Ideal Female Body Structur essays

Ideal Female Body Structur essays Symbolism, the common ground on which both Bordo and Warner chose to base their arguments, is at the center of the question of where do the image of the ideal female body figure comes from. Bordo believes it is from societys pressures of indulgence and control, but does that really create an image? There is definitely an image that we see every day of slender women in commercials and magazines, but how did this come to be the ideal form? This is the question Marina Warner answers in the essay Nuda Veritas. Warner answers this question by discussing art from both Christian and classical culture. She discusses and critiques the idea of the opposition between culture and nature, clothes and nakedness, order and disorder. From these oppositions we derive our idea of beauty versus ugliness. In Christian paintings we are shown pictures of the naked female in many ways. The first, nuditas criminalis, is the vision of lust and evil. It is the naked body portrayed in a lustful or distasteful way. We also see visions of age. In these paintings age is a punishment for sin. We are shown images of the body rotting and being consumed by worms or snakes devouring the subjects genitals. This is supposed to punish lust, and sex. We are supposed to see this nudity as ugly and dirty. Thus, making people fear age and feel ugly with age. The second vision we are shown is nuditas naturalis, this is the image of returning to the original human state. This state is without sin; it is pure but at the same time can be bad. For example Mary Magdalene after her life of sin returned to the original human state by shedding her clothes and wandering the dessert. This wouldnt be to bad if she didnt grow any hair but in order to protect her body she grew hair creating an ugly image. At the same time though we can associate positive images with nuditas naturalis. Jo ...

Reflection on Key Issues in Doing Business in China from a Cross Essay

Reflection on Key Issues in Doing Business in China from a Cross Cultural Perspective. (Russia) - Essay Example Nevertheless, since the collapse of the USSR the two nations significantly improved their relations because they managed to settle the issues of land border by creating cross-border cooperation, controlling illegal migration and setting up vital mechanisms. Background information China and Russia share various similarities but they also have marked differences; for instance, the two countries are large nations because China has a huge population and Russia has the largest territory in the world. The two nations are multi-ethnic and heterogeneous but they are dominated by one group like in China the Han and Russia the ethnic Russians. Currently, the two nations are essential in terms of their economic potential as well as military power; moreover, the two nations are taking pathways toward capitalism. The two nations lack sufficient regulatory environment and have been for many years under the rule of a communist party and in the case of china, the party considers itself above the law . In the two nations, the existing rules and regulations can easily be violated because some written contracts have little value since personal connection along with dyad-based reciprocity prove to be substitutes for reliable institutions. Besides there are differences between China and Russia because China is considered to be a rising superpower while Russia is believed to be struggling to capture the lost glory after being a superpower for more than 50 years. Moreover, the two nations follow different paths toward capitalism with china adopting incremental approach to market reforms while the Russians rapidly replaced central planning system with market-based mechanisms with the aim of developing new market institutions (Buck, Filatotchev, Nolan and Wright, 2000). China has been a renowned success story in implementing reforms and consistent growth because the nation’s annual growth rate in the past two decades exceed 10% and is among the highest in the world. In contrast, Russia changed its position as the second largest economy during the Soviet era to 12 position currently and the country’s GDP growth rate is among the lowest partly because of its stagnated private sector (Wilson, 2004). Over the years, China has come to be recognized as a moderately low risk nation that offers high rates of returns, while Russia risk throughout 1990s was the highest and offered low returns because of privatization of manufacturing firms. Cultural similarities between China and Russia In the Chinese society, family remains the cornerstone with reciprocal obligations being which are not limited to the family and kinship but rather extended to non-kin ties where individuals are expected to help one another fulfil their obligation to family members. In China, individuals tend to prioritize group interests than their own and make decisions that can be detrimental to an individual if the decision is collectively beneficial. However, through my experience collecti vism in china has been misrepresented to be a negotiation for individual interests or well-being, which goes against the assumption that group interests are the best guarantees for an individual. Nevertheless, the Chinese society cultivates strong relations where everyone is responsible for other members within the group. As well, the Russian culture is considered

Teaching Math Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Teaching Math - Essay Example Learning disabilities (LD) seriously interfere with students' achievement in mathematics thus putting them at a higher risk of having problems in meeting the obligatory academic standards as compared to the normal student population. Thus, some recent studies report that between 4-7% of the school age population experiences some form of math difficulty as a result of LDs (Fuchs & Compton, 2005). Granted the increasingly strict graduation requirements imposed on high school seniors in mathematics the risk is even greater these days than ever before. The lack of specialized teacher training, coupled with insufficient amounts and poor availability of effective study material and traditional LD-friendly curricula contributes substantially to the already huge educational issues the average US students with a learning disability must face (Miller & Mercer,1997). Various behavioral disorders (BD) such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD), conduct disorder (CD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) in students represent another highly important problem in terms of teaching and learning mathematics. Thus, ADD/ADHD is one of the most commonly met behavioral disorders in the U.S.: approximately 7.8% of children and adolescents aged from 4 to 17 are diagnosed with it (Chang, 2005). The base prevalence of ODD is also estimated within the range of 1.7% -almost 10% (Rey, 1993). These behavioral disorders are also commonly associated with serious academic problems, including problems in learning mathematics (Todd et al, 1999). In fact, it will not be an exaggeration to state that BDs are almost always associated with LDs. Thus, one of the latest studies in this field reports that 71% of children with ADHD also have a LD and 26% of children with ADHD have a specific math disability (Mayes & Calhoun, 2006). However, despite the growing recognition that students with some form of LD or BD have unique learning needs, up to now the majority of such students are taught without any reference to their needs, including those in learning mathematics, in the general education classroom. One possible reason for such disappointing situation is lack of literature on teaching math for students with LD and BD: some researchers observe that the literature on teaching math is scarce even when compared with the existing research in the field of teaching other subjects such as language and reading - a situation that is hardly acceptable considering the importance of mathematics in modern world (Steele, 2004). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the most interesting works in the field of teaching math for students with LD. Literature Review There is a solid body of literature exploring definitions, diagnostic criteria, and many other formal aspects of LD with some authors focusing specifically on mathematics (Dockrell & McShane, 1993; Adelman & Taylor, 1993; Lerner, 1993; Butterworth, Cipolotti & Warrington, 1996). Similarly, a serious body of research is dedicated

Edward Joseph Snowden and the National Security Agency (NSA) Assignment

Edward Joseph Snowden and the National Security Agency (NSA) - Assignment Example The amount of disclosure availed by Snowden has been termed as immeasurable. And has been in terms of files and email accounts of many key individuals. Moreover, the areas covered the range from uninformed surveillance, security details, and what the NSA terms as very sensitive for the operation of the security affairs of the state. Snowden’s actions instigated debates over government’s secrecy, the extent the government can go when it comes to surveillance and the rights of the public to the privacy of information (ONeill, 2013). It was clear that the government was snooping on civilians and would tap servers of major Internet companies for emails and documents without the public’s consent (Dickson, 2013). This would leave the public perplexed especially this being a government it had trusted for long and was aware of the laws and what the constitution deems as unalienable with the people, that is their right to privacy. The matter had some moral implications in general. Edward Snowden revealed a dozen of things that the government was doing behind our back. Taking our information without our involvement and in a secret way was a violation of rights considered inseparable from the people and deemed as so by the constitution (ONeill, 2013). The data collection is unconstitutional and happens to be an infringement of the right to privacy (Cohn, 2014). Every democratic society considers privacy as a human right that is fundamental to the liberty of the people. The government has no right to commit arbitrary interference with privacy, as that would constitute a constitutional attack. It insults people dignity and autonomy. The government has termed such encroachment on privacy as modest yet it felt the need to perform it undercover, an element that suggests that there could be more to hide (Dickson, 2013). Snooping calls with no intention to listen to the conversations would be

Cause and Effect Essay Example for Free

Cause and Effect Essay The dedication and self-motivation required to balancing schoolwork and practice is the most difficult part of being a student-athlete. I find that being a student-athlete plays out to be much harder than most people think. It’s very difficult especially at the beginning of the year, when it finally hits you that you’re growing up and finally have to do your own laundry. You’re not only getting your-self situated as far as classes go, but also meeting new people. You have to balance all the new tasks in your life as well as starting new relationships. One obvious cause of wanting to become a student-athlete is the persona. Everyone wants to be the star athlete and everyone wants to be the cool kid on the sports team that gets all the chicks. This is something that we were raised around, all the professional athletes getting praised as kings while walking around with a supermodel around their arm. I mean who wouldn’t want that kind of life? Being a student-athlete is something that you can take pride in. You want to take pride in yourself by representing your team in athletics but also want to further your education by acquiring a degree witch causes you to be a student athlete. It also makes you stand out among the rest because not only are you a full time student but also a full time athlete. Which gives you life skills like motivation and determination that you take with you through out life. Above all it gives your parents something to brag about to their siblings because their twenty three year old son is still living in their house, while flipping burgers down the street. The major cause of being a student-athlete is that you want to have friends. Sure being a student-athlete teaches you how to balance a crazy life style and creates better time management but it also allows you to create great friendships. With schoolwork and practice you usually don’t have socializing time but you will always have your teammates. Knowing this could cause you to become a student-athlete. The cause of student-athletes is when a person wants to thrive to better them self, they want to push themselves to new heights, they want an edge on their competition, want to hopefully find new friendships and in some cases they just want the praise of being a student-athlete. It takes a special person to want to be a student athlete for the right causes, and might need to be revaluated if all you want is the praise of being a student-athlete. A plus is that most of the student-athletes either quickly realize its not for them because their grades become less of an importance and cheerleaders along with a thirty rack becomes a priority, or they end up seeing the importance of education and find themselves succeeding in life. The first effect of a student-athlete is that you will develop physical abilities. Your body will be in better shape, and you’ll be able to achieve things that physically you couldn’t accomplish before. You will push your self to levels you didn’t think wherever possible to reach. You my not have your photo in all the papers and the model on your arm is more likely to be a cute hometown girl that you met at a party, but you have still accomplished more than you would have if you where a normal college student that sits in front on his video games all day, only leaving the room to buy more chips because he destroyed his last bag of Doritos. The second effect has to do with your personal life. Practicing a sport requires some time, plus schoolwork and everything else going in your life you usually don’t have time to lie around and be lazy. Which teaches you not only to have an amazing work ethic but also how to manage the time that you have. It also keeps you busy enough to stay out of trouble, most of the time. When you are playing for a team the name on the front means a hell of a lot more important than the name on the back. When you go some place to play your not representing your self, you’re representing your team and your university. There is only a fortunate bunch of people that get to put on a uniform to represent something bigger than them, so as a student-athlete you take pride in what you do, and you take advantage in representing your school every time you touch the field. The most important effect of being a student athlete is your teammates and your everlasting friendships. You will meet a lot of people being a student-athlete but only a small group of individuals will become your friends to the point you can call them your second family. That is the meaning of a team. As an athlete you will develop a strong character and a competitive spirit. You’ll become more disciplined and responsible, which will certainly help you in your professional life. Above all you develop relationships that can be unbreakable. You go through hell with each other, or as some people like to call it conditioning. You step on the field and go to battle with one another trusting that the other guys in the game will give as much effort if not more to win. You’ll get on each other’s nervous and sometimes get into fights, but no matter what at the end of the day you’ll always have your second family. The effect of being a student-athlete shapes your body, your life, and your mind in good ways. Practicing a sport, going to classes, doing homework and trying to balance a social life keeps you entertained and far away from boredom. In addition you will have the chance to experience the amazing feeling of success after all the hard work you put in to being a student-athlete. It’s worth all the early morning practices, and tough love conditioning to be able to see defeat in your opponents face. It’s worth all the seven o’clock classes, and professors’ monotone lectures to be able to see the overwhelming sense of joy on your mothers face as you receive you diploma. It’s worth the long bus rides, and all the tough losses to be able to have a group of guys you can call you’re family. Even though its hard work being a student-athlete is a great experience that will stay with you forever.

technology and the world :: essays research papers

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are developing a search engine designed for people with a slow net connection. Someone using the software would e-mail a query to a central server in Boston. The program would search the net, choose the most suitable webpages, compress them and e-mail the results a day later. "More and more we are creating an information divide in the world and this can help narrow that divide and have a huge benefit in that sense, " said Professor Saman Amarasinghe of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science in Boston. The thinking behind the TEK search engine is that people in poor countries are short of money but have time on their hands, whereas people in the West are cash-rich but time-poor. "The idea is that developing countries are willing to pay in time for knowledge," explained Prof Amarasinghe. "In the West when we surf we want the information in the next two seconds. We are not willing to wait." Filtered results The researchers say current web technology such as search engines is focused on the needs of the West. When the students arrive, they can browse through those pages the way they would if they had full internet connectivity Prof Saman Amarasinghe, MIT By contrast, people in poor countries face problems such as the speed and cost of an internet connection, let alone the huge amount of webpages thrown up by search engines. "Let us assume you are in Malawi," explained Prof Amarasinghe, "and the computer lab does not have access to the telephone line all the time." "If you want to find some new information about malaria, you are prompted with a message that says 'we are going to send a query through e-mail, it is OK?'. "At night, when the phone line is available, the teacher can dial out and send the queries." The request is sent to computers at MIT in Boston, which then search the internet and gather webpages. To avoid a glut of information, the software then filters the results and chooses the most relevant. These are then sent back to the computer in Malawi so that they can be stored in the machine's internet cache. "Next morning the teacher can connect, download that e-mail and when the students arrive, they can browse through those pages the way they would if they had full internet connectivity," said Prof Amarasinghe.

Corporate Strategy Essay

Diversification is even more prominent in other parts of the world †¢ Grupos, chaebol, business houses, keiretsu, and so on – Poor corporate strategy is common â€Å"Excite, one of the leading Internet services companies, yesterday [received a] takeover offer from Zapata, a Texas-based group with holdings in marine protein and food packaging companies. Citing the â€Å"excellent fit with Zapata’s new strategic direction,† Avram Glazer, Zapata’s chief executive officer, said the proposed transaction â€Å"makes sense for Excite’s shareholders because of the capital resources that Zapata can bring to Excite. † Financial Times, May 22, 1998 2 What diversified corporation did this become? 3 Decomposition of Variance in Profitability: Evidence from the United States Year 2% Industry 18% Corporate parent 4% Transient 46% †¢ In the U. S. corporate strategy is typically the icing on the cake, not the cake itself – Business units must be competitive on their own merits – †¦in attractive industries †¢ But the icing can make the decisive difference between a good cake and a bad one Business segment 30% Note: Ignores covariance terms; based on 58,132 observations of 12,296 business segments in 628 industries in the United States Source: Anita M. McGahan and Michael E. Porter, â₠¬Å"How Much Does Industry Matter Really? † Strategic Management Journal, 1997 4 Decomposition of Variance in Profitability: Evidence from 14 Emerging Economies †¢ In much of the rest of the world, corporate strategy is more prominent †¢ Membership in a diversified entity has a larger effect on profitability †¢ The effect on profitability is more likely to be positive Source: Tarun Khanna and Jan W. Rivkin, â€Å"Estimating the Performance Effects of Business Groups in Emerging Markets,† Strategic Management Journal, 2000 Countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turkey Litmus Test of Corporate Strategy †¢ Is the combination of all businesses of the firm worth more than the sum of how much each business is worth individually? – The answer could be less, e. g. J. C. Penney telemarketing division was worth 3X the market value of the entire firm †¢ When deciding whether or not to acquire another business, you need to decide BOTH – whether you have a competitive advantage running that business – AND how it will contribute to the fit among the other 6 businesses you are running Acrobat Document 7 The Walt Disney Company: Stock Price vs. S&P 500, 1984-1994 8 The Walt Disney Company: Stock Price vs. S&P 500, 1995-2005 9 Two big problems 1. Growth at all costs: †¢ This is an example of what happens when a solid corporate strategy meets an aggressive growth goal 2. Mismatch between strategy and organizational structure: †¢ You can have a corporation with businesses that are closely connected like the classic Disney businesses and then run the businesses together in a tightly integrated way. That can work. †¢ You can have a corporation with the broader scope of later Disney and run them in a loosely coupled way. That can work. †¢ But if you have a corporation with the broader scope of later Disney and run them like the classic Disney, with heavy-handed management from the top, searching for synergy that doesn’t really exist†¦then you get into trouble. – In 2005, ABC President Robert Iger replaces Eisner 10 The Walt Disney Company: Stock Price vs. S&P 500, 2005-2012 11 The Walt Disney Company: Take-aways Core lessons of corporate-level strategy †¢ Competition occurs at the level of the business unit †¢ Corporate strategy is a success or failure to the extent that it enhances business unit competitive advantage – Is the relative gap between WTP and cost larger than it would be otherwise? †¢ Two tests: – Better-off: Does the presence of the corporation in a given market improve the total competitive advantage of business units over and above what they could achieve on their own? (What’s the added value of the corporation? – Ownership: Does ownership of the business unit produce a greater competitive advantage than an alternative arrangement would produce? †¢ A corporation is more likely to pass the tests when it has some shared resource that (a) creates competitive advantage for the business units and (b) is difficult to trade efficiently via the market – E. g. , access to animated characters – Making business units â€Å"better off† sounds easy, but it typically requires sophisticated structures, systems, and processes, plus cultural supports 12 Corporate strategy entails trade-offs Either focus on†¦ or focus on†¦ Guidance on the Projects Overall Grading †¢ The project must cover all three components of the class – Human and Social Capital – Strategy – Multinational Management Components of Grade (NOT equally weighted) †¢ Use of frameworks (most important issue) †¢ Quality of research †¢ Innovativeness/Insight of analysis †¢ Integration of different components of class †¢ Quality of communication 14 †¢ ? of grade will be based on presentation; ? on final project write up †¢ We will also use a peer assessment to adjust the grade for effort put in by each team member