The Blue Spider Program and the reasons for its failure Essay

The Blue Spider Program and the reasons for its failure - Essay Example Could adaptive control system theory be the basis of the 'theory of agile systems'" (Alleman, "Herding Cats"). For the successful management of complex interactions, agility is most certainly needed. The case study presented clearly shows a plethora of complex interactions emerging from the mere fact of the behind-the-scenes deception and lack of communications alone. "In most feedback systems, small deviations in a parameter's value from its design value will not cause a problem in the normal operations of the system, provided these parameters are inside the control loop. If the process parameters vary widely because of environmental changes, then the control system will exhibit unsatisfactory behaviors...To be called adaptive, self-organizing features must exist" (Alleman, "Herding Cats"). We might ask ourselves what are these features that must exist We can name them in a list of three. "Identification of the dynamic characteristics of the process. Decision making based on the identification of the process." And "modification or actuation based on the decisions made" (Alleman, "Herding Cat s"). In our notes on the project, we clearly see that Anderson is never able to get a handle on making leadership decisions based upon his obvious need to modify what he is doing. Does he understand the dynamics of management of the Blue Spider Program development Clearly not. He tries to take on too much on his own most of the times (researching instead of managing), while at other times there is lack of given information, administrative mistakes. For a PM to really know how to manage what he is doing would require a solid foundation in theory that is barely available in our present... The Blue Spider Program and the reasons for its failure The theory of management comprises viewing PM as having "a strong causal connection between the actions of management and outcomes of the organization"; assuming "that planned tasks can be executed by a notification of the start of the task to the executor"; and maintaining that there is "a standard of performance; performance is measured at the output; the possible variance between the standard and the measured value is used for correcting the process so that the standard can be reached" (Koskela & Howell). Anderson did not understand the connection between himself and the project’s success or failure. Performance standards were notoriously lacking. These and the aforementioned matters would have to be corrected to ensure future success. The theory of management comprises viewing PM as having "a strong causal connection between the actions of management and outcomes of the organization"; assuming "that planned tasks can be executed by a notification of the start of the task to the executor"; and maintaining that there is "a standard of performance; performance is measured at the output; the possible variance between the standard and the measured value is used for correcting the process so that the standard can be reached" (Koskela & Howell). Anderson did not understand the connection between himself and the project’s success or failure. Performance standards were notoriously lacking. These and the aforementioned matters would have to be corrected to ensure future success.

Behavioral Issues in Special Education (self-injurous behavior) Essay

Behavioral Issues in Special Education (self-injurous behavior) - Essay Example Many of these children that are given special education are very disturbed and prone to inflicting harm against themselves. According to Fox, C & Hawton, K, self-injury does not really mean that the person wants to commit suicide but rather, a person who cuts or inflicts intentional harm upon himself or herself is hoping to relieve some of tension or emotional pain1 or just simply to manifest his or her frustrations over something. In the case of children with disabilities, their inability to communicate to others can be very frustrating. In most cases, these children express their frustrations by inflicting self-harm and to get the attention that they need. The failure on the part of the adult present to recognize the silent please of the child with disability can make the situation even worst. The child may continue to inflict upon herself or herself until such time when he or she gets what he or she needs. Schoeder, Mulich and Rojahn classified the Self-injurious behaviour (SIB) into two namely, the social and the non-social act. The social SIB often takes place in the social setting and was directly self-injurious such as head banging, self-biting, self-scratching, gouging, pinching and hair pulling [Weiss, 129-143]. Social SIB can happen frequently and may be associated with other forms of behaviour problems. On the other hand, the Non-Social SIB happens less frequently but may tend to inflict more harm u pon the child. Non-social SIB can be manifested through stuffing orifices, mouthing, sucking, rumination, ingestion of faeces, excessive fluid intake and ingestion of air [Weiss, 129-143]. In extreme instances, the injuries inflicted by the child upon himself or herself are so serious that it requires hospitalisation for a few days. Self-injurious behaviour (SIB) in children with learning disabilities and autism is one

Printed slimming advertisements in Hong Kong

Printed slimming advertisements in Hong Kong Social institutions, such as family, education and mass media play an important role in the production and regulation of beliefs and practices of gender. Nowadays, advertising is a key institution of socialization in modern society and plays a crucial role in affecting public perception of women. When you walk on the street, slimming advertisements appear everywhere and there is no way to escape from receiving their messages. Undoubtedly, slimming has become a trend in Hong Kong. Moreover, those advertisements bombard us with ideal female images. Although it is widely believed that women have higher social status than the past and have more respect, there is a gap between the perceived female images in print media and real life. Thus, this paper argues that the printed slimming advertisements affect public perception of local women adversely since they often put emphasis on appearance and thinness, they objectify women by distorting the aesthetic standards of a human body and portray women as sex objects. Printed slimming advertisements may cultivate images of thinness. Fung (2006) estimates that there is around 30% of the pages of entertainment magazines advertisements directing at women. He further points out that those advertisements, especially slimming advertisements, have a great influence affecting the public perception on local women. Nowadays, printed slimming advertisements in magazines and on the billboards often suggest that one particular female image which conveys that an ideal body simply equals slim and not too small-breasted and taut, is socially valued. More importantly, those advertisements suggest the public that thin is in, fat is out (Lazier Kendrick, 1993, p. 209). Furthermore, printed slimming advertisements often attempt to create problems and fears that a fat body means more than something physical. According to those advertisements, a fat body tends to relate to some negative moral qualities. For example, a fat body is perceived as indicative of stupidity, laziness, sickness and self-indulgence. In addition, a fat body is the external sign of internal failure. On the contrary, those advertisements promote thinness as an image of grace, smartness, desirability and sex appeal. Those advertisements do not only tend to praise women with a slim body as fashionable and attractive, but also suggest that a thin body shows positive connotations of women. Thus, it is likely that printed slimming advertisements portraying local women should be thin and suggest that a fat body is not preferable. Along with thinness, appearance is often emphasized in printed advertisements. Almost all of the women in those printed advertisements are beautiful celebrities who are portrayed as professionals enjoying their lives, such as Cass Phang and Christy Chung of Marie France. For example, Fung (2006, p.175) points out that the advertisement of Marie France Bodyline by Christy Chung promotes the fashion of body contouring and gives the public an illusion of becoming a successful and professional woman through slimming. Therefore, printed slimming advertisements greatly affect public perception of local women adversely as they tend to acknowledge physical attractiveness and ignoring their inner beauty. Printed slimming advertisements tend to objectify women in order to distort the aesthetic standards of human body. Objectification means women are taught to internalize an observers perspective of their own bodies and more concerned with observable body attributes rather than focusing on non-observable body attributes such as feelings and internal bodily states (Kilbourne, 2002, as cited in Equal Opportunities Commission, p. 27). Therefore, the aesthetic standards of human body are likely to be distorted as women do not often treat their bodies as a whole by ignoring non-observable body attributes and putting their focus on body shape which should be similar with those figures in advertisements. As slimming companies aim at increasing the profit through those advertisement campaigns, a female body is commodified as a marketable product. According to Equal Opportunities Commission (2009), Greening suggests that advertising could be very powerful in shaping public perception toward wom en as selling objects and even tend to make the selling of womens body acceptable as it is one of the most powerful sources of education in society. Since the message on the printed slimming advertisements have great influence on women, such as those on the huge billboards outside shopping malls, a large number of women would like to compare themselves with the body shape and image on those advertisements. Moreover, they probably start to think that there is a need for them to conform to those beauty standards shown on the advertisements. They also view their faces as masks and their bodies as objects by denying the fact that everyones body should be unique and special. As a result, they are encouraged by those printed slimming advertisements to manipulate and change their faces and bodies through slimming. From the above, there may be a distortion of the aesthetic standards of the human body as women are likely to be portrayed as empty and decorative objects without individuality. Printed slimming advertisements may portray women as sex objects and women may portray as subordinate to men. It is widely believed that a large number of printed slimming advertisements display women with little clothes and even naked. Those advertisements often convey sexual information which defined by Harris (1994) as any representation that portrays or implies sexual interest, behaviour, or motivation (p.206), is often integrated within the advertisement as images, verbal element or both (Harris, 1994, as cited in Bohbot, 2003, p.13). For example, the printed advertisement of Fannie Yuen from Josephine Bust and Slimming Centre directs a readers gaze to her breasts. Thus, the printed slimming advertisements would affect public perception of local women as sex objects. The use of dismemberment in the printed slimming advertisements also makes women as sex objects. Dismemberment of women means it is the act of cutting, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise removing, the limbs of a living thing (Equal Opportunities Commission, 2009, p.15). According to the Equal Opportunities Commission (2009, p.15), dismemberment of womens bodies is commonly seen in advertisements and highlight one part of a womans body, such as womans breasts and legs, while ignoring all other parts of her body, and portray women with missing appendages or substitute appendages. By using the technique of dismemberment, female bodies are collections of sexual features on display. By turning women into sex objects, womens role is distorted as women become weak and are subordinated by men. Subordinating women by men means that men always hold the power and authority and they treat women as their belonging as men assume that women are inferior. Models in printed slimming advertisements are passive and submissive, such as the printed advertisement of Sausontong showing the model lying on the floor with bikini. The passive and submissive poses suggest that women are for male sexual desire and s atisfy male gaze. According to Berger (2008), men are always spectators and women are always seen. The status of women is lowered by those advertisements as women are portrayed as sex objects. Thus, printed slimming advertisements may portray women as sex objects and women are portrayed as a subordination of men. It has been shown that public perception of women is affected by printed slimming advertisements negatively in Hong Kong. Those advertisements cherish the notion of thinness and appearance, dehumanize women as objects and even further devalue women as sex objects which subordinated by men. Therefore, I suggest that there should be guidelines and codes of conduct for advertising organizations. I hope that printed slimming advertisements in Hong Kong will portray women positively in the foreseeable future. References Berger, J. (2008)Ways of Seeing. Britian: Pengin Bohbot, M. (2003) What is Sex in Advertising. In Reichert, T. Lambiase, J. (Eds.), (p.13) Sex in advertising: perspectives on the erotic appeal. U.S.: Lawerence Erlbaum Associations Equal Opportunities Commission. (2009). Study of Public Perception of Female Portrayal of Female Gender in Hong Kong Media. Retrieved October 5, 2009, from http://www.eoc.org.hk/EOC/Upload/UserFiles/File/Report_Eng.pdf Fung, A. (2006). Gender and Adverting: The Promotional Culture of Whitening and Slimming. In Chan. K (Ed.), (p.175) Advertising and Hong Kong Society. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press Lazier, L. Kendrick, A. (1993). Women in Advertisements: Sizing Up the Images, Roles, and Functions. In P.J. Creedon (Ed.), (p.209) Women in Mass Communication. London NY : Sage.

Bullying and School Violence Essay -- School Violence essays research

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The article title states exactly what the article talks about, the many different cases of bullying and violence in schools. The title tells you exactly what to expect from the abstract but does not give away any information on what it includes. The author did a good job deciding on the title because although it is simple, it grabs your attention, it certainly did mine. Bullying is a very common happening among young children so the title having the word bully in it, draws your attention. It could have been a little more creative but I do like the title and feel that it is both effective and appropriate.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The purpose of the study is evident and can clearly and easily be derived from the title of the article. The author, Dawn Pennington, uses a plethora of resources to conduct her research and makes very good use of the research of other specialists.The abstract is very informative, interesting and gives people who don’t know too much about the topic some credible knowledge to go with.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I appreciated the way that Pennington began the abstract. She used a well known tragedy in the shootings at Columbine to grab readers’ attention. I would say that she accomplished her mission in that aspect. However, that incident is actually a severe case of what she is writing about. This is what happens when bullying goes to far and the victims can no longer take it. Columbine being that it was such a large scale retaliation placed a stamp on this country’s history. Pennington...

How does Hansberry write about dreams in ‘ A Raisin in the Sun’? Essay

Setting: Lorriane Hansberry wrote ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ in the late 1950’s. Hansberry’s choice of a very poor, working-class Black family in the setting of Southside Chicago in the late 1950s, underlines the important role of dreams as a driving force in the lives of people with no other hope of survival or breakthrough from poverty and despair. The Younger family is typical of most Black families in the American south in the late 1950s. The Younger apartment is the only setting throughout the whole play emphasising the centrality of the home. Most were the descendants of freed slaves who lived in ghettos, had no landed property of their own, had little or no education and were still subject to extreme forms of prejudice, racial discrimination and humiliation from the majority White population. In such an environment, dreams are the means of support of hope and aspiration. The ‘American dream’ is being able to rise through their own ability, share prosperity and have a good way of living. The play opens with the author’s vivid description of the Younger family’s cramped, cockroach-infested, two-bedroom apartment with externally shared toilet and bathroom facilities. The carpet is threadbare and faded; the furniture upholstery has been covered and the apartment is so overcrowded that Travis, the young son of Walter Lee and Ruth, has to sleep on the living-room sofa. The family poverty is so dire that the ten-year old boy has to struggle to get fifty cents out of his mother or offer to earn the money by carrying groceries for shoppers at the local supermarket. The horrible poverty despite, an audience would observe a proud, law-abiding family held together by Walter and Beneatha’s sixty-year old mother, Mama Lena Younger, whose manner portrays dignity and a set of values that date back many years. Dreams: Ruth Younger, Walter Younger’s wife. Ruth is about thirty years of age. Ruth appears in the play disappointed and exhausted. Ruth is emotionally strong. Ruth has economic and marriage problems to face in the course of the play. Walter Lee Younger, the central character of the play. Ruth’s husband and also the older brother of Beneatha. Walter Lee is revealed in the play as a desperate man in need of money. Walter despises the fact he is living in poverty and prejudice. Walter Lee is tries to provide a better standard of living for his family. Walter Lee is also passionate about seeking a business idea to overcome economic and social issues. Travis is Ruth and Walter’s son. The only child existing in the play. Travis is secluded and over protected by the adults he lives with. Beneatha Younger is Walter’s younger sister and Mama’s daughter. Beneatha’s main ambition is to become a doctor. A strong willed woman in the drama. Ruth also takes a lot of pride in being an intellectual. Mama is the mother of Walter and Beneatha and Ruth’s mother-in-law. Mama is a very strong and religious woman in the play. Mama wants her daughter Beneatha to become a doctor. Mama also supports Ruth in many ways as a mother- in- law. Joseph Asagai is an African student who is very much proud of his cultural background and also admits his love to Beneatha. Joseph also provides Beneatha African robes and records and supports her aspirations into becoming a doctor. George Murchison is the rich boyfriend of Beneatha. George is disrespectful of other black people. George is very arrogant in his behaviour with Beneatha. Beneatha who prefers Joseph to George. As a common theme of her play, Hansberry portrays dreams in a great variety of ways. It is interesting to note from the play as a whole that virtually all the characters have dreams. Some are ambitious whilst others are modest; they are a source of frustration as well as of happiness; they are a reflection of an individual’s character and personality traits and as Walter Lee demonstrates, they are dynamic and subject to change according to the prevailing circumstances. Walter Lee is the central character of the play. Hansberry portrays him as an intense, very bitter and deeply frustrated man suffering the early start of a mid-life crisis. In Act 1 Scene 1 (pg.18), he says: † I ‘m thirty-five years old; I been married eleven years and I got a boy who sleeps in the living room and all I got to give him is stories about how rich white people live.† Then again in Act 1 Scene 2, he sees into the future at edge of his days, as a big, looming blank space†¦full of nothing.† Walter’s dream is to achieve a breakthrough in business that would give his family a better life and establish him as a man who is the main breadwinner and head of his household. His immediate hope of a business venture is to invest in a liquor store the full $10,000 insurance money his mother is about to receive as a result of Big Walter’s (her husband’s) death. His dream to lay hands on that money rapidly becomes an overwhelming obsession. When neither his mother Lena nor his wife Ruth approve of such a venture, Hansberry illustrates the depth of total frustration to which a man can sink as his dream becomes more and more indefinable. He becomes abusive to his wife, implying she belongs to â€Å"a race of women with small minds† (pg. 19); he is dismissive of sister Beneatha’s dream to become a doctor, telling her â€Å"go be a nurse like other women†¦or just get married and be quiet;† and he yells at his mother when the much-awaited cheque finally arrives. Walter Lee resorts to drinking heavily when his mother refuses to support his investment in a liquor store; he shows bitter resentment towards George Murchison, whom he thinks was born with a silver spoon; he also loses interest in his regular job as a chauffeur. Indeed, he is so blinded by the obsession of having his mother’s money that he explodes with rage when Mama Lena reveals payment of a deposit on the family’s most essential need, namely: a larger house. Hansberry illustrates the nature of dreams when Walter Lee is offered $3,500 to use as he pleases. Whilst this sum is lower than the $10,000 he was originally dreaming of, it is a cruel twist of irony that in Act 2 Scene 2. A highly thrilled Walter Lee begins to dream of life as a downtown executive who attends conferences, employs bungling secretaries, sends Travis to America’s best schools, drives a Chrysler and can afford to buy Ruth a Cadillac convertible. However, through his dreams, Hansberry is able to reveal the downfalls in Walter Lee’s character: compared to his wife and mother, he is a man of very poor judgement and was extremely gullible to allow himself to be duped by his supposedly loyal friend, Willy Harris. Compared to her much older and more experienced mother, Beneatha’s dreams portray the natural idealism of youth. Despite the poverty of her family background, Hansberry portrays her as a positive thinker who dreams of becoming a doctor without knowing where her medical school fees will come from. Beneatha is all the more remarkable in her ambitions because it was very unusual in the 1950s for women to enter the medical profession and even less usual for someone from a poor Black family who lived in a ghetto of Chicago. More typically for the period of emerging Black liberation, Beneatha shows a high level of political awareness, keeps in close touch with her African heritage and even dreams of marrying Asagai and settling in Africa to practise as a doctor (Act 3, pg.113). Although she is just as idealistic as her brother (Walter Lee), Beneatha is not obsessed with money as a means to achieving her dreams. She is totally unimpressed by George Murchison’s acquired wealth, arrogance and lack of consciousness of his African heritage. She declares in Act 1, Scene 1 (pg.31), that she could never really be serious about George because he is so shallow and is heard shouting again in Act 3, towards the end of the play, that she would not marry George if he were Adam and she were Eve (pg.114). In contrast to her children, Mama Lena is a realist who has cherished a single lifetime dream, which she shared with her late husband, Big Walter Younger. Hansberry portrays her as a God-fearing, law-abiding but poor mother with strong family values. Consequently, her dream is a modest but seemingly unattainable desire to acquire a comfortable house with a garden (which she describes in Act1, Scene 1- pg.28) and to fix it up for herself and her family. Hansberry’s use of symbolism is illustrated by the way Mama Lena keeps her dream alive in much the same manner as she nurtures her potted plant. In a second reference to her wish for garden (pg.35), Mama describes her plant as the closest she ever got to have one. She compares the strong will and spirit of her family with the survival of her plant, which â€Å"ain’t never had enough sunshine or nothing† but continued to thrive against all odds. Again, it is interesting to note Hansberry’s portrayal of dreams and the human nature: when the prospect of acquiring a house actually becomes attainable, Mama Lena no longer opts for a property in Morgan Park but for a house in the more affluent and exclusive White neighbourhood of Clybourne Park. Like Walter Lee’s new vision of himself as a downtown executive, the playwright illustrates the insatiable nature of dreams. The moral of her play is that whatever their status in life or level of attainment, people will always have dreams. Although Hansberry portrays dreams as the all-important hope on which people depend for motivation and survival, she also highlights the influence of principles in the quest to achieve those goals. It is a tribute to the Youngers’ self-pride, moral fibre and strength of character that Walter Lee is compelled to discard the idea of accepting a pay-off from Mr Lindner not to move into the White neighbourhood of Clybourne Park after he had lost the bulk of the insurance money to Willy Harris. After he announced he had called Mr Lindner to accept the payment, Mama Lena says to Walter: â€Å"Son, I come from five generations of people who was slaves and sharecroppers but ain’t nobody in my family never let nobody pay. ’em no money that was a way of telling us we wasn’t fit to walk the earth. We ain’t never been that poor. We ain’t never been that dead inside†. (Act 3, pg.108). Beneatha dismisses him in similar terms, saying: â€Å"That is not a man. That is nothing but a toothless rate† and: â€Å"He is no brother of mine†. Eventually, Walter Lee is compelled to restore the family dignity by telling Mr Lindner what a proud family he came from, how they had earned the right to live in Clybourne Park and why they didn’t want his money.. By the end of Act 3, Hansberry leaves her audience with some answers to the questions created in the metaphors of Langston Hughes’ poem, from which her play derives its title: ‘A Raisin in the Sun’. From her demonstration that people will always have dreams, it can be concluded that dreams can be deferred but they do not dry up like a raisin in the sun. As Walter Lee demonstrates, dreams can become a painful obsession to be annoying like a running sore and stinks like rotten meat when they go bad. Typical examples are when his dream takes control of Walter Lee’s life to an extent that he becomes abusive to his family and resorts to drink as the dream is deferred. Likewise, as Beneatha’s experience shows, dreams can be likened to a syrupy sweet: good to have but false and elusive if they are deferred. Through no fault of her own, Beneatha’s dream is sweet and noble but it rapidly becomes as false as an illusion when Walter Lee loses the money that would have helped her enter medical school. Although Mama Lena’s dream was never a painful obsession that festered like a running sore, smelled like rotten meat or delude like a syrupy sweet, she carried for such a long period of her life that it sagged like a heavy load until she finally bought the house in Clybourne Street. Whilst Walter Lee and Beneatha’s dreams explode with the loss of most of the much-needed family capital, Mama Lena’s dream remains as flexible as her symbolic plant, which she takes for planting in the garden of their new home. Mama is the only one of Hansberry’s characters to realise her dream. For every one else, Hansberry’s reference to the sun may well be symbolic of the bright light and hope our dreams represent. The playwright creates the question: should we allow our dreams to dry up like raisins in the sun or should we remain strong and committed, nurturing our dreams like Mama’s plant until we achieve them?

Building and Planting Vegetable Gardens

The structure of your vegetable garden does not have to be entirely functional but it should also look and feel good. Building some decorative arches and some tomato cages not only makes your garden look good but also helps it produce more crops. After all, there is more to planting vegetable gardens than just cultivating a spot of land. Function Over Form The most well known form garden structures are those that are built to sustain plants and give them the room to climb, hold up the weight of its fruits and other plants as well. Building cages and poles lets you have a vertical garden which boosts your produce per square foot since you’ll have more space to plant in the ground. Vegetables like cucumbers, peas, peppers and eggplants need lots of garden support. Carrying these vegetables above ground not only will produce better crop it also protects it from insects found in the soil. Plus, the fruits will be less likely to rot if planted this way. Building other support structures like stakes and cages will help in making your plants grow stronger and taller. Choose Your Structure. If you plan to shop for things for your garden online or in a garden store, you’ll notice how many choices there are when it comes to garden structures. A great online garden resource is a company called Garden Supply Company. Not only do they have a mail-order catalogue, they make trellises for plants like cucumbers that serve as a shade to neighboring plants, tomato cages, spiral supports, bean towers, maypoles and others. Garden structures may vary especially in terms of form and function because they not only are very supportive of plants it also makes your garden look ood. The best kind of garden is not only beautiful, but also enhances the health of the vegetables planted there. Form over Function There are so many options when it comes to building your vegetable garden especially if you’re purpose is purely aesthetic. You can build ornaments like arches, trellises or archways to beautify your garden. You can even build walls or doorways to surround your garden for a more visual appeal. For gardens like these, you can decorate them with plants aside from vegetables. You can plant beautiful flowers to cover your trellis but choose flowers that are sun friendly and attract helpful insects. An example is trumpet flowers, which are not only beautiful but they attract bees for your vegetable garden. Since you also want to attract helpful creatures, you can build a bird bath or a bird house in your garden. If you’re particularly into organic gardening, the birds can certainly help eliminate pests As long as you keep your garden attractive to birds and other helpful insects, they will spend a lot of time in your garden and repay you by eating away harmful pests. Supporting Your Plants Building plant supports are essential garden structures which is why it’s necessary to use them in the proper way to maximize results. This does not mean building stakes or cages in the ground and leave the plant to grow on its own. There are other materials like plant ties, jute cords or twines which you can use to tie up your plant to the cages or poles but don’t tie them too tight. Another great support when it comes to planting vegetables gardens are stakes. Make sure to drive them properly into the ground and space them a little further from your main plant to avoid hitting its roots.