LEADERSHIP CRITIQUE PAPER Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

LEADERSHIP CRITIQUE PAPER - Essay Example However, some critics feel that he too, like all other good leaders, suffered from some subtle weaknesses in his style of leadership. He is often charged with the accusation of being too much authoritative while making decisions, sometimes to the extent of imposing his autonomy on his fellow officials. We may take for instance his stop-and-frisk policy which unreasonably targets the Muslim and the black communities. But despite all these criticisms, the public believes that he possessed a kind of innovation and ingenuity never seen before in the NYPD. He resorted to the use of latest technology to strengthen the department’s hold on the crime rates. In 2012, he joined hands with Microsoft to launch a law enforcement technology for the real-time analysis of public safety data to predict latent threats and criminal activities. In 2013, he implemented the use of license plate readers in the traffic lanes which were linked to the domain awareness system to monitor the exit and ent ry points to the city. Some of the articles by his contemporary authors provide a deeper insight into Kelly’s leadership style and his effectiveness as a leader of the NYPD. An article that talks about the recent changes that have seeped into the law enforcement system of the US is â€Å"Policing by Numbers: Big Data and the Fourth Amendment† by Elizabeth E. Joh. The article, as the title suggests, focuses mainly on the use of data and figures in policing against domestic terrorism. For instance, police in Chicago employ a risk analysis of the criminals to ascertain their chances of getting involved in future crimes. In North Carolina, the police have prepared a map of high-risk regions that are more prone to be attacked by criminals. Similarly, in New York, the NYPD has tied up with Microsoft to launch a â€Å"Domain Awareness System that collects and links information from sources like CCTVs, license plate readers, radiation sensors, and

How Was Vietnam Sexual Bias Essay Example for Free

How Was Vietnam Sexual Bias Essay People have long suffered because of their sexual orientation, but the increasing frequency and severity of this problem only recently gained the attention of the United Nations. Human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity encompasses violence, cruelty, discrimination, and other acts of hatred based on real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Sexual orientation is defined as ―each person‘s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different gender or of the same gender or of more than one gender. Gender identity refers to ―deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerisms. Violations of sexual minorities are manifested in two ways: 1) physical harm resulting from murder, kidnapping, sexual assault or other forms of violence and 2) unfair treatment, deprivation of liberty, and discrimination exercised on personal and institutional levels. The aspect of physical harm is more frequently noted by the media, but many cases go unreported and without the attention that is needed to curb their prevalence. Special rapporteurs from the UN found previously unnoted examples that show the gravity of these issues. A period of violence specifically targeting members of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups in Honduras resulted in the brutal killings of 21 people in 2010. One of these victims was ―found dead in a ditch, her body beaten and burned, showing evidence of rape and blows to her face from stoning so severe as to render the remains virtually unrecognizable. In other parts of the world, transsexual women have been beaten in the breasts and cheekbones to intentionally burst implants and release painful toxins in their bodies. Four people were seriously attacked in Uganda and many were forced to hide when a local paper published the photos of 100 people it said were homosexuals and encouraged people to ―hang them. There‘s a cultural contribution to the prevalence of this violence, too. More than 5,000 honor killings take place each year to punish people who do not remain true to cultural expectations. An increasing number of these victims are killed because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. This is seen in the 2009 Iraq killing campaign that tortured and murdered hundreds of LGBT members on the basis of protecting society from the ―third sex. Killings also take place by victims‘ relatives to preserve their family‘s honor. Cultural myths such as homosexuality being a disease or that lesbian women‘s sexual orientation will change if they are raped by a man are also dangerous elements of this problem. Though physical violence based on sexual orientation and gender equality is a pressing issue, attention must also be given to the second aspect of this topic. Discrimination and unfair treatment based on sexual orientation date back to the religious laws of the Bible and other holy books. Napoleon temporarily established laws decriminalizing homosexuality as part of his penal code in 1791, but long-term protection did not take place until Denmark repealed its similar laws in 1933. Almost all other countries have followed Denmark‘s example since then except for those in the Middle East (save for Israel), North Africa, and the former British colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia. These latter countries are the most common (but not exclusive) context in which LGBT members are deprived of their liberty in areas of ―judicial prosecution and trial, administrative detention, deprivation of liberty on medical grounds and arrest for the purposes of harassment, among o thers. Even countries that have repealed these laws can foster unfair treatment stemming from sexual orientation because of their inability to better protect victims. Cases of discrimination based on sexual orientation are vastly underreported, but several examples exist that illustrate its solemn presence in the life of people of all ages. According to a 2007 study, up to 40 percent of homeless youth were turned away from their homes and charitable shelters because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBT students are often the targets of violence, harassment, and other forms of bullying while in high school and college. In addition to the physical harm that results, many victims struggle with emotional consequences such as depression and low self-esteem. A 2010 report on prison conditions in Greece revealed that ―detainees in a lesbian, gay and transgender section of a prison were reportedly denied access to an outside yard for two years, confined to their cells and a corridor at all times. Striving to address these forms of discrimination and unfair treatment, the Human Rights Committee (HRC) affirmed that its regard to ―equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other statusâ€â€" in Article 26 of the ICCPR extends to discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. Even so, the lack of response from Honduras, Greece, and other countries in which similar atrocities occur demonstrates that nations have not fully adopted the HRC‘s concern on the issue. Without the creation and observation of standard operating procedures that guide law enforcement to handling these issue seriously and responding properly to violations that occur, these countries are unable to progress toward a greater solution. There have been several emergences of human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity in recent world events. In March 2012, a gay man died after being attacked by a group of neo-Nazis at a park in Chile. The perpetrators tortured the man for an hour by carving swastikas in his body and otherwise mutilating him. His death brought renewed efforts by the UN and human rights organizations to call attention to the mistreatment of sexual minorities and the need for harsher penalties for hate crimes. Another example was seen that same month in a different arena when Muslim delegates protested legitimizing homosexuality by walking out of the first UN Human Rights Council debate on gay rights. Without these nations‘ support, the problems will persist and further metastasize. Past UN Action: The UN has made efforts to ensure that the issues of sexual orientation and gender identity are given equal attention to all other areas of human rights violations. In 2007, the International Commission of Jurists‘ discussion on the inclusion of sexual minorities in human rights protection resulted in the ―Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. This document served as the foundation for later work by the OAS (AG/RES. 2435) and the UN‘s first resolution (A/HRC/17/L.9/Rev.1) concerning LGBT rights. The UN‘s resolution affirms that violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity are matters of human rights, and it calls for a report on related cases of violence and discrimination. The report (A/HRC/19/41) was published in November 2011 and accounts for unprecedented levels of violence and injustice shown toward sexual minorities. Most recently, th e UN reiterated its deep concern of violence based on sexual orientation and urged member nations to prioritize its reduction and elimination. Problems and Possible Solutions: Researchers fear that the majority of violations go unreported due to the shame of the victim or the apathy of the law and legal systems in some countries. Real action most often takes place when international attention is drawn by a death caused by hate crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity. There may be no better solution for this problem than to increase international pressure on countries to curb the rate of crimes committed against LGBT members. If a sense of national pride for reducing the crime rate could be established – and a strong sense of shame if the rate remained the same or deteriorates – then a solution to this issue would be more effective and more sustainable. Questions to Consider as you Prepare: * Which should efforts for change focus on: law or education? Who should enact these changes and where would funding originate? * Is there one general solution to this problem or is it region-specific? If solutions are region-specific, how could resolutions be tailored to meet the problems of multiple regions? Who would determine what each regional problem requires to be eliminated? * How can the reporting of crimes based on sexual orientation be improved? How can international actors help without posing a risk to nations‘ sovereignty? * With many crimes occurring within prisons, how can LGBT members be better protected? Is there a way to do this without incurring significant expenses?

Study on nightmares and there causes

Study on nightmares and there causes Nightmares are essentially negative emotions felt during the dream state. They elicit no movement during sleep and when a person wakes up from it, he or she can recall many but not all details. The environment, consisting of the society in which one lives and the experiences to which one is exposed, can affect types of dreams. These sociocultural factors can be considered the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate. Innate factors of age and presence of mental disabilities can be regarded as the nature argument. To what extent do sociocultural and innate factors influence nightmares in children? Young children have nightmares, many out of fear of abandonment; at that age, they have the need to be loved more than most other ages. However, this fear is not contained to a single culture; children have nightmares in every nation. Many parents try to avoid nightmares by putting their children to bed early; common culture shows that people sleep early to be well-rested but maybe sleep do es much more than that; it might be part of the de-stressing process each person needs at the end of the day, an outlet to renew and apply the adage every day is a new day. Sociocultural causes include movies children may have watched the night right before the nightmare. It was long believed that scary movies would induce nightmares and children would wake up in the middle of the night, scared to go back to sleep. In addition, children who have suffered war trauma and orphans are prone to nightmares. The environment has an effect on ones dreams. Children need more care from parents or guardians than another age; and those who are not guaranteed such mental safety relieve that stress in their dreams via nightmares. Sociocultural factors that may influence nightmares in children include TV/movies, stress, and war trauma. TV/Movies Fisher and Wilson (1987) reported that many parents blamed their childrens nightmares on TV shows. Their children said that scary dreams were related to something they watched on TV (Muris et al., 2000). Children report watching TV as the most often done activity weekly, followed by playing computer games (Schredl et al., 2008). When children four- to eleven-years-old watched TV, they developed sleeping disorders (Owens et al., 1999). Thompson Christakis (2005) found that infants and toddlers also developed irregular sleeping schedules due to excessive TV-viewing. Schredl and Pallmer (1997) concluded that the content of nightmares was influenced by fairy tales, cinema, and TV. One possibility for this excess in nightmares could be the mental insecurity in their lives and the viewing of movies that elicit a similar fear that triggered the nightmare from their real-life fear, not the fear from the movie. However, Schredl et al. (2008) found that fourteen percent of their sample report ed watching police and criminal fiction without having an expected increased amount of nightmares. This discrepancy could be due to the fact that they have an interest in the topic or they feel secure in their environment. An experiment (Foulkes et al., 1967) consisted of thirty-two male children, ages ranging between six and twelve, with families in the middle class staying two nights in the laboratory for the experiment with one night at home in between the two to rest. Half the boys watched a short film about the old West, a hostile stimulus about Native Americans attacking European settlers, while the other half watched a non-violent film about baseball on the first night, and on the second night, the boys watched the other film. Both the younger and older boys showed more interest in the Western film. They had nightmares twice as much on Baseball nights than on Western nights. The difference in the two films had no effect on sleep onset or time to the initial REM period. The myth of watching scary or violent movies before bedtime is false. The nonaggressive Baseball film elicited more vivid dreams that were more aggressive and scary than those elicited by the violent Western film. Even though the Baseball film preceded a more frightening dream, the boys had no greater difficulty in falling asleep on that night than on the night they watched the Western film. Watching a more intense, violent movie worked off more stress, and then the stress did not have to be relieved in the boys dreams through nightmares. It seems as if the greater viewing involvement the young boys have towards the films may release accumulated psychological tensions as opposed to the seemingly obvious effect of exposing them to more stress leading to nightmares (Foulkes et al., 1967). Another study has found a greater number of nightmares after adults watch a violent film as opposed to a peaceful film. The subjects were sophisticated intellectual types who did not pay much attention to the films shown to them. As opposed to the young boys interest in the violent film, these adults were more interested in the nonviolent film (Foulkes Rechtschaffen, 1964). This cause in nightmares is due to the stress-relief effect; watching violent films releases anxiety and such emotions, and without them, people will have such emotions permeate their dreams. Both studies, regarding adults and children viewing violent and nonviolent films, suggest that if the film that attracts more interest from the individual viewer contains more violence, the less aggressive the plot will be in their dreams. However, most adults did not have much interest in the violent film which explains their higher amount of nightmares. Stress After watching the violent and nonviolent films, the low distortion of the boys dream content indicates that everyday experiences interfere with dreams and that the content is rarely out of the ordinary (Foulkes et al., 1967). Berrien (1935) found that more activity during the day precedes emotionally devoid dreams. Events right before sleep have some impact on the nature of some of his participants dreams. Attendance in usual day activities has little influence on dreams. Unusual night or evening activities that cause lack of sleep inhibit the frequency of dreams. According to parental reports of their young children and preteens (Owens et al., 1991) and self-reports of seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds who watch enticing television shows (Van den Bulck, 2000), the children sleep less as a result of watching too much television. Sleep deprivation is also linked to computer game play (Tazawa Okada, 2001) negatively in relation to time. Sadeh, Raviv, and Gruber (2000) said that sleep in children is sensitive to cultural and psychosocial influences. Social influences include but are not limited to parents, personality, and education (Morrell, 1999; Rona, Gulliford Chinn, 1998; Sadeh Anders, 1993; Van Tassel, 1985). Stress and trauma can cause nightmares and scare the child awake. They defined poor sleep as sleep that is characterized by à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ a sleep percentage lower than 90 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ or à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ waking three times or more per night on average. The parents higher education level had improved sleep quality, and family stress caused poorer sleep quality. Families living in areas exposed to war conditions have children who are more concerned about their parents and take adult responsibilities earlier than do children in safe conditions (Yule, 2002; Punamaki, 1987, 2000). As a result, they are more concerned about threat towards their family, friends, and homes in their dreams. The stress they get from worrying about others induces nightmares, reality imposing on the unconscious mind. Crugnola et al. (2008) compared childrens dreams in April and June. Exams for the end of elementary school were held in June and it may have been stressful for the children. Males showed an increase of female characters in their dreams and an increase in aggressive interaction, but a decrease in physical aggression. Dreams involving positive emotions and events increased in frequency as well. Girls showed a similar decrease in the male/female percentage of characters in their dreams and a decrease in physical aggression. Spain (Oberst, Charles, Chamarro, 2005), the United States (Saline, 1999), and Switzerland (Strauch Lederbogen, 1999) have similar distributions concerning aggression. Stress in real-life decreased physical aggression possibly because stress is generally caused by fear that one cannot do anything about the situation or fear over the outcome of the situation. Also, stress increased physical interaction, possibly as a stress release. In the case of watching TV, night mares decreased from watching TV as a stress reliever. In the case of exams, the stress that needs to be relieved is the childs reality, and the fear increases nightmares. Orphans reported more dreams than did non-orphans. Girl orphans reported more dreams than did the boys, while there was not a difference among the boy and girl non-orphans. Boys reported more aggression, while girls dreams involved anxiety. Older children reported more bizarre dreams. Children who have had traumatic experiences have dreams with death and destruction and negative feelings (Punamaki et al., 2005). Although the general effect of being an orphan is dominant in this study, there is still an inconsistency between demographic factors. There seems to be more of an effect of gender and age probably due to environmental factors, the way older children are treated, the difference in treatment between girls and boys, etc. War trauma Children in war conditions have more nightmares from the traumatic events. The nightmares serve as an outlet to protect survivors mental health (Hartmann, 1995). Military trauma in Palestinian children did not negatively affect mental health; they had dreams with mixtures of feelings and bizarre plots, while there was high psychological stress in children with common dreams (Punamaki, 1998). Children whose dreams related to their traumatic events adjusted better than children without that relationship (Barrett, 1996). Also, since bizarre dreams are easily remembered (Punamaki, 1997; Schredl, Kleinferchner, Gell, 1996), children living in traumatic conditions remember their dreams. Traumatic events had an effect on earlier developmental stages and included negative feelings. Severe trauma can cause children to regress and lose cognitive and emotional skills (Smith et al., 2002). Along with the fear from exams, fear from war trauma is stress in reality. The increase in nightmares could be due to the increase in the need to reduce stress, while the decrease in nightmares from watching violent films is due to the actual watching as the stress reliever. Revonsuo (2000) developed the Threat Simulation Theory of dreaming (TST) that states that peoples dreams replicate threatening events and that those events activate the threat simulation system. Dreams come from the long-term memory, which is traced from the degree of negative emotions and most recently encoded or activated memory trace. The TST failed to explain responses to threats in dreams of children exposed to war trauma. Their dreams self-reacted to only one-third of the threats. Children exposed to trauma had longer, more frequent, severe, and aggressive dreams than children unexposed and out of those dreams, they had more threatening ones. The children were most often the ones most threatened, followed by their loved ones, strangers, and then their homes. The children who suffered from trauma had dreams that self-reacted more from life-threatening events than any other threats, while normal children had no difference in self-reaction (Valli et al., 2006). Seligmans (1980) learned helplessness theory explains why traumatized children reacted to threats as frequently as the non-traumatized children; in real life, they learned that efforts to fix the situation were futile. The non-traumatized children did not learn from real life experiences and reacted to try and resolve the situation Hartmann (1995) described dreaming as a type of homeostasis, a process by which these children can return to a balanced center mentally. Dreaming is such an outlet to rid the negative emotions and wake up to a positive reality, serving as a mood regulation process (Punamaki, 1999; Cartwright, Luten et al., 1998; Kramer, 1993). Without such dreaming, a child will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (Breslau, 1998). Innate causes Innate factors also have an effect on nightmares. Ability to recall dreams has also been a factor in the existence of nightmares. If children cannot remember their dreams, then they will tell researchers and psychologists that they did not have nightmares the night before. Girls have a higher level of dream recall in comparison to boys; however, they may have not actually had more nightmares than the boys; they maybe have only recalled more. Innate factors that may influence the prominence of nightmares in children include mental deficiencies, age, and gender. Mental deficiencies Participants of another study were six- to twelve-year-old children admitted to the Allentown State Hospital in Pennsylvania for people who have mental deficiencies. The children had dreams of two categories: emotional or devoid of emotion, indeterminate emotion. On the fourth day, only one dream with emotional coloring was reported. The average amount of emotional dreams during the first three days was approximately twelve and for the fifth to seventh, there were around fifteen instances of emotional coloring. The fourth days events consisted of watching a movie and sleeping an hour later than on average nights. On the ninth day, they saw a play and also had an increase in emotional coloring (Berrien, 1935). This increase in emotional coloring could be due to the fact that their increase in activities resulted in a higher exposure to daylight which could influence depth of sleep, declining the frequency of dream activity. Berrien (1935) took count of emotions and actions during their sleep. The five most frequent emotions included pleasure, commanding, fear, anger, and resent in order of frequency. The most recurring actions the children exhibited during the night were mumbling, and walking or talking. He also recorded dreams hourly and found that it differed from a study he found of college students who dream more at the beginning and end of their sleep, with less frequency in the third hour, while his findings in children shows a gradual decline in dreaming as time progresses. This difference might be the result of innate tendencies; the mental deficiencies and problems could be causing the time lapses in the childrens dreaming. There is an overall trend in dreaming as morning approaches and both IQ and age have a slight positive influence on the frequency of dreams. Age Older children, in their teenage years, had pleasant dreams after watching TV; and Computer games caused 10% of nightmares in boys, twice as much as in girls who had only 5%. Boys watch significantly more TV than girls do in Sweden possibly because they are targeted more by television programs. First-year students had TV-related nightmares occur most often; although there is no distinction between boys and girls regarding nightmares. Boys also play more video games than girls do in both years; first-year girls play video games twice as often as boys do. Interestingly enough, first-year boys have both more nightmares and pleasant dreams than the other three age groups after playing video games and after watching TV. TV and video games caused a significant amount more pleasant dreams than nightmares in all age groups. Ignoring age, TV has a stronger effect on dreams in general disregarding whether it was a nightmare or a pleasant dream. (Van den Bulck, 2004) Even though older children and children of older parents fell asleep later and mostly woke up earlier than their counterparts, sleep quality remained the same. Sleep schedule is best estimated with the age of children and their parents and sleep quality was measured with the parents education and family stress. (Sadeh, Raviv Gruber, 2000) Foulkes (1982) found in dreams of children ages 3 to 15 years that developmental changes in their dreams imitated their actual emotional and cognitive changes. Children of median age had adult-like dreaming and older childrens dreams differences were from lifestyle differences. Since children are still developing during preteen years, dream content is changing at the same time (Foulkes, 1982, 1999; Foulkes et al., 1990; Strauch, 2005; Strauch Lederbogen, 1999) until it stabilizes after late adolescence (Domhoff, 1996). Foulkes (1982) study of children showed that it was only around that age that their dreams began to have dreams on a higher intellectual level as adults. With age, children report longer dreams that involve more emotions and thinking (Foulkes, 1999; Punamaki, 1998). Older children had more bizarre dreams. Age might not directly influence the prominence of nightmares. Children of different ages are treated differently by each other and by adults. They feel different levels of responsibilities and put tasks in different orders of importance. Gender Males predominate in mens dreams, while males and females appear equally in womens dreams (Strauch and Lederbogen 1999; Domhoff, 1996; Hall Van de Castle, 1966). Avila-White, Schneider, and Domhoff (1999) conducted a study with twelve and thirteen year-olds and found that boys dreams differed from girls in the same ways mens dreams differed from womens in Hall and Van de Castles (1966) study with young adults; girls dreams contained an equal proportion of male and female characters in their dream as in womens dreams, and boys had an excess of male characters like in mens dreams. The male/female character ratio increased with age in girls; the seventeen- and eighteen-year-old girls had a higher male/female ratio than the younger groups (Oberst, Charles, Chamarro, 2005). The children in both Crugnola et al. (2008), and Giudicis (2008) and Salines (1999) studies also show that the most significant differences between men and women are similar to those found in preadolescents, like agg ressive/friendly interactions and male/female percentage. Males are more likely to report physical aggression in dreams (Oberst, Charles, Chamarro, 2005; Hall, et al, 1982), while women are more often victims of aggression (Saline, 1999; Domhoff, 1996) and have more introspective aggression, depression, and solution-seeking (Punamaki et al, 2005; Schredl, Sahin, Schafer, 1998). Children encounter more aggression, express more aggression, and come across more hardship than adults in their dreams (Hall and Domhoff, 1963; Domhoff, 1996). The youngest boys had a higher level of frequency and severity of receiving aggression in their dreams (Oberst, Charles, Chamarro, 2005). Strauch and Lederbogen (1999) found children to be victims in their dreams, while in waking life, they are the aggressors. Vulnerability, dependency, and fear of aggression could account for younger children having more aggression in their dreams than in those of older children, especially for young boys, who tend have more exposure to aggression than girls. More aggressi ve exposure, specifically in preadolescent boys, leads to more aggressive content in dreams (Achenbach Rescorla, 2007). The children with aggressive personalities were more prone to having aggressive personalities in their dreams, and children with unaggressive personalities had unaggressive personalities in their dreams. Also, women who do not work and stay at home have more dreams fitting the pattern for females, while women who work have dreams that follow a male pattern (Lortie-Lussier et al., 1992; Lortie-Lussier, Schwab, De Koninck, 1985). Dream content of males and females imitate the pattern of the social roles they have (Schredl, Sahin, Schafer, 1998). Foulkes (1982) studied positive social interactions among teenagers and found less negativity in their dreams. Avila-White, Schneider, and Domhoffs (1999) teenagers in study had more aggression than Hall and Van de Castles (1966) young adults; girls had a higher friendliness per character than did the women, while boys had lower friendliness per character than men. Boys have more aggressive interactions than girls (Crugnola et al., 2008). Nightmare frequency was significantly higher in girls than in boys, a finding explained by girls heightened dream recall frequency (Schredl et al., 2008). The tone of TV watched was not related to the emotional tone of the following nights dream; however, negative evening mood caused emotional dream to be negative, more pronounced in girls than in boys. Six- to eight-year-old boys could recall dreams better than the ten to twelve year old boys (Foulkes et al., 1967). The discrepancy in nightmare frequency, female/male ratio, presence of aggressive interactions, etc. could be a result of environmental factors. People put different pressures on girls as opposed to on boys; they set different expectations for each. Conclusion The studies used were done with small sample populations and could probably have been expanded on with populations of other samples. Also, some studies had multiple dependent variables, and the innate causes like gender and age had a causal relationship with the increase or decrease of nightmares. A single study determined that age, TV, and gender are all factors that caused a change in nightmares, making it difficult to see which is the initial cause. The innate factors seem to be caused by the sociocultural factors. Boys are exposed to more aggression and in turn have more aggression in their dreams because the way their parents treat them or what their teachers and peers expect of them. Girls have more depression because what society imposes on them. They fear becoming ugly, fat, or unwanted; therefore, these factors are incorporated in their nightmares; they face more emotional aggression than actual physical aggression. Age might have an influence based on the fact that older children may watch scarier TV shows or movies and younger children in normal cases fear losing their parents, their main caretakers. Innate factors for nightmares are less innate than they seem as they are caused by the childrens environment.

Impacts of Technology on Art

Impacts of Technology on Art Many modern artists use high technology equipment in their works. Whereas traditionally artists used a pencil or brush to make beautiful works of art, artists in the early twenty-first century are now using sound, video or computer generated images. Digital art developed from simple patterns and shapes made using computer programs to finished works of art which can look as realistic as a watercolour or oil painting. Modern art exhibitions often include more videos and installations than traditional painting or drawings. Even artists which use traditional techniques increasingly use modern technology such as the internet to display their works and communicate with other artists. Modern technology provides a means for artists to create works faster with more tools than ever before. I will be discussing the impact of some of these technologies in relation to the art of some modern artists. I will argue that modern technology such as the computer and video is another tool for an artist t o use in their work. I will especially focus on the video artwork of Tracey Moffat and the computer artwork of Lillian Schwartz as but two examples of artists today who use modern techniques. Moffat is an Australian contemporary artist who uses film extensively as an art-form, and many of her works are based on and reflect the modern technology of Hollywood movies and television. Schwartz is an artist who has a long history of using computer technology to experiment ways of creating and manipulating works of art. She has also written extensively about the topic of computer influence in art, and about art produced by computers. Modern technology is having a huge impact on recent art. Modern artists are using new materials and techniques to produce their artworks. Whereas in the past painting and drawing were the main mediums used by artists in their work, now in the 21st century installations, sound, video and computers are becoming more widely used and popular. Artists today are continually experimenting with new technology in different ways, finding new ways to use old mediums and finding new mediums as well. In modern art displays such as the various Biennales held around the world, video plays a dominant role, as well as installation art and increasingly, digital art. There are even exhibitions that solely focus on digital art, such as Ars Electronica held annually in Linz, Austria. The internet is becoming used more with many contemporary artists using it to display their works with online galleries, talk to other artists and sell their works. Internet sites such as deviantart.com or yessy.com offer ar tists an opportunity to sell and display their works and communicate with people throughout the world. Computer programs such as Photoshop and Painter allow artists to easily manipulate photographs and paint pictures using custom artists tools which can create the effects in a few minutes of what previously would have taken months to paint. Many artists today are involved in using digital art technology to produce websites, computer games or online art exhibitions. The conceptart.org website is one example of a site which mostly displays digital art, that has over 100,000 posts by many different people. Digital art is increasingly being displayed in contemporary art exhibitions as well as being online, becoming more popular towards the end of the 20th century. Digital art made its official entry into the art world only in the late 1990s, when museums and galleries began increasingly to incorporate the art form into their shows and dedicate entire exhibitions to it. (Paul 2003: 23) T he impact that these technologies is having on contemporary art is sometimes hard to pin down at one time since they are moving so fast that they are constantly changing and being updated. However, while modern technology provides artists with many opportunities and ways to produce art, it still functions similar to any other artists tool of the past. Films are being produced for art galleries just as paintings were made for exhibiting by the impressionists, such as the films made by Tracey Moffat. Tracey Moffat is inspired by images which come from television and movies to make her own films. These films show that she is not only using new technology to display art, but her ideas for the films are based on the technology itself. In one of her recent films, Artist, Moffat shows a collection of clips from movies and television programs which show how Hollywood and contemporary society depicts artists. By showing popular television shows slant on what the idea of an artist means to modern society, this reflects the view of the ordinary person, who can sometimes misunderstand contemporary art. This film reflects the sometimes uninformed, sometimes humorous view of society towards artists today. She shows a clip from the Agony and the Ecstasy with Michelangelo destroying his first painting in the Sistine Chapel, a comic scene from the movie Batman with Rembrandts and Degas paintings being vandalised by the Joker and a scene from the television show Absolutely Fabulous, as well as o ther scenes from art movies such as Surviving Picasso. This clever 10 minute documentary gives an excellent insight in the way artists are perceived in modern society, how five decades of mainstream media have perceived the creative process and creators themselves (http://www.wmm.com/Catalog/_makers/fm253.htm), especially given that the word artist now more often than not in popular usage such as on television and on the radio, refers to a musician rather than a visual artist, with many people today sometimes confused by a postmodernist style of visual art where anything is allowed and considered art. In another of her short films, Lip, Moffat shows clips put together of black servants in Hollywood movies talking back to their bosses, in what she is trying to show is the discrimination which is often evident in films towards minorities, and reveals the narrow margin Hollywood has allowed black actresses to shine in (http://www.wmm.com/Catalog/_makers/fm253.htm) While watching the fi lms the racism in the movie may be subtle, but when she appropriates many images from different films and puts them together it is much more apparent. In many of her films and images Tracey Moffat has used a style which is close to an appropriation similar to that done by other postmodern artists. In the series of photographs called GUAPA (Good Looking) (Fig.4) she shows photographs of people from different races roller-skating in a rink as though it were a contest with a referee, the image borrowed from similar television images. She uses a soft magenta colour effect in the images, which contrasts with the action which is taking place. The people in the film are dressed in unusual outfits, which gives an impression possibly of a futuristic sport. In one of Moffats films, Heaven (Fig.2), she shows footage of men getting changed in a car park near a beach, and she takes the position with the camera of someone watching who possibly is not supposed to, or whom the people in the film are uncomfortable with having there. She is someone watching the surfers who is not supposed to, shamelessly plays voyeur to a succession of surfers chang ing into their wetsuits in parking lots (http://www.renaissancesociety.org/ show/moffat/index.html) Once again, Moffat is responding to the programs shown on television and in the movies, and by making art on this theme it shows that television and movies are influencing the art which is being displayed in contemporary art galleries. This film makes art out of a seemingly ordinary activity, includes shots of a car as seen from the inside and outside, as well as surfers wearing ordinary clothes and jewellery. She appropriates these symbols of modern life such as the cars and modern clothing and uses them in an artistic way to express the voyeur theme which she is trying to get across. In her film, Bedevil (Fig.3) which is composed of three separate films, Moffat appropriates images from modern life such as the American soldier in the first story Mister Chuck, the railway tracks in the second Choo Choo Choo Choo and the landlord and eviction in the third Lovin the Spin Im in. The imag es from these films have been partly inspired by memories from her early life. Tracey Moffat uses for inspiration in many of her films the movies and television programs she remembers from her childhood. Modern technology in this way is having an impact on the art produced by artists such as Moffat, who bases her ideas directly upon ideas coming from these things. In her films, she uses imagery which comes from popular culture, from television programs and movies that she has seen including from sources which are not often seen as part of the art world, such as B-grade television programs and television advertisements. She makes use of the stylistic resources of advertising and even so-called trash-TV' (Reinhardt 1999: 7) She grew up in Brisbane in the 1960s, and during this time experienced much of popular culture through different types of modern culture on the new technological tools of television and cinema, from melodramas to deeply surreal film noir (Sever 2001: 12) She also uses modern music in her films such as with cuts showing Jimmie Little singing in the film Night Cries (Fig.1). This film shows a woman caring for her dying mother, as well as showing many years before the woman as a young child at the beach with her mother who is much younger then. Moffat has used the film to create an effect similar to that of Frederick McCubbins The Pioneer which shows a dying person on one side and the same person much younger on the other. This gives the audience a feeling of sadness as they think about all the events which the person went through in their lifetime. The audience would see the way the woman would feel bound to care for her mother in the same way that her mother cared for her when she was a child. Moffat also has considered using computers in manipulating photographic images, because the number of things she can do is greatly increased with many computing tools available for the artist. Photography is always a wonderful challenge Of course now with computer manipulations the possibilities make you exhausted even thinking about it. (Tracey Moffat, quoted in Hentschel 1998: 23) American artist Lillian Schwartz made many experiments with computer art during her long career. Computers are being used by recent artists as tools with which to analyse and create works of art. Schwartz was one of the first artists to experiment with computer images and computer effects on art. She worked closely with scientists in the 1970s in the early stages of computer development, and developed one of the first rock music videos. She also made one of the first digitised films to be shown as a work of art, her video Pixillation showing diagonal red squares and other shapes such as cones, pyramids on black on white backgrounds. This video is regarded as one of the most important early works of computer film art which with her other work is now considered seminal works of computer artcomposed of programmed abstract images. (Rush 1999: 172) She worked in the early stages of her career with scientists as Bell Laboratories developing mixtures of sound, video and art. Later on, durin g the 1980s, Schwartz made many experiments with artworks manipulating images using computer technology and creating some artworks of her own. Schwartz extensively used the works of Leonardo Da Vinci in experiments with computers. These experiments showed some of the ways in which computers can be used to change and develop images. These images expand the audiences perception of artworks which they already know. She used a 3D computer generated model to show that the lines on the Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan match the perspective lines of Leonardos fresco painting of the Last Supper, showing that his painting may have been designed to appear as an extension to the room from where the monks would have been sitting to observe it. Thus technology has given a new dimension to the painting by allowing viewers to better understand why it possibly had been made. Similarly, in Schwartzs most famous work, the Mona Leo (Fig.5), she spliced the left side of the Mona Lisa (Fig.6) with a flipped left side of the red chalk portrait of Leonardo (Fig.7), arguing that the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait by Leonardo. She shows that the Leo nardo self portrait and the Mona Lisa line up perfectly, as when the two images noses were aligned the rest of the face lined up exactly. Using lines drawn on the image, she shows the bottom of the eye, eyebrow, nose and chin all line up together. She also removes the grey tones in the Leonardo self portrait and superimposes the Mona Lisa eye over it in further experiments to show how the images are closely related. Without the aid of a computer, these experiments would take a much longer amount of time, for instance if she was to paint the Mona Leo by hand. Her new works each function as separate works of art in themselves with all the characteristics of a work of art, so the computer is a tool which creates art just as a paintbrush does. This can be considered an art of appropriation, as where an artist has borrowed the images of another artist to create a new work. Schwartz uses computers to manipulate many other images which relate to art and art history, creating new works of art. Schwartzs experiments with computers to manipulate images were done decades before digital art became popular in the late 1990s. She used shapes generated by a computer to make images on the computer screen, such as using trapezium shapes to create an object recognisable as a cat (Fig. 8), as well as triangle shapes to represent a human head. (Fig. 9) She also experimented with ways to superimpose multiple images onto another recognisable image in an effect of a collage, as with Statue of Liberty (Fig.10) and Homage to Van Gogh (Fig.11) Computers applied in such ways can create collages and images faster than possible by hand. These images function not only as experiments with computer work, but also as works of art in themselves. Statue of Liberty is composed of different elements which have been put together using a computer, similar to Cubist collages and Dadaist photomontages of the early 20th century. She warped images of faces of Rembrandt into a photo of Einstein, showing similarities in the facial features (Fig. 12), a task which would be almost impossible to do by hand, but only take a few seconds with the aid of a computer. She similarly combined images of works of art in a poster for the Museum of Modern Art in New York in her poster Big MoMA (Fig. 13), an also near impossible task by hand, but relatively easy with computers, and still creating a legitimate award winning work of art. The role of computers to be used by the artist has been addressed by Schwartz. Computers can today perform many functions for the artist, from creating artworks through altering photography or by flipping shapes, changing colours, adding tones and a seemingly infinite amount of other uses. Computer artists can create interactive images, robot installations, digitalised and/or 3 dimensional images. Many of the ways which this latest technology is used to create art makes art into a genre becoming close to being a video game or a movie. In her research on computers, Schwartz discusses whether art produced wholly by computers can be considered as art, the question is asked as to what a work of art means, Is it the final piece of art (or output) by which creativity is judged, or is creativity independent of the art. (Schwartz 1992: 256) She asks whether it means that something must be produced creatively, or are people impressed with the craftsmanship and effort that has gone into a work such as a Michelangelo or Titian when they think of it as art. For if it is only the craftsmanship which makes a work of art then computers can surely produce artworks since they have the ability to work faster than humans in many ways. Paint and brushes can be regarded as technology of sorts because they are implements which are made for the artist to use in his painting, just as a painting computer program is there for an artist to create his works on. The Renaissance artists had assistants to mix paints, prepare canvases, or in the case of Rubens even finish off the painting. The computer can be regarded as assistant which allows the artist greater time to put into creative ideas, and less into repetitive tasks which can easily handled by a computer. The computer is very much like an apprentice Since the master (the programmer or artist) does not have to be present for many of these operations, it seems as if the computer is acting in place of the artist. We have again found our scientist-artist, and it is the computer itself. (Schwartz 1992: 233) Video and computers are having a huge influence on modern art. Modern art exhibitions are increasingly incorporating the use of both video and computers, as well as other technologies. In addition, artists such as Moffat are using ideas obtained from new media such as television and Hollywood movies which are being displayed in art galleries. Schwartz uses computers to manipulate images and create new works of art. Art is continuing to change with the introduction of new technologies. Artists are effectively using these technologies in their works, and will almost certainly continue to do so in the future. Moffats use of film and Schwartzs use of computers shows that these new media can and are often used in art, and are every bit as valid a medium as a paintbrush or pencil. Reference List Books Cooke, Lynne and Kelly, Karen 1998, Tracey Moffat: Free-Falling. Dia Center for the Arts, New York, USA Duckrey, Timothy 1999, Ars Electronica: Facing the Future. A Survey of Two Decades, Massachusetts institute of Technology, USA Goodman, Cynthia 1987, Digital Visions. Computers and Art. Harry N. Abrams inc. publishers, New York, USA Hentschel, Martin 1998, Tracey Moffat, Wurttembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany Hertz, Richard and Klein, Norman 1990, Twentieth Century Art Theory. Urbanism, Politics and Mass Culture, Prentice-Hall Inc., New Jersey, USA. Lucie-Smith, Edward 1995, Movements in art since 1945. Issues and concepts, Thames and Hudson, London, UK Paul, Christiane 2003, Digital Art, Thames Hudson, London, UK Popper, Frank 1997, Art of the Electronic Age, Thames Hudson, London, UK Reinhardt, Brigitte 1999, Tracey Moffatt. Laudanum, Hatje Cantz Publishers, Ostfildern, Germany Rush, Michael 1999, New Media in Late 20th Century Art. Thames Hudson, London, UK Schwartz, Lillian F. 1992, The Computer Artists Handbook. Concepts, Techniques and Applications. WW Norton Co. Inc, New York, USA Sever, Nancy 2001, Tracey Moffat. Invocations, ANU Drill Hall Gallery, Australia

Early Sunday Morning :: essays research papers

Early Sunday Morning, is a Dear America book. It's the Pearl Harbor diary of Amber Billows by Barry Denenberg. This book is about a girl whos father is a newspaper writer. They move almost every month. The reason for this is so he has something to write about. This time they were moving to Hawaii. The family hated moving and so did the dad but he didn't show how much he did. He hid it from his family. When Amber found this out she spent the next day at the library learning about Hawaii. The night before they left to Hawaii they had a dinner. Amber couldn't believe that her father was having a party the week before they left. All week Amber was hoping that her friend Allison didn't talk to her and she didn't. One night she was in her room reading a book when she looked up and there was Allison at the foot of her bed. Then Amber told her that she was moving to Hawaii. Allison just started to cry and then she said she would never find a better friend then her. Then Amber started to lau gh to cheer her up. She said she would write every week. They could be pen pals. The next day she said good bye to Washington and aloha to Hawaii.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This book is a turn pager because it's interesting to see what happens to Amber. They have to adapt to the beautiful place they are going to be in for awhile. They went down to the beach to see the surfers and Amber's little brother Andy said that the reason why there weren't many surfers is because the sharks ate them. Amber eventually had to go to school. She was so nervous. She thought that she wouldn't have any friends but she made one. Mr.Poole asked her if she liked to read and she said very much. He then gave her a booked called The Secret Garden. He told her she liked it as much as he did. After Thanksgiving Amber didn't know if they were going on a tour of Pearl Harbor with Lieutenant Lockhart because he had offered to take them. Andy, her dad, and Amber went on the tour. Andy was so excited. They got to see the ships on battleship row and after that they went to see the Lieutenant's ship called the USS Arizona.

Slavery Essay -- American History

Slavery vs. Economics "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" --Declaration of Independence Slavery is a societal institution based on ownership, dominance, and exploitation of one human being by another and reciprocal submission on the part of the person owned. The owner may exact work or other services without pay and virtually without restriction and can deny the slave freedom of activity and mobility. Slavery is one of this country's most debated topics. In America's history slavery and economics go hand in hand. Most people think that the ban of slavery was a human rights issue in the south, where in fact it was a major economic one. The issue of slavery has been debated between the North and South since before the colonization of the thirteen colonies. It has been the instigator of many events throughout the history of the states. The North and the South obviously had very different views regarding the subject. The debate over the economic advantages of slavery in the South has raged ever since the first slaves began working in the cotton fields of the Southern States. Initially, the wealth of the New World was in the form of raw materials and agricultural goods such as cotton, sugar, and tobacco. The continuing demand for slaves' labor arose from the development of plantation agriculture, the long-term rise in prices and consumption of sugar, and the demand for miners. Not only did Africans represent skilled laborers, but also they were a relatively cheap resource to the South. Consequently, they were well suited for plantation agriculture. Whi... ... organizations which sprung up, as well as much bloodshed.(Abbott) Throughout the rest of time before the Civil War, slavery remained in the Southern states. Slavery was not abolished until 1865 when the 13th amendment was passed. Slavery has been around since the dawn of time, and it still exists today. Just because the Constitution says that slavery was outlawed, does not mean that the South followed the "rules" so to speak. If you look at society today, you can still see small types of slavery. In reference to the quote from The Declaration of Independence at the beginning of the paper, where it says that "We hold these truths to be self-evident", "all men are created equal", and "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights", but do we as a society view everyone as it is put in the constitution? Everyone in society has his or her own answer.

Communities Essay -- Group Communication Community Essays

Communitites When most people talk about community, they think of a location, an area in which people live. By definition â€Å"community† is a group of people living in the same location and under the same government. Community can also be defined as a group of people with the same common interests or segments in society. However, these definitions, which can be found in any dictionary, are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to explaining what community really is. Community is the memories and traditions of a certain area, as well as the interactions and responsibilities of its members. In order to truly belong to a community people must follow a set of values. These communal values are needed to provide stability among communities in this ever changing world. In the past ten years, with the advent of the internet and many other forms of communication, communities have become less interactive and isolated. In this paper I will be discussing the purpose of communal values and why t hey should be protected. Having a sense of belonging within a community is very important. Many people who have moved since childhood will always remember where they grew up. It is the memories and history they have there that will always make it home. In the play The Piano Lesson, the author shows the conflict between Boy Willie and his sister Berniece both of whom are African American. The conflict of the story centers on gaining a sense of belonging from one’s past. Boy Willie wishes to buy the land where his ancestors were slaves. In doing this Boy Willie must sell an antique piano which has been in his family for generations. Berniece wishes to hold on to the antique piano because it holds the history of their family in its unique carvings. In Boy Willie’s mind, gaining the piece of land would make his life meaningful and give him a sense of belonging. This story shows how the powerful bonds of memories and history are enough to create conflict between even the closest individuals. However , sense of belonging in a community does not require the history and memories of a place. People can gain a sense of belonging from simple but meaningful acts within the community. In Scott Russell Sanders’s essay on community, he explains how simple acts such as making bread with his daughter and children from the neighborhood gives him a sense of belonging and hope. Communal inte... ...o their communities as a whole. Throughout this paper we see the common problem of limiting the interactions between community members, and how this will hurt communities. Only when these issues become so evident that they begin to cause large problems will they be looked at, and by that time it could be too late. Schools now should be teaching children the importance of group thought and how it forms the basis of community structure around the world. The children of the future must not be sheltered from the outside world with new technology and packaged communities. Works Cited Collie, Tim. â€Å"In 21st Century, Americans are increasingly mobile creatures.† Sun-Sentinel [Fort Lauderdale, FL] 3 Jan. 2001: A4. Ehrenfeld, David. â€Å"Pseudocommunities.† Vitek and Jackson 20-24. Kline, David. â€Å"An Amish Perspective.† Vitek and Jackson 35-40. Paige, Harry W. â€Å"Leave If You Can.† Vitek and Jackson 11-14. Sanders, Scott Russell. â€Å"The Common Life.† Vitek and Jackson 40-49. Tall, Deborah. â€Å"Dwelling: Making Peace with Space and Place.† Vitek and Jackson 104-12. Vitek, William, and Wes Jackson, eds. Rooted In The Lan: Essays on Community and Place. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996.