Reflection Paper Essay

Ever since I can remember people have been asking me this question. A question that is so simple to ask, yet so hard to answer. A question that you may have an answer to at one point, but lose it the next. A question that when really thought about, can spell your future. That question is â€Å"what do you want to be? † This question has always given me a hard time, because honestly I never really wanted to give an answer to it. Maybe it’s because I never wanted to limit myself to an answer or maybe I was just never sure of anything and I’m afraid to give a straightforward answer. This is my attempt on trying to word out my â€Å"vision† of who and what I want to be. Owning a very profitable and stable business has been a dream of mine for a very long time. I had always envisioned myself as someone who owns a business, yet I don’t know what business I want to venture in as of the moment. I want my own business because I want to leave something for my family and leave a legacy behind before I pass away. I also want to own a business because I’m not the type to be a slave to another business owner my whole life. I want to experience leading the way and making a business that will be of great success. A family is also very important in my future. I cannot see myself grow old without a family, especially since I come from a big family. I guess I want to have at least 3 children because what good is it to have money when you don’t even have anyone to share it with or enjoy it with. I’ve been taught my whole life to put my family first above anything else. I of course do not intend to have a family that I cannot provide for financially. I also want a family because I want to be surrounded with people I love especially when I grow old and I have no one else but my children to take care of me. Another thing that I see in my future is that I see myself travelling the world. I don’t want to limit myself to my home country because I see other places as an opportunity to create great memories that I will forever cherish. I envision myself travelling because up to now I haven’t been out of the country, so it has always been in my bucket list to leave the country and explore other countries, try their food, and experience another culture apart from mine. I see myself going to the States, Europe, and other Asian countries. I believe that a life in a world so big when not explored is a life not spent well. I see myself in the future as someone who stays healthy. One of my greatest wants in life is to stay healthy. I’ve always pushed myself to go to the gym and stay fit as much as possible. In the future I see myself continuing this habit of staying in shape and not gaining too much weight, because it is one of my greatest fear is to have a beer belly. I see myself as a man who keeps his priorities in tact while still maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Wherein I stay fit and have a balanced diet. Love is another issue that is always so hard to predict. Whenever I think of who will my future wife be. I always see a girl who is loyal, a girl that will accept my mistakes, a girl that no matter how hard times get will always be there by my side. I see my future wife as someone that can be there for the good times and even at the worse times of my life. I will get married once I reach 30, and once I become financially secure. Lastly my most important yet the most simple vision that I have for myself is that I’m going to be happy. I’ll be happy even if none of my visions come true. I’ll be happy even if I experience many problems. I’ll be happy even when people around me are not. It is not the fact that I am optimistic, yet it is only because I can only imagine a future for myself that I am happy. I simply cannot concoct a vision of myself being miserable. If there is one vision that I have it is sure that I know I’ll be happy in the future, cause whatever I get, I will accept, and whatever life throws my way, I’ll take it, and whatever problems I may have, I will smile while I’m fixing it.

The Impact of Stress and Its Effect on Society

Introduction Stress is like a fever boiling in the human system, as it rises, the body weakens. What exactly is the meaning of stress, and how does it affect the daily lives of people? Stress can be defined as an unpleasant state of emotional and physiological arousal that people experience in situations that they either perceive as dangerous or threatening to their well being(Morrow 2011). A person can under go stress through out their daily lives, and for many, stress is so common place that is has become a way of life.The correlation between stress and age has been studied continuously through out recent years(Morrow 2011) Some people define stress as events or situations that cause them to feel tension, pressure, or negative emotions such as anxiety and anger. The amount of stress can affect different age ranges of people around the world. What exactly are the causes of stress? How does stress correlate to men and women of different ages? Does stress play a larger role in youth a nd adolescence, middle aged adults, or the senior citizens of the society?I collected studies to help answer these questions on how stress impacts its effect on age and society. Causes of Stress There are many causes that affect stress. Stress is the emotional and physical way in which people respond to pressure (Seaward 2012). Physiological changes-such as increased heart rate and muscle tension-as well as emotional and behavioral changes are ways people respond to stress (Seaward 2012). Most psychologists regard stress as a process involving a person's interpretation and response to a threatening event.In order to manage stressful situations people must first observe the general causes that can lead to stress. The UK’s health and safety executive lists keys stress factors that could be the causes of stress at work, some of which include the demand of a job, the control staff and how they do their job, and the relationship with their colleagues. ( Seaward 2012). Perceived th reats, social, and financial threats also lead a person to feel very stress. In particular, it will be worse when the person feels they have no response that can resolve the threat and it can affect the need for a sense f control( Seaward 2012). Fear or uncertainties are other causes of stress, as fear can lead to imagined outcomes, which are the real source of stress. Stressors could also include: death of a spouse or family member, a friend, a person’s well being, injury, or a pregnancy. The Negative vs. The Positive First of all it is good to know that stress is not only negative but it can also be positive and positively affect an individual. This positive stress aids an individual in motivation and inspiration to finish certain projects or creative thinking when completing a task.For athletes this stress arises before the competition, for some it may arise during a joy ride on a rollercoaster, and for others it may arise when watching an exciting movie(Mills, Reiss, & Do mbeck, 2012). The lives of people are almost daily affected by both types positive and negative stress. A type of short-term stress that increases a person’s immediate strength is know as eustress, it comes in effect at times of creativity, physical activity, enthusiasm or excitement(Mills, Reiss, & Dombeck, 2012).Negative stress, however, can arise when a normal routine is constantly altered and adjusted, Humans who try to adapt to new situations are faced with distress that causes feelings of discomfort, anxiety and unfamiliarity (Mills, Reiss, & Dombeck, 2012). Distress is often divided into two types of stress, acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress is a short-term stress that intensifies and disappears quickly. A more severe type of distress is chronic stress, it is long-term stress that can exist for weeks, months or in worst case even years(Mills, Reiss, & Dombeck, 2012).Constant change in routine demands on someone or forces them to adjust can be stressful. . I n small doses, stress can motivate and help perform someone under pressure, but it could also have a negative impact on the mind and body of a human. Stress and Gender The physiology of the stress response is similar for everyone. Researchers believe that there are distinct differences in the way women and men experience and respond to stress(e. g. , Bekker, &. Boselie, K, 2002).Community surveys taken in many countries find women consistently report greater distress than men do in study of roughly 1,100 American adults that appeared in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that women were more likely than men to experience ongoing stress and feel that their lives were out of their control (e. g. , Bekker, &. Boselie, K, 2002). Social responsibilities typically handled by women some of which including child care, care of older relatives, and housework are exposes of more abundant opportunities for distress(e. g. , Bekker, &.Boselie, K, 2002). Men more often report financial stress than women do, which makes sense since men are traditionally expected to be breadwinners. In a UCLA study analyzed data from hundreds of biological and behavioral studies concluded that females were more likely to deal with stress by nurturing those around them and reaching out to others(e. g. , Bekker, &. Boselie, K, 2002). Men, on the other hand, were more likely to sequester themselves or initiate a confrontation, behavior in line with the â€Å"fight or flight†response that's long been associated with stress(e. g. Bekker, &. Boselie, K, 2002). Men and women's different reactions to stress might be more than just an interesting observation, it could account for differences in their longevity and health (Millius 2011). Stress in Youth and Adolescence Stress in early childhood is experienced in many forms, and it varies by the each individual with the child’s developmental level, and their previous life experiences(Jewett & Peterson 2002). Adapting or managing stress appears to be highly dependent on a child’s developmental capabilities and coping-skill inventory(Jewett & Peterson 2002).Children under the age of 6 are developmentally less capable of thinking about an event in its entirety; such as, comprehending an event separate from their own feelings; and modifying their physical reactions in response to change in stimuli (Jewett & Peterson 2002). The increasing knowledge about the importance and impact of stress on young children should be put to good use in reducing stress factors for young children and in assisting children to increase coping strategies and healthy responses to the unavoidable stresses in their lives(Jewett and Peterson 2002).The adolescent years are among the most stressful times in a person's life. Adolescence is the time of life when children change into adults. They are going through puberty, meeting the changing expectations of others, and coping with feelings that may be new to them. Adolescen ts are between stages their thoughts, behavior, and social relations are all changing radically and this is when stress is most likely to occur. Stress in Adulthood and Old Age An adult has so many responsibilities that have to do with work, family and even friends. Today, more and more adult continue with bad habits that might have come as a result of stress.These habits include abuse of substances like drugs and alcohol (Millius 2011). This is because many are not able to deal fully with their issues and they feel like nobody can help them. Stress at adulthood is caused by very many factors and the first one is financial obligations (Millius 2011). Men and women are constantly working hard to provide for their families but, the money seems to be never enough and this leads to a lot of frustration. Many adults continue to be stressed and this has resulted to other effects like poor health (Millius 2011).Older adults prolonged stress that can come from chronic illness, disability or the loss of a spouse. These types of stressors are long term and could be more difficult to deal with. The stress hormones that stimulate the brain and body can take a toll on an older person that can damage brain cells which could lead to depression(e. g, Smith, Smith & Segal 2012). Often adults experience fatigue, loss of memory and concentration, and an increased risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Body and Prevention A person must first recognize the signs and symptoms of stress and taking steps to reduce its harmful effects.Stress symptoms can affect the human body, thoughts, feelings, and a person’s behavior. Stress that's left unchecked can contribute to health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes (Marrow 2011). With widespread damage that stress can cause, it is important to know one’s own limit. How much stress is â€Å"too much† differs from person to person. Some people roll with the punches , while others crumble at the slightest obstacle or frustration, while others seem to thrive on the excitement and challenge of a high-stress lifestyle.The ability to tolerate stress depends on many factors including the general quality of relationships, their outlook on life, emotional intelligence, and genetics(Marrow 2011). Exercising regularly and learning relaxation techniques such as, deep breathing, meditation and yoga can be helpful. Accept that there are situation that can not be controlled and seeing the positive aspects of change and solve whatever problems you can and let go of the rest. Conclusion Stress challenges can help people to grow. We have seen how stress correlates to age and gender and what the major causes of stress are.Examining and taking action on the negative and positive aspects of stressful situations we are equipping ourselves to tackle more challenging tasks in our working life. Stress References: Bekker, M. H. J. and Boselie, K. A. H. M. (2002), Gend er and stress: is gender role stress? A re- examination of the relationship between feminine gender role stress and eating disorders. Stress and Health, 18: 141–149. Jewett, J & Peterson, K (2002). Stress and Young Children. Eric Digest. Champaign, IL Retrieved from http://ceep. crc. uiuc. edu/eecearchive/digests/2002/jewett02. df Harry Mills, Ph. D. , Natalie Reiss, Ph. D. and Mark Dombeck,(2012) Positive and negative stress. Retrieved from http://info. emergencehealthnetwork. org/poc/view_doc. php? type=doc=16151=474 Millius, S (2011, September 24). Early stress is contagious in adulthood. Volume 180 #7 (p. 14) Retrieved from http://www. sciencenews. org/view/generic/id/333416/title/Early_stress_is_contagious_in_adulthood Morrow, A ( 2011, January 19) Stress Definition. The New York Times Company. Retrieved from http://dying. about. com/od/glossary/g/stress. htm

Global Elite Notes

SOC 189 – #1 Exam 1. Is meritocracy fair? Discuss the pros and cons of our achievement-oriented society. Does it give rise to a meritorious elite? Why or why not? This country was founded on the principle that one’s status in society should be determined by your individual achievements, not by your conditions at birth. The idea is that we are all created equal, with equal opportunities, not results. The concept of meritocracy is essential to our ideas about American exceptionalism.A benefit of using meritocracy is that people are getting credit and success for their achievements – which is something everyone have control over and can do something about. This also creates motivation to work hard among the people. When the people are eager to improve them selves, it increases the level of intelligence in the society. This will result in good leaders, which will hopefully lead the society to success. According to this, meritocracy sounds like a good idea, but it doe s not always have a happy ending.Not everyone is up for hard work and competition, and the competition can easily depress some of us and make them give up in the society. The class stratification can get bigger with this kind of society, with the poor people at the bottom. It will create a winner – looser relationship between people, and many will not be happy. Many may say that it is fair because you get what you deserve, and what you have worked so hard for. But there are also many â€Å"corrupt deals† going on here. School test are supposed to be totally fair, when the smartest and those who score highest is getting in to the best schools.The problem is that the kids with richer families are being prepared for the test by expensive tutors, when kids with less money cannot afford it. Some tests even cost money, so not everyone is getting the chance. The people at the top have found ways to â€Å"cheat† their way up in the meritocracy society, where it is suppo sed to be the ones who deserves it, the best of us who gets the opportunities. Now there is fewer and fewer skillsets that is seen as useful to the society, so fewer and fewer people gets credit and reward for your achievementsIf you work hard, you achieve big. The concept is good, because it gives people a chance to make it in the world by your skills and achievement – things you have control over, instead of your ascribed factors that you were born into like race, gender, culture and family-class. Meritocracy was coined by Michael Young, a british sociologist, political activist and social critic. He introduced the concept in 1958 in his book The rise of the Meritocracy. The winners of this system believes it is fair! Cons: Ability is highly concentrated by the engine of education * Over time, schools have put their seal of approval on a narrower and narrower range of people – and in an earlier and earlier stage * The top people of the hierarchy believe that their ad vancement comes from their own merit, and that they deserve whatever they can get. * And those who fail, are relegated to the bottom of the social hierarchy in addition to being less advantaged, the poor now have to deal with the shame of lacking in merit. People at the economic elite have found ways to cheat their way to the top, using their money to buy their children private tutors to success in schools approval-tests – still fair? Pros: * Gives everyone essentially a fair chance * Gives you credit for your skills and achievement, not by your ascribed factors. * Don’t judge your background * It reward/punish you by something you can control 2. For each of the following five scholars, please describe their contribution to the study of elites: * Laura NaderThere is now a lot of literature on the poor, the disadvantages, women, blacks and various racial/ethnic groups. There is very little literature of the top of the class people. Laura Nadel encouraged anthropologists to †study up† in the early 1970s by writing the book â€Å"Up the Anthropologist – Perspectives Gained From Studying Up† in 1969. This was a try to get anthropologists to think more about the study of the colonizes rather than the colonized, the culture of power rather than the culture of powerless. But not many followed her advice, sociologists who do research on elites can be counted on two hands.Nader thinks it’s important to study elites because it is an important contribution to any study of inequality – whether down, sideways, or through (1972). * Gaetano Mosca Elite rule is not a moral question, but a social fact. Most societies are ruled by a small number of individuals – and Mosca called this minority the â€Å"ruling class†. Mosca was the first to make a systematic distinction between elite and masses. He says that in every society, it appears two classes of people: A class that rules and a class that is ruled.The rule rs class is small in number, performs all political functions, monopolizes power and enjoys the advantages that power brings. The ruled class, the masses, is directed and controlled by the rulers – in a manner that now is more or less legal, arbitrary and violent. He believes that this class was made distinctive by their superior organizational skills – they were organized. Elites superiority was learned, not inherited. And therefor he suspected it to be more circulation of elites, than reproduction * E. Digby Baltzell Baltzell studied American businessmen of colonial stock.Baltzell believed that the elites ancestors had come to America as poor immigrants and they seized whatever economic opportunities they could. They were the Robber Barons – rising above the rest of the society, living in big mansions, employed servants and socialized in exclusive clubs. They educated their children in private schools, entered the professions and travelled to Europe while stea dily setting themselves apart from ordinary Americans. Snobbete mann, men pa rtoss av det kom han med en god kritisk evaluering av eliten – grunnen til at de har holdt seg sa sterke er fordi de incorporate new immigrants into it ranksBaltzell provided a powerfully critical assessment of American society and the elites that ruled it. He believed that the Protestant Establishment was especially powerful, because it incorporated new immigrants and less wealthy people into its ranks: the more a ruling class is able to assimilate the most prominent men of the dominant classes, the more stable and dangerous it becomes(Karl Marx). * Niccolo Machiavelli Was an Italian historian, politician, diplomat, writer and philosopher. He wrote The Prince in 1532, where he is positive to political elite theory.He means that masterful leaders can be enormously cunning, resourceful and influential. Political parties, masses and interest groups are all controllable: a leader who knows how to use hi s resources wisely can be powerfully independent. In The Prince, he writes that the prince (a leader) should be a strategic man, willing to be ruthless, be powerful – an independent leader. * Pierre Bourdieu Bourdieu examined the way culture, cultural consumption and lifestyles reproduce the privileged positions of the upper class in France, and not only reflect them.He wondered how class structure could be reproduced across generations, when school systems use meritocracy principles to reward people. He found that different classes have different ways of being in the world – he called it Habitus (ways of being). Bourdieu sees Cultural Capital as class-specific cultural codes and practices. The Habitus of the family is passed onto children in the social environment of the home. Children who gets exposed to elite culture at home are advantaged in the school system as teachers reward being conversant in the dominant culture – and that’s how the elite classe s gets reproduced.Culture reproduces class positions. People are looking for â€Å"the right culture background† in others, and reward people for this. 3. Some argue that an economic oligarchy is on the rise in America today. What do you think? Use empirical evidence to substantiate your claims. The economic elite are the 0. 1% – 1% of the elites, and today economic elite power is on the rise. The divide between the very wealthy and everyone else is increasing on a worldwide scale, and it has done this since the 1980s. Elites are the engines of inequality, and the balance of power is skewed heavily and increasingly in their favor.This is not the first time in US history that we have worried about a rise of an oligarchy; The Gilded Age (1870s-1890s) marked the speedy rise of a very wealthy and increasingly exclusive economic elite in the US. They were driven by a lust for money, and had wealth in railroads, manufacturing, mining, oil and land. The elites were ruthless, egoistic and cruel. Many scholars now speak of a new gilded age in America. We have again a big lust for wealth, speculation and unethical business behaviors. But there is also some differences; 1. Todays elites are wealthier 2. They are increasingly concentrated in the financial sector 3.They are more diverse and international 4. They are more likely to be self made, not made from inherited fortune Over time, much greater income and wealth went to the top percent of the people. The top get paid better, get a bigger piece of the income-cake. They are also doing better than the rest of us other vice; better health, more optimistic, better chances of sending children to college, better life quality in general. They are opportunity hoarders, of opportunities that gives better life chances. This is also passed on in the family – if father is rich, it is a big chance that the son as well will become rich.The economic elite dominates the government in many ways, to keep the rise of the oligarchy steady: * The special interest process: through financial support and extensive lobbying, they are able to gain government favors, tax breaks and regulatory ruling what protects their interests. * Policy making process: influence public policy makers through media connections etc. Business experts and advisors are appointed to government committees. * Appointments to government: The high-level government appointees are often chosen from the ranks of the business elite.They fund and influence members of the Congress. The economic elites also maintains by reproducing and circulating themselves. They reproduce by having the same cultural background (same elite schools, same world beliefs, hanging out at the same places, listen to the same music etc – and this is learned into the child from the family). They circulate between positions by sitting on the boards of many organizations at the same time (we often se the same person being in top at both an political and economic leadership organization. They circulate horizontally).Robert Michels is positive to elite leadership: Elite rule is inevitable in modern, bureaucratic organizations. Direct democracy is an impossibility, and organizational imperatives makes elite rule inevitable regardless of the ideological orientation of leaders. The masses are necessarily incompetent, and their large size makes organization impossible There need to be leaders. This is the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Elite leadership is a technical requisite of all modern bureaucracies. It would be chaos with only masses and democracy, and no leaders. Veblen argues against elite leadership.He means that all the winners in societies have forced the losers to perform degrading and difficult tasks – that again have been the functionally and more important tasks in society. By contrast, elites seem to define themselves by their leisure and consumption(fritid og forbruk). Mosca: The power elite is a social fact, but also a s ocial problem. It’s a social problem because of it’s circulating and reproducing factors and their similar characters – they think alike, have similar social and cultural backgrounds, similar opinions and points of view.They have made a winner-takes-it-all society that they all benefit from, so they work hard together to make it stay that way. The top elite makes the American Dream fade for the rest 99% of society. The American upper class is different from the European upper class; it is made up from successful businessmen and lawyers. They are also closely connected to each other, by a shared education, common patterns of socialization, social networks and therefor have similar mindsets. Economic Oligarchy on the rise in America today Empirical evidence: the top 1% of the population gets 17% of all the wealth * top athletes win dozens of sponsorship deals, while competitors that finish seconds behind struggle to attract a single deal. * America has become a wi nner-take-all society; very few winners take a large chunk of the economic pie, leaving the rest with much less to share. * The oligarchy is rising worldwide * Massive expansion of income concentration beginning in the 1980s * Thousands have become unemployed since 2008, while CEOs have continued to receive bonuses and wage increases. Many have lost their retirement savings when the market crashed, while the economic elite continued to enjoy the Bush tax cuts and boosted their life savings. Two arguments for Elite rule: 1. Human nature: * Human beings are inherently different in talents and abilities * Those who have the most of a certain kind of ability constitute some kind of an elite 2. Social organization: * Elites are necessary for a large social organization to function * Elitist tendencies are found in political organizations, trade unions and bureaucratic firms * Complex organizations need trained and experienced leaders.Tell my opinion and experiences! 4. For each of the fo ur concepts below, please describe the concept, identify an author that is associated with it, and describe its significance for the study of elites: * Iron law of oligarchy With Michels in the front this represents the conflict between democracy and oligarchy. He meant that the masses are incompetent and democracy will only lead to chaos in organizations. In that way the oligarchy is inevitable and elites are necessary for an organization to work. Mosca? s opinion is that ruling elites are a social fact, which means that there will always be a ruling class in a society.He characterized them as superior and distinctive. He meant that the ruling elite behavior was learned and not inherited. Therefor it is more circulation than reproduction in the elite class. The ruling class is good to organize comparing to the masses and therefore it will always exist. * Culture of critical discourse Gouldner. The culture of critical discourse (CDD) is characterized by speech that is relatively mor e situation-free, more context of field â€Å"independent†. is an historically evolved set of rules, a grammar of discourse.The culture of critical speech requires that the validity of claims be justified without reference to the speakers societal position or authority. The new class is the intellectual elite Maten a snakke pa, v? re pa uten a nevne deg selv (v? re objektiv) – den nye eliten er intellektuell elite. 2 nye eliter I dag, intellektuell og teknologisk(beste I sitt felt). Nar man argumenterer for sine mater a se verden pa, gjor man det uten a snakke om sin egen mate a se verden pa – det skulle v? re riktig, faktum, ikke ha noe om hvor man kom fra. Det er det man sier som betyr noe, ikke bakgrunn.Ny mate a se pa verden pa, ikke ekskluderende men vil mingle med resten. Vil holde seg over andre ved eget sprak, men slipper andre inn hvis de jobber hardt nok. * Allegory of the cave Plato. Who could be the just ruler of society? The just ruler has to know t he truth, be responsible and willing to make sacrifices that need to be made to be the leader. The story: people in a cave looking at shadows – believing this is the truth and the real world, one is released and get to get out to see the truth. You need to be released from the dominant chain of looking at the world – the masses, and when you are released THEN you can se the truth.True leaders needs to go back and lead the people into the truth. May face death and humiliation. Who are the just leaders? * Graveyard of aristocracies Pareto argues that people are unequal physically, as well as intellectually and morally. In society as a whole, and in any of its particular strata and groupings, some people are more gifted than others. Those who are most capable in any particular grouping are the elite. Meritocracy. Circulation of elites, skills going lost because society and it needs changes. 5. Who governs America? Describe three contrasting positions that we talked about in class.Which of these three do you find most compelling in characterizing the American political elite? Why? Given the existence of economic inequalities, who actually governs in democratic societies? We find three conflicting answers in literature: Pluralist view: Political parties organize the unorganized; they give power to the powerless – elites represent majority will Interest group view: Political parties are nothing more than a collection of interest groups – elites represent group interests Oligarchy argument: Democracy is a mere facade, political elites represent the interests of social and/or economic elitesC. Wright Mills believes that it is the Power Elite who rules America. The Power Elite is composed of a big business, leading military officials, and members of the executive branch of government. They make key decisions them between, circulate between positions and share similar cultural/political views. They are interconnected by similar social backgro unds, shared education and their positional interests. By these factors, they manage to rule America by sharing the same opinions in decision-making. Obama – charismatic

The Crimean War was a travesty of blunders. How did the war begin and Essay

The Crimean War was a travesty of blunders. How did the war begin and progress How did it end What went wrong Why - Essay Example The Crimean War is primarily remembered for the maladministration of the British army. A number of factors led to the Crimean War. The most important or influential factor was the misunderstanding between the powers. This led to a situation of failed co-operation and diplomacy. Britain and France grew suspicious of the activities of Russia. Before the outbreak of the war, Russia, Britain and France were competing for political influence in the Middle East. These countries were mainly focused on Turkey. Religious differences between these countries led to conflicts over the control and access to religious sites. The French Emperor Napoleon III had the ambition of restoring France as the head of the Christian population. The emperor wanted the support of the Catholic Church in case he decided to attack the Orthodox Church, which was supported by Russia. Russia disputed the advances of the French leader. Russia countered the advances of the French by renouncing the French treaty. They also insisted that Russia was the sole protector of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey and th e Orthodox Christians. In response, France responded by sending its naval forces to the Black Sea, which violated the London Straits Convention (Lambert 98). This led to tensions between the Orthodox Russia and Catholic France. The tensions led to conflicts in 1853 in Bethlehem, which as controlled by the Ottoman Empire. During the conflicts, Orthodox monks were killed by French monks. Tsar Nicholas I demanded a resolution of the disputes between the Catholics and Orthodox. The demand for an end of the conflict was not met by the Turkish court. This motivated Nicholas I to mobilize military resources from Russia against Turkey. As conflicts emerged over the Holy Places, Nesselrode and Nicholas I began diplomatic offences with the hope that they would prevent France or Britain from interfering in the conflicts between the Ottoman and Russia. They also

Structural Assimilation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Structural Assimilation - Essay Example Majority of them were former industrialists, white collar employees, land owners, managers and bankers. They went ahead and laid the economic foundation to absorb waves of Cuban immigration. The Cubans created an economic enclave in South Florida where solidarity in view of ethnicity was translating business ties. This is what created a mechanism which enabled Cubans to access cultural and physical capital needed for prosperity. One of the key mechanisms was the rotating credit associations. These were informal associations which provided loans to Cuban society based on their reputation .They did not need to have any collateral to qualify for the loans.Also, Cuban employees were paid less; thus making Cuban businesses more competitive. Despite the fact that employees were paid less they were given promotions, onjob training, and were also helped by their employers to start their own business. The geographical concerdration of businesses played a central role and was an important element that led to success of South Florida enclaves. This was because of the proximity of Cuban customers and clients. Cubans could afford to run a business without any knowledge on English. On the other standpoint, through direct conquest of their homelands, Mexican entered the American society. The news from the American media that Mexicans living in America were guaranteed security of their properties and Spanish will be respected turned out to be a false promise from Americans. Hence, through manipulations, Americans seized vast tracks of land from Mexican. This deprived Mexicans their physical capital thus diminishing their ability and capacity to prosper. Though Mexicans initially entered American society through conquest, the immigrants suffered racial discrimination and discrimination to speak Spanish as well as being confined to poor neighbourhoods.All those factors led to the greater success of Cuban with respect to Mexican immigrants regarding

Discuss the skills needed to develop into a successful university Essay

Discuss the skills needed to develop into a successful university student - Essay Example In the age of information technology a student should develop skills in web based learning for better academic performances. Academic skills like effective communication, effective perception, effective presentation and desirable writing and problem solving are essential factors in university level. Unlike school education, university education provides new instructional strategies and learning environment for students. Therefore, effective communication and perception contribute better academic results and professional success. Tom burns and Sandra Sinfields made some relevant studies in the field of skills needed for a university student. They remark; â€Å"In order to help you develop successful assessment techniques, we devote a whole long section to effective communication where we look at essays, reports, presentations and seminars and other assessment engines† (Burns, Sinfield, 2008, p.18). It is significant to mention that leadership quality and problem solving ability have close association with effective communication skills. Generally, academic skills offered a new insight and energy for a student’s academic qualities for managing new atmosphere. Self- discipline is an essential skill for a successful university student and it helps the students to manage time. Ability in critical thinking is another significant skill that needed to develop in to a successful university student. Sophia Scott and Doug Koch argue that â€Å"Government, business, vocational, and technology education leaders have increasingly called for more emphasis in the classroom on higher order thinking† (Scott, Koch, 2010). In addition, one can see that critical thinking is essential for a university student in forming a socially acceptable behaviour. One has the responsibility to act as a good citizen for that nation. So skills of critical thinking and analysis prevent one in all kinds of illegal activities. Self-discipline and

Federal Program Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Federal Program - Essay Example In the later years it was additionally expanded with other considerations. For instance, in 1972, it was expanded with the Clean Water act, the safe Drinking water Act in 1974, the Toxic substances control Act in 1976, and the Resource conservation and recovery act in 1976. The main effort was to make an improvement on the environmental protection. However, it also led to the creation of a number of materials. These included the Materials transportation board in 1975. This board currently forms a major part of the research and special programs administration in the DOT. The other creation was the Office of surface mining Reclamation and enforcement that was established in 1977 within the department of the interior. Since the inception of the Environmental protection agency, a particular meaning has been attached to the influence of nature. This means that the nation has been able to celebrate clean air, land, and water (OIRAOMB, 2015). The House of Representatives Subcommittee that is responsible for the oversight of the Environmental Protection agency is the subcommittee on the water resources and the environment. This has been based on the need to oversee the general matters of the issues that are related to the development of water resources, conservation and management, the control of water pollution and water related infrastructure, as well as the cleanup of any hazardous wastes. There are other subcommittees in the senate that have the oversight responsibility of environmental protection. They include the Agriculture, nutrition and forestry that are charged with the mandate to conserve forestry and natural resources. The commerce science and transportation subcommittee is charged with overseeing the ocean atmosphere, fisheries and forest guard. In addition, the energy and natural resources subcommittee deals with the regulation of energy, public lands, forests, water and power (Gibbs, 2015). Since the inception of the environmental protection agency or

Project Manager to develop a project plan for 2. ASEAN Ministerial Assignment

Project Manager to develop a project plan for 2. ASEAN Ministerial Conference in Singapore for ASEAN leaders - Assignment Example On 9th January 2013, H.E. Le Luong Minh has been appointed as a secretary general of the ASEAN ministerial conference (2ASEAN Secretariat, 2014). In order to highlight the structure of the ASEAN leaders it can be asserted that the Chairperson is selected among the ASEAN countries in every year. Recently, during 2014 the 24th ASEAN ministerial conference has held in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar. ASEAN ministerial conference is planned to be held in Singapore. In this regard, as project manager, the responsibility of seeking that plan of conducting the conference in Singapore is done in an effective manner (Council of the European Union, 2010; Economist Intelligence Unit, 2002). In this assignment, an analysis of the internal and external environment of Singapore is conducted. Apart from this, the assignment will also highlight the strength and weaknesses of the ASEAN ministerial conference in Singapore along with its opportunity and threats. Accordingly, appropriate strategic options are formulated with the aim of accomplishing the objective of conducting the conference successfully. Economic activity is performed on diverse geographical regions within the globe. Owing to its widespread operations, Singapore faces several threats from the political ground, particularly in terms of instability associated with the political condition of the nation. Thus, in order to conduct an ASEAN ministerial conference, a close monitor should be made for determining political threats, which can adversely affect the conferences and the ASEAN leaders conducting the meeting (Lucintel, 2014; Ha & Coghill, 2006; Government of Singapore, 2005). The economic condition of Singapore is bright, as major industries have contributed towards the ’Gross Domestic Product’ (GDP) of Singapore. Apart from this, most of the organizations have emphasized business expansion, which has assisted in maintaining the growth of its

Augustine's View on the Death Penalty Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Augustine's View on the Death Penalty - Essay Example "He needed and wanted God, convinced that he could never achieve happiness in God-fewer worlds. But at the same time, he could not deny the sometimes overpowering presence of evil in himself and the world," Burt (1996, p.13). Augustine argued that all beings came from one God and such a God cannot be the cause of evil. But he acknowledges that there is Evil in the world and law can only control it, but cannot completely eliminate it. It is not easy to point out at a single cause of evil and the person who creates evil is responsible for that part of evil that is his creation. The Justice of God will punish the evil-doer. Asked closely by Evodius, Augustine says that if we believe in the laws, we should try to understand whether the laws punish a murderer justly or unjustly. When it comes to killing, Augustine favours the killing in self-defence and feels that it is not exactly a murder. Also he says that some murders like a soldier killing an enemy cannot be classified as murders, because the soldier here is merely an agent of the law, because he did not kill to satisfy his own desires. At the same time, law, which orders him to kill, does not have any desires of its own. He did not stand by a strict understanding of moral autonomy which, he thought could be an error consisting of impossibility. "Where human beings are concerned, there is no such thing as being free from a law that is imposed from without; to deny the authority of the eternal law is not moral adulthood but moral perversity. Moral uprightness therefore consists in submission to this eternal and immutable truth, which is not of our own making," says Williams in Introduction (xvii) of On Free Choice of the Will. Augustine had firm opinion about law and justice and thought that in a civilised society, it is important to have proper legal machinery to guide the citizens, and without that guidance, citizens might become too free and encroach another person's rights which could be the root cause of evils and evils do not occur without a human cause. "Such evil could not occur unless someone caused it" (p. 1). Despite legal compulsions, people tend to commit grave crimes, in the hope that they would be able to hoodwink the law. Augustine lays great stress on 'learning', so that the citizens could stay away from crime with knowledge that came from the learning. Still he agrees that they can turn away from the knowledge and commit the crimes. "Perhaps because they turn away from learning and become strangers to it.it follows that doing evil is nothing but turning away from learning' (p.2). Augustine is of the opinion that despite learning and the law regulation, people can still commit grievous crimes to others and such people should be punished by the law. He also agrees that there is another kind of murder which is not sinful. When Evodius asks him about the murder that is not sinful, ".when a judge or his representative puts a criminal to death.these people do not seem to me to be sinning when they kill someone" (pp. 6-7), Augustine agrees that such people are not called murderers. It is a just killing. He states that a real, intended crime should never go

Introductions to fiction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Introductions to fiction - Essay Example None of the young men were quite good for Miss Emily and such.† Being so, Miss Emily has grown to believe that she occupies a special position in society, even to her old age when she refused to pay her taxes, having been privileged by a former Mayor who owed the Griersons favors. The narrator depicted a small town where the ladies had nothing better to do than gossip about the high and mighty Grierson family. They were like vultures, who, in their minds, keenly follow the drama that happens behind doors. Miss Emily has always been an enigma they desperately want to demystify one of these days. Miss Emily’s tragic fate and deep sorrow is felt throughout the story that the readers get to sympathize with her character†¦.only to be shocked at the end. Her assumed insanity was to be expected after all the things she has endured – the loss of a mother while growing up, the death of a father, the sudden loss of a charmed way of living†¦.but not to the extent of murdering her lover and sleeping with his corpse until the day of her death. In â€Å" A Rose for Emily†, the protagonist is born to wealth, yet had no mother to guide her in her growth. She was reared to think she was better than others, being a Grierson – â€Å"She carried her head high enough---even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson, as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness.† Miss Emily lived a pathetic, lonely and empty life. To the end, she clutched to her last hope of feeling real love. When Homer Barron was assumed to reject her in marriage, it was suggested that Miss Emily poisoned him with arsenic so he would not have a choice in the matter- â€Å"The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had

Approaches to Standard Setting in Accounting Essay - 1

Approaches to Standard Setting in Accounting - Essay Example Financial statements are prepared and presented through observation of relevant accounting standards and procedures. Users of these statements, therefore, need to derive assessments that are realistic in regard to any given entity’s financial status. These users are spread across the economic context, based on the interest of each of them in the financial positions of different entities. To act in the satisfaction of these stakeholders, accounting standards are crucial in ensuring that financial reporting is effective enough. In this regard, capital markets operations are assessed for their efficacy in the context of accounting standards integration. The impacts of accounting standards on different entities can take more than one way. The impacts can be individual-entity-based or even broader to encompass several sectors of the economy or the entire economy at large, including capital and other markets. On a smaller scale, accounting standards enhance individual entity account ability and further provide strong basis upon which investors, creditors and other stakeholders are managed. In general, corporate governance is improved prior to business arrangements of different entities. ... Literature Review McLeay and Merkl (2004, p.341) notes that accounting standards operate by setting out general rules to be followed in financial statements’ preparation and financial reporting. These rules are practical prior to the accounting work in question. Entities differ in financial reporting methods through similar or close accounting standards are observed. This is due to the fact that there are a number of setters of accounting standards around the world. According to Bennett & Loucks (2008, p.407-419), major accounting standard setting bodies around the world include: Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), Committee on the Global Financial Systems (CGFS), Committee on Payment and Settlement System (CPSS), Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), Financial Stability Board (FSB), International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI), International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), Internati onal Accounting Standards Board (IASB), International Monetary Board (IMF), World Bank (WB), among others. In the UK, GAAP is responsible for setting accounting standards and regulating observance of company law. Accounting standards have three basic concepts that they account for. The first concept is to present the underlying problem. In this case, an intensive description of the underlying problem is presented. Upon the realization of a problem, there is the need to get a solution to the problem. The second concept is therefore that of fixing the problem highlighted in the first concept. Fundamental accounting theory is explored in pursuit of finding a viable solution to the

Solid Objects Virginia Woolf Essay Example for Free

Solid Objects Virginia Woolf Essay Virginia Woolf The only thing that moved upon the vast semicircle of the beach was one small black spot. As it came nearer to the ribs and spine of the stranded pilchard boat, it became apparent from a certain tenuity in its blackness that this spot possessed four legs; and moment by moment it became more unmistakable that it was composed of the persons of two young men. Even thus in outline against the sand there was an unmistakable vitality in them; an indescribable vigour in the approach and withdrawal of the bodies, slight though it was, which proclaimed some violent argument issuing from the tiny mouths of the little round heads. This was corroborated on closer view by the repeated lunging of a walking–stick on the right–hand side. â€Å"You mean to tell me . . . You actually believe . . .† thus the walkingstick on the right–hand side next the waves seemed to be asserting as it cut long straight stripes upon the sand. â€Å"Politics be damned!† issued clearly from the body on the left–hand side, and, as these words were uttered, the mouths, noses, chins, little moustaches, tweed caps, rough boots, shooting coats, and check stockings of the two speakers became clearer and clearer; the smoke of their pipes went up into the air; nothing was so solid, so living, so hard, red, hirsute and virile as these two bodies for miles and miles of sea and sandhill. They flung themselves down by the six ribs and spine of the black pilchard boat. You know how the body seems to shake itself free from an argument, and to apologize for a mood of exaltation; flinging itself down and expressing in the looseness of its attitude a readiness to take up with something new—whatever it may be that comes next to hand. So Charles, whose stick had been slashing the beach for half a mile or so, began skimming flat pieces of slate over the water; and John, who had exclaimed â€Å"Politics be damned!† began burrowing his fingers down, down, into the sand. As his hand went further and further beyond the wrist, so that he had to hitch his sleeve a little higher, his eyes lost their intensity, or rather the background of thought and experience which gives an inscrutable depth to the eyes of grown people disappeared, leaving only the clear transparent surface, expressing nothing but wonder, which the eyes of young children display. No doubt the act of b urrowing in the sand had something to do with it. He remembered that, after digging for a little, the water oozes round your finger–tips; the hole then becomes a moat; a well; a spring; a secret channel to the sea. As he was choosing which of these things to make it, still working his fingers in the water, they curled round something hard—a full drop of solid matter—and gradually dislodged a large irregular lump, and brought it to the surface. When the sand coating was wiped off, a green tint appeared. It was a lump of glass, so thick as to be almost opaque; the smoothing of the sea had completely worn off any edge or shape, so that it was impossible to say whether it had been bottle, tumbler or window–pane; it was nothing but glass; it was almost a precious stone. You had only to enclose it in a rim of gold, or pierce it with a wire, and it became a jewel; part of a necklace, or a dull, green light upon a finger. Perhaps after all it was really a gem; something worn by a dark Princess trailing her finger in the water as she sat in the stern of the boat and listened to the slaves singing as they rowed her across the Bay. Or the oak sides of a sunk Elizabethan treasureâ€⠀œchest had split apart, and, rolled over and over, over and over, its emeralds had come at last to shore. John turned it in his hands; he held it to the light; he held it so that its irregular mass blotted out the body and extended right arm of his friend. The green thinned and thickened slightly as it was held against the sky or against the body. It pleased him; it puzzled him; it was so hard, so concentrated, so definite an object compared with the vague sea and the hazy shore. Now a sigh disturbed him—profound, final, making him aware that his friend Charles had thrown all the flat stones within reach, or had come to the conclusion that it was not worth while to throw them. They ate their sandwiches side by side. When they had done, and were shaking themselves and rising to their feet, John took the lump of glass and looked at it in silence. Charles looked at it too. But he saw immediately that it was not flat, and filling his pipe he said with the energy that dismisses a foolish strain of thought: â€Å"To return to what I was saying—† He did not see, or if he had seen would hardly have noticed, that John, after looking at the lump for a moment, as if in hesitation, slipped it inside his pocket. That impulse, too, may have been the impulse which leads a child to pick up one pebble on a path strewn with them, promising it a life of warmth and security upon the nursery mantelpiece, delighting in the sense of power and benignity which such an action confers, and believing that the heart of the stone leaps with joy when it sees itself chosen from a  million like it, to enjoy this bliss instead of a life of cold and wet upon the high road. â€Å"It might so easily have been any other of the millions of stones, but it was I, I, I!† Whether this thought or not was in John’s mind, the lump of glass had its place upon the mantelpiece, where it stood heavy upon a little pile of bills and letters and served not only as an excellent paper–weight, but also as a natural stopping place for the young man’s eyes when they wandered from his book. Looked at again and again half consciously by a mind thinking of something else, any object mixes itself so profoundly with the stuff of thought that it loses its actual form and recomposes itself a little differently in an ideal shape which haunts the brain when we least expect it. So John found himself attracted to the windows of curiosity shops when he was out walking, merely because he saw something which reminded him of the lump of glass. Anything, so long as it was an object of some kind, more or less round, perhaps with a dying flame deep sunk in its mass, anything—china, glass, amber, rock, marble—even the smooth oval egg of a prehistoric bird would do. He took, also, to keeping his eyes upon the ground, especially in the neighbourhood of waste land where the household refuse is thrown away. Such objects often occurred there—thrown away, of no use to anybody, shapeless, discarded. In a few months he had collected four or five specimens that took their place upon the mantelpiece. They were useful, too, for a man who is standing for Parliament upon the brink of a brilliant career has any number of papers to keep in order—addresses to constituents, declarations of policy, appeals for subscriptions, invitations to dinner, and so o n. One day, starting from his rooms in the Temple to catch a train in order to address his constituents, his eyes rested upon a remarkable object lying half–hidden in one of those little borders of grass which edge the bases of vast legal buildings. He could only touch it with the point of his stick through the railings; but he could see that it was a piece of china of the most remarkable shape, as nearly resembling a starfish as anything— shaped, or broken accidentally, into five irregular but unmistakable points. The colouring was mainly blue, but green stripes or spots of some kind overlaid the blue, and lines of crimson gave it a richness and lustre of the most attractive kind. John was determined to possess it; but the more he pushed, the further it receded. At length he was forced to go back to his rooms and improvise a wire ring attached to the end of a stick, with which, by dint of great care and skill, he finally drew the piece of china within reach of his hands. As he seized hold of it he exclaimed in triumph. At that moment the clock struck. It was out of the question that he should keep his appointment. The meeting was held without him. But how had the piece of china been broken into this remarkable shape? A careful examination put it beyond doubt that the star shape was accidental, which made it all the more strange, and it seemed unlikely that there should be another such in existence. Set at the opposite end of the mantelpiece from the lump of glass that had been dug from the sand, it looked like a creature from another world—freakish and fantastic as a harlequin. It seemed to be pirouetting through space, winking light like a fitful star. The contrast between the china so vivid and alert, and the glass so mute and contemplative, fascinated him, and wondering and amazed he asked himself how the two came to exist in the same world, let alone to stand upon the same narrow strip of marble in the same room. The question remained unanswered. He now began to haunt the places which are most prolific of broken china, such as pieces of waste land between railway lines, sites of demolished houses, and commons in the neighbourhood of London. But china is seldom thrown from a great height; it is one of the rarest of human actions. You have to find in conjunction a very high house, and a woman of such reckless impulse and passionate prejudice that she flings her jar or pot straight from the window without thought of who is below. Broken china was to be found in plenty, but broken in some trifling domestic accident, without purpose or character. Nevertheless, he was often astonished as he came to go into the question more deeply, by the immense variety of shapes to be found in London alone, and there was still more cause for wonder and speculation in the differences of qualities and designs. The finest specimens he would bring home and place upon his mantelpiece, where, however, their duty was mo re and more of an ornamental nature, since papers needing a weight to keep them down became scarcer and scarcer. He neglected his duties, perhaps, or discharged them absent–mindedly, or his constituents when they visited him were unfavourably impressed by the appearance of his mantelpiece. At any rate he was not elected to represent them in Parliament, and his friend Charles, taking it much to heart and hurrying to condole with him, found him so little cast down by the disaster that he could only suppose that it was too serious a matter for him to realize all at once. In truth, John had been that day to Barnes Common, and there under a furze bush had found a very remarkable piece of iron. It was almost identical with the glass in shape, massy and globular, but so cold and heavy, so black and metallic, that it was evidentlyalien to the earth and had its origin in one of the dead stars or was itself the cinder of a moon. It weighed his pocket down; it weighed the mantelpiece down; it radiated cold. And yet the meteorite stood upon the same ledge with the lump of glass and the star– shaped china. As his eyes passed from one to another, the determination to possess objects that even surpassed these tormented the young man. He devoted himself more and more resolutely to the search. If he had not been consumed by ambition and convinced that one day some newly–discovered rubbish heap would reward him, the disappointments he had suffered, let alone the fatigue and derision, would have made him give up the pursuit. Provided with a bag and a long stick fitted with an adaptable hook, he ransacked all deposits of earth; raked beneath matted tangles of scrub; searched all alleys and spaces between walls where he had learned to expect to find objects of this kind thrown away. As his standard became higher and his taste more severe the disappointments were innumerable, but always some gleam of hope, some piece of china or glass curiously marked or broken lured him on. Day after day passed. He was no longer young. His career—that is his political career—was a thing of the past. People gave up visiting him. He was too silent to be worth asking to dinner. He never talked to anyone about his serious ambitions; their lack of understanding was apparent in their behaviour. He leaned back in his chair now and watched Charles lift the stones on the mantelpiece a dozen times and put them down emphatically to mark what he was saying about the conduct of the Government, without once noticing their existence. â€Å"What was the truth of it, John?† asked Charles suddenly, turning and facing him. â€Å"What made you give it up like that all in a second?† â€Å"I’ve not given it up,† John replied. â€Å"But you’ve not the ghost of a chance now,† said Charles roughly. â€Å"I don’t agree with you there,† said John with conviction. Charles looked at him and was profoundly uneasy; the most extraordinary doubts possesse d him; he had aqueer sense that they were talking about different things. He looked round to find some relief for his horrible depression, but the disorderly appearance of the room depressed him still further. What was that stick, and the old carpet bag hanging against the wall? And then those stones? Looking at John, something fixed and distant in his expression alarmed him. He knew only too well that his mere appearance upon a platform was out of the question. â€Å"Pretty stones,† he said as cheerfully as he could; and saying that he had an appointment to keep, he left John—for ever.

Improving the Performance of Overbooking

Improving the Performance of Overbooking Improving the Performance of Overbooking by Application Collocate Using Affinity Function ABSTRACT: One of the main features provided by clouds is elasticity, which allows users to dynamically adjust resource allocations depending on their current needs. Overbooking describes resource management in any manner where the total available capacity is less than the theoretical maximal requested capacity. This is a well-known technique to manage scarce and valuable resources that has been applied in various fields since long ago. The main challenge is how to decide the appropriate level of overbooking that can be achieved without impacting the performance of the cloud services. This paper focuses on utilizing the Overbooking framework that performs admission control decisions based on fuzzy logic risk assessments of each incoming service request. This paper utilizes the collocation function (affinity) to define the similarity between applications. The similar applications are then collocated for better resource scheduling. I. INTRODUCTION Scheduling, or placement, of services is the process of deciding where services should be hosted. Scheduling is a part of the service deployment process and can take place both externally to the cloud, i.e., deciding on which cloud provide the service should be hosted, and internally, i.e., deciding which PM in a datacenter a VM should be run on. For external placement, the decision on where to host a service can be taken either by the owner of the service, or a third-party brokering service. In the first case, the service owner maintains a catalog of cloud providers and performs the negotiation with them for terms and costs of hosting the service. In the later case, the brokering service takes responsibility for both discovery of cloud providers and the negotiation process. Regarding internal placement, the decision of which PMs in the datacenter a service should be hosted by is taken when the service is admitted into the infrastructure. Depending on criteria such as the current loa d of the PMs, the size of the service and any affinity or anti-affinity constraints [23], i.e., rules for co-location of service components, one or more PMs are selected to run the VMs that constitute the service. Figure 1 illustrates a scenario with new services of different sizes (small, medium, and large) arriving into a datacenter where a number of services are already running. Figure 1: Scheduling in VMs Overload can happen in an oversubscribed cloud. Conceptually, there are two steps for handling overload, namely, detection and mitigation, as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: Oversubscription view A physical machine has CPU, memory, disk, and network resources. Overload on an oversubscribed host can manifest for each of these resources. When there is memory overload, the hyper visor swaps pages from its physical memory to disk to make room for new memory allocations requested by VMs (Virtual Machines). The swapping process increases disk read and write traffic and latency, causing the programs to thrash. Similarly, when there is CPU overload, VMs and the monitoring agents running with VMs may not get a chance to run, thereby increasing the number of processes waiting in the VMs CPU run queue. Consequently, any monitoring agents running inside the VM also may not get a chance to run, rendering inaccurate the cloud providers view of VMs. Disk overload in shared SAN storage environment can increase the network traffic, where as in local storage it can degrade the performance of applications running in VMs. Lastly, network overload may result in an under utilization of CPU, disk, and memory resources, rendering ineffective any gains from oversubscription. Overload can be detected by applications running on top of VMs, or by the physical host running the VMs. Each approach has its pros and cons. The applications know their performance best, so when they cannot obtain the provisioned resources of a VM, it is an indication of overload. The applications running on VMs can then funnel this information to the management infrastructure of cloud. However, this approach requires modification of applications. In the overload detection within physical host, the host can infer overload by monitoring CPU, disk, memory, and network utilizations of each VM process, and by monitoring the usage of each of its resources. The benefit of this approach is that no modification to the applications running on VMs is required. However, overload detection may not be fully accurate. II. RELATED WORK The scheduling of services in a datacenter is often performed with respect to some high-level goal [36], like reducing energy consumption, increasing utilization [37] and performance [27] or maximizing revenue [17, 38]. However, during operation of the datacenter, the initial placement of a service might no longer be suitable, due to variations in application and PM load. Events like arrival of new services, existing services being shut down or services being migrated out of the datacenter can also affect the quality of the initial placement. To avoid drifting too far from an optimal placement, thus reducing efficiency and utilization of the datacenter, scheduling should be performed repeatedly during operation. Information from monitoring probes [23], and events such as timers, arrival of new services, or startup and shutdown of PMs can be used to determine when to update the mapping between VMs and PMs. Scheduling of VMs can be considered as a multi-dimensional type of the Bin Packing [10] problem, where VMs with varying CPU, I/O, and memory requirements are placed on PMs in such a way that resource utilization and/or other objectives are maximized. The problem can be addressed, e.g., by using integer linear programming [52] or by performing an exhaustive search of all possible solutions. However, as the problem is complex and the number of possible solutions grow rapidly with the amount of PMs and VMs, such approaches can be both time and resource consuming. A more resource efficient, and faster, way is the use of greedy approaches like the First-Fit algorithm that places a VM on the first available PM that can accommodate it. However, such approximation algorithms do not normally generate optimal solutions. All in all, approaches to solving the scheduling problem often lead to a trade-o↠µ between the time to find a solution and the quality of the solution found. Hosting a ser vice in the cloud comes at a cost, as most cloud providers are driven by economical incentives. However, the service workload and the available capacity in a datacenter can vary heavily over time, e.g., cyclic during the week but also more randomly [5]. It is therefore beneficial for providers to be able to dynamically adjust prices over time to match the variation in supply and demand. Cloud providers typically offer a wide variety of compute instances, differing in the speed and number of CPUs available to the virtual machine, the type of local storage system used (e.g. single hard disk, disk array, SSD storage), whether the virtual machine may be sharing physical resources with other virtual machines (possibly belonging to different users), the amount of RAM, network bandwidth, etc. In addition, the user must decide how many instances of each type to provision. In the ideal case, more nodes means faster execution, but issues of heterogeneity, performance unpredictability, network overhead, and data skew mean that the actual benefit of utilizing more instances can be less than expected, leading to a higher cost per work unit. These issues also mean that not all the provisioned resources may be optimally used for the duration of the application. Workload skew may mean that some of the provisioned resources are (partially) idle and therefore do no contribute to the performance during those periods, but still contribute to cost. Provisioning larger or higher performance instances is similarly not always able to yield a proportional benefit. Because of these factors, it can be very difficult for a user to translate their performance requirements or objectives into concrete resource specifications for the cloud. There have been several works that attempt to bridge this gap, which mostly focus on VM allocation [HDB11, VCC11a, FBK+12, WBPR12] and d etermining good configuration parameters [KPP09, JCR11, HDB11]. Some more recent work also considers shared resources such as network or data storage [JBC+12], which is especially relevant in multi-tenant scenarios. Other approaches consider the provider side of things, because it can be equally difficult for a provider to determine how to optimally service resource requests [RBG12]. Resource provisioning is complicated further because performance in the cloud is not always predictable, and known to vary even among seemingly identical instances [SDQR10, LYKZ10]. There have been attempts to address this by extending resource provisioning to include requirement specifications for things such as network performance rather than just the number and type of VMs in an attempt to make the performance more predictable [GAW09, GLW+10, BCKR11, SSGW11]. Others try to explicitly exploit this variance to improve application performance [FJV+12]. Accurate provisioning based on application requirements also requires the ability to understand and predict application performance. There are a number of approaches towards estimating performance: some are based on simulation [Apad, WBPG09], while others use information based on workload statistics derived from debug execution [GCF+10, MBG10] or profiling sample data [TC11, HDB11]. Most of these approaches still have limited accuracy, especially when it comes to I/O performance. Cloud platforms run a wide array of heterogeneous workloads which further complicates this issue [RTG+12]. Related to provisioning is elasticity, which means that it is not always necessary to determine the optimal resource allocation beforehand, since it is possible to dynamically acquire or release resources during execution based on observed performance. This suffers from many of the same problems as provisioning, as it can be difficult to accurately estimate the impact of changing the resources at runtime, and therefore to decide when to acquire or release resources, and which ones. Exploiting elasticity is also further complicated when workloads are statically divided into tasks, as it is not always possible to preempt those tasks [ADR+12]. Some approaches for improving workload elasticity depend on the characteristics of certain workloads [ZBSS+10, AAK+11, CZB11], but these characteristics may not generally apply. It is therefore clear that it can be very difficult to decide, f or either the user or the provider, how to optimally provision resources and to ensure that those resources that are provisioned are utilized fully. Their is a very active interest in improving this situation, and the approaches proposed in this thesis similarly aim to improve provisioning and elasticity by mitigating common causes of inefficient resource utilization. III. PROPOSED OVERBOOKING METHOD The proposed model utilizes the concept of overbooking introduced in [1] and schedules the services using the collocation function. 3.1 Overbooking: The Overbooking is to exploit overestimation of required job execution time. The main notion of overbooking is to schedule more number of additional jobs. Overbooking strategy used in economic model can improve system utilization rate and occupancy. In overbooking strategy every job is associated with release time and finishing deadline, as shown in Fig 3. Here successful execution will be given with fee and penalty for violating the deadline. Figure 3: Strategy of Overbooking Data centers can also take advantage of those characteristics to accept more VMs than the number of physical resources the data center allows. This is known as resource overbooking or resource over commitment. More formally, overbooking describes resource management in any manner where the total available capacity is less than the theoretical maximal requested capacity. This is a well-known technique to manage scarce and valuable resources that has been applied in various fields since long ago. Figure 4: Overview of Overbooking The above Figure shows a conceptual overview of cloud overbooking, depicting how two virtual machines (gray boxes) running one application each (red boxes) can be collocated together inside the same physical resource (Server 1) without (noticeable) performance degradation. The overall components of the proposed system are depicted in figure 5. Figure 5: Components of the proposed model The complete process of the proposed model is explained below: The user requests the scheduler for the services The scheduler first verifies the AC and then calculates the Risk of that service. Then already a running service is scheduling then the request is stored in a queue. The process of FIFO is used to schedule the tasks. To complete the scheduling the collocation function keeps the intermediate data nodes side by side and based on the resource provision capacity the node is selected. If the first node doesn’t have the capacity to complete the task then the collocation searches the next node until the capacity node is found. The Admission Control (AC) module is the cornerstone in the overbooking framework. It decides whether a new cloud application should be accepted or not, by taking into accounts the current and predicted status of the system and by assessing the long term impact, weighting improved utilization against the risk of performance degradation. To make this assessment, the AC needs the information provided by the Knowledge DB, regarding predicted data center status and, if available, predicted application behavior. The Knowledge DB (KOB) module measures and profiles the different applications’ behavior, as well as the resources’ status over time. This module gathers information regarding CPU, memory, and I/O utilization of both virtual and physical resources. The KOB module has a plug-in architectural model that can use existing infrastructure monitoring tools, as well as shell scripts. These are interfaced with a wrapper that stores information in the KOB. The Smart Overbooking Scheduler (SOS) allocates both the new services accepted by the AC and the extra VMs added to deployed services by scale-up, also de-allocating the ones that are not needed. Basically, the SOS module selects the best node and core(s) to allocate the new VMs based on the established policies. These decisions have to be carefully planned, especially when performing resource overbooking, as physical servers have limited CPU, memory, and I/O capabilities. The risk assessment module provides the Admission Control with the information needed to take the final decision of accepting or rejecting the service request, as a new request is only admitted if the final risk is bellow a pre-defined level (risk threshold). The inputs for this risk assessment module are: Req CPU, memory, and I/O capacity required by the new incoming service. UnReq The difference between total data center capacity and the capacity requested by all running services. Free the difference between total data center capacity and the capacity used by all running services. Calculating the risk of admitting a new service includes many uncertainties. Furthermore, choosing an acceptable risk threshold has an impact on data center utilization and performance. High thresholds result in higher utilization but the expense of exposing the system to performance degradation, whilst using lower values leads to lower but safer resource utilization. The main aim of this system is to use the affinity function that aid the scheduling system to decide which applications are to be placed side by side (collocate). Affinity function utilizes the threshold properties for defining the similarity between the applications. The similar applications are then collocated for better resource scheduling. IV. ANALYSIS: The proposed system is tested for time taken to search and schedule the resources using the collocation the proposed system is compared with the system developed in [1]. The system in [1] doesn’t contain a collocation function so the scheduling process takes more time compared to the existing system. The comparison results are depicted in figure 6. Figure 6: Time taken to Complete Scheduling The graphs clearly depict that the modified (Proposed overbooking takes equal time to complete the scheduling irrespective of the requests.

LOreal SWOT Analysis Essay

LOreal SWOT Analysis Essay Prior to the establishment facial cosmetics, LOreal can be identified as a hair-colour formula which has been introduced by a French chemist known as Eugene Schueller in 1907. At this time it was called Aureole. Schueller brought and idea of manufacturing it on its his own products which were later taken to Parisian markets hairdressers to be sold. It was only in 1909 that Schueller registered his company as Societal Franà §oise de Teintures Inoffensive pour Cheveus,the future LOreal. Scheuller started to export his products, which was then limited to hair-colouring products. There were 3 chemists employed in 1920. In 1950, the research teams increased to 100 and reached 1,000 by 1984. Today, research teams are numbered to 2,000 and are still expected to increase in the near future. Through agents and consignments, Scheuller further distributed his products in the United States of America, South America, Russia and the Far East. The LOreal Group is present worldwide through its subs idiaries and agents. LOreal started to expand its products from hair-colour to other cleansing and beauty products. The LOreal Group today markets over 500 brands and more than 2,000 products in the various sectors of the beauty business. Such includes hair colours, permanents, styling aids, body and skincare, cleansers and fragrances. Indeed, the LOreal Group have reached the peak that all cosmetic brands sought after and also identified many factors that can contribute to the success of the Company. In the early 1980s LOreal achieved high level of global of distribution which was barely in the sights of its senior managers. Since LOreal was known to be Frances leading beauty company, it was international presence was so limited that many believed and had a conception of Parisian beauty as being expensive and high culture. The image of LOreal brands at the time e.g. Lancà ´me in cosmetics and LOreal professional in hair care limited the company ability to expand into international markets. When a person is infected the infection could be coming from inside the body or outside, similar to the organization where by some of the decision/changes being made are being influenced by factors outside the company and sometimes its hard to resist them. Non exceptional LOreal is one of the organizations being subjected to these factors. The factors can be put in one word SWOT (Strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats factors) (http://loreal.exteen.com) Internal Influences (S)trengths The on going success of the LOreal Group is without if not for the ingenuity of the concept of their vision as a team. LOreal Chairman and CEO Lindsay Owen-Jones consider passion as the key to the well-renowned accomplishment of the said Company. The primary strength of the Company is the continuing research and innovation in the interest of beauty which assures that the LOreal Cosmetics offers the best to their consumers. Their dedication to their continuous research makes them the leader in the growing cosmetics industry despite the competition in the market. On the other hand the LOreal group also had of Strength of developing activities in the field of cosmetics as well as in the dermatological and pharmaceutical fields in order to enhance and put more concentration in their particular activities. The cosmetics activities of LOreal are divided in to three groups. First is the Consumer Product Division which encompasses all the brands distributed through mass-market channels, ensuring that LOreal quality is available to the maximum number of the consumers. The Luxury Products Division includes the prestigious international brands selectively distributed through perfumeries, department stores and duty-free shops. The Professional Products Division offers specific hair care products for use by professional hairdressers and products sold exclusively through hair salons. The Active Cosmetics Department creates and markets products for selective distribution through pharmacies and specialist health and beauty outlets. The LOreal Groups dermat ological activities are linked with Galderma, which is basically a dermatological firm that contributes to the innovation of the LOreal Groups products. The pharmaceutical activities of LOreal are also handled by Sanofi-Aventis. These divisions and subdivisions ensure the quality that the LOreal Group offers to its customers. To further add to the enumerated strengths of the company, LOreals advertising strategy also plays a major part to its growth. Through adapting to the culture of their target market as the main tool of their advertisement, the Company brought LOreal products within reach of other women from different parts of the world. (http://loreal.exteen.com) (W)eaknesses Perhaps one of the weaknesses that a big company faces is the decentralized organizational structure. This is also part of the difficulties that LOreal is facing. Due to the many subdivisions of the Company, there is also the difficulty in the control of LOreal. This slows down the production of the Company because of the need of giving reference to the other Board members and directors of the Company. LOreal will also have a difficulty in finding out what division is accountable for the possible pitfalls of the Company. Another weakness that LOreal faces is their profit. The profit margin of LOreal is comparably low than that of the other smaller rivals. While LOreal projects certain rise in digits as their profit, the result does not usually meet the expectations (Sang, 2003). Perhaps, this is also due to the high-end advertising and marketing as well as the width of the Company. Also the coordination and the control of the activities and image in the worldwide market are also view ed as a weakness in the part of LOreal. Due to its worldwide marketing strategy, there are also dissimilarities brought about in the campaign of LOreal products as to what iMac. (http://loreal.exteen.com) External Influences (O)pportunities The LOreal Company concentrates on cosmetic products that enhance women of all ages. The growing demand for beauty products gives LOreal the opportunity to focus in their field of specialization, particularly on hair styling and colour, skincare, cosmetics and perfumeries. Being the leading cosmetic brand gives them the edge for their well-known image. Opportunity also emanates from their growing market that ranges from the affluent, the aging and also the masses of the developed countries. Another opportunity that LOreal must take advantage of is their greater market share because of the numerous patents registered by the Company. This enables them to have the top of the line products only to their name and therefore would lead costumers only to them for they could not find any of the said cosmetics in other brands. (http://loreal.exteen.com) (T)hreat A threat to the LOreal group is also the growing competition within the field of cosmetic brands. Due to the on going addition to the field of cosmetics, there is still the danger that other brands could surpass the profit of LOreal. Another threat to the Company is the economic downturn that is quite evident in other countries. Such could thus hurt the possibility of higher profit for the company. Most products of LOreal are within the reach of the citizens of developed countries, but LOreal may have problems reaching out even to the average people from the underdeveloped countries. Also a threat to the LOreal Group is the spending habits of consumer and the economic crunch that most countries are experiencing as of present. While the LOreal Group may be producing the best of its line, people may find that their products are not of their basic needs and would skip buying LOreal products. However, with the growth of the market, the damage could be far from taking place. Another signi ficant threat that LOreal faced was competing against leading U.S beauty makers. In the professional division, Clairol was the leading U.S hair colour brand, with 70% share of the U.S market. Although hair colouring was LOreals strength, it was the firms original and most profitable product line. Hair colour was the really the business they were fighting to get in, but Clairol seemed unbeatable. (http://loreal.exteen.com) Task 2 How globalisation influences policies and decisions making in LOreal When the Red ken managers initially launched new products independently of LOreals corporate headquarters in New York city, several of these post acquisition launches were unsuccessful. The Red ken brand management was later relocated to LOreal U.S corporate headquarters in New York City where it was rebranded Red ken 5th Avenue NYC. The Red ken acquisition triggered a reassement of LOreal entire hair care division where the senior managers realized that they needed a division focused entirely on sales to salons and hairdressers because the U.S professional market was unlike the professional market in Europe where a mid luxury hair care products were sold in department stores. By contrast, most of the mid to luxury hair care sales products in the U.S were sold in salons and other American speciality beauty supply stores. Since Salon sales had a larger profit margin than mass market hair care products, the sales eventually in professional division made up a third of all LOreal hair ca re sales. And the managers realized that Red ken had a global potential as an American brand of American origin. Since every country has its own way of lifestyle on how they perceive things, the LOreal management team has to consider some issues on their policies before making their decisions. Like in the case above , the Red ken is American brand that has it own way of selling in the market unlike in Europe , the LOreal managers therefore , has to do how the products is perceived in making American market compared to European . Its here that we find how the senior managers changed their policy and make a decision to suit how the product is liked in that particular market. Evaluating the effectiveness of LOreal response to globalisation. While LOreal was enjoying its 19th consecutive year of double digit growth in 2004, it had become an international beauty products that was focusing almost exclusively on the manufacturing , developing and sale nine of French , six American one Italian ( Giorgio Armani perfume) , one Chinese( Yue-sai acquired in 2004) and one Japanese brand ( Shu Uemera acquired in 2001) . Its organizational structure, marketing, strategy, and culture were all oriented to the fast growing global personal care market. According to Owen Jones , LOreal s U.S brands were a significant component of the whole orientation and they recognized that they wanted to be a truly global company that they would like to promote around the world American brands because it was the other great alternative in the beauty industry. However , the did something that was basically unthinkable for most multinational companies since they didnt just stopped having local brands rather they tried to put their brand everywhere as s ell United States to Americans , the United States to Chinese, Italian elegance to the Japanese , French beauty to Africans , and Japanese chic to Brazilians and many others. At the time when the Maybelline was acquiring the market, it had lost the focus as many of the analysts and watchers said. Two years before the acquisition, Maybelline branched out into the lucrative anti-aging cosmetics market with its Revitalizing brand. Revlon quickly responded with aggressive and well capitalized advertising campaign for its age -defying brand, overwhelming Maybellines poorly preforming revitalizing. It is here that the brand managers decided to drop for a brief time one of Maybellines most famous tagline when they realized the Maybelline is losing focus again. During the research, they found that the other competing brands had unique positions within the market place but consumers were unable to define what Maybelline was. It was sort of sleepy almost a stale brand because it seems most the consumers get confused about the brand and start putting it and mentioning in a different way. Maybelline to some individuals meant mothers pink nail polish, since the mangers got some comments about pink and green Great Lash mascara which they wanted to point out that they were proud of that day because its leading mascara in the world. The international potential of Maybelline was perhaps just as compelling as its domestic potential which has incredibly powerful value as its an American brand which corresponded to the idea that in America girls are so well made up, and therefore, the idea of perfection coming from America. This had a big appeal with young people all over the world. LOreal promoted close relationship between Research and development and international brand teams when the Garnier managers decided that the brand needed a fruit based shampoo for the European consumer market and they worked closely with LOreal European scientists , who realized that fructose , a type of sugar common in fruit , strengthens hair Japans fast growing wet lipstick market . Not only these but also the Maybelline global brand team built on water shines success in Japan creating water shine Diamonds a lipstick that contained small microscopic glass beads coated with silver and the international brand teams were responsible for not only developing new products but also ensuring the integrity of a given brands positioning . With international brand teams based in the brands home country, the teams global product plans were skewed toward the needs of the country. In the U.S market are sometimes easily influenced by the fact that the U.S market is so large that the managers hav e to put some extra cautious to ensure that global plans are compatible wit other markets a cross the world and not just U.S but also when creating the plans of the other regional offices execute and by sustaining a consistent brand positioning in a far-flung markets was at times a challenge that they had a U.S brand in Japan that allowed to get away from the global marketing plan where the advertisement and promotions were oriented more to Japanese market rather than the brands global message which involved democracy, independence and freedom . They had too much local adaptation and maintaining the brand message in every country. LOreals strategy focused on internal growth, disciplined global marketing continuous product innovation, creating a strong presence in every distribution channel of each product division all over the world and acquiring an important role in expanding LOreals product portfolio and generating revenue growth.

Wars Between Spain And France :: essays research papers

The wars between England and Spain was a shifting of power in Europe. A cause of the wars was the imprisonment and execution of Mary Stuart Queen of Scots. The Netherlands wanting to break away from Spain was a cause of the war. Elizabeth sending aid and troops to the Netherlands was another cause of the war. Mary Stuart was the direct heir of Scotland. She was a Catholic. Many people in England wanted to see Mary the Queen and make England a Catholic nation. This worried Queen Elizabeth and had Mary put under house arrest for nineteen years. There were many plots made trying to assassinate Queen Elizabeth involving Mary. The final plot called the Babington plot had enough proof to convict Mary and execute her. Queen Elizabeth knew the consequences this would create throughout the Catholic world. And this was the last straw between Spain and England. The Netherlands wanted to abolish the control Spain had over their nation. They wanted to get rid of the Spanish Inquisition. Two-hundred nobles, in the Netherlands, formed a league, and they petitioned King Philip II not to use the Spanish Inquisition. He refused and a revolt broke out. William of Orange led the united seventeen provinces of the Netherlands against Spanish authority. Queen Elizabeth lent aid to the Netherlands in their war with Spain. She sent over 6000 troops in 1585. Don Juan became the general of the Netherlands and planned an invasion. After Don Juan's death the Union of Utrecht was formed breaking the solid front of the 17 provinces of the Netherlands. When Spain tried to invade England they were defeated. The great Spanish Armada was beat by small, quick fleet of English and Dutch ships. English and Dutch pirates raid the Spanish ships also. The weather played a role in the war. A bad storm wiped out many ships of the Armada. England gained a great deal from this battle with Spain.

Male Reactions to Female Power in Antigone Essay -- Literary Analysis

Western society has a long history of subjugating women to men. Some cite the idea that women are somehow weaker or inferior to men as a reason for the existence of this social dynamic. In Sophocles's Antigone and, Dürrenmatt's The Visit, however, the female leads show great strength and are even able to threaten the male leads with their power. Creon and Alfred Ill's disdainful and oppressive treatment of women stems not from the supposed inferiority of women, but from the theme that man is afraid to lose control. This theme is developed through particular events in the plot: the men begin in positions of power, which are then threatened by the women. Their amateur reactions to the powerful women cause them to lose more control until in the end, they have nothing. Their redemption comes not through defeating the women, but through accepting responsibility for their own actions. To begin with, Creon and Ill have power socially and politically. Creon is the King of Thebes and Ill is the â€Å"most popular personality† (Dürrenmatt 15) of Guellen. Sophocles and Dürrenmatt set the stage by implying that their current situation will last–– â€Å"the gods† (Sophocles 170) themselves appoint Creon as king and the people of Guellen unanimously â€Å"[agree] to nominate† (Dürrenmatt 15) Ill as the mayor's successor. Furthermore, foreshadowing of their actions towards Antigone and Claire appears as approval. The elders of Thebes assure Creon that he has power over the â€Å"living and the dead† (Sophocles 172), justifying his actions towards Polyneices's body and empowering his punishment of Antigone. Ill, on the other hand, represents Guellen's last chance for survival. â€Å"All depends† (Dürrenmatt 14) on Ill's ability to capitalize on his and Claire's ... ...no reason to continue mistreating Antigone and Claire. A series of events catalyzed by powerful women and ending with a tragic loss for the male leads of The Visit and Antigone reveals a reason for the mistreatment of women in western society. Dürrenmatt and Sophocles show that the oppression of women stems from man's fear of losing control. By identifying this fear, the authors underscore the importance of treating women as equals, as the decision of the male leads to blame the women rather than to accept responsibility for their actions is what causes their downfall. Works Cited Dürrenmatt, Friedrich. The Visit: a Tragi-comedy. Trans. Patrick Bowles. New York: Grove, 1982. Sophocles. The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles; Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone. Trans. Paul Roche. New York: New American Library, 1958.