Technology And Its Benefits For Students Learning Essay

Technology is becoming increasingly important in everyday life, however; many believe that technology in education is lagging behind other key sectors important to society. The science curriculum is based on the Te Kete Ipurangi which outlines the guidelines for New Zealand curriculum. The importance of chemistry is that students should be able to make connections between concepts of chemistry and their applications and show an understanding of the role chemistry plays in the world around them. This research aims to develop a database for teachers to consult and develop uses for technology for different unit standards. This research will examine whether technology is being used to its full potential in science classrooms. The issue many believe in today’s education system in New Zealand is that it is too prescribed and does not allow flexibility in pedagogy and students learning. Because of this, many teachers are sticking to a pen and paper rather than a stylus and a tablet. The research will focus on whether technology-based classrooms are having positive outcomes for students learning and results or whether technology is a distraction and takes the focus away from the true science that is being learnt. The aim of the project is to create a database for the different uses of technology in a science classroom for teachers to access to develop a wider range of pedagogical methods. This project will focus on two unit standards in NCEA. This first is for level one studentsShow MoreRelatedBenefical Role Of Technology In Education1413 Words   |  6 Pages Benefical Role of Technology in Helping People Obtain an Education Nhuien Tkhi Kim Nhan (Nata) ILSC BENEFICAL ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN HELPING PEOPLE OBTAIN AN EDUCATION Even though most of the population think that technology has a bad influence on our education it still has a lot of benefits like access to any information anytimeRead MoreEssay on The Effects of Technology on Students855 Words   |  4 PagesEffects of Technology on Students Change is constant. Though one may not be able to see the change, one can look back through the course of a year or maybe even a few months and see the change. Technology has transformed with our culture. There are many benefits for students with the new advancements of technology. Teachers have seen many of these benefits with the influence of technology on their students. Many students find a sense of accomplishment when working with technology. StudentsRead MoreDigital Devices Are Important For College Students853 Words   |  4 Pagesyou ask a college student:† What is your most important item in college,† they might have different answers such as their personal items, gifts from others. However, most of their answers have in common: digital devices. As the most popular tool for college students, digital devices are irreplaceable due to their importance of college students’ education which assists them to gain enormous information with the coupling of lectures. More than Textbook Compared to the college students several decadesRead MoreBenefits Of Technology In Education1094 Words   |  5 Pagesdeny that technology is becoming a major portion of daily life. The use of technology is impacting the use of medicine, transportation, and work in an unprecedented way allowing for innovations to happen daily. With such rapid expansion, it did not take long for technology to spread into the classroom. Technology started influencing lectures with power points, videos, games, and supplemental material that enhance the grasp of specific concepts to allow for more than one means of learning. But is thisRead MoreLearning Management Systems ( Lms ) Essay924 Words   |  4 PagesLearning management systems (LMS) are design to allow the instructor to develop a webpage that encourages learning. The LMS is sometimes a place for information to be given and quizzes to be develop to test the knowledge of the learner. Simulation software is another technological based tool that allows for active learning. Simulators often times are dummies that use computer software that simulates situation that is designed to assist the learner. The purpose of this paper is to take a look at theRead MoreThe Flipped Classroom Experience1524 Words   |  6 PagesTechnologies have its own share of advantages and disadvantages. Technology can be a boon in disguise or it can work in opposite way. In past, several learning institutes have tried applying new and latest technologies to enhance the teaching experience. Technology needs to be analysed methodically to estimate the benefits. The technology we discussed and recommend includes Webex, classroom recording which facilitate collaborative online interactive sessions. These technology have played importantRead MoreShould Technology Be Incorporated in the Classroom?1523 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction. Technology incorporation in the classroom is the development, application, organization, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning. Technology is a broad term that often describes a discipline devoted to techniques or ways to make learning more efficient (Earle, R. S. 2000 ). It is the responsibility of each educator to provide an educational program that appropriately supports each child’s learning development and learning goals. In a technology based society, childrenRead MoreTechnology Is Used For Recreational Purposes1569 Words   |  7 PagesSection I: Introduction General Background: Technology is continuously advancing, and appears to be changing annually! With the increase in technology comes, not only, new gadgets and gizmos, but new possibilities. Today’s generation of children are being born into a â€Å"technology fish bowl†. Many people believe that technology is simply used for recreational purposes, but that is not entirely true. In fact, technology is beginning to appear in several school districts around the country. â€Å"As the useRead MoreThe Internet Has Improved Education1329 Words   |  6 Pagesinformation. According to State Univeristy in the article, †Technology in Education - School† states, â€Å"Students once relied upon local and school libraries and their printed reference materials to research topics. Now, however, computer technologies provide access to digital versions of these references–and to libraries worldwide. Encyclopedias on CD-ROMs provide information, digital images, vid eo, and audio, and also provide links to websites where students access tools such as live web cameras and globalRead MoreTechnology As A Tool For Technology931 Words   |  4 PagesTechnology in the Classroom Many classrooms across the country are immersed with technology. Technology is used in a plethora of ways in today’s classrooms. The widespread use of technology in classroom instruction dates back to universities trickling down to pre-schools. When technology exists daily in the classroom; strategies are endless when dealing with classroom management. According to Khatib, (2014) â€Å"the use of the Internet as a tool for technology-enhanced instruction has educators

Essay On A Beautiful Mind - 971 Words

A Life with Schizophrenia The movie â€Å"A Beautiful Mind† helps the audience to see and understand how is it to live with schizophrenia. According to Cockerham, â€Å"Schizophrenia is a disturbance in an individual’s mood, thinking, and behavior, characterized by a distorted sense of reality that includes delusions and hallucinations† (34). The main character in this movie is John Nash, an American mathematician who struggles his whole life with schizophrenia. Although, in the long run he learns how to control it in a way that does not cause any physical or emotional harm to himself or others. For graduate school, he decides to go to Princeton University, where he competes with other students on coming up with an â€Å"original idea.† An original idea†¦show more content†¦Nash is a very lonely man. He does not like people, and he thinks people do not like him either. He considers himself as the â€Å"lone wolf† mainly because people do not like him. This is all on his mind, there are many people that appreciate his hard work and care about him. The movie does a great job on making the audience believe that certain things are happening, but in reality, they are only hallucinations that Nash is experiencing. He hallucinates things like working for the government as spy against the Russians, seeing and talking to Charles, his roommate from Princeton University and his niece, but none of this is real. There is one scene where Nash is going to drop an envelope with confidential information in it at the house of this man that he is working for, but a shooting begins. This is when the man that hired Nash tells him to get into the car. In Nash’s mind, the Russians are the ones who are shooting at him. After the imaginary shooting, he goes back to his house and locked himself up in a room. His wife starts to wonder why he is acting that way, but she never thinks that he has a mental illness, she just thinks he had a bad day. This is the defini tive outburst phase. The movie makes this scene like it’s actually happening. Towards the middle of the movie, he is taken to McArthur Psychiatric Hospital to get treatment for his mental illness. At the hospital, he tries to justify his behavior by telling hisShow MoreRelatedA Beautiful Mind Essay1388 Words   |  6 Pages In the movie A Beautiful Mind by Ron Howard, John Nash is the main focus of this movie because he was diagnosed with a serious mental disease known as schizophrenia. Schizophrenia can be described by many different symptoms, but most cases contain illogical thoughts or hallucinations (1). This mental disease became a prominent factor in John Nashs life during his early adulthood. At this time, he was studying to obtain his doctorate at Princeton University. Although he had such an immaculate knowledgeRead MoreEssay on Beautiful Mind2489 Words   |  10 PagesCMI Kowats Pd. 4 March 12, 2011 A Beautiful Mind Questions Section 1: Questions: 1. Describe the opening sequence when John Nash sees the others. What patterns does he see? Why is this important? †¢ John sees patterns on the man’s tie, and relates it to reflections of light and shapes. This shows his analytical mind, and his ability to relate two arbitrary things to geometry and math. 2. What is Nashs role at Princeton? †¢ Nash is a graduate student at Princeton. He is also famousRead MoreEssay on A Beautiful Mind (Movie)937 Words   |  4 Pagesbeen hallucinating. The Department of Defense agent William Parcher and Nashs secret assignment to decode Soviet messages was in fact all a delusion. Even more surprisingly, Nashs friend Charles and his niece Marcee are also only products of Nashs mind. After a painful series of insulin shock therapy sessions, Nash is released on the condition that he agrees to take antipsychotic medication. However, these drugs create negative side-effects that affect his relationship with his wife and, mostRead MoreEssay about A Beautiful Mind993 Words   |  4 Pagesrealizations and realizations in life that I never thought of before. One of these realizations is the fact that seeing something is not a guarantee for you to believe that it really exists. This fact only states that even your own eyes and your own minds can fool you. This is what happened to the case of John Nash in the movie. His wife, Alicia, took note of every weird action that he started manifesting, and these weird actions frightened her and their child. Then, Alicia called the psychiatric hospitalRead MoreMy Beautiful Mind Essay1013 Words   |  5 PagesLiving with Schizophrenia â€Å"The mind is indeed a beautiful thing. It is the reason for our ingenuity, artistic originality and maybe even our humanity. What happens however when the mind works against us? When it tricks us into believing that what is not real to be the actual, destroying our sense of being?† (Angelo) We see this played out firsthand in the life of John Forbes Nash Jr. in â€Å"A Beautiful Mind.† The film was directed by Ron Howard and starred Russell Crowe, who plays John Nash, PaulRead MoreA Beautiful Mind: a Case Study Essay1714 Words   |  7 PagesRunning head: A BEAUTIFUL MIND 1 A Beautiful Mind: A Case Study A BEAUTIFUL MIND 2 Diagnostic Impression: Axis I 295.30 Schizophrenia, Paranoid Type, Continuous Axis II V71.09 No Diagnosis Axis III None Axis IV Psychosocial and Educational Stressors Axis V GAF = 55 (highest level in past 30 years) Case Study: John Nash suffers from Paranoid Schizophrenia. He is a gifted mathematician who began graduate school at Princeton University in 1947Read MoreA Beautiful Mind: Psychological Disorders Essay1061 Words   |  5 PagesA Beautiful Mind illustrates many of the topics relating to psychological disorders. 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Nash, known as a mathematical genius and one of the most original minds of the 20th century, made his breakthrough as a twenty-year-old graduate student at Princeton University with a remarkable proof in the field of gameRead MoreEssay about Schizophrenia in A Beautiful Mind912 Words   |  4 Pages nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In the film â€Å" A Beautiful Mind† John Nash experiences a few different positive symptoms. The first of these positive symptoms are seen through the hallucinations John has of having a room -mate while at Princeton. This room- mate continues to stay â€Å"in contact† with John through out his adult life and later this room- mate’s niece enters Johns mind as another coinciding hallucination. Nash’s other hallucination is Ed Harris, who plays a government agent that seeks outRead More Ethical Analysis of A Beautiful Mind Essay1595 Words   |  7 PagesEthical Analysis of â€Å"A Beautiful Mind† â€Å"A Beautiful mind† is a story based on the life of John Forbes Nash, who is a famous mathematician. Unfortunately, he is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia that majorly affects his personal and social life. Schizophrenia is a psychological disorder in which the patient’s ability to function is impaired by severely distorted beliefs, perceptions, and thought processes (Hockenbury, 2010). John Nash, the main character, faces many challenges in his professional

Trial of New Drinks in the Market

Question: Discuss about the Report for Trial of New Drinks in the Market. Answer: Introduction This is the analysis of the mixture drinks conducted in Australia in the month of September, November and December. The mixture drinks which were introduced to the market are the: Almond passion, Lime soda, Mango delight, Raspberry soda, Tripple shot Espresso and the Cranberry Wizz. The drinks were being sold in 300 ml cans with the wholesale price ranging at $1.50. Almond Passion Almond passion was sold by four retailers in victoria Tasmania, and three retails in each of the other regions. Each retailer had three stores in each region in the place to conduct the trial. The trial started as a low note in all regions with the best region selling 33,412 cans. The total cans sold on the month of September were 439615. This was maybe the almond passion was new in the market and there were less customers who knew it. In the next month of October, there was increase in the sale of Almond passion. The number increased from 439,615 to 553068. This was a good increase in number of the cans sold. Some reasons which may have contributed to this number of can sold could be consumers had known the existence of the new product in the market and had liked it. Coming the month of November, the company loss some of its consumers. The number sold had reduced to 455825 this may had been due to adjustment by the competitors and also the company relaxing after increase in the pre vious month. In the final month of the trial, the sale of Almond juice raised again to 527326 this was the second best sales which was achieved in the entire trial. Total of 1975834 of the almond passion was sold during the trials. The region with the best sales was QLD NT with the total of 721839 cans. Other regions were NSW with 513772, WA SA with 460590 and VIC and TAS at 279633 Cranberry Wizz This drink was only sold by one retailer in 4 regions. The retailor who was involved in the sales was DAN MURPHY'S. In the four regions, November was when high sales were experienced at 206371 cans and December only 55 cans were sold in which 3 regions recorded a record of Zero cans. On the first month the sales were 168,453 then the next month the sales reduced to 150640 cans then it increased to 206371. In December the sales reduced to more than 905 with only 55 sold. This is a very big drop and Collins must check reasons to why Cranberry dropped to this number. WA SA were the best sellers of this product at 155788 cans. VIC TAS experienced low sales at 119612 while 123368 and 126751 were sold by NSW and QLD ELT respectively. Lime soda It was sold in 4 region with 3 retailors. The total number of cans sold was 428008. The region which had the highest sales was the WA SA at 130,406. It was followed closely with the NSW at 123,956 while the lowest sale was recorded by VIC and TAS at 60132 while the QLD NT received 113514 cans. According to how the sales were done, the sales of lime water reduced from September to December. It started at 300722 in September but in October, it had reduced by more than 50% and 76109 cans were sold. The cans sold in November further reduced to 37696 but in December there was more than 100% increase of cans sold in November. Mango Delight This type of drink was sold in 4 regions by one retailer. The region where a lot of Mango Delight was sold was the QLD NT. A total of 29053 cans were sold in this area. Another region where there was a good feedback was in WA SA where 28724 cans were sold. The juice was also accepted in NSW and a total of 242886 cans were sold finally the region with low sales was VIC TAS. Raspberry Soda Same to Mango delight, RASPBERRY SODA was also sold by one retailer in the 4 region. A total of 247802 cans were sold with the NSW region selling more than half. The sales started well in the first month but reduced in the last month. Triple Shot Expresso This another type of mixer drink which was sold in all the trial regions with the most retailors. A total of 1096848 of this product were sold during the 4 months. The sales had positive feedback increasing from September to December. In December, the sales started at 213894 and in December it was boosted to 402767. Total Number Of Sales Per Month The total number of cans sold during the trial was 5448531 September 1413853 October 1412274 November 1333572 December 1288857 According to the analysis, the sales of product reduced monthly from September to December. Retailers performance In the trial marketing of the mixtures, this how the retailors managed to operate CELLARBRATIONS 1150649 DANMURPHYS 2418035 DANCANS 177038 THIRSTY CAMEL 170289 The retailors can be represented in the diagram as below Duncans was the most active retailor selling more than 50% of the total cans. He worked in all the region and sometimes selling the product single handed. Conclusion. If the recommendations are put in place, there will be boost in the sale of new product and they will perform well in the market. Collins should contact more retailors in areas where there was only one retailor selling a given product. By doing this, the market will spread and the company will have new market. The company should also act on the complains of customer to ensure there is better service. During the entire process, there is reduction of the sales from September to December. This can be avoided by actively advertising the product and putting consumers complain into consideration so as to satisfy them fully There should be more sales by retailors in the regions where there were only one retailors and this will boost the number of the product being sold. Finally the actions of close competitors should be watched so that better options can be offered to the customers. This will maintain the existing customers and even attract more customers.

Maximizing Profits in Market Structures free essay sample

Profits in Market Structures Market Structures are described as a particular relationship between the buyers and the sellers of goods and services in a specific market (Mathias, 2000). Three different types of market structures are competitive markets, monopolies, and oligopolies. Each of these market structures has a particular set of characteristics that identify it and separate it from the others. These categories are also separated by the way they each use pricing and output to calculate and maximize their profits. We will write a custom essay sample on Maximizing Profits in Market Structures or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Another difference between these three categories is the presence of barriers, which may be present to encourage current companies to exit, as well as new comers to enter that market. Also, each of these three structures has a different effect on the economy, some having more control on the market than others. With all these differences the specific market structures all have one thing in common, they all rely on supply and demand to determine how to maximize their profits. Competitive markets have two primary characteristics that separate it from other market structures. The first characteristic is that, within a competitive market, there are a large number of buyers and sellers. Second is that the product being sold is the same among all companies, making the products completely interchangeable. These factors make the market competitive by insuring that no single buyer or seller can control the market price. Therefore, in order for companies within a competitive market to maximize profits, they must maintain an equilibrium between the price charged for a product and quantity that they produce. This means that a company must take the price being charged for a product and subtract the cost of making the product to figure out where they are equal. As the price of a product in a competitive market is controlled by the market as a whole, the seller must adjust its output to maintain maximum profits. This is important because the company’s revenue is in direct correlation with the price, so if the price goes up $1. 00 per unit then the revenue also will go up the same amount. For example, if a product has a fixed cost of $1. 0, and the variable cost of $3. 00 and the product sells for $5. 00 then the company has to adjust its output to balance that amount, so that it does not cost over $5. 00 for each product sold. One factor that can affect the output of a product, is the lack of barriers that are present for anyone wanting to begin or exit a company. If the amount of sellers change but the demand does not then current companies will need to decrease the output or risk the price dropping below the profitable levels. The competitive markets can have a positive impact on the economy because the competition helps control the cost of products. If there was little or no competition, then companies would have the ability to raise prices as high as they wanted to, especially in the case of items that are necessities (Mankiw, 2007). The characteristics of a monopoly are first, that there is only one company selling a product and there are no substitutions. Second, there is no competition, the product is exclusive to one company. Third, in a monopoly the company completely controls the pricing of its products and can charge as much as they believe a customer will pay (Mathias, 2000). In contrast to a competitive market, a monopoly can chose what to charge for its product. However, the price must be set according to what consumers are willing to pay, while still maintaining a profitable level of production. It is important to control the output of product so, the price must be set to where the company will still be able to sell a large amount of product while maximizing its profits . There are substantial barriers to entering a market that has a monopoly. One barrier is the inability to compete in the market that is controlled by one company. A small business starting out in completion with a large monopoly would incur substantial costs to begin production and they would have to increase their prices to make a profit. This could also be a problem if the monopoly holds the rights to the raw materials that it takes to make a product. Therefore, entering a market that is controlled by a monopoly is very difficult. However, it is possible for a market to be controlled by a small number of companies, similar to the way that a monopoly controls a market. The economic impact that monopolies have can be outrageous prices or limited availability of goods and services to many people (Mankiw, 2007). An Oligopoly is when a limited number of companies control a specific market, with little competition (Mathias, 2000). Some characteristics of an oligopoly are that the companies all make the same or similar items, so they are substitutable, and there are only a few companies that produce this good. As there are a limited amount of producers these oligopolies are also able to set the price of their goods, using things like advertisements and warranties for competition between businesses. Because there are only a few companies making a product the members of an oligopoly have to control the production of their goods in order to control the pricing. If one of the companies decides to increase production then there will be an abundance of supply without the necessary increase in demand. This means that the cost of the product will have to go down to try to increase demand. These companies have to maintain a steady level of output in order to maintain price, giving them the best profits. The companies that are in this small circle of businesses, try very hard to erect barriers in front of anyone who may think about entering their market. By stopping the emergence of new companies the oligopolies can continue to control the market. The affect that oligopolies have on the economy is the ability to control pricing and supply of products, similar to the impact that a monopoly has (Mankiw, 2007). In conclusion, each market structure plays a role in the economy with the focus of these companies centering on profits. They monopoly can be beneficial if the lowest price for consumers comes from having only on producer but in many cases a monopoly means high prices and limited supply. An oligopoly does have less control over pricing only because they are sharing the demand and antitrust laws prevent them from gathering together as one monopoly, to maximize profit. The competitive market is the most economically friendly market because it has to compete to get customers and this helps keep prices affordable and does not limit the availability of goods to the public.

Free Essays on HNC

Report As part of my HNC I was asked to Design, Manufacture and Test a circuit that would control both traffic lights and motor situated on a model of the Kincardine Bridge. The specification I was given was that the circuit board could be no bigger than 100 x 160mm and could cost no more than  £50. Taking the specification into account I searched for components I would use to construct the circuit making sure the price was under the  £50 limit (the total cost was  £42.99). The second task I undertook was to design a board within the required size (the final size was 89 x 74mm) but I ran into problems with the design because of this there was a total of 20 designs before the board was ready to be manufactured, some of the problems are listed below. SIL Reed relay pins were the wrong size Earth connections were missing LED’s were over-lapping The pins on the 7406 were connected the wrong way round Once the PCB was designed, the board was then manufactured. The manufacturing process can be found in Appendix page 2`. The next stage was to test and populate the board, continuity testing was done by using a multi-meter to check for open and short circuits and then hand soldering all the components in place. The population process took me around 3 hours instead of the 2 hours planned as I had to de-solder my wire links as they were not of an acceptable standard. The final process was to test the finished PCB, this was done by testing the outputs on the board as they all worked first time I had no extra fault finding/debugging to do. Conclusion As the circuit worked first time I proved that I would be capable of undergoing projects like this in the future. The main reason for the circuit working was the amount of time I spent at the design process. This would save companies money in real life, as there would be no waste of materials. I also feel that my project skills are improving, as there is a big difference bet... Free Essays on HNC Free Essays on HNC Report As part of my HNC I was asked to Design, Manufacture and Test a circuit that would control both traffic lights and motor situated on a model of the Kincardine Bridge. The specification I was given was that the circuit board could be no bigger than 100 x 160mm and could cost no more than  £50. Taking the specification into account I searched for components I would use to construct the circuit making sure the price was under the  £50 limit (the total cost was  £42.99). The second task I undertook was to design a board within the required size (the final size was 89 x 74mm) but I ran into problems with the design because of this there was a total of 20 designs before the board was ready to be manufactured, some of the problems are listed below. SIL Reed relay pins were the wrong size Earth connections were missing LED’s were over-lapping The pins on the 7406 were connected the wrong way round Once the PCB was designed, the board was then manufactured. The manufacturing process can be found in Appendix page 2`. The next stage was to test and populate the board, continuity testing was done by using a multi-meter to check for open and short circuits and then hand soldering all the components in place. The population process took me around 3 hours instead of the 2 hours planned as I had to de-solder my wire links as they were not of an acceptable standard. The final process was to test the finished PCB, this was done by testing the outputs on the board as they all worked first time I had no extra fault finding/debugging to do. Conclusion As the circuit worked first time I proved that I would be capable of undergoing projects like this in the future. The main reason for the circuit working was the amount of time I spent at the design process. This would save companies money in real life, as there would be no waste of materials. I also feel that my project skills are improving, as there is a big difference bet...

Practice in Using the Prepositions In, Into, On, and At

Practice in Using the Prepositions In, Into, On, and At Complete each of the following ​sentences with the appropriate preposition: in, into, on, or at. When youre done, compare your responses with the answers below. Assignment Slocum stepped (in, into, on, or at) the elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor.As Slocum stood silently (in, into, on, or at) the elevator, the woman beside him began to sing.The woman was wearing a paper crown (in, into, on, or at) her head.Slocum was scheduled for an appointment in the clinic (in, into, on, or at) the fifth floor.He was due for his appointment (in, into, on, or at) five minutes.Slocum spotted a large dead roach (in, into, on, or at) the greasy floor of the elevator.Slocum stared (in, into, on, or at) the roach for a few seconds and then closed his eyes.He slipped (in, into, on, or at) a familiar fantasy world.In that world, dolphins were swimming (in, into, on, or at) a circle around him.When the doors opened (in, into, on, or at) the fifth floor, the elevator was empty. Answers Here youll find the answers (in bold) to the above exercise. Slocum stepped  into  the elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor.As Slocum stood silently  in  the elevator, the woman beside him began to sing.The woman was wearing a paper crown  on  her head.Slocum was scheduled for an appointment in the clinic  on  the fifth floor.He was due for his appointment  in  five minutes.Slocum spotted a large dead roach  on  the greasy floor of the elevator.Slocum stared  at  the roach for a few seconds and then closed his eyes.He slipped  into  a familiar fantasy world.In that world, dolphins were swimming  in  a circle around him.When the doors opened  on  the fifth floor, the elevator was empty.

The Poems Structure Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The Poems Structure - Essay Example In the marriage poem which shows the diversity of the use of words. Literary allusion is used in the first poem where contrapuntal and trills have been used to show her experiences in marriage. In the second poem, cottonwoods have been used to refer to sex and this shows how the writer indirectly used her words. Literary allusions have led to the enticement of the poem to the readers. Symbolizing is the art of using something to represent a particular item, activity or person. In The Language of Marriage poem, lap has been used to express the duration she has been in marriage. The Plague of Cottonwoods poem uses the word Cottonwoods to symbolize sex. Rhyme is the repetition of sound in two or more words is used in the poems. It is apparent that the first poem has used the words pretention and fiction. Dactylic rhyme is evident in the second poem with the use of the words futilely and infertile. The Language of Marriage poem has one stanza that has fourteen lines. It is evident that the lines do not necessarily rhyme at the end of each sentence.

Law ass5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Law ass5 - Essay Example The decedent’s relatives are now suing the Inn. Your district manager asks you to â€Å"put an end to such problems,† and warns you that another incident like this could â€Å"cost you your job.† While you are certainly sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, you also want to keep your job. You feel that installing barbed-wire at the top of the fence would be inhumane and would also scare your guests. In stead, you opt to turn to a small company that manufactures electric fences for cattle. The solution they recommend is to run a â€Å"hot wire† at the top of the fence. The wire would deliver a mild, normally non-lethal, electric shock to a would be trespasser. A week later you install the wire. Two days later, another inebriated homeless man, who has a pacemaker, climbs the fence. He dies instantly as a result of the mild electric shock. His family sues the Inn. 1. Ignoring any municipal codes and statutes that may exist, based on the information you have reviewed in Katko v. Briney, the Coase theorem with respect to negligence, and your own common sense, what are the policy arguments for and against tort liability in this case? The case brings into perspective the eagerness of litigants to sue for damages even when they are on the wrong. The wire mesh erected around the swimming pool differs greatly from the trap in Katko v. Briney. This is because while the trap in the former was hidden and caused damage to an unsuspecting trespasser, a wire mesh is clearly visible and when one climbs it, they do so at their own risk. The death occurred due to the man’s intoxication and not negligence on the side of the hotel. If the man had not been inebriated he would certainly have survived. As such, his death is as a result of his own cause and should not be blamed on anyone else. The mild shock could not also under normal circumstance have caused death to the homeless man. His inebriated must have largely contributed

Wal-Marts Unethical Behavior Essay Example for Free

Wal-Marts Unethical Behavior Essay For the past few decades Wal-Mart has been criticized and accused for being involved with all sorts of unethical behavior. Many various groups of people have come after Wal-Mart protesting against their company’s policies and business practices. Labor, community, environmental, and religious groups are some of the most known types of groups that have tried to personally attack Wal-Mart for their lack of social responsibility. Just some of the many areas that have raised concern by people would be the corporation’s foreign product sourcing, environmental practices, the use of public subsidies, and the treatment of employees and product suppliers. Wal-Mart continues to deny any allegations of wrongdoings and unethical behavior (Fishman). Many stories have surfaced that would label Wal-Mart as being an unethical company. Some stories are big, some are small, and some are probably completely made up. However, there is a lot of evidence that shows how unethical Wal-Mart has been in many different types of circumstances. Prior to 2007 it was estimated that 87,000 Wal-Mart employees were cheated out of $34 million because the Wal-Mart executives failed to pay workers overtime. Some even admitted that they were trained by their superiors to not pay anyone overtime. This is a very immoral act because the workers are not getting paid what they deserve and this makes it harder for them to pay for their living expenses (Fishman). Wal-Mart has had over 100 lawsuits concerning wage and hour violations. They have been charged with not giving workers federally mandated breaks and lunches. They have also required workers to take their missed breaks or overtime before the Friday’s end of the pay period, which is an illegal act. Wal-Mart has been accused for not paying full-time benefits for workers who work 40 hours or more per week. In 2005 in the state of California, Wal-Mart was forced to pay $172 million in damages. There has been several cases of where Wal-Mart has had to pay many millions of dollars for employee damages. The ethical issue in this case would be fairness. All employees should be granted what they deserve and what they were promised (Greenhouse). Wal-Mart does not pay many of their employees enough money to support their family or even have health care. They pay 26-37% less than the national average for the same jobs in the retail industry. Wal-Mart pays poverty level wages and this is very unethical because they make such huge profits that can allow them to pay decent living wages. Wal-Mart profits more by using State Governments to fund health care for its employees which is not fair to their competitors or the society (Olsson). Wal-Mart has the worst health packages when compared with their competitors. For example they cover only about 50% of their employees while the national average for major retailers is around 64%. Wal-Mart employees have to wait for 6 months to get health insurance compared to the national average of 3 months. They even charge extra for emergency room visits and ambulance usage. Also, employees with pre-existing conditions have to wait at least one year to receive any treatment. Instead of trying to give their employees the bare minimum, Wal-Mart should readjust their prices and salaries so that enough money would go towards things like basic health care (Fishman). Thorough studies have been done as well as many court cases that prove that Wal-Mart discriminates against women by not paying them as much as their male counterparts. It is also much rarer for women to be promoted to upper management than it is a male. A 2003 study was done that showed that women received 37 cents an hour less than the men that held the same position. Female managers earn about $5,000 less than male managers. Even though 72% of Wal-Mart’s workforce consists of women they still only make up 33% of all managers. Jon Lehman who is a former Wal-Mart store manager said that most of the superiors believed that women are useless at Wal-Mart. An African American woman asked a superior if she wasn’t promoted to management because she was a woman or because she was black and the superior replied that two out of two isn’t bad. Not only is this against the law, but it is very immoral as well as discriminatory (Norman). Just one audit of one week’s worth of time clock records at one specific Wal-Mart showed that minors were working too late at night, during school hours, and were working too many hours a day. It also found more than 60,000 cases of minors not taking breaks and even more cases of minors working through meal times. This is unethical because minors should be focusing on school and not working too many hours at Wal-Mart. A Wal-Mart in CT was given huge violations for having minors working with machinery such as paper balers, chainsaws, and forklifts. Children are not at the age of consent to operate such machinery in any fashion. Horrific incidences were discovered in a Wal-Mart factory in Bangladesh where children were routinely beaten, forced to work overtime for little or no pay, and were told to lie about their age (Greenhouse). In China, workers are treated more like slaves than people. They are treated as tools to get the work done as quickly and cheaply as possible. They are taught to lie to inspectors and auditors about the amount of time they work and the working conditions that they endure (Greenhouse). They were told that if they didn’t lie then they would lose their job. Wal-Mart pays only 18 cents for a product that is made in China that they charge $14.96 for in America. It was reported that a Wal-Mart supplier factory employed minors as young as 12 working them for excessive overtime hours and for under minimum wage. They were also working with chemicals without any protective gear. All human beings should be treated with a certain level of respect regardless of age or ethnicity. Wal-Mart should improve their working conditions and remedy all situations of unethical behavior especially towards those who are under age and not supposed to be working in the first place (Fishman). Wal-Mart claims to care about the environment, but they actually harm the environment. They lied about having an environmental person dedicated to these issues and they don’t actually have an environmentally friendly policy in place. Wal-Mart shows to have more of an avoidance towards their harming of the environment. They have been known to put chemicals into the environment that can cause birth defects as well as storing fertilizers in parking lots unprotected. Wal-Mart has seemed to continue to ignore the idea of better storage for certain products and necessary environmental policies. Over a few years span Wal-Mart has had to shell out millions of dollars to pay for Clean Water Act violations (Olsson). Wal-Mart has received billions of dollars in subsidies to set up shop nationwide as well as some other countries. Wal-Mart is so profitable that it does not need to receive money from anyone. If Wal-Mart was a community conscious organization then they wouldn’t need any money from cities, states, or communities. They often set up their stores on the outskirts of town so they can receive free plumbing, however other companies and citizens have to pay for such utilities themselves when they’re in the same situation (Bianco). Sam Walton was known for practicing corporate socialism. He sought out free land, long term leases at prices below market, getting workers trained at the government’s expense, and even pocketing sales taxes. He also had a $37 million ramp and roadway constructed for Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters in Arizona which the State paid for (Fishman). The government’s money that is going to Wal-Mart could be going towards things such as education and building our youth. They are a very selfish organization that strives to get bigger individually and have complete disregard for everyone else. There was a case in Denver where three schools ended up closing because there was not enough money to keep them open, however around that same time period Wal-Mart received $2 million. It is very unethical and not abiding by free market policies to give such a huge store like Wal-Mart such a competitive advantage when the mom and pop stores continue to go out of business (Bianco). By being such an unethical company Wal-Mart is putting smaller, trustworthy businesses out of business. Since they pay very low wages and receive money from states and governments, they can charge such a cheap price which in return puts those smaller businesses that have to charge slightly more for the same products out of business. It is just plain wrong how Wal-Mart treats everyone that is involved with their organization and the competitors. They don’t care about the economy or the environment; they only care about how much money they can collect. It is estimated that Wal-Mart’s trade deficit with China eliminated 200,000 U.S. jobs between 2001 and 2006 (Olsson). If Wal-Mart was its own nation then it would be China’s eighth largest trading partner. Wal-Mart is able to have such cheap goods because the safety standards are lower in China which in return puts the American consumer at risk. This is very unethical because Wal-Mart is risking their consumer’s health by trying to maximize their own profits. By offering such low prices, Wal-Mart is putting other companies out of business that actually sell quality products that are safe to the consumer (Bianco). Wal-Mart has hundreds of cameras and security guards inside their stores to protect their own merchandise, but it’s a completely different story when it comes to the type of security that is present in the parking lots or outside of the stores. There has been so many shootings, carjackings, and muggings in Wal-Mart parking lots that many local police departments have asked Wal-Mart to hire on site security guards to help protect against such behavior. However, for the most part Wal-Mart has failed to do so. Wal-Mart has known of these types of issues in their parking lots, but have continued to turn their heads in the opposite direction (Norman). When Wal-Mart plans for new store locations, there are many activists and groups of people that oppose and try to protest the construction of the new store. Wal-Mart tends to ignore issues such as traffic congestion, potential environmental problems, public safety, and bad public relations. In 2004 Wal-Mart opened a store in Mexico just over a mile from the historic Teotihuacan archaeological site and the Pyramid of the moon. This caused a lot of protests with the locals because they thought this was a very disrespectful notion. By building a Wal-Mart in such a symbolic area it was seen by many as placing one of the main culprits of globalization in the heart of ancient Mexico (Fishman). In 1998 Wal-Mart wanted to open a store in Nashville, Tennessee right on top of Native American burial grounds and where a Civil War battle took place. Protests took place, however Wal-Mart won the battle and ended up moving the graves so they could construct the new store. If this isn’t immoral and disrespectful then I don’t know what is. I would have to think that there would be other locations where they could have opened the store. It almost seems as if Wal-Mart likes to show their power in any way possible (Norman). Wal-Mart cannot justify all the wrong that they have done to many people and communities by simply offering and continuing to express their low prices. Money may make the world go around, but it won’t save the world. People’s actions is what will make this world a better place to live in. Sacrificing the environment and human rights is simply immoral and unethical just so one major monopolistic organization can continue to offer the lowest prices possible. Wal-Mart needs to be held accountable for all of their actions regardless of the amount of money they produce. It is very difficult to monitor and control such a huge companies actions and to try and stop them from being completely unethical. The outcome of their unethical behavior has been many lawsuits and they just continue to surface. Wal-Mart has such a huge profit that these lawsuits do not stop them from being unethical (Bianco). Hopefully Wal-Mart’s unethical behavior will eventually catch up with them. Wal-Mart superiors at the corporate level should understand that unethical behavior eventually turns around to bite you but they continue to ignore the issues. It will take many years to completely resolve the type of unethical behavior that is allowed but steps need to be taken to reach that sort of goal. A complete restructuring of the company and those in charge may be necessary to cleanse the unethical behavior. The right people and policies must be in place from top-down to every Wal-Mart store across the entire world. Once they realize all the issues and feel the need to correct them, then they can look forward to the future in a positive and ethical way that will benefit everybody involved. References Bianco, Anthony; Zellner, Wendy. Is Walmart Too Powerful? Business Week. 2003. Fishman, Charles. The Walmart You Don’t Know. Fast Company. 2003. Greenhouse, Steven. In-House Audit Says Walmart Violated Labor Laws. The New York Times. 2004. Norman, Al. The Case Against Wal-Mart. Raphel Marketing. ISBN 0-9711542-3-6. 2004. Olsson, Karen. Up Against Walmart. Mother Jones. 2003

How has the ?American Dream? been translated into popular film? Refer :: essays research papers fc

The American Dream is an often mentioned and well-known term used to describe the ideology of the United States of America. Despite the common usage of the term it is not always completely understood and so requires, at least, a brief introduction and definition. P Mueller in his writing Star Trek and the American Dream claims that â€Å"†¦to some the American dream is just "from rags to riches", to others it includes the realisation of high flying ideals as old as mankind itself.† Mueller then goes onto say that the term was coined in 1931 by James Truslow Adams and identifies three main roots: mythical aspects (leading back to the ancient dream of a perfect society and as paradise even before the continent was discovered), religious aspects (which Mueller describes as dealing with the puritan vision of a city upon a hill) and political aspects (arising from the declaration of independence and the constitution). It would seem that the most important of these th ree themes is arguably that of the political nature and various commentators have defined the American Dream in this way. Martin Luther King claimed â€Å"It [the American Dream] is found in those majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, words lifted to cosmic proportions: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by God, Creator, with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." This is a dream. It’s a great dream.† Jim Bickford concurred with this view within his writing The American Dream: Our Heritage of Hope (in which he goes onto to identify several examples of the American Dream in practice throughout history) when he claimed â€Å"America was built on dreams† and went onto to discuss the importance of the declaration of independence in creating the dream by stating â€Å"Our ancestors chose to take the risk by putting their lives o n the line and fighting for freedom† . In respect to the medium of film it comes as no surprise that the American Dream has filtered itself, both consciously and unconsciously, directly and indirectly, onto the screen. America, and in particular Hollywood, is the dominant producer of film within the world today. Where Hollywood leads other filmmaking nations follow. The American Dream is largely presented within film in the sense of the political context: life, liberty and (in particular) the pursuit of Happiness but there is no uniform depiction of this.

One Way Is to Make English Language a Compulsory Subject Essay

One way is to make English language a compulsory subject. In my school just as Mathematics, Science and other social subjects are taught English should also be introduced as proper course. All students from their very early education will be introduced to English. All students would be required to pass the English course before they can be promoted to the next grade. For example a grade one who is not able to pass grade one English course will not be promoted to grade 2. Similarly grade two student will not be promoted to grade three until he has passed the English course. The level of complexity and difficulty of English would be increased slowly and gradually each year so that when a student finishes his primary education he is able to read, write, and understand the Basic English. Communication and skills or could be improved by encouraging students to speak in English when in school rather than native language. The second way would be to teach all the subjects in English from the beginning instead of the local language. In Thailand currently all the subjects we mostly taught in the local language so that the students can grasp the ideas more quickly and easily. As a results the students became used to study everything in local language rather than English. If all the subjects are taught in English the students will learn the language more quickly and they will also be comfortable in using in the language later in their educational life when they study more advanced subjects in English. In short all schools should be made strictly English medium. From the two suggestions that I have made I think the second one will be more effective and feasible. I say that because if all the subjects we taught in English then it would be easy for students to adapt the language. If on the others hand there is only one cause of English language and the rest of the subjects we taught in local language then the students will not concentrate on the English language enough. Students might try to just pass the English course and focus more on the others subject since they might find the other course easier to understand. An example to support my argument could be comparison of the students of India and China. From my research I have found out that students in India are taught all the subjects during their primary education in English. As a result the students do not consider English as a foreign language but rather consider English as an integral and core part of their early education. The result is that Indian students are able to understand and communicate more efficiently compared to students of other nationalities. Chines on the other hand are taught all their course in local language. So although they have sharp minds and critically they have a hand time communicating all their ideas in English language. Conclusion In conclusion, if we are use English language in all subjects and always taught in English that students will have concentrate to study because if they not concentrate then will difficult to learning. When students can use English well they can learn the language more quickly. In Thailand should to pass the English course before then they can be promote to the next grade. If they can’t pass English course then they can continue study again until they have passed the English course. I think, this way is possible for my school.

Resarch and Statistics Paper Psy 315

Research and Statistics Paper Psy 315 Define and explain research and define and explain the scientific method (include an explanation of all five steps). Proper Research is primarily an investigation. Researchers and scientists gather data, facts, and knowledge to help better understand phenomenon, events and people. Through research, analysis, investigations, and experimentation, we gain a better understanding of our world. As I skimmed the text to find a definition, I found the word research several times on several of the pages in the first chapter.Research is fundamental to any scientific enterprise and statistics is no exception. The scientific method is the set of procedures that enable scientists and researchers to conduct investigations and experiments. Scientists observe an event and then form a hypothesis. A hypothesis is an educated guess about how something works. These researchers then perform experiments that support the hypothesis or these experiments prove it wrong. A conclusions can be made from the investigations and experiments with the data collected and analyzed. The conclusion helps to prove or disprove validity of the hypothesis.There are several steps that are followed in the scientific method. The steps to this method can be followed by answering questions before and along the way of the investigation. The scientific method can have five steps. The researcher asks themselves these questions and tries o find the answers: 1. What event or phenomenon are we investigating? 2. How does this event occur? A guess as to how the event happens is formed. This is our hypothesis. 3. How can we test this hypothesis? The experimenter then tests the hypothesis through experiments. 4. Are the results looking valid?The researcher records the observations. Does the experiment need to be changed? Possibly, the researcher adjusts the experiment as the data helps to fine tune the investigation. 5. Does the data support the hypothesis? The researcher analyz es the data. The analysis will have statistical information that is crucial to the investigator. Without statistics, there can be no real scientific analysis of the investigation or experiment. The analysis will tell the researcher if the hypothesis is supported or if they are in essence incorrect. Authors: Cowens, John Source: Teaching Pre K-8, Aug/Sep2006, Vol. 7 Issue 1, p42-46, 3p, 6 Color Photographs, 1 Graph Informastion from: Cowens, J. (2006, August/September). The scientific method. Teaching PreK-8, 37(1), 42. Define and substantively compare and contrast the characteristics of primary and secondary data (not sources). There are two ways that researchers obtain data, primary and secondary. Primary data is collected by the person conducting the investigation. Secondary data is collected from other sources. Primary data is information collected that is specifically geared toward the investigation. This specificity is a plus for primary data.Primary data can be expensive to co llect due to the expense of experimentation and surveys. The man hours can be high and the cost can be high. The time it takes to collect original data can be long and grueling. Secondary data can be a good resource due to the ease of availability. Secondary data can be less expensive and less time consuming. However, secondary data may be information that is not as specific to the investigation or collected for a different specific purpose. Rabianski J. Primary and Secondary Data: Concepts, Concerns, Errors, and Issues. Appraisal Journal [serial online].January 2003;71(1):43. Available from: Business Source Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed March 11, 2013 Explain the role of statistics in research. (Keep the focus within the field of psychology). ————————————————- Statistics plays a very large role in the field of psychology. Statistics is vital to research in any field of science. Before statistics and even now, people want to know if there is a real cause and effect when they experience an event. Early man (let’s call him Grog) would step out of his drab cave in the early morning.Grog would perhaps spot an eagle soaring across a beautiful clear blue sky. Our early man, Grog may then have a great day of hunting. Later, Grog would reflect and think about his good day and remember the early morning eagle. Grog would tell and possibly re-tell the tale to his fellow cave people. The appearance of the early morning eagle would become a â€Å"clear† and significant sign or omen that the day’s hunt would be good. This would be especially true if the omen appeared and the hunt was good more than once. Is this statistically significant?Grog did not have the proper tools ( not paper or stone or computer) nor the brain power to do the statistical procedures on his observations. This appearance and the resulting good hunt could be a real sig nificant event with true cause and effect or it could be pure chance and be nothing more than flimsy anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately for Grog, he did not have statistics or the expertise to perform the required investigations of proper research. Often, psychologists want to know what a person will do when confronted with a certain situation or stimulus or event.With inferential statistics researchers/psychologists use the information/data to infer or to make a conclusion based on the data from the research. â€Å"Probability† is derived from inferential statistics. How probable is it that a person will act a certain way can be answered through inferential/probability studies. ————————————————- The Cult of Statistical Significance By Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey1 ———————————à ¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€- Roosevelt University and University of Illinois-Chicago ————————————————- â€Å"The Cult of Statistical Significance† was presented at the Joint Statistical Meetings, Washington, DC, August 3rd, 2009, in a contributed session of the Section on Statistical Education. For comments Ziliak thanks many individuals, but especially Sharon Begley, Ronald Gauch, Rebecca Goldin, Danny Kaplan, Jacques Kibambe Ngoie, Sid Schwartz, Tom Siegfried, Arnold Zellner and above all Milo Schield for organizing an eyebrow-raising and standing-room only session. ————————————————- ————————————————- Psychological Research Methods and StatisticsEdited by Andrew M. Colman 1995, London and New York: Longman. Pp. xvi + 123. ISBN 0-582-27801-5 Research in psychology or in any other scientific field invariably begins with a question in search of an answer. The question may be purely factual — for example, is sleep-walking more likely to occur during the stage of sleep in which dreams occur, namely rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, than in dreamless (slow-wave) sleep? Alternatively, it may be a practical question — for example, can the use of hypnosis to recover long-forgottenexperiences increase the likelihood of false memories? According to current research findings, incidentally, the answers to these questions are no and yes respectively. ) A research question may arise from mere curiosity, from a theory that yields a prediction, or from previous research findings that raise a new question. Whatever its origin, provided that it concerns behaviour or mental experience and that it can be expressed in a suitable form for investigation by empirical methods — that is, by the collection of objective evidence — it is a legitimate question for psychological research. Psychological research relies on a wide range of methods.This is partly because it is such a diverse discipline, ranging from biological aspects of behaviour to social psychology and from basic research questions to problems that arise in such applied fields as clinical, educational, and industrial or occupational psychology. Most psychological research methods have the ultimate goal of answering empirical questions about behaviour or mental experience through controlled observation. But different questions call for different research methods, because the nature of a question often constrains the methods that can be used to answer it.This volume discusses a wide range of commonly used methods of research and statistical analysis. The most powerful research method is undoubtedly controlled experimentation. The reason for the unique importance of controlled experiments in psychology is not that they are necessarily any more objective or precise than other methods, but that they are capable of providing firm evidence regarding cause-and-effect relationships, which no other research method can provide. The defining features of the experimental method are manipulation and control.The experimenter manipulates the conjectured causal factor (called the independent variable because it is manipulated independently of other variables) and examines its effects on a suitable measure of the behaviour of interest, called the dependent variable. In multivariate research designs, the interactive effects of several independent variables on two or more dependent variables may be studied simultaneously. In addition to manipulating the independent variable(s) and observing the effects on the dependent variable(s), the experimenter controls all other extraneous variables that might influence the results.Cont rolled experimentation thus combines the twin features of manipulation (of independent variables) and control (of independent and extraneous variables). In psychological experiments, extraneous variables can seldom be controlled directly. One reason for this is that people differ from one another in ways that affect their behaviour. Even if these individual differences were all known and understood, they could not be suppressed or held constant while the effects of the independent variable was being examined.This seems to rule out the possibility of experimental control in most areas of psychology, but in the 1920s the British statistician Ronald Aylmer Fisher discovered a remarkable solution to this problem, called randomization. To understand the idea behind randomization, imagine that the experimenter wishes to test the hypothesis that the anti-depressive drug Prozac (fluoxetine hydrochloride) causes an increase in aggressiveness. The independent variable is ingestion of Prozac a nd the dependent variable is a score on some suitable test of aggressiveness.The experimenter could assign subjects to two treatment conditions strictly at random, by drawing their names out of a hat, for example, and could then treat the two groups identically apart from the manipulation of the independent variable. Before being tested for aggressiveness, the experimental group could be given a pill containing Prozac and the control group a placebo (an inactive dummy pill). The effect of the randomization would be to control, at a single stroke, for allextraneous variables, including ones of that the researcher had not even considered.For example, if two-thirds of the subjects were women, then each group would end up roughly two-thirds female, and if some of the subjects had criminal records for offences involving violence, then these people would probably be more or less even divided between the experimental and control groups, especially if the groups were large. Randomization wo uld not guarantee that the two groups would be identical but merely that they would tend to be roughly similar on all extraneous variables. More precisely, randomization would ensure that any differences between the groups were distributed strictly according to the laws of chance.Therefore, if the two groups turned out to differ on the test of aggressiveness, this difference would have to be due either to the independent variable (the effect of Prozac) or to chance. This explains the purpose and function of inferential statistics in psychology. For any specified difference, a statistical test enables a researcher to calculate the probability or odds of a difference as large as that arising by chance alone. In other words, a statistical test tells us the probability of such a large difference arising under the null hypothesisthat the independent variable has no effect.If a difference is observed in an experiment, and if the probability under the null hypothesis of such a large differ ence arising by chance alone is sufficiently small (by convention, usually less than 5 per cent, often written p < . 05), then the researcher is entitled to conclude with confidence that the observed difference is due to the independent variable. This conclusion can be drawn with confidence, because if the difference is not due to chance, then it must be due to the independent variable, provided that the experiment was properly controlled.The logical connection between randomized experimentation and inferential statistics is explained in greater depth in Colman (1988, chap. 4). A grasp of the elements of statistics is necessary for psychologists, because research findings are generally reported in numerical form and analysed statistically. In some areas of psychology, including naturalistic observations and case-studies (see below), qualitative research methods are occasionally used, and research of this kind requires quite different methods of data collection and analysis.For a sur vey of the relatively uncommon but none the less important qualitative research methods, including ethnography, personal construct approaches, discourse analysis, and action research, see the book by Banister, Burman, Parker, Taylor, and Tindall (1994). In chapter 1 of this volume, David D. Stretch introduces the fundamental ideas behind experimental design in psychology. He begins by explaining the appropriate form of a psychological research question and how incorrectly formulated questions can sometimes be transformed into questions suitable for experimental investigation.He then discusses experimental control, problems of sampling and randomization, issues of interpretability, plausibility, generalizability, and communicability, and proper planning of research. Stretch concludes his chapter with a discussion of the subtle and complex problems of measurement in psychology. He uses an extremely instructive example to show how two different though equally plausible measures of a de pendent variable can lead to completely different — in fact, mutually contradictory — conclusions.Chapter 2, by Brian S. Everitt, is devoted entirely to analysis of variance designs. These are by far the most common research designs in psychology. Everitt's discussion covers one-way designs, which involve the manipulation of only one independent variable; factorial designs, in which two or more independent variables are manipulated simultaneously; and within-subject repeated-measure designs, in which instead of being randomly assigned to treatment conditions, the same subjects are used in all conditions.Chapter 2 concludes with a discussion of analysis of covariance, a technique designed to increase the sensitivity of analysis of variance by controlling statistically for one or more extraneous variables called covariates. Analysis of covariance is sometimes used in the hope of compensating for the failure to control extraneous variables by randomization, but Everitt di scusses certain problems caused by such use. In chapter 3, A. W. MacRae provides a detailed discussion of the ideas behind statistics, both descriptive and inferential.Descriptive statistics include a variety of methods of summarizing numerical data in ways that make them more easily interpretable, including diagrams, graphs, and numerical summaries such as means (averages), standard deviations (measures of variability), correlations (measures of the degree to which two variables are related to each other), and so forth. Inferential statistical methods are devoted to interpreting data and enabling researchers to decide whether the results of their experiments are statistically significant or may be explained by mere chance.MacRae includes a brief discussion of Bayesian methods, which in contrast to classical statistical methods are designed to answer the more natural question: â€Å"How likely is it that such-and-such a conclusion is correct? † For more information on Bayesia n methods, the book by Lee (1989) is strongly recommended: it explains the main ideas lucidly without sidestepping difficulties Inferential Statistics For descriptive statistics such as correlation, the â€Å"mean,† or average, and some others that will be considered in context later in the book, the purpose is to describe or summarize aspects of behavior to understand them better.Inferential statistics start with descriptive ones and go further in allowing researchers to draw meaningful conclusions — especially in experiments. These procedures are beyond the scope of this book, but the basic logic is helpful in understanding how psychologists know what they know. Again recalling Bandura's experiment of observational learning of aggression, consider just the model-punished and model-rewarded groups. It was stated that the former children imitated few behaviors and the latter significantly more.What this really means is that, based on statistical analysis, the differenc e between the two groups was large enough and consistent enough to be unlikely to have occurred simply by â€Å"chance. † That is, it would have been a long shot to obtain the observed difference if what happened to the model wasn't a factor. Thus, Bandura and colleagues discounted the possibility of chance alone and concluded that what the children saw happen to the model was the cause of the difference in their behavior.Psychologists study what people tend to do in a given situation, recognizing that not all people will behave as predicted — just as the children in the model-rewarded group did not all imitate all the behaviors. In a nutshell, the question is simply whether a tendency is strong enough — as assessed by statistics — to warrant a conclusion about cause and effect. This logic may seem puzzling to you, and it isn't important that you grasp it to understand the many experiments that are noted throughout this book. Indeed, it isn't mentioned ag ain.The point of mentioning it at all is to underscore that people are far less predictable than chemical reactions and the like, and therefore have to be studied somewhat differently — usually without formulas. 1. 1 Determine appropriate measures based on an operational definition for research tools. Researchers utilize the method of operational definition to better tailor their research. They must know what all of the variables are, how to measure these variables and how they fit into the study. They must make sure that they are actually studying what they say they are studying.The definitions/parameters of the variables must be strictly defined. 1. 2 Select appropriate data collection methods to investigate psychological research problems. The research methods and the way all experimentations are collected must be done in a scientific, logical and ethical manner. Most research methods are either non-experimental, experimental, or quasi-experimental. These are separated by the number and extent of the of controls used. The controls help to account for the effect of variable use on the non-control or experiment group. 1. Examine the differences between descriptive and inferential statistics and their use in the social sciences. When a chart or graph (the shape of a distribution) is described in words, then one is using â€Å"descriptive statistics†. These descriptions can help to summarize and analyze a large amount of data. With inferential statistics researchers/psychologists use the information/data to infer or to make a conclusion based on the data from the research. â€Å"Probability† is derived from inferential statistics. How probable is it that a person will act a certain way can be answered through inferential/probability studies.REFERENCES: Aron, A. , Aron, E. , ; Coups, E. (2006). Statistics for psychology (4th ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Allyn Bacon. Cowens, J. (2006). The scientific method. Teaching PreK-8, 37(1), 42. Hawthorne, G. (2003). The effect of different methods of collecting data: Mail, telephone and filter data collection issues in utility measurement. Quality of Life Research, 12(8), 1081. McPherson, G. R. (2001). Teaching ; learning the scientific method. The American Biology Teacher, 63(4), 242. .

Emerging Technologies in Business Project Report Essays

Emerging Technologies in Business Project Report Essays Emerging Technologies in Business Project Report Essay Emerging Technologies in Business Project Report Essay After technological innovations and development in recent years, all the company realize the restructuring of business and re-planned the services and facilities to keep phase in global competition. They rely on computer based software solution System. All the companies have the tendency to automate full business process for faster service. Moreover, to achieve the full automation facility, companies are involved to develop specific functionality module to overcome several business issue. Now a day most entrepreneurs are using their own enterprise system in Local Area Network LANA). These are mainly customized system to serve their business functionality. This report focus on the most emerging technologies those are practiced in an industry to handle a large number of transactions and ensured customer satisfaction of an organization. The target of selecting such solution is provided faster business venture in all aspects. The improvement approaches are defined on the analysis of present available features of a business, current user demand and incorporating specific technological development procedures. It is enhanced by analyzing the various financial ratios, gross refits among others and company performance in a given period of time. 1. 1 Background Study Silhouetting Australia (ASK) is the one of the largest distributors of Pharmaceutical products in Australia. ASK expertise on Selling Distribution and Supply Chain Management focus on business development and demand creation, approaching to a new era with the CIT. Email is the primary method for ordering supply. About 90% of the employees work daily routing via Email and application HARM, Ale services and some in-house developed applications. ASK has six regional offices five mega stores Island wide to cater for extensive geographic reach. It has newly employed 30 staff in headquarters situated in Melbourne which has several departments in addition to the regional offices such as Import/Logistic, IT, Management, HER and Finance. Silhouetting has a wide variety of medicinal product for marketing. Every day this organization received diverse of orders on vaccine, prescription medicines, consumer healthcare products which difference in quantity and price from each other through email or conventional communication medium. The orders are committed within Australia along with different corner of the world. Each time ASK faces order processing problem since the company does not offer any instant payment processing features through its website ( Ask. Com. AU). Moreover, product ordering format is not same for all orders and some order request email is not appropriate, does not mention clearly the required quantity. As a result, ASK authors ¶y finds a risk in existing order processing method through email request and suspicious activity in payment processing. In order to deliver the goods efficiently, the ordering process takes account availability of goods at the supply department and the location of the supply apartment. Import department should have clear visibility of daily sales rate stock, to maintain the continuous supply without delay and the customer satisfaction. The company wants an intelligence component tools and platform to represent business growth with visual abilities to display real- time data through reviews. These reviews can be considered as the key factor for management decision of business expansion in future. Most of the branches are connected to Head office with IT infrastructure. Most of the PC still runs in Windows XP except the Laptops. There is no internalized authentication mechanism available for PC with the majority of the applications running individual authentication which results in users having to remember several passwords. The branch users do not have the internet access but they use G dongle as they wish. The salesperson connects to head office internal application via internet since no other method is available. The mobile sales team uses laptop and they largely depend on verbal communication with head office from remote place. But no efficient communication medium is followed. 1. 2. Objectives Of Utilizing Technology Obviously the prospect of new business strategy for ASK is to develop working affiliation for different parties involved in the system. The proposed alteration using technology is focused on system integrity and sustainable growth of business for possible minimum cost and minimum waste of time. Following technology can be used to overcome the present issues exist in the company: a. Incorporating e-commerce features at website for faster order tracking and to reach to companys domestic and global customers. Introducing online payment system through e-commerce site is done for faster business orientation. B. Incorporating Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to provide and support several company features in the organization. It will be multi-module software programs designed to perform automation across production, procurement, sales, service, finance, and HER. [2] c. Implementing Poi services to communicate between Head office and branch office as well as remote sales team in cost effective manner and enhance performance. 2. Business Justification for Technological Implication Distributor company of Pharmaceutical products is selected with their decentralized business process. Here, inter department communication, order processing, online payment processing through IT infrastructure; secured transaction and user connectivity are the concerned issue. Converse between head office and branch office (located remote place) is also require through computer network in cost optimization method. The justification of new technology utilization is discussed below from business perspective: A. E-commerce for Order Tracking and Payment Processing: Online commerce system is a web application with remote access facility. This is a showcase for products for a retailer. This application can be access XX days by users. A central web server with central database of available products is required to host in company office. This Web application will e-commerce features such product view, product cart, orders processing, online payment processing, inventory checking, user validation and response handling. 3] Here is a block diagram of this technological up gradation: Figure 1 : Logical Architecture of new System A well defined and organized product category will be incorporated in this web application due to save time for sorting product from a large list. Category and Subcategory will be defined through drop down list in the site The payment for any e-commerce site is the Online Payment Processing. It motivates the e-business by introducing online payment gateway in the site resolve the instant payment problem. Again buyers can pay for their require product did erectly throughout the site by using their online payment card. Various electronic form / slip (order form, receive form, payment slip etc) need to be developed and attach in the offered commerce services. Forlorn or design will be same as original paper receipts. Advantages: Overcome Geographical Limitations: If you have a physical store, you are limited by the geographical area that you can service. With an commerce website, the whole world is your playground. Additionally, the advent of e- commerce, i. E. commerce on mobile devices, has dissolved every remain limitation of geography. Gain New Customers With Search Engine Visibility: Physical retail is driven b branding and relationships. In addition to these two drivers, online retail IS also driven by traffic from search engines. It is not unusual for customers etc follow a link in search engine results, and land up on an commerce website hat they have never heard of. This additi onal source of traffic can be the tipping point for some commerce businesses. Lower Costs: One of the most tangible positives of commerce is the lowered cost. A part of these lowered costs could be passed on to customers in the form of discounted prices. Here are some of the ways that costs can be reduced with commerce: Advertising and Marketing Organic search engine traffic, pay-per-click, and social media traffic are some of the advertising channels that can be cost-effective. Personnel the automation of checkout, billing, payments, inventory management, and other operational processes, lowers the number of employees required to run an commerce setup. This one is a no-brainier. An commerce merchant does not need a prominent physical location. Locate the Product Quicker: It is no longer about pushing a shopping cart to the correct aisle, or scouting for the desired product. On an commerce website, customers can click through intuitive navigation or use a search box to immediately narrow down their product search. Some websites remember customer preferences and shopping lists to facilitate repeat purchase. Eliminate Travel Time and Cost: It is not unusual for customers to travel long distances to reach their preferred physical store. Commerce allows them to visit the same store virtually, with a few mouse clicks. Provide Comparison Shopping: Commerce facilitates comparison shopping. There are several online services that allow customers to browse multiple commerce merchants and find the best prices. Enable Deals, Bargains, Coupons, and Group Buying: Though there are physical equivalents to deals, bargains, coupons, and group buying, online shopping makes it much more convenient. For instance if a customer has a deep discount coupon for turkey at one physical store and toilet paper at another, she may find it infeasible to avail of both discounts. But the customer could do that online with a few mouse-clicks. Provide Abundant Information: There are limitations to the amount of information that can be displayed in a physical store. It is difficult to equip employees to respond to customers who require information across product lines. Commerce websites can make additional information easily available to customers. Most of this information is provided by vendors, and does not cost anything to create or maintain. Create Targeted Communication: using the information that a customer provides in the registration form, and by placing cookies on the customers computer, an commerce merchant can access a lot Of information about its customers. This, in turn, can be used to communicate relevant messages. An example: If you are searching for a certain product on Amazon. Com, you will automatically be shown listings of other similar products. In addition, Amazon. Com may also email you about related products. Remain Open All the Time: Store timings are now 24/7/365. Commerce websites can run all the time. From the merchants point of view, this increases the number of orders they receive. From the customers point of view, an always open store is more convenient. Create Markets for Niche Products: Buyers and sellers of niche products can find it difficult to locate each other in the physical world. Online, it is only a matter of the customer searching for the product in a search engine. One example could be purchase of obsolete parts. Instead of trashing older equipment for lack of spares, today we can locate parts online with great ease. Challenges: Restriction on data access with proper authentication. Encryption on all confidential data such as price and transaction record. Enforcing strong password policy for potential client and customers with mixing uppercase and lowercase letters with special characters such as or % and numbers. B. ERP for Business Automation: The computer based ERP solution is required to endure existing issues in business operations. The technology can be implied to handle a large number of transaction and ensured customer satisfaction. The target of selecting soul solution will be provided faster business venture in all aspect. Different stakeholders have different functionality and it diverse the information. To introduce a soft solution for all and designate a part of business process, a common predefined database format is required for all parties. Here is the list of clarity for extending back office system (ERP) to do time and waste minimization and incorporating environmental friendly procedures in business: [4] a. Create electronic profile for all kinds of stakeholder like retailer, supplier and vendor in the system so that they can access the relevant functionality 01 the core system. B. Introduce electronic invoices for stock, product rate, order slip, payment receipt. . Initialize computerized alert and notification from vendors. D. Out setting e-Tender for merchant for bulk order processing and sale. The following set of modules will apply to the operational procedures and practices for the aforementioned companies. These modular designs will take off any suspect for its live operation. Modules used for functionality are as follows: Sales Module: The main job of this module is s ales and marketing management along with sales and distribution information. Besides, this module is used for supply chain management, retail POS management. Procurement Module: This module is used for purchasing task for a company It is major served purchasing and supplier relationship management. Procurement module is highly inter connected with Inventory management module and Production module. Accounting Module: This module holds all transaction records for every working date with their relevant transaction number. It is mainly used for financial management for the company. Customer Service Module: This module inserts the records Of current customers with significant relation and dealing information in the database. Corporate Performance Module: This module is responsible for comparing company growth, generating performance report based on bonus points for corresponding planning initiative and their activity. HER Module: It is implied to manage human resources. The HER module regularly maintains a complete employee data source, such as contact information, salary specification, presence, contribution assessment and advancement. Inventory Management Module: The inventory management helps the procedures of keeping the appropriate stage of stock in a company. Invention management recognizes stock specifications, watches item uses, reconciles the inventory levels out, and reviews stock position. Advantages: ERP collects, manages and distributes information across functional boundaries and helps break down information silos-?those barriers that stand in the way of full cooperation between production, materials, planning, engineering, finance and sales/marketing. The resulting higher quality, reduced time-to-market, shortened lead times, higher productivity and lowered costs can help improve customer service and increase sales and market share as well as margins. Measurements, analysis and simulation capabilities can help companies plan better and react sooner and more effectively to changes in demand, competitive actions, and supply chain disruptions. Modern ERP systems are built for the internet-enabled world with e-commerce capabilities and provision for integration and collaboration with supply chain partners, customer portals, and enhanced tracking of incoming material and outgoing product to extend the visibility and control. Companies are challenged by the continually changing requirements of Internet-based business processes and find that their current ERP system is to able to take them where they need to go. Its hard to put a value on the ability to take advantage of new and evolving e-business imperatives-?or the cost of not being able to keep up with (or perhaps even lead) the competition. Challenges: The core challenges of new technology throughout the business process are noted below: l. Validate actual external user and suspend fake user. II. Multi level authentication to access the service solution. Ill. Close monitoring for each transaction by back end user. IV. Fault tolerant to improve this information system for waste minimization. V. Maintain it as aster information tracking system. C. Poi for Cost Effective Communication: A private network is required to establish for connecting head office with branch and offer email and internet access to the end user (employee). Some manual communication medium is practiced in the system by the mobile sales team since there are no alternative available at this time. Most of the business venture is done through existing IT framework. But the system is lack of efficient communication procedures for the remote sales team as well as branch office. Suitable network architecture is depicted below: Figure 2 : Typical Network Architecture Poi is a technology to carry voice communication over an IP network. It may be on the Internet or own private network. The basic concept is to make telephone calls using a broadband Internet connection or wireless connection contrary to an analog phone line. [5] A cost efficient technology of Poi is that telephone calls travel over the data network. IP telephony systems involve the full package vivo allowed services including the network of phones for emails, payments and dialing plans. The communication between head office and branch office along with remote sales team will be done through Poi service. In this context, ASK needs to implement network infrastructure and does configuration to facilitate such service to its significant employee located remotely. Advantages: Voice over Internet Protocol (Poi) is a type of technology that allows its users to make calls using the broadband Internet rather than the conventional or analog phone system. Poi works by converting sound into digital voice communication and then transferring it through Internet broadband. So if you are using a Poi telephone system, you are basically using the Internet to make phone calls. Using a Poi system has several benefits for many genuineness. Saving Money: The cost of using a Poi telephone is much cheaper than using a conventional phone. Making long distance phone calls are also cheaper when using a Poi provider. Portability: The convenience and comfort provided by a Poi telephone system is available all over the world. Sing any broadband connection, you can log in to your Poi telephone, and you will get a dial tone. Regardless of where you are, if you have Internet access, there should not be any problems in terms of costs and connections. Poi systems are also accessible via email or while you are traveling. Simply take your headset or IP phone, and you can contact staff or clients with a low cost call. Flexibility :With a Poi system, you can sti ll use your conventional phone and a Poi converter or Poi telephone adapter. A Poi converter looks like a USB memory stick, which you can easily plug onto any computer. A Poi converter will sense signals that are emanating from traditional or analog phones, and such signals will be converted to digital data that can be routed over the Internet. A computer must be turned on for the seen,ice to work. A Poi system will also allow you to acquire your own Poi number, so no matter here you are traveling to, just as long as you have a high speed Internet connection, you are capable of receiving phone calls to your same number. Multi-Functional: Aside from making phone calls, you can also conduct videoconferencing calling through your Poi phone. This allows you to stay in touch with your co-workers and clients to discuss important deals, affairs, meetings, files, documents, agendas, no matter where you are. Even while you are abroad attending to meetings, you still have the capacity to attend other important meetings in the home office without having to worry about eyeing physically present. 3. Future Prospects for the Technology Future scope of using emerging technology is described below from business perspective: E;Commerce will introduce as efficient order submission and tracking for faster business operation. Integration of online payment will solve the hazard of payment processing from remote place. Thus it will save business hour. Implementing ERP will facilitate business automation. It will provide several statistical data to take decision on sustainable business growth. Poi technology will employ as the popular communication medium because t expenses less than conventional EST. phone service and in the case of long distance and international calls. Moreover, Poi will offer the comfort of advanced calling features, and combined communications method so that users can access voice mail, electronic mail and other incoming communications using a single interface. Figure 3 : Business Automation Figure 4 : Gallo Smithies (ASK) Revenues Growth 4. Conclusion The objective of utilizing technology is to reduce cost and waste for business environment. It has a great positive impact on system automation. It also saves timer space and a lot of manual work.

The Problem With Feudalism

The Problem With Feudalism Medieval historians arent generally bothered by words. In fact, the intrepid medievalist is always ready to leap into the rough-and-tumble milieu of Old English word origins, medieval French literature, and Latin Church documents. Icelandic Sagas hold no terror for the medieval scholar! Next to these challenges, the esoteric terminology of medieval studies is mundane, and no threat to the historian of the Middle Ages. But theres one word that has become the bane of medievalists everywhere. Use it in discussing medieval life and society, and the average medieval historian will screw up his face in revulsion. There might be some sighs, some head shaking, and perhaps even some hands thrown in the air. What is this word that has the power to annoy, disgust, and even upset the ordinarily cool and collected medievalist? Feudalism. Every student of the Middle Ages is at least somewhat familiar with feudalism. The term is usually defined as follows: Feudalism was the dominant form of political organization in medieval Europe. It was a hierarchical system of social relationships wherein a noble lord granted land known as a fief to a free man, who in turn swore fealty to the lord as his vassal and agreed to provide military and other services. A vassal could also be a lord, granting portions of the land he held to other free vassals; this was known as subinfeudation, and often led all the way up to the king. The land granted to each vassal was inhabited by serfs who worked the land for him, providing him with income to support his military endeavors; in turn, the vassal would protect the serfs from attack and invasion. Of course, this is an extremely simplified definition, and there are many exceptions and caveats that go along with this model of medieval society, but the same could be said of any model applied to a historical period. Generally, it is fair to say that this is the explanation for feudalism youll find in most history textbooks of the 20th century, and it is very close to every dictionary definition available. The problem? Virtually none of it is accurate. Feudalism  was  not the dominant form of political organization in medieval Europe. There was no hierarchical system of lords and vassals engaged in a structured agreement to provide military defense. There was no subinfeudation leading up to the king. The arrangement whereby serfs worked the land for a lord in return for protection, known as manorialism or seignorialism, was not part of a feudal system. Monarchies of the early Middle Ages may have had their challenges and their weaknesses, but kings did not use feudalism to exert control over their subjects, and the feudal relationship was not the glue that held medieval society together. In short, feudalism as described above never existed in Medieval Europe. We know what youre thinking. For decades, even centuries, feudalism has characterized our view of medieval society. If it never existed, then why did so many historians say it did for so long? Werent there entire books written on the subject? Who has the authority to say that all those historians were wrong? And if the current consensus among the experts in medieval history is to reject feudalism, why is it still presented as reality in nearly every medieval history textbook? The best way to answer these questions is to engage in a little historiography. Lets begin with a look at the origin and evolution of the term feudalism. A Post-Medieval What, Now? The first thing to understand about the word feudalism is that it was never used during the Middle Ages. The term was invented by 16th- and 17th-century scholars to describe a political system of several hundred years earlier. This makes feudalism a post-medieval construct. Theres nothing inherently wrong with constructs. They help us understand alien ideas in terms more familiar to our modern thought processes. The phrases Middle Ages and medieval are constructs, themselves. (After all, medieval people didnt think of themselves as living in a middle age they thought they were living in the now, just like we do.) Medievalists may not like the way the term medieval is used as an insult, or how absurd myths of past customs and behavior are commonly attributed to the Middle Ages, but most are confident that the use of middle ages and medieval to describe the era as in between the ancient and early modern eras is satisfactory, however fluid the definition of all three time frames may be. But medieval has a fairly clear meaning based on a specific, easily-defined viewpoint. Feudalism cannot be said to have the same. In 16th  century France,  Humanist  scholars grappled with the history of Roman law and its authority in their own land. They examined, in depth, a substantial collection of Roman law books. Among these books was something called the  Libri Feudorum- the Book of Fiefs. The  Libri Feudorum  was a compilation of legal texts concerning the proper disposition of fiefs, which were defined in these documents as lands held by people referred to as vassals. The work had been put together in Lombardy, northern Italy, in the 1100s, and over the course of the intervening centuries, many lawyers and other scholars had commented on it and added definitions and interpretations, or  glosses.  The  Libri Feudorum  is an extraordinarily significant work that, to this day, has been barely studied since the 16th-century French lawyers gave it a good look. In the course of their evaluation of the Book of Fiefs, the scholars made some fairly reasonable assumptions: That the fiefs under discussion in the texts were pretty much the same as the fiefs of 16th-century France- that is, lands belonging to nobles.That the  Libri Feudorum  was addressing actual legal practices of the 11th century and not simply expounding on an academic concept.That the explanation of the origins of fiefs contained in the  Libri Feudorum- that is, that grants were initially made for as long as the  lord  chose, but were later extended to the grantees lifetime and  afterward  made hereditary- was a reliable history and not mere conjecture. The assumptions may have been reasonable- but were they correct? The French scholars had every reason to believe they were, and no real reason to dig any deeper. After all, they werent so much interested in the historical  facts of the time period as they were in the legal questions addressed in the  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹Libri Feudorum.  Their foremost consideration was whether or not the laws even had any authority in France- and, ultimately, the French lawyers rejected the authority of the Lombard Book of Fiefs. However, during the course of their investigations, and based in part on the assumptions outlined above, the scholars who studied the  Libri Feudorum  formulated a view of the Middle Ages. This general picture included the idea that feudal relationships, wherein noblemen granted fiefs to free vassals in return for services, were important in medieval society because they provided social and military security at a time when  the central  government was weak or nonexistent. The idea was discussed in editions of the  Libri Feudorum  made by the legal scholars Jacques Cujas and Franà §ois Hotman, both of whom used the term  feudum  to indicate an arrangement involving a  fief. It didnt take long for other scholars to see some value in the works of Cujas and Hotman and apply the ideas to their own studies. Before the 16th century was over, two Scottish lawyers- Thomas Craig and Thomas Smith- were using feudum in their classifications of Scottish  lands and their tenure. It was apparently Craig who first expressed the idea of feudal arrangements as a hierarchical  system;  moreover, it was  a  system that was imposed on nobles and their subordinates by their monarch as a matter of policy.  In the 17th century,  Henry Spelman, a noted English antiquarian, adopted this viewpoint for English legal history, as well. Although Spelman never used the word feudalism, either, his work went a long way toward creating an -ism from the handful of ideas over which Cujas and Hotman had theorized. Not only did Spelman maintain, as Craig had done, that feudal arrangements were part of a system, but he related the English feudal heritage with that of Europe, indicating that feudal arrangements were characteristic of medieval society as a whole. Spelman wrote with authority, and his hypothesis was happily accepted as fact by scholars who saw it as a sensible explanation of medieval social and property relations. Over the next several decades, scholars explored and debated feudal ideas. They expanded the meaning of the term from legal matters and adapted it to other aspects of medieval society. They argued over the origins of feudal arrangements and expounded on the various levels of  subinfeudation. They incorporated manorialism and applied it to the agricultural economy. They envisioned a complete system of feudal agreements that ran throughout all of Britain and Europe. What they did  not  do was challenge Craigs or Spelmans interpretation of the works of Cujas and Hotman, nor did they question the conclusions that Cujas and Hotman had drawn from the  Libri Feudorum. From the vantage point of the 21st century, its easy to ask why the facts were overlooked in favor of the theory. Present-day historians  engage in  a rigorous  examination of the evidence and clearly identify a theory as a theory (at least, the good ones do). Why didnt 16th- and 17th-century scholars do the same? The simple answer is that history as a scholarly field has evolved over time; and in the 17th century, the academic discipline of  historical  evaluation was in its infancy. Historians did not yet have the tools- both physical and figurative- we take for granted today, nor did they have the example of scientific methods from other fields to look to and incorporate into their own learning processes. Besides, having a straightforward model by which to view the Middle Ages gave scholars the sense that they understood the time period. Medieval society becomes so much easier to evaluate and comprehend if it can be labeled and fit into a simple organizational structure. By the end of the 18th century, the term feudal system was in use among historians, and by the middle of the 19th century, feudalism had become a fairly well-fleshed out model, or construct, of medieval government and society. The idea spread beyond the cloistered halls of academia. Feudalism became a buzzword for any oppressive, backward, hidebound system of government. In the  French Revolution, the feudal regime was abolished by the  National Assembly, and in Karl Marxs  Communist Manifesto,  feudalism was the oppressive, agrarian-based economic system that preceded the inequitable, industrialized, capitalist economy. With such far-ranging appearances in both academic and mainstream usage, it would be an extraordinary challenge to break free of what was, essentially, a wrong impression. In the late 19th century, the field of medieval studies began to evolve into a serious discipline. No longer did the average historian accept as fact everything that had been written by his predecessors and repeat it as a matter of course. Scholars of the medieval era began to question interpretations of the evidence, and they began to question the evidence, as well. This was by no means a swift process. The medieval era was still the bastard child of historical study; a dark age of ignorance, superstition, and  brutality; a thousand years without a bath.  Medieval historians had a great deal of prejudice, fanciful inventions and misinformation to overcome, and there was no concerted effort to shake things up and reexamine every theory ever floated in the study of the Middle Ages. And feudalism had become so entrenched in our view of the time period, it wasnt an obvious choice of target to overturn. Even once historians began to recognize the system as a post-medieval construct, the validity of the construct wasnt questioned. As early as 1887,  F. W. Maitland  observed in a lecture on English constitutional history that we do not hear of a feudal system until feudalism ceased to exist.  He examined in detail what feudalism supposedly was and discussed how it could be applied to English medieval law, but never did he question its very existence. Maitland was a well-respected scholar, and much of his work is still enlightening and useful today. If such an esteemed historian treated feudalism as a legitimate system of law and government, why should anyone think to question him? For a long time, nobody did. Most medievalists continued in Maitlands vein, acknowledging that the word was a construct, and an imperfect one at that, yet going forward with articles, lectures, treatises and entire books on what exactly feudalism had been; or, at the very least, incorporating it into related topics as an accepted fact of the medieval era. Each historian presented his own interpretation of the model- even those claiming to adhere to a previous interpretation deviated from it in some significant way. The result was an unfortunate number of varying and even conflicting definitions of feudalism. As the 20th century progressed, the discipline of history grew more rigorous. Scholars uncovered new evidence, examined it closely, and used it to modify or explain their view of feudalism. Their methods were sound, as far as they went, but their premise was problematic: they were trying to  adapt  a deeply flawed theory to such a wide variety of facts. Although several historians  expressed concerns over the indefinite nature of the well-worn model and the terms many imprecise meanings, it wasnt until 1974 that anyone thought to stand up and point out the most basic, fundamental problems with feudalism. In a ground-breaking article entitled The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe,  Elizabeth A. R. Brown  leveled an unwavering finger at the academic community and roundly denounced the term feudalism and its continued use. Clearly,  feudalism was a construct that was developed  after  the Middle Ages, Brown maintained, and the system it described bore little resemblance to actual medieval society. Its many differing, even contradictory definitions had so muddied the waters that it had lost any useful meaning. The construct was actually interfering with the proper examination of evidence concerning medieval law and society; scholars viewed land agreements and social relationships through the warped lens of the feudalism construct, and either disregarded or dismissed anything that didnt fit into their chosen version of the model. Brown asserted  that  considering how difficult it is to unlearn what one has learned, to continue to include feudalism in introductory texts would do readers of those texts a grave injustice. Browns article was very well-received in academic circles. Virtually no American or British medievalists objected to any part of it, and almost everyone who read it agreed: Feudalism was not a useful term, and really should go. Yet, feudalism stuck around. There were improvements. Some new publications in medieval studies avoided using the term altogether; others used it only  sparingly,  and focused on actual laws, land tenures, and legal agreements instead of on the model. Some books on medieval society refrained from characterizing that society as feudal. Others, while acknowledging that the term was in dispute, continued to use it as a useful shorthand for lack of a better term, but only as far as it was necessary. But there were still authors that included descriptions of feudalism as a valid model of medieval society with little or no caveat. Why? For one thing, not  every  medievalist had read Browns  article,  or had a chance to consider its implications or discuss it with his colleagues. For another, revising work that had been conducted on the premise that feudalism was a valid construct would require the kind of reassessment that few historians were prepared to engage in, especially when deadlines were drawing near. Perhaps most significantly, no one had presented a reasonable model or explanation to use in place of feudalism. Some historians and authors felt they had to provide their readers with a handle by which to grasp the general ideas of medieval government and society. If not feudalism, then what? Yes, the emperor had no clothes; but for now, he would just have to run around naked.