Saturday, August 31, 2019

Summer assignment

AP Microeconomics Summer Assignment Economics is a way of looking at the world and making rational decisions based on costs and benefits. Wondering how Over the summer, please read the book, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science, by Charles Wheelan. As you read the book, take notes that will help you answer some important questions and understand economic concepts. Your task is described below. Choose any five concepts discussed and analyzed by Wheelan. (The concepts should be from different chapters in the book.Understanding the examples used in the book, try to relate these concepts to other situations that you might have experienced, or read about in the business/economic news. Create a poster, collage or a scrapbook related to your 5 economic events. Be ready to discuss your work in class. As you read the book, make a list of all the Nobel Prize winners mentioned. Be creative and have fun with the assignment. This assignment is due the first day of class. Enjoy your summ er! or a scrapbook related to your 5 economic events Be ready to discuss your work in Summer Assignment Compare and contrast the government, religion, geography, and economy of the three English colonial regions. Be sure to consider the role of race, gender, and ethnicity. English colonies in America were, for the most part, successful and fruitful, albeit for starkly different reasons. The three regions of New England, the Carolinas and the Chesapeake Bay had different ways of earning their ways, which translated into gaps in culture, religion, and forms of government.The economy in New England was eased off of small food farms owned by families, artisans products, and trade with Native Americans. Consisting of almost singularly Puritans wishing solace from England's corrupt monarchy, the region became a series of small, tight-knit communities which were bound together by their hatred of England. The commonwealth nature of New England brought about elected governors and a modern-style two party government, but created a slightly socialist way of distributing wealth throughout the inte rconnected community.This region contrast heavily with each of the two southern regions, which were much more diverse ethnically and religiously. The Carolinas were filled with all types of European immigrants, treated mostly equally, while the Chesapeake was a refuge for Catholics and a destination for slave labor. Both the Carolinas and the Chesapeake region were based on large plots of land, headed by aristocratic leaders, although the structure differed slightly as the Carolinas fell back onto a pseudo-feudal system while the Chesapeake region had more of a slave-master dynamic.Women had a slightly bigger role In these parts as co-leaders of labor workers. Not surprisingly, the limited and geography of each region dictated what was grown there and consequently the economic systems in each region. The southern, hot, humid, flat, swampy climate gave way to rice and tobacco, grown on hundreds of acres, while the harsh winters of the north limited agriculture to small home farms. Sl avery gained traction in the south as a way to raise profit margins, as landowners eschewed the practice of keeping indentured servants In favor for free labor from â€Å"anonymous. The diversity of the regions was remarkable, although what would be more remarkable to the common eye would be the way they all bound together despite heir differences in the face of a common enemy, the British, in the years to come. And thought? As the beginning of revolutionary thought and action by a unified American people, the Great Awakening left its bigger mark as the sparks of revolt against the British government. The media through which it achieved this were the minds and hearts of Americans.One of the most unifying principles of Awakening thought was that all denominations of Christianity were more or less equal, giving the diverse population of the colonies a sense of belonging in a new land as opposed to the resection of Catholics and other Christian minorities in England at that time. Demo nstrations by otherwise commonly such as Jonathan Edwards reduced the sense of authoritative leadership by the Awakening preachers. This sense of togetherness bound colonists as one.The Awakening also made a change in peoples' values, taking the emphasis ever so slightly off prayer and worship and instead compelling people to appreciate their own self-worth. While this shift was not universally accepted, it had a big enough impact to influence the interests of colonists towards materialism. As people began thinking for themselves instead of eating the Jumbled British church/state govern their lives, they began to see the flaws in the system they were being ruled by. The Great Awakening was the first demonstration of American culture, uniting a people more tightly than any population under the British Empire. Hey should control their own economic, political, and religious destiny? A slew of events and other influences convinced English colonists in the Americas that they be better of f without Britain providing a â€Å"guiding† hand. In the mid to late sass, after incurring war debts from military involvement both in the New World ND in Europe, England began imposing taxes on its colonies, using them as a scapegoat to regain lost funds. These duties seemed unfair and useless to colonists, who did not benefit from the tax, because many Bruits residing in Europe were exempt.The placement of British troops in the colonies to help enforce the taxes further annoyed colonists. This quartering, combined with fickle restrictions on settlement boundaries that prohibited settlement of colonists in thousands of acres of British territory, caused unrest and calls for internal control were heard. Having pirated without much conflict across an ocean from the technical rulers of the colonies, and having established autonomous legislative bodies such as the House of Burgesses resist Parliament, there was no apparent reason to have further governance from such an estrange d leader.Enlightenment beliefs that supported religious tolerance also distanced, and in colonists' minds, elevated the ideals of the soon-to-be Americans over the British norm of strict Protestantism. The amalgamation of these different impetuses drove the colonists to believe they, and only they, should be in control of their destiny moving forward. Why did the events following the French and Indian war separate England from its colonies and serve to unite the colonies? The rift between England and its colonies continued to grow following the Seven Years War, first with the Proclamation line.This limited opportunities for westward expansion, stunting economic growth for those wishing to extend across the Appalachians. Next, a series of acts passed by Parliament whose aim was to recuperate funds lost from the war through duties on the colonies elicited both grumblings and outright protest from citizens, as well as implant with Parliamentary rule, the disobedience was a sign of thin gs to come. Looking to counter with a stronger grip, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act, an aggressive statement saying that Parliament had the right to enforce and put in place any law at any time anywhere in the colonies.Presumably, this did not go over well with the colonists, many of whom came to the colonies to catch a break from the set- in-stone procedures of British life. The first fracture between the two sides most probably was the Boston Massacre, and its effect is prominent in the modern opinions of the event. In America, we see the Massacre as ruthless murder, while in England the killings were Just subjugation of rowdy protestors. The entire colonial system now had a common enemy.Once Parliament took over even more power in the colonies by handling the pay of Massachusetts officials, which sent of cries of despotism through the colonial population, the collective colonial disgust for Britain showed itself through the Boston Tea Party in allegory of the war soon to c ome that would change the face of the planet until today. Chapter 6: Analyze how the American people made the shift from separating from an imperial system to creation of a republican form of government. The announcement of American revolution prompted formation of new governments to control the people and fulfill the dream of true independence from Britain.Extricating the colonies from political influence from England was a task eagerly performed by civilians, who, at the sound of the word â€Å"independence,† took to the streets to level statues of British authority. While freeing America from European influence was largely achieved by war, the Continental Congress that had drafted our nation's founding documents took to the more daunting task of setting up a government for he newest nation backed by a republican ideology. In the interim, questioning â€Å"what it meant to be no longer English, but American,*† the people of America felt lost and without identity.Ther e were basic principles the people desired in the United States, freest of countries, such as the eradication of hierarchical protection for members of the government. Guided by these basic necessities for legislature and society as a whole, state constitutions reflected more accurately the many identities of America in each state. One differentiating factor between states was the level of democracy; hill it was important for commoners to have oversight of the government, states like Pennsylvania were chided for perhaps giving the people too much power.As time went on, these procedures were whittled closer to the Massachusetts template of building a constitution, in which the people had the final say. The US Constitution followed much of the same principles as the states', confirming the republican equality of all citizens (read white landowning men). As young America began to find states. Evaluate the key differences between the Pennsylvania and Massachusetts State Constitutions. A fter independence was achieved, there was a clear consensus in the United States that the nation was to be free, and a democracy.However, the degree to which democracy was implemented was up to each individual state. An excellent paragon of different interpretations of democracy is seen when the state constitutions of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are put side by side. In the northeastern Massachusetts, where communities were tightly bound together, the freedom was given to the people, who reviewed and approved or disapproved of a working constitution at a special convention. The overall fate of the state was left in the hands f the citizens rather than a few elected officials; they had the final say.Furthermore, Massachusetts residents were sure to put boundaries on what legislators could do, such as delegating the tasks of budget control and appointment of certain officials to an assembly of normal citizens. In Pennsylvania, however, republicanism was interpreted as a super-democ ratic state of being, where every white, taxpaying male had an equal say, and could contribute to debates on key topics. While there was Just a single legislative house, its constituents could be changed yearly.These two points attracted raised eyebrows and had other states question Pennsylvania long-term viability with the potential for such an unstable system of government. To boot, property was nearly redistributed to compensate for the danger of â€Å"an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals† endangering the common happiness and rights of the citizens. It seemed as if Pennsylvania was willing to resort to economic socialism to preserve political democracy. The popularizing nature of these propositions divided the state, whereas in Massachusetts, the best interests of all citizens were kept in mind to avoid conflict.

Friday, August 30, 2019

Cover Note Essay

â€Å"The Relation of Science and Religion† is a transcript of a talk given by Dr. Feynman at the Caltech YMCA Lunch Forum on May 2, 1956. In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another. The great problems of the relations between one and another aspect of human activity have for this reason been discussed less and less in public. When we look at the past great debates on these subjects we feel jealous of those times, for we should have liked the excitement of such argument. The old problems, such as the relation of science and religion, are still with us, and I believe present as difficult dilemmas as ever, but they are not often publicly discussed because of the limitations of specialization. But I have been interested in this problem for a long time and would like to discuss it. In view of my very evident lack of knowledge and understanding of religion (a lack which will grow more apparent as we proceed), I will organize the discussion in this way: I will suppose that not one man but a group of men are discussing the problem, that the group consists of specialists in many fields – the various sciences, the various religions and so on – and that we are going to discuss the problem from various sides, like a panel. Each is to give his point of view, which may be molded and modified by the later discussion. Further, I imagine that someone has been chosen by lot to be the first to present his views, and I am he so chosen. I would start by presenting the panel with a problem: A young man, brought up in a religious family, studies a science, and as a result he comes to doubt – and perhaps later to disbelieve in – his father’s God. Now, this is not an isolated example; it happens time and time again. Although I have no statistics on this, I believe that many scientists – in fact, I actually believe that more than half of the scientists – really disbelieve in their father’s God; that is, they don’t believe in a God in a conventional sense. Now, since the belief in a God is a central feature of religion, this problem that I have selected points up most strongly the problem of the relation of science and religion. Why does this young man come to disbelieve? The first answer we might hear is very simple: You see, he is taught by scientists, and (as I have just pointed out) they are all atheists at heart, so the evil is spread from one to another. But if you can entertain this view, I think you know less of science than I know of religion. Another answer may be that a little knowledge is dangerous; this young man has learned a little bit and thinks he knows it all, but soon he will grow out of this sophomoric sophistication and come to realize that the world is more complicated, and he will begin again to understand that there must be a God. I don’t think it is necessary that he come out of it. There are many scientists – men who hope to call themselves mature – who still don’t believe in God. In fact, as I would like to explain later, the answer is not that the young man thinks he knows it all – it is the exact opposite. A third answer you might get is that this young man really doesn’t understand science correctly. I do not believe that science can disprove the existence of God; I think that is impossible. And if it is impossible, is not a belief in science and in a God – an ordinary God of religion — a consistent possibility? Yes, it is consistent. Despite the fact that I said that more than half of the scientists don’t believe in God, many scientists do believe in both science and God, in a perfectly consistent way. But this consistency, although possible, is not easy to attain, and I would like to try to discuss two things: Why it is not easy to attain, and whether it is worth attempting to attain it. When I say â€Å"believe in God,† of course, it is always a puzzle – what is God? What I mean is the kind of personal God, characteristic of the western religions, to whom you pray and who has something to do with creating the universe and guiding you in morals. For the student, when he learns about science, there are two sources of difficulty in trying to weld science and religion together. The first source of difficulty is this – that it is imperative in science to doubt; it is absolutely necessary, for progress in science, to have uncertainty as a fundamental part of your inner nature. To make progress in understanding we must remain modest and allow that we do not know. Nothing is certain or proved beyond all doubt. You investigate for curiosity, because it is unknown, not because you know the answer. And as you develop more information in the sciences, it is not that you are finding out the truth, but that you are finding out that this or that is more or less likely. That is, if we investigate further, we find that the statements of science are not of what is true and what is not true, but statements of what is known to different degrees of certainty: â€Å"It is very much more likely that so and so is true than that it is not true;† or â€Å"such and such is almost certain but there is still a little bit of doubt;† or – at the other extreme – â€Å"well, we really don’t know. † Every one of the concepts of science is on a scale graduated somewhere between, but at neither end of, absolute falsity or absolute truth. It is necessary, I believe, to accept this idea, not only for science, but also for other things; it is of great value to acknowledge ignorance. It is a fact that when we make decisions in our life we don’t necessarily know that we are making them correctly; we only think that we are doing the best we can – and that is what we should do. Attitude of uncertainty I think that when we know that we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind – this attitude of uncertainty – is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire. It becomes a habit of thought. Once acquired, one cannot retreat from it any more. What happens, then, is that the young man begins to doubt everything because he cannot have it as absolute truth. So the question changes a little bit from â€Å"Is there a God? † to â€Å"How sure is it that there is a God? † This very subtle change is a great stroke and represents a parting of the ways between science and religion. I do not believe a real scientist can ever believe in the same way again. Although there are scientists who believe in God, I do not believe that they think of God in the same way as religious people do. If they are consistent with their science, I think that they say something like this to themselves: â€Å"I am almost certain there is a God. The doubt is very small. † That is quite different from saying, â€Å"I know that there is a God. † I do not believe that a scientist can ever obtain that view – that really religious understanding, that real knowledge that there is a God – that absolute certainty which religious people have. Of course this process of doubt does not always start by attacking the question of the existence of God. Usually special tenets, such as the question of an afterlife, or details of the religious doctrine, such as details of Christ’s life, come under scrutiny first. It is more interesting, however, to go right into the central problem in a frank way, and to discuss the more extreme view which doubts the existence of God. Once the question has been removed from the absolute, and gets to sliding on the scale of uncertainty, it may end up in very different positions. In many cases it comes out very close to being certain. But on the other hand, for some, the net result of close scrutiny of the theory his father held of God may be the claim that it is almost certainly wrong. Belief in God – and the facts of science That brings us to the second difficulty our student has in trying to weld science and religion: Why does it often end up that the belief in God – at least, the God of the religious type – is considered to be very unreasonable, very unlikely? I think that the answer has to do with the scientific things – the facts or partial facts – that the man learns. For instance, the size of the universe is very impressive, with us on a tiny particle whirling around the sun, among a hundred thousand million suns in this galaxy, itself among a billion galaxies. Again, there is the close relation of biological man to the animals, and of one form of life to another. Man is a latecomer in a vast evolving drama; can the rest be but a scaffolding for his creation? Yet again, there are the atoms of which all appears to be constructed, following immutable laws. Nothing can escape it; the stars are made of the same stuff, and the animals are made of the same stuff, but in such complexity as to mysteriously appear alive – like man himself. It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe beyond man, to think of what it means without man – as it was for the great part of its long history, and as it is in the great majority of places. When this objective view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to see life as part of the universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is rarely described. It usually ends in laughter, delight in the futility of trying to understand. These scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged simply as a stage for God to watch man’s struggle for good and evil seems to be inadequate. So let us suppose that this is the case of our particular student, and the conviction grows so that he believes that individual prayer, for example, is not heard. (I am not trying to disprove the reality of God; I am trying to give you some idea of – some sympathy for – the reasons why many come to think that prayer is meaningless. ) Of course, as a result of this doubt, the pattern of doubting is turned next to ethical problems, because, in the religion which he learned, moral problems were connected with the word of God, and if the God doesn’t exist, what is his word? But rather surprisingly, I think, the moral problems ultimately come out relatively unscathed; at first perhaps the student may decide that a few little things were wrong, but he often reverses his opinion later, and ends with no fundamentally different moral view. There seems to be a kind of independence in these ideas. In the end, it is possible to doubt the divinity of Christ, and yet to believe firmly that it is a good thing to do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto you. It is possible to have both these views at the same time; and I would say that I hope you will find that my atheistic scientific colleagues often carry themselves well in society. Communism and the scientific viewpoint I would like to remark, in passing, since the word â€Å"atheism† is so closely connected with â€Å"communism,† that the communist views are the antithesis of the scientific, in the sense that in communism the answers are given to all the questions – political questions as well as moral ones – without discussion and without doubt. The scientific viewpoint is the exact opposite of this; that is, all questions must be doubted and discussed; we must argue everything out – observe things, check them, and so change them. The democratic government is much closer to this idea, because there is discussion and a chance of modification. One doesn’t launch the ship in a definite direction. It is true that if you have a tyranny of ideas, so that you know exactly what has to be true, you act very decisively, and it looks good – for a while. But soon the ship is heading in the wrong direction, and no one can modify the direction any more. So the uncertainties of life in a democracy are, I think, much more consistent with science. Although science makes some impact on many religious ideas, it does not affect the moral content. Religion has many aspects; it answers all kinds of questions. First, for example, it answers questions about what things are, where they come from, what man is, what God is – the properties of God, and so on. Let me call this the metaphysical aspect of religion. It also tells us another thing – how to behave. Leave out of this the idea of how to behave in certain ceremonies, and what rites to perform; I mean it tells us how to behave in life in general, in a moral way. It gives answers to moral questions; it gives a moral and ethical code. Let me call this the ethical aspect of religion. Now, we know that, even with moral values granted, human beings are very weak; they must be reminded of the moral values in order that they may be able to follow their consciences. It is not simply a matter of having a right conscience; it is also a question of maintaining strength to do what you know is right. And it is necessary that religion give strength and comfort and the inspiration to follow these moral views. This is the inspirational aspect of religion. It gives inspiration not only for moral conduct – it gives inspiration for the arts and for all kinds of great thoughts and actions as well. Interconnections These three aspects of religion are interconnected, and it is generally felt, in view of this close integration of ideas, that to attack one feature of the system is to attack the whole structure. The three aspects are connected more or less as follows: The moral aspect, the moral code, is the word of God – which involves us in a metaphysical question. Then the inspiration comes because one is working the will of God; one is for God; partly one feels that one is with God. And this is a great inspiration because it brings one’s actions in contact with the universe at large. So these three things are very well interconnected. The difficulty is this: that science occasionally conflicts with the first of the three categories – the metaphysical aspect of religion. For instance, in the past there was an argument about whether the earth was the center of the universe – whether the earth moved around the sun or stayed still. The result of all this was a terrible strife and difficulty, but it was finally resolved – with religion retreating in this particular case. More recently there was a conflict over the question of whether man has animal ancestry. The result in many of these situations is a retreat of the religious metaphysical view, but nevertheless, there is no collapse of the religion. And further, there seems to be no appreciable or fundamental change in the moral view. After all, the earth moves around the sun – isn’t it best to torn the other cheek? Does it make any difference whether the earth is standing still or moving around the son? We can expect conflict again. Science is developing and new things will be found out which will he in disagreement with the presentday metaphysical theory of certain religions. In fact, even with all the past retreats of religion, there is still real conflict for particular individuals when they learn about the science and they have heard about the religion. The thing has not been integrated very well; there are real conflicts here – and yet morals are not affected. As a matter of fact, the conflict is doubly difficult in this metaphysical region. Firstly, the facts may be in conflict, but even if the facts were not in conflict, the attitude is different. The spirit of uncertainty in science is an attitude toward the metaphysical questions that is quite different from the certainty and faith that is demanded in religion. There is definitely a conflict, I believe – both in fact and in spirit – over the metaphysical aspects of religion. In my opinion, it is not possible for religion to find a set of metaphysical ideas which will be guaranteed not to get into conflicts with an everadvancing and alwayschanging science which is going into an unknown. We don’t know how to answer the questions; it is impossible to find an answer which someday will not be found to be wrong. The difficulty arises because science and religion are both trying to answer questions in the same realm here. Science and moral questions On the other hand, I don’t believe that a real conflict with science will arise in the ethical aspect, because I believe that moral questions are outside of the scientific realm. Let me give three or four arguments to show why I believe this. In the first place, there have been conflicts in the past between the scientific and the religious view about the metaphysical aspect and, nevertheless, the older moral views did not collapse, did not change. Second, there are good men who practice Christian ethics and who do not believe in the divinity of Christ. They find themselves in no inconsistency here. Thirdly, although I believe that from time to time scientific evidence is found which may be partially interpreted as giving some evidence of some particular aspect of the life of Christ, for example, or of other religious metaphysical ideas, it seems to me that there is no scientific evidence bearing on the golden rule. It seems to me that that is somehow different. Now, let’s see if I can make a little philosophical explanation as to why it is different – how science cannot affect the fundamental basis of morals. The typical human problem, and one whose answer religion aims to supply, is always of the following form: Should I do this? Should we do this? Should the government do this? To answer this question we can resolve it into two parts: First — If I do this, what will happen? – and second – Do I want that to happen? What would come of it of value – of good? Now a question of the form: If I do this, what will happen?is strictly scientific. As a matter of fact, science can be defined as a method for, and a body of information obtained by, trying to answer only questions which can be put into the form: If I do this, what will happen? The technique of it, fundamentally, is: Try it and see. Then you put together a large amount of information from such experiences. All scientists will agree that a question – any question, philosophical or other – which cannot be put into the form that can be tested by experiment (or, in simple terms, that cannot be put into the form: If I do this, what will happen?) is not a scientific question; it is outside the realm of science. I claim that whether you want something to happen or not – what value there is in the result, and how you judge the value of the result (which is the other end of the question: Should I do this? ) – must lie outside of science because it is not a question that you can answer only by knowing what happens; you still have to judge what happens – in a moral way. So, for this theoretical reason I think that there is a complete consistency between the moral view – or the ethical aspect of religion – and scientific information. Turning to the third aspect of religion – the inspirational aspect – brings me to the central question that I would like to present to this imaginary panel. The source of inspiration today – for strength and for comfort – in any religion is very closely knit with the metaphysical aspect; that is, the inspiration comes from working for God, for obeying his will, feeling one with God. Emotional ties to the moral code – based in this manner – begin to be severely weakened when doubt, even a small amount of doubt, is expressed as to the existence of God; so when the belief in God becomes uncertain, this particular method of obtaining inspiration fails. I don’t know the answer to this central problem – the problem of maintaining the real value of religion, as a source of strength and of courage to most men, while, at the same time, not requiring an absolute faith in the metaphysical aspects. The heritages of Western civilization Western civilization, it seems to me, stands by two great heritages. One is the scientific spirit of adventure – the adventure into the unknown, an unknown which must be recognized as being unknown in order to be explored; the demand that the unanswerable mysteries of the universe remain unanswered; the attitude that all is uncertain; to summarize it – the humility of the intellect. The other great heritage is Christian ethics – the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual – the humility of the spirit. These two heritages are logically, thoroughly consistent. But logic is not all; one needs one’s heart to follow an idea. If people are going back to religion, what are they going back to? Is the modern church a place to give comfort to a man who doubts Godmore, one who disbelieves in God? Is the modern church a place to give comfort and encouragement to the value of such doubts? So far, have we not drawn strength and comfort to maintain the one or the other of these consistent heritages in a way which attacks the values of the other? Is this unavoidable? How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars of western civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid? Is this not the central problem of our time? I put it up to the panel for discussion.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Neoliberalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Neoliberalism - Essay Example At some point, economics advocated for the abolition of government intervention in economic matters and there were no restrictions whatsoever on economic matters. This paved way for free trade and competition allowing capitalists to maximize profits, as they desired. In the US, this type of liberalism prevailed through the 1800s and the early 1900s. US experienced a capitalist crisis much later on that was coupled with shrinking profits rates. This motivated the elite economists to revive economic liberalism hence neoliberalism, which has been met with criticism. In the United States, it has been said to destroy welfare programs, cutting back social problems as well as attacking the rights of laborers (Shah, 2010). The supporters and those benefiting from neoliberalism are a minority, compared to the world’s population and for the majority; it has brought suffering and denied protection of children, youth women as well as the globe itself. The minority who are benefiting from this new liberalism fail to realize that they are contributing to the undermining of the rights and privileges of the majority. Free trade leads to social damages since no restrictions will mean reduced wages following de-unionizing of workers and eliminating their rights. Supporters of this will claim that it will lead to increased growth. They fail to realize that it will not benefit everyone bit will oppress the majority. Expenses for infrastructure and social amenities such as hospitals and schools as well maintenance costs of infrastructure of road is minimised in the name of reducing government role. This is done but benefits received by the government such as subsidies and taxes are not minimised. Privatization of state owned enterprises and services such as banks, key industries, social amenities and electricity as well as fresh water supply. This will of course lead to concentrating the wealth only for the minority and the major populace

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Why Do managers plan Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Why Do managers plan - Research Paper Example Planning is done by all individuals in their personal and profesional lives. If one doesnt plan, then there are high chances that things may move in a haphazard way. A project has several stages of planning which contributes overall importance towards the organization. Managers concentrate on the time spent on conducting effective planning that can be a source to save time and income. This practice is helpful in preventing problems that can potentially happen ("A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge",  2013). Who is a Manager? A manager’s responsibility is to direct the work of groups or individuals in order to combine their efforts in order to achieve necessary objectives. A manager can disseminate the work through direct or indirect passage of workers or subordinates. Work needs to be delegated to the subordinates according to the level of exeprtise of each subordinate. The manager should be well aware of the employee's ability for proper delegation of tasks. The manager needs to be familiar with the supervising abilities and should have the potential to coordinate the work process while taking corrective measures for the benefit of the company. A manager doesn't need to be a perfect human being who is ideal in all the skills, but he needs to perform efficiently enough to complete projects successfully (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge,  2013). The manager needs to be well aware of the mission and vision statement of the organization and accordingly it is the manager's duty to ensure that all the subordinates are clear on the mission and vision and also are clear on the path to be taken to achieve the mission. Hence, managers are in a better position to plan the path and ensure that all the employees follow the planned path to achieve the goals and objectives for the firm. With a proper planning and execution phase, the organization is able to prosper towards success and profitability. A well set out plab allows the employees to constantly review the milestones achieved and the elements that still remain to be achieved. Tasks this way tend to work out in a smooth and consitent flow. A manager has to perform various functions and roles depending upon the context he/she is working. For instance, an accounting manager directs the accounts function and coordinates smooth communication. Similarly , a manager working in the Design Engineering department needs to support his staff to perform the necessary roles to achieve the best design and engineering of the product (Belker,  2012). A marketing manager may have to plan out the goals and objectives of the marketing department and accordingly devise the appropriate marketing strategies to achieve the set goals and objective. Each functional manager may have to plan out the work process so that things work smoothly and in the right direction. All the functional managers may have to sit in a meeting and discuss on the larger perspective, and this way with proper cooperation and coordination the firm is able to achieve the desired level of success. There are so many ways that proves planning to be a crucial and effective element towards the success of any organization. A manager should not conduct the planning on his own, but he must make sure that all the concerned employees and staff is involved so that better decisions can be made. In this way many new ideas can be achieved which will be an asset for the manager to ponder and take decisions accordingly. However, without a successful execution of the decision and without considering all the important potential risks towards planning, it can create serious issue and

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Human Resource Management, Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Human Resource Management, - Essay Example Each individual, therefore has a 'level playing field' and a fair share in the job opportunity. Internal advertisement: It provides maximum information to all employees speedily at a low cost. In such cases, the induction periods are shorter. However, there is a possibility of unlawful indirect discrimination. The response from this case is largely from those seeking local employment. This medium is not preferred by technical or professional job seekers, But is more suitable for lower level positions as well as part time or full time contract workers. The reach of this medium is very wide and instant. The cost also may be minimal, if a website is constructed. It can also facilitate on-line short-listing, and provide a clear information about the organization. The disadvantage is that it can produce thousands of unsuitable applications There are several advertising agencies, whose business is to provide recruitment services to employers and job seekers at a price. News papers such as 'The Sydney Morning Herald' also offer advertising space, where Field-wise categorization helps the readers to locate the positions of their interest. Different recruitment

Monday, August 26, 2019

International Business College Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

International Business College - Case Study Example With the help of the current value of the possible future cash flows, the market values for interest and foreign currency exchange risk are found out. However, the information according to the sensitivity analysis will not necessarily signify the real changes in fair value that IBM would face in case of normal market conditions as, due to practical confinements, all variables except for the particular market risk factor are held constant. Coca Cola Company makes the use of derivative financial instruments mostly to lessen their exposure to unfavorable fluctuations in the foreign currency exchange rates and in interest rates and commodity prices involved as market risks. The company does not go into derivative financial instruments in order to carry out trading. In fact, risk by hedging and primary economic exposure is reduced by all their derivative positions. Owing to the high connection between the underlying exposure and hedging instrument, reciprocal changes in the value of the underlying exposure is used to counterbalance fluctuations in the value of the instruments. Practically all of Coca Cola's derivatives are simple, over-the-counter instruments with liquid markets. If the firm has borrowed on a floating rate basis, at very reset date, the rate for the following period would be set in line with the market rate. The firm's future interest payments are therefore uncertain. An increase in rates will adversely affect the cash flows. Consider a firm, which wants to undertake a fixed investment project. Suppose it requires foreign currency financing and is forced to borrow on a floating rate basis. Since its cost of capital is uncertain, an additional element of risk is introduced in project appraisal. On the other hand, consider a firm, which has borrowed on a fixed rate basis to finance a fixed investment project. Subsequently inflation rate in the economy slows down and the market rate of interest declines. The cash flows from the project may decline as a result of the fall in the rate of inflation but the firm is logged into high cost borrowing. 2.1 IBM As compared to an increase of $18 million on December 31, 2005, there would be reduction in the fair market value of IBM's financial instruments of $113 million, which would be a result of a 10% reduction in the levels of interest rates on December 31, 2006, keeping all other variables constant. On the other hand, as compared to a reduction of $8 million at December 31, 2005, there would be a hike in the fair value of IBM's financial instruments of $96 million, which would be a result of a 10% increase in the levels of interest rates, keeping all other variables constant. Alterations in IBM's interest rate profile and amount and debt maturities have

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Law and policy for social work practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Law and policy for social work practice - Essay Example 2012, p. 1423). To provide better health and safety services to the children require all stakeholders to work together according to the laid down policies. It is important for the organizations and individuals to understand their roles in protecting and sustaining the interests of the children. Every action and decisions made should also be aimed at achieving the intended outcomes for the benefit of the child and the entire family (Johnson and Cahn, 1995, p. 16). Case Study Rochdale Child Abuse Case: Exploited Girls Faced ‘Absolute Disrespect† In Williams (2012, Rochdale Child Abuse Case) there is a case of an institution that deals with sexually abused adolescent girls in United Kingdom. The institution was faced with a situation in which some young girls were discriminated by the people who were supposed to take care of them. For instance, there were nine guys who had jointly slept with five girls after enticing them with material things and then added drugs in their in their foods (The policy, Ethics and Human Rights Committee. 2012, p.17). However, the protection council assumed that the young girls had submitted to the sexual molesters out of their own accord. Among the council members who were assisting the victims, three of them left their jobs. Most of the cases handled by the Rochdale were not adequately solved as was discovered by a Local Safeguarding Council. On contrary to the reasoning of the Rochdale council, the Crisis Intervention Team believed that the girls were abused by the rapists. Most cases are now transferred to Sunrise group who are presently assisting 106 teenager girls (Williams (2012, Rochdale Child Abuse Case) This case was faced with several quandaries, with one being the inability to distinguish the issue of young girls and those of adult ladies. For example the assumption that the young ladies had contended to sexual performance out of their own accord yet they were below majority age (The policy, Ethics and Human Rig hts Committee. 2012, p.13). These adolescents needed protection of the law under child Act which never happened. Also most of the staff members working with the group had left the organization before the issues were settled. Therefore, there was no one to confess in favour of the victims thereby resulting to injustice of the young girls. Consequently, the justice for the victims was delayed as the team sought for vital information to help them convict the suspects as anyone who have not attained the age of 18 years (Williams (2012, Rochdale Child Abuse Case). The 1989 and the 2004 children Acts refers to a child Section 17 of the Children’s Act 1989 define â€Å"children in need† as those who are not able to achieve a satisfactory level of health or development, those development has been impaired, those who lack service. Under section 17(10) of the Children Act 1989, the disabled are also referred to a children in need (Oxford Journals, 2012, p.1437). The various poli cies set out in the children act 2004, indicates that the child should be health, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution to the society and be able to sustain themselves economically in future. Children need to feel loved, valued, and supported by a chain of individuals who are reliable and shows affection. They also need to feel respected, understood, listened to and to have their emotional feelings being considered and attended to. In the case of Rochdale, the institution neglected children who had been victims of rape

Wall Street Journal Opinion Article Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Wall Street Journal Opinion Article - Essay Example This is because this could automatically affect the GDP of the countries in which the investors originate from. The greatest effect was felt from the withdrawal of the world’s super power-America’s bank-Merrill Linch. The bank had anticipated a GDP rise of about 7.6% but due to the drawback they were now expecting a rise of about 7.2% (Ellison 74).They therefore withdrew from China so as to maintain a steady economy in their country. However the bank’s management stated that they did not expect China to experience financial strain or even suffer a drop in their economy as a result of the drawback (Ellison 78). They also added that the Chinese government has the opportunity to stabilize their economy despite the unfolding that took place. However, there is still risk of these potential investors to withdraw from the business as it is expected that the growth forecast of Nomura Company will drop to 7.3% from7.5%.The CNBC further presumed that this may pose risk to the annual target of the company that was at 7.4% (Ellison 67).Conversely from a press release of an official government statement, investors were assured that the country would still be able to maintain their economic growth within reasonable limits despite the drawback that had occurred. The government official added that the debt risks of the county were manageable and that they would have no instances of default despite there being evidence that one company had defaulted (Ellison 69). According to data obtained from a survey conducted by the Fact sheet, it was noted that since July 2010, this was the first time that copper products were being sold below $ 3a pound (Ellison 76). This is critical to investors who have engaged in the business as this is termed as spoilt business on their part. This is because they cannot be able to sell their products at high prices

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Capital Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Capital - Essay Example The prices of the Australian goods exports have decreased since May, due to the decrease in the price of crude oil, iron ore, etc. The Australian dollar price has appreciated over three months, despite the deterioration in the global economy and fragile financial condition. This study aims at evaluating the decision of Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) for not changing the cash rate until December. The implications of cash rate in the economy of Australia, its effect and the effect of probable changes in the cash rate are also important issues that would be discussed in the study. The motive is to forecast the decision of RBA regarding changing the cash rate. Like the central banks in the industrialized countries, the RBA also utilizes interest rate on short-term basis, as an operating instrument in order to implement monetary policy. Under the current policy, the RBA has set a monetary policy by allotting a level of target for cash rate. RBA has been quite successful in achieving the cash rate as per its target level. The payment system of an economy represents the system by which the different agents settle their transactions. In case of Australia the major participants that can be considered in the payment system are the households or the firms, which can also be called the non-bank mass of public, the RBA, private banks and the federal government. The non-bank public use transaction deposits and currency for making payments and eliminating their debts if any. The transaction deposits are the banks accounts that can be used by cheques or through the debit cards. Money or currency is a liability for the RBA. So it can be said that the transaction deposits are also a liability for the banking system. It can be also said that the medium of transaction by a household or firm would also depend on the relative cost. The banks

Friday, August 23, 2019

The Amazing Spiderman 2 Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The Amazing Spiderman 2 - Movie Review Example The script has an overstuffed plot that has too many antiheroes. The movie could have been better if it had a cleaner script and fewer anti-heroes, coupled with thoughtful editing. For a teenager, this overstuffed plot and storyline work, but an acute audience consider it as a sensory burden. In the end, the middle of sub plots obscures the main character since he does not have sufficient screen time. The ludicrous humor does not work well with the performance. The villains, an inane anti-hero christened Electro, the Green Goblin and the machine like Rhino, present below par. Harry fights Spiderman without a manual or any directions on the operation of the machine he finds himself driving. Both characters fail to create the necessary dramatic tension that is a characteristic of superpower movies.Some of the special and visual effects are too complex, while some are considerably cartoony and ingenious. Deplorably, this makes the film wearisome and overlong. The movie is far from amazi ng considering it's exhausting experience and insufficiency in storytelling etiquette. The director damages the action fundamentals through the superpowers of the several villains. Considering it is a series, The Amazing Spiderman 2 provides an unsatisfactory backward step. It appears as if the movie is building on a future movie, rather than concentrating on the present edition. The last 10 minutes are perceptible a trailer for The Amazing Spiderman 3. It repeats mistakes loathed in the previous sequels involving the Spiderman.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Sociology concepts Essay Example for Free

Sociology concepts Essay The family’s influence on socialization has been decreasing on the recent past. The family plays a vital part in socialization. It is within the family that the basic personality, attitudes, values and moral ideas are laid down. It is upon this foundation that adult socialization is built. The socialization of a child is not only the function of the parents but also those of the extended family at large living with the child’s parents also participate as the socializing agent. The parent in conjunction with other socializing agents has the task of directing the behavioral development of the child towards the desired normative socially valued goals. While the parent is doing this he acts as a feedback mechanism of environmental information to his child, thus communicating messages to the child about what the parent sees as discrepancies in the child’s current behavior as he attempts to eliminate these discrepancies through training. But more immediately however, the parents’ training program is determined by his phenomenal field, a field in which environmental information is only one of several forces and may be muted in its effect on parental behavior. From general observation most parents use reward, punishment and instructions to shape the child’s behavior in the direction of social norms within the home and the environment. The child’s behavioral development goes on regardless of whether anyone is attempting to manipulate it to produce desirable habits. Maturational processes make new forms of behavior possible and the child is continuously interacting with his family members, experiencing gratification and frustration, suffering trauma and separation acquiring attachments and avoidances, observing the behavior of immediate family members, spontaneously imitating what he sees and developing pleasant and frightening fantasies and increasing differentiated patterns of thought and action. Parents usually begin to train their children the general domestic duties at about the age of six or seven years. As soon as the child is old enough and sensible enough to comprehend instructions, he starts to perform tasks by copying the activities of the family members. Various roles that used to be carried out by the family have been taken over by some agents such as counselors, media, peer groups, schools and many others. This roles includes but not limited to ; Training of children which is currently done in school while parents are busy working to raise some income. The other agents of socialization for a child include nursery or kindergarten schools, day care centers as well as primary and secondary schools and universities. Peer groups perform specific functions that include; Courtship – Role rehearsals such as courting behavior, sex-role adoption, and expression of aggression which among the role families used to play. Roles such as courting were mainly covered within the family circles but these days peers have had more influence. Peer group controls the affection, the approval and prestige accorded to the children. Because of this significant role, it performs important functions in the personality development of the child. They also play the role of inculcating new skills to children. Teachers also assume the role of parents and try to inculcate their values into the child. A child learns all kinds of skills from the teachers like technical skills and other skills that will shape and influence their future life. Role of shaping children behavior has been left to schools. Children are trained on how to become tolerant to each other and how to cope with difficult situations in life by becoming tolerant schools. Such changes will affect social relationships in our society because some of these agents might influence bad behaviors to the young children. Due to peer group influence a child can develop unacceptable behavior. The social relations in the society will be affected because as children mix up with others in schools they develop some unacceptable behaviors. The roles that have been taken by other socialization agents from the family have resulted to the coming of a culture that is not generally acceptable. The young generation which spends most of their time in schools away from their parents will develop behaviors that the elders do not prefer within the community. For example through peer group influence the young generation get exposed and influenced by the hip hop music, learning new characters that the old generation is against. Due to great exposure, influence of technology, peer group influence and the education gained by the young generation will not regard the views of their family members. Hence it will be difficult for the family to guide and shape the behavior of their young generation. REFERENCES Sullivan T. J. (2003) ; Sociology: concepts and applications in a diverse world; Addison-Wesley

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Working Effectively in the Aviation Industry with Aborigines

Working Effectively in the Aviation Industry with Aborigines Working Effectively in the Aviation Industry with Aborigines in Australia As the aviation industry in Australia is ever growing, its importance is also due to the fact that Australia is located on an island. This means that aviation, along with the shipping industry, provides the only means of connection to the rest of the world. Around 16 million passengers come to Australia yearly and 90% of them travel through air. The total number of licensed pilots in Australia now are about thirty thousand six hundred and seventy six with about one thousand seven hundred licensed helicopter pilots. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is responsible for the safety of aircrafts and passengers and to overlook the entire aviation industry. All institutions are based on their professional cultures which are formed by different people who form the basis of that industry. The Australian aviation system is formed by people of different ethnicities and backgrounds. Like any other industry, its professional culture is heavily affected by Australias national culture. Starting from the native Australians to the modern-day immigrants, all form the basis of Australias aviation industry. While institutional racism is prevalent in Australia, this practice in the aviation industry is much less common. (Race and racism in Australia, 1988). Institutional racism refers to the way beliefs are incorporated in the social system that results in discrimination against a certain minority group. It also includes any activity; words or actions that may be derogatory to a certain group of people. (Its just how youve been brought up! An Aboriginal perspective on the relationship between the law, racism and mental health, 2001). Often times, institutional racism is covert or even unrecognized by the agents involved in it. Like every other workplace, institutional racism against aborigines in Australia is an important issue. At the same time, some writers may be biased about the role of aborigines in aviation industry, rendering them as formless, transitory, and today undefinable in character. (Local Group Composition Among the Australian Aborigines: A Critique of the Evidence From F ieldwork Conducted Since 1930, 1970). Another point that they raise is that aborigines are not fond of adapting to the new system. They would rather not work in an environment where they have to adapt. There is also a communication gap, which makes it difficult for the aborigines to adjust. Despite the popular trend and literary proofs, it has been observed that racism in Australia is within bounds. Aborigines along with other ethnic groups are given a fair chance to play effective roles at every organizational level. While there may be a communication gap, the importance of teamwork is recognized by all groups and applied at every level. It is well recognized and understood by all employees that the basis of their organization lies in the teamwork and mutual respect of every individual. The main job of the aviation industry is to facilitate their passengers and ensure their safety and to take them to their respective destinations despite their differences in class, caste and financial status. It is said that the safety and efficacy of the aviation industry is based on three cultures, its national, professional and organizational culture and all three shape how the aviation industry performs nationally and globally. (Helmreich, 1998.) For any organization to excel, it must overcome its cultural tendencies that are hindering its progress and strive to work effectively in a team-based environment. It is essential to recognize that everyone has their own designated roles in an organization. Like how a pyramid cannot stand without its base, an organization cannot stand without its employees. This is why the aviation industry in Australia is blooming. Because despite their differences they realize that they have a single goal. My experience in communicating and working with people from different ethnic backgrounds has always been positive. Since it has only been my first year as an aviation student, I have yet to have the opportunity to work alongside an Aboriginal person. However, the following is an example of how I think culture can affect communication effectiveness and the hazards that can happen as a result. During the stall-training lesson of my flight training, I was heading back towards Parafield Airport with my instructor, who is an Australian national without an Aboriginal background. I decided to use the Torrens Island Power Station as a reference point towards Parafield and fly into its direction. Shortly before passing over the power station, the instructor quickly instructed me to change my heading and diverted the aircraft south of the power station. After the flight, I was reprimanded for inducing the potential to damage the aircraft. It was at that point, I learnt that the exhaust of the power station had the potential to damage the aircrafts airframe, or even worse cause the aircraft to disintegrate mid-air. If that had occurred, the results would be disastrous with the debris of the plane falling down and causing great damage to Out er Harbor. Had I disregarded my instructors judgment, I may have caused massive damage to Outer Harbor with my aircraft. In the aviation industry, safety always comes first. If a pilot disregards safety in his or her judgment, disaster and casualties occur. This also shows the importance of communication and why effective communications is absolutely necessary in aviation industry. A small case of miscommunication may have hazardous impact, ranging from the bursting of the aircraft to causing damage to heavily crowded places, leading to loss of lives in both cases. This also creates hurdles for Thai people like myself who are not upfront about the problems and hesitate to talk to their seniors about problems. Thais generally like to be on top of their games and would rather not ask questions and lose face in front of their seniors. This may cause a huge communication gap, like in the example above. Had I not talked to my senior about the problem, we may have caused huge damage to the harbor. So far, I havent worked with anyone from aboriginal background. But I would love to experience working with them. Although we may experience some communication gaps, we share a similar goal: excelling in the service we provide to passengers and ensuring safety for the aircraft, passengers and crew that are aboard. With this in mind, we can work and learn from each other. Safety has been IATAs number one priority and they encourage aviation the industry to take all steps to ensure safety of all people involved in the aviation industry. A study done in New Zealand shows that pilots regard luck as an important factor in the safety of the aircraft (Gill, 2004). I however think that effective communication skills and following SOP guidelines is more important than just good luck. Another study has been done to measure safety in high reliability organizations (HROs) using the traditional measures of incident and accident reporting during periods of deliberate organizational change (Lofquist, 2010). This also encourages the promotion of healthy environment and importance of team work, and how effective teamwork can overcome all sorts of hurdles, may it be language barriers or communication gaps. References: Birdsell, J.B., 1970. Local group composition among the Australian Aborigines: a critique of the evidence from fieldwork conducted since 1930. Current Anthropology, 11(2), pp.115-142. McConnachie K, Hollingsworth D, Pettman J. 1988.ÂÂ   Race and racism in Australia. Bolt RJ. 2001. Its just how youve been brought up! An Aboriginal perspective on the relationship between the law, racism and mental health. Helmreich, Robert. 1998. Building Safety on the Three Cultures of Aviation. Gill, G.K. and Shergill, G.S., 2004. Perceptions of safety management and safety culture in the aviation industry in New Zealand. Journal of Air Transport Management, 10(4), pp.231-237. Lofquist, E.A., 2010. The art of measuring nothing: The paradox of measuring safety in a changing civil aviation industry using traditional safety metrics. Safety science, 48(10), pp.1520-1529.

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Principle Of Color In Multimedia Media Essay

Principle Of Color In Multimedia Media Essay Q1. Explain the principle of color in multimedia. How many dimensions are used in the color? Explain with suitable example. Color is a sensation produced by the human eye and nervous system. It is related to light, but an understanding of the properties of light is not sufficient to understand color, and is especially not sufficient to understand the art of color reproduction. Overwhelming experimental evidence tells us that the perception of a color is related to the strength of three signals which are transmitted along the optic nerve to the brain. Color is a phenomenon of light caused by how our eyes detect differing qualities of projected or reflected light. Because science and technology has allowed us to understand the physiology of the human eye, to measure wavelengths of light and chart energy patterns, we have come a long way in grasping the complexities of color. The importance of this is that: It is useful to represent a color by a set of exactly three numbers. In practice, the set of three numbers must be related to some actual color reproduction process. The numbers commonly specify portions of some set of primary colors such as: Color is the principal way the mind separates elements in space and chooses something to focus on. Thus you should use rich or bright colors like red and yellow sparingly, and generally only for items you really wish to emphasize. Use different colors rather than different shapes to distinguish features on a page. Beware of the negative effects of certain highly contrasting colors placed next to each other (such as green and red), as well as the off-putting optical illusions created, for instance, by a series of parallel lines. If navigational elements have color at all, make sure their hues dont distract viewers from focusing on the main content of the page. Web design publications often talk about using only web-safe or browser-safe colors, meaning a limited palette that will show up roughly the same in all browsers and operating systems. But, as the web designer Lynda Weinman has noted, very few computers still display only 256 colors, their capability when the web was young. Indeed, most people view the web in millions of colors now, and so historians just starting on the web may ignore the browser-safe palette and its often garish, overly bright colors chosen for their mathematical simplicity rather than aesthetic value. Those experienced with this palette can continue to use it with no harm, but others shouldnt bother. The possible exception to this rule is if many of your anticipated users will be using very old computers, in which case you should choose something from the web-safe palette for any major swath of color on your page, as well as any colored fonts. Dimensions of Color   Ã‚   There are three dimensions to color-hue, value and intensity. This makes color multidimensional-any color appearance can be described in terms of these three dimensions. 1. Hue:     Hue refers to the names of the colors. It is the contrast between redness, blueness and greenness. We most typically think of hues as coming from white light divided into the visible spectrum-red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet or as a circle of hues or color wheel. Of the three dimensions of color, hue is the simplest to identify. It is that element most often referred to as color. Looking at a rainbow, we can recognize the different dominant hues: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. We also realize that any hue can appear in many variations other than their spectral form. Red, for example, exhibits a broad range of appearance, running from light to dark and weak to strong. Regardless of their appearance in terms of light or dark, weak or strong, they would all belong to the hue family: red. Hues are generally arranged in a circular fashion (hue circuit) or color wheel. Red is the name of a broad color family. The popular term, pink, is a variation of that hue, as is the familiar name, maroon. 2. Value: Value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color. It is often related to a gray scale where white is the lightest value followed by a series of grays to black, the darkest value. The hues are located somewhere in between the extremes of white and black in value. A color value scale is a hue mixed with white to form tints and with black to form shades of that hue. Red plus white makes pink. Pink is a tint or light value of the hue red. Red plus black makes brown. Brown is a shade or dark value of the hue red. As an example, fire-engine red would carry a notation of R 5/16 on this variation of a Munsell chart. When a hue is lighter or darker that its original spectral state, the amount of light it reflects has changed: value is the dimension which refers to the lightness or darkness of a hue. Adding white to red produces a tint; adding black produces a shade. Some examples of red shades: maroon, brown, cordovan, chocolate. A pink shade is an oxymoron. Values are usually displayed in a series of about ten steps, but actually are unlimited. Value steps are displayed vertically, darkest at the bottom. 3. Intensity Intensity refers to the purity or impurity of a hue. The more pure hue a given color contains, the more intense it is. Opposing terms used to describe this contrast are intense vs. gray, saturated vs. desaturated or bright vs. dull. When a color is too bright and its intensity needs to be reduced, we will often say,Gray that color. The most typical ways to gray a color are to add gray (black and white) or by adding some of the complementary color. The complement of a hue is the hue opposite it on the color circle. Red and green, orange and blue, and yellow and violet are examples of complementary colors. 4. Chroma Pure red, as well as light and dark variations all belong to one hue family. When we encounter a weak red, i .e., a red that is neither lighter or darker of a sample hue, we are not dealing with value (light reflectance) but with the dimension of chroma. Synonyms for chroma: strength, purity, saturation, intensity. It is the degree to which a hue departs from full intensity and moves towards a neutral gray. A red rose and a red brick may be of the same hue and value, but the rose exhibits greater purity of saturation. Chroma steps are arranged horizontally, left to right- weakest to strongest. Each complementary hue at the same value displaying various intensities (chroma) Q2. How an appearance of an image on a monitor is depend on monitor resolution and monitor size? Ans. Imagine lying down in the grass with your nose pressed deep into the thatch. Your field of vision would not be very large, and all you would see are a few big blades of grass, some grains of dirt, and maybe an ant or two. This is a 14-inch 640 x 480 monitor. Now, get up on your hands and knees, and your field of vision will improve considerably: youll see a lot more grass. This is a 15-inch 800 x 640 monitor. For a 1280 x 1024 perspective (on a 19-inch monitor), stand up and look at the ground. Some monitors can handle higher resolutions such as 1600 x 1200 or even 1920 x 1440-somewhat akin to a view from up in a tree. Monitors are measured in inches, diagonally from side to side (on the screen). However, there can be a big difference between that measurement and the actual viewable area. A 14-inch monitor only has a 13.2-inch viewable area, a 15-inch sees only 13.8 inches, and a 20-inch will give you 18.8 inches (viewing 85.7% more than a 15-inch screen). A computer monitor is made of pixels (short for picture element). Monitor resolution is measured in pixels, width by height. 640 x 480 resolution means that the screen is 640 pixels wide by 480 tall, an aspect ratio of 4:3. With the exception of one resolution combination (1280 x 1024 uses a ratio of 5:4), all aspect ratios are the same. Here are some recommended resolutions for the different screen sizes: 14 15 17 19 21 640480 BEST GOOD TOO BIG HUGE TERRIBLE 800600 GOOD BEST GOOD TOO BIG HUGE 1024768 TOO SMALL GOOD BEST GOOD STILL GOOD 12801024 TINY TOO SMALL GOOD BEST GOOD 16001200 TERRIBLE TINY TOO SMALL GOOD BEST SCREEN RESOLUTIONS, MONITOR SIZES AND VARIATIONS IN IMAGES SIZE The dimensions of image on screen will often be very different to the size of the original we are scanning in. The size of the image on screen depends on monitor resolution and monitor size. Video cards are able to display a particular set number of pixels horizontally and vertically on the screen. For example, the card may display (width and height ) 640 x 480 pixels or 800 x 600 pixels. Physical dimension of the monitor. A large monitor set to 640 x 480 pixels uses larger pixels than a small monitor with the same setting. 1. Two monitors with the same physical dimension, fixed-size image, but different screen resolutions. Suppose you have a monitor that displays 800 x 600 pixels and you want your image to take up 1/4 of that screen across and 1/3 down, then: 800/4 x 600/3 = 200 x 200 pixels (Figure 1). However, the same image (200 x 200 pixels) displayed on a monitor of the same size but with different resolution (e.g. 640 x 480), will look much larger as it will take up a larger proportion of the screen (Figure 2). Figure1: Screen Resolution 800x 600 Image Size 200 x 200 Figure 2: Screen Resolution 640 x 480 Image Size 200 x 200 2. Two monitors with the same screen resolution, fixed-size image, but different physical dimensions. Suppose your image size is 200 x 200 and the screen resolution of both monitors is the same (e.g. they both have a 640 x 480 screen resolution). The monitors are of different physical proportion, (e.g. one is a 21 inch monitor, the other a 15 inch monitor). In this case the image will take up the same proportion of space in both monitors, although the absolute size of the image is different (larger in the larger monitor). Figure 3: Monitor Size 21 inch Screen Resolution 640 x 480 Image size 200 x 200 Figure 4: Monitor Size 15 inch Screen Resolution 640 x 480 Image Size 200 x 200 Q3. Discuss the physical and psychological principles as to why animation works, as well as how it is usually presented? Ans. The 12 basic principles of animation is a set of principles of animation introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. Johnston and Thomas in turn based their book on the work of the leading Disney animators from the 1930s onwards, and their effort to produce more realistic animations. The main purpose of the principles was to produce an illusion of characters adhering to the basic laws of physics, but they also dealt with more abstract issues, such as emotional timing and character appeal. The 12 principles are as follows: Squash and stretch Anticipation Staging Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose Follow Through and Overlapping Action Slow In and Slow Out Arcs Secondary Action Timing Exaggeration Solid Drawing (same or different as Weight) Appeal 1 SQUASH AND STRETCH The most important principle is squash and stretch. the purpose of which is to give a sense of weight and flexibility to drawn objects. It can be applied to simple objects, like a bouncing ball, or more complex constructions, like the musculature of a human face. Taken to an extreme point, a figure stretched or squashed to an exaggerated degree can have a comical effect. In realistic animation, however, the most important aspect of this principle is the fact that an objects volume does not change when squashed or stretched. If the length of a ball is stretched vertically, its width (in three dimensions, also its depth) needs to contract correspondingly horizontally. Illustration of the squash and stretch-principle: Example A shows a ball bouncing with a rigid, non-dynamic movement. In example B the ball is squashed at impact, and stretched during fall and rebound. The movement also accelerates during the fall, and slows down towards the apex (see slow in and slow out). 2 ANTICIPATION This movement prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to perform, such as, starting to run, jump or change expression. A dancer does not just leap off the floor. A backwards motion occurs before the forward action is executed. The backward motion is the anticipation. A comic effect can be done by not using anticipation after a series of gags that used anticipation. Almost all real action has major or minor anticipation such as a pitchers wind-up or a golfers back swing. Feature animation is often less broad than short animation unless a scene requires it to develop a characters personality. Anticipation: A baseball player making a pitch prepares for the action by moving his arm back. For special effect, anticipation can also be omitted in cases where it is expected. The resulting sense of anticlimax will produce a feeling of surprise in the viewer, and can often add comedy to a scene. This is often referred to as a surprise gag. 3  STAGING A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story and continuity of the story line. The effective use of long, medium, or close up shots, as well as camera angles also helps in telling the story. There is a limited amount of time in a film, so each sequence, scene and frame of film must relate to the overall story. Do not confuse the audience with too many actions at once. Use one action clearly stated to get the idea across, unless you are animating a scene that is to depict clutter and confusion. Staging directs the audiences attention to the story or idea being told. Care must be taken in background design so it isnt obscuring the animation or competing with it due to excess detail behind the animation. Background and animation should work together as a pictorial unit in a scene. 4 STRAIGHT AHEAD AND POSE TO POSE ANIMATION Straight ahead animation starts at the first drawing and works drawing to drawing to the end of a scene. You can lose size, volume, and proportions with this method, but it does have spontaneity and freshness. Fast, wild action scenes are done this way. Pose to Pose is more planned out and charted with key drawings done at intervals throughout the scene. Size, volumes, and proportions are controlled better this way, as is the action. The lead animator will turn charting and keys over to his assistant. An assistant can be better used with this method so that the animator doesnt have to draw every drawing in a scene. An animator can do more scenes this way and concentrate on the planning of the animation. Many scenes use a bit of both methods of animation. Computer animation removes the problems of proportion related to straight ahead action drawing; however, pose to pose is still used for computer animation, because of the advantages it brings in composition. The use of computers facilitates this method, as computers can fill in the missing sequences in between poses automatically. It is, however, still important to oversee this process, and apply the other principles discussed. 5  FOLLOW THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION When the main body of the character stops all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail (these follow the path of action). Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through. Overlapping action is when the character changes direction while his clothes or hair continues forward. The character is going in a new direction, to be followed, a number of frames later, by his clothes in the new direction. DRAG, in animation, for example, would be when Goofy starts to run, but his head, ears, upper body, and clothes do not keep up with his legs. In features, this type of action is done more subtly. Example: When Snow White starts to dance, her dress does not begin to move with her immediately but catches up a few frames later. Long hair and animal tail will also be handled in the same manner. Timing becomes critical to the effectiveness of drag and the overlapping action. 6 SLOW-OUT AND SLOW-IN As action starts, we have more drawings near the starting pose, one or two in the middle, and more drawings near the next pose. Fewer drawings make the action faster and more drawings make the action slower. Slow-ins and slow-outs soften the action, making it more life-like. For a gag action, we may omit some slow-out or slow-ins for shock appeal or the surprise element. This will give more snap to the scene. The movement of the human body, and most other objects, needs time to accelerate and slow down. For this reason, an animation looks more realistic if it has more frames near the beginning and end of a movement, and fewer in the middle. This principle goes for characters moving between two extreme poses, such as sitting down and standing up, but also for inanimate, moving objects, like the bouncing ball in the above illustration. 7  ARCS All actions, with few exceptions (such as the animation of a mechanical device), follow an arc or slightly circular path. This is especially true of the human figure and the action of animals. Arcs give animation a more natural action and better flow. Think of natural movements in the terms of a pendulum swinging. All arm movement, head turns and even eye movements are executed on an arcs. 8 SECONDARY ACTION This action adds to and enriches the main action and adds more dimension to the character animation, supplementing and/or re-enforcing the main action. Example: A character is angrily walking toward another character. The walk is forceful, aggressive, and forward leaning. The leg action is just short of a stomping walk. The secondary action is a few strong gestures of the arms working with the walk. Also, the possibility of dialogue being delivered at the same time with tilts and turns of the head to accentuate the walk and dialogue, but not so much as to distract from the walk action. All of these actions should work together in support of one another. Think of the walk as the primary action and arm swings, head bounce and all other actions of the body as secondary or supporting action. Secondary action: as the horse runs, its mane and tail follow the movement of the body. 9 TIMING Expertise in timing comes best with experience and personal experimentation, using the trial and error method in refining technique. The basics are: more drawings between poses slow and smooth the action. Fewer drawings make the action faster and crisper. A variety of slow and fast timing within a scene adds texture and interest to the movement. Most animation is done on twos (one drawing photographed on two frames of film) or on ones (one drawing photographed on each frame of film). Twos are used most of the time, and ones are used during camera moves such as trucks, pans and occasionally for subtle and quick dialogue animation. Also, there is timing in the acting of a character to establish mood, emotion, and reaction to another character or to a situation. Studying movement of actors and performers on stage and in films is useful when animating human or animal characters. This frame by frame examination of film footage will aid you in understanding timing for animation. This is a great way to learn from the others. 10  EXAGGERATION Exaggeration is not extreme distortion of a drawing or extremely broad, violent action all the time. It ¹s like a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes and actions. Action traced from live action film can be accurate, but stiff and mechanical. In feature animation, a character must move more broadly to look natural. The same is true of facial expressions, but the action should not be as broad as in a short cartoon style. Exaggeration in a walk or an eye movement or even a head turn will give your film more appeal. Use good taste and common sense to keep from becoming too theatrical and excessively animated 11 SOLID DRAWING The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animation as it does to academic drawing. The way you draw cartoons, you draw in the classical sense, using pencil sketches and drawings for reproduction of life. You transform these into color and movement giving the characters the illusion of three-and four-dimensional life. Three dimensional is movement in space. The fourth dimension is movement in time. 12 APPEAL A live performer has charisma. An animated character has appeal. Appealing animation does not mean just being cute and cuddly. All characters have to have appeal whether they are heroic, villainous, comic or cute. Appeal, as you will use it, includes an easy to read design, clear drawing, and personality development that will capture and involve the audience ¹s interest. Early cartoons were basically a series of gags strung together on a main theme. Over the years, the artists have learned that to produce a feature there was a need for story continuity, character development and a higher quality of artwork throughout the entire production. Like all forms of storytelling, the feature has to appeal to the mind as well as to the eye.Appeal in a cartoon character corresponds to what would be called charisma in an actor. A character who is appealing is not necessarily sympathetic villains or monsters can also be appealing the important thing is that the viewer feels the character is r eal and interesting. There are several tricks for making a character connect better with the audience; for likable characters a symmetrical or particularly baby-like face tends to be effective. Q4. What are the different color models? What is the need to use different color models? Ans. A color model is an abstract mathematical model describing the way colors can be represented as tuples of numbers, typically as three or four values or color components. When this model is associated with a precise description of how the components are to be interpreted (viewing conditions, etc.), the resulting set of colors is called color space. This section describes ways in which human color vision can be modeled. A color model is a 3D unique representation of a color. There are different color models and the use of one over the other is problem oriented. For instance, the color model RGB is used in hardware applications like PC monitors, cameras and scanners, the CMY color model is used in color printers, and the YIQ model in television broadcast. In color image manipulation the two models widely used are HSI and HSV. DIFFERENT MODELS ARE AS FOLLOWS: RGB Model CMY Model CMYK Model HSV Model HSL Model 1. RGB Color Model In the RGB color model, we use red, green, and blue as the 3 primary colors. We dont actually specify what wavelengths these primary colors correspond to, so this will be different for different types of output media, e.g., different monitors, film, videotape, slides, etc. This is an additive model since the phosphors are emitting light. A subtractive model would be one in which the color is the reflected light. We can represent the RGB model by using a unit cube. Each point in the cube (or vector where the other point is the origin) represents a specific color. This model is the best for setting the electron guns for a CRT. Note that for the complementary colors the sum of the values equals white light (1, 1, 1). e.g. red (1, 0, 0) + cyan (0, 1, 1) = white (1, 1, 1) green (0, 1, 0) + magenta (1, 0, 1) = white (1, 1, 1) blue (0, 0, 1) + yellow (1, 1, 0) = white (1, 1, 1) Media that transmit light (such as television) use additive color mixing with primary colors of red, green, and blue, each of which stimulates one of the three types of the eyes color receptors with as little stimulation as possible of the other two. This is called RGB color space. Mixtures of light of these primary colors cover a large part of the human color space and thus produce a large part of human color experiences. This is why color television sets or color computer monitors need only produce mixtures of red, green and blue light. Each color can be a point in the RGB color model cube. Red, green and blue are known as the primary colors. These colors can be added to produce secondary colors which are: magenta = red + blue cyan = green +blue yellow = red + green Other possible combinations: white = blue (primary) + yellow (secondary) white = green (primary) + magenta (secondary) white = red (primary) + cyan (secondary) RGB Color Cube Color Model 2. CMY Color Model CRTs produce color by emission and uses the RGB model. Printers produce color by reflective light so it is a subtractive process and uses a model based on the colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow. Remember that cyan = green + blue, so light reflected from a cyan pigment has no red component, i.e., the red is absorbed by cyan. Similarly magenta subtracts green and yellow subtracts blue. Printers usually use four colors: cyan, yellow, magenta and black. This is because cyan, yellow, and magenta together produce a dark gray rather than a true black. It is possible to achieve a large range of colors seen by humans by combining cyan, magenta, and yellow transparent dyes/inks on a white substrate. These are the subtractive primary colors. Often a fourth black is added to improve reproduction of some dark colors. This is called CMY or CMYK color space. The cyan ink will reflect all but the red light, the yellow ink will reflect all but the blue light and the magenta ink will reflect all but the green light. This is because cyan light is an equal mixture of green and blue, yellow is an equal mixture of red and green, and magenta light is an equal mixture of red and blue. 3. CMYK color model Unlike RGB, which is an additive color model, CMYK is a subtractive color model. Typically used in printing, CMYK assumes that the background is white, and thus subtracts the assumed brightness of the white background from four colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (called key). Black is used because the combination of the three primary colors (CMY) doesnt produce a fully saturated black. CMYK can produce the whole spectrum of visible colors thanks to the process of half-toning, whereby each color is assigned a saturation level and miniscule dots of each of the three colors are printed in tiny patterns so that the human eye perceives a certain color. Like RGB, CMYK is device-dependent. Theres no straightforward formula to convert CMYK color to RGB colors or vice versa, so conversion is typically dependent upon color management systems. ColoRotate easily converts one system to the other. Still Life with Crystal Bowl, 4. Hue, Saturation, and Value Color Model First described by Alvy Ray Smith in 1978, HSV seeks to depict relationships between colors, and improve upon the RGB color model. Standing for hue, saturation, and value, HSV depicts three-dimensional color. If you think about HSV as a wheel of cheese, the center axis goes from white at the top to black at the bottom, with other neutral colors in between. The angle from the axis depicts the hue, the distance from the axis depicts saturation, and the distance along the axis depicts value. The angle from the axis depicts the hue, the distance from the axis depicts saturation, and the distance along the axis depicts value. The HSV (Hue, Saturation, and Value) color model is more intuitive than the RGB color model. The user specifies a color (hue) and then adds white or black. There are 3 color parameters: Hue, Saturation, and Value. Changing the saturation parameter corresponds to adding or subtracting white and changing the value parameter corresponds to adding or subtracting black. 5. HSL Like HSV, HSL was described by Alvy Ray Smith and is a 3D representation of color. HSL stands for hue, saturation, and lightness. The HSL color model has distinct advantages over the HSV model, in that the saturation and lightness components span the entire range of values. Based on the HSL color model, ColoRotate contains all the hues at different levels of saturation along its horizontal plane and with variant intensity along its vertical plane. In the bicone or diamond of the HSL structure, all the visible colors can be seen. These are the three dimensions in which our brain analyzes the colors we see. The first dimension is brightness (a vertical slice). The hue is comprised of the second and third dimensions (corresponding to round slices through the diamond).   HSV and HSL representations: Need to use different color models: We also use color model to indicate a model or mechanism of color vision for explaining how color signals are processed from visual cones to ganglion cells. For simplicity, we call these models color mechanism models. There are any numbers of approaches to describing colors using a mathematical model; each one qualifies as a color model. You can, for example, assign a specific hue, saturation, and brightness level to define a color (HSB color models); or a value of red, green, and blue (RGB color models); or a value of cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY color models); or a value of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK color models). Within these general descriptionsHSB, RGB, CMY, CMYK, and moreany model can use any arbitrary number of steps for each parameter. Some schemes, for example, use 100 steps each. Others use 256 steps, a convenient number for the digital world because you can define 256 steps for each color by assigning 8 bits to each color. All of these color modelsand moreare widely used to describe colors, both by software and by various types of hardware like digital cameras, scanners, monitors, and printers. Unfortunately, most of these have historically been device-dependent models meaning that the designation for a given color applies only to the particular device. And that makes it hard to move color information between devices without introducing errors. Two device-dependent models can share the same name, but they wont share the same descriptions for each color except by pure co-incidence. For example, some printers use CMYK color models. (Not all do. A printer can use an RGB color model, and translate the colors to the right amounts of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink.) Suppose you define a color in a drawing program as cyan 120, magenta 75, and yellow 130, and then print on three printers, each of which uses a device-dependent version of a CMY or CMYK colo

Monday, August 19, 2019

Celebrity Activists in Contemporary Society Essay -- Politics Celebrit

Celebrity Activists in Contemporary Society Works Cited Not Included According to the book Celebrity Politics, approximately 10 percent of Americans get national political news from nightly entertainment shows such as the Tonight Show. For Americans under 30, the number is nearly five times as many (Orman and West 100). Citizens are looking to be entertained rather than simply educated by the nightly news. As David Schultz aptly put it, â€Å" The new media cover politics, but only politics as it entertains, in part, because the audience the new media attract is a less politically interested audience than traditional news audiences† (20). The fact is that this American audience is less interested in hard news and more interested in entertainment, which has made celebrities effective activists and endorsers of aid organizations in this increasingly celebrity-obsessed society. Americans â€Å"expect, for example, that political campaigns for President will be replete with show biz† (Combs 124). It is no longer good enough for politicians to be defined by their stances on issues, and by the support of different political organizations. Politicians have to be able to provide the citizens with a show, something that will keep them curious and entertained; they need, in fact, celebrity power. Because of this, in order to raise awareness and support for their causes, advocacy organizations have also tapped into the celebrity craze. One area in which celebrities have become extremely involved is that of political campaigns. Politicians want celebrity endorsements in order to become more visible and more popular with different age groups. One survey shows that forty percent of 18 to 24 year olds were influenced by celebrities’... ... Despite the popularity of celebrity politics, the political process is not exclusively relegated to celebrities, and no one is forced to agree with an endorser’s opinion. Perhaps this, then, is the real issue. Clearly, from the standpoint of the advocacy organizations themselves, celebrities are beneficial as activists in today’s culture. They are the perfect spokespeople to maneuver through such an entertainment-driven society and political arena. They raise money and awareness that many aid organizations would not otherwise receive. This research has shown that celebrities have an effect on voter turnout, and also on the way citizens vote. The problem is no longer determining whether celebrities are effective activists. Research now must be done to determine the repercussions of such a celebrity-driven culture on politics, humanitarian aid, and the world. Celebrity Activists in Contemporary Society Essay -- Politics Celebrit Celebrity Activists in Contemporary Society Works Cited Not Included According to the book Celebrity Politics, approximately 10 percent of Americans get national political news from nightly entertainment shows such as the Tonight Show. For Americans under 30, the number is nearly five times as many (Orman and West 100). Citizens are looking to be entertained rather than simply educated by the nightly news. As David Schultz aptly put it, â€Å" The new media cover politics, but only politics as it entertains, in part, because the audience the new media attract is a less politically interested audience than traditional news audiences† (20). The fact is that this American audience is less interested in hard news and more interested in entertainment, which has made celebrities effective activists and endorsers of aid organizations in this increasingly celebrity-obsessed society. Americans â€Å"expect, for example, that political campaigns for President will be replete with show biz† (Combs 124). It is no longer good enough for politicians to be defined by their stances on issues, and by the support of different political organizations. Politicians have to be able to provide the citizens with a show, something that will keep them curious and entertained; they need, in fact, celebrity power. Because of this, in order to raise awareness and support for their causes, advocacy organizations have also tapped into the celebrity craze. One area in which celebrities have become extremely involved is that of political campaigns. Politicians want celebrity endorsements in order to become more visible and more popular with different age groups. One survey shows that forty percent of 18 to 24 year olds were influenced by celebrities’... ... Despite the popularity of celebrity politics, the political process is not exclusively relegated to celebrities, and no one is forced to agree with an endorser’s opinion. Perhaps this, then, is the real issue. Clearly, from the standpoint of the advocacy organizations themselves, celebrities are beneficial as activists in today’s culture. They are the perfect spokespeople to maneuver through such an entertainment-driven society and political arena. They raise money and awareness that many aid organizations would not otherwise receive. This research has shown that celebrities have an effect on voter turnout, and also on the way citizens vote. The problem is no longer determining whether celebrities are effective activists. Research now must be done to determine the repercussions of such a celebrity-driven culture on politics, humanitarian aid, and the world.