Analytical essay

According to the article, â€Å"Leaders: America and Guns,† it Is evident that gun control has proven Ineffective when It comes to dissolving the â€Å"love affair† that exists between Americans and their guns (â€Å"Leaders: America and Guns†). This article highlights the Issues that permeate throughout America regarding pro gun groups. Not only Is this article persuasive, it Infuses a degree of rhetorical strategies including logical, as well as emotional appeals to fortify the issue at hand.Various examples, statistics, and sound evidence is brought to the table, adequately arguing ND developing the position that, â€Å"Americans want to keep their guns, no matter how high the price,† (â€Å"Leaders: America and Guns†). Furthermore, the other article, â€Å"Support for Gun Control Legislation,† falls short in strengthening its argument and is not as convincing, in comparison to â€Å"Leaders: America and Guns. † These articles use a n array of rhetorical strategies to convey their arguments, however some strategies prove more successful or useful than others. Exemplification or defining appears in both articles.These rhetorical strategies seem necessary and perhaps essential monuments In each article. They serve to properly support and strengthen the statements of each author. Another rhetorical strategy that Is prominent throughout both articles Is the comparing and contrasting method. TLS strategy allows the reader to introduce the pros and cons concerning their argument while persuading the reader to take a stance or a step in the right direction. Once the comparing and contrasting have been presented and thoroughly examined, the author can then persuade the reader based on said favorable findings.Apart from these rhetorical strategies, classifying and dividing appear in both articles too. This type of strategy divides difficult or overwhelming topics in smaller comprehensible units. Readjusting a broad topi c into smaller subsections lets the writer gain control of the argument and allows the reader to comfortably analyze the material (â€Å"Rhetorical Strategies). This Is particularly true on a subject like gun control In America, a topic In desperate need of dissecting since there is so much history and discourse to address.The first article, â€Å"Leaders: America and Guns,† uses these rhetorical strategies most effectively, as oppose to the article, â€Å"Support for Gun Control Legislation. † The first article appeals to the reader on an emotional level, as well as on a logical level. The author starts off with; â€Å"The love affair goes on, whatever the price. The funerals are over,† (â€Å"Leaders: America and Guns†). This is a powerful and convincing statement because it gets the reader emotionally involved. It conjures up thoughts of death, guns, and their relation to one another. Followed by this emotionally charged tenement, is a series of examp les.This structure holds true to the rhetorical strategy of exemplification. Mentioned are descriptions of young boys as murders and shocking Incidents such as mass shootings and school massacres. These examples are so effective because they emphasize the Idea that Americans are still obsessed with guns regardless of all the harm they can cause. Moreover, the author also gets the reader convinced on a logical level by presenting rather startling but true evidence, like the anti-control slogan, â€Å"guns don't kill people, people kill cause at face value, it is true.With all these historical events and facts, this article becomes very credible and the author builds a very strong argument. The author also uses the rhetorical strategy of compare and contrast to further reinforce the idea that Americans are reluctant to give up their guns. The article mentions the stark contrasts in regards to deaths by handguns in America versus the world. Although the difference in numbers across th e board is shocking, the author follows these statements by, â€Å"most Americans remain unimpressed by such imprisons,† (â€Å"Leaders: America and Guns†). This article is incredibly persuasive and convincing.Such statements leave the reader in disbelief that Americans still â€Å"want to keep their guns, no matter how high the price,† (â€Å"Leaders: America and Guns†). From this article, even though the author introduces both sides of the story, one could presume that gun control may not gain popularity in America. After reading the first article, the second article becomes less convincing. â€Å"Support for Gun Control Legislation,† lacks emotion and depth. The article sets itself up for disaster, cause although it tries to stress how gun legislation is on the brink of undergoing tighter regulations, it fails miserably.The author places too much emphasis on the National Rifle Association (NEAR). The rhetorical strategy of exemplification is pre sent, but glorifies the NEAR, mentioning how â€Å"powerful† and how † successful† the anti-gun control lobby has been, â€Å"in helping to block any meaningful gun control legislation in Congress,†(â€Å"Support for Gun Control Legislation†). This example, followed by facts, is perhaps not the best one for this discussion because it reinforces the strength of the association in America and weakens the argument for better or more effective regulations.However, the article does include examples of small victories nationwide concerning tougher gun restrictions, but these statements would have been more effective if they were mentioned earlier. These successes lose their credibility as they are undermined when compared and contrasted to the NEAR. The author is very disorganized; his attempts at using classifying and dividing to strengthen his argument do not help him to properly compose his thoughts. The author Jumps from he NEAR, to a series of events, to politicians and lastly lawsuits.This overwhelms the reader because the flow is too Jumbled, for this reason this article becomes ineffective and too complicated to properly make sense of. Lastly, the article that gave me the best answer was â€Å"Leaders: America and Guns. † This article was emotionally charged and logically composed. The author included numerous rhetorical strategies to reinforce his rather shocking stance that Americans love their guns and that those guns are here to stay. The authors use of visual descriptions, incidents, and statistics were all appropriate examples used to establish and display the ideas effectively.The composition of the article flows really well, a lot of information is presented but also condensed, mentioning only what is vital to the argument. The author is direct and to the point and the author does not deviate from the main argument, constantly coming back and endorsing his/her opinion. The author mentions, â€Å"many Americans have already come to the remarkable conclusion that the best route to a safer America is a better-armed America,† (â€Å"Leaders: America and Guns†). The author is constantly on point with his/her information.

Motivation vs Employee Performance

This chapter examined relevant literature from works that have already been done on the topic. The literature review was structured in the following form: Introduction, motivation, the early theorists of motivation, and contemporary theorists of motivation. Area of Study 1:MotivationMotivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. Motivation is what causes us to act, whether it is getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge. It involves the biological, emotional, social and cognitive forces that activate behavior. In everyday usage, the term motivation is frequently used to describe why a person does something. For example, you might say that a student is so motivated to get into a clinical psychology program that she spends every night studying.Psychologists have proposed a number of different theories of motivation, including drive theory, instinct theory and humanistic theory. Motivation is the for ce that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. It is what causes us to take action, whether to grab a snack to reduce hunger or enroll in college to earn a degree. The forces that lie beneath motivation can be biological, social, emotional or cognitive in nature. Researchers have developed a number of different theories to explain motivation. Each individual theory tends to be rather limited in scope. However, by looking at the key ideas behind each theory, you can gain a better understanding of motivation as a whole.1.1. BonusBonus is the extra amount in money, bonds, or goods over what is normally due. The term is applied especially to payments to employees either for production in excess of the normal (wage incentive) or as a share of surplus profits. The wage incentive was designed during the late 19th cent. not only to increase production but to reward the more skillful and more energetic workers. The hourly or weekly wage was to be figured as payment for a st andard rate of work, and the workers who exceeded that standard were to receive a bonus.However, the system fell into disfavor with labor unions because rate cutting was often resorted to when bonuses became too high. Industrial engineers of the 1930s realized that definite standards of  accomplishment and quality must be set to make wage incentives workable. Many firms have used an annual bonus plan for distributing abnormal profits to employees. The term is also applied to payments to former servicemen in addition to regular pensions and insurance.1.2. IncrementSalary increments are often expressed as a percentage of an employee's overall base pay. An increment usually represents a portion of what the employee earns per year. Employers use increments to increase or decrease base salaries or to award bonuses. Employees use them as a benchmark to either negotiate a pay increase or a starting salary with a new employer. When an employer offers a starting salary that is 5 percent be low average, a potential employee might counter with a 5 percent increase. Public employees typically receive annual raises based on salary increments.1.3. Better FacilitiesDesigning a workplace that provides opportunities for the broadest potential workforce makes good business sense. This allows employers to select the most qualified people from the largest possible applicant pool. It may also improve work efficiency, employee productivity, workplace safety and the quality of work. The workforce will likely represent a wide range of demographics and abilities. Most workers spend much of their time at the workplace.Therefore, many design considerations for workplace facilities may be different than other types of built environments that are used by fewer people over shorter time periods. Job performance is best when the environment neither under-stimulates nor over-stimulates the employee. Lighting, the thermal environment and noise are the key environmental variables to consider. The most desirable levels of each will not only vary across work environments and people, but also will vary for different job requirements. It is therefore important for the designer to have a good understanding of the work requirements to design effective environments.Area of Study 2: Employee performance Employee performance is basically related performance appraisal in  terms of and individual goals. Employee Performance means the level at which your employees are performing. Employee performance is more than just completing the â€Å"dreaded† annual review in order to get the annual bonus or pay increase. It is an ongoing activity with the ultimate goal of improving both individual and corporate performance.Employees set their objectives for the upcoming review period; monitor their progress against those objectives, and develop the right set of skills and objectives for the future. Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919)2.1. The appraisal process is made up of three stages: Goal setting – set goals and objectives for the upcoming review period Evaluation – assess the employee's performance against the established goals and objectives Improve performance and skill development – career planning, training, personal development, coaching, mentoring and more.2.2. Why should an organization consider implementing an Employee Performance Management (EPM) solution? Automation – save time and money by automating this potentially labour intensive activity. Not only will organizations become more efficient, they will be able to improve on their HR reporting and analytics. Goal Alignment – the goals and objectives of the organization can be cascaded down to every level of the organization. Everyone in the organiza tion will be working towards a common objective. Remote Workers- technology and the nature of the work force has made alternative working arrangements a reality. Employees no longer have to physically be in the office in order to do their job.2.3. With an EMP solution, managers and employees can collaborate on their performance objectives.Flexibility – EMP solutions can be configured to meet the unique needs of every organization. Competency Management – every organization has specific competencies that are important for the company, departments and roles that  can easily be managed using EMP software. Talent Management – EPM is an important part of the Talent Management Process. It helps to identify known competencies for success, develop succession plans, pinpoint talent gaps, and establish compensation scales. The employee performance management solution allows organizations to manage their talent in order to maximize their human resources in order to gain a competitive advantage.Motivation and Employee PerformanceAccording to Dubin (2002), â€Å"Motivation is the complex of forces starting and keeping a person at work in an organization. Motivation is something that puts the person to action, and continues him in the course of action already initiated†. Motivation refers to the way a person is enthused at work to intensify his desire and willingness to use his energy for the achievement of organization’s objectives. It is something that moves a person into action and continues him in the course of action enthusiastically.Motivation is a complex phenomenon, which is influenced by individual, cultural, ethnic and historical factors. Motivation can be defined as â€Å"a series of energizing forces that originate both within and beyond an individual’s self†. These forces determine the person’s behavior and therefore, influence his/her productivity (Jackson, 1995). According to De Cenzo et al,(1996), peo ple who are motivated use a greater effort to perform a job than those who are not motivated. In other words this means that all thinkable factors of physical or psychological aspects that we interact with, leads to a reaction within our self or of the entire organization.According to Latham and Ernest (2006) motivation was in the beginning of the 1900s thought only to be monetary. However, it was discovered during the 20th century that to motivate employees, there are more factors than just money. In their view, employees‟ satisfaction with their job is an important indicator for a good job performance and happy employees are productive. To them, motivation is a psychological factor and is affected by the workers‟ mental attitude and health. Therefore, in order to be motivated, a person needs to have certain basic needs fulfilled. If these needs are lacking, a person’s self-esteem and self-actualization cannot develop.This could  result in lack of interest to p rogress and develop, both professionally and personally. There are several theories of human needs, which are the foundation of motivation. CIPD‟s Reward Survey (2005a) reveals that human resource (HR) and line managers fail to develop reward strategies for their employees. Guest and Conway, (2005) established their suggestions on the basis of CIPD‟s survey on employee welfare and emotional convention that managers fail to motivate and improve the performance of people whom they manage.The familiar notion that people leave managers, not organizations, suggests that the organizations concerned, were subjected to failure for holding managers responsible to understand their role in motivating people and to manage performance as effectively as they can. The biggest challenge for HR managers is to push line managers to manage and develop people.According to Butkus and Green (1999), motivation is derived from the word â€Å"motivate†, means to move, push or persuade to act for satisfying a need. Baron (1983) defined motivation in his own right. He says that â€Å"motivation is a set of processes concerned with a kind of force that energizes behavior and directs it towards achieving some specific goals. Many writers have expressed motivation as goal directed behavior. This objective nature of motivation is also suggested by Kreitner and Kinicki (2001) put forward that motivation represents â€Å"those psychological processes that cause the stimulation, persistence of voluntary actions that are goal directed†.A motivated person have the awareness of specific goals must be achieved in specific ways; therefore he/she directs its effort to achieve such goals (Nel et al., 2001). It means that motivated person is best fit for the goals that he/she wants to achieve, as he/she is fully aware of its assumptions. Therefore if the roles of managers are assumed to successfully guide employees towards the organizational agenda of achieving its objective s, then it is very important for them to educate and understand those psychological processes and undertakings that root cause the stimulation, direction of destination, determination and persistence of voluntary actions (Roberts, 2005). Mo (1992) differentiates between the terms „movement‟ and motivation‟.Movement carries out the task for compensation, remuneration in humans mind to act, while the term motivation is stapled with total involvement of a person in its tasks to carry out with excitements and  happiness. In simple words, movement compels a person to carry out tasks, while motivation is self-realized jubilant and pleasing act of carrying out specific tasks. The researcher emphasizes on motivation which is basis for the success because the person involved in it is very happy and voluntarily excited not for compensation. Motivation is reason for individuals‟ accomplishments to carry out the project (La Motta 1995).There are many aspects of motivat ion in an organization; a person motivated by those aspects may not necessarily motivate another person, because there are many different factors that affect motivation for different level employees. On reaching the understanding and believing that people (employees) are naturally motivated, an organization simply provide the environment for their motivation to be enhanced and improved (Baron, 1983). It means that an organization is a better environment and working atmosphere provider, it only needs to believe that the people have the motivational behaviour. Lawler (2003) noted that different theories questioning why people prefer certain careers, why they seek particular rewards and why they feel satisfied or dissatisfied with their work and rewards.These are some of the resonating questions that create so many assumptions and hypotheses to be researched. It is widely recognized in management circles, that motivation plays a role in keeping an employee performing his or her best in any task assigned. Assessing La Motta and Baron, views on the concept of motivation makes one wonder why incentives provided to workers did not yield intended purpose. This is as a result of dynamics of individual needs and humans can never be satisfy in that, when one need is catered for responded, the worker shifts to another need and this then becomes a challenge hence the call for further research on the issue of motivation.An individual's motivation is influenced by biological, intellectual, social and emotional factors. As such, motivation is a complex, not easily defined, intrinsic driving force that can also be influenced by external factors. Every employee has activities, events, people, and goals in his or her life that he or she finds motivating. So, motivation about some aspect of life exists in each person's consciousness and actions. The trick for employers is to figure out how to inspire employee motivation at work. To create a work environment in which an employee i s motivated about  work, involves both intrinsically satisfying and extrinsically encouraging factors.Employee motivation is the combination of fulfilling the employee's needs and expectations from work and the workplace factors that enable employee motivation – or not. These variables make motivating employees challenging. Employers understand that they need to provide a work environment that creates motivation in people. But, many employers fail to understand the significance of motivation in accomplishing their mission and vision. Even when they understand the importance of motivation, they lack the skill and knowledge to provide a work environment that fosters employee motivation. Here are thoughts about encouraging and inspiring employee motivation at work.3.1. Factors to Encourage MotivationThese are some of the factors that are present in a work environment that many employees find motivating. Management and leadership actions that empower employees,  Transparent a nd regular communication about factors important to employees, Treating employees with respect,  Providing regular employee recognition,  Feedback and coaching from managers and leaders,  Above industry-average benefits and compensation,  Providing employee perks and company activities, and  Positively managing employees within a success framework of goals, measurements, and clear expectations.Every person has different reasons for working. The reasons for working are as individual as the person. But, we all work because we obtain something that we need from work. The something obtained from work impacts morale, employee motivation, and the quality of life. To create positive employee motivation, treat employees as if they matter – because employees matter. These ideas will help you fulfill what people want from work and create employee motivation.3.2. What People Want From Work Some people work for personal fulfillment; others work for love of what they do. Others work to accomplish goals and to feel as if they are contributing  to something larger than themselves. The bottom line is that we all work for money and for reasons too individual to assign similarities to all workers. Learn more.3.3. How to Demonstrate Respect at Work Ask anyone in your workplace what treatment they most want at work. They will likely top their list with the desire to be treated with dignity and respect. You can demonstrate respect with simple, yet powerful actions. These ideas will help you avoid needless, insensitive, unmeant disrespect, too. Read more about respect.3.4. Provide Feedback That Has an Impact Make your feedback have the impact it deserves by the manner and approach you use to deliver feedback. Your feedback can make a difference to people if you can avoid a defensive response.3.5. Top Ten Ways to Show Appreciation You can tell your colleagues, coworkers and staff how much you value them and their contribution any day of the year. Trust me. No occa sion is necessary. In fact, small surprises and tokens of your appreciation spread throughout the year help the people in your work life feel valued all year long.3.6. Trust Rules: The Most Important Secret Without it, you have nothing. Trust forms the foundation for effective communication, employee retention, and employee motivation and contribution of discretionary energy, the extra effort that people voluntarily invest in work. When trust is present, everything else is easier. Learn more.3.7. Provide Motivational Employee Recognition You can avoid the employee recognition traps that: single out one or a few employees who are mysteriously selected for the recognition; sap the morale of the many who failed to win, place, or even show; confuse people who meet the criteria yet were not selected; or sought votes or other personalized, subjective criteria to determine winners. Learn more.3.7.1. Employee Recognition Rocks Employee recognition is limited in most organizations. Employees complain about the lack of recognition regularly. Managers ask, â€Å"Why should I recognize or thank him? He’s just doing his job.† And, life at work is busy, busy, busy. These factors combine to create work places that fail to provide recognition for employees. Managers who prioritize employee recognition understand the power of recognition.3.7.2. Top Ten Ways to Retain Your Great Employees Key employee retention is critical to the long term health and success of your business. Managers readily agree that their role is key in retaining your best employees to ensure business success. If managers can cite this fact so well, why do many behave in ways that so frequently encourage great employees to quit their job? Here are ten more tips for employee retention.3.7.3. Team Building and Delegation: How and When to Empower People Employee involvement is creating an environment in which people have an impact on decisions and actions that affect their jobs. Team building occ urs when the manager knows when to tell, sell, consult, join, or delegate to staff. For employee involvement and empowerment, both team building and delegation rule. Learn more.3.7.4. Build a Mentoring Culture What does it take to develop people? More than writing â€Å"equal opportunity† into your organization’s mission statement. More than sending someone to a training class. More than hard work on the part of employees. What development does take is people who are willing to listen and help their colleagues. Development takes coaches, guides and advocates. People development needs mentors. Learn more.

Micromanagement: Leadership and Shelly

Answer to Case of â€Å"Micromanagement† Q1: Is George guilty of micromanaging? Why or why not? Answer: No. George hates micromanaging and even disagrees that he is micromanaging. He thinks â€Å"micromanaging† is an excuse that Shelly threw out to dissemble her incapability, for the reason that a successful manager would never micromanage those employees who are capable enough. In additional, he thought Shelly is not so enthusiastic and hungry-to-learn as the beginning, which costs him a lot of time to correct her mistakes. Therefore, George may be angry rather than guilty.Q2: What influence tactics does George use with Shelly and what is her reaction to those tactics? Give an example to support your response. To what degree do his tactics engender trust with Shelly? Answer: George used 1) Rational persuasion, 2) Ingratiation, 3) Pressure. 1) Rational persuasion. After reading the release draft at the first time, George recommended a new title, and Shelly countered tha t she doesn’t agree. To make Shelly align with him, George used the rational persuasion tactic to analyze the situation logically and give evidence, and argued why he consists to use such a strong title.The reaction of Shelly here is she pursed her lips and nodded slightly, which means she wanted to argue, but gave up and accepted his suggestion reluctantly. Without enough participation from Shelly, George made the decision himself, largely harming the trust between them in this situation. 2) Ingratiation. After persuading Shelly to adopt his suggestion, George tried to encourage Shelly a little bit by flattering her: â€Å"Thanks Shel, you are the best†. Ingratiation tactic was used here.However, Shelly didn’t feel any happiness when hearing this, and she no longer like him as before. Again, the trust was failed to engender. 3) Pressure. This tactic was used many times in this case. For example, George demanded Shelly to do two things on the release. George als o said: â€Å"I count on you to get these things right. † Etc. Shelly had different response on the two situations I mentioned above. In the first case, Shelly accepted George’s suggestion reluctantly. In the second case, Shelly made up her mind nd defended herself by explaining why she wrote it in her way but not George’s way. Obviously, trust was failed to engender again since Shelly didn’t meet George’s expectation, and she was unsatisfied with George as well. Q3: Using our knowledge of the â€Å"full-range of leadership† model presented in class, how would you classify the type of leader behavior used by George to manage Shelly? Be specific and provide an example. Answer: To my understanding, George manages Shelly with the transactional leadership. To be specific, he used Management-by-Exception actively.For example, once George found a mistake on the unfinished release draft, he gave feedbacks and corrections immediately. Then he starte d to follow the case, and tried to monitor and correct Shelly’s mistakes and keep things constructive in an active manner. This is exactly as Rich said, â€Å"when George takes an interest, hands-on isn’t the beginning of it. He’s elbow deep in the stuff. † He thought he was providing guidance and necessary feedbacks to Shelly so that she would improve. This type of leadership behavior is a part of transactional leadership.Q4: The Company in this case is not meeting its goals regarding visibility, leads and sales. Shelly is responsible for this functional area of the business. What should George do to lead her more effectively to meet these business objectives? Answer: George can lead Shelly more effectively in several ways. Firstly, according to the Leader-Member Exchange theory, Shelly belongs to the out-group of George’s team. In this group, the relationship between leader and members is cold and impersonal with formal leader authority and less effective influence on members.Under this tense relationship, eventually, members would be tired off to boss by bad performance and less OCBs. To make it better, George can try to give Shelly more freedom, latitude, and responsibility, give her more support, and try to build trust with Shelly. In return, Shelly would probably generate higher performance and satisfaction, and greater dependability, involvement, and eventually, better OCBs would occur as well. By bringing Shelly from out-group to in-group, Shelly could enhance her performance and meet company’s business objectives more effectively.Secondly, George should learn how to apply efficient transactional leadership on Shelly. Besides the MBE active he uses, he should also use contingent reward and punishment. By using this tactic would help Shelly better meet George’s expectations. In this situation, George should communicate with Shelly and give her clear guidance on what would be rewarded and what would be pun ished, and deliver the promised rewards or punishments every time, therefore, trust would be built between George and Shelly.Thirdly, after effective application of transaction leadership, George should go beyond it and try to upgrade to transformational leadership. Transformational leadership requires more trust, credibility and integrity between George and Shelly. George should empower Shelly at a higher level, trust her and respect her decisions. Besides, George should discuss with Shelly about what are their shared goals and values, deliver the company’s short-term and long-term objectives to Shelly, and let she know how her work and efforts would help company to approach the objectives.Moreover, George should move Shelly to address higher needs besides salary, such as bigger growth opportunity, etc. Also, according to Bass’s theory, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration are some useful methods well implementing transformational leadership. Overall, using transformational leadership would help Shelly to perform beyond George’s expectation, so that their team would finally achieve company’s business objectives more effectively.

Financial Management case study 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Financial Management case study 2 - Essay Example Based on the probability distribution of the rate of return, you can compute two key parameters, the expected rate of return and the standard deviation of rate of return. This in fact is the measure of risk for a single asset. State Probability Return on Stock A Return on Stock B 1 20% 5% 50% 2 30% 10% 30% 3 30% 15% 10% 4 20% 20% -10% Given a probability distribution of returns, the expected return can be calculated using the following equation:Where, E [R] is the expected return on the stock; N = no: of states; pi is the probability of state i and Ri is return on the stock in state i. So we see that Stock B offers a higher expected return than Stock A. However, that is only part of the story; we haven't yet considered risk. Given an assets expected return, its variance can be calculated using the following equation and the standard deviation is calculated as the positive square root of the variance. Although Stock B offers a higher expected return than Stock A, it also is riskier since its variance and standard deviation are greater than Stock A's. Advantages of Risk and Return: It enables investors and entrepreneurs in taking capital budgeting decisions. In case of risk chances of future losses can be foreseen. Disadvantages of Risk and Return: Uncertainty lies in decisions taken based on these. Calculations might be difficult at times. (b) Explain, with examples, how you would measure the risk of a portfolio. Most investors invest in a portfolio of assets, as they do not want to pout all their eggs in one basket. Hence what really matters to them is not the risk and return of stocks in isolation, but the risk and return of the portfolio as a whole. Expected return of a portfolio: The expected return of a... Most investors invest in a portfolio of assets, as they do not want to pout all their eggs in one basket. Hence what really matters to them is not the risk and return of stocks in isolation, but the risk and return of the portfolio as a whole. Expected return of a portfolio: The expected return of a portfolio is simply the weighted average of the expected returns on the assets comprising the portfolio. For eg : when a portfolio consists of two securities then the expected return is Consider the following two stock portfolios and their respective returns (in per cent) over the last six months. Both portfolios end up increasing in value from $1,000 to $1,058. However, they clearly differ in volatility. Portfolio A's monthly returns range from -1.5% to 3% whereas Portfolio B's range from -9% to 12%. The standard deviation of the returns is a better measure of volatility than the range because it takes all the values into account. The standard deviation of the six returns for Portfolio A is *1.52; for Portfolio B it is *7.24.

Cameron Mackintosh's contribution to the development of the Essay

Cameron Mackintosh's contribution to the development of the megamusical - Essay Example This paper further highlights the legacy of Mackintosh’s transformation of musical theatre through the increasing importance attached to the marketing of megamusicals; which in turn has fuelled debate as to the repercussions of the megamusical for the musical as an art form as opposed to a corporate controlled money spinner. In considering Mackintosh’s contribution to the megamusical, it is imperative to consider the contemporary framework for the business of theatre production in London’s West End and Broadway. For example, if we contextually consider the theatre market in the West End, recent hit shows from the Sound of Music to Joseph have driven the reversal in fortune of West End theatres, which had suffered a trend in declining ticket revenue and profits in the last decade. In January 2008, the Society of London Theatre announced a record breaking year in 2007 with more than 13.6 million theatregoers generating total tickets sales of almost  £470 million, passing the  £400 million mark for the first time. Furthermore, the Society’s Chief executive Richard Pulford cited the revenue statistics as an â€Å"annus mirabilis† for London theatre, stating that â€Å"these figures are a wonderful start to our centenary year but we’re under no illusions that we’re going to have to work very hard to maintain this success† (Maev Kennedy., 2008).

Answer the question Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 11

Answer the question - Assignment Example Attitudinal content defines the third kind of meaning transmitted by messages. The attitudinal content indicates the required attitude that the recipient should exhibit (Posner, 2003). Although the curriculum affects the lives of students directly and defines the responsibilities of teachers, curriculum development involves debates by politicians. Notably, politicians at the federal and state levels play a critical role in curriculum development because they debate bills related to education and pass them into laws for implementation. Politicians are also policy makers determining the process of curriculum development. Curriculum development should reflect the progression made by the society. Therefore, politicians and other policy makers should be more critical when designing the modern curriculum. Teachers, school administrators, parents, and other stakeholders in the education system should actively participate in the development of innovations that define the process of curriculum development. Community members and the society should also play a part in curriculum development. Therefore, only politicians should not conduct curriculum development. In my opinion, the curriculum should be organized in accordance with critical criteria such as continuity, sequence, and integration. I have the conviction that the organization of the curriculum should be based on the experience of the learners. Such a design gives attention to the needs and the interests of the students and is likely to have outcomes that are more positive. Experience based curriculum organization promotes experiential learning, which prepares learners for the challenges in the real world. Organizing the curriculum using a subject-based design may also present positive outcomes. The subject-based design outlines the different subjects as well as the content in each subject. Such a design makes it easier for teachers to cover their content and for students to choose their area of interest (p.

Sustainable Design Case Study Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Sustainable Design Case Study - Research Paper Example The main reasons behind people moving towards urban areas are to seek employment, make shopping for purchasing goods, seek entertainment as well as attain better standard of living. Simultaneously, existing environmental infrastructures related to work as well as services are quite insufficient to serve the rise in population as well as population densities. It can be observed in this context that overcrowding leads to environmental vulnerabilities as well as degradation unless strategies related to reversing the environmental deterioration can be applied. One of the determinants of the sternness of environment conditions in the urban areas has been their regional ecosystem types such as mountainous, coastal and riverine among others. It needs to be remembered that the urban ecological types are significant components in identifying the environmental strategies along with preparing the plans for precise and sustainable urban development. The project also discusses regarding the physi cal planning, environmental health management and sustainable development. The main objective of the project analyzed in the paper is to make the urban areas quite self-sufficient, enjoyable place to live and thus sustainable (Williams, 2000). Challenges and Opportunities The most important urban environmental requirements by the people in the developing countries would comprise provision of healthy accommodation as well as other built surroundings, access to environmental infrastructural methods as well as services. It is worthy of stating the fact that the most severe influences on urban environment concerning people and which is caused by human being as well as nature are water pollution as well as depletion, air pollution and energy use and wastage. Furthermore, urbanization leads to solid waste and resource losses such as groundwater contamination and depletion, land and ecosystem degradation among others. There are a few infuriating factors as well in relation to the project w hich lead to urban environmental degradation that are lack of public as well as political awareness, lack of efficient public education as well as involvement along with requirement for public pressure and political will. It is quite noteworthy to control such factors and make policies to minimize the impact of the factors on the environment so that the sustainability of the urban areas can be ascertained (Williams, 2000). Involvement of Numerous Stakeholders The efforts at enhancing the urban environment would comprise the involvement of numerous stakeholders such as governmental bodies, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as well as the informal sector in defending the environmental problems. It also requires the efforts of numerous institutions, organizations as well as individuals. It becomes difficult for the isolated action to meet the requirements because of the swiftness and intricacy of change. It has been found that one of the most crucial causative factors to the prevai ling accumulation of urban developmental issues is the lack of synchronization of actions between various stakeholders as well as actors. In order to reduce this problem, it is necessary to have a major intention of working in harmony towards the attainment of the common objectives. When all the stakeholders collaborate in order to work towards the accomplishment of the goals of the particular project then it leads to greater synergy. It comprises

Climate change Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Climate change - Research Paper Example ï‚ § The intended IMC campaign is educational in its approach and intends to educate the university students about the long term and short term consequences of climate change and what is its long-term prognosis for the Australian environment, economy, and growth.ï‚ § The intended IMC campaign is educational in its approach and intends to educate the university students about the long term and short term consequences of climate change and what is its long-term prognosis for the Australian environment, economy, and growth.ï‚ § It is a salient objective of this media campaign to help the targeted audience understand as to what small steps and lifestyle changes they can resort to, to dilute and mitigate the impact of climate change and to predict and quantify the influence these measures could have in ameliorating the short term and long term impact of climate change.ï‚ § This campaign also intends to augment the overall traffic on the "Be the Change you want" website and to secure at least 75,000 hits during the six-month period over which the campaign spans.ï‚ § There is no denying the fact that this campaign tends to heavily exploit the social networking portals like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. So one important goal is to secure a minimum of 15,000 followers for the "Be the Change you want" page of the Facebook in the six-month period for which the campaign lasts.ï‚ § The overall campaign objective is to solicit the loyalty and commitment of the target audience for the cause of climate change.... This campaign also intends to augment the overall traffic on the â€Å"Be the Change you want† website and to secure at least 75,000 hits during the six month period over which the campaign spans. There is no denying the fact that this campaign tends to heavily exploit the social networking portals like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. So one important goal is to secure a minimum of 15,000 followers for the â€Å"Be the Change you want† page of the Facebook in the six month period for which the campaign lasts. The overall campaign objective is to solicit the loyalty and commitment of the target audience for the cause of climate change3. These young audiences being university students will certainly be the opinion makers of tomorrow. So the pivotal target of the campaign is to make the optimum use of the scarce resources to run an IMC plan that achieves results with a lasting shelf life. Media Plan- A Timeline Sensitive Choice of Media Tools Being subject to a budgetary li mit of 1, 00,000 AUD and extending over a period of six months, the choice of media tools will be such as to blend with the schedule of the target audience4. Based on the assumption that all the universities affiliate to the Curtin academic calendar, the campaign will be initiated in first week of the semester 2012 (Monday February 27). The campaign will last for 6 months and will culminate in week 3 of semester 2. The campaign intends to focus on one university each in 5 states that are VIC, WA, NSW, QLD and SA. At the very start of the campaign, the selected customers and guilds will be emailed pamphlets to get them interested in the awareness drive. Once the campaign is initiated, the customized pamphlets will be

Karl Marx's Estranged Labor vs. Adam Smith's Division of Labor Research Paper

Karl Marx's Estranged Labor vs. Adam Smith's Division of Labor - Research Paper Example While Marx sought to minimalize the effects of capitalism, Smith sought to emphasize the brilliance of the free market economy. Naturally, these two individuals’ ideologies clash, but there is value in both perspectives, as one shall soon see. Karl Marx’s ideas about estranged labor, Smith’s ideas about the division of labor, and a comparison of the two ideologies will be herein attempted. II. Karl Marx’s Estranged Labor Karl Marx identifies estranged labor as labor alien to man. Marx explains the condition of estranged labor as the result of man participating in an alien to his nature. It my interpretation that man is alienated from his labor because he is not the reaper of what he sows. Because he is never the recipient of his efforts, the laborer lacks identity with what he creates. For Marx then labor is alien to the worker and does not belong to his essential being. Marx identifies two explanations of why man’s lack of identity with labor leads him to be estranged from labor. The explanation that the laborer does not develop freely his physical and mental energy, but instead mortifies his mind, may extol the virtue of communism. In other words, labor fails to nurture man’s physical and mental capacities, and instead, drains them. Because the worker is denied any nurturing in his work, no intimacy between the worker and his work develops. Although, it’s very hard to see how working in a sweat shop in Communist China, for example, is creating intimacy with one’s work to the point that one is able to develop one’s energy freely. Thus, this quote â€Å"lack† of an intimate relation with what he creates, man is summarily estranged from his labor. Furthermore, labor estranges man from himself. Marx argues that the labor the worker produces does not belong to him, but to someone else. Given this condition, the laborer belongs to someone else and is therefore enslaved. As a result of being ensla ved the worker is reduced to a â€Å"subsisting animal,† a condition alien to him. As an end result man is estranged from himself and is, in his words, mortified. Marx points to these situations as the reason man is essentially estranged from his labor. The incongruence between the world of things the worker creates and the world the worker lives in is the estrangement. As the worker gives up his or her contribution to the work, he or she begins to lose importance to the work and the work becomes more superior to the worker. As this happens, the owner of the company or organization accumulates more wealth and power and is able to overcome competition and have more power over the worker. ? I find this to be true based on my personal experience when I worked for a logistics company as a shipping lead. The harder I worked, the more powerful the department became, hence the more powerful the company became—and the less important I became to the company and its superiors. T he department improved a lot under my leadership whereby it generated more revenue. The result was that the company became more important than the person—as stated by Marx in the above paragraphs. ? The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever-cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. According to Marx in Calhoun and Gerteis (2007), â€Å"On the basis of political economy itself, in its own words, we have shown that the worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the most wretched of

Chinese TV in New Media Age Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Chinese TV in New Media Age - Essay Example Along with the fast pace of these technology we find the development of the traditional media like the television. These changes in the media industry as a whole and the television industry specifically may be seen in the overall structure of the international industry. Thus, in this modern world characterised by the growth of media of various types, all the world powers find a great place for domination and control of media and the industry. In this context, it is of great significance to analyse the role of emerging world players like China. "Over the past two decades, China's television programming has experienced unprecedented expansion. Today, the TV industry has entered a stage of heated competition, as more and more domestic and international media players are entering the Chinese market." (China's TV Industry: An Overview. 2006). Only a proper analysis would clearly tell the facts about the role of Chinese TV industry in the modern media age. In this paper, such an endeavour is initiated- to know, analyse, arrive at conclusions, and encourage further studies on the how Chinese television maintains its position in the new media age. Due to world wide trend toward deregulation and privatisation of the mass media, they have concentrated, mainly, in the national level. "Perhaps the most significant development of the last two decades in international communication is the increasing concentration of mass media ownership within and across national borders" (Shah n.d) The most significant international phenomenon in the present situation, the globalisation has a pertinent role in the development of the media. "The truth is simple: Globalization needs media, and vice versa." (Esin 2002). In this modern world, global movement across the borders and rapid commercialization are the bywords. In addition think global and act local adage has caught up as a leading marketing principle particularly in international marketing. This is reflected in every economy and the impact of this global phenomenon is evident in the media sector of modern economies. In this paper, the focal question is concerning the impact of the modern global situation and the new media age on Chinese TV. There is no question regarding the developments that have taken place in the international media culture. Most of the changes have been due to the growth of new technology. The amazing growth of the international media is also characterised by remarkable competition. "The new competition is not just within traditional media -- it is from new sources of news, such as the Internet, portable e-mail devices like Blackberries, cell phones and iPods." (Gelb 2006). These new developments have tremendous influence on the economic development of the nations as well. To understand the present global situation, media of every type have influenced the lives of the people. Internet has revolutionised the way we handle information and business across the national frontiers. Local news and events now reach the nooks and corner of the world much faster courtesy the internet. Internet has, in fact, silently and steadily abetted the process of globalisation by arbitraging a new platform for rapid and instantaneous sharing of new in written, audio and video media. This advent of internet and other advances in information technology like digitalization have meant that the

Supporting Immigration Essay Example for Free

Supporting Immigration Essay Our Nation is surrounded by immigrants, people of different nationalities, backgrounds, cultures and languages who add diversity and richness to our lives. I support immigration because it reminds us that we are a country of immigrants and we were once strangers in this land as well. In reality everyone is an immigrant to this country except the Native Indians, so we should all give a chance to the majority of people who want to travel here for just one simple reason, a better life. I actually think that our country would benefit from a sizeable amount of good hard working immigrants. Like Rupert Murdoch says â€Å"As an immigrant, I chose to live in America because it is one of the freest and most vibrant nations in the world and as an immigrant, I feel an obligation to speak up for immigration policies that will keep America the most economically robust, creative and freedom-loving nation in the world†. People argue how the foreign-born population in the United States tripled in the past four decades and currently totals about 37 million or 12 percent of the population today. However the immigrant’s percentage of the total U.S population is below the nation’s historic highest recorded data. Correspondingly, the United States is less a nation of immigrants now than a century ago, when nearly 15 percent of the population was foreign born. Other countries have proportionately larger immigrant populations. For instance, places like Canada have a 17 percent population of foreign born, Australia running in first place with 24 percent. Studies found that Immigrants and U.S. workers do not generally compete for the same jobs. Their skills and educational levels at the lower job levels are different than those workers who are born in America. Immigrants usually choose different occupations than the average American worker because that is the work that is available to them. These are jobs that U.S born workers wont take because they find those types of work unappealing. Like jobs that include dishwashing in restaurants, farm work, landscaping work, care giving, and low- level construction work. Showing that immigrants do not displace American workers, but instead supply labor that is very much needed and help the American way of life. To sum up, immigrants are not only needed for the low level jobs that Americans refuse to work in, but also the high level jobs. Those immigrants such as the computer experts and scientists have been recruited by companies that need their help because they cannot find U.S workers to do the job. When in reality these high level immigrant workers actually provide investment since they are valuable in fields that rely on high technology. Having a positive effect on the U.S economy and benefitting our country because of their creativity and willingness to work hard. Bibliography * http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/immigration_2.html * http://www.gcir.org/immigration/facts/statistics * http://www.workpermity.com/news/2006_10_16/us/immigrants_make_wages_better.ht

How to Make English Become More Interesting Essay Example for Free

How to Make English Become More Interesting Essay English is the main language in world. It is the most often used language to communicate. You won’t be able to communicate with someone from America by using Indonesia language (as if you are Indonesian) or to communicate with someone in London ; the only language that usually spoken in communicating with everyone else from around the world is English. So, it is such an important thing to learn English. But the problem is it is a little bit hard to make English it self be interest for students to learn. They think it is bored and confusing. This time I would like to tell you about some ways that english teachers can do to make English become interest to students. Try to add some english songs and ask students to sing it together. Everyone love music, love to listening either singing a song. To make english more interesting, the first-best way is to ask students to sing an english song with you. You can tell them the lyrics so they would know some new english words and tell them how to spell all the words in the lyrics. Then ask them to sing the song. Besides they would enjoy the music, it will be also easier to make them understand how to speak english with a good pronounciation and they will be faster to memorize some english words in the lyrics. So it can increase their vocabulary. When students are getting bored but we still have lessons that hasn’t explained, don’t be worry. Students will not be last long paying attention to the teacher when the teacher is explaining the lesson, therefore we have to do something to take their attention back. They need something spontaneous. In the middle of our explanation, we can play games. This kind of way will attract their attention. We can adapt Hangman or Jeopardy. Another great idea is to have the students themselves create a game that fits the text you are studying. They probably having fun and enjoy the class. The third thing that we can do is to tell more jokes in class. .

Language and Music

Language and Music â€Å"Understanding music requires no recuperation[SKS1] of a fictional world, and no response to imaginary objects†¦.the meaning of music lies within it; it can be recovered only through an act of musical understanding, and not by an â€Å"assignment of values† of the kind provided by a semantic theory[SKS2]† (Roger Scruton) Music is an important aspect of everyday life: We can take it with us wherever we go and use it to set the scene or create a â€Å"soundtrack† to our lives. It has the power to influence our moods and emotions and can stir up feelings and old memories within the first few notes. Music is intertwined in all cultures and has been for as long as humans have had the ability to make it. It has been said that musical instruments and the production of music (in any form) predates the earliest evidence of writing. Music is everywhere. In order to understand music it is important to define what it is that makes something music. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of music is; â€Å"The art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds to produce beauty of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, expressive content, etc.; musical composition, performance, analysis, etc., as a subject of study; the occupation or profession of musicians.† (Oxford University Press 2014) According to this definition, the basis of music is sound. Sound is defined as a sensation caused by a vibration of air particles. It cannot be seen by the naked eye and, at some frequencies, cannot be heard by the human ear. Music does not exist without sound as it is a product of various combinations of â€Å"vocal or instrumental sounds†. Everything that is considered â€Å"musical† is made from sound but not every sound is musical. Sounds exist whether we are listening to them or not. Many sounds are unintentional in that they are a necessary result of an action. They are not being created purposefully and are often just in the background of everyday life. Although we hear them, we do not have to listen or focus on them if we choose not to. Music, on the other hand, is an intentional object. It is purposefully created to be heard, we must focus on music and actively listen to it. Music is acousmatic. When we hear it we tend to detach the sound from its production an d focus on the sounds. This differs to the non-musical sounds we encounter everywhere. Music is a temporal occurrence but can only be discussed in spatial terms. Although there are specific terminologies related to music, there is no need to be an expert in order to enjoy a piece or discuss it with others. In order to properly consider the meaning of music and define it, we apply semantic terminology and compare music to language. It is easy for us to break both language and music down into their smallest forms and compare the similarities between both although we may have an issue with the starting point of music as we would have to determine the smallest form, which could be a sound, a note or even a beat, depending on how a person views the creation of music and their knowledge of how music is formed. If we were to break language down to its smallest form and work our way up, so to speak, we could say that the smallest part of language is a phoneme. From there we can conclude that a phoneme then becomes a morpheme, a morpheme then becomes a phrase, which then becomes a clause, which then becomes a sentence, and so on and so forth. As a native speaker, we are able to create numerous combinations of words that can be understood by others who share our language. In order for things to be understood, it is said that there needs to be some form of common knowledge or common ground. It is also important that there is some context to what is being expressed so we can deduce meaning from what we are hearing/reading. If we break down music into its simplest form, we begin with sounds that are combined to make different pitches. These become phrases and sequences that are combined to create whole pieces of music. If we compare language and music on this level, we can see that the two share similarities in structure. When discussing the meaning of music itself, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, we must distinguish what we mean by music and the form it is in. If we are talking about written music, one must have at least a basic knowledge of musical notation in order to understand what they are reading. Music is the universal language.† Aphoristic as this phrase may be, it does relate something many people think about music: music is expressive. But if music is expressive, what, exactly, does music express? For that matter, how does music express? Is the content or manner of expression of music the same as the content or manner of expression of language? In answering questions such as these, we promote previously empty cultural aphorisms about music like the one presented earlier to the status of meaningful claims. David Lewis highlights two important features of language – language as an object and language as a practice. I will present a view of the nature of music held by Peter Kivy, comparing it to Lewis’ conception of language. I will then argue that by Kivy’s view of music, music is not a language, though it has more language-like properties than Kivy admits. To briefly take stock, we might highlight four general properties of language we should look for in the determination of whether or not something is a language: Syntax – Lewis’ grammar operations. Determine legitimate strings. Semantics – Lewis’ meaning. The meaning of a well-formed string is the situation it describes in a set of possible worlds. Truth Values – Derived from comparing the meaning of a sentence with our world. Conventional Activity – a population arbitrarily determines a language used by conventionally using the language to express truth. Peter Kivy endorses a formalist view of music. The formalist doctrine is that music is a type of sound structure. Generally, we think of a structure as something we can appreciate visually; the word usually evokes mental images of certain spatial relations of objects to other objects. But according to the formalist, sound structures are â€Å"temporal patterns of sound† (emphasis added). To put this in a vocabulary familiar to musicians, sound structures are just combination of types of sounds (such as pitches, percussion, etc.) that occur in some timeframe. Music has formal properties and sensuous properties: a piece of music’s formal properties differentiate it from other pieces of music; i.e. certain notes are played in a certain order, the piece is a certain speed, and there are certain rhythms. And music’s ‘sensuous properties’ boil down to the fact that – shocker – music is a heard medium: we hear and notice different aspects of s ound events when we experience music. Kivy’s view of music directly supports the inclusion of one of the important features of language in music’s nature. He says that music has a â€Å"special kind of order: the order of syntactical structure.† He says that this order is governed by rules (of a sort); these rules concern how different sounds should be combined in the production of a musical work. For example, it is a staple of the syntax of certain schools in western music that there should be a return to the tonic at the end of a musical phrase. This syntax differs for different genres of music, much like it does for different languages. Certain chords can be used in certain genres, and not in others – for example, you will see flat V chords used in chord progressions in jazz, but not most pre-modern forms of classical music. But I think we have reason to believe that the nature of musical syntax is very similar to the nature of linguistic syntax. First of all, I question the assertion that the rules of linguistic syntax are stricter than the rules of musical syntax. For example, take the English grammar rule that the first letter of the first word in a written sentence is capitalized. I think this easily qualifies as a syntactic rule of written English; however, prominent writers have violated it throughout history (E. E. Cummings is one obvious example), and people today often violate it when talking to one another through electronic media such as texting on the phone and messaging online. I think we still want to say that these people are using English – they are just temporarily disregarding a grammar rule of English, which is more of a regularity than a law. However, though some rules of linguistic syntax are not absolutely strict, I do think that there are rules which are inviolable. Lewisâ⠂¬â„¢ rule that there is a finite set of elementary constituents paired with meanings that we can use in the construction of sentences is of paramount importance when using a language. I can’t type out a random assortment of characters and expect that configuration to be an English sentence. Similarly, certain combinatorial grammar rules are absolute. And it seems to me that musical syntax has very similar characteristics to this conception of the characteristics of linguistic syntax. There are certain rules which can be bent; a piece of music can preserve its status as a piece of music in a certain genre regardless of whether it follows a specific syntactic ‘regularity’ of this kind. This is similar to syntactic rules like capitalization mentioned in the previous paragraph. Then there are certain rules which must be followed for a piece to be classified as a member of a certain genre – relate this to how a string must follow a certain instantiation of the grammar rules Lewis established to be characterized as a member of one language rather than another. Then there are certain rules any genre of music must follow to be music rather than mere noise. This is similar to syntactic rules any language must have; a language must follow the general rules Lewis gives us, in one form or another. We can also see that the activity of music is analogous to the activity of ‘language’ that Lewis describes. Music is not just an entity, but also a social activity concerning musicians and listeners, wherein musicians make certain noises and they expect their listeners to respond a certain way. And I see no reason why we wouldn’t say that this activity is in some way arbitrary, however limited that arbitrariness is by the hard-wiring of our brains to enjoy certain sounds. The parallels between music as ‘language’ do not stop there. Music shares the ability to infer something about the state of mind of a composer or musician with language (substituting ‘speaker’ for ‘composer or musician’). Playing a guitar solo in a minor pentatonic scale allows us to infer one (admittedly broad) set of things about the mind of the guitarist, while playing in the blues scale allows us to infer something else. And we often make the same inferences as many other listeners. These inferences might also be wrong – as they might be in the case of ‘language’. And Kivy’s view that these inferences are not ‘in the music’ doesn’t stop us from saying that we make these inferences; we can say that we respond ‘by convention’ to a certain sound structure in a certain way without saying that there is anything about the sound structure that makes us respond this way. So far, so good, for the view that music is a language. Nothing that I have said thus far about Kivy’s view of music has conflicted with the definition of language Lewis gave us. And although I haven’t gone into the nuts and bolts of correlating Lewis’ grammar rules with musical syntax, it’s not hard to see how a story could be told relating them – in every way but one: what could we say corresponds with the meanings described in rule one and two? Kivy qualifies his formalist definition of music: â€Å"absolute music is a sound structure without semantic or representational content†. This is a big problem for a proponent of the view that music is a language. One of the essential characteristics of language is its status as something which can communicate meaning; some might call this property the most important property of language. And on initial reflection, Kivy’s claim seems to hold a lot of weight. How could music talk about situations in the external world? A song might represent ‘victory’ or ‘striving’ or what-have-you in some obscure, abstract sort of way; but it certainly does not have the power to describe in the incredibly detailed, content-rich way a language can. Music could never have the power to express the meaning of such sentences as â€Å"My flight to Los Angeles was delayed because of poor conditions on the runway.† This is a crippling observation in particular for anyone who thinks that my method of deciding whether music is a language is valid – without sematic content, two of the four properties of language Lewis defined go down the tubes. The absence of semantic content in music obviously bars us from saying that music has semantics; and, because music is free of semantic content, truth values are gone as well, as truth values are products of comparing the meanings of sentences with the world. The avid supporter of the music-as-language project has two avenues open to them at this point. They might object to Kivy’s view the music is free of semantic content; or, they might object to the view of language – specifically, the view of semantics – that Lewis gives us. I’ll start with the objection to Kivy. An obvious route someone objecting to Kivy’s determination that music is free of semantic content might take is saying that it does have semantic content – and this content is emotion. Music represents emotions the same way language represents the situations its sentences describe. Maybe the ability of music to describe things in the world is much more limited than language, but its ability to describe emotions is even better than natural languages’ ability. Thus music should be described as ‘a language of the emotions’. Kivy has a response to this claim, but I find it to be unsatisfying. He says this assertion gets you â€Å"from enhanced formalism in letter and spirit to a musical semantics in letter, not spirit, and enhanced formalism, still, in spirit.† He thinks that music can say nothing interesting or significant about emotion, and somehow this yields the result that music does not have emotional semantics. But the ability to say something interesting about what it denotes is not what defines the semantics of language – it is the ability to say what it says that defines language. In other words, it is the ability of sentences to denote at all which makes them linguistic. If music can do this, then it has semantic content. The problem is, we are wrong to say that music denotes emotion in the first place. I think Kivy is right when he says that emotion is a â€Å"heard property of the music† . Music does not ‘represent’ sadness; it just is sad, the same way that an apple just is red. And the reason we perceive these emotions in music is due to the fact that music can formally resemble how humans look and act when they feel certain emotions. Unfortunately, I can offer no positive reasons to accept this conception of emotion in music other than emotions are certainly a part of music in some capacity, and this formulation of their relation to music is the least problematic one I know of. And perhaps I can pose some problems with representative views of music that serve my intuitions well: for one, many people think that to be a real language, every sentence in that language that denotes a state in the world can be translated to a sentence in another language. How might one go about translating something music ‘says’ to English? Attempts usually produce a clumsy, single-word emotional descriptor, which varies from person to person. Another thing people think stems from a representative medium is the presence of truth values. We can say of a linguistic proposition that it represents our world, or it represents a situation not in our world; propositions of the first type are true, and propositions of the second type are false. But what would we say about music corresponds with a state in the world? It seems a very odd practice to listen to a phrase in Beethoven’s Fifth and say of it that it is ‘true’ or ‘false’. On the other hand, the supporter of a music-as-language view might challenge the definition that Lewis provides of semantics. He might use music to help define language, as Andrew Bowie does in his book Music, Philosophy, and Modernity. He says â€Å"if people understand a piece of articulation – which is apparent in terms of its effects in social contexts on behavior, reactions, feelings, and so on – it must mean something.† Bowie equates language with Lewis’ ‘language’, the social activity, and discards the properties of ‘a language’. Because music is a social activity by which people effect specific changes on others’ behavior or feelings, music has meaning, and therefore is a language. But Bowie betrays his own cause when he tells us what follows from this new definition of language in a quote by Bjà ¸rn Ramberg: â€Å"’We can, if we like, interpret all types of things as speaking’†. This definition of language allows us to call all types of things language that push against our intuitions on the subject. Arriving late to a meeting is now language, because others’ thoughts are influenced to think worse of me for being tardy. Playing a sport with other people is now language, because their behavior is altered when they respond to my sporting actions. Maybe you want to call these things language, but I suspect the majority of people do not. It is important that a practice we choose to call language should have aspects of ‘a language’ and is used by the practice of ‘language’. This successfully delineates language from non-language. The presence of truly semantic content is one of the principle factors in deciding whether something is a language. Even though music seems to have every property of the practice Lewis identifies as ‘language’, it cannot be a language. Edit: took out a sentence that doesnt make sense without the rest of the paper. 1 [SKS1]the recovery or regaining of something. the recuperation of the avant-garde for art [SKS2]a theory which assigns semantic contents to expressions of a language. Approaches to semantics may be divided according to whether they assign propositions as the meanings of sentences and, if they do, what view they take of the nature of these propositions.

AIDS Problem Essay -- Health, Diseases, AIDS, HIV

1. Introduction Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, also known as AIDS, is caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).HIV damages body’s immune system by destroying white blood cells which help us to destroy invaded pathogens. When HIV enters a white blood cell, it may remain dormant. However, once it is activated, it infects another cell to produce many new HIVS. After a certain period of time, the white blood cells are destroyed and leading to a loss of function of the immune system (Y.K. Ho,2004). People infected by HIV will turn out to have AIDS. Infected people are very weak to fight off other infectious disease and soon they will die. According to the data and statistics of WHO, global summary of the AIDS epidemic, 2009, the number of people living with HIV is around 33.3 million and AIDS death in 2009 is around 1.8 million. How about China situation? We couldn’t find much data about China situation. Therefore, we have to explore the situation from other sources. 2. Current Situation of AIDS in China According to the ministry of health of the people’s republic of China, the number of people living with AIDS is about 370 thousand and AIDS death is about 60 thousand. The figure is much different from the prediction of United Nations (UN), UN predicted that there will be 10 million people living with AIDS at the end of 2010. So, which figure is more reliable? I would suggest the UN one and the following is my reason. In the early 1990s, the Chinese leadership launched a blood drive and paid donors for their plasma (Alice Park,2004), this is so called the â€Å"plasma economy†. Especially in Henan province, many blood stations appeared in a short period of time. Farmers believed that they could earn a lot of money by d... ...n provide AIDS patients with counseling service which can help them to accept themselves and dispel prejudices. 6. Conclusion To conclude, the central pillars of public health can explain the AIDS problem in China. Public health is composed of multidisciplinary knowledge, prevention and social justice. We could not interpret AIDS problem by only exploring the scientific perspective. Economic and social perspective also play am important role. Moreover, prevention can be divided to 3 levels, primary prevention is crucial to the issue, which is also most effective way to get rid of the problem. Tertiary prevention is the last line of defense, reminding the Chinese government should do something before it is too late. Lastly, social justice should be upholding in Chinese, this is the most critical aspect to see whether the AIDS problem can alleviate or not.

Abortion Essay -- Increase Abortion Availability

Should abortion be allowed in the United States? If so, then under what circumstances? Abortion has been one of the most heatedly debated topics in the U.S. for more than a century. This paper explores the history and international use of abortion, as well as the empirical and moral claims made by both sides of the issue. We will also examine the key positions taken on abortion and look at those affected by it. Based on extensive research and analysis, this paper will recommend that the government increase abortion funding and availability. Abortion History: Abortion has been around since the earliest times. The first recorded abortion recipe dates back to 2600 B.C. (â€Å"History of Abortion†). Ancient societies supported abortion as a means of controlling the population (â€Å"Abortion in Law, History, and Religion†). The first known abortion regulation was outlined in 4th century A.D. when St. Augustine declared Catholic law to allow abortion up to 80 days for the female fetus and 40 days for the male fetus (â€Å"History of Abortion†). However, in 1588 Pope Sixtus publicly forbade all abortions (â€Å"History of Abortion†). One of the first countries to outlaw abortion by law, Great Britain, declared abortion a misdemeanor in 1803 (â€Å"History of Abortion†). In the United States, abortion laws began to appear in the nineteenth century (â€Å"Abortion in Law, History, and Religion†). Public and legal attitudes toward abortion have significantly changed in America since 1800. Women in the early 1800’s rarely sought abortion, even though legal restriction to obtain an abortion was almost non-existent (Sauer). Until the mid-nineteenth century, first trimester abortions were legal under common law (Abortion in Law, History, and Religio... ...quest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=36&did=000000010987507&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=4&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1080408602&clientId=60765>. {scholarly primary; print via the internet; authoritative} Yishai, Yael. â€Å"Public Ideas and Public Policy: Abortion Politics in Four Democracies.† Comparative Politics, Vol. 25, No. 2. (Jan., 2013), pp. 207-228. Web. 1 May 2015. . {primary scholarly; print via internet; authoritative} Zhou, W., et al. â€Å"Risk of Spontaneous Abortion Following Induce Abortion.† Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Jan. 2010. Web. 1 May 2015. . {scholarly primary; print via the internet; authoritative}

The Controversy Around Banning Books Essay -- essays research papers

The subject of censorship is a very controversial one, especially the banning of books. Many people believe they must protect themselves and others from the "evils" of many classic books and works of art because they can be deemed "indecent" in one way or another. Many believe that this is absurd and censorship in its current form is a violation of our First Amendment right to free speech. Personally, I align myself with the latter, however I do feel there are occasions where censorship is justifiable. The censorship of books is a division of censorship that, apart from Internet censorship, receives the most publicity. Banning books is the most popular form of such censorship. Many banned books are literary classics, such as The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, which was listed as the number 6 most challenged or banned book in a list compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union in 1997. This book has been banned from school libraries all over the country because of the main character's teenage angst, which many feel is too graphic for teenagers, and its profanity. Profanity, whether it be frequent or a rare occurrence, is a characteristic of many literary classics, as is the use of racial epithets.In the book Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (ranking number 2 on the list), an epithet is use many times over to describe the people of color in the book. Now since the book was published in 1885 and such language was common at the time, I do not belie...

Gang violence Essay

â€Å"Once found principally in large cities, violent street gangs now affect public safety, community image, and quality of life in communities of all sizes in urban, suburban, and rural areas. No region of the United States is untouched by gangs. Gangs affect society at all levels, causing heightened fears for safety, violence, and economic costs† (In The Spotlight) As the quote above shows, gangs and everything that goes with them has spread all over the United States and is now one of the major issues the U.S. faces. There are estimated to be about twenty-nine thousand, four hundred gangs and seven hundred fifty six thousand gang members all throughout the U.S. Also, there are thousands of other gang members illegally crossing the U.S. borders, mostly from Central America. Each gang differs in some way but however, â€Å"A common definition for a gang is a group of three or more individuals who engage in criminal activity and identify themselves with a common sign or name † (Barbour 9). The main problem in the U.S. is not the actual gangs, but it is the drugs that they involve themselves with. The drugs only bring violence and problems. The main purpose of many gangs today is not to rule turf or power but to get money by smuggling drugs over the borders and then selling them. Gang activity and violence is occurring all over the U.S. every day, mainly caused by the involvement of illegal narcotics, if this country wants to stop the gangs, it needs to completely cut off the smuggling and trafficking of drugs from Central America into the U.S. by combining different government agencies of different levels to prevent the gangs from entering the U.S. and growing and also to create prevention programs and groups to control it at a more localized level where the issues are the most pressing. Gangs are smuggling over the U.S. borders and it is causing more problems than the government can handle. The main source of drugs is coming from Central America, where the most predominant number of gangs is located. Many gangs are focused only on smuggling different types of drugs into the U.S. and it is the one way to sustain a constant source of income. This is very appealing to any youth who wants money and that is why the number of gang members is growing so rapidly. â€Å"The transnational gangs are located in over 300 cities and 40 states across the country and are becoming a serious  threat to the national security of the United States† (Farah). Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) is the most dangerous gang in the U.S. today and is not even native to the U.S. The homeland of MS-13 is in El Salvador. El Salvador is the most highly gang populated country in Central America. Some other gang-infested countries are Guatemala and Honduras. There are about ten thousand MS-13 members in the U.S. alone and about forty thousand members in Central America. Unfortunately, these numbers are still on the rise. MS-13 recruits members at a very young age, which keeps a steady growth in members. The idea of a better family and brotherhood, but also money, is very appealing to any kid who is struggling at home. MS-13 accounts for the majority of drug distribution from Central America and is the focal point that needs to be attended to if this problem is going to be solved. Another main problem with the drugs is how large of an impact they have on the people because they only add to the already existing problems for society. Also, violence and drugs go hand in hand, which is why they are so involved within the gangs. Violence is always involved with gangs, but with the addition of drugs, the violence can intensify to a level where nothing can be done. This causes the gangs to be much harder to deal with. One main problem is that the American society hates the gangs but loves the drugs and will continue to buy drugs no matter where they are coming from. This makes it even more difficult to deal with. The drugs find a way to enter the lives of people from all of American society. For instance, they have been involved in different businesses and been the cause of murders, including celebrities. â€Å"Gangs have a large involvement in the rap industry and are related to the murders of Tupac Shakkur and Biggie Smalls† (Smith, â€Å"Gangs†). Tup ac Shakkur and Biggie Smalls were two iconic rappers of their time but sadly, gangs found a way into their lives and ended up causing both of their deaths. The drugs and violence become so intertwined into society, that now they are very hard to remove and a resolution to this problem needs to be found. There are many different processes that are being implemented now to stop this problem. An example is that groups and programs are being formed to fight back against the gangs. The Arizona Corridor has proven to be one of  the busiest places for gang smuggling and trafficking. There was a group formed to prevent it called IIMPACT Arizona. â€Å"IIMPACT Arizona! is a multi-agency project that is managed by the Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission (GIITEM) and designed to address rising crime associated with illegal immigration.† (Gang and Immigration Enforcement) IIMPACT is acronym that stands for â€Å"Illegal Immigration Prevention and Apprehension Co-op Teams† (Gang and Immigration Enforcement). IIMPACT is a program where local, state and federal police forces team up to fight against smuggling organized by crime groups. The main goals of the group are to deter, disrupt and dismantle gangs from illegally immigrated people and drugs into the U.S . If they are able to succeed with what they want to do, then they would be shutting down one of the hotspots for gang smuggling. This group is in action today and could eventually make a large impact on preventing gangs from smuggling over the U.S. borders, which would greatly decrease the amount of drugs that would be entering the U.S. The U.S. government has tried to pass different acts and laws against gangs but there has been many legal issues revolving around the civil liberties of the individuals being persecuted. â€Å"Responding to the rise in gang violence in the early 1980s, Los Angeles judges began to issue gang injunctions. This occurs when the city attorney’s office issues a restraining order against specific gang members. This is done only after gathering evidence from police officials and the public. However, in 1987, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the injunctions, indicating that they presented a violation of an individual’s civil rights† (Smith, Gangs: Outlook). Whenever the government gets close to cracking down on the gangs, an issue involving civil liberties arises and prevents the laws to be passed. The way some of the laws enabled police officers to treat gang members and the hostile level violated some of their rights. In 1994, the Violent Crime Contr ol and Enforcement Act of 1994 was passed and it tightened the choke hold on gangs. It stiffened the penalties for crimes committed by gangs, so that the members would be less prone to break the law. The penalties for a gang member were much more severe than one for just an average person, even if the same crime was committed by both of them. Many lawmakers and law enforcers believe the answer is to make laws to  combat the actions gangs. If the penalties are stiffened, then they will be less prone to smuggle drugs and the drugs levels will go down. If drug trafficking can not be stopped, then there is no chance of slowing down gangs and the violence they create. The solution to this problem will take time and effort but will work. More groups and programs have to be made in order to stop the drug smuggling and gang violence. Also, younger kids have to be reached out to early on so they don’t even have the option to join some sort of gang. If more localized programs can be formed, then smuggling can be cut down from area to area and over time, will disappear. Even though there was extensive research, only one program that was focusing on gang involvement in their area was found and it had been working efficiently so far (IIMPACT). This group is so successful because it requires the usage of town police, state police and federal police all working together. The information that can be shared from each level is key to success. A joint effort is always more successful than a singular effort. If different levels of government enforcement could join up and work together in states all along the border, the smuggling of drugs could be cut dow n immediately. â€Å"The combination of different agencies has brought up results that show that gang violence and just gangs in general are able to be controlled if not reduced a significant amount† (â€Å"In The Spotlight†). This combination occurring much more frequently can be the resolution to the problem that has needed to be solved for so long. The main problem can be seen lying within the gangs but the actual problem revolves around the American educational institutions and the environments that kids are provided with. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) believes that laws will not help and that providing the right environment for kids is what is needed. The main problem with setting a lot of laws and enforcing them is that even if a kid is stopped from being fully involved in a street gang by sending him to prison, he will be more likely to join a gang in prison than out in the world because of how frequent prison gangs are. By trying to prevent one problem, the laws would only cause another. â€Å"If younger kids were provided with better opportunities to enact in a community and have a better environment to conduct their actions, they will  be less prone to join gangs† (Smith â€Å"Gangs: Outlooks†). Groups like the ACLU are trying to stop the problem before it arises and that really is the best po ssible thing that can be done in this situation. If the number of gang members goes down, then gangs will lose their power and influence over the surrounding communities. This would cause there to be less drug smuggling occurring and the problem would gradually decline to a non-existing issue. Gang activity and violence is occurring all over the U.S. every day, mainly caused by the involvement of illegal narcotics. If this country wants to stop the gangs, it needs to completely cut off the smuggling and trafficking of drugs from Central America into the U.S. by combining different government agencies of different levels to prevent the gangs from entering the U.S. and growing and also to create programs and groups to prevent it at a more localized level where the issues are the most urgent. The information that was presented shows how much damage that the gangs are causing to the U.S. and how drugs being smuggled over the borders from Central America are the main cause. This is very important because some of what is being done now and what can be done could be the solution to this enormous problem. Possible trends in the future will definitely be that more laws and acts will be proposed and whether or not they go into action, they will make a positive affect on trying to st op gangs in the U.S. Gangs were first formed in the U.S. in New York in the early 20th century, particularly 1928, so it could be the first time in one hundred years where gangs are not relevant in the U.S. Also, it could make a large global impact because it would encourage other nations to crack down on gangs too. If the necessary steps are taken, the problem of gangs in the U.S. could be completely ended and we could experience a gang-free and drug-free time period in the U.S. for the first time in years. Work Cited Barbour, Scott, ed. Gangs. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2002. Print. Farah, Douglas, and Pamela Phillips Lum. â€Å"Central American Gangs and Transnational Criminal Organizations.† Strategycenter. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2013. â€Å"Gang and Immigration Enforcement.† AZDPS. Arizona Department of Public Safety, 2013. Web. 10 Apr. 2013. â€Å"In the Spotlight: Gangs.† National Criminal Justice Reference Service. U.S. Department of Justice, 7 Sept. 2012. Web. 10 Apr. 2013. Smith, Pamela K. â€Å"Gangs.† Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2013. Web. 25 Apr. 2013. Smith, Pamela K. â€Å"Gangs: Outlook.† Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2013. Web. 25 Apr. 2013.

Layman View of Osi Reference Model

Layman View of OSI Reference Model (By Diganta Deka, Former Student, Proprietor-Trainer East India Technologies, Guwahati. ), diganta. [email  protected] com When we talk about computer networks and how computers operate in networks, things do not remain as simple as it seems to be. Here numerous protocols work in tandem for the sake of data integrity during the course of data transfer. To make things worse there are a lot of vendors in the market who provide and produce great number of network hardware and push us to use them.Therefore to provide a solution and to make all these devices communicate in 1984, The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed the Open Systems Interconnections (OSI) reference model. Basically it described how information is transferred from one networking component to another, from the point when a user enters information using a mouse or a keyboard to when that information is converted to electrical or light signals transferred along a piece of wire or radio waves through the air and vice versa.So we can say, OSI reference model provides a foundation to use when you are considering what happens between the network components when they talk with each other. ISO developed a seven layer model which allowed vendors and network administrators to understand a stable data transfer and also provided guidelines for implementing new networking standards. Table-1 below briefly describes these layers, their associated services and protocols supported. Layer| Function| Service Description| | Application| The Application layer provides an interface between the communication software and any other application that needs to communicate outside the computer on which the application resides. This layer represents the services that directly support applications such as software for file transfers, database access, and electronic mail. | 6| Presentation| The Presentation layer translates data from the Application layer into an int ermediary format, such as ASCII text, EBCDIC text, binary, BCD, JPEG etc.This layer also provides services such as data encryption, and data compression. | 5| Session| The Session layer allows two applications on different computers to establish, use, and end a session. This includes the control and management of multiple bidirectional messages so that the application can be notified if only some of a series of messages are completed. This allows Presentation layer to have a seamless view of an incoming stream of data. | 4| Transport| The Transport layer defines the end-to-end transmission of data between nodes (e. . PCs), including flow control and error recognition and recovery. It also repackages long messages when necessary into smaller packets for transmission and, at the receiving end, rebuilds packets into the original message. | 3| Network| The Network layer provides routing, logical network addressing, path determination, media/framing translation, frame fragmentation, and congestion signaling/control. The routing concepts define how devices route or forward packets to their final destination.Logical addressing defines how each device can have an address that can be used by the routing process. Path determination refers to the work done by which all possible routes are learned, but the best route is chosen for use. | 2| Data Link| The Data Link layer packages raw bits from the Physical layer into frames (logical, structured packets). This layer specifies the device addressing, topology and media access, bit/byte synchronization, flow control, and error detection/recovery services associated with sending frames of data over a physical link. 1| Physical| The Physical layer specifies how bit streams are to be transmitted over a physical link in the network. This includes physical characteristics of transmission medium, including pins, use of pins, electrical, current, encoding, light modulation and the rules for how to activate and deactivate the use of the physical medium. | Table-1 Within the network, data traverses a network stack using a process called encapsulation. When an application requires communications resources, the message is handed over to the network stack’s application layer.There, the message is processed into a Protocol Data Unit (PDU). Application specific header information is wrapped around the data. The resultant PDU is then passed to the stack’s presentation layer, where additional header information is added. Each subsequent layer in the source system’s network stack adds service-specific header information to the PDU, until a fully formatted data frame is presented to the physical layer for transmission onto the communications medium.This encapsulation process is illustrated in Figure 1. Encapsulation Process Fig-1 The real data transfer process starts from the Transport Layer, where the data is segmented and hence the data is termed as segment in transport layer. When the segments rea ch the network layer each segment is broken into packets. As these packets are transferred to Data Link Layer each packet is again broken into frames and in Physical Layer the frames converts into Bits. When the bit stream reaches the destination system, the reverse occurs.Each layer in the destination system’s network stack analyzes and then strips its associated header information from the message. The resultant PDU is then passed to the next higher layer, until the original message is presented to the destination application. Typically, a communication layer does not process, or alter the PDU’s content as generated by an adjacent layer. Information exchange only occurs between peer OSI layers. The peer relationship between OSI layers is illustrated in Figure 2.Illustrated Peer Relationship between OSI Layers Bit Stream Frame Packet Segment Data Stream Data Stream Data Stream Bit Stream Frame Packet Segment Data Stream Data Stream Data Stream Figure-2 Till now we hav e been talking about the concept behind the OSI reference model, but if we do not discuss about the protocols (protocol is an agreed set of rules by which devices in a network or number of networks can successfully communicate with each other) and devices that work in each layer of the model then the discussion would remain incomplete.Table-2 and Table-3 respectively represent the devices and the protocols used in various layers in the OSI Reference Model. Devices and the Layers at Which They Function Layer| Name of the layer| Devices| 3| Network| Router, Layer3 Switch| 2| Data Link| Switch, Bridge and NIC| 1| Physical| Hub, Repeater| Table-2 Protocols and the Layers at Which They Function Name of the Layers| Protocols| Application| FTP, Telnet, NFS, HTTP, TFTP, DHCP, DNS, VoIP, SNMP, POP3, SMTP| Presentation| ASCII, HTML, JPEG| Session| SQL, RPC|Transport| TCP, UDP, SPX| Network| IP, X. 25, IPX, Q. 931| Data Link| HDLC, Ethernet, LLC, Frame Relay, ATM, Q. 921, FDDI| Physical| RS-23 2, V. 35, 10bT, RJ45, G. 703/G. 704| Table-3 In the field of networking there very few people who is not aware of OSI reference model and it is impossible to imagine the world of Information Technology without this model. Over the years we have come across so many network hardware, software or operating systems but everything is manufactured keeping OSI reference model as a benchmark.