Parenting theory Essays

Parenting theory Essays Parenting theory Essay Parenting theory Essay Parenting org will try to answer 2 question: which business should we own? What parenting approach will get the best performance from those busineses? Instead of looking at how businesses relate to one another, a parent organization should look at how well its skill fit its businesses needs and whether owning them creates or destroy value. Parenting theory suggest that most CEO should concern with two crucial questions: what business should this company, rather than rival, own and why? And What org structure. Management process and philosophy will foster superior performance from its businesses? The best parent companies create more value in their businesses than rivals would. Multi business bring together under a parent org businesses that could potentially be independent. Such parent company can justify themselves economically only of their influence creates value. For example: The parent org can improve business plan and budget , promote better linkages among them, provide especially competent central function or make wise choices in its own acquisitions , divestment and new ventures. How corporate parenting add value to its businesses units? That occur when the parents skills and resources fit well with the needs and opportunities of the businesses. If there is not a fit, the parent is likely destroy value. A parent that does not understand the critical success factors in a business is likely to destroy vale. To add value: ICM, Restructure, Knowledge, transfer skill and sharing activities. A parent without detailed knowledge of a business market my not be aware of the opportunity to combine sales. Synergy. Five type of synergies: Cost savings, Revenue enhancements, process improvements, financial engineering and tax benefit. COST SAVINGS This is the most common type of synergy and the easiest to estimate. Peter Shaw, head of mergers and acquisitions at the British chemical and pharmaceutical company ICI, refers to cost savings as hard synergies and points out that the level of certainty that they will be achieved is quite high. Usually, they come from eliminating jobs, facilities, and related expenses that are no longer needed when functions are consolidated, or they come from economies of scale in purchasing. Cost savings are likely to be especially large when one company acquires another from the same industry in the same country. For example, SBC Communications, the former South-western Bell, realized substantial cost savings when it acquired Pacific Telesis. Within the first two years of this merger, SBC saved more than $200 million in information-technology operating and maintenance costs. It also saved tens of millions of dollars by combining the merged companies purchasing power. Even though cost savings are t he easiest synergy to calculate, overly optimistic projections certainly do occur, so you need to look very carefully at the numbers you 1 re presented with. If youre evaluating projections, be aware of three common problems. First, analysts may overlook the fact that definitions of cost categories vary from company to company. (For example, are warranty costs included in the cost of production or the cost of sales?) So it may appear that there are more easily eliminated costs in a category than turn out to be the case. Second, costs are incurred in different places depending on the structure of each company. Acquirers may assume they can eliminate more corporate or divisional administrative costs than they actually can because essential work is getting done in unexpected places. Third, it is easier to eliminate positions than the people who fill them. Often a job is eliminated on paper, but the person in the job is very talented and must be shifted ewhere in the company. Therefore, if a consolidation Ins to suggest that 200 jobs are destined for the ax, that doesnt mean that 200 salaries are, too Acquirers often underestimate how long it will take to realize cost savings. Sometimes that happens because the plans specifying how integration will proceed are insufficiently detailed. In other cases, it happens because the people in both companies are resistant to change, and senior managers often delay making tough cost cutting decisions. And, of course, the longer it takes for cost savings to be realized, the less value they create. REVENUE ENHANCEMENTS Its sometimes possible for an acquirer and its target to achieve a higher level of sales growth together than either company could on its own. Revenue enhancements are notoriously hard to estimate, however, because they involve external variables beyond managements control. The customer base of the acquired company, for instance, may react negatively to different prices and product features. A combined customer base may balk at making too many purchases from a single supplier. And competitors may lower their prices in response to an acquisition. Revenue enhancements are so difficult to predict, in fact, that some wise companies dont even include them when calculating synergy value. Matthew Slatter, the CEO of Bank of Melbourne, says, We model this [revenue enhancements], but never factor it into the price. Similarly, Peter Shaw at ICI considers them soft synergies and discounts them heavily in calculations of synergy value. Despite their dangers, revenue enhancements can create real value. Sometimes the target brings a superior or complementary product to the more extensive distribution channel of the acquirer. That happened when Lloyds TSB acquired the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society (which had a better home-loan product) and Abbey Life (which had insurance products). In both cases, Lloyds TSB was able to sell those products to its dramatically larger retail customer base, thus generating more revenue than the three entities could have done individually. Similarly, having acquired Duracell for a 20% premium, Gillette was confirmed in its expectation that selling Duracell batteries through Gillettes existing channels for personal care products would increase sales, particularly internationally. Gillette sold Duracell products in 25 new markets in the first year after the acquisition and substantially increased sales in established international markets. In other instances, a target companys distribution channel can be used to escalate the sales of the acquiring companys product. That occurred at Gillette when it acquired Parker Pen. In calculating what it could pay, Gillette estimated that it would be able to get an additional $25 million in sales for its own Waterman pens by taking advantage of Parkers distribution channels. A final kind of revenue enhancement occurs when the bigger, post-acquisition company gains sufficient critical mass to attract revenue neither company would have been able to realize alone. Consider what happened when ABN and AMRO merged to form ABN AMRO, the large Dutch bank. Afterward, other large banks pulled the new company in on syndicated loans that neither ABN nor AMRO would have been asked to participate in individually. PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS Cost savings result from eliminating duplication or from purchasing in volume; revenue enhancements are generated from combining different strengths from the two organizations. Process improvements, by contrast, occur when managers transfer best practices and core competencies from one company to another. That results in both cost savings and revenue enhancements. The transfer of best practices can flow in either direction. The acquirer may buy a company because the target is especially good at something. Conversely, the acquirer may see that it can drastically improve the targets performance in a key area because of some competence the acquirer has already mastered. Take the case of National Australia Banks purchase of Florida mortgage lender HomeSide. HomeSide has an extremely efficient mortgage-servicing process that NAB plans to transfer to its banking operations in Australia, New Zealand, and. the United Kingdom. The same was true of ABN AMRO when it acquired the U.S. commercial bank Standard Federal. In that case, process improvements went hand in hand with cost savings: because its mortgage operation was so efficient, SF eventually took over the combined banks entire mortgage business. Product development processes can also be improved so that new products can be produced at lower cost and get to market faster. Such was the case when Johnson Controls acquired Prince Corporation, a maker of rear-view mirrors, door panels, visors, and other parts of automobile interiors. Prince was better than Johnson Controls at understanding customers needs-both existing and anticipated-and consequently it produced higher-margin products. Prince also had an excellent process for ramping up production of new products, which enabled it to move from design to mass production about twice as fast as Johnson Controls could, maintaining higher quality levels while speeding cycle times. Johnson learned from Prince and was soon able to apply those advantages to its own products. For an example of the process improvements an acquiring company can bring to the table, take a look at newspaper giant Gannett. Gannett has a database of financial and nonfinancial measures for each of its 85 newspapers; executives use this rich resource to determine best practices, both boosting revenue and lowering costs. Larry Miller, Gannetts CFO, explains, We have been able to dramatically improve the papers weve bought. The key for us is knowing in very minute detail how to run a business. This gives us very specific ideas for improvement. Through more efficient production and distribution processes, Gannett has been able to extend its deadlines for news and advertising copy while simultaneously delivering the newspaper more quickly. That helps advertisers and improves Gannetts revenue. Gannett is also able to determine where classified rates are too high, hurting volume, and where they are too low, leaving money on the table. Because it can expect to yield quick, substantial p rocess improvements, Gannett can pay very high premiums for its acquisitions. When you consider that many of the acquisitions are run independently-and so dont offer many consolidation opportunities-the high premiums are quite extraordinary. In fact, Miller has told us, People are often shocked at what we pay. In nearly all cases, though, performance improvements after the fact have justified the high prices. The synergies of cost savings, revenue enhancements, and process improvements may be easy to understand conceptually, but our research demonstrates how hard they are to forecast accurately. Why? Most calculations of synergy value occur under horrendous conditions: time pressure is intense, information is limited, and confidentiality must be maintained. Since conditions are so far from ideal, the managers and board members responsible for the final decision should always scrutinize the assumptions underlying the numbers. FINANCIAL ENGINEERING Acquirers often think-and hope-that if they borrow cash to finance a transaction, theyll reduce the weighted average cost of capital. That is not a good reason to do a deal. If either the acquirer or the target company could afford to take on more debt; each could have borrowed it on its own. However, some companies can find genuine synergies through financial engineering. For example, an acquisition can increase the size of a company to a level where there are clear economic benefits to pooling working- capital finance requirements and surplus cash, as well as netting currency positions. These benefits can be quite substantial. When the Credit Suisse Group merged with Winterthur, 10% of the forecasted synergies came from reducing funding costs through optimized capital management. Heres another genuine financial-engineering synergy: a transaction may allow a company to refinance the targets debt at the acquirers more favourable borrowing rate without affecting the acquirers credit rating. That is especially likely to happen in the financial services sector because those companies are big and their risk is diversified. TAX BENEFITS Tax considerations are often a barrier that must be overcome to justify a deal, a fact that makes tax-related synergies very difficult to assess. Its useful to distinguish between tax structuring, which makes the deal possible, and tax engineering (also called tax planning), which ensures that the overall tax rate of the combined company is equal to or lower than the blended tax rates of the two companies before the deal. Regulators often believe that companies using perfectly legitimate structuring and engineering techniques to avoid incurring additional costs are simply taking advantage of loopholes. Thus companies are not anxious to disclose any clever techniques they may have used. The goal of tax structuring is to avoid as many onetime tax costs as possible. Those costs may include capital and transfer duties, as well as change-of-ownership provisions that can trigger capital gains or prevent tax losses from being carried forward.

Element Abundance of the Universe

Element Abundance of the Universe The element composition of the universe is calculated by analyzing the light that is emitted and absorbed from stars, interstellar clouds, quasars,  and other objects. The Hubble telescope greatly expanded our understanding of the composition of galaxies and gas in the intergalactic space between them. About 75% of the universe is believed to consist of dark energy and dark matter, which are different from the atoms and molecules that make up the everyday world around us. Thus, the composition of most of the universe is far from understood. However, spectral measurements of stars, dust clouds, and galaxies tell us the elemental composition of the portion that consists of normal matter. Most Abundant Elements in the Milky Way Galaxy This is a table of elements in the Milky Way, which is similar in composition to other galaxies in the universe. Keep in mind, elements represent matter as we understand it. Much more of the galaxy consists of something else! Element Element Number Mass Fraction (ppm) hydrogen 1 739,000 helium 2 240,000 oxygen 8 10,400 carbon 6 4,600 neon 10 1,340 iron 26 1,090 nitrogen 7 960 silicon 14 650 magnesium 12 580 sulfur 16 440    Most Abundant Element in the Universe Right now, the most abundant element in the universe is hydrogen. In stars, hydrogen fuses into helium. Eventually, massive stars (around 8 times more massive than our Sun) run through their supply of hydrogen. Then, the core of helium contracts, supplying enough pressure to fuse two helium nuclei into carbon. Carbon fuses into oxygen, which fuses into silicon and sulfur. Silicon fuses into iron. The star runs out of fuel and goes supernova, releasing these elements back into space. So, if helium fuses into carbon you may be wondering why oxygen is the third most abundant element and not carbon. The answer is because the stars in the universe today are not first generation stars! When newer stars form, they already contain more than just hydrogen. This time around, stars fuse hydrogen according to whats known as the C-N-O cycle (where C is carbon, N is nitrogen, and O is oxygen). A carbon and helium can fuse together to form oxygen. This happens not just in massive stars, but also in stars like the Sun once it enters its red giant phase. Carbon really comes out behind when a type II supernova occurs, because these stars undergo carbon fusion into oxygen with almost perfect completion! How Element Abundance Will Change in the Universe We wont be around to see it, but when the universe is thousands or millions times older than it is now, helium may overtake hydrogen as the most abundant element (or not, if enough hydrogen remains out in space to far from other atoms to fuse). After a much longer time, its possible oxygen and carbon may become the first and second most abundant elements! Composition of the Universe So, if ordinary elemental matter doesnt account for most of the universe, what does its composition look like? Scientists debate this subject and revise percentages when new data becomes available. For now, the matter and energy composition is believed to be: 73% Dark Energy: Most of universe seems to consist of something we know next to nothing about. Dark energy probably doesnt have mass, yet matter and energy are related.22% Dark Matter: Dark matter is stuff that doesnt emit radiation in any wavelength of the spectrum. Scientists are unsure what, exactly, dark matter is. It has not be observed or created in a lab. Right now, the best bet is that its cold dark matter, a substance consisting of particles comparable to neutrinos, yet much more massive.4% Gas: Most of the gas in the universe is hydrogen and helium, found between stars (interstellar gas). Ordinary gas does not emit light, although it does scatter it. Ionized gases glow, but not brightly enough to compete with the light of stars. Astronomers use infrared, x-ray, and radio telescopes to image this matter.0.04% Stars: To human eyes, it appears the universe is full of stars. Its amazing to realize they account for such a small percentage of our reality.0.3% Neutrinos: Neutrinos are tiny, electrically neutral particles that travel at near light speed. 0.03% Heavy Elements: Only a tiny fraction of the universe consists of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. Over time this percentage will grow.

Life experience that influenced my self-esteemation Essay

Life experience that influenced my self-esteemation - Essay Example Friends are known to have the power to change one’s perception towards him or herself through the manner in which they treat a person. In this light, jealousy would be the best word to describe the state my friends put me in by being polite at numerous instances while I, on the other hand, remained strong at few moments only. As a result, this made me the underdog amongst all my friends, meaning that of them all, I was the most disadvantaged, thus, was obviously picked at for this reason. Oftentimes, friends work as a yardstick against which one evaluates him or herself in relation to success and self-worth. The manner in which they treated me was only to their own benefit, which ruined my sense of self-worth all the more. These treatments make people face difficulties in socializing with others due to lack of confidence in actions to the point of missing out some crucial stages of life. In this case, in order to overcome the whole ordeal of diminished self-esteem, success was the key and this experience taught me that friends would only treat an individual in the way he or she allows them. The experience of beating my friends at their own game in a music competition was the deal breaker, where my friends and I had formed a band to compete in a local town event, where we had to outperform other local bands. In an attempt to put the blame on me in case we lost, or so I perceived, I was put on the lead guitar in spite of my lack of proficiency in the task at hand. The b and went on stage to the joy of the crowd, and the performance began with all the electric guitars playing to tune, mine included. The crowd was overjoyed with the performance and the band at large due to the coordination of music making. Off the stage, my friends/band mates were surprised at how well I had performed making them embarrassed at their behavior towards me and the flop in their plan. My friends shared in the achievement though half-heartedly and congratulated me in disbelief of my splendid performance. Drawing from this experience, I discovered the potential I held inside to make myself a better person, and for my own development. This success acted as a massive confidence boost, from which I quit playing a secondary role to my friends and saved me from the burden of handling all the cold and mocking attitudes coming from my â€Å"friends.† In addition, it proved to them that I could do even beyond that which I had thought to the surprise of everyone, including m yself. This experience was significant in my life, in relation to making choices from the subsequent events after the music competition. This is because it molded my attitude to be that of winning and doing better by heightening my sense of self-worth. This stemmed from the positive thoughts and feelings that I felt towards myself, which rescued me from a state of self-pity. From then on, I chose my thoughts carefully to suit a positive life attitude and positive practices to match it. In addition, I have learnt to choose my friends wisely based on their treatment of their prior friends, rather than being an experimental friend to be shoved all over the place for their own pleasure. Furthermore, I have learnt the truth about friendship and its aspects in relation to staying true to yourself but not attempting to fit in order to gain recognition. The

Artists Chosen to Depict This World in a Positive and Negative Sides Essay

Artists Chosen to Depict This World in a Positive and Negative Sides - Essay Example Art serves many purposes and for these purposes is to relate to its audience.  Ã‚   Relating to the audience can either be done either by painting the world in a positive light or otherwise by invoking the darker side of man and society.   Both methods are effective in rendering art. One of the artists that depicted in this world in a positive light is Claude Monet (1840-1926), a French impressionist painter famous for his ponds and water lilies.   He portrayed the world in a positive a light because he invokes fond memories among his audience when he paints his ponds, water lilies, garden, and beach.  Ã‚   Noticeably, Monet’s work is full of depicting waters in various form be it ponds or beaches, it invokes a positive feeling among his audience because it reminds them of outing, the family gets together, childhood and happy moments. The other approach that is opposite to Monet’s positive outlook is depicting the darker side of man and society.   This approac h is to bother and unsettle the audience by invoking negativity in the artwork.   One of the classic examples is Pablo Picasso with his distorted image of man and his surroundings.   His approach was so negative that he was first criticized for his negative approach in painting.   Finally, the audience caught up with him and understood the genius of his work that beauty can also be portrayed by evoking the negative aspect of man and society and not just by painting nice things and people which could sometimes be boring.

P&I payment Essay Example for Free

PI payment Essay Technology is pervading all levels of mathematics teaching and learning in our modern world, bringing ever more sharply into focus the change from traditional pencil and paper learning to a mixture of calculator, computer and pencil and paper learning environments. Currently the loan has 25 years remaining. Therefore to find out the PI payment, you would plug in 300 for N (2512), 5.75% for I, 0 for FV, and $112,242.47 for PV, and then press PMT which gives you the $706.12. However, we want to find out how much more money they have to pay to pay off the loan in 20 years instead of 25. Therefore change N to 240 (2012) instead of 300. Then press PMT and we should get $788.04. Next, subtract the PI payment they are making now (706.12) from $788.04, which tells you they need to pay $81.92 extra towards the principal each month to have the loan paid off in 20 years instead of 25. This may be reasonable. $81.92 is pretty close to $100 so there really isn’t a lot of wiggle room after meeting the monthly expenses. However, it’s important to note that if you do this way (instead of refinancing), you are not obligated to pay this $81.92 each month if you needed it for something else. Since refinancing costs you $2,000 up-front, we’ll have to add this to the payoff of 112,242.47. This would cause the PV of the loan to be 114,242.47. The new loan would be based on the 30 years, so plug 360 in for N. FV will still be 0. In order to find the highest interest rate you can qualify for that still gives you a PI payment less than your current payment, let’s put in a payment of $706.11 (one penny less than the current payment). This gives us a maximum interest rate of 6.29%. By looking at interest rates in today’s markets, they seem to be around four percent. This is much less than the maximum amount required. At four percent, with $2,000 in closing costs, the new PI payment would be $545.41. This is a monthly savings of $160.71. You almost make up your money, or recoup the cost of refinancing, after a year of payments. This fact, along with the fact that you will be struggling to make these extra principal payments the other way, it makes more sense to refinance if you want to pay off your loan in 20 years instead of 25.

Cultural Materialism Essay example -- essays research papers

When it comes to anthropological theory the combination of several established ways of thought often result in a completely new and independent way of thinking. Cultural Materialism is one of these children theories that resulted from a coming together of social evolutionary theory, cultural ecology and Marxist materialism (Barfield). The goal of cultural materialism is to explain politics, economics, ideology and symbolic aspects of a culture with relation to the needs of that society. From a cultural materialist point of view society is indisputably shaped by the factors of production and reproduction. From this all other facets of society, such as government and religion, must be beneficial to that society’s ability to satisfy the minimum requirements to sustain themselves (Harris 1996). An example of this would be the invention and continued use of industry because it increased the ability to produce needed materials and food. One important aspect of the cultural material istic approach is that it operates completely from the etic perspective. Marvin Harris, one of the founders of cultural materialism, believed that a holistic approach is vital to correctly analyzing culture and believed that the emic approach failed at providing a wide enough scope. Harris tried to employ the scientific method and incorporated it into his theory. The result of this is that cultural materialism focuses only on events that are observable and quantifiable and replicable (Harris 1979). Cultu...

Never Let Me Go: What it Means to be Human

Ishiguro’s novel is not really a science fiction story, because science fiction writers usually try to explain how the technology they write about (in this novel, cloning) works. Ishiguro just says that cloning and harvesting is taking place, without saying anything about how it works. Never Let Me Go is really about what it means to be human. The novel is narrated by Kathy, who used to be a student at Hailsham but is now a carer. A carer is a person who helps people through their donations. Kathy does not explain right away what a carer or a donor is, because finding that out is what the whole book is about. Kathy keeps talking about different memories she has from going to school at Hailsham and from growing up, and as she keeps talking, we start to understand what carers and donors are. The beginning of the book makes you think that the children at Hailsham are normal children, who go to classes, play sports, and even tease each other. They do not pick Tommy to play soccer with them, even though he is one of the best players, because he gets angry and makes playing no fun for anyone else. When Tommy is not picked, he responds like any normal child would: â€Å"Then he began to scream and shout, a nonsensical jumble of swear words and insults† (9). Tommy is also not creative, which makes the other children at Hailsham not like him because he never has anything to put in the Exchanges, which are the special times at the school where the children trade the different creative things they have made, like poems, sculptures, and paintings, and where the best things they make are selected to be taken out of the school to go to a special exhibit. The best things are taken away to the Gallery by Madame, a woman who visits the school occasionally and is â€Å"afraid of us in the same way someone might be afraid of spiders. We hadn’t been ready for that† (35). Madame is afraid of the children because they are clones, but the children do not know what they are yet, so they do not understand what she could be afraid of. During the first part of Never Let Me Go, the students at Hailsham keep hearing the guardians talk about how the children should know more, but they are not told what that means. When the guardians see a student, they always stop talking about what the children should know. Some of the guardians give the children hints about who they are, like when Miss Lucy tells them, â€Å"It’s not good that I smoked. It wasn’t good for me so I stopped it. But what you must understand is that for you, all of you, it’s much, much worse to smoke than it ever was for me† (68). Because they will eventually be donors for people who need their organs, it would be especially bad for the children to smoke because smoking would damage their organs. Another time when they children get a hint of who they are is when Kathy is listening to her tape of â€Å"Never Let Me Go.† While she sings along with it and pretends she is dancing with her baby, she looks up and sees that Madame is watching her (71). Madame is crying, because she knows that Kathy will never be able to have a baby, but she runs away and does not say anything to Kathy. One day, Miss Lucy tells the children what they really are: â€Å"Your lives are set out for you. You’ll become adults, then before you’re old, before you’re even middle-aged, you’ll start to donate your vital organs. That’s what each of you was created to do† (80). No one is really surprised by what Miss Lucy tells them, because they have sort of known all along what they were going to be. Miss Lucy was just the first one to tell them directly. After the children leave the school and go to the cottages, they continue growing up like normal children. They have boyfriends and girlfriends, do their homework, talk, and fight with each other sometimes. The cottages are where they go when they are too old to stay at Hailsham but are not old enough to live in the real world or become donors yet. They do get to go on trips sometimes, and on one of these trips, Ruth, Kathy’s best friend, tries to find her â€Å"possible,† the person who is possibly the original person she was cloned from (139). When Tommy was still a student at Hailsham, Miss Lucy told him that it was not important that he was not creative or artistic, but later she told him that she had been wrong when she said that. Tommy ends up thinking that Miss Lucy meant that â€Å"the thing about being from Hailsham was that you had this special chance. And if you didn’t get into Madame’s gallery, then you were as good as throwing that chance away† (176). At this point in the story, the children think that if they are artistic, it will give them a chance to delay becoming donors. But since Tommy never got anything into the Gallery, he is afraid that he might have missed his chance. That is not why it was important for the students at Hailsham to be artistic, though. The best things the children made, the ones that were taken to the Gallery, were taken there because Madame wanted to show people on the outside that clones could make paintings and write poems, because she thought that if everyone saw what they could do, they would think the cloned kids were real people. This is most important point in the book. Ishiguro wrote Never Let Me Go to ask the question of what makes a human being a real person, and one of the things the book talks about is that if clones can be creative and make beautiful art, then maybe they are real people, because only real people can make beautiful things. When Tommy starts thinking about trying to delay when he becomes a donor, he starts making little drawings that he wants to show to Madame because he hopes that maybe it is not too late for him to show what he can do. At the end of Never Let Me Go, Tommy, Kathy, and Ruth try to find Madame because they think she can get the time when they have to start donating their organs pushed back. Ruth has already started donating, so she wants Tommy and Kathy to become a couple and ask for themselves. They find Madame’s house and go in, and they tell her that they are really in love. They also ask her about the gallery, and they tell her that they think the things they put into it could show her what they were really like. Madame tells them, â€Å"Your art will reveal your inner selves! That’s it, isn’t it? Because your art will display your souls† (254)! Madame stops talking then, and Miss Emily starts talking to Tommy and Kathy. Miss Emily was a guardian at Hailsham. She tells them that the rumor about getting a deferral is not true, and that for most people, the hope of getting a deferral is just â€Å"something for them to dream about, a harmless little fantasy† (258) because they never actually try to find out if the dream is true. Another point Ishiguro makes about what is means to be human comes from this part of the book. He seems to be saying that wanting to find out what your purpose in life is, to dream about it and then to try and make your dreams come true, is part of what it means to really be human. When Miss Emily tells them that the purpose of the gallery was to try and prove that they really did have souls, Kathy asks, â€Å"Why did we have to prove a thing like that, Miss Emily? Did someone think we didn’t have souls† (260)? Kathy assumes that everyone thinks that they have souls even though they are clones, but Miss Emily tells her that now, no one thinks clones have souls, because â€Å"all around the country, at this very moment, there are students being reared in deplorable conditions, conditions you Hailsham students could hardly imagine. And now we’re no more, things will only get worse† (261). Close to the end of the novel, after they leave Madame and Miss Emily, Tommy makes Kathy pull the car over. He gets out and Kathy goes after him, and she sees â€Å"Tommy’s figure, raging, shouting, flinging his fists and kicking out† (274). He is shouting because he is so upset about what he has learned from Miss Emily, that no one thinks clones have souls or are real people. In a way, he does the same things at the end of the book that he does at the beginning, except that at the beginning, he was shouting and screaming because no one picked him for soccer, but now he is screaming because so many people think he is not a real person. When Tommy cries at the end of the book, and when Kathy tries to comfort him, you have to feel sad for everything they have gone through, and for what they have learned. They have acted like real people their entire lives, they have gone to school and drawn pictures and fallen in love, but now society is telling them that they are just clones and that their only purpose is to give up their organs. Ishiguro wants us to feel sad for Kathy and Tommy, and for all the clones, because he wants us to think that they are real people. If the clones really are there just so other people can have organs, then we should not feel bad for them. It’s kind of like how most people do not feel bad for farm animals like cows and pigs when they are killed, because they think that the purpose of a cow or a pig’s life is to be killed so humans can eat them. But by showing us how real the things the students from Hailsham are, and how they things they go through are the same as what any normal person goes through, Ishiguro is saying that it is what you do and who you are, not why or how you were made, that makes you really human.   

Cleopatra Leader

Cleopatra VII was a remarkably intelligent woman with great charisma and political astuteness. The ancient historian, Plutarch, stated that â€Å"to know her was to be touched with an irresistible charm. Her delightful manner of speaking was such as to win the heart. † (Bradford 14). She utilized these assets to win over the favor of two of the most powerful man of Ancient Rome, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. Cleopatra is portrayed as being manipulative, conniving; and accused of utilizing her relationships for the advancement for power and the expansion of her empire.Although this is true, there were stark differences in the two relationships Cleopatra had with each man. She reached out to Caesar in her time of no power and continued to be submissive to him throughout their relationship. Even though there was a speculated love connection between the two, Caesar never lost sight of his priority as a politician and did not concede to every one of his mistresses’ requests .While a reversal of roles occurred with Marc Antony, she had the upper hand and he eventually became fiscally and emotionally dependent on her. In addition, he was easily manipulated, thus Cleopatra frequently got her way. Overall, the territorial gain and the power she had over him proved that Cleopatra’s relationship with Marc Antony was more politically beneficial than with Julius Caesar. Firstly, Cleopatra’s submissiveness and political dependency on Julius Caesar proved to be less beneficial in contrast to her relationship Marc Antony.In 48BC, she was a young 22 year old trying to regain her Ptolemaic throne from her brother, she knew he was the most powerful in the world and understood that that the Roman Consul was the only one who could aid her. Bradford noted that Cleopatra realized the â€Å"only one weapon that her brother, back by his powerful advisers, did not have [was]-her sex. † (70) The speculation that she was sneakily presented to him rolled up in a carpet displayed her submissiveness to his authority and beckoning for his help in regaining her throne.Caesar managed to initially appease Cleopatra’s desire for power by reading her father’s will and forcing her brother, Ptolemy XIII, and herself to rule together. Later he gained managed to gain more power for her by commanding her to â€Å"marry† her younger brother, Ptolemy XIV, for she would hold all of the power due to his age. This pretense was set up in order to make her complacent but still remained a superior force with his diplomatic choice. By having both the siblings rule he abided to Egyptian law and did not panic the people and cause them to rebel.

Psycho Persuasive Essay Essay Example

Psycho Persuasive Essay Essay Example Psycho Persuasive Essay Essay Psycho Persuasive Essay Essay Essay Topic: Everything Is Illuminated Persuasive Psychological you expect it to be really hard to change the audiences perception of a character within moments of the characters Introduction? Alfred Hitchcock made It seem almost easy In the movie, Psycho. The sinister nature of Norman Bates was revealed and enhanced through the use of symbolism to set the mood, foreshadowing in regards to Normals mindset and lighting to establish Normals darker aspects. In scenes where Norman Bates was present, symbolism was an important aspect used to establish the eerie mood that he set. From the beginning, Norman Bates was perceived as a shy and nervous, but still friendly sort of hereafter. He seemed to have a crush on Maroon but she already had a man. This lead to audience sympathy which soon changes to an uncomfortable feeling when his hobby of taxidermy is revealed. The stuffed birds in the movie often symbolize and reflect certain characters personality. In the case of Norman, the birds used to symbolize are mainly shown in the parlous scene where he is eating dinner with Marion. There is a large owl with its wings spread out on one side and an equally large crow on the other side of the room. There are also smaller birds Like sparrows n the table next to where Maroon Is sitting. Owls and crows are mainly predator birds and as they are shown looming dauntingly over the sparrows, this could symbolize Normals predator status over Marion. This is the first thing that symbolizes his sinister nature as it shows him having a superior power over her. The use of birds could also symbolize his conflict with his mother when he states, But shes harmless. Shes as harmless as one of these stuffed birds. This statement could be restated as he thinks of her as harmless because she is dead and unresponsive Like his stuffed birds. This sets a creepy mood In the scene and enhances his sinister nature as he doesnt show much regard to the fact that hes comparing his mother to a dead bird. These examples prove that symbolism is very important when establishing the mood that Norman is setting in a particular scene. Much of the symbolism used also leads to revelations made in the future so these examples also lead to foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is another key aspect used in enhancing the sinister and creepy personality of Norman Bates as It gives you Insight Into his mindset and starts leading you to taking Inferences on his sanity. For example, during the dinner in the parlous scene, Marion asks Norman if hes ever considered sending his mother away to an institution as a way of getting away from her controlling nature. Though she didnt mean it offensively, he is immediately angered and says, A boys best friend is his mother. and We all ago little mad sometimes. This could mean that his mother is an Incredibly vital part of his life as he Is defending her. It Is an example of foreshadowing as it leads to revelations later on where she Is such a huge part of his life because she basically Is him or his other reason. Another example of foreshadowing would be when he says, Shes as harmless as one of those stuffed birds. As those birds are dead, it would be foreshadowing because it is basically implying that his mother is also dead. Foreshadowing is also shown in the scene where Norman dumps Marinas car (which also el n a newer AAA Day In It) as en Is seen smelling Wendell ten car slinks Any normal person would be fretting anxiously and freaking out, probably not smirking as they commit a crime. This example would be foreshadowing as it shows him possibly paving some sort of psychotic disorder because he doesnt act as a sane person would and it lead to revelations of how in the end, he did actually have a mental issue. Therefore, foreshadowing is a very important aspect used in the film to support, enhance and give greater understanding to Norman Bates mindset and way of thinking. Equally as important as foreshadowing in the movie is also the lighting used to establish a darker characteristic in Norman. Lighting is an important tool used in the movie that supports details about Norman being a dark and sinister hereafter. Though it is a black and white movie, Alfred Hitchcock did a marvelous Job showing the differences between a good character and bad character with the use of lighting. The lighting would get darker or brighter in a different scene depending on whether it is Norman that is being shown or an opposing character. For example, when Marion and Norman were talking in the parlous, Marion always seemed to be brighter than everything else while there was a constant shadow surrounding Norman. This was particularly strange as they were in the same room and the cackling was also the same for the two of them. This supports the idea that Norman is the antagonist as he is shown in the shadows which is most often accompanied with dark characters in movies. Another example of how lighting enhances his evil persona would be during the shower scene. Everything in the bathroom is all white and illuminated but as the psycho approaches, there is a darkness that fills the entire room as Norman (or Mother) approaches to kill Marion. This was very effective to showcase his character as it made him seem really dark and unapproachable. A IANAL example would be at the very end of the movie, when Normals psychological disorder is revealed and Mother has taken over. This scene uses lighting to enhance his sinister character effectively as the entire room is well lit yet he still has hooded eyelids and shadows surrounding his eye-nose-mouth region to imply his dark nature. This effect was created by having light shine directly over his head which lead to the shadows that were on his face and another revelation about his dark nature. This evidence from the movie proves that lighting was a very relevant and effective technique to use when trying to portray Norman Bates evil character. With the use of techniques like symbolism, foreshadowing and lighting one can really influence how the audience perceive a character in a movie. In conclusion, we can see that these three aspects were used effectively in Psycho to correctly portray the sinister characteristics of Norman Bates as they all showcased how he changed from an innocent protagonist into the evil, psycho antagonist that we know him as. Therefore, no symbolism, no foreshadowing, no lighting = no psycho?

400 Million Years of Shark Evolution

400 Million Years of Shark Evolution If you went back in time and looked at the first, unremarkable prehistoric sharks of the Ordovician periodabout 420 million years agoyou might never guess that their descendants would become such dominant creatures, holding their own against vicious marine reptiles like pliosaurs and mosasaurs and going on to become the apex predators of the worlds oceans. Today, few creatures in the world inspire as much fear as the Great White Shark, the closest nature has come to a pure killing machineif you exclude Megalodon, which was 10 times bigger. Before discussing shark evolution, though, its important to define what we mean by shark. Technically, sharks are a suborder of fish whose skeletons are made out of cartilage rather than bone; sharks are also distinguished by their streamlined, hydrodynamic shapes, sharp teeth, and sandpaper-like skin. Frustratingly for paleontologists, skeletons made of cartilage dont persist in the fossil record nearly as well as skeletons made of bonewhich is why so many prehistoric sharks are known primarily (if not exclusively) by their fossilized teeth. The First Sharks We dont have much in the way of direct evidence, except for a handful of fossilized scales, but the first sharks are believed to have evolved during the Ordovician period, about 420 million years ago (to put this into perspective, the first tetrapods didnt crawl up out of the sea until 400 million years ago). The most important genus that has left significant fossil evidence is the difficult-to-pronounce Cladoselache, numerous specimens of which have been found in the American midwest. As you might expect in such an early shark, Cladoselache was fairly small, and it had some odd, non-shark-like characteristicssuch as a paucity of scales (except for small areas around its mouth and eyes) and a complete lack of claspers, the sexual organ by which male sharks attach themselves (and transfer sperm to) the females. After Cladoselache, the most important prehistoric sharks of ancient times were Stethacanthus, Orthacanthus, and Xenacanthus. Stethacanthus measured only six feet from snout to tail but already boasted the full array  of shark features: scales, sharp teeth, a distinctive fin structure, and a sleek, hydrodynamic build. What set this genus apart were the bizarre, ironing-board-like structures atop the backs of males, which were probably somehow used during mating. The equally ancient Stethacanthus and Orthacanthus were both fresh-water sharks, distinguished by their small size, eel-like bodies, and odd spikes protruding from the tops of their heads (which may have delivered jabs of poison to bothersome predators). The Sharks of the Mesozoic Era Considering how common they were during the preceding geologic periods, sharks kept a relatively low profile during most of the Mesozoic Era,  because of intense competition from marine  reptiles like ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. By far the most successful genus was Hybodus, which was built for survival: this prehistoric shark had two types of teeth, sharp ones for eating fish and flat ones for grinding mollusks, as well as a sharp blade jutting out of its dorsal fin to keep other predators at bay. The cartilaginous skeleton of Hybodus was unusually tough and calcified, explaining this sharks persistence both in the fossil record and in the worlds oceans, which it prowled from the Triassic to the early Cretaceous periods. Prehistoric sharks really came into their own during the middle Cretaceous period, about 100 million years ago. Both Cretoxyrhina (about 25 feet long) and Squalicorax (about 15 feet long) would be recognizable as true sharks by a modern observer; in fact, theres direct tooth-mark evidence that Squalicorax preyed on dinosaurs that blundered into its habitat. Perhaps the most surprising shark from the Cretaceous period is the recently discovered Ptychodus, a 30-foot-long monster whose numerous, flat teeth were adapted to grinding up tiny mollusks, rather than large fish or aquatic reptiles. After the Mesozoic After the dinosaurs (and their aquatic cousins) went extinct 65 million years ago, prehistoric sharks were free to complete their slow evolution into the remorseless killing machines we know today. Frustratingly, the fossil evidence for the sharks of the Miocene epoch (for example) consists almost exclusively of teeththousands and thousands of teeth, so many that you can buy yourself one on the open market for a fairly modest price. The Great White-sized Otodus, for example, is known almost exclusively by its teeth, from which paleontologists have reconstructed this fearsome, 30-foot-long shark. By far the most famous prehistoric shark of the Cenozoic Era  was Megalodon, adult specimens of which measured 70 feet from head to tail and weighed as much as 50 tons. Megalodon was a true apex predator of the worlds oceans, feasting on everything from whales, dolphins, and seals to giant fish and (presumably) equally giant squids; for a few million years, it may even have preyed on the equally ginormous whale Leviathan. No one knows why this monster went extinct about two million years ago; the most likely candidates include climate change and the resulting disappearance of its usual prey.

Formal Criticism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Formal Criticism - Essay Example This paper will use formal analysis of a selection of scenes from the film 2046 by Wong Kar-wai to highlight Sontag's objection to such analysis. The film explores the experiences surrounding the many loves of the main character, Chow Mo Wan, but doesn't give a precise meaning for the events or even the relationships themselves. The film opens with the enigmatic and multi-layered image of a large, donut-shaped object. It is dark and smooth and shiny, yet also gives the impression of the spiral form of a shell. This represents the "hole in the tree" into which, according to a story repeated by Chow several times in the film, people whisper their deepest secrets, after which they fill the hole with mud to prevent the secret from ever being discovered. As Chow talks about a woman he once loved, we see a woman from behind, whispering her secret into the hole. We don't see her face. The film is filled with images that try to enlarge and deepen the impression that human memory and meaning are limited. The settings are few; a few hotel rooms, a rooftop, streets in which all that is shown is the street light or the wall of a building, a club, a restaurant, and the futuristic train that exists within the science fiction story Chow is writing. Also simplified are the appearances of the actors, almost always shown only from the chest up. They are frequently shown alone, even while conversing with another character. The colors red and black dominate the dcor and the clothing, and dark lighting is used in the majority of the scenes. On rare occasions light colors and daytime scenes are used, as when one of the hotel owner's two young and still somewhat innocent daughters is shown dressed in light green, or when a character is seen on the hotel rooftop during the day. Similarly, worldly women, or women who become worldly during the film, almost inevitably smoke and wear red, black, or gold. Many conclusions could be drawn from such repetitive symbolic content, but from Sontag's point of view, it would be a mistake to do so. Would smoking be interpreted as worldliness at all times and in all cultures, just as the colors a woman wears would always reveal her level of morality If we allow ourselves to see the red dress and the cigarette as symbolic of something specific and universal, do we then, for instance, start to ignore the facial expressions Even here the film seems to adhere to a pattern; the majority of expression shown by the actors is whether and when they do and don't look at one another. This could be interpreted as a device of emotional distancing between people who try to avoid intimacy while at the same time desperately yearning for it. Could it be that the visual elements of the film are simplified in order to force our attention to less obvious parts of the story, or to more subtle characterizations of the actors But it could also be said that the film us es such devices in order to render a flatness and hopelessness in the storyline that lets the viewer know well in advance that there will be no happy endings here. The film doesn't defend itself against this kind of analysis. In one particularly engaging sequence, Chow is writing a futuristic story in which he imagines himself as a Japanese man riding a train into the year 2046, "the place where people go to recover memories". It is

Literature - I stand here ironing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Literature - I stand here ironing - Essay Example As mother goes back to fetch her past life, we as readers get a glimpse of Emily’s childhood. There are few intrusions that bring her back to the present like "I put the iron down" (p. 12); "Ronnie is calling. He is wet and I change him" (p. 17); "She is coming.† (p. 19). But this journey of recollection ends on a positive note, â€Å"At the end she comes to understand that shed done the best she could, given the circumstances—but this simple insight, and her journey toward it, are quietly devastating.† (Disher, 2001: 91) Emily is a nineteen year old in the present. She is confident woman and has found the art of self-expression through mime. But occasionally she can behave erratically and her sense of self-worth gets dented. That is when she wants to be assured of her beauty and her attractiveness. Emily would insist on being told, "over and over how beautiful she had been--and would be, I would tell her--and was now, to the seeing eye. But the seeing eyes were few or non-existent. Including mine" (p. 10). That was when her alienation, her isolation and her mother’s helplessness and guilt became obvious and grew more intense: "the unsureness, the having to be conscious of words before you speak, the constant caring--what are they thinking of me? . . ." (p. 17). But Emily has found self-worth, expression and confidence as a skilled performer of pantomime. As happy as her mother is of her achievement, it cannot acquit her completely. She is still haunted by her own past, by her pained alienation from a daughter for few months, and by Emily’s failure to adjust in the new family. Emily’s counselor insists she ‘needs help’ but her mother acknowledges Emily’s skill as a mime artist and knows that she has found an inner strength through this art. The counselor is possibly worried about Emily’s alienation and isolation. Her mother goes