T-cells are MHC-Restricted Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

T-cells are MHC-Restricted - Essay Example T-helper cells are so named because they produce and secrete protein molecules called cytokines that perform various functions within the immune system that direct and 'help' the immune response. Within the Helper T-cell group are two further subsets known as Th1 (or type 1) and Th2 (or type 2). Cytotoxic T-cells play a central role in the destruction of tumour cells and virally-infected cells, and are also thought to have an important role in transplant rejection. Differentiation of T-cells into CD4+ and CD8+ cells begins in the thymus during T-cell development. However, cells only become fully differentiated mature cells in the peripheral lymphoid system, during an active immune response. All T-cells originate in the marrow of long bones (such as the femur), and are derived from hematopoetic stem cells. Hematopoetic progenitors that derive from these stem cells travel to the thymus via the lymphatic system. Upon reaching the thymus they divide to generate T-cell precursors known as immature thymocytes (Schwarz B A, Bhandoola A. 2006). Approximately 98% of these precursor cells die in the thymus without becoming fully-differentiated T-cells, due to selection processes called positive and negative selection. The 2% of cells that survive selection eventually leave the thymus to become mature T-cells. At the beginning of the selection process, all thy... Thymocytes that bind the MHC-antigen complex with sufficient affinity (binding strength) are allowed to survive and move to the next stage of development. Thymocytes which do not bind with adequate affinity receive a chemical signal which causes them to undergo apoptosis, a process also known as programmed cell death, in which cells die in a way that cannot cause harm to the host. This first round of selection is called positive selection, because cells which bind with affinity are allowed to survive. During this process another type of selection occurs: cells which bind with MHC class II molecules develop into CD4+ cells, and cells which bind with MHC class I molecules develop into CD8+ cells. Those cells that survive the first round of selection migrate to the boundary between the cortex and medulla of the thymus. In the medulla, they are presented again with MHC molecules that present self-antigens. This time, the complex is presented by dendritic cells and macrophages, two types of antigen-presenting cells. In this situation, cells which bind with very strong affinity receive a death-inducing signal, and undergo apoptosis, while cells that do not bind with strong affinity are allowed to survive and continue development. It is at this stage, called negative selection, that the majority of developing T-cells die. Negative selection is a particularly important part of the development process, as it prevents the development of T-cells which react to self-antigens, and thus prevents the development of auto-immune disease (Baldwin TA, 2004). The cells that survive both positive and negative selection are mature nave T-cells, which then leave the thymus and begin to circulate in the lymphatic

Administrative Theories of Management Essay Example for Free

Administrative Theories of Management Essay Henri Fayol a French industrialist has wrote a book title Administration Industrialle et Generalle in 1916 , according to his book theories about management he thought could be applied to the management of any organization with administrative responsibilities. Fayol identified five function which is still used today to all management activities , they were planning , organizing , commanding , coordinating and controlling . Fayol gives 14 principle of management : 1.Division of work According to Fayol , specialization increases output by making employees more efficient. Most of the employee may be able to deal with each item work that given to them if work is divided according to their skill and technical expertise . See more: My Writing Process Essay 2.Authority Fayol defined authority as the right to give orders and the power to exact obedience. That means , managers must be able to give order to the employees . Along with it , the responsibility will goes on. 3.Discipline Discipline is an essential for the smooth running of business which is without it an enterprise or organization is unable to prosper. An employees must obey and respect the rules that are state by the organization . 4.Unity of Command An employee should receive orders from one superior only . Fayol regarded having dual command is leading to uncertainty and hesitation on the part of subordinates and will make conflict between managers. 5.Unity of direction One head and one plan for a group having the same objective. that mean the organization should have a single plan of action to guide managers and workers . 6.Subordination of individual interest to the general interest There should be no conflict of interest between individual ambition and the well-being of the organization as a whole. This principle requires a firm but fair hand from superiors who should set a good example. 7.Remuneration Workers must be paid a fair wage for their services . Fayol looked for some basic principles in the method of payment such is it shall assure fair remuneration , encourage keenness by rewarding well-directed effort and not lead to over-payment going beyond reasonable limits. 8.Centralization Fayol considered that an element of centralization must always be present which is each subordinate are involved in decision making. 9.Scalar Chain It is also known as line of authority . The unity of command can lead to excessively chains of authority which hinder communication. Hierarchic organizations regularly insisted that departments communicated with each other only through their heads. 10.Order For Fayol, people and materials should be in the right place at the right time . This presupposed the resolution of the two most difficult managerial activities: good organization and good selection. He saw the basic problem as the balancing of an organizations requirements with its resources. 11.Equity Managers should be kind and fair to their subordinate and treated them equally in order to obtain commitment from them . 12.Stability of tenure of personnel A management should provide orderly personnel planning and ensure that replacements are available to fill vacancies because employees need a period of stability in a job to deliver of their best. 13.Initiative Fayol cautions managers against the personal vanity which prevents their employees from allowing to think through a problem and implement a solution rewarding experience which increases motivation and high levels of effort. This meant , employees are allowed to originate and carry out their plans for the organization. 14.Esprit de corps. Dividing enemy forces to weaken them is clever, but dividing ones own team is a grave sin against the business. It is saying about promoting team spirit will build harmony and unity within the organization.

Purpose And Production Of Movie Posters

Purpose And Production Of Movie Posters A poster can be defined as a placard or bill, usually large and often incorporating photographs or illustrations, posted up for advertising or publicity or for decorative purposes. The functions of those which advertise include communication, selling and persuading. This does not preclude them being decorative. Indeed the first job of a poster is to attract the attention of the passerby and only once this is done can a message be delivered. A good poster then is one which is attention-grabbing, succinct, convincing and memorable. To achieve these aims designers may use a large format and bold colour, simple and minimal text and attractive illustrations which psychologically support and reinforce the written words. At the same time designers must consider the constraints imposed by the methods and places of display and competition from other posters whose messages may be as urgent and emphatic. Poster design combines the fine and applied arts, incorporating painting, graphic design, collage, and photography. In countries where television is not a major advertising medium, the poster remains a transient yet effective means of reaching the widest audience on behalf of culture, commerce, and ideology. Posters have become an integral part of the cityscape. They are pasted next to each other on large plywood hoardings attached to windowless walls of old buildings or onto fences surrounding parks and construction sites. Officially designated for poster display, these well-kept colourful quilts of public billboards not only disseminate information on cultural, sports, and political events but also serve as constantly changing outdoor exhibitions of graphic art. Through such widespread and continuous exposure, poster design has become one of the most accessible and effective art forms, reaching out and influencing even that part of the public that does not frequent museums or galleries. In juried exhibitions, the best posters achieve national exposure, and for many graphic artists, book illustration and poster design are important vehicles for a wider recognition of their personal style both at home and abroad. A feature common to all the designers is their striving for self-expression in an environment that demands political conformity. They seem intent on designing posters that have an emotional impact and appeal to the sense but that also challenge the viewer to an intellectual response. Their imagery includes lyrical and neo-surrealist overtones, drama, irony, or playful humor, and the message is delivered in a variety of styles. A poster constitutes a mirror for the times it is created in. Like a mirror it reflects the political and the social situation, it informs about the repertoire of movie theaters and dramatic theaters, it announces sporting events, it encourages purchasing certain goods. The socio-political poster plays a specific propaganda role. Those who commission it expect that effective impact of the work of art upon the viewer will allow them to get closer to their desired goal. The goal varies depending on the circumstances: winning a war, or a presidential election, or a parliamentary campaign; a struggle to alter social behaviours or attitudes. History of the art of movie poster Cinema and film posters are the physical incarnation of the special movies we have enjoyed through the years. Although there is a big market for collecting film posters, they were never intended or created to be sold to the public. They were merely meant to promote and entice viewers to come to the local theatres that were screening the films. Today these rare original movie posters are in great demand. They are the tangible souvenirs of favourite films and stars whose characters we fell in love with. Ironically in the early days of movie making actors were not usually depicted on the film posters. The title of the film and the producer and directors names were usually the attraction until Hollywood realized that it was the actors who brought in the viewers. It was at that time that the stars of movies were then plastered on each poster giving life to a new era in the film industry. Movie posters created before the eighties were mainly returned to the studios or poster sources and destroyed when the archives became full or the films run had ended. Unfortunately many early film posters made for hit movies such as Casablanca, King Kong, Frankenstein and The Wizard of Oz were destroyed as a result of natural disasters that occurred during World War II. As people became more aware of their value theatre owners began to ignore return policies and those film posters that were spared are widely sought today by collectors and dealers. Before 1940, each film studio maintained its own offices (or exchange) in every major city. The studios would send the films and their posters to all the exchanges and from there; they would be distributed to the surrounding theatres. The big city theatres would just go to the exchange and pick up the films and posters right before they would show them (for big films they might order extra posters in advance of the opening to create an elaborate display). Theatres in smaller towns would often receive their films via Greyhound bus, which back then serviced just about every town in the country. The films would be in containers that would have the posters (often just one or two one-sheets and a set of lobby cards) tucked in a pouch on the outside of the container. Most theatres would show a film for 3 or 4 days (as part of a program that might include 2 features, a cartoon, a newsreel, and possibly a serial chapter), and then send it on (via bus) to the next theatre. Often the theatre manager would put the film on a late night bus right after his last showing and it would arrive at the next theatre the following morning, in time to be displayed for that nights show. The film might go by bus through a circuit of many theatres before returning to an exchange. After the film returned to the exchange, it would go back out to other theatres, and often the posters had to be replaced, as they were torn and tattered from being put up and taken down several times. This more than anything explains why posters from before 1940 are extremely rare. Theatre owners couldnt give their posters to collectors, no matter how hard they begged, because they were needed at the next theatre. This whole system of having to deal with each studio separately might sound very inefficient, but remember that in the 1920s and 1930s many theatres were owned by the studios and so only showed that studios product; and most of the independents would only get their films from a couple of studios, so it wasnt that complicated. But if all the posters were returned with the films, how are there any posters at all from before 1940? For one thing, one type of poster, window cards (14 x 22) were bought in large quantities by an individual theatre and (after they added their name and play dates to the top) distributed to store windows around town. Those were given away after the film was done playing. Another way they survive is in the backs of old picture frames, for framers would often use window cards (obtainable for free) as backing boards. But as for other posters remaining today, a huge amount come from other countries, for those did not have to be returned to the U.S.; at the time, the value of the posters was less than the cost of the postage to return them. There have been huge finds of pre-1940 U.S. posters in Canada, Columbia, and many other countries. In addition there have been some great finds in the U.S., such as the Cozy Theater Collection in Los Angeles. This was a theatre that maintained its own exchange of posters from the early 1930s to the 1950s for distribution to Los Angeles theatres. In 1968 the theatre owner offered his entire collection of posters (containing tens of thousands of posters and lobby cards, and hundreds of thousands of stills) for sale for $25,000, and it was hard to find a buyer! At todays prices, the collection would sell for millions of dollars. Other than the huge finds (which probably account for 90% of the pre-1938 posters known), posters also are sometimes found in one other main way. In the 1910s and 1920s (and to a lesser extent in the 1930s), builders would often look for material to put within the walls of buildings (or under the floors) to serve as insulation. Some enterprising builders hooked up with poster exchanges to take large amounts of outdated posters and put them in the walls of their new homes. I know of at least ten occasions where someone has been remodelling their house in the 1990s and discovered posters in the walls or under the floor. Sometimes they are mouldy and mildewed and require large amounts of restoration, but sometimes they are so tightly pressed together that they survive in relatively excellent condition. The vast majority of pre-1938 posters known were found in one of the above ways. Very rarely a theatre owner (such as the legendary Charles Dyas, who started collecting in 1922) might order extra posters to keep, or someone who had access to posters might keep a particular poster as a keepsake, but by and large absolutely everybody who handled posters viewed them as disposable advertising, much like newspapers. Old newspapers (like comics books or baseball cards) survive in quantity only because they were sold by the millions, and some people never throw out anything. Movie posters, on the other hand, were never obtainable by the general public. It does seem particularly amazing that the studios themselves never thought to maintain an archive of their posters. In recent years some of them have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars buying back a tiny percentage of the posters that they literally sold for pennies each! am not understating the rarity of pre-1938 posters when I say that for at least a large number of films not a single poster or lobby card is known, and for many others only lobby cards or window cards are known. It is very unusual to find a film from before 1938 from a major studio on which more than ten copies of a one-sheet is known. (Posters from lesser studios are often found in large quantity because when the studio goes out of business they often have hundreds of copies of each poster on hand. An example is the Norman Film Company, which made all-black cast films. Huge supplies of these posters were found, and they are among the most common of all silent posters.) The system of every studio maintaining its own supply of posters in every one of its branch offices became very cumbersome, and in 1940, National Screen Service was formed. Warehouses (called poster exchanges) were set up in most major cities across the U.S., and each studio contributed its posters from the last couple of years to get it started (Exchanges definitely had posters from 1937-39 in abundance, but nothing like the quantities they would have of post-1940 material. The exchanges had virtually nothing from before 1937, which explains the vast rarity difference between pre-1937 and post-1940 material. For each new release in 1940, the printers put National Screen Service (NSS) numbers on the bottom right of every poster. For 1940 only, they used a first number that began with 40, followed by a slash mark and more numbers (for example 4011/524). The 40 referred to 1940, and the rest of the numbers referred to in what order the poster had been printed, to make it easier for people to find the posters when stored in a large warehouse (many films had similar or the same titles). In 1941, the simplified the code to be just 41, followed by a slash mark and three numbers (for example 41/245). This was unfortunate, for in the present day it has resulted in acknowledgeable collectors assuming that they had a limited edition poster (in the previous case, #41 out of an edition of 245). This system continued all the way through the late 1970s, and makes identifying the year of 1940-1979 posters extremely easy. It also makes identifying re-issues simple, for they would put the re-issue year in the NSS number, and put a big capital R in front of it. So in the above example, if the 1941 film, NSS #41/245, was re-issued in 1954, it would have a new number such as R54/621. It appears each exchange received a huge number of each poster (at least). I say this for two reasons. One is the economics of full-colour printing are such that once you get the presses rolling, it is very cheap to keep on printing, and it is much more expensive to reprint items. Thus, it just would not make sense to print less than say five or ten thousand of a full-colour item. Second, when exchanges were bought out in the 1960s (see below), it was not at all uncommon for a single exchange to have well over 100 of a single item, even after years of distributing that item. Of course there was not an even distribution of items, but I think it fair to say that for most items that were in exchanges, hundreds of each survives today. I also think it fair to say that for most pre-1937 items less than ten of each survive today (with the exception of those items that were found in huge quantities, such as the Norman Film Company posters). In the 1940s, the studios would charge a rental fee to the theatre, which would return the poster after using it (hence the warning that has frightened collectors for years, beginning This poster is the property of National Screen Service). At some point NSS realized that it was easier to just print more posters and sell them outright (probably this was due to rising postal rates. I have owned many posters that were mailed folded in the 1940s, without an envelope, and the cost was three cents!) I have brochures from exchanges from the early 1960s, where they offer new one-sheets for 25 cents each, with other prices on other sizes. The brochure might say 1964 and 1965 one-sheets, 25 cents each, 1963 and earlier 15 cents each! This shows they had no clue that these posters had collectible value, but also that there were next to no collectors before the early 1960s (just like comic book collecting). The few collectors there were in the 1950s kept buying all the posters they could afford from exchanges and didnt talk about it. Then in the mid-1960s, some enterprising individuals began to buy the individual poster exchanges. I have no idea what they paid, but I have no doubt it was an absolute steal, as the exchanges thought they had warehouses full of practically worthless old paper. (Of course I admire these individuals, for that one business decision made them, financially set for life. They saw an opportunity no one else saw, and they took advantage of it.) The new owners began offering old posters at collectors prices, usually around $1.00 or $1.50 for an older one-sheet. They did next to no advertising, and they often sold a great deal to the local collectors, who heard about them by word of mouth. Some individuals, such as Tanner Miles, would buy posters from the exchanges in huge quantities and try to double their money at collectible shows. (My own personal introduction to movie posters came in 1968 at an Oklahoma City collectibles show, where I, being a full-time comic book dealer, was intrigued b y the many boxes of movie posters I saw at Tanner Miles tables. I spent over $40 with him, a huge amount of money for me at the time, and I went home with a large box of posters and lobby sets). But it didnt take long for the dealers to see that they were rapidly running out of the most popular titles (particularly horror and sci-fi) and they started raising prices on popular titles. The two exchanges that were best organized and sold the most posters to collectors were Theatre Poster Exchange in Memphis, Tennessee, and Movie Poster Service in Canton, Oklahoma (both are still in business and both give excellent service). I remember seeing better quality posters priced at $20 in the early 1970s, and wondering how much higher prices could go! But it is important to realize that pre-1937 posters were always scarce, even in 1965. I remember seeing a Valentino lobby card in 1969, and the price was $20, when virtually no post-1940 item sold for as much. The price was high because even then, silent items were virtually unheard of. I have heard old-time collectors talk of the days when they bought Frankenstein and Dracula lobby sets from exchanges, but I know this never happened (ma ybe it was House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula and the stories got embellished over the years). Sometime in the late 1970s, those who printed movie posters began printing huge numbers of extra posters which they did not fold in the regular way, but instead left unfolded (rolled). It is not clear to me if this was done with the studios permission or knowledge, or if it was done independently by the printers. I would think it may well have started around the time of Star Wars or especially Return/Revenge of the Jedi, when these posters instantly began selling for collectible prices. Maybe someone contacted someone at the printers and persuaded them to print a bunch of extra posters. Unfortunately if this was done without the studios knowledge, then well probably never know the full story, for the principals involved are unlikely to admit to it. At this time, several collectibles dealers became tied to whoever supplied rolled one-sheets, and began offering them to collectors. The odd thing is that it remained a very clandestine business, shrouded in mystery. Even today, I have no idea who prints the rolled one sheets, how they can be contacted, how they can be purchased directly, and so forth. Of course those who act as middlemen for distributing these posters dont want the answers to get out, but its just a matter of time before it happens. The artist given credit for creating the movie poster was Jules Cheret who created two posters in the 1890s. One was a film short called Projections Artistiques, and the other a Theatre program called Pantomimes Lumineuses. During this early time movie posters would not contain the title of a film short but just the name of the company who made them. 1896 marked the first time a poster would be made for a specific movie and not just a movie company. The film was called LArroseur Arrose. It was about a kid getting into trouble with a water hose spraying a gardener. The 1900s would mark the beginning of the utilization of modern film techniques which would be used in the American movie The Great Train Robbery. The movie only last eleven minutes and was extremely popular. By the end of the first decade of the last century movies had become a great source of entertainment for the public with movie companies growing in greater numbers. From this time period, the movie poster would get a standard size known as the one sheet measuring 27 x 41. The Genesis of the Modern Film Poster A common format of the film posters from the period preceding the Nickelodeon Boom of 1905-6 was what Kathryn Helgessen Fuller refers to as the audience image. (Kathryn, 1999) From Edisons 1901 poster for a Vitascope exhibition in Birmingham to a Cook and Harris advertisement for a 1905 showing at the Elks Opera House in New York, the audience is shown in almost stock fashion in these images, namely, enthralled by the wonder of the new medium. On these grounds, Fuller identifies the audience image with what Tom Gunning has called the cinema of attractions, a mode of spectatorship and film production which preceded the arrival of narrative cinema and in which the apparatus and its illusion of motion was itself the star attraction (Tom, 1990). In these terms, the audience functions in conjunction with a larger attempt to foreground the apparatus and the uncanny illusion of reality it produced rather than to advertise the content of the film. The latter is utilized only secondarily, that is, only in so far as it magnifies the former (Michal, 1992). While Fuller is eager to establish the virtual disappearance of the audience image from film advertising as coinciding with the movement away from actualities and toward narrative cinema, the audience does not necessarily disappear from film posters after the first decade of the twentieth century (Sandy, 1994). Rather, they that take on a new role, one that is best illustrated by a Mutual Movies ad from 1913. Here, the audience is divorced from the apparatus. Gone are the catatonic viewers of the Edison images. Instead, these well-dressed filmgoers serve to assuage the fear of the middle class audience that theatre owners were now courting and to counter campaigns waged by activists like Jane Addams who saw the Nickelodeon as a house of vice. While the waning of the 19th-century fascination and astonishment with the cinematic apparatus certainly transformed the audience image, its disappearance only occurs after the middle class audience had been successfully procured by the film ind ustry (Sandy, 1994). From this point on, it is the moving image itself, rather than the apparatus or the spectators that comes to take precedence 87 in publicity material. As the pair of posters for D.W. Griffith 1915 film Birth of A Nation illustrate, for the most part, this meant either lithographs which took from the circus and other promotional material a bold and dramatic style, or posters based upon still photographs from the film (David, 1995). It is crucial to understand this movement toward the still in the context of the 1909 drive of the Motion Picture Patent Company (MPPC) to consolidate and standardize distribution and exhibition (Pafic News Service, 1995). First, through what Richard Abel calls a combined strategy of lawsuits and licensing and second, through the formation of the conglomerate General Film Company in 1910, the MPPC established film distribution and exhibition as, for all intents and purposes, a closed market(Nancy, 1999). In light of this consolidation, underway in virtually all aspects of the industry, the still offered an additional benefit. Since producing ads for specific theatres would be impractical for a company such as the GFC, which served an extensive and diverse group of exhibitors, the still presented an image devoid of the geographical specificity of the audience image, one that could be mass produced without variation. What ensues is a standardization that begins with the reconfiguration of the poster itself. For example, in 1909, the Klame Company began creating pos ters in dimensions that would be equal to the size of eight lobby cards (seven scenes and a title card), allowing streamlined shipping and standardized lobby displays (Engineering News-Record, 1999). The standardization of form was followed by the standardization of content as printers such as Hernegan and Donaldson in Cincinnati created a line of stock posters that represented the prevailing subjects of the films of the time and that could easily be tweaked to represent a given show (Alan, 1999). With shipping expedited and printing costs minimized, film manufacturers soon began sending vast quantities of literatureà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦free to every exhibitor,(Moving Picture world, 1911) and trade publications such as Moving Picture World began offering advice to exhibitors on lobby displays, promotional tie-ins and publicity stunts (Parsons, 1927). In an article entitled Theatre Managers, Wake Up! the trade journal encourages the obsessive decoration of the Nickelodeon It is all well en ough to let the storefront make the circus display outside his place in order to attract a crowd (Parsons, 1927). However, the shift from the audience image to the still image initiated a standardization that does not alone account for the interconnectedness or metonymic exchange between image and film that began this inquiry. The latter must be understood in conjunction with an exhibition practice that preceded both the establishment of conglomerates and subsequent standardization of exhibition. As Tom Gunning points out, it was common practice in the 19th century to begin a showing with a projected still image which would, after a dramatic pause, suddenly be granted movement (Tom, 1999). In fact; Albert E. Smith developed a water cell between the film and the light source that would allow the projector to hold the still without catching fire precisely for this purpose (Andre While the aesthetic of astonishment and the cinema of attractions were relatively short-lived modes of spec tatorship, this residual connection between the still and its magical transformation gained a new currency within the film poster. In focusing on dramatic, climactic scenes, posters such as Griffiths Birth of A Nation presented images that were themselves caught between motion and stillness and as such asked the audience to internally re-enact this early practice. From the point of view of spectatorship, the result of this standardization between images in combination with the implied motion of the still itself is a peculiar displacement that Andrà © Bazin would later diagnosis as the art of not seeing films. In a 1944 article of the same name, Bazin, perhaps the ultimate cinephile, makes the provocative claim that a film can be legitimately be read, at least with seventy-five percent accuracy, by the posters which advertise it. In essence, by reading the image through an elaborate graphology the image gives way to the film proper and in those cases where the film one sees through the poster is of inferior quality one can safely choose not to attend its showing. Seeing the film no longer necessitates the theatre or even the film itself. The arrival of the still as the dominant graphical reference to film experience in combination with the standardization or codification of advertising practices make possible the metonymic exchange between the poster and the moving image of the film. With the web of standardization established between images, the film poster appropriates the ability of the filmic image, both moving and still, to exceed itself only to recuperate this excess elsewhere. This inquiry has focused on the poster and obviously each visual mode of extension constitutes its own unique discourse that must be approached on its own terms. However, one cant help but think that in a general sense it is this dispersal, endemic to the filmic form and perfected with the commercialization of the film industry, that grants film, a by now thoroughly antiquated technology, its continued relevance and vitality. In these terms, the evolution we have traced through the film poster is not all together different from the curre nt migration of the cinematic across media and in turn time and space. The artefact that Barthes finds in the trail of posters is therefore both the anomalous element within our conventional understanding of the cinematic experience and also a record of the past. The latter, however, points simultaneously back to the birth of commercial cinema at the same time it prefigures the migration of the cinema across digitized formats where the materiality of the film and its space of presentation bring this process of portability to near completion. The Change of movie posters over decades 1910s 1920s In the early days movie stars werent known, so the names of actors did not appear on the posters. Besides the movie studios liked it that way so they wouldnt have to pay more money to actors. Things certainly have changed with actors like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis commonly getting checks over or around 20 million dollars per movie. During this early period in movie history movie studios realized that movie stars were as much an attraction for the moviegoer as the movie itself. So the movie star was born, and movie posters started showcasing the names of the actors as well as the title of the movie. The bigger the star the bigger their name appeared on the poster. Other promotional materials were soon used such as the lobby card and the press book. In the 1920s, the golden age of the silent movies, posters became more artistic and spectacular. Accomplished Artists were hired to paint portraits of the stars for the movie studios to be used as movie posters. By the mid 1920s talkies as they were called were introduced. Movie attendance shot up to 110 million by 1929 from 60 million in 1927. During this time movie poster images would become sharper due to a new printing process by the Morgan Litho Company. 1930s The Golden Age of Movies as it is known in the movie industry saw the beginning of great musicals, gangster movies, westerns, and horror movies created for the growing public hunger for movies. One of the biggest money makers of all time came from the end of this decade, a little picture called Gone with the Wind. Two styles of movie poster were created, one sheets and half sheets. Major movies would sometimes get more than the two different styles. However due to the depression of the time a lot of movie materials had been created more cheaply, causing movie posters to lose some of the quality as they had previously. 1940s 1950s World War II came and war movies were the biggest theme for movies of the time. A number of movie stars joined the military and the entire industry did what they could for the war effort. The movie industry cut advertising costs using cheaper paper for posters due to the paper shortage of the war time. The 1950s would see the invention of the movie industrys biggest competitor, the television set. The movie industry came out with bigger screens for large scale movies like Ben Hur, and 3-D movies. Drive-in movies were at their peak, and movie posters adopted a style of the new fan magazines with colour photographs of the major movie stars and large stock lettering. 1960s 1970s Teen movies were the big thing in the early sixties. Beach movies and Elvis Presley ruled the movie theatres. James Bond stirred up the action genre, but by the end of the sixties into the seventies times were a changing and posters reflected this change of attitude towards sex and violence. The 1970s were more of the same as everything changed. Gone were the simple days of Andy Griffith and Mayberry. Hello Dirty Harry! Before the decade was over Clint Eastwood would make our day, we would see gangsters in The Godfather, cheer Sylvester Stallone as Rocky, race off to other parts of the galaxy in Star Wars and Star Trek and be made to believe a man can fly in Superman. Movie posters used photography occasionally using drawing and painting styles. Star Wars and Star Trek posters were the most popular creating collectors out of many today. Movie posters at this time were now being printed on a clay-coated paper which gave them a glossy finish. 1980s 1990s The age of special effects blockbusters, the 1980s broke records with awesome films like The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, E.T., more Superman movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, 2 more Indiana Jones movies, more James Bond movies, Ghostbusters, Batman, Back to the Future, The Terminator, more Rocky movies, and dont forget Rambo. This decade meant more screens per theatre and more advertising material. The mini sheet was invented, and the video store became popular creating the video store poster. The 1990s saw the beginning of new computerization technology used in films like Jurassic Park. Batman was forever until the movie Batman and Robin, Arnold was back, and Independence Day blew away the competition. The one sheet continued to be used for posters as well as the mini sheet. 2000- Today Spider-man has web spun his way into the record books, DVDs are slowly replacing the VHS video, and posters are sold in many stores with reprints of movie posters currently being mass produced. The beginning movie po

Assessment of a Study of Transformational Leadership Essay -- social i

Assessment of a study of the relationship between transformational leadership, empowerment and organizational commitment Introduction and Purpose of Study The implications of transformational leadership on a firm’s employees and the success of the firm overall are areas of ongoing research according to Ismail, Mohamed, Sulaiman, Mohamad, and Yusuf (2011). The authors make the case that in a changing global environment transformational leadership styles, rather than transactional styles, are a means organizations are using to meet their strategies (p. 90). They argue previous research suggests that some aspects of transformational leadership, such as empowerment, may motivate the followers to unite, change their own goals, and even look beyond their own self-interest to achieve the organization’s interest (p. 90). Thus, the use of a transformational style may impact employee outcomes, especially organizational commitment resulting in increased organizational performance. According to Ismail et al. (2011, p. 91), despite studies showing this important relationship, there is insufficient explanation of how and why transf ormational leadership affects organizational commitment. Their study begins to address the shortfall by studying the mediating effects of empowerment on the relationship between the variables Transformational Leadership and Organizational Commitment. The assessment presented here focuses on the sampling methodologies used by the authors and argues that potential weaknesses in the methodologies limits the conclusions to something less than that which is presented by Ismail et al. (2011, pp. 100-101). This paper will have three following sections. First, there is a methods section to discuss the author... ... approaches rely on random sampling to draw inferences. As the sample drawn from the population becomes less random, the results become skewed, and conclusions become limited and should be viewed with skepticism. Thus, the results reported by Ismail et al. (2011) must be viewed with skepticism. References Burns, R. B., & Burns, R. A. (2008). Business research methods and statistics using SPSS. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Girden, E. R., & Kabacoff, R. I. (2011). Evaluating research articles: From start to finish (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Ismail, A., Mohamed, H. A., Sulaiman, A. Z., Mohamad, M. H., & Yusuf, M. H. (2011). An empirical study of the relationship between transformational leadership, empowerment and organizational commitment. Business & Economics Research Journal, 2(1), 89-106. Retrieved from http://www.berjournal.com

How does the inclusion of the witches in Macbeth heighten the dramatic impact of the play? Essay

Macbeth is a play written by the renowned playwright William Shakespeare in the early 17th century. Originally produced for the King of Denmark, the play explores themes such as ambition and betrayal through the actions of the main protagonist Macbeth. The play’s other significant figures include three witches whose practice of sorcery attracted a lot of controversy towards the play. At the time, their inclusion heightened the dramatic impact on the audience; primarily because of the public’s view of witches. Also referred to as the ‘’weird sisters’’, they form a fundamental element of the play because it is their input that shapes the play into action. During this period of time, the mainstream population of Europe was Christian and superstitious, therefore belief in witchcraft was at its peak and so-called ‘’witches’’ were persecuted. Supposedly, witches (along with Satan) were part of a collective of evil and were blamed for a lot of wrongdoing in society. For instance, political dissidents who opposed the King were thought to be under the influence of black magic. This was because there was commonly held believe that the King had the divine right to rule; thus anyone challenging the King was basically challenging God (which was considered blasphemy and punishable by death). The inclusion of the witches and amount of media coverage they received along with the public’s superstition helped to heighten the dramatic impact of Macbeth on a Shakespearean audience. Today, however, due to the secularisation of society, religious morals are diminishing and witchcraft is seen as nothing more than simple entertainment; this is certainly not how Shakespeare intended it to be. Furthermore, television programmes such as W.I.T.C.H. and books such as the Harry Potter series are depicting witches in a much more positive light. On the other hand, a small number of possible offshoots of witchcraft such as Wicca and Freemasonry are still being practiced despite it being punishable by death in some extremely religious cultures. In this day and age, the general view about witches lessens the dramatic impact significantly because it is seen as a comedy routine therefore Macbeth doesn’t strike fear into the hearts of the audience like its original purpose. In Act 1 Scene 1, as shown in the stage directions; the witches are the first performers when they enter an ‘’open place’’ with ‘’thunder and lightning’’. By being the first performers on stage, they intensify the dramatic impact because the audience focuses their attention towards them. Also, Shakespeare specifically chose the weather in this scene to be threatening, to reflect the negative view of witches at the time and to elevate the dramatic impact by making them see more powerful (witches were associated with the ability to manipulate the weather). The technique of using elements of nature to express mood is known as pathetic fallacy. In this scene, the first impression that the audience are given of the witches is that they are unattractive. For instance, the quotes ‘’your beards’’ and ‘’skinny lips’’ suggests that the witches are ugly and depict them as being unnatural due to having masculine characteristics. Shakespeare has done this to add to the negative interpretation of witches, which in turn heightens the dramatic impact (because the realistic appearance of the witches would frighten the audience). He also uses other characters to highlight the appearance of the witches and therefore raise the dramatic impact on the audience. For instance, Banquo describe the witches as being creatures ‘’ that look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth’’. He is suggesting that they do not resemble other humans and that they are abnormal; perhaps beings from another world. Shakespeare uses dialogue between the witches to heighten the dramatic impact on the audience. For example, in Act 1 Scene 3, one of the witches says to the others ’‘I’ll drain him dry as hay, sleep shall neither night nor day’’. This line heightens the dramatic impact because it portrays witches as evil because of the reference to torturing someone by depriving him of water. Also the words ‘’hay’’ and ‘’day’’ rhyme, during the Shakespearean era this was related to the spells chanted by witches, therefore the audience would have instantaneously assumed that the lines were malicious; thus increasing the dramatic impact. The lines spoken by the witches also include a rhythm. For example in Act 1 Scene 3, the three witches start their lines with ‘’all hail†¦ all hail†¦ all hail’’, this promotes the idea that the witches have the same thoughts and gives the impression that they are insane because they speak in a different pattern to the other characters. The witches also speak in riddles to scare and confuse the audience, for example, the line ‘’when the battles lost and won’’ may be referring to Macbeth or it could be talking about the struggle for the throne of Scotland. This intensifies the dramatic impact because the audience are left unsure and given the impression that the three witches know something that they don’t. Once again, the witches are depicted as being unnatural because of their ability to prophesise the future. Imagery is used cleverly in many ways by Shakespeare to show the witches in a negative light and add to the dramatic impact. For example, in Act 4 Scene 1, the 1st witch says ‘’round and round the cauldron go, in the poisoned entrails throw’’. This quote emphasizes the popular belief (at the time) that witches chant around their cauldrons which consisted of nauseating ingredients such as rats (creates the image that witches are sick). Also, the witches simultaneously say ‘’double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble’’, this makes the spell resemble a song more and consequently it increases the dramatic impact. To conclude, the inclusion of the witches in the play undeniably helps to heighten the dramatic impact on a Shakespearean audience. This is mainly because of his successful methods, for example when using pathetic fallacy. Today, however, his masterpiece has not been as popular and effective at creating a negative image of witches because of the enormous change in the public’s view of witches.

mercury essays

mercury essays Mercurys symbol is Hg, its atomic number is 80, its atomic mass is 200.59, its in group 12 and in period 6, and it also has two valence electrons. Its standard state is liquid at 298K and it is the heaviest known elemental liquid. It has a silvery white color. It is named after the planet "Mercury" the origin of the symbol Hg is the Latin word "hydrargyrum" meaning "liquid silver". Mercury was known to ancient Chinese and Hindus before 2000 B.C. and was found in tubes in Egyptian tombs dated from 1500 B.C. Mercury is the only metal liquid at ordinary temperatures. Mercury is sometimes called quicksilver. It sometimes occurs free in nature and is found mainly in cinnabar ore, which is HgS. Cinnabar ore is found in Spain and Italy. Mercury is a heavy, silvery-white metal, which forms alloys easily with many metals like gold, silver, and tin. These alloys are called amalgams. Its way of amalgamating with gold is made use of the recovery of gold from its ores. Mercury is a bad conductor of heat and an okay conductor of electricity. The most important salts are mercuric chloride HgC12 that is a corrosive and violent poison. Mercurous chloride Hg2Cl2, which used to be used in medicine. Mercury fulminate Hg(ONC)2 used as a detonator in explosives and mercuric sulfide HgS used as a high-grade paint pigment. Organic mercury compounds are important and dangerous. Methyl mercury is a lethal pollutant found in rivers and lakes. Mercury is a virulent poison and is readily absorbed through the respiratory tract, the gastrointestinal tract, or through unbroken skin. It acts as a cumulative poison since there are few pathways available to the body for its excretion. Since mercury is a very readily vaporizable element at a relatively low temperature, dangerous levels are readily attained in air. Air saturated with mercury vapor at 20C contains a concentration that exceeds the toxic ...

Free Online GED Testing and Resources

Free Online GED Testing and Resources We do so much online today that it seems natural to expect to be able to take the GED test online, too. Can you? Nope. There was some confusion when, in 2014, the GED test became computer-based. You now take the GED test on a computer, but not online. Theres a very big difference between computer-based and online. You can find free practice GED tests online in several places, but when youre ready to sit down for the actual test, you need to take it at a certified testing center, in person. The good news is that they are all over America, even in the smallest communities, so chances are very good that there is one near you. Google Adult Education in your town or city, or look it up in the phone book, if you still have one. So what kinds of GED prep resources can you find online? Plenty! Online High Schools - Thumbs Up or Down? Many people choose to attend an online high school. Are they safe? Some are. Youll need to do some serious homework. Its especially important to be sure the school you choose is accredited. What does that mean? Learn why  accreditation is important  before you sign up for any online high school. Online Prep If you just want some help prepping, and arent interested in signing up for a school, there are plenty of places online that offer lessons and practice tests. We list several of them in this article, Free Online GED Practice Tests and Free GED Classes. Remember that most communities, whether small or huge, have literacy councils that offer free tutoring for adults and children in many, many subjects, including GED, English, math, reading, and pretty much anything you need help with. Ask. If you have trouble finding them, check with the local newspaper. Theyll be sure to know. Studying for Your GED at   Home Earning a GED can be embarrassing, so many people choose to study at home, and now that there are so many resources available on the Internet, studying at home is so much easier. We have some tips for you in this article, Ways to Study for Your GED/High School Equivalency Diploma at Home Scams There are a lot of scams out there, and the people running them are pretty heartless. Please do not fall for offers that claim you can take the GED test online. Theyre all scams. They want your money, lots of it, in exchange for a meaningless piece of paper. Dont think employers or schools will fall for these fake certificates. Theyre smarter than that. So you will have lost good money and gotten absolutely nothing in return. Earn your GED the right way and be proud of it. And remember, you must take your GED test at a certified testing center, in person. Find a center near you by going to your states GED website or to the GED Testing Service.

Free Essays on Interview With The Amish

Interview With James Shoemacher Amish Vs. American James Bernard Shoemacher, Æ’Â ±JBÆ’Â °, has been a friend and business associate of mine for about three years. He was born and raised in an Amish community in New Harmony, Indiana. JB spent twenty three years inside the community until he was married, then he left to join his brother who lived closer to town than the community was. Together they make up the New Harmony carriage MFR., this is how I came into contact with him. I first met JB and his brother Jed in a draft horse auction in Waverley In., he was there with several of their hand crafted carriages. I got to talking with him and soon thereafter started a business relationship with him that has lasted already five years. Over the time that IÆ’Â ­ve know JB I took in a lot of knowledge about his culture and heritage, thus making him a prime suspect for my interview. That, and IÆ’Â ­ve always been intrigued by the Amish people. After talking with JB for a while I started to understand his English diale ct as if it were the country bumpkin slang I have grown to love. Premeditating the oncoming interview I developed a series of twelve questions that I hoped would help me better understand the Amish people and there never changing way of life. I wanted to be able to sympathize with the man in the horse-drawn buggie on the side of the road and be able to see the world from their perspective. As we sat in one of the finished carriages in JBÆ’Â ­s barn I began my quest for enlightenment. First I asked, what are the main differences between the Amish and American cultures? He stated that the Amish teach separatism and that they are not allowed to go to war, take oaths, or hold any public offices. They are not allowed to use any kind of electrical element inside the home, E.G. telephones, computers, and televisions. Amish people focus a lot on togetherness, the whole community will be involved in what has been made po... Free Essays on Interview With The Amish Free Essays on Interview With The Amish Interview With James Shoemacher Amish Vs. American James Bernard Shoemacher, Æ’Â ±JBÆ’Â °, has been a friend and business associate of mine for about three years. He was born and raised in an Amish community in New Harmony, Indiana. JB spent twenty three years inside the community until he was married, then he left to join his brother who lived closer to town than the community was. Together they make up the New Harmony carriage MFR., this is how I came into contact with him. I first met JB and his brother Jed in a draft horse auction in Waverley In., he was there with several of their hand crafted carriages. I got to talking with him and soon thereafter started a business relationship with him that has lasted already five years. Over the time that IÆ’Â ­ve know JB I took in a lot of knowledge about his culture and heritage, thus making him a prime suspect for my interview. That, and IÆ’Â ­ve always been intrigued by the Amish people. After talking with JB for a while I started to understand his English diale ct as if it were the country bumpkin slang I have grown to love. Premeditating the oncoming interview I developed a series of twelve questions that I hoped would help me better understand the Amish people and there never changing way of life. I wanted to be able to sympathize with the man in the horse-drawn buggie on the side of the road and be able to see the world from their perspective. As we sat in one of the finished carriages in JBÆ’Â ­s barn I began my quest for enlightenment. First I asked, what are the main differences between the Amish and American cultures? He stated that the Amish teach separatism and that they are not allowed to go to war, take oaths, or hold any public offices. They are not allowed to use any kind of electrical element inside the home, E.G. telephones, computers, and televisions. Amish people focus a lot on togetherness, the whole community will be involved in what has been made po...

Analysing NetFlix Performance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Analysing NetFlix Performance - Essay Example This increased their expenditure on streaming from the US $33 million to the US $200 million per year.On July 12, 2011, they increased their monthly subscription from the US $ 9 to the US $ 15. It takes off after 2003 when the company makes a profit for the first time. Between 2003 and 2009 the growth is steady but slow. The year 2010 find’s the stock taking off in a big way. The reason may be the sudden increase in subscription base or due to the tie-up with Starz Entertainment. The company becomes a dot-com success story. Video rentals are a technology-driven industry. At the time NetFlix entered the market DVD’s were a novelty and were costlier.Internet was also in its infancy. Video Cassettes were the popular medium and it was mostly retail renting. NetFlix made use of the compactness of the DVD and the accessibility of the internet to start online renting, sending the DVDs by mail. Monthly Subscription was another attraction. When the business prospered they tied up with Cable TV operators and Movie producing companies to get new movies at the earliest time. They also made use of the Improvement in the internet speed by offering Movies over the internet by streaming.This meant that no physical media was to be transported and that the user can make his choice online. The Web Portal of the Company also has facilities for registering viewer preferences. Right decisions at the right time and adapting to changing technologies and keeping track of the user preferences are the reason behind NetFlix’s success.The recent dip in stock prices and the negative comments of the customers on the increase in subscription rates are only temporary hiccups.  

Eye Screening Reflection of Learning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Eye Screening Reflection of Learning - Essay Example The impact of the Early Youth Eye Care program on the society is excellent. People appreciate the efforts of the E.Y.E volunteers and donate to help them continue putting in efforts to remove visionary problems for the children. The E.Y.E community uses vision screening to detect actual problems of the children in order to provide them with appropriate medical treatment. The volunteers also help poor families in receiving health treatment. Moreover, they also make people aware of the ways they can use to protect their eyesight and improve their vision. Four barriers to receiving healthcare include lack of awareness, no proper transport, less money, and lack of interest. I would identify these barriers using surveys and questionnaires. I would design and send questionnaires to every family living in my area in order to know the barriers that they face in receiving healthcare. Based on the analysis of the responses, I would take steps to remove the barriers that I would find. The experience would put an impact on my professional nursing career. â€Å"Hands-on experience and skills are important for you to success in this career field† (Harvard, 2012). The experience would inject care for patients and a sense of therapeutic nursing in my mind. It would also help me become able to administer medications and perform diagnostics tests of the patients. â€Å"A licensed practical nurse can do things like start IVs, administer medications, take samples, perform basic lab analysis, dress wounds, take vital signs, and perform basic diagnostic tasks† (Smith, n.d.). Moreover, working in impoverished communities and educating unaware people regarding illness prevention and treatment would also help me develop effective clinical skills and

Fiction Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Fiction Analysis - Essay Example In the very time, she takes the opportunity to go out and to her surprise she meets her husband contrary to the news the sister had delivered to her a short while. The experience led to her collapse and eventual death. This short story begins with who apparently is the main character in the story and the sister to the woman described in the story. She is referred to as sister of Louise; the woman on the other side is referred to as Josephine. Josephine is depicted as a woman with great traits as kindness, nurturing, and strength. The traits attributed to Josephine in a way had been experienced by the author who in the story was raised by the mother and other nuns in Katechopin.org a catholic school (Chopin, 18). It can then be deduced that the traits in this story was part of her life initially. The author’s (Kate Chopin) father died in a railroad accident in the early days and presumably this is why the story in this book has been framed in away that thee sister fictitiously tell the accident story to the woman (Chopin, 27). Because the father died when she was young, it may have appeared to her in a dream that her father was not hurt as it really was and that he one day came home-this may have had some influence in the orientation of the story. The woman described in this story equally was widowed in her prime age and from this, she learnt on how to earn a living from writing without depending on anybody (Chopin, 32). The story did not exempt the engagement of irony and satire in which the sister to the woman, Louise made the all radical decision to be free as a woman who is entitled to herself to exhaust the experiences in life. She decides to triumph in her bid and finally lived see this happen. The hidden lesson of the story is rather hidden in the sense that even no reference is made to the historical event, it tends to communicate a

Global Media Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Global Media Management - Essay Example However based on the target audience the product display and message varied for majority of the companies. There are some aspects of any website that determine its satisfaction such as navigability, playfulness, information quality, trust, personalization and responsiveness. According to Todaro (2007) the value prepositions offered by website is interactivity, integration of multimedia, real-time buying behavior of the consumers and consumer response, electronic commerce and return on investment. Internet marketing consists of search engine optimization, online advertisement, pay per click campaigns (PPC), e-commerce, online permission marketing and promotional e-mail (Todaro, 2007). However the website or virtual presence is usually practiced with the other strategies for by the marketers today. In the case of skin care products, the consumer involvement increases with increasing price of the product and brand name. Consumers may be involved in the point of purchase behavior where they buy product when it is physically displayed in a retail outlet. In the case of online purchasing, it can be more for the repeat purchase that a consumer can place an order. The websites ranking high in terms of traffic are effective in their product display, gaining viewers’ attention and retaining the attention by providing informative content to them. Most of the popular skincare companies provided details on the product effectiveness, how it works and what is special in it which makes it effective. On the other hand the websites with low traffic have dull presentations of products; information is very limited or presented in uninteresting manner and dull color scheme of the website. There were visible difference in the way products were displayed and web pages were navigated in the websites that were receiving heavy flow of traffic. There were some known brands which have market reputation and

Tokyo vs Bangkok Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Tokyo vs Bangkok - Essay Example Bangkok and Tokyo are about 3000 miles apart and similar yet different in many ways. They both have rivers passing through them and both lie close to bays and are both very rich as far as culture is concerned. Economically, Tokyo is superior to Thailand and had a higher cost of living too. Bangkok however, has a more metropolitan look than Tokyo since it has allowed many immigrants to live and work within the city. Tokyo has very tighter immigration laws and foreigners hold virtually no special rights in Tokyo. There is more of intercultural mixing in Bangkok. Bangkok is located in the very central part of Thailand and this makes it a natural hub between the southern and northern Thailand. Bangkok’s location around the Chao Phraya delta has earned it the title of being Asia’s Rice bowl. This is because the river creates a fertile valley in which a lot of rice is grown and mostly exported. Bangkok’s position near a bay has enabled it host Thailand’s main international port. The city lies approximately six and a half feet above sea level, and this works as a disadvantage to the city whenever the season of monsoon rains begin. The rains cause River Chao Phraya to burst its banks and massively flood the city. The city’s climate is hot and warm almost all year round and this is probably why it is so popular with tourism. It has even been labeled to be the hottest city in the world. According to Mansfield, Tokyo occupies a huge swath of sedimentary deposits of the Kanto Plain which is in Honshu, the most populo us and largest island in Japan. The city is situated on the coast of the eastern Pacific and its main features are the flatlands to its east, undulating hills to its west and the Sumida River.

Tactics to reconstruct the completed buildings due to shifting of Case Study

Tactics to reconstruct the completed buildings due to shifting of project layout by the government agency - Case Study Example As the 5 individual buildings were privately owned and the external road works was under the auspices of the government, it means that the real situation at hand had to do with an amicable private-public sector engagement. A major climax of the private-public sector engagement came about when the client who is on the government side issued notice to the contractor to re-establish the settings of the all the 5 buildings to ensure that they do not conflict with the external road. It is important to note that construction had also started for all the buildings. Once the notice was received by the contractor to re-establish the settings of the road, he engaged with the owner and informed him about the demolition, a situation that merited claim for additional time and cost for the project. As a person tasked with the responsibility of Senior Contracts Administrator, I had a role of reporting to contractors Project Manager. This means that my role was very crucial in ensuring a successful engagements and negotiations between the owner and the contractor. The private-public sector engagement widened the stakeholder base of the project, giving rise to both external and internal stakeholders. Externally, representations from the GRA, beneficiaries of the external road, financiers and third party quality control administrators on the project were all stakeholders. Internally, the project owner, people living in the community, contractor, all employees under the cont ractor, including project manager, and other internal auditors and inspectors were part of the project’s stakeholders. Given the nature of the stakeholders, the stakeholder theory which sees the true ownership of a project as belonging to all people who may be directly or indirectly affected by the project applied. As part of the principles of construction and

Case Study of the Credit Card Processing Industry Term Paper

Case Study of the Credit Card Processing Industry - Term Paper Example The credit card processing industry has been in the forefront in adopting new technology. Credit card processing is mainly done through electronic processing. The credit card associations and companies have laid down policies and procedures for credit card processing. The system of processing credit cards is very complex as it involves processing transactions hypothetically throughout the payment process system. Usual credit card transaction in involve the following participants: the customer, merchants, payment gateway, acquiring banks processor, credit card interchange, customer’s credit card issuer, and merchant acquiring bank. The settlement for the credit card interchange institutions is done electronically. The computerized transaction settlement systems are used to make payments to the credit card interchange institutions. Today, the main credit card interchanges include MasterCard and Visa .MasterCard and Visa have agents all over the world that persuade merchants to a ccept transactions using their cards. When a customer makes a purchase at the point of sale, the merchant forwards the transaction at the end of the day to the merchant’s bank. The merchant’s bank pays the merchant for the purchase after deducting a fixed fee before forwarding the purchase to MasterCard or Visa. After receiving the transaction money, MasterCard or Visa forwards the transaction charge to the credit card issuer. The credit card issuer then makes payment of a fixed fee to MasterCard or Visa. MasterCard or Visa then makes payment to the merchant bank. MasterCard or Visa collects fees for both the card issuer and the merchant bank. Then the issuer of the card charges the customer for the amount of purchases made. The card holder finally pays the bank a minimum amount at an interest or pays the whole amount. The credit card processing system uses point of sale electronic authorization, which has replaced the traditional paper work and telephone costs. The el ectronic data capture used in credit card transaction today has helped the banks to process and accept transactions much faster. The retail systems in the supermarkets and major hotels have been changed in order to fit the changing needs of using credit cards. The main advantage of using a credit card for the customer is that it is convenient. One disadvantage is that the customer is most likely to fall into a debt that will not be easy to get out of. The whole of the credit card processing system is based on trust. Today, the credit card processing industry has been marred with fraud. The credit card processors have come up with tools to help merchants to identify fraud. These tools are web based and used by merchants to avoid scam. Model relationships capture system for the transactions will affect the customer’s loyalty of using credit cards. The model relationship capture is used to determine risk of issuing a credit card in the future. The credit card scoring points will assess the future business opportunity. The economic crisis has hit the credit card industry so hard that many customers are opting not to use credit cards. Many credit card holders have submerged in the credit card debts and are opting to use debit cards instead of credit cards. Following these dwindling fortunes, the credit card processing industry has to improve their operations in order to maintain customers in the future .The

Tactics to reconstruct the completed buildings due to shifting of Case Study

Tactics to reconstruct the completed buildings due to shifting of project layout by the government agency - Case Study Example As the 5 individual buildings were privately owned and the external road works was under the auspices of the government, it means that the real situation at hand had to do with an amicable private-public sector engagement. A major climax of the private-public sector engagement came about when the client who is on the government side issued notice to the contractor to re-establish the settings of the all the 5 buildings to ensure that they do not conflict with the external road. It is important to note that construction had also started for all the buildings. Once the notice was received by the contractor to re-establish the settings of the road, he engaged with the owner and informed him about the demolition, a situation that merited claim for additional time and cost for the project. As a person tasked with the responsibility of Senior Contracts Administrator, I had a role of reporting to contractors Project Manager. This means that my role was very crucial in ensuring a successful engagements and negotiations between the owner and the contractor. The private-public sector engagement widened the stakeholder base of the project, giving rise to both external and internal stakeholders. Externally, representations from the GRA, beneficiaries of the external road, financiers and third party quality control administrators on the project were all stakeholders. Internally, the project owner, people living in the community, contractor, all employees under the cont ractor, including project manager, and other internal auditors and inspectors were part of the project’s stakeholders. Given the nature of the stakeholders, the stakeholder theory which sees the true ownership of a project as belonging to all people who may be directly or indirectly affected by the project applied. As part of the principles of construction and

Differential Association Theory Essay Example for Free

Differential Association Theory Essay 1. Differential Association theory would explain the burglar’s behavior by first looking at their social structure. Their social structure can affect everything; it can influence their close relationships, open them up to objective opportunities and could be seen as the main attribute that affects their learning process in behavior. A. Most of the people in these interviews are poor, young males with similar social structures. Growing up on the streets and in bad neighborhoods can influence the interactions that each of these people will have. These interactions can result in definitions favorable to crime because these people are beginning to surround themselves and interact with people who are already doing illegal actions. (Hagan, p.89). In the article it gave an example of how a group of friends may be doing coke and once it runs out someone in the group, that has developed their own belief in what’s right and what’s wrong, suggests doing burglary in order to get some money for more coke. A new person within the group may feel pressure in continuing in order to maintain their status and relationship with the members in the group. Here they are learning new attitudes and accepting new values that are favorable to crime (Hagan, p. 89). The behavior being learned is that burglary can help with any immediate needs and together they rebel against the law. The new member may now start to change what they believe is right and wrong and could begin acting in more frequent illegal actions. These burglars have the belief that burglary is okay because it is a matter of â€Å"day to day survival†. This shows that they have their own interpretation on what they think is right and wrong which is a learned definition favorable to crime. In the interview Wild Will proved this theory by describing that when he is in need of money he thinks to himself, â€Å"How do I know how to get money quick and easy?† He at one point had to have learned that an immediate fix to a bump in the road, which is justified in his mind, is to perform a burglary. Larry Harris would agree when he says that it is just something you have to do to get by. Neither of these men views burglary as something wrong but as something you do in order to survive. B. When it comes to the techniques that people learn in committing crime several burglars said that it is something that you just get better at over time. Wild Will stated that when he goes to rob a house he likes to stake out the house and call it in order to see if someone is home. This may have been a technique he had picked up from  someone else that he went and did a burglary with. Several participants in the interview confessed that if they had a friend that had a burglary set up that they would be willing to do it with them if given the offer. This is an incident where you could say that a person may have the opportunity to learned new strategies and techniques that have worked for someone else in the past. Another technique that gets learned on the streets is the ability to maintain and develop status. One of the participants shared that it is mandatory to be perceived as â€Å"hip†. People on the streets learn through interactions with each other what it takes to be hip and be seen as someone with high status. 95% of the participants confessed that they spend the money that they steal on things that give them the image of â€Å"high-living†. During the interview several things were revealed as things to do in order to gain that high status. These burglars can learn these techniques such as doing drugs, having sexual partners, the right styles and brands, and a car and car accessories, as things to pursue in order to gain that respected status in the street culture. C. It is already made clear that these burglars live in poor neighborhoods and are living on the streets which give them more objective opportunity than someone that is in a nicer well off neighborhood. Due to their neighborhood, it exposes these burglars to people that are promoters to committing crime (Hagan, p.90). Most of these men have also admitted that they are â€Å"too lazy† to maintain a real job so sources of income are limited within the household. Because of this most of these participants say that they are acting on illegal action, like burglaries, in order to gain money for food and clothing for their family. As for subjective opportunities not everyone would look at something as an opportunity to commit a crime but Larry William says it best in his interview when he is describing what he does when he is in need for money, â€Å"There it is! There’s the house†. He automatically looks for a target and sees it as an opportunity to immediately fix his problem whereas another person wouldn’t think of that as an option. Another subjective opportunity that these burglars have is the fact that their social bonds are also partaking in these acts and so they have multiple opportunities in performing a burglary when they are present with more opportunities given by their friends.

An Ethical Evaluation of Product Placement

An Ethical Evaluation of Product Placement Product placement is the way in which brands are placed into non-advertising media like computer games, books, popular songs and stage plays for e.g. sponsored animations for the promotion of Cadburys chocolate placed in the UK TV soap Coronation Street after the opening titles and after and before the commercial breaks; this is affecting the children and luring them to buy the Cadbury chocolate because small children cannot differentiate that this is an add. It is a growing phenomenon in market, which has received relatively little attention from business ethicists. In marketing at the macro level, there are issues of sustainability and waste of resources through overconsumption by fostering greed and materialism. Marketing operates at the hub of wealth creation; it attracts a lot of the general criticism directed at capitalism concerning the erosion of natural resources and the destruction of the environment. At micro level, it attracts a lot of criticisms for specific cases of dec eit or cheating, such as misleading/inappropriate food labels or differential price advertising. There is widespread criticism of marketing practices promoting products that are harmful to health, like high-fat and high-salt foods, cigarettes and alcohol. UK has made Ofcom(Office of Communication) to make the laws regarding product placement in a way described above.The code includes a section on Commercial references and other matters. Within this section, three principles are specified (under Section 10): (1) broadcasters must maintain full editorial control over programmed content, (2)editorial and advertising must be clearly separated, and (3) product placement is prohibited (http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/codes/bcode/commercial/). Product placement and conventional marketing ethics Ethical evaluation of marketing practices has generally used three major strands of moral philosophy, utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics (Robin Reidenbach 1987). We are discussing 2 of them. A utilitarian evaluation of marketing is mainly to focus on its usefulness to society, the fact that at a micro level, it aids mutual exchanges between producers and consumers, while at a macro level, it enables the society to enjoy the benefits of the division of labor. The ethical concerns of consumers regarding product placement fit into this category product placement of guns and cigarettes, for example, may be seen as unethical by some consumers. A utilitarian evaluation may well come to the conclusion that product placement is indeed, an ethical practice. This is under the reasoning that the increased sales are the signs of customer satisfaction as can be reasonably assumed at least for cases of explicit product placement. On the other hand, there is the risk that increased product placement might, undermine the quality of mediated entertainment and information,, thus reducing social, utility even when it increases economic utility. Virtue ethics may provide the greatest critique of product placement because it focuses on the intentions and the character of the person initiating the action rather than the ethical status of the act itself. By evaluating the virtual ethics in product placement ome points which can be drawn are in marketing, legality must be the main criterion for judging the ethical status of the motive.A marketing campaign done for the consumers who are well informed and who know that this is a type of advertisement differs in ethical terms from advertising to children who cannot distinguish between TV programs, games, songs and advertising. If many consumers are aware about the technique of product placement, then it will have very less effect ethically. Many young consumers indeed know about the nature and extent of product placement as it occurs in movies, TV shows and other entertainment products. But the extent to which even an intelligent audience is aware of a product placement communication while they are just enjoying the dramatic entertainment is very difficult to establish. Many consumers will say that they are not influenced by advertising, but this claim seems no more credible than the claim of knowing about product placement as a marketing technique, it does not immune one to deception. Hence, there is a need for an ethical analysis that deals with product placement, which again can apply a utilitarian, a deontological and a virtue ethics perspective; except this it also needs to consider situation-specific factors that arise from the nature of the product, the degree of consumer knowledge, the implication of, market segmentation strategies, the intention, of the marketer and, the intrinsic honesty of, the method of persuasion used.

Delegation Essay -- essays research papers

Delegation Paper   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  According to Batman and Snell (2004), delegation is the assignment of authority and responsibility to a subordinate at a lower level requiring that the subordinate reports back to their manager the results, positive or negative. Within my professional career I have experienced several management styles. With regard to the subject matter of delegation, I have been lead by an experienced, effective, and efficient manager that utilized delegation and the functions of management while employed with Pitney Bowes Management Services (PBMS). The Customer Service Manager (CSM), Ebonie Kelley, Site Manager at McDermott, Will and Emory, was accountable for a team of 32. Of the 32 team members, six were apart of the management team. Her management team was a diverse mix of age, race, gender, and ethics. As the site manager, she is accountable for an enormous amount of responsibilities, but budget, site policies, and staff procedures were the bulk of these responsibilities. Organizing a management team was an ideal choice for operating a customer service based operation. She understood that maintaining the same level of efficiency without actually doing the bulk of the work was the goal she wanted to achieve. Her team consisted of two team leads (TL), one for the mail department and one for reprographics, and four lead site representatives (LSR), three for mail and one for reprographics. As the CSM, she delegated responsibilities, author...

How to Treat Prion Diseases Essay -- Medical Disease

How to Treat Prion Diseases Abstract Scientists are stumped as to the development and nature of proteinaceous infectious particles. Neither virus nor bacteria, these prions, are believed to cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE), rare diseases said to be 100% fatal, without possessing nucleic acids. Their unhindered growth is thought to be the cause for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow Disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob (CJD), scrapie and other TSE, diseases characterized by the brain microscopically turning into sponge-like matter. There are no cures or effective treatments available today because drawbacks constantly prevent the development of efficient therapy. Studies continue to slowly progress, hoping to find methods to immunize against more prion diseases. Problem No one presently has a solid understanding as to why TSE, or prion diseases, occur. The simple explanation is that PrP(c), the normal isoform of the prion protein, is forced to fold into PrPSc, the other pathological isoform, causing the misfolded PrP(c) to acquire protease-resistance. As to a physical presentation, a clumped protein consisting primarily of alpha-helices (spirals) is converted into one consisting primarily of beta-sheets (sets of pleated hairpins). In an essence, alpha-helical content decreases while beta-sheet content increases. The newly converted protein then possesses the same characteristics as those of the native PrPSc (Korth, Streit, & Oesch, 1999). PrPSc acquires partial protease resistance upon the transformation and passes this resistance along to the naturally protease-sensitive PrP(c). Protease is an enzyme that breaks down proteins or peptides, deeming the protease-sensitive proteins soluble; so during ... ...r to the fatal TSE. 8 b10 References Bainbridge, J., Jones, N., & Walker, B. (2004, May 12). Multiple antigenic peptides facilitate generation of anti-prion antibodies. Retrieved July 26, 2008, from http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1809119# Graham, S. (2002, July 30). Common Antibiotic Saps Prions' Strength. Retrieved July 24, 2008, from http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=common-antibiotic-saps-pr Korth, C., Streit, P., & Oesch, B. (1999). Monoclonal Antibodies Specific for the Native, Disease-Associated Isoform of the Prion Protein. Methods in ENZYMOLOGY: , 309, 106-122 . Soto, C. (2006). Prions: The New Biology of Proteins. Taylor & Francis Group: CRC Press. Wong, K. (2001, August 14). Old Drugs Show New Promise in Combating Prion Diseases. Retrieved July 24, 2008, from http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=old-drugs-show-new-promis

Advantages and Disadvantages of Historical Cost Accounting Essay

Historical cost accounting has been a controversial method that experienced many criticisms over a period of time, especially since it considers the acquisition cost of an asset and does not recognize the current market value. Merits and demerits of this method are as follows. The most obvious advantage of HC accounting is objectivity. It is a predominantly objective system, which records the original cost of an item when it was purchased. Under historical cost accounting there is no room for manipulation and â€Å"the data is supported by independent documentary evidence, such as invoice, statement, cheque counterfoil, receipt or voucher.†Ã¯ ¼Ë†Elliott and Elliott:43ï ¼â€° Any other method for recording transactions would be less objectives since the amount being recorded would depend on individual point of view and is various from different people. Secondly, being compared with most other methods, historical cost is an easier and cheaper way of valuation. In respect that the original cost is one that already existed and could not be amended, which is easy to determine and can be verified. Therefore, it requires less estimation for accountants to record the data and easier for auditor to inspect them subsequently. In addition,† as a basis of fact, it is verifiable and to that extent is beyond dispute†. (Alexander and Nobes :180) Another significant advantage of it is reliability, which is one of the key characteristics of financial reporting, as examined in the IASB’s Framework. As a past value, for most assets historical cost is more reliably determined than other current valuation such as fair value. This measurement can ensure that there are not excess benefits to users. (Alexander and Nobes:181) Unfortunately, as every coin has two sides, HC accounting also can not avoid having drawbacks. The main disadvantage exists in the subsequent days after acquisition. â€Å"The continued reporting of historical cost based values does not reflect any changes in market value. â€Å" Therefore either IASB rules or US GAAP are not based on the HC principle univocally. Actually, the measurement model used by these standards, like IFRS, is a mixture of historical costs,  market values, net realizable values and discounted present values. ï ¼Ë†Walton and Aerts:76ï ¼â€° Moreover, although HC accounting method is reliable, the problem mentioned above lead to another disadvantage—lack of relevance, which is also a vital characteristic of financial reporting for decisions makers. As we know, making decisions normally requires estimation of the future, particularly the prediction of cash flows. (Alexander and Nobes:181). However HC method is based on the past values, and therefore can not provide the most relevant information for the future. It may not be the best guide to the future performance, financial status and investment potential. (Alexander, Britton and Jorissen:867) In addition, although this method is predominantly objective, it can be broke by some special situations, owing to alternative definitions of revenue and costs and the need for estimates. Revenue and cost could be determined according to a choice of criteria. For instance, â€Å"although inventories are valued at the lower of cost or net realizable value, the cost will differ depending upon the definition adopted, like first-in-first-out or last-in-first-out cost.† Assets are often subjected to revaluation. In an economy of changing price levels, the historical cost system has been compromised by a perceived need to restate the carrying value of those assets that comprise a large proportion of a company’s capital employed such as land and buildings.ï ¼Ë†Elliott and Elliott:44ï ¼â€° Reference: B. Elliott and J. Elliott, 2009, Financial Accounting and Reporting ,13rd edition, FT Prentice Hall , Essex D. Alexander, A. Britton and A. Jorissen, 2007, International Financial Reporting and Analysis, 3rd edition , Thompson Learning , London. P. Walton and W. Aerts, 2006, Global Financial Accounting and Reporting: Principles and Analysis, Thomson Learning, London D. Alexander and C. Nobes, 2004, Financial Accounting: An International Introduction, 2nd edition, FT Prentice Hall , Essex

Mountain Pine Beetle Management

Adult Mountain Pine Beetles (MPBs) are known to bore into trees that are suitable for laying eggs in the tree's bark. Mature lodgepole pines (Pinus contorta Douglas var. latifolia Engelmann) from 80 to 120 years old are only some of the many trees infested and damaged by MPBs. Pine beetle problems such as tree infestation and damage occur when MPBs begin to settle in a tree and lay its eggs of 60 to 80. Canadian forests have experienced MPB infestation since previous years, with the area of British Columbia currently suffering from the largest pest outbreak in the history of Canada with over 7 million hectares infested in 2004. The region of Alberta has previously experienced two pest outbreaks: from 1940 to 1943 and from 1977 to 1985. However, there is an imminent threat of another MPB outbreak. Research identifies the threat as caused by the overwhelming abundance of susceptible pine forests located at the eastern slope of the Rockies. The MPB outbreak threat is also believed to expand from the pine forests to the boreal forests east of the Rocky Mountains. For this reason, Alberta is seeking measures to prevent another MPB outbreak from occurring. The primary goal is to reduce the number of susceptible pine trees from the infestation of pine beetles before the MPBs reach the region for the third time. An objective taken in Alberta so far is early identification of susceptible pine trees in order to control and preempt the event where there is already infestation. Some of the areas aimed at preempting an MPB outbreak include the national parks situated between Alberta and British Columbia, as well as public, private and municipal lands in Alberta. One of the measures taken is the removal of the susceptible prime brood producing stands. This step is designed to mitigate the probability of the growth of the MPB population. Once this step is already established, the growth of the MPB population is expected to slow down after which a direct control efforts on the MPB infestation will be applied. Estimates from aerial and ground surveys since August 2006 indicate a total of 2.8 million trees infested by the pine beetle. There are current efforts in Alberta in resolving the probable outbreak such as the efforts taken by the Alberta Sustainable Resource Development which detected and treated over a thousand infested trees, 98% of which were treated in 2002 to 2003. Economic estimates reveal that the impact of an MPB outbreak will greatly affect the wood and furniture industry. Possible solutions roughly include, but is not limited to, MPB mitigation efforts which are strategically planned and well-coordinated among land managers such as Parks Canada, First Nations, Alberta Community Development, the forest industry as well as the municipalities. In the event where there is already a rampant MPB outbreak, a salvage strategy will be applied by recovering dead and dying trees before the fiber is lost in order to obtain the pine trees which may still be of good use. The operation will be spearheaded by the government of Alberta in cooperation with the existing public and private organizations and concerned individuals through coordinated efforts. Constant monitoring and studies taken by the government teams for mitigating the probable and eventual MPB infestation will be applied alongside with the incorporation of efforts from private entities. References Mountain Pine Beetles in Your Backyard? from http://www.srd.gov.ab.ca/forests/health/mpb.html Ono, H. (2003). The Mountain Pine Beetle: Scope of the Problem and Key Issues in Alberta. Paper presented at the Mountain Pine Beetle Symposium: Challenges and Solutions. ;

The management report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The management report - Essay Example They must have the greatest leverage on both time and costs and for the case study; the report explores the manner in which Zara appreciates both of these to their success. The report explores the ways in which Zara utilizes these three pillars of its operations to a resounding success; (Tolga 2010, p.63, Peters 2011, p.8) posit that short lead time, lower quantities and a greater variety. The short lead time philosophy adopted by the company has aided the firm to churn out more fashionable clothes. Lower quantities of production often leads to more supply while greater variety of styles leads to more choice and more frequency of determining customer needs. The report will finally consider company A, an apparels company which does not manufacture, but operating in the high end of the city’s prime located district. The report will offer the management of the store a variety of recommendations which are in tandem with the reports results from the analysis of Zara Company. Zaraâ €™s Critical Success factors According to Barnes and Lea-greenwood (2006) flexibility in both design and production ultimately determines the success of a company especially in the fast paced fashion world. This report has identified and explored critical success factors relating to the organizational, technological and managerial impetus that have contributed to the effectiveness and success of the firm within the confines of the case study given. The company employed a number of strategies that catapulted it to success, enabling it to overtake other firms to be the leading apparels maker in the world, although under the banner of the parent company. Organizational Factors Zara operates on strategic organization; the company has enhanced communication flow from production to retail. The designers receive feedback from those operating the stores regarding customer tastes and preferences regarding clothes, the colors and etc. Zara focuses in its internal market having control in nearly every stages of the product flow, management theorist refer to such behaviour as internalization theory. When they expanded into foreign market, Zara still maintain its internal aspect and does not follow the typical trend of other competitors. Zara’s in-house business model enables overcoming the market imperfection better (Vrijhoef 2011, p.196).   Zara protects all know-how within the firm from design to ready item since it keeps all production in-house. From the case study one can gather that the business structure adopted by Zara tends to be more closely controlled, and that the firm pays keen attention by having the various business elements in close proximity to each other, around its head quarters in La Coruna, Spain. Unlike the competitors, Zara does not outsource for production from overseas countries that offer cheap labor, where majority of its competitors have pitched camp to take advantage of the low costs. The company closely controls most of its operat ions from the head office in Spain, including production and retail. For example, Zara procures most of its dyes from one of the subsidiaries of the parent company. This is a vertically integrated business s structure; through town his structure, the company has been able to offer their customers products at affordable prices and control

A Deconstruction of an episode of Sex and the City Essay

A Deconstruction of an episode of Sex and the City - Essay Example In a sense Sex and the City deconstructs some of the supposed passions and seriousness surrounding this issues. It thus makes sense to add a further layer of deconstruction by analyzing an episode of the comedy through the deconstructive lense.In the episode called "Woulda Shoulda Coulda" the subject of accidental pregnancy (and subsequent wish to have an abortion) is juxtaposed against a couple who desperately want to get pregnant, but who cannot because the woman's body is attacking her partner's sperm.The context of this episode is the ongoing battle over abortion, together with the great advances in reproductive medicine in general, including the ability to discern precisely "why" a couple cannot get pregnant, together with the possibility of artificial implantation.Thus this analysis will consider a particular episode of Sex in the City within the context of its "discipline",but also see what this discipline has been able to "dissimulate" and/or "forbid". The method will involve entering into the mindset of the series, with its attempted sophisticated portrayal of the postmodern condition.This condition has been well described by Jean Baudrillard in his analysis of what he calls "the schizo". He argues that all individuals in postmodern societies, especially those who are attempting to thrive in a large city, may be characterized in the following manner: This is a complex idea, but one suited to this study. ... He is himself obscene, the obscene play of the world's obscenity . . . he can no longer produce himself as a mirror. He is now only pure screen,a switching center for all the networks of influence. (Baudrillard, 1983) This is a complex idea, but one suited to this study. The individual, within Baudrillard's vision, is no longer the solid, three-dimensional object that he/she once was, but rather now exists as a kind of node on a two dimensional surface. The forces of modern society flow through these "nodes" without the individual having much influence upon them. Within the episode being considered here the random forces of nature: whether a woman gets pregnant or not, together with the pressures and opportunities of modern medicine, produce a kind of dance of the characters as they attempt to deal with the situation. The terrible ironies of the situation faced by these people will be couched within the exigencies of comedy, but the true seriousness of the situation often shines through. Irony can only go so far. 4. Discussion The episode starts with a view of a busy New York and two fo the main characters running along the street, clearly late. The main character states in a voice-over. "In life, sometimes we find ourselves at a crossroads. In New York that crossroads tends to be busy and very loud." As the last words are being spoken she nearly gets run over by a taxi as she crosses the road without really looking. The fact that she is literally at a crossroads, and that it is very loud, and perhaps even very dangerous makes the beginning of the show apparently very clichd. But in reality it can be seen that the writers are in fact putting the whole classic