Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Impact of the war on terror on Rules of Evidence Essay

Impact of the war on terror on Rules of Evidence - Essay Example However the alteration of the U.S. security system after 9/11 and various fresh national security agendas have produced extensive anxiety over the safeguard of international human rights, democratic standards, and several rights preserved in the U.S. Constitution that outline the civil liberties of the American citizens. Since the United States has not experienced any more attack on U.S. soil, which shows the efficiency of different U.S. counterterrorism efforts. But the 9/11 terrorist attack led the U.S. administration to review several existing laws and strategies and to make fresh ones, mistakes and exceeding the limit associated with these labors added grave erosion of faith in U.S. guiding principles and direction. In foreign countries, exposures of extrajudicial apprehensions and detainee mistreatment have damaged U.S. status and sincerity. Further it hindered counterterrorism collaboration with allies, and endowed with provocative misinformation that helps terrorist radicalization. Internally, policy deviations over security and civil liberties have been recurrent, extensively revealed, and sensitively charged, creating a situation of animosity and doubt that has confronted the people’s faith in the administration, caused division among supporters, and destabilized collaboration among the political branches of government. (Prieto, 2009). Criminal laws of US normally focus on dealing with criminal actions that have already happened, and are less effective in attaining the counterterrorism aim of preventing future attack. Criminal laws face a lot of disputes in tackling the terrorist threat. Even after a person is detained, a number of challenges face a successful criminal trial. Before 9/11, criminal trials relied on involving the defendant to a specific violent act or a plot to perform such an attack. The admissibility of evidence causes an additional challenge. Information that may be suitable in an intelligence framework may fail to suit the

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Postmodernism in the media

Postmodernism in the media Introduction to postmodernism, the media and the real The increasingly mediatised culture we live in today has lead us to be dominated by and dependent upon the production and consumption of images. Notions of objectivity and empiricism in the photographic have long since disappeared, but can we still locate our sense of the real in images? This dissertation will use many theories and ideas that discuss the role of photography, postmodernism and the real within todays culture and media. It will start with a discussion of the reasoning for the initial shift back towards the real. This shift mainly stemmed from postmodernism and the media. Postmodernism dealt with the idea of never ending reference and the fear about post-modern culture was that this never ending reference meant that all grip on reality had disappeared. There was a wish to return to something more stable and basic: the real? Photographers started to try and return to the purely descriptive photography from the times before the mass referencing of postmodernism. Due to pos tmodernism, we are constantly searching for meaning and analysis in images. This constant analysis of images has exhausted our trust and interest in the photograph; there was a need to create images different from the ones we see every day in the media in order to re-find our trust in the image as truth and as art. Which will lead onto looking at how, due to advances in technology and developments in photography, the new fast changing everyday image led to our relationships and emotions becoming mediatised. We re-live events and experiences through images, which leads to a loss of the real. We remember the image rather than the event. The media have a huge influence on events, advertising even our emotions and relationships. I will look at how some photographers can play a part in the manipulation and influence from the media that seems so much to control us and shape our world. But some photographers began to step away from the media, and postmodernism, older, slower technologies b egan to re-emerge. The single image produced from these methods of working could bring back the processes of our memory that have been complicated due to the sheer amount of information we get from other technologies. This leads onto the main question posed in this dissertation: can we ever (re)find the real? How much is this notion of the real influenced and shaped by the media influence in our world? Some would say that even photos that appear to be descriptive cannot escape being subjected to analysis and placed within a context of viewing. Maybe they can never be void of reference and construction? Maybe images can never provide the clear, stable version of reality that we want from them? Will we continue to be consumed by images, or is there a future beyond the cycle of referencing left by postmodernism? Can we ever (re)find authenticity, originality and a true form of photography that can direct us to the real? How has this affected our media? And how has it influenced the media to change and shape our world? Chapter One What caused people to lose a sense of the real? Postmodernism emerged as an art form in the mid to late 1980s and seemed to grow from and relate to the modernist movement. Postmodernism simply rejected the idea of originality; the original, new element within a photograph was replaced with the concept of reference and quotation. Finding something authentic and original as an idea was discarded. Essentially, postmodernism is the end of the new as something new within Postmodernism is looked upon as the byproduct of re-combining one or more different elements from within an already existing culture. An image has to refer to, use or quote another image or text, which will have referred to another image, which will have referred to a further different image and so on; a never-ending reference has begun and we begin to lose a sense of the real. Postmodernist culture enjoyed this play with signs of never ending reference, where the more you played the less anyone seemed to know what reality it was touching (Bate 2004)(1) Some early Postmodernist photographers include Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Edward Weston and Cindy Sherman. Shermans untitled films stills refer to trashy Hollywood films. These early works of hers were cleverly named Untitled then Film Still no indicating that they can be given any meaning and could refer to an actual specific existing film. The viewer is given a reference which leads to yet another representation, not reality itself. In short: here is a picture from a film, but I am not going to tell you which one, a message complicated by the fact that the photographs were not actual films stills. (Bate2004)(2) The factor that was feared about postmodernism is that the never-ending reference meant that all grip on reality has disappeared and this lead to a wish to return to a simpler, more stable and basic way of working. We have lost a sense of what is real within art and culture due to reality being discarded in favour of mass inter-textual referencing. But the fear about post-modern culture was that there no longer an anchor to reality at all, that reality had disappeared into an endless chain of other representations. (Bate 2004)(3) There began to be a wish to return to the values of the straight and pure photograph of modernism and everything that post modernism had rejected. A wish to return to something stable and basic, a wish to take a purely descriptive photograph. Some photographers managed to create purely descriptive work, an example of this could be Justin Partykas work The East Anglians. This ongoing body of work about the rural and agricultural area of East Anglia is a purely descriptive study of the landscape and people, who live, work and own the land in it. But the title The East Anglians could refer to Robert Franks The Americans a post World War II look beneath the surface of American life. Is anybody of work free from this postmodernist trap every photographer seems to fall into. The rise in postmodernism lead to photography being used more as an art form, and began to become popular with both artists and the public. It was no longer a low form of art and became widely accepted. Photography was used more by everyone and so began to develop further, leading to major advances in technology. With the invention of mobile phone cameras and the internet and email, it is easy to take a photograph and send it anywhere in the world in seconds. These new technologies mediatised our relationships and emotions. Yet despite the idea that these mobile technologies bring us all closer to each other, we are caught up in a contradiction, since they increasingly mediatise our relationships to one another. To look at something it has to be kept at a distance. (Bate 2004)(4) With digital technology today, there is no longer a need to wait for photographs to be processed, no need to wait until the end of a holiday or event to see the photographs and an less limited amount of photographs can be taken on that one camera as opposed to the 24 or 36 with the most commonly used 35mm negative film. This means people are taking so many photographs of everything rather than considering what particularly they would like photographs of. An unlimited sense has been brought into photography. This has lead to a loss in the real, and a loss in the value of photography. Previously at an important event such as a holidays, birthdays or weddings, families would use probably just one camera and probably only one or 2 films per event, some families using just one film per year for every event, resulting in a few photographs being taken which would then be put in an album and often reviewed. Now with digital technologies, people tend to have many cameras per family and at eve ry event, small or large, hundreds of photographs can get taken, the difference being these would then be put on a computer and most would never be looked at. This is where we have lost the value of photography, before digital it was precious, every photograph was considered, thought about and enjoyed afterwards. This has also lead to us remembering the photograph of the event rather than the actual event. If we spend all day photographing what is going on around us, we will remember just those photographs and not what was actually happening; we remember the image rather than the real. Perhaps to properly look at something you have to take a step back, away from our fast pace society. The loss of the real in postmodernism and now in the digital era has left artist and photographs wishing to go back to simpler times. New art is often now made up of redundant processes which are older and slower which then sets this new art form apart from the images and photographs we see in everyday media culture. New technologies are being left in favour of older and slower ones which are apparently more real. More traditional and simple methods of photography seemed to be linked to the concept of the real, as they are different from the photographs we see every day on the news and in the media. Hal Foster in his book The Return of the Real says he feels that we have not left postmodernism completely, it has become what is normal to us; we have a postmodernism realism. The consequence of this that we change the way we want reality to be constructed. Foster feels that simply postmodernism has become dà ©modà ©. (Foster 1996)(5) Photography now draws on elements of film, advertisements, postcards etc. to create imagery that is inter-textual and referential to those other pictures, these new images create the realism of this visually mediated culture; post-modern realism is now the normal. Along with the development of photography, video and film also began to expand and change. Photography was the only way of stopping time, a photograph was a moment captured in time on film forever. Now a freeze frame like that can come from any number of sources. Photographs began to be pulled from existing moving images a video. This is achievable by anyone as DVDs or VHSs or even live television can be paused, creating a freeze frame a moment, captured in time. What was once the sole privilege and product of the photograph is now equally likely to be the result of a cinema or video freeze-frame (Bate 2004)(6) This has changed photography, as now instead of the image being of an actual event, they were now selected from the way the event had already been interpreted. Newspapers and news channels were no longer using photographers to capture the perfect picture; they were using video and selecting the image from the video. This is called second order realism. Selecting the decisive moment is still dependant on a person knowing when to push a button, but is now selecting a still from an already decided and produced moving image. A photograph is supposed to be a moment locked in time but now it is more often than not pulled out of an image bank full of video freeze-frames. Film and video has stolen what makes photography special the decisive moment. Therefore the specificity and specialness of photography has to find itself in some other attribute of photography. Chapter 2 How does the media shape our world and the concept of real? Mass media is a huge part of our lives today, and has to influence us in some way. Images have become our reality due to the media. A news story would not impact without an image, and as soon as an image is shown it is a reality and remembers as if the viewer was at the event themselves. Guy Debord in Comments on the Society of the Spectacle talks about how developments in photographs and mass media have contributed to what Debord describes as the society of the spectacle. In the spectacular world images and representations become our reality and everything exists as and for images. Real-life experiences become repressed and events take place in a mediated, pseudo-reality. Experience, events, and even our emotions, both on an individual and public scale are heavily mediated. Where images refer to one another endlessly the originality and authenticity of them are abolished. As a result of this, it is claimed we have lost any relation to the real. The spectacle has now spread itself to the point where it now permeates all reality (Debord 1988) (7) Victor Burgin studied people who believed that media events were their own memories in Possessive, Pensive and Possessed. Sociologists at the University of Provence found that people can become confused and merge their own personal memories with memories from scenes of films or other media productions. I saw at the cinema would simply become I saw. (Burgin 2006)(8) This is called a screen memory, where you remember something from a film instead of from real life. It is in place of and conceals a similar suppressed memory. In the past, big events did happen but people knew less about them as there was no type of media production to let them know. It rarely went beyond those involved. Now because of media we all know about every event, and add these events to our memories, even though we have not actually physically experienced them. We forget our real experiences and replace them with events from the media. For example, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City will be remember by everyone worldwide, but only a small number of people actually experienced and saw the event, but everyone will remember the event and visualise it from the images they saw. When thinking of these terrorist attacks many people will think of this and many other images which were taken at the event. These images will be in their memory as if they were in New York City on that day, meaning they remember events from a media production which has now become their own memory which relates back to Burgins study into screen memories. Our reaction to big events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks is to experience and re-live the event through the images which are presented to us. Thomas De Zengotita talks of how there is a bubble of mediated representation which he calls the blob. In the world of the blob, momentous catastrophes such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks are almost poignant enough to burst the bubble, Something like that will feel as if it might be sharp enough, as if it might pierce the membrane and slice the pulp. (De Zengotita 2007)(9) With the developments in digital photography and manipulation we can find that we re-live and experience events that did not even happen. We look at a manipulated image, take it to be the truth and believe what is in there. The media can now influence us to believe something that is not true. Once we have seen the images, manipulated or not it is not surprising that our reaction is to experience and re-live the event through those images, adding them to our bank of mediated events in our memory. In other words, it all becomes part of the spectacle. Conclusion In this dissertation I have looked into postmodernism within photography and how this has changed what is the real and how the media influence the real and our emotions and shapes our world today. The rise in postmodernism meant a no-ending reference for every photograph, film etc. On photograph refers to another photograph which refers to a video, which in turn refers another photograph and so on. There was nothing new; post modernism was the end of the new. This results in a loss of the real, a loss of just purely descriptive photography. This loss of the real within photography is only enhanced by developments in photography making it accessible to everyone meaning the value of a photograph and photography is not as high. Which in turn is was not helped by the development in video and film, anyone being able to create a freeze-frame, a moment trapped in time by pausing their DVD, VHS or live TV player. Photography has lost what was special about it the decisive moment. Therefore, older more traditional photographic methods have begun to be used again, in a search for the real within photography. Furthermore, the media document every event and present their interpretation of this event to people in images. People experience and re-live that event through the images the media presented to us, and add those images into their own memories even though they did not actually experience the event themselves. This leads to losing what we know as reality. In my opinion, postmodernism and the no-ending reference meant that we are now always looking for analysis of a photograph and a reason and reference behind it. We cannot appreciate the beauty of a photograph if we are looking for something else within it, and that is where and why we end up losing a sense of the real. Developments in photography and film also have not helped with this, and a limit on the amount of photographs we take would mean the images can assist our memory not be our memory. This sense of the r eal is not lost, but could be forgotten within photography, and taking a step back just to look at a photograph as a whole would bring back the real into that photograph. References Postmodernist culture enjoyed this play with signs of never ending reference, where the more you played the less anyone seemed to know what reality it was touching (Bate 2004) In short: here is a picture from a film, but I am not going to tell you which one, a message complicated by the fact that the photographs were not actual films stills. (Bate2004) But the fear about post-modern culture was that there no longer an anchor to reality at all, that reality had disappeared into an endless chain of other representations. (Bate 2004) Yet despite the idea that these mobile technologies bring us all closer to each other, we are caught up in a contradiction, since they increasingly mediatise our relationships to one another. To look at something it has to be kept at a distance. (Bate 2004) Postmodernism has become dà ©modà ©. (Foster 1996) What was once the sole privilege and product of the photograph is now equally likely to be the result of a cinema or video freeze-frame (Bate 2004) The spectacle has now spread itself to the point where it now permeates all reality (Debord 1988) I saw at the cinema would simply become I saw. (Burgin 2006) Something like that will feel as if it might be sharp enough, as if it might pierce the membrane and slice the pulp. (De Zengotita 2007) Bibliography Books FOSTER H; The Return of The Real; The Avant-Garde at the End of The Century; 1996 DEBORD G; Comments on the Society of the Spectacle; 1988 DE ZENGOTITA T; Mediated: How The Media Shape Your World; 2007 Essays BATE D; After Thought, Source 40: 30-33; Belfast: Photo Works; 2004 BATE D; After Thought II, Source 41: 34-39; Belfast: Photo Works; 2004 BURGIN V; Possessive, Pensive and Possessed; The Cinematic, London, Whitechapel Ventures Ltd 2007 Websites http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN http://www.justinpartyka.com http://www.cindysherman.com/index.php http://www.lensculture.com/bate1.html

Friday, October 25, 2019

themeaw Themes and Fate in The Awakening and Madame Bovary Essay

Themes and Fate in The Awakening and Madame Bovary      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary are both tales of women indignant with their domestic situations; the distinct differences between the two books can be found in the authors' unique tones.   Both authors weave similar themes into their writings such as, the escape from the monotony of domestic life, dissatisfaction with marital expectations and suicide.   References to "fate" abound throughout both works.   In The Awakening, Chopin uses fate to represent the expectations of Edna Pontellier's aristocratic society.   Flaubert uses "fate" to portray his characters' compulsive methods of dealing with their guilt and rejecting of personal accountability.  Ã‚   Both authors, however seem to believe that it is fate that oppresses these women; their creators view them subjectively, as if they were products of their respective environments.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Chopin portrays Edna as an object, and she receives only the same respect as a possession. Edna's husband sees her as and looks, "...at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage."   (P 2 : The Awakening) Chopin foils their marriage in that of the Ratignolles who, "...understood each other perfectly." She makes the classic mistake of comparing one's insides with others' outsides when she thinks, "If ever the fusion of two human begins into one has been accomplished on this sphere it was surely in their union."   (P 56 : The Awakening) This sets the stage for her unhappiness, providing a point of contrast for her despondent marriage to Mr. Pontellier.   She blames their marriage for their unhappiness declaring that, "...a wedding is one of the ... ...ate UP, 1969. 881-1000. Delbanco, Andrew. "The Half-Life of Edna Pontellier." New Essays on The Awakening. Ed. Wendy Martin. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988. 89-106. Gilmore, Michael T. "Revolt Against Nature: The Problematic Modernism of The Awakening." Martin 59-84. Giorcelli, Cristina. "Edna's Wisdom: A Transitional and Numinous Merging." Martin 109-39. Martin, Wendy, ed. New Essays on the Awakening. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988. Papke, Mary E. Verging on the Abyss: The Social Fiction of Kate Chopin and Edith Wharton. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1990. Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1969. Showalter, Elaine. "Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book." Martin 33-55. Skaggs, Peggy. Kate Chopin. Boston: Twayne, 1985.               

Thursday, October 24, 2019

My Father Birthday

My father birthday It’s my habit to revise my homework every morning. This was became my grandmother used to wake me up since I was in primary school. This had helped me a lot in improving my school result and I wanted to keep it up and score good result in my spm Yesterday I also woke up early but not to revise my homework because the day was my father birthday. We all son decided to open a party for my father, but we did not know how to prepare a surprise party as I had no experience in buying things in market and cook my father favourite food. So we decided to ask my neighbour Jun Hen brother for helping. He is a kind heart person as he always help me when I need his for helping. When he knew I needed his helped to prepare party, he didn’t refuse and agree to help immediately. I was very happy because he also helped me to cook the dishes. We didn’t spend much time in the market because we needed a lot of time to prepare after my father came back from work. We cooked a lot of dishes such as sweet sour fish, fried chicken, curry, dessert and of cause a delicious cake. After cooking we also decorated my home, my whole family members helped me to hang balloons and ribbons Approximately 5pm we finish preparing and waiting my father back home.. My father would reach home at 6 pm sharp. before 6 pm we all hid behind the door to give him a big surprise as he didn’t know we were celebrating for his this special day. He was terrified when he entered the house, he could not believe that we still remembered his birthday and what he liked to eat. After enjoying the meal we had a karaoke session. We sang a lot of English song and my sister took a lot of photographs with my father. After that we played some games, my parents also joined in. I felt happy as I had never seen this such a long time. We whole family members also sang the birthday song for my father and gave him a big present that was a â€Å"kiss†, my father was touched then he cried. He felt happy. This was lovely day, my father was very happy as he didn’t expect this would happen, he felt that we have grown up and hopelly we can always celebrate this kind of occasions

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Holder in Due Course

A Holder in Due Course can be defined as a holder who takes a negotiable instrument in good faith, without noticing that such instrument has been dishonored or that there is a hiden fraudulent issue behind it. In this particular case, I don’t think that Any Kind Checks Cashed, Inc. should be considered as a Holder in Due Course. It is clear that ‘Any Kind’ company did not know what the issue behind that check was but, they should have speculated that there was something strange going on.Apparently, there was a business that had been operating for a while and that they understood and know what kind of people will normally visit their store to cash their checks. I consider that the issue arises when Michael of Any Kind Cashed Checks, decides to pay a portion of the check made by Talcott and deposit the rest without trying to reach the drawer in order to confirm such transaction. I think that doing so, Any Kind Cashed Checks failed to comply with the reasonable comme rcial standards of fair dealing such as good faith.If Talcott was unreachable, Michael should have Guarino come back at a later time or at least called the bank and see what the status of the check was. One thing is clear; Guarino did not attempt to go to the bank because he knew something could go wrong if he did. If Any Kind Cashed Checks would have only noticed that a broker shouldn’t have anything to hide and that a person like him would normally go to the bank instead of a checks cashing store the story would have surely been different.Personally, I agree and disagree with the court’s decision over this case. I consider that Talcott shouldn’t be liable for the $5,700. He actually was victim of a fraud and he has valid real defenses against Rivera and Guarino. Any Kind is not in fault in this specific scenario because they waited for the owner’s confirmation in order to cash the check. I would think that Talcott would be able to get his money back and of course sued these two men who took advantage of his age to cheat.On the other hand I believe that Any Kinds should be held liable for the $10,000. Furthermore, Michael specifically, which as a supervisor should have not only known the procedure but should have also followed it. I am guessing she was lead by the fact that she would have received a nice commission out of a $10,000 check and didn’t think twice when she cashed and deposit the check without the owners approval. The case doesn’t state much information on this but if I am not wrong she also lost due to the fact that the check had a stop payment request by the owner.In conclusion, I would like to state that I don’t believe Any Kind Cashed Checks is or should be considered as an HDC due to the fact that they relied on their own judgment and experience at the moment of cashing and depositing the $10,000 check. There is a clear failire to the good faith principle in such a scenario. Moreover, showing a federal express envelope to prove that Talcott truly sent the check shouldn’t be sufficient evidence to prove everything is correct.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Global Race for Energy

Global Race for Energy Introduction The struggle for energy ownership, control, and power among the rich states in the world is currently intensive. Examples of these energy-producing substances include oil and gas, which have become a major topic for debate all over the world. The reason why this war is taking place could be the speed by which the scarcity of these energy substances is extending worldwide.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Global Race for Energy specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This scarcity is also introducing a different and new world form, such that, while some nations are fighting for energy power, others are in the race trying to secure the energy. For example, states like the US and EU nations have started to be involved in discussions, with the main objective being to address international future for energy and its advantages. Indeed, debates concerning the current and future energy requirement are among the challeng ing issues in the contemporary world. Some of the key supply areas for oil and gas today; and how is that geography changing These areas are the key points in which the whole issue is surrounding. Saudi Arabia is the largest producer of oil; the U.S comes second in production but the highest in terms of consumption (Mtsiva, 2) and China is the second highest consumer of energy after the U.S. This seems to be the initiation mark of the global race for un-renewable sources of energy (Belkin, 5). This production and consumption has however caused changes in geographical marketing and supply. For example, the U.S market was left depending on minor oil producing companies when bigger oil companies turned their businesses abroad, looking for larger market and suitable place for their investment (Mtsiva, 3) During the times of ancient world war, most of the nations depended primarily on market capacities of private companies and international oil companies for sufficient supply of energy. However, this is not true in contemporary world because the high rates of economic growth have triggered better policymaking, especially in high population countries like India, Brazil, and China. Other major predominant suppliers of energy to the European Union (EU) nations are Russia, India, Norway, Middle East, and North Africa (Cabral, Para 4). How do the industrial states work to secure oil and gas supplies through non-market means? This energy business has suffered security risk and scares in major industrial states in the past. In such tense conditions, agreement on better security agenda for energy sector becomes difficult, especially when some states decide to pursue their own interests (Korrin and luft, 335).Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More There is a probability of energy-hungry nations to focus on their own economy, security, and environmental concerns in the process of securing energy (Korrin and luft, 357). As it has become more difficult to obtain oil and gas, countries are trying to create more energy sources other than geographical varieties (Korrin and luft, 337) Some countries like the U.S have developed a policy that aims at maintaining national security in the oil market. A national security is a form of social cost that can justify government actions in oil markets but not loan guarantees on economic grounds (Mtsiva, 78). Moreover, a policy concerned with tax incentives has enabled reduction of tax penalties and expansion of oil and gas tax incentives (Mtsiva, 79). Some countries have tried to form collaborative partnership; for example, partnership between China and the U.S has brought a number of benefits between the two nations. Already, a ten-year plan was set up in 2007 by top government and economic officials between the two countries, that is, the U.S Department of Energy and China’s National Development an d Reform commission (Cabral, Para 13). In the EU nation, energy security increase has been minimized by occasional debate on liberalization and market integration in their agenda. The commission has decided on development of Europe-wide internal market for gas, network interconnection, and assessment of market (Belkin, 25) The effect on countries supplying oil and gas do they prosper or suffer? Most of the countries supplying these sources of energy are countries with good economic standards like the U.S and the EU nations, although there are some countries that are still struggling in economic issues but still can supply energy. These countries have already established themselves in terms of collaborative partnership, policies transformation, and procurement of energy. Therefore, subjectively, if a country engages with another nation in securing oil market, then that country is not suffering, as this collaboration brings a sort of socioeconomic sustenance. However, if any nation p uts its concerns alone, then eventually it will start suffering due to lack of foreign investment (Cabral, Para16). Conclusion The whole world’s nations need to join hands together in solving this major crisis in energy market. If each country creates policies that control its energy market in production, supply, and consumption strategies, then insecurity will definitely be eliminated in the market. The engagement in collaboration and networking is also a good idea in energy market. Nevertheless, foreign investment and interrelation between different countries helps to reduce the economic gap between the rich and poor countries.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Global Race for Energy specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Belkin, Paul. â€Å"The European Union’s Energy Security Challenges.† CRS report for Congress, 2008. Web. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33636.pdf Cabral, Jim. Rising Powers, Shrinki ng Planet; The New Geopolitics of Energy, 2010. Web. Korrin, Anne and Luft, Gal. Energy security challenges for the twenty-first century. California: ABC-CLIO, LLC. 2009. Mtsiva, Vladimir. Oil and Natural Gas: Issues and Policies. New York: Nova science publishers, 2003.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Downsizing rightsizing or Dump sizing Essay Example

Downsizing rightsizing or Dump sizing Essay Example Downsizing rightsizing or Dump sizing Paper Downsizing rightsizing or Dump sizing Paper Organizations try to maintain profit ratio by one way or the other. However, not all strategies used by the company result as successful adoptions. The most frequently heard term in the Human Resource management is layoffs and restructuring. Downsizing being one of the form of such employee cutting have many faces of its effect on the corporate values. So the current study tries to understand the overview of downsizing and the HR skills required to execute down sizing in an organization. Also the study tries to analyze the good and bad forms of the concept down sizing under the section by taking the concerns of rightsizing and dumb sizing. What is Down Sizing Downsizing: Downsizing is kind of organizational restructuring. The term is mostly used when organization adopts a workforce reduction. Downsizing or Workforce Reduction: According to Steven Applebaum and his colleagues (1987) as cited in Alexis A. Halley refers the definition of term downsizing as coined to define the scaling down of car sizes by automobile manufacturers. However the term was adopted to HR field in cutting down the employees during 1980s. Downsizing is a strategy to resize, streamline and shrink the organizational structure with respect to employee number. Usually it is assumed that companies down size people to restructure their existing employees by number wise. However, Restructuring can also be defined as rebuilding the strength of an organization by changing its asset structure and its resource allocation patterns (see Hoskisson Hitt, 1994). Why Use Downsizing: Companies mainly during the period of recession, try to increase the costs in many possible ways. One among those quick fixes is cost cutting through Employee layoff. In order to prove their profitability CEOs show up the reduced HR costs under profitability accounting. However, when firms use this tool cautiously, downsizing can be a life saver to the company. But repeated usage of the tool can result in the erosion of the human capital. Role of HR in Downsizing: The HR should play a vital role in cutting back the employees, yet retaining the life blood of the company. A company needs some employees in key positions with required skill set to be adhered to their competitive responsibilities all the time. HR need to identify which skill set or professionals to be retained during the period to void disturbance in the existing process. Also the HR should take care of the effort load of the removed employees which ultimately falls on the retained employees due to the cut down on employees. The major challenge for HR in such circumstances is to deal with the remaining employee morale. The employee security becomes shattered and HR has to affirm them of their position in the organization. For this the HR should be communicative with management a well with the employees in getting their concern and feedback from time to time. Also the HR should assist management in planning the downsizing in an approached way. There are different approaches and tools available to the HR to perform the Downsize efficiently and in a strategic way. Downsizing is a kind of change adoption. Change is observed in two ways: The Incremental Approach: This approach starts with denial of wrong followed by patching and crisis and then by rightsizing. However, this approach may create tension and anxiety in the organization. The phases and events are unpredictable in this approach. 2. The strategic approach: This approach involves rethinking, and searches for new mental maps and new tools. The strategic approach though lengthy results profitable in long run.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

5 Great Career Paths You Can Take if Youre Working in Retail

5 Great Career Paths You Can Take if Youre Working in Retail Working in retail and wondering whether there’s any upward mobility? Just remember that actually selling items in store is only about 56% of the retail picture. The other 44% of retail employees are working behind the scenes in design, marketing, admin, and logistics. Chances are you have skills that could transfer to these non-sales positions and help you move up the corporate ladder- or to another industry entirely. Cross-training here is key. Find a way to build your expertise in the most in-demand skills in your field, i.e. project management, people management, leadership, customer service, operations, and, yes, sales.Take every opportunity you can to build your arsenal and develop these skills, and build your retail resume. Then you’ll be ready to consider making the jump to one of these 5 promising careers in retail.1. Field ManagementIf you can work your way up to Store Manager, there’s nothing to stop you advancing to Area or District Manger. From there, you could become a Regional or Field Manager and oversee some 50 stores. You’ll need strong leadership and coaching skills, and the ability to manage others effectively, but it can be quite rewarding and lucrative. Expect to make anywhere from $42k to well over $60k per year.2. Visual MerchandisingIf you really like store work, and are creative and very attentive to branding details, you might be a good fit as a visual merchandiser. Make the store look great and help draw attention to what’s special about your store’s brand. Determine the shopper’s experience, what they see, and where. You can work either in the field or in the corporate office, and you can expect to make between $40-50k per year.3. Buying/PlanningBuyers and planners make the decisions about what things (and how many of each) should go in stores. Buyers procure things from wholesalers and Planners are in charge of the logistics of getting products from point A to point B (the shelves). Y ou’ll have to have a good sense of the brand, plus a bit of knowledge about supply and demand cycles, but the range for each position is wide: between ~$45 and over $95k per year.4. Supply Chain ManagingYou’ll have to have a good financial head on your shoulders and be an extremely competent project manager, not to mention know a thing or two about procurement, contracts, and legal and ethical issues. But you could work your way from a driver or warehouse worker to dispatch and beyond. Cross-cultural comfort is an asset here, and the pay scale ranges from an average of $59k per year to over $84k.5. Security/Loss PreventionIt can be a good gig making sure no one runs off with the merchandise. Loss Prevention Managers, i.e. specialists in security and loss prevention, can be brought in to stores to work undercover and prevent theft- and can make an average of $45k (or as much as $64k) per year.The bottom line is this: Retail jobs aren’t just about ringing purchase s and completing returns. If you like the field, there are many upwardly mobile career opportunities just waiting for you to pursue them.

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Acting and Acting Styles Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Acting and Acting Styles - Assignment Example This provides the viewer with face to face interaction with the actor (Gibbs, 2013). The most common acting styles in film industry are naturalistic and stylized acting. Naturalistic actors are mandated to be in oneness with the character’s dress, mannerism and upbringing. He must have un-distinguishable character. Stylized acting depends on an approach that is more conspicuous to put across the director’s point. They produce comic effect through characteristic hyperbolism through dramatizing (Anderson, 2009). The significant placement of actor is known as blocking. In this style the actors are positioned in a way that can shore the dominance of a character over the other. It also depicts the grandness family and other relationships possible. This is used in the film to show the supremacy of the God Father (Coppola, 1972). The special effect acting style of Rear Projection is often used to give an illusion of a film scene on a location. It involves a combination of present foreground action and pre-filmed background footage. It is common in driving scenes. The un-realistic looking technique of this style is evident in the Romantic comedy by Hudson (Reed,

Friday, October 18, 2019

Ipad Troubles In China Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Ipad Troubles In China - Article Example This paper will respond to issues raised against the operation of the company in China. Issues raised against the Apple Company include the following: excessive work by employees sometimes seven days in a week, long hours of standing without break, living in crowded dorm, improper disposal of the hazardous waste, disregard to employees’ health, hiring under age employees among other violations (Duhigg & Barboza 1). From the journal report, it is evident that the effort employed by Apple in changing the above conditions has failed to yield any formidable fruits. The journal indicates that despite the audits and recommendations by the Apple top executives supplies of the Apple products have been adamant in adhering to the recommendations or the provisions in the code of conduct. The persistence of the cases reported is an indication that the company does not have the goodwill to transform the working conditions. In my opinion, the provision in the code of conduct acts as a guide or a gauge, which measures the challenges in the factory outlets. However, failure to demonstrate appreciation after auditing recommendation is a show that the management of the Apple Company is responsible for the gross violation of the employees’ rights. Ideally, the management should monitor and control conditions within which its employees carry out their activities. Apple Company has responded to the problems reported by taking the following measures. First, the company has engaged in conducting audits in its factory outlets. These audits are very critical in assessing the conditions within these factories. However, it has emerged from the audits that the company has not been able to respond swiftly in line with the provisions in bits code of conduct. For instance, the company insists that when one of its factory outlets violates the code especially gross violations, it would terminate its operation. Ironically, the

Finance Class paper on Asset Bubbles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Finance Class paper on Asset Bubbles - Essay Example The focus of this document it is to examine the cause of asset price bubbles using classic decision model. Classical decision-making model presumes that people objectively scrutinize the challenges affecting them and that they have full information of the situation (Kahneman et al. 53). By relying on that information, they can examine various alternatives of addressing those issues being aware of the repercussions of those alternatives before making an optimal resolution. This model when applied by investors it assumes that the investors assess various investments alternatives impartially having complete knowledge about the market value of the assets currently and in the future. Since they make an objective analysis, there is usually high demand for assets as many people purchase them the future price will continue to rise indefinitely (Kahneman et al. 61). However, the situation reverses causing a sudden drop in value of those assets resulting to the economic crisis. The issue of the decision-making model involves bound and unbound problems and can be used to elaborate the occurrence of the reverse situation of the asset prices. Bound problems are issues within the control of decision makers while unbound problems are beyond the power of the decision makers. For example, investors make predictions and commit their resources to the assets. (Kahneman et al. 94). However, the financial system such as the banking industry affects the market liquidity. The implication of the change in market liquidity is that at first the bank reduces lending rates attracting investors to take more money for investing in various assets and consequent increase in market liquidity (Kahneman et al. 124). As the demand for assets increases so is the increase in their values. However, banks raise lending rates in the future due to excess liquidity resulting to decline in market liquidity (Kahneman et al. 175). The decreased flow

Genetic Relations to Job Satisfaction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Genetic Relations to Job Satisfaction - Essay Example From this paper it is clear that genetics can also be referred to as the genetic composition of an individual or group of people. In the past, genetics played a great role in breakthroughs as curing diseases, breeding better plants and animals basically under the realm of genetic engineering and even solving crimes in the field of forensic science. It has recently been discovered that job satisfaction is largely genetically determined. This has brought into focus several questions such as: â€Å"How true is it that the level of competence in a person is equal to that of the parent?†, â€Å"Should people be employed on the basis on their parents or siblings’ work record?† â€Å"Should companies do a genetic study on all its employees to determine their traits, characters, health and how these relate to their work capabilities?† This study highlights that at this point, it would be too early to come up with a probable conclusion. It is this questions that this paper seeks to provide answers to as we determine through previous research if, indeed, job satisfaction is genetic. According to a publication of The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray, it is a known fact that genetic factors influence fundamental aspects of our human nature. Initially, it was debated that environmental factors played a basic role in job satisfaction, but scientific research has proven that the applicable environmental aspects emerge to be those not shared by individuals raised together. On the other hand, the Classical Twin Study proved that most behavioural characteristics are heritable. The Classical Twin experiment applied sets of monozygotic twins, raised separately, to examine for the reality of genetic power on job satisfaction. Research suggests that genetics has a role in the fundamental direct experiences of job fulfillment such as challenge or achievement.  

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Individual innovation appraisal- Concise written description of an Essay

Individual innovation appraisal- Concise written description of an innovation- proposal and evaluation - Essay Example For the innovation to existing in the market, availability of capital and implementation of sustainable market strategies will play a great role. Through proper planning, goal-setting a decision-making, the innovation will go through thorough market testing. After its viability is established, it will be released into the market. Another aspect that has contributed to its existence is availability of resources including human and financial resources. Without resources, it is impossible to get through with any innovation. Over the years, 3D has acquired popularity with more people being attracted to this kind of technology. The situation has forced entrepreneurs to develop new business models. In recent times, most companies are raising capital towards tapping the growing demand and market for 3D (Taylor, 2014). The aim maintaining relevance drives them. The Mink is triggered by the level of profitability expected. The Mink is likely to be successful mainly because of the much hype it has received from the general population. People are always attracted by unique and new ways of doing things. People also like to experiment even with things that they do not necessarily need. Marketing strategies that have been adopted to market The Mink will also ensure this success. Through advertising, the innovation is receiving popularity with more people embracing the idea every day. It is evident that advertising influences the success of a business to a great extent. Through various exhibitions, awareness has been created regarding The Mink. Social media has also played a role in enhancing the popularity. The innovation is, therefore, likely to succeed. Furthermore, it is a common believe that women are impulse buyers; profits are likely to increase since they are the main users of the innovation. Nonetheless, the cosmetic industry is doing well in the business market (Restauri, 2014). Most women use

Technological and Economic Factors Affecting Business Environment Essay

Technological and Economic Factors Affecting Business Environment - Essay Example This paper will investigate the changing business environment of the travel industry over the last five years. It will further examine the technological and economic factors that affect the airline industry in UK. Technological Factor The first business in travel and tourism to embrace technological innovation is the airlines industry (Buhalis, 2004, p.1). Dale, et al. (2006, p.4) indicated in his book the early technology adopted by the air travel. Viewdata system was the first technology that connects â€Å"tour operators and travel agencies via terminals.† It grants travel agents to book flights based on the preferences of their customers. In the 1950s, they develop the Computer Reservation System (CRS) to make direct bookings via the system. With the development of Global Distribution System (GDS), travel agents across the globe can access the available flight and seats for travellers. The timeline of technological innovation of the airline industry shows of their early im provements. Therefore, by the year 2005, the airline industry has developed its own booking system to gain competitive advantage. Capoccitti, et al. (2010) indicate the operations improvement of the airline industry by using technology in managing the CO2 emission. The concern of stakeholders, which affects UK travellers, is on reducing the gases that harm the earth’s atmosphere. ... Currently, the travellers can utilise their mobile phone to check-in via the internet, which adds customers’ experience (Boyle, 2011). Hence, innovation and technological advancement are critical to the viability of the airline industry in the new global business environment. Impact of Technology The development of technology increases the competition among the airlines industry because it changes the processing method, the information dissemination, and communication process. With the evolution of technology, the business environment is rapidly changing, which tightens competition. According to Khosrowpour (2003, p.237), airline companies compete with travel agents to obtain a high market share because they refer other airline companies with available flight to customers. Furthermore, Doganis (2006, p.197) states that information technology aids companies in their distribution system and revenue management. The effective forecasting method of most companies is due to the impr ovement of technology, which allows them to predict sales based on the available seats. Hence, it stimulates other companies to adopt technology because it benefits both customers and companies. Moreover, the demand of customers changes. They want fast and accessible service, which motivates companies to improve services. Aside from accessibility, technology is essential for companies that cut cost or expenses. Economic Factor According to the Civil Aviation Authority (2008, pp.1-6), the decline of the traffic growth in UK commenced in the year 2005. This was affected by the 2001 bombings in the United States that instilled fear for most travellers. The security was stabilised to guarantee the safety of leisure and business travellers. Furthermore,

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Individual innovation appraisal- Concise written description of an Essay

Individual innovation appraisal- Concise written description of an innovation- proposal and evaluation - Essay Example For the innovation to existing in the market, availability of capital and implementation of sustainable market strategies will play a great role. Through proper planning, goal-setting a decision-making, the innovation will go through thorough market testing. After its viability is established, it will be released into the market. Another aspect that has contributed to its existence is availability of resources including human and financial resources. Without resources, it is impossible to get through with any innovation. Over the years, 3D has acquired popularity with more people being attracted to this kind of technology. The situation has forced entrepreneurs to develop new business models. In recent times, most companies are raising capital towards tapping the growing demand and market for 3D (Taylor, 2014). The aim maintaining relevance drives them. The Mink is triggered by the level of profitability expected. The Mink is likely to be successful mainly because of the much hype it has received from the general population. People are always attracted by unique and new ways of doing things. People also like to experiment even with things that they do not necessarily need. Marketing strategies that have been adopted to market The Mink will also ensure this success. Through advertising, the innovation is receiving popularity with more people embracing the idea every day. It is evident that advertising influences the success of a business to a great extent. Through various exhibitions, awareness has been created regarding The Mink. Social media has also played a role in enhancing the popularity. The innovation is, therefore, likely to succeed. Furthermore, it is a common believe that women are impulse buyers; profits are likely to increase since they are the main users of the innovation. Nonetheless, the cosmetic industry is doing well in the business market (Restauri, 2014). Most women use

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Save the Tiger Essay Example for Free

Save the Tiger Essay This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009) Save the Tiger is a 1973 film about moral conflict in contemporary America. It stars Jack Lemmon, Jack Gilford, Laurie Heineman, Thayer David, Lara Parker and Liv Lindeland. The film was directed by John G. Avildsen. The screenplay was adapted by Steve Shagan from his novel of the same title (the first book by the author of The Formula and other thrillers, and generally regarded to be his most successful novel by literary standards). Lemmon won an Academy Award for his role as Harry Stoner, an executive at a Los Angeles apparel company on the edge of ruin. Throughout the film, Stoner struggles with the complexity of modern life versus the simplicity of his youth. He longs for the days when pitchers wound up, jazz filled the air, and the flag was more than a pattern to put on a pants pocket. He wrestles with the guilt of surviving the war and yet losing touch with the ideals for which his friends died. To Harry Stoner, the world has given up on integrity, and threatens to destroy anyone who clings to it. He is caught between watching everything he has worked for evaporate, or becoming another grain of sand in the erosion of the values he once held so dear. Plot A bleak story that depicts an outwardly successful man questioning the value of the material prosperity he is desperately trying to maintain, it follows the uncertain path of Harry Stoner, the real tiger (Jack Lemmon), an executive at an apparel company close to ruin. With no legal way to keep the company from going under, Stoner considers torching his warehouse for the insurance settlement. Meanwhile, he drinks, laments the state of the world, and tries his best to keep the business rolling as usual. This last task is complicated when a client has a heart attack in the arms of a prostitute provided by Stoner. With nerves still shaky, Stoner takes the stage at the premiere of his companys new line, only to be overcome by war memories. He ends the day spontaneously deciding to go home with a young, free-spirited hitchhiker, whose ignorance of his generation underscores his isolation from the world around him. At the end of the film, Stoner agrees to the warehouse getting torched and then walks by a Little League game and attempts to act as pitcher to the children. One child shouts out, You cant play with us, Mister! , leaving Stoner yet again isolated from another part of society. Production and reception The movie was written by Steve Shagan and directed by John G. Avildsen. Lemmon was determined to make the movie, despite its limited commercial prospects, and so he waived his usual salary and worked for scale. The movie was filmed in sequence after three weeks of rehearsal in Los Angeles. There is also a novel version of Save the Tiger, by Shagan: the title comes from a campaign to save tigers from extinction to which Stoner contributes. The movie failed financially at the box office, but critics and viewers who saw it liked the Oscar-winning performance of Jack Lemmon as Stoner. Why should we save tigers? At the turn of the 20th century, according to estimates, India probably had many thousand tigers in the wild. In 2002, based on a census using the pug mark technique, this number was 3,642. As per the monitoring exercise by Wildlife Institute of India in association with National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), Government of India, using camera traps, in 2008 we were left with only 1,411 tigers. This number is so small that they will be gone soon if we don’t wake up to the crisis. The tiger is not just a charismatic species or just another wild animal living in some far away forest. The tiger is a unique animal which plays a pivotal role in the health and diversity of an ecosystem. It is a top predator which is at the apex of the food chain and keeps the population of wild ungulates in check, thereby maintaining the balance between prey herbivores and the vegetation upon which they feed. Therefore, the presence of tigers in the forest is an indicator of the well being of the ecosystem. The extinction of this top predator is an indication that its ecosystem is not sufficiently protected, and neither would it exist for long thereafter. If the tigers go extinct, the entire system would collapse. For e. . when the Dodos went extinct in Mauritius, one species of Acacia tree stopped regenerating completely. So when a species goes extinct, it leaves behind a scar, which affects the entire ecosystem. Another reason why we need to save the tiger is that our forests are water catchment areas. Therefore, it’s not just about saving a beautiful animal. It is about making sure that we live a little longer as the forests are known to provide ecological services like cl ean air, water, pollination, temperature regulation etc.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Fully Homomorphic Encryption and cryptography

Fully Homomorphic Encryption and cryptography Introduction Transferring files between machines (and users) is a common daily occurrence although the confidentiality of the data is a basic condition. Now problem was how to secure them from inadvertent addressee from observing the data, which are supposed to confidential and likely on risk if prepared well-known to negligent parties. In each of these cases, its important to know what options are available to get your file from point A to point B and to comprehend whether the technique you choose provides sufficient security given the sensitivity of the data being transferred. Cryptography is ability of secret text, or more precisely of stock up resource (for a long or shorter period of time) in a shape which allows it to be revealed to those you wish to see it yet hides it from all others. A cryptosystem is a technique to accomplish this. Cryptanalysis is to put into practice to overcome such endeavors to hide information. Cryptology comprises of both cryptography and cryptanalysis. The unique information to be hidden is called plaintext. The concealed information is called ciphertext. Encryption or Decryption is any modus operandi to convert plaintext into ciphertext. A cryptosystem is designed so that decryption can be consummated only under certain conditions, which usually means simply by persons in control of both a decryption engine (these days, generally a computer program) and a meticulous piece in sequence, called the decryption key, which is supplied to the decryption engine in the course of decryption. Plaintext is transformed into ciphertext by process of an encryption engine (again, generally a computer program) whose operation is fixed and determinate (the encryption method) nevertheless which functions in practice in a way dependent on a piece of information (the encryption key) which has a major effect on the output of the encryption process. The main purpose was to make sure privacy while you transferring your private data from one place to another place do not matter electronically or via users. There were many scheme but very complicated to follow them and most important less security. So time by time many scientists discover different techniques but Gentrys technique â€Å"Fully Homomorphic Encryption† got a tremendous value against all technique. All others techniques were performing well but with restriction but Gentrys scheme user can perform unlimited action. Objective Cloud computing Literature review â€Å"Homomorphic encryption is a paradigm that refers to the ability, given encryptions of some messages, to generate an encryption of a value that is related to the original messages. Speciï ¬ cally, this ability means that from encryptions of k messages (m1,†¦,mk), it is possible to generate an encryption of m* = f(m1,†¦,mk) for some (efficiently computable) function f. Ideally, one may want the homomorphically generated encryption of m* to be distributed identically (or statistically close) to a standard encryption of m*. We call schemes that have this property strongly homomorphic. Indeed, some proposed encryption schemes are strongly homomorphic w. r. t some algebraic operations such as addition or multiplication.† (Rothblum R, 2010). â€Å"An encryption method is presented with the novel property that publicly revealing an encryption key does not thereby reveal the corresponding decryption key. This has two important consequences: 1. Couriers or other secure means are not needed to transmit keys, since a message can be enciphered using an encryption key publicly revealed by the intended recipient. Only he can decipher the message, since only he knows the corresponding decryption key. 2. A message can be â€Å"signed† using a privately held decryption key. Anyone can verify this signature using the corresponding publicly revealed encryption key. Signatures cannot be forged, and a signer cannot later deny the validity of his signature. This has obvious applications in â€Å"electronic mail† and â€Å"electronic funds transfer† systems.† (Rivest et al, 1978) â€Å"Homomorphic encryption enables â€Å"computing with encrypted data† and is hence a useful tool for secure protocols. Current homomorphic public key systems have limited homomorphic properties: given two ciphertexts Encrypt (PK, x) and Encrypt (PK, y), anyone can compute either the sum Encrypt (PK, x+y), or the product Encrypt (PK, xy), but not both.† (Boneh et al, 2006) ARMONK, N.Y 25 Jun 2009: â€Å"An IBMResearcher has solved a thorny mathematical problem that has confounded scientists since the invention of public-key encryption several decades ago. The breakthrough, called privacy homomorphism, or fully homomorphic encryption, makes possible the deep and unlimited analysis of encrypted information data that has been intentionally scrambled without sacrificing confidentiality.† (IBM, 2009) â€Å"We propose the first fully homomorphic encryption scheme, solving a central open problem in cryptography. Such a scheme allows one to compute arbitrary functions over encrypted data without the decryption key i.e., given encryptions E(m1) ,†¦,E(mt) of m1,†¦.,mtone can efficiently compute a compact ciphertext that encrypts f(m1,†¦.,mt) for any efficiently computable function Æ’. This problem was posed by Rivest et al. in 1978.† (Gentry C, 2009) â€Å"Searching databases is usually done in the clear. And even if the query is encrypted, it has to be decrypted (revealing its contents) before it can be used by a search engine. Whats worse is that databases themselves are stored as plaintext, available to anyone gaining access. The smarter way to handle sensitive information would be to encrypt the queries, encrypt the database and search it in its encrypted form. Impossible until now, IBMs T.J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights, N.Y.) recently described a homomorphic encryption scheme that allows encrypted data to be searched, sorted and processed without decrypting it. Fully homomorphic encryption schemes theoretically allow ciphertext to be manipulated as easily as plaintext, making it perfect for modern cloud computing, where your data is located remotely.† (Johnson R C, 2009) Body History of Cryptography In earliest era communications or correspondence among recipient and correspondent were only possible through extremely safe and sound way like loyal pigeon, physically or any other source but must be trusted. That was a time when it was very tough to believe or trust on available sources. There was a little doubt and big risk for the sender was if transporter discloses the information then any one can harm them. Progressively a newly ideas came with world called Cryptography/Encryption† means this is a technique in which the sender encrypts the communication using proper key and its only possible for receiver to decrypt it if he possessed the key. Key based Encryption. In key based encryption keys are the most important part of creating new ciphertext. A sequence of small piece used generally in cryptography, letting people to encrypt/decrypt facts and the same key can be used to carry out additional mathematical business as well. Specified a secret message, a key established the connection with the sequence to the ciphertext. The key we use for a special cryptosystem has worth so whenever this key used to ciphertext, always lets the encrypted communication to be decrypted and always doing reverse like encrypt the plaintext. In ancient era because calculation was very hard so they prefer to use not lengthy keys in respect of bits but on the other hand its safe to use longer key. Communications also one can encrypt in n-bit blocks. It is true that the longer a key is, more difficult for one to break the encrypted message. Encryptions consist of two categories. Private Key or Symmetric Key Encryption Public Key or Asymmetric Key Encryption Private Key / Symmetric Key Encryption This was thousands of years ago when Julian Caesar used this scheme to send his communication to his military. He used very simple key based classic cryptographic algorithm in which he just shifted each letter with preplanned key number 4. In his algorithm key varies so thats why we cannot guess what number he will use next. Lets take said number 4 which means â€Å"A† will swap with â€Å"D† and â€Å"B† will swap with â€Å"G† and so on â€Å"X† will swap with â€Å"A† etc. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABC The same letter changing technique was useful to small case correspondence and also covering around the letters as well. (S. Tewksbury). Cryptography history is very old so we can divide it in to two categories. Classic era Cryptography Computer era Cryptography In classic era there was no computer or any electronic machine to solve this problem so people were used pen and paper to unreveal the truth of letters. Julian Caesar technique is classic era practice. Until WWII all cryptography techniques are none as classic era cryptography. After WWII development of machine made cryptography life very complex and that time was very easy to break all classic time encryptions mostly called key based techniques. Key word was very important in these practices and because of the key it was very easy to break through encryption algorithm. ROT13 is the best practice of encryption algorithm which we know its famous name Caesar cipher and this is extension of Julian Caesar scheme. The most useful technique was ROT13 in which they used fix key 13 to encrypt the letters. This algorithm was very famous in the beginning of computer era and anyone wants to use ROT13 scheme, both side parties must use the same key to encrypt and decrypt the code. This key calle d secret key. The development of the machine set a stander in respect of key codes and then everyone prepared a code book to share as a key code book. For example in ROT13 simply they rotate the letters by 13 places. Application of this scheme is very easy like Julius Caesar technique where he swapped letters with fix key 4 and now in ROT13 with key 13 and wrapping around like â€Å"a† become â€Å"n† and â€Å"m† become â€Å"z† and wrapping continue if necessary but the problem was user can play only English alphabet. The beauty of this technique was it made its function its own inverse like for any text x we can write its function mathematically inverse of ROT13(x) or ROT13 (ROT13(x)) where x is belong to a character which one wants to encrypt. This characteristic furthermore called an involution in arithmetic and a give-and-take code in cryptography. This scheme work as below ABCDEFGHIJKLM ↔ abcdefghijklm NOPQRSTUVWXYZ ↔ nopqrstuvwxyz In this scheme problem was again if someone steel or rob your data then it is very easy to decode it. This is not reasonable cryptographic proposal even though its known as secret key cryptosystem. If we observe closely the ROT13 is partially homomorphic particularly with respect to the concatenation function because it has a reciprocal property. Lets write a function to prove its homomorphic property using secret key 13, in this function we encrypt the text using said algorithm and we will add the encrypted text to see its homomorphic property and then finally decrypt the result. Java ROT13 Code. import java.util.*; public class ROT13 { static int x,y,n,fx,l,m; public static void main(String[] args) { Scanner sc=new Scanner(System.in); System.out.println(Enter your text); String t = sc.nextLine(); int j=0; int key=13; for (int i=0; i { char ch3 = t.charAt(j); if (ch3 >= a ch3 else if (ch3 >= n ch3 else if (ch3 >= A ch3 else if (ch3 >= A ch3 System.out.print(ch3); j++; }}} OUTPUT Enter your text HelloWorld UryybJbeyq The above algorithm is very uncomplicated algorithm to illustrate how ROT13 scheme works and in above output â€Å"Uryyb Jbeyq† is encrypted cipher formed with above algorithm. To check its homomorphic property now anyone can break this cipher text and then apply a concatenation (addition operator) to this text. After getting a new text anyone can apply ROT13 algorithm to decode it to see if he/she is getting the original text. import java.util.*; public class ROT13 { static int x,y,n,fx,l,m; public static void main(String[] args) { Scanner sc=new Scanner(System.in); System.out.println(Enter yout text); String t = sc.nextLine(); int j=0; int key=13; for (int i=0; i { char ch3 = t.charAt(j); if (ch3 >= a ch3 else if (ch3 >= n ch3 else if (ch3 >= A ch3 else if (ch3 >= A ch3 System.out.print(ch3); j++; } System.out.println(); System.out.println(Enter yout 2nd text); String t1 = sc.nextLine(); int j1=0; int key1=13; for (int i1=0; i1 { char ch3 = t1.charAt(j1); if (ch3 >= a ch3 else if (ch3 >= n ch3 else if (ch3 >= A ch3 else if (ch3 >= A ch3 System.out.print(ch3); j1++; } System.out.println(); System.out.println(Enter the 1st encrypted result=); String a=sc.nextLine(); System.out.println(); System.out.println(Enter the 2st encrypted result=); String a1=sc.nextLine(); String con = a+a1; System.out.print(con); System.out.println(); int j2=0; int key2=13; for (int i2=0; i2 { char ch3 = con.charAt(j2); if (ch3 >= a ch3 else if (ch3 >= n ch3 else if (ch3 >= A ch3 else if (ch3 >= A ch3 System.out.print(ch3); j2++; }}} OUTPUT Enter the 1st encrypted result=Uryyb Enter the 2st encrypted result=Jbeyq UryybJbeyq HelloWorld Explanation of Output Text a = Encrypt (13, Hello); a = Uryyb Text b = Encrypt (13, World); b = Jbeyq Text c = Concat (a,b); c = UryybJbeyq Text d = Decrypt(13, c); d = HelloWorld As we can see clearly that we used an addition (concat) property to encrypt the text but after this we got the same result as we got without using concat. This property demonstrates that ROT13 is partially homomorphic scheme with respect of addition. The problem start with this technique when machine came in to being and it was easy to break secret code and even drawback of this scheme was numbers because user only were to able to encrypt alphabetic. Then gradually, ROT47 new scheme introduced and this scheme was derived from ROT13 as-well. Inside this scheme there was a big border for its users so now they were able to play with numbers and special characters. ROT47 exercise a larger alphabet, resulting from a regularcharacter programmingwell-known asAmerican Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII). The ASCII is a 7-bit code to correspond to English alphabet structure and these codes are in practice to symbolize data which includes numbers used in central processing unit, interactions technology and additional associated mechanism. The first publication of this standard code was in 1967 then afterward restructured and produced as â€Å"ANSI X3.4-1968†, at that time as â€Å"ANSI X3.4-1977† and at last as â€Å"ANSI X3.4-1986†. It is given that, it is a seven-bit code and it preserves the largest part symbolizing 128 characters. It presently characterize 95 printable characters together with 26 upper-case letters (A to Z), 26 lower-case letters (a to z), 10 numbers (0 to 9) and 33 special characters as well as arithmetic signs, punctuation marks and space character. . (Maini A K, 2007) However ROT13 introduced with new values of its alphabets separately both capital and smaller. Unlike ROT13, ROT47 was also not able to protect your text at all. This scheme is also having homomorphic property like addition. If closely observe the both scheme then we will be able to see that there is only little difference in both schemes. Both working pattern is same, both dealing with alphabets but ROT47 got advantage because this scheme deal with numbers and individual characters. In this method ASCII cipher connect to trade letters or numbers during encryption/decryption. Knowledge of ASCII codes to one lead to revel the facts. So here this scheme becomes the same like ROT13, so failure of this scheme once again involvement of the secret key. Is Symmetric Key Encryption Secure? ROT13 encryption scheme is not secured at all because the code of this scheme you can decode very easy. This was the disadvantage of this scheme. The reason we encrypt our transcript is to make it protected from illegitimate access however this scheme only consist of 26 characters which is very simple to decipher even from side to side a common person who have an access to the written text. For example: Anyone wishes to encrypt â€Å"atotaa†, after that the cipher we will achieve â€Å"ngbgnn† which is very effortless to work out through repetition of â€Å"a g†. ROT47 was novel encryption scheme derived from ROT13and also another example of symmetric key encryption but bit difficult. In ROT47 moving the basic letter swiftly like ROT13 with given substitute of ASCII. In this scheme one can take care of numbers and many other special characters as a substitute of the basic 26 letters however awareness of ASCII codes can show the way to one to search out the facts. Consequently, at this point this scheme turn into insecure category like ROT13, so failure of this scheme was once again its own typical contribution of the ASCII codes. Public Key or Asymmetric Key Encryption An important contribution in the peak field that time named â€Å"public-key cryptography† fulfilled by Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman and Ralph Merkle in 1976 when they introduce an elegant cryptosystem for a public-key. The major difference as compare to prior scheme was one extra key named as public key. The public key assume to be used for encryption and then private key will use to decryption. Cryptography has been a derivative security entirety once a secure channel exists along which keys can be transmitted, the security can be extended to other channels of higher bandwidth or smaller delay by encrypting the messages sent on them. The effect has been to limit the use of cryptography to communications among people who have made prior preparation for cryptographic security. (W Diffie and M Hellman, 1976) ABOVE NOT COMPLETE YET RSA respected the idea of Diffie et al and in 1978 they introduced first public key algorithm in public at MIT byRon Rivest,Adi Shamir, andLeonard Adleman. They illustrate what is predetermined by a trapdoor cipher, but how do you construct one? One usually used of the secret message of this type is called RSA encryption, wherever RSA are the initials of three initiators which are Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman. It is based on the idea below; it is simply multiply numbers together, particularly with the help of computers reason, factorization of this numbers could be difficult. To get them, one needs to factor N, which seems to be an extremely complex problem. But exactly how is N used to encode a message, and how are p and q used to decode it? Below is presented a complete example, although there will be used minute prime numbers so it is easy to follow the arithmetic. Actually in RSA encryption scheme they used very big prime numbers. As per them it makes scheme more secure because in their algorithm they need to factorize the number to get the result. If someone using small number then its easy to factorize the number but it is not the same with big number. Therefore, they in their algorithm they used key size 768-bit for ordinary use and they suggest 1024-bit key size for commercial use but for highly important information key size should be double (2048-bit) as compare to business key size just for mind satisfaction regarding security threat. RSA advised to one and all concerning their scheme that how scheme work to get own encryption and decryption key if any want using their method. First step decide two separate prime numbers like p, q. Later than multiply integers pq and make n = pq public. Exposing n in public will help one to hide original integers like q q and now it will be very difficult for illegitimate person to find original integers p q because factorization will be very hard for big prime numbers. This achievement will help to hide the value of multiplicative inverse d and the way derived from co-prime e. Choosing big integer d but d must comparatively prime with φ((p-1).(q-1)) and must fulfill the condition of greater common devisor gcd (d, (p-1)(q-1)). Finally one can compute the integer e â€Å"1 Mathematically Implementation of RSA algorithm RSA algorithm steps below Two prime integers p=61 and q=53 Multiply both prime integers n = pq = 61.53=3233. The value of n afterward used as modulus for public and private key. Calculate φ(n) = (p-1).(q-1) = 3120. Where φ is Eulers totient function. For the value of e = 17 select any integer from 1 One can conclude d = e-1 mod φ(n). The value of d = 2753 will be using in private key exponent so supervision of this key is essential. Extended Euclidean algorithm helps to determine the d. Thepublic keywill be (n= 3233,e= 17) and for text m the encryption function is m17 mod φ(n). Theprivate keyis (n= 3233,d= 2753) and for the encrypted text c decryption function will be cd mod φ(n). For example: Encryptm= 65, we compute c= 6517(mod 3233) = 2790. For decryptc= 2790, we calculate m= 27902753(mod 3233) = 65. Using the above boring however easy for a computer to calculate, One can decode others message and obtain the original message m = 65. Java Code for RSA Algorithm: public class RSACode { static long x,y,n,fx,l,m; static int p,q,e,tn; public static void main(String[] args) { Scanner sc=new Scanner(System.in); System.out.println(Please enter ist prime no P); p =sc.nextInt(); System.out.println(Please enter 2nd prime no q); q =sc.nextInt(); n=p*q; System.out.println(p*q = n +n); //Totient of n tn=(p-1)*(q-1); System.out.println(Totation of tn(pq) = +tn); int k=tn; for (int i=1; i { int fi= (int)(Math.pow(2, i)+1); l=fi; while (tn % fi !=0) { int r = (tn % fi); tn = fi; fi = r; } if (fi==1) System.out.println(GCD Of+[+k+,+l+] is+fi+Recommended for you); } System.out.println(So please use +l+ as e); System.out.println(Enter number to exponent e); e=sc.nextInt(); for (int d=1;d if ((e*d)%k==1) System.out.println(The value of e^-1 mod n= d ==+d); System.out.println(Enter the above valu of d); int d1=sc.nextInt(); System.out.println(Enter number to encrypt); m=sc.nextInt(); //encryption function is c = (m ^ e)/n; double encryption = (Math.pow(m, e)% n); System.out.println(encryption Key =+ encryption); System.out.println(The value of d= e^-1 mod n ==+d1); double decrypt = (Math.pow(encryption, d1) % n); System.out.println(encryption +to decryption is = + decrypt); OUT PUT Please enter ist prime no P 5 Please enter 2nd prime no q 7 p*q = n 35 Totation of tn(pq) = 24 GCD Of[24,5] is1Recommended for you GCD Of[24,9] is1Recommended for you So please use 9 as e Enter number to exponent e 5 The value of e-1 mod n= d ==5 Enter the above value of d 5 Enter number to encrypt 9 encryption Key =4.0 The value of d= e-1 mod n ==5 4.0to decryption is =9.0 The above java code works fine on small prime integers with small exponential power and small value of d (multiplicative inverse). OUT PUT Please enter ist prime no P 61 Please enter 2nd prime no q 53 p*q = n 3233 Totation of tn(pq) = 3120 GCD Of[3120,17] is1Recommended for you So please use 17 as e Enter number to exponent e 17 The value of e-1 mod n= d ==2753 Enter the above value of d 2753 Enter number to encrypt 65 encryption Key =887.0 The value of d= e-1 mod n ==2753 887.0to decryption is =NaN The same java code work perfect on big numbers but there you need different data types to adjust the output value the error NaN means data type mismatch. Practically Implementation An RSA operation whether encrypting, decrypting, signing, or verifying is fundamentally a modular exponentiation. This computation is executed with a sequence of modular multiplications. In practical uses, it is general to select a small public exponent for the public key. In reality, entire group of users preserve to use the matching public exponent, every one through a different modulus. However there are few boundaries on the prime factors of the modulus when the public exponent is set. For the reason of this it creates encryption more rapidly than decryption and verification quicker than signing. Through the typical modular power algorithms used to put into practice the RSA algorithm, public-key operations takeO(k2) steps, private-key operations take O(k3) steps, and key generation takesO(k4) steps, wherekis the number of bits in the modulus. (RSA 2010) Is RSA Work Secure? This scheme is not fully secure on the basses of following attacks Elementary attack Low private exponent attack Low private exponent attack Implementation attack Boneh et al Homomorphic Encryption (Boneh D, 1999) examined the RSA cryptosystem, was original exposed in the 1977-1978 topic of â€Å"Scientific American†. The cryptosystem is mainly generally in practice for offering confidentiality and certification validity of digital data. In those days RSA was positioned in many big business organizations. It is used by web servers and browsers to safe web transfer, it is used to make sure confidentiality and legitimacy of correspondence, it is used to safe remote login phase, and it is at the heart of electronic credit-card payment method. However, RSA is commonly take part in meanings anywhere safety of digital data is on risk. In view of the fact of first publication, the RSA scheme evaluates meant for weakness through a lot of examiners. However since 1977 to 1999, examiner have direct to a many interesting attacks but not any of them is critical. They typically demonstrate the risk of offensive use of RSA. Definitely, protected execution of RSA is a nontrivial job. Twenty years of research into inverting the RSA service created various perceptive attacks, other than no shocking attack has ever been discovered. The attacks exposed so far mostly demonstrate the drawbacks which one can avoid once applying RSA. Currently comes into view that correct applications can offer assurance to afford protection in the electronic globe. Openattacks on RSA scheme: Chosen chipper attack is very famous in cryptography in it attacker gathered information in pieces and then process it. This attack claimed against RSA in 1998 by Y. Desmedt and A. M. Odlyzko. According to RSA choose two prime numbers to calculate n then use φ(n) for modulus in encryption and decryption but if any enemy used brute force attack on their public key (N, e) to find the factorization and as well as their φ(n). On the other hand if we assume that only big prime number only allowed in RSA then it will affect the speed of the scheme because performance depend on n-bit key. While encrypting with not big encryption supporter e= 3 and small values of them like m Another attack was if sender send a plain clear message to e or more beneficiary after encrypted and the recipients distribute the similar exponente, except differentintegers p,q, andn, in that case it is simple to decode the plaintext using theChinese remainder theorem.Hà ¥stadJ become aware of that, this attack is achievable still if the plaintexts are not identical, however the attacker recognize a linear relation among them.Afterward Don Coppersmith enhanced this attack which was low exponent. RSA has the property that the multiplication of two encrypted text is the same to the encryption of the product of the individual plaintexts. That isâ€Å"† since of this multiplicative property achosen ciphertext attackis possible. For example an attacker, who needs to identify the decryption of a ciphertextc=me(modn)possibly will request the owner of the private key to decrypt an innocent appearing ciphertextc =re c (modn)for random rselected by the attacker. For the reason that of the multipli

Sunday, October 13, 2019

Declaring the Rights of Men and Women in the French Revolution Essay

The French Revolution was a dark time in the history of man. From corruption in government to the almost certainty of starvation for the French peasants, there seemed to be no sign of better times. These were just a few of the logs in the ever-growing revolutionary fire that was burning in the late 1700's. There were many causes to the French Revolution ranging from: poor distribution of power and wealth, a bad harvest which left no grain for bread, a manufacturing depression, and the king's financial problems (which caused overtaxation for the entire population with the exception of the high clergy and nobility). When the estates general was called for the first time in one hundred years, it seemed that the Enlightenment had finally reached France and it seemed that things were going to get better. But as the third estate general would soon find out, this was merely a trick by the the king and other estates general to bring more taxation to the lower and middle classes. When the third estate found out about this plot, they proposed a change in the voting rules which not only didn't pass, but got them locked out of the hearings. But, on July 17, 1789, the third estate founded the National Assembly which later brought upon the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This declaration affirmed the "natural and impre- scriptible rights of man" to "liberty, property, security, and ...

Saturday, October 12, 2019

chemical waste :: essays research papers

Clean Up Of Chemical Waste Chemical spills are major problems that haunt the environment. Strict government regulation are trying help this problem, but governmental leaders face many challenges. Disposal of harmful chemicals is often difficult and costly. Since chemical waste has destroyed the environment, steps are being taken to prevent further pollution, Like the Yucca mountain project. A local based pharmaceutical company named Novo Nordisk released its 1999 environmental report. The company, which strives to keep from contaminating the environment, confessed to two separate accidents for the year. A North Carolina plant was fined from the United States Department of Agriculture 1,000 dollars. Due to the fact that hydrochloric acid was disposed of in the public sewage system. New management has taken action to insure this does not happen again. Also at the Gentofte site in Denmark wastewater with the E- Coli bacteria was drained into the public sewage system from a leaky heater exchanger. The incident was reported to the local authorities and cleaned up quickly. A local company offered to donate expired chemicals to local schools. The chemicals have expired to which they can be used in schools for experiments and related activities. The companies prefer to donate the chemicals because it keeps them from the costly action of disposing of them properly. For example Novo Nordisk in Clayton, North Carolina has a program in which they donate hydrochloric acid and other expired chemicals to Clayton High School. A chemistry teacher at North Johnston High School was unaware that companies could donate their expired chemicals. Her comment of the quality of the expired chemicals was positive. "Expired chemicals would be fine to use for experiments and help me out a lot due to the small budget I am allowed each year for chemicals". A representative from Novo Nordisk stated that a program could easily be established if schools would show interest in the program. Certain disasters stick out in the minds of many people . Chernobyl was a nuclear plant in Ukraine that ended up being the worst nuclear leak in history. The media reported that, "On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl’s number four reactor exploded, spewing a cloud of radioactive material across a portion of Europe in the world's worst civilian nuclear reactor disaster". Officials estimate that about thirty people were killed immediately and more than fifteen thousand people died in the emergency clean up afterwards.

Friday, October 11, 2019

Laura Robertsons: “Girl Unprotected” Essay

Personal fulfillment is not a genetic attribute; it is evolved individually over time, and changes in time it takes to achieve. Personal fulfillment is not deteriorated by lack of action, therefore it is subject to change, it may increase or decrease in a person’s life. A individual can acquire personal fulfillment through family, friends, exposure and environment. The Rez Sisters is a play written by Tomson Highway. Readers are introduced to seven extravagant characters, all of whom are residents of Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve, in Manitoba Island, Ontario. These seven characters are sisters, half ­sisters, a sister ­in ­law and an adopted niece, known all together as the Rez sisters. Each one of these women are on their own journey to self ­fulfillment, wanting to acquire confidence, peace of mind and simply, to be satisfied with their life. The women raise money to fund a trip to The Biggest Bingo in the World, where they could potentially win the jackpot and fulfill their most desired wishes. In the preparation and on the journey, the women reveal their stories and their relationships with each other. In the play The Rez Sisters, Tomson Highway uses Bingo to symbolize the risks and gambles that life possesses, Pelajia’s hammer to symbolize the ability to create, build and even reshape destiny, and the color black which signifies strength and empowerment in order to depict the essentials an individual must have in order to acquire personal fulfillment  ­Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ­ whatever it may be. First, when readers are introduced to Pelajia Patchnose she is dressed in men’s attire and â€Å"is alone on the roof of her house, nailing shingles on† (1113). It symbolizes a woman who is not bound by culturally defined gender roles, is independent and therefore strong. From this initial introduction to the moment when the seven women are in an argument, Pelajia’s hammer almost seems as if it never leaves her side; the mental and emotional strength she possesses never truly diminishes but only gets stronger. Pelajia uses her hammer on other occasions as well; when all seven of the women get into an argument â€Å"she raises her hammer at veronique† (1132), with the intention to scare her and obtain dominance through fear. Some may view the hammer as a weapon and/or a symbol of defense such as Thor’s hammer. In Germanic mythology Thor’s Hammer is called ‘Mjollnir’, meaning ‘crusher’(Davidson Ellis, 1965), unlike the symbol depicted in The Rez Sisters, Thor’s hammer symbolizes a weapon used to kill. In many myths, â€Å"Thor sometimes uses the hammer as a blunt instrument, to shatter the skulls of his opponents†(Dav idson, Ellis. 1965). A hammer is seen as a tool used to construct and reshape. This is evident when Pelajia physically uses her hammer in the opening scene to rebuild her home. A hammer also represents the ability to change, Pelajia was not only able to change the physical state of her home, but has the ability to change any aspect of her life and manipulate it in order to fulfill her personal desires. In her words: the â€Å"trusty silver hammer† (1114) is her source of strength, the strength an individual needs to overcome obstacles and barriers in order to conquer life and their own destiny in a way that leads to the best results. The symbolism amplifies the theme of the passage because an individual must be tough like the iron end of a hammer, have the ability to mold themselves to changing circumstances and acquire an intense drive and commitment to get through challenging times if they want to fulfill their personal aspirations. Next, when the topic of The Biggest Bingo in the World is brought up, readers learn   what a big deal the bingo was to Wasy women, it symbolizes the tempting gambles life has to offer. No individual can truthfully say they have had enough willpower to overcome the wrath of temptation. It is like a bad cold; everyone attempts to avoid it as much as possible, but at some point, it gets the best of everyone, including the Wasy women. Each woman had her own desires but they all shared a collective journey towards them. In order to attend The Biggest Bingo in the World the women had to overcome an obstacle which was to raise enough money to travel to Toronto where it was being held. On the journey to self ­fulfilment a person is bound to face obstacles, it is up to the individual if they want to let that hurdle stop them, or gain the inner strength to overcome it. The Wasy women chose the latter; â€Å"the women start[ed] their funding activities with a vengeance†(1143) raising a total of at least â€Å"$1,400†(1143) which was a large sum of money especially on the Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve, since there were â€Å"no jobs† (1115). The women had to ask themselves another tough question; Considering the possibility of returning home empty handed, was risking this much money to win The Biggest Bingo in the World worth it? By using bingo as a symbol, Highway suggests that in order to accomplish personal fulfillment you need to take chances in life even if they may seem risky at first. Taking risks empowers you to establish new limits in your mind. As Stacia Pierce, a columnist from the Huffington Post states â€Å"we all have boundaries or a comfort zone where we [would] like to stay and many have misconstrued visions of what we think we deserve or are capable of accomplishing†(Huffington Post, 2013). When you take risks, you can basically destroy such a mindset and continue to establish new boundaries, improve your perspective on life   and your ability to achieve on high levels. Finally, throughout the play there are numerous reoccurances of the color black, it symbolizes the depths of the unknown and encourages the imagination of a different world from that of everyday realities. Tomson Highway uses this symbolism when he describes the transition of Nanabush from a Seagull to the Nighthawk. The Nighthawk is the dancer in dark feathers with â€Å"black wings†(1154) as Zhaboonigan describes. In Native American culture the color black was perceived as a â€Å"living† color and worn on the face to prepare for war (WarPaths2PeacePipes, 2014). Black is an extremely aggressive color. Black meant strength. It also indicated that the wearer was a powerful warrior who had proved himself in battle, therefore black was also used to symbolize victory and human life. By using the color black as a symbol, Highway shows readers that there is no boundary to the extent of personal fulfillment; the amount of things an individual can accomplish in their lifetime is endless. Highway utilizes three components: Bingo, Pelajia’s hammer and the color black to embody the necessities a person needs in order to be successful in achieving any form of personal fulfillment; A person needs to be able to take risks, have strength to construct their own destiny and to explore beyond their imaginations. All these qualities are binded together with one common aspect that is easily relatable: self ­confidence. Initially, once an individual builds self ­confidence they easily surpass their goal which then creates a type of   momentum, where they fulfill every single one of their desires to the point where they are not only satisfied with life, but truly happy with it as well.