Assessment for Learning Essay

The Assessment Reform Group (2002) identifies ten principles to guide classroom practice in assessment for learning . Choose five of particular relevance to your practice and evaluate them in relation to the pupil experience in your school. Assessment for learning (AFL) is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to be and how to achieve their goal. Black and William (1998) in their research on the use of formative assessment in the classroom found ten principles of assessment which guide classroom practice in AFL. (Assessment Reform Group, 2003) The school I work in is a city based multi cultural school. UIS caters for children from all backgrounds and inclusion is of importance to our setting. I work in key stage 1 as a HLTA. I do PPA cover throughout the year 1 classes and I cover when a teacher is away wherever possible. The subjects I teach are the foundation subjects which are History, Geography, R. S and Music. I plan, implement and assess these subjects. In UIS, we believe that effective assessment provides information to improve teaching and learning. To do this in our school, we undertake two different but complementary types of assessment: assessment for learning and assessment of learning Assessment for learning (formative assessment) involves the use of assessment in the classroom to raise pupil achievements. It is based on the idea that pupils will improve most, if they understand the aim of their learning, where they are in relation to this aim, and how they can achieve this aim i.e. to close the gap in their knowledge. Assessment of learning (summative assessment) involves judging pupils’ performance against national standards. Teachers may make this judgement at the end of a unit of work, a term, a year, or if a key stage. We give our children regular feedback on their learning so they understand what it is that they need to do better. Research has shown that their involvement in the review process raises standards, and that it empowers pupils to take action towards improving their performance. The objectives of this assessment are: to enable our children to demonstrate what they know, understand and can do their work; to help our children recognise the standards to aim for, and to understand what they need to do next to improve their work; to allow teachers to plan work that accurately reflects the needs of each child; to provide regular information for the parents and carers that enables them to support their child’s learning; to provide the head teacher and governors with information that allows them to make a judgement about the effectiveness of the school. To support our teaching, we use the Early Years Foundation Stage guidance, the Primary Framework literacy and mathematics schemes of work based on National Curriculum objectives. We assess children at the end of each unit of work to help us identify each child’s level of attainment. The first principle that I will be discussing is that assessment for learning should be part of effective planning of teaching and learning. The teachers plan their lessons with clear learning objectives. We base these upon the teacher’s detailed knowledge of each child. UIS strive to ensure that all tasks set are appropriate to each child’s ability. Our lesson plans make clear the expected outcomes of each lesson. (Appendix 1) Teachers always share the lessons learning objectives with the children as the lesson begins. They also indicate the way in which the activity is linked to the learning objective, and the criteria against which the work will be judged which is the success criteria. Teachers ask well phrased questions and analyse pupils’ responses to find out what they know, understand and can do, and to reveal their misconceptions. We identify those individual children who do not achieve, or exceed, the expected level for the lesson, and we use this information when planning for the next lesson. Targets are set for end of Key Sage 1 and approved by Governors and the local Authority. UIS set year group targets in Mathematics, Reading and Writing for all our classes, during each academic year. These are expected levels of achievement reached by the end of the year for the majority of children and the more able in class. In Foundation1, staffs know that the next step children need to take is through systematic observation. These are shared with parents and talked through with children where appropriate. In Foundation 2 children have individual reading targets and group writing targets. In Key Stage 1 all children have individual and group targets in reading, writing and maths. Children’s targets are passed over to parents and carers, the progress of each child at the end of each term is reviewed, and revised targets are set. UIS recognise various methods of assessing a child’s learning. The type of assessment that our school make varies from subject to subject. We assess informally throughout the term, based on observations made by teachers or support staff. Every week I annotate assessment of the class I teach on my plan(appendix 2) and at the end of term fill out the assessment sheet. (Appendix 3) These observations are recorded in a variety of temporary formats, such as post-it notes, and are used to inform the Foundation Stage Profile or National Curriculum levels. We take the objectives for individual lessons from the board learning objectives within the school’s curriculum plan. These in turn reflect the demands of the National Curriculum / EYFS. The teachers record the progress of each child against these board objectives. This enables them to make a  judgement about the work each child in relation to national standards and allows them to monitor the progress of each child. Each teacher passes this information on to the next teacher at the end of each year. ` Teachers can review the rate of progress by looking at work in pupils’ folders or exercise books and by the marks in the record books. They can then use this to adjust day to day teaching and plan further work. One way to improve manageability would be to make a note only of those pupils who achieve significantly above or below the expected outcomes of a task’ (QCA, p. 3). The second principle that I will be discussing is how assessment for learning focuses on how students learn. ` If children don’t learn the way we teach†¦ perhaps we should teach the way they learn (Eppig, 1981). ’ The process of learning has to be in the minds of both the learner and the teacher. Assessment for learning helps those pupils, who do not always find learning easy, to make progress. ‘Planning for personalised learning focuses on what teachers need to do ,individually and collaboratively ,to develop assessment for learning and personalise learning by establishing supportive conditions for learning’(AFL,Primary Framework). When we do our assessment of a lesson we have to consider the different styles in which pupils learn. Day to day assessments is an on going and essential part of teaching and learning. Teachers and children continually reflect on how learning is progressing, see where improvements can be made and identify the next steps to take (national strategies standard) . When undertaking assessment of pupils, teachers use their knowledge of individual children in deciding on how to go about assessing the pupil. `Research on grading pupils, shows that children are less motivated and often demoralised when they are continually compared to each other. They need to know the criteria for the next level above ,but they do not need to know what that level is called. (Clarke,2001,p. 74)’ We have to consider the nature and level of support that the pupil receives as part of a normal classroom routine. The tasks and assessments are intended to assess a child’s ability in fair and a comparable way. If a child is a visual learner and for the assessment to be fair to him we adapt the test by having pictures inserted as well as questions. For those children that are auditory learners we read out the questions to the whole class and this enables them to fulfil their learning style. In our setting we have a working wall where the children are able to see what the objective and the success criteria of the lesson are. Appendix 4 On the working wall for the visual learner, we have two eyes to show what the teacher is looking for and ears to show the children to listen. For those children where English is an additional language we have support staff that are available while the test is taking place, so the staff can help where appropriate. Our school aims to be an inclusive school. We actively seek to remove the barriers to learning and participation that can hinder or exclude individual pupils, or groups of pupils. We achieve educational inclusion by continually reviewing what we do, by monitoring data, and through asking ourselves questions about the performance of these individuals and groups of pupils. In our setting there is a boy that is very able but his writing skills are very poor. His fine and gross motor skill are underdeveloped so to get the best out of him, he does all his work on the computer which is then assessed. Children that are on the S. E. N . register have their own I. E. P. ’s to work from with their allocated support staff, once their target is achieved they move on to the next target from their P-scales. The third principle that I would like to discuss is that assessment for learning should be recognised as central to classroom practice. Tasks and questions should prompt learners to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and skills. In our setting assessment for learning is recognised as central to classroom practice. In the Foundation unit the teachers usually plan the lesson with the ideas given by children. On a Friday afternoon the teacher has circle time with her class where she starts off with a basic topic and the children then give ideas on what they would like to do around the topic. In considering the ideas of the children it prompts the learners to learn and helps with the ongoing of assessments. I did a lesson on electricity in a year2 class which I was covering . In order for me to assess the children I asked a lot of open questions which prompted them to answer. The open questions gave the children the opportunity and encouraged them to think beyond the literal. ‘Research on wait-time showed that teachers need to leave five seconds after asking children a question, to allow them to respond. This is the optimum time it takes to process the question to formulate the answer (Clarke, 2001. p. 87). After having watched the classroom experiment I was able to take on board the idea of waiting time which I now religiously apply. ` Increasing waiting time after asking questions proved difficult to start with due to my habitual desire to â€Å"add† something almost immediately after asking the original question. The pause after asking the question was sometimes â€Å"painful. † It felt unnatural to have such a seemingly â€Å"dead† period, but I persevered. Given more thinking time, students seemed to realize that a more thoughtful answer was required ‘(D e r e k, Century Island School). The negative side to the waiting time is that some teachers wait for two seconds before they either ask another child or answer the question themselves . Children often then do not try to think of a response, because they know that the answer would be given or another child would be asked to answer. The lesson was very inter-active I was able to assess whether my success criteria was achieved. When I handed the worksheets to the children I had asked them to write the learning objective below the date and to refer to it when they were doing there work. The fourth principle that I would be discussing is that learners should receive constructive guidance about how to improve their learning. `An assessment activity can help learning if it provides information that teachers and their students can use as feedback in assessing themselves and one another and in modifying the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes â€Å"formative assessment† when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet learning needs (Black and William, 1989). Most learners are curious to know how they have done in a task . `Feedback is sometimes seen as part of a behaviourist approach to learning ,where it is part of the sequence stimulus-response –reinforcement (Wragg,2001,p. 27). The aim of marking in our setting is to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom. Whilst doing my researchÃ'Ž I found out that Nancy from Riverside school says that her marking has developed from comments with targets and grades, which is the school policy, to comments and targets only. Pupils do work on targets and corrections more productively if no grades are given. Marking is an integral part of assessment and target setting and the outcomes inform short, medium and long term planning. Its rationale is to enable every child to achieve their full potential. It is recognised that one to one oral feedback is most valuable for young children. It should remind the child of the learning intention and emphasise the positive aspects of the child’s practical or recorded work. ` Various research studies have concluded that feedback is most useful when it focuses on the learning intention of the task rather than other features of the work’(Clarke,2001,p. 50). In our setting the minimal response for all written work is that it should be initialled and dated to acknowledge that it has been seen. Maths work is usually ticked if correct and marked with a bullet point to signify that the answer needs to be checked. In UIS traffic lights are used to indicate whether the child has achieved the success criteria for the task. Green-learning objective met, orange-a few examples of learning objective having been met, red-learning objective not met, need to see the teacher. (Appendix 5). When a child meets the learning objective the work may be underlined or highlighted in some way to acknowledge the child’s success. Smiley faces are used to indicate good effort. Whilst doing my research and talking to other teachers in school I found out that each child gets a detailed feedback of their work at regular intervals. This detailed feedback could be oral or written and should be specific and related to the learning intention set for the particular piece of work. Feedback needs to indicate areas where improvements or next step targets are to focus. It is important to allow children the time to reflect on the feedback and make improvements to a specific piece of work. The fifth principle that I would like to discuss is assessment for learning develop learners’ capacity for self-assessment so that they can become reflective and self managing. `In practice, peer assessment turns out to be an important complement to self-assessment. Peer assessment is uniquely valuable because students may accept criticisms of their work from one another that they would not take seriously if the remarks were offered by a teacher’(Black and William. p. 6). Peer assessment and self-assessment is much more than children marking their own or each other’s work. To improve learning, it must be an activity that engages children with the quality of their work and helps them reflect on how to improve it. Peer assessment enables children to give each other valuable feedback so they learn from and support each other. It adds a valuable dimension to learning: the opportunity to talk, discuss, explain and challenge each other enables children to achieve beyond what they can learn unaided. Peer assessment helps develop self-assessment, which promotes independent learning, helping children to take increasing responsibility for their own progress. `Research shows that if self-evaluation is linked with the learning intention of a task, children’s progress, persistence and self-esteem is improved(Black and William,1998). The development of peer assessment and self-assessment takes planning, time, patience and commitment. When children don’t understand the intended learning outcomes they find it difficult to move beyond superficial criteria related to neatness and spelling. By using a range of strategies and by dedicating time to allow children to reflect on and discuss their learning teachers can develop children’s peer assessment and self-assessment skills. ` Independent learners have the ability to seek out and gain new skills, new knowledge and new understandings. They are able to engage in self-reflection and to identify the next steps in their learning. Teachers should equip learners with desire and the capacity to take charge of their learning through developing the skills of self-assessment (Assessment Reform Group, 2002)’. UIS trains children to use the traffic light system to indicate directly on their work to what extent they feel they have achieved the learning objective of their given task and how secure they feel they are in their learning. This helps the teacher to identify if a child is having any difficulty and this also give the children confidence in seeking help. The negative aspects of using the traffic light system at right at the end of the lesson is that some children who are over confident tend to rank their achievement very high and those children that have low confidence tend to under estimate themselves. Teachers in our setting also encourage children use the thumbs up that is when a child is confident they have achieved what was expected of them, thumbs sideways which indicates that they are half way there in understanding the objective ,but could achieve more and thumbs down which indicates that the child does not really understand and needs a bit more help. In order to develop pupil’s skills with self assessing their work we use prompt questions which the children can think about when reviewing their work. Pupils need to be able to assess their own progress to become more independent learners. ` One of the reasons peer assessment is so valuable is because children often give and receive criticisms of their work more freely than in the traditional teacher/child interchange. Another advantage is that the language used by children to each other is the language they would naturally use, rather than school language’ (Black et al, 2003). We regularly do peer marking which I find very helpful indeed. A lot of misconceptions come to the fore, and we then discuss these as we are going over the work. I then go over the peer marking and talk to pupils individually as I go round the room. Peer evaluation works really well because children learn from each other where they have gone wrong and how to put it right. The advantage of peer assessment is that children get to work with different children and they get a wide idea on how the pupil has achieved their success criteria. Some children assume that the more able children never find anything difficult, but this process makes them aware that all learners find some aspects difficult. After having done all my research I have found that the most important aspect of assessment is to have the learning intention and success criteria in focus. In UIS, with the self –evaluation strategies that we use it develops children’s awareness of their learning needs as well as open doors for teachers to get a better understanding of the pupil. Some teachers tend to give feedback to pupils on areas that are not of much relevance to the objective. It takes a while to get into the habit of giving appropriate and relevant feedback but the strategy is simple, make sure that the learning intention is mentioned first and then talk about the secondary features. If it is necessary to mention the secondary features, then say it in a very low tone to the pupil concerned. `As the research demonstrates, formative assessment makes a significant difference to children’s progress –in their ability to be confident, critical learners, to achieve more than ever before and in raising their self-esteem. In a world of continuing pressure, it is good to know that we are making a real difference to children’s lives. (Clarke, 2001, p139). ’Pupils enjoy finding that other children often have the same thoughts, share similar feelings on a particular subject, and have similar problems or successes whilst doing self-evaluation assessment. Ofsted had done a survey on 43 schools and found that 7 of these schools were inadequate in their assessment for learning. `Where assessment for learning had had less impact, the teachers had not understood how the approaches were supposed to improve pupils’ achievement. In particular, they used key aspects of assessment for learning, such as identifying and explaining objectives, questioning, reviewing pupils’ progress and providing feedback without enough precision and skill. As a result, pupils did not understand enough about what they needed to do to improve and how they would achieve their targets. Teachers did not review learning effectively during lessons; opportunities for pupils to assess their own work or that of their peers were infrequent and not always effective’(Ofsted). Michael Fullan also suggests that many educational innovations have been frustrated by the inherent but understandable ‘conservatism’ of teachers. He suggests that real change will only occur where teacher beliefs about teaching and learning have been significantly altered. Education is littered with examples of innovations that have either failed or only been partially implemented because teachers weren’t convinced the change was necessary and would result in real improvement. The result has been that they merely modify their practice at the edges and then abandon the change after a while because it ‘didn’t work for them’. More effective use of assessment, particularly formative assessment, will require many teachers to reconsider their approach to teaching and learning and to re-evaluate their working practices’(Weeden,2002,p. 127). Therefore if schools and teachers want to make changes they have to have the subject knowledge, be committed and dedicated to continually re-examine their teaching styles. Reference Assessment Reform Group (2002) Assessment for Learning: Ten Principles [online] Available from:www. assessment-reform-group. org. uk [Accessed 19th December 2010]Ã'Ž Black, P. ,and Wiliam,D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan Vol 80, 139-149. [Accessed: 19th December 2010] Clarke,S. (2001). Unlocking formative Assessment . London: Hodder and Stoughton Clarke,S. (2005)Formative Assessment in Action London:Hodder and Stoughton Eppig, P. (1981) Education by design –used in the UK as Critical Skills program by Success@Bristol (Bristol Education Action Zone) Weeden,P. Winter,J. Broadfoot,P. (2002). Assessment-What’s in it for Schools. [online] London: Routledge Falmer. p. 127. Available from: http://northampton. np. eblib. com [Accessed:27th December 2010] Wragg,E. C (2001). Assessment and Learning in the Primary School [online]. London: Routledge Falmer. p. 27. Available from: http://northampton. np. eblib. com [Accessed:27th December 2010] QCA (1999) Keeping Track,Qualification and Curriculum Authority. http://nationalstrategies. standards. dcsf. gov. uk/primary/primaryframework Appendices 1. Lesson plan 2. Annotated Lesson Plan 3. Assessment sheets 4. working wall 5. Traffic lights.

Patton – Fuller Community Hospital

An analysis of Patton-Fuller Community Hospital Network systems James doglas CMGT/554 December 19, 2011 Carol Eichling An analysis of Patton-Fuller Community Hospital Network systems Patton – Fuller community hospital’s network system consist of two major parts, the first part is the executive part that connects the hospitals executive management, human resources department, operations, IT and data center, etc. , the first network is connected using a 1000base-T Gigabyte network connection that uses a typical Cat6 cabling (Apollo Group Inc. 2008), the second major part of the network connects the departments of radiology, operating room, wards, ICU’s, etc. using a 1000base F fiber optic based connection, this connection is a gigabyte connection too and the both parts of the connections are connected to the network bridge switch that is acting as a core switch. Observing the network structured layout (Apollo Group Inc. , 2008) reveals that the deployment decisions were made depending on the physical distances between the nods in each major network part. In the first part, it was obvious that the nods where in one physical place and the distances between them is not more than three hundred meters, this assumption were made depending on the fact that the 1000Base T network cannot be efficient more than the distance mentioned above. Where the second major part is in physical locations that more in distance than the executive network, this was based on the assumption the multi-core fiber network can be distanced up to two to three kilometers. The network logical operations are all based around the IT data center (Apollo Group Inc. , 2008) since it contains the major servers and the NAS (Network Attached Storage) (About. com, 2011), it’s also included the internet gateway router that allows access to the Internet. Furthermore any access to the network from the external resources will be routed through the RAS (Remote Access Server). Depending on the current topologies readings, several recommendations are necessary to be done in order to keep the network efficiently operational, especially that some parts of the network are mission critical and it is very important to address the issues of availability and reliability. In nowadays network it is very efficient network structure practice to separate the network nods into groups, this will ensure efficiency in interconnection and data transmission, and furthermore it is also one of the famous security practices that will prevent networks in internal structure to access each other. This can be achieved through using VLAN (virtual LAN) practice (Cisco, 2002), that separates the network nods into groups, each group will be related only to that group nods, this can be done on the switch level (layer 2), and all the VLANs can be interacted with each other through the core switch (layer 3) which provides routing along with switching. This practice can reduce the load on the internal networks through reducing the broadcast messages to that VLAN member’s level, though freeing some bandwidth capacity to more important transmissions. Another important recommendation is necessary in data center, this will be the separation of the internet server from the internal network, and access it only using remote access methods in case access is needed, this will insure that there are no method of access the internal network only through the RAS server which forces authentication mechanisms to allow any external connection. It is obvious too that the current server array and the both data centers in the hospital’s network are missing one very important component, and that is the backup system, it is very important to include a backup server to the network to insure data replication is available in case of accidental data corruption or deletion, furthermore take a data snapshots in logical periods of time keeping them physically in another geographical place will be a very likely practice in case of catastrophic data loss. One of the very good utilities of the hospitals network is the availability of the wireless access on the ward level, this will insure instant connectivity to the hospitals network from the small mobile devices such as laptops or other Wi-Fi based medical devices such as the new cardiograph devices which shares data with the database servers through wireless connection. These wireless devices depending on the diagram specifications are in 5 gigahertz frequency which are not compatible with every laptop computer, a recommendation to replace them with 2. gigahertz frequency devices are more efficient in order to allow laptops to access the network. A special attention is needed in the security of these wireless access points by connecting them to a server like RAS server to authenticate the personnel accessing the network wirelessly before allowing the devices to use the network. This is very important practice to prevent a destructive intrusion into the network. The conclusion Patton – Fuller hospital’s network has the potential of a successfully designed network with some adjustments to the network configuration is essentially needed to insure availability and reliability. Adding backup system is also an important necessity to prevent data loss, and applying security policies and authentication mechanizes are also essential to ensure continuous network security and performance. References About. com. (2011). Introduction to NAS. Retrieved from http://compnetworking. about. om/od/itinformationtechnology/l/aa070101a. htm Apollo Group Inc.. (2008). Patton – Fuller IT Data Center Diagram. Retrieved from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/secure/aapd/CIST/VOP/Healthcare/PFCH/IT/ITDC. htm Apollo Group Inc.. (2008). Patton – Fuller Logical Network Diagram. Retrieved from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/secure/aapd/CIST/VOP/Healthcare/PFCH/IT/ITLogNet. htm Cisco. (2002). VLAN Security Practice. Retrieved from http://www. cisco. com/warp/publi c/cc/pd/si/casi/ca6000/prodlit/vlnwp_wp. pdf

The Conceptual Framework of Marketing Plan Research Paper

The Conceptual Framework of Marketing Plan - Research Paper Example The marketing plan, which is the key input to the business plan, will be able to identify the most promising marketing opportunities and outline how the company can penetrate, capture and survive in the identified markets. A successful marketing plan of a firm elaborates almost all important marketing activities, strategic marketing proceedings, firm’s situational as well as marketing-mix analyses etc. The Role and Nature of Marketing Plan Marketing Plan As Kerin, Hartley, and Berkowitz (2005,p. 53) defined, a marketing plan is a roadmap for the marketing activities of a firm for a specific future time period. According to Armstrong and Kotler (2005, p. 59), a detailed marketing plan can assess the current marketing situations and outline the marketing objectives, marketing strategies, action programs, budgets, and controls. The marketing plan is not just a template that every firm may be able to follow in a similar style, but a strategic tool for analyzing the marketing situa tions, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the firm as well as opportunities and threats, identify the competitors and their market roles and so on. The styles, structures, and contents of the marketing plan may vary from firm to firm depending on factors such as target audience and the purpose, the kind and complexity of the firm, the industry and market extent etc (Kerin, Hartley and Berkowitz, 2005, p. 53). As Westwood (2002, p. 6) noted, a marketing plan is similar to a map since it depicts the company related to where it is going and how it is functioning to get there. It is not just a written document but contains an action plan that helps the company identify the best promising business as well as marketing opportunities and outline who it may penetrate and capture the market proposed. The relationship between Marketing Plan and Business Plan A business plan, in contrast, is a roadmap for the entire firm for a specific future period of time. The marketing plan is a detai led plan the comprises of marketing activities and strategies, a situational analysis of the firm, financial projections, action plan, and control etc, but a business plan is a broader plan since it not only comprises of all these elements but also R&D and business operation etc. More specifically, the marketing plan is an integral part of the business plan. For most manufacturing firms, marketing plan represents 60 to 80 percent of the business plan, both marketing and business plan are almost identical for small businesses.

Comparing the Qualities of Jacob and Joseph in the Bible Essay

Comparing the Qualities of Jacob and Joseph in the Bible - Essay Example diplomatically, either. When he had a series of dreams that showed in symbols his brothers and parents bowing down to him, he hastened to let them know about it. This arrogance inflamed his brothers further (The old testament). Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah. For twenty years they lived happily together. But like Abraham and Sarah, they had no children. Isaac pleaded with the Lord that he would bless them. So God gave them twins. Finally the big day came when the twins were born. The first came out red, and all hairy like an animal skin. They named him Esau. As Esau was born they noticed that the next child was being born holding onto Esau's heal. They named this son Jacob. As the boys grew up, Isaac seems to love Esau more than Jacob. One day Jacob was cooking up a nice lentil stew and some bread. But, before he ate it Esau came by on his way home from a hunting trip. Esau was very hungry and very tired. He had been hunting for a long time and caught nothing. Esau was starving so he begged Jacob to let him eat his nice stew. Jacob thought for a moment, and then said he would sell it to Esau for the birthright. The birthright was all the major possessions that a man owned that was always given to the oldest son. Esau was so hungry he thought that if he did not get something to eat right now he would die, so what difference would it make if he agreed to give Jacob the birthright. So Esau agreed to sell his birthright to Jacob for some bread and lentil stew. Jacob made Esau swear an oath on this agreement, and he did (Jacob and Isaac). Isaac was growing old, and he could not see well. He thought he was going to die soon, so he called Esau to him to give him the birthright blessing. While Esau was away to seek a deer, Jacod pretended to be Esau in front of his dying father and was able to get his father birthright blessings (Jacob tricks Isaac). Jacod not only took his brother's birthright, but also their father's birthright blessing as well, in those days, birthright blessing can only be given once. Even though Isaac realized later on that he gave the birthright blessing to the wrong son, he can no longer get it back. Jacob was a dishonest man due to his longing for earthly things. He tricked both his brother and father. He's actions where always governed by the flesh and its carnal desires. Jacod made two great mistakes: Firstly, he convinced his brother Esau to renounce his birthright. He has done this when Esau was so hungry and begging for food. Esau had no choice then but to submit to Jacob's condition in order not to die from hunger. Secondly, Jacob tricked his father Isaac. In order to get the birthright blessing from his father rather than to his brother, who is the oldest son. This made Esau very angry and planned to kill Jacob. The story of Joseph is what seems to be the other side of the coin. Joseph was the 11th son Jacob whom he loved the most. This made Joseph's brothers jealous and cruel with him. One day when they were all away from home, the bad brothers threw Joseph into an empty well after tearing off his coat which his father had given him. While Joseph was in the empty well, a caravan of merchants passed by. They picked him up and took him with them to Egypt as a prisoner

Interpersonal Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Interpersonal Communication - Essay Example Discourse analysis involves such aspects as small talk, talk-in-interaction and also computer-mediated communication. Small talk is a causal type of conversation which is used to break an awkward silence between two people (Goffman, 1981). Thus it is considered as a strategy in managing the interpersonal distance. This is vital as sometimes it is not ethical to be without saying anything. There are certain instances and situations in which small talk is considered appropriate. There are also some commonly used topics in small talk. Thus small talk facilitates the creation of a positive face among the people and it can have at the beginning or at the end of the conversation. Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is described as some form of communicative transaction that occurs between two or more computers which are in a network. Basically this term has been utilized to define interactions that take place through computer-mediated formats such as e-mails, chat rooms and instant messaging (Thurlow, Lengel & Tomica, 2004). However it also involves other forms of communication such as text messaging. Research on CMC concentrates mostly on social impact of computer-supported communication technologies. CMC is a concept that has been evolving over time with the advent of technology. Sometimes there is deviation from the conventional means such as the use of audio visual technologies in contrast to the totally text based forms of communication. Analysis Discourse Analysis (DA) is a method that has been used to analyze written, spoken or signed language in any significant semiotic activity. It is a qualitative approach that has been developed by psychologists (Heritage, 1997). The objectives are; 1. Analyze natural occurring of language, which is not invented before. Related activities are Corpus linguistics and text linguistics. 2. Define coherent sequences of speech acts or sequence of statements 3. Define syntax, lexicon, style, speech act and aspects of interaction 4. Define various types of disclosures in media, education science and business Discourse analysis is begins with research questions which are not formal sense. Aim theoretical positions when preparing questionnaire (Potter, 1997). This can be a text which is deconstructive but relate to identities. Topics can be identified including men's friendships, Family background inquiries, about marriage, and so on. It identifies the theoretical orientation to understand the analysis and also try to understand themes in what people want. With the help of utterance it can be abstracted about what is being said. But there will be inconsistency and sometimes an attempt to arise blame, regular interruption of people, and so on. 1. Report collected information that can be abstracted. 2. Critique own interpretations 3. Reconsider the research question and state what theory and practice in Psychology can be applied. In normal day-today usage it could be mentioned that the term text is used exclusively to define written language, whereas discourse is used to describe spoken language exclusively. However Linguists have in recent times use the term text to define all types of utterances. A few examples of text maybe a magazine article, a television interview or a cooking recipe. Text Linguistics is defined as "the formal account of the linguistic principles governing

Environmental justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Environmental justice - Essay Example otection Agency of the United States terms environmental justice as the meaningful involvement and fair treatment of all individuals regardless of income, national origin, sex, color, or race with respect to the progression, enactment and application of environmental policies, regulations, and laws. Examples of environmental justice burdens can be air and water pollution, insufficient access to nutritious food, and inadequate transportation, among others (Schlosberg, 7). According to the EUREKALERT!, (1), this burdens all over the world have been documented in an Environmental Justice Atlas by the Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities, and Trade (EJOLT) led by the European Union. The aim of the atlas is to convey information from the records of the EJOLT to the public. This will upsurge the understanding of what causes this environmental issues and how material policies and demands from possible hot spots for future issues (Guardian, 1). In North America, biodiversity conservation issues are common affecting the animals, plants, and the rainforests, among others. The misuse of resources causes these issues through human activities hence leading to habitat destruction, ocean acidification, among others. The movement advocating for change in North America is the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) (Bickerstaff and Agyeman, 800). In South America, there are water management issues that are caused by many industries, comprising recreation, manufacturing, mining, agriculture, among others. These industries have led to water and air pollution hence decreasing the amount of quality water available. The group fighting for change is the Latin American environmental justice movement (Alazraque, 122). The connection between these two issues is that biodiversity issues bring many effects including issues in water management issues as seen in South America. Environmental justice movements provide statistical facts on how different actions are affecting

Q7 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Q7 - Essay Example We can not say with certainty that the specific programming environment is best for particular use. Here we have variety of programming environments that are functional and efficient in diverse domains. Their working power is linked to the area of the system development. So the choice of a best programming environment is possible to a definite aspect of system development and application development. Each programming environment is tied to specific domain of system development, like that web, desktop, scientific, real-time, etc. applications. There is no such excellent programming environment exist for the development of the all kinds and type of the applications (Bishop-Clark et al. 2006). Integrated Development Environment or IDE software is fundamentally software or programs to develop/build other programs or applications. They are usually software editing location by means of advance tools to aid the developers and programmers to write and develop the code speedily as well as proficiently. For instance PHP is an IDE system that is capable to build PHP driven website applications by means of a blend of PHPEclipse and Eclipse (Des Rivià ¨res & Wiegand, 2004). Here main advantage we have is regarding the less time and effort for the software development and execution. These applications of Integrated Development Environment systems typically proffer assortment of facilities and attributes for the effectual execution as well as coding (development) of the applications. These features facilitate the coders, programmers, and developers to take the advantages regarding the less time and effort for the software development. The intact design with an Integrated Development Environment can be built or developed quickly as well as easily. Its features and tools are believed to ease the management stop happening mistakes, resources as well as offer shortcuts (Des Rivià ¨res & Wiegand, 2004). The

The influence and effects of JSR-170 on the Content Management Essay

The influence and effects of JSR-170 on the Content Management Industry - Essay Example For example business departments turning content into assets, that thus becomes a monetary value for the enterprise. The ECM market is rapidly growing. Regan (2005) quotes a Gartner study that estimates the value of ECM software at $2.5 billion by end of 2006 while Forrester are predicting 19% growth per annum to reach a value of $4 billion by 2008. The ECM market is predicted to rapidly grow in the next few years and will in all likelihood outstrip the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) market (Dschner et al, 2005). The content is currently locked in proprietary repositories or databases that only allow access with custom APIs. Attempting to have an application that can access information from different repositories is expensive since the application has to implement all the different combinations of repository APIs. As a consequence information that should be integrated remains isolated. This leads to vendor lock-in because the costs of changing a CM-vendor are high. The need for content access standards is obvious yet the content management industry has struggled to solve this problem. "[T]he ECM pure-play and infrastructure vendors are currently pushing their proprietary content repositories, hoping to grab as much market share as possible from rivals" (McNabb and Moore, 2005). Developing custom applications and services on top of a single vendor's proprietary API is an enterprise investment risk. Over time it is possible to lose the investment when the vendor goes out of business. That risk can be mitigated (but not entirely eliminated) through open standards, methodologies or documentation. The Java Specification Requests (JSRs) are documents within the Java Community Process (JCP) for defining new standards for the Java language. JSR-170, whose final version was released on June 17 2005, is expected to solve the above mentioned problem. It offers a standard, vendor-independent API to access data from a content repository and allows the required data flexibility that is needed for ECM to support additional business processes or applications. The concept of JSR-170 is explained in one sentence: "[JSR-170] specifies a standard API to access content repositories in Java 2 independently of implementation" (Nscheler, 2005) A proposed standard can only emerge to a standard if it is widely accepted and supported by the vendors and requested by clients of content management systems. The obvious problem is that while the standard is new not all vendors will have it implemented. This is akin to solving the proverbial problem of what comes first the chicken or the egg. With the standard not implemented the critical mass of customers demanding the implementation of the standard will not be easily achieved. The clients must first be aware of the new

The Attitude of the Youth towards Classical Music Essay

The Attitude of the Youth towards Classical Music - Essay Example There is a need o discuss the opinions of the youth on the subject.  .  Personal preferences and liking have  a strong link to the field of consumer behavior. Personal choices of the consumer depend on the background they come from and the life style they lead. Music is enjoyed by almost all segments of the population. Each segment has their own tastes of music, they may vary from soulful to rock, pop and even classical music. The section liking classical music is reducing and especially in the younger generation. we don’t find many people that like classical music.  According to Philip Hart  (1973), the data available of the entire mass of the American orchestra depicts that the information is less concrete considering any aspect related to its audience. The symphony orchestra has diversified instruments; with time the composers have to work with complex things and their works written are more intricate that are suitable to the artistic needs required (Unger-Hamilton et. al 1988).Traditional music has become obsolete in today’s lifestyle, and the essence of music is focused more towards the bodily rhythmic movements  and the catchy notes  that provides, rather than the main influence  and quintessence of the form o f classical music. The need for classical music has been eradicated and the thirst for pop music is both commanding and influential.  Classical music is considered as the most primitive form of music. Sadly, the youth today gives no importance and holds no desires to learn classical music.  In many cultures the study of classical music was a must but youth nowadays are losing interest in learning this genre of music. In this chapter the topic of classical music will be introduced giving an introduction related with the younger generation.  The history of classical music will be observed and its quintessential nature will be brought into discussion.   

The U.S. economy Essay Example for Free

The U.S. economy Essay and one that some economic analysts say may persist for at least another year. The unemployment rate has risen to levels not seen in over 20 years. The current unemployment rate is at 8% and is expected to rise further. The inflation rate is -2. 4 percent, meaning that overall, prices are falling. Recommendation Currently our economy is in deep recession and one of the challenges we have is the unemployment rate, which has risen to levels not seen in over 20 years. The current unemployment rate is at 8% and is expected to rise further. Also we have one more challenge of inflation of -2. 4 percent – it means that our economy is in deflation as overall prices are reducing. After having a detail discussion with my colleagues, economic consultants and economic advisors I have following recommendation for President of the United States to bring the economy back on track:- I believe and agree with my colleagues â€Å"Raymond Burke† and â€Å"Allison Tanney† advice that Government/Congress should use Expansionary fiscal policy along with Expansionary monetary policy. This will be accomplished by increasing aggregate expenditures and aggregate demand through an increase in government spending (both government purchases and transfer payments) or a decrease in taxes. I also agree with by colleague â€Å"Patricia Lopez† that Fed should leave interest rates alone, but strongly sell bonds and raise the bank reserve requirement. This will increase the money supply and decrease interest rates. This is accomplished by buying U. S. Treasury securities in the open market, lowering the discount rate, and reducing reserve requirements. In these difficult economic times, I would recommend that the President should increase in government purchases, a decrease in taxes, and/or an increase in transfer payments to close a recessionary gap, stimulate the economy, and decrease the unemployment rate. I disagree with the colleague â€Å"Kathy Lee† that the President should consider to raise taxes and reducing government spending, since this will have negative impact on our current economy as this will not help us to control unemployment. Finally, I recommend the President to use Expansionary fiscal policy along expansionary monetary policy to help our economy to recovery current deep recession.

The Commodification And Commercialization Of Youth Culture Cultural Studies Essay

The Commodification And Commercialization Of Youth Culture Cultural Studies Essay Youth is the promise of possibility. It is the freedom to act on impulse. It is a time to establish identity and desire. At least that is what youth presently represents in dominant Western culture. Youth, as a concept rather than an age group, is often used as a signifier to represent freedom, efficiency, promise, possibility, rebellion, strength, endurance, potential, beauty, freshness, innocence. Youth keeps on meaning different things at different times. Youth as an age rather than a concept is a time to situate firmly the rules and expectations of consumer culture and our social world. Youth is a stage when these powerful rules and expectations are strongly dictated by communication disseminators such as advertising, music, movies, television, and magazines. These rules work through a consumerist ideology to serve corporations by producing meaning. These meanings that represent and signify youth have been engendered and mapped closely onto the understanding of the term youth. Im ages in advertisements are utilized to maintain these notions of youth. Their power is very pervasive in our increasingly visually based culture. This engendering of meaning comes at a cost to the group deemed youth themselves as well as to those attempting to achieve or maintain youth. The quest to find and capture cool is an integral part of youth subculture. Coolness is a concept that is widely accepted to mean a kind of popularity, mystique and sacredness, which inspires and motivates desire and appreciation. What is cool is evasive and elusive, both for young people and for corporations. As a subculture, youth is a site of variance. Corporations are increasingly appropriating the signifiers of cool, as produced by youth culture, to facilitate the selling of commodity goods to the masses, specifically targeting the young people with whom these meanings originated. Dick Hebdige, in his book Subculture: The Meaning of Style, discusses the origin and function of subculture as a rea ction to dominant culture with a continuing (and struggling) position as opposite and counter. Corporations are consistently attempting to bridge the gap between underground youth subculture that is creating cool, and the ever-accepting mass youth culture that is consuming cool. There is an efficient system of observing, appropriating, standardizing and commercializing youth culture to the population at large. This proficient machine seeks out marketable subcultures to establish cultural ideals and maintain them, while selling commodity goods that reflect an ideology of what youth is supposed to be and look like, as well as how the consumer is supposed to participate within this paradigm. The tenets of youth culture in terms of social exchange, economic status and individual value change quickly. With the use of cool hunting, a highly complex system of exploitative research and target marketing, corporations can closely follow these changes and capitalize on their popularity and mea ning. This system of selling culture is significant in terms of the power and potential of the media, conglomerate and corporation to exploit, co-opt and appropriate the experience and expectation of what it means to be a young person in our contemporary social world. The consequences of this selling include the corporation becoming the institution that we increasingly turn to, instead of government, to exercise power, to define our communities, to build up our economy, to identify ourselves as participants and to solve our social, environmental and personal problems. In the chapter titled Youth as an Industrial Ideal, Ewan discusses the symbolic role of youth as signifying a fresh innocence with very favorable prospects for the future (139). This view comes within the context of the development of industrialization. Ewan explores the influence of industrialization of the position of the family in society. He discusses the effects of leisure time and surplus wages on social culture, focusing in some parts on the situation of youth. With industrialization and the increase of hard factory work, youth quickly became privileged as an ideal to sustain and uphold. Work in the domestic or private sphere, deemed womens work, quickly became devalued as the necessity to earn a wage outside of the home in the public sphere increased (Ewan 119). Youth, and the ability to work the necessary long hours with maintained endurance became a central qualification for employment (Ewan 141). Young men were able to find jobs relatively easily because of their stamina a nd strength. As a result, young men commenced their participation in consumerism. Advertising played a large role in perpetuating consumption and the realization of consumer goods through the production of false needs (Ewan 139). Ewan argues that the skill shift from artisan to labourer directly reflects a shift in authority from the patriarchal family to the corporation or the advertiser (140). This shift is especially momentous in the development of consumerism. Advertising, consumer culture, and realization encouraged people to buy mass produced commodity goods, which could easily be and historically were produced within the home. With independently earned wages, young people previously expected to help with the familys daily chores and tasks necessary for survival, began to be increasingly encouraged by business to see themselves as consumers of material goods rather than as producers of such goods (Ewan 139). These social and cultural changes associated with industrialization would set the stage for future embodiments of consumer culture, particularly for you ng people. Barak Goodman and Rachel Dretzin in their Frontline program Merchants Of Cool, discuss contemporary youth culture today as a very powerful, evasive market unto themselves, demanding and being subjected to a large amount of unique advertising that attempts ever-changing approaches to specifically target and tailor market to youth. In their documentary, Goodman and Dretzin explore the complex relationship teenagers and young people have with the media they consume, and very similarly the elaborate fixation the media have with teenagers and youth. Both as the target market, as well as the signifier of youth, youth-culture is pursued aggressively. Goodman and Dretzins thesis poses that the medias power and influence utilize commodity fetishism to establish and maintain ideological notions of desire and performance, both for and of young people in order to standardize, commodify and commercialize youth culture, or the culture of cool. Goodman and Dretzin offer the notion that the media an d advertisers achieve this control by infiltrating, observing, studying and appropriating the culture of youth as it is, and then attempt to change it into what ever will sell the most commodity goods to mass market young people. As Goodman and Dretzins film suggests, commodifying goods is often done with a cross-platform in mind to sell even more commodity goods and maintain a strong level of authority. For instance, many television shows produced by the WB television network exemplify Goodman and Dretzins point. Shows such as Felicity or Dawsons Creek take advantage of their youth based audience with both subtle and overt product placements accented by youth dominated images and performances during the program. The commercials broadcast in the show often compliment the commodity goods featured in the program. At the end of the show, before the credits roll, there is a cleverly situated advertisement for all of the artists music appearing in that specific episode. Also, the soundtrack advertisement informs the viewer that all CDs may be purchased at the WB.com website. Advertising like in this campaign is multi-tasking; it is selling more than one thing at a time, touching on more than one potential sense of lack at a time. The division of age, specifically childhood, into unique and different identifying segments is a relatively new and highly effective practice. In our recent social history, it is only within the past century that businesses have placed emphasis on fragments of young life giving youth status as a separate category with names like toddler, child, tween, adolescent, teenager or young adult. Marcel Danesi, in his book, Cool: The Signs and Meanings of Adolescence cites Stanley G. Hall as emphasizing adolescence as a location of study in 1904 (3), and the 1950s as the decade the term teenager gained general currency within mainstream culture (4). The term tween is a very new concept referring to pre-teenagers. It plays on the semantics of the word between  [1]  . The tween, to advertisers, behaves unequivocally like the teen. The corporation views both the tween and the teen as sites of differentiation in terms of marketing and potentially appropriate commodity goods. Danesi explains t hat before the 1950s, the teenager didnt exist as a category unto itself. This variation in segmentation of age group can at least partially be attributed to industrialization and the influence and effect of division of time, of work, and of living into separate exclusive periods designated by the clock (Glickman 100). Stuart Ewan argues that the development and social construction of the category teenager is paralleled by a shift from familial authority to business authority and that the development of consumption is performed by segmenting life into highly specialized fragments that privilege youth and maintain spatial and social differences (140). The teenager and tween, as Goodman and Dretzin offer, occupy these same spaces, maintaining them with even more concrete rooting and even more segmentation and specialization of social, spatial, and sexual difference than when the social influence of industrialization was first encountered. By seeking new and different ways of creating target market groups to capitalize on, the corporation seeks to further fragment groups of consumers to sell to on every angle imaginable. This means that populations such as youth will be segmented into groups such as the teenager and the tween. It means that individuals will be segmented into groups such as music fan, and fashionista. Fashionista, another new addition to post-modern vocabulary, refers to an individual, usually a girl or woman who is devoted to all things fashion related. Fragmentation increases the number of people in an audience and the number of times an audience can be re-appropriated. The segmentation ensures that every individual is being sold to in more than one market, and as more than one kind of consumer. The tween is an excellent example of this, as it identifies a new market segment to create commodity goods specifically for, and to advertise to. The corporation creates these highly specialized fragmentations so that every possible avenue of commodification and commercialization are explored and exploited to sell commodity goods and to create an ideology of a good consumer. Further on Theador Adorno approaches a similar concept in music, an ideology of the ideal listener. Both Ewan and Goodman and Dretzin agree on the differentiation between the conception, approach, targeting, and advertising to girls and boys. The spatial segmentation of the sex-gender economy Ewan speaks of, instituted with the outset of advertising, is firmly upheld and perpetuated today as Goodman and Dretzin explore in their examination of youth culture. Ewan explains the industrial systems reification of separation with the establishment of the domestic sphere as private and predominantly populated by women while the working sphere as public and predominantly populated by men. Susan Porter Benson, in Gender, Generation, and Consumption in the United States sustains a similar view perpetuating the gendering of production as male and consumption as female. (226). Advertising works to establish, reify, and perpetuate ideological sexual, social and spatial differences, with industrialization putting emphasis and privilege on surplus value being productive versus use value being con sumptive. Emphasis and privilege do not reside with production to the same extent as at the outset of industrialization. In consumer culture, use value and consumption are now favored as expressions of power; emphasis and privilege are placed on the ability to obtain commodity goods demonstrative of wealth and interest. At the time of industrialization, however, the result of the industrial system reifying separations was an elevation of mens work outside the home while simultaneously devaluing womens reproductive realm in the home (Ewan 118-9). I would argue that this system of value is closely related to the social celebration of industrialization and the privileging of production, while attempting to downplay the importance of consumption. A capitalist ideology will operate most efficiently when its participants are supporting its tenets whole-heartedly. If privilege lies with production and not consumption, it can be predicted and assumed that people will want to be immersed in that realm, in production, able to manifest some of its power. Power, a patriarchal location was and is a male dominated expression. With industrialization and the recent shift in authority from familial patriarchy to the corporation, men were eager to maintain some kind of power position (Ewan 140). Consumption was new, and unfamiliar. In a patriarchal framework, anything that privileged work other than mens was avoided. Men felt emasculated enough with industrial authority becoming powerful; they did not want to sacrifice power positions otherwise. Consumption, in a capitalist ideology is therefore secondary, and delegated to those not in power, women. In a capitalist framework our social world privileges capital-producing work above all else; thus, as womens effort in the home is not capital producing, it is negated as non-work. In contemporary consumer culture, this power exchange is not the case. Consumption is paramount, for both men and women, and is a site of power. Benson also outlines the circumstance during industrial exchange in which boys were able to spend their own wages, while girls had to contribute to the patriarchal family (227-8). Differences between the sexes do not stop there. Goodman and Dretzin explain established terms for the ideological character advertisers present to young people to aspire to be and incorporate into their being. For boys, it is the mook, an irresponsible and capricious character that manifests qualities of goofiness and the pursuit of pleasure. The term to describe the girls character is midriff. It connotes a sexualized yet innocent girl who can achieve anything she wants to through her beauty. These concepts offered to young people by corporations to strive to be are inherently unattainable. Like cool, these characters are forever vague and constantly changing to maintain their inherent appeal, as well as their preferred position as something to emulate. Both the mook and midriff abstractions are highly in dividualized and segmented concepts that reify expectations of what it means to be a young and cool teenager today. These contemporary notions which aim to define youth are highly invested and pursued heavily by scores of young people. They are difficult to achieve, however. It is precisely the difficulty in manifesting these personas that makes them so perfect for an ideology of consumerism. Although young people may and will try to incorporate aspects of the mook or the midriff into their life, the mook and midriff are set up in such a way as to be impossible to acquire. The preoccupation our culture has with the importance of celebrity is an excellent example of this point. Although young boys may want to be like Fred Durst of the rock group Limp Bizkit, and young girls may want to be like Jennifer Lopez, they cannot be exactly like them. Young people are able, however, to buy the commodity goods that the celebrities endorse and therefore become some of what the mook and the midriff mean. These conceptions of youth and produced meanings are very effective in their attempt to command interpretat ion and to shape significance. It is the goal of corporations to keep this separation between the desire of mass youth culture to possess cool and the reality that cool cant be owned through possession or commodity goods, an invisible gap. It is corporations goal that consumers understand that by purchasing commodity goods, they are participating in the very system that can bestow to them a feeling of becoming what they want. Purchasing commodity goods that reflect a feeling of what they desire is the admission to being a part of it and becoming what they want. They are becoming the objects they are buying, they are becoming cool. It is then the corporations task to convince young people to believe that they are cool by buying their product. Consumption then acts like culture. It allows individuals to share a consciousness solely through acquiring by purchase. Consumption, however, is neither culture nor a community activity. It is an individualizing process masquerading as culture. As explored further on, Jean Ba udrillard, in his piece, The System of Objects, discusses how individuals realize through consumption (15). This realization then means individuals perform, for the corporation, the desired result of acquiring to cooperate in consumer culture. Because our commodities so effectively act as social communicators, status symbols and indicators of taste, there is clear motivation to consume the specific goods that convey the most appropriate and desired details of who we are and what we like. It is a representation or a perspective of our social identity, transmitted through commodity goods. This communication is performed through the acquiring of new and different commodity goods whose engendered meaning we hope to share with the world through ownership and display. This, however, puts consumers in a position of constant want and need for new objects and apparel. Colin Campbell, in his article The Desire For the New, explores concepts of desire, various kinds of new, and their relation to consumerism. Campbell describes the Veblen-Simmel model of modern consumption as a regulated and involved process of obtaining objects that communicate position, intuition and perception, as an inherent system of rapid obsolescence to maintai n superiority, and as a hierarchy of style with elite classes constantly embracing the fresh and novel (50-1). Colin Campbell examines the Veblen-Simmel trickle down nature of fashions approach to trends, as originating with high art and an aristocratic division and then being imitated and adopted by lower classes (48). Campbell, however, also writes about the limitations of the Veblin-Simmel system, and about how trends do not exclusively originate with the elite, but also from so-called lower classes (51). Campbell quotes Paul Blumberg as indicating the appropriation of underground subculture to be emulated in couture, and in turn, mainstream mass fashion (51). This appropriation is seemingly relevant to youth culture and the co-optation performed by the corporation. By utilizing cool hunting, the corporation is executing the same kind of exploitation of expression and trends of young people to sell to the mainstream that Campbell quotes Blumberg as illustrating. Campbells article investigates Veblens theory of conspicuous consumption to maintain competition through consumption of communicative commodity goods, and its design to keep participants in a pattern of procurement in order to maintain participation itself (Campbell 49). Pierre Bourdieu, in the introduction of his Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, writes about cultural competency and having the appropriate knowledge to be able to understand a cultural object or practice (2). Again these authors position is consistent with the appropriation of youth culture. By employing cool hunting, corporations are able to commandeer familiar and informed signs of cool from underground youth-culture to sell back to mainstream youth in order to maintain cooperation of consumption. Part of the institution of consumption, as Campbell illustrates, is the relatively quick onset of age, worthlessness and abandonment of commodity goods (50). Campbell informs us of the ongoing desire and experience of want that disappears when possession occurs. This cycle of longing is practical for the selling of commodity goods; however, it places the consumer in a position of constantly searching for satisfaction through consumption. This structure of rapid, abrupt and swift obsolescence is not unfamiliar to a structure of cool. Both have a period of desire and emulation, and both change invariably. I would endeavor to say that the ideology of cool so suitably works with, and for, consumerism for these very reasons. There is a highly intricate network of tools in place to gauge, observe, measure and survey youth culture, getting more complex all the time. In Cool: The Signs and Meanings of Adolescence, Danesi quotes Stanley G. Hall as establishing adolescence as a unique segment to examine and study (3). In Captains of Consciousness, Ewan explains the introduction and establishment of the category teenager as being dependent on the evolution of consumerism. This development is the origin of the study of youth as a fragment as a group unto themselves. Since then, as the documentary The Merchants of Cool explores, the study of youth as a group has become highly specialized undertaking, with the bottom line being profit. Today, youth are a huge market. They have a significant disposable income of their own, and they have parents buying them additional commodity goods. The corporate gaze, the position the corporation takes and its involvement with selling to the youth market, is highly prominent and becomes a more specialized organism all the time. Cool hunting, the locating, documenting, and appropriating of underground popularity among teenagers and young people, is extremely big business as Goodman and Dretzins film illustrates. It is beneficial for corporations and advertising agencies to know and understand the youth market, so that they will be able to target them as efficiently as possible to sell the most commodity goods. Goodman and Drezin show that corporations achieve this intent by utilizing their tools, a number of investigative methods including focus groups, surveys, and market research. As The Merchants of Cool features, on behalf of corporations, marketing firms such as Cornerstone recruit strong charactered and popular young people to be representatives for them to help convince their friends to participate in purchasing their respective commodity goods. These representatives are compensated either monetarily, or with commodity goods themselves. This process, deemed under-the-radar marketing (Goodman and Dretzin) is executed on behalf of the corporation to aid in building brand loyalty among young people. The representatives are hired, at least partially, based on their ability to convey word-of-mouth advertising to a significant group of young people. This practice is capitalizing on the hope that young people will trust and believe another young person rather than the media in the expectation that more commodity goods will be consumed (Goodman and Dretzin). The youth market, a highly prized target group is idealized as a number of young people unified by their knowledge and participation in subculture. Dick Hebdige introduces the meaning of subculture as a subversive refusal and rebellion against dominant culture, having conflict contained in ideology and signification (3). Hebdige describes the site of subculture as a struggle for possession of the sign which extends to even the most mundane areas of everyday life (17). Objects, concepts, vernacular, et cetera are assigned to or take on meanings that both reflect and deny the meanings bestowed by dominant culture. For example, this process can be seen historically through the hand gesture containing two fingers held in a V; held one way the gesture is understood to mean Victory in war, while turned around, this hand gesture is seen to signify peace. As Hebdige describes, this appropriation of one kind of sign and its transformation into another oppositional sign works as a function o f underground subculture (2). Similarly, and more recently, the words cheddar, cheddah, or cheese can be used to signify the traditional understanding as a dairy product, but also these words have been appropriated to refer to money. The rap artist Jay-Z uses this signification on Vol. 3 The Life Times of S. Carter, in his song Big Pimpin. The lyrics, Big pimpin, spendin cheese, refer to the use of cheese as money. Hebdige offers the notion that this process of signification is utilized by subculture to communicate (18). In order to maintain ideology and sell commodity goods, corporations can also exercise this signification process to seek out signs apropos to young people and incorporate them in their marketing schemes and campaigns. This inclusion of signs is completed in the expectancy of attracting mass youth market. Corporations rely on the consumers ability and desire to collapse the gap between the ideal of what they want the corporation designed representation of the individual and the reality of who they are. Media images are increasingly strict in their representations of ideals of beauty, of power, of health and of cool. Judith Williamson, in her book Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising, talks about the mirror phase in advertisements that works to show a representation of a created image and concept that the individual can both locate his or herself in, and extend that location by attempting to become through consumption, altering their appearance or identity in some fashion (60). The discontinuity between this manufactured ideal identity and the reality of day-to-day existence does exist, however difficult to identify and endure. Young people, as well as women (and more recently, men), are expected to participate within this highly regulated paradigm and positio n themselves with the created image, rather than with a more attainable reality. Advertisers aim to have consumers define their own unique identity and personality solely through consumption and the commodity goods we purchase (Baudrillard 14). It is the goal of the corporation that consumers will establish, build, and express an identity through the type of commodity goods we wear, use and consume. In consumer culture objects are used as social communicators, giving the individual an opportunity to become a part of what they desire, or in some cases as the corporation and advertisers insist, to become the thing itself. Through an ideology of competition, connotations are attached to objects, concepts are engendered to them and meaning is produced. It is advertisers aim that individuals will capitalize on these produced meanings by buying commodity goods that closely reflect what people want to express about themselves, as well as what they want to communicate to others. Jean Baudrillard explores the potential of objects as social communicators and commodity goods as a code, each with a specific connotation (23). Baudrillard offers that by picking and choosing various competing objects we place ourselves into established like categories (20). He extends that individuality, uniqueness and distinctness is not to be found in commodity goods, as advertisers would have us believe. The meaning attached to commodity goods is engendered through a process of signification; these desired meanings for commodity goods are appropriated through the use of cool hunting. Advertisers seek to capture and claim the meanings produced by youth culture for the commodity goods they produce, so as to secure the youth market for their products. It is a tight and highly engineered and maintained cycle. Advertisers will go to great lengths to find cool and employ found or produced signification to their products. In terms of meaning being engendered to objects, the effect of this can be understood through and examination of the companies Louis Vuitton and Kate Spade. Both Vuitton and Spade are fashion design houses that specialize in accessories and purses. Louis Vuitton, a well-established house that sells to wealthy and accomplished women possesses connotations of luxury, comfort and affluence. Kate Spade is a relatively new design house that sells to young, trendy women and has connotations of chic, taste and femininity. These design houses sell a very similar product; however through the signs and significations used and operated by each company, the produc t is understood very differently. Both Louis Vuitton and Kate Spade are highly invested in the connotations they exude through their products. It is not just a commodity good they are selling with the name and brand Louis Vuitton, or Kate Spade. They are also selling an identity of who and what they are, and in turn who you are for owning their merchandise. It is interesting to note that in recent seasons, Louis Vuitton has secured designer Stephen Sprouse and the use of his graffiti typeface for some of their products. This graffiti type has added a more urban and young connotation to those Vuitton products. This typeface has been appropriated by other corporations and a very similar graffiti typeface is utilized on recording artist No Doubts latest album Rock Steady, not to mention countless knock-off type products that also use the graffiti. Louis Vuitton is able to maintian a very high class identity, while adding another dynamic to their complex market. It is interesting to note the current trend of product diversification and market expansion. Martha Stewart has her mail-order company Martha By Mail, her products are available at K-Mart and she has an incredibly lucrative book series and magazine. Marthas Hampton neighbour Puff Daddy, more recently known as P Diddy, is another interesting example. P Diddy has a successful rap career; his close relationship to the late Notorious B.I.G. helped catapult his album sales and fan interest. P Diddy also has a prosperous position as a record producer. He produces many other rap, R B, and pop artists work, contributing to his growing empire. P Diddy, whose real name is Sean Combs, is also undertaking the auspicious role of fashion designer with his line of mens wear titled Sean John. Also, P Diddy has recently entered the domain of acting including a role in the 2001 film, Monsters Ball. As featured on the Bad Boy Entertainment website, P Diddy is also venturing in restaurants, and predict ably enough youth market consulting. P Diddy himself, and his conglomerate Bad Boy Entertainment, is expanding his horizons to increase profitability. Like P Diddy, Louis Vuitton and Kate Spade are expanding into other markets. Louis Vuitton, in addition to purses and luggage, is now designing and marketing shoes, and clothing. Kate Spade has expanded their catalogue to include shoes, clothing, stationary, pajamas and skin care products above and beyond purses and luggage. Stephen Sprouse, the graffiti typeface designer Vuitton has used for a number of their products, is now designing a line of clothing and accessories for the discount department store Target in the United States. Product diversification recently, it seems, is essential and obligatory to maintain a level of competition and admission to large market exposure. It appears that these corporations are attempting to saturate the markets that they are able to flourish in, in order to exploit the potential to create capital and incr

Great Gatsby :: essays research papers

The attempt to capture the American dream is central to many novels. This dream is different for different people, but in The Great Gatsby, for Jay, the dream is that through wealth and power, one can acquire happiness. This happiness is something for which he must reach into the past to have and for which he must revive an old dream. Jay Gatsby, the central figure of the story, is one character who longs for the past. Surprisingly he devotes most of his adult life trying to recapture and, finally, dies in its pursuit. In the past, Jay had a love affair with the affluent Daisy. Knowing he could not marry her because of the difference in their social status, he leaves her to amass wealth to reach her economic standards. Once he acquires this wealth, he moves near to Daisy and throws extravagant parties, hoping by chance she might show up at one of them. He, himself, does not attend his parties but watches them from a distance. When this dream doesn’t happen, he asks around casually if anyone knows her. Soon he meets Nick Carraway, a cousin of Daisy, who agrees to set up a meeting. Gatsby’s personal dream symbolizes the larger American dream where all have the opportunity to get what they want. Later, as we see in the Plaza Hotel, Jay still believes that Daisy loves him. He is convinced of this as is shown when he takes the blame for Myrtle’s death and then watches and protects Daisy as she returns home. Jay cannot accept that the past is gone and done with. Jay is sure that he can capture his dream with his wealth and influence. He believes that he acted for a good beyond his

The Glass Ceiling Essay -- essays research papers

In order for organizations to function members within the organization, the organization needs to work together to achieve specific goals and solve problems. Organizations will usually work in teams and each team has leaders that get the other team members on the ball to do perform different tasks. Organizations are structured in a hierarchy way. There is the top level management with the CEOs and presidents and other head people. Then there is the middle-level management that includes department heads and managers. Finally there are the employees of the organization working hard to hopefully move up in the corporation to these higher levels. When employees move up the corporate ladder there are certain rewards they get like a higher salary and maybe more benefits such as more flextime. From the very beginning the world has been dominated by men and even more so in the workplace. Men were always the leaders and heads of everything all the way down to the family. The woman was the nu rturer and she was only there to provide the man with a family and to care for the family. Her place was never in the workplace. That was strictly for men. It wasn’t until World War I where women started to enter the workforce in larger numbers and this was primarily because all the men were being sent over to fight in the war and their wives took their spots on the factory floors so that corporations could still function. There is the ever famous Rosie the Riveter poster during World War II that had the famous motto for women â€Å"We can do it.† This got women out of the house and onto the factory floors where their husbands had been working until the war broke out. Of course once the war was over and men came back the women were in a since forced back into the house. But ever since then women began to enter the workforce more and more ever year. Women were starting to realize that they can do the work just as good as men could or even better. Today women account for 45% of the paid labor force (Williams, 6). That number will continue to grow over the next couple of years until eventually women equal or even go above men in the labor force. Although women are playing a big part in the labor market today, they are still unable to advance high up the corporate ladder like men can. There are a very few exceptions to this, but the majority of women in organizations can only usually get ... ...ough because organizations are realizing that the working world has changed. Women are no longer staying in the house to tend to the family. They are going out into the workplace just like the men and are competing for the best possible jobs that they can get. Works Sited Caplan, Jessica. China Staff. Hong Kong: Sep 2004. Vol 10, Iss 9. pg. 14. Connolly, John. Personnel Today. Sutton: Sep 28, 2004. pg. 17. Fitzgerald, Barbara. â€Å"New York Times.† (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Aug 10, 2003. pg. 14NJ.1. Barbara F. Reskin, Heidi I. Hartmann, editors. â€Å"Women’s Work, Men’s Work.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Washington D.C. National Academy Press. 1986. Jacobs, Jerry, editor. â€Å"Gender Inequality at Work.† California. Sage Publications, Inc.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1995.. Nichols, Nancy. Editor. â€Å"Reach For the Top.† Boston. Harvard Business School. 1994. Sekaran, Uma. Editor. â€Å"WOMANPOWER.† California. Sage Publications, Inc. 1992. Symonds, William. Business Week. New York: Oct 4, 2004, Iss. 3902, pg 98. Williams, Christine. â€Å"Still A Man’s World.† Los Angeles. University of California   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Press. 1995.

Education and Teaching - No Saturday Classes for Public Schools :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

No Saturday School!      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Some people think American students should attend school on Saturday.   These people think that the extra day would bring America's education level closer to those of other countries. However, I disagree.   I think having school on Saturday would actually lower our education level. The Saturday classes would diminish family time for students.   The extra day of classes would cut down on work days for students.   Saturday classes would also mean one less day of rest for both students and teachers alike.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Less time with a family could lower a student's grade point average.   For some students, Saturday is the only time they can see family.   This would be true for students whose parents are divorced or who both work Monday through Friday.   Not seeing family could lead to a bad attitude or severe depression.   Some students have close relationships with their parents and want or need to spend time with their parents.   A student with a bad attitude or severe depression cannot learn well and perform well in class.   Not being able to learn well will not bring an already low education level up.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The extra day of school would cut down on work days for students.   A cut-down on work hours during the weekend could influence a student to work more late-night hours to earn money for car payments or college funds.   That would create a very tired, unprepared student.   That student, in turn, will not do well with school work.   The extra day of school would take away from any other job a teacher may have.   Some teachers have additional jobs to earn extra money. Less time to work another job could create a bad attitude.   A teacher with a bad attitude will not be able to teach effectively.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One extra day of school cuts into precious relaxation time of students and teachers alike. Just one day may not sound like a lot; but, to a busy student, it could mean the difference between an A and a B.   That one extra day of rest can change an attitude easily.   With one day of rest and one more day to do homework, a student can have time to avoid a jam-packed schedule for a day.

Importance of Small and Mediun Entreptises in a Developing Economy

ID NUMBER: 11060659 COURSE: MANAGEMENT OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES (SMEs) LECTURER: MR. ADAMS FADIR-RAHMAN DATE: 21-4-2010 QUESTION: TO WHAT EXTENT DO CAN IT BE SAID THAT GHANA CANNOT DEVELOP WITHOUT THE ACTIVITIES OF SMEs OPERATORS Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are companies whose headcount or turnover falls below certain limits. And the limit depends on the country in which the company is operating. SMEs contribute immensely to the economic development of a country . And it can be said that a developing country like Ghana cannot develop without the contribution of SMEs due to the following reasons: Firstly, SMEs contribute significantly to the provision of productive employment opportunities for rural and urban growing labor force in Ghana. The provision of employment opportunities increases the generation of income by the people . And when most of the people in the country are employed, it leads to the reduction of poverty. Secondly, they help to absorb productive resources at all levels of the economy and add to the flexible economic system in which small and large firms are interlinked. Such linkages are very crucial for the attraction of foreign investment. This is because the investing transnational corporations look for sound domestic suppliers for their supply chain. Thirdly, SMEs provide substitution for imported goods which create competition and leads to production of quality goods at affordable prices. This is to say that the substitutes of imported goods produced in Ghana by SMEs helps to create competition between the SMEs and the foreign producers. And this forces them to produce quality goods at affordable prices since there is competition. Furthermore, SMEs help in the provision of capital to individuals, other businesses and even the government. When the SMEs generate their income, they deposited them in the various commercial banks in Ghana. It is from these funds that the banks advance loans to their needy customers. And these funds are sometimes loaned to the government to finance its developmental projects. Also, the income generated by the SMEs is subject to tax. Thus their returns are taxed for the development of the nation. These taxes, when collected, are used for the construction of roads, schools, hospitals and other social amenities. More so, SMES help to produce and enhance the movement of goods outside the country. They also help to the country to export its raw materials or natural resources to foreign countries for foreign exchange. And it also paves the way for some local goods to be marketed outside the country. And this help to increase the gross domestic product (GDP) and per capital income of the country. Lastly, Most of the current larger enterprises have their origin in small and medium enterprises. This is to say that most of the large scale enterprises in Ghana were SMEs before their current state. SMEs are different from large scale enterprises in three main aspects; uncertainty, innovation and evolution. Therefore we can say that SMEs are the starting point of development in the Ghanaian economy towards industrialization. In a nutshell, judging from above, we can see that there is no way that Ghana can develop without the operations of SMEs. So what is required is for the government of Ghana to pursue the precise policy and regulatory reforms to turn SMEs into an effective instrument for the enhancement of economic growth. REFERENCE: SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTREPRISES,JONATHAN BLAY ,1993,CANADA IMPORTANCE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTREPRISES IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,BASHIR AHMED FIDA,PAKISTAN,2008. WWW. THEFREELIBRARY. COM

Wildlife: Biodiversity and Net Deforestation Rates

Around the world, forests are being logged for timber and paper pulp and cleared to grow mono-crops like soy and palm oil while they are deteriorating from the impacts of global warming. Deforestation is a major driver of global warming, responsible for up to 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions–more than all the cars, trucks, planes, boats and trains in the world combined. Deforestation doesn’t just threaten our climate, it threatens the livelihoods of 1. 6 Billion people that rely on forests for food and economic activity.Forests also serve as habitats to rare and undiscovered animal and plant species and play a key role in providing water and preventing flooding and erosion. Ending deforestation and protecting forests will not only preserve biodiversity and defend the rights of forest communities, it is also one of the quickest and cost effective ways of curbing global warming. Greenpeace is campaigning for zero deforestation, globally, by 2020. Deforestati on,  clearance  or  clearing  is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use. 1]  Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use. About half of the world's original forests had been destroyed by 2011, the majority during the previous 50 years. [citation needed]  Since 1990 half of the world's  rain forests  have been destroyed. [citation needed]  More than half of the animal and plant species in the world live in tropical forests. [2] The term  deforestation  is often misused to describe any activity where all trees in an area are removed. not in citation given][neutrality  is  disputed]  However in  temperate climates, the  removal of all trees in an area[not in citation given]—in conformance with  sustainable forestry  practices—is correctly described as  regeneration harvest. [3]  In  temperate mesic climates, natural regener ation of forest stands often will not occur in the absence of disturbance, whether natural or anthropogenic. [4]  Furthermore, biodiversity after regeneration harvest often mimics that found after natural disturbance, including biodiversity loss after naturally occurring rainforest destruction. 5][6] Deforestation occurs for many reasons: trees are cut down to be used or sold as fuel (sometimes in the form of  charcoal) or timber, while cleared land is used as  pasture  for livestock, plantations of commodities and settlements. The removal of trees without sufficient  reforestation  has resulted in damage to  habitat,  biodiversity  loss and  aridity. It has adverse impacts on  biosequestration  of atmospheric  carbon dioxide. Deforestation has also been used in  war  to deprive an enemy of cover for its forces and also vital resources.A modern example of this was the use of  Agent Orangeby the United States military in Vietnam during the  Vietnam W ar. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse  soil erosion  and frequently degrade into  wasteland. Disregard or ignorance of intrinsic value, lack of ascribed value, lax forest management and deficient environmental laws are some of the factors that allow deforestation to occur on a large scale. In many countries, deforestation, both naturally occurring and human induced, is an ongoing issue.Deforestation causes  extinction, changes to climatic conditions,  desertification, and displacement of populations as observed by current conditions and in the past through the fossil record. [5] Among countries with a per capita  GDP  of at least US$4,600, net deforestation rates have ceased to increase. [when? ][7][8] ————————————————- Causes According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, the overwhelming dir ect cause of deforestation is agriculture.Subsistence farming  is responsible for 48% of deforestation;  commercial agriculture  is responsible for 32% of deforestation;  logging  is responsible for 14% of deforestation and fuel wood removals make up 5% of deforestation. [9] Experts do not agree on whether industrial logging is an important contributor to global deforestation. [10][11]  Some argue that poor people are more likely to clear forest because they have no alternatives, others that the poor lack the ability to pay for the materials and labour needed to clear forest. 10]  One study found that population increases due to high fertility rates were a primary driver of tropical deforestation in only 8% of cases. [12] Other causes of contemporary deforestation may include  corruption  of government institutions,[13][14]  the  inequitable  distribution of wealth and power,[15]  population growth[16]  andoverpopulation,[17][18]  and  urbanization. [ 19]  Globalization  is often viewed as another root cause of deforestation,[20][21]  though there are cases in which the impacts of globalization (new ? ws of labor, capital, commodities, and ideas) have promoted localized forest recovery. [22] The last batch of sawnwood from thepeat forest  in Indragiri Hulu, Sumatra,Indonesia. Deforestation for  oil palmplantation. In 2000 the United Nations  Food and Agriculture Organization  (FAO) found that â€Å"the role of population dynamics in a local setting may vary from decisive to negligible,† and that deforestation can result from â€Å"a combination of population pressure and stagnating economic, social and technological conditions. [16] The degradation of forest ecosystems has also been traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conservation. [23]  Many important forest functions have no markets, and hence, no economic value that is readily apparent to the fore sts' owners or the communities that rely on forests for their well-being. [23]  From the perspective of the developing world, the benefits of forest as carbon sinks or biodiversity reserves go primarily to richer developed nations and there is insufficient compensation for these services.Developing countries feel that some countries in the developed world, such as the United States of America, cut down their forests centuries ago and benefited greatly from this deforestation, and that it is hypocritical to deny developing countries the same opportunities: that the poor shouldn't have to bear the cost of preservation when the rich created the problem. [24] Some commentators have noted a shift in the drivers of deforestation over the past 30 years. 25]  Whereas deforestation was primarily driven by subsistence activities and government-sponsored development projects like  transmigration  in countries like  Indonesia  and  colonization  in  Latin America,India,  Jav a, and so on, during late 19th century and the earlier half of the 20th century. By the 1990s the majority of deforestation was caused by industrial factors, including extractive industries, large-scale cattle ranching, and extensive agriculture. [26] [edit] Wildlife conservation  is the practice of protecting  endangered plant and animal species  and their  habitats.Among the goals of wildlife conservation are to ensure that nature will be around for future generations to enjoy and to recognize the importance of  wildlife  and  wilderness  lands to humans. [1]Many nations are  government agencies  dedicated to wildlife conservation, which help to implement policies designed to protect wildlife. Numerous independent  nonprofit organizations  also promote various wildlife conservation causes. [2] Wildlife conservation has become an increasingly important practice due to the negative effects of  human activity  on  wildlife. The science of extinction.An e ndangered species is defined as a population of a living being that is at the danger of becoming extinct because of several reasons. Either they are few in number or are threatened by the varying environmental or predation parameters. ————————————————- Government involvement The Wildlife Conservation Act was enacted by the Government of India in 1972. Soon after the trend of policy makers enacting regulations on conservation a strategy was developed to allow actors, both government and non-government, to follow a detailed â€Å"framework† to successful conservation.The World Conservation Strategy was developed in 1980 by the â€Å"International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources â€Å"(IUCN) with advice, cooperation and financial assistance of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Wildlife Fund and in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco)†[9]  The strategy aims to â€Å"provide an intellectual framework and practical guidance for conservation actions. [9]  This thorough guidebook covers everything from the intended â€Å"users† of the strategy to its very priorities and even a map section containing areas that have large seafood consumption therefore endangering the area to over fishing. The main sections are as follows: * The objectives of conservation and requirements for their achievement: 1. Maintenance of essential ecological processes and life-support systems. 2. Preservation of genetic diversity. 3. Sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems. * Priorities for national action: 1. A framework for national and subnational conservation strategies. . Policy making and the integration of conservation and development. 3. Environmental planning and rational use allocation. * Priorities for international action: 1. International action: law and assistance. 2. Tropical forests and drylands. 3. A global programme for the protection of genetic resource areas. Map sections: 1. Tropical forests 2. Deserts and areas subject to desertification. Importance Of Wildlife 37  Ã‚  6  StumbleUpon4 If you were of the opinion that cultivated plants and domesticated animals is what wildlife consists of, you are mistaken.Wildlife, in fact, comprises of the innumerous varieties of wild plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms that exist on our planet earth, rather than just cultivated plants and domesticated animals. Knowingly or unknowingly, we largely depend on this wildlife for every elementary requirement in our life. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the medicines we consume, a variety of building materials used for construction, numerous chemicals used for manufacturing our necessities, all are extracted from the wildlife existing around us.A study by the American Association for the Advancement of Science indicates that as many as 40,000 species of plants, animals, fungi and microscopic animals benefit us in some way or the other. To know the various benefits that this wildlife provides us, read on further. Benefits Of Wildlife Benefits To People Wildlife and nature have largely been associated with humans for numerous emotional and social reasons. A simple stroll around the park amidst some birds provides a fresh breath of life and charges our batteries. Apart from bird feeder in the backyard, we can also take up other active pastimes, such as hiking, hunting, canoeing or wildlife photographing to relieve our parched nerves. Since prehistoric times, animals have been highly useful to us in providing food, clothing and source of income. Benefits To Natural Processes Wildlife plays an essential role in the ecological and biological processes that are yet again significant to life. The normal functioning of t he biosphere depends on endless interactions amongst animals, plants, and microorganisms. This, in turn, maintains and enhances human life further.To add on, these ecological processes are vital for agriculture, forestry, fisheries and other endeavors that support human life. Besides, there are several biological processes wherein wildlife plays a key role, such as pollinization, germination, seed dispersal, soil generation, nutrient cycling, predation, habitat maintenance, waste breakdown, and pest control. Benefits to Science, Agriculture, & Medicine Studies indicate that woodpeckers are capable of destroying 90% of codling moth larvae residing under the bark of trees. This shows the significance of wildlife and wildlife habitat for preserving genetic diversity.Hence, places where agriculture, forests, and fisheries depend on crops or stocks can ensure that such living resources are enough to withstand the ever-increasing list of threats. Further, in medicine, development of new d rugs and treatments are largely dependent on wildlife and wildlife habitat. Interestingly, most pharmaceutical products are a result of discovering or developing wildlife species and not discoveries through the traditional chemistry principles. Today, most medicinal remedies contain at least one ingredient derived from a wild plant or animal.