Importance of Rhetorical Theory in Communication - 2092 Words

Importance of Rhetorical Theory in Communication â€Å"What do you think about Rhetorical theory? Do you think, it’s something essential for our speaking, something we can’t do without?† – that was the start of my writing this essay, the first question that aroused in my mind, when I started it. Why should I write about the thing I even can’t feel, touch or taste. Is it really so important? Before reading some works and watching some videos in the light of Rhetorical theory, I couldn’t find in my head the answer to this question. So... I started to ask parents, friends and nobody could give me a definite answer. As a result the start of my work was much more than pessimistic. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend your lectures on that subject, and†¦show more content†¦The audience or rather jury has to judge whether a past event was just or unjust, according or contrary to the law. In this species the right use of means of persuasion play a great role, I think. What I mean is tha t a lawyer should arrange and explain these past events in such a way, so that jury believes they’re just. So the level of knowing these means can sometimes turn a guilty person into an innocent one. And Hollywood provides us with a number of such examples. To my mind the best movies, where we can observe a brilliant usage of the Language are The Devil’s Advocate and Law Abiding Citizen. And lawyers sometimes use the third species of public speech that is epideictic. It praises or blames somebody; it tries to describe things or deeds of the respective person as honorable or shameful. While the deliberative and judicial species have their context in a controversial situation in which the listener has to decide in favor of one of two opposing parties, the third species does not aim at such a decision. Aristotle wrote his books centuries ago, but it’s still very up-to-date. The second theory was written in the 20th century. So it’s really very modern. Its author is language expert Kenneth Burke. Unlike Aristotle, whose means of persuasion were based only on verbal elements, Burke included nonverbal elements into his theory. Its main points are that any message in the language can be analyzed with the help of â€Å"DramatisticShow MoreRelatedEssentials Of Persuasion1248 Words   |  5 Pages Gerard A. Hauser covers a plethora of details on how to create a well-made persuasive argument in his book, an Introduction to Rhetorical Theory; however, he covered three specific essentials that are necessary for persuasion: the components logos, pathos and ethos; purposive discourse and rhetorical competence; identification. I will argue for each constituent, respectively, to prove that persuasion cannot thrive without the aforementioned essentials. The first essential of persuasion involvesRead MoreThe Pedagogical Theories For Teaching Writing And How Truth Can Be Achieved Through Different Perceptions943 Words   |  4 PagesIn this article, Berlin synthesizes four major pedagogical theories for teaching writing and how truth can be achieved through different perceptions. Neo-Aristolians (Classicists) use syllogistic reasoning to arrive at the truth because truth is logical and deductive. They see the audience as a force to be considered for shaping a message. In the classroom, truth is probabilistic and students need heuristics to discover the truth. Rhetoric allows the speaker to not only discover truth, but to convinceRead MoreRhetorical Analysis Of Abraham Lincoln s Second Inaugural Address1234 Words   |  5 PagesTiana Lanier Professor Lara Chapman Rhetorical Communication: A Theory of Civil Discourse July 7th, 2015 Rhetorical Discourse in Two Distinct Pieces of Work; Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address Emily Dickinson’s Success is Counted Sweetest Rhetoric is often denoted to as the art of persuasion. A set of linguistic traits and semantics used to evoke emotional responses from its intended audience, opening the floor for unanticipated influence by said audience. It would be an atrocity to ignoreRead MoreRhetorical Analysis : Rhetorical Rhetoric Essay1465 Words   |  6 Pagespiece of good writing requires close attention to a rhetorical situation, genre, and an audience. Writing occurs within a rhetorical situation and is made up of a speaker, a subject, an audience, and the context (genre). Each of these criteria builds on one another to make a piece of writing. The speaker or writer can choose what form of text or genre he/she wants the audience to get out of the context. Genre and the audience make up a rhetorical situation. The genre and audience both rely on eachRead MorePersuasive Synthesis Of Rhetorical Theory1482 Words   |  6 Pagesre-examined both my Persuasive Synthesis of Rhetorical Theory paper and cov er letter and resume, I’ve realized how many improvements I am capable of making on my own papers simply by reanalyzing them and making changes accordingly. Below, I will present my strengths and weaknesses, as well as revisit my ability to implement rhetorical theory into my writing. Persuasive Synthesis of Rhetorical Theory Upon re-reading my paper on the Persuasive Synthesis of Rhetorical Theory, I found that I had a knowledgeableRead MoreInterpersonal Relationships And Its Effects On The Family And Community822 Words   |  4 Pagespeople need them. In this quest, many theories, concepts, and axioms have been proposed to explain the complex notion of interpersonal relationships. This essay utilizes various theories and ideas to develop the ingredients of an effective interpersonal relationship. The theories will include the Symbolic Interaction, Expectancy Violations, Constructivism, Social Penetration, and Relational Dialectics Theory while the ideas will consist of non-verbal communication, self-concept, and trust and transparencyRead MoreWalter Fishers Narrative Paradigm Analysis727 Words   |  3 Pagesentice consumers. Walter Fisher created the narrative paradigm in 1984. Our book lists several communication theories under the heading of group and public communication; narrative paradigm is one of them. Fisher contends it is human nature to communicate using storytelling. Relating events in this manner helps us make decisions. Stories passed down from generation to generation teach the history and importance of culture or tradition. Stories allow people to relate to one another on a personal levelRead More Crisis Communications Essay1290 Words   |  6 PagesCrisis Communications Crisis communication is the most important aspect of external and internal organization communication. This type of communication ranges from image restoration campaigns to employee turnover. In the articles that I have analyzed, I discovered many examples of crisis communications and its importance. I will discuss the Bridgestone-Firestone Corporation’s image restoration campaign and explain Benoit’s theory of image restoration. Also, I will discuss how crisis communicationsRead MoreUniversal Language909 Words   |  4 Pagesparticipate learning of English and to acquire Communication Skills. But most of the rural people do not able to communicate freely during Campus Interviews. In order to face those problems, we need more practical training and we wants to study about Phonetics. SYNOPSIS: ââ€" ¡ Introduction ââ€" ¡ Language ââ€" ¡ Communication ââ€" ¡ Role of English ââ€" ¡ Technical English in Engineering ââ€" ¡ Key features ââ€" ¡ Course Objectives ââ€" ¡ Importance of technical English ââ€" ¡ Cons ââ€" ¡ NeedRead MoreFoundational Components of Traditional Rhetoric1919 Words   |  8 Pages As stated by Herrick, the beginning of the twentieth century looked bleak for rhetorical theory. During this time, logical positivism (i.e. the idea that scientific thinking would be able to solve all issues) had become rampant and became this sort of ideology (irrational or unexamined system of thinking) which led to rhetoric being deemed less important and inferior to the scientific method; however, as the twentieth century continued, science began to lose its hold by failing to provide solutions

Gypsies, the Work Ethic and Hungarian Socialism Free Essays

In his work Socialism; Ideals, Ideologies and Local Practice, Chris Hann includes the text in which Michael Steward analyses the Gypsy responses to Hungarian social policy providing the image of the sources of popular resistance to the massive experiment in social engineering undertaken by the socialist governments of the Soviet bloc. The text focuses on the twenty five years period in which the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party led a vigorous campaign to assimilate the near half-million Gypsy population into the Magyar working class by trying to eliminate all traces of Gypsy lifestyle and behavior. In the author’s view there was there was an important plank formed in the social policy of the Hungarian regime. We will write a custom essay sample on Gypsies, the Work Ethic and Hungarian Socialism or any similar topic only for you Order Now This happened due to several reasons: the largest minority in Hungary lived shocking poverty conditions, the state was looking to renew its socialist pledge by modernization under social equality and the economic, social and cultural distinctiveness of the Gypsies. The result of this campaign was not the one intended because Gypsies were in 1985 as prominent in the Hungarian society as they were in 1960. Moreover, the state had managed to create conditions in which, in popular imagination at least, being a Gypsy seemed the most viable way to survive the privations and humiliations of a planned economy. The campaign to assimilate Gypsies in socialist Hungary The campaign lasted from 1961 to 1985 and it began with the decision that Gypsies were neither an ethnic group nor a nation. Cultural factors did not play a significant role in the reproduction of Gypsies and the attempts to turn them into a nation had been misguided. Gypsy nationalists programs slowed down the process of assimilation and their self-organization and expression were to be discouraged. The author states the Gypsies were characterized by a way of life marked out behavioral traits such as scavenging, begging, hustling, dealing and laziness, all being products of their exclusion from the society and the economy of the past. Gypsies had been sustained by the feudal division of labour in which they had played an important role but lost their social importance as capitalist industrialization displayed their skills as redundant. The Hungarian social government thought in the early 1960s that â€Å"the Gypsy problem† could be solved once and for all. How to cite Gypsies, the Work Ethic and Hungarian Socialism, Papers

Federalism and the Supreme Court Essay Example For Students

Federalism and the Supreme Court Essay The powers delegated. . .to the federal government are few and defined. . . .The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. James Madison, The Federalist Papers #45 Since the establishment of judicial review in Marbury vs. Madison , the Supreme Court has been charged with the role of mediator. The Court arbitrates disputes between the individual and government, between the constitution and statuary law, and, within a constitutional framework, determines the allocation of power between states and the national government. The issue of federalism has occupied the Courts docket since its inception and continues to do so today. The Courts reaction to it has greatly altered over time as both the composition of the Court and the political mind-set of the country have shifted. The tenth amendment of the U.S. constitution reads: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This amendment is the looking glass through which the issue of federalism is most often viewed. In the early decisions of the Court, with the notable exception of Marbury vs. Madison , the Marshall Court ruled heavily in favor of an expansive view of the tenth amendment and granted the states as much latitude as possible within the framework of the new constitution. Many of the Marshall Courts decisions were regarded with contempt since they ran contrary to the Hamiltonian flow of public opinion. Like a child beginning kindergarten, the government was just starting out, just beginning to explore new areas. The states were accustomed to their independence and their individual constitutions. The imposition of a federal government, although not entirely unwelcome, was at best uncomfortable. The Marshall Court was forced to reconcile the desire for state autonomy with the need for federal government. Marshall himself demonstrated the embodiment of this conflict as he was required to balance his personal Hamiltonian belief in a strong national government with the degree of federalism he thought the states could abide. The Courts of the 19th century took a decidedly pro-active role when it came to securing the states tenth amendment rights. In an 1824 opinion, Justice Johnson voiced the courts position when he characterized federalism as being . . . destructive to the harmony of states. Throughout the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th century, the Court would maintain this new anti-federalist position, the development of which is commonly associated with the eruption of industry, the 1887 passage of the Interstate Commerce Clause, and the 1890 Sherman Anti-trust Act. The court spent the late half of the 19th century and the early half of the 20th delineating clear limits to congressional power as it concerned the Interstate Commerce Clause. The court ruled that the Congress could regulate use of interstate channels, regulate and protect interstate commerce, and regulate the activities that substantially effect interstate commerce. This ruling, however, was extremely vague and thus highly case specific. The Court felt that it needed to provide some limitation upon the vast powers the law would grant congress by reserving specific privileges for the states. It is possible to track this conservative trend through an examination of the Courts decisions beginning with an 1868 decision in which the Court found that the Commerce Clause did not cover the regulation of insurance companies. The Courts second ruling on the Clause can be considered a landmark case for the limitation it put upon the federal government. In the United States Vs. E.C. Knight Co. .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 , .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 .postImageUrl , .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 , .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250:hover , .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250:visited , .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250:active { border:0!important; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250:active , .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250 .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u4bcf8c8e4833c5682a054e1c8ad50250:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Culture Shock Essay , the Supreme Court found that the federal government could not use the commerce clause to regulate production, mining or manufacturing because all of these existed prior to the actual existence of commerce. This was a tremendous loss of revenue to the federal government, as the taxation of such items was no longer permitted. This is not to say, however, that the Supreme Courts restriction of federalism was detrimental to business. In fact, as can be seen by the decision .

What is literature by Terry Eagleton Essay Example For Students

What is literature by Terry Eagleton Essay To define what literature is, Terry Eagleton uses other peoples definitions and evaluates them against one another. He points out reasons for each definition to be well-founded but also highlights their weaknesses. Firstly, however, he starts with the basic question if literature has to be fictional but instantly presents us with the fact that English literature at all times contains not only imaginative writing but also factual writing. Furthermore he explains the problem of texts being differently perceived in another era. When an author writes his text he may regard it as factual and then almost 4000 years later people have varying opinions about that. Eagleton here takes the example of the authors of the Genesis and how they must have believed their story to be true. So if literature does not have to be fictional how can one define it then. Now Eagleton introduces us to the theory of the Russian formalists, a militant, polemic group of critics as he describes them, that saw literature as a way of using language not ordinarily but in extreme and peculiar ways. We will write a custom essay on What is literature by Terry Eagleton specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Everyday speech is transformed to something more organized, more selective. For the formalists literature was not written to convey ideas nor history but rather to simply use the devices and structures that it brings to language. So Formalism is a study of literature but furthermore a study of linguistics because not the literary content but the literary form and techniques were of vital importance. As a consequence literature has to break up our everyday language and renew our automatic usage. Then, in a way, literature gives us new possibilities of using language. The problem Eagleton sees here is that there is not only one kind of ordinary language, because a professor from England does not talk in the same manner as a farmer in Texas. The English-speaking community is too big to have a universal everyday language, however it is not too big to have a universal language for writing a love letter, as an example. Written language is the same, but spoken language differs on many levels. Admittedly the perception of written language also differs in the different societies of the English-speaking community. Another factor in this can be time. What we think to be poetry today might have been prosa 500 years ago. To really understand a piece of writing, we have to know the circumstances it was written in. Eagleton then comes to the conclusion that the formalists were not really set out to search the definition of literature but rather literariness. The essence of that was the making strange of language. Formalism sees literature almost exclusively as poetry, but there is much more to it. And also literary devices are used in many other forms than only poetry. Even in forms that are normally not regarded as literature, such as advertisements, you will find literary devices, so the definition of literature cannot be purely based on the theory of the formalists. The next question Eagleton asks himself is whether literature has to have a self-referential language and a practical purpose. It seems he comes to a similar conclusion as he did with the formalists which is pointing out that authors might not have intended their work to be analysed for its style rather than the content and that different societies see the work in different ways. Nervertheless, he then makes a new point by saying that texts can become literature simply because people treat it like that, so it really all depends on how people relate themselves to the writing. But then he draws comparisons to Formalism again because just as every piece of writing can be regarded as poetry, every piece of writing can also be regarded as non-pragmatical. .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed , .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed .postImageUrl , .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed , .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed:hover , .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed:visited , .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed:active { border:0!important; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed:active , .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .uf7e79e40cfe1fc9528f376d74a8f3fed:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: The key features of gothic literature EssayMaybe literature just has to be read and liked by somebody and then this somebody relates to it and values it highly and then it is literature. Literature can also have the criteria of having to be well written, but who is the judge of that. Why do we have a notion of what is good literature and what is bad And is not bad literature still literature Judged literature then. does not have to be well written but it has to be the kind of literature that is judged to be fine. So as a consequence to that, the process of deciding what is literature is not an objective one, and therefore anything can be called literature. Important works of literature like Shakespeares can be judged as not being well written and then they would not be literature anymore. So the literary canon we have today is made by people, that in their time judged the pieces of writing, in terms of being well written and so they made them literature. But if other people would have been the judges, maybe we would not have some of the most famous works of literature today. As an example, Shakespeare in his time was supported by Queen Elizabeth I and because she saw him as a good playwright her people came to see him as a good writer and so his work became literature. A big part of the literary canon is based on works from times long gone and still we see them as literature because we can still relate to them. Certain humanly emotions and perceptions might never change like the longing for love. But still every generation re-writes the work of Homer or Shakespeare to make it comparable to their own life. How Homer was understood in the Middle Ages is probably different to how we interpret his work today. According to Eagleton that is the reason why the definition of literature is so unstable because if we relate to Shakespeare in another way than he intended the audience of his time to do what assures us that in future generations to come they will see it in yet another way and maybe they will not be able to relate to it at all. Eagleton thinks that the decision of a piece of writing being literature is made by value-judgements in the society. In his opinion nothing can be value free because all people are influenced by other things and therefore are never the exact same persons and so there have to be values but also prejudices and so on. It is natural for a person to judge another one as much as it is natural for this person to value-judge the writing of Homer or Shakespeare. But at the same time the individual is influenced by the value-judgement of the whole society and hence there are not many individual values. How much we are influenced by the value-judgements of society shows an experiment by the Cambridge critic I. A. Richards. He gave his students poems to evaluate without revealing the author or the title of the poems and some of the most celebrated poets were criticised while not so well-known poets were highly praised. This shows how much our perception changes when we know that we are going to read a poem by a famous poet, we will not criticise it as easily as we would criticise an unknown poet. But what is even more interesting to Eagleton is that Richards students all evaluated the poems in the same manner with the same prejudices and the same perceptions. Of course that was because his students were of the same origins and had the same educations. They did not only respond to the poems in literary ways but also emotionally. Thus this is the final proof of how deciding what literature is, can only always be in a subjective manner. Eventually, Terry Eagleton draws the conclusion that the social groups that are in the leading positions will define the value-judgements of each generation and therefore nothing about literature is objective. It is dependent on the beliefs of society.

Coun Theory Essays

Coun Theory Essays Coun Theory Essay Coun Theory Essay Personal TheoryWorking OutlineJacinth SutphinLiberty UniversityCOUN 507November 23, 2013I. Introduction: A comprehensive theoretical approach for any  Christian counselor should always keep in mind the integration of psychology, theology, and spirituality. Knowing and understanding each individual’s issues of life requires us to  take into account  the mind, the body and the soul/spirit. Also taking into consideration the temporal systems, and the supernatural systems which influence a person. McMinn (1996) states, â€Å"the best interdisciplinary integration work usually comes from those who have formal or informal preparation in both psychology and theology† (p.9).II. What is Important for Understanding Human Personality A. Personality Our personality is molded by our life experiences in which we are conditioned. It is important to understand how personalities are developed and how we can assist our clients that are seeking our help. Hawkins (2006) presents a mo del of human personality through  his  concentric circles. Our personality takes into account five distinct factors: the core (God is in the center), then the Soul, Body, Temporal Systems, and on the outside Supernatural. In Matthew 22:37, Jesus said â€Å"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind† (New International Version). Our heart is the center of our being and personality. B. Motivation Crabb(1977) states that â€Å"motivation, is a generalized drive to meet personal needs, is also a normal, necessary part of personality.†As I stated ealier, the heart is the center of our being and personality. Our heart is where we find our motivation and where our passions and emotions are rooted from. Jesus said, â€Å"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest† (Matthew 11:28, New International Version). If we want to live and

A man of great and diverse gifts

A man of great and diverse gifts Essay We learn that Anne is dead and in Act 4 Scene 4 we see Richard asking Elizabeth for help in wooing her daughter. After a long confrontation. Elizabeth appears to agree with the plan. However, it is here we see the beginning of his loss of control over people. ELIZABETH: Shall I go win my daughter to thy will? RICHARD: And be happy mother by thy deed. ELIZABETH: I go. Write to me very shortly, And you shall understand from me her mind. RICHARD: Bear her my true loves kiss, and so farewell Exit Q Relenting fool and shallow, changing women Here we see that Elizabeth has lulled Richard into thinking that she fully intends her daughter to be wed. We see this by Richards last exclamation that he thinks he has manipulated her, whereas the truth is that Elizabeth has manipulated him into thinking he is to be married, when, secretly, Elizabeth has no intention for her daughter to be married to Richard. This is the start of Richards downfall until he is finally killed by Richmond in the battle of Bosworth in Act 5 Scene 5. However, before his death we see his battle with his conscience and is victimised by it because of all the deaths he has caused. The repetition of the phrase despair and die predicts the death of Richard, whilst the ghosts promote Richmonds succession as king. As Richard III was written as propaganda for the Tudor dynasty, it is probable that Richards character was overemphasized and his deformity exaggerated to increase the superiority of their reign. Examples of Shakespeares magnification of Richards deformity include the animalistic metaphors such as: boar bunch backed toad and tiger used to describe him. These are used to turn the audience against Richard, as they get more potent as we follow him through the play. Throughout the play Richard shows many characteristics that would make people believe he is either a bloody tyrant and a homicide or a man of great and diverse gifts. However, from the events that have been studied I have concluded that he is both. Richard is clearly a bloody tyrant and a homicide, like many other major historical figures such as Hitler or Stalin, he had a plan for complete power. Although, to achieve this there must be no opposition. Much like in Stalins Great Terror where he killed anybody who he thought could pose a threat, Richard killed anybody who would challenge his accession to the throne. Although, a tyrant this was unusual for the times, both Richards predecessors and successors were tyrannical rulers. However, for Richard to do this involved planning and care. Richard used his gifts of crafty rhetoric and manipulation. Richard is able to encourage confidence in others around him, without letting them know they are destined for death at his hands. We must also sympathise with Richard in the play because we know Richard III was written as Tudor propaganda and so his deformity and character would have been hugely overemphasized to make the Tudors rule seem superior. In conclusion, Richard is both a bloody tyrant and a homicide and a man of great and diverse gifts. Without these gifts he would never have been able to gain access to the throne because he would have been stopped before he had a chance. With his gifts he was able to create a smoke screen, with which he was able cover his tracks until he was able to reach the throne.

Personal statement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 12

Personal statement - Essay Example hough deeply religious, he has the modern outlook and he has paved way for participation of women, in the nation-building projects and I wish to be a part of the process actively through those endeavors. Personally, I am deeply interested in the subject of political science and my grandfather is my role model in this area. I am sure to have his guidance and blessings in my chosen career. He was a practicing politician and that provided the strength to our family. He was a great man of political integrity and character and we, the family members have imbibed his virtues. As for my academic credentials, I hold the bachelor’s degree in library science and information. I have three years’ experience as a librarian in a business school and that gave me a unique opportunity to be friends with the latest business management books. I am a voracious reader and have read and studied the autobiographies of famous leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Kar l Marx, Mahatma Gandhi, Mao Tse Tung etc. besides many leaders of Saudi Arabia. I am seeking admission to Master in Political Science to strengthen my theory knowledge of the subject of Politics. Your benign consideration of my application for admission at this important juncture in my life will be the deciding factor for my future goals and career

Phase 4 Discussion Board Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Phase 4 Discussion Board - Assignment Example My career aspiration is to manage the Administrative Staff over the Emergency Department and Main Admitting Area of the hospital I work at. Hospital is a place where the patients are your first preference. My job would be to oversee full-time, part-time and PRN employees who handle several different roles within the Department. Being a manager I would assign tasks to the related employees and every employee would update me with the performance status. This would be a straightforward projects management which will occur as the situation arises. Project management mostly helps for the work done effectively, but in a hospital efficient working is required. So the project management does not seem to be very helpful to be used for the job of managing administrative staff under an emergency situation (Pmi.org) I would also handle the projects that decide upon how to use the budget for new hire training, quarterly meetings, training when new procedures and policies are put into effect, and how to provide awards and recognition for my employees. Use of project management technique would be appropriate for such projects. This would help me to meet the dead line for meetings, effectively allocation of resources, adopting the appropriate methods for trainings for assessing the performance of my employees. The first step in project management is to develop a project plan. The project plan gives us a guideline to follow and helps to measure the project related risks. It includes the process that should be followed to meet the customer requirements (Hyperthot.com). A project plan specifies that when, how, how much and by whom what task would be performed. Project planning helps to manage the risk and to reduce its effect on the desired outcome. It also helps to assess the problems that may arise in the future during processing and gives directions for problem solving. Project planning requires a lot of time and efforts. In an emergency department at a hospital, a does not ha ve much time to think and evaluate the options. Quick and straight decisions are to be made as the situation arises. Under an emergency situation a manager has to manage all the employees and their activities sharply without any delays. It would not be better to wait for a plan to be completed when we need the solution urgently. The other managing jobs like decisions regarding using the budget, quarterly meetings and training for the new procedures and policies may have time to write a project plan (Projectconnections.com).Project planning would be useful for new hiring and their training. It would help to cut the budgets when required and to use them efficiently when there will be some new procedure and polices to put into effect. Project planning makes the instructions easy for employees they would know what steps are to be followed when and this would help to improve the administrative activities of organization. Project management is a time consuming process. It involves lot of paper work and brainstorming. When it is not done in a proper manner it may give the unexpected bad results. An organization doing the project management

Robust Face-Name Graph Matching Essay Example for Free

Robust Face-Name Graph Matching Essay 1. Login In this module is going to explain the Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification designing and how we did the face detection and recognition in this project. The images will explain about the facial fetching details. After that admin going to login with the details which needed for the login page. 2. Detection In this module we are going to detect the face of the movie characters. In this module we are using the emgu cv library we must install the emgu cv library. After installing the emgu cv lib in our project we need to add reference with the name emgu.cv, emgu.cv.util, emgu.cv.ui. When you will complete the references you will get the emgu controls in the toolbox. 3. Recognition In this module we are going to recognize the face of the movie characters which is we previously stored on the face database. We just found that the give the real name of it. This is going to be done here. Here we are using the With the help of these eigenObjectRecognizer we are going to recognize the face. Chellangess In This Methodology :- 1. We detect the face in minute this is a big challenge for us because exiting system take more time for detection. 2. More challenging problem due to the huge variation in the appearance of each character. 3. It is increase speed of matching character and identify the character. Objectivies :- The Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification designing and how we did the face detection and recognition in this project. In this project we present two schemes of global face-name matching based framework for robust character identification. It is use in movies, video, cartoons. Problem Analysis :- 1. It is difficult to Complex character changes are handled by simultaneously graph partition and graph matching. 2. Many character are not easily matching and identification face in movies. 3. It is hard to be increase speed of matching character and identify the character. Existing Work :- This project is used to detect the face of movie characters and recognize the characters in minute process and the existing system are taking the too much time to detect the face. But this one we can do it in a minute process. Proposed Work :- In this Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification is used to detect the face of movie characters and the Proposed system is taking the minimum time to detect the face. In this One we can do it in a minute process. Robust Face-Name Graph Matching for Movie Character Identification Jitao Sang, Changsheng Xu, Senior Member, IEEE Abstract—Automatic face identification of characters in movies has drawn significant research interests and led to many interesting applications. It is a challenging problem due to the huge variation in the appearance of each character. Although existing methods demonstrate promising results in clean environment, the performances are limited in complex movie scenes due to the noises generated during the face tracking and face clustering process. In this paper we present two schemes of global face-name matching based framework for robust character identification. The contributions of this work include: 1) A noise insensitive character relationship representation is incorporated. 2) We introduce an edit operation based graph matching algorithm. 3) Complex character changes are handled by simultaneously graph partition and graph matching. 4) Beyond existing character identification approaches, we further perform an in-depth sensitivity analysis by introducing two types of simulated noises. The proposed schemes demonstrate state-of-the-art performance on movie character identification in various genres of movies. Index Terms—Character identification, graph matching, graph partition, graph edit, sensitivity analysis. Fig. 1. Examples of character identification from movie â€Å"Notting Hill†. I. INTRODUCTION A. Objective and Motivation The proliferation of movie and TV provides large amount of digital video data. This has led to the requirement of efficient and effective techniques for video content understanding and organization. Automatic video annotation is one of such key techniques. In this paper our focus is on annotating characters in the movie and TVs, which is called movie character identification [1]. The objective is to identify the faces of the characters in the video and label them with the corresponding names in the cast. The textual cues, like cast lists, scripts, subtitles and closed captions are usually exploited. Fig.1 shows an example in our experiments. In a movie, characters are the focus center of interests for the audience. Their occurrences provide lots of clues about the movie structure and content. Automatic character identification is essential for semantic movie index and retrieval [2], [3], scene segmentation [4], summarization [5] and other applications [6]. Copyright (c) 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to use this material for any other purposes must be obtained from the IEEE by sending a request to pubs [emailprotected] ieee.org. This work was supported in part by the National Program on Key Basic Research Project (973 Program, Project No. 2012CB316304) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 90920303, 61003161). J. Sang and C. Xu (corresponding author) are with the National Lab of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; and also with the China- Singapore Institute of Digital Media, Singapore, 119613 Character identification, though very intuitive to humans, is a tremendously challenging task in computer vision. The reason is four-fold: 1) Weakly supervised textual cues [7]. There are ambiguity problem in establishing the correspondence between names and faces: ambiguity can arise from a reaction shot where the person speaking may not be shown in the frames 1; ambiguity can also arise in partially labeled frames when there are multiple speakers in the same scene 2. 2) Face identification in videos is more difficult than that in images [8]. Low resolution, occlusion, no rigid deformations, large motion, complex background and other uncontrolled conditions make the results of face detection and tracking unreliable. In movies, the situation is even worse. This brings inevitable noises to the character identification. 3) The same character appears quite differently during the movie [3]. There may be huge pose, expression and illumination variation, wearing, clothing, even makeup and hairstyle changes. Moreover, characters in some movies go through different age stages, e.g., from youth to the old age. Sometimes, there will even be different actors playing different ages of the same character. 4) The determination for the number of identical faces is not trivial [2]. Due to the remarkable intra-class variance, the same character name will correspond to faces of huge variant appearances. It will be unreasonable to set the number of identical faces just according to the number of characters in the cast. Our study is motivated by these challenges and aims to find solutions for a robust framework for movie character identification. B. Related Work The crux of the character identification problem is to exploit the relations between videos and the associated texts in order 1 I.e., the name in the subtitle/closed caption finds no corresponding faces in the video. 2 I.e., multiple names in the subtitle/closed caption correspond to multiple faces in the video. Fig. 2. Framework of scheme 1: Face-name graph matching with #cluster pre specified to label the faces of characters with names. It has similarities to identifying faces in news videos [9], [10], [11]. However, in news videos, candidate names for the faces are available from the simultaneously appearing captions or local transcripts. While in TV and movies, the names of characters are seldom directly shown in the subtitle or closed caption, and script screenplay containing character names has no time stamps to align to the video. According to the utilized textual cues, we roughly divide the existing movie character identification methods into three categories. 1) Category 1: Cast list based: These methods only utilize the case list textual resource. In the â€Å"cast list discovery† problem [12], [13], faces are clustered by appearance and faces of a particular character are expected to be collected in a few pure clusters. Names for the clusters are then manually selected from the cast list. Ramanan et al. proposed to manually label an initial set of face clu sters and further cluster the rest face instances based on clothing within scenes [14]. In [15], the authors have addressed the problem of finding particular characters by building a model/classifier of the character’s appearance from user-provided training data. An interesting work combining character identification with web image retrieval is proposed in [17]. The character names in the cast are used as queries to search face images and constitute gallery set. The probe face tracks in the movie are then identified as one of the characters by multi-task joint sparse representation and classification. Recently, metric learning is introduced into character identification in uncontrolled videos [16]. Cast-specific metrics are adapted to the people appearing in a particular video in an unsupervised manner. The clustering as well as identification performance are demonstrated to be improved. These cast list based methods are easy for understanding and implementation. However, without other textual cues, they either need manual labeling or guarantee no robust clustering and classification performance due to the large intra-class variances. 2) Category 2: Subtitle or Closed caption, Local matching based: Subtitle and closed caption provide time-stamped dialogues, which can be exploited for alignment to the video frames. Effingham et al. [18], [3] proposed to combine the film script with the subtitle for local face-name matching. Time-stamped name annotation and face exemplars are generated. The rest of the faces were then classified into these exemplars for identification. They further extended their work in [19], by replacing the nearest neighbor classifier by multiple kernel learning for features combination. In the new framework, non-frontal faces are handled and the coverage is extended. Researchers from University of Pennsylvania utilized the readily available time-stamped resource, the closed captions, which is demonstrated more reliable than OCR-based subtitles [20], [7]. They investigated on the ambiguity issues in the local alignment between video, screenplay and closed captions. A partially-supervised multiclass classification problem is formulated. Recently, they attempted to address the character identification problem without the use of screenplay [21]. The reference cues in the closed captions are employed as multiple instance constraints and face tracks grouping as well as face-name association are solved in a convex formulation. The local matching based methods require the time-stamped information, which is either extracted by OCR (i.e., subtitle) or unavailable for the majority of movies and TV series (i.e., closed caption). Besides, the ambiguous and partial annotation makes local matching based methods more sensitive to the face detection and tracking noises. 3) Category 3: Script/Screenplay, Global matching based: Global matching based methods open the possibility of character identification without OCR-based subtitle or closed caption. Since it is not easy to get local name cues, the task of character identification is formulated as a global matching problem in [2], [22], [4]. Our method belongs to this category and can be considered as an extension to Zhang’s work [2]. In movies, the names of characters seldom directly appear in the subtitle, while the movie script which contains character names has no time information. Without the local time information, the task of character identification is formulated as a global matching problem between the faces detected from the video and the names extracted from the movie script. Compared with local matching, global statistics are used for name-face association, which enhances the robustness of the algorithms. Our work differs from the existing research in threefold: Regarding the fact that characters may show various appearances, the representation of character is often affected Fig. 3. Framework of scheme 2: Face-name graph matching without #cluster pre-specified. by the noise introduced by face tracking, face clustering and scene segmentation. Although extensive research efforts have been concentrated on character identification and many applications have been proposed, little work has focused on improving the robustness. We have observed in our investigations that some statistic properties are preserved in spite of these noises. Based on that, we propose a novel representation for character relationship and introduce a name-face matching method which can accommodate a certain noise. Face track clustering serves as an important step in movie character identification. In most of the existing methods some cues are utilized to determine the number of target clusters prior to face clustering, e.g., in [2], the number of clusters is the same as the number of distinct speakers appearing in the script. While this seems convinced at first glance, it is rigid and even deteriorating the clustering results sometimes. In this paper, we loose the restriction of one face cluster corresponding to one character name. Face track clustering and face-name matching are jointly optimized and conducted in a unique framework. Sensitivity analysis is common in financial applications, risk analysis, signal processing and any area where models are developed [23], [24]. Good modeling practice requires that the modeler provides an evaluation of the confidence in the model, for example, assessing the uncertainties associated with the modeling process and with the outcome of the model itself. For movie character identification, sensitivity analysis offers valid tools for characterizing the robustness to noises for a model. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no efforts directed at the sensitivity analysis for movie character identification. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by introducing two types of simulated noises. A preliminary version of this work was introduced by [1]. We provide additional algorithmic and computational details, and extend the framework considering no pre-specification for the number of face clusters. Improved performance as well as robustness are demonstrated in movies wit h large character appearance changes. C. Overview of Our Approach In this paper, we propose a global face-name graph matching based framework for robust movie character identification. Two schemes are considered. There are connections as well as differences between them. Regarding the connections, firstly, the proposed two schemes both belong to the global matching based category, where external script resources are utilized. Secondly, to improve the robustness, the ordinal graph is employed for face and name graph representation and a novel graph matching algorithm called Error Correcting Graph Matching (ECGM) is introduced. Regarding the differences, scheme 1 sets the number of clusters when performing face clustering (e.g., K-means, spectral clustering). The face graph is restricted to have identical number of vertexes with the name graph. While, in scheme 2, no cluster number is required and face tracks are clustered based on their intrinsic data structure (e.g., mean shift, affinity propagation). Moreover, as shown in Fig.2 and Fig.3, scheme 2 has an additional module of graph partition compared with scheme 1. From this perspective, scheme 2 can be seen as an extension to scheme 1. m1) Scheme 1: The proposed framework for scheme 1 is shown in Fig.2. It is similar to the framework of [2]. Face tracks are clustered using constrained K-means, where the number of clusters is set as the number of distinct speakers. Co-occurrence of names in script and face clusters in video constitutes the corresponding face graph and name graph. We modify the traditional global matching framework by using ordinal graphs for robust representation and introducing an ECGM-based graph matching method. For face and name graph construction, we propose to represent the character co-occurrence in rank ordinal level [25], which scores thestrength of the relationships in a rank order from the weakest to strongest. Rank order data carry no numerical meaning and thus are less sensitive to the noises. The affinity graph used in the traditional global matching is interval measures of the co-occurrence relationship between characters. While continuous measures of the strength of relationship holds complete information, it is highly sensitive to noises. For name-face graph matching, we utilize the ECGM algorithm. In ECGM, the difference between two graphs is measured by edit distance which is a sequence of graph edit operations. The optimal match is achieved with the least edit distance. According to the noise analysis, we define appropriate graph edit operations and adapt the distance functions to obtain improved name-face matching performance. 2) Scheme 2: The proposed framework for scheme 2 is shown in Fig.3. It has two differences from scheme 1 in Fig.2. First, no cluster number is required for the face tracks clustering step. Second, since the face graph and name graph may have different number of vertexes, a graph partition component is added before ordinal graph representation. The basic premise behind the scheme 2 is that appearances of the same character vary significantly and it is difficult to group them in a unique cluster. Take the movie â€Å"TheCurious Case of Benjamin Button† for example. The hero and heroine go through a long time period from their childhood, youth, middle-age to the old-age. The intra-class variance is even larger than the inter-class variance. In this case, simply enforcing the number of face clusters as the numberof characters will disturb the clustering process. Instead of grouping face tracks of the same character into one cluster, face tracks from different characters may be grouped together. In scheme 2, we utilize affinity propagation for the face tracks clustering. With each sample as the potential center of clusters, the face tracks are recursively clustered through appearance-based similarity transmit and propagation. High cluster purity with large number of clusters is expected. Since one character name may correspond to several face clusters, graph partition is introduced before graph matching. Which face clusters should be further grouped (i.e., divided into th e same subgraph) is determined by whether the partitioned face graph achieves an optimal graph matching with the name graph. Actually, face clustering is divided into two steps: coarse clustering by appearance and further modification by script. Moreover, face clustering and graph matching are optimized simultaneously, which improve the robustness against errors and noises. In general, the scheme 2 has two advantages over the scheme 1. (a) For scheme 2, no cluster number is required in advance and face tracks are clustered based on their intrinsic data structure. Therefore, the scheme 2 provides certain robustness to the intra-class variance, which is very common in movies where characters change appearance significantly or go through a long time period. (b) Regarding that movie cast cannot include pedestrians whose face is detected and added into the face track, restricting the number of face tracks clusters the same as that of name from movie cast will deteriorate the clustering process. In addition, there is some chance that movie cast does not cover all the characters. In this case, pre-specification for the face clusters is risky: face tracks from different characters will be mixed together and graph matching tends to fail. 3) Sensitivity Analysis: Sensitivity analysis plays an important role in characterizing the uncertainties associated with a model. To explicitly analyze the algorithm’s sensitivity to noises, two types of noises, coverage noise and intensity noise, are introduced. Based on that, we perform sensitivity analysis by investigating the performance of name-face matching with respect to the simulated noises.

Speech :: essays research papers fc

Speech is not just someone’s written or voiced opinions but it is also the way that person tries to express his or her ideas or believes using other meanings. Gestures, signs, paintings, photos, etc†¦are different forms of speech. Our government guarantees free speech but not that anyone can make speech at any time, at any place, and talk about anything. Then this country could be an awful place to live. Imagine that loud noise from speakers and subwoofers from cars that are driven through your neighborhood at two o’clock in the morning; people who stop you in the middle of the road on your way to go to work just to beg for some spare changes or try to sell their products; and that your privacy is no longer exist consequence of people who have secretly placed video cameras in your home to see what things you like or dislike, or perhaps recording and selling your bed-room-stories. Fortunately, we don’t have to deal with those headaches; the First Amendment does not protect people from making loud noise after dark, slowing or stopping your car at the intersections, and intruding your privacy. Such activities are subject to arrests and punishable by laws. The First Amendment also does not protect people from exploiting child pornography, making threats, using fighting words, and inciting to riot. The Supreme Court has explained: Such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as steps toward discovery of truth that any benefit derived from them is outweighed by society’s interest in order and morality.( Klotter and Kanovitz 48) The government as well put some of the protected speeches on restrictions. A billboard is placed at the turning point of a curved road; someone hangs a garage sale ad on the traffic light so other people can see it easier; or organizing a religious assembly to walk through downtown at rush hour. Although those are good ideas to catch other people attentions but they also post many side-effect hazards, like distractions caused by looking at the billboard instead of concentrating to turn the vehicle; other people may look at the ad on the traffic light instead of the lights or it may block one’s view of the light; and marching through downtown at rush hour causes traffic congestions and frustration amongst tired people who just finished their work day, thus more troubles can be occurred.

Cross Cultural Ethical Perspectives

Cross-Culture Ethical Perspectives Amanda Bravo, Mary Malone, Doneice Johnson, Jose Robledo, Kanosha Mitchell, Josephine Johnson ETH/316 September 24, 2012 Bette Bellefeuille Cross-Culture Ethical Perspectives Globalization is common in most large organizations as they thrive to maximize revenue and expand customer base by establishing operations in different countries and within different cultures. Consequently, these organizations have to consider cultural perspectives of the country in which that plan to operate.McDonald’s, established in 1954 by Ray Kroc in conjunction with the McDonalds brothers and with over 30,000 restaurants in more than 120 countries, is one of the world’s biggest fast food restaurant chains employing 1. 7 million people† (McDonalds, 2010-2012). This organization is no different and has to face issues resulting from globalization such as dietary preferences or needs from culture to culture or country to country as well as religion as it r elates to its advertising and such..A good example of the aforementioned was faced in India where currently McDonald’s operates 123 restaurants (India Marks, 2011-2012). A large percentage of that population is Hindu or Muslim and Hindus do not eat beef and Muslims do not eat pork. With both types of meat being a large part of their menu, McDonald’s had to reconsider the menu and decided to adapt it by introducing 100% vegetarian burgers and more than half of their menu being vegetarian (India Marks, 2011-2012). This has helped McDonald’s be successful in that country.McDonald’s does takes cross-culture issue serious and in one particular incident maybe too serious. In 2010 McDonald’s had launched a new line of promotional soft toys in Singapore which entailed a 12-character Doraemon set depicting the animals of the Chinese zodiac calendar. Because McDonald’s did not want to offend Muslims, they decided not to include the pig character in th e line of toys and replaced it with a cupid to represent the Valentine’s Day. As a result, many Chinese customers were upset as they were keen on collecting all 12 characters.A flurry of irate emails and demands by collectors and customers followed which made the fast food restaurant reverse its decision and apologized for their insensitivity as it was never their intention to disrespect any religion or culture. Experts say it showed a lack of cross-culture understanding. Daniel Goh, a sociologist, said that McDonald’s did not consult Muslim opinions before making the decision then assumed Muslim sensibilities which amounted to a form of self-censorship. Dr.Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied, said, â€Å"Pigs and dogs are not non-halal, except when they are consumed† (Loh, 2010). In any case, clearly McDonald’s takes special cultural considerations and precaution when promoting products into other countries. As per the aforementioned, some of the issues that Mc Donald’s faces as a result from globalization may be different in perspective and in nature. In some countries the fast food chain has to accommodate its menu to the dietary needs or customs as done in India.Had the organization not done so, perhaps the chain would have been unsuccessful. In other countries however, it has to thrive to avoid any cultural insensitivity as was the case in Singapore with the promotional soft toys as it attempted to avoid insulting the Muslim community and unfortunately ended up being less catering to the Chinese community. McDonalds is a common household name in many countries, but has backlash from many cultures as mentioned with those among Chinese and Muslim communities.To cater to international customer McDonald’s has added item to their menu such as the McArbia, the McPepper, and the Mushroom Pinwheel in Chinese and Middle Eastern countries (Old McDonalds has some Smarts in China, 2006). However McDonalds’ has been viewed has having an influence on these countries by taking away from the cuisine and traditional foods that these cultures and accustomed to eating. â€Å"Critics claim that the rapid spread of McDonald’s and its fast-food rivals undermine indigenous cuisines and helps creates a homogenous, global culture† (Watson, 2006).This is viewed by those who value the culture and history of the Korean, Chinese, Middle Eastern culture as taking away from the culture. McDonald’s global operations not only is a threat to international cuisine but also factor into many of the religious beliefs with various types of items that are served on their menu such as beef whereas in many countries are holy among Hindus. Working from within the company, management realized that certain guidelines must be met within different cultural communities.The changing of the menu represented respect for the people that it hoped to become customers. A company must recognize standard cultural changes that i nfluence the local operational area. However, understanding the local culture does not guarantee success of the operation. Just because the company is knowledgeable of the local culture and what to expect, does not reflect what can actually occur. Assuming that certain cultures would be offended by a toy to be given out, shows lack of tact on McDonald’s behalf.However, as organizations such as McDonald’s attempt to increase market share by entering different countries and different cultures, proper research should always be done before automatically assuming anything about those cultures in order to be able to address issues that result from globalization. References India Marks. (2011-2012). What you can and can't get at McDonald's in India. Retrieved from http://www. indiamarks. com/what-you-can-cant-get-mcdonalds-india/ Loh, Larry. (2010). McDonald’s frantic backpedaling: The pig toy fiasco. ttp://www. cnngo. com/singapore/none/mcdonalds-pig-toy-fiasco-371923 McDonald's. (2010-2012). Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved from http://www. mcdonalds. ca/ca/en/contact_us/faq. html â€Å"Old MacDonald’s has some smarts in China† Chicago Sun-Times. Sun-Times News Group. 2006. Retrieved September 23, 2012 from HighBeam Research: http:/www. highbeam. com/doc/1P2-2791332. html Watson, J. L. (2006) China’s Big Mac attack. In J. Johnson (Ed. ), Global Issues, Local Arguments. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education

Human and Technology Essay

A social constructed human beeing: a (bio)technological approach The importance of this article talks about how technology has helped us and how it has also changed us as humans. It compares the past of the humans with the future of the humans. This source of the paper deals with my topic by helping me answer some questions of how technology is helping out humans and making them smarter. But then there is a down side to it also helping me explain the technology and if it is evolving faster than what we can get a grip on it and actually enjoy it before something more advanced comes about. The reason feeling like I can actually relay on this source is because it has a lot of other sources behind it that are cited and that are included into one big source that is which makes up this paper. Pros and Cons of modern technologies In the importance of this article it talks about the pros and cons of technology. This source is very helpful to my topic by it explaining how technology has helped us humans and destroyed us at the same time. This source explains the positives on how this new technology has put us humans at an advanced rate and helped us out tremendously. It also explains the cons of this new advanced technology and how it has put a major hurting on the new generation and has made us too reliable on this new technology to do all the dirty work rather than how it was done in the past of long ago before all these new electronics and gadgets came along, when most things were done by human hands, instead just with the flick of a switch or push of a button. Yes and no of relying on this source because it has background information and a few cited sources which I can relay on, but some things there just isn’t enough information on whether to believe it all or not. The comparing of both of these sources that I’m using is that they both talk about how much technology has helped us. The difference between these two sources are that one article also talks about how all this new advanced technology has hurt the human nature with its side effects. September/26/2011 The Pros and Cons of Technology Today In this source it talks about the great things of technology and how it has come a long way and helped out the world lots and that we use it in our everyday lives, but also that with every good there comes a bad. This source helps me with my topic and relates with my topic because I’m looking for the good and bad in technology and how it has changed our lives, either for the good or bad. But this source tells me all the good and how it has saved lives, and then there is the downfall of how it has effected lives and caused harm. I know that I can rely on this source because it has hot links that are included into this which lead to more information if more is needed for back up. With the differences of the other resources some doesn’t talk about all of the different effects that technology has on life. The pros and cons of advancing technology With the importance of this source article it talks not only about how technology helps humans, but is it evolving faster than we can learn. This source is relevant to my topic because of the good things it talks about with technology helping people and the bad of technology with people. It answers the fact that of are we really prepared for all of these new changes in technology or is technology advancing way too fast for us? This source also has hotlinks that linked too it that gives me more information from different websites for me to have something to backup all my information on. The comparing of all of these sources is that they all talk about the greatness of technology and how it has helped out the human population so much, but then how technology has also effected the human population and given people different perspectives on things than the way it was of the past. The difference from this source than all the other sources is that this source talks about how technology is advancing and that it might be advancing more than what the human mind can comprehend all so fast. October/3/2011The Pros and Cons of Technology in the classroom The main story behind this article is about the good and bad of technologies. The source of this article is relevant to my topic by technology having its good and effective ways on helping people learn faster, and easier. This source also talks about how hard it is for every person to be as advanced with the technology and have it in every school  because of its expenses. In one way technology can be good for its uses in classrooms, but on the other hand it can also be bad, because every school isn’t going to be able to have the advanced studies of the new type of technology that comes out so often, because of it expenses. For example when one school who is on a budget with buying new technology, and when they final are able to get that technology, a school that is able to afford the technology as soon as it comes out already has a newer version of the schools old technology. So that’s a down side to this. Yes I can rely on this authors work because of its well cited facts and information to back up things. This article is different with its talks about technology in classrooms. Same by having its ups and downs of technology. Technology of Security Engineering (Program for Cyber security Neighborhood watch Developed) This article’s source is about mainly the technology security and how it can help and also cause security problems. This source of this article is relevant to my topic by showing ways of how technology has helped keep the people safe and how it has also hurt some people verbally and physically. This article answers the question of to how can the security help and help people in their everyday lives. The way technology security can help people are with their being passwords for to help save people from letting them get out their personal information. Also it can harm people by their being hackers out here in the world and breaking through those security fields and getting information of other people. Then they can pretend to be others through technology without showing ones true identity and ruining someone else career. The comparison of all these articles is there being a way technology can help people and harm them. The difference is that this source talks about security technology, than any of the other sources. October/5/2011 Technology in restaurants The source to the technology in restaurants is that there can be errors and there can be good things that come about. The good can come about for when the restaurant has a quality of food and the technology is just there to help them keep track of the stock of things. The bad is that there can be  errors when technology is doing all the work and there can be a wrong type of number put in and can cause a miscount of the quality of the food. This topic relates to mine by there being way that technology can help and affect our everyday human life. The comparison of all these sources is that there is always a plus to having technology and a negative to how it can affect our everyday lives. The difference of this article is that this one talks about how technology helps and affects our lives with restaurants. Investing in Technology in restaurants This source talks mainly about how if it is good or not to invest into technology and if it can ditechnology can go two ways. This can be good because the technology might make things faster and easier for the restaurant. But this could also go bad because this could change the taste of food from which peoples are use too, and it could slow things down. So it’s a risk that the purchasers for the restaurants have to take. This source relate to my topic by saying whether it is good or bad for this technology and if it can help out humans or not. The comparisons of all of these are that the good and bad comes with all technology. The difference of this article is saying is there a risk with helping or hurting the restaurant with buying technology that they are not familiar with. October/12/2011 Pros and Cons of Modern versus Old Technology The source of this article talks about the greatness of how much technology has helped out with the human body so much in ways of finding things that couldn’t be done without technology. The source of this article also talks about how technology has its downside with helping humans figure out problems with the human body. This source is relevant to my topic with all the good of saying how far technology has come with making humans lives so much easier. But it also relates to my topic by telling all of the cons about how technology has hurt the human body and that it sometimes reads off false information. This source helps me answer that no matter how great technology is, that it can still be wrong at times. I can rely on this source because of all the good information that is stated along with its information backing up all the details. The comparison of all these articles  is that they all have the good and bad side to having technology around. The difference of this article is that it talks about how technology has helped out discover new things in the human body. The pros and cons of finding out through technology about Medicated chewing gum. This source of the article talks about how chewing gum has its great ways of helping people out. This source also talks about the bad side of how chewing medicated chewing gum can affect you. This source is relevant to my topic by having the good side of chewing gum and how it can help humans by keeping them with fresh breath, helping humans out by whiting their teeth; fight cavities and making your jaw bone structure stronger. The other way it helps me is by showing the way technology finds out the bad things that this medicated chewing gum can harm you by giving you cavities causing problems with your gums because of the sugars and colors affected changes to the mouth. I can rely on this source because of all the other case studies that are within this article that all have information to back it up with. The comparison of all these articles are that technology has its ups and downs of helping humans. The difference of this article is that it’s about chewing gum and how it can affect the human body mouth and cause more problems.

Bound by differences essays

Bound by differences essays The Kosovo Liberation Army is still in the midst of peace talks with NATO. The peace talks came after a temporary halt in the slaughter of Serbians and Albanians living in Kosovo. (Oregonian, Front Section A4, pp. 6) The most recent genocide in Kosovo has been the result of long-standing grudges between the Albanians and Serbians living in Kosovo and was developed from opposing views over social and political domination of Albania. The current differences in culture are obvious in the education and political system. In the last 10 years, Kosovo, a majority-Albanian province of Serbia, was taken back by Serbians. This region was previously autonomous to the Albanians with in the former Yugoslavia. In 1989, Serbian government revoked the autonomous status. This heated already-stressed relations between the Serbian authorities and Albanian civilians. Kosovo Albanians are struggling for an Albanian-language university, media and national system, as they push for independence from Serbia. Albanians are gaining a few opportunities in government. They now have their own political parties and hold a few offices. However they are still largely underrepresented in local government, law enforcement and military. (www.crisisweb.org/mac03, pg. 2) Kosovo is historically important to Serbian nationalist because of Slobodon Milosevics launch of his expansionist program in the 1980s. Since the 1980s, the Kosovo Liberation Army, an underground organization, has been formed to enforce Serbian ideals in Kosovo through force. This army has grown in strength in the last 5 years has begun to take back Kosovo. During those 5 years, more than 100,000 people have died in concentration camps and hundreds of thousands of refugees have been fleeing the country. This conflict caught the attention of the world and NATO sent international troops in to Yugoslavia temporarily stop the fighting until a further settlement could be reached. Much...

Brand management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Brand management - Essay Example In this paper, the writer will characterise Evisu’s efforts at revitalising and reinforcing its brand equity, and provide suggestions as to how the company can rejuvenate its brand equity. Evisu’s history goes back to the 1980s. During the 80s, vintage denim aficionados fanatically pursued methods to make similar replicas of vintage jeans. In 1988, Yamane succeeded in finding and acquiring a classic American shuttle loom that could weave 40 metres daily and make exact copies of vintage denim. The subsequent small output of just 12 pairs of jeans per week heralded the beginning of the Replica Movement. Evisu’s logo and brand identity are linked with the denim revolution. Evisu enjoyed its most successful period in the 1990s to early 2000s. It was hugely popular with celebrities and young people who identified with its unique designs and innovative marketing. It is regularly lauded as the pioneer of high-end, $600 jeans, and the leader of the â€Å"old school† denim movement (Choi, 2014:43). In the mid 2000s, the company faced many challenges associated with financial, creative and competitive aspects, the core components of the fashion industry. Th e tax evasion case it faced in 2006 hurt its PR and finances. In 2006, Evisu’s founder – Hidehiko Yamane – and the company were reported to Japanese authorities on suspicion of tax evasion. Yamane was accused of colluding with two other firms to conceal income totalling over 500 million yen and evading, over three years, income taxes totalling around 160 million yen. This incident severely dented the company’s image, which it had built for decades and sold to millions of people across the world. However, and prior to this case, the company had also been posting unsatisfactory results in terms of brand popularity and financial performances (Rossolatos, 2014:34). An unexpected lull in quality and industry had allowed aggressive brands like Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Armani to eat into

Statistics Review Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Statistics Review Questions - Essay Example Correlation is a method to measure the association in between two variables. When we compare the correlating scores of two variables, we are trying to determine whether the variables are related to each other or not. The purpose of doing correlations is to allow us to make a prediction about one variable based on what we know about another variable.  Ã‚  Ã‚   A frequency distribution is the tabulation of raw data obtained by dividing it into  classes  of some size and computing the number of data elements (or their fraction out of the total) falling within each pair of  class boundaries. A frequency distribution can be modeled as a  histogram  or  as a pie chart (Frequency Distribution). A pie chart shows the differences between two separate variables or subjects. A pie chart is a graph that is in the shape of a circle which represents a total of 100%. Other variables or subjects are shown on the chart with respect to their relative percentages to the whole. The different subjects are shown in different colors and the size of each subject in the pie is proportional to the percentage of the subject. A bar graph shows raw data and it is designed to show different values of two or more subjects but instead of using the pie to represent data it uses horizontal and vertical bars that represent a different value. The bar graph has numbers along the side of the bars to indicate the value of the variable and there are scales which show what variable is being measured. The difference between the pie chart and the bar graph is that a bar graph is capable of showing change over time. While a single pie chart cannot show changes over time by itself, it can only represent the given percentages at a fixed point in time. A graphical display of a  frequency table is called a frequency polygon. The X-axis has the intervals shown on it while the number of scores in each interval is represented by the height of a point located above the middle of the

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT FOR TOYOTA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT FOR TOYOTA - Essay Example In effect, the strategic management option is being undertaken for the sake of helping the company gain competitive advantage over its key competitors (Pollard, 2009). Pirttimaki (2007) has stressed that even though the annual revenues of Toyota Corporation could be said to be greater than any of its competitors, the company does not lead in all aspects of the industrial competition. This is because the car making industry in itself has several divisions, all of which must be competed for to gain global dominance. Some of these competitive components that the company engages in with its competitors include luxury vehicles, automobiles, commercial vehicles, motorcycles, and engines (Gilad & Gilad, 2008). Generally, the selection of the strategic management option shall be undertaken while critiquing against a specific model to justify why it is the best that the company can have. The model to be used in the critique is made up of three major sections namely suitability, acceptability and feasibility. Under each of the sections, there shall be sub-components against which the strategic option shall be tested with. The model to be used has been simplified below. The Differentiation Strategy The strategic management option selected for Toyota Corporation is the differentiation strategy. ... As the R&D takes place, it is important to also ensure that there is massive innovation that is directed at the need to meet consumer request and demand with style and flex. This is because as all competitors identifies the needs of consumers, it is he that has innovation with the needs that catches the eye of the consumer most (O’Hara, 2008). Secondly, it is important for companies undertaking the differentiation strategy to have the ability to deliver superior quality products and or services (Gilbane Report 2005). This is indeed a very centralized aspect of the strategy because quality remains a very crucial measure for competitiveness in contemporary global market and for the undertaking of competitive global engagements (Pirttila, 1997). This is because according to Ghoshal & Kim, 2006), the consumer behaviour of most people is changing of cost consciousness to quality consciousness. It would therefore take companies to set their quality apart be gain competitive advantag e. Finally, companies that desire to pursue differentiation strategy must be ready to undertake effective sales and marketing. The reason for this is that on a competitive market such as the one that Toyota finds itself in, almost all other competitors also engage in R&D and the delivery of high quality products and services. In effect, it is those who can effectively market and sell their quality and innovative products and services that really get to the customer (Alvesson & Skoldeberg, 2000). Application of the Model to the Differentiation Strategy Suitability Suitability generally refers to the question of whether or not the selected strategic management option is the right one for the company

Chemical Warfare in World War 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Chemical Warfare in World War 1 - Essay Example World War I saw the development of weapons, which were deadlier to a degree than had never before been expected. Among the deadliest weapons that had never been used before were the 420 mm guns, which the Germans used to bombard France from Liege, Belgium. This led the countries to look for developing deadlier weapons with the help of their intellectuals, as it was clear that weapons would greatly determine the countries that won the war. (Hilmas, Smart & Hill 14). Therefore, as expected, deadlier weapons were developed by the countries. However, the deadliest and most inhumane of all the weapons developed was the poisonous gas, which was made by the German genius and Nobel laureate Fritz Haber (Bosco, Bosco & Bowman 38). Poisonous gas Prior to the World War I, several European countries including Germany, France and Britain had signed a treaty known as the Hague Convention on war on land in 1907 which forbid the use of poisonous gas in war. However, this did not deter the use of poi sonous gases in World War I (Stoltzenberg 151). Germany first used chemical weapons on British and Indian troops in 1914. Berlin was triggered to use chemical weapons after France had used on them. The chemical weapon used by the Germans was dianisidine chlorosulphonate, a chemical that causes irritation to the mucus membrane (Hilmas, Smart & Hill 14). However, the use of chemical weapons, which lead to widespread outcry by the rest of the world, was by Fritz Haber. (Hilmas, Smart & Hill 14).

The benefits and risks of Outsourcing

The benefits and risks of Outsourcing In this chapter, an introduction of research background is given and the objectives and scope of the research are described. In addition, a general overview of research methodology will be introduced. Finally, a brief overview of the dissertation structure is given in order to present an overall picture of the research undertaken. Background of research: Outsourcing is one of the fast growing aspects with a spending of US$ 3.7 trillion worldwide in 2001 (Clott, 2004). The latest survey conducted by Cap Gemini, Georgia institute of technology, SAP and DHL, it is clear that the usage of third party logistics (3pl) services continues to grow in Latin America, North America, Western Europe and Asia-pacific (Cap Gemini, 2006). Due to globalisation and rapid growth in information technology organisations are eager to develop competitiveness and responsiveness to customers (Matteo, 2003). Lieb and Randall (1996) defined 3pl to a more detailed extent; in particular, the term third-party has been explained more clearly. The third party logistics is defined here as: A company which supplies/coordinates logistics functions across multiple links in the logistics supply chain. The company thus acts as a third-party facilitator between the seller/manufacturer (the first-party) and the buyer/user (the second-party)à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. The functions the functions performed by the third-party can encompass the entire logistics process or selected activities with in that process. (p.51). Today many international logistics providers, including freight forwarders, customhouse brokers, ocean and air carriers, promoting themselves as third party logistics providers as they can provide more services for the movement of international freight. Liebs survey clearly tells that one third of large manufacturing companies in us use third party logistics services and over 60 percent of these firms used these services for above five years (Lieb, 2007). The close relationship between shippers and carriers could be a benefit for third party providers. One thing is confirmed that, nearly all large multinational companies make use of third party logistics providers (Maltz, 2004). Research problem: From many researchers point of view (Lee, 2004), Indian 3pl providers are still in an undeveloped state. So it might be difficult for them to survive in the Indian market competing with the foreign players. This research will review the traditional Indian distribution system and analyze the contemporary situations of both Indian and foreign companies like Pantaloons, Reliance, Subhiksha and Wal-Mart. In 2005, India was forecasted as the greatest consumer market opportunity, receiving highest foreign direct investment (FDI) (Mitra, 2005). The third party logistics in India accounts nearly a quarter of its transportation industry and expected to grow over $ 125 billion by 2015 (Srinath, 2006). Currently India sits atop the global retail opportunity. Indias retail industry, the 9th largest globally and valued at $ 330 billion (Kilgore et al. 2007). Reliance, a $ 12 billion giant enterprise run by Mukesh Ambani, plans to open an additional 4000 stores and hypermarkets with a target of $ 22.3 billion in sales by 2012. Wal-mart currently sources goods of worth over $ 1.5billion from India, yet to gain access to sell those products in India. So Wal-Marts joint ventures with Bharti will open doors for multi brand hypermarkets and shopping villages. One of the best approaches to gain competitiveness and improve customer service levels is the firms logistical capability. To be competitive, the companies have to deliver the products quickly and for lower cost. Logistics service providers gain momentum after the successful and efficient distribution network of Wal-Mart (Maltz, 2004). On the other hand, pantaloon is currently Indias largest retailer with more than 140 stores. Its also planning to spend $ 1 billion to open 100 big bazaar stores country wide. The Tata group, which runs lifestyle stores and star India bazaar, also opened an electronic goods shop in Mumbai last year. Tata group is planning to open 30 stores by the next year (Sahey and Mohan, 2006). Behind this growth, logistics infrastructure is the main backdrop of the countrys growth. Logistics costs in India are 13 percent of GDP compared with 8 percent in the U.S. Indian logistics is combination of road transport companies, railways, air freight companies, ports and shipping companies, as well as 3pl companies. 3pl market in India is least developed and its growth is about 20% per annum. If the logistics costs can be reduced from 13% of GDP to 8% of GDP, then the savings would be approximately $ 20 billion. This change will reduces the prices of Indian goods by 4.3% making them more competitive globally. The 3pl revenue and cargo handling volume registered growth rates of 18.25% and 20.33% respectively in 2003-2004 (Mitra, 2005). Retail opportunity opens the doors to reach Indian customers more effectively. Hindustan lever, a subsidiary of Unilever and the coca cola company are extremely successful penetrating in India. The rural population in India is almost 60%. Deliverin g products to those rural people is most difficult task due to the poor transportation and infrastructure facilities. In this situation both the companies above mentioned are successful with their distribution system through logistics service providers to reach each and every part of the country. So all the issues related to transportation infrastructure have badly affected the logistics network in India specifically in terms of lead time and costs. Anyway, a host of policy changes underway is expected to bring some positive revolution in the Indian transportation environment. In the past few years Indian government focussed on the infrastructure development. The main initiative under this project is the national high way development programme. It will connect all the metros and act as east-west and north-south corridor. So this will boost road transportation in India and good news for the logistics services providers in the country and also for the organisations to reduce costs by using 3pl providers (Mitra, 2005). Aim and objectives: The purpose of the research is to understand how third party logistics service providers can develop competitive advantage and improves the service levels of supply chains in Indian retail industry. The objectives of the study can be summarized as: To understand the current situations of Indian domestic 3pl providers To develop the competitive strategies pursued by the Indian 3pl providers To find out the impact of the use of the 3pl services on costs, customer satisfaction. On the other hand, the following research questions are designed for the achievement of the above research objectives. What kind of distribution systems do the Indian 3pl providers have? What kinds of logistics services are Indian 3pl providers providing? What competitive situation are the Indian 3pl providers facing? What kinds of competitive strategies are the Indian 3pl providers pursuing to achieve competitive advantages? Literature review: The supply chain: The process which integrates coordinates and controls the movement of goods, materials and information from a supplier to the end customer through a series of intermediate customers is called the supply chain. It bridges the gap between core business aspects of supply and demand. So the supply chain management is the management of buying/sourcing, making, moving and selling activities in a timely manner. Supply chains today are very slow, costly and do not deliver particularly good value to the end customer. Todays markets are much more demanding and information driven with small product cycles, more choice for customers and consumers and increased competition. Costs need to be cut down out of the supply chain and efficiencies increased, as business relationships within the chain shift and competitive advantage becomes harder to come by. The process of planning, implementing and controlling the efficient, cost-effective flow and storage of raw materials, in-process inventory, finished goods and related information flow from point of origin to point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements. Third party logistics (TPL): The growth of high competition and complex business conditions force organizations to pursue competitive advantages and re-engine their business constantly. Outsourcing logistics to a 3pl provider has been considered as an effective strategy for companies to high service performance and lower operating cost. Lieb and Randall (1996) defined 3pl to a more detailed extent; in particular, the term third-party has been explained more clearly. The third party logistics is defined here as: A company which supplies/coordinates logistics functions across multiple links in the logistics supply chain. The company thus acts as a third-party facilitator between the seller/manufacturer (the first-party) and the buyer/user (the second-party)à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. The functions the functions performed by the third-party can encompass the entire logistics process or selected activities with in that process. (p.51). The basic characteristics of 3pls are to provide customised services and to handle multiple activities, which involve warehousing, distribution, transportation, inventory control, material handling, packaging and inspection (Bolumole, 2001). Here are some of the services offered by 3pls in the present market, according to Sowinski (2005): Dedicated contract transportation and transportation procurement. Inventory management Logistics management and consulting Freight audit and consulting Shipment tracking and tracing Reverse logistics and value added services TPL providers are nothing but supportive supply chain members. Lambert (1998) defined these supportive members as companies that simply provide resources, knowledge, utilities or assets for the primary members of the supply chain. The new level of usage of 3pl has been defined as logistics alliances. Bagchi and Virum (1998) define logistics alliances as: A long-term formal or informal relationship between shippers and logistics providers to render all or a considerable number of logistics activities for the shipper. (p.193). Under this alliance, 3pl users and providers treat each other as long-term partners. By identifying the characteristics of 3pl providers in various stages, Berglund et al. (1999) suggest that there have been three phases of development of the 3pl participants. The first phase started from 1980s, with the presence of traditional logistics providers, with the activities involved only transportation or warehousing. The second phase started from 1990s, when a number of network players such as DHL, TNT and FedEx started their logistics services. The third phase started from late 1990s, when a number of players from other areas like information technology, started working with the original logistics providers. In recent years with the dynamic changing and development of supply chain management 3pl providers have moved their focus to strategy development (Hertz Alfredson, 2003). 3pl providers have started to support logistics operations through value-added services and supply chain solution service, which creates abundant opportunities for companies to reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction (Knemeyer et al., 2003; Lieb, 2005). In addition to the services mentioned above, other services offered by 3pl providers, are known as value-added services. These are the services that add a lot of additional value to the products being distributed (Rushton et al. 2000). The major value added services has been summarized by the authors as follows. Specialist or niche service, where the operation is specifically designed for a particular products. Time reliable services, which are setup to support the just-in-time (JIT) operations of major manufacturers. Assembly, which is fulfilled by third-party distributor. Repacking, this is another area of value-added development, like a torch together with battery. Refurbishment: in the light if current environmental legislation many manufacturers have endeavoured to re-engineer their products so that parts from some used products can be reused in new products. Packaging return: collect packaging for reuses or disposal. (p.62). A research conducted recently by Hertz and Alfredson presented the strategic development of 3pl providers (Hertz Alfredson, 2003). According to Lai (2004): There are four types of 3pl providers from the resource based view of the firm. Each type of provider exhibiting different service capabilities and service performance. Also different types of logistics service providers adopt different service strategies to respond to different market segments Logistics outsourcing is simply a make-or-buy decision based on cost efficiency by increasing competitiveness and complexity (Christopher, 2005). A company may pursue logistics outsourcing for the following reasons, Own lack of logistics experience Desire to focus on core competency Difficulty in maintaining communication and information technology up to date Sahay and Mohan (2006). Outsourcing can give a company proper access to resources, equipment and management expertise which may count a worth of billion dollars (Clott, 2004). Outsourcing not only allows an organisation to achieve goals like cutting delivery times and ensuring accurate shipments, but also promotes competition among service providers and motivating them to continue renewing their services. Currently a growing interest on outsourcing has been mentioned by massive writings in scholarly journals and popular magazines. The terms outsourcing, third party logistics and contract logistics sounds the same. Traditional logistics activities such as transportation, distribution, warehousing, inventory management, order processing and material handling have been given less importance (Mitra, 2005). There is a need to develop competitive advantage and providing better customer service effectively and efficiently. This can be possible only through contract logistics (Razzaque and Sheng, 1998, updated reference). Third party logistics and customer service: Sadler (2007) defined logistics customer service as: the process of providing goods, information and services to customers in a way that both creates customer satisfaction and is cost-effective to the shipper (p.71). Customer service has been treated as essential factor in marketing strategy and it creates added value for both their companies and customers (Christopher, 2005). Customer service is a key way to gain competitive advantage. To compete in this corporate world, companies must provide high levels of logistics services to their customers. Based on a survey conducted by Bolumole (2001) identifies the nine most important aspects of customer service as follows. On-time delivery Order accuracy Price No product damage Ease of order placement Customer enquiry handling Quality Availability Order status information Regarding the high levels of customer service, Sadler (2007) suggest that: the economic aim point of customer service level is a little below 100%, beyond this level, the extra benefit to customers is vastly outweighed by the huge extra cost of inventory, hours of opening, staff training and salary, etc (p.72). Gaining competitive advantage through 3pl: Third party logistics (3pl) can be an effective way helping companies to achieve competitive advantages. The main objective of logistics management is to drive the companies in achieving sustainable competitive advantages through improved customer service and lower costs. Overall 3pl providers can provide a major source of competitive advantages. In other words, a position of gaining superiority over competitors (Christopher, 2005, p.6). Rushton et al. (2000) proposed that companies can achieve competitive advantages through 3pl providers. First, companies may compete as a service leader, which means to gain an advantage over their competitors by providing a number of key logistics service elements to differentiate itself. Meanwhile, the companies may compete as a cost leader where it is trying to utilize its logistics resources to offer the service or product at lowest possible price. Some logistics leverages for pursuing the two competitive advantages have been summarized as follows. To achieve value/differential advantage To achieve cost/productivity advantage The logistics leverage Tailored service Distribution channel strategy Reliability Responsiveness Information Flexibility The logistics leverage Capacity utilization Asset turn Co-makership/schedule integration Low inventory Low waste Table: The two different approaches to gain competitive advantages. Source: Rushton et al. (2000, p.33). Christopher (2005) summarizes that: The source of competitive advantages is found firstly in the ability of the organization to differentiate itself, in the eye of the customer, from its competition and secondly by operating at lowest cost (p.6). Competition is always at the core of the success and failure of the firm. A companys competitiveness can be derived from achieving either a cost advantage or a value advantage, or both of them. The relationship of cost and value between a company, its competitor and its customers, named the Three Cs relationship is illustrated below. Customers Assets and utilization Cost differentials Assets and utilization Value Needs seeking benefits at acceptable prices Value Company Competitor Figure: competitive advantage and the Three Cs Source: Christopher (2005, p.6). However, a most successful company would seek a competitive position depending on attaining both costs and differentiation advantages. Christopher emphasizes the last step that how to take the company to the top right of the matrix can be the biggest challenge to logistics providers. The occupation of the position of cost and service leader means the company has achieved both service and cost advantages. Service leader Cost and service leader High Commodity market Cost leader Value advantage Low Low High Cost advantage Figure: logistics and competitive advantage Source: Christopher (2005, p.10). The three possible ways for companies to accomplish their competitive strategies are internal activities, acquisitions and strategic alliances. On the other hand through mergers and acquisitions of other possible business may meet their competitive strategy requirements. The major participants in the logistics alliances are manufacturers, retailers and logistics service providers or third party logistics providers. A strategic alliance allows a company to take advantage of what it does well and enables it to seek partners who have strengths in other areas (Bagchi Virum, 1998). Supply chain integration with third party logistics providers: The present trend of most of the modern companies is to outsource their logistics activities to third party providers. This is a type of alliance, many of the firms implementing to achieve competitive advantage in the market place (Ratten, 2004). In the recent years just-in-time (JIT) process has gained momentum, which promoted outsourcing. The term integration refers to the degree to which individual parties work together in a cooperative manner to achieve acceptable outcomes (Ratten, 2004). Approaching the third party logistics providers comes under the wider arc integration. 3pl providers encompass a wide range of supply chain services including firms outsourcing, material management and distribution responsibilities (Frohlich and Westbrook, 2001). Nowadays 3pl companies are playing more number of roles in extended supply chains such as after-sales support, customer service and reverse logistics (Srinath, 2006). 3pl providers have transformed the roles of distribution centres from storage facilities to channel assemblies by taking care of some repair jobs that do not have sent back to manufacturers (Maltz, 2004). Relationships among TPL providers and members of supply chains: Nowadays the relationship between supply chain management and third party logistics service providers has gained some momentum. Here its necessary to discuss how to fill the gaps in understanding of how third party logistics providers should offer their services more effectively to their assigned supply chains. The supply chain is, The network of organisations that are involved, through upstream and downstream linkages, in the different processes and activities that produce value in the form of products and services in the hands of the ultimate customers. -Christopher (2005). The supply chain is a chain consists of networked companies from raw material producers for the consumption of end users. According to Jarzemskis (2006), a TPL provider is An agent middleman in the logistics channel who enters into a temporary or longer term relationship with some other entity in the logistics channel Most of the logistics services are purchased on a contract basis (Maltz, 2004). Based on the research by Bhatnagar and Viswanathan (2000), successful partnerships in logistics can be achieved by triadic relationships. Order lead time of grocery retailers in the Indian markets: in a survey of Indian retail industries, Chandra and Sastry (2004) found that 98% of the firms dispatch their goods through a contract with trucking companies, while 11% of them only have their own fleet of trucks and 36% of these firms use third party logistics(3pl) service providers for transportation. The economy is expected to grow at 10% over the next 10 years in the sectors like chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textile, retail and fast moving consumer goods. The Indian retail giants Reliance and Bharti announced large retail projects in collaboration with Wal-Mart. Also Reliance considering establishing large warehouses in Thailand to take advantage of low cost sourcing from Southeast Asia. On the other hand food and grocery retail players like Subhiksha established more than 600 new retail stores in India (Chandra Jain, 2009) Logistics is an important process that minimises costs and improves customer satisfaction (Christopher, 2005). The Indian retail industry is worlds fifth largest one. All retail sectors in India are not purely organised. Especially the retail sector is growing very fastly at a pace of 25-30% annually. This sector is projected to grow from Rs. 35,000 crore in 2004-05 to Rs. 109,000 crore by the end of 2010 (Mitra,2005). Here the author is going to examine the retail operational efficiency at the secondary distribution level by measuring the performance of Indian food retailers logistics operations in terms of order lead time. Order lead time is the time between the customers placing an order and receiving the goods (Srinath, 2006). Here both the suppliers and logistics service providers need to understand two certain types of lead times. The first one, inbound lead time is the time between the orders placed by the depot and the delivery of goods by the suppliers. On the other hand out bound lead time refers to the time depot and the company stores (Maltz, 2004). According to smith and sparks (2004), logistics has been facing many major changes in the Indian food retail sector including increase in the average size of stores, introduction of new retail store formats (petrol station shops) and the increase in the range of own brand food products 3pl operations in India: The greater utilization of third party logistics (3pl) in Indian companies is expected to rule the retail markets in the future years. Its predicted to rise from US $ 1.5 billion in 2008 to US $ 4 billion in 2012. Strategic analysis of 3pl markets in Indian retail sector shows that the market earned US $ 28.1 million in 2005 and predicted to be US 89.8 in 2012 (Kaur, 2009). The Indian economic growth has recorded significant development during the past several years. According to the survey conducted by Lieb in 2007, six of the CEOs were asked to identify the best suitable industries which will offer good results for the future of 3pl services usage in India. Four of them suggested automotive industry and three of them rated high technology. On the other hand retailing and pharmaceutical industry were preferred by two of them. According to Lieb: Long trip times for relatively short transportation distances make a turnaround of vehicles impossible and increases the cost of domestic transportation. Congestion, toll road blocks and local tax make proper planning and timing, and central distribution structures impossible. Inwarding process: This process is to ensure smooth movement of stock and merchandise from warehouse, vendors and any other location to shop floor, updating the inventory and subsequently be available for sale. Goods are received according to the Stock Transfer Note (STN) issued by the warehouse. Every morning the Warehouse Incharge prints the mail from SCM support, which gives the details of the merchandise which is scheduled to reach the store (e.g. Goods in transit report). Based on the information the Warehouse incharge to allocate space for the in transit merchandise do all follow ups for goods in transit. Inform the respective Department Managers about the merchandise scheduled, so that floor space for the same can be created, if required. Delivery vehicle arrives at the store warehouse. Security personnel to receive the supporting documents and handover the same to the warehouse personnel undertaking the Inwarding. Document set is checked by warehouse personnel to ensure it contains a Stock Tra nsfer Note (STN) in duplicate and an outward gate pass issued by the dispatching warehouse. An authorised LR copy incase the goods delivery vehicle is a private transporter. Security at stores will sign the gate pass and write manual IRN (Inward Register Number) on gate pass. Security personnel to check the vehicle to ensure the seal on the cargo area are intact and secure. If any of the above documents are missing the staff should inform the Warehouse Manager, and the same should be entered in the discrepancy register. Warehouse Manager to inform the dispatching warehouse in charge and try to resolve the issue, and receive the missing documents by the next day. Under NO circumstances, the merchandise should be inwarded, in variance to the above. Outwarding: This process is to ensure smooth movement of stock and merchandise stores to warehouse, vendors and any other location and updating the inventory. This process starts when Front End Category / Category / store logistics creates a STO for the transfer of merchandise. This process ends when the Store receives goods receipts details from the receiving site. This process is triggered when the Front end Category/Store Logistic Person/Retail Category identifies products to be sent back to CDC or Vendor. Any returns from the Store should be process oriented. There may be various reasons for returns like Defects sent back to the warehouse, due to excess inventory, non- moving stocks, Interstore transfer, back to vendor, Products replaced completely for the customers having same defects or products partly replaced for the Customers, excess material in the Store received as Backup Stocks in Original Packing Condition and Materials might be received directly by the Warehouse from the Customers as replacement where the Warehouse should ensure that it is duly packed and bar coded in proper conditions. Returns to Vendors to be made as per the terms and conditions agreed with the Vendor. If delivery is going from the Store, the product needs to be properly packed in corrugated cartons, after doing a Pre Delivery Inspection (PDI) at Store level one day in advance and be certified by the DM/Warehouse Incharge. Any outwarding to be done only after the permission is given from the FEC and store manager and the supply chain team to be kept in the loop. (Vaidyanathan, 2005). Drivers for 3pl usage in India: Even though the reasons for outsourcing and the activities involved may vary from one company to another, the basic driving factors are the same. In India, Sahay and Mohan (2006) classify the reasons that drive Indian organizations to outsource logistics into three categories. The primary factor is the concern regarding cost that focuses on logistics cost reduction. The second one is focus on core competencies, access to unfamiliar markets and corporate restructuring. The third issue is associated with improving supply chain efficiency, which will cover improving customer services, increasing inventory, driving productivity improvements, achieving flexibility in operations and improving return on assets. The primary drivers in the beginning were to reduce costs and release capital. But nowadays its to increase market coverage, improve the customer service level or increase the flexibility towards the changing customer expectations (Skjoett-Larsen, 2000). Facilitate Re-engineering Strategic flexibility Outsourcing Concentrate on core business Reduce cost Figure: driving factors of outsourcing. Source: Taglisapietra et al (1999) p.4 It is one of the top reasons for outsourcing researched by the outsourcing institute (2000). According to Lankford Parsa (1999): Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed. (p.23). Outsourcing not only allows enterprises to grab the benefits of structural changes, but also allows them to take advantage of reengineered world-class providers. Elements for successful 3pl relationships: A successful partnership is like a successful marriage, which requires hard work from both the parties involved. Both the parties must understand each others needs and should be compatible with the values. Bagchi Virum (1998) identifies that information sharing is crucial for successful relationship between providers and users. The main elements of long-term successful relationships are compatibility, understanding of partners business needs, open communications, commitment, fairness, flexibility and trust. Based on case studies, Bagchi Virum (1998), identify six factors to the successful third-party relationships. Customer satisfaction is the key point of the relationship in all efforts. Customers need to clearly point out their needs and wants. Then its the turn for providers to understand these needs and acquire the capabilities. People are the important assets in an alliance. Also they should be well trained and motivated individuals