An Actors Guide to Laughing on Stage

An Actors Guide to Laughing on Stage For some actors, crying on cue is easy, but laughing naturally on stage is the big challenge. Since there are so many ways to laugh in real life, there are many different techniques for evoking laughter for a theatrical performance or for the camera. The Study of Laughter The sounds of laughter are similar around the world. Most laughter consists of H-sounds: Ha, ho, hee. Other bursts of laughter might contain vowel sounds. In fact, theres an entire field of science dedicated to the study of laughter and its physical effects. Its called gelotology.   Learning about the mental and physical aspects of laughter can help actors become more adept at producing laughs on cue. Behavioral neurologist Robert Provine conducted a year-long study and discovered some of the following: Females laugh more often than men.Men are more likely to attempt to make others laugh.Speakers (joke tellers) laugh almost 50% more than their audience.Laughter often occurs at the end of a sentence.We laugh more when in the company of others than when we are alone. If youd like to know more about the psychological aspects of laughter and humor, check out Provines article The Science of Laughter and this excellent essay Marshall Brain that provides biological information on How Laughter Works. What Motivates Your Characters Laughter? If you can laugh spontaneously and sound believable, youre ready for your audition. If the laugh sounded forced it might be because you have no idea why your character is laughing. The more you empathize with your character, the more you can feel like her and laugh like her. Psychologists say there are typically three reasons for laughter: Incongruity: We anticipate something but then experience something surprisingly contrary to our expectations. (This often happens when responding to a hilarious comedian.)Superiority: We witness someone making a fool of himself and we feel better because of his idiocy. (This happens a lot with slapstick humor.)Relief: After a tense situation has occurred, we might ease our stress with our laughter. Or, sometimes we might laugh in order to remove tension from a situation. (This is where most nervous laughter originates.) Practice various types of laughter based on the different motivations. Working by yourself (possibly filming) is a good way to begin. However, you might get better results by practicing with a fellow actor. Try some simple, two-person improv activities in order to place your characters in situations that call for laughter. Afterward, you can touch base with each other, discussing what looked and felt real. Watch Yourself/Listen to Yourself Before you worry about imitating others, get to know your own natural laugh. Try to film or record friendly conversations with others. Set aside enough recording time so that you and your friends can overcome your self-consciousness. (Knowing that you are supposed to laugh is often the best way to kill potential laughter.) Once the conversation gets going, the recording device wont seem so intrusive. After you have some of the laughter recorded, watch and/or listen to yourself carefully. Notice the movements you make. Notice the pitch, volume, and length or your laughter. Also, pay attention to the moments before the laughter. Then practice recreating these same gestures and sounds. (More improv activities might be in order.) Watch How Others Laugh As an actor, you are probably a people watcher already. If you havent taken up the pastime of carefully watching others, its time to begin. Spend the next five days observing how others laugh. Do they giggle in a high pitched spurt? Do they phone in a courtesy laugh just to please others? Are they intoxicated? Maniacal? Childish? Are they laughing sarcastically? Uncontrollably? Are they trying (but failing) to hold it in? Take notes if you can. Watch movies and television shows, keeping an eye on the characters that laugh. Do the actors make it work? Does it seem forced? Why /why not? When rehearsing, try out some of these brand new laughs which you have observed. Acting for the stage can be a highly repetitive art form. Once you have mastered a laugh, you must then find ways to keep your reaction fresh. Be in the moment, be in character, and above all, listen to your fellow actors, and your reaction of laughter will be natural night after night. Laughing for the Camera If you are acting for the camera, theres good news and bad news. The good news: you can create many different takes and an editor/director can choose the one that works best. The bad news: film crews are expensive, and time equals money. The director will grow impatient if you cant come up with a realistic chortle. Depending on the scene and your fellow actors, the off-camera interaction can often evoke genuine laughter. Also, surprise moments between actors can work wonders as long as the director is in on the joke. A classic example of this is the famous jewelry box scene from Pretty Woman. According to Entertainment Weekly, director Gary Marshall instructed Richard Gere to snap the jewelry box shut as Julia Roberts reached for the necklace. Ms. Roberts did not expect the action, and she bursts into laughter. What started out as a prank became one of the most memorable parts of the film. Theres a clip of this scene currently on YouTube. Check it out, and then begin finding your own techniques; perhaps youll laugh your way to a successful acting career.

How My Local Library Helped Me Get from Jobless and Broke to Six Figures a Year

How My Local Library Helped Me Get from Jobless and Broke to Six Figures a Year In 2008 I had the world I had a good job I loved. I earned a pretty good salary, and was constantly praised What is that old saying about pride going before the fall? Yep, thats exactly what happened. Through no fault of my own, the company I worked for as a high-end retail sales manager went bankrupt. We received no advance notice that they were closing our store. On a Thursday in late June of 2008, it was business as usual. Friday shut down. That was the same year the economy crashed in the United States, creating a perfect storm of financial fear and self-doubt in my life. I sold my car and most of my possessions, so I would have some cash to fall back on in case I didnt find another job right away. To bolster my income as I continued to look for work, I decided to learn about this whole making money online thing. Since I could not even afford a monthly Internet bill, I walked to and from the near I stumbled across a few Internet marketing forums, where I sold articles for as little as $5 or $10. After just over a year of cranking out low-paying work seven days a week, my financial situation slowly began to improve. I persisted. I took online courses and writing classes. That persistence paid off. One of my clients told me I should become a copywriter because my writing converted so well for him. I thanked him, hung up the phone and immediately grabbed my Websters Dictionary. I had no clue what a copywriter was! Almost instantly, I began writing copy instead of content. I realized that copywriting was where I needed to be, and where my natural inclinations and talents belonged. I began offering copywriting services to my clients and cut back on writing content. Fast forward eight long years, and I am on pace to flirt with a six-figure income this year. Whats the take-away from this story? Dont give up when things get tough. Always keep your Big Why in the front of your mind. Ask yourself why you want to earn a living as a writer. Be brutally honest with your answer. Keep asking yourself why, over and over, until you get to the basic motivating factor that drives your writing desires. Was it fun for me, walking in the rain, the cold and the heat, seven days a week to my local library to frequently sit next to some less than desirable people while I taught myself how to make a good living writing online? Of course it wasnt. But it was necessary. Do whatever is necessary to live your dream life. Its not really as hard as you may think. It may take time. It is certainly going to take effort. But the personal empowerment and freedom that the freelance writing lifestyle delivers is worth any cost as long as your Why? is big enough.

Europe Agriculture Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Europe Agriculture - Assignment Example Climate change has resulted in a shift in agricultural production, thus altering the food composition. There is an elevated use of pesticides and herbicides, new plant and animal strains and different production environments such as greenhouses. Although most of them are supposed to ensure that the nutritional quantity is not limited, there are questions raised about the quality. Climate change affects the nutritional quality of foods in many ways such as increased use of agrochemicals, spread of pathogens and changes in the soil structure and composition. The principal purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which food safety and nutrition quality are affected by climate change in Europe. The paper will also give recommendations for solutions and/or further research. The paper explores the issues that climate change is likely to affect, as far as food safety is concerned. It identifies various issues such as agrochemical use during production and storage, marine biotoxins, and extreme environmental conditions. The paper will contribute information to answering the research question. Farkas, J., J. Beczner, and C. S. Mohà ¡csi-Farkas. "Potential impact of the climate change on the risk of mycotoxin contamination of agricultural products in Southeast Central Europe." Acta Univ Sapientiae Aliment 4 (2011): 89-96. The paper looks into the impact of climate change on the contamination of agricultural products by fungi. It explores the various mycotoxins that have been common in the past, and the new trend brought about by climate change. I will derive information on such emerging issues from this research This paper reviews the various food safety factors that are affected by climate change. It recommends that collaboration between relevant organizations is mandatory to address the issue. It will contribute more

Sexuality in Islam Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Sexuality in Islam - Essay Example Allah has described very dreadful punishments both in this world and in the world hereafter for the people who practice homosexuality. Allah says in the Quran, â€Å"What! Of all creatures do ye come unto the males, and leave the wives your Lord created for you? Nay, but ye are forward folk† (Qur'an 26:165 cited in â€Å"Islam and Homosexuality†). The people of Hazrat Lut (P.B.U.H.) practiced homosexuality. They practiced it both indoor and in the public. Prophet Lut (P.B.U.H.) repeatedly told them to stop this practice, but they would not listen, thus inviting the wrath of Allah and one day, those people were all destroyed together by Allah. Islam condemns homosexuality because it has myriad evil consequences. Homosexuality distorts the family system and deprives people of their gender traits. Islam allows the man to marry no more than four women at one time. Polygamy has been practiced by a lot of prophets in the history of Islam. Prophet Abraham, Prophet Moses, Proph et Jacob, and the Prophet Solomon had three, two, four, and 700 wives respectively (â€Å"An Introduction to Polygamy†). Critics say that if man is allowed to keep four wives at one time, the woman should also be allowed to keep up to four husbands at one time. But polygamy is in no circumstances allowed for the women in Islam. This makes sense. When a man marries four women, the child any of the wives would bear would be certainly his. On the contrary, when a woman makes love with more than one man at a time, there is no certainty in the child’s belongingness to a particular man unless the child is genetically tested. In addition to that, women generally outnumber men. Thus, when a man marries more than once, more women are likely to get married in their life than otherwise. Although polygamy for men is allowed in Islam, yet it is not practiced equally in all Islamic countries. Polygamy is so well-practiced by the Muslims in the Arabia, that it has also become a cultu ral trait. Polygamy is so ingrained in the Arab culture that a man keeps all the wives in the same home but in different rooms. In many Muslim countries including India and Pakistan, women cannot stand another wife of their husband. They cannot share their husband’s love with another woman. This is the reason why practicing polygamy for a Muslim man in these counties exposes him to a lot of cultural and social issues, though he is religiously justified as long as he does justice to all of the wives. There is a very sheer population of Muslim men in India and Pakistan that have more than one wife at the same time. This is purely a cultural issue. In these countries, women cannot even bear a look of their husband’s wife, what to talk of living in the same home like the Arabian women do. It is noteworthy that while Islam allows the man to keep up to four wives at one time, Islam also obliges the man to do justice to each of the four. This essentially means that a man has to distribute equal amount of money, time and assets among the wives. If a man has two wives and he lives with one more than the other, he is doing injustice and will be held accountable for his actions on the doom’s day. There are no age restrictions in marriage in Islam. A man can get married to an elder woman and so can a woman. Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.) was only 25 years old when he was proposed by Hazrat Khadija (P.B.U.H.) who was 40 years old at

Genealogy Revised Essay Example for Free

Genealogy Revised Essay Hundred years ago, the thought of bringing enough cash to purchase your dream house was outrageous. In a modern setting, holding a rectangular piece of plastic smaller than the size of your palm can get you almost anything you want. A credit card was thought to bring convenience to humanity. No longer do people need to bring a stack of cash out or fearing that they might have the financial incapacity to get the latest Gucci bag on the showcase. Go crazy with your shopping-spree but can you really handle it? Credit card is a â€Å"silent killer† to many people, causing a lot of unforeseeable harms as deadly as cancer-cells. BlackBerry Mobile phones have become a necessity to numerous people in the modern world. Cliche as it may sound, mobile phones have brought people closer together. However, how close do you really want it to be? With the of BlackBerrys introduction, business executives and even students can now have access to information from a device the size of their palms. Users can be in their own little world without fearing or worrying the world outside them. The work load of a business person has increased because the idea â€Å"not bringing work home† is long applicable. BlackBerry is a â€Å"devil’s device† that shares a similar implication to George Orwell’s â€Å"Big Brother is watching you! † in the novel 1984, because with a BlackBerry, there is no excuse to not respond to a call or any other form of communication. Female Undergarment Wearing a pair of low-cut jeans and revealing part of the underwear is no longer considered inappropriate in certain societies. Originally, the female undergarment’s primary function is to comfot, support and enhance the femalebody form. In addition, the modern function of the under garment also are also inclined to modesty and erotic display purposes. Diamond When it comes to diamond, many may connect diamond to the purity and longevity of a marriage. Nowadays, in a world where marriage no longer lasts forever, the diamond has become ironic in what its qualities represent. Structurally, the is bonded by several carbon molecules. Despite the various possible substitutes for diamonds were introduced such as crystal, synthetic diamonds and even plastics, but the uniqueness and the superiority of a

Feature extraction using crossing number (cn) and ridge tracking technique

Feature extraction using crossing number (cn) and ridge tracking technique PROPOSED ALGORITHM: FEATURE EXTRACTION USING CROSSING NUMBER (CN) AND RIDGE TRACKING TECHNIQUE The various steps involved in feature extraction are as given below: 3.2.1 ADAPTIVE BINARIZATION The enhanced greyscale image is converted to a binary image using adaptive binarization [1]. Global thresholding is not used for binarization because of possibilities of non-uniform illumination on the surface of scanner. Thus using adaptive binarization with a window size of 91 x 91 (This size was finalised after a number of trial and errors). The algorithm can be outlined as follows: Algorithm: Adaptive binarization Input: Enhanced greyscale image e(x,y). Output: Binarized image bin(x,y). For each pixel (i) of e(x,y) Compute local mean (ml) in the 91 x 91 neighborhood of the pixel. If ml > e(xi,yi) then, bin(xi,yi) = white. Else bin(xi,yi)= black. End For. - 3.2.2. THINNING The binarised image is skeletonised using medial axis transformation (MAT)[1] to obtain a single pixel thin ridge structure. The thinning algorithm can be outlined as follows: Assumptions: Region points are assumed to have value 1(white) and background points to have value 0(black). Notations: 1. The 8 neighbour notation of a centre pixel p1 is as shown. p9 p2 p3 p8 p1 p4 p7 p6 p5 2. n (p1) is the number of non zero neighbours of p1. I.e. n (p1) = p2 + p3 + †¦. + p9. 3. t (p1) is the number of 0-1 transitions in the ordered sequence p2, p3,†¦p9,p2. Algorithm : Thinning Input: Binarized image bin(x,y). Output: One pixel thinned image th(x,y). Steps: 1. W.r.t the neighborhood notation a pixel p1 in bin(x,y). is flagged for deletion if the following conditions are satisfied; 2 ≠¤ n(p1) ≠¤ 6 . t(p1)=1. p2 V p4 V p6 = 0 p4 V p6 V p8 = 0 2. Delete all the flagged pixels from bin(x,y). 3. W.r.t the neighborhood notation a pixel p1 in bin(x,y) is flagged for deletion if the following conditions are satisfied; 2 ≠¤ n(p1) ≠¤ 6 . t(p1)=1. p2 V p4 V p8 = 0 p2 V p6 V p8 = 0 4. Delete all the flagged pixel from bin(x,y). 5. Go to step 1 if bin(x, y) is not same as the previous bin(x, y) (indicating that single pixel thickness is yet not obtained) 6. Assign the image bin(x, y) obtained from step 4. to th(x, y). Thus one iteration of the thinning algorithm consists of applying step 1 to flag border points for deletion deleting the flagged points; applying step 3 to flag the remaining border points for deletion; and deleting the flagged points. The basic procedure is applied iteratively until no further points are deleted, at which time the algorithm terminates, yielding the skeleton of the region. 3.2.3 ESTIMATING SPATIAL CO-ORDINATES DIRECTION OF MINUTIAE POINTS. Minutiae representation is by far, the most widely used method of fingerprint representation. Minutia or small details mark the regions of local discontinuity within a fingerprint image. These are locations where the the ridge comes to an end(type: ridge ending) or branches into two (type: bifurcation). Other forms of the minutiae includes a very short ridge (type: ridge dot), or a closed loop (type: enclosure). The different types of minutiae are illustrated Figure 1. There are more than 18 different types of minutiae [2] among which ridge bifurcations and endings are the most widely used. Other minutiae type may simply be expressed as multiple ridge endings of bifurcations. For instance, a ridge dot may be represented by two opposing ridge endings placed at either extremities. Even this simplification is redundant since many matching algorithms do not even distinguish between ridge ending and bifurcations since their types can get flipped. The template simply consists of a list of minutiae location and their orientations. The feature extractor takes as input a gray scale image I(x,y) and produces a unordered set of tuples- M = {m1,m2,m3mN}. Each tuple mi corresponds to a single minutia and represents its properties. The properties extracted by most algorithms include its position and orientation. Thus, each tuple mi is usually represented as a triplet {xi, yi, ÃŽ ¸i}. The crossing number (CN) method is used to perform extraction of the spatial coordinates of the minutiae points. This method extracts the bifurcations from the skeleton image by examining the local neighborhood of each ridge pixel using a 33 window. The CN of a ridge pixel ‘p is given as follows CN=0.5 { i=18pi-pi+1 } p(9) =p(1) . For a pixel ‘p if CN= 3 it is a bifurcation point. For each extracted minutia along with its x and y coordinates the orientation of the associated ridge segment is also recorded. The minutia direction is found out using a ridge tracking technique. With reference to figure 3.3 once the x and y coordinates of the bifurcation point are known, we can track the three directions from that point. Each direction is tracked upto 10 pixel length. Once tracked we construct a triangle from these three points. The midpoint of the smallest side of the triangle is then connected to the bifurcation point and the angle of the resulting line segment is found which is the minutia direction. Assumptions: Ridges are assumed to have value 0 (black) and background points to have value 1(white). Notations: The 8 neighbor notation of a center pixel p1 is as previously shown. The algorithm for extracting the minutiae using the crossing number technique can be outlined as follows: Algorithm: Crossing number Input: Thinned image th(x,y). Output: Image with (x,y) coordinates and orientation thita of each minutia. Steps: 1. For every pixel p in th(x,y) compute the crossing number (CN) ; CN=0.5 { i=18pi-pi+1 } p(9) =p(1) . 2. If CN= 3, the pixel p is declared as a bifurcation point and its x and y coordinates, i.e. p.x and p.y are recorded. 3. The orientation at the bifurcation points p.ÃŽ ¸ is calculated using tracking algorithm. Fingerprint matching Process:- Each minutiae may be described by a number of attributes such as its position (x,y), its orientation ÃŽ ¸, its quality etc. However, most algorithms consider only its position and orientation information. Given a pair of fingerprints and their corresponding minutiae features to be matched, features may be represented as an unordered set given by I1 = {m1,m2.mM} where mi = (xi, yi, ÃŽ ¸i) I2 = {m1,m2.mN} where mi = (xi, yi , ÃŽ ¸i ) Here the objective is to find a point mj in I2 that exclusively corresponds to each point mi in I1. Usually points in I2 is related to points in I1 through a geometric transformation T( ). Therefore, the technique used by most minutiae matching algorithms is to recover the transformation function T( ) that maps the two point sets . The resulting point set I2 is given by: I2 = T(I1) = {m†1,m† 2,m† 3.m†M} m†1 = T(m1) m† N = T(mN) The minutiae pair mi and m†j are considered to be a match only if (xi-xj)2+(yi-yj)2≠¤r0 min( |ÃŽ ¸i − ÃŽ ¸Ã¢â‚¬  j | , 360 − |ÃŽ ¸i − ÃŽ ¸Ã¢â‚¬ j | ) Here r0 and ÃŽ ¸0 denote the tolerance window. The matcher can make on of the following assumptions on the nature of the transformation T Rigid Transformation: Here it is assumed that one point set is rotated and shifted version of the other. Affine Transformation: Affine transformations are generalization of Euclidean transform. Shape and angle are not preserved during transformation. Non-linear Transformation: Here the transformation may be due to any arbitrary and complex transformation function T(x,y). The problem of matching minutiae can be treated as an instance of generalized point pattern matching problem. In its most general form, point pattern matching consists of matching two unordered set of points of possibly different cardinalities and each point. It is assumed that the two pointsets are related by some geometrical relationship. In most situations, some of the point correspondences are already known (e.g. control points in an image registration problem [5,4,6,7])andthe problem reduces to finding the most optimal geometrical transformation that relates these two sets. However, in fingerprints, the point correspondences themselves are unknown and therefore the points have to be matched with no prior assumption making it a very challenging combinatorial problem. There have been several prior approaches where general point pattern techniques havebeen applied. Some of these have been discussed here. Ranade and Rosenfield [8] proposed an iterative approach for obtaining point correspondences. In this approach, for each point pair mi, mj they assign pij , the likelihood of the point correspondence and c(i, j, h, k), a cost function that captures the correspondence of other pairs(mh,m_k) as a result of matching mi with mj. In each iteration pij is incremented if it increases the compatibility of other points and is decremented if it does not. At the point of convergence, each point mi is assigned to the point argmaxk(pik). While this is a fairly accurate approach and is robust to non-linearities, the iterative nature of the algorithm makes it unsuitable for most applications. The hough transform [9] approach or the transformation clustering approach reduces the problemof point pattern matching to detecting the most probable transformation in a transformation search space. Ratha et al [10] proposed a fingerprint matching algorithm based on this approach. In this technique, the search space consists of all the possible parameter under the assumed distortionmodel. For instance, if we assume a rigid transformation, then the search space consists of all possible combinations of all translations (Δx,Δy) , scales s and rotations and ÃŽ ¸. However, to avoid computation complexity the search space is usually discretized into small cells. Therefore the possible transformations form a finite set with Δx ÃŽ µ {Δ1x,Δ2x . . .ΔIx} Δy ÃŽ µ {Δ1y,Δ2y . . .ΔJy} ÃŽ ¸ ÃŽ µ {ÃŽ ¸1, ÃŽ ¸2 . . . ÃŽ ¸K} s ÃŽ µ {s1, s2 . . . sL} A four dimensional accumulator of size (I Ãâ€"J Ãâ€"K Ãâ€"L) is maintained. Each cell A(i, j, k, l) indicatesthe likelihood of the transformation parameters (Δix,Δjy, ÃŽ ¸k, sl). To determine the optimal transformation, every possible transformation is tried on each pair of points. The algorithm used is summarized below for each point mi in fingerprint T . for each point m_j in fingerprint I for each ÃŽ ¸k ÃŽ µ {ÃŽ ¸1, ÃŽ ¸2 . . . ÃŽ ¸K} for each sl ÃŽ µ {s1, s2 . . . sL} compute the translations Δx,Δy Explicit alignment: An illustration of the relative alignment using ridges associated with minutiae mi and mj ∆x∆y=∆xi∆yi-s1cosÃŽ ¸k -sinÃŽ ¸ksinÃŽ ¸k cosÃŽ ¸kxjyj †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦(1) d Let (Δix,Δjy) be the quantized versions of (Δx,Δy) respectively. e If T{mi} matches with m_j increase the evidence for the cell A[Δix,Δjy, ÃŽ ¸k, sl] A[Δix,Δjy, ÃŽ ¸k, sl] = A[Δix,Δjy, ÃŽ ¸k, sl]+1 3.The optimal transformation parameters are obtained using (Δ*x,Δ*y, ÃŽ ¸*, s*) = argmax(i,j,k,l) A[Δix,Δjy, ÃŽ ¸k, sl] References: Gonzalez, Woods, and Eddins. Digital Image Processing using matlab. Prentice Hall, 2004. D. Maltoni, D. Maio, A.K. Jain, S. Prabhakar, Handbook of Fingerprint Recognition, Springer, 2003, ISBN 0-387-95431-7. R.Thai, Fingerprint image enhancement and feature extraction. Australia. Anil Jain, Salil Prabhakar, Lin Hong, and Sharath Pankanti. Filterbank-based fingerprint matching. In Transactions on Image Processing, volume 9, pages 846-859, May 2000. Anil Jain, Arun Ross, and Salil Prabhakar. Fingerprint matching using minutiae texture features.In International Conference on Image Processing, pages 282-285, october 2001. L. Hong, Y. Wang, and A. K. Jain. Fingerprint image enhancement: Algorithm and performanceevaluation. Transactions on PAMI, 21(4):777-789, August 1998. L. Brown. A survey of image registration techniques. ACM Computing Surveys, 1992. A. Ranade and A. Rosenfeld. Point pattern matching by relaxation. Pattern Recognition, 12(2):269-275, 1993. R. O. Duda and P. E. Hart. Use of the hough transformation to detect lines and curves in pictures. Communications of the ACM, 15(1), 1972. N. K. Ratha, K. Karu, S. Chen, and A. K. Jain. A real-time matching system for large fingerprint databases. Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 18(8):799-813, 1996.

Augustine Vs. Aquinas Essay

Saint Augustine of Hippo, as he is most commonly referred, of the early fifth century and Saint Thomas Aquinas, of the thirteenth century, are considerably well-known for their philosophical and theological discoveries. Even though both are famous for venturing to integrate Christianity with their philosophical thoughts, they took completely different paths in doing so. Aquinas took an Aristotelian path, being a strong follower of Aristotle while Augustine, took a Platonic path, considering Plotinus as his mentor. Both delved deeply into the concept of ethics dichotomy, the human nature, and the human’s ability to know, and to do, the good. Christianity does hold true to the fact life after death exists. (Bray, 2003). Augustine’s view on the nature of the human beings states that each individual is â€Å"trapped by sin in immorality and untruth† (Clark & Poortenga, 2003, Pg. 39). A human being cannot access that after-life unless they devote themselves fully to G od. It is only through the process of â€Å"illumination† and â€Å"divine assistance† that an individual can be truly fulfilled as a human being. Basically, only through the love of God can one reach to the ultimate truth about themselves and learn to see and do the good. â€Å"Divine assistance is necessary to rid us of vice, turn our hearts towards God and enable us to acquire virtue† (Clark & Poortenga, 2003, Pg. 42). He believed that the man’s â€Å"corrupted desire’s† to knowledge stemmed from the Garden of Eden, where man’s thirst to be â€Å"like God† led to feeling pride and then led to the fall of that individual. When an individual stirs their attention away from the realm of God is when they get plundered by temptations such as pride, power, wealth, fame, and even human love. He believed that an individual remains disordered if he places his temptations above the love of the God. â€Å"Wherever the human soul turns itself, other than to you, it is fixed in sorrows, even if it is fixed upon beautiful things external to you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Ã‚  (Vaught, 2005). As a result of these disorderly desires, or â€Å"cupidity† as he called it, Augustine came to reject a â€Å"man’s desire for common knowledge† concluding that such desire drives an individual away from God. This was a complete opposite the Aristotelian belief that â€Å"all men by nature desire to know† (Aristotle, 1966). He believed that these temptations blind an individual’s ability to know and to do the good. In simple terms, â€Å"that which was spiritual was good and that which was â€Å"of the flesh† was evil† (Campolo, 2007). As an alternative, Augustine emphasized on divine illumination, conversion and faith, which were the true means of happiness and salvation. (Clark & Poortenga, 2003, Pg. 40). It is important fathom that Augustine was against spe cifically to the type of knowledge that enticed the â€Å"lusts of the eyes.† In compliance with the views of Plotinus, Augustine maintained that it is through God that an individual inherits true knowledge. It is imperative for the human being to become reasonable and use that knowledge in limits. It is the only method that can help them disregard the temptations and strengthen their mind for divine illumination. In his book, Confessions, Augustine states that â€Å"If we love God first, we will love the right things in the right way, our loves will be properly ordered, and we will find fulfillment† (Clark & Poortenga, 2003, Pg. 41). Aquinas on the other hand, believed that human goodness depends on the actions performed by an individual that are in agreement with our human nature, which also defines the morality of an individual. He further explains that an individual consists of a specific cognitive power, which is the â€Å"intellect† that enables us to fully comprehend the goodness of a thing. Human action’s are always in pursuit of human fulfillment, which Aquinas believes, is happiness, even though those actions may not always be right. â€Å"We desire what fulfills us as human beings although we might be wrong about what fulfills us. The right understanding of and orientation towards human fulfillment is the foundation of morality† (Crook & Poortenga, 2003, Pg. 45). Similar to Augustine’s temptations, Aquinas refers to â€Å"external goods† such as wealth, honor, fame, glory, and power and states that these are easily secured by evil individuals. â€Å"These cannot be th e highest good because fulfillment is incompatible with evil and wicked people can secure any of these goods† (Clark & Poortenga, 2003, Pg. 45). â€Å"Internal goods† such as relationships, morals, and knowledge have the capability of providing  fulfillment since such goods are infinite. Hence, Only God can completely satisfy such desires. Moreover, it is only God alone that is sufficient for human fulfillment. Like Augustine, Aquinas believed that without a divine assistance, an individual is â€Å"morally incapable† to reach God since each person is in â€Å"bondance to sin.† Without divine assistance, no one can achieve happiness nor can get a vision of God. â€Å"So we must know God in order to be happy but we, by our natural powers cannot know God. The hope for attainment of fulfillment lies not in our natural capacities but must lie in supernatural grace to heal us and direct us toward God† (Clark & Poortenga, 2003, Pg. 46). It is really hard to determine which philosopher I would agree with the most. Even though both took different routes in explaining their philosophies, their ultimate goal was to explain human fulfillment, which they further explained can only be attained by means of God. Even though each individual desires for knowledge, both philosophers, in one way and the other, theorized that â€Å"God is superior to any concept that we humans could understand or apply† (Clark & Poortenga, 2003, Pg. 39). God is the main origin of all happiness, intelligence and knowledge that exists in a human being. I would agree more with Aquinas’s view that a man’s natural desire for knowledge is the main supply to fully understand God and his capabilities. All in all, both medieval philosophers cultivated their beliefs significantly influenced by Christianity even though they both satisfied their ideals by approaching them in completely different ways. Aquinas followed the footsteps of Aristotle whereas Augustine’s views relied upon the influences set forth by Platonius. Sovereignty of the ancient philosophers can clearly been seen in the works of both Augustine and Aquinas, whether it was human nature or the ability of the human knowledge to know and to do the good. Despite multiple differences in theory and the paths taken to explain their theories, it must be taken into consideration that God was the ultimate concept the two philosophers were in agreement with. References Aristotle. 1966. Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Grinnell, Iowa: The Peripatetic Press. Bray, G. (2003). AUGUSTINE’S KEY. Christian History, 22(4), 42. Clark, K. J., & Poortenga, A. (2003). The story of ethics: Fulfilling our human nature. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Campolo, T. (2007). How Jewish was Jesus? Tikkun, 22(6), 26-28. Vaught, C. G. (2005). Access to God in Augustine’s Confessions: Books X-XIII. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.

eBay

1) EBay pursue international growth through acquisitions and partnership in related and unrelated business. eBay goal was to expand its international presence in an effort to create an on line global marketplace. In many of this international website, eBay had to adapt and provide local language and currency options to gain popularity. The best approach that eBay had was by forming partnership with local companies. This strategy helps them to understand local cultures and ensure that the company was meeting local need. eBay has had tremendous success in Latin America and Europe. But in Asia has been a failure, in Japan they had to pull out of the market due to the poor market share that they were able to get. In china they still struggling to gain market share so they decided to due joint venture to learn a little bit more about the local needs. 2) eBay biggest competitive advantage was said by the founder of the company â€Å" we have specialize in e-commerce, payments and voice communication. Google stands for search, Yahoo largely stands for content† this clearly defines the completive advantage of specializing at what they do the best. In order to support this eBay has done a lot of acquisition, this offered distinct services and target specific market niches, which allowed eBay to broaden its customer base. When it comes eBay in Asia , the company run into a lot of trouble due to an inability to build a community effect in the country that focuses in customer service. But this was difficult for Ebay because changes at global level had to be approving in United States. This made it more difficult for rapid changes in the local market. eBay 1) EBay pursue international growth through acquisitions and partnership in related and unrelated business. eBay goal was to expand its international presence in an effort to create an on line global marketplace. In many of this international website, eBay had to adapt and provide local language and currency options to gain popularity. The best approach that eBay had was by forming partnership with local companies. This strategy helps them to understand local cultures and ensure that the company was meeting local need. eBay has had tremendous success in Latin America and Europe. But in Asia has been a failure, in Japan they had to pull out of the market due to the poor market share that they were able to get. In china they still struggling to gain market share so they decided to due joint venture to learn a little bit more about the local needs. 2) eBay biggest competitive advantage was said by the founder of the company â€Å" we have specialize in e-commerce, payments and voice communication. Google stands for search, Yahoo largely stands for content† this clearly defines the completive advantage of specializing at what they do the best. In order to support this eBay has done a lot of acquisition, this offered distinct services and target specific market niches, which allowed eBay to broaden its customer base. When it comes eBay in Asia , the company run into a lot of trouble due to an inability to build a community effect in the country that focuses in customer service. But this was difficult for Ebay because changes at global level had to be approving in United States. This made it more difficult for rapid changes in the local market.

Hitler and the Failed Beer putches essays

Hitler and the Failed Beer putches essays With the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler quickly realized, that in order to obtain complete political power, he needed to work peacefully within the Weimar Republic. The Sturmabteilung was a critical part of his path towards power, but once Hitler became dictator with German support, the S.A. was no longer served any purpose in the new fascist government. The success of the revolution, domestic control, and the one political party policy in Hitler's Fascist dictatorship, were all factors that lead to the elimination of the Sturmabteilung. The soldiers of the S.A. were a major factor in the success of the National Socialist Revolution. Despite Hitler's assurance that the S.A. would not compete with the Reichswehr Army of the Weimar Republic in Document A1, the rapid rise in Brownshirts and the enormous size of the S.A. Army compared to the Reichswehr Army, displayed in Document A2, signified the strength of the National Socialist Revolution. In Document A4 Hitler assured that the single task of the S.A. was to assure the victory of the National Socialist Revolution within Germany. However, Hitler's gratitude towards Roehm is a result of Roehm's ability to increase Hitler's power. Once Hitler became Chancellor, the importance of the S.A. diminished. In Document B4, General von Blomberg assured that the Reichswehr Army would back the new national socialists state. With the support of the Reichswehr Army, it was no longer necessary to have a separated S.A. Army. As Chancellor, Hitler slowly integrated the two armies by stressing the importance of loyalty by placing the swastika on the uniforms of the Reichwehr Army, and allowing the minister of war to call upon the S.A., as shown in Documents B1 and B2. Hitler, realizing he was close to obtaining absolute power, began to consolidate various opposing parties, such as Bolshevik Communists and Liberal Capitalists. Although the S.A. was in no way an opposition to Hitler, it was ...

Review of Professional Ethics essays

Review of Professional Ethics essays A Review of Professional Ethics Codes: How the AFP (Association of Fundraising Professionals) Code of Ethical Principles and Standards of Professional Practice Compares Introduction: In this paper, the ethical code of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) is compared with the ethical codes of five other professional organizations in order to more completely discover those areas in which the AFP Code is on solid footing with other, like organizations, as well as where the AFP Code may be lacking from an objective viewpoint. The comparative codes used were some of the best-written professional conduct codes from various well-respected professions of our society. These codes are: American Bar Association (ABA) Creed American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Code of Professional Conduct and Bylaws American Medical Association (AMA) Oath and Law of Hippocrates American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) Code of Ethics United States Department of Commerce (DOC) Model of Business Principles Professional ethical codes have been in existence for thousands of years. Just as codes were established to protect professions from outside contamination (i.e.: a person pretending to be a physician when s/he was not) and external regulation; so too have ethical codes become shields for the clients using the services of those various professions. Ethical codes and professional creeds of practice often protect the public from unseemly actions of the practitioner. They also provide direction for the training of new professionals. Standards of conduct for actions taken while performing services or even standards of conduct in general life, which would reflect negatively on the individual as a member of the profession are sometimes addressed, as well as a sense of organization around a professional that could establish a corporation or guild, with regu...

Educational and psychological Statistics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Educational and psychological Statistics - Essay Example A total of 101 students in 6 streams were selected as representative population. The students taking part in the study were at various levels of studies and of different sexes.   The sample was categorized into two namely, earners or maintainers. Maintainers started with high score but in the subsequent assignments, their scores were consistently reduced leading to negative motivation. Conversely, earners scores were increased each time an assignment was given. The research hypothesized that students who are subjected to subtraction of marks are highly motivated than the students who are constantly added marks. For purposes of this essay, six positive attributes namely; motivation, interest, participation, urge, inspiration and excitement about the course are used. The mean of each attribute is calculated for generalization purposes. Then the overall mean is computed to give the general feeling or attitude of students towards the course. Further suggestions on ways of improving the test are also made.A study or test is a systematic means of enquiry that employs the use of scientifically approved techniques to find answers to problems and attempt to solve them or come up with or complement existing knowledge. Studies critically examine situations, phenomena, problems and occurrences with a view of initiating certain actions. Therefore, it must be objective and free from prejudice and biasness. It involves gathering data, changing the data into meaningful form called information and deriving conclusions.... There are two major categories of studies namely quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative studies are concerned with numbers i.e. the variables are quantified e.g. marks scored by students in particular examinations. The answers in most instances are already been given and what the respondent is required to do is to tick the applicable case or choice. On the other hand qualitative studies focus on other factors which may be related to variable. This is done by allowing respondents to describe their views about the subject and therefore offers more flexibility. It must be noted that the two categories can be used together in one study. This is usually the case in many surveys. Data collection is an integral part of research. The value and credibility of a study relies on the methods and how data was collected. A poorly collected data carries significant errors resulting into rejection of results and therefore waste of resources. Therefore, the results of the test must be valid a nd reliable. The validity is checked by investigating whether the results actually measure what it claims to determine. The reliability is concerned about the reproducibility of the same results under same conditions but different administrations. Various methods of data collections exists but the choice of specific method depend on the type of study, available resources e.g. time, the volume of data to be collected and certain aspects of population among other reason. For instance, in a population where there is high illiteracy level using a self administered questionnaire is likely to generate flawed result because majorities do not know how to read or write. Conversely, if you want to extract large volume of information within a short time from educated

English Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

English - Essay Example However, in 2008, this type of household, at 36%, still represents the biggest cohort among all the other different types in Great Britain. The percentage of families with dependent children has stayed relatively steady; while the composition of single parent families in the overall study decreased at a relatively small change rate, over the years. This latter cohort also represents the smallest group. Other types of households, which comprise of same sex couples and civil partners, have increased from 19% to 25%. Overall, people in private households have increased over the decades from 53.4 million to 58.8 million. Let us now take a deeper look at the size of households using the second table. This table looks at the size of households based on the number of persons living in them, from 1 person up to 6 or more. This study also covers nearly 40 years from 1971 to 2008. The biggest group in these cohorts is comprised of two people households, which is related to the couples and fami lies with no children data shown in the earlier table. Starting at 32% in 1971, this category has increased marginally to 35% in 2008. One person households have increased significantly over the decades also, going from 18% in 1971 to 29% in 2008. This single group, in fact, represents the biggest chunk in the overall increase in households that Great Britain has seen since 1971. It is interesting to note that all the other categories of households of more than two people, including households with three, four, five and more than six people, have decreased in the past decades: three people households have decreased from 19% to 16%; four people households have decreased from 17% to 13%; five people households have gown down from 8% to 5%; and households with 6 or more people have decreased from 6% to a mere 2%, maintaining its status as the smallest group. This data concludes effectively that the size of the average household in Great Britain has decreased from 2.9 persons to 2.4 per sons from 1971 to 2008. The contributing factors to this change are a) the increased number of one and two person(s) households, and b) the decreased number of households with 3 or more persons. Assignment 2: Examine the argument that neighbourly relations are characterised by friendly distance. Neighbours make a very important component of societal life: how neighbours behave and interact with each other has a direct effect on the type of communities that are established; whether these communities have cordiality, understanding and generosity or aloofness and mistrust is dependent on how neighbourly relations are. This essay attempts to describe the various characteristics, components and manifestations of strong and good neighbourly relations to shed light on the question of whether these relations are best when friendly but at a distance. The word ‘neighbour’ is used to describe the person living right next door to another person; in speaking terms, neighbours includ es people who reside close together on a street or residential area. A ‘neighbour’ holds an intrinsic social identity (Taylor, p. 167) and associations based on a neighbour’s role. Having good neighbours or a ‘nice neighbourhood’ is a very important characteristic of fruitful social life. However, the definition of a ‘