Five-Part Short Film Series, the Hire: Case Analysis of BMW

With many viewers of The Hire series asking for more short films and even some asking for a full length film what is the best option for B MM to take in order to one, maintain the market share they have gained through the series, and two, intention to increase their general market share. Four options have been set o UT by BMW as logical next steps for the auto manufacturer. As already stated two of the optic ions is to either release 5 more short films before there are copycat films made by other man effectuates or to create a full length film under the same premise.Continuing, another route the at BMW can take is try and â€Å"milk† their first series of short films and try to further their ma reek share generated through those films. Lastly BMW could do nothing in terms of The Hire but instead go back to their traditional marketing techniques and leave the short film tech queue as a success and not continue. However BMW will have to choose the correct path and choose quickly as their competitors will be trying to regain the market share that BUM W may have stolen from them.In early 2000 BMW had a six month window with not one future products bee Eng launched an opportunity presented itself for BMW to launched a non tradition anal marketing campaign not focused on one individual product. After deliberation BMW decide deed on a viral marketing campaign with the ending result being the short film series starring their own 7 series. BMW is now faced with the problem as stated earlier on how to o forth after such a success. One problem facing BMW is the idea of copycat marketing ca meanings by competing auto manufacturers that mirror the campaign of BMW.As stated I n Warren Michelle article : Calling all Copycats, â€Å"When BMW Canada introduced its shoo art film, drive, last September, it not only created a sensation among Toronto International elm Festival audiences, but also raised the bar for Canadian marketers. † Furthermore, Mimic hell went on to conclude â€Å"People were looking around for newness and here was a wonderful example. † Both are statements are amplifying the shift in marketing that companies must dad t do in order to stay in competitive and relevant in the new age of marketing.The acceptance and even the overwhelming approval of the BMW campaign shows that consumers are area day for this shift and are showing inventiveness and need for uniqueness. However with stain g those two character traits BMW has created its own issue with targeting the segment the eye have ( younger generation) that if they were to try and milk the original series or Cree ate more films, if full feature or not, that they need to stay unique and need to create something g new for those who are receptive to new products and marketing techniques.However, I do believe that Bum's strengths complements this segment wonderfully. To legislate, as stated in the Case based on Bum's market researched consumers of the BMW brand are †Å"people e who tended to be leaders, who worked hard,played hard, and achieved a lot very early in life† and with BMW being performance driven and there short film being based around someone who is leading someone to safety they are able to satisfy someone psychological needs. Further remorse, people who tend to be receptive to new products tend to be leaders in their world an d BMW products are for those powerful leaders.Firstly, one must consider all of the pros and cons to the options that BMW h as put forward to make an informed decisions on what the best course of action is. Beginning, BMW has the option to try and expand the audience for their first series of short fill ms and try to increase the positives that it provided. This is done by opening up The Hire to a wider audience by allowing the series to go to DVD or even allow it it to be seen in o there forms like theaters and other websites. BMW will essentially be using the short films as a cash cow and milk as much influence over the public that it can provide.This option allows f r a relatively low cost approach that still can increase Bum's market share while allowing BMW to focus on their upcoming releases of the 2005 models. However, I do believe that there are some negatives to this approach. For one, it opens up the door to competitors to be utter on what BMW did basically making their films obsolete in that segment This same coco renounces happened when copycats showed up during BMW first Z campaign when t hey placed their car in the James bond film goldenly, a technique that jaguar would become very attuned with.I believe that BMW must stay in their segment and strive for uniqueness ND for inventiveness. Continuing option two for BMW is to create another set of SSH rot films that continue on the story arc that was created in the first series. As stated in the c ease article more than 90% of viewers pleaded BMW for another set of short films continuing with Clive Owen returning as the d river. The positive behind such an approach that the excite meet that was generated will be able to carry over to a second series plus they are able to SST ay in the lower cost range without having to use millions of dollars to create a full length film.Furthermore, it lows BMW to use the same metrics they did with the first series which create sees an easier route to the end goal. However, as I have stated above BMW much look to sat y reuse In their advertising because that is what drew so many to the first films and prop died the positive blowback from the films. Also if copycat marketers were to start creating their own films Bum's films may get lost in a sea of material and their content could get undo ermined if a competitor was to make better content.Despite the drawbacks of copycats B MM may be able to use that in their favor if they are able to release their second set of short fill s before the market gets saturated. If BMW was able to get to market first then there con .NE T would be able to stand above to others while still looking unique and have the other co monitors have their content undermined. Doing this would allow BMW to maintain the Pearce option and attitudes that consumers have of them that they are a innovative brand, plus they will be able to maintain a halo effect with the positives of The Hire influencing the perception of the second series of film.In an overstated market, a positive perception is key. Thirdly, at the request of several of viewers of The Hire rise, BMW has the option of making a full length film based on the same story that was told in the first film s. Such interest has been shown for a full length film because how much people have invest d in the character of Clive Owens and they would like to see a full story told about the James Bond queues character.One of the main drawbacks that faces BMW with the develop memento a full length feature film is the costs associated with creating a 2 hour film that is o n par with t he quality that was presented in the first 5 short films. However, one of the posits eves to such an undertaking is that BMW is able to stay new and unique in a market that is go Eng to become very saturated. Plus need for uniqueness and innovativeness are two character restricts they represents their market base and they need to satisfy those characteristics.Co intriguing, the last route that BMW may be able to take is the least cost and easiest for them to complete, do nothing. The option allows for BMW to focus on more traditional marketing the at they have been consistently good at and they will be able to bring more focus back on t he individual products that they will be launching in there near future instead on just grow Eng the BMW brand alone. Furthermore, with more focus on the products they will be able t 0 focus On the competitive advantages that their products have over the competition because e they will be able to go deeper into the product features then the short fil ms did.The DOD inside of BMW gong back to tradition marketing ands not continuing with the short films is the at they're missing out on the opportunities that the short film series brought and they c an still grow their brand further of the first series and any upcoming films that they could do in the future. Summarizing, BMW has 4 different ways that they can tackle the problem ahead of them each with their positives and negatives outcomes. The Decision criteria that BMW must focus on and base their decision on is the at of what option allows them to grow their brand the most without giving up to m such.BMW must consider the resources and cash that they need to spend in order to act on EAI chi option and whether the inputs justify the outputs. Secondly, BMW must consider how the y will be perceived by the target market that they have segmented. Will the route they take be positively or negatively impact what the consumer think of the BMW brand. L ghastly, BMW must insider that the characteristics of their consumer if people who look for new and unique products and any option they take must register with these characteristics or they may lose what they gained through the excitement generated by The Hire.In summation, I believe the option that BMW should take the option of release Eng 5 more short films to complete the series and then advertise DVD's with the co meet ten part series. Believe that this is the best option for BMW because it allows them to capitalize on the hype generated by the first set of films plus it is giving the consumer what hey ask for. Furthermore, because they have already taken this route they will be able to generate the second series with relative ease and have a lower cost than creating a feature film.In addition, by releasing a DVD set that includes the first set Of films they are still able to milk the influence those films have. However the most important aspect of choosing t his option is making sure they release the films quick ly and before any competitors start FL doing the market. I believe in order to achieve that BMW must start producing the films right away and tot be as extensive with their build up to the second set of short films as they were the first.I believe that if done correctly BMW can further cement themselves in the pup err echelon of the luxury car manufacturer market. In the words of Mcdowell â€Å"We've always belie feed that the future belongs to the nimble. You see this in our cars, and you see this in our marketing. † There are several acts of corruption that need to be punished justly but I believe that the act that is the worst for the government and the public is conflict of interest.

Involved in finance Essay

A. I’ve always wanted to learn about accounting and all the ins-and-outs involved in finance. My goal was always to be the as best in accountancy as I could be. The only setback to this is the fact that to learn all of the needed knowledge, it would entail my going to a university, spending on tuition and giving up four years of my life to a classroom, rather than be in the practical environment. This is the point where my Boss comes in. He was the answer to my dilemma and the gift to my career that set me forth in learning. B. My Boss is an intelligent and learned man with a doctorate in accounting. He was a man who mastered many skills in his field and had the passion to share his knowledge with all who wished to learn. It is because of his patience and diligence in teaching me that he granted me with the knowledge I needed in accounting. He gave me all I needed in four months of instruction, something that would have required me four years to learn in college. II. My Boss and his relationship with me A. I would say that my Boss, apart from being my superior, was someone I became comfortable with and was like a father to me. He gave me his time like and good father would do to his child. He would stay with me and teach me, and I could see pride in his eyes when he saw me learning. It was as if I was a little bird in a nest and he was the father that was teaching me to fly. Indeed, it was as if he was looking at me as his son, and I to him as my father. He knew I was beginning a journey that he had well surpassed long ago. Now, he was seeing to it that I walked the right path and had the right knowledge to go on my way. I can’t describe enough how good he was to me and how far he went to give me all that I needed to be better. B. Another good thing, or should I say ‘great’ thing, about my boss is that apart from the role of a father, he was also my friend. He was someone that I could talk to and that I knew would listen to me. It is true that he was like a father and he would look on me, instruct me and guide me, as the mentor that he was. However, apart from that, he was someone I could chat with about just everything. He was someone who would be interested in your everyday life and in things you wanted to share. This is believe is one thing that set him apart from everyone else. Others describe bosses as ‘bossy’ and harsh. As for him, he was the opposite. He was a kind man and understanding to all people around him. III. My Boss as the Employer that he was. A. As an employer, due to his good manner and how well he conducted himself to everyone, he was well-loved by everyone. When I interviewed people at his workplace, they said that he was very patient with people and gave you time to learn. His belief is that learning is like an ocean, vast and endless, and it takes a lot of time for a person to keep on garnering more knowledge. Other employees also described him as a very patient man. Even if as a boss, he could have been overbearing, he chose not to be. He was very patient and understood the situations people could be in. He was also very generous and giving, most especially of his time and the information he had to teach. He believed that people must learn from each other, and always pass knowledge on. He believed that mistakes were acceptable and were a necessary part of learning and improvement. IV. My Boss as a Family Man A. As a family man, my boss was just as great as he was in work. If not, he was probably even better, as what he gave to his own family must have been even deeper than to people at work. On speaking to his wife, she mentioned that she was a dream father. One couldn’t ask for more than who he was. He was there for his kids in school. He stood by them when they were sick and took care of them. He listened to them, played with them and was personal with them. B. He was a great husband as well. He had so much love to give everyone, and such devotion and loyalty to his wife. He was always there for her whenever she needed him. C. His family is a success story. Because of the man he was, and the example he brought, his children lived good lives. Two daughters became doctors, one son a lawyer, and one other daughter followed his footsteps into accounting. V. Conclusion Truly, it is not surprising how people reacted to my boss because of the good he brings into the world. He was a man of good heart, open-minded and was there for everyone. He built an empire with love and by helping everyone who needed him. His life anthem could best be summarized by his definition of word T. E. A. M. : â€Å"Together Everyone Achieves More†.

The Blue Sword CHAPTER FOUR

She stared out of her bedroom window at the moonlit desert. Shadows drifted across the pale sand, from one shaded hollow to the next clump of dry brush. Almost she could pretend the shadows had direction, intention. It was a game she often played. She ought to be in bed; she heard two o'clock strike. The location and acoustics of the big clock that stood in the front hall were such that it could be heard throughout the large house it presided over – probably even in the servants' quarters, although she had never had occasion to find out and didn't quite dare ask. She had often wondered if it was perversity or accident – and for whatever reason, why wasn't it changed? – that the clock should so be located as to force the knowledge of the passing of time upon everyone in the Residency, every hour of every day. Who would want to know the time when one couldn't sleep? She had had insomnia badly when she was fresh from Home. It had never occurred to her that she would not be able to sleep without the sound of the wind through the oak trees outside her bedroom at Home; she had slept admirably aboard the ship, when apprehensions about her future should have been thickest. But the sound of the ceaseless desert air kept her awake night after night. There was something about it too like speech, and not at all like the comfortable murmur of oak leaves. But most of that had worn off in the first few weeks here. She had had only occasional bad nights since then. Bad? she thought. Why bad? I rarely feel much the worse the next day, except for a sort of moral irritability that seems to go with the feeling that I ought to have spent all those silent hours asleep. But this last week had been quite as bad – as sleepless – as any she had known. The last two nights she had spent curled up in the window-seat of her bedroom; she had come to the point where she couldn't bear even to look at her bed. Yesterday Annie, when she had come to waken her, had found her still at the window, where she had dozed off near dawn; and, like the placid sensible maid that she was, had been scandalized. Apparently she had then had the ill grace to mention the matter to Lady Amelia, who, in spite of all the alarums and excursions of the week past, had still found time to stop at Harry's room just at bedtime, and cluck over her, and abjure her to drink some nice warm milk (Milk! thought Harry with revulsion, who had given it up forever at the age of twelve, with her first grown-up cup of tea), and make her promise to try to sleep – as if that ever had anything to do with it – and ask her if she was sure she was feeling quite well. â€Å"Very well, ma'am,† Harry replied. Lady Amelia looked at her with concern. â€Å"You aren't fidgeting yourself about, mmm, last week, are you?† Harry shook her head, and smiled a little. â€Å"No, truly, I am in excellent health.† She thought of the end of a conversation she had heard, two days past, as Dedham and Peterson left Sir Charles' study without noticing her presence in the hall behind them. † †¦ don't like it one bit,† Peterson was saying. Dedham ran his hand over the top of his close-cropped head and remarked, half-humorously, â€Å"You know, though, if in a month or a year from now, one of those Hillfolk comes galloping in on a lathered horse and yells, ‘The pass! We are overwhelmed!' I'm going to close up the fort and go see about it with as many men as I can find, and worry about reporting it later.† The front door had closed behind the two of them, and Harry proceeded thoughtfully on her way. â€Å"I hope you are not sickening for anything, child,† said Lady Amelia; â€Å"your eyes seem overbright.† She paused, and then said in a tone of voice that suggested she was not sure this bit of reassurance was wise, as perhaps it would aggravate a nervous condition instead of soothing it: â€Å"You must understand, my dear, that if there is any real danger, you and I will be sent away in time.† Harry looked at her, startled. Lady Amelia misread her look, and patted her hand. â€Å"You mustn't distress yourself. Sir Charles and Colonel Dedham will take care of us.† Yesterday Harry had managed to corner Jack when he came again to closet himself with Sir Charles for long mysterious hours. Harry had lurked in the breakfast room till Jack emerged, looking tired. His look lightened when he saw her, and he greeted her, â€Å"Good morning, my dear. I see a gleam in your eye; what bit of arcane Damarian lore do you wish to wrest from me today?† â€Å"What was it exactly that you said to Corlath that morning, just as he left?† replied Harry promptly. Jack laughed. â€Å"You don't pull your punches, do you?† He sobered, looking at her quizzically. â€Å"I don't know that I should tell you – â€Å" â€Å"But – â€Å" â€Å"But I will. In the days of Damar's civil wars, a man pledged himself so, to his king, or to the particular claimant he wished to support. It was a particularly dangerous and unsettled time, and so the ritual swearing to one's leader meant rather a lot – more, for example, than our Queen's officers taking an oath to her, as we all must do. The phrase still carries weight in Hill tradition †¦ but you see, my giving it to Corlath was a trifle, hmm, unprofessional of me, as Homelander protecting the Homelander Border from Corlath. A calculated risk on my part †¦ † He shrugged. â€Å"I hoped to indicate that not all Homelanders are †¦ unsympathetic to the Free Hillfolk, whatever the official attitude is.† Harry lay down in her detestable bed after Lady Amelia left her, and dozed, after a fashion, till midnight; but then the darkness and peacefulness wakened her, and she came again to her window-seat to watch the night pass. Two-thirty. How black the sky was around the stars; nearer the horizon were longer flatter glints in the darkness, unsuitable for stars, and these were the mountains; and the desert was shades of grey. Without realizing it, she drifted into sleep. There was the Residency, stolid and black in the moonlight. Faran and Innath would stay here, with the horses; it was not safe to take them any nearer. He would go the rest of the way on foot. Safe! He grinned sourly behind the safety of the grey hood pulled over his face, and slid into the shadows. The adventure was upon them, for good or ill. â€Å"Sola, not an Outlander,† Faran had begged, almost tearfully; and Corlath had flushed under his sun-darkened skin. There had been certain romantic interludes in the past that had included galloping across the desert at night; but he had never abducted any woman whose enthusiastic support for such a plan had not been secured well in advance. Corlath's father had been a notorious lover of women; unsuspected half-brothers and half-sisters of the present king still turned up occasionally, which kept the subject in everyone's mind. Corlath sometimes thought that his own policy of discretion in such matters only made his people nervous because they didn't know what was going on – or if anything was. For some time now there hadn't been, but by the gods, did his own Riders really expect him to break out by making an ass of himself over an Outlander – and now of all times? But, on the other hand, he could not well explain his reasons – even to himself – although his determination was fixed, as he had unhappily realized the moment the words were out of his mouth. But he hated to see his people unhappy – because he was a good king, not because he was a nervous one – and so, while he could rightfully have told Faran to let it be, he had given as much of an answer as he could. â€Å"This is an affair of state,† he said slowly, because he could not quite bring himself to say that his kelar was concerning itself with an Outlander, even to his Riders, who were his dearest friends as well as his most trusted subjects. â€Å"The girl will be a prisoner of honor, treated with all honor, by me as well as by you.† No one had understood, but they were a little soothed; and they avoided thinking about the unwritten law of their land that said that a kidnapped woman has been ravished of her honor, whether she has been actually ravished of anything beyond a few uncomfortable hours across somebody's saddlebow or not. It was generally accounted an honor for a Hillman or woman to be seduced by a member of the royal family – which was why kelar, originally a royal Gift, continued to turn up in odd places – if a somewhat uncomfortable honor, for who could be entirely at ease with a lover who must never quite meet one's eyes? And Outlanders were peculiar, as everyone knew, so who did know how they might react? â€Å"Sola,† Faran quavered, and Corlath paused and turned a little toward the man to indicate that he would listen. â€Å"Sola, what will happen when the Outlanders find her gone?† â€Å"What of it?† â€Å"They will come after her.† â€Å"Not if they do not know where she has gone.† â€Å"But – how could they not know?† Corlath smiled grimly. â€Å"Because we shall not tell them.† Faran, by his own choice, had not been one of those who accompanied his king to the council with the Outlanders; Forloy and Innath and the others who had gone were wearing smiles to match the king's. The Outlanders could not see what happened under their very noses. â€Å"You shall leave here at once, and travel, slowly, toward the mountains; and set up camp again where the Leik spring touches the surface. There you will wait for me. I will return the way we came, in secret, in three days' time, so that the girl will not disappear too soon after the Hillfolk were seen in the Outlander station. Then I shall take the girl from her bed as she sleeps in the big house, and ride back to you.† There was a meditative silence; at last Faran said: â€Å"I would go with you, Sola. My horse is fast.† His voice was still unhappy, but the quaver was gone; and as he looked at the faces of the six Riders who had been with Corlath when he spoke with the Outlander commissioner, he began to feel curious. He had never seen an Outlander, even from a distance; never looked upon an Outlander town. After three restless days at the deserted campsite, Corlath, Faran, and Innath rode swiftly back toward the Outlander town. Corlath thought: They can't see us even in broad daylight when we gallop toward them with cloaks flapping and horses whinnying. We creep like burglars to an empty house, pretending that it has an owner because we can't quite believe it is this easy. Faran and Innath knelt down where they were and did not look as their king left them, for they knew they would see no more than he wished them to. The horses waited as silently as the men, but the king's bay stallion watched him go. The only sound was the wind whispering through the low brush and the horses' long manes. Corlath reached the house without difficulty; he had expected none. Watchdogs ignored him, or mysteriously counted him a friend. There were several black-and-brown furry shapes lying about sullenly snoring in the Residency garden. Outlander dogs did not like the northeast Border of Daria; and Hill dogs, who would have awakened at once and watched him silently, did not get on well with Outlanders. He passed the stables, but the grooms slept as heavily as the dogs. He couldn't see in the dark, but even in the places where the moonlight was no help he knew where things were. He reached the wall of the house and laid a hand on it. Depending on what sort of a mood the kelar was in, he could occasionally walk through walls, without knocking them down first, or at least see through them. And then again, sometimes he couldn't. It would be tiresome if he had to break in like the common burglar he felt, and wander from room to room looking at faces on pillows. There was even the remote chance he could get caught at it. No. This wasn't going to be one of those times: the kelar was with him – since it had gotten him into this dilemma, he thought, at least it was going to help to get him out of it – and he knew almost at once where she was. His only bad moment was when that damned clock in the front hall tolled like a call for the dead, and seemed to reach up the stairs after him like cold pale hands. She was curled up, drooping and asleep on a cushioned shelf built out from a curved window; and for a moment pity struck him and he hesitated. What good will pity do me? he thought almost angrily; I'm not here by choice. But he wrapped the cloak around her with unnecessary tenderness as he breathed a few words over her head to make sure she would sleep. Harry struggled out of some of the oddest dreams she'd ever had into a dim and foggy reality full of bumps and jolts. Was she ill? She couldn't seem to make out what was happening to her, save that it was very uncomfortable, and it was not like her to have difficulty waking up. She opened her eyes blearily and saw something that looked like dawn behind something that looked like hills, although she was a long way from them †¦ Where she was, she then realized, was slung sideways across a horse's withers with her feet sliding across his shoulder with every stride – no more comfortable for him than me – and she was held sitting upright by an arm round her middle that clamped her arms to her sides, and her head appeared to be bouncing against a human shoulder. Her only clear notion, and it wasn't very, was that she was perfectly capable of riding a horse herself, and resented being treated like a bundle or a baby: so she struggled. She raised her head with a gasp and shook her face free of the deep hood pulled over it; tried to sit up a bit farther and turn a bit more to the front. This caused the rider to rein his horse in abruptly; except she realized there were no reins. The rider seized her a little more firmly and then there were two other men on horseback beside her, and they dismounted and came toward her at once. They were dressed like Hillfolk, with hoods pulled low over their faces; and quite suddenly, still not understanding what had happened to her, she was afraid. The rider who held her handed her down to the men beneath; and she noticed that the shoulder her heels were knocking was bright bay, and the mane long and black. Then as the two men caught her by the arms, her feet touched the ground, and she fainted again. She woke once again in twilight, but this time the red glow came from the opposite direction. This time she awoke feeling more like herself; or she thought she did, but her surroundings were so unlikely she wasn't sure. She sat up and discovered she could; she was lying on a blanket, still wrapped in a dark hooded cloak that wasn't hers; and underneath she discovered she was still wearing her nightgown, and the dressing-gown over it. She was barefoot; she spent a light-headed minute or two trying to remember if her slippers had disappeared or if she'd never put them on – last night, or whenever it was – caught herself here, and looked around. She was in a bit of a hollow, with a scrub-covered dune behind her. Over her was a sort of tent roof, pegged out in a square, but with only one side let down. The other three offered her a view of the dune; the sunset, if that was what it was; and three men crouching over a tiny smokeless fire, built against the opposite arm of the same dune. Around its edge she could see the black hills fading in the last light, and three horses. Three lumps that might be saddles lay near them, but the horses – a grey, a chestnut, and a blood bay – were not tethered in any way. She had only just looked at these things with a first quick glance, and had not yet begun to puzzle over them, when one of the men stood up from the fire and walked over to her. The other two appeared to pay no attention, remaining bent over their knees and staring into the small red heart of the fire. The third man knelt down near her and offered a cup with something in it that steamed, and she took it at once without thinking, for the man's gesture had been a command. Then she held it and looked at it. Whatever it was, it was brown, and it smelled delicious; her stomach woke up at once, and complained. She looked at the cup, and then at the man; he was wrapped in a cloak and she could not see his face. After a moment he gestured again, at the cup she held, and said, â€Å"Drink it.† She licked her lips and wondered how her voice was going to sound. â€Å"I would rather not sleep any more.† That came out pretty well. There was another pause, but whether it was because he did not understand her – his accent was curious and heavy, although the Homelander words were readily recognizable – or was choosing his answer carefully, she could not tell. At last he said: â€Å"It will not make you sleep.† She realized that she was much too thirsty to care whether or not she believed him; and she drank it all. It tasted as good as it smelled, which, she thought, gave it points over coffee. Then she realized that she was now terribly hungry. â€Å"There is food if you wish it.† She nodded, and at once he brought her a plate of food and some more of the hot brown drink. He sat down again, as if with the intention of watching each mouthful. She looked at him, or rather at the shadow beneath the hood; then she transferred her attention to her plate. On it, beside the steaming hump of what she took to be stew, was an oddly shaped spoon; the handle was very arched, the bowl almost flat. She picked it up. â€Å"Be careful,† he said. â€Å"The sleep you have had makes some people sick.† So I was drugged, she thought. There was a peculiar relief in this, as if she now had an excuse to remember nothing at all about how she came to be where she was. She ate what she had been given, and felt the better for it, although the meat was unfamiliar to her; but the feeling better brought into unwelcome prominence all her questions about where she was, and why, and – worst – what next. She hesitated, looking at her now-empty plate. It was a dull grey, with a black symbol at its center. I wonder if it means anything, she thought. Health and long life? A charm against getting broken or lost? Or a symbolic representation of Death to Outlanders? â€Å"Is it well?† the man beside her asked. â€Å"I would – er – be more comfortable if I could see your face,† she said, trying to strike a clear note among reasonable timidity, dreadful cowardice, and politeness to one's captor. He threw back his hood, and turned his head so his face was clearly visible against the fading light behind him. â€Å"My God,† she said involuntarily: it was Corlath. â€Å"You recognize me, then?† he inquired; and at her startled nod – Yes, Your Majesty, she thought, but her tongue was glued to her teeth – he said, â€Å"Good,† and stood up. She looked dazed; he wished he might say something to reassure her, but if he couldn't explain to his own people why he was doing what he was doing, he knew he would be able to say nothing to her. He watched her gathering her dignity about her and settling it over her stricken expression. She said nothing further, and he picked up her plate and cup and took them back to the fire, where Innath scrubbed them with sand and put them away. Harry was too busy with her own thoughts to suspect sympathy from her kidnapper. She saw him as a figure in a cloak, and watched him join his men at the fire; neither of them looked her way. One stamped out the fire and packed the cooking-utensils in a bag; the other saddled the horses. Corlath stood staring at the hills, his arms folded, his cloak shifting in the evening breeze; the light was nearly all gone, and she soon could not discern his still figure against the background of the black hills. She stood up, a little shakily; her feet were uncertain under her, and her head was uncertain so far from the ground. She walked a few steps; the sand was warm underfoot, but not unbearably so. The two men – still without looking at her – slid past her, one on each side, and dismantled the tent, rolled it up, and stored it away so quickly it seemed almost like magic; and as the last bag was fastened to a saddle strap, Corlath turned, although no word had been spoken. The red bay followed him. â€Å"This is Isfahel,† he said to her gravely. â€Å"You would say perhaps †¦ Fireheart.† She looked up at the big horse, not sure what response was required; she felt that patting this great beast would be taking a liberty. To do something, she offered him the flat of her hand, and was foolishly gratified when he arched his neck and lowered his nose till his breath tickled her hand. He raised his head again and pricked his ears at Corlath; Harry felt that she had just undergone some rite of initiation, and wondered if she'd passed. The other two men approached them; the other two horses followed. Am I about to be slung over the saddlebow like a sack of meal again? she thought. Is it more difficult to do the slinging when the sack in question is standing and looking at you? She turned her head away, whereupon the other two men were found to be looking intently at the sand around their boots. The baggage was all tied behind their saddles, and the hollow they stood in looked as bare and undisturbed as if it had never sheltered a campsite. She turned her head back to Corlath again. â€Å"I can ride – at least a little,† she said humbly, although she had been considered an excellent horsewoman at Home. â€Å"Do you think I might sit †¦ facing forward, perhaps?† Corlath nodded and let go the horse's mane. He adjusted the leather-covered roll of fleece at the front of the saddle, then turned back to her. â€Å"Can you mount?† She eyed the height of the horse's back: Eighteen hands if he's an inch, she thought, and that may be conservative. â€Å"I'm not sure,† she admitted. Then, to the horror of the other two men, the puzzlement of Fireheart, and the surprise of Harry herself, Corlath knelt in the sand and offered her his cupped hands. She put a sandy foot in the hands, and was tossed up as easily as if she were a butterfly or a flower petal. She found this a bit unnerving. He mounted behind her with the same simple grace she'd seen in the Residency courtyard. The other two horses and their riders came up beside them; they wheeled together to face the hills, and together broke into a canter; Harry could detect no word or gesture of command. They rode all night – walk and canter and brief swift gallop – and Harry was bitterly tired before the line of hills before them began to emerge from a greying sky. They stopped only once; Harry swung her leg over the horse's withers and slid to the ground before any offer of help could be made; and while she didn't fold up where she stood, there was a nasty moment when she thought she might, and the sand heaved under her like the motion of a horse galloping. She was given bread, and some curious green fruit, and something to drink; and Corlath threw her into the saddle again while his men bit their lips and averted their eyes. She wound her hands in Fireheart's long mane, stiffened her back, and blinked, and willed herself to stay awake. She'd said she could ride, and she didn't want to be carried †¦ wherever they were going †¦ but she wasn't going to think about that. Just think about sitting up straight. Once when they slowed to a walk, Corlath handed her a skin bag and said, â€Å"Not much farther now,† and the words sounded kindly, not scornful. She wished she could see his face, but it was awkward to twist around to peer at someone who was just behind one's shoulder, so she didn't. The contents of the bag burned her mouth and made her gasp, but she sat up the straighter for it. Then as she stared at the line of hills, and squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, and was sure that the sky was turning paler, she was not imagining things, the three horses pulled up to a walk, then halted, ears forward. Corlath pointed; or to Harry it seemed that a disembodied hand and arm materialized by her right cheek. â€Å"There.† She followed the line his finger indicated, but she saw only waves of sand. The horses leaped forward at a gallop that appalled her with its swiftness at the end of such a journey; the shock of each of Fireheart's hoofs striking the ground rattled her bones. When she raised her eyes from the lift and fall of the black mane over her bands, she saw a glint of white, and of grey shapes too regular to be dunes. The sun broke golden over the hills as the three horses thundered into the camp.

Stages in the marketing research processNike Sprint Ahead of the Essay

Stages in the marketing research processNike Sprint Ahead of the competition - Essay Example The opportunities and threat faced by the company and the scope of market research is being discusses in this case analysis. From the day Nike had its ad campaign with top athletes like John McEnroe, the ads created for Nike have been icons in setting standards for creativity. The Nike should not switch its focus from celebrities to its product. The campaigns were very effective with their image transfer approach, they casually transmits the message that how fashionable and trendy a person can become by buying a pair of Nike. Nike became a self-fulfilling image statement: if you want to be hip, wear Nike; if you are hip, you are probably wearing Nike (1). By focusing on the aura and image conveyed by the celebrity, Nike was able to attract those who wanted the image. Also the advertisements from Nike are very intensely inward focused concepts. It does not focus on the product, but has its entire focus on the person who wears it. The success of Nike in the market can be attributed mainly to its understanding of the consumer psyche. During the fitness crazy 1980s, Nike's campaign was totally tuned to the expectations of the consumers. This kind of understanding of the consumer results from market research. The research Nike should be doing now is a lifestyle study of its consumer to check whether a change approach adopted for advertising. The study that has to be done by Nike is of Descriptive in nature. For the research, the design will be as follows: 1. Interest/ theory - to find out various factors that affect the lifestyle of consumers which has an impact on the purchase of Nike 2. Conceptualization - lifestyle study involves identifying the kinds of products/ services consumed and a relationship with the demographic and psychographic factors. 3. Choice of research method - the research methods that can be used are market survey and unobtrusive methods like content analysis carried out longitudinal and cross-sectional across the target markets. 4. Population and sampling - the population for the study will be all the target markets for Nike across the world and the sample of the study can be selected randomly after segmenting the market into target groups 5. Operationalisation - the survey can be carried out online to elicit responses from various target markets globally. The content analysis can be carried out through observation and comparison of the people who buy Nike and their patterns of purchase 6. Date processing and analysis - after the data is collected a comparison and correlation study of the various factors and the lifestyle of consumers and their perception on Nike can be analyzed. Buyer behavior The Customer Focus(R) 2004: Sporting Goods study(2)by Vertis reveals that price and selection motivate consumer purchases more so than quality in case of athletic footwear. The results of the study show that consumers want choices and variety at a good price. A key tool in influencing buying behavior is advertising inserts and Customer Focus can provide guidance on the best way to use media synergistically. According to the survey, female shoppers with young children (ages 6-11) also see quality as less important than price in terms of being a key factor on why they shop at athletic footwear specialty stores. Price, selections are the key factors which play a more important role in deciding the brand and model for purchase. It is evident from the survey that, the consumers of the

Sylvester Stallone Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Sylvester Stallone - Essay Example His mother, Jackie Stallone, was of two origins. She was half-Russian and half French. He has a younger brother, Frank Stallone and both were both named after their paternal grandfather. Since his baptism, he has been a Catholic. During his childhood, he suffered a lot from his parents’ hostility. His parents were so hostile that their relationship ended in a divorce in 1957. This led to Sylvester moving to Philadelphia with his mother and a foster father. Due to environmental and social changes, Sylvester suffered academic and emotional changes. He became very troubled in school and this led to his expulsion in most of the schools that he joined. His mother enrolled him to a special high school for the troubled and mischievous youth. While at Philadelphia, he spent most of his time at foster care but this changed after joining Devereaux High School where he joined the gym class and started lifting weights (Sanford, Carl and Howard 15). After his graduation, he won an athletic scholarship program at an American College located in Switzerland. He became a coach of a girls’ athletic club and after a short time gained interest in drama. He starred in of the school productions in the college. This motivated him to join the world of drama and he could not wait to go back to the United States of America where he joined the University of Miami and studied drama. It is in 1969 when he decided to pursue his dream in drama and acting. He went back to New York where he had to work in different low paying workplaces to make ends meet. He became an usher at a New York theatre and worked part time jobs at the Central Park Zoo. He made his first appearance in the film industry after acting a soft-core porn film by the name ‘A party at kitty studs’. He frequently auditioned and soon became famous in the industry due to his role as a tough person in most films paralyzed (Sanford, Carl and Howard 12). However, the industry became more competitive and h e became discouraged after being turned down for the film ‘The Godfather’ in 1971. This led to Sylvester turning his attention to writing screenplays and it bore fruit in 1973 after he starred in the movie Rebel. Sylvester’s first major role in the film industry was in 1976 after he wrote the movie’s script. A fight between Chuck Wepner and Muhammad Ali form, which he wrote the script, had motivated him (Dunn). He wanted to play the role himself and after a long struggle with producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler, he was assigned the role. The film became very successful and was nominated for best actor and best original screenplay at the Academy Awards. Stallone earned lots of profits from this film. In 1982, he had the role of writing and directing Rocky II that became a major success after grossing over $200 million. This became the turning point for his career in the film industry. All the films he directed from this point on gained lots of money irrespective of the presence of critics to his films (Celebrity Net Worth). These films include Rambo, The specialist, Cash, Tango, Cobra, Demolition Man among others (Stallone 15). The new millennium did not pose a good start to Sylvester’s career since the movies that he stared in or produced did not sell as expected. However, a re-production of Rambo in 2008 and later The Expendables made him rise in chats at the film

Corporate Social Responsibility Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Corporate Social Responsibility - Essay Example The person wanted to know if the problem seen from the perspective of the employee and their particular obligation to the larger organizational community. I was asked to explain the many issues linked to CSR. A second question raised was related to the commitment to CSR, and whether CSR is designed to help an organization to make a profit, whether it is truly concerned with the company’s degree of social commitment. Organizations are set up and designed in order to be profitable. In order to focus upon this they must of necessity publicize themselves in markets both local and worldwide. They can do this by undertaking various organizations undertake various procedures. Another reason why companies need to promote themselves is the competitive element. There will always be other companies who are trying to get the edge over them. CSR is a positive response to such pressures and will be accepted in a positive way. A number of research studies have revealed the positive propertie s of CSR and its good effects upon employees (Ali and Ali, 2011; Gross and Holland, 2011; Brammer, Millington and Rayton, 2007) and upon the wider community (Tang and Tang, 2007; Mohr, Webb and Harris, 2001; Moir, 2001).

How contemporary designer Anna Sui, has reinterpreted and been Essay

How contemporary designer Anna Sui, has reinterpreted and been influenced by the past - Essay Example Anna Sui had a rough start as a designer, not only did she get fired from her job for featuring her collection in a New York fair trade but also started a small business in her apartment with only 300 dollars in her account. Her collection, which consisted of only 5 pieces, was designed and made exclusively in her studio apartment and got featured in New York Times. From that point on her talent as a designer was a force to be reckoned with, however she highly struggled next to â€Å"big-name houses† in the 1980’s as power dressing was the popular style and Anna Sui focused mainly on quirky design that incorporated her love for music (folk, gunge, punk etc.) and her fascination for the past (Victorian, Rococo, Parisian Boudoir etc.) Her close friend Naomi Campbell then suggested that she host a fashion show in order to show the world her different approach to fashion. Thus she rented a small space and rewarded the models with clothes, the show was a breakthrough in her career. Not only did her name get known but also she understood that staying true to herself and her inspirations was going to be the key to her success and to this day her designs still incorporate her love for music and her fascination for the past.

Campaign Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Campaign Design - Essay Example world’s population are living with chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, mental health conditions, and more. Therefore, AARP came up to advocate for changes in the health sector in order to improve the health condition of the ageing generation. AARP is a lobby group that released a report in 2009 stating that patients experience lack of coordination from health providers, specifically by receiving repeat tests and procedures, unnecessary hospitalizations, and difficult transition from hospitals to homes (Whyte, 2012). AARP is a lobby group that wants the elderly to move away from traditional ‘doctor/patient ‘roles. The group wants its members to embrace their own involvement in health care and in exploiting alternative medical options (Kazbare,Van & Eskildsen, 2010). The group combines with the consumerism movement to empower its members. In addition, the group exercise control in requesting second opinions from doctors and alternative treatment methods in health care decisions (Halfmann, 2011). There is the issue of over-medicalization of aging. AARP always addresses this question: (i) at what point as people as age do, we become accepting of aging and stop rushing to a physician all of the time? (ii) How do people decide whether to fix a problem if it has more to do with later years of life than with a traditional medical ailment? And (iii) Can people depend on their physicians to clearly tell them when a medical problem is as easily addressed by physical therapy as by a surgical procedure of some type- especially when there are low-tech ways to improve the situation (Rasmussen, 2014). According to AARP, old people must consider above question. The group argues that medicalization of ageing potentially exposes seniors to more and more risks without really solving the problems. AARP is a lobby group that addresses the challenges in the health sector, especially the issue of staffing. The group does not just

Syria Revolution Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Syria Revolution - Research Paper Example Being a democratic republic under the power of President Bashar Al- Asad together with his advisors, members of the ruling party, his ministers, the president made major decisions and was also in charge of the ruling party. Together with his party leaders, the president governs all the three branches of government , he was given the mandate to rule the country for his second term of seven years in a â€Å"yes or no† referendum that was unfair in the eyes of human rights advocates both locally and internationally. Military was deployed to bring to an end the uprising hence using firearms on the demonstrators across the country, this lead to an armed rebellion which comprised of volunteer civilian and defected solders from the government. According to the report of the United Nations released on September 2013, more than one hundred and twenty thousand died in the process while thousands of protestors are rotting in jail and there are reports of terror and torture in the state p risons. The Syrian government is given reinforcement by Russia and Iran, while Saudi Arabia and Qatar supports the rebels with weapon. The reason for the uprising started when President Bashar al-Assad came to power in the year two thousand immediately after his father Hafez dead, who had lead Syria since 1970. This dictatorial system of government had only one party system which left few means for political differences, the nation had no peaceful transfer of power since 1950 and for change to take place only a military coup or an uprising was to take place, because the mercies of the country felt oppressed, humiliated and deprived their right to have the leader of their own choice. The Ba’ath party was regarded as the initiator of the â€Å"Arab socialism† that tried to merge the state leading economy with Pan –Arab nationalism; the ideology of the Baathist was reduced to nothing, this was facilitated by damaging its reputation by making its economy to became w eak and losing the wars against Israel. The reforms of the vestige socialism made the doors wide open to personal venture enhancing and broadening consumerism along with the upper and middle classes and neglecting those favored with links to the Assad government, by this uneven economy was created which latter triggered the uprising as the cost of living got high and job became scarce (Anon 1). Persistent drought devastated farming in the north eastern Syrian community which totally relied on farming lead thousand of Syrian people to suffer hunger, due to lack of stability in the Syrian government more than a million suffered since 2008, by this many individuals from the hit area went to urban in search of their daily bread, lack of employment in town led them to become frustrated ending up in mushrooming of slums. This population was angered by lack of help from their government and this fueled anger and hate of their mother country hence being eager to over throw their government. Rapidly growing population lead to the emergence of young and energetic people in the nation, due to lack of employment this created a demographic time bomb in the country which was to explode anytime. Lack of productive public sector as

FedEx Corporation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

FedEx Corporation - Essay Example The company realizes the importance of impeccable customer service and has tried to satisfy the needs of its customers in a superior manner. FedEx had, in collaboration with Motorola, developed pocket PC for couriers to enhance customer service (Editors, 2002) FedEx also has a foolproof complaint management system where consumer complaints are speedily handled. Organization Culture FedEx has built a culture wherein every employee is urged to express ideas and strive for excellence (Flaum, 2005). This has ensured that its employees do not become complacent. The company has flourished primarily because of the passion with which FedEx employees serve customers (Smith, 2001). People First Barney & Wright (1998) over that FedEx works on the philosophy of ‘people-first.’ Fred Smith is a staunch believer of the fact that customer satisfaction begins with employee satisfaction. FedEx has embraced technology to ensure that customers can track their orders through multiple platforms. Use of technology has enabled the company to improve its effectiveness and efficiency. A case in point is the bar code system generally used in retail stores. FedEx was a pioneer in using the same bar code technology to track packages. Equipped with state-of-the-art-technology, FedEx launched its Critical Inventory Logistics services to enable customers efficiently manage high-value and time-critical inventory (Business Wire, 2012). The new service was targeted at the telecommunications, semiconductor, and biomedical industry.

Southern Cuisine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Southern Cuisine - Essay Example The term ‘barbeque’, according to Tar Heel Magazine, originates from the name of a North Carolina bar that operated in the 1800’s. The establishment advertised its name as Bar-Beer-Cue-Pig because it had pool tables (Cue), served liquor and beer (Bar/Beer) and specialized in roasted pig. Pork was a main staple of Southerners’ diet during that time because pigs were easy to maintain, inexpensive, easy to transport and by all accounts, delicious. â€Å"In the pre-Civil War period, Southerners ate, on average, five pounds of pork for every one pound of beef† (Gray, 1982: 27). Pigs don’t need a fence like cows do; they could be turned out to a forest then re-caught when the supply of food ran low. The slaughtering of a pig meant that it was time for a party. All of the neighbors, most supplying a side dish, would be invited or invite themselves to join in the feast. â€Å"In the south, barbeque is pig; slow smoked, chopped, and served on white br ead or buns. Side dishes usually include slaw which is often packed in the bun with the barbeque and hush puppies – small pieces of cornbread deep fried. Slaws vary from mild white to spicy red† (Allison, 2007). Other sides include potato salad with mustard or mayonnaise base, baked beans and possibly a green bean casserole. Roasted corn-on-the-cob is popular particularly in South Texas. Watermelon is a popular dessert following a barbeque. The tradition of barbeque in the South emanated from these types of congregations and had been well-established by the beginning of the 1800’s. It was â€Å"in the fifty years before the Civil War that the traditions associated with large barbecues became entrenched. Plantation owners regularly held large and festive barbecues, including ‘pig pickin’s’ for slaves† (Hilliard, 1972: 59). A church picnic in the South, then as well

Time and Life Essay Example for Free

Time and Life Essay According to a popular saying,schooldays are the happiest days of your life. Is there any truth in this? Answers to this question are bound to vary greatly from person to person. A person’s answer will depend on how happy the person’s schooldays actually were and on how happy the rest of his or her life has been since. To give a really true answer to this question you have to be fairly close to the end of your life. Hopefully,by this time you will have lived a long time. If this is the case,then you will have a long period of time to look back on. Will no other period of your life have made you happier than your schooldays? This seems rather unlikely. There are certain momentous times in a person’s life which are usually accompained by a great feeling of happiness,even of ecstasy. One of these is being in love. Another is a person’s wedding day. Yet another, and many parents would put this at the top of their happiness list, is the birth of a couple’s child. These are milestones in human life and they bring happinessto the majority of people who experience them. However, apart from these emotional milestones, there is a wide variation in what makes people happy. To a large extent what brings happiness to a person depends on what they are interested in. For example, athletes might well regard their period of supreme happiness as the time they won a major track or field event, especially an Olympic event. Footballers might regard the peak of their happiness as the time they played for a top-ranking team and scored a crucial goal in an important game. Ambitious businesspeople might be at the hightest point of their happiness when they bring off a particulary successful and shrewd business deal. If there are all these opportunities, and many more, for achieving happiness in life, how has the idea arise that schooldays are the happiest days of our life? It is at least partly because people’s memories, particularly older people’s memories, tend to be imperfect when they look back on the past. Not only that. Especially where childhood is concerned, older people tend to look back at past through rose-coloured spectacles. For example, they might remember the weather during the summer holidays as being much better than it is now. That has nothing whatsoever to do with modern climate change. It has to do with looking back on the past with affection and nostalagia-and a lack of realism. A few people’s schooldays might genuinely have been the happiest days of their lives. On the other hand, some people’s schooldays might have been an absolute nightmare with stern schoolteachers administering harsh punishments and fellow students teasing and bullying them, not to mention the often unbearable pressure of exams. For most people,neither of these extremes fits the bill. Their schooldays are the usual mixture of happiness and unhappiness,like the rest of their lives. Schooldays are not the happiest days of their lives.

Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks (HWSN) Management

Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks (HWSN) Management A Key Management Establishment Scheme in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks (HWSN) Premamayudu B, Venkata rao K, and Suresh Varma P Abstract: Key management is the one of the fundamental requirement for securing the hierarchical wireless sensor networks (HWSN) and also prevents adversarial activities. This paper presents a new pairwise key management scheme using matrix for HWSNs. In HWSN, cluster headers are more powerful than cluster members in all the resources like power, storage, communication and processing data. This heterogeneity alleviates the overhead of cluster members during the key establishment. All the expensive computations can be given to cluster headers in the network. Compared with other popular key management schemes, our scheme has many advantages in consuming the resources. The experiment and analysis show that our scheme can maintain the full network connectivity, easy configuration management, neighbor cluster members directly establish pairwise keys during the communication and reduce storage overhead. Keywords: Pairwise key, Symmetric matrix, Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks, Key establishment. 1. Introduction A wireless sensor networks build with a large number of sensors, which are equipped with batteries, sensing, communication unit, data processing and radio communication unit. At present any real time applications implementing on wireless sensor networks, like home automation, environment monitoring, military or security areas, targeting and target tracking systems, agriculture monitoring system and battlefield surveillance. However all the applications need protection in all the level of the sensor network. The wireless connectivity, the interaction among the sensor nodes, data gathering and query processing and physical protection. If the sensors are equipped with built-in tamper-resistance mechanisms, the memory chips are still suffering from various memory read-out vulnerabilities [1]. Key management is the mechanism to provide the security in all the levels of the wireless sensor networks. Since sensor nodes in WSNs have constrains in their computational power and memory capability and security. The solutions of traditional networks like computer networks, ad hoc networks, and wired networks are not suitable for WSNs. The goal of key management in WSNs is to solve the problem of creating, distributing and protecting those secret keys. Hence, the feasible and reliable techniques for key management and distribution of these keys are of major importance for the security in WSNs. The trusted server scheme [9] is not suitable for sensor networks because there is no trusted infrastructure in sensor networks. The self-enforcing scheme [10] is also not suitable due to the limited computation and energy resources of sensor nodes often make it undesirable to use public key algorithms, such as Diffie-Hellman key agreement. The third type of key agreement scheme is key pre-distribution. There exist a number of key predistribution schemes which do not depend on a priori deployment knowledge. A naive solution is to let all the nodes carry a master secret key. This scheme does not exhibit desirable network resilience: if one node is compromised, the security of the entire sensor network will be compromised. Another key pre-distribution scheme is to let each sensor carry N − 1 secret pairwise keys [3], each of which is known only to this sensor and one of the other N − 1 sensors (assuming N is the total number of sensors). The resilience of this scheme is per fect. But this scheme is impractical for sensors with an extremely limited amount of memory because N could be large. Moreover, adding new nodes to a pre-existing sensor network is difficult because the existing nodes do not have the new nodes’ keys. Eschenauer and Gligor [7], proposed a random key pre-distribution scheme each sensor node receives a random subset of keys from a large key space pool, to agree on a key for communication, two nodes find one common (shared) key within their subsets and use that key as their shared secret key. The problem with this scheme is that when we pick a large key pool, the connectivity of the sensor networks becomes low. In this paper, we will pick pairwise key pre-distribution scheme as the basic scheme and develop this scheme on the deployment model and show that knowledge regarding the sensor deployment can help us improve the performance of a pairwise key predistribution scheme. 2. Related Work The fundamental work is introduced by Blom, who proposed a KPS allowing any pair of nodes to establish pairwise key directly [12]. The set of keys generated from A.G in Blom’s Scheme as a key-space, Du et al.[13] improved Blom’s scheme using Vandermonde matrix G, and employing multiple key-space KPS. Nodes may be deployed following a pre-defined method in certain situations. In nodes deployment using pairplane [14], for example, sensors nodes are partitioned into a sequence of groups and dropped out of the pairplane sequentially as the airplane flies forward. It is easy to see that sensor groups that are dropped next to each other have a better chance to be close to each other after deployment. By exploiting deployment knowledge in such situations, Du et al. [14] extended Eschenauer-Gligor’s scheme and proposed a key management scheme. Du et al. further extended the scheme in [13] and proposed a new KPS using deployment knowledge [15]. Other relevant works include Eschenauer and Gligor’s random KPS [10], Chan et al.’s q-composite random KPS [11], etc. 3. Our Key Establishment Scheme in HWSNs 3.1. Network Model: There are three types of nodes in our key establishment scheme, namely Base Station (BS), Cluster Header (H-Sensor) and Cluster Member (L-Sensor). Base Station operated completely in secured environment. In the case of H-Sensor and L-Sensor are not operated in the secure area. If the sensor nodes are captured by adversaries, whole material can be accessible. We adopt the maximum energy cluster head (MECH) protocol for our network architecture [1]. As shown in Figure 1, in the MECH architecture, the sensors automatically organized into some clusters and act as two types of nodes in the network: cluster heads and cluster member nodes. In each cluster, one node as a H (H-Sensor) manages the it’s associated cluster and forward the information from member nodes to the base station (BS). MECH constructs clusters according to the radio signal range and the number of cluster nodes. The nodes distribution is more equally in all the clusters in the network. This distribution does not ex ceed a certain threshold. BS: Base Station H: Cluster Head L: Cluster Member Figure 1: Architecture of heterogeneous Sensor Networks 3.2. Assumptions (i) All nodes are static (ii) Each sensor has unique ID assigned by Base Station (iii) If a sensor is compromised, whole material in the node is accessible (iv)The Base Station can communicate with Cluster Heads 3.3. Basic Scheme Our scheme is completely variant form the Blom’s Scheme [12]. This scheme is completely modified in the way of usage and generating matrices. 3.3.1. System Setup There are N sensor nodes to be deployed in the network including Cluster Heads and Base Station, and ÃŽ » be the security parameter. Base Station selects N distinct key seeds s1,s2,†¦..,sN from the Finite Field GFq, where q is the prime number. Every seed si mapped with a identifier idi. Base Station generates a secret (ÃŽ »+1)Ãâ€"N matrix G G is a secret matrix in our scheme. It is compressed with selected seed from the Finite Field GFq. 3.3.2. Key pre-distribution (i) Base Station generates the secret symmetric matrix (ÃŽ »+1)Ãâ€"(ÃŽ »+1) form GFq, and Computes the public matrix A=(D.G) ­Ã‚ ­T. (ii) Base Station pre loads each key seed si and its identifier idi to the ith sensor node including Cluster Heads and also stores ith row from the matrix A. 3.3.3. Pairwise Key Establishment After deployment, each sensor node broadcast its key seed identifier idi to its neighbors. Any two neighbor nodes can establish pairwise keys directly. Let the ith node and the jth node want to establish a pairwise key to secure the communication channel. Calculation at ith node: The ith column of matrix G using its key seed si: (si,si2,†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.,siÃŽ »+1) And (aj1,aj2,†¦..,aj(ÃŽ »+1)) be the jth row of the matrix A, which loaded before deployment by BS. The ith node calculates the pairwise key with jth node denoted as kji. kij=(aj1,aj2,†¦..,aj(ÃŽ »+1)). (si,si2,†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.,siÃŽ »+1) kij= Calculation at jth node: The jth sensor node calculate the jth column of matrix G using its key seed sj: (sj,sj2,sj3,†¦..,sjÃŽ »+1) And (ai1,ai2,†¦..,ai(ÃŽ »+1)) be the ith row of matrix A, loaded by the BS. The jth node calculate the pairwise key kij as kij= It remains to show that kij=kij, because the matrix k=A.G is a symmetric matrix. i.e kij calculated by the cluster member i is same as kij calculated by cluster member j. The same process is applied for cluster heads to establish pairwise key between them to establish secure communication. 4. Implementation 4.1. Setup Phase Let the number of nodes in the network be 6(N=6), Secure Property ÃŽ »=3, prime number q=29 and 6 distinct key seeds {5, 8, 15, 4, 2, 17} 4.2. Key pre-distribution Secret Symmetric matrix (D), Secretly stored in the Base Station (BS). A=(D.G)T mod 29 A= Once Matrix A is calculated, Base Station pre loads key seed and a row from the matrix A into sensor node based on its identifier. The rows of matrix A represent the private keys of each node. 4.3. Key Generation Suppose consider two nodes, node 1 and node 5 wish to communicate with each other. Then node 1 and 4 need to calculate the shared secret key(pairwise key). In order to calculate the pairwise key, node 1 will multiply the assigned row A(1) which is from A and column G(4) which is calculated from the seed key value of node 4. The seed key values is broadcasted each other during shared key generation. Similarly node 4 multiplies its row A(4) with the seed key value of node 1. K1,4=2596 mod 29 =15 K4,1=156905 mod 29=15 It is observed that both nodes generate a common key and further communication between them will make use of the pairwise key. The matrix K represents as shown below has the symmetric nature, because of the matrix D. Hence any pair of nodes can have the common key such that Ki,j=Kj,i. K=(A.G) mod 29 5. Analysis 5.1. Local Connectivity Local connectivity addresses the size of key space between any neighbors. In our scheme, any pair of nodes can directly establish the shared key, under assumptions noted in the proposed scheme. Our scheme local connectivity is 1. 5.2. Resilience against node capture attacks Our scheme is providing ÃŽ »-security property to the network. If more than ÃŽ » nodes are compromised then only it is possible to calculate the keys of others, which means that to find the k symmetric matrix. Even ÃŽ »-1 nodes compromised, it not possible to predicate the other node key seed values. Our scheme achieves a high level of resilience against node capture attacks. 5.3. Computation Complexity Our scheme needs 2ÃŽ »+1 multiplication operations in the field of GFq: ÃŽ » multiplications to calculate a column of G matrix with given key seed and ÃŽ »+1 multiplication to calculate the inner product of corresponding row-column pairs. Pairwise key establishment between neighbor nodes requires 2ÃŽ »+1 multiplication operations. If the ÃŽ » value is large to protect the network, it increases the computational complexity. We have made analysis between our scheme and Blom’s scheme on the computations complexity. From Fig. 2 we can see computations effort for 6 nodes under different Finite Field (FGq) ranging from 0-50, 0-100, 0-150, 0-200, 0-250, 0-300, 0-350. The analysis carried out with the network size of 6 nodes and security property (ÃŽ ») 3. Figure 2. Computational Complexity for a Network with 6 nodes 5.4. Communication Complexity In pairwise key establishment phase, sensor nodes need to broadcast a key seed identifier idi. All the materials required to generate pairwise key are loaded in the sensor node before deployment. But other key establishment schemes should perform other phases to generate a shared key between neighbors like path key establishment, rekeying, and broadcasting row values from the public matrix A. It leads to more communication overhead. But in case of our scheme has very low communication overhead. Compare to space complexity, our scheme consuming little more space than other schemes [5,6]. The space complexity depends on the value of ÃŽ », if the ÃŽ » value is reasonably small, then space complexity is very similar to the other schemes. 6. Conclusion This paper presents the new pairwise key establishment scheme for heterogeneous wireless sensor network using the symmetric propriety of matrices. Our scheme achieves very light communication and computation complexity. The nature of heterogeneity made reasonable results in the analysis. In addition that, our scheme is updatable, scalable and secure against node capture attacks. References: [1] I. F. Akyildiz,W. Su, Y. Sankarasubramaniam, and E. Cayirci, 2002 ,â€Å"A survey on sensor networks,† IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 40, no. 8, pp. 102–114,. [2] R. Blom, 1985, â€Å"An optimal class of symmetric key generation systems†, Advances in Cryptology, ser. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, T. Beth, N. Cot, and I. Ingemarsson, Eds. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, vol. 209, pp. 335–338. [3] Wenliang Du et al., 2003, â€Å"A pairwise key pre-distribution scheme for wireless sensor networks†, ACM transactions. [4] B. Premamayudu, K. Venkata Rao, P. Suresh Verma, 2014, â€Å"A Novel pairwise Key Establishment and Management in Hierardical Wireless Sensor Networks (HESN) using matrix†, CT and Critical Infrastructure: Proceedings of the 48th Annual Convention of Computer Society of India- Vol I Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Volume 248, pp. 425-432. [5] D. Liu, P. Ning, and R. Li., 2005, â€Å"Establishing pairwise keys in distributed sensor networks†, ACM Trans. Inf Syst. Secur., vol. 8, pp. 41-77. [6] A. Perrig, R. Szewczyk, V. Wen, D. Culler, and J.D., 2002, â€Å"Tygar. Spins: Security protocols for sensor networks†, Wireless Networks Journal (WINE). [7] L. Eschenauer and V. D. Gligor, 2002, â€Å"A key-management scheme for distributed sensor networks†, in Proceedings of the 9th ACM conference on Computer and communications security. [8] R. Blom, An Optimal Class Of Symmetric Key Generation Systems. Ericsson Radio Systems, Stockholm, Sweden. [9] B. C. Neuman and T. Tso, 1994, â€Å"Kerberos: An authentication service for computer networks†, IEEE Communications, vol. 32, no. 9, pp.33-38. [10] W. Diffie and M. E. Helllman, 1976, â€Å"New directions in cryptography†, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 22, pp. 644-654. [11] H. Chan, A. Perrig, and D. X. Song, 2003, â€Å"Random key predistribution schemes for sensor networks,† in IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. IEEE Computer Society, pp. 197–213. [12] R. Blom, 1985, â€Å"An optimal class of symmetric key generation systems,† in Advances in Cryptology, ser. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, T. Beth, N. Cot, and I. Ingemarsson, Eds. Springer Berlin /Heidelberg, vol. 209, pp. 335–338. [13] W. Du, J. Deng, Y. S. Han, P. K. Varshney, J. Katz, and A. Khalili, 2005, â€Å"A pairwise key predistribution scheme for wireless sensor networks,† ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. Secur., vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 228–258. [14] W. Du, J. Deng, Y. S. Han, S. Chen, and P. K. Varshney, 2004, â€Å"A key management scheme for wireless sensor networks using deployment knowledge,† in INFOCOM, pp. 586–597. [15] W. Du, J. Deng, Y. S. Han, and P. K. Varshney, , 2006, â€Å"A key predistribution scheme for sensor networks using deployment knowledge,† IEEE Trans. Dependable Sec. Comput., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 62–77.

Environmental sustainability

Environmental sustainability ABSTRACT Universities, as centres for training responsible and knowledgeable humans, prepare students to respond to the intellectual, social, and personal challenges that they will face in community. To this end, universities will take use of various resources. In this regard, the question which rises is to what extent the world leading universities take their environmental responsibility into consideration and how committed they are to environmental sustainability. This paper aimed to explore this issue by studying the world top 10 ranked universities. The study sample included Harvard University (US), University of Cambridge (UK), Yale University (US), University College London (UK), Imperial College London (UK), University of Oxford (UK), University of Chicago (US), Princeton University (US), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US), and California Institute of Technology (US). The required data was collected through the content analysis of the websites and annual reports of the mentione d universities. Findings of the paper showed that all the studied universities were involved in a number of various environmental activities and were committed to their environmental responsibilities. The findings of the paper can be a benchmark for other universities. Since the environment is an important pillar of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and vital part of sustainability, the findings have important implications for CSR policy of universities. INTRODUCTION All humans have a moral obligation to preserve the planet and there is no excuse for doing nothing to improve the environmental state of the globe. This also applies to institutions of higher education (Christensen et al., 2009). Organizations such as companies or universities are usually responsible for the severe environmental degradation we have witnessed (Alshuwaikhat and Abubakar, 2008; Hoffman and Woody, 2008; Haden et al., 2009). Nowadays, higher education institutions can cause significant environmental impacts (Jabbour, 2010). Many of them, due to their large size, expressive movement of people and vehicles, high consumption of materials, and strong development of complex activities, may be considered as small towns (Alshuwaikhat and Abubakar, 2008). Therefore higher education institutes have a great environmental responsibility toward society. This could be through training graduates with suitable environmental knowledge as well as environmental plans and programs to reduce waste and preserve environment. Now, the question which arises is how aware universities are toward their environmental responsibilities toward society. To answer this question, this study will investigate the issue among world top 10 universities through reviewing their website content and annual reports. Although previous studies have been conducted in this area, they are mainly case studies considering only one university. This study, however, considers 10 International universities at the same time and tries to provide a general picture of how aware and responsible world top universities are toward environment. Since the environment is an important pillar of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and vital part of sustainability, the findings of this study have important implications for CSR policy of universities. ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN UNIVERSITIES Sustainability is a pattern of resource use which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The main idea of sustainable development is to achieve the lasting satisfaction of human needs. Environmental management may be defined as the study of all technical and organizational activities aimed at reducing the environmental impact caused by a companys business operations (Cramer, 1998, p. 162). Although initially targeted for companies, this definition can also be applied to service sector and universities. Universities apply various resources to provide quality education for students. This, in turn, will cause impacts on the environment. Several simple examples of these impacts are electricity consumption, production of waste and CO2 emission caused by daily printing of large numbers of papers. A number of dimensions define environmental management practices (Aragà Ã…’n-Correa, 1998; Klassen Angell, 1998; Klassen W hybark, 1999). As Cà ©spedes-Lorente et al. (2003) mention, Peattie and Ringler (1994) drew a distinction between software and hardware environmental activities. Software activities are those focused on organizational issues such us systems, procedures, audits and manuals, whereas hardware activities are concerned with technological change to reduce the environmental impact of the firm. Environmental sustainability refers to the environmental actions or impacts of what we do. There are a number of studies considering the issues of sustainability and environment in higher education. A study by Wright (2010), examined how a cohort of university presidents and vice-presidents in Canadian universities conceptualize sustainable development, sustainable universities, the role universities play in achieving a sustainable future, key issues facing the university, and the barriers to implementing sustainability initiatives on campus. They showed that although the majority of participants we re well versed in the concept of sustainable development, they were less familiar with the concept of a sustainable university. However, majority of them were dedicated to having their university become more sustainable. The participants also listed financial predicaments, lack of understanding and awareness of sustainability issues amongst the university population, and a resistance to change as the main barriers in the path of sustainability. Pollock et al. (2009) also insisted that complex and ineffective governance, traditional disciplinary boundaries, and the lack of a shared vision at academic institutions often hinder universitys progress toward leading the world to a more sustainable and desirable future. Furthermore, a study by Rauch and Newman (2009) in Yale University explored how an institutional target can lead to greater community action and long-term commitment than if no specific target is established. METHODOLOGY Similar to a related study by Capriotti and Moreno (2007), this paper used a content analysis methodology to analyze the websites of the top 10 world universities ranked by Times Higher Education (THE, 2009). This research studied the content of the university official websites and tried to identify universities environmental practices, procedures and plans. To this end, we have reviewed all the related web pages of the universities (including news, media, department web pages, etc.) and not just direct links from the homepage. The study sample included Harvard University (US), University of Cambridge (UK), Yale University (US), University College London (UK), Imperial College London (UK), University of Oxford (UK), University of Chicago (US), Princeton University (US), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US), and California Institute of Technology (US). FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The findings of this research shows that world leading universities are in some way or another involved in environmental practices and committed to their environmental responsibility. Table 1 summarizes the diversity of the areas which these universities are involved in. Table 1 Environmental practices of studied universities Environmental Practice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions a a a a a a a a a a Reduction in the use of fossil fuels and increase in the use of renewable resources a a a a a a a a a a Waste recycle and management a a a a a a a a Reduction of water use a a a a a a Green buildings and environmentally responsible architecture a a a a a a a Running an specialized environmental centre/ network a a a a a a a a a a Reduction of the environmental impact due to the use of paper a a a a Increase of environmental awareness among staff students a a a a a a a a a a Minimisation of environmental impact due to materials and services used by the university a a a a a a a a Minimisation of environmental impact due to travel a a a Maintenance of university sites in an environmentally sensitive way a a a a a a Green purchasing for university procurement a a a a a 1: Harvard University (US), 2: University of Cambridge (UK), 3: Yale University (US), 4: University College London (UK), 5: Imperial College London (UK), 6: University of Oxford (UK), 7: University of Chicago (US), 8: Princeton University (US), 9: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US), 10: California Institute of Technology (US). With the growing concern on climate change around the globe, most of the universities are taking this issue into consideration. For instance, Harvard University monitors and publishes its greenhouse gas emissions statistics across its various schools in North America campus. As shown in their report (Harvard, 2008), the university managed to totally decrease its greenhouse gas emission to the amount of -2.3% in year 2008 compared to year 2006 in their North America campus. At Harvard, they also notice the issue of green buildings through defining Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) projects. As mentioned in their environmental report (ibid.), LEED is a rating system for green buildings and provides a nationally accepted third-party verification that a building project meets the highest performance standards. Similarly, in University of Cambridge, a student network named Architecture sans Frontià ©res (ASF) considers the possibilities of a new socially and environmen tally responsible architecture. Through lectures and exhibitions, this network aims to get people thinking about how buildings can respond to the needs of society and the environment (Cambridge, 2007). Yale University also has an office of sustainability where they run various projects such as LEED rating. Similarly, California Institute of Technology utilizes the LEED standard to ensure its buildings meet and maintain a high level of energy, water and resource efficiency. In another instance, Imperial College London was recognised by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) for the efforts of the Facilities Management department to reduce its carbon production. Interestingly, University of Chicago has an interesting website called green guide where they provide information related to health and environmental topics at the University of Chicago and share tips with visitors on how to live a greener life (Chicago, 2006). The university also provided eco-tip of the month in its website. Overall, all the studied universities take their environmental responsibility seriously and are involved in this regard. CONCLUSION This study showed that world leading universities are aware of their environmental impacts and have taken necessary steps toward sustainability. Many of them have defined annual plans with objectives to achieve. This can be considered as a benchmark for other universities around the globe. However, the key to success of such plans is commitment from all levels of management specially top leaders. As discussed by Wickenberg (2006) and cited by Axelsson et al. (2008), the norm support given by the leaders of the universities is necessary and crucial to success in local implementation of sustainability plans. This is supported by the research of Christensen et al. (2009) who showed that in spite of adopting an environmental policy and signing an agreement to work for sustainable universities, Aalborg University (Denmark) failed to reach its objectives due to the lack of commitment from top management, the missing acceptance from technical staff, and a narrow understanding of the univers itys environmental impacts. Other universities and their leaders can benchmark these plans and culture to organize their own sustainability and environmental plans. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The first author would like to thank Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) for supporting this research through providing Vice-Chancellor Award. REFERENCES Alshuwaikhat, HM and Abubakar, I 2008, An integrated approach to achieving campus sustainability: assessment of the current campus environmental management practices, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 16, pp. 1777-85. Aragà Ã…’n-Correa, J A 1998, Strategic proactivity and firm approach to the natural environment, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 41, No. 5, pp. 556-567. Axelsson, H, Sonesson, K, and Wickenberg, P 2008, Why and how do universities work for sustainability in higher education (HE)?, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 469-478. Cambridge, 2007, Resources: Volunteering opportunities, Retrieved on February 22, 2010 from http://webservices.admin.cam.ac.uk/outreach/pages/activities.jsp?category=50. Capriotti, P, and Morenob, A 2007, Corporate citizenship and public relations: The importance and interactivity of social responsibility issues on corporate websites, Public Relations Review, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 84-91. Cà ©spedes-Lorente, J, Burgos-Jimà ©ne, J D, and Alvarez-Gil, M J 2003, Stakeholders environmental influence. An empirical analysis in the Spanish hotel industry, Scandinavian Journal of Management, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 333-358. Chicago, 2006, Green Guide, Retrieved on February 22, 2010 from http://greenguide.uchicago.edu. Christensen, P, Thrane, M, Jà ¸rgensen, T H, and Lehmann, M 2009, Sustainable development: assessing the gap between preaching and practice at Aalborg University, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 4-20. Cramer, J 1998, Environmental management: From fit to stretch, Business Strategy and the Environment, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 162-172. Haden, SS, Oyler, PH and Humphreys, JH 2009, Historical, practical and theoretical perspectives on green management: an exploratory analysis, Management Decision, Vol. 47, No. 7, pp. 1041-55. Harvard, 2008, Summary of Environmental Performance at Harvard, Retrieved on February 22, 2010 from http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/Provost_-_09_36_39Green.pdf. Hoffman, AJ and Woody, JG 2008, Climate Change? Whats Your Business Strategy?, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. Jabbour, C J C 2010, Greening of business schools: a systemic view, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 49-60. Klassen, R D, and Angell, L C 1998, An international comparison of environmental management in operations: The impact of manufacturing flexibility in the US and Germany, Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 177-194. Klassen, R D, and Whybark, D C 1999, Environmental management in operations: The selection of environmental technologies, Decisions Sciences, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 601-630. Peattie, K, and Ringler, A 1994, Management and the environment in the United Kingdom and Germany: A comparison, European Management Journal, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 216-225. Rauch, J N and Newman, J, 2009, Institutionalizing a greenhouse gas emission reduction target at Yale, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 390-400. THE 2009, Times Higher Education, online, retrieved 09 December 2009, from http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Rankings2009-Top200.html, Accessed on: December 09, 2009. Wickenberg, P. (2006), Norm supporting actors and structures at the very local level of implementation of sustainable development, in Holmberg and Samuelsson (Eds), Higher Education, in Drivers and Barriers for Implementing Sustainable Development in Higher Education. Education for Sustainable Development in Action (Technical Paper No 3), UNESCO Education. Wright, T 2010, University presidents conceptualizations of sustainability in higher education, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 61-73. 2

Exposing Boundaries in Wilsons Fences :: Wilson Fences Essays

Exposing Boundaries in Fences Fences is a play that deals with boundaries that hold people back and the trials and tribulations of those who try or wish to cross them. The characters are African-Americans in a time before the civil rights movement, living in an industrial city. The main character, Troy Manxson, is a talented baseball player who never had the chance to let his talent shine, with restrictions on race and his time in jail as the main obstacles that held him back. He is now hard working and loves his family. However, he tends to exaggerate and has his faults, most prevalent a wandering eye when it comes to women. His wife, Rose, is younger than him and loyal, but she may not have known about all of his faults when she married him. At the beginning of the play, Troy has a son from a previous marriage, Lyons, and a son with Rose, Cory. Also appearing are Bono, Troy’s drinking buddy, and Gabriel, his brother. All of the characters are "fenced in," by various barriers. Troy is working in a job where African Americans can get the lowest and most difficult tasks. On the home front, he has responsibilities to his family. Rose has chosen life with Troy as an alternative to "a succession of abusive men and their babies, a life of partying, or the Church." Troy’s son, Lyons, is supposedly a musician but is going nowhere. Cory has potential but has his dream of playing college football extinguished by both protective and jealous Troy. The characters must deal with hardships of daily life, racial discrimination, straining relationships with each other, and the feeling that this is all their lives are: somewhat of a confined space with no escape; fenced in. Troy’s brother Gabriel, although minor, is important to the play for many reasons. The most important is that while Gabriel perhaps has highest and most impassable fence around him, he is the only one who ignores it; he is not bounded, at least not in his own mind. Gabriel is seven years younger than Troy. They were both in a large family with a frustrated and abusive father. Gabe is the only family Troy speaks with now. Injured in World War II, Gabriel had part of his head blown away. He now has a metal plate and is confused and somewhat delusional.

The Socioreligious Significance of Rice A comparison between two Southeast Asian societies :: essays papers

The Socioreligious Significance of Rice A comparison between two Southeast Asian societies ‘Without rice, there is nothing doing.’ Introduction. The fact that rice plays an important role in the lives of the peoples of Southeast Asia is undeniable. It is not just a form of sustenance that nourishes the body; it is also an aspect of everyday life that feeds not only the soul but the unbounded realms of the imaginative human mind. Such proverbs as above are an example of how rice is revered and incorporated in day-to-day living of the peoples in this region. Even outside the region, as in Mizumono Kuni – the Land of Luxurious Rice Crops that is Japan, the placement of rice is that of a very high level: †¦next to the Emperor, rice is the most sacred of all things on earth. Money can be squandered and the wastrel forgiven, but there is no forgiveness for wasting rice (Piper 1993:14). In Southeast Asia, rice is seen as the basis of almost all the cultures and civilizations ever created. It is also said to be responsible for the high populations of this region for if it wasn’t for rice that had replaced the millets and other staple food crops that preceded it, far fewer people could have been supported by agriculture (Piper 1993:1). The truth remains that the bulk of the cultures of Southeast Asia constitutes agriculturalists with rice as the main crop, with a few exceptions of course, in more industry-oriented nations for example. Two main elements can be derived: firstly, since rice has been the major crop cultivated in Southeast Asia for perhaps more than 7,000 years, surely cultures and civilization are interwoven with each other (Piper 1993:1). One can safely assume that that long a time must have been ample enough for gradual evolutions and intermixing of cultures and traditions, rituals and beliefs and so on that is closely linked to rice, so we can s ee similarities between cultures of different countries within this region that may have even perpetuated from the same roots. And the same goes to the careful selections of good varieties of rice over time. Secondly, rice is such an adaptive crop that it is not impossible to successfully grow it in different environments where crops could not have been grown successfully- from swampy valleys and deltas to hot, dry land above the floods and even in the mountain forests (Piper 1993:1).

Future Farmers of America Association Essay

Can you believe that the National FFA Organization (Future Farmers of America) has over 400,000 members and growing in the United States, Guam, Puerto Rico, and The Virgin Islands? The FFA is a National Organization devoted to teaching and introducing students to agricultural education. It has introduced a large impact on students, changed their views on agriculture, and given them the chances to carry them out. The history of FFA is quite a long one, starting back in 1925, when four agricultural education teachers organized the Future Farmers of Virginia, which would serve as a model for FFA, as well as the New Farmers of America. Then, in 1930, at the third National Convention, national competitions were restricted to only male competitors. The official creed, written by E. M. Tiffany, and official colors, national blue and corn gold, were adopted this year as well. In 1933, Ohio FFA members wore blue corduroy jackets with the FFA emblem printed on the back, and those were later immersed into the official uniform. Soon after, the NFA and the FFV merged together with the FFA. Later on, in 1988, the organizations name was changed from Future Farmers of America to FFA Organization and membership was extended to middle school students. Lastly, in 2006, the National Convention was at its maximum attendance, with a jaw-dropping amount of about fifty thousand attendants! The history if FFA will continue to become more memorable as long as new members join. The FFA training sequence consists of several areas, pertaining specifically to the SAE program, career opportunities, and chapter meetings. The Supervised Agricultural Experience, or SAE, Program is used to carry out a knowledgeable agriculture project. The project workers are often helped by their chapter advisor, depending on what area of study the project is from, choosing from ag production, food science, forestry, ag sales/ service, and horticulture. In some chapters, members are permitted to visit the chapter’s greenhouses/farms to expand and further pursue Ag education. They can choose to extend their knowledge in fields like farm economics, marketing, computer science, and biotechnology. Through chapter meetings, members will learn and develop public speaking skills and working for others. There are several activities to compete in and degrees to earn and receive in FFA. Members compete at local, state, and national levels in the fields of public speaking, Ag mechanics, dairy-cattle, livestock, poultry, dairy food, meat, and rabbit evaluations, floriculture, ornamental horticulture, parliamentary procedures, and nursery/ landscaping skills. The FFA also gives out four degrees to its members. The Discovery Degree is given to seventh and eight grade students. The Greenhand Degree is given to high school freshmen with knowledge, goals, and skills of FFA. After completing two semesters of Ag course work, you receive the Chapter Degree, with which you are entitled to wear a silver pin. The last degree, the State Degree, is obtained for outstanding achievements and for development of leadership skills. The receiver, however, must have also worked at least a minimum of 300 unpaid hours, and they receive with this honor a golden emblem pin. The FFA is definetly one of the younger organizations in the U. S. But, throughout the last ten years, it has delivered a tremendous impact to students, teachers, and the nation along with it’s future.