Mary Shelly Essays - Romanticism, Gothic Novels, Horror Novels

Mary Shelly Thesis: Mary Shelley has become one of the most renowned Gothic authors because of her descriptions and settings and her use of many significant themes. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly has written many books in her life. She has received much criticism about one of her books inperticular, Frankenstien. Frankenstein was one of her most famous novels. Shelly had written Frankenstein in order to enter a contest but what few people realized was that Frankenstein was one of many nightmares that Shelly had during her rough childhood. Shelly has become one of the most renowned Gothic authors because of her use of graphic descriptions and settings and her use of many significant themes. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly was born in London on August 30, 1797. Shelley was the daughter of a philosopher named William Godwin. Shelly's mother died while giving birth to her and her father was remarried in 1801(Drabble 121). Shelley disliked her father's new wife so, as a result, he sent her to go live in Dundee with the Baxter's, foster parents, where she stayed until 1814. Shelley took many visits back to London to visit her father (Bloom 3014). On May 5, 1814, Mary met Percy Bysshe Shelley on one of her visits to London. Percy Shelley left his wife, Harriet, and went to France with Mary (Bloom 3014). Shelley returned to London to give birth to a daughter only to lose the child two weeks later. Percy Shelley proposed to Mary Godwin and they were married in 1816. Shelley became pregnant again and again lost the child at birth. Out of four children, only one survived, Percy (Drabble 121). While the Shelley's were traveling thought Italy, they had sent letters to their friends asking for financial support. During this time, many legal battles were being fought over publishing matters, the Shelley estate, and the four children from Percy's previous marriage. Shelley's next two children died Clara and William Shelley. In 1818 Clara died barely one year old and in 1819, William died at the age of three. Finally, in late 1819, a forth child was born. A son, Percy Florence, was the only one of the four children to grow to maturity (Bloom 3015). On the morning of July 28, 1822, Percy Shelly was sailing with his close friend Edward Williams in his boat Ariel. The boat was tipped and Shelly drowned in the Gulf of Spezia during a heavy storm. After Percy's death, Mary refused to turn her son over to Percy's father Sir Timothy, so she turned to writing to support her family (Drabble 121). Some of Shelley's earlier novels include: Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), and TheFortune of Perkin Warbeck (1830) (Drabble 122). Many people consider The Last Man to be Shelley's most famous work. The central vision of this novel is the spiral of human history in the central vision. The Last Man is set in the distant future, at the time, of the twenty-first century. This novel begins with a peaceful and flourishing society but tragically ends with total death throughout the world by the plague. Only one man survives this decimation, Lionel Verney (Bloom 3018). Lionel Verney has nothing to anticipate except the endless and desolate journey from city to city. All of the world's treasures are his for enjoyment. All of the great libraries and coffers are open to him only. Only one thing is missing from this novel, companionship. Companionship is a key aspect of The Last Man. Lionel doesn't want all the earthly treasures; he only wants a friend (Bloom 3018). Shelley's most famous novel, Frankenstein, has much of the same aspects and ideas. Both novels deal with the knowledge of good and evil and both novels deal with the aspect of friendship and being accepted. Shelley's characters in Frankenstein are all tied together in some shape or form. Victor Frankenstein was one of the main characters in this novel. His actions in the later stages of this novel directly effect the outcome (Bloom 3018). Victor Frankenstein was born in Geneva. Victor showed an early promise in the natural sciences. When he grew older, his father sent him to the University of Ingolstadt. Victor learned all that the university could teach him in the natural science

Free Essays on History And Influence Of The 17th-18th Century Colonization Period In

History And Influence of The 17th-18th Century Colonization Period in â€Å"Robinson Crusoe† by Daniel Defoe. I would like to comment about how Crusoe lived with himself after he became a master in a hierarchy where he was once a slave, for I found myself confused with the point that author was trying to make. While reading the biographical information on Defoe, I learned that he defended the slave trade in periodical essays and reviews and owned stock in the Royal African Company . The fact that Crusoe, a white man, is taken as a slave is very ironic; maybe that is what Defoe was trying to convey to the reader. However, if the author’s are with the slave trade, as his stock options suggest, then maybe it is not that surprising. â€Å"At last he lays his head flat upon the ground , close to my foot, and sets my other foot upon his head, as he had done before, and after this, made all the sign to me of subjugation, servitude and submission imaginable, to let me know how he would serve me as long as he lived,† – Robinson Crusoe. It’s this kind of portrayal – barely discernible from European colonial rhetoric and ignorance – that encouraged and justified the murderous â€Å"entrepreneurship† by European colonizers. Crusoe’s fictionalized ingenuity in the science of agriculture adds to the plantation theme. For years he is by himself, and he bides his time with dreaming about the possibility of future slaves. The subtle references to the Moors and the physical discription of Friday makes it obvious that one’s ethnic origin is of great importance in this story. Crusoe does not define Friday as a black man, but rather as a man with a â€Å"not quite black, but very twany; and yet not of an ugly yellow nauseous twany†¦but a bright kind of dun olive Colour†¦ .† Crusoe immediately begins his common theme of domination, by being so arrogant as to name the man Friday and teach him his name (together with ‘Master’ and ... Free Essays on History And Influence Of The 17th-18th Century Colonization Period In Free Essays on History And Influence Of The 17th-18th Century Colonization Period In History And Influence of The 17th-18th Century Colonization Period in â€Å"Robinson Crusoe† by Daniel Defoe. I would like to comment about how Crusoe lived with himself after he became a master in a hierarchy where he was once a slave, for I found myself confused with the point that author was trying to make. While reading the biographical information on Defoe, I learned that he defended the slave trade in periodical essays and reviews and owned stock in the Royal African Company . The fact that Crusoe, a white man, is taken as a slave is very ironic; maybe that is what Defoe was trying to convey to the reader. However, if the author’s are with the slave trade, as his stock options suggest, then maybe it is not that surprising. â€Å"At last he lays his head flat upon the ground , close to my foot, and sets my other foot upon his head, as he had done before, and after this, made all the sign to me of subjugation, servitude and submission imaginable, to let me know how he would serve me as long as he lived,† – Robinson Crusoe. It’s this kind of portrayal – barely discernible from European colonial rhetoric and ignorance – that encouraged and justified the murderous â€Å"entrepreneurship† by European colonizers. Crusoe’s fictionalized ingenuity in the science of agriculture adds to the plantation theme. For years he is by himself, and he bides his time with dreaming about the possibility of future slaves. The subtle references to the Moors and the physical discription of Friday makes it obvious that one’s ethnic origin is of great importance in this story. Crusoe does not define Friday as a black man, but rather as a man with a â€Å"not quite black, but very twany; and yet not of an ugly yellow nauseous twany†¦but a bright kind of dun olive Colour†¦ .† Crusoe immediately begins his common theme of domination, by being so arrogant as to name the man Friday and teach him his name (together with ‘Master’ and ...

Export and import Managment- sony- combating markets for PSPs Essay

Export and import Managment- sony- combating markets for PSPs - Essay Example The PSP was launched in the US with the difference of a few months after its launch in Japan because of various reasons. UK saw the official launch of the PSP nearly one year later but regardless of the delay retailers in Europe began to import PSPs from Japan and the US whilst keeping all the revenue for them self. Sony, in order to counter this took legal action against several importers in Europe demanding confiscation and monetary damage (as cited in CNET News. 2005). An online retail firm â€Å"EBL† stood up against Sony stating that Sony had inadequate trademarks regarding PSPs in Europe and that it only targeted smaller firms. Such a controversy created doubts regarding PSP’s official launch in Europe. Sony soon won the case and caused various retailers to put down the products off from their stores and websites. Nevertheless PSPs still were being traded in the gray markets while Sony waited for the UK High Court to declare a decision. To add up to Sony’s obstacles, hackers continuously tweaked the PSPs to run unauthorized games and software for which Sony has to tirelessly keep developing newer versions of the PSP and its firmware as well. Q1. E-commerce alone is the primary driver of the ever-growing gray market and counterfeit activity. Numerous online auctioning and trading websites remain unmonitored and controlled which further feeds the gray markets. Products like the PSP coming from their widely successful and popular parent product â€Å"PlayStation† undoubtedly would receive a vast number of consumers, many of which would be willing to accept higher prices to acquire it as early as possible. Adequate control over the company’s distribution network is amongst the vital weapons against gray markets. Large firms, given the resources available to them should carefully monitor how and where their products are traveling before finally reaching to its consumers. A strict distribution network involving detailed shipme nt tracking, authorized dealers, official labels/logos/etc would enable the manufacturer being completely aware of its products rotation in the market which would result in the prevention of leakages into the gray markets. Q2. An innovative product with a strong fan-following automatically results in a desire to acquire it. Sony officially launched the PSP in Japan earlier than in the major markets with time lags of a quarter or nearly one year. The huge number of demanding consumers in the international markets who were willing to pay more fueled the gray markets by giving higher profit margins to the importers. Sony did indeed launch the PSP a little early. Instead it should have manufactured enough quantities to cater to all the markets and launched in the Triad simultaneously. Sony rushed to launch the PSP because the gadgets were made available in the market even before the PSP was launched. Therefore Sony had to rush to introduce the PSP in order to avoid duplication and count erfeit and also to prevent the retailers from snatching Sony’s deserved revenues. Q3. The sale of PSPs in Europe was indeed a threat for Sony primarily because of the fact that it pushed the production capacity of Sony to the edge in order to cater to the â€Å"unofficial demand†. Before launching the PSP in UK, Sony ensured it had enough PSP units available to meet the demands

Case Discussion Question Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Case Discussion Question - Essay Example Providing state of the art technology at a competitive price and with a high value support system, Altera was able to steadily increase its revenues to staggering $1.4 billion by the first quarter of year 2000. Thereafter, the world scenario, regarding the technology boom, took a downward plunge that threw the whole technology industry into a spin. The year 2000 onwards, saw an unexpected decline in the demand for the hi-tech goods that completely wiped out the small players and left the big manufacturing companies with huge inventory that had far too few customers. ‘Chipmakers and PC companies suddenly found themselves with a glut of inventory and capacity. Networking and telecom equipment makers were particularly hard hit; Cisco, more irrationally exuberant than most, was forced to write off a staggering $2.25 billion worth of gear’ (Teach, 2001). Others also followed suit with huge quantity of unsalable inventory. Altera Corporation too faced the repercussion of the time and had to declare goods worth $115 million as unsalable. One can gauge the extent of loss when Nathan Sarkisian, senior vice president of the company said ‘I’ve been in the chip industry for 20 years and I have never seen anything like this’ (article). The reason for this trend may be attributed to a wide variety of causes but the main being that with the large number of electronics manufacturers and suppliers, it became difficult for the customers and distributors to identify ‘who owns which surplus parts’. While at the same time, the grey markets in the networking equipments in the new emerging economies took a new dimension that threatened the whole industries. At this very time, the PC companies became broiled in an unhealthy cut throat competition of waging price wars. The deteriorating market conditions demanded some hard hitting formulae to restrict the decline while at the same time, create effective strategy to counter the menace of such

Convergence Law and Its Relevance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Convergence Law and Its Relevance - Essay Example As such, the paper discusses the multiple factors that have had an influence on the formation and convergence of European law. Primarily, this convergence is the result of the necessity of uniformism that has been demanded since the European Union first formed. As a result, integrations have taken place based on the interpretation of individual laws, as well as entire constitutional understanding. As the idea of citizenship has been defined to incorporate an individual into the greater whole of the European Union, likewise individual interpretations of existing law has been forced to be understood, fabricated, and analyzed through the very same constructs. As a vehicle for understanding this concept, Tryfonadou introduces the topic of free movement of persons and free movement of goods as it evolved in the late 1990’s through early 2000’s. Perhaps, one of the best examples of this convergence can be seen in what Tryfonadou describes as the â€Å"restriction† and â€Å"discrimination† of free movement law. ... persons, existing laws have made an attempt, according to Tryfonadou, to juxtapose the two and come to a common understanding and definition in the scope of the laws. (1) The author goes on to explain to the reader the differences between subsidiarity law principles and proportionality principles. Subsidiarity requires that the community adopt the legislation only if it is a requirement to achieve a given object. Accordingly, proportionality requires that the burden of the law’s enactment be proportionally weighted so as not to be too heavy with relation to the objective that is trying to be achieved. An unavoidable facet of the European Union’s construction requires that one understand and realize the importance of the many different legal systems that make up its component parts, as well as how each of these systems begins to find a certain commonality within the law, i.e. the convergence principle that Tryfonadou has written. Due to the additional fact that the Europ ean Union is made up of a multiplicity of differing legal systems of its member states, recognition of the defining legal principles which each system espouse combined with the aforementioned principles of subsidiarity and proportionality lead invariably to a form of legal diversity. In short, even though the diverse systems of law that are extant within the European Union espouse similar legal views on a variety of different and diverse topics (i.e. Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian law) all have a host of commonalities with which to draw from. Regardless, the formation of the European Union has provided a type of centrifugal force that has worked to mold each of the aforementioned member states particular understanding into a more common and generally accepted form of jurisprudence which had

Content Based Image Retrieval System Project

Content Based Image Retrieval System Project An Efficient Content-based Image Retrieval System Integrating Wavelet-based Image Sub-blocks with Dominant Colors and Texture Analysis ABSTRACT Multimedia information retrieval is a part of computer science and it is used for extracting semantic information from multimedia data sources such as image, audio, video and text. Automatic image annotation is called as automatic image tagging or automatic linguistic indexing. It is the process in which a computer system automatically designates metadata in the form of keywords or captioning to a digital image. This application is widely used in image retrieval systems to locate and organize images from database. In this paper we have proposed efficient content based image retrieval (CBIR) systems due to the availability of large image database. The image retrieval system is used to retrieve the images based on color and texture features. Firstly, the image is partition into equal sized non-overlapping tiles. For partitioning images we are applying methods like, Gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM), HSV color feature, dominant color descriptor (DCD), cumulative color histogram and discrete wavelet transform. An integrated matching scheme can be used to compare the query images and database images based on the Most Similar Highest Priority (MSHP). Using the sub-blocks of query image and the images in database, the adjacency matrix of a bipartite graph is formed. INTRODUCTION: Automatic image annotation is known as automatic image tagging or automatic linguistic indexing. It is the process in which a computer system automatically designates metadata in the form of keywords or captioning to a digital image. This application is widely used in image retrieval systems to locate and organize images from database. This method can be considered as multi class image classification with a large number of classes. The advantage of automatic image annotation is that the queries that can be specified by the user. Content based image retrieval requires users to search by images based on the color and texture and also is used to find example queries. The traditional methods of image retrieval are used to retrieve annotated images from large image database manually and which is an expensive, laborious and time consuming in existence. Animage retrieval system is a computer system for searching, browsing and retrieving images from a largecollectionofdigital images. Most common and traditional methods of image retrieval use some methods of adding metadata such as captioning or descriptions and keywords to the images so that the retrieval can be performed over the annotation words. Image searchis used to find images from database and a user will provide a query terms as image file/link, keywords or click on some image and the system will return images similar to that query image. The similarity matching is done by using the Meta tags, color distribution in images and region/shape attributes. Image Meta Search: searching the images based on associated metadata such as text, keywords. Content-Based Image Retrieval  (CBIR):- This is the main application of  computer vision  to retrieve the images from image database. The aim of CBIR is used to retrieve images based on the similarities in their contents such as color, texture and shape instead of textual descriptions and comparing a user-specified image features or user-supplied query image. CBIR Engine List: This is used to search images based on image visual contents as color, texture, and shape/object. Image Collection Exploration: It is used to find images using novel exploration paradigms. Content Based Image Retrieval: Content based image retrieval is known asquery by image content(QBIC) andcontent-based visual information retrieval(CBVIR) and it is the application ofcomputer vision techniques to retrieve the images from digital image database. This is the image retrieval problem of finding for images in large image database. Content-based image retrieval is to provide more accuracy as compared to traditionalconcept-based approaches. Content-based is the search that analyzes the contents of the image instead of metadata such as keywords, tags, or descriptions associated with that image. The term content in this context means textures, shapes, colors or any other information about image can be derived from the image itself. CBIR is popular because of its searches are purely dependent on metadata, annotation quality and completeness. If the images are annotated manually by entering the metadata or keywords in a large database can be a time consuming and sometime it cannot be capture the keywords preferred to describe its images. The CBIR method overcomes with the concept based image annotation or textual based image annotation. This is done by automatically. Content Based Image Retrieval Using Image Distance Measures:- In this the image distance measure method is used to compare the two images such as a query image and an image from database. An image distance measure method is used to compare the matching of two images in various dimensions as color, shape, texture and others. Finally these matching results can be sorted based of the distance to the queried image. Color This is used to compute image distance measures based on color similarity. This is achieved by computing the color histogramfor each image and that is used to identify the proportion of each pixel within an image which is holding a specific values. Finally examine the images based on the colors, which contains most widely used techniques and it can be completed without consider to image size or orientation. It is used to segment color by spatial relationship and by region among several color region. Texture Textures are represented as texels and are then located into a number of sets based on a lot of textures and are detected in the images. These sets are used to define texture and also detect where the textures are located in images. Texture measures are used to define visual patterns in images. By using texture such as a two- dimensional gray level variation is to identify specific textures in an image is achieved. Using texture, the relative intensity of pairs of pixels is estimated such as contrast, regularity, coarseness and directionality.Identifying co-pixel variation patterns and grouping them with particular classes of textures like silky, orrough. Different methods of classifying textures are:- Co-occurrence matrix. Laws texture energy. Wavelet transforms. LITERATURE SURVEY: In this paper a multscale context dependent classification algorithm is developed for segmenting collection of images into four classes. They are background, photograph, text, and graph. Here, features are used for categorization based on the distribution patterns of wavelet coefficients in high frequency bands. The important attribute of this algorithm is multscale nature and is used to classifies an image at different resolutions adaptively and enabling accurate classification at class boundaries. The collected context information is used for improving classification accuracy. In this two features are defined for distinguishing local image types in image database according to the distribution patterns of wavelet coefficients rather than the moments of wavelet coefficients as features for classification. The first feature is defined for matching between the empirical distribution of wavelet coefficients in high frequency bands and the Laplacian distribution. The second feature is de fined for measuring the wavelet coefficients in high frequency bands at a few discrete values. This algorithm was developed to calculate the feature efficiently. The multscale structure collects context information from low resolutions to high resolutions. Classification is done on large blocks at the starting resolution to avoid over-localization. Here, only the blocks with extreme features are classified to ensure that the blocks of mixed classes are left to be classified at higher resolutions and the unclassified blocks are divided into smaller blocks at the higher resolution. These smaller blocks are classified based on the context information achieved at the lower resolution. Finally simulations shows that the classification accuracy is significantly improved based on the context information. Multiscale algorithm is also provides both lower classification error rates and better visual results [1]. This paper proposed content based image retrieval technique that can be derived in a number of different domains as Medical Imaging, Data Mining, Weather forecasting, Education, Remote Sensing and Management of Earth Resources, Education. The content based image retrieval technique is used to annotate images automatically based on the features like color and texture known as WBCHIR (Wavelet Based Color Histogram Image Retrieval). Here, color and texture features are extracted using the color histogram and wavelet transformation and the mixture of these two features are strong to scaling and translation of objects in an image. In this, the proposed system i.e. CBIR has demonstrated a WANG image database containing 1000 general-purpose color images for a faster retrieval method. Here, the computational steps are effectively reduced based on the Wavelet transformation. The retrieval speed is increases by using the CBIR technique even though the time taken for retrieving images from 1000 of images in database is only a 5-6 minutes [2]. This paper presents content based image retrieval scheme for medical images. This is an efficient method of retrieving medical images based on the similarity of their visual contents. CBIR-MD system is used to facilitate doctors in retrieving related medical images from the image database to diagnose the disease efficiently. In this a CBIR system is proposed by which a query image is divided into identical sized sub-blocks and the feature extraction of each sub-block is conceded based on Haar wavelet and Fourier descriptor. Finally, matching the image process is provided using the Most Similar Highest Priority (MSHP) principle and by using the sub-blocks of query and target image, an adjacency matrix of bipartite graph partitioning (BGP) created [3]. In this paper a content based image retrieval (CBIR) system is proposed using the local and global color, texture, and shape features of selected image sub-blocks. These image sub-blocks are approximately identified by segmenting the image into small number of partitions of different patterns. Finding edge density and corner density in each image partition using edge thresholding, morphological dilation. The texture and color features of the identified regions are calculated using the histograms of the quantized HSV color space and Gray Level Co- occurrence Matrix (GLCM) and the combination of color and texture feature vector is evaluated for each region. The shape features are computed using the Edge Histogram Descriptor (EHD). The distance between the characteristics of the query image and target image is computed using the Euclidean distance measure. Finally the experimental results of this proposed method provides a improved retrieving result than retrieval using some of the exis ting methods [4]. An efficient content based image retrieval system plays an important role due to the availability of large image database. The Color-Texture and Dominant Color Based Image Retrieval System (CTDCIRS) is used to retrieve images based on the three features such as Dynamic Dominant Color (DDC), Motif Co-Occurrence Matrix (MCM) and Difference between Pixels of Scan Pattern (DBPSP). By using the fast color quantization algorithm, we can divide the image into eight partitions. From these eight partitions we obtained eight dominant colors. The texture of the image is obtained by using the MCM and DBPSP methods. MCM is derived based on the motif transformed image. It is related to color co-occurrence matrix (CCM) and it is the conventional pattern co-occurrence matrix and is used to calculate the possibility of the occurrence of same pixel color between each pixel and its nearby ones in each image, which is the attribute of the image. The drawback of MCM is used to capture the way of textures but not the difficulty of texture. To overcome this, we use DBPSP as texture feature. The combination of dominant color, MCM and DBPSP features are used in image retrieval system. This approach is efficient in retrieving the user interested images [5]. In this paper content based image retrieval approach is used. It consists of two features such as high level and low level features and these features includes color, texture and shape which are present in each image. By extracting these features we can retrieve the images from image database. To obtain better results, RGB space is converted into HSV space and YCbCr space is used for low level features. The low level features are to be used based upon the applications. Color feature in case of natural images and co-occurrence matrix in case of textured images yields better results [6]. OBJECTIVE: To retrieve images more efficiently or accurately. To improve the efficiency and accuracy by using the multi features for image retrieval (discrete wavelet transform). Image classification and accuracy analysis. Time saving. Robustness. METHODOLOGY: Discrete Wavelet Transform. Conversion to HSV Color Space. Color Histogram Generation. Dominant Color Descriptor. Gray-level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM). ARCHITECTURE: This architecture consists of two phases: Training phase Testing phase These two phases of the proposed system consists of many blocks like image database, image partitioning, wavelet transform of image sub-blocks, RGB to HSV, non uniform quantization, histogram generation, dominant color description, textual analysis, query feature, similarity matching, feature database, returned images. In training phase, the input image is retrieved from image database and then the image is being partitioned into equal sized sub-blocks. Further, for each sub-block of the partitioned image, wavelet transform is being applied. Then the conversion from RGB to HSV taken place preceded with non uniform quantization, inputted to histogram generation block where a color histogram is generated for the sub-blocks of the image. Then the dominant color descriptors are extracted and texture analysis of each sub-block of the image is done. Finally the image features from the feature database and the input image features are compared for the similarity matching using MSHP principle. Then the matched image is being returned. In testing phase, the processing steps are same as training phase, except the input image is given as the query image by the user not collected from the image database. OUTCOMES: It provides accurate image retrieving. Comparative analysis and graph. Provides better efficiency. CONCLUSION: To retrieve images from image database, we can use discrete wavelet transform method based on color and texture features. The color feature of the pixels in an image can be described using HSV, color histogram and DCD methods, similarly texture distribution can be described using GLCM method. By using these methods we can achieve accurate retrieval of images. REFERENCES: [1] Jia Li, Member, IEEE, and Robert M. Gray, Fellow, IEEE, â€Å"Context-Based Multiscale Classification of Document Images Using Wavelet Coefficient Distributions†, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, Vol. 9, No. 9, September 2000. [2] Manimala Singha and K.Hemachandran, â€Å"Content Based Image Retrieval using Color and Texture†, Signal Image Processing: An International Journal (SIPIJ) Vol.3, No.1, February 2012. [3] Ashish Oberoi Deepak Sharma Manpreet Singh, â€Å"CBIR-MD/BGP: CBIR-MD System based on Bipartite Graph Partitioning†, International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 52– No.15, August 2012. [4] E. R. Vimina and K. Poulose Jacob, â€Å"CBIR Using Local and Global Properties of Image Sub-blocks†, International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology Vol. 48, November, 2012. [5] M.Babu Rao Dr. B.Prabhakara Rao Dr. A.Govardhan, â€Å"CTDCIRS: Content based Image Retrieval System based on Dominant Color and Texture Features†, International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 18– No.6, March 2011. [6] Gauri Deshpande, Megha Borse, â€Å"Image Retrieval with the use of Color and Texture Feature†, Gauri Deshpande et al, / (IJCSIT) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technologies, Vol. 2 (3) , 2011, 1018-1021. [7] Sherin M. Youssef, Saleh Mesbah, Yasmine M. Mahmoud, â€Å"An Efficient Content-based Image Retrieval System Integrating Wavelet-based Image Sub-blocks with Dominant Colors and Texture Analysis†, Information Science and Digital Content Technology (ICIDT), 2012 8th International Conference on Volume:3 .

Exploring the Hindu Religion Essay -- Philosophy Religion Essays

Exploring the Hindu Religion The statement "everyone is a Hindu" is an extremely broad one that is open to much interpretation. This owes partly to the fact that Hinduism itself is a broad and vast religion with many ways of following. In this paper I seek to explain that the statement "everyone is a Hindu" is a worthy one because Hindus have a sense of interconnectedness in all organisms and life on earth, and that the ultimate goal of a person is to join the rest of the universe in "moksha." Additionally, the attribute of the Hinduism that lends well to the statement is that Hinduism is a very hospitable religion that not only requires no specific adherence or conversion, it stresses the understanding of other religions as well. If one ascribes to a particular religion, surely that person believes that his or her religion holds for everyone. This person would feel that there is only one god or Supreme Being that rules over the universe and all its peoples. In Islam this god is known as Allah; in Christianity He is known as Jehovah. This is one argument that could apply to any religion however. In Hinduism on the other hand, the idea of a Supreme Being is much more of an abstract concept rather than a tangible being, and is known as "Brahman." The idea that Brahman is the "everything" or Supreme Reality is what makes the statement "everyone is a Hindu" a notably pertinent one in relation to Hinduism. Hindus have a sense of interconnectedness that pervades throughout everything in the universe: all plants, animals, people, and the cosmos. Brahman is the sacred force that holds everything together is. It is the ultimate reality that is unseen in the karmic cycle of birth and death, called samsara, which Hindus believe we... ...ital to Buddhism. I have shown that the universality of Hinduism, its broad sense of welcoming to people of any creed or faith, and its decentralized nature are all factors that lend to the assertion "everyone is a Hindu." The central concept of Brahman in Hinduism as a sacred unexplainable force that ties everything in this world together make everyone a Hindu. In addition, everyone is seen as striving towards the same goal to reach moksha, to shed the bondage of being reborn in a human body in order to finally attain union with the Supreme Being. Although it could be said that there are "330 Million Gods," there is no acceptance required of these particular deities in Hinduism, only an acknowledgement that there is a Supreme Being. The statement that "everyone is a Hindu" is a compelling one that is substantiated by the universal ideas and concepts of Hinduism.

Positives And Negatives Of Performance Appraisals Commerce Essay

A cardinal facet of human resource direction is the public presentation assessment. The assessment helps to pull off the public presentation of employees as they themselves will normally necessitate feedback and seek blessing of what they are making right. It besides allows for any issues the employee has with the company and the director to be addressed. This survey highlights the assorted facets of public presentation assessments and how the in-class function dramas draw attending to the good and bad points of an assessment.What is a Performance Appraisal?â€Å" Performance assessments, a powerful tool, provide documented feedback on an employee ‘s degree of public presentation † ( Mahapatro, 2010 ) . For a director of an administration, it is a cardinal duty to decently measure the public presentation of its employees. There are many purposes of public presentation assessment, some of which include: set uping demand for preparation, to better public presentation throu gh guidance or coaching and to organize the footing for salary additions, wagess and fillips ( Carnell, 2010 ) . When a choice of companies in the Fortune 100[ 1 ]were asked how appraisal information was used, in the order of importance, the figure one benefit was it allowed them to better work public presentation ( Grote, 1996 ) . Other ways the information was used included ‘Making publicity determinations ‘ , ‘Advising employees of work outlooks ‘ and like Carnell suggested, ‘Identifying developing demands ‘ .BenefitsAppraisals give the chance to measure and mensurate employee public presentation but besides let for developments in general accomplishments and self-belief of the employee being appraised. Benefits associated with assessments include: rewarding staff for a occupation good done, placing and extinguishing underachievers and leting for employee growing ( Admin, 2009 ) . Appraisals allow for important interaction between the director and an employee, something which can be hard to suit during the busy daily responsibilities and undertakings a director or an employee has to account for. Therefore the director and employee are obligated to finish an assessment to discourse public presentation issues. â€Å" It is this consistent coaching that affects changed behaviors † ( Admin, 2009 ) .Negatives/ProblemsA cardinal disadvantage of assessments is the fact it can be clip devouring. â€Å" It is recommended that a director spend about an hr per employee composing public presentation assessments † ( Admin, 2009 ) . This may non be an issue for a director merely covering with a smattering of employees but finishing assessments for a 100 employees is traveling to be significantly boring. The jobs of an assessment can lie with both the director and the employee. An employee could already be experiencing paranoid or insecure about the assessment, particularly when the director has the power in footings of pr esenting wagess, publicity, occupation security etc. This power the director has, can be used unprofessionally which could ensue in an unjust assessment. Superiority can be tied in with power and can ensue in actions by the director that are different and inconsistent to their norm. Associating back to the tedium of assessments, if a director has many assessments to put to death in such a short clip frame, the thought of ennui can originate doing a loss of focal point due to repeat of paper work ( Carnell, 2010 ) .A Good Performance AppraisalThe important elements of a good assessment harmonizing to the ( Chartered Institute of Personal Development ( CIPD ) , 2010 ) are that a good and constructive assessment meeting is one in which: Appraisees do most of the speaking Appraisers listen actively to what they say There is range for contemplation and analysis Performance is analysed non personality The whole period is reviewed and non merely recent or stray events Accomplishment is recognised and reinforced Ends positively with agreed action programs The assessment should be about developing a program for the employee. Therefore for an appraisal meeting to be successful, both employee and director should fix. Using a papers with a few inquiries to be considered by both parties in the assessment should be included when fixing. A cardinal component in the assessment meeting is that the director should concentrate on the hereafter and what he or she would wish to see instead than brooding on what has or has n't worked antecedently. Probably the most of import facet is the finalising of the assessment. It is important that ends and outlooks are set together between the director and employee. This helps to set up where any farther development is required in respects to developing the employee.Role Play AnalysisRole Play AGeneral observations from the beginning were that the director seemed distant and was n't engaged with the employer at all, entire unprofessionalism was displayed when the director decided to read a text message on hi s phone. Besides from the '10 Stairss to Flawless Appraisal Interview ‘ DVD, the first measure discusses that avoiding surprises are cardinal to a good interview and the fact that the employee was told last minute about her assessment was a really hapless action from the director. There was a deficiency of ends set in the old twelvemonth by the director and he besides suggested that the employee should take it upon herself to put her ain marks. Other negative points about the director include non showing feedback to the employee for her public presentation and she besides was n't made cognizant about her bead in public presentation prior to the assessment. When the employee suggests for more preparation to assist increase her public presentation, the director merely disregards it. Even though the bead in public presentation was due to household issues, there was an utmost deficiency of support from the director. A good assessment should be a two manner meeting between both parties but when the employee suggests the director could better his public presentation ; he wholly disregards it and says the assessment is for the employee merely. An assessment should besides set frontward new aims but the 1s set for the employee were so generalized that the employee was confused what was asked of her. When the director was asked to be specific, it was brushed off even though making an action program is important to a good assessment. The employee asked for some overall feedback of her public presentation in the workplace and even that was really hapless from the director with truly generalised remarks that would be of no assistance. The employee stated he was looking for a new occupation due to miss of occupation satisfaction and deficiency of future chances and publicity at the current company. Overall a hapless assessment with no action program created.Role Play BGeneral observations of the function drama include great support and enthusiasm by the director for the employee but complete negativeness from the employee. The employee needs to understand that an assessment is necessary but is inexorable her public presentation is immaculate and believes she does n't necessitate an assessment and thinks it ‘s the director that needs to better. The director highlights the mistakes with the employee and is acute to assist better her public presentation. A hapless action by the employee was the answering of her phone mid-appraisal and systematically seeking to go forth the assessment early. The director recognised that the employee had done a great occupation last twelvemonth and really much understood and sympathised with the employee for her bead in public presentation due to household related jobs. The director was really relentless with what had to be said but was ever being overthrown by the employee. There besides was n't a good terminal to the assessment instead a ‘giving up ‘ by the director and hence no action program was set. Apart from saying the bead in public presentation, the director could hold given more feedback from throughout the twelvemonth instead than concentrating on that exclusive event. The overall behavior of the director was pleasant, sort and considerate whereas the employee was rather merely rude.Role Play CGeneral observations of the function drama include a hapless attitude between both director and employee and a general deficiency of attention for the assessment. This assessment was the worst of the three and both parties had minimum attention for the assessment itself. By burying the clip of the assessment and the employee ‘s name showed complete unpreparedness. Another presentation of a hapless assessment was the manner in which inquiries were put frontward by the director and the manner replies were referred back to him. The inquiries seemed really rigorous to the signifier as if there was no readying done by the director and the replies by the employee once more seemed like there was none or minimum readying. This would bind in with measure three from the '10 Stairss to Flawless Appraisal Interview ‘ which states that a more productive interview is one with good employee readying. Both parties were argumentative and ne'er truly discussed or reviewed decently the public presentation of the employee. At times the director was dissing and complete neglect by the director when the employee stated household jobs. However the employ ee was besides dissing but more so to other staff which is something to clearly avoid in a good assessment. Overall this clearly was a bad assessment and the fact that both parties seemed to hold an action program would be reasonably much pointless summed up the quality of the assessment.Are Action Plans Needed?All three function dramas failed to make an action program, one of the cardinal parts of an assessment. It is the last but one of the most important stairss in '10 Stairss to Flawless Appraisal Interview ‘ . An overall program should be agreed with the appraisee, which should â€Å" take history of the occupation duties, the appraisee ‘s calling aspirations, the departmental and whole organisation ‘s precedences, and the reviewed strengths and failings † ( Mahapatro, 2010 ) . Without any marks or aims, an assessment has minimal or even zero value to both the director and the employee. The aims set should adhere to the ‘SMARTER ‘ rule: â₠¬Å" specific, mensurable, agreed, realistic, time-bound, gratifying, recorded † ( Mahapatro, 2010 ) . The benefit therefore is that the aims are likely to be met before the following assessment.Bettering Performance Appraisalsâ€Å" The public presentation rating procedure is a possible mine field of jobs † ( Mahapatro, 2010 ) . Several sorts of mistakes and prejudices exist in assessments which normally influence the public presentation measuring. Common mistakes as highlighted in ( Steen, Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & A ; Wright, 2009 ) include ‘Similar to Me Error ‘ , ‘Contrast Error ‘ and ‘Halo and Horns Error ‘ . Wayss to get the better of these mistakes and better assessments would be to present in-depth preparation to avoid evaluation mistakes. Using more than one judge can besides be introduced to increase the opportunities of more accurate consequences. Besides when a director evaluates, he or she should merely carry on assessm ents in the countries they have expertness in which makes the appraisal strategy a much more valid procedure. These techniques should hold been applied to the function plays which in bend would hold made them a far better illustration of a good assessment.

Mental telepathy toK essay Essays

Mental telepathy toK essay Essays Mental telepathy toK essay Paper Mental telepathy toK essay Paper Since ancient times there have been countless myths about specially gifted people who can use their minds potential in a much higher and advanced level than the rest o the common human minds. It is said that these people use this special skill called telepathy, which can be used only by the gifted ones, at least thats what the majority of people think, but in my opinion, this statement is not really correct, well, at least not precise! At all times there have been these individuals with telepathic skills who fundamentally change the lives of many other people for example, Nostradamus, who predicted many disasters such as both World Wars and the twin tower disaster in the United States. I actually think that these so called prophets of whom many people think as divine messengers of higher powers are actually simple mutants that have more developed minds because of the evolution. These people have grown to a level where their minds can connect to the different dimension where all of the essential information of future is accessible. Since our brain usage potential is less than 10 %, I believe that it is only a matter of time till we evolve to the level of these special ones or even higher. There actually is no such special skill its just that the majority of worlds population is not ready for an option like foreseeing the future or digging into our own sub consciousness to find the true purposes of our lives or other answers. Todays worlds nations are too busy trying to raise the economics in a different level, fighting wars, stealing from other nations. It is all about money today even religion today is a way to earn money. If people realized that wealth of their sole nation or power over something is not the main goal today, then our mind would reveal us its true purpose as an instrument to reach the database of ultimate knowledge. The real example is the ancient civilization of Atlantis (the civilization died because of a natural disaster which caused the island of Atlantis to sink into the ocean) who were mentally advanced apart from the rest of the world at that time they isolated from everyone around them. There is information that they communicated through thoughts and had even contacts with life forms from outer space. I think their minds were more developed because they simply had different values in this world and they thought in a different way. I think our minds are like clay which needs to be formed to create a final shape I mean, todays world keeps worrying mainly about wealth our mind is in the same little shape all the time but if everyone thought about sharing the material and moral values with the rest of the world, and thought about unifying into one major nation whos goal would be peace, unified moral development and harmony with nature our minds would transform into a much more larger, more developed and much more gracious shape . This proves that there is no such thing as the mental telepathy the evolution of the brain will be just a result of prophylactic thinking in the right direction (or a result of a simple random mutation at the moment). I could call a random person who can use the potential of his own mind (usually less than 10 %) a telepath, but only a primitive one. That way anyone could be called a telepath but this way the word would lose its own meaning. Mankind is just rookies who are yet to learn to use their most important instrument properly.

Biography of Manfred von Richthofen, The Red Baron

Biography of Manfred von Richthofen, The Red Baron Baron Manfred von Richthofen (May 2, 1892–April 21, 1918), also known as the Red Baron, was only involved in World War Is air war for 18 months- but he shot down 80 planes in that time, an extraordinary feat considering that most fighter pilots achieved a handful of victories before being shot down themselves. Fast Facts: Manfred Albrecht von Richthofen (the Red Baron) Known For:  Winning the Blue Max for downing 80 enemy planes in World War I.Born: May 2, 1892, in Kleinburg, Lower Silesia (Poland)Parents: Major Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen and Kunigunde von Schickfuss und Neudorff.Died: April 21, 1918, Somme Valley, France.Education: Wahlstatt Cadet School in Berlin, Senior Cadet Academy at Lichterfelde, Berlin War Academy.Spouse: None.Children: None. World War I was a bloody war, fought in muddy trenches and overwhelmed with slaughter. Yet a few soldiers escaped this anonymous end: fighter pilots. They volunteered to fly when just going up in an airplane seemed heroic, given the odds. Baron Manfred von Richthofen, who liked to fly in a blazing red airplane and shoot down plane after plane. His achievements made him both a hero and a propaganda tool. With 80 credited victories, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, defied the odds and became a legend in the air. Early Life Manfred Albrecht von Richthofen was born on May 2, 1892, in Kleiburg near Breslau of Lower Silesia (now Poland), the second child and first son of Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen and Kunigunde von Schickfuss und Neudorff. (Freiherr is equivalent to Baron in ENglish). Manfred had had one sister (Ilsa) and two younger brothers (Lothar and Karl Bolko).   The Richthofens came from a long line that could be traced back to the sixteenth century. Many in the family raised merino sheep and farmed on their lands in Silesia. In 1896, the family moved to a villa in the nearby town of Schweidnitz. There, his Uncle Alexander, who had hunted in Africa, Asia, and Europe, fired in Manfred a passion for hunting. Even before Manfred was born, Albrecht von Richthofen had decided that his first son would follow in his footsteps and join the military. Albrecht himself had become one of the first Richthofens to become a career military officer. Unfortunately, a daring rescue to save several other soldiers who had fallen into the icy Oder River had left Albrecht deaf and with an early retirement. Manfred did follow in his fathers footsteps. At age eleven, Manfred entered the Wahlstatt cadet school in Berlin. Though he disliked the schools rigid discipline and received poor grades, Manfred excelled at athletics and gymnastics. After six years at Wahlstatt, Manfred graduated to the Senior Cadet Academy at Lichterfelde which he found more likable. After completing a course at the Berlin War Academy, Manfred joined the cavalry. In 1912, Manfred, after having been commissioned as Leutnant (lieutenant), was stationed in Militsch (now Milicz, Poland). In the summer of 1914, World War I began. To the Air When the war began, Manfred von Richthofen was 22 years old and stationed on Germanys eastern border, but was soon transferred to the west. During the charge into Belgium and France, Manfreds cavalry regiment was attached to the infantry for whom Manfred conducted reconnaissance patrols. However, when Germanys advance was halted outside of Paris and both sides dug in, the need for cavalry was eliminated. A man sitting on horseback had no place in the trenches. Manfred was transferred to the Signal Corps where he laid telephone wire and delivered dispatches. Frustrated with life near the trenches, Richthofen looked up. Though he didnt know which planes fought for Germany and which ones fought for their enemies, he knew that airplanes - and not the cavalry - now flew the reconnaissance missions. Yet becoming a pilot took months of training, probably longer than the war would last. So instead of flight school, Richthofen requested to be transferred to the Air Service to become an observer. In May 1915, Richthofen traveled to Cologne for the observer training program at the No. 7 Air Replacement Station. Even though Richthofen didnt have to fly the airplane, he still had to go up in one. Richthofen Gets Airborne At seven oclock the next morning I was to fly for the first time as an observer. Naturally, I was very excited, because I could not imagine what it would be like. Everyone I asked told me something different. The night before I had gone to bed earlier than usual to be fresh for the great moment next morning. We drove to the airfield and I sat in an airplane for the first time. The blast of wind from the propeller disturbed me greatly. It was impossible to make myself heard by the pilot. Everything flew away from me. If I took a piece of paper out, it disappeared. My flying helmet slipped off, my muffler loosened too much, and my jacket was not buttoned securely - in short, I was miserable. Before I knew what was happening, the pilot got the engine up to full speed and the machine began rolling, faster and faster. I hung on frantically. Then the shaking stopped and we were in the air. The ground slipped away beneath us. During this first flight, Richthofen lost the sense of his location and thus was unable to give the pilot directions. So they landed. Richthofen continued to study and learn. He was taught how to read a map, drop bombs, locate enemy troops, and draw pictures while still in the air. Richthofen passed observer training and was then sent to the eastern front to report enemy troop movements. After several months of flying as an observer in the East, Manfred was told to report to the Mail Pigeon Detachment, the code name for a new, secret unit that was to bomb England. Richthofen had his first air fight on September 1, 1915. He went up with pilot Lieutenant Georg Zeumer, and for the first time, spotted an enemy aircraft in the air. Richthofen had only a rifle with him and though he tried several times to hit the other plane, he failed to bring it down. A few days later, Richthofen went up again, this time with pilot Lieutenant Osteroth. Armed with a machine gun, Richthofen fired at the enemy plane. Then the gun became jammed. Once Richthofen unjammed the gun, he fired again. The plane started to spiral and eventually crashed. Richthofen was elated. However, when he went back to headquarters to report his victory, he was informed that kills in enemy lines did not count. Meeting His Hero On October 1, 1915, Richthofen was on board a train heading for Metz. After entering the dining car, he found an empty seat, sat down, and then noticed a familiar face at another table. Richthofen introduced himself and found that he was talking to the famous fighter pilot Lieutenant Oswald Boelcke. Frustrated at his own failed attempts to shoot down another plane, Richthofen asked Boelcke, Tell me honestly, how do you really do it? Boelcke laughed and then replied, Good heavens, it indeed is quite simple. I fly in as close as I can, take good aim, shoot, and then he falls down.2 Though Boelcke hadnt given Richthofen the answer he had hoped for, a seed of an idea was planted. Richthofen realized that the new, single seated Fokker fighter (Eindecker) - the one that Boelcke flew - was much easier to shoot from. However, he would need to be a pilot to ride and shoot from one of those. Richthofen then decided he would learn to work the stick himself.3 Richthofen asked his friend Zeumer to teach him to fly. After many lessons, Zeumer decided Richthofen was ready for his first solo flight on October 10, 1915. Richthofens First Solo Flight There are few moments in life that produce as nervous a sensation as the first solo flight. Zeumer, my teacher, announced to me one afternoon: You are ready to fly alone. I must say that I would rather have answered: I am too afraid. But this could never come from a defender of the fatherland. Therefore, good or bad, I had to swallow my cowardice and sit in the machine. . . . The engine started with a roar. I gave it the gas and the machine began to pick up speed, and suddenly I could not help but notice that I was really flying. Suddenly it was no longer an anxious feeling, but, rather, one of daring. Now it was all up to me. No matter what happened, I was no longer frightened. Richthofen, after much determination and perseverance, finally passed all three of the fighter pilot examinations. On December 25, 1915, he was awarded his pilots certificate. Richthofen spent the next several weeks with the 2nd Fighting Squadron near Verdun. Though Richthofen saw several enemy planes and even shot one down, he wasnt credited with any kills because the plane went down in enemy territory with no witnesses. The 2nd Fighting Squadron was then sent to the East to drop bombs on the Russian front. Collecting Two-Inch Silver Trophies On a return trip from Turkey in August 1916,  Oswald Boelcke  stopped to visit with his brother Wilhelm, Richthofens commander. Besides a brotherly visit, Boelcke was scouting for pilots that had talent. After discussing the search with his brother, Boelcke invited Richthofen and one other pilot to join his new group called Jagdstaffel 2 (hunting squadron) in Lagnicourt, France. Jagdstaffel 2 Suddenly in the early morning there was a knock at the door and before me stood the great man with the Pour le Mà ©rite. I really did not know what he wanted of me. To be sure, I knew him . . . but it did not occur to me that he had sought me out to invite me to become a pupil of his. I could have hugged him when he asked whether I wanted to go to the Somme with him. By September 8, 1916, Richthofen and the other pilots that had been invited to join Boelckes Jagdstaffel 2 (often abbreviated to Jasta) had arrived in Lagnicourt. Boelcke then taught them all he had learned about fighting in the air. On September 17, it was Richthofens first chance to fly a combat patrol in a squadron led by Boelcke. On Combat Patrol   We were all beginners; none of us had previously been credited with a success. Whatever Boelcke told us was taken as gospel. We knew that in the last few days he had shot down at least one Englishman a day, and many times two every morning. . . . We approached the enemy squadron slowly, but it could no longer escape us. We were between the Front and the enemy. If he wanted to go back, he would have to go by us. We counted seven enemy airplanes, and opposed them with only five. . . . The Englishman near me was a big, dark-colored barge. I did not ponder long and took aim at him. He shot and I shot, but we both missed. The fight then began. I tried to get behind him because I could only shoot in the direction I was flying. This was not necessary for him, as his observers rotating machine gun could reach all sides. But this fellow was no beginner, for he knew very well that the moment I succeeded in getting behind him, his last hour would be sounded. At the time I did not have the convi ction I have now that he must fall, but, rather, I was much more anxious to see if he would fall, and that is a significant difference. . . .Then, suddenly, his propeller turned no more. Hit! The engine was probably shot to pieces, and he would have to land near our lines. Reaching his own positions was out of the question. I noticed the machine swaying from side to side; something was not quite right with the pilot. Also, the observer was not to be seen, his machine gun pointed unattended up in the air. I had no doubt hit him also, and he must have been lying on the floor of the fuselage. The enemy airplane landed in German territory and Richthofen, extremely excited about his first kill, landed his airplane next to his enemys. The observer, Lieutenant T. Rees, was already dead and the pilot, L. B. F. Morris died on the way to the hospital. It was Richthofens first credited victory. It had become customary to present engraved beer mugs to pilots after their first kill. This gave Richthofen an idea. To celebrate each of his victories, he would order himself a two-inch-high silver trophy from a jeweler in Berlin. On his first cup was engraved, 1 VICKERS 2 17.9.16. The  first number  reflected what number kill; the word represented what kind of airplane; the third item represented the number of crew on board; and the fourth was the date of the victory (day, month, year). Later, Richthofen decided to make every tenth victory cup twice as large as the others. As with many pilots, to remember his kills, Richthofen became an avid souvenir collector. After shooting down an enemy aircraft, Richthofen would land near it or drive to find the wreckage after the battle and take something from the plane. A few of his souvenirs included a machine gun, bits of the propeller, even an engine. But most popularly, Richthofen removed the fabric serial numbers from the aircraft. He would carefully pack these souvenirs up and send them home to be placed in his room. In the beginning, each new kill held a thrill. Later in the war, however, Richthofens number of kills had a sobering effect. When it was time to order his 61st silver trophy, the jeweler in Berlin informed him that because of the scarcity of metal, he would have to make it out of ersatz (substitute) metal. At that time, Richthofen decided to end his trophy collecting. His last trophy was for his 60th victory. An End to Trophy Collecting On October 28, 1916, Boelcke, Richthofens mentor, went into the air as he had on most other days. However, during an aerial battle, a horrible accident occurred. While trying to evade an enemy, Boelcke and Lieutenant Erwin Bà ¶hmes plane grazed each other. Though it was only a touch, Boelckes plane was damaged. While his plane was rushing toward the ground, Boelcke tried to keep control. Then one of his wings snapped off. Boelcke was killed on impact. The news that this famous flyer had died affected the morale of Germany. Boelcke had been their hero and now he was gone. Germany was saddened but wanted a new hero. Richthofen continued to make kills, making his seventh and eighth kill in early November. After his ninth kill, Richthofen expected to receive Germanys highest award for bravery, the Pour le Mà ©rite. Unfortunately, the criteria had recently changed, and instead of nine downed enemy aircraft, a fighter pilot would receive the honor after sixteen victories. Richthofens continued kills were drawing attention to him. Though he was now considered a flying ace, he was still among several who had comparable kill records. Richthofen wanted to distinguish himself. Though several other flyers had painted different sections of their planes special colors, Richthofen noticed that it was difficult to see these during a battle. To get noticed, from the ground and from the air, Richthofen decided to paint his plane bright red. Ever since Boelcke had painted the nose of his plane red, the color had been associated with his squadron. However, no one had yet been so ostentatious as to paint their entire plane such a bright color. The Color Red One day, for no particular reason, I got the idea to paint my crate glaring red. After that, absolutely everyone knew my red bird. If fact, even my opponents were not completely unaware. Richthofen understated the colors effect on his enemies. To many, the bright red plane seemed to make a good target. It was rumored that the British had put a price on the head of the red planes pilot. Yet when the plane and pilot continued to shoot down airplanes and continued itself to stay in the air, the bright red plane caused respect and fear. The enemy created nicknames for Richthofen:  Le Petit Rouge, the Red Devil, the Red Falcon,  Le Diable Rouge, the Jolly Red Baron, the Bloody Baron, and the Red Baron. However, the Germans never called Richthofen the Red Baron; instead, they called him  der rà ¶te Kampfflieger  (The Red Battle Flier). Though Richthofen had become a great hunter on the ground, he was constantly perfecting his game in the air. After achieving sixteen victories, Richthofen was awarded the Pour le Mà ©rite on January 12, 1917. Two days later, Richthofen was given command of  Jagdstaffel 11. Now he was not only to fly and fight but to train others to do so. The Flying Circus April 1917 was Bloody April. After several months of rain and cold, the weather changed and pilots from both sides again went up into the air. The Germans had the advantage in both location and aircraft; the British had the disadvantage and lost many, many men. In April, Richthofen shot down 21 enemy aircraft bringing his total up to 52. He had finally broken Boelckes record (40 victories), making Richthofen the new ace of aces. Richthofen was a hero. Postcards were printed with his image and stories of his prowess abounded. Yet heroes in war dont necessarily last long. Any day, the hero might not come home. The war planners wanted to protect the German hero; thus ordered rest for Richthofen. Leaving his brother Lothar in charge of  Jasta 11  (Lothar had also proven himself a great fighter pilot), Richthofen left May 1, 1917, to visit Kaiser Wilhelm II. He talked to many of the top generals, spoke to youth groups, and socialized with others. Though he was a hero and received a heros welcome, Richthofen just wanted to spend time at home. On May 19, 1917, he was again home. During this time off, the war planners and propagandists had asked Richthofen to write his memoirs, later published as  Der rote Kampfflieger  (The Red Battle-Flyer). By mid-June, Richthofen was back with  Jasta 11. The structure of the air squadrons changed in June 1917. On June 24, 1917, it was announced that Jastas 4, 6, 10, and 11 were to join together into a large formation called  Jagdgeschwader I  (Fighter Wing 1) and Richthofen was to be the commander. J.G. 1 came to be known as The Flying Circus. Things were going magnificently for Richthofen until a serious accident in early July. While attacking several pusher planes, Richthofen was shot. Richthofen Is Shot Suddenly there was a blow to my head! I was hit! For a moment I was completely paralized [sic] . . . My hands dropped to the side, my legs dangled inside the fuselage. The worst part was that the blow on the head had affected my optic nerve and I was completely blinded. The machine dived down.8 Richthofen regained part of his eyesight around 2600 feet (800 meters). Though he was able to land his plane, Richthofen had a bullet wound in the head. The wound kept Richthofen away from the front until mid-August and left him with frequent severe headaches. Last Flight As the war progressed, Germanys fate looked bleaker. Richthofen, who had been an energetic fighter pilot early in the war, was becoming increasingly distressed about death and battle. By April 1918, Richthofen, the Red Baron, had long ago proven himself a hero. He had far surpassed Boelckes record for he was nearing his 80th victory. He still had headaches from his wound that bothered him greatly. Though he had grown sullen and slightly depressed, Richthofen still refused his superiors requests for him to retire. On April 21, 1918, the day after he had shot down his 80th enemy aircraft, Manfred von Richthofen climbed into his bright red airplane. Around 10:30 a.m., there had been a telephoned report that several British aircraft were near the front and Richthofen was taking a  group  up to confront them. The Germans spotted the British planes and a battle ensued. Richthofen noticed a single airplane bolt out of the melee. Richthofen followed him. Inside the British plane sat Canadian Second Lieutenant Wilfred (Wop) May. This was Mays first combat flight and his superior, Canadian Captain Arthur R. Brown, who was also an old friend, ordered him to watch but not participate in the fight. May had followed orders for a little while but then joined in the ruckus. After his guns jammed, May tried to make a dash home. To Richthofen, May looked like an easy kill so he followed him. Captain Brown noticed a bright red plane follow his friend May; Brown decided to break away from the battle and try to help his old friend. May had by now noticed he was being followed and was frightened. He was flying over his own territory but couldnt shake the German fighter. May flew close to the ground, skimming over the trees, then over the Morlancourt Ridge. Richthofen anticipated the move and swung around to cut May off. Death of the Red Baron Brown had now caught up and started firing at Richthofen. And as they passed over the ridge, numerous Australian ground troops fired up at the German plane. Richthofen was hit. Everyone watched as the bright red plane crashed. Once the soldiers who first reached the downed plane realized who its pilot was, they ravaged the plane, taking pieces as souvenirs. Not much was left when others came to determine exactly what happened to the plane and its famous pilot. It was determined that a single bullet had entered through the right side of Richthofens back and exited about two inches higher from his left chest. The bullet killed him instantly. He was 25 years old. There is still a controversy over who was responsible for bringing down the great  Red Baron. Was it Captain Brown or was it one of the Australian ground troops? The question may never be fully answered. Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, was credited with bringing down 80 enemy aircraft. His prowess in the air made him a hero during World War I and a twentieth-century legend. Sources Burrows, William E.  Richthofen:  A True History of the Red Baron.  New York: Harcourt, Brace World, Inc., 1969.Kilduff, Peter.  Richthofen:  Beyond the Legend of the Red Baron.  New York: John Wiley Sons, Inc., 1993.Richthofen, Manfred Freiherr von.  The Red Baron.  Trans. Peter Kilduff. New York: Doubleday Company, 1969.

Happiness Advantage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Happiness Advantage - Essay Example However, for every success, goalposts are pushed further and further, and happiness is forced to the horizon. In a recent research that has been conducted in the area of positive psychology and neuroscience, there is evidence that in circumstance that the relationship between happiness and success works backward. Through this cutting –edge- science, it is now apparent that happiness is what produces success according to Achor. Dr. Achor argues that optimism and happiness gear to achievement and performance that result in competitive edge called ‘Happiness Advantage. The authors say, waiting to be happy limits the brain’s potential to success, while by positive minds results in more motivation, resilience, creativity, productivity and efficiency increase a person’s performance. The author says that is his discovery is based on a research he carried out in 500 companies worldwide and an interview with 1600 students in Harvard School (Achor 100). There are sev en main principles from the Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor that produce happiness. These principles include Happiness Advantage, The Tetris Effects, The Zorro Circle, Social Investment, The Fulcrum and the Lever, Falling Up, and The 20-Second Rule. The author was raised in Waco, Texas, and he never anticipated leaving the city. As he applied in Harvard, he wanted to train as a volunteer firefighter. He was unexpectedly accepted in the school, and this made him feel honored and privileged. After pursuing his studies, he becomes a proctor, hired to assist undergraduates navigate through the academic success and happiness. The author explains that his life in Harvard changed the way his brain processed his experience. Many learners in Harvard saw the school as a privilege, but others did not see this as they mainly focused on competition, workload and stress (Achor 120). The students felt inundated by every small challenge instead of being motivated by the opportunities ahead

Discuss how an organisation's competitive advantage can be enhanced Essay - 1

Discuss how an organisation's competitive advantage can be enhanced with the introduction of new technology - Essay Example Many companies nowadays are trying to manage their businesses with the comfort and efficiency brought by the use of new technology in their operation. However, it is not only those online companies that are directly under the influence of new technology. All organisations especially those that have very complex activities rely heavily on the use of new technology. The car manufacturing industry for instance is relying greatly on the cutting-edge technology in order to meet the requirements of their customers and the prevailing market trend. In addition, the mobile communication industry and other related industries are trying to elaborate the importance of technology in order to go along well with the recent trend and development of business activities and operations in their specific areas. It is therefore a common understanding that the implementation of new technology in an organisation brings forward specific advantages and one of them is the efficiency which the bottom line is j ust to enhance the operation in order to achieve organisational goals. In line with this, new technology is strongly associated with competitive advantage. Every organisation seems to be using advanced technology, but the question remains how exactly it brings them certain competitive advantage. ... None about new technology is mentioned as part of these strategies for competitive advantage. However, it is clear that nowadays, using either one of these generic strategies would mean integrating the idea of new and existing technology. In the case of Wal-Mart as renowned retailing company in the United States, its generic strategy is low-cost for its product offerings. However, part of the institution of this strategy in the organisation is its highly computerised value-chain management system especially for its multinational and highly globalised operation. This is to ensure that whatever it has started so far can be substantially enhanced to the fullest with the integration of new technology. Wal-Mart viewed new technology as essential part of its complex operation especially that it operates at a global setting and in order for it to become sustainable when it comes to its low-cost-product strategy. Toyota is known for its focus differentiation strategy. However, in the process of creating it, the use of new technology is integrated in its entire operation. Its high level of standard quality product does not only enhance its cost advantage over its competitors but it specifically tries to say something about the image of its brand. Its brand image is associated with high level of cutting-edge technology and this means a lot to its marketing effort, strategy and eventually competitive advantage. In the age of globalisation, competition has become fierce allowing every organisation to enhance communication of their product offerings (Wetherly and Otter, 2011). Thus, individuals are bombarded with different information. The best information prevails and it is