Dramatic and relevant to a modern audience Essay Example for Free

Dramatic and relevant to a modern audience Essay Lots of the characters under go personal development: for example Reverend Hale, who at first is all to eager to shout witch but in the end is very disbelieving. My personal belief is that the events are a testament of how people shouldnt live in a social structure that is overly tight. A crucible is a metal container in which metals are melted to extract their pure element from the impurities. This can easily be linked to the play: first witches supposedly boil potions in cauldrons and a synonym for cauldron is crucible. Secondly, it has a metaphorical meaning: the society of Salem is being heated and stirred in an attempt to remove the impurities and leave only the pure members of the society. An artificial Noahs Ark, as it were, however this plan backfires some. Act 1 mainly revolves around Abigail and the girls being caught dancing in the woods. The drinking of blood is supposedly a charm to kill Elizabeth Proctor. Abigail wants to be with Proctor after Elizabeth kicked her out for having an affair with Proctor: I know that you clutched my back out side your house and sweated like a stallion when ever I come near, or did I dream that? It is she put me out, you cannot pretend it were you. I saw your face when she put me out. You loved me then and you do now! Abigail Proctor is fighting an internal conflict; we know that on one side he wants to be with Abigail because: [Looking at Abigail now, the faintest suggestion of a knowing smile on his face] Stage direction But we also know that he feels very guilty about Elizabeth: I mean to please you Elizabeth Proctor However, he does tell Abigail that he wants nothing more to do with her: Abby, I may have thought of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched Abby. Proctor All the time this encounter has been in occurrence, sexual tension is building in the audience. They are also learning about Proctors and anti-hero characteristics. We learn that his name is not entirely white. He is not perfect, and the same applies to most of the characters, they all have good and bad points. I think there are two important points here. One is that Abigail is trying to seduce Proctor with seductive language, and two: Betty is only pretending to be inert. She would have heard all of this, and that is most likely the reason behind her getting up and trying to jump out of the window. Also in Act 1 Abigail threatens marry Warren, Betty and the other girls against telling anyone anything: Let any of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you and you know I can do it I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down Abigail It is here that we learn just how aggressive and manipulative that Abigail really is. She was trying to manipulate Proctor and now she is being extremely aggressive and even explicit towards the girls. We can tell that this is a frantic and tense moment on stage by the over average use of exclamation marks and use of short sentences. We can also see physical violence from Abigail as she violently shakes Betty around. Visually this would be interesting for the audience, creating both anger and tension. There is contrast in the loud violence of this moment to the quiet seduction from Abigail before. Act 2 contrasts from the end of Act 1, in the fact that it is a calm and peaceful scene, over the loud fear-driven hysteria of the end of Act 1. Proctor comes home from seeding his farm late at night, and he sits down to eat, with Elizabeth. From the general feel of the scene we can gather that the common room of Proctors house is cold, empty and unwelcoming. This parallels with the relationship between John and Elizabeth. Theres is a great amount of tension between the pair, and they idly make chit-chat at the table, as they feel they need to: Proctor: Pray now for a good summer. Elizabeth: Aye It should be noted that it is Proctor who is trying to make conversation; Elizabeth is spoiling his attempts with one-word answers. Proctor is feeling frustrated because Elizabeth is not acknowledging that Proctor is trying his hardest to repair the relationship. He is forever claiming his desire to please Elizabeth: I mean to please you Elizabeth. Proctor I believe that the audience would to be getting frustrated with Elizabeth not forgiving him. The tension in the audience would also rise, due to the complete lack of any sexual tension. Arthur Millers The Crucible raised issues that were as relevant in the 1950s as they were today. The idea of conformity will always exist. People who define this ideologies and beliefs by which groups of people live will always exist. As will accusations made towards one group from another group, to solve their problem, or help their cause. Arthur Millers play took on some very strong issues, that are still relevant to date, it is one that cannot be ignored because of Millers ability to touch issues and themes that have plagued mankind all through history, and will continue to do so in the future.

Automatic Encoding Detection And Unicode Conversion Engine Computer Science Essay

Automatic Encoding Detection And Unicode Conversion Engine Computer Science Essay In computers, characters are represented using numbers. Initially the encoding schemes were designed to support the English alphabet, which has a limited number of symbols. Later the requirement for a worldwide character encoding scheme to support multi lingual computing was identified. The solution was to come up with a 16 encoding scheme to represent a character so that it can support up to large character set. The current Unicode version contains 107,000 characters covering 90 scripts. In the current context operating systems such as Windows 7, UNIX based operating systems applications such as word processors and data exchange technologies do support this standard enabling internationalization in the IT industry. Even though this standard has been the de facto standard, still there can be seen certain applications using proprietary encoding schemes to represent the data. As an example, famous Sinhala news sites still do not adapt Unicode standard based fonts to represent the conte nt. This causes issues such as the requirement of downloading proprietary fonts, browser dependencies making the efforts of Unicode standard in vain. In addition to the web site content itself there are collections of information included in documents such as PDFs in non Unicode fonts making it difficult to search through search engines unless the search term is entered in that particular font encoding. This has given the requirement of automatically detecting the encoding and transforming into the Unicode encoding in the corresponding language, so that it avoids the problems mentioned. In case of web sites, a browser plug-in implementation to support the automatic non-Unicode to Unicode conversion would eliminate the requirement of downloading legacy fonts, which uses proprietary character encodings. Although some web sites provide the source font information, there are certain web applications, which do not give this information, making the auto detection process more difficult. Hence it is required to detect the encoding first, before it has been fed to the transformation process. This has given the rise to a research area of auto detecting the language encoding for a given text based on language characteristics. This problem will be addressed based on a statistical language encoding detection mechanism. The technique would be demonstrated with the support for all the Sinhala Non Unicode encodings. The implementation for the demonstration will make sure that it is an extendible solution for other languages making it support for any given language based on a future requirement. Since the beginning of the computer age, many encoding schemes have been created to represent various writing scripts/characters for computerized data. With the advent of globalization and the development of the Internet, information exchanges crossing both language and regional boundaries are becoming ever more important. However, the existence of multiple coding schemes presents a significant barrier. The Unicode has provided a universal coding scheme, but it has not so far replaced existing regional coding schemes for a variety of reasons. Thus, todays global software applications are required to handle multiple encodings in addition to supporting Unicode. In computers, characters are encoded as numbers. A typeface is the scheme of letterforms and the font is the computer file or program which physically embodies the typeface. Legacy fonts use different encoding systems for assigning the numbers for characters. This leads to the fact that two legacy font encodings defining different numbers for the same character. This may lead to conflicts with how the characters are encoded in different systems and will require maintaining multiple encoding fonts. The requirement of having a standard to unique character identification was satisfied with the introduction of Unicode. Unicode enables a single software product or a single website to be targeted across multiple platforms, languages and countries without re-engineering. Unicode Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the worlds writing systems. The latest Unicode has more than 107,000 characters covering 90 scripts, which consists of a set of code charts. The Unicode Consortium co-ordinates Unicodes development and the goal is to eventually replace existing character encoding schemes with Unicode and its standard Unicode Transformation Format (UTF) schemes. This standard is being supported in many recent technologies including Programming Languages and modern operating systems. All W3C recommendations have used Unicode as their document character set since HTML 4.0. Web browsers have supported Unicode, especially UTF-8, for many years [4], [5]. Sinhala Legacy Font Conversion Requirement for Web Content Sinhala language usage in computer technology has been present since 1980s but the lack of standards in character representation system resulted in proprietary fonts. Sinhala was added to Unicode in 1998 with the intention of overcoming the limitations in proprietary character encodings. Dinamina, DinaminaUniWeb, Iskoola Pota, KandyUnicode, KaputaUnicode, Malithi Web, Potha are some Sinhala Unicode fonts which were developed so that the numbers assigned with the characters are the same. Still some major news sites which display Sinhala character contents have not adapted the Unicode standards. The Legacy Fonts encoding schemes are used instead causing the conflicts in content representation. In order to minimize the problems, font families were created where the shape of characters only differs but the encoding remains the same. FM Font Family, DL Font Family are some examples where a font family concept is used as a grouping of Sinhala fonts with similar encodings [1], [2]. Adaptation of non Unicode encodings causes a lot of compatibility issues when viewed in different browsers and operating systems. Operating systems such as Windows Vista, Windows7 come with Sinhala Unicode support and do not require external fonts to be installed to read Sinhalese script. Variations of GNU/Linux distributions such as Dabian or Ubuntu also provide Sinhala Unicode support. Enabling non Unicode applications especially web contents with the support for Unicode fonts will allow the users to view contents without installing the legacy fonts. Non Unicode PDF Documents In addition to the contents in the web, there exists a whole lot of government documents which are in PDF format but their contents are encoded with legacy fonts. Those documents would not be searchable through search engines by entering the search terms in Unicode. In order to overcome the problem it is important to convert such documents in to a Unicode font so that they are searchable and its data can be used by other applications consistently, irrespective of the font. As another part of the project this problem would be addressed through a converter tool, which creates the Unicode version of existing PDF document which are currently in legacy font. The Problem Sections 1.3, 1.4 describe two domains in which the Non Unicode to Unicode conversion is required. The conversion involves identification of non-Unicode contents and replacing it with the corresponding Unicode contents. The content replacement requires a Mapping engine, which would do the proper segmentation of the input text and map it with the corresponding Unicode code. The mapping engine can perform the mapping task only if it knows what is the source text encoding. In general, the encoding is specified along with the content so that the mapping engine could feed it directly. However, in certain cases the encoding is not specified along with the content. Hence detecting the encoding through an encoding the detection engine provides a research area, especially with the non-Unicode content. In addition to that, incorporating the detection engine along with a conversion engine would be another part of the problem, to solve the application areas in 1.3, 1.4. Project Scope The system will be initially targeted for Sinhala fonts used by local sites. Later the same mechanism will be extended to support other languages and scripts (Tamil, Devanagaree). Deliverables and outcomes Web Service/Plug-in to Local Language web site Font Conversion which automatically converts website contents from legacy fonts to Unicode. PDF document conversion tool to convert legacy fonts to Unicode In both implementations, the language encoding detection would use the proposed encoding detection mechanism. It can be considered as the core for the implementations in addition to the translation engine which performs the Non Unicode to Unicode mapping. Literature Review Character Encodings Character Encoding Schemes Encoding refers to the process of representing information in some form. Human language is an encoding system by which information is represented in terms of sequences of lexical units, and those in terms of sound or gesture sequences. Written language is a derivative system of encoding by which those sequences of lexical units, sounds or gestures are represented in terms of the graphical symbols that make up some writing system. A character encoding is an algorithm for presenting characters in digital form as sequences of octets. There are hundreds of encodings, and many of them have different names. There is a standardized procedure for registering an encoding. A primary name is assigned to an encoding, and possibly some alias names. For example, ASCII, US-ASCII, ANSI_X3.4-1986, and ISO646-US are different names for an encoding. There are also many unregistered encodings and names that are used widely. The character encoding names are not case sensitive and hence ASCII and Ascii are equivalent [25]. Figure 2.1 Character encoding Example Single Octet Encodings When character repertoire that contains at most 256 characters, assigning a number in the range 0255 to each character and use an octet with that value to represent that character is the most simplest and obvious way. Such encodings, called single-octet or 8-bit encodings, are widely used and will remain important [22]. Multi-Octet Encodings In multi octet encodings more than one octet is used to represent a single character. A simple two-octet encoding is sufficient for a character repertoire that contains at most 65,536 characters. Two octet schemes are uneconomical if the text mostly consists of characters that could be presented in a single-octet encoding. On the other hand, the objective of supporting Universal character set is not achievable with just 65,536 unique codes. Thus, encodings that use a variable number of octets per character are more common. The most widely used among such encodings is UTF-8 (UTF stands for Unicode Transformation Format), which uses one to four octets per character. Principles of Unicode Standard Unicode has used as the universal encoding standard to encode characters in all living languages. To the end, is follows a set of fundamental principles. The Unicode standard is simple and consistent. It does not depend on states or modes for encoding special characters. The Unicode standard incorporates the character sets of many existing standards: For example, it includes Latin-I, character set as its first 256 characters. It includes repertoire of characters from numerous other corporate, national and international standards as well. In modern businesses needs handle characters from a wide variety of languages at the same time. With Unicode, a single internationalization process can produce code that handles the requirements of all the world markets at the same time. The data corruption problems do not occur since Unicode has a single definition for each character. Since it handles the characters for all the world markets in a uniform way, it avoids the complexities of different character code architectures. All of the modern operating systems, from PCs to mainframes, support Unicode now, or are actively developing support for it. The same is true of databases, as well.There are 10 design principles associated with Unicode. Universility The Unicode is designed to be Universal. The repertoire must be large enough to encompass all characters that are likely to be used in general text interchange. Unicode needs to encompass a variety of essentially different collections of characters and writing systems. For example, it cannot postulate that all text is written left to right, or that all letters have uppercase and lowercase forms, or that text can be divided into words separated by spaces or other whitespace. Efficient Software does not have to maintain state or look for special escape sequences, and character synchronization from any point in a character stream is quick and unambiguous. A fixed character code allows for efficient sorting, searching, display, and editing of text. But with Unicode efficiency there exist certain tradeoffs made specially with the storage requirements needing four octets for each character. Certain representation forms such as UTF-8 format requiring linear processing of the data stream in order to identify characters. Unicode contains a large amount of characters and features that have been included only for compatibility with other standards. This may require preprocessing that deals with compatibility characters and with different Unicode representations of the same character (e.g., letter à © as a single character or as two characters). Characters, not glyphs Unicode assigns code points to characters as abstractions, not to visual appearances. A character in Unicode represents an abstract concept rather than the manifestation as a particular form or glyph. As shown in Figure 2.2, the glyphs of many fonts that render the Latin character A all correspond to the same abstract character a. Figure 2.2: Abstract Latin Letter a and Style Variants Another example is the Arabic presentation form. An Arabic character may be written in up to four different shapes. Figure 2.3 shows an Arabic character written in its isolated form, and at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of a word. According to the design principle of encoding abstract characters, these presentation variants are all represented by one Unicode character. Figure 2.3: Arabic character with four representations The relationship between characters and glyphs is rather simple for languages like English: mostly each character is presented by one glyph, taken from a font that has been chosen. For other languages, the relationship can be much more complex routinely combining several characters into one glyph. Semantics Characters have well-defined meanings. When the Unicode standard refers to semantics, it often means the properties of characters, such spacing, combinability, and directionality, rather than what the character really means. Plain text Unicode deals with plain texti.e., strings of characters without formatting or structuring information (except for things like line breaks). Logical order The default representation of Unicode data uses logical order of data, as opposed to approaches that handle writing direction by changing the order of characters. Unification The principle of uniqueness was also applied to decide that certain characters should not be encoded separately. Unicode encodes duplicates of a character as a single code point, if they belong to the same script but different languages. For example, the letter à ¼ denoting a particular vowel in German is treated as the same as the letter à ¼ in Spanish. The Unicode standard uses Han unification to consolidate Chinese, Korean, and Japanese ideographs. Han unification is the process of assigning the same code point to characters historically perceived as being the same character but represented as unique in more than one East Asian ideographic character standard. These results in a group of ideographs shared by several cultures and significantly reduces the number of code points needed to encode them. The Unicode Consortium chose to represent shared ideographs only once because the goal of the Unicode standard was to encode characters independent of the languages that use them. Unicode makes no distinctions based on pronunciation or meaning; higher-level operating systems and applications must take that responsibility. Through Han unification, Unicode assigned about 21,000 code points to ideographic characters instead of the 120,000 that would be required if the Asian languages were treated separately. It is true that the same charact er might look slightly different in Chinese than in Japanese, but that difference in appearance is a font issue, not a uniqueness issue. Figure 2.4: Han Unification example The Unicode standard allows for character composition in creating marked characters. It encodes each character and diacritic or vowel mark separately, and allows the characters to be combined to create a marked character. It provides single codes for marked characters when necessary to comply with preexisting character standard. Dynamic composition Characters with diacritic marks can be composed dynamically, using characters designated as combining marks. Equivalent sequences Unicode has a large number of characters that are precomposed forms, such as à ©. They have decompositions that are declared as equivalent to the precomposed form. An application may still treat the precomposed form and the decomposition differently, since as strings of encoded characters, they are distinct. Convertibility Character data can be accurately converted between Unicode and other character standards and specifications. South Asian Scripts The scripts of South Asia share so many common features that a side-by-side comparison of a few will often reveal structural similarities even in the modern letterforms. With minor historical exceptions, they are written from left to right. They are all abugidas in which most symbols stand for a consonant plus an inherent vowel (usually the sound /a/). Word-initial vowels in many of these scripts have distinct symbols, and word-internal vowels are usually written by juxtaposing a vowel sign in the vicinity of the affected consonant. Absence of the inherent vowel, when that occurs, is frequently marked with a special sign [17]. Another designation is preferred in some languages. As an example in Hindi, the word hal refers to the character itself, and halant refers to the consonant that has its inherent vowel suppressed. The virama sign nominally serves to suppress the inherent vowel of the consonant to which it is applied; it is a combining character, with its shape varying from script to script. Most of the scripts of South Asia, from north of the Himalayas to Sri Lanka in the south, from Pakistan in the west to the easternmost islands of Indonesia, are derived from the ancient Brahmi script. The oldest lengthy inscriptions of India, the edicts of Ashoka from the third century BCE, were written in two scripts, Kharoshthi and Brahmi. These are both ultimately of Semitic origin, probably deriving from Aramaic, which was an important administrative language of the Middle East at that time. Kharoshthi, written from right to left, was supplanted by Brahmi and its derivatives. The descendants of Brahmi spread with myriad changes throughout the subcontinent and outlying islands. There are said to be some 200 different scripts deriving from it. By the eleventh century, the modern script known as Devanagari was in ascendancy in India proper as the major script of Sanskrit literature. The North Indian branch of scripts was, like Brahmi itself, chiefly used to write Indo-European languages such as Pali and Sanskrit, and eventually the Hindi, Bengali, and Gujarati languages, though it was also the source for scripts for non-Indo-European languages such as Tibetan, Mongolian, and Lepcha. The South Indian scripts are also derived from Brahmi and, therefore, share many structural characteristics. These scripts were first used to write Pali and Sanskrit but were later adapted for use in writing non-Indo-European languages including Dravidian family of southern India and Sri Lanka. Sinhala Language Characteristics of Sinhala The Sinhala script, also known as Sinhalese, is used to write the Sinhala language, by the majority language of Sri Lanka. It is also used to write the Pali and Sanskrit languages. The script is a descendant of Brahmi and resembles the scripts of South India in form and structure. Sinhala differs from other languages of the region in that it has a series of prenasalized stops that are distinguished from the combination of a nasal followed by a stop. In other words, both forms occur and are written differently [23]. Figure 2.5: Example for prenasalized stop in Sinhala In addition, Sinhala has separate distinct signs for both a short and a long low front vowel sounding similar to the initial vowel of the English word apple, usually represented in IPA as U+00E6 à ¦ latin small letter ae (ash). The independent forms of these vowels are encoded at U+0D87 and U+0D88. Because of these extra letters, the encoding for Sinhala does not precisely follow the pattern established for the other Indic scripts (for example, Devanagari). It does use the same general structure, making use of phonetic order, matra reordering, and use of the virama (U+0DCA sinhala sign al-lakuna) to indicate conjunct consonant clusters. Sinhala does not use half-forms in the Devanagari manner, but does use many ligatures. Sinhala Writing System The Sinhala writing system can be called an abugida, as each consonant has an inherent vowel (/a/), which can be changed with the different vowel signs. Thus, for example, the basic form of the letter k is à  Ã‚ ¶Ã… ¡ ka. For ki, a small arch is placed over the à  Ã‚ ¶Ã… ¡: à  Ã‚ ¶Ã… ¡Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬â„¢. This replaces the inherent /a/ by /i/. It is also possible to have no vowel following a consonant. In order to produce such a pure consonant, a special marker, the hal kirÄ «ma has to be added: à  Ã‚ ¶Ã… ¡Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…   . This marker suppresses the inherent vowel. Figure 2.6: Character associative Symbols in Sinhala Historical Symbols. Neither U+0DF4 sinhala punctuation kunddaliya nor the Sinhala numerals are in general use today, having been replaced by Western-style punctuation and Western digits. The kunddaliya was formerly used as a full stop or period. It is included for scholarly use. The Sinhala numerals are not presently encoded. Sinhala and Unicode In 1997, Sri Lanka submitted a proposal for the Sinhala character code at the Unicode working group meeting in Crete, Greece. This proposal competed with proposals from UK, Ireland and the USA. The Sri Lankan draft was finally accepted with slight modifications. This was ratified at the 1998 meeting of the working group held at Seattle, USA and the Sinhala Code Chart was included in Unicode Version 3.0 [2]. It has been suggested by the Unicode consortium that ZWJ and ZWNJ should be introduced in Orthographic languages like Sinhala to achieve the following: 1. ZWJ joins two or more consonants to form a single unit (conjunct consonants). 2. ZWJ can also alter shape of preceding consonants (cursiveness of the consonant). 3. ZWNJ can be used to disjoin a single ligature into two or more units. Encoding auto Detection Browser and auto-detection In designing auto detection algorithms to auto detect encodings in web pages it needs to depend on the following assumptions on input data [24]. Input text is composed of words/sentences readable to readers of a particular language. Input text is from typical web pages on the Internet which is not an ancient dead language. The input text may contain extraneous noises which have no relation to its encoding, e.g. HTML tags, non-native words (e.g. English words in Chinese documents), space and other format/control characters. Methods of auto detection The paper[24] discusses about 3 different methods for detecting the encoding of text data. Coding Scheme Method In any of the multi-byte encoding coding schemes, not all possible code points are used. If an illegal byte or byte sequence (i.e. unused code point) is encountered when verifying a certain encoding, it is possible to immediately conclude that this is not the right guess. Efficient algorithm to detecting character set using coding scheme through a parallel state machine is discussed in the paper [24]. For each coding scheme, a state machine is implemented to verify a byte sequence for this particular encoding. For each byte the detector receives, it will feed that byte to every active state machine available, one byte at a time. The state machine changes its state based on its previous state and the byte it receives. In a typical example, one state machine will eventually provide a positive answer and all others will provide a negative answer. Character Distribution Method In any given language, some characters are used more often than other characters. This fact can be used to devise a data model for each language script. This is particularly useful for languages with a large number of characters such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The tests were carried out with the data for simplified Chinese encoded in GB2312, traditional Chinese encoded in Big, Japanese and Korean. It was observed that a rather small set of coding points covers a significant percentage of characters used. Parameter called Distribution Ration was defined and used for the purpose separating the two encodings. Distribution Ratio = the Number of occurrences of the 512 most frequently used characters divided by the Number of occurrences of the rest of the characters. . Two-Char Sequence Distribution Method In languages that only use a small number of characters, we need to go further than counting the occurrences of each single character. Combination of characters reveals more language-characteristic information. 2-Char Sequence as 2 characters appearing immediately one after another in input text, and the order is significant in this case. Just as not all characters are used equally frequently in a language, 2-Char Sequence distribution also turns out to be extremely language/encoding dependent. Current Approaches to Solve Encoding Problems Siyabas Script The SiyabasScript is as an attempt to develop a browser plugin, which solves the problem using legacy font in Sinhala news sites [6]. It is an extension to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. This solution was specifically designed for a limited number of target web sites, which were having the specific fonts. The solution had the limitation of having to reengineer the plug-in, if a new version of the browser is released. The solution was not global since that id did not have the ability to support a new site which is using a Sinhala legacy font. In order to overcome that, the proposed solution will identify the font and encodings based on the content but not on site. There is a chance that the solution might not work if the site decided to adapt another legacy font, as it cannot detect the encoding scheme changes. There is a significant delay in the conversion process. The user would notice the display of the content with characters which are in legacy font before they g et converted to the Unicode. This performance delay can be also identified as an area to improve in the solution. The conversion process does not provide the exact conversion specially when the characters need to be combined in Unicode. à  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ´Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã‚ = à  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â€š ¬Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬ ºÃƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ¯Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ º à  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â€ž ¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…  .à  Ã‚ ¶Ã¢â‚¬â„¢.à  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ´Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬Å". à  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â€š ¬Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â€ž ¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã… ¡Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ¸Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã‚ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ » à  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ¸Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ­Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã‚ , à  Ã‚ ¶Ã…“à  Ã‚ ·Ã‹Å"à  Ã‚ ·Ã‹Å"à  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ´Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…   à  Ã‚ ¶Ã… ¡Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ´Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ­Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã‚ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ±Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…   à  Ã‚ ¶Ã¢â‚¬ ¡Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ±Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ©Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã‹Å"à  Ã‚ ·Ã‹Å" à  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â€š ¬Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â€ž ¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã†â€™Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ »Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ º, à  Ã‚ ¶Ã… ¡ à  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ »Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã… ¡Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…   , à  Ã‚ ¶Ã¢â‚¬ ¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã†â€™Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã… ¡Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ »Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ½Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ºÃƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã‚ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ±Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬  , à  Ã‚ ¶Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ±Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã‚ +à  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ »Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ºÃƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ±Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…   à  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â€š ¬Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ± à  Ã‚ ·Ã‚ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬Å"à  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ » ,à  Ã‚ ¶Ã… ¡Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬Å"à  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ »Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ©Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã‚ Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã…“à  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ «Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ºÃƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã… ¡Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ¯Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬Å" ,à  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ¯`à  Ã‚ ¶Ã…“ à  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ´Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ±Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ¯Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â‚¬  à  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ºÃƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã¢â€š ¬Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ±Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…  Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ±Ãƒ  Ã‚ ¶Ã‚ ±Ãƒ  Ã‚ ·Ã…   can be mentioned as the examples of words of such conversion issues. The plug-in supports the Sinhala Unicode conversion for the sites www.lankadeepa.lk, www.lankaenews.com and www.lankascreen.com. But the other websites mentioned in the paper does not get properly converted to Sinhala with Firefox version 3.5.17. Aksharamukha Asian Script Converter Aksharamukha is a South: South-East-Asian script convertor tool. It supports transliteration between Brahmi derived Asian scripts. It also has the functionality to transliterate web pages from Indic Scripts to other scripts. The Convertor scrapes the HTML page, then transliterates the Indic Scripts and displays the HTML. There are certain issues in the tool when it comes to alignment with the original web page. Misalignments and missing images, unconverted hyperlinks are some of them. Figure 2.7: Aksharamukha Asian Script Converter Corpus-based Sinhala Lexicon The Lexicon of a language is its vocabulary including higher order constructs such as words and expressions. In order to detect the encoding of a given text this can be used as a supporting tool. Corpus based Sinhala lexicon has nearly 35000 entries based on a corpus consisting of 10 million words from diverse genres such as technical writing, creative writing and news reportage [7], [9]. The text distribution across genres is given in table 1. Table 2.1: Distribution of Words across Genres [7] Genre Number of words Percentage of words Creative Writing 2340999 23% Technical Writing 4357680 43% News Reportage 3433772 34% N-gram-based language, script, and encoding scheme-detection N-Gram refers to N character sequences and is used as a well-established technique used in classifying language of text documents. The method detects language, script, and encoding schemes using a target text document encoded by computer by checking how many byte sequences of the target match the byte sequences that can appear in the texts belonging to a language, script, and encoding scheme. N-grams are extracted from a string, or a document, by a sliding window that shifts one character at a time. Sinhala Enabled Mobile Browser for J2ME Phones Mobile phone usage is rapidly increasing throughout the world as well as in Sri Lanka. It has become the most ubiquitous communication device. Accessing internet through the mobile phone has become a common activity of people especially for messaging and news items. In J2ME enabled phones Sinhala Unicode support yet to be developed. They do not allow installation of fonts outside. Hence those devices will not be able to display Unicode contents, especially on the web, until Unicode is supported by the platform. Integrating the Unicode viewing support will provide a good opportunity to carry the technology to remote areas if it can be presented in the native language. If this is facilitated, in addition to the urban crowd, people from rural areas will be able to subscribe to a daily newspaper with their mobile. One major advantage of such an application is that it will provide a phone model independent solution which supports any Java enabled phone. Cillion is a Mini browser software which shows Unicode contents in J2ME phones. This software is an application developed with the fonts integrated wh

The San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation :: Technology Tourism Galleries Essays

The San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation Living in the heart of Silicon Valley, technology plays a very important role in the everyday lives of the people who populate it. Large portions of this population are children. When we think of our children, we think about the future of this world. As a group, we believe that our job as a society is to introduce technology to children in an enlightening and fascinating manner. By doing this, we can inspire children to become innovators of technology and apply this to the future of technology. The San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation is a place that dedicates itself to introducing technology in a very attractive style. The 132,000 square foot facility houses four permanent themed galleries and over 250 exhibits (www.thetech.org/about/factsheet.cfm). The museum is also home to "The Spirit of American Innovation, an exhibit about the National Medal of Technology, the nation’s highest honor for technological innovation" (www.thetech.org/about/factsheet.cfm). Inside, everyone, whet her they are children or grandparents, everyone gets to participate in hands-on activities that teach and introduce them to a variety of activities ranging from the beginning steps of web-design, riding and designing an Olympic bobsled to participating in a virtual heart surgery. With all the wonders that exist in this museum, children have the opportunity to learn about technology in a variety of different forms and are able to "discover new insights into technology and the process of innovation through exploratory activities" (www.thetech.org/about/mission.cfm.). People of all ages engage in the exploration and experimentation of the technology that affects their everyday lives. Exploring the Tech Museum of Innovation and the activities it presents and offers to children, as well as others, helped us to better understand and learn of the positive ways in which technology is presented to our youth. In this report we first discuss our rationale and focus, describing the importance of the Tech Museum of Innovation and the connection it makes with the representation of technology, particularly for children. In the second part we identify the research question that we investigated. We then illustrate how we gathered and analyzed our data. Following this, we apply a number of course concepts to specific examples in order to answer our research question. Finally, we discuss how the implications of our analysis relate to communication and technology and how our findings support or do support what we have looked at in class.

the banshee :: essays research papers fc

Beltane Essay Beltane is the last of the three spring fertility festivals. Beltane is the second principal Celtic festival (the other being Samhain). Celebrated approximately halfway between spring equinox and the midsummer (Summer Solstice). Beltane traditionally marked the arrival if summer in ancient times. At Beltane the Pleiades star cluster rises just before sunrise on the morning horizon. The Pleiades is a cluster of seven closely placed stars, the seven sisters, in the constellation of Taurus, near his shoulder. When looking for the Pleiades with the naked eye, remember it looks like a tiny dipper-shaped pattern of six moderately bright star in the constellation of Taurus. It stands very low in the east-northeast sky for just a few minutes before sunrise. Beltane, and its counterpart Samhain, divide the year into its two primary seasons, winter (Dark Part) and summer (Light Part). As Samhain is about honouring Death, Beltane is about honouring Life. It is the time when the sun is fully released from his bondage of winter and able to rule over summer and life once again. It is a time of "no time" when the veils between the two worlds are at their thinnest. No time is when the two worlds intermingle and unite and the magic abounds! It is the time when the Faeries return from their winter respite, carefree and full of faery mischief and faery delight. On the night before Beltane, in times past, folks would place rowan branches at their windows and doors for protection, many otherworldly occurrences could transpire during this time of "no time". Traditionally on the Isle of Man, the youngest member of the family gathers primroses on the eve before Beltane and throws the flowers at the door of the home for protection. In Ireland it is believed that food left over from May Eve must not be eaten, but rather buried or left as an offering to the faery instead. Much like the tradition of leaving of whatever is not harvested from the fields on Samhain, food on the time of no time is treated with great care. When the veils are so thin it is an extremely magical time, it is said that the Queen of the Faeries rides out on her white horse. Roving about on Beltane eve She will try to entice people away to the Faeryland. Legend has it that if you sit beneath a tree on Beltane night, you may see the Faery Queen or hear the sound of Her horse's bells as She rides through the night.

sr :: essays research papers

roject net income they believe will impress top management but could be perceived by their key employees as unattainable. Such an unrealistic target could discourage rather than motivate the operating unit employees. Targets must be clearly understood. It is critical that bonus participants participate in the setting of bonus targets. Their views and suggestions should be given serious consideration. When their suggestions are rejected or modified, the reasons should be clearly communicated. Misunderstandings concerning the bonus targets create unproductive time spent in discussions and demoralized employees who believe that they are being treated unfairly. Periodically communicate the outlook for bonuses. To maximize the motivational value of the program, the financial staff of each operating unit should periodically communicate the current outlook for annual bonuses to bonus participants. This is accomplished by comparing a forecast of the bonus criteria with the bonus targets. Using the forecasted percentage of bonus earned for the unit, each participant can forecast his or her bonus. A review of the key actions necessary to accomplish or exceed the forecast should be included in this periodic bonus update. This can be a very strong motivational tool, because the bonus participants have an identifiable personal stake in the accomplishment of these actions. Many companies include a bonus update in their regularly scheduled operating review. Resolve bonus problems early. One way to accomplish this is to periodically update the outlook for bonuses for each operating unit. Strong lines of communication are beneficial to both operating units and corporate staff. One of the benefits of a bonus update is early identification of problems, which require action on the part of senior management. By identifying problems in the bonus program as the year unfolds, it is possible to take prompt action, minimizing damage. If the bonus criteria have not been clearly stated, they should be modified with the participation of unit and senior management. Pay bonuses as soon as feasible. A bonus can represent a significant portion of a key employee's compensation. This serves the purpose of getting his or her attention, which is a double-edged sword. The focus of attention should be the future, but for many employees the current year is not their chief concern until the previous year's bonus is paid. Delays in paying bonuses may create apprehension and tension which are counterproductive. If bonuses for the prior year cannot be paid within the first month of the New Year, some of the positive impact of the bonus program is lost. sr :: essays research papers roject net income they believe will impress top management but could be perceived by their key employees as unattainable. Such an unrealistic target could discourage rather than motivate the operating unit employees. Targets must be clearly understood. It is critical that bonus participants participate in the setting of bonus targets. Their views and suggestions should be given serious consideration. When their suggestions are rejected or modified, the reasons should be clearly communicated. Misunderstandings concerning the bonus targets create unproductive time spent in discussions and demoralized employees who believe that they are being treated unfairly. Periodically communicate the outlook for bonuses. To maximize the motivational value of the program, the financial staff of each operating unit should periodically communicate the current outlook for annual bonuses to bonus participants. This is accomplished by comparing a forecast of the bonus criteria with the bonus targets. Using the forecasted percentage of bonus earned for the unit, each participant can forecast his or her bonus. A review of the key actions necessary to accomplish or exceed the forecast should be included in this periodic bonus update. This can be a very strong motivational tool, because the bonus participants have an identifiable personal stake in the accomplishment of these actions. Many companies include a bonus update in their regularly scheduled operating review. Resolve bonus problems early. One way to accomplish this is to periodically update the outlook for bonuses for each operating unit. Strong lines of communication are beneficial to both operating units and corporate staff. One of the benefits of a bonus update is early identification of problems, which require action on the part of senior management. By identifying problems in the bonus program as the year unfolds, it is possible to take prompt action, minimizing damage. If the bonus criteria have not been clearly stated, they should be modified with the participation of unit and senior management. Pay bonuses as soon as feasible. A bonus can represent a significant portion of a key employee's compensation. This serves the purpose of getting his or her attention, which is a double-edged sword. The focus of attention should be the future, but for many employees the current year is not their chief concern until the previous year's bonus is paid. Delays in paying bonuses may create apprehension and tension which are counterproductive. If bonuses for the prior year cannot be paid within the first month of the New Year, some of the positive impact of the bonus program is lost.

Anomie: Sociology and People

Anomie describes a lack of social norms; â€Å"normlessness†. It describes the breakdown of social bonds between an individual and their community, if under unruly scenarios possibly resulting in fragmentation of social identity and rejection of self-regulatory values. It was popularized by French sociologist Emile Durkheim in his influential book Suicide (1897). Durkheim borrowed the word from French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau. Durkheim never uses the term normlessness; rather, he describes anomie as â€Å"a rule that is a lack of rule†, â€Å"derangement†, and â€Å"an insatiable will†.For Durkheim, anomie arises more generally from a mismatch between personal or group standards and wider social standards, or from the lack of a social ethic, which produces moral deregulation and an absence of legitimate aspirations. This is a nurtured condition: Anomie in common parlance is thought to mean something like â€Å"at loose ends†. The Oxford English Dictionary lists a range of definitions, beginning with a disregard of divine law, through the 19th and 20th century sociological terms meaning an absence of accepted social standards or values.Most sociologists associate the term with Durkheim, who used the concept to speak of the ways in which an individual's actions are matched, or integrated, with a system of social norms and practices †¦ Durkheim also formally posited anomie as a mismatch, not simply as the absence of norms. Thus, a society with too much rigidity and little individual discretion could also produce a kind of anomie, a mismatch between individual circumstances and larger social mores. Thus, fatalistic suicide arises when a person is too rule-governed, when there is †¦ no free horizon of expectation. Durkheim attempts to explain the function of the division of labor, and makes the observation that it creates social cohesion. The industrial revolution, of course, produced great tension and turmoil, and Du rkheim recognized this. He resolved the contradiction by developing the notion of anomie. Anomie is usually translated as normlessness, but it best understood as insufficient normative regulation. During periods of rapid social change, individuals sometimes experience alienation from group goals and values. They lose sight of their shared interests based on mutual dependence. In this condition, they are less constrained by group norms.Normative values become generalized, rather than personally embraced. The Sociological Imagination (1959), which is considered Mills' most influential book on the sociology profession, describes a mindset for studying sociology — the sociological imagination — that stresses being able to connect individual experiences and societal relationships. Mills asserts that a critical task for social scientists is to â€Å"translate private troubles into public issues,† which is something that it is very difficult for ordinary citizens to do . Sociologists, then, rightly connect their autobiographical, personal challenges to social institutions.Social scientists should then connect those institutions to social structure(s) and locate them within a historical narrative. The three components that form the sociological imagination are: History: how a society came to be and how it is changing and how history is being made in it Biography: the nature of â€Å"human nature† in a society; what kinds of people inhabit a particular society Social Structure: how the various institutional orders in a society operate, which ones are dominant, how they are held together, how they might be changing, etc. The Promise Of Sociology C.Wright Mills  · Men now days often feel that their lives are a series of traps. They feel in their worlds they can’t overcome their troubles. According to Mills this is correct.  · You cannot understand the life of an individual or the history of society without understanding both.  · Pe ople do not see how the changes in history affect them. The do not see how the ups and downs they experience in their lives are affected by their society.  · People do not see the connection that exists between the patterns in their lives and the course of history. People need a quality of mind to use information to develop reason to make connections between what is going on in the world and what is happening to themselves. He calls this the Sociological Imagination.  · Sociological Imagination allows us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. That is both its task and its promise. This is the purpose of classical social analysts.  · The most important distinction is between the issues and the troubles. Issues- have to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of his inner life.  · Troubles- occur within the character of the individual and within his range of his immediate relations with o thers. It has to do with his self and with those areas of social life in which he is directly and personally aware.  · The sociological imagination is supposed to help man to understand that what is happening to themselves is a result of intersections of history and biography within their society.Class consciousness is a term used in social sciences and political theory, particularly Marxism, to refer to the beliefs that a person holds regarding one's social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests. Defining a person's social class can be a determinant for his awareness of it. Marxists define classes on the basis of their relation to the means of production – especially on whether they own capital. Non-Marxist social scientists distinguish various social strata on the basis of income, occupation, or status.Early in the nineteenth century, the labels â€Å"working classes† and â€Å"middle classes† were already coming into common usage. â€Å"The old hereditary aristocracy, reinforced by the new gentry who owed their success to commerce, industry, and the professions, evolved into an â€Å"upper class†. Its consciousness was formed in part by public schools (in the British sense) and Universities. The upper class tenaciously maintained control over the political system, depriving not only the working classes but the middle classes of a voice in the political process. Solidarity is the integration, and degree and type of integration, shown by a society or group with people and their neighbors. It refers to the ties in a society that bind people to one another. The term is generally employed in sociology and the other social sciences. What forms the basis of solidarity varies between societies. In simple societies it may be mainly based around kinship and shared values. In more complex societies there are various theories as to what contributes to a sense of social solidarity.Accordi ng to Emile Durkheim, the types of social solidarity correlate with types of society. Durkheim introduced the terms â€Å"mechanical† and â€Å"organic solidarity† as part of his theory of the development of societies in The Division of Labor in Society (1893). In a society exhibiting mechanical solidarity, its cohesion and integration comes from the homogeneity of individuals—people feel connected through similar work, educational and religious training, and lifestyle. Mechanical solidarity normally operates in â€Å"traditional† and small scale societies. In simpler societies (e. g. tribal), solidarity is usually based on kinship ties of familial networks. Organic solidarity comes from the interdependence that arises from specialization of work and the complementarities between people—a development which occurs in â€Å"modern† and â€Å"industrial† societies. Definition: it is social cohesion based upon the dependence individuals h ave on each other in more advanced societies. Although individuals perform different tasks and often have different values and interest, the order and very solidarity of society depends on their reliance on each other to perform their specified tasks.Organic here is referring to the interdependence of the component parts. Thus, social solidarity is maintained in more complex societies through the interdependence of its component parts (e. g. , farmers produce the food to feed the factory workers who produce the tractors that allow the farmer to produce the food) mechanical and organic solidarity, in the theory of the French social scientist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917), the social cohesiveness of small, undifferentiated societies (mechanical) and of societies differentiated by a relatively complex division of labour (organic).Mechanical solidarity is the social integration of members of a society who have common values and beliefs. These common values and beliefs constitute a à ¢â‚¬Å"collective conscience† that works internally in individual members to cause them to cooperate. Because, in Durkheim’s view, the forces causing members of society to cooperate were much like the internal energies causing the molecules to cohere in a solid, he drew upon the terminology of physical science in coining the term mechanical solidarity.In contrast to mechanical solidarity, organic solidarity is social integration that arises out of the need of individuals for one another’s services. In a society characterized by organic solidarity, there is relatively greater division of labour, with individuals functioning much like the interdependent but differentiated organs of a living body. Society relies less on imposing uniform rules on everyone and more on regulating the relations between different groups and persons, often through the greater use of contracts and laws. Durkheim dentified two major types of social integration, mechanical and organic. The fo rmer refers to integration that is based on shared beliefs and sentiments, while the latter refers to integration that results from specialization and interdependence. These types reflect different ways that societies organized themselves. Where there is little differentiation in the kinds of labor that individuals engage in, integration based on common beliefs is to be found; in societies where work is highly differentiated, solidarity is the consequence of mutual dependence.The distinction reveals Durkheim's thinking about how modern societies differ from earlier ones, and consequently, how solidarity changes as a society becomes more complex. Societies of mechanical solidarity tend to be relatively small and organized around kinship affiliations. Social relations are regulated by the shared system of beliefs, what Durkheim called the common conscience. Violations of social norms were taken as a direct threat to the shared identity, and so, reactions to deviance tended to emphasiz e punishment. As a society becomes larger, division of labor increases.A complex organization of labor is necessary, in larger societies, for the production of material life (as Marx suggested). Because people begin to specialize, the basis for the collective conscience is diminished. Solidarity based on the common belief system is no longer possible. Complexity does not lead to disintegration, Durkheim argued, but rather, to social solidarity based on interdependence. Since people are no longer producing all the things that they need, they must interact. Integration results from a recognition that each needs the other. Societies of organic solidarity are arranged around economic and political organizations.Their legal systems regulate behavior based on principles of exchange and restitution, rather than punishment. Manifest and latent functions are social scientific concepts of sociology by Robert K. Merton. Merton appeared interested in sharpening the conceptual tools to be employ ed in a functional analysis. Manifest functions and dysfunctions are conscious and deliberate, the latent ones the unconscious and unintended. While functions are intended (manifest) or unintended (latent), and have a positive effect on society, dysfunctions are unintended or unrecognized (latent) and have a negative effect on society.Manifest functions are the consequences that people observe or expect. It is explicitly stated and understood by the participants in the relevant action. The manifest function of a rain dance, used as an example by Merton in his 1967 Social Theory and Social Structure, is to produce rain, and this outcome is intended and desired by people participating in the ritual. Latent functions are those that are neither recognized nor intended. A latent function of a behavior is not explicitly stated, recognized, or intended by the people involved. Thus, they are identified observers.In the example of rain ceremony, the latent function reinforces the group ident ity by providing a regular opportunity for the members of a group to meet and engage in a common activity. Ideal type (German: Idealtypus), also known as pure type, is a typological term most closely associated with antipositivist sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). For Weber, the conduct of social science depends upon the construction of hypothetical concepts in the abstract. The â€Å"ideal type† is therefore a subjective element in social theory and research; one of many subjective elements which necessarily distinguish sociology from natural science.An ideal type is formed from characteristics and elements of the given phenomena, but it is not meant to correspond to all of the characteristics of any one particular case. It is not meant to refer to perfect things, moral ideals nor to statistical averages but rather to stress certain elements common to most cases of the given phenomena. It is also important to pay attention that in using the word â€Å"ideal† M ax Weber refers to the world of ideas (German: Gedankenbilder â€Å"thoughtful pictures†) and not to perfection; these â€Å"ideal types† are idea-constructs that help put the chaos of social reality in order.Weber himself wrote: â€Å"An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those onesidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct†¦ † It is a useful tool for comparative sociology in analyzing social or economic phenomena, having advantages over a very general, abstract idea and a specific historical example.It can be used to analyze both a general, suprahistorical phenomenon (like capitalism) or historically unique occurrences (like Weber's own Protestant Ethics analysis). Weber's three kinds of ideal types are distinguished by their l evels of abstraction. First are the ideal types rooted in historical particularities, such as the â€Å"western city,† â€Å"the Protestant Ethic,† or â€Å"modern capitalism,† which refer to phenomena that appear only in specific historical periods and in particular cultural areas.A second kind involves abstract elements of social reality–such concepts as â€Å"bureaucracy† or â€Å"feudalism†Ã¢â‚¬â€œthat may be found in a variety of historical and cultural contexts. Finally, there is a third kind of ideal type, which Raymond Aron calls â€Å"rationalizing reconstructions of a particular kind of behavior. † According to Weber, all propositions in economic theory, for example, fall into this category. They all refer to the ways in which men would behave were they actuated by purely economic motives, were they purely economic men. Verstehen (German pronunciation: [f te ]), in the context of German philosophy and social sciences in gene ral, has been used since the late 19th century – in English as in German – with the particular sense of the â€Å"interpretive or participatory† examination of social phenomena. The term is closely associated with the work of the German sociologist, Max Weber, whose antipositivism established an alternative to prior sociological positivism and economic determinism, rooted in the analysis of social action. In anthropology, Verstehen has come to mean a systematic interpretive process in which an outside observer of a culture attempts to relate to it and understand others.Verstehen is now seen as a concept and a method central to a rejection of positivistic social science (although Weber appeared to think that the two could be united). Verstehen refers to understanding the meaning of action from the actor's point of view. It is entering into the shoes of the other, and adopting this research stance requires treating the actor as a subject, rather than an object of your observations. It also implies that unlike objects in the natural world human actors are not simply the product of the pulls and pushes of external forces.Individuals are seen to create the world by organizing their own understanding of it and giving it meaning. To do research on actors without taking into account the meanings they attribute to their actions or environment is to treat them like objects. Interpretative Sociology (verstehende Soziologie) is the study of society that concentrates on the meanings people associate to their social world. Interpretative society strives to show that reality is constructed by people themselves in their daily lives. There is also a tendency in modern English not to follow the German-language practice of capitalizing nouns.Verstehen roughly translates to â€Å"meaningful understanding† or putting yourself in the shoes of others to see things from their perspective. Interpretive sociology differs from scientific (or positivist) socio logy in three ways: Interpretive sociology deals with the meaning attached to behavior, unlike scientific sociology which focuses on action. Interpretive sociology sees reality as being constructed by people, unlike scientific sociology which sees an objective reality â€Å"out there†. Interpretive sociology relies on qualitative data, unlike scientific sociology which tends to make use of quantitative data.Functional Integration This refers to the interdependence among parts of a social system. Just as the human body is made up of interrelated parts each of which plays a role in maintaining the whole, so social systems are composed of interconnected parts that both support and depend on one another. Each part has contributions to make if the sum is to work well. These contributions are its functions – that is, functions are the effects that some social groups, event, or institution has within a system of relationships to other phenomena.Functionally integrated systems can also produce dysfunctions, or side-effects that are not good for the system. Pollution is a dysfunctional consequence of our industrial system. Social Systems can also disintegrate. Like the old Soviet Union. Functional integration refers to the integration of values with systems of action and it therefore involves priorities and allocations of diverse value component among proper occasion and relationshipsAs an institution changes, the others react to that change and compensate for it, thereby changing themselves in the process. But all the parts remain integrated into the single unit.Rational choice theory argues that social systems are organized in ways that structure the alternatives and consequences facing individuals so that they behave rationally. This allows them to best serve their self-interest within the constraints and resources that go with social systems and their status in them. Rational choice theory is the view that people behave as they do because they believe that performing their chosen actions has more benefits than costs. That is, people make rational choices based on their goals, and those choices govern their behavior. Some sociologists use rational choice theory to explain social change.According to them, social change occurs because individuals have made rational choices. For example, suppose many people begin to conserve more energy, lowering thermostats and driving less. An explanation for this social change is that individual people have decided that conserving energy will help them achieve their goals (for example, save money and live more healthfully) and cause little inconvenience. Critics argue people do not always act on the basis of cost-benefit analyses. Culture This is the language, norms, values, beliefs, knowledge, and symbols that make up a way of life.It is the understanding of how to act that people share with one another in any stable, self-reproducing group. Participation in a culture makes possible a meaningful understanding of one's own actions and those of others. Without culture it would be hard to communicate. When one culture is particularly distinct and set apart from the rest it is called a subculture. Individuals may participate in more than one subculture. No one is ever cultureless, however, for sharing in some culture or combination of cultures is an essential part of what we think of as humans.Norms are the agreed-upon expectations and rules by which a culture guides the behavior of its members in any given situation. Of course, norms vary widely across cultural groups. Folkways, sometimes known as â€Å"conventions† or â€Å"customs,† are standards of behavior that are socially approved but not morally significant. Mores are norms of morality. Breaking mores will offend most people of a culture. Finally, laws are a formal body of rules enacted by the state and backed by the power of the state. Social norms  are group-held beliefs about how members should behav e in a given context.Sociologists  describe norms as laws that govern society’s behaviors. Folkways are often referred to as â€Å"customs. † They are standards of behavior that are socially approved but not morally significant. They are norms for everyday behavior that people follow for the sake of tradition or convenience. Breaking a folkway does not usually have serious consequences. Mores are strict norms that control moral and ethical behavior. Mores are norms based on definitions of right and wrong. Unlike folkways, mores are morally significant. People feel strongly about them and violating them typically results in disapproval.A law is a norm that is written down and enforced by an official law enforcement agency. A culture's values are its ideas about what is good, right, fair, and just. Sociologists disagree, however, on how to conceptualize values. Conflict theory focuses on how values differ between groups within a culture, while functionalism focuses on the shared values within a culture. For example, American sociologist Robert K. Merton suggested that the most important values in American society are wealth, success, power, and prestige, but that everyone does not have an equal opportunity to attain these values.Functional sociologist Talcott Parsons noted that Americans share the common value of the â€Å"American work ethic,† which encourages hard work. Other sociologists have proposed a common core of American values, including accomplishment, material success, problem-solving, reliance on science and technology, democracy, patriotism, charity, freedom, equality and justice, individualism, responsibility, and accountability. A culture, though, may harbor conflicting values. For instance, the value of material success may conflict with the value of charity. Or the value of equality may conflict with the value of individualism.Such contradictions may exist due to an inconsistency between people's actions and their profess ed values, which explains why sociologists must carefully distinguish between what people do and what they say. Joan Jacobs Brumberg is a social historian and academic. She lectures and writes about the experiences of adolescents through history until the present day. In the subject area of Gender Studies, she has written about boys and violence, and girls and body image. Brumberg says that adolescence and childhood have been made more difficult for women due to the much earlier age of menarche than in the past.The average age at menstruation has dropped from 16 in 1890, to 12 while psychological development, she believes, has not accelerated. Also, consumer culture has added to people's insecurities about their bodies. It is now normal and fashionable for girls to dress in a sexualized way. Jean Kilbourne, Ed. D. (born January 4, 1943) is a feminist author, speaker, and filmmaker who is internationally recognized for her work on the image of women in advertising and her critical st udies of alcohol and tobacco advertising.She is also credited with introducing the idea of educating about media literacy as a way to prevent problems she viewed as originating from mass media advertising campaigns. These include the concepts of the tyranny of the beauty ideal, the connection between the objectification of women and violence, the themes of liberation and weight control exploited in tobacco advertising aimed at women, the targeting of alcoholics by the alcohol industry, addiction as a love affair, and many others.Hyperreality is generally defined as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are blended together so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins. It is a postmodern philosophy that deals in part with semiotics, or the study of the signs that surround people in everyday life and what they actually mean. Hyperreality is a way of characterizing what our consciousness defines as â€Å"real† in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience.Hyperreality is exploited in advertising for almost everything, using a pseudo-world to enable people to be the characters they wish to be. Advertising sells the public through strong, desirable images, and many consumers buy into the brand's point of view and products. If the consumer wants to be seen as a sex icon, he or she should buy the most expensive jeans as worn or designed by his or her favorite celebrity. Although the clothing itself has limited actual value, they symbolize a state of being that some consumers want.Every time a person enters a large shopping area with a certain theme, he or she may be entering a hyperreal world. Theme parks such as Disneyworld or the casinos in Las Vegas are hyperrealities in which a person can get lost for as long as his or her money lasts. There is no reality in these places, only a construct that is designed to represent reality, allowing the person to exist temporarily in a world outside of what is real. Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context.Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, population genetics, and other disciplines. Within the study of human societies, sociobiology is very closely allied to the fields of Darwinian anthropology, human behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology. Sociobiology investigates social behaviors, such as mating patterns, territorial fights, pack hunting, and the hive society of social insects.It argues that just as selection pressure led to animals evolving useful ways of interacting with the natural environment, it led to the genetic evolution of advantageous social behavior. The Human Animal: A Personal View of the Human Species is a BBC nature docu mentary series written and presented by Desmond Morris. Morris describes it as â€Å"A study of human behavior from a zoological perspective. † He travels the world, filming the diverse customs and habits of various regions while suggesting common roots. Stephanie Coontz studies the history of American families, marriage, and changes in gender roles.Her book The Way We Never Were argues against several common myths about families of the past, including the idea that the 1950s family was traditional or the notion that families used to rely solely on their own resources. Granville Stanley Hall was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory. Hall's major books were Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime and Religion (1904) and Aspects of Child Life and Education (1921).His book Adolescence, was based on the results of the Child Study Movement. Ha ll described his system of psychology, which he called â€Å"genetic psychology. † His ideas were influenced by Charles Darwin. In the book, Hall described the evolutionary benefits of development from the womb to adolescence. The book itself is divided into six sections: biological and anthropological standpoint, medical standpoint, health and its tests, nubility of educated women, fecundity of educated women and education. Hall hoped that this book would become a guide for teachers and social workers in the education system.He was instrumental in the development of educational psychology, and attempted to determine the effect adolescence has on education. Hall believed that the pre-adolescent child develops to its best when it is not forced to follow constraints, but rather to go through the stages of evolution freely. He believed that before a child turned six or seven, the child should be able to experience how one lived in the simian stage. In this stage, the child would be able to express his animal spirits. The child is growing rapidly at this stage and the energy levels are high.The child is unable to use reasoning, show sensitiveness towards religion, or social discernment. By age eight, the child should be at stage two. This, Hall believed, is the stage where formal learning should begin. This is when the brain is at full size and weight. It is considered normal to be cruel and rude to others at this stage for the reasoning skills are still not developed. The child should not have to deal with moralizing conflicts or ideas, his is not yet ready at this stage. The child's physical health is most important now. In the stage of the dolescent, the child now has a rebirth into a sexed life. Hall argued that at this point, there should no longer be coeducation. Both sexes can't optimally learn and get everything out of the lessons in the presence the opposite sex. And, this is when true education can begin. The child is ready to deal with moral issu es, kindness, love, and service for others. Reasoning powers are beginning, but are still not strong. Hall argued that the high school should be a place similar to a â€Å"people's college† so that it could be more of an ending for those who would not be continuing their education to the next level.Coming of Age in Samoa is a book by American anthropologist Margaret Mead based upon her research and study of youth on the island of Ta'u in the Samoa Islands which primarily focused on adolescent girls. Mead was 23 years old when she carried out her field work in Samoa. First published in 1928, the book launched Mead as a pioneering researcher and the most famous anthropologist in the world. Since its first publication, Coming of Age in Samoa was the most widely read book in the field of anthropology, until Napoleon Chagnon's â€Å"Yanomamo: The Fierce People† took the lead in sales.The book has sparked years of ongoing and intense debate and controversy on questions perta ining to society, culture and science. It is a key text in the nature vs. nurture debate as well as issues relating to family, adolescence, gender, social norms and attitudes. Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, very good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways.Mead's findings suggested that the community ignores both boys and girls until they are about 15 or 16. Before then, children have no social standing within the community. Mead also found that marriage is regarded as a social and economic arrangement where wealth, rank, and job skills of the husband and wife are taken into consideration. Erik Erikson was a German-born American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings. Erikson was a Neo-Freudian. He has been described as an à ¢â‚¬Å"ego psychologist† studying the stages of development, spanning the entire ifespan. Each of Erikson's stages of psychosocial development is marked by a conflict for which successful resolution will result in a favourable outcome, and by an important event that this conflict resolves itself around. The Erikson life-stage virtues, in order of the eight stages in which they may be acquired, are: Basic trust vs. basic mistrust – This stage covers the period of infancy. 0-1 year of age. – Whether or not the baby develops basic trust or basic mistrust is not merely a matter of nurture. It is multi-faceted and has strong social components.It depends on the quality of the maternal relationship. The mother carries out and reflects their inner perceptions of trustworthiness, a sense of personal meaning, etc. on the child. If successful in this, the baby develops a sense of trust, which â€Å"forms the basis in the child for a sense of identityâ€Å". Autonomy vs. Sh ame – Covers early childhood – Introduces the concept of autonomy vs. shame and doubt. During this stage the child is trying to master toilet training. Purpose – Initiative vs. Guilt – Preschool / 3–6 years – Does the child have the ability to or do things on their own, such as dress him or herself?If â€Å"guilty† about making his or her own choices, the child will not function well. Erikson has a positive outlook on this stage, saying that most guilt is quickly compensated by a sense of accomplishment. Competence – Industry vs. Inferiority – School-age / 6-11. Child comparing self-worth to others (such as in a classroom environment). Child can recognize major disparities in personal abilities relative to other children. Erikson places some emphasis on the teacher, who should ensure that children do not feel inferior. Fidelity – Identity vs.Role Confusion – Adolescent / 12 years till 20. Questioning of sel f. Who am I, how do I fit in? Where am I going in life? Erikson believes, that if the parents allow the child to explore, they will conclude their own identity. However, if the parents continually push him/her to conform to their views, the teen will face identity confusion. Intimacy vs. isolation – This is the first stage of adult development. This development usually happens during young adulthood, which is between the ages of 20 to 24. Dating, marriage, family and friendships are important during the stage in their life.By successfully forming loving relationships with other people, individuals are able to experience love and intimacy. Those who fail to form lasting relationships may feel isolated and alone. Generativity vs. stagnation is the second stage of adulthood and happens between the ages of 25-64. During this time people are normally settled in their life and know what is important to them. A person is either making progress in their career or treading lightly in their career and unsure if this is what they want to do for the rest of their working lives.Also during this time, a person is enjoying raising their children and participating in activities, that gives them a sense of purpose. If a person is not comfortable with the way their life is progressing, they're usually regretful about the decisions and feel a sense of uselessness. Ego integrity vs. despair. This stage affects the age group of 65 and on. During this time you have reached the last chapter in your life and retirement is approaching or has already taken place. Many people, who have achieved what was important to them, look back on their lives and feel great accomplishment and a sense of integrity.Conversely, those who had a difficult time during middle adulthood may look back and feel a sense of despair. Thomas Hine- The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager. A history of the American adolescent experience, and why it must change. Persistence of vision is the phenomenon of t he eye by which an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twenty-fifth of a second on the retina. The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device. The Kinetoscope was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device.The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector but introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video, by creating the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter. The Lumieres held their first private screening of projected motion pictures in 1895. Their first public screening of films at which admission was charged was held on December 28, 1895, at Salon Indien du Grand Cafe in Paris.This history-making presentation featured ten short films, including their first film, Sortie des Usines Lumiere a Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lum iere Factory). Each film is 17 meters long, which, when hand cranked through a projector, runs approximately 50 seconds. The Nickelodeon was the first type of indoor exhibition space dedicated to showing projected motion pictures. Usually set up in converted storefronts, these small, simple theaters charged five cents for admission and flourished from about 1905 to 1915. A movie palace is a erm used to refer to the large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opened every year between 1925 and 1930. There are three building types in particular which can be subsumed under the label movie palace. First, the classical style movie palace, with its eclectic and luxurious period-revival architecture; second, the atmospheric theatre which has an auditorium ceiling that resembles an open sky as its defining feature and finally, the Art Deco theaters that became popular in the 1930s.

Bullfrog Essay

Rana Catesbeiana (Bullfrog) Essay I was amazed to find out just how ancient frogs are. For 190 million years, the ancestors of modern frogs have roamed the earth, looking much the same as they do today. This means that at one time when there was a huge dinosaur eating a plant, there could have been some type of frog down by its feet. About 3,800 species of frogs and toads have developed since the dinosaur days. The secret to their success is their amazing adaptability. Frogs have evolved to live in a large variety of climates.They can be found just about anywhere there is fresh water- on all continents except Antarctica. Though they thrive in warm, moist tropical climates, frogs also live in deserts and high on 15,000-foot mountain slopes. They can be so adaptable because they are cold blooded, which means that their body temperature can change along with the temperature around them. When temperatures drop, some frogs dig burrows underground or in the mud at the bottom of ponds. They hibernate in these burrows until spring, perfectly still and scarcely breathing.A frog’s skin also plays a big role in their survival. It is through their skin that they both drink and breathe. Frogs don't swallow water; they get all the moisture they need through their skin, which must stay moist. If it dries out, oxygen can't pass easily through it and the frog can suffocate. Frog skin secretes mucus that helps keep it moist. Even so, their skin tends to dry out easily, which is why they usually stay near bodies of water. About once a week, frogs shed their skin. The process begins with the frog doing a lot of twisting, bending, and stretching to loosen the old skin.Then the frog pulls the skin over its head like a sweater and usually eats it. Two other parts of the frog have helped it to survive all these years as well. First, the hind legs of the frog, which enable some frogs to jump twenty times their body length. This would allow them to quickly get away from any preda tors. A frog's two front legs have four toes each, while the back legs have five toes each. Most aquatic frogs have webbed back feet to help them swim, another way to get away from an enemy. Frogs that live on land tend to have shorter legs for walking and climbing, but are still able to swim in water.The other part of the body that help them survive so long are their big, bulging eyes, as they are able to see in all directions. Frogs' large eyes see a wide range of colors and also see well in dim light. This not only increases their chances of surviving a predator, but also decreases the ability of their prey to get away. Since they have such big eyes, they are able to see their own prey and target them for food. It has been found that when a frog sticks out its tongue to catch an insect or other food source, it briefly closes its eyes.The frog must therefore, know exactly where its target is, and aim, before the tongue leaves the mouth. The positioning of the eyes, on top of the h ead, allows a frog to sit in the water with only its eyes and nose above the surface, so they do not have to leave the water for food. Frogs eat almost any live prey they can find, including insects, snails, spiders, and worms, or small fish. Their tongue is long and sticky and takes less than a second to roll out, stick to prey, and roll back into the frog's mouth.Their mating call is sometimes called an advertisement call. It is made by the male in the water and which helps the females to identify with her species. Each species has a different type of mating call. This is difficult to decipher around a pond of noisy frogs. When they mate, the male frog climbs onto female's back, grasping her with his front legs. As the female lays her eggs, usually into water the male release sperm that fertilizes them. There may be anywhere from one to hundreds or thousands of soft, jelly-covered eggs.The eggs hatch within three to twenty five days, and few will survive the difficult trip to adul thood. Among most frogs, a tadpole will hatch and spend the next few years growing into a frog. The changes begin when the hind legs sprout. Soon after, lungs develop and the front legs appear. Meanwhile, the tail gradually shrinks. Just before becoming a frog, the tadpole's gills disappear. The tiny froglet emerges from the water with just a stump of a tail, which soon disappears. The observations that I took did little justice to the complexity of Rana Catesbeiana, the bullfrog.Frogs have been living on this Earth for millions of years and have perfected their lifestyle throughout that time. The amazement of these creatures is that they can survive well in nature, but can also be house pets for children to play with and learn from. There are myths that have surrounded frogs and superstitions that have risen over the years. One that comes to mind is that if you kiss a frog, you will get a wart. Like many superstitions and legends, no one knows for sure where that one came from, but watching these little amphibians, I highly doubt that they could do any harm.