Definition and Examples of RAS Syndrome

Definition and Examples of RAS Syndrome RAS syndrome is a humorous initialism for Redundant Acronym [or Abbreviation] Syndrome syndrome: the (redundant) use of a word thats already included in an acronym or initialism. Also known as  PNS syndrome (PIN number syndrome syndrome) and acronym-assisted pleonasm. Common examples of RAS syndrome include  PIN number (personal identification number number),  AC current (alternating current current) and HIV virus (human immunodeficiency virus virus).  Such redundancies, says Bryan Garner, may be passable in speech- especially with unfamiliar acronyms- [but] they should be avoided in formal writing (Garners Modern American Usage, 2009). The term RAS syndrome first appeared in the magazine New Scientist (May 26, 2001). Examples and Observations LCD display for liquid crystal display displayCNN network for Cable News Network networkRAM memory for random-access memory memoryRSI injury for repetitive strain injury injury  SARS syndrome for severe acute respiratory syndrome syndromeMVUE estimator for minimum-variance unbiased estimator estimatorCMS system for content management system systemBBC corporation for British Broadcasting Corporation corporationIRA account for individual retirement account accountPCR reaction for  polymerase chain reaction reaction Redundancies Everywhere You Look I overheard part of your ATM story and I just couldnt let it go by. Do you know what ATM stands for?Of course. Automated teller machine.He went to college, Robin said.Okay, how about PIN?You mean as in PIN number?Aha! she exclaimed again. Now do you see it? The bartender brought her drink and she took a careful sip, then came back to them. You said you were at the ATM machine and forgot your PIN number. The automated teller machine machine and the personal information number number. Redundancies everywhere you look.(John Lescroart, The Hunter. Dutton, 2012) Reply RSVP The request reply RSVP is pretty much the same thing as youre being asked to reply twice. . . . [T]he word Sahara means great desert in Arabic (via Tuareg), so referring to that big, hot, sandy place in North Africa as the Sahara Desert is totally tautological, meaning as it does great desert desert.(Roger Horberry, Sounds Good on Paper: How to Bring Business Language to Life. Bloomsbury, 2010) The Lighter Side of RAS Syndrome Sidney Cochran: I am going to bed. We have a 10 a.m. plane to catch in the morning.Diana Barrie: 10 a.m. is the morning. That is redundant, you A.H.(Michael Caine and Maggie Smith in California Suite, 1978)

GLOBALIZATION POVERTY AND INEQUALITY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 9000 words

GLOBALIZATION POVERTY AND INEQUALITY - Essay Example It makes us wonder whether in this context, globalisation is actually beneficial as the neoliberals claim. In fact, time has come to search for other viable alternatives, or if necessary, to modify globalisation in such a manner that it really helps to serve the poor and needy, and helps to remove all boundaries of inequality. Executive Summary: A close look at the arguments presented by the neoliberal theorists will show us that in the past two decades there has been a marked decrease in the income inequality index factor and also a downward growth rate of the poverty factor, a great deviation from the picture that we have seen for a century and a half. Neoliberal arguments further explain that this improved picture is arising mainly from the globalization factor that is bringing about a fusion of economies throughout the world breaking all national borders and boundaries. A look at the economic conditions of the third world countries reveal that, nearly all of the South East Asian countries, especially China and India, have progressed rapidly with a fall in poverty rates. However the central and eastern European countries, comprising many of the former members of the Soviet Union republic, and the countries of the sub-Saharan belt have regressed and shown increased poverty levels. The Latin American cou ntries are stagnant as far as their poverty graph is concerned; however the neoliberal argument says that globalization is here to stay, since after the break down of Bretton Woods, it has been generally concluded that it is more beneficial to have an converging system, instead of opting for interests that conflict and create barriers. This paper will explore and will take an in-depth look at the arguments put forward by the neoliberal theories, and will analyze the empirical basis for their arguments. â€Å"Globalization

Project Management Master Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Project Management Master - Assignment Example That is why Project Management is told to be the best method of implementing change. The defining and planning stage - means to plan the project in more detail by writing and publishing a full definition of the project and determining a project plan. The production of a Project Plan, or Schedule, is a key part of the development of any project. The schedule Formal methods of project management offer a framework to manage this process and provides a series of procedures to manage the project through its life cycle. According to the Lasa Computanews Guide to Project Management, the key elements are: Many project management systems are proprietary. Project management consultants sell them as a package of services that will include training sessions and consultancy alongside documentation that will include templates and guidance notes. These packages don't come cheap - they cost hundreds or thousands of pounds. But this approach may be a cost effective solution for larger organizations that want to set up a structure to manage a number of projects. Practically, they are paying to set up a framework that includes: training for staff, consultancy and support to manage projects within the organization. However, in RCIAS Good Practice Bulletin No3 there are noted some of the common issues identified within the Research Councils or the wider public and private sectors: Procurement Strategy, Guidelines, Supply of management information, Training, Contract Signing Powers, Use of consultants. The Procurement Strategy issue is determined by the fact that few councils have a formal and authorized procurement strategy.

2ND PAPER Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

2ND PAPER - Essay Example Chances that the super power would diminish in the next decades are clearly high. The best positioned countries to challenge America’s prominence are found in East Asia and globally by China. (Abdelnour, Wesley & Herman pg57) It is believed that if Chinas economic growth continues consistently the next two decades just in the same pace as the last two decades, then it would surpass and rival the United States of America in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) .GDP is not measured in terms of dollar but in terms of purchasing power parity. Even if Chinas economic status does not does not reach the Americas standards, it is notable that the growth has created a fundamental political inspiration in the entire East Asia. The economic clout extends East Asia affecting both great powers and the developing countries due to enthusiasm for raw materials and competitive prices for low cost goods. China is resolute in climbing the technological ladder, a clear indication that it might affect United States of America economically. Already China is regarded as the most dominant military powerhouse in the entire East Asia thereby making significant strides creating excellence in the armed forces. The tense relationship between USA and Russia has been fuelled by Americans interest in Crimea with regard to the sanctions that have been attached to Russia recently by President Barrack Obama of the United States. Several banks have been blacklisted by the US government following the Russian infiltrations in Ukraine. Majority of Russian businessmen in the United States who have close links with Vladimir Putin have been expelled from the country. President Obama has also come with strategies to tame some parts of the Russian economy comprising both the oil and gas industries which form a bunch of Russians export. (Abdelnour, Wesley & Herman pg29) According to President Barack Obama, the action would interfere with the

Queen Victorias Effect on Britain

Queen Victorias Effect on Britain Did Queen Victoria leave her subjects in a better condition in 1901 than when she found them in 1837? The Victorian era was principally a time of change, of transience: the translocation of a people, challenged morally, socially and in their religious beliefs, as never before. Standing majestically above all this was the image of stability which Queen Victoria symbolised. The shift from the rural life of the eighteenth century and the Romantic Movement in the Arts which accompanied it was displaced and the population in the industrial towns and cities swelled to the point of overflowing, producing slums and sweatshops rather than the wealth and security that had been sought, with ‘the Age of the Novel’ involved with social issues as well as establishing a new literary genre. In 1837, when Victoria came to the throne, these changes had already begun and by the time her reign ended, in 1901, more was ahead particularly if one considers the ‘long nineteenth century’ which encompasses the pre-war years up to 1914. How far her people were in a ‘better condi tion’ by the end of Victoria’s reign will be the subject of this essay, looking at the idea via the different media of change evidenced in religion, literature, politics and related social issues as well as the Imperialism which the establishment of the British monarch as the first Empress of India established. In many ways, it is true to say that Victoria presided over a Renaissance which had not been seen since her antecedent, Elizabeth, had been on the throne. The coincidence that a female monarch should have been in place at both times of regeneration does not, however, imply a connective: conditions were very different during Elizabeth’s reign, particularly in the area of social mobility and religious imperatives. The Victorian era saw the greatest challenges to both of these that had ever been seen. The movement of the peasantry to the towns saw an enormous shift in both the physical location of the population and its imperatives. Much was lost, in terms of tradition and permanence when the move to the cities occurred because most of those who did relocate in the hope of increasing their meagre incomes had never been farther than the next village before they moved and this had been the case for generations. Indeed, as early as the mid-nineteenth century novelists were using the idea of the rural idyll to exemplify an ideal existence now lost[1]. This is evident in novels such as George Eliot’s Adam Bede (1859) which was set some fifty years before it was written: As he reached the foot of the slope, an elderly horseman, with his portmanteau strapped behind him, stopped his horse when Adam had passed him, and turned round to have another long look at the stalwart workman in paper cap, leather breeches, and dark-blue worsted stockings.[2] The mounted, unidentified and detached observer (a connective with the contemporary reader) takes a ‘long look at the ‘stalwart workman’ in an elegiac emblem of the author’s intent within the novel to show a time now lost and the changes that were about to take place. Adam as a type of workman has been displaced and is no longer to be found and which represents a longing for a return to old times and old days associated with the countryside which can be traced to the present day and certainly becomes a primary informative, present in works such as Flora Thompson’s enduringly popular Larkrise to Candleford (1945) and further evidenced even in the work of such ‘scientific’ novelists as H.G. Wells in his novel, The History of Mr Polly, and the character of Leonard Bast as well as the evocative, mystical rural setting in E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End, both written in 1910. The novel also introduces the character of a female preacher, a ‘Dissenter’, in other words a Methodist, and by combining the two, Eliot shows that despite the loss of the life portrayed in her novel, there were positive challenges which changes such as the growing desire for the emancipation of women, at the forefront of which was J.S. Mill[3], and the need to find new ways of expressing religious sensibility. The ultimate challenge to religion, of course, was presented by the theories of evolution which were being formulated in the 1860s. Although Charles Darwin is credited with having discovered this, the work of such as Herbert Spencer, who actually coined the term ‘survival of the fittest’ in his Principles of Biology (1864) which Darwin incorporated into a later edition of his own work, were also significant. Within his seminal The Origin of Species, first published in 1859, Darwin introduced to the wider public the then profoundly disturbing notion that man was not created entire and complete as the Bible relates but evolved and thus dispossessed an entire generation who had previously felt secure in the knowledge of God as their Creator (though Darwin uses this term himself many times within the work and does not deny the idea of a Creator directly[4]). It is a mistake, however, to assume that Darwin’s ideas had much immediate effect on the population at large. R ather, its immediate aftermath may be discerned in the literature of the time, George Eliot, a close friend of Spencer, amongst these. Moreover, his published theories were simply an affirmation for many of a growing generic scepticism, such as Thomas Hardy shows: On the last day of the year [1901] he makes the following reflection: ‘After reading various philosophic systems, and being struck with their contradictions and futilities, I have come to this: Let every man make a philosophy for himself out of his own experience. He will not be able to escape using terms and phraseology from earlier philosophers, but let him avoid adopting their theories if he values his own mental life. Let him remember the fate of Coleridge, and save years of labour by working out his own views as given him by his surroundings.’[5] However, just as the move from the towns to the cities subsequently produced a sense of loss, the disconnection with the certainty of divine creation also saw the longing for a mystical element to life once ‘the divine’ had, in a sense, been removed from it: seeking ‘an oasis of mystery in the dreary desert of knowledge’[6]. The disconnection resulted in the burgeoning of interest in Spiritualism which was witnessed at the end of the century, with personages as eminent and respected as Rudyard Kipling not only interested and involved with this but also writing about it in stories such as the mysterious ‘They’[7] and imagination came to be seen as connected to the divine and dislocated by Darwin’s discoveries, Forster wrote in 1910: ‘They collect facts and facts and empires of facts. But which of them will re-kindle the light within?’[8] However, the connection of facts with the denial of imagination had been discussed much earlier by the man who is above anyone the voice of the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens. In his novel of 1854, Hard Times, he demonstrates the denial of the importance of ‘fancy’ in Utilitarian educational methods and the pre-eminence of ‘facts’[9]. This he extends to the teaching methods used to train the teachers themselves: He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs. He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of head-breaking questions. [†¦] He had worked his stony way into Her Majestys most Honourable Privy Councils Schedule B, and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathematics and physical science, French, German, Latin and Greek. [†¦] Ah, rather overdone, MChoakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more![10] Dickens the radical is less appreciated now than in his own time, as in subsequent centuries he has come to be seen simply as a master-story teller, which of course he was. However, this is to deny the way that Dickens, as evidenced in this satirical swipe at the Utilitarian movement, used his immense popularity in the cause of social reform. Indeed, in the early years of Victoria’s reign, he published his second and third novels, Oliver Twist (1837-9) and Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9). The first of these was concerned with the effects of the infamous ‘Poor Law’ and the 1834 amendment. It was widely believed that the abuse of this injured rather than helped the poor and Dickens’ novel was intended to bring that to the notice of those who had the power to do something about it, as well as reaching the newly literate lower echelons and letting them know they had someone who would speak for them, that their story, as Dickens remarked in his Preface to the 1867 ed ition, from thieves to prostitutes, was a ‘TRUTH’ that ‘needed to be told’[11]. As his friend and first biographer remarked: His qualities could be appreciated as well as felt in an almost equal degree by all classes of his various readers.[12] Thus, as the novelist is known to have said, by making people care about one child, he might make them care about the many and this emanated from his own sufferings as a child alone in London when his father was imprisoned for debt in the infamous Marshalsea (which was to provide the setting for his later novel, Little Dorrit, 1857, though the six hundred year old prison closed in 1842) whence he was accompanied by his wife and younger children[13]. Dickens never spoke of the experience, save through his fiction, nor did he ever forget it. In Nicholas Nickleby and the creation of Dotheboys Hall, Dickens continued to exercise his creative power to bring to the attention of his readers the appalling social evil of the Yorkshire schools, whose abuses he remembered hearing of as a child and then investigated (whilst wearing a disguise) as part of his research for the novel. As the author said in his fragment of autobiography, ‘we should be devilish careful what we do to children’[14]. Dickens had a long memory and an acute social awareness and both are evident in Nickleby, as is the sheer exhilaration and appetite for life which had proved so popular in his first novel Pickwick Papers (1836-7). Moreover, Dickens was a successful reformer, commenting in his preface to the 1848 edition: This story was begun, within a few months after the publication of the completed Pickwick Papers. There were, then, a good many cheap Yorkshire schools in existence. There are very few now.[15] The fact is stated simply but the achievement was immense. The obverse of these schools, of course, was seen in Arnold’s pioneering work in reforming the public schools, as evidenced in Thomas Hughes’, Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857). The issue of social and educational reform was one with which many novelists were concerned at this time, engaging with both the needs and desires of the weakest in society. Engels had identified this as ‘the social war, the war of each against all’[16] and he applied this as a generic to the multiplicity of industrial towns and cities: What is true of London, is true of Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, is true of all great towns. Everywhere barbarous indifference, hard egotism on one hand, and nameless misery on the other, everywhere social warfare, every mans house in a state of siege, everywhere reciprocal plundering under the protection of the law, and all so shameless, so openly avowed that one shrinks before the consequences of our social state as they manifest themselves here undisguised, and can only wonder that the whole crazy fabric still hangs together.[17] Engels’ work was published between September 1844 and March 1845 and had an immediate effect on not just those who were, if one may term it so, ‘declared radicals’, like himself, but also those like the deeply ‘respectable’ and widely respected writer Elizabeth Gaskell, whose first novel, Mary Barton, written in 1848, partly to assuage the pain of losing her child, deals largely with the poverty experienced by the poor in Manchester. Gaskell, encouraged by both her husband, the Ereverend William Gaskell, and Dickens, researched the conditions of the city in which she and William were then living. What she found horrified her and the reality of expression present within the novel can be seen in her powerful descriptions of the slum dwellings she had seen: Our friends were not dainty, but even they picked their way, till they got to some steps leading down to a small area, where a person standing would have his head about one foot below the level of the street, and might at the same time, without the least motion of his body, touch the window of the cellar and the damp muddy wall right opposite. You went down one step even from the foul area into the cellar in which a family of human beings lived. It was very dark inside. The window-panes many of them were broken and stuffed with rags, which was reason enough for the dusky light that pervaded the place even at mid-day. After the account I have given of the state of the street, no one can be surprised that on going into the cellar inhabited by Davenport, the smell was so foetid as almost to knock the two men down.[18] The importance of setting such descriptions in the context of fiction might be thought possibly to lessen its reality in the eyes of contemporary readers but nothing could be farther from the truth, as though few would be drawn to the admirable tracts of Engels, many were attracted to the vivid stories of such as Dickens and Gaskell. Indeed, Gaskell was careful always to ensure that her work did not offend those in power to the extent that she will qualify a passage on the uncaring attitude of the rich as perceived by the poor by adding placatory comments such as: I know that this is not really the case; and I know what is the truth in such matters: but what I wish to impress is what the workman feels and thinks.[19] The implied separation in comprehension may appear patronising by today’s standards but it must be remembered that Gaskell was truly attempting to do as she proclaimed, ‘impress’ the thoughts and feelings of ‘the workman’ on those in power in the hope it would aid reform. If she had been too directly challenging, they would simply not have read her works which would have defeated the object. Gaskell faced similar opposition in her second novel, Ruth, published in 1853, when she addressed the topic of an unmarried mother sympathetically, much too sympathetically for the liking of many, who felt she was undermining the perceived moral and religious mores of the time. The novel was thought to be based upon the true story of a girl called Pasley: In 1850 she took up the cause of a girl called Pasley whom she had come across in the New Bayley prison. In a long letter to Dickens, at that time involved in his emigration project for fallen women, she gives details of the case. Pasleys career exemplifies the dangers facing even a girl of respectable parentage who was neglected. The daughter of an Irish clergyman who had died when she was two, she had been neglected by an indifferent mother, and then placed in an orphanage, before becoming a dressmakers apprentice. Following a series of misfortunes for which she had not herself been responsible she had been seduced by her own doctor. The consequence had been first the Penitentiary and then a career of petty crime; finally, by an appalling stroke of coincidence, the poor girl had been confronted when in prison by her very seducer, now acting as prison surgeon.[20] Certainly, there are many similarities between the case of Pasley and that of Ruth and Gaskell’s clear intent is to show how difficult was the plight of girls in Ruth’s and Pasley’s situation. Gaskell successfully persuaded Dickens to intervene for Pasley and she emigrated but clearly the case was not forgotten by her as emblematic of the vulnerability of young girls in nineteenth century society. Indeed, she had already addressed the idea that prostitution was the usual fate of such girls in Mary Barton and the ‘petty crime’ to which she refers might certainly be euphemistically describing prostitution. Attitudes towards prostitution were far from sympathetic and much of the reforming work done at the time concerned not only changing conditions for prostitutes but also in improving the notorious double-standard which operated towards it, both then and now. The Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869 to some extent reflect this. The Act was established to protect soldiers but had the coincidental effect of advancing the cause of women’s liberation: [†¦] legislation intended to protect members of the British armed forces from sexually transmitted diseases ended up galvanizing a major Victorian feminist movement in which working- and middle-class women worked together for a common cause.[21] Thus, it can be seen that Gaskell’s pre-emptive strike truly reflected the feelings of many that Victorian laws operated for the protection of men rather than women and that even though there were exceptions, such as Mill and Dickens, the latter of whom set up Urania Cottage as a refuge for ‘fallen women’, the vast majority of the population preferred simply to ignore the suffering and anguish of girls on the streets. Somewhat ironically, compassion towards prostitutes was stirred by the infamous ‘Whitechapel Murders’ of 1888-91, perpetrated by the still unidentified ‘Jack the Ripper’. Even for the so called ‘respectable’ working classes, indeed, in general conditions were appallingly bad, especially in the factories and sweatshops[22] which abounded both in London and elsewhere in the country: ‘The nineteenth century saw the Englishman turn town dweller and by 1900 three-quarters of the nation lived in towns’[23]. Bearing this in mind, it seems inevitable that conditions in these towns would be at best difficult and at worst unbearable (the infamous employment of children as, for example, chimney-sweeps, being evident in the work of such as the reformer Charles Kingsley who wrote The Water Babies in 1863 to expose this abuse). Thus, approaching the end of Victoria’s reign, the population was generally in a state of crisis. However, there was a discernable exception to this, in part, in the beginning of what we would now take to be an upwardly mobile meritocracy. Consisting largely of those persons concerned with ‘white-collar work’, the clerk for example, this section of society knew a growth and freedom such as never before. Possibly the best example of this is to be found in George and Weedon Grossmith’s The Diary of a Nobody, first published in Punch as a series of articles during 1888-9, in the form of a diary of the fictional Mr. Pooter. The highly amusing work is also an invaluable record of a new type of man emerging in Victorian society: My clear wife Carrie and I have just been a week in our new house, â€Å"The Laurels,† Brickfield Terrace, Holloway—a nice six-roomed residence, not counting basement, with a front breakfast-parlour. We have a little front garden; and there is a flight of ten steps up to the front door, which, by-the-by, we keep locked with the chain up. Cummings, Gowing, and our other intimate friends always come to the little side entrance, which saves the servant the trouble of going up to the front door, thereby taking her from her work. We have a nice little back garden which runs down to the railway. We were rather afraid of the noise of the trains at first, but the landlord said we should not notice them after a bit, and took  £2 off the rent. He was certainly right; and beyond the cracking of the garden wall at the bottom, we have suffered no inconvenience.[24] The Pooters encapsulate the image of a new class, living in their own home, employing a servant, having a garden and yet still retaining their parsimonious connective with their humbler origins; in many ways, the Pooters are the future. In conclusion, it may be remarked that the Victorian era saw the greatest period of change that had ever been seen. Industrial development saw riches and poverty in unequal measure; improvements were made in nursing and social concerns but the population mostly remained in poverty and both ill-nourished and inadequately cared for in terms of health; the trains united the country but the rural population was fragmented and the urban largely in dire circumstances; schooling was expanded and literacy improved but the standard of education was at best questionable; the Empire flourished but its members across the seas were mostly downtrodden, subjugated and rebellious: in short, to quote Dickens’ famous opening to A Tale of Two Cities (1859), ‘it was the best of times and the worst of times’. It is extremely difficult to assess, in the final analysis, whether the end of Victoria’s reign saw her people in a better or worse condition than when her reign began but certainly, the single most important development seen was the opportunity for change. In this sense if no other, the population was better off at the end of the long nineteenth century than at the beginning of it. However, the war that was about to devastate Europe brought apocalyptic changes which could never have been envisaged and certainly Tennyson’s famous reference in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ (1854) to the fact that ‘Some one had blunderd’ would take on a profoundly disturbing resonance from which the world over which Victoria presided would never recover. Truly, 1914 brought more than just the end of an era it brought the end of Victorian mores and the expectations of the population would alter radically, with revolution, such as occurred in Russia in 1917, a perpetual possibility, especially with the growth of the unions and the Socialist Party, which wiped out the Liberals. Victoria’s reign was not just one age but many and as such, like most eras, was both good and bad. Bibliography Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens. London: Guild Publishing, 1990. Beer, Gillian. Darwin’s Plots. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Davis, Philip. The Victorians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Cobbet, William. Rural Rides. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2004. Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Dickens, C. Oliver Twist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999 Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Eliot, George. Adam Bede. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Eliot, George. The Lifted Veil. London: Virago Press, 1985, Englels, F. The Condition of the Working class in England (1844) http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/index.htm> Forster, E.M. Howards End. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987. Forster, J. The Life of Charles Dickens in Two Volumes. London: J.M. Dent, 1980. Hardy, F.E. The Life of Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan, 1962. Hughes, Thomas. Tom Browns School Days. New York: Harper Brothers,1911. Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993. Gaskell, Elizabeth. Ruth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Grossmith, G M. The Diary of a Nobody. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Kipling, Rudyard. Kim. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1918. Kipling, Rudyard. Traffics and Dicoveries. New York: Charles Scribner Sons. Langland, Elizabeth. Nobodys Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995. Lawrence, D.H. The Rainbow. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Lightman, Bernard, ed. Victorian Science in context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Maltus, Thomas. Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), 29.11.08. http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/malthus/index.htm> Mathias, P. The first Industrial Nation. London: Routledge, 2001. Mayhew, Henry. The Unknown Mayhew. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971. Mill, J.S. The Subjection of Women. New York: Prometheus, 1986. Roberts, F. David. The Social Conscience of the Early Victorians. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002. Smiles, Samuel, Self Help. 29.11.08 http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/selfh10h.htm> Smiles, Samuel. Industrial Biography: Iron-Workers and Tool-Makers. Boston: Ticknor and Fields,1864. Sturt, George. Change in the Village. London: Caliban Books, 1984. Thompson, Flora. Lark Rise to Candleford. London: Penguin, 2008. The Victorian Web. accessed 30.11.08. http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/contagious.html> Worthen, John. D H Lawrence. The Early Years 1885-1912. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 1 Footnotes [1] For more on the idea of changes and loss of traditions see: Sturt, George. Change in the Village. London: Caliban Books, 1984. (First published in 1912.) [2] Eliot, George. Adam Bede. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 12. [3] See: Mill, J.S. The Subjection of Women. New York: Prometheus, 1986. [4] Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. [5] Hardy, F.E. The Life of Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan, 1962, p. 310. [6] Eliot, George. The Lifted Veil. 1878. London: Virago Press, 1985, p. 26. [7] Kipling, Rudyard. Traffics and Dicoveries. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1904, p. 337. [8] Forster, E.M. Howards End. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987, p. 43. [9] Dickens, C. Hard Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 8-9. [10] Dickens, C. Hard Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 10. [11] Dickens, C. Oliver Twist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, Preface, p. xx. [12] Forster, J. The Life of Charles Dickens in Two Volumes. London: J.M. Dent, 1980, vol. I, p. 83. [13] Forster, J. The Life of Charles Dickens in Two Volumes. London: J.M. Dent, 1980. [14] Forster, J. The Life of Charles Dickens in Two Volumes. London: J.M. Dent, 1980. [15] Dickens, C. Nicholas Nickleby. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, Preface to the 1848 Edition, Lii. [16] Englels, F. The Condition of the Working class in England (1844): 29.11.08. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/index.htm> [17] Englels, F. The Condition of the Working class in England (1844): 29.11.08. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/index.htm> [18] Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993, pp. 79-80. [19] Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993, p. 49. [20] See Alan Shelston’s introduction to: Gaskell, Elizabeth. Ruth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. vii-viii. [21] See: ‘The Contagious Diseases Act’, accessed 30.11.08. http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/contagious.html> [22] See: Mayhew, Henry. The Unknown Mayhew. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971. [23] Mathias, P. The First Industrial Nation. London: Routledge, 2001, p. 226. [24] Grossmith, G M. The Diary of a Nobody. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 3.

Career as a Concept Artist Essay -- Video Game Development

The employment outlook in my area for a Concept Artist in Video Game Development isn’t too promising. Nebraska isn’t the metropolis for technological employment like this, thus I would have to relocate to somewhere along the East or West Coasts, where jobs are more available than they are in the mid-west. This is due to the fact that a lot of the Game Publishing companies, such as Blizzard Entertainment, Monolith Games, a subdivision of Warner Bros. Entertainment, require an applicant to work on-site. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2007, Graphic Designers earnings ranged from entry-level pay of about $35,000.00 to staff-level median of $45,000.00. More seasoned designers earned $62,000.00 and freelance designers earned around $60,000.00. Design Directors earned up to $98,600.00. Graphic designers with ownership or partnership interests in a firm or who were principals of the firm in some other capacity earned $113,000,00. Generally, for every company, there’s a different salary, depending on the type of work being completed and what they need. The role of ...

Money and Morals Essay

The underlying consequences of the clash between social and market norms are multitudinous and frequently inimical to our humanity. Fundamentally, the sages of our pasts weren’t wrong when they said, â€Å"Money is the root of all evil.† Dan Ariely, an American professor of psychology and behavioral economics, claims that, â€Å"When social and market norms collide, trouble sets in.† (Ariely 68) This essay will make an attempt at proving that claim; naturally, it is not unusual that money is the chief topic of this essay. Ariely makes several claims, but doesn’t adequately describe the unpropitious effects of money. Money rules the â€Å"market world;† consequently, money and its contemporary adverse effects and affects will be analyzed in this essay. Everyone knows money propagates deceit and betrayal. It changes social relationships to a darker shade from its original bright and happy color. It generally provokes a darker human: one that cheats, l ies, and destroys lives for the betterment of their future. It ravages our being, causing monetary values and materialistic items to define our purpose. Karl Marx once noted, â€Å"Money then appears as the enemy of man and social bonds that pretend to self-substantiate.† (Porto) Clearly, one can see how money degrades character; however, the reasons are unclear. Some say greed and the desire to fulfill one’s every wish are simply too overpowering a force to oppose, and specifically those things are the motivation to acquire more money. However, only a select few can seriously have the requisite spine to risk their personal lives and even companies to do that. Maybe greed isn’t the only factor. A study conducted by Harvard and Utah Students that proposes a different answer. The study was published in Behavioral Reasoning Theory, a book by J.D Westaby, who is a professor in Columbia University with a PhD in social-organizational psychology. The students collected a myriad of undergraduate students and presented videos, images, and texts that made them think of money, such as dollar bills and expensive jewelry. Then, they showed them other things that had nothing to do with money. Some students were exposed to monetary-related pictures more than others. Then, a  comprehensive questionnaire was filled by all the students. The und ergraduates exposed to the images related to money exhibited questionable ethics. They consistently chose answers that were cut-throat, immoral, and selfish. Surprisingly, however, the students didn’t see their choices as immoral at all. They, â€Å"framed their choices as products of cost-benefit analysis.† (Porto). The study’s abstract says, â€Å"Students constantly exposed to [money] were more likely to steal numerous pages from a printer†¦ and create stands to sell products in a school without permission.† (Westaby [Study 1] 60). The student’s reactions are symbolic of the unconstructive behavior money tend to propagate when gone out of control. Although their perusal of the images and texts related to money was rather short, the outcome was apparent. It discouraged positive social interaction and encouraged a grimmer human. When money rules our lives, and when we feel very wealthy, we tend to behave adversely. Think about it this way: Pretend you are playing a game of Monopoly; however, in this game, the combination of skill, luck, and intelligence has been rendered irrelevant. Why? The monopo ly game is rigged, and you have the advantage. You’ve been given several more opportunities to move around the board. You have most of the money. You have most of the â€Å"cities† and numerous hotels. Every time you land on a â€Å"chance,† or â€Å"community chest,† you find yourself with more resources. How might this unfair advantage influence the way you thought of yourself and, more importantly, how you regard the other player(s)? This experiment was, in fact, performed by psychologist Paul Piff. Piff is a social psychologist and post-doctoral scholar in the Psychology Dept. of UCBerkley. He published an article titled, â€Å"Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior.† It proved through questionnaires, quizzes, in-lab manipulations, and several other techniques, that living high in the socioeconomic ladder increases the chances dramatically and exponentially of dehumanization. It drives affluent societies to immoralities, causing them to be more insular and acrimoniously unsympathetic. It can make them more likely, as Piff shows in one of his several experiments, to deliberately and knowingly take candy from a bowl of sweets designated specifically for children. Wealthy individuals, Paul Piff claims, â€Å"Are way more likely to prioritize their own self-i nterests above the interests of other people. It makes them more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would  stereotypically associate with, say, assholes.† (McElwee)* Piff was able to gather 100 participants, and set up 50 monopoly boards. Each monopoly game had two participants, and at the flip of a coin, it was decided who would be the richer player in the rigged game of monopoly. The luckier player had several advantages: they got twice the salary, earned four hundred (instead of two hundred) when they passed â€Å"Go,† and were allowed to role two die instead of one. Piff installed hidden cameras in the rooms the players were in, and reported several intriguing things. First of all, the richer player began to show off his dominance. He moved around the board louder. It was as if the piece he was controlling symbolized his footsteps: loud, confident, and obstreperous. Moreover, they smirked disapprovingly at ever â€Å"stupid,† move the poorer player made. In contrast, they richer player made jubilant sounds – that seemed to depress the poorer players – every time they made a move. As the game progressed, so did increase of the rich player’s hubris. There was a bowl of pretzels on the side, and the rich players began to eat from the pretzels, and gave dirty looks to the poorer players when they even approached the pretzels. One player even said something along the lines of, â€Å"Don’t eat my pretzels.† The rich players started to get ruder and ruder, making comments like, â€Å"You’re going to lose big time at this game,† or â€Å"Wow, you’re so poor. I’m still going to take all your money though. *chuckle*.† One player even said, â€Å"Are you sure you even know how to play this game?† At the end of the game, Paul Piff interviewed the players. He reports that the richer players, when asked why the won the game, replied with a very intriguing, yet not surprising, answer. They attributed their inevitable victory to their skills! They ignored the fact, or maybe even forgotten, that they were put into a much more privileged and advantaged situation. Even the means by which they were chosen to be rich was ruled by luck, not skill. This game of monopoly can symbolize society. It gives us much insight into how humans essentially view advantages and opportunities they were given. As a person’s level of wealth increases, their feelings of entitlement and self-interest increase with it. Conversely, their empathy, compassion, and consideration decrease. Paul Piff says, â€Å"In surveys, wealthier individuals are more likely to moralize greed being good, and that the pursuit of self-interest is favorable and moral.† (TedxMarin)* To further understand why affluent people exhibit less altruistic behavior,  another study was lead by Daniel M. Stancato. Daniel M. Stancato, like Paul Piff, is a social psychologist and post-doctoral scholar in the Psychology Dept. of UCBerkley. He co-authored, â€Å"Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior.† This study meticulously examined whether provoking an environment where greed is regarded positively increases the unethical tendencies of the less-pri vileged enough to meet their rich counterparts. In the experiment, when the benefits of greed were emphasized, Daniel hypothesized that blue-collar individuals would be as susceptible to unethical behavior as richer individuals. If these findings were true, it would attest a revelation, that is lower-class individuals tend to act more ethically is because they hold relatively unfavorable sentiments towards greed. Conversely, rich white-collared individuals tend to act more adversely is because they hold relatively favorable sentiments towards greed. The study was, essentially, an economic game. Around 100 participants were gathered, and given â€Å"laboratory† credits. These credits, the participants were told, could be traded for real money. They were then presented with a questionnaire. The questionnaire prompted the participants to list the ways the participants viewed greed, and why. After about an hour, the participants were given the opportunity to give some of their laboratory credits to a needy stranger. The lower-class individuals (those who made $20,000 and less) gave a total of 45% more than the rich white-collared folk (those who made 150k+). Not surprisingly, the poorer individuals had negative sentiments towards greed, and the richer individuals felt more comfortable and accepted greed more easily. Later, the participants were given a different questionnaire that prompted them to list three negative outcomes of greed. They were then shown several videos of starving children. Then, they were again given the opportunity to give money to a needy stranger. The difference in lab credits given between the two groups was near negligible. This shows that, in an environment where greed is negatively promoted, one can give more. A while later, the same participants were given another questionnaire that prompted them to list three positive outcomes of greed. Afterwards, they were shown several clips of very rich people and the lives they lead. They showed them mansions, jewelry, expensive cars, and several other materialistic items that emphasized on money. They were then, again, given an opportunity to give  away some of their lab credits. This time, however, very few people gave away anything, and those who gave, gave very little. This study shows that money can seriously make individuals less generous, compassionate, and altruistic. The first part of the experiment introduced an atmosphere where greed was looked at neutrally; one was supposed to fill out their general attitude towards having a covet nature. When the individual was left to their own devices, their actions reflected upon their true nature; consequently, the poorer folk, who fully understood the egregious consequences greed has on society, gave more. The richer folk, who practically lived in an environment where taking advantage of every possession is vital to success, were a lot less giving. However, a new environment was introduced. By prompting the participants to list three negative outcomes of greed, the participants were influenced. They were manipulated into adopting a new paradigm – a paradigm where greed was bad. Consequently, their actions were reflected that new way of thinking, and caused several people to give more. This is important because the previous mentality (for the rich individuals) existed solely because they were in an environment that promoted the hoarding of resources, like money, and that blocked feelings of empathy and generosity. Again, when money rules your life, including your social (life/norms), there is a distinct negative effect on the personality. Its intrusion is very dangerous, and it is essential to keep a balance, because if one immerses their entire lives in the market (life/norm), they will give up an extremely vital part of their humanity. It is important to keep in mind I am not bashing wealthy individuals. It is a fact that several of them secede from moral values more than I would like, but it is not because they have innate egregious qualities. Another study shown, by Dacher Keltner, who has the same credentials as Paul Piff and Daniel M. Stancato, suggests otherwise. Keltner showed rich and poor individuals a 45 second video calling out for support to starving African children. One hour later, Keltner had the individuals try to help other individuals in distress, and the wealthier people exerted just as much energy as the poorer, suggesting that these differences are not categorical, but are extremely malleable to slight changes. Little nudges of compassion and empathy are all one needs. Bill Gates once said, †Å"Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries, but in how those discoveries  are applied to reduce inequity.† Bill Gates has given nearly all his money to the Bill Gates Foundation, which helps support starving children all over the world. I believe money can buy you happiness; just not when its primary purpose is: you. Self-commitment, community, family, friends; investing in others is investing in yourself, and reducing inequities will doubtless increase social mobility, economic growth, trust, and community life. The rat race we involve ourselves in allows negativity to ferment, and only the morally transcendent individuals who have discovered a much more fulfilling calling – the desire to address the needs and satiate the interests of others – have realized that even if you win the rat race, you’re only just a rat. Do you want to be a rat? If you still find my claim ambiguous, let me make it clearer. It is one of the most time-honored maxims in philosophy, clear even in Chaucer’s time. His Pardoner’s Tale is built on ‘Radix Malorum est Cupiditas’: Money is the Root of All Evil. Now, as illustrated in my essay, social science supports that. * I realize you marked things on my paper like, â€Å"I don’t understand where this source comes in. Are you quoting Ariely’s article or not?† No, I am not quoting his article; I am quoting him. Aside from being a writer, Ariely is an extremely famous speaker. Those sources are where I got the quotes from. Specifically, McElwee is an author of an article on a blog, and TedxMarin is just a Ted Talk that took place in Marin. They are in my, â€Å"Works Cited,† page in more detail. If I did anything incorrectly, I am very sorry. That was how I learned to make citations through my entire highschool and college life†¦ Works Cited Paul K. Piff, Daniel M. Stancato, Stà ©phane Cà ´tà ©, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner â€Å"Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior† New York: Farrar. 2008. Print. Porto, Eduardo. â€Å"How Money Affects Morality.† Nytimes.com. New York Times, 13 Jun 2013. Web. 13 Feb 2014. Westaby, J.D. Behavioral reasoning theory: Identifying new linkages underlying intentions and behavior. Ney York: Harper Collins, 2008. Print. Cristina Becchio, , Joshua Skewes, et al, et al, Andreas Roepstorff, and Uta Frith. â€Å"How the Brain Responds to the Destruction of Money.† Journal of  Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics. N.p.. Web. 14 Feb 2014. Piff, Pauf. â€Å"Does money make you mean?† Ted Talks. Marin County, California. Oct 2013. Lecture. Loeb, Paul Rogat . Soul Of A Citizen, Living With Conviction In Challenging Times. Los Angeles: St. Martin, 2009. Print. Ariely, D. . Predictably irrational, the hidden forces that shape our decis ions. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Print. McElwee, Sean