Article response paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Response paper - Article Example The outcome of the study gives a clear indication that people can understand vocally expressed emotions despite linguistic abilities, even though culture and the linguistic abilities affect the level to which the emotions can be understood to some extent. Personal Observations/Comments Prior to reading this article, I was aware, albeit I had no quite thought about it that I can identify a person’s emotions based on his or her speech. This article reinforces this knowledge; the authors state that listeners respond to changes in pitch, tone, loudness, quality, and rhythm as a person speaks, forming an impression about the speaker’s emotional state. In a study carried out in 2001, four German actors addressed native people from nine different languages. The outcome of the study indicated that sixty six percent of the participants were able to identify emotional instances such as sadness, fear, joy, anger, and neutral utterances correctly (Pell, Monetta, Paulmann, & Kotz, 2 009, p. 108). The study also confirmed that natives perform better in identifying emotions in their native languages than across new languages. It was also evident that listeners whose native languages were similar to German, the language used by the actors, also identified the emotions better than those from languages with no close relations to German. The article pinpoints that the proper identification of emotions in speech is brought about by vocal cues, rather than linguistic features (Pell, Monetta, Paulmann, & Kotz, 2009, p. 116).This is because utterances are different across different languages. However, most vocal cues are universal, cutting across societies speaking different languages. Nevertheless, it is important to note that some vocal cues are localized to certain cultures due to differences in culture and other social beliefs (Pell, Monetta, Paulmann, & Kotz, 2009, p. 116). Differences in linguistics such as intonation, accent, or rhythm, may also result in differen ces in interpretation. The fact that many researches carried out on the influences of linguistic differences on identification of emotions offer conflicting results means that the effects are subjective. The successful identification of emotional activity is dependent on the audience. Some people may identify certain emotions in a speaker’s speech while others would find no emotion on it. Finally, the successful identification of emotions is dependent on the emotions to be identified. According to findings indicated in the article, seventy three percent of listeners across the language divide were able to identity anger; 66% sadness, with the lowest being disgust at 42%. This is consistent with literature documented by various scholars. Research has also showed no evidence on increased or reduced ability to identify emotions while referring to particular languages; each language displayed a distinct variance from the others, once again indicating that such inferences are subj ective. Excerpts from the Article i. â€Å"†¦The authors found that all listener groups recognized fear,, joy, sadness, anger, and â€Å"neutral† utterances strictly from prosody at above chance accuracy levels† (Pell, Monetta, Paulmann, & Kotz, 2009, p. 108). This excerpt demonstrates that audiences were able to identify emotions from speech positively, giving credence to the concept of

Duchamp prefigure Walter Benjamin's thesis Essay

Duchamp prefigure Walter Benjamin's thesis - Essay Example The essay "Duchamp prefigure Walter Benjamin's thesis" examines in what ways did the work of Marcel Duchamp prefigure Walter Benjamin's thesis. If for nothing at all, everyone has an appreciation for a good work of art and this makes all people artistic. It is against this backdrop that the development of art has remained a very crucial and important point for discussion for many years. Art has evolved since it was first discovered and the reason behind all these forms of evolutions is to ensure that the production of works of art suit the aesthetic needs of the people to whom it is presented. A key point in global art history in terms of evolutionary art is the early 20th century when Benjamin Walter hypothesized and further came out with an essay on art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In this paper, the ways in which the work of Marcel Duchamp prefigures Walter Benjamin’s thesis in his essay shall be analyzed. Marcel Duchamp has been a major contributing icon to the w ork of art, especially in the 20th century. The 1887 French born had the opportunity of having his first exhibition in 1908 in what was termed Salon d’Automne through the influence of his brother. But since then, Duchamp took a lot of control over what he could do as an artistic personality. It is not for nothing that Perloff notes that Duchamp’s readymades now commands sky-high prices, with people applying for permission to reproduce some of his related images in a scholarly book on modernism paying as much as $200 apiece.

E-commerce Operations Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

E-commerce Operations Management - Essay Example Since the first trimester of 2001 when the US e-commerce sales were $7931 million the overall sales increase by 242% six years later for a total $27,092 million online sales in the 1st quarter of 2007 (Plunkett Research, 2007). The largest retail firm in the world, Wal-Mart, caught on to this trend early and set up an internal and external ecommerce business infrastructure. This paper discusses e-commerce solution for customers and for internal business transaction by showcasing the capabilities of the multinational firm Wal-Mart Corporation. An electronic platform that allows business to interact with each other is a business to business network (B2B). A business to business application or e-biz is the exchange of products, information and services among business entities through electronic medium to achieve ecommerce transactions (Searchcio, 2001). The early emphasis of e-commerce was targeting business to customer transaction which has grown tremendously, but B2B have surprisingly become on the biggest forces driving the world ecommerce growth. B2B is a way to achieve significant savings in supply chain activities such as purchases and sales of product and services to other business partners. One of the simplest ways for other businesses to gain entrance into B2B networks is by utilizing the company home page as a portal for users to access a secured system to perform B2B transactions. Walt-Mart decided five years ago to convert their information system into a full B2B network to achieve greater efficiency in their relationships with suppliers and other vendors. The move was rapidly accepted by the business who are involve in business with Wal-Mart which enabled Wal-Mart to perform B2B transaction within a one year time span with 98% of its vendors (Zimmerman, 2003). Wal-Mart created its B2B application with the assistance of a software company called Coty. This firm provided the retail giant with the assistance

Latin Western European Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Latin Western European Culture - Essay Example In Latin America, people shake hands when they meet someone and again when they part. Latin Americans also like to stay close when talking. The part that time plays in social events also differs. If a person is invited to someone's house in Europe for a meal, he or she should arrive on time. However, in Latin America, he or she should arrive at least one hour late. This is the. case for business appointments as well as for social events. In some countries, 'tomorrow' does not necessarily mean the day after. Americans are always in a hurry. They want to get on with whatever it is. Some other countries like to spend more time with preliminary discussions. Talking, negotiating and bargaining are all parts of the game. In Latin countries, as well as in the Middle and Far East, haggling over prices is expected (Newman and Nollen 1996). Following Hofstede's theory, in Latin America, power distance is high. It is a collectivist culture in which family and family relations play a crucial role. Latin America can be seen as a combination of masculine and feminine characteristics of culture. The main masculine traits are (1) aggressiveness and (2) ambition. The main feminine factors are: close relations and high sensitivity. The power distance of a culture is reflected in the superior subordinate relations in business organizations. A short power distance is an inducement to greater volume and variety of vertical communication and participative decision style(Hofstede 1996). It is common for such countries to advocate participation in the manager's decisions by his or her subordinates; however, the initiative towards this is supposed to be taken by the manager. The status of the individual in the West is tied to education and knowledge and, as mentioned before, in the American type of culture, experts are treated with g reat respect and loyalties to a profession are greater than loyalties to the company. Latin Americans have little experience of working in formal organizations which, combined with belonging to a high-contextual culture, means that much of what goes on as planning, supervising and controlling is more symbolic than substantive, as will be seen. Many Latin American institutions and business organizations are not very efficient, which is one reason why Latin American executives prefer to use personal (family and friendship) ties instead of formal channels and apply a very personalized and informal management style (Owen and Scherer 2002). In business, Latin American managers not only value change relatively highly but also value caution less. This suggests an active or dynamic orientation and a willingness to make risky decisions. Uncertainty of life is accepted as normal, and economic risks are judged by potential rewards. The action culture in Latin America has made available the mass-produced goods the Latin American market wants -- better than anyone else has. Latin Americans consider it almost a right to be materially well off and physically comfortable. They expect convenient transport, a variety of clean and healthful foods and comfortable homes equipped with labor-saving devices. The high value placed on materialism in the culture is sometimes reflected in an ethnocentric attitude towards other individuals,

Improving Student Learning When Budgets Are Tight (Ch. 3 Summary) Essay

Improving Student Learning When Budgets Are Tight (Ch. 3 Summary) - Essay Example Thus the author’s major argument is that schools and districts should develop strategic plans to successfully cope with tightening budgets. According to the author there are four major reasons why schools are facing problems with cost increases, namely, smaller classes, more electives, automatic pay increases, and growing benefit costs (Odden, 2012, 47-49). First, some schools and districts reduce class sizes in the belief that it will improve student performance. Such belief is supported by several studies which reported improvements in the academic achievement of students who belong in smaller classes. However, these smaller class sizes are only effective in early grades. Second, more elective courses demand greater costs because they are usually made up of smaller classes. Third, as expected, automatic pay increases boost costs. Teachers and administrators are automatically given salary increase every time they acquire more experience or move up to a higher qualification le vel. Unfortunately, this salary system is not associated with greater academic performance and better teaching; it merely increases costs. And lastly, pension and health benefits, especially for those currently employed, also add pressure to education resources. All of these four factors undoubtedly increase education costs, but with little or no positive impact on student learning or academic performance. The author provides several strategic methods to resolve the dilemma of increasing costs and flat performance, such as definite objectives, a plan of action, and a clear strategic budgeting plan. Those schools with adequate resources but experiencing budget cutbacks must only consider strategies that will have the least effect on academic performance, such as a smaller number of administrators and instructional aides. On the other hand, those schools with insufficient funding must leave out small class sizes and consider more instructional coaches to enhance core classroom instruc tion (Odden, 2012, 50-52). In essence, a general plan of action can offer guidance to both sufficiently and insufficiently funded schools. The Midwestern middle school example shows how a substantially funded school can improve student learning without having to increase costs or demand additional resources. The problems with the school are that it has too many staff, but no instructional coaches and tutors, and lacking in collaborative work which could promote student learning. According to the analysis, the school can in fact afford all the staffing needed to significantly enhance student learning (Odden, 2012, 54). Numerous staff positions and electives can be reallocated to areas that have greater impact on student performance, such as those for struggling students (e.g. poor, disabled, etc). The analysis shows that the suggested staffing allocation could drastically enhance academic performance without additional staffing and/or funding. One of the main suggestions given to suc cessfully address the issue of tightening budget in education is increasing class sizes in order to reallocate resources to other more important areas, like programs for struggling students. As mentioned previously, studies have found that smaller class sizes positively impact student learning in early grades, but nothing has been

Take home assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Take home assignment - Essay Example The selection of the contrasting colours for the statue of liberty and the background alows for the best visibility feature of the statue. The same fetaure applies to the fountain and the background (front of the plaza). The selection of the colors is highly relevant in enhancing the visibility of the features and assurance of excellent appreciation by audience. The statue of liberty has compounded demerits on visibility at various times of the day. In the morning while the sun is rising and seting , the background would typically be shiny and therefore the featur is not well visible. The selection of the white colour for the statue of librty is properly suited for skyblue days which perhaps is expected for most of the days. On contrary, the plaza front visibility was designed to suit both day and night as there is artificial lighting at night. The painting appear highly imposing to most viewers from CPA. I had not noticed it before and msot people most do not appear to notice it. I think the painting is designed to be seen from far place so as to appreciate the essence of art and entailed painting. My ansewers to the previous questioners would encourage the painter to hang his paintings on this point due to excellent selelction of colours for backgrround and highlighted feature. I have noted and observed clear linking of architecture and enhanced aesthetics achievenment through entailing of proper colors for the building and proper visibility for movemnet of the people. The visibility of the painting changes at various times of the day. It is highly visible at night from outside. The designer wanted the painter to be highly appreciated by audience at night and also help in enancing of visibility for moving

Week4 presentation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Week4 presentation - Assignment Example There are various reasons why it took a long period for the American constitution to be amended from 1870 to 1913. However, the main reason was the fact that senators were elected by governors indirectly instead of being directly elected to the senate by the United States citizens. This slowed down the amendment process since senators enacted laws that benefited themselves and governors who had elected them to the senate instead of protecting the interest of the ordinary American citizen. This can be proved by the fact that amendments to the United States of America constitution practically began after the amendment in 1913 where power to elect the senate was left to the American citizens. One reform that took the Christian approach in the United States of America between the late 19th century and 20th century is the 18th amendment that was adopted in 1919. This was a law reform that banned the sale, consumption, buying, and importing alcoholic beverages. This reform took a Christian approach since alcohol made people behave in an unethical manner. The second reform that was based on the Christian approach was abortion, which was enacted in many states. Christianity also prohibits abortion hence such a reform was supported by most citizens. The 19th amendment that was adopted in 1920 in the United States of America is a good example of American reforms that took the socialistic approach. This amendment provided for the right of women to  vote in any election involving the government. This is considered a socialistic approach since it meant that women would vote for people who would fight for their needs in the legislature hence good governance. Another example of a reform that took a socialistic approach was the17th amendment that provided that senators would be elected by citizens from their state. This provided good governance since it meant that