fan that is attached to the K’NEX car. 2. Mark a starting line and a finish line two meters away from each other with small pieces of masking tape. 3. Plug in the large fan and place it approximately 5 centimeters away from the finish line. 4. Place the fan car on the starting line with the small fan facing opposite the large fan. 5. For the first test, test the amount of resistance when the large fan is off. 6. Turn the small fan on and time how long it takes for it to reach the finish line with the timer. 7. Repeat this test for three trails and record times and observations. 8. For the second test, put the large fan on a low setting and time the fan car’s progress. 9. Repeat this test for three trails and record observations and results. 10. On the third test, switch the large fan to the medium setting and time. 11. Repeat the test three more times and record observations and times. 12. For the last test, turn the fan on the highest setting and time the fan car. 13. Record observations and organize all trails and times into a table and find the average time of each trail. Observations: In this particular lab there weren’t many things that I observed, though I will state the small amount that I did. I saw that there was a slight incline on the surface that we were testing the car on. I also observed that the wheel alignment kept making the car veer off to the right. When the small and large fans were on I could hear their engines going. And when I turned the small fan off I found that it was very warm in my hands. Hypothesis: If the fan car goes up against the wind provided by the large fan, then the car will go slower with increasing resistance, because there is more opposition between the two with every increase of speed. Data/Results: I organized my times, trails, and averages into a table and a graph to present my information. Results Chart Setting Trail 1 Trail 2 Trail 3 Average Time Distance Speed Air Resistance on a Fan Car :: science Air Resistance on a Fan Car Problem: When a large fan is blowing air against the fan car at three different speeds (high, medium, and low), then will the overall speed be lowered? Materials:  · Fan car (K’NEX pieces, small, battery-powered fan, wheels with tires)  · AA batteries  · Large 3-speed fan  · Timer  · Masking tape Process: 1. Load two AA batteries into the fan that is attached to the K’NEX car. 2. Mark a starting line and a finish line two meters away from each other with small pieces of masking tape. 3. Plug in the large fan and place it approximately 5 centimeters away from the finish line. 4. Place the fan car on the starting line with the small fan facing opposite the large fan. 5. For the first test, test the amount of resistance when the large fan is off. 6. Turn the small fan on and time how long it takes for it to reach the finish line with the timer. 7. Repeat this test for three trails and record times and observations. 8. For the second test, put the large fan on a low setting and time the fan car’s progress. 9. Repeat this test for three trails and record observations and results. 10. On the third test, switch the large fan to the medium setting and time. 11. Repeat the test three more times and record observations and times. 12. For the last test, turn the fan on the highest setting and time the fan car. 13. Record observations and organize all trails and times into a table and find the average time of each trail. Observations: In this particular lab there weren’t many things that I observed, though I will state the small amount that I did. I saw that there was a slight incline on the surface that we were testing the car on. I also observed that the wheel alignment kept making the car veer off to the right. When the small and large fans were on I could hear their engines going. And when I turned the small fan off I found that it was very warm in my hands. Hypothesis: If the fan car goes up against the wind provided by the large fan, then the car will go slower with increasing resistance, because there is more opposition between the two with every increase of speed. Data/Results: I organized my times, trails, and averages into a table and a graph to present my information. Results Chart Setting Trail 1 Trail 2 Trail 3 Average Time Distance Speed

Piaget Essay -- essays research papers fc

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jean Piaget was born on August9, 1896, in the French speaking part of Switzerland. At an early age he developed an interest in biology, and by the time he had graduated from high school he had already published a number of papers. After marrying in 1923, he had three children, whom he studied from infancy. Piaget is best known for organizing cognitive development into a series of stages- the levels of development corresponding too infancy, childhood, and adolescence. These four stages are labeled the Sensorimotor stage, which occurs from birth to age two, (children experience through their senses), the Preoporational stage, which occurs from ages two to six, (motor skills are acquired), the Concrete Operational stage, which occurs from ages six to eleven, (children think logically about concrete events), and the Formal Operational stage, which occurs after age eleven, (abstract reasoning is developed here). (www.psychcentral.com). (Bee and Boyd 149). The focus of this paper will be on the Preoporational stage and how the child’s cognitive abilities develop according to Piaget.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Preoperational stage is Piaget’s term for the second major stage of cognitive development. It is in this stage that Piaget states that children acuire symbolic schemes, such as language and fantasy, that they use in thinking and communicating. Piaget saw evidence of symbol use in many aspects of children aged two to six. As a Pre-School teacher myself, I have witnessed many of the same behaviors that Piaget himself observed while developing his theory of cognitive development. Children this age begin to pretend in their play. The dramatic play area in my classroom is always one of the most busy areas of the room. The children love to role-play and create imaginary games. According to Piaget, such symbol use is also evident in the emergence of language and in the preschoolers primitive ability to understand scale models or simple maps. Dramatic play gives the children the chance to role-play. If they work through situations in their classroom, they’ll be better prepared for real-life scenarios. Through role-playing, children not only express emotions, but also exercise creativity and develop skills like cooperation and problem solving.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  During the Pre... ...get viewed children as little philosophers and scientists building their own individual theories of knowledge. By focusing on what children con do as well as what they cannot do, he was able to understand and explain their cognitive growth and development. His theory is a valuable â€Å"road map† for understanding how children think. However, many psychologists are convinced that Piaget gave too little credit to the effects of learning. For example; Children of pottery-making parents can correctly answer questions about the conservation of clay at an earlier age than Piaget would have predicted. According to learning theorists, children continuously gain specific knowledge; they do not undergo stage-like leaps in general mental ability. (Coon 109). Thus, the truth may lie somewhere between Piaget’s stage theory and modern learning theory. Works Cited 1. Coon, Dennis. Essentials of Psychology. 9th Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003 2. Bee, Helen and Boyd, Dennis. The Developing Child. 10th Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004 3. http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.cfm?term=Egocentrism 4. http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Jean_Piaget Piaget Essay -- essays research papers fc Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jean Piaget was born on August9, 1896, in the French speaking part of Switzerland. At an early age he developed an interest in biology, and by the time he had graduated from high school he had already published a number of papers. After marrying in 1923, he had three children, whom he studied from infancy. Piaget is best known for organizing cognitive development into a series of stages- the levels of development corresponding too infancy, childhood, and adolescence. These four stages are labeled the Sensorimotor stage, which occurs from birth to age two, (children experience through their senses), the Preoporational stage, which occurs from ages two to six, (motor skills are acquired), the Concrete Operational stage, which occurs from ages six to eleven, (children think logically about concrete events), and the Formal Operational stage, which occurs after age eleven, (abstract reasoning is developed here). (www.psychcentral.com). (Bee and Boyd 149). The focus of this paper will be on the Preoporational stage and how the child’s cognitive abilities develop according to Piaget.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Preoperational stage is Piaget’s term for the second major stage of cognitive development. It is in this stage that Piaget states that children acuire symbolic schemes, such as language and fantasy, that they use in thinking and communicating. Piaget saw evidence of symbol use in many aspects of children aged two to six. As a Pre-School teacher myself, I have witnessed many of the same behaviors that Piaget himself observed while developing his theory of cognitive development. Children this age begin to pretend in their play. The dramatic play area in my classroom is always one of the most busy areas of the room. The children love to role-play and create imaginary games. According to Piaget, such symbol use is also evident in the emergence of language and in the preschoolers primitive ability to understand scale models or simple maps. Dramatic play gives the children the chance to role-play. If they work through situations in their classroom, they’ll be better prepared for real-life scenarios. Through role-playing, children not only express emotions, but also exercise creativity and develop skills like cooperation and problem solving.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  During the Pre... ...get viewed children as little philosophers and scientists building their own individual theories of knowledge. By focusing on what children con do as well as what they cannot do, he was able to understand and explain their cognitive growth and development. His theory is a valuable â€Å"road map† for understanding how children think. However, many psychologists are convinced that Piaget gave too little credit to the effects of learning. For example; Children of pottery-making parents can correctly answer questions about the conservation of clay at an earlier age than Piaget would have predicted. According to learning theorists, children continuously gain specific knowledge; they do not undergo stage-like leaps in general mental ability. (Coon 109). Thus, the truth may lie somewhere between Piaget’s stage theory and modern learning theory. Works Cited 1. Coon, Dennis. Essentials of Psychology. 9th Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003 2. Bee, Helen and Boyd, Dennis. The Developing Child. 10th Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004 3. http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.cfm?term=Egocentrism 4. http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Jean_Piaget