The Cellist of Sarajevo

The Cellist of Sarajevo Shirley Shi My prediction for the novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo, is that the novel is going to be out the siege in Sarajevo. It’s also going to be out a survival story for different kinds of characters in the novel. For example, on the inside flap of the novel, it said that a character in the story name Arrow, who is a counter sniper in the novel tries to protect the cellist from danger. The cellist had to stay in front of a bakery store, where a bomb killed twenty two people to play some tunes in memory of them. The disclaimer of the novel tells the reader some information about what the novel is about, but not a lot of information. For example, the Toronto Star said â€Å"In this story of a battered city and its suffering residents, art is just a trinket. Art offers precious albeit fleeting, moments of solace and hope†¦profoundly stirring† This comment helps the reader to understand that the residents are suffering but it did not say how they are suffering. The comment only said why they are suffering and from what they are suffering. The residents are suffering from living in a battered city. The quotations in the novel helps the reader to understand the deeper meaning of a character or it can help the reader to understand the setting or the actions of what the character is doing. The first few chapter of the novel is about the cellist. This first part of the book is the exposition of the novel. The cellist job was to play music in front of a bakery, where a bombed killed twenty two people, who were waiting in line to buy bread. The cellist had to stay in front of that bakery for twenty two days and play his cellist in memory of those who died. This first part of the book helps the reader to understand the cellist a little bit and also helps the reader to wonder how the cellist in the novel is going to survive because the cellist is out in the open, where he is not protected by a barrier or any protection. Arrow, a counter sniper, life had changed when she became a sniper. She doesn’t shoot at civilians, like the men on the hills, but she shoots at soldiers. Before, her life was normal, she was living her life like an average teenager girl, but when the war started; her attitude toward things had changed from been normal to un-normal. One of her internal conflict is within herself. After the world around her had started to change, she started to change herself. She didn’t want to be the girl who is always nice to everyone anymore. â€Å"I’m Arrow, I hate them, the woman you knew hated nobody† One of her external force would be â€Å"To hate people because they hated her first, and then to hate them because of what they’ve done to her, has created a desire to separate the part of her that will fight back, from the part that never wanted to fight in the first place†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (13). This quotation tells the reader that she is having a conflict with the people that affected her to change, which as we know from the quote that the people that affected her was the men on the hills. Another one of her external force is â€Å"For a moment she’s unsure, unable to read their gestures. † This quotation tells the reader that she is having conflicts with the soldiers that are on the street beneath the building that she is in. She is not sure on whether she should shoot at them or not because she is not sure about of what there gestures. Kenan, the second main character in the novel, also had internal and external conflicts during the siege in Sarajevo. His internal conflict would be been a coward. He is scared of death. He is worried about what will his wife and kids would think if they found out that he is dead. â€Å"As the door to the apartment closes behind him he presses his back to it and slides to the ground†¦He doesn’t want to go†. (26). This quotation tells the reader that Kenan is a coward because is not strong enough to face the outside world. If he wasn’t a coward then he would have just closed the door and left already with the six canisters in his hands, but instead he just sits on the outside of his door of his apartment afraid like a frightened dog. One of his external conflicts is not able to go out and get some clean water from the brewery because of the men on the hills. The men are on the hills will shoot civilians from anywhere without them knowing. He doesn’t want his wife and his kids to know that he is dead because he knows that his wife will never recover from it. Instead he just wants the war to be over so he and his family could have their own normal life back. .. That the men on the hills can kill anyone, anywhere, anytime they like†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (25). This quotation tells the reader why Kenan is so afraid to go out and do his task, which is going to the brewery. The brewery is not close to his apartment so he has to walk a long way and he has to carry Mrs. Ristovski’s two water bottle s with her along the way. What makes him even more afraid of dying is walking slowly. The difference between his canisters and Mrs, Ristovski;s water bottles is that The canisters that Kenan has have handles on them but the water bottles that Mrs. Ristovski has does not have handles so it’s harder for Kenan to carry them because without the handles he can’t tie his own canisters with her water bottles. He wants to be able to run as quick as he can when there is danger. Dragan, the last main character in the novel was scared of death too. The external conflict is whenever he tries to cross a intersection on a street that he was on, he always wait until its clear to cross because he is worried that the men on the hills will shoot bullets from anywhere, and may shoot him dead. The internal conflict is when he is not sure whether he can cross the street or not. â€Å"Dragan is one of those who waits behind the protection of a concrete wall for a sign or a feeling that it’s ok to cross. He’s never quite sure what could possibly happen that might make a difference, but sooner or later he always feels that the time to cross has come. † (40). This quotation tells the reader that Dragan can’t make up his mind. He wants to cross the intersection but he doesn’t have the courage to do so. The Cellist of Sarajevo The Cellist of Sarajevo Shirley Shi My prediction for the novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo, is that the novel is going to be out the siege in Sarajevo. It’s also going to be out a survival story for different kinds of characters in the novel. For example, on the inside flap of the novel, it said that a character in the story name Arrow, who is a counter sniper in the novel tries to protect the cellist from danger. The cellist had to stay in front of a bakery store, where a bomb killed twenty two people to play some tunes in memory of them. The disclaimer of the novel tells the reader some information about what the novel is about, but not a lot of information. For example, the Toronto Star said â€Å"In this story of a battered city and its suffering residents, art is just a trinket. Art offers precious albeit fleeting, moments of solace and hope†¦profoundly stirring† This comment helps the reader to understand that the residents are suffering but it did not say how they are suffering. The comment only said why they are suffering and from what they are suffering. The residents are suffering from living in a battered city. The quotations in the novel helps the reader to understand the deeper meaning of a character or it can help the reader to understand the setting or the actions of what the character is doing. The first few chapter of the novel is about the cellist. This first part of the book is the exposition of the novel. The cellist job was to play music in front of a bakery, where a bombed killed twenty two people, who were waiting in line to buy bread. The cellist had to stay in front of that bakery for twenty two days and play his cellist in memory of those who died. This first part of the book helps the reader to understand the cellist a little bit and also helps the reader to wonder how the cellist in the novel is going to survive because the cellist is out in the open, where he is not protected by a barrier or any protection. Arrow, a counter sniper, life had changed when she became a sniper. She doesn’t shoot at civilians, like the men on the hills, but she shoots at soldiers. Before, her life was normal, she was living her life like an average teenager girl, but when the war started; her attitude toward things had changed from been normal to un-normal. One of her internal conflict is within herself. After the world around her had started to change, she started to change herself. She didn’t want to be the girl who is always nice to everyone anymore. â€Å"I’m Arrow, I hate them, the woman you knew hated nobody† One of her external force would be â€Å"To hate people because they hated her first, and then to hate them because of what they’ve done to her, has created a desire to separate the part of her that will fight back, from the part that never wanted to fight in the first place†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (13). This quotation tells the reader that she is having a conflict with the people that affected her to change, which as we know from the quote that the people that affected her was the men on the hills. Another one of her external force is â€Å"For a moment she’s unsure, unable to read their gestures. † This quotation tells the reader that she is having conflicts with the soldiers that are on the street beneath the building that she is in. She is not sure on whether she should shoot at them or not because she is not sure about of what there gestures. Kenan, the second main character in the novel, also had internal and external conflicts during the siege in Sarajevo. His internal conflict would be been a coward. He is scared of death. He is worried about what will his wife and kids would think if they found out that he is dead. â€Å"As the door to the apartment closes behind him he presses his back to it and slides to the ground†¦He doesn’t want to go†. (26). This quotation tells the reader that Kenan is a coward because is not strong enough to face the outside world. If he wasn’t a coward then he would have just closed the door and left already with the six canisters in his hands, but instead he just sits on the outside of his door of his apartment afraid like a frightened dog. One of his external conflicts is not able to go out and get some clean water from the brewery because of the men on the hills. The men are on the hills will shoot civilians from anywhere without them knowing. He doesn’t want his wife and his kids to know that he is dead because he knows that his wife will never recover from it. Instead he just wants the war to be over so he and his family could have their own normal life back. .. That the men on the hills can kill anyone, anywhere, anytime they like†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (25). This quotation tells the reader why Kenan is so afraid to go out and do his task, which is going to the brewery. The brewery is not close to his apartment so he has to walk a long way and he has to carry Mrs. Ristovski’s two water bottle s with her along the way. What makes him even more afraid of dying is walking slowly. The difference between his canisters and Mrs, Ristovski;s water bottles is that The canisters that Kenan has have handles on them but the water bottles that Mrs. Ristovski has does not have handles so it’s harder for Kenan to carry them because without the handles he can’t tie his own canisters with her water bottles. He wants to be able to run as quick as he can when there is danger. Dragan, the last main character in the novel was scared of death too. The external conflict is whenever he tries to cross a intersection on a street that he was on, he always wait until its clear to cross because he is worried that the men on the hills will shoot bullets from anywhere, and may shoot him dead. The internal conflict is when he is not sure whether he can cross the street or not. â€Å"Dragan is one of those who waits behind the protection of a concrete wall for a sign or a feeling that it’s ok to cross. He’s never quite sure what could possibly happen that might make a difference, but sooner or later he always feels that the time to cross has come. † (40). This quotation tells the reader that Dragan can’t make up his mind. He wants to cross the intersection but he doesn’t have the courage to do so.

Porter’s Five Forces Analysis done on Harley Davidson Essay

Harley Davidson remains as a dominant force in the heavy weight motorcycle industry; upholding 50% share in the heavy weight motorcycles. This year they celebrate their 110th Anniversary proudly as the only major motorcycle manufacturer to completely focus on motorcycles. (Melief, Bundgaard & Hathaway, 2006) Other major players in the Motorcycle Industry are, Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki that also have their other major product lines inclusive of cars, watercraft, musical equipment and etc. Assessment of Strengths and Weaknesses of Current and Potential Competitors Porters Five Forces Analysis Source: Vector (2012) Internal Rivalry The heavyweight motorcycle market is justly concentrated with four major companies manufacturing these vehicles. Harley Davidson being one of the most experienced within the industry, Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha are the competitors that are all from Japan. Over the past few years many market for heavyweight motorcycles has increased annually, but experts are predicting even though the market is growing it will slow down in the years to come. (Melief, Bundgaard & Hathaway, 2006) The Competitive challenge is high in motorcycle industry. Most of the time motorbikes are counted as a luxury product and pricing the products can be complex. (Oxbridge Writers, 2012) Harley Davidson offers spare parts, extended warranties, and innovative and environmental friendly motorbikes for their customers, this singularizes them from their competitors. Japan’s companies have marked their success by establishing a strong competitive place in the market using cheap prices as their strategy. This affects customers perception on Harley Davidson’s place in the market and their prices. However, those having a predominant place in this sport do have conflicting interests, i. e. Yamaha and Honda have diversified into musical instrument and other motor vehicles. . (Oxbridge Writers, 2012) This results Harley-Davidson in differentiating themselves as a loyal, specialized Motorbike Company and getting more customers. Harley Davidson has traditionally been the prevailing competitor in this market with taking over 50% of the market share. With time it has fallen to below 50 % due to other companies expanding their heavyweight motorcycle production and growing in the market, focusing on American Consumers. (Melief, Bundgaard & Hathaway, 2006) This is because other products from competitors are becoming less distinguished and is similar to Harley Davidson Products. Recalling, back to the past it was easier to acknowledge Harley Davidson motorbikes for their unique style, but currently Japanese Manufacturers are merging popular designs to their products. As a result motorbikes from manufacturers are becoming more similar over time. This forces Harley-Davidson to focus more on their branding to maintain the customers. This can be an advantage to them, since Harley is known internationally for their brand, many people would prefer a Harley over a Honda or Suzuki. But can also be a downfall since Japanese companies has been improving their products with time. Threat of New Entrants This industry has a very high entry barrier, as it requires high capital to enter to the market. Similar to most manufacturing industries there are significant economies involved in building motorbikes. (NCCU, 2012) The manufacturing price of a similar product is extremely high in this industry even for a small scale. This is basically one of the main reasons there are only four major players in the industry. There are some small-scale motorcycle creators whose business s fully focused on reputation and appeal to motorcycle devotees, to build utterly customized bikes. They do not produce enough motorbikes to threaten the major players in the industry. They do not affect the position of Harley Davidson in the market but can be an added advantage since it increases interest of motorbikes in the public. Threat of Substitutes and Complements Heavyweight motorcycles are a luxury item for the majority of consumers, so there are very less similar substitutes for heavyweight motorbikes that could seriously affect the market and consumers. (Melief, Bundgaard & Hathaway, 2006) The Japanese manufacturers focus their designs more on smaller, quicker motorbikes that is the closest substitute followed by cars and scooters. Heavyweight bikes portray a certain persona, which is a part of the buyer’s influences on choosing a motorbike. Smaller bikes are for different riding styles and purposes. They are designed for a different seating position unlike the heavyweight motorbikes. Passenger cars can be a substitute for heavyweight motorbikes but it is a weak substitute. (NCCU, 2012) Motorbike consumers rarely purchase Harley’s to fulfill transportation wants. Harley Davidson bikes are more of a luxury item than a necessity to travel. Motorbikes maybe easy to travel in heavy traffic and consume less gasoline compared to a car. If a consumer choses a motorbike for the above mentioned reasons, it would be more reasonable to buy a lighter motorbike, which would be easier to handle and fuel efficient than a heavyweight motorcycle. The most profound complement for a heavyweight motorbike is gasoline/petrol. If fuel prices were higher consumers would not consider purchasing a heavyweight bike, because most journeys taken by the bike on such a bike is highly discretionary and will be used for pleasure rather than for transport necessities. Nevertheless, most of the heavyweight bike consumers are willing to pay between $8000 and $30,000 for this luxury vehicle, they would not mind paying just a little extra for fuel. Bargaining Power of Suppliers According to Melief, Bundgaard & Hathaway (2006), â€Å"Harley Davidson operates nearly every stage of the production of a motorcycle, taking raw materials such as steel and basic electrical components and shipping completed motorcycles to its extensive independent dealership network. Because there are many suppliers of all inputs that Harley Davidson requires for its manufacturing operations there is very little that any single supplier can do the exact rents from Harley. † This phrase proves that even if one supplier tries to escalate its profits/prices it would not be much of a deal for Harley to switch suppliers without interruption in production. â€Å"Preferred suppliers† approach reduced the number of suppliers Harley Davidson worked with and improved the quality of the suppliers as well; these long-term contracts and relationship protected Harley Davidson from supplier price increase. (NCCU, 2012) This also grew trust between the suppliers and Harley and their suppliers gained more profit as Harley improved their business. Bargaining Power of Consumers Similar to the Suppliers, Harley Davidson’s customers are of large population of individual consumers, making it difficult to badly affect Harley Davidson’s financial situation by refusing to corporate. (Melief, Bundgaard & Hathaway 2006) Even though Harley’s dealerships are individually owned and operated the companies’ customers are officially their licensed dealers. But the sheer number of dealers that Harley has all over the world makes situation for dealers not much better than individual riders. Harley needs their customers to buy the product in order to gain profit; since Harley is aging they also need to gain more new loyal riders. Each Harley Davidson purchase is by an individual; even though one person would not drastically affect the financial earnings of the company it is essential to sell the individual experience to each customer to reach more Markets and combine these sales to improve financial strength. (NCCU, 2012).

300 †Rationalism vs Empiricism †Summary and History Essay

What is reality really like? A current running through much of the philosophical thinking around the time of Socrates and Plato was that there is a difference between how the world appears and how it is. Our senses reveal one layer of reality but it is our minds that penetrate deeper. The world of appearances is a world in flux but underneath there must be a stable reality. For there is much that is unchanging. We recognise kinds of things – badgers, daffodils, mountains – and whilst members of these kinds are born, change and die, and differ from one another in ever so many ways, the kind-defining essence doesn’t change. We see here the key rationalist idea that knowledge is a priori knowledge of necessary truths Plato said that kinds were defined by the transcendental forms. He presented a number of arguments for the existence of these things. Prior to our incarnation, our souls existed in the realm of forms where we learned about these essences. In our terrestrial state, we cannot recall what we know. Socrates considered himself a â€Å"midwife to knowledge† instead of a teacher, helping his interlocutors to draw out what they don’t know that they know. The example of Meno and the slave-boy shows this idea clearly. Like many philosophers, Plato was also fascinated by mathematics. We are able to tap into a universe of truths that are non-sensible: we do not see numbers and we do not see the perfect geometric forms. Once again, we see the difference between the powers of the mind and the powers of the senses. It was in the 17th century that the debate between the rationalists and the empiricists came to a head. Philosophers such as Descartes and Leibniz emphasised the power of reason over the senses. Descartes argued that our senses were fallible and that we could not rule out the possibility of the demon deception hypothesis on the basis of sensory evidence alone. Descartes argued that he knew he existed, as a mind, on the basis of reflection alone: when I think, I cannot fail to be aware of myself as existing as that thinker (cogito, ergo sum). Having proved that he exists, Descartes argued that God exists. Since God is no deceiver, he would not have given us senses that systematically mislead. But let us not overemphasise the powers of the senses. Descartes argued that even with material things, it is reason that exposes their essences. In his piece of wax reasoning, he argued that the senses merely reveal a succession of impressions: it is reason that grasps the underlying and enduring substance as extended (and filled space). Plato and Descartes believed that we are born with concepts and knowledge. In Descartes’ case, there was a religious motive: we are all born in the image of God. We discover more about the world primarily through metaphysical reflection. The philosopher Francis Bacon, an early empiricist, famously dismissed this rationalist approach to knowledge. He compared rationalists to spiders who spin â€Å"complex metaphysical systems out of their entrails†. Empiricists get their hands dirty: like bees gathering pollen, they gather knowledge about the world and only then reflect on it. Around the same time as Bacon, many new discoveries were being made that shook the prevailing views of reality. The Earth was dethroned from its position at the centre of the universe by Copernicus. A new star (a supernova) was observed by Tycho Brahe in 1572 – yet the heavens were supposed to be timeless and unchanging. Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter – again, everything clearly didn’t revolve around the Earth. Later in the 17th century, scientist-philosophers such as Newton, Boyle, Gassendi and Huygens would revolutionise our understanding of reality. The original empiricist manifesto was written by John Locke. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he sought to show how a mind that was blank at birth – a tabula rasa or blank slate – could come to be filled. His first targets were the innate concepts and knowledge (‘ideas’) of the rationalists. There are no such things. There are no truths everyone agrees on. Many people fail to grasp the supposed metaphysical truths. Instead, our senses deliver ideas to us. We store them, abstract from them to form general ideas, and compound and mix them to generate new ideas. Like Lego bricks, we build the meagre sensory data into ever more complex structures. Even Leibniz thought Locke was onto something here. He claimed that our minds were like blocks of marble that had to be carefully chiselled at to reveal the hidden structure (the innate truths). It is hard work and not everyone will end up well-chiselled. Hume took empiricism to its limit. Where Locke talked indifferently of ideas, Hume distinguished impressions and ideas. Impressions are the direct deliverances of the senses and are forceful and vivid in comparison to ideas, which are the copies our minds makes. (He also agreed with the Empiricist Berkeley that Locke’s theory of general ideas was wrong. We do not abstract from particular ideas to a general idea but use a particular idea in a general way via a general name. ) What about the precious necessary truths philosophy is supposed to study? Locke argued that once we have ideas in our mind, our mind will perceive the necessary connections between them – e. g. that a triangle has internal angles that add to 180o? But where does the idea of necessity come from? Hume provided an answer. He distinguished statements into two categories: those expressing relations of ideas (analytic) and those expressing matters of fact (synthetic). The analytic truths express mere definitions: we simply are aware of an association between terms. The synthetic truths are the contingent truths. So what happens to interesting necessary truths, such as God exists or nothing exists without being caused to exist? Hume argued that if these weren’t analytic – and they aren’t – they aren’t necessary. We feel that they are necessary and this is all necessity is: a psychological property. When we say that X caused Y, we think we have said something about the universe. We think we have seen an example of a law of nature (e. g. the water in the bucket froze because it was cold exemplifies the law water freezes at 0oC). Science investigates these laws. Hume said that causation was â€Å"all in the mind†. We see one thing after another and when we’ve seen instances of a regularity enough, we develop the feeling that one thing must be followed by the other. Hume, like Locke, emphasised how all we can be certain of are our impressions – how the world seems. Scientists are really investigating how the world appears: they can never be certain that the world really is the way it appears. So, empiricism seems to lead straight to scepticism about the external world. Kant objected strongly to this. Science really is studying the external world and there really is an external world for it to investigate. Kant brought about a revolution in philosophy (he called it a â€Å"Copernican revolution). He argued that the empiricists and rationalists were both right and wrong. The Empiricists were right: science requires the study of the world and the world is brought to us via the senses. The Rationalists were right: our mind is not blank but contains structures that enable us to interpret the stream of data from the senses. We may liken the mind to a mould and the data to jelly: one only has something structured by combining both. Or: the mind is a computer with an operating system and the data is the input from the user. A computer with just an operating system is inert. A computer into which data is inputted but which has no operating system is just data: it cannot be interpreted. Only when you combine both do you get something useful. Our minds contain the â€Å"structures† for space, time, objects and causation, for example. (In Kant’s terminology, space and time are the pure forms of intuition whereas the structures for objects and causation are pure concepts of the understanding. ) This means that we experience a world of spatio-temporally located objects in which causation happens because this is how our minds make it appear. Does this mean that the world as such is â€Å"all in the mind†? Or is the mind somehow â€Å"tuned† to the structure of reality, so that our pre-programmed minds mirror the structures of reality? This is a very difficult question over which there is no agreement amongst experts. The Empiricist movement came back with a vengeance in the 20th century. Philosophers such as Bertrand Russell agreed with Hume that our knowledge begins with our knowledge of sense-data (classical empirical foundationalism). Armed with new discoveries in mathematics and logic, and backed by the successes of science, the logical positivists argued that the only proper way to investigate the world was the scientific way. If I say p and p is synthetic and there is no objective, scientific way to verify my claim that p, then my claim is meaningless. (This is the celebrated verification principle). So, if it is true that there atoms, we should be able to find empirical – sensory – evidence of them. If it is true that nothing happens without being caused to happen, then we likewise need scientific evidence for this. We cannot discover whether it is true by pure reason. The Logical Positivist movement failed. There is much that seems meaningful that is not objectively verifiable by the senses, such as the occurrence of private sensations. The principle makes it impossible for general claims such as â€Å"all mammals are warm-blooded† to be true, as we cannot verify all of them. The very verification principle itself fails its own test! The Logical Positivists responded by watering down their principle: a meaningful claim is one we could gather some evidence for in principle and the principle itself is special – exempt from this rule. But it was not enough. (* Then Quine argued that the fundamental division between analytic and synthetic sentences was incorrect. Analytic sentences cannot be false. But no sentence enjoys this privilege. As we learn more and more, truths we thought were beyond doubt are rejected. Once upon a time, we would have thought it analytic that no object can be in two places at once or that there is no fastest velocity. Quantum physics and general relativity theory show that they are not true. Instead, we should have a â€Å"web of belief†. At the centre are those sentences least likely to be revised – our â€Å"core beliefs†. As we move out, we find those sentences that would be easier and easier to accept as false – that would cause less and less disruption to the rest of what we believe. ) In the 1950s, Chomsky became famous for suggesting that we are not born as blank slates when it comes to language. We are born knowing the fundamental structures of human language. When we are young, we hear our mother tongue and use our knowledge of language to pick up our language very quickly. (At 24 months, the average child understands 500-700 words; at 36 months, 1000; at 48 around 2500-3000; at 60 around 5000 words: that’s around 7 words a day between 3 and 6). More recently, studies have shown that children are born with brains structured to â€Å"expect† the world to behave in certain way. Very young children expect objects to persist over time: not to disappear and reappear at two different places, for example. Is this a revival of rationalism? Not according to many people. Rationalists argued that we had innate concepts and knowledge. By reflection, we can discover them and manipulate them to gain new knowledge. But our â€Å"knowledge of language† is altogether different. None of us can easily articulate the rules we follow in generating syntactically-correct English. (And certainly none of us at all can articulate the â€Å"common structure rules† to all human languages. ) Our brains are certainly pre-programmed, but only perhaps in the same way that a computer is pre-wired: clearly something has to be there but nothing as advanced as software. So where are we today? No side is â€Å"victorious†: this would be to grossly over-simplify the debate between the empiricists and the rationalists. We definitely have minds in some way â€Å"ready† to receive the world – hardly surprising, perhaps, given the time it has taken for us to evolve. But when it comes to working out what is true? Few philosophers are rationalists in the old-fashioned way. There is no sharp division between metaphysics and science: our study of reality cannot be done from the armchair alone. But our capacity to grasp abstract mathematical truths has always been difficult to explain from an empiricist perspective. We seem to have an access to a mathematical realm and a cognitive or intuitive access instead of a sensory one. You can’t see numbers, after all, and it is not easy to say what we could â€Å"see† that would lead us to generate the ideas of numbers.

Application Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Application - Assignment Example The objective of the training program was to orient these managers on the basis managerial and administrative responsibilities in different nursing units to enable nursing unit managers to focus direct patient care. evaluation findings is to determine if the identified goals where effectively achieved. As identified, the training objectives include orienting the newly hired unit managers on managerial and administrative responsibilities to be undertaken at different nursing units; and thereby, to enable nursing unit managers to focus on patient care. The audiences within whom the findings were communicated to were the Department Managers of the Nursing Department and the Vice President for Nursing for review and assessment and forwarding of results to the President and CEO of the organization. Likewise, the results were subsequently communicated to the Nurse Unit Managers for information purposes. Parallel to the discussions presented in Russ-Eft & Preskill (2009), the target audience that were identified herewith were considered according to being: (1) directly involved in the development of the training program; and (2) they are directly interested and affected by the results of the training program (p. 406). The timing of the communication and evaluation reports was considered. As disclosed by Rodgers, although the formal evaluation was scheduled after the six week training period, regular weekly updates were reported to the Department Managers of Nursing Department and to the Vice President of Nursing. Therefore, in addition to the weekly reports, the final evaluation and communication of findings were set at the 7th week from the initial basic orientation to review and evaluated the outcome; any challenges or difficulties encountered; any proposed changes to the current managerial and administrative tasks, as proposed by the unit managers; and to incorporate suggestions or comments recommended by the Nurse Unit Managers. The

Artistic Appropriation, Copyright and Creativity Literature review

Artistic Appropriation, Copyright and Creativity - Literature review Example Collage is a type of appropriation. Different parts of copyrighted works are incorporated in a random manner to form a totally different and new work not previously existed. Aim This literature review aims to explore the different scholars’ views in the favor of the statement that modern scope of copyright restricts the culture of collage and visual arts appropriation as well as the views of scholars against this notion. Objectives 1. What is the concept of appropriation? 2. What is the modern interpretation of a copyright? 3. What is the impact of copyright on the creativity and advancement of artistic knowledge? 4. How practice of appropriation can survive in the technological age? 5. What are the alternative approaches to use copyrighted works without resorting to an infringement? 6. What works are appropriated and are considered enforceable in the courts of law? 7. Are there any theories for copyright and fair use? 8. Is there any case law available related to appropriatio n and copyrights? 9. Who are the authors in favor of the statement and against it? Literature Review Lankford (2011) explored the history of the practice of appropriating visual arts. He argued that this practice dates back to Greeks period who invented the technique of appropriation. ... The author further observed that as a result, the artist freely appropriated other works to form a collage work (Cohen, 2011; p.89). The modern copyright law has its roots in the Statute of Anne of 1710 that recognized author rights in a certain but limited manner (Pedley, 2005). Hampel (1992) argued in the favour of artist’s appropriation. He postulated that the appropriation does not deprive the copyright holders of their copyrights and any of their financial benefits. Therefore, Hampel (1992) required that they should be free to use the other artist’s works without seeking authorization or licensing. Furthermore, Meyers (2006) highlighted that the copyrights law discourages the artists to expand and innovate in their works. The author forcefully disagreed with the licensing and authorization requirements to initiate an appropriation of visual arts, which drags on the time frame for its completion. Davies (2010) an advocate of copyright law provides that the term copy right literally means the right to copy. He postulated that the appropriation of visual arts in the form of a collage work is a copyrightable subject matter as it is an expression in physical form instead of a mere idea that has no physical form for claiming intellectual property rights over it. He provided that when a work is applied for copyright registration, the Intellectual Property Office of United Kingdom examines the work in terms of its originality, degree of labour, skill or judgement exhibited by the work. Davies (2010) provided that the work has to be original and should not be similar to others copyrighted work otherwise it will become an infringement of other’s copyright. The

Nok Civilization Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Nok Civilization - Term Paper Example It was during unearthing a part of an alluvial tin mine nearby the Nok village that discoveries were made. The Nok village is in Jaba Local Government to the south of Kaduna state, next to Jos Plateau that is located in Central Nigeria in West Africa. Natural erosion and deposition led to Nok terracotta being spread all over the Sahel grasslands at various depths, therefore making it difficult to date and classify them. Due to sheer luck two sites were found to have Nok art which had not been moved. With the help of radiocarbon and thermo-luminescence tests the archaeologists were able to narrow down the age of the sculptures to between 2000 and 2500 years back. This meant that these artifacts were among the oldest ones of West Africa (Nok - a visit to Africa’s ancient civilisation 2013). Nok culture belongs to the Nigerian heritage which has not been given a lot of attention – at least not as much as other civilizations around the globe. Among all ancient tribes the Nok civilization was the most advanced and organized with respect to their living style. Unfortunately, though, a majority of the qualities that were associated with the Nok culture are no longer there and just a silhouette of their past exists today (Nok - a visit to Africa’s ancient civilisation 2013). For instance, today there is a single Nok blacksmith in the whole community and just a couple of weavers when in fact the Nok civilization was prominent due to their talents in weaving, molding and blacksmith. The same trades that they were known for now hardly exist (Nok - a visit to Africa’s ancient civilisation 2013). Nok people can be categorized as traditionalists – they considered their culture and traditions important and made sure that their children also followed them. For instance, they used to prepare their male children for manhood and made sure that the women followed their ‘female’ roles rather than taking over the males’ position.

Evolution and its understanding Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Evolution and its understanding - Essay Example While the existing models of evolution may not be able to account for every single question that a person may have regarding the origin of mankind and other forms of life on earth, it is definitely the most plausible explanation that can be offered at this point in history. The fact that it exists in contradiction to many of the central tenets of many religions must not hinder one from seeing the scientific nature of the theories of evolution. The beneficial nature of such a rational approach as far as the understanding of society is concerned is something that needs to be looked at and analyzed with great care and rigor.Believing in evolution necessarily may not lead one to believe evolution. By believing evolution, one would be asserting one’s belief in the scientific theories of evolution that is often considered to be a part of the heading of evolution. These would then mark out that person as a supporter of scientific rationality and the idea that the beginning of life wa s in unicellular organisms that then evolved into larger organism that then differentiated into more and more complex organisms. To believe in evolution would refer to a belief in a system of change that characterized the progress of mankind to its present position. This could then have been aided by any other force other than nature. It could be a supernatural force that may have enabled a particular form of progress and made possible a particular trajectory as far as the development of mankind is concerned.

Free and Fair Elections - Canadian Politics Essay

Free and Fair Elections - Canadian Politics - Essay Example Though the Canadian electoral system to a large extent affiliates to many democratic imperatives like being a representative democracy where the legislative office is decided through popular competitive elections, a political system that affiliates to a multiparty system of democracy, accrual of a range of political choices to the voters, and a reasonably fair and transparent system of governance, still, it will be unfair to conclude that all is well with the Canadian electoral system. ... First past the post system first and foremost is quiet simple and straightforward. Thereby such an electoral system is easy and economical to execute and in no way bothers the people who cannot understand the more complex electoral systems.5 First past the post system is also economical in terms of time in the sense that it takes only a few hours to count the total number of votes and the results could be declared at the earliest.6 This system of electioneering tends to get a sense of the voters’ views as to which party ought to from the government in the simplest possible way and thereby presents a simple and straightforward view pertaining to the peoples’ will.7 However, it goes without saying that irrespective of being an utterly simplistic way of conducting elections, first past the post electoral system in a way suppresses the will and the views of a large number of voters and is certainly not good for democracy.8 Canada has been a thriving democracy since long and now is the high time that the Canadian electoral system must graduate to more inclusive and complex electoral systems. The biggest flaw with the first past the post system is that it readily facilitates a two party system and tends to favor single party governments who are not required to rely on the support of other parties to pass legislations.9 The first past the post system certainly tends to bypass the opinion and aspirations of a large chunk of voters, as the candidates even securing a marginal excess of votes could actually win.10 It does not matter how much votes the losing candidate accrues as the winning candidate is required to get more votes than the losing candidates. Besides, first past the

Mitochondria and Its Functions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mitochondria and Its Functions - Essay Example The present paper has identified that mitochondrial chromosomes are inherited from our mothers.  Although minutely small, mitochondria are of major importance to athletic activities because the increase in their density is associated with enhanced performance capacity ("Mitochondria Functions" n.d. para. 1).  To answer the question on which between a world-class runner and a typical couch potato would have a much higher density of mitochondria from their sample muscle biopsies, it would definitely be the world-class runner because mitochondria are concomitant with exercise and physical activity.  Furthermore, mitochondria are the only places inside the muscles where carbohydrate, fat, and protein can be broken down in the presence of oxygen to create the energy needed for exercise. As a consequence, the more mitochondria an individual has, the more energy that individual can generate during exercise resulting in faster and longer time doing running, swimming and other physical activities ("Mitochondria Functions" n.d. para. 2).  Several studies have been done to document or otherwise prove that increased exercise generates a higher density of mitochondria. There are differences from these findings as to what type of physical activity generates more mitochondria such as intensity, faster but shorter duration or longer but slower duration. There are three types of human muscles: the cardiac, smooth and skeletal. The skeletal muscle is further classified into three types, which are the Type I, Type IIA and Type IIB fibers. Type IIB Fibers are white and geared to generate ATP or Adenosine triphosphate—an important carrier of energy in cells in the body—that is not able to supply skeletal muscle fibers continuously with sufficient ATP and have a fast concentration velocity. Type IIB fibers are found abundantly in the muscles of the arms (â€Å"Muscle†, n.d.). In one of the studies dealing with mitochondria, researchers were able to differentiate its effects depending on the type of muscle.

An article Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

An article - Essay Example Hence, living many to question his ethical claims about own lifestyle. The ethical question that arises is why does he claim that his life is simple yet own lifestyle depicts otherwise? The worst criticism though emerges after his return from England characterized by lavish travel style funded by special interest groups and non-profit organizations that he himself has instituted. His perceived ethical standards further betray own character, when he results to opening up corruption opportunities which he himself vowed to end. From the time he assumed office, he has been at loggerheads with public employees over wages. This raises question as to his ability to deliver earlier made promises of well-censored of an ethical rule. He has turned his regime as that full of secrets leaving many to question even his integrity as an honest man. Some people contend he is not the first to give such ethical speeches when contesting for an office, thus â€Å"so can he be an exemption?† They do all this by criticizing the current office and when they are in the same spot maintain similar operations. He further go against his ethical stands after promising to bring a legislation to bar public office holders to work in two jobs and end the conflict of interest but then the law never comes to be. This really downgrades his willingness to end the malpractice and end unlawful party donations. His critiques even argue that he showed little interest for the bill to pass and that is why he has done nothing about the bill even if he could do something. There are many ethical violations exhibited by Christie especially when he denied public information yet claimed accountability would characterize his leadership. This leaves many wondering of how a government can be accountable when they do not allow people to evaluate and score them. His tenure is a characterization of numerous lawsuits with a lot of

Academic Honesty Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Academic Honesty - Essay Example Dishonesty among students can be suppressed to ease implementation of academic policy program me. It is the mandate of one who receives a scholarship to out-source information and seek for guidance in all his undertakings. It is through this that he will get adequate knowledge on the ongoing programmed policies. Honesty adherence reflects one’s commitment to willingly and readily work under any management. Ignorance of the outlaid policies is not in any way a defense mechanism to evade punishment. Lecturers expect students to produce their own assignments and highly avoid duplication of their colleagues’ work (Kirkland, 2009). A well formulated honesty policy depicts a fine image of the institution to the external human race. The school managerial team would come up with several guidelines to emerge to an academic honesty policy statement. It should be strictly adhered to and its violation be considered un- invulnerable. The motive behind the formulation of an academic honesty policy would vastly be to eliminate the negative students’ behaviors in which failure to instantly deal with them lead to adverse results. This eventually portrays a dull picture of the institution to the outsiders. The criteria used in its formulation has to side with both the institution as well as the students. (That is, it favors all the parties assisting in its formulation). This is through ensuring that the organization of an Academic Honesty Committee involves both the students’ council and the institute’s legitimate decipherable team. The standards of this honesty policy should not limit the students to receiving of the assistance they seek. It should subject students to discipline as soon as they violate the set standards. In it, lecturers outline procedures, which the students follow and avoid being dishonest (Choong & Brown, 2007). There are also the measures to be taken and applied as one must face the consequences of his mistake. However, students should anticipate for a better follow up of the policy and ensure they operate within its basics as they look forward to both positive and negative reinforcement. Instructors assertively apply disciplinary measures on the policy breakers and hence help to bring down resistance to the policy. It is worth noting that, the st udents are ready and satisfied when a certain set sequence of dealing with policy violators is administered on them (Choong & Brown, 2007). This is due to the reason that the students’ council is involved in the giving out of ideas in the formulation of this policy. This then makes them not to resist to any action their instructors administer on them. Punishment should be applied to the violators and is done best by reporting to the body chosen to give authorization to the policy. The committee looks forward to a positive adherence of students presumed to be alluding to the so-called policy. The disciplinary measures to be applied must be made known to them and it is the obligation of the council to substantiate the norms required of students. They edify them through various ways such as prevention, confrontation and lastly by reporting. In prevention, there is prior knowledge of the honesty policy, which the lecturers partially give to the students during their admissions to the various campuses. Such information gives the scholar a hint on the institution’s programs (Kirkland, 2009). The three are also ways of evading academic dishonesty. Academic wise, the instructors set assignments, which first oblige an open discussion and later assign them some exceptional responsibilities to partake. When student get involved in

Alina Humanities Essay Example for Free

Alina Humanities Essay PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES Upon completion of the course, students should be able to accomplish the following. 1. Understand and appreciate outstanding cultural expressions of the humanistic tradition. 2. Interpret and analyze selected artistic and ideological expressions. 3. Compare and contrast selected artistic and ideological expressions. 4. Identify causal influences in the chronological development of arts and ideas. 5. Applywhattheyhavelearnedaboutonecultureorculturalexpressionwhenexamining another. 6. Demonstrate how selected artistic and ideological expressions do or do not illustrate a cultural period or a stylistic concept. 7. Defend personal opinions regarding the interpretations of selected artistic and ideological expressions. 8. Demonstrate rhetorically effective writing appropriate for the study of humanities and meeting all requirements for college level writing. ***Please advise instructor if you will be taking exams at DSS. *** CLASS PROCEDURE OBLIGATIONS Class sessions will consist primarily of PowerPoint presentations that include representative images, texts, and audio from the humanist tradition. Students will be responsible for viewing/reading the powerpoints and/or other material prescribed for each presentation. When 1  engaging literary texts, the students must read the assigned pages before classes, be ready to pass written quizzes on the readings and be ready to discuss each respective day’s assignment. *** Using laptop computers or other electronic devices is not allowed in class. For each incident, violators will be docked ten points on the following exam. Classroom Etiquette: 1. No talking during class. Private conversation cannot and will not be tolerated. 2. No reading the newspaper, or other outside material, or doing other homework during class. 3. Due to the abuse of using computers in class in the past, I ask that you do not use a laptop for  taking notes. 4. Arriving late and leaving early are disruptive. Please be considerate of your instructor and fellow students by arriving on time. If you should need to arrive late or leave early, please notify the instructor. 5. Turn off cell phones before entering the classroom. Attendance Policy Classroom attendance supplements and enriches text materials through films, slides, lectures, and discussions. In addition, class discussions suffer without each student present, since all viewpoints in discussion are important. Class attendance and punctuality are important. TCCs  Catalog states, â€Å"All students enrolled in the College are expected to attend all classes, since regular attendance and regular application constitute the two most significant factors that promote success in college work. Until midterm during fall, spring and summer C terms, any student absent from any class for more time than that class meets in any one week (i. e. , two classes) may be withdrawn by administrative action (AW grade). † Tardiness and/or leaving class early both disrupts the continuity of the class and reduces other students engagement with the material. Both, therefore, will be counted as absences.  Since late arrivals and early departures constitute class disturbances, each instance of tardiness to and early departure from this class will be counted as an absence from an entire class session. Consequently, STUDENTS WHO ARE TARDY OR WHO LEAVE EARLY FOR ANY REASON, INCLUSIVE OF BATHROOM USAGE ON MORE THAN A TOTAL OF FIVE OCCASIONS PRIOR TO THE WITHDRAWAL DEADLINE WILL BE SUBJECT TO ADMINISTRATIVE WITHDRAWAL. STUDENTS SHOULD ARRIVE ON TIME AND POWER OFF THEIR CELL PHONES BEFORE CLASS BEGINS. Eight absences will lower your final grade in this course one full letter grade. A student with nine absences will automatically fail the  course. There will be no distinction made between excused and unexcused absences, so plan your absences wisely. 2 STUDENTS SHOULD ARRIVE ON TIME AND POWER OFF THEIR CELL PHONES BEFORE CLASS BEGINS. OBLIGATIONS I. Exams Students will be responsible for performing well on three exams. The course will be divided into three units, and a non-cumulative examination will be administered at the conclusion of each unit. All three exams will be comprised of slide identification, multiple choice, matching, short answer, and true/false questions. Students should bring a #2 pencil on the dates of the exams. IF FOR ANY LEGITIMATE REASON A STUDENT IS UNABLE TO TAKE AN EXAM ON THE ASSIGNED DATE, HE/SHE MUST NOTIFY THE INSTRUCTOR BEFOREHAND. Otherwise, no make-up exam will be administered, and failing to take an exam will result in an â€Å"F† for the course. The key to doing well on the exams: attending class, taking notes, and studying diligently. Each exam will include 20% extra credit. II. Writing Assignments Students will be responsible for submitting a total of three essays (600-650 words each). Each one of the three essays corresponds with each one of the 3 exams, and each of the three essays  will be a response to prompts aligned with each unit/exam — that is, each of the three essay assignments must be related to the readings for each exam. Further instructions and the essays’ prompts will be posted on BlackBoard. The due dates are specified on the calendar at the conclusion of this syllabus. Note: Students must complete successfully a short grammar quiz before submitting each of the three essays. Essays may include MLA prescribed in-text citations. That is, if you quote or paraphrase from a source, you must parenthetically cite that source after the quote or paraphrase. Also, you will  need to include a Works Cited page. ***If you plagiarize, your essay will receive a zero, and your overall grade will drop to an F. Grading Each of the students three exams and the writing assignments will receive a letter grade: 100-90 = A; 89-80 = B; 79-70 = C; 69-54 = D; 53-0 = F. The three exam grades will each count 30%, totaling 90 percent of the student’s final course grade; and the three essay grades total 10 percent of the final course grade. *Failure to submit an exam or essay will result in an F for the course. * 3 A student’s excellent attendance, punctuality, Discussion Board participation, and attitude  (citizenship) can count up to 10%++ â€Å"extra credit† toward the final exam grade. Conversely, a student’s poor attendance, poor punctuality, and poor citizenship/attitude (which includes talking, texting, â€Å"acting out† in class) can affect negatively the final exam grade. Tardiness or leaving early will be counted as an absence and will therefore negate a student’s extra credit for that particular class. Academic Honesty Policy Plagiarism: Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary states: to plagiarize is â€Å"to steal or pass off ideas or words of another as one’s own†¦to use created productions without crediting  the source†¦to commit literary theft†¦to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source† (p. 1371). Academic dishonesty is not accepted at Tallahassee Community College, and I will pursue and prosecute any instances of such dishonesty. ***Do not plagiarize—that is, do not use the research, ideas, or words of others as your own without giving proper credit to your source. This policy especially includes copying or paraphrasing written materials from gallery brochures, play programs, books, periodicals, encyclopedias, CD-ROMs, the Internet, or someone else’s paper. ***Do not cheat. Students who cheat or plagiarize will receive an automatic zero on the assignment and will be referred to the academic dean for expulsion from TCC. By the act of submitting written work or an exam, the student acknowledges that she/he understands the definition of academic dishonesty and is willing to accept the consequences for any violation. COURSE WEB SITE: This course has been designated â€Å"WA† (â€Å"Web Assisted†) in the schedule of classes, and the â€Å"WA† designation means: â€Å"Some use of computer online technology required. † In this regard a course web site has been established for students in this class. The purpose of the web site is to allow students access to important course materials (syllabus, writing assignment, study guides, presentation assistants, images, et cetera). The materials are intended as supplemental to the classroom experience; they should not, in other words, be viewed as substitutes for in-class presentations. Students may also use the course web site to communicate with one another by means of the â€Å"Discussion Board,† which can be found by clicking on the tab labeled â€Å"Communication. † Via the Discussion Board, students can introduce themselves to one another,  ask questions about the material covered in class, and ask questions about the course writing assignments (be careful, though, not to copy the answers of another student). Activating Your TCC E-mail Account If you have not already done so, you will need to activate your TCC e-mail account. To activate your TCC e-mail account, go to the TCC homepage at http://www. tcc. fl. edu/, click on â€Å"Online Access,† click on Student NetMail Guide; click on â€Å"Activate your eAccount,† and follow the directions. You will be given â€Å"Student eAccount ID (or Name) and a Password (or PIN) that you need to record and store in a secure location. You will need your eAccount ID and Password to access both the course web site and your TCC e-mail account. If you have any problems, call 850-201-8535. Finding the Course Web Site 4 You may find the course web site by going to the TCC homepage at http://www. tcc. fl. edu/, clicking on â€Å"Online Access,† clicking on â€Å"Blackboard. † After logging in with your username and password, the next screen should display the name of the course in which you are enrolled. LIST OF CLAST SKILLS TAUGHT OR REINFORCED: The State of Florida requires each student to demonstrate proficiency in certain College Level Academic Skills (CLAST). The students of HUM 2210 will have the opportunity to practice and develop their reading and writing skills. As for their reading, students will engage their Literal and Critical Comprehension Skills; and, as for their writing, students will engage their English Language Skills: Content, Organization, and Grammar/Mechanics (i. e. , appropriate word usage, syntax, spelling, punctuation). Advising The Associate of Arts degree offered through TCC requires the completion of six credit hours in humanities with a grade of C or better. There are three different tracks through which those six hours may be obtained. The common track runs through both HUM 2210 and HUM 2230, Humanities of the World I and II. If students pass HUM 2210, then, to fulfill the humanities requirement, they must also pass HUM 2230 (and vice versa). Another track runs through HUM 2740 and 2741, Humanities Abroad I and II. If students pass HUM 2740, then, to fulfill the humanities requirement, they must also pass HUM 2741. The third track offers two humanities courses from four different categories. Those categories include courses relating to (1) Art History, (2) Literature, (3) Music, and (4) Philosophy and Religion. For the third track students  must pass two courses, and the two courses must fall into two different categories. Students cannot fulfill the humanities requirement by completing courses in different tracks. If, for example, students pass HUM 2210 and then pass REL 2300 (World Religions), they have not fulfilled the humanities requirement. ACADEMIC ALERT! Students enrolled in the same college-prep or college-level course for the third time shall pay one-hundred percent of the full cost of instruction (which is the equivalent of fees paid by out-of-state residents) except in approved cases of documented extenuating circumstances. Students may not withdraw on the third attempt and will receive a grade in courses taken the third time. An appeal to take a college-level course for the fourth time may be allowed based on academic goals. The appeal process is executed through the Counseling Department. If a fourth attempt is granted, a student will not be permitted to withdraw and will receive a grade for the course. The counting of attempts began in the fall of 1997 and includes only those attempts at the Florida college where one is currently enrolled. Take your course work seriously. Consult with your academic advisor, make an educational  plan, attend class, and take advantage of the skills’ labs available to you. * * * PRESENTATION TOPICS AND RECOMMENDED READING 5 Unit I: The Earliest Traces of Culture Ancient African Egyptian Culture Ancient Mesopotamian and Hebrew Culture Ancient Hindu and Buddhist Cultures Unit II: Ancient Greek Culture Ancient Roman Culture Early Christian and Byzantine Culture Unit III: Islamic Culture Japanese Culture: chs. 16, 23 (if time permits) Medieval European Culture Renaissance European Culture IMPORTANT DATES Classes Begin Holidays: Labor Day Veterans Day Thanksgiving Break Monday, August 25 Monday, September 01  Tuesday, November 11 Wednesday-Friday, November 26-28 Last day to cancel registration/drop courses and receive a refund; last day to change from credit to audit or audit to credit Last day to withdraw from a course(s); last day instructors may assign AW Friday, August 29 Monday, November 03 1st Exam 1st Essay due Sept. 18 (Slide ID) Sept. 23 (Multiple Choice, etc. ) Sept. 16 2nd Exam 2nd Essay Due Oct. 21 (Slide ID) Oct. 23 (Multiple Choice, etc. ) Oct 28 Last Day of Classes Friday, December 05 Final Exam 3rd Essay Due TBA Day of the Final Exam TBA Final Exam: TBA Twelve Ways to make sure You Pass Your College Classes  6 1. Study the text, lecture material, or additional assigned recommended reading. Superficially scanning the reading the night before the exam â€Å"doesn’t cut it. † 2. Observe due dates. Late work, no matter what the excuse, will be downgraded or not accepted. 3. Do not urge the instructor to â€Å"cut you some slack† or â€Å"give you a break. † If he or she did that for someone else and not you, what would your reaction be? 4. Attend class. While you may think class is boring, the teacher might just provide some insights that will help you better understand the content of the course. 5. Come to class on time. If you really want to get on the wrong side of the instructor, just make tardiness a habit. 6. Do not play with your cell phone, iPod, or other electronic device in class. Unless you have childcare problems or are a first-responder, these actions tell the instructor that something else is more important than what is being taught. 7. Do not copy from Wikipedia, a Google search, or someone else’s work without proper citations. Teachers usually can identify plagiarism and material that is not yours. 8. Do not sleep in class. We know that school interferes with your social life, but do not make it so obvious! 9. Do not try to con the teacher. Telling an instructor that this is the last course you need to graduate or transfer will not earn you any leniency. 10. Do not tell the teacher that this class is the only one with which you are struggling and you have â€Å"A’s and B’s† in all other classes. Don’t give the impression that your other teachers are too easy. 11. Do not tell the teacher that you must have a good grade or you will lose your eligibility for sports, scholarship, or grant; lose your G. I. Bill; or be on academic probation. 12. Take your course work seriously. Try your best to learn.

Where Fashion Inspiration Comes From Cultural Studies Essay

Where Fashion Inspiration Comes From Cultural Studies Essay In the words of Coco Chanel, Fashion is about what is happening. Fashion designers always use the idea of inspiration is on the street. Consumers themselves especially the young ones, are very inventive and inquisitive about clothing and designers look to this for inspiration and innovation when creating new ideas. One typical fashion initiated many years ago by the young and ordinary people off the street, are jeans, now every designer has their own signature version. Trends and the latest looks follow todays shifting society. Sports events like the Olympics and what is happening in the media, movies and music also reflect fashion. Famous celebrities are an excellent opportunity to promote new looks and influence ideas. The runways mirror what is happening in the world and fashion designers use this to create their work. In the fashion world they call it the bubble-up-effect, which could be another reason to why fashion appears to have a similar look or theme, especially if all designers are tuning into the spirit of the current times for inspiration. Carl Jungs theory about the collective unconscious which studied peoples minds and showed that it is inevitable in todays ever growing society for individuals to reflect and think the same ideas, at the same time. Is this not a consideration to designers when accusing other people of copying and plagiarising their work, that instead these designs, are original in their own right, especially when all designers are looking at the world around them, to influence their work. Clothes are about dressing a human being and the proportions of the human body are split into three blocks. The head, the trunk, which runs from the shoulders to the pubis and finally the extremities, which include two arms and two legs (Martin,2009,pg73). Apparel has to fit around this shape, so it could be argued that designs will take on similar looks to others, as no dress would be made to fit a three armed person. Fashion forcasting within the industry has become big business and plays a huge part when informing designers and their team, of what is deemed to be the newest fashion themes and colours for the following season. Agencies such as Nelly Rodi based in Paris have over 30 trend forecasters who travel all over the world gathering photographs, illustrations and fabric swatches for inspiration for their trend-books. Each season this agency produces separate trend books incuding knitwear, colours, prints and ready-to-wear to be sent to their clients which include Mango, HM, Givenchy amongst other high profiled prà ªt a porter designers (Seivewright, 2007,pg 82/83). There are lots of these agencies around including Style-Vision, Trendspotter, Informat who all do exactly the same job. However, an online service called Worth Global Style Network created in 1998 is the leading online trend-analysis and research service, which in a click of the mouse provides creative and business intelligence for the apparel, style, design and retail industries. (wgsn,online). This appears to be the quickest means to get the latest information to designers quotes Roger Tredre, the WGSNs editor-in-chief especially with the ever changing nature of fashion, speed is of the essence (Seivewright, 2007,pg 86). It is extremly difficult to speak to a designer and ask them were they get their inspiration from, as nobody wants to give away their sources and of course, nobody would ever admit to using other peoples ideas. However, according to a New York based fashion designer designers do look to other designers for inspiration (see appendix 1). However the word homage always appears to be an influential tool in designing. This could be either an old iconic fashion designer, such as the late Christian Dior who inspired collections for Vivienne Westwood, with his new look of the late 1940s and also paintings from French Rococo artist Jean-Antoine Watteau. Vivienne Westwood, in an interview for the Victoria and Albert Museum, spoke about how Christian Dior had inspired her through his designs, one being the long black fitted wool new look dress. This is a form of tribute and homage to a designer, as instead of stealing his original ideas and innovation, she has celebrated him for influencing her work, as she was a teenager growing up when this magical look was around and women were starting to dress more glamorous. Today Vivienne Westwood finds her inspiration from the past especially in the VAs collections of fashion, furniture and paintings. (vam,2004,online) However, in the case of Muiccia Prada homage and inspiration is purchasing a jacket in an expensive Paris vintage store called Didier Ludot and the next season this identical Dior jacket is in the new Prada collection. No different in design to the one bought previously from Paris. This surely is not homage rather design theft. Topshop or any other high street store would not get away with this stolen innovation, especially if it was a near identical to a influential top end designer such as Prada or Chloe. Fashion designers have always looked back through the archives of history for inspiration. (learcenter,2005,online) From a recent email from a designer who works for Ralph Lauren in New York and who has previously worked for Abercrombie and Fitch, spoke not only about designers looking to other designers for inspiration, but the importance of vintage garments. They also try to copy these vintage designs in more modern fabrics and put their own spin on them. Another idea was looking again at what had previously sold well in the past and updating this in new fabrics and different colours. Another creative and fun idea is using snippets from bought and vintage samples, and merging different ideas together a collar from one style with a pocket of another (Appendix 1). In a Marc Jacobs documentary filmed in 2006,for his 2007 shows, Marc Jacobs who designs for Louis Vuitton as well as under his own label, shows where he gets his inspiration from. He uses walls covered in vintage fashion magazines, posters, flowers and old tortured fabrics to gather new innovation, using snippets from all these sources to enthuse new ideas. Again he looks through the archives of their successful designs and updates previous lines. Bricolage, is a french term used in the creative process of fashion and according to many is one of the primary dynamics. This term simply means reinventing something new by changing elements, mixing and bringing the clothing back to life by inputting new fabrics and stitch ideas. This is evident amongst all designers including Marc Jacobs An old mauve jumper becomes a lovely updated cashmere jumper (youtube,2006,online). With so much dress history available today shown in costume museums and vintage Vogues, as well as other influential magazines, it comes as no surprise that designers will always look to the past or other cultures for inspiration. Vivienne Westwood has in many collections used direct references to historical silhouettes and styles, such as famous paintings. Here is a picture of the Watteau evening dress created by Vivienne Westwood for a collection in 1996. This style is influenced from a Watteau painting of his cousins captured in image 1. It is very obvious in the shape and fullness of this dress that this artist, has inspired her with this creation. Victorian interpretations have always been a source of inspiration for other designers including DG who used the Victorian sleeves to inspire him, when creating a different look to a contemporary denim jacket. Fashion frequently looks to shape and materials of the past, as a form inspiration for new styles, as the workmanship and attention to detail is rarely achievable nowadays. According to Sue Jenkyn Jones who wrote the book Fashion Design, it also triggers a nostalgia for bygone lifestyles and the emotional aspect of clothing is an important element of design (Jones,2005,pg24). New technologies in fabrics and prints have always been seen as a form of inspiration. Designers will often select materials, gaining and enthusing ideas from its look, feel and aesthetics,  before designing a garment. This will then generate ideas from the silhouette and shape the fabric forms. Moodboards and visuals of a theme or idea will then start to be created selecting colours, historical references, lace, trims and eventually, ideas will start to present themselves. Fabric trade shows have a huge impact on the fashion world, however Premiere Vision which is held in Paris, every September, is the largest and the most influential of these events. Over 800 fabric manufacturers, as well as a huge host of designers and buyers attend these shows. Apparently it is not unusual to see designers like Christian Lacroix at these events, looking for inspiration as well as new specialized weaves (Tungate,2005,pg81/82). It is easy to see now were inspiration comes from, however when inspiration gets mistaken for imitation, how fair is this. Resources are put at risk. Designers invest time as well as huge amounts of money sourcing inspiration, testing fabrics, drafting dress patterns and checking that their creations are fresh, innovative and of a quality for there discerning customer. Who pays the price or is it only fair that every fashionista gets a chance to own a piece of luxury.

Wedding Planning Needs Assessment

Wedding Planning Needs Assessment CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Wedding is once-a-life event in peoples life. For most of families, they are willing to spend a considerable amount of money to ensure the wedding is organized as perfect as possible. According to Howard (2006), wedding today is a $70 billion business in U.S., and the average cost of wedding is $26,000 per couples. As a spinoff the larger discipline of event management, the business of wedding planning will provide business to a broad array of supporting industries, such as hotels, retails, and catering service. Comparing with the other personal events, such as birthday, anniversaries, wedding is more complicated, because it involves friends and families and a range of related service activities covering from catering to entertainments (Shone Parry, 2004). In order to make sure everything goes smoothly in the wedding day, most of the prospective couples would like to plan the wedding in sometimes year in advance. Both brides and grooms put much effort into the wedding preparation including the venue selection, honeymoon booking and dress design etc. However, not all of them have enough time and energy and knowledge in wedding planning to arrange everything themselves. They need someone to assist them in wedding planning, budget preparation, planning detail checklists, venue arrangement as well as onsite supervision and coordination on the wedding day. Wedding planners, the professional dealing with all the details of wedding, provide a one-stop service to potential couples by charging some considerable consultant fee (Wikipedia org, 2009). The role of the wedding planners is to save time, look after details, make couples dream come true, stay on the budget and save money. Wedding planners have become one of the outsourced labours in modern society (Blakely, 2007). With the rapid development of the society in the last decade, more and more couples prefer to go to college and start their own careers after graduation. Marriage is happening later in brides and grooms life (Mayling, 2002). This means couples have more disposable income to afford the wedding expenses; and they are more likely to look for some special unique wedding styles, such as theme wedding, green wedding etc., which probably involves different elements, such as ethic, religious custom, family tradition, class identity, regional practice and individual tastes and preference (Howard, 2006). As a result, wedding planners, who are providing professional advices and assistance to the couples from the moment of distributing the invitations, arranging the style of cake ceremony, table setting, and setting for banquet, are necessarily needed and developed dramatically (Markby, 2006). 1.2 Wedding in China In traditional Chinese culture, marriage was creating alliances between families. Therefore, it was strictly arranged by parents or elder people in families. Wedding should be planned strictly according to the customs. For example, people should choose a good year, a good month, a good day as well as a good time for wedding ceremony; and use â€Å"red† in the declaration for everything with the purpose of auspicious. Wedding is also one of the ways for Chinese families to present their social classes therefore the families are willing to spend a large mount of money on wedding, and much of which were supported by parents or relatives. Because of the reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s, nowadays, the living standards in China have been dramatically increased. According to the China Statistic Yearbook 2008 (2009), the GDP per capita in Mainland China is increasing steadily and has reached 18,934 RMB in 2007. At the mean time, the social culture is becoming diversified. More and more Chinese people, especially the younger generation who have better education, began to accept the western culture. Most of the prospective couples would like to experience different types of weddings that can make their special day more measurable. For example, some people choose â€Å"white† wedding instead of traditional Chinese â€Å"red† wedding; some may prefer destination wedding instead of having wedding at home, which may require more time and professional planning and organizing throughout the wedding preparation. Therefore, wedding planners, as a new business in China, has developed rapidly during the l ast decade. According to the ministry of commerce of the PRC (2008), wedding service today has become a big business in China covering about 76 industries, such as matchmaking business, wedding planning as well as banquets, tourism industries etc. where the photographer has the highest profit that is above 30% while the wedding planner is 15%. The average expenditure for more than 3.7 million new Chinese couples in 2006 was about 126,600 RMB. Based on the statistics of Ministry of Civil Affairs of the PRC (2009), about 11 million couples got married in 2008 with the growth of 10.8% than 2007. All the statistics above show that wedding business in China has a huge market and potential. This research will focus on Pearl River Delta, the most economically dynamic region in southern part of China. PRD covers nine prefectures of Guangdong province including Guangzhou, Shenzhe, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Foshan, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing; and has become one of the leading economic regions and a major manufacturing center of China, which accounted for 10.2% of Chinas GDP. People in PRD have more purchasing power than the other region. The per capita GDP in PRD ranges from 35,700 to 79,600 RMB which is much higher than the national per capita GDP (HKTDC, 2008). Because of the advantages of its location and open-door policy, PRD became the first region in China which allowed the foreign investments. Thus, apart from the economic strength, people in PRD were influenced by the western cultures earlier than the other places of China. 1.3 Research problem statements Due to the low entry cost in the wedding planning business, the number of wedding planners has increased rapidly in China in the last decade. Generally, two to three persons having relevant planning experience can establish a wedding planning company with around 100,000 RMB investments in China. They just need an office for meeting with clients and an official blog or website for promotion. Despite of the rapid development of the wedding business, the service/product offered by the wedding planners is similar. Comparing with the wedding photo service business, there is a lack of leading brand in the wedding planning business. With the growth of income level and education level, the couples in China are becoming more and more demanding towards the wedding service/products and face a problem that how to choose a suitable wedding planners who can provide excellent service/product. Thus, from the supply side, identifying and satisfying the important and unfulfilled needs of prospective c ouples is one of the ways for wedding planners to differentiate their products from the competitors, and make success in the competition. However, there is few studies indentifying prospective couples needs or attitudes toward products or service of wedding planner in Pearl River Delta even though in Chinese mainland, nor research about how well the wedding planners in China is meeting the needs of prospective couples. Therefore, this study will focus on the following questions to find out the needs of prospective couples (demand side) towards the wedding planners in PRD 1) Whats the reason for couples hiring wedding planners? 2) Whats the factors affecting the selection of wedding planners? Reputation? Price? Or other? 3) Do the needs of prospective couples toward wedding planners in Pearl River Delta vary according to the different demographical characteristics? 1.4 Research objectives: To find out the needs of prospective couples when hiring the wedding planners in the Pearl River Delta; To investigate the relationship between the needs for prospective couples and the choice of product/service offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta Region; To investigate how the needs of potential couples are influenced by their demographic profiles; To make recommendations to the wedding planners in Pearl River Delta. CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, the previous studies related to wedding, wedding planners as well as the consumer purchase behavior will be reviewed. 2.1 Nature of wedding From the view of sociology, Edward (1987) defined that weddings are rites of passage, which belong to the class of rituals that everywhere mark the transition of a person or persons from one status to another. Wedding therefore becomes a private and highly-personalized event in peoples life. Event is held for a purpose that brings people together to share an experience and produce a measurable outcome no matter public or private, commercial or charitable, celebratory or commemorative (Silvers, 2003). Shone and Parry (2004) defined the wedding, together with the other personal events (e.g. birthday or anniversaries), as a type of special events. Their phenomenon arise from leisure, cultural, personal or organizational objectives which are set apart from the normal activity of daily life and their purpose is to enlighten, celebrate, entertain or challenge the experience of a group of people. The characteristics of special events include personal interactions, ritual or ceremony, intang ible, fixed timescale, labor intensive, ambience and service, perishability as well as uniqueness. Getz (2007) also defined wedding as a form of planned events because it is held in venues that cater to individual and small-group clients which may require professionals or be entirely arranged by the participants. From this point of view, Getz (2007) believed that the wedding is a multi-meaning experience in both personal and social aspects, and it is can be considered as celebrations in which a theme and emotional stimulation are essential. Although, wedding is usually defined as a type of small or personal events, it is still an area lack of study and research compared with meeting, exhibition, incentives or other events. There is quite a few academic book or journal devoted to the planning and design of weddings, parties or other private functions. 2.2 Wedding planners 2.21 The nature of wedding planner Arranging an event is complicated as it involves different elements such as the specialist sets, props, customers for participants or guests, and all the range of support requirements from special effects and lighting to music and entertainment. Event management companies are increasingly common in the events business in the last decades, which have specialized in providing of the complete event by careful planning and management. People can enjoy a number of benefits of having an EMC including the expertise, ideas and experience they can draw on (Shone Parry, 2004). Shone and Parry (2004) found that although there are some major companies in the event business, there are a wide range of smaller organizations and individuals that are willing to provide events-related service particular for the personal event market, which include the organization of parties, celebrations, weddings, anniversaries and many of similar events. Professional party planners or event organizers are those pr ofessional who deal with the nitty-gritty details of planning, organizing, operating and managing an event to ensure everything goes smoothly. According to Wikipedia (2009), wedding planners are the professionals who deal with all the details of the wedding, which includes planning, organizing, operating and management, to ensure everything goes smoothly and correctly. Ellis-Christensen (2008) defined that wedding planner as an event professional whose responsibility is not only to plan a memorable wedding, but also to give some professional advices to the couples including the venue selection, equipments preparation etc. They usually act as a wedding advisor, coordinator, supervisor, financial planner and mediator during the wedding (Brush Creek Weddings, 2008). Peters (2007) also stated that the range of service offered by wedding planner is widely. Some may prefer to offer consulting service only while some may prefer to provide comprehensive wedding package. At the meantime, Peters (2007) also pointed out that the global trend of the wedding business has been toward offering total coordination of the entire blessed even t from the beginning to the end, which includes identifying the needs of new couples, budget preparation, planning detailed checklist, venue arrangement, identifying the professionals (e.g. florists, photographers etc.) as well as on-site supervision and coordination on the wedding day. The consultant fee varies widely depending on different locations or different packages. The consultant fee may be higher in larger cities where disposable income of couples is higher than the other places. 2.22 The requirements of a wedding planner Having a strong organizational skills as well as an eye for details are necessary and basic requirements for a successful professional meeting planner because meeting process is both comprehensive and meticulous. Moreover, meeting planners must have the ability to work successful under pressure, to react calmly to constant change, and to make quick decisions (OBrien Shaw, 2002). Howard (2006) stressed that wedding planning is highly customer oriented as most of the couples are looking for special, unique and memorable wedding. Ethic and religious custom, family tradition, class identity, regional practice, and individual tastes and preferences certainly all played a role in shaping wedding consumption. Peters (2007) suggested that good communication skills, good organizational skills as well as good interpersonal skills are very essential for being a successful wedding planner, because wedding planners act as a middle person who deals with both clients and suppliers. The appearance of the professional wedding organization was an important benchmark in the rise of wedding planner business, indicating that wedding planning service today are more and more professional. These professional organizations help wedding planners naturalize particular customs and practices on a potentially national scale by sharing etiquette and customs. They provide some training course for wedding planners. Getting a certificate from professional organization has became one of the evidences for professional and made the customer confident with the service quality. Additionally, the organization also centralized and rationalized a consultants business, providing important resources and information regarding the markets as well as the trend (Howard, 2006). 2.23 Demand of wedding planners Wedding is an important event in peoples life that many people are willing to organize by themselves on the small and more intimate scale. However, not all of them have the time and wish to expend the effort on doing so and happier to pay a professional to come along and deal with all the details of planning, organizing, operating and managing to ensure everything goes smoothly (Shone Parry, 2006). According to Blakely (2007), the supply of commercial service increases dramatically along with the growth of demands for family jobs. Wedding planners are a form of outsourced labor in the modern society. These jobs which are transported from home to the public marketplace are responding to the time crunch produced by work-family conflict. From this point of view, Blakely defined wedding planners as commercial substitutes. Besides, Edwards (1987) conducted a research to examine the relationship between the weddings commercial development and its nature as a rite of passage. He found that the reason of the success of the wedding business was the convenience offered by the wedding planners and the demand from consumers for larger and more sumptuous celebrations. Consumers were looking for a wide range of wedding-related service (one-stop service) through a single organization. 2.4 The trend Firstly, the wedding today tends to be more customized than before. According to Hensdill (1996), because of the cultural exchange among the global village, traditional wedding customs are giving way to the trends of Western societies. Some new styles of wedding exist, such as theme wedding, destination wedding and green wedding, because more and more couples are looking for unique wedding. Destination wedding is a new wedding style that a couple decides to hold their wedding in a location where neither one of them resides (Daniels Loveless, 2007). There are several top destinations for wedding in the world, such as Caribbean, Las Vegas, Hawaii as well as Maldives. Generally, some special theme may be adopted into the destination wedding. For example, hotel in Las Vegas has organized Italian-style wedding for wedding couples (Stratton, 2001). Moreover, the destination wedding often merges into the honeymoon (Daniels Loveless, 2007). Secondly, the internet and e-commerce has shaped the modern wedding consumption and gave it a new immediacy and flexibility. As a result, the wedding planners can target different segments of the bridal markets through developing website that advertised their goods and services and allowed consumers to make agreement or shop directly through their online site (Howard, 2006). 2.2 Consumer purchase behaviors toward wedding â€Å"Consumer behavior is defined as the behavior that consumers display in searching form, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs. It focuses on how individuals make decisions to spend their available resources† (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007). 2.32 Factors affecting consumer purchases As people are willing to devote time and effort to the ritual occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving, some researches regarding the types of purchases associated with ritual occasions have been conducted by researchers in consumer behavior (Lowery, 1994). According to some market analysis, consumer purchase behavior is strongly influenced by social, cultural and individual characteristics. a) Social factors According to Schiffman and Kanuk (2007), consumer behavior is influenced by two major groups, namely the reference group and families. â€Å"A reference group that is perceived as credible, attractive, or powerful can induce consumer attitude and behavior change† (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2007) Based on the traditional family life cycle, the prospective couples belong to the stage II, honeymooners, who have available a combined income that often permits a lifestyle that provides them with the opportunities of more indulgent purchasing of professions, which means that the honeymooners are happy to accept the professional products and service and willing to pay more money for them as they pursuit high quality of life. The reason hidden behind may be because they have more disposable income and more free time for themselves before the born of young children. Additionally, for the newlyweds, the advice and experience of other married couples (e.g. parents or friends) are likely to be important when they start-up their expenses to establish a new home (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007). â€Å"For many consumers their family is their primary reference group for many attitudes and behaviors. The members of a family assume specific roles in their everyday functioning; such roles or tasks extend to the realm of consumer purchase decisions. Key consumer-related roles of family members include influencers, gatekeepers, deciders, buyers, preparers, users, maintainers, and disposers. A familys decision-making style is influenced by its lifestyle, roles, and cultural factors.† (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007). Different social classes have different preferences in clothing, home decoration and leisure activities as well as saving, spending and credit habits. Based on the market study by Brides magazine, 20% of the buyers of the wedding products identified themselves as buyers of Brides magazine who were mainly middle class women employed in white-collar, professional and technical fields and had higher medium annual income, when combined with their future husbands. This means that the bride had more control over future consumer decisions that the couple would make (Howard, 2006). Another research about the division of wedding labor and its meaning for couples by Sniezek (2005) indicated that women complete the a disproportionate amount of wedding work just as women do more of kin-work, housework, childcare and managerial family work. He also pointed out that couples were not likely to label the unequal division of labor as unfair which may potentially put the relationship in a state of conflict. From this point of view, his statement highly support Blakelys study (2007) which stated that the wedding planning businesss targeted market is modern career women. Blakely also used the case study of wedding planning to confirm Hochschilds thesis (2003) that feminism plays and important ideological role in the expansion of the commodity frontier. However, after comparison of the emphases that brides and grooms place on artifacts selected for use in their weddings and reception, Lowery (1994) found out that the brides participating in the focus group had no difficulty describing artifacts that were important to them; while grooms had greater difficulty. They also suggest that the emergence of traditional or modern gender roles in wedding planning is partially determined by the attitudes of the bride and groom toward these roles. This is also proved by Schiffman Kanuk (2007) that wedding purchase is a joint-decision in the family where the couples may play different roles in the decision making procedure. b) Cultural factors â€Å"Culture is the sum total of learned beliefs, values, and customs that serve to regulate the consumer behavior of member of a particular society.† (Schiffman Kanuk, 2007) When explaining how culture affects the consumer behavior, Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) indicated that all phases of human problem solving are directed and guided by culture, which includes various ritualized experiences and behaviors. For instance, in practice, rituals accompany with people throughout the human life cycle form birth to death, including a host of intermediate events such as confirmation, graduations and marriage. Besides the culture, subculture also plays an important in consumers behavior which includes nationality, religion, geographic, location, race, age and sex. For example, when comparing the husband-wife decision making between United States and China, Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) found out that there were substantially fewer â€Å"joint† decisions and more â€Å"husband-dominated† decisions for many household purchases in China. Even in the same country, another research showed that in larger city like Beijing, couples were more likely than rural co uples to share equally in purchase decisions. c) Individual factors Apart from the social and cultural factors which affecting the consumer behavior, individual factors play an important role when people make decision (Dholakia, 1979). Schiffman Kanuk (2005) explained the influences of the individual factors through several categories: motivation, personality, perception, learning as well as attitudes. As a driving force within individuals that force them to take actions, motivation is produced by a state of uncomfortable tension unsatisfied needs. Liking to our topic, hiring the wedding planner may be motivated by the needs of couples, such as lack of time for preparation, looking for professional service etc. Personality determines and reflects how a person responds to his or her environment. Generally, people are looking for the balance between the perceived self-image and their behavior including the purchasing products or service. Some may prefer innovative wedding style (e.g. destination wedding, green wedding) while the other may choose trad itional wedding. Moreover, each individual has its own process when he or she selects, organizes and interprets stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the world. This process is highly subjective and is based on what the consumer expect to see. There are several factors that can influence the perception including physical appearance, stereotypes, halo effects, irrelevant cues, first impressions, and the tendency to jump to conclusions. 2.3 Theoretical foundation- Consumer decision making process This research is based on consumer decision making process, which is one of the theories of consumer behavior. Decisions are about the selection of an option from two or more alternative choices. According to Kotler, Bowen and Makens (2006), consumer decision process consists of five essential stages: 2.31 Need recognition From the moment that the consumer recognizes a problem or need, the consumer buying process starts. The consumers needs can be stimulated by both internal and external factors. Advertisements, word-of-mouth, social cues from families, friends and anyone within the families can influence the customers need recognition. In the case of wedding planner, potential couples, their internal stimuli probably is lacking of time for preparation, looking for some unique and special wedding while the external stimuli may be the advertisement in the internet, the promotional events held by wedding planners, especially by the friends or families who have previous experience. 2.32 Information search Searching information about their needs or problems is the second step of buying process. How much information a consumer looks for will depend on the strength of the drive, and the amount of initial information, the value placed on additional information. Linking to the wedding planners, couples will take some time for information searching. This is a stage that couples can decide if they would like to hire a wedding planners or if the products/service offered by wedding planner can satisfy their needs. 2.33 Evaluation of alternatives After searching the relevant information, customers will use the information to arrive at a set of final brand choices. At this stage, potential couples may set up a personal comparison system through different attributes such as reputation, price, theme etc., in order to identify which would be the most ideal brand. 2.34 Purchase decision Subsequently, consumer will buy the most preferred brand based on their evaluation in the previous stage. This is the stage that potential couples choose which brand, what kind of services and check if the product/service is available. This is also the stage that potential couples decide if they would like to hire a wedding planner or not. 2.35 Post-purchase behavior Based on the performance of the service/products, the final stage determines whether the consumer satisfy the service/products or not. 2.4 Summary After reviewing the previous studies related to wedding and wedding planners, we can find out that most of the studies were conducted in the developed countries such as U.S or United Kingdom, while there is a blank area regarding this field in China. Moreover, there is little study regarding the consumer purchase behavior towards the wedding planners conducted before. This research will based on the theories of consumer behavior to conduct three in-depth interviews to find out the reasons for potential couples hiring wedding planners; and the factors affecting their decision. Then, a quantitative research will be conducted to express the findings in statistical terms. CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY This research will be designed as an exploratory, quantitative, cross-sectional investigation of prospective couples needs towards the service/products offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta. 3.1 Research Design The advantage of semi-structure interviews is that it can allow issues to be explored deeply while questionnaire survey is that it can collect information from a large number of people and express the findings in statistical terms (Jennings, 2001). As limited study regarding the needs of potential couples towards the wedding service has been conduced in China so far, for this research, the important variables are not clear and still need to be defined. In order to develop a more reliable questionnaire to conduct quantitative research at the second stage, the first stage is to explore the important variables through a qualitative research. In-depth interviews with three potential couples will be conducted, which will facilitate the identifying the different requirements made by potential couples when selecting the wedding planners. These in-depth interviews are critical for the whole research because the finding of these interviews will be used to develop the questionnaire. 3.2 Questionnaire design There will be four main parts in the questionnaire. The first part will be the screening questions with the purpose of screening the invalid sample through some questions. Then, the second part will include some questions regarding the prospective couples attitudes towards the service/products offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta. Respondents are required to indicate their personal opinions on each statement on a five-point Likert type scale: 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. In the third part, open-end questions will be included in order to examine the personal experience and intention of hiring a wedding planner. Finally, there will be a set of questions regarding the demographic characteristics of the respondents, which will include gender, age, income level, marriage status, and education level. In order to explain the purpose of the research to the respondents, a covering letter will be attached to the questionnaire. The covering letter will include the information that how the sample was selected, the time will take to complete the survey, contact person for questions and assuring the response would be kept confidential and only used for statistical purposes. 3.3 Sampling method The survey will use a convenience sampling method. Total 200 questionnaires will be distributed in 5 major cities in PRD, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan and Zhongshan. Both non-married and married couples will be the target respondents in this survey. In order to ensure that the relevance of information collected can reflect the populations opinion, females under 20-year-old (Minimum age of legal marriage for female in China) or males under 22 (Minimum age of legal marriage for male in China) will not be counted as a valid sample. 3.4 Data Collection The data will be collected from 5 major cities in Pear River Delta including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan and Zhongshan, through different ways including face-to-face interviews and self-completion questionnaires. 3.41 Face-to-face interviews In order to have higher response rate, in the first phase, the face-to-face interviews with potential couples will be conducted at the wedding service companies when they are waiting for the service or outside the Marriage Registries in those cities. 3.42 Self-completion questionnaires At the second phase, self-completion questionnaires will be sent out through e-mail or online survey link, which allows the participants to complete the questionnaires at their own space and at a time convenient for them. In order to secure respondent rate, 2 weeks later, a follow-up letter will be sent out. 3.5 Pilot tests Before the distributing the questionnaires to the targeted respondents, a