Similarities in Religions

Fatwa Islam and Political Islam Essay

Fatwa Islam and Political Islam Essay Fatwa: Islam and Political Islam Essay Colvin Greenberg Book response Pià ±ar, Section AB May 30, 2015 Fatwas aren’t political! From a young age us â€Å"westerners† have been ingrained with perceptions about the Muslim world, due to the politics of the Muslim majority countries and the media representation of said countries. All to often the US media focuses on Huntington’s clash of civilizations, an argument that the world is involved in a war between religions, and all Islamic followers are opponents to the secular west. This is evident in their sole publication of stories relating to political Islam and the terrorist activities that often arise from this political Islam. In Karima Bennoune’s book, â€Å"Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here† we see a different perspective on both political Islam and the actual Islamic religion. This book has a number of anecdotes describing the Islamic struggle between religious followers of Islam, and the Islamic fundamentalists, who use Islam as a political tool rather than a religious ideology. By seeing this struggle between the true tenants of Is lam and the Islamism political followers we can divert from Huntington’s clash of civilizations theory and begin to understand possible solutions to the political Islam problem. In her book, Bennoune describes how these Islamist fundamentalists use the fatwas of Islam â€Å"in the context of globalization in order to manipulate religion and achieve their political aims (14)†. This book focuses on how to combat fundamentalism in a number of ways by rejecting the clash of civilizations theory that misinterprets Islam and focusing on fundamental Islam as the main issue. In a modern context we need to focus on secularity, feminism, education reform and media reform in order to curb post-colonial fueled fundamental Islam. In Bennounes book, she describes possible solutions to Islamic fundamentalists through a series of anecdotes. In one of these anecdotes, Bennoune explains the cause of fundamentalist support from the west, â€Å"In someplace, the failure to solve basic problems of â€Å"economic justice, democracy, human dignity, and legitimate grievances like past colonialism and current military occupation, contributed to creating fertile ground for its project to gain adherents.( Bennoune 25)† . This shows a justification for fundamentalism, which she uses to dissect and evaluate the problem .By analyzing the root cause for the fundamentalists occupation she can find the solution to the fundamentalist problems within the Middle East. Due to the political context of fundamentalist Islam, Bennoune describes one of the political problems that is a result of fundamentalism â€Å"secularism has been rubbed out by terrorizing dissenters†(Bennoune 91). She uses this diction â€Å"terroriz ing dissenters† to describe fundamentalist who according to Bennoune are going against the true tenants of Islam. Additionally the political context of the word secularity and its description in her book highlights the necessity of re-secularization to destroy fundamentalism. The main stereotypes of Islam are due to political Islam frequently a result of the subjugation of women in Islamist societies in accordance with some Sharia law. Bennoune stresses the importance of women within the movement to curb fundamental Islam and it’s marginalization of women. â€Å"Women of Muslim heritage are under pressure to cover more and more of their skin, their hair, their very beings. To disappear.(Benoune 8)†. This description could be described as orientalist due to the fact many women wear the hijab with pride, but in the context of political Islam it is very true. Bennoune looks at the oppression of women as one of the roots to the fundamentalist problem and again a hint to a solution. In addition she stresses the need for increased education in both the school systems and media outlets of these fundamentalist regimes. â€Å"Misinformed children grow up to be misinformed adults (Bennoune 84)† , this statement highlights the need for revised curriculum and accurate

Two Page Overview of Three Companies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Two Page Overview of Three Companies - Essay Example The first real bookstore of Barnes & Noble was actually opened by Charles’ son named William who partnered with a gentleman named Clifford Noble thus the origin of the name Barnes & Noble. The bookstore was opened in the year 1917 in New York City, and has grown to the illustrious business it is now over the years. Barnes & Noble is known for its upscale retail shops that are usually accompanied with cafes serving starbucks coffee among other products. Although it is officially known as a retail bookstore, this is not the only product that they have to offer, and one can find other items such as magazines, comics, newspapers as well as music within the store’s retail outlets. The company currently has over 600 stores under its flagship up to date excluding the over 600 college stores it operates as well (Barnes & Noble Inc). Amazon.com is a multinational company that operates through electric commerce through its website that has been popularized around the world. It is believed to be the largest online business in the world and has a consumer base that is located all over the world. It headquarters are located in Seattle, Washington and it sells a large number of items on its online stores. Since it is an online retail store, its expansion cannot be seen on a physical scale but can be pointed out through the different retail websites that it has developed for different countries such as Canada, Italy, Germany, and the United States among others. It also has plans to set up separate online retail stores for more countries including Brazil, Sweden and the Netherlands. The company was founded by a man call Jeff Bezos in the year 1994, but it was released onto the website community as amazon.com in 1995. The company sells everything from electronic products, toys, books to name but a few and has recently b egan producing its own electronic products such as the Kindle e book reader and tablet computer known as Kindle Fire.

Theoretical concepts of Risk Management in relation to projects Coursework

Theoretical concepts of Risk Management in relation to projects - Coursework Example Thus, the study is focused on presenting a view on risk management. Objectives of the Study The risk management is necessary to be able to survive and plan the different problems and trials facing the organisations. The study is aimed to review the theoretical concepts of risk management specifically related to projects and practical implementation of strategies, plans and procedures. In addition, relevant corporate governance aspects of organisations are also included. Included in the specific topics covered in the research are the key challenges and applications in risk management, risks associated in research and development, risks in new product development, change management, technology transfer, and system integration of technology and the manpower. The needs for team working skills appropriate to risk management and the methods for formulating risk management strategies such as project risk models, migration, and contingency plans for appropriate action. Background of the Stud y Risk is the â€Å"combination of the probability of an event and the consequences which can either be beneficial or detrimental to the organisation or particular project. Due to the implications of the risks involved, the need to prepare for the risks is essential (Institute of Risk Management, 2002, p.2). Risks are inevitable in any type of activities, projects or organisational operation, thus, methods and techniques in recognising, resolving and working the risk as opportunities and chances of growth and excellence are being established (Loosemore and Raftery, 2006, p.1). One example of risks considered is in the safety field wherein the main concentration is the preparation for the negative risks to be able to ensure safety (Institute of Risk Management, 2002, p.2). The risks can affect different aspects of an organisation or project including physical, monetary, cultural, and social dimensions (Loosemore and Raftery, 2006, p.1). In addition to the complex effects of risk tha t serves as stimulus for action undertaken by organisations, risk can either serve as threat or opportunity which lead to essential benefits such as exploits more opportunities, enables trade-offs, increases the chances of success, sustains creative exploration and innovation, increases efficiency, and promotes motivation within teams (Hillson, 2009, p.9). There are different types of key risks that can affect risk management. These can be classified into the external and internal factors that are categorised as financial risks, strategic risks, operational risks and hazard risks. External financial risks are composed of factors related to interest rates, foreign exchange, and credit. External strategic risks include competition, customer or stakeholder changes, industry changes, customer or stakeholder demand, and M & A integration, which is also an internally driven risk. External operational risks include factor such as regulations, culture, board composition, and the recruitment and supply chain which are also considered as internally driven risk factors. Contracts, natural events, suppliers, and factors related to the environment are classified as the externally driven hazard risks. Other types of external hazard risks are the public access, employees, properties, product and services which are also classified as internally

The Destruction of the Berlin Wall Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

The Destruction of the Berlin Wall - Coursework Example The Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 in an attempt to prevent the crà ¨me da crà ¨me of East Germany from going to West Germany. It was built post World War II and inaugurated on the 16th August of the same year. The eastern sector of Berlin was under the control of the Soviet Union and the western sector under United States, France and Great Britain. Technically and officially East Germany also known as German Democratic Republic (GDR) was a communist state. It existed for around forty one years under Soviet control spanning it through the 1949-1990 eras. Soviet sector constituted all the major hubs including Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg, and Lichtenberg; it was also the biggest o the spot and the whole idea was to prevent an imminent brain drain, departure of well educated talented elite from east Germany. It also aimed at keeping at bay various spy centers and other organizations from intruding.It was then when a threat of yet another Great Dep ression engulfed Europe and Germany constituted the league of those severely affected.   A majority of German city had been effaced while the transportation system remained shanty. Seldomly, refugees from the East would be seen moving to the west in search of a sound society ready to work for some measly money in this bid. In what many perceive as a rare move, the allied victors sought to rehabilitate and rebuild the destructed cities. The move aimed at assuaging the economic crisis and was popularly called the Marshall Plan.... It existed for around forty one years under Soviet control spanning it through the 1949-1990 eras. Soviet sector constituted all the major hubs including Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg, and Lichtenberg; it was also the biggest o the spot and the whole idea was to prevent an imminent brain drain, departure of well educated talented elite from east Germany. It also aimed at keeping at bay various spy centers and other organizations from intruding. It was then when a threat of yet another Great Depression engulfed Europe and Germany constituted the league of those severely affected. A majority of German city had been effaced while the transportation system remained shanty. Seldomly, refugees from the East would be seen moving to the west in search of a sound society ready to work for some measly money in this bid. In what many perceive as a rare move, the allied victors sought to rehabilitate and rebuild the destructed cities. The move aimed at assuaging the economic crisis and was popularly called the Marshall Plan. It was named after the then U.S Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the first one to make the call for the reconstruction of Europe apparently. His successful strategy later earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. (Harrison) In another move, on July 1958, the East Germany Congress announced all agricultural products be collected and distributed at whole sale prices. The move aimed at improving industrial output and formed the basis of the seven year economic stimulus which was originally meant to bring the PPC of East Germany at par with that of West Germany. The plan also severed trade and gas supply routes behind the Iron Curtain and the situation become even worse. The policies in the East could not

Reactive Fault Tolerance Strategies

Reactive Fault Tolerance Strategies Abstract Cloud is the buzzword among computational technologies. It has brought a paradigm shift in a way computing is done and data is stored. This cost-effective means of technology has attracted a lot of people towards it and companies are embracing cloud to reduce their operational costs. As grows the popularity so will the challenges. One of the foremost challenges is Fault Tolerance. Fault Tolerance ensures the availability, reliability, and performance of the cloud applications. This paper is mainly focused on the Reactive fault tolerance strategies. Firstly, the paper outlines various faults, errors, and failures in the Cloud Computing scenario. Then, various prevalent reactive fault tolerance strategies are discussed. Lastly, a comparative analysis is done to better understand the application of the discussed strategies. I. Introduction Cloud-Computing is gaining traction due II. Faults, Errors, and Failures 2.1 Faults. Fault is the cause of the system or a component in the system to fail. Faults induce errors into system which hinders the ability of any system to perform as expected and give desired results. An erroneous system ultimately leads towards failure. Fault tolerance is the ability of the system to keep going in presence of one or more faults but with decaying performance. We must thoroughly classify and analyze various kinds of faults, errors, and failures to come up with sound Fault-Tolerance Strategies.   Faults in Cloud Computing environment can be classified as follows. Aging related fault As time passes, these faults show up into the system. These can be further categorized into two types namely Software based aging and Hardware based aging. Once the software starts execution, there is an accumulation of software bugs in the system. Furthermore, the decaying performance of the system hardware makes the system incapable to perform to its requirements. Omission fault This kind of faults occur when the resources in the system dry up and eventually the ongoing processes end up falling short of the resources in terms of storage capacity and computing power. Omission faults are mainly of two types i.e. Denial of Service, where the attacker tries to make the resources unavailable to its intended users by overwhelming the system with too many superfluous requests.   The other type is Disk Space Full, in which the amount of free space required by the applications is no longer available, this leads to node failure? Response faults. Response faults occur when the server gives an incorrect response to a query made by the user. This is further classified into 3 types. Value Faults-If faults at an application level or at lower level in the system are not managed properly, this can cause the individual application or the processor to emit an incorrect value. Byzantine faults- This fault attributes to the erratic behavior of the processor when it gets corrupted. The processor has not stopped working but the results are not predictable. State transition faults- When systems change their states, this kind of fault surfaces. Timing Faults. Synchronization is a key factor when it comes to execution of tasks in a distributed computing ecosystem. There should be time constraints for communication and execution of tasks by the processor. Faults which arise due to poor synchronization are called Timing faults. If the communication or the task execution begins early, then it is called Early fault. If the processor takes a lot of time to execute the tasks and this results in undesirable delay in the communication, then it is called Late fault. Interaction Faults. As the number of services grow in the system along with its complexity, the interaction between the services also increases. This may cause faults which occur due to Policy and Security incompatibilities. Various service providers have different policies and different security protocols. Life Cycle Faults. The service time of an application may expire when a user is trying to use that application. User cannot further access it unless the service becomes active again. This is called as Life Cycle fault or Service expiry fault. 2.2 Errors. Error is the difference between the expected output and the actual output of a system. A system is said to perform erroneously when it starts behaving in a manner that is against its specification and compliance. To study the nature of errors in a cloud computing scenario, a few of them have been listed below. Network Errors. Cloud is a network of remote servers. Hence, we may observe a lot of errors in the nodes and the links which connect these servers.   This kind of errors are called as Network Errors. Mainly network errors can be in the form of three types. Packet Corruption-   As a packet moves from one node to another and traverses across various links, there is a fair amount of chance that it might get corrupted due to the system noise. Packet corruption tweaks the original information and might sometimes go unnoticed.? Packet Loss- If a packet fails to reach its destination, this leads to Packet Loss. The main causes of packet failure are link congestion, device failure, (router/switch) and, faulty cabling. Network Congestion- When the traffic This issue is encountered due to low bandwidth. When the flow of traffic increases on a single path, this may also create network congestion. This issue is very important as it determines the Quality of Service(QoS). Software Errors. Software errors are broadly categorized as memory leaks and numerical exceptions. Memory Leaks- When there is a bug in the software wherein the application uses huge memory to perform the task but the memory, which is no longer needed, is not freed upon the completion of the task. Numerical Exception-A software does a lot of numerical computations which are required by the applications. The applications might sometimes generate issues due to some numerical conversions which raise exceptions. If these exceptions remain unhandled then errors persist in the system. Time Based Errors. These errors arise when applications do not complete their task execution in a time bounded manner. This can be subdivided into three types. Transient Errors- the probability of occurrence is very less. Intermittent Errors- The pattern of these errors is sporadic but observed many number of times. Permanent Errors- These occur more number of times with a deterministic pattern. 2.3 Failures. As said earlier, failures result due to errors. If a system does not achieve its intended objective, then its in a state of failure. Several things can go wrong in a system and yet the system may produce desired results. Until the system produces wrong output, there is no failure?4 To study the nature of failures, following is the list of failures. Node Failure. In distributed systems, such as cloud computing, we see that sometimes resources and nodes are dynamically added to the system. This brings along a lot of uncertainties and the chances of node failure increase. Reliability and availability are the major criteria for nodes to be adjudged as functioning properly. Node failure occurs if a node is not available at any time a node is not present in the system to perform tasks(unavailable) or produces errors while doing computations. Process Failure. Process failure occurs when a process is unable to place the messages into the communication channel and transmit it or a processs algorithm is unable to retrieve messages from the communication channel? Network Failure. Network failures are very serious issues with regards to cloud computing. There is no communication without a network. Network failures occur when there is a link failure, network device failures such as routers and switches, configuration changes in a network. Configuration change or a change in policy of a machine will cause problems to the applications using the resources of that machine and this problem is most likely reason for a network failure.? Host Failure. A host is a computer that communicates with other computers on the network. In the scope of Cloud Computing, hosts are servers/clients that send/receive data. Whenever a host fails to send the requested data due to crashes, host failure occurs. Application Failure. Cloud applications are the software codes that run on cloud. Whenever bugs develop in the codes, application fails to fulfil its intended objective. The errors caused due to this leads to Application Failure. # cloud endure†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ 3. Reactive Fault Tolerance Strategies. Fault Tolerance Strategies in Cloud Computing are of two types, namely, Proactive, and Reactive. Proactive Fault Tolerance Strategies are those techniques which help in anticipating faults and provides preventive measures to avoid the occurrence of faults.   Here, the faulty components in the system are identified and replaced with operational ones. Reactive Fault Tolerance Strategies, are the techniques used to effectively troubleshoot a system upon occurrence of failure(s). Various reactive fault tolerance strategies are discussed below. 3.1 Checkpointing. In Checkpointing, the system state is saved and stored in the form of checkpoints. This taking is both preventive and reactive. Whenever a system fails, it rolls back to the most recent checkpoint. This is a popular fault tolerance technique and placing the checkpoints at appropriate intervals is very important. Full Checkpointing. Complete state of the application in saved and stored at regular intervals. The drawback of full checkpointing is that it needs a lot of time to save and requires huge chunk of storage-space to save the state. Incremental Checkpointing. This is an improvement over the full checkpointing. This method performs full checkpointing initially and thereafter only the modified pages of information from the previous checkpoint are stored. This is much faster and reliable than full checkpointing. Optimized Checkpoint/Restart. The crux of checkpointing lies in how we space our checkpoints. Good number of checkpoints ensure that the application is resilient to failure. However, this comes at the cost of time, space, and causes a lot of overhead. On the other hand, having less number of checkpoints makes our application vulnerable to faults thereby causing failure. It has been seen that cloud tasks are typically smaller than the grid jobs and hence more time sensitive to the checkpointing/restart cost.? Also, characterizing the failures in the cloud tasks using a failure probability distribution function will be inaccurate as the task lengths in cloud tasks depend on the user priority too.? This technique aims at bettering the performance of Checkpointing technique in threefold approach. Firstly, optimize the number of checkpoints for each task. Secondly, as the priority of the task may change during its execution, a dynamic mechanism must be designed to tune the optimal solution in the first step. Thirdly, find a proper tradeoff between local disks and shared disks to store the checkpoints.   The optimal number of checkpoints is calculated by evenly spreading the checkpoints during the execution of the task. The calculation is done without modelling the failures using a failure probability distribution function. A key observation that we make during the execution of cloud tasks is the tasks with higher priority have longer uninterrupted execution lengths in comparison with low-priority tasks. Hence the solution needs to be more adaptive considering the priority of the tasks. Mere equal spacing of the checkpoints will not do in this case. If the priority of the task remains unchanged the Mean Number of Failures(MNOF) remains the same. The position of the next checkpoint needs to be recalculated and its position needs to be changed if the priority factor that influences the MNOF changes during the execution of the task. Lastly, the problem of where to store the checkpoints is addresse d. The checkpointing costs for both local disks and shared disk is calculated and then based upon the costs an efficient choice is made. It is noticed that, as the memory size of the tasks increase, the checkpointing costs also increase. Also, when multiple checkpointing is done, in the local disks, there is no significant increase in the costs, but owing to congestion, there is a significant rise in checkpointing costs. Hence, a distributively-managed algorithm is designed to mitigate the bottleneck problem and lower the checkpointing costs. 3.2 Retry. Simplest of all the fault tolerance techniques. The task is restarted on the same resource upon occurrence of the problem. The underlying assumption behind this approach is that during the subsequent attempts, the problem will not show up.? 3.3 Task Resubmission. A job consists of several small tasks. When one of the tasks is failed, the entire job gets affected. In this technique, the failed task is resubmitted either to the same resource or a different one to finish the execution of the task. 3.4 Replication. Running the same task on several machines which are different locations. This is done to ensure that when a machine fails, the process of task execution is not halted as the other machine takes it up. Replication is further categorized as follows. Semi-active Replication. The input is provided to all the replica machines. The task execution simultaneously goes on in the primary replica as well as the backup replica. However, the primary replica only provides the output. When the primary replica goes down, the backup replica provides output.   This technique uses a lot of network resources as the task is running in simultaneously in all the replicas. VMware uses Semi-active replication Fault Tolerance Strategy. [4.] Semi-passive Replication. This technique has a flavor of checkpointing in addition to replication. The main replica performs the checkpointing operation over the state information. Replication is done by transferring this checkpoint information to all the backup replicas. The backup machines dont have to concurrently execute the task with the primary replica, but its duty is to save the latest checkpoint information. When the primary replica fails, it designates the backup replica to takeover. The checkpoint information is updated with some loss in the execution. This technique uses lesser network resources than the semi-active replication but there is a tradeoff as some of the execution. Also, in this case, whenever the backup fails, the latency is more as the time taken for recovery and reconfiguration when compared with semi-active replication. [ref 3] Passive Replication. The state information is stored in the form of checkpoints in a dedicated backup machine. When the backup fails, the Fault Tolerance Manager, commissions another machine to be the backup. The backup is updated by restoring the last saved checkpoint. The fault tolerance manager uses a priority based scheme while appointing new backups. 3.5 Job Migration. When a task fails in one of the machine, it can be transferred to another virtual machine. Sometimes, if a task in a job cannot be executed due computational and memory constraints, the task is given to another machine to execute. 3.6 Rescue Workflow. A cloud job consists of several small tasks. Upon failure of a task, this method continues the execution of the other tasks. The overall workflow is stopped only when the failure of the task impacts the entire job. [rescue workflow] 4. Comparative Summary of the Reactive Fault Tolerance Strategies. Checkpointing: This technique effectively detects Application Failure. This technique is used when the application size or the task size is too big. Moreover, checkpointing provides efficient resource utilization. Retry: If the problem persists beyond multiple tries, this method is time inefficient. This is used to detect Host failure and Network failure. Task Resubmission: As the job is tried on the same or different resource, this technique is both time consuming and has more resource utilization. This detects Node Failure and Application Failure. Replication: This technique detects Node Failure and Process Failure. As the task is run on various machines, we see more resource utilization here. Job Migration: This technique detects Node and Process failures. This method is time efficient as the task which cannot be executed in a machine is transferred to another. Rescue-Workflow: This method detects Node failure and Application failure. This is a time-inefficient technique.

Colorof Water :: essays research papers

Before I read "The Color of Water," by James McBride, I saw his appearance on 20/20, discussing his quest to discover the background of his mysterious, marvelous mother. McBride said he didn't even know his mother's maiden name, much less about her Orthodox Jewish background, until he prodded it from her because he needed it for school records. "Shilsky," she told him, impatiently, offering no further details. McBride, who is now about 42 years old, said he asked no more questions of her, but added when he was "bonding" in Black Pride with his college friends, playing bongo drums and jazz music, he'd think: "Shilsky. Shilsky. Something's funny here...". Watching him on television, such a fascinating, articulate and yet entertaining man, made me want to know more about his amazing mother. I received a copy of the book as a gift. None of Ruth McBride's 12 children knew anything of substance about her background. When they asked what color she was, she would answer, "I am no color" and say that God is "the color of water." Ruth Shilsky, whose father was an abusive Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, treated her and her mother extremely cruelly when she was a young girl in Suffolk, Virginia. Jews were discriminated against second only to blacks. But Ruth fell in love with a young black man, became pregnant by him, and was sent to live with an aunt in New York city. She never went home again. She felt much more at home in 1940s Harlem, and fell in love with another black man, having a baby and living with him for more than a year before they were wed and had several more children. They made a good life together, but he died. Ruth later married yet another remarkable black man, having more children with him for a total of 12. James was in the middle, precocious, curious, bright and at risk for becoming a street kid. But he didn't have that much time. He didn't know why at the time, but his mother made him and his siblings attend a Jewish school out of their neighborhood, feeling that they would receive a better education there. As a young man, McBride started down the wrong path -- smoking dope, stealing, hanging out with bad company. But his stern mother seemed to intervene at the right time, delivering the fear and discipline McBride needed. All 12 of Ruth McBride's children received college degrees, masters degrees, and several became physicians, attorneys and scientists. McBride has been a journalist for some of the nation's most prestigious newspapers,

Explain the difference between rule

Explain the difference between rule, act and preference utilitarianism (25 marks) Utilitarianism is the ethical theory behind Justifying an action for being for the greater good. This is a teleological theory because it looks at the consequences of an action. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory. There are three types of utilitarianism: Act, Rule and Preference. Jeremy Bentham began the Utilitarianism theory. Utilitarianism is a hedonistic theory because it is based on pleasure and happiness. Each utilitarian has a different theory of Utilitarianism and this will be explained in my essay.First there was Jeremy Bentham the one to think of the Utilitarianism theory. Bentham was an act Utilitarian. Bentham was interested in the principle of utility, this is the theory of usefulness that suggests that an action is right if it brings the greatest happiness for the greatest number. He developed his ethical system based on ancient hedonism, which perused physical pleasure and avoided physical pain. Bentham believed that a moral act is one that maximises pleasure and minimises pain. From this Jeremy Bentham invented something called the ‘hedonic calculus' this was his way of measuring the good and bad of an action.Bentham said: the principle of utility aims to promote happiness, which is the supreme ethical value†¦ An act is right if it delivers more pleasure than pain and wrong if it brings about more pain than pleasure. ‘ To help people choose what would have the best possible consequence, Bentham provided a way of measuring it. This is the ‘hedonic calculus'. There are seven elements: the intensity of the pleasure; the duration of the pleasure; the certainty of the pleasure; the remoteness of the pleasure; the chance of succession of pleasures; the purity of the pleasure and lastly he extent of the pleasure.Bentham invented this to help people weigh up and measure how much pleasure an action will produce. Bentham was interested in the à ¢â‚¬Ëœgreatest good for the greatest number' and therefore his theory is quantitative. Bentham's view is described as Act Utilitarianism. Act Utilitarianism is Eudemonistic because actions are based on the happiness it brings; Consequentialist because the consequences an action will bring about and also Act Utilitarianism is measurable (by the hedonic calculus) and also quantitative because its based on the ‘greatest umber'.Act Utilitarianism is teleological because it aims to maximise the pleasure of the majority and has an end aim. Act Utilitarianism is also relative due to the fact that there is no notion of absolute right or wrong. On the other hand, Stuart Mill didn't agree with Bentham's Act Utilitarianism. Mill stressed that happiness was more important than pleasure. Mill said: ‘The Greatest promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness'. Here Mill is suggesting that happiness is the importance when looking at a moral action. Something that Mill also criticised about Bentham's view was the quantitative emphasis.Mill thought that actions should be measured in a qualitative way instead of quantitative way. Mill was interested in the quality of the pleasure. Mill looked at intellectual pleasures such as reading poetry and not pleasures such as eating or having sex. To add, Mill thought about the difference between animal pleasure and human pleasure. He said: ‘ It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied†¦ ‘ Furthermore, Mill suggested that in order to derive the principle of the greatest appiness for the greatest number we should have a principle of universality.Mill believed that we need moral rules to produce social order and Justice these rules should be followed universally. Mill was therefore seen as a Rule Utilitarian. Rule Utilitarianism is Consequentialist as is Act Utilitarianism; Rule Utilitarianism is Universalistic and also qualitative. Rule Utilitarianism is deont ological due to the fact that rules take priority. It is also relative because actions are based on the maximisation of pleasure for a particular society where the rules are used.Contrasting to Act and Rule Utilitarianism there is Preference Utilitarianism; this is the most recent form of Utilitarianism. R. M. Hare, Peter Singer and Richard Brandt all have different views though they are all Preference Utilitarianists. Preference Utilitarian's Judge moral actions according to whether they fit in with the preferences of the individuals involved. R. M Hare's approach argues that when making the decision on whether an action is right or wrong we must consider our own preferences and those of others. Hare said: ‘equal preferences count equally, whatever their content'.One problem is that sometimes people's preferences may clash therefore Hare suggested that we should ‘stand in someone else's shoes' and try to imagine what they would prefer. Hare thinks that people should tre at other with impartiality and he argues for universalisability. Peter Singer was also a Preference Utilitarian though he suggests that we should take the viewpoint of an impartial spectator. Singer said: ‘our own preferences cannot count any more than the preferences of others' and so, in acting morally, we should take account of all the people affected by our actions.

The Issue with Issuing Laptops essays

The Issue with Issuing Laptops essays Supplying students across Cobb County with laptops is a bad idea. There is a lot of money going towards this leap in technology. There are some good things about them. Firstly, learning would become more interactive. Secondly, some students would make better grades. There would be more doors opened for learning. Students with problems in their shoulders and backs wouldnt kill themselves lugging books around all day. Now, think for a second about how much money is going towards this project. Now think about that kid who kicked a fifty dollar textbook down the hallway because he was to lazy to pick it up after he dropped it. Who is to say this wont happen to the laptops? What about when books fall off lunch tables? The laptops would be crushed. And the repair rates would be enormous. Remember the money Cobb is proposing to pay to buy them in the first place? Multiply that by two when the replacement and repairing comes into play. Cheating would reach an all time high in the classroom. It would be very easy for a student to sign onto the internet network and email friends answers to tests and share essay topics. That is partly why the students would receive better grades. They would have all the answers delivered to them by other students classrooms away or even a few desks away. It would be almost as bad as issuing each student a cell phone capable of taking pictures and texting across the building. It would be infinitely harder to judge class participation. Teachers would not be able to tell who was doing what unless he or she walked around the classroom to monitor every student individually. The internet connection would be horrible. The internet is a very useful tool in learning, but so many computers would be entering the system at the same time that the server would most likely overload. It would be virtually impossible to keep it running. The issue is that laptops can help, but they can also b...

fragments essays

fragments essays FRAGMENTS Fragments, is an experimental performance that is not based on a specific plot or theme, so the building up to a major climax through out the performance was not very clear, however each scene had a minor climax. People who watched the performance would realize that it had a lot of tempo and rhythm. Tempo and rhythm were very clear in the performance, at times it was slow and at other times it was fast. Naji used a lot of ways to speed up the tempo. For instance there was no pauses in between scenes. There was always something happening on stage, the character Lina and her twin were always in between the scenes. They kind of linked one scene to another and in the same time they were adding a new impression, they added to the visual picturization of the stage at times, for instance when the actors where dancing between the audience they were dancing behind they wall in their boxes. In the performance their were a lot of scenes and each scene was consistent with a different tempo and rhythm. There was the twins scene, hands scene, aquarium scene, the metamorphisis scene, wolves, chains, bags, dream, and name scene. Speed varied at times from slow to fast and that was very effective in creating variety and sustaining the audiences attention. In the first 10 minutes of the performance, movement on stage was slow, the characters came out on stage with the same rhythm, they came out slowly and stood in their positions. The metamorphosis from fetus (weak body position) to wolf (strong body position) was also slow, and this can be considered as an external technique which affects climax. That slow beginning enabled the audience to adjust their eyes and concentration on what is happening on stage and it helped in capturing their full attention. In the wolves scenes the tempo and rhythm was in general very fast, although sudden changes of speed was used, like for ...

Marketin Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Marketin Paper - Essay Example The example given is rational and very sound since the connection is mostly sought on an emotional level more than anything else. The marketing touch should be through feelings and emotions rather than on the financial side. This is true because marketing employs a number of significant associations with the heart and the mind which make it a very decisive proposition. â€Å"Marketing has been described in many different ways, shapes, and forms. Many who are involved with marketing describe it similar to the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, services, organizations, and will satisfy individual and organizational objectives.† I opine that this definition is more apt and cohesive from all sides. (Boone & Kurtz, 1998) This has looked at defining marketing as a complete 360 degree approach rather than sending messages between the company and the end consumers every now and then. The relation is thus more complete than is imagined by the earlier definitions provided for marketing. I believe that marketing employs a number of practices which are regarded as its sub-fields namely advertising, sales promotion activities, personal selling, public relations (or publicity) and direct mailing to name a few. With the passage of time, the definition of marketing has changed as it has included a pre-manufacture tilt to its basis with regards to a product and/or service. Selling gets differentiated from marketing in the fact that selling is only done when a product is made available on the shelf within a retail outlet while marketing starts even when there is an idea or concept of the related product and thus the whole game starts as a result of this hype within the relevant audiences. (Armstrong & Kotler,

Can international institutes prevent armed conflict between states Dissertation

Can international institutes prevent armed conflict between states Answer with reference to the theories of Neo-realism and Ne - Dissertation Example The objectives of all of them vary a great deal but they have one thing in common that is the will to strive for global or regional integration of resources in order to improve a particular region or a whole planet. The United Nations for instance is working to eliminate hunger, poverty and war from the face of Earth while South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation is working for economic growth of South Asian region. Recently major world population has initiated to consider international institutions as ineffective bodies that are not doing what they are supposed to do and due to this reason their trust upon them has significantly deteriorated over the past few years. All of the international and global institutions are working for achieving particular goals and objectives but what they lack is proper authority that is necessary for achieving their objectives. The global platforms are working in advisory capacity with all member nations and therefore the major decision power r esides with national governments. The national governments have the authority to dismantle all the operations and send the officials of so-called global platforms to their homes. In the light of above argument it can be established that United Nations along with other institutions cannot do much in terms of eliminating national conflicts among countries because it does not have the proper authority to do so. However international institutions have the power to arbitrate national conflicts while they cannot force the conflicting nations in the direction of a resolution. It is also important to note that global organizations are operating with the help of member nations and therefore financially and economically strong ones have a political influence over the decision making of them. Still global institutions have an authority to place economic and fiscal sanctions but they cannot influence internal politics and national issues of any country. Nevertheless the ability to place sanctio ns is used to enforce discipline on member nations that follow anticlockwise policies than those which are approved by international institutions. Ironically it is a historically proven fact that those countries such as Japan that had faced sanctions from the UN emerged as economic powers later. Thus the power of international institutions is limited to only advising national authorities on economical matters while the local administration is free to nullify their suggestions and recommendations. So the real power to demonstrate flexibility and eliminate national and political conflicts lies with individual governments and international platforms can facilitate the process of mitigation but cannot force member nations to resolve their issues. Interestingly the underlying problematic concepts that are causing national conflicts include racial and religious divides amongst nations whereas few of them are holding old and historical grudges dear and therefore they are willing to plunge their next generations into war in order to satisfy their psychological need of violence and bloodshed. If humanity wants to eliminate conflicts then firstly it has forego the outdated concept of nationalism and every individual must consider him or herself as the citizen of the globe. The need to embrace global citizenship is a crucial one due to the global nature of the challenges humans are facing nowadays such as global warming, recession and employment. The threat of global warming is so immense that in few centuries Earth may