Reasons for Returning to School

Reasons for Returning to School Dolores Hutt ENG 121 Instructor Vanessa Martin January 15, 2012 Reasons for Returning to School After careful thought and consideration, I made the desire to return to school into a realistic goal. I had finally come to the conclusion, that it was time to take control of my circumstances, rather than continue to let my circumstances control me. For the first time in twenty years, I have a window of opportunity to fit a degree program into my daily schedule. Returning to school had always been a desire of mine, but in the past, I did not think I had the time or the money to pursue a degree. I was a single mother, I was working all of the time, my children were very young, and half of my wages went to daycare expenses. Seven years ago I made a decision to pursue a career in Massage Therapy. When the opportunity presented itself to enroll in an accelerated Diploma and State licensing program for Massage Therapy, that was only going to take one year, I jumped on it. Looking back, I realized how fast a year can go by and how easy it was for me to turn a desire into a concrete accomplishment. Having a career in Massage Therapy for the past six years has been a rewarding experience; it has given me that sense of contribution to society and to my community. I have taken much pride in accomplishing my career goals so far, however, through my experiences with working for corporations, businesses, and having my own business, I realize that I am still missing that important element: a business degree. Having gone through that year in school to get my career going, the experience gave me the confidence to overcome the thinking, that I did not have the time or money to pursue a degree, I now believe that the benefits of a degree will far outweigh any outcome of not having it. The benefits of having a business degree to enhance my career are; that a degree will add credibility to my desire to take my career to the next level, and it will open more doors and options concerning high level job positions. I can talk about experience all I want, but at the end of the day, when it comes to running a business, or getting an executive to listen o my ideas, that will help the industry flow more efficiently, I believe that having a degree will help me to be taken more serious. It will also help me take a break from the labor to pursue the creative and business end of things. I am hoping that this degree program will help me to develop the skills I need to keep a successful business running, an d give me the credibility I seek. My first step after obtaining my business degree will be to get a management position in a corporate setting, so I can get the experience I need to have my own company and employees. I believe that a Degree in Organizational Management will help me to accomplish that goal. Experience, though valuable and relevant, is no substitute for a short cut. I have realized that regardless of experience, if I want to be taken serious, having a degree will open doors and add more opportunity and credibility to any experience. So pursuing a degree at this point in my life has become a priority. Returning to school had always been a desire of mine, but in the past, I did not think I had the time or the money to pursue a degree. Any obstacles I had in the past are no longer there. I have an excellent support system at home, a loving and supportive fiancee of six years, a two income household, my career allows me to work part time and make the same amount of money as I did working full time in the past, so I get to spend more time at home, and my children are much older now so daycare expenses are a thing of the past. This online university program offers so much flexibility and affordability, that I really have no excuse to not execute this with full force. For me, the timing is perfect; the time it will take to complete this degree program is short when I compare it to time wasted by not having a degree. I have done this before and I know I can do it again. I keep my goals and plans right in front of me. I know that with perseverance, planning ahead, and just staying positive, that pursuing my degree will be another accomplishment that I can be proud of, and then I can keep moving forward in my life with confidence and ease. I am no longer at the mercy of my circumstances, I have taken control back, and returning to school is exactly where I need to be right now.

Intelligent Tutoring System For Primary School Students Education Essay

LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter will incorporate the reappraisal of literature of old research that is considered significance in the development of Intelligent Tutoring System for primary school pupils. 2.1 Problem Sphere Problem sphere is the country that needs to be examined to work out a job. In this undertaking, Intelligent Tutoring System is used in the sphere of instruction. Education is the field for larning and learning. It is the procedure where cognition is transferred and received. The intent to hold Intelligent Tutoring System for this undertaking is because to give an end product larning to the pupils particularly primary school pupils. Nowadays, instructors or pedagogues frequently face troubles to manage their pupils. It is because one instructor needs to provide many categories and each category will hold about 20 to 30 pupils. It is impossible to provide each pupil needs and penchant. Each pupil have their ain acquisition manner either they are good in listening, visualising, or making stuff at manus. Since the instructor is impossible to cognize each pupil larning manner, hence, there are demands for Intelligent Tutoring System that can provides a tutoring system that can find the pupils involvement so they will non holding jobs such as deficiency of apprehension and misconceptions. Besides that, the benefit of this tutoring system towards the instructor is the instructor will easy supervise the pupil ‘s public presentation and they will cognize the suited attack to cover with the pupil manners of acquisition. 2.1.1 Learning Manners Students learn in many ways such as by seeing and hearing, reflecting and moving, concluding logically and intuitively, memorising and besides visualising ( Felder, n.d. ) . Teaching and larning are different between each individual. It ‘s all depends on the persons itself. Everybody has larning manner strengths in which different people will hold different strengths ( Dunn, 1990 ) . In 1986, Marie et al. , as cited in ( Farwell, 2000 ) provided an analysis in which approximately 20 to 30 per centum of the school-aged pupils remembers what is heard, 40 per centum easy recalled what they have seen or read and the remainder were normally used both techniques which is they heard and visualise at the same clip. They have their ain manner that will assist them in larning. There are several different theories refering acquisition manners. Auditory, kinaesthetic and ocular are three types of cardinal acquisition manners ( Graham, n.d. ) . Below are the descriptions for each acquisition manners as cited in Graham ( n.d. ) and Farwall ( 2002 ) . Auditory Learners Childs who are audile learner normally prefer more on listening to account by reading them and sometimes they like to analyze by declaiming information aloud. Furthermore, audile scholar may love to environ with music while analyzing or they may necessitate a quiet infinite to analyze without diverted with any sounds. Auditory scholars learn successfully when the manner of giving information are being spoken and presented verbally. Ocular Learners â€Å" Show me and I will understand † is the keyword for ocular acquisition manner. It is a pattern to make new information by looking at something and visualise it. Normally, those people with this sort of larning manner can catch information presented in chart or graph, but they may foster impatiently listening to an account. Kinesthetic Learners Most of the school ‘s kids excel through kinaesthetic which means touching, feeling, and sing the stuff at manus. Learning activity such as scientific discipline lab, field trip, skit and many other activities are the best technique for kinaesthetic scholar. Most people use the combination of manner to acquire best acquisition manner for themselves. As for this undertaking, there are two larning manners covered which is the ocular and audile acquisition manners. This learning manners can be classify via some set of personality inquiries in which it will find the pupils country of acquisition manners. Intelligent Tutoring System will normally come across to several techniques such as Case Based Reasoning technique, Agents technique, Neural techniques, Neuro Fuzzy techniques, Track Analysis and many more. Below are other potencies techniques that can be used for this Intelligent Tutoring System ‘s undertaking despite the Agents technique. 2.1.2 Examples of utilizing Bayesian Networks for Learning Styles Detection Bayesian Networks is one technique that detects pupil ‘s acquisition manners in a web-based instruction system. In 2005, Garcia et al. , had proposed this technique to guarantee that all the pupils can larn even though they have different acquisition manners. Furthermore, Garcia et Al. ( 2005 ) , had besides stated that intelligent agent can used those information to gives the pupils personalized aid and present learning constituents that suit best harmonizing to pupil ‘s acquisition manners. Table 2.1 shows the dimensions of the acquisition manners. Detectors like particulars informations and testing ; intuitive prefer political orientation and theories. Detectors are digesting with item but do non like complications ; intuitive are uninterested by item and love complications. Table 2.1 Dimensions of Felder ‘s acquisition manners ( Beginning: Gracia et al. , ( 2005 ) ) A Bayesian Networks ( BN ) is a directed acyclic graph encodes the dependance relationships between a set of variables ( Pardalos, n.d. ) . It allows us to detect new cognition by uniting adept sphere cognition with statistical informations. In this BN, the nodes represent the different variables that determine a given acquisition manner. The arcs represent the relationships among the acquisition manner and the factor finding it. As shown in Figure 2.1, the theoretical account merely has the three dimensions of Felder ‘s model, perceptual experience, processing and apprehension. Figure 2.1 Bayesian Network patterning pupil ‘s acquisition manners. ( Beginning: Gracia et al. , ( 2005 ) ) The undermentioned sentences describe in item the different states the independent variables can take: Forum: station messages ; answers messages ; reads messages ; no engagement. Chat: participates ; listens ; no engagement. Mail: utilizations ; does non utilize. Information entree: in tantrums and starts ; sequential. Reading stuff: concrete ; abstract. Exam Revision ( considered in relation to the clip assigned to the test ) ; less than 10 % ; between 10 and 20 % ; more than 20 % . Exam Delivery Time ( considered in relation to the clip assigned to the test ) ; less than 50 % ; between 50 and 75 % ; more than 75 % Exercises ( in relation to the sum of exercisings proposed ) : many ( more than 75 % ) ; few ( between 25 and 75 % ) ; none Answer alterations ( in relation to the figure of inquiries or points in the test ) : many ( more than 50 % ) ; few ( between 20 and 50 % ) ; none. Entree to illustrations ( in relation to the figure of illustrations proposed ) : many ( more than 75 % ) ; few ( between 25 % and 75 % ) ; none Exam Consequences: high ( more than 7 in a 1-10 graduated table ) ; medium ( between 4 and 7 ) ; low ( below 4 ) . The chance maps associated with the independent nodes are bit by bit obtained by detecting the pupil interaction with the system. 30 Computer Science Engineering pupils have been interviewed to find the values by experimentation utilizing the ILS ( Index of larning manners ) questionnaire. Then, allow the pupils used the instruction system and recorded their interactions with the system. The information was used to find the parametric quantity of the BN. The Bayesian theoretical account is continuously updated as new information about the pupil ‘s interaction with the system is obtained. The chance maps are adjusted to demo the new observations or experiences. The chances reach equilibrium at certain point in the interaction. The chance values show a really little fluctuation as new information is entered. The values obtained at this point represent the pupil ‘s behaviour. This paper considered for each dimensions three values to do the consequences more comparable. For illustration, for the understanding dimension, it considered the values consecutive, impersonal and planetary. The per centum of happenstances is 100 % for the understanding dimension, 80 % for the perceptual experience dimension, and 80 % for the processing dimension. All information from this paper is cited from Gracia et Al, ( 2005 ) . 2.2 Technique In this undertaking, Intelligent Tutoring System is used to sort pupils larning manners. It used Numberss of regulations as the chief technique because it has the possible to give appropriate end product which is the acquisition manners for the pupils. Below are the descriptions of all techniques that will be used in this undertaking. 2.2.1 Intelligent Tutoring System An early lineation of Intelligent Tutoring System ( ITS ) demands was delivered by Hartley and Sleeman in 1973 ( Shute & A ; Psotka, n.d ) . As stated by Shute and Psotka, Hartley and Sleeman argued that ITS must possess cognition of the sphere ( adept theoretical account ) , cognition of the scholar ( student theoretical account ) , and cognition of learning schemes ( coach ) . Furthermore, in order for ITS to hold appropriate control schemes, it need to hold capturing environment of acquisition, effectivity of communicating and to hold flexible determinations. The ITS is a plan in which pupil can communicated through a sequence of natural linguistic communication inquiries and replies and the coach could both ask and reply inquiries and maintain path of ongoing duologue construction ( Corbett, Koedinger & A ; Anderson, 1997 ) . The authoritative ITS architecture consist of four constituents which are a undertaking environment, a sphere cognition faculty, a pupil theoretical account and pedagogical faculty. Figure 2.2 ITS architecture ( Beginning: Corbett, Koedinger & A ; Anderson, ( 1997 ) ) As cited in Corbett, Koedinger & A ; Anderson ( 1997 ) , pupils engage in job resolution environments and these actions are evaluated with regard to the sphere cognition constituents. Student ‘s cognition province is maintained based on the rating theoretical account. Finally, the pedagogical faculty delivers instructional actions based on the rating of pupil ‘s actions and on the pupil theoretical account. Advantages of ITS as described by Yousoof, Sapiyan & A ; Kamaludin ( 2002 ) , ITS is a systems that can supply considerable flexibleness in presentation of stuff and greater adaptability to react to idiosyncratic pupils need. It besides found to be extremely effectual in their intent. It has been proved by research that the pupils who tend to larn utilizing ITS really could larn fast when compared to the pupils utilizing traditional manner of instruction. Disadvantages of ITS as besides cited in Yousoof, Sapiyan & A ; Kamaludin ( 2002 ) , hazard issues affects the execution of ITS, unsuccessful ITS can do the barrier in execution of ITS, replacing of human coach will besides be a barrier in execution and broad spread of ITS will take topographic point in another five old ages. 2.2.2 Rule Based Expert System Expert system is a computing machine plan that uses cognition and illation process to work out job that are hard plenty to necessitate important human expert to work out for their solution ( Negnevitsky, 2002 ) . It is besides a computing machine plan in which it is able to execute at the degree of a human expert in a all right job country. The most popular expert systems is a regulation based expert system. It besides called as production regulations in which it contains IF-THEN statement. Structure of Rule Based Expert System A rule-based expert system has five constituents: the cognition base, the database, the illation engine, the account installations, and the user interface. Knowledge Base Database Inference Engine Explanation Facility User Interface User Figure 2.3 Basic Structure of Rule Based Expert System ( Beginning: Negnevitsky, ( 2002 ) ) The cognition base contains the sphere cognition utile for job resolution. In a rule-based expert system, the cognition is represented as a set of regulations. Each regulation specifies a relation, recommendation, directive, scheme or heuristic and has the IF ( status ) THEN ( action ) construction. When the status portion of a regulation is satisfied, the regulation is said to fire and the action portion is executed. The database includes a set of facts used to fit aligned with the IF ( status ) parts of regulations stored in the cognition base. The illation engine brings out the concluding whereby the expert system reaches a solution. It links the regulations given in the cognition base with the facts provided in the database. The account installations enable the user to inquire the expert system how a peculiar decision is reached and why a specific fact is needed. An adept system must be able to explicate its logical thinking and warrant its advice, analysis or decision. The user interface is the agencies of communicating between a user seeking a solution to the job and an expert system. The user is the 1 who will be used the system. User is besides the 1 that will seek for solution. Advantages of Rule Based Expert System Natural cognition representation. An expert normally explains the job work outing process with such looks as this: ‘in such-and-such state of affairs, I do so-and-so ‘ . These looks can be represented rather of course as IF-THEN production regulations. two. Uniform Structure. Production regulations have the unvarying IF-THEN construction. Each regulation is an independent piece of cognition. The really sentence structure of production regulations enables them to be self-documented. three. Separation of cognition from its processing. The construction of a rule-based expert system provides an effectual separation of the cognition base from the illation engine. This makes it possible to develop different applications utilizing the same expert system shell. It besides allows a graceful and easy enlargement of the expert system. To do the system smarter, a cognition applied scientist merely adds some regulations to the cognition base without step ining in the control construction. Disadvantages of Rule Based Expert System Opaque dealingss between regulations Although the single production regulations tend to be comparatively simple and self-documented, their logical interactions within the big set of regulations may be opaque. Rule-based systems make it hard to detect how single regulations serve the overall scheme. This job is related to the deficiency of hierarchal cognition representation in regulation based expert systems. two. Ineffective hunt scheme The illation engine applies an thorough hunt through all the production regulations during each rhythm. Adept systems with a big set of regulations ( over 100 regulations ) can be slow, and therefore big rule-based systems can be unsuitable for real-time applications. Inability to larn In general, rule-based expert systems do non hold an ability to larn from the experience. Unlike a human expert, who knows when to ‘break the regulations ‘ , an expert system can non automatically modify its cognition base, or adjust bing regulations or add new 1s. The cognition applied scientist is still responsible for revising and keeping the system. All information for Rule Based Expert System is cited from Negnevitsky ( 2002 ) . 2.2.3 Intelligent Agent An agent is anything that can be viewed as comprehending its environment through detectors and moving upon that environment through effecters ( Rusell & A ; Norvig, 1995 ) . Presently, agents are the point of involvement on the portion of many countries of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Harmonizing to Jennings & A ; Wooldridge ( n.d. ) , an intelligent agent is a computing machine plan that is able to execute immediate response in order to run into its design aims. Flexible here means that the systems must be antiphonal in which agents should separate their environments and react in a timely to alterations that occur in it. Agents should besides be proactive whereby they should be able to exhibit chances, purposive behaviour, and take the enterprise where appropriate. Finally, agents should be societal in which agents should be interrelate when they comfortable with other Artificial Agents and worlds in order to finish their ain job resolution and to assist others with their activities. Advantages of utilizing Intelligent Agent are because agents represent a powerful tool for doing system more flexible. Agents should act like an ‘expert helper ‘ with regard to some application, knowing about both the application and the user, and capable of moving with user in order to accomplish the user ‘s ends. Agents are besides good in bettering the efficiency of Software Development. The restrictions or the disadvantages of utilizing agent as discussed by Jennings & A ; Wooldridge ( n.d. ) are: – No overall system accountant An agent-based solution may non be suited for spheres in which planetary restraints have to be maintained, domains where a real-time response must be guaranteed, or in spheres in which dead ends or unrecorded locks must be avoided. No planetary position Agents may do globally sub-optimal determinations since in about any realistic agent system ; complete planetary cognition is non a possibility. An agent ‘s action are by definition determined by that agent ‘s local province. Trust and deputation Users have to derive assurance in the agents that work on their behalf, and this procedure can take some clip. During this period of clip, the agent must strike a balance between continually seeking counsel ( and needlessly deflecting the user ) and ne'er seeking counsel ( an transcending its authorization ) . An agent must cognize its restrictions. 2.2.4 Multiagent System As stated by Capuano et Al. ( n.d. ) , multiagent system ( MAS ) can be defined as loosely-coupled webs of pass oning and collaborating agents working together to work out jobs that are in front of their single capablenesss. In order to obtain consistent system behaviour, single agents in a multiagent system are non merely able to portion knowledge about jobs and solutions, but besides to ground about the procedures of coordination among other agents ( Capuano et al. , n.d. ) . The thought of multiagent system is that an agent is a computing machine plan that has capableness to execute independent action on behalf of its proprietor or user. In add-on, agent can calculate out for itself what it needs to make in order to fulfill its design aims. A multiagent system is one that consists of figure of agents, which interact with another, typically by interchanging messages through some computing machine substructure ( Wooldridge, 2002 ) . In order to successfully interact, these agents will therefore necessitate the ability to collaborate, co-ordinate and negotiate with each other. 2.2.5 Distributed Case Based Reasoning Case Based Reasoning ( CBR ) is another technique that is widely used in Intelligent Tutoring System and in the field of instruction so. As proposed by Rishi et Al. ( 2007 ) , they combine both technique which are CBR and agent technique to supply pupil patterning for online acquisition in a distributed environment with the aid of agents. In this paper, it focused more on Case Based Distributed Student Modeling ( agent based ) ITS architecture to back up student-centred, self-paced, and extremely synergistic acquisition. The first measure is to construct the effectual acquisition environment which is the CBR where the system maintains a complete and full set of instances ( scenarios ) of pupil ‘s acquisition form and employs an efficient and flexible instance retrieval system. The system as cited in Rishi et Al. ( 2007 ) must used the pupil ‘s larning profile such as larning manner and background cognition in selecting, forming and showing the larning stuff to back up instance based acquisition. As Rishi et Al. ( 2007 ) cited from Yi Shang et Al. ( 2001 ) and Kumar ( 2005 ) , Distributed CBR based pupil patterning enables adaptative bringing of educational contents and facilitates automatic rating of larning results. This system consists of three agents with different expertness. The first agent which is personal agent will concentrate on pupil profiler which include cognition background, larning manner, involvements, class enrolled etc. The other two agents communicated with each other through different communicating channel which situated in distributed environments are learning agent and class agent. Figure 2.4 show the communicating theoretical account among agents. Figure 2.4 Communication theoretical account among agents ( Beginning: Rishi et Al. ( 2007 ) ) Furthermore, the undermentioned activities as shown in figure 2.5 return topographic point during the pupil patterning when the pupil interacts with the system as such, choice of subject by the pupil and acquire to cognize pupil ‘s background by showing jobs to the pupil, analysing the pupil ‘s response by the system, choice of instance by the system based on response, version of the instance by the system, accomplishing the cognition constituent of the pupil theoretical account through instance retrieval, coevals of learning scheme by the system and showing the following job to the pupil. Figure 2.5 Procedure of Student Modeling ( Beginning: Rishi et Al. ( 2007 ) ) Finally, this system is to the full distributed in which it does non bounded with any web topology, it reduces the demand of big storage infinites at the user ‘s site to hive away all the instances and redundancy is maintained for mistake tolerance. The whole system is managed in the distributed environment with merely three agents which are Personal Agent, Teaching Agent and Course Agent. 2.2.6 Path Analysis Learning indexs is the manner of working and analysing the paths and supplying cognition on the activities ( Bousbia et al. , n.d. ) . This will assist instructors to comprehend and construe the scholar ‘s activities in e-learning state of affairss. As in figure 2.5 this paper by Bousbia et Al. ( n.d. ) considers three stairss in the analysis. The first 1 is index ‘s pick. The first measure is fundamentally to steer the aggregation procedure. It helps the instructor to take high degree indexs in which the instructor intends to seek from the indexs base. It will so inquire the instructor to supply extra informations required for their computations. The following measure is observation. In this phase, the system identified the necessary paths extracted through a aggregation tool which installed on the learner side. This tool has specific history such as visited pages URLs, clip and actions. Finally, the analysis and interpretation measure. This is the most of import measure in which it divided into three chief phases which are shoping way rebuilding, indexs ‘ computation and learning manner tax write-off. Figure 2.6 Learning Style Deduction Steps ( Beginning: Bousbia et Al. ( n.d. ) ) There will be three beds remain which are educational penchant bed, larning procedure bed and cognitive abilities bed. The first bed includes properties related to the preferable acquisition clip, environment penchant, information representations and encoding methods. The 2nd bed includes larning scheme, comprehension and patterned advance attack. For the last bed, it includes motive and concentration capacity. The learning manner can be determined by ciphering the value of each bed ‘s property. By utilizing the necessary high degree indexs, the value is deduced. Furthermore, to link the indexs to the acquisition manners, Bousbia et Al. ( n.d. ) sort them harmonizing to theoretical account beds. The possible values of each bed ‘s property are chosen from the bing acquisition manner theoretical accounts, by doing their definitions closer. 2.3 Related Plants Related plants are plants from other research workers which have related to this undertaking or possibly the same technique used but in different field or sphere. Intelligent Tutoring System and some other techniques is the chief focused in this research to compare and distinguish sphere and techniques with other undertakings. 2.3.1 Intelligent Agent in E-commerce Ecommerce or e-commerce is the ability and accomplishment of selling merchandises or services over the Internet ( Ward, 2010 ) . As discussed by Pivk & A ; Gams ( n.d. ) in their article on Intelligent Agent in E-commerce, the article discussed on appraisal of agent engineerings which involved in purchasing and selling. Several agent-mediated electronic commercialism systems are analyzed in the position of a general theoretical account of the purchasing procedure. E-commerce involves business-to-business ( B2B ) , business-to-customer ( B2C ) and customer-to-customer ( C2C ) minutess. It encounters a broad scope of issues such as security, trust, electronic merchandise, catalogues and many more. Intelligent agent can be used or applied to any of these. Pivk & A ; Gams ( n.d. ) had given illustrations on the use of agent in ecommerce such as Tete-a-Tete ( T @ T ) . For illustrations in Figure 2.7, a shopping agent may have proposals from multiple gross revenues agents. Each proposal defines a complete merchandise offering including a merchandise constellation, monetary value and the merchandiser ‘s value-added services. The shopping agent evaluates and order these proposals based on how good they satisfy its proprietor ‘s penchants. If the shopper is non satisfied, he can review them along one or more dimensions. User shopping agent broadcasts this penchant changes to the gross revenues agents in which, in bend, utilize them to counter-propose better merchandise offering. Figure 2.7 Consumer-owned shopping agents integrative negotiate with multiple merchant-owned gross revenues agents. ( Beginning: Pivk & A ; Gams ( n.d. ) ) 2.3.2 Intelligent Agent Based Graphic User Interface ( GUI ) for e-Physician This paper is proposed by Jung, Thapa & A ; Wang ( 2007 ) . It is all about the attack of utilizing ontology based intelligent interface agent that will help the doctor to get on-line entree interface to patient ‘s chart, fast rescheduling such as exigency instance, easy entree to research lab consequences and cut downing overall cost because of optimal use of clip. In this paper, medical homecare system model is designed in real-time environment. There are four types of agents that are used in this system which are Interface Agent, Admin Agent, Laboratory Agent, Diagnosis Agent and Schedule Agent as in Figure 2.8. Figure 2.8 Conceptual Framework of Intelligent Agent Based user interface ( Beginning: Jung, Thapa & A ; Wang ( 2007 ) ) As cited from Jung, Thapa & A ; Wang ( 2007 ) , interface agent is the agent that will interact with the user and will work as an information filtering agent and choose the most critical instance per precedence. On the other manus, research lab agent will be able to supply the item scrutiny study from the research lab database. Furthermore, diagnosing agent will assist the interface agent to propose proper diagnosing by utilizing determination devising regulations. In add-on, administrative agent will supply pre-historic diagnosing tendency of the patient and eventually schedule agent will assist in fixing patient ‘s chart, programming, and fat rescheduling of the program on footing precedence. Those agents will assist in the development of the system and will give user ‘s concluding control for optimisation of their best Graphical user interface. 2.3.3 Intelligent Agent in Computer Games Games are the practical universes that are more traceable than existent universe. It is besides something that can be controlled, formal, and mensurable, supply realistic and important challenge ( Mikkulainen, n.d. ) . Intelligent agents can be deployed in games today. As cited in Lent et Al. ( n.d. ) , they discussed on the usage of intelligent agent in the games called Soar. It make the growing of intelligent agents for games easier by giving common illation engine and reclaimable cognition base that can be merely applied in many different games. Soar allows easy decomposition of the agent ‘s action through hierarchy of operation. It used Quake II and Descent 3 agents in which both have the functionality in the games such as winging in a starship without gravitation, onslaught, explore and many more. Furthermore, Soar invariably cycles through perceive in which it accept sensor information from the game, think ( choice and execute relevant cognition ) and Act ( Execute internal and external actions ) . Interface is another of import portion in developing games since the interface extracts the necessary information from the game and encodes it into the format required in Soar. 2.3.4 Nervous Network-based Fuzzy Modeling of the Student in ITS This paper is utilizing empirical attack that use the neuro-fuzzy synergy to measure the pupils in the context of an ITS is presented. Stathacopoulou, Magoulas & A ; Grigoriadou ( n.d. ) stated that fuzzed logic techniques is widely used in ITS since it have the ability to manage imprecise information such as pupil ‘s actions and to supply human descriptions of cognition and of pupil ‘s cognitive abilities. In this paper, fuzzed logic is used to supply human-like approximative diagnosing of pupil ‘s cognition and cognitive abilities and Neural Network is used to trained human instructor ‘s determinations sing pupil ‘s features and fixed weight Neural Network are used to measure and aggregate rank map. The neuro-fuzzy theoretical account has been tested in natural philosophies domain to measure pupil ‘s features for make up one's minding about the appropriate instruction scheme. Experiments have been performed by Stathacopoulou, Magoulas & A ; Grigoriadou ( n.d. ) utilizing a population of 300 fake pupil instances with the determinations of 5 instructors. The overall mean categorization success has been 95 % . As decision, rating of pupils depends on interior decorator ‘s ability to analyse the cognitive sphere appropriately, define fuzzed sets and associate the pupil response with suited cognition and cognitive features. 2.3.5 FlexiTrainer: A Ocular Authoring Framework for Case-Based Intelligent Tutoring System FlexiTrainer is an authoring model that allowed the fast fleet design of didactically rich and performance-oriented acquisition environments with tradition content and tutoring schemes ( Ramachandran, Remolina & A ; Fu ( n.d. ) ) . This authoring tool specifies a dynamic behaviour of tutoring agents that interact to present direction. FlexiTrainer has been used to develop an ITS for preparation chopper pilots in winging accomplishments. FlexiTrainer consists of two constituents which are the authoring tools and the everyday engine. Core constituent for FlexiTrainer are Task-Skill-Principle Editor, Exercise Editor, Student Model Editor, and Tutor Behavior Editor. Each of these editors has their ain specific functionality. An instructional agent is used to transport out teaching-elated to accomplish instructional ends. It used Bayesian illation to integrate pupil patterning schemes. 2.3.6 Intelligent Tutoring System utilizing Hybrid Expert System with Speech Model in Neural Networks This paper used supervised larning nervous webs to successful rate. Besides being more information bringing systems, this system aid pupils to actively build cognition. This paper by Venkatesh, Naganathan & A ; Maheswari ( 2010 ) enable learning system to be developed in assorted Fieldss and topics. Nervous Model in this system is used for Question Answering System. As shown in Figure 2.9, input bed contains the inquiries on the wanted topics. Both possible inquiries and replies are stored in the coveted end product. Figure 2.9: Nervous Network Architecture ( Beginning: Venkatesh, Naganathan & A ; Maheswari, ( 2010 ) ) On the other manus, address theoretical account consists of linguistic communication extraction ( includes categories such as noun, verb, operator, pronoun and many more ) , speech act classifier ( tutor uses strings of words and punctuation to sort each part of the scholar into speech act units ) , file direction ( used as marker for the lector ‘s manner reply which communicated with ITS faculty ) and manners ( choice individual to be communicated with the ITS either pupil, lector or admin ) . This system non merely cut down development times but besides appreciably simplifies the proficient cognition required of forces involved in the coevals of an auto-regulated intelligent tutoring duologue system ( Venkatesh, Naganathan & A ; Maheswari ( 2010 ) ) . 2.4 Drumhead There are many ways in developing Intelligent Tutoring System as mentioned above. Each technique used has its ain strengths and failings. In this undertaking, Rule-based is used since it gives more impact and significance to the paradigm. The following chapter will demo the research model on the methodological analysis for developing this paradigm.

Mental Health Assessment and Management Case Study

Mental Health Assessment and Management - Case Study Example Depression will also always affect one’s thoughts. The person will tend to think negatively about the world, family, self and their future. They will think of life being hopeless, they will think of themselves being useless and even think of taking their life (Roy, 2005; Lam, 2012). A depressed person will also either eat too much or not enough. Might have trouble sleeping or oversleep due to extreme tiredness. In the end, depression can affect one’s life, to a point that it results in serious problems with one’s family, at school, job and with friends (Roy, 2005; Lam, 2012). Mrs. Johnson is suffering from depression. She recently lost her job, which may be a sign of depression being the cause of losing the job. She feels worthless â€Å"She feels her children may be â€Å"better off† without her†. She also has a record of three-month worsening anxiety, which explains the depression. Anxiety is a cause, and also a symptom of depression. Other symptoms of depression identified from Mrs. Johnson’s report are; decreased appetite decreased energy, and suicidal ideation (Roy, 2005; Lam, 2012). Another mental problem observed is suicide. Warning signs of suicidal person are; if the person is talking about suicide, if the person is depressed and feeling hopeless, if the person has low self-esteem, if there is change in the person’s sleeping patterns, eating habits (eating less or more than usual), personality (withdrawn, less sociable or sad), and behavior (poor/ reduced concentration). Mrs. Johnson’s depression could be a cause of her lack of concentration that resulted in a loss of her job. She is to be divorced, and worries about her children. She thinks she is a failure. She may also have to sell her house. All these negative thoughts are a source of the thoughts about suicide. It could also be that Mrs. Johnson’s accident could have been self-inflicted. She tells all her experiences in tears after the accident. It could mean that she was trying to end it all. This could have been her first attempt to suicide, and so she was explaining the reason as to why she needed it. From NHS information, it is also clear that Mrs. Johnson was, and is still vulnerable to suicide. Mental health, life history, lifestyle, relationships, employment, and genetics, are some of the factors that make one vulnerable to suicide (NHS, 2012). Mrs. Johnson has a family history of depression in his father and grandfather (paternal) and also has an uncle that committed suicide due to depression. She recently lost her job; her relationship with her husband is coming to an end, while that with her sons is filled with hopelessness as she perceives it. She is also depressed and has suffered anxiety for three months.

Population Trends in Larids Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 11250 words

Population Trends in Larids - Dissertation Example ing gulls regionally, it was interesting to note that while the western colonies which were 10 times later than the eastern colonies in England during the seafarer census, the western colonies have declined by almost 27,000 pairs while the east coast colonies have steadily grown over the censuses. Although still much smaller than the west coast, it will be interesting to see if the decline in the west and increase in the east will continue. In striking contrast, at the seafarer census the east Scotland colonies were nearly three times those of the west coast. However, by the seabird census the populations on the east and west coast of Scotland were virtually identical. When examining the herring gull by latitude one of the greatest differences noted is the drastic decrease of the population in the 56-58N latitude in particular. The huge colonies present at Seafarer had been decimated by the seabird census. In fact, much of the herring gull population has seen a phenomenal decrease in the latter part of the 20th century. Table of Contents 1.0 Chapter 1 - Introduction 3 3.0 Chapter 3 - Methodology 17 4.0 Chapter 4.0 - Results/Analysis 22 Appendices 61 1.0 Chapter 1 - Introduction 1.1 Background Information There have been 3 major surveys conducted in Britain and Ireland that have measured the breeding populations of great black backed, lesser black backed and herring gulls. These are the Operation Seafarer surveys, conducted in 1969-70; the Seabird Colony Register census, conducted in 1985-87; and Seabird 2000, conducted in 1998-2002. By analysis of the differences in the numbers observed in these three surveys, it is possible to show variation in population trends over time of these three very closely related bird species. Species... This dissertation reveals that gulls are known to feed at areas of sewage outflow to the sea, such as in the Bristol Channel. It has been noted that they appear well adapted to feeding in polluted areas, as they have a well-developed detoxification system. There was a change in the numbers of lesser black backed gulls feeding at sewage outlets in South Wales, where a 289% increase in numbers between the 1970s and 1990s was observed in one study. However, it was also found that feeding from sewage outlets was overall much more common in black-headed gulls than lesser black backed or herring gulls, with 11% of the population of black headed gulls feeding at sewage outlets, compared to 3% for herring gulls and 7% for lesser black backed gulls. In conclusion, there was also a difference in feeding patterns throughout the year, with far more gulls feeding at sewage outlets during the summer, compared to winter. This has a particular significance in that the summer is when breeding pairs are incubating and caring for offspring, which could then be affected by the parental diet. Refuse, whether sewage or on land, supports 43-75% of the diet of lesser black backed and great black backed gulls. However, it is often juvenile, non-breeding gulls that are found at sewage outlets, which means that offspring are less likely to be affected. There has been a link between salmonellae occurrence in gulls and the number of human cases in local hospitals, with this being linked to a similar contaminated food source, as opposed to direct infection.

Literacy narrative Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Literacy narrative - Essay Example Further, even writing an essay about our experiences after a school trip was also difficult for me for the same forgetfulness. More recently after high school, I decided to get a casual job and save some money since I was not keen to join college immediately. However, that is when I realized the seriousness and implications of my reading and writing challenges. Although I was only seeking casual jobs that did not require strict academic of professional qualifications, I did not pass a single interview. The questions asked were directly related to what I was supposed to do on a day to day basis and had very little academic significance. However, in as much as I had the correct answers, I could not organize them in a logical and comprehensive manner. I later came to learn that my answers were received with skepticism because they were considered a reflection of the way I would conduct myself and perform my duties. After a third interview at the same job, a friend of mine who worked in the human resources of the company advised me to consider improving my communication skills. This came as a surprise, because although I knew I had researched enough on the job I had applied for, I had realized that the problem was how I presented my ideas. I inadvertently found myself remembering the problems I had speaking in front of the class and while at it, I strangely remembered my days as a younger kid when I enjoyed reading Dr. Seuss. Somehow, in those earlier days I could tell the story to other kids without a problem. Reflecting on that, I convinced myself that it is something I can do again despite the many years that had gone by. As an adult who has missed several jobs because of being unable to communicate my ideas, I realize that it is costly not to address the problem. Therefore, I have decided to go to college particularly to learn communication skills. Equally important, I need to learn how to

Indo-European Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Indo-European - Essay Example One of the theories about Indo-European languages that help in understanding contemporary languages is their disproportional significance. The disproportional nature of their significance is that they have dominated largely than would be expected of their number. This is because the languages are merely less than 30 percent of the total number of languages in the world but they dominate over the remaining majority languages (Diamond 249). The theory of disproportionate significance explains the current trend in languages in which non Indo-European speakers are assimilating Indo-European languages. Loss of linguistic diversity is the consequence because people are forsaking their native languages into the Indo-European languages, a wave that begun towards the end of the 15th century. The theory of disproportionate significance of the Indo-European language is also significant from the fact that it withstood possible influence from other languages that existed in Europe such as Finish and Assyrian. These other languages, in spite of having existed in the region, failed to influence languages in Europe and other regions as the Indo-European languages did. The theory of disproportionate significance of Indo-European languages therefore explains the languages’ spread to become native languages for other people across the world (Diamond 252). Another theory about Indo-European languages that helps understand contemporary languages is the theory that the Indo-European languages substituted other languages that then ceased to exist. This theory explains the spread of the Indo-European theories and supports the disproportionate theory. Not only did the Indo-European theories spread to other regions but also they replaced native languages in those regions. New generations therefore grew with the knowledge that an Indo-European language that they are exposed to id their native language. This theory further explains the use of Indo-European

The monstrous in photography Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The monstrous in photography - Essay Example Many products of painting have documentary and informational value. Our epoch is distinguished by the tendency of showing the reality. However our reality is not always pleasant to look at, that is why critics and psychologists, painters and photographers argue about the representation of monstrous and the taboo in respect of this representation. The body in modern American art is shown as defenseless, injured, sexual, disjointed, dreadful and supernatural. There are a lot of unquotable elements. This concerns the artists like Mike Kelley, John Miller, Kiki Smith, Robert Gober, Cindy Sherman, Andres Serrano, Barbara Nortfleet and others.It is really impossible to forget the shocking gesture of Andres Serrano. In 1991 in the Austrian gallery he exposed a composition "'Piss Christ'" The crucifixion written by urine (yellow on red) was showed in gallery no more than for three days - they were afraid of pogroms. On the first day the 51-years Catholic tried to break a frame, but he was dragged back by the guards. On the second day two teenagers managed to do that. The next fascinating sight can be found in the book of Barbara Nortfleet "Looking at Death". Nobody would dare to remain indifferent looking at this astonishing book, a collection of over a hundred fascinating and often scandalous photographs. After looking through at l east several of them one will never be able to look at death as he did before. Here you will find different kinds of death: on the stage and in war, by violence and in medicine. There is absurdity and tragedy, knack and pretense. This book makes us look at our life differently and inspires to appreciate every moment of living. The creativity of the abovementioned authors is actively discussed by many critics; different opinion was formed about their work. However what does the person feels looking at such images Are they criminal and must be forbidden or can they just serve as a cause for thinking What do they really represent The concept of representation is a key concept both for a paradigm of "cultural researches" and for feministic criticism. At the same time it is one of the most problematic concepts in terms of definition. Stewart Hall says that the representation has two main meanings: 1)"speaking for somebody" representation or somebody's interest; 2) representation in art or philosophy (as a representation of something existing by other means). Stewart Hall considers it to be possible to reduce all the variety of cultural approaches in the decision of this problem to three basic models of interpretation: reflective (mimetic), intentional and constructional (including semiotic and discursive approaches). Hall defines the representation as a process by means of which subjects of culture use the language (any system of marks) for values manufacture. Objects of representation have no sense: it appears during the interpretation and the communications, coding and decoding of texts and depends on the cul tural context. Photography is philosophical observations and reflections. The photographer is not an operator, he is a producer, he creates and organizes a situation, he is a stage manager, the thin psychologist penetrating into the depths of human soul. From this point of view a completely necessary condition of perception is a certain preliminary cogitative gesture, some kind of "hidden manner". It is important not to refuse the experience of our inherent photography

The Water Babies and Victorian Childhood Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6250 words

The Water Babies and Victorian Childhood - Essay Example At the outset it is submitted that the diverse nature of Victorian literature highlighted how â€Å"novels became a means through which readers defined their social identity and formed their attitudes to such issues as nationalism, gender differences and the nature of the family† (James 2006, p.xi). To this end, the Victorian novel developed as a realist concept.For example, on the one hand, in Oliver Twist, Dickens utilises dramatic irony and satire within lengthy descriptive sentence paragraphs in order to highlight the situation of many poor homeless children. For example, in the preface to the 1841 edition, Dickens depicts the â€Å"cold, wet, shelterless, midnight streets of London; the foul and frowsy dens, where vice is closely packed and lacks room to turn; the haunts of hunger and disease; the shabby rages that scarcely hold together – where are the attraction of these things?†The paragraph is comprised of a characteristically long sentence, listing the dire circumstances faced by the children. Moreover, the use of alliteration and assonance further highlight the predicament of homeless children and the use of words with reference to â€Å"foul† and â€Å"vice† depicts the reality of lost innocence of children. This is further heightened when Dickens reverses the Victorian puritanical blame back onto the upper echelons of society by creating a pause followed by the rhetorical question â€Å"- where are the attraction of these things?†

Islamic legal system Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Islamic legal system - Research Paper Example It is for this practice of corporal punishment in Islamic countries that they fail to gain membership in the European Union. In the document released by European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in 2006, focus is given to the status of Muslim population in the European Union. The document states that owing to the reason of Muslim people’s increased participation in terrorist activities a fear has generated in regards to the entire Muslim race, called Islamophobia. Due to this fear even, the Muslim members in the European Union are facing a disadvantageous position. The article ‘World of Islam’ puts focus on a highly controversial issue regarding the Islamic religion. It is held that the religion of Islam has helped itself in spreading rapidly throughout the world through high amount of bloodsheds and a sense of Imperialism. However, the article argues that the religion of Islam condemns forceful transformation of people to Islamic religion. It rather encourages the growth of other religions. In the article on ‘Islam: The second largest world religion†¦and growing’ (n.d.) it is stated that Islamic religion has a huge number of followers spread throughout the world. An estimate is provided which mentions that Muslim population throughout the world ranges from 0.7 to 1.8 billion. In regards to the above fact, it is stated that by the middle of the twenty first century Islam would turn into the world’s largest religion. Author Vicki Gallay in the article ‘The Religion of Muslim’ states that Muslims mainly compose the regions of Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nigeria. Moreover, he also states that amongst the entire Muslim population in the world 25 percent belong to Middle East countries while in America the Muslim population stands at 6 million. In the document of ‘The Ideal Personality of a Muslim’ (n.d.) it is stated

International Human Resourse Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

International Human Resourse Management - Essay Example (Friel, 2005) It is important for the better operations of HR management that it keeps changing and evolving according to the changing needs of employees and workforce itself. It becomes particularly more central when the organizations operates or intends to operate internationally. Since the past decade, there are a number of factors that are motivating organizations to go global, these includes the Global population Changes, Economic interdependence, Regional and Political Alliance, and rapid advancement of telecommunications and swift transfer of information. Across the globe, population growth in developed and industrialized countries is decreasing, such as the European Union (EU), the United States and Japan. This decline in birth rates results in more of an aging population and that further results in lesser number of workers as well as consumers. On the other hand, in countries like China, India, Africa, Australia and other regions of the world, the population grows significantly. It is for this reason companies think of going global and have internationally established operations, by exploiting the growing, highly-potential customer base. (Cascio, 2003) Second reason why companies go global is the increasing economic interdependence. Despite of global recession, the four largest economies of the world are U.S., Japan, China, and Germany. Therefore, organizations in other countries take it as an opportunity and expand. Another driving force is the rapid advancement of telecommunications and technology. The worldwide intensification of Internet is making the information flow from one to another easier and quicker. Today, Satellite technology exists in the villages of India, China, Africa and Latin America. U.S. economy would have pulverized without the support of chips, screens and software from Asia. With this turning of

Factors of Planning and Other Functions of Management Essay Example for Free

Factors of Planning and Other Functions of Management Essay With over 300,000 people world wide, ATT is truly a global Fortune 500 company with a significant presence in the communication industry. With impressive growth, executives and managers need to develop a strategy that allows ATT to connect with their customers and manage the contributing factors to their success. As stated in the ATT Annual Report (2007), ATT was able to increase their annual income by 98.3%. This amazing growth occurred in all sectors of their revenue stream and made 2007 a historic year financially for ATT. ATT Chairman, CEO and President, Mr. Randall Stephenson also states in the annual report (2007, p. 8) there is one word that best describes what ATT does and it is connected. A simple vision that clearly describes what ATT does for their customers to drive growth in their organization. In order for a company to succeed in todays market, the product appeal to a global audience is imperative. Although ATT did not begin as a business that offered products and services globally, ATTs network now includes 38 internet data centers on four continents across the globe (ATT, 2008). ATT offers a variety of communication products and services that appeal to individuals and companies. The demand for these types of products and services is on the rise, especially within major corporations. Given this demand, ATT has developed and maintained an advanced and powerful communications network. ATT is an industry leader of communication services, which serves millions of individuals and businesses on six continents (ATT, 2008). The economy is an external factor that influences how ATT manages rapid change. For example, with home foreclosures at a record high, the demand for landline telephone service is decreasing. Meanwhile the demand for wireless service is increasing. ATT continues to focus on advancing wireless products (ATT, Vonage, 2008). ATT has acquired many smaller wireless providers, which allows them to become the top provider of wireless services in the United States. Cingular wireless is one of the wireless companies that ATT bought out. After the purchase of Cingular wireless, ATT began, promoting the new ATT, the one-stop shop for all kinds of communications  and entertainment services (Goodbye Cingular, 2007). As early as 1885, ATT began providing telephone service in the United States. To see the vast growth in their technology over the past 100 years is amazing. The service initially started with one-line calls or the ability for only one person to make a telephone call at a time and it now services over 70 million customers. The costs have decreased significantly over the decades as well. In 1892, a long distance phone call from New York to Chicago would cost about $9 for the first five minutes; rather expensive for that period in time. Today, ATT has grown to be the worlds largest communications carrier and provides services for a broad spectrum of customers from residential to commercial, like the Fortune 1000 companies. Other than the typical local and long distance voice services for the residential customer, ATT also provides high speed internet access, home networking, Wi-Fi, and wireless voice and data services. According to ATTs website (2008), they provide businesses with access to one of the worlds most advanced IP networks. ATT provides the corporate community with technologies, such as, Voice over IP (VoIP), enterprise mobility solutions and Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections. To keep up with todays vastly growing field of technology, ATT (2008) †¦recently switched on the nations first coast-to-coast IP/MPLS network†¦ In the United States alone, ATTs wired network encompasses 61.6 million access lines and has 14.2 million high speed internet subscribers. In 2008, ATT plans to expand their current 64,000 Wi-Fi hot spots to more than 70,000 locations also launch more of their multi-screen services. ATT embraces technological innovation to convert ideas rapidly into useful products and services. ATTs management and planning functions focus on the company and its customers while applying principles of sound, responsible and forward-looking stewardship to the needs of society. Today, ATT is rethinking management functions and planning in terms of the Internet and new culture and capabilities. E-business (electronic business), derived from  such terms as e-mail and e-commerce, is the conduct of business on the Internet, not only buying and selling but also servicing customers and collaborating with business partners. E-business allows ATT and other companies to use the Web to buy parts and supplies from other companies, to collaborate on sales promotions, and to participate in joint research. ATTs involvement with technology innovation such as e-business influences a range of criteria, including customer relationship performance, sales-based outcomes, and a general measure of organizational performance. The moderating role of ATTs management teams involvement suggests that management championing the initiatives is crucial for successful results of the e-business market tendencies and new business development possibilities (ATT, 2008). Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call to Watson about 150 years ago. One century ago, there were 10,000 telephone companies battling for their share in the voice communication market. ATT battling in the communications market, realized in order to continue innovation, a sustained research and development component was needed. Early in 1925, ATT determined they could not do this alone and made a series of strategic acquisitions and uniform standards. In the late 20th century, ATT acquired Bell Labs that focused on computers, information and communications science. According to ATT (2008), Recognized as a pioneer in the IT revolution of the late 1990s, direction of innovation at ATT Labs influences not only the ways we live and work today but our lives and the workplace of the future. With these guiding principles, our work in development, creativity and innovation lead to improved social, economic and environmental opportunities for ATT communities. ( ¶13)ATT has made significant innovative contributions to the history of American business and global technology. Listed are a few of these accomplishments including:High-fidelity recording (1925), First TV transmission (1927), Trans-Atlantic radiotelephone (1929), Radio astronomy (1933), The transistor (1937), The first computer (1939), The laser (1960), Optical fiber communication (1977), Cellular technology (1983), Speech recognition and synthesis (1992), Voice over IP technology (1995), Quantum computing (1999), Internet Project predictive and proactive  network security (2005) (ATT, 2008) . ATT noted on their website (2008), Despite its pioneering efforts in other areas of the company, including diversity, customer service and human resources, ATTs reputation for innovation remains closely tethered to ATT Labs.( ¶ 4)ATT realizes that diverse, talented and dedicated people is key to the companys success. In fostering diversity and inclusion, ATT has created a better business environment, one that makes the company an employer of choice, a preferred business partner and important contributor to the community. The companys philosophy is to provide employees with continued opportunities to grow and develop their careers. Management is charged with successful implementation of various diversity initiatives as part of this philosophy. ATT leaders are expected to understand the importance of cultural competency. To support this principle, ATT provides career development initiatives. ATTs commitment to diversity remains a top priority for the company. ATTs diverse workforce is an asset to the company and a result of its commitment to recruit and hire the very best talent. ATT currently conducts business in more than 150 languages and advertises in top languages in selected states. ATT leaders and employees practice respect for differences in their daily interactions. By understanding the various regions served, ATT management is better positioned to plan for and meet the unique needs of customers wherever it does business (ATT, 2008). With over 300,000 working for ATT ensuring ethical behavior is very important. Ethics and Governance are the standards in which the company, including all employees, must adhere to in all aspects of conducting business internally and externally. ATT has adopted a simple statement Do what is right as their motto for ethical conduct by all employees and directors. (Governance, 2003-2008)ATT has four guiding principles stated in their Code of Ethics and Guiding Principles manual on how to treat customers, investors and employees. Those principles are; Talk straight and Follow Through, Lead by Example, Work Together, and Deliver our Future. These four statements are the fabric to ATTs principles and make it clear as to what is expected when working for or dealing with ATT. In todays  environment, ethics have become a serious issue. Directors and managers, as well as employees, are becoming more liable with respect to moral decisions they make at work. Enron is an example of how deceit by a few individuals caused such a ripple effect on the finances of many. Companies like ATT need to touch the moral being of each employee to ensure its customers, shareholders and all parties vested in them are not affected by ones poor judgment. In concluding, with this impressive growth, executives and managers needed to develop a strategy that allowed ATT to connect with their customers and manage the contributing factors to their success. Through innovation and diversity, ATT has grown from a company that started with one-line calling to a multi-million conglomerate, servicing millions of customers around the globe. In keeping up with technology and continuing to implement new corporate strategies, ATT will continue to grow both financially and globally. ATT will continue to be a leader in their field for many years to come. References ATT Inc., (2008), All about ATT Company, Retrieved April 8, 2008, from att.comATT Inc. (2007) Annual Report, p. 8, 29. ATT, Inc. (2008), retrieved April 8, 2008, from att.com/gen/investor-relationsATT. (2008). Enterprise Services. Retrieved April 6, 2008, from att.com/gen/general/ATT Governance, Corporate Social Responsibility (2003-2008). ATT Knowledge Venture, Retrieved April 10, 2008, from att.com/corporate/citizenship/htmlATT, Vonage, Comcast spool the economy. (2008, January). TelecomWeb News Break. Retrieved April 6, 2008, ProQuest database, University Library. Goodbye Cingular, hello again ATT; ATTs acquisition of Bell South began process. (2007, May 21). The New York Times, Grand Rapids Press, Grand Rapids, MI, Retrieved April 9, 2008, from ProQuest database, University Library,

Three Pane Model Essay Example for Free

Three Pane Model Essay Utility for Business Managers: Firms resort to macroeconomic analysis to make rational judgments about the effects of global events or policy shocks on the economy and thereby on the business environment. But such analysis is often laden with possibilities for logical missteps. The Three- Pane model (open economy IS/LM model) is discussed here as a tool for explaining key relationships in the economy while avoiding the missteps encountered in macroeconomic analysis. What is open economy macroeconomics? Macroeconomic analysis helps firms to explore the interrelationships among a whole host of markets, while microeconomics focuses on variables like price and quantity, cost and revenue in individual markets. Macroeconomic analysis can be closed-economy or open -economy. Closed-economy macroeconomics deals with movements in and relationships among aggregate variables such as National Income, rate of interest, the aggregate price level, rate of inflation etc. Open economy macroeconomics makes the analysis complete by adding analysis of capital flows, international trade and exchange rate. The objective of this note is to introduce the Three-paned or Open-economy IS/LM model. As we will see, this model is an extension of the simple closed-economy IS/LM model. A Little Bit of History: The IS/LM closed economy model was introduced by the British Economist, Sir John Hicks in 1937. The IS/LM model denotes the simultaneous equilibrium of the two key markets in a market economy, product (real) market and the money market. IS represents real/product market equilibrium and LM, money market equilibrium. IS refers to the fundamental relationship between Investment (I) and Saving(S). LM represents the relationship between L, the demand for money, and M, the supply of money. The open economy version of IS/LM is credited to two economists, Robert Mundell Marcus Fleming and hence called the Mundell-Fleming model. The three-paned model we are discussing here is pretty close to the Mundell-Fleming model. This model is best suited for discussing short-to-medium term changes in the economy, i.e., changes over a few years. The Three-Paned Model [Large Open Economy IS/LM Model]. The model as presented in the below diagram has three panes with one graph in each pane. (1) Pane I depicts the IS/LM model [product money market]. Point ‘e’ in the first graph represents the equilibrium rate of interest and the corresponding level of output/income at which, both the product and money markets are in simultaneous equilibrium. (2) Pane II [capital outflow schedule] shows Net Capital Outflow as a function of the rate of interest. Net Capital Outflow (CF) is defined as the difference between Capital Outflows and Capital Inflows. (3) In Pane III, we have the foreign exchange market, where the exchange rate, E is determined by the capital outflow schedule in Pane two and net export schedule ( NX). NX is the difference between Exports and Imports. PANE I PANE II PANE III Diagram showing the Three-Paned Open-Economy IS/LM Model Explaining the working of the Three-paned Model: Now let us see how the three-paned model works. We begin from point ‘e’, the initial equilibrium, in the ISLM model. Point e represents the simultaneous equilibrium of the product and money markets at an equilibrium rate of interest, ’ r’, and ‘ Y ‘ level of income/output. To determine the equilibrium in the capital outflow schedule, the equilibrium rate of interest, r, is brought over from the first pane to determine the equilibrium amount of net capital outflows. When the rate of interest is r, equilibrium CF in the economy is given by CFo. Suppose the RBI hikes the rate of interest from r to r1. If r* remains constant, r-r* increases. This increases relative returns in the domestic economy which creates two kinds of impacts. One, the capital outflow decreases, and two, the capital inflow increases. Therefore, the net capital outflow decreases, which is shown by the fall in CF from CFo to CF1. Likewise, if there is a fall in the interest rate from ro to r2, capital outflow increases, and capital inflow decreases, leading to an increase in net capital outflow as indicated by an increase in CF to CF2. The Capital Outflow (CF) curve is therefore, downward sloping. This means that, higher domestic rates of interest are associated with lower net capital outflows, and lower domestic rates of interest are associated with higher net capital outflows. As mentioned earlier, the three-paned model plots the net export schedule (NX) with respect to the exchange rate, E. E is defined as the foreign currency per unit of domestic currency. If we drop the equilibrium amount of capital flows CFo from pane II to the third pane we get the equilibrium amount of net exports, NXo, which is determined by the intersection of the perpendicular dropped from the CF schedule with the NX schedule. This also gives the equilibrium nominal exchange rate, Eo. [Here, we are assuming price levels at home and abroad as constant, therefore, nominal and real exchange rates can be considered to be proportional. i.e., they won’t be different]. How do we explain the model in simple economic terms? In a closed economy, the rate of interest decided by the RBI defines the simultaneous equilibrium in the product/goods market and the money market, as shown by the intersection of the IS LM curves (Pane I). Suppose that we open up the economy and also assume that we are considering a large economy [as in the case of India]. Pane II III shows how a domestic interest rate change (assuming foreign rate of interest rate to be fixed) impacts capital flows and thereby the exports and imports and the exchange rate in the economy. A hike in the interest rate by the RBI would attract capital from outside-increase in inflows- and would decrease capital outflows. This would lead to a fall in the net capital outflow. A fall in the interest rate would have the opposite effect, leading to a decrease in inflows and an increase in outflows, thereby increasing net capital outflows. When capital inflows increase due to a hike in the domestic interest rate, let us assume that most of the inflows are in the form FDI. That is, there would be an increase in demand for rupee denominated assets thereby increasing the demand for the rupee in the foreign exchange market, vis-à  -vis the foreign currency, say, dollar. This would appreciate the exchange rate (E to E1) vis-a –vis the dollar (exchange rate E was defined as foreign currency per unit of domestic currency).The appreciation of the exchange rate makes exports costlier and imports cheaper. Therefore, exports fall and imports rise, resulting in a fall in Net Exports as shown in pane III, from NXo to NX1. Similarly, a fall in rate of interest would depreciate the exchange rate, leading to a fall in imports and rise in exports, resulting in an increase in net exports. Thus the three-paned model or the open-economy IS/LM model gives the business decision maker a framework to understand and analyze changes in and interrelationships between rate of interest, capital flows, exchange rate and net exports in a large open economy. â€Å"We can address important questions about how the macroeconomy, capital flows, international trade, and the exchange rate will respond to a wide variety of events and shocks. (1) How will these key variables respond to an increased money supply or an increase in taxes? (2) How does a sudden drop in consumer’s willingness to make purchases or a technological shock that makes investing more appealing affect interest rates, unemployment and the exchange rate? (3) What will be the resulting effects on the direction of the economy and the key variables?† [ 2 ]. Economic Models: An economic model may be defined as a logical framework that is based on explicit assumptions about how key economic variables interact. The links between these variables are based on assumptions rooted in economic theory and are also explicitly defined by the relationships that govern the model. The key to understanding any economic model is to understand the logical structure and its underlying assumptions. The set of assumptions in the model enables the analysis of the impact of changes in one or more variables on the rest of the economy (-while not violating the original behavioral assumptions). [ 3 ]. John Hicks, â€Å"Mr. Keynes and the Classics: A Suggested Interpretation†, Econometrica, 1937. He was awarded the Economics Nobel Prize in 1972. [ 4 ]. For a detailed discussion of the IS/LM model, see Dornbusch,Fischer, Startz-Macroeconomics, Chapter 10, pp219-240,10thedition. [ 5 ]. Net capital outflows as defined earlier, are equal to capital outflows minus capital inflows. Here the assumption is that capital flows are a function the difference between relative interest rates. The domestic interest rate is given as r and the foreign rate of interest rate is taken as r*. Since it is not shown in the graph, r* is assumed to be constant. Therefore, capital flows effectively are determined by the changes in the domestic rate on interest rate. i.e., Net capital outflow, CF = f (r – r* ). [ 6 ]. Quoted from Darden Business Publishing- A Technical Note on The Open –Economy IS/LM Model, 2008.

Conceptual Art: Responses to Capitalism

Conceptual Art: Responses to Capitalism When Situationism evolved from the Letterist movement, in the middle of the last century, it set itself up in opposition to two other two other politically motivated groups: Dadism and Surreallism. Situationism, however, was only incidentally political, and rather than subverting the art world, aimed only to redesign its context, including the attitudes of the public, so that art could become something anyone could do or enjoy- something integrated into everyday life. Historically, arts efforts to bring down capitalist structures from within have been very ill-fated, with artists finding themselves ignored, scorned, crushed or – perhaps worse- accessories to political agendas. Artists and writers must work harder than ever to devise means of opposing or exposing capitalisms deceptions, but many commentators appear to have reached the conclusion that the battle is barely worth fighting. As we shall see, Jean Baudrillard argues that criticism of the status quo is no longer possi ble through art or literature and that the only efficient way of dissenting from capitalist society is to commit suicide, Modern art wishes to be negative, critical, innovative and a perpetual surpassing, as well as immediately (or almost) assimilated, accepted, integrated, consumed. One must surrender to the evidence: art no longer contests anything. If it ever did. Revolt is isolated, the malediction consumed. Thus the avant-garde movements in Europe put the artist under pressure to exhibit a certain individuality, while also – rather contradictorily- being a producer, and as prolific, political and reactionary a producer as possible, There is a lot of talk, not about reform or forcing the Enlightenment project to live up to its own ideals, but about wholesale negation, revolution, another new sensibility, now self- affirming or self-creating, rather than a universalist or rational self-legitimation. This in turn suggests a tremendously heightened role for the artist, the figure whose imagination supposedly creates or shapes the sensibilities of civilization. In a sense, the avant-garde has been socially commissioned to forecast the future, to scouting out new intellectual terrain, Aesthetic modernity is characterized by attitudes which find a common focus in a changed consciousness of time The avant-garde understands itself as invading unknown territory, exposing itself to the dangers of sudden, shocking encounters, conquering an as yet unoccupied future. The avant-garde must find a direction in a landscape into which no one seems to have yet ventured Early Attempts to Overthrow Capitalism In many ways, Dada and Surrealism represent the most successful artistic rebellions against capitalist norms, as they have attacked the conventional assumption of meaning itself, and in doing so drew attention to the ridiculous fact that such an assumption existed at all, Dada has often been called nihilistic and its declared purpose was indeed to make clear to the public at large that all established values, moral or aesthetic, had been rendered meaningless by the catastrophe of the Great War Dada preached nonsense and anti-art with a vengeance It is as though the Artist jumped before she was pushed. With its effort to close the gap between producer and produced by making everything equally alien, Surrealism also sought to negate its creator, using, pure psychic automatism intended to express the true process of thought free from the exercise of reason and from any aesthetic or moral purpose . Habermas, too, asserts that Surrealism poses a threat to arts existential rights, but still fails in two ways, First, when the containers of an autonomously developed cultural sphere are shattered, the contents get dispersed. Nothing remains from a desublimated meaning or a destructured form; an emancipatory effect does not follow. Habermas draws attention to the levelling affect of contemporary communication networks: networks which challenge the hierarchical assumptions of classical Marxism, and which have, in scale, surpassed what any postmodern commentator – even in the 1980s- could have imagined. More so than ever, our media are democratic and interrelated, A rationalized everyday life, therefore, could hardly be saved from cultural impoverishment through breaking open a single cultural sphere art and so providing access to just one of the specialized knowledge complexes. Any active dissent can be transformed into a commodity, a product to assist the perpetuation of capitalism. Catchy slogans devised by revolutionaries are used to sell mortgages, paintings that challenge conventional assumptions about beauty and form are written about in books to be sold, and bought by galleries where their beauty and form can be admired and valued- bought and sold. As the â€Å"Anti-Naturals† recently wrote, on the subject, â€Å"It is the nature of the Spectacle to transform all experience into a consumer commodity. It is no surprise, then, that so much of modern capitalist production should be focused on the authenticity swindle. It is not merely that we are told that our authentic self is only a credit card order away. We must be told what and how to purchase. Since, in the midst of the Spectacle, all experience is real only when it can be consumed, it is natural to follow the guidance offered by the array of products engineered to address each particular need. In reality, it is quite easy to mass market to hundreds of millions of individuals,‚ since each quest is identical in its basic features.† Any words spoken against can be turned into rallying support. Art, like any powerful weapon, can always be turned against those who use it. Whatever doesnt kill power is killed by it. In this way the Dadaists watched their anti-art works being systematically categorised as works of art, and were forced to focus their whole project completely on the evasion of this recuperation. Five years of agitation against capital, war and morality, brought them to an impasse of suicide or silence. Everything the Dadaists made, said, wrote or performed seemed to be turned against its critical purpose and used against them- and they abandoned the project. Effectively, they went on strike. The Dadaists left a legacy in the form of recuperated, commodified art works, and in multiple imitations of their style and attitude. Their advocation of collage and photomontage is now everywhere in advertisements, their paradoxically anti-art art surely at the very heart of current post-modernist critical theory. They were correct in their belief that this capitalist appropriation was inevitable while they were merely producing, and not controlling the means of production, but in some ways, they did in fact constitute a challenge to bourgeois morality. Dadaism questioned the philosophical assumptions which justified smug bourgeois attitudes, and uncovered the hypocracy of World War 1s brutality legitimising propaganda. In the end they felt that their subversions of established values were merely contributing too much to the culture they had been trying to undermine. The Situationist Asger Jorn was emphatic about the failure of Marxist theory, to liberate of art from commodification , â€Å"Instead of abolishing the private character of property, socialism does nothing but augment them as much as possible, rending humans themselves useless and socially non-existent. The goal of the development of artistic liberation is the liberation of human values by the transformation of human qualities into real values. Here begins the artistic revolution against socialist development, the artistic revolution that is tied to the communist project . . .† Debord and the Situationist Reaction to Capitalism Debords 1967 book The Society of the Spectacle, represented an attempt to articulate as fully as possible the Situationist philosophy. The term spectacle refers to the colonization of everyday life by commodity in late capitalism, an extension of alienation experienced between production and consumption. The spectacles subjective, one-directional effect requires a kind of non-participation, eventually resulting in a breakdown of communication between people. Situationism distinguishes between classical and modern forms of capitalism. Where classical capitalism demanded that wasted time describes any time not spent at work, modern capitalism actually reverses that, using advertising and other spectacular means to declare that it is the time spent at work that is wasted, and work is justifiable only because it provides the monetary ability to consume. Marx wrote that, the worker feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home The Situationists describe the spectacular society as a place where, the spectator feels at home nowhere, for the spectacle is everywhere . As Debord himself explains, So long as the realm of necessity remains a social dream, dreaming will remain a social necessity. The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is guardian of that sleep . However, the spectacle was not unique to capitalist society; the Situationists worked on a theory of the concentrated spectacle that would incorporate individual influences on capitalist regimes. This was principally contrived as a rhetorical framework to include the cult of personality in the dictatorships of places such as Cuba, the Soviet Union and China. The Situationists argued that the same tricks that society used to sell fast cars and kitchen appliances were used to promote and deify figures such as Chairman Mao. In anarchic efforts to subvert the spiritual and fiscal poverty of urban life under the tyranny of the spectacle, the Situationists developed a revolutionary art, departed from artistic convention. In their article Preliminaries Toward Defining a Unitary Revolutionary Program, Debord and the Marxist theorist Pierre Canjuers, assert, â€Å"At one pole, art is purely and simply recuperated by capitalism as a means of conditioning the population. At the other pole, capitalism grants art a perpetual privileged concession: that of pure creative activity, an alibi for the alienation of all other activities (which makes it the most expensive and prestigious status symbol). But at the same time, this sphere reserved for free creative activity is the only one in which the question of what we do with life and the question of communication are posed practically and in all their fullness. Here, in art, lies the basis of the antagonisms between partisans and adversaries of the officially dictated reasons for living. The established meaninglessness and separations give rise to the general crisis of traditional artistic means a crisis linked to the experience of alternative ways of living or the demand for such experience. Revolutionary artists are those who call for intervention; and who have themselves intervened in the sp ectacle in order to disrupt or destroy it.† Initially, the work the Situationist International produced was aimed at ridiculing formalist conceptions of the art object: Asger Jorn bought amateur paintings at flea markets and painted over them, subverting notions of authority and value. Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio invented a style of â€Å"industrial† painting where the canvas was over a hundred metres long, then cut strips off for potential buyers, thereby subverting traditional preconceptions of arts autonomy. In reality these processes were eventually absorbed by a capitalist art market bought, sold, exhibited, written about, and for the most part, politically neutered. In his 1974 book Theory of the Avant-Garde, Peter Burger points out that the avant-garde artists main goal is to shock the viewer, typically accustomed to organic or formalist works of art, in the hope that such withdrawal of meaning will direct the readers attention to the fact that the conduct of ones life is questionable and that it is necessary to cha nge it He goes on to state that, Paradoxically, the avant-gardist intention to destroy art as an institution is thus realized in the work of art itself. The intention to revolutionize life by returning art to its praxis turns into a revolutionizing of art. This is the kind of logic that prompted the Situationists to agree to stop producing art in 1961, when they decided to cease considering themselves artists. Any remaining members unwilling to abandon traditional forms of art, including Jorn, Pinot-Gallizio, and Constant found themselves either being forced into ideological resignation or expulsion. â€Å"It is a question not of elaborating the spectacle of refusal, but rather of refusing the spectacle. In order for their elaboration to be artistic and authentic in the new and authentic sense defined by the SI, the elements of the destruction of the spectacle must precisely cease to be works of art. Once and for all. . . . Our position is that of combatants between two worlds one that we dont acknowledge, the other that does not yet exist.† In The Situationist City, Simon Sadler write that, in abandoning early Situationism, the Situationist International abandoned its imagining of utopia a devastating decision, surely unprecedented in the history of the avant-garde, and yet at the same time surely the situationists greatest contribution to that history: the recognition that in changing the world, avant-garde art cannot be a substitute for popular redistribution of power It seemed that the SI recognized that for any avant-garde to succeed, it would do best striving to produce artists, and not art. The Dadaists, too, were aware that both art and artist are part of the capitalist system, and consequently as guilty in their participation as any other commodity or worker. Marcuse and Adorno, in contrast, argued that the Dadaist project was misguided for its attacks on conventional art. They saw art as an autonomous entity, separate from capitalist interests, and something intrinsically apolitical that must be preserved rather than aggressively undermined. For Adorno, art bears an essential negativity derived from its peculiar Form; its rearrangements of reality are conducted according to a system quite alien to those of capitalism. This â€Å"Form† grants art a: refuge and a vantage point from which to denounce the reality established through domination. While Adorno and Marcuse criticised the anti-artists for attacking artistic Form, they agreed with the avant-gardists in their slightly utopic aspiration of abolishing the distinction that existed between art and the rest of reality. In fact, Marcuse wished to see a society organised around the aesthetic principles he believed resided only within art. Both argued that this integration could not be achieved if artists were allowed to participate. Art should be kept apolitical and protected, in a realm conducive to calm reflection that might remind us of the truth an authentic life can afford us after the revolution. So, although they expressed their rejection of this view in different ways, the Dadaists, Surrealists and Situationists all aspired to a collapse of the distinction between art and the rest of life in present: â€Å"everyday life†. Instead of waiting for the revolution, all three argued that the integration of art and life was in fact necessary for the achievement of revolution, a revolution made possible only by a combined cultural, ideological and economic assault on capitalism. Asger Jorn, again, on the failure of the socialist revolution, â€Å"The capitalist revolution was essentially a socialization of consumption. Capitalist industrialization brought humanity a socialization as profound as the socialization proposed by the socialists that of the means of production. The socialist revolution is the fulfillment of the capitalist revolution. The one element removed from the capitalist system is saving, because consumptions richness has already been eliminated by the capitalists themselves†¦ Real communism will be the leap into the domain of freedom and of value, of communication. Contrary to utilitarian value (normally known as material value), artistic value is the progressive value because, by a process of provocation, it is the valorization of humanity itself. Since Marx, economic politics has shown its impotence and its cowardice. A hyperpolitics will need to strive for the direct realization of humanity.† Walter Benjamins Authentic Opposition: Crisis of Reproduction Walter Benjamin is probably Adornos most established opponent, particularly since The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, a work that concentrated upon defining the aura of traditional art preceding 1900, and assessed the decay of this aura under the impact of new media and cultural technologies. Benjamin argues that art has lost its authenticity because of mechanical mass reproduction in our capitalist-orientated culture industry. He is concerned about shifting attitudes to art, which came about as a consequence of the introduction of mechanical means of reproduction. Formerly unique objects, located in a particular space, lost their singularity as they became accessible to many people in diverse places. Lost too was the aura that was attached to a work of Art which was now open to many different readings and interpretations Unlike his Frankfurt School colleagues, however, and especially unlike Adorno, Benjamin argues, this loss of authenticity is actually a positive thing, because it democratizes and politicizes art. Benjamins claim that arts loss of authenticity might actually help free people, not enslave them in a capitalist culture industry starkly opposes Adornos ideas. In addition, each stage of reproduction of an original work of art also contributes to its loss of aura. According to Benjamin, then: culture has been transformed into an industry; thus art has become commodified; contemporary culture is the machinery by which oppressive ideologies are reproduced and disseminated; new media technologies such as phonographs, film and photography, serve to destroy arts aura and effectively demystify the process of creating art, making available radical new access and roles for art in mass culture; the spectator has become a collaborator and participant, who joins the author in determining the meaning of the production of the work of art. Art is successful only when it enables the critical contemplation of a viewer. Benjamin happily equates authenticity with authority- the authority of oppressive institutions such as the church or the state- and history. As Benjamin explains, the work of arts authenticity is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced Until the 20th century, artworks retained their aura, their â€Å"authenticity† precisely because of their inability to be mass-reproduced, whether religious artifacts or one-off paintings commissioned by individual wealthy patrons. This conception clearly presents aura and authenticity as profoundly undemocratic, as the means of artistic production remain in the control of the rich and powerful, then able use such art to maintain control over the masses. The introduction of mechanical means of reproduction of art, particularly photography and film, caused the very foundations of this setup to be radically altered. For the first time it was possible for anyone to acquire the means to take photographs of a work of art, or at purchase an image of the work. However hard cultural elites in the late 19th century had tried to protect the aura of art works, the social advance of the masses and the invention of media such as film, which depends upon distribution to the masses, had led to the inevitable decay of the aura in the 20th century. Benjamin marks the distinction between manual and machine reproduction of art, The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical, and, of course, not only technical reproducibility, he states, Confronted with its manual reproduction, which was usually branded as a forgery, the original preserved all its authority; not so vis a vis technical reproduction Benjamin states two reasons this occurs. Firstly, machine reproduction is more independent of the original than manual reproduction; secondly, technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself. So mass-produced copies are able to engage with the wider world in a manner not possible for the original or one-off copies. Benjamin summarises his ideas concerning reproduction by asserting the technique detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. Many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence.† So to allow the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, is to reactivate the object reproduced, â€Å"It is these processes that lead to the tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of mankind In Benjamins conception, then, state and religious authorities have steadily lost the ability to control general access to such works of art, particularly since the 20th century began. This is most apparent in relation to the cinema, which destroyed the traces of aura with which art had been traditionally imbued; Benjamin cites arts historical value as a fundamental part of magical and religious rituals. In the process, capitalism strips art of its the idealistic, theological halo- to some extent a happy consequence and restorative, as it returns the art object to its non-utilitarian presence, its everyday reality. For Benjamin, an artworks â€Å"aura† refers to its uniqueness and the phenomena of distance, however close [an object] may be. He uses gives the example of distant mountains and a trees bough over head, both contain aura because they are images have not been effectively reproduced mechanically . Beyond the concepts of aura and authenticity, Benjamins concepts of reproduction and reversibility represent the core of his concerns about way in which arts role in society has been fundamentally altered in the 20th century. Benjamin proposes that the artworks aura of authenticity has withered away because of its reproduceability, and the process of reproduction brings art into closer proximity with a mass audience. However, paradoxically, as the authenticity erodes, the works essence becomes forefronted in the process, as it starts to become designed for reproducibility. As Benjamin describes it, â€Å"for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. . . . From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for an authentic print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics†. Benjamins commentaries on the effects of reproduction inspired other writers, such as Lechte, â€Å"it is the process of reproduction as such which is revolutionary: the fact, for instance, that the photographic negative enables a veritable multiplication of originals. With the photograph, therefore, the spectre of the simulacrum emerges, although Benjamin never names it as such. The photograph as simulacrum by-passes the simple difference between original and copy† Barbara Krugers Situationism and the Irresistible Collage of Society Barbara Kruger addresses the negative aspects of capitalist society as an artist, writer, curator, lecturer and graphic designer. Her art is displayed both inside and outside museums and in a range of different forms. Occasionally her prints are framed and hung on the walls of museums and galleries in the traditional fashion, but Kruger is endlessly inventive, and often writes text to be printed or projected directly on the walls or floors of a museum. In Picturing Greatness, a photography exhibition curated by Kruger in 1987 for The Museum of Modern Art in New York, text was printed in large black type across a central partition. Kruger selected photographs for this exhibit from the museums collection, and according to the words on the partition, the photographs were mostly of mostly famous artists† who happened to be predominantly white and male. The text on the partition claimed the works can show us how vocation is ambushed by clichà © and snapped into stereotype by the camera, and how photography freezes moments, creates prominence and makes history. Krugers work continually questions the definition of art, artists and the ways in which â€Å"great art† should be exhibited. In this work, Kruger challenges the overwhelming dominance of male artists and draws attention to the females apparent invisibility in western art history. Just like the Situationists under Guy Debord, she has altered the meaning of art by rec ontextualising it. Crucially, the visitor to Krugers exhibition does not need to be familiar with the original photographs before seeing the show- even the uneducated viewer could read Krugers text, look at the original images and come to their own conclusions about the meaning. Thus the work achieves a kind of unique political democracy. Kruger has a background as a graphic designer, and as such creates effective bold images which are in many ways visually indistinguishable from advertisements, but rather than trying to sell a product, appeal directly to our social conscience. The subject of her text is always I, me, we, or you, as though Kruger engages in conversation with the viewer. Her messages probe the assumptions of the capitalist status quo: You are seduced by the sex appeal of the inorganic, When I hear the word culture, I take out my checkbook and We have received orders not to move. Similarly, Constant, of the COBRA group, proposed a city as a kind of physical expression of his utopia of â€Å"free play† which, in parts, bears striking resemblance to representations of the Internet, in books such as Mapping Cyberspace (with wild lines pouring out of the metropolis perhaps representing bandwidth and site traffic). Made with perspex and bike parts, Constants models and his diagrams for New Babylon demonstrate his yearning for future as something mobile, organic, animated, and self-celebratory. For Constant the city was a sort of perpetual festival of leisure. With its intricately connected wires suspending clear circular layers, ramps and walkways, Constants New Babylon recalls some kind of tensile organism. As Constant describes it, â€Å"The unfunctional character of this playground-like construction makes any logical division of the inner spaces senseless. We should rather think of a quite chaotic arrangement of small and bigger spaces that are constantly assembled and dissembles by means of standardized mobile construction elements like walls, floors and staircases. Thus the social space can be adapted to the ever-changing needs of an every changing population as it passes through the sector system.† Analogues with the Internet are irresistable. Equally, he could have been referring in a general way to those unique social structures which have grown from the anti-globalisation movement – structures which, although provisional, pragmatic and short term, are nevertheless ideologically committed to social change and serve as emblems of the ongoing struggle against capitalism, a battle fuelled entirely from reserves of creativity. Constants is city as collage, similar to that celebrated by the less politically motivated group, Archigram, in the UK (many of whose members now design massive architectural features for megaband stadium concerts). In this time of desperate connectivity and complicated layering of urban cultures, with invisible webs of communication engulfing us, the need to understand the city as a place beyond work and production seems more pressing than ever. The Situationist reaction to capitalism is also excellently expressed through anti capitalist collage: for example that of the General Lighting and Power group, whose slick mock-advertising images of soft focus female forms in leotards and computer graphics of office interiors and car accidents, wryly annotated with entertaining aphorisms such as: Aerobics is necessary: progress implies it (I see you baby, shaking that ass) and God is in the retailing Comparisons to Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger are obvious. Charles Rice, too, has observed the oversized billboard signs now proliferating in major cities, arguing convincingly that they serve to perpetuate the distance between the real and the impossible,these spatial fantasies effectively deliver identification with the distant and the unattainable† Many writers have noted the similarities between the Situationists idea of the derive (that is, the navigating of a city via means and routes other than those originally intended) and the experience of â€Å"surfing† the internet. Colin Fournier, architect and educator makes some potent observations on this area. It would seem that many of the characteristics of the internet reflect the S.I.s utopic city. The things considered prerequisite for their utopia: an ephemeral, negotiable type of city, where uses were determined by the population, surfing the web is like the idea of drifting or â€Å"deriving†, flaneur-like, through a city. The Situationist city and the web are uniquely flexible, anarchically dynamic: spacial relations secondary on any given route. The internet always seems to somehow recall the old Surrealist idea of using a map of one city to find ones way around another. Art as Capitalism: the Medias Re-appropriation of Images Increasingly, the media is becoming governed by imagery, and the average consumer is overwhelmed by visual information on a daily basis. Through sheer competition, the commercial sphere has been forced to use stranger, scarier, more extreme imagery to earn the attention of bewildered customers. Magazines such as Vogue have lured artists to their pages, where they are seen as innovative, visionary powers for re-inventing a complacent visual vocabulary. Thus, the traditional hierarchy of photography, in which the commercial and conceptual worlds were segregated, has been broken down into a fluid, integrated world- mutual respect has ensured that crossing the boundary either way no longer carries the taint or disrespect it once did. A new generation of artists have grown up with the rather cynical and postmodern idea that all things are commercially viable. Contemporary art school graduates are less likely to see their ventures into the commercial realm as contamination, and more as a necessary aspect of their endeavor. Commerce is incorporated into art at every level, from the means to the ends to the theme. That the common thread of art and fashion- the human body- has become such a commodity, seems like an obvious extension of this. Fashion spreads frequently borrow art photographers for their pages and mimic, in the case of Diesel and others, with considerable irony- the current art world trend towards narrative ambiguity and deliberately theatrical tableaux that recall â€Å"theoretical† artists like Jeff Wall and Cindy Sherman. Russel Wong is one such new generation artist, his work strongly informed by todays cultural fascination with celebrity. Wong has become famous through striking portraits of personalities from sports to music and movies, famous for capturing moments of vulnerability, warmth and humor. A number of Wongs photos have been used on the covers of international magazines. My photos are never confrontati